Anthropology 295: Anthropology of Media

This is a test post by Mystery Man...

It's me again, mystery man...just testing...

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It is clear that media has an enormous effect on our daily lives. The first day of class lecture addressed various topics relating to "media", including the fact that society is increasingly immersed in multimedia and that "it" shapes people and people shape it. The question of who owns and controls media is valid, also whose interests are being served? After reading "The Digital Dynamic: How Communications Media Shapes our World" it became clear that media influences us differently depending upon the medium. For example, reading a newspaper article about a rainforest in Borneo may not be as engaging as a show on the Travel Channel about the same place. Marshall McLuhan's quote, "the medium is the message" certainly holds true. With the continued decrease in printing and broadcasting, digital media has emerged, argues the author. I would have to agree wholeheartedly, whereas 10 years ago a young child most likely would be reading educational books, they are now using educational video games.
Coercion, by Douglas Rushkoff describes the coercive forces in media, which are always seeking be “less visible.” As I read the introduction, it became clear that coercive techniques are employed on me and everyone in society daily, despite these techniques many of us do not catch on. Chapter two, Atmospherics, talks about and explains “coercive environments” which have significantly risen in recent decades, providing the example of Niketown in NYC. What I found most interesting was the science of atmospherics, established in 1973, simply to increase revenue by increasing the customer’s tendency to purchase goods. A sub category of atmospherics, coercive atmospherics specifically looks at how colors, sounds, smells and floor arrangements “stimulate us to buy more stuff.” I can not count the times a color of an item or scent influenced me buying a product. My reaction to reading this chapter, scared. I knew to an extent that companies use color and such to sway our opinion and buying power, but that specific sciences have been established to study our buying patterns is news to me.
Lecture on Thursday addressed the “empowering” nature of media, providing examples of Youtube, Facebook, and Blogs. I never really understood how blogs functioned until my experience with this one. It amazes me that we can post a blog anywhere in the world, about anything, and someone across the map can read it.

Its seems strange to me that labor day, a day conceived by the labor movement to celebrate working people, isn't really about labor at all. Its usually about barbeques, vacations, and sucking in the last of summer. I understand that, for many working people, time spent with family is in fact an affirmation of life itself, but it seems that, in a country with a healthcare crisis, poverty wages, and huge wealth disparities that working families would be outraged and in the streets. I often wonder why, despite the fact that so many families struggle to make ends meet, that so few people are interested in the labor movement. With this problem/issue weighing on my mind, I went to find some answers this weekend.
Last night, I went to the Barre Labor Hall, an old historic meeting house in Barre, VT with a unique anarcho-socialist history, for a benefit/discussion about creating alternatives to a world dominated by imperialism and greed. One woman asked the young people in the room, "What gives you the spark? What makes you want to be politically active?" After a couple of people ranted, a teacher in the Burlington school district, said, "Its simple, when you are active and engaged, you feel empowered. Empowerment is key. People need to feel like they can do something." She was right. Youth and most adults for that matter are made to feel weak, inadequate, and powerless by hierarchical and bureaucratic businesses, governments, organizations, churches. Change is elusive. Its like Rushkoff says how "they" are in control of the changes. He, however, makes the counter-observation that we are "they" and that the "we" will always have more power that the "they." The key to this observation, however, is that people need to realize that they are powerful. And that's perhaps the hardest part. How does a largely disengaged and frustrated citizenry even begin to feel that they can make systemic social change?
I got some inspiration and food for thought at the Burlington Labor Day parade today. The parade itself consisted of about two hundred trade unionists, anti-war activists, SLAPatistas (members of the student labor action project), one crazy Nader supporter with huge neon colores signs, and some progressive politicians marching throughout the north end and downtown Burlington. The best part of the parade was when we moved onto a packed Church street screaming, "HEY, HEY... HO, HO POVERTY WAGES HAVE GOT TO GO!!" The shoppers and restaurant goers seemed shocked that , on labor day, workers and students would be exorting in a highly commercialized space. It was incredibly important, in my mind, because it seemingly challenged mall goer's assumptions about that public space and appropriate activities for that space. Reconceptualizing public spaces and providing alternatives to highly sanitized and systematized spaces is perhaps a crucial step to empowering people and tapping into individuals inherent ability to create, recreate, and imagine.

success!

I think I'm doing this right.

Test post. Check.

"The University functions within the rules governing a larger society. It was created for a special purpose: the facilitation of learning and teaching. It follows that the University's policies must conform to the law as well as take account of the particular role of educational institutions. Fundamental to our entire philosophy is our firm belief that rights guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, including rights to freedom of speech, peaceful assembly, petition, and association must be protected on the campus as elsewhere, and that local, state, and federal laws must prevail on the campus."
Elucidated in UVM's Policy on Free Speech and Dissent, this statement conceptualizes the university as an open space in which challenges to the institution are not only respected but expected. At the same time, when the policy discusses the "rules governing a larger society" it suggests that despite its role of teaching and learning, it is still part of a highly coercive and hierarchical state apparatus. To me, this suggests the deep seeded irony that free speech is something that can be limited. In this regard, the UVM administration, namely the Board of trustees, have made a concerted effort over the past two years to curb free speech and dissent at UVM by limiting outdoor demonstrations, requiring organizations intending to protest university policy to apply for a permit to the Vice President of Student Life, and placing highly prohibitive limits on postering and other signage. When these limits on student free speech are contrasted against President Fogel's ability to send out campus wide emails, order police action, and utilize a professionally trained communications department, it is apparent that free speech is only free insofar as it promotes an official version of UVM. Of course, this version is revisionist, narrow, and incredibly sanitized.
One of the most important rituals in creating this version of UVM is the quarterly Board of Trustees meeting. Within these meetings, a group of wealthy business people (a majority of whom are old white men, though there is a black man and a number of women) and two students (one of the students is Sterling Winder, who's family donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to build Winder field, a state of the art field hockey field. Quite interesting that when she applies to be on the board of trustees she is selected. ) I digress. I mention this because it captures the wealth that holds the reigns of the institution. Anyways, back to the meeting. The sessions start with a public meeting in Maple Ballroom in the Davis Center during which Fogel delivers a statement on the state of the university. In last week's meeting, he highlighted the highly contrived and newly created convocation ritual as well as the new buildings at UVM. During his fifteen minute speech, he said nothing about actual educators or students and the work that they are doing. They usually continue on with financial matters. All Board members are welcome to comment at any time during this process.
At the same time, members of the audience are allowed two minutes per person during a public comment period. Those wishing to address the Board must be preapproved. This carries the dual function of limiting those that can speak and limiting the amount of dissent that can take place should a community member receive permission to speak. Finding this abhorrent, I along with some SLAPatistas usually start the meeting by reading our own critical statement, almost as if to preempt the bullshit that is to come. Carl Lisman, chairman of the Board, always stands up and screams at us, hammering his gavel. Last spring, when I read an unauthorized statement, Lisman screamed, "young man, you demand respect but you give none." I continued. He said if I did it again he'd have me arrested. I guess this is just one of the many joys of being in a pluralistic learning community. Clearly, certain well placed individual's words are more highly valued than those of the "rank and file."

1,2,3.

Does this thing work?

I've been reading Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye for an english class and came across something last night that harkened back to our group excercise on Tuesday. On page 169, discussing the history of one of her characters, Morrison writes, "Little Elihue learned everything he needed to know well, particularly the fine art of self-deception. He read greedily but understood selectively, choosing the bits and pieces of other men's ideas that supported whatever predilection he had at the moment...For all his exposure to the best minds of the Western world, he allowed only the narrowest interpretation to touch him."

This excerpt struck me because of how strongly it reinforces one of the points we made in our discussion; we tend to believe what we see, hear, read, or experience when it fits into our preconcieved perception of truth, our version of the world. Rarely do we choose to experience a form of media or are subjected to a form of media in a state free of a framework of judgement. While this personal frame is on one hand unavoidable and even reasonable, I think Morrison's excerpt reinforces the point that when our original frame is either self-serving and subsequently re-shaped and reinforced based on those singular motives, or is continuously reshaped and reinforced by the motives of companies who are trying to sell you something, such a basis of interpretation can be a misleading and dangerous thing.

Test post...

In light of our conversations about Truth anti-tobacco ads and their relationship with Phillip Morris, etc. check out this interesting article:

http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/17/tobacco-anti-smoking.html

It points out that Truth (which is based in Florida) is state-sponsored. Where do these funds come from? The tobacco settlement (a bunch of states sued the tobacco companies in the past decade and brought in hundreds of millions of dollars, and most of these settlements have funded anti-smoking campaigns, such as in Vermont). The settlement prohibits anti-smoking ads from referring to any specific tobacco company or product.

Another interesting point it makes is that Phillip Morris spends more on advertising its charitable efforts (such as funding anti-smoking ads) than on its actual charitable efforts. Clearly, there's a pay-off there in terms of making an appearance of concern that teens don't smoke.

Truth ads have worked to reduce teen smoking somewhat, as the article says. But when they actually work to reduce smoking, politicians aligned with tobacco companies (such as Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida) pull funding for these ads.

So here's my first entry... I hope that it works. If it does, then I'll go to all the other entries and comment away...

I noticed that someone else had commented on this idea with an excerpt from an English class of theirs. I agree with those observations and in blog-spirit, am going to toss some ideas out into the world wide web.
I am perhaps ultra-cynical, but I find it very hard to believe anything at all. As humans, we have perfected the arts of deceiving ourselves and others around us. Even if it is something small, we have all lied and continue to all the time. Which is fine. White lies. Whatever. They happen and they ultimately pretty much do not make a difference. (Bigger lies - bigger problem). BUT GETTING BACK TO THE TOPIC - Belief is intensely personal and if I want to believe something is true, I will find all the evidence to suggest that it is and I will run with it. Self-deception, sure, but it keeps us all sane. I don't know... I find this topic really difficult to write about because it's a very in-my-head argument. But to boil it down, I think we will believe what we want to and when presented with something that doesn't fit our beliefs, we try to suppress it and eventually may even turn it around so that it becomes something that we can live with. I don't know. What do you think.

i've been having some trouble with this. i'm very green when it comes to this online blogging business... anyway, i hope this works!

So I'm currently taking an anthropology course called Cultures of Africa. Within the first few weeks of class we have been reading, discussing, and viewing images of the African Bushmen. I suppose that before Anthropology of media I never sat back and thought about the ways in which media may sway us in one direction or the other, or even cause us to create a stereotype based on words or images. What has become most interesting to me is that even anthropologists, who often portray themselves as open to new ideas and often unbiased are still viewing other cultures as something completely different, and making that evident through the media in which they share their work. Well, it's obvious that cultures differ, but the point here is that through the media used by the anthropologists, they can sometimes seem ethnocentric and quick to judge. With that being said, how can I as the reader or viewer actually understand or believe that what is being taught to me through the media, actually a great perception of a culture; of the Bushmen in this case. From one point of view the Bushmen are seen as barbaric and cruel, while the other perception is that they are incredibly intelligent hunters and scientists. Although the two may coincide, how can someone who's never actually interacted with the Bushmen, or perhaps a differing culture, truly understand the traditions or mannerism of a group of people based on the point of view of another human being? I will continue to read, explore, and understand the world around me as best as I can based on the media that is given to me, but I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to really accept the media until I have experienced or seen first hand what the author or film-maker is trying to express through their medium.

I don't think I am posting this in the right spot due to neglect of directions...but better misplaced than nonexistent I suppose.
I am inclined to go off on an abstract rant about those coercive media dogs and how "they" use their power and resources to create needs, tap into what "we" really want (or think we want), twist it around and sell it back to us...
This idea is frightening even if limited to the realm of capitalist consumerism. However, as Rushkoff mentions, and as I am beginning to learn in more detail in a public policy class I am taking, the pervasive influence of the media extends past targeting individuals and their consumption patterns. The media influences public opinion about crucial issues regarding national security, environmental concerns, and many others. So this is not necessarily a profound revelation, but nonetheless contributes to my ever-growing cynicism. Are we willing to be taken advantage of just a little, and once we let the guard down get stuck in the hologram-sphere-cycle? How do we recognize that "we" are "them"? If we can be convinced that drinking tequila will get us "mad hot chicks" in a print ad that appeals to some emotion or insecurity, it must be incredibly easy for someone in power to convince us of something that may not be in our best interest using these same emotional or perhaps rational appeals. In another class I heard about the man who had a stick of dynamite go through his brain. He survived, but it disabled his emotional capacity, and was no longer able to make decisions. But why should I believe what I hear/read/see? GOD now I'm all cynical and depressed. Maybe I'll buy ten pairs of shoes online. I saw this ad with this hot girl who was wearing these killer kicks and looked happy like she had a stick of dynamite through her brain. Totally bangin'.

Whether media coerces or persuades “us” is a good subject to discuss. After lecture it became clear that media tends to persuade rather than coerce, mainly because the first can be good or bad. Media is also experienced individually, as a child some said that media played a large role in their childhood, while others never owned a television, Simply put, media is an important part of our socialization, shaping the way we think and the material we discuss.
The discussion surrounding how retail environments are arranged was quite insightful, especially that of the Farmers Market. Both location and comfort seem to be the most obvious techniques in my mind, using the example of Church St retail it becomes clear. Strategic positioning (“clustering”) is seen with the restaurants of Church St, where the majority are located on the South end of the street. “We” are unaware of the techniques, meaning that it works. To change the subject slightly, I’m doing research for a sociology professor and he had me watch An Inconvenient Truth with Al Gore, followed by an article partly about Al Gore. After watching the film it seemed as if Gore was a very good advocate for the fight against global warming, and that he had been one as well during his vice presidency. My perception certainly changed when I read the article, which consisted of several interesting facts about Gore, one being that he has stocks in a petroleum company. I feel this raises an important point
Thursday’s lecture touched on the general principles and approaches to analyzing mass media. General principle three stated that “pacing” is a key component in production techniques. I learned that commercials run at 30 frames/second while movies at 24/second, thus overwhelming us. I’ve certainly felt this before, especially because of the amount of information packed into a thirty second advertisement. Examples of various pervasive techniques was really engaging. Viewing them one by one makes the techniques obvious, but if someone was flipping through a magazine and saw an advertisement they would most likely not realize it. Whether it was a technique employing symbols, flattery, humor, or bribery they all had one goal in mind, to keep you engaged. These techniques certainly work, mainly on the unconscious level.
The assigned reading, which addressed other cultures use of media, the Tongan tradition of going to the movies was a good read, where “intense audience participation” is a common practice, whereas in the US this it is shunned upon. In the 1940’s films were watched with a narrator who personalized the story, adding “flair to the film.” Changes have occurred, with the introduction of the VCR less people go to the movies. One constant has remained however, that the social event is more important than the actual content of the film. This is certainly different from the US tradition of going to the movies and watching a film without any interaction from the audience.

I had always considered myself to be more aware than most of the coercive techniques used by media and advertisers to influence us. I grew up on an island that did not allow chain stores or franchises and I was educated by my parents not to crave material things and to be wary of anybody trying to sell me something. However, without international retail stores or chain restaurants the only advertising that I was subjected to was broadcast on our local television channel and had a production value equivalent to the tapes my mom made of my school plays. I must admit that while I thought I was well trained to resist advertising I had never really been tested. When I did visit the mainland I had a free pass to buy whatever I wanted because the opportunity only arose a few times a year. I first realized that I was not well prepared against American consumerism during my freshman year in Burlington. The ease with which to buy almost anything I could think of completely overwhelmed me and I ended up with lots of useless crap. What I have realized after reading Coercion is that I had no idea of the amount of energy that goes into getting me to buy stuff and in my naivete, I grossly underestimated the amount of energy that I would have to exert to resist it.

test run...finally got it to work

Sorry it took me so long to do this. But I'm now on the blog.

In Coercion there was a discussion about tactics used in casinos to guarantee that gamblers gamble more money than originally anticipated, and attract people to the tables. I find this particularly interesting because I spent every vacation as a child in Las Vegas, and even went there for my 21st birthday. Vegas, casinos and all that comes with it are very close to my heart. I promise that I'm not a gambling addict. However, I have seen the tactics mentioned in the book first hand and know that they work pretty damn well. Casinos, especially in Las Vegas where it is always ridiculously hot, will BLAST their air conditioners to draw people in, and once they are in that brisk environment they don't want to leave it. Also, the lovely, beautiful cocktail waitresses will come around and give you free booze while you gamble (Awesome!). This alone will draw people to the tables, and they gamble away lots of money, are drunk and don't even realize it or care... SUCCESS the casinos scream. The casinos keep the lights pretty high so it always feels like the midday, even when its 2 am in the morning. Lastly, casinos put lots of red in their carpets and tables to get people at the tables and keep them there. So you're probably asking, who the hell cares? I think its pretty damn clever of the casino big shots to use tactics like this, and they are 95% successful in their goals. Chances are that most people go in promising themselves they will only gamble a certain amount of money, but then leave gambling much more than they wished. Example, as my boyfriend and I are sitting at a table gambling, my best friends are at another table gambling with a man that is dropping over 1500-2000 dollars A HAND. The man was beyond wasted, drawn in the game, causing a scene because hes a high roller. A crowd builds, and as the drinks start pouring, more and more people sit down at the table to play. The casinos get one man to drop big money, and then they just got others who want to play big and win big. Needless to say, lots of cash was lost at that table, and the man dropping two grand a hand walked away wasted and broke. Even at my table, as the drinks were flowing and the lights were bright, I was spending money gambling away. By the end of the night, I was 600 dollars richer (yes to beating the "system"), highly intoxicated and pretty surprised to see that it was 2 am. Las Vegas and Casinos are a business, and their goal is to make money. Their tactics work pretty damn well, and their business is running stronger than ever. I feel that the manipulation used is sneeky, but when push comes to shove, a business is doing what it needs to do to break the bank. Las Vegas will always be a place to gamble, and people believe they wont be manipulated, and they will be. Viva Las Vegas.

Has anyone seen the email from the "Leading by Design Task Forc" [sent out be Gary Derr]?
___
"UVM is calling all community members to convene on Monday, September 24th at 3pm and again on Saturday, September 29th at 10:30am (both in the Maple Ballroom of the Davis Center) for the 1st Annual Community Congress on Integrative Solutions (ACCIS). The Monday, September 24th event will kickoff a weeklong community-wide effort to focus on developing solutions that will transform UVM and beyond. On Saturday, September 29th we will reconvene to develop specific transformative ideas and define the way forward for UVM. "

...it begins. While the medium of email is limiting in terms of number of senses that it can stimulate, this email was carefully worded to create a powerful adherence to something we've talked about a lot in the past two classes; a presupposition. The very word 'solution' leads one to believe that there is something inherently wrong with UVM as is and thereby generate a compliance with change.

I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's thoughts on the way the media is employed by the University.

I definitely feel that Douglas Rushkoff’s Coercion further expanded my media awareness. There is an awesome quote that I found on page 79 (the chapter: “Atmospherics”), “Window displays became as important to the department store as stained glass was to the church.” This metaphor illustrates that department stores are drawing you, the consumer, into their world by showing you what they have to offer in the most distracting way possible. The department store, like a church, is your temple. Spending tons of your hard-earned money inside is the way to achieve eternal greatness. You can spend your life savings on that hot new diamond necklace, or maybe it is a new pair of shoes that brings you one step closer to becoming as popular as the likes of Lindsay Lohan (minus the coke habit) or Paris Hilton (minus the jail time). What are you honestly trying to achieve when you allow yourself to be robbed blind by these department stores? Are you hoping that one day you might end up like Lindsay or Paris?
I always get a good laugh when department stores place pictures of such celebrities using and/or wearing the product. Someone who could buy whatever he/she wants chooses to use this product so it must be “top-shelf”. When a celebrity is seen using or displaying a product, the product gains instant credibility. If Paris says that something is “hot” then it must be. The point here is that product placement, whether it is a department store window or on the arm of a celebrity, has a very profound effect on the consumer. The goal of effective media is to suck every last line of credit out of you, in order to buy into a lifestyle. The product is secondary to this false sense of buying into the celebrity lifestyle. If you really stop and think, where would such a lifestyle land you? OH…..but wait….we’re just supposed to get suckered into buying the product….we’re not actually supposed to think this deeply into it, now are we?

so, i'm a bit behind the times, but i'm here now!

blog

I went to the mall for the first time today since I’ve started reading Coercion. I saw things differently. I started my visit by going to an eye exam and I thought that’s where my visit was going to end. After half an hour I was finished with the exam, and decided to get some film developed. Conveniently enough there happens to be a Ritz with one hour developing. I though I might just pop over and get my film developed. Easier said than done.

First of all , it appears that the mall only has two entrances/exits that do not go through “anchor stores”. Seeing how I had parked at the entrance closest to where I had to be, I ended up walking through the ENTIRE mall before getting from point A to point B.
All the while store fronts with flashy signs were pumping out the latest hits and calling to me to check out their latest products. The floor plan reminded me of a continuous hallway from a horror flick. It does not have any sharp turns or definitive markings, I just kept waiting for it to end. The repeating ceiling fixtures make it impossible to remember where you are or where you came from.

While my film was developing I decided to window shop. I was greeted with in 30 seconds of any store I walked into. I made a game of it. I’d walk into a store, mill about and count until some smiling associate walked up to me and asked what they could help with. In one store the associate yelled a “hello” from behind the counter (across the store), came out to greet me, and dutifully pointed out and described some new products.

She then escorted me over to an in-store sink, turned on the tap, dolloped a sample of the product into my hand, instructed me how to use it, told me all about it’s wonderful properties, turned the tap off for me, and handed me a paper towel.

For the first time I was consciously aware of the environment that has been set up for me. The construction of the building was disarming, the slightly too loud for comfort music made me all too happy to keep moving or to find solace next to a glittering storefront display. The special sales, pushy/hospitable associates, and eye-catching displays all lend themselves to take advantage of ,well, me.

Despite my superior knowledge I still left with less money in my wallet, but with much softer hands.

Hey everyone!

After reading, "A Feast of Bullshit and Spectacle: The Great American Media Mind Warp", I started thinking about a lot of things. Bageant states, "All Americans, regardless of caste, live in a culture woven of self-referential illusions..". He also goes on to talk about how the media shapes our fears, as parents think that the next child molestor is just around the corner, and mother's fear for their children being sexually abused at day care.

I started to really think about this. Yes, the media does create this hologram in which we are all unknowingly tangled up in...But these events happening aren't just stuck in the hologram. I was talking to my grandma the other day who lives in Florida (big surprise) and she was telling me about the mayor of her county who recently shot himself because of recent charges of sexual abuse. Apparently, he had been committing acts of sexual abuse against his two adopted daughters for years...This is always how it goes...The acclaimed, popular up and coming big person has problems too...And no one ever supsected. She also mentioned another Florida mayor from a different county, Naugle, who had been caught soliciting sex in the men's bathroom....What is going on here?

Is the hologram causing people to act out in these ways because our skewed idea of reality is leaving us terribly empty and hopeless? Would there be as much crime, rape and homicides if the hologram ceased to exist? No wonder many Americans suffer from anxiety disorders, drug addictions and alcohol problems.

How do we dissolve this hologram and reclaim our lives???

After reading Powdermaker's "Hollywood and the USA", I really began to think about the impact that movies and the movie culture have on our society, and in turn how our society impacts the movie making process. Although this study was conducted in the late 1940's, I believe that much of it still holds true. I think that it is widely believed that there is a typical "movie formula" (excluding Indie films, independent films, etc.) We expect that a character will act in a particular way and that things will end as they should. I think it is funny how movies pretend to be simulating real-life situations, when in the end they are just fantasies of we might like our world to be. It seems that producers and studios aim to tap into our deepest hopes and fears and leave us feeling vulnerable...thus becoming attached to the "emotion" we experience while watching these movies. In life we tend to question certain things like, "how was that sweet innocent girl capable of doing someone so horrible like that". I believe we tend to think this way because the movies have molded our view of what a "bad person" looks like, as Powdermaker suggests. These certain stereotypes are forever fixed in our culture, and movies and Hollywood just serve to perpetuate these stereotypes. Our society loves getting "lost" in movies and carried away with their fairytale stories. I believe this is the case because our real lives are so completely different from the lives protrayed in the movies, that it is a sense of hope for us. Like one day I really will meet that one special guy...Just because it happens in the movies all the time. I think that in our time where basically every news channel can't keep from gossiping about hollywood, we are just basing our happiness more and more on a reality that doesn't exist. Most people except that these movies are fantasy and are made for the sole purpose of money, but why do we still continue to be obsessed with them and the actors in them?

So recently in another class I'm taking we discussed how the information we receive...even from the main source might not even be true. As my professor demonstrated to the class, a person could do an action, we the students could question the action, and the person/professor may tell us that the action is actually a tradition of theirs in which they do at the start of every class. Now, unless someone in the class had previously had this professor before, we would have to assume that what they are telling us is true. In reality, unless there is some sort of history to what we are hearing, we are apt to believe just about anything. No, that's not exactly true. I think with a little bit of person apprehension and whit, one could pinpoint the flaw in the tradition or simply question it, and perhaps we would realize that the tradition is in fact a one time act that was spur of the moment.
On another note, I really enjoyed Babakuaria. I've always pondered over what other people's perception of North Americans may be. Although the video was satirical I felt that the message at the end was very relevant to our society. Who needs to become accepting? Well, quite obviously no one individual or group needs to become the one who accepts the other, it is in fact each and every individual who needs to do so. With this in mind, this is where unbiased media comes into play. I hate reading or viewing some sort of new where the story seems a little skewed and certainly concealing some sort of information. When this happens I as a reader feel ignorant for not having heard the other side of the story. As my dad once told me, "you can argue all you want, but unless you understand the other side of the story, you won't get anywhere." Words of wisdom I tell you.

I was at the movies the other day (I saw the "Nanny Diaries", it sucked, don't see it, Scarlett Johansen tried to be an "anthropologist"...) and one of the previews was for a new film coming out called "The 11th Hour" featuring Leonardo DiCaprio as the narrator of the horrifying story about how our we're all going to die soon because we've used up all of the Earth's resources and have caused wacky new weather patterns that are going to destroy us (think "An Inconvenient Truth", on steroids). I am not arguing against the fact that global climate change is occuring or that nations are excessively using resources or that strong weather patterns are emerging. In fact, I believe strongly that all of these things are occuring and that public exposure about this is a good thing.

But, this preview/advertisement caused me to feel very strong emotions of fear and panic. The music, camera angles, images of people dying/struggling to live/drowning in a flood etc., all worked incredibly well on me to the point where I felt physical discomfort from watching this visual media. I then recognized that I was stimulated by multiple persuasive techniques all at once featured in Coersion and the other examples on "Develpoing a Media Education Language".

First of all, there were testimonials of acclaimed scientists vouching for the fact that the end is near. Also, there was strong repition of "now" and "the 11th hour" and other urgent wordings. Graphs, digital imaging and the testimonials of the scientists gave scientific evidence that all of these things are happening/will happen. Because of these techniques I felt a sense of panic and fell directly into what Rushkoff explains happens during a CIA interrogation: "They are all designed to disrupt a person's familiar emotional associations and lead him to a state of confusion... There is an interval... of suspended animation, a kind of psychological shock or paralysis... At this moment, the source is far more open to suggestion."

And this suggestion (in this case a not-so-bad idea) was to get involved with stopping climate change "before it's too late". Unprepared and there only to see a bad Scarlett Johansen movie, I was definitely persuaded.

After looking at non-Western media productions in class, I recognize the potential for media to communicate socially beneficial messages. Our first brainstorm about the word "media" was loaded with negative terms and associations. Media seems to play an important role in education in the U.S., but the examples we saw and heard address critical issues in creative ways. I was particularly struck by the use of radio in subtly encouraging peaceful cultural relations in Rwanda . However, it was the same media that initially provoked violence. This example illustrates the real power of media, a power that I believe is grossly underestimated,especially by Americans. "Babakiueria" was hilarious, and a striking social commentary. Satire seems to be a commonly used media technique in the U.S., but still dominated by the perspective of the white majority, "liberal" as some may be. This leads me to another frustration. Most of us in class are probably more likely to believe what we hear on "The Daily Show" than Fox News. These are representations of societal value extremes. I don't think there is such a thing as a purely objective information source, but perhaps more balance is necessary. Maybe we should think about what makes the truth so funny. Do people watch "The Colbert Report" and reflect on the truthfulness of the content? It is easy to distance ourselves using comedy, maybe as a means of coping with issues that are too heavy to think about seriously. Of course, we would all be depressed if we were truthfully informed of all the atrocious things going on in the world. So thank you, CNN, for telling me about Britney Spears' downward spiral, and the differences in liberals' and conservatives' brains. NO JOKE: a few mornings ago there was a presentation that told about how different areas in liberals and conservatives "lit up" in the brain when asked about political issues. The language used was that the left side of the brain (I think) was active in the liberals, the side that is "nimble" and "wishy-washy". Contrarily, the conservatives' right side was used, which is "loyal" and "stead-fast". I nearly fell off the treadmill.

After looking at non-Western media productions in class, I recognize the potential for media to communicate socially beneficial messages. Our first brainstorm about the word "media" was loaded with negative terms and associations. Media seems to play an important role in education in the U.S., but the examples we saw and heard address critical issues in creative ways. I was particularly struck by the use of radio in subtly encouraging peaceful cultural relations in Rwanda . However, it was the same media that initially provoked violence. This example illustrates the real power of media, a power that I believe is grossly underestimated,especially by Americans. "Babakiueria" was hilarious, and a striking social commentary. Satire seems to be a commonly used media technique in the U.S., but still dominated by the perspective of the white majority, "liberal" as some may be.

This leads me to another frustration. Most of us in class are probably more likely to believe what we hear on "The Daily Show" than Fox News. These are representations of societal value extremes. I don't think there is such a thing as a purely objective information source, but perhaps more balance is necessary. Maybe we should think about what makes the truth so funny. Do people watch "The Colbert Report" and reflect on the truthfulness of the content? It is easy to distance ourselves using comedy, maybe as a means of coping with issues that are too heavy to think about seriously. Of course, we would all be depressed if we were truthfully informed of all the atrocious things going on in the world. So thank you, CNN, for telling me about Britney Spears' downward spiral, and the differences in liberals' and conservatives' brains. NO JOKE: a few mornings ago there was a presentation that told about how different areas in liberals and conservatives "lit up" in the brain when asked about political issues. The language used was that the left side of the brain (I think) was active in the liberals, the side that is "nimble" and "wishy-washy". Contrarily, the conservatives' right side was used, which is "loyal" and "stead-fast". I nearly fell off the treadmill.

After reading “The Tongan Tradition of Going to The Movies,” and “Rambo’s Wife Saves the Day,” about Papua New Guinean audiences, I began wondering what these people learn about American society from our movies. I assume that Papua New Guineans have other sources of education about America but if we look just at movies, especially blockbusters that would be internationally distributed, a very inaccurate picture of our society emerges. However, many things can be learned by watching the movies of another society as long as you understand the context. For example you can learn what entertains people if you view a movie as entertainment and not a reflection of society. Even documentaries, which are often advertised as being a reflection of a society (or part of society), have to be taken in context. If someone’s only knowledge of America came from Hollywood movies they’d probably think that we are a super-violent, funny and quick-witted people, which is not very accurate. What the above-mentioned articles show is that there is also a lot to be learned by how societies put foreign movies into their own context. I love the description in “The Tongan Tradition of Going To the Movies,” of the interpreter getting booed for directly translating a movie without adding any of his own flair. Tongans put movies into their own context by comparing characters to people they know and elaborating to the plot in order to add relevance to Tongans. As I thought about this I began to realize that my own knowledge of places that I haven’t experienced directly comes, mostly, from movies. While I’d like to say that my knowledge of someplace like Africa comes from some kind of respectable sources, in reality my understanding comes from “Blood Diamond”, “The Last King of Scotland” and “The Gods Must Be Crazy”. None of which were made by Africans and all of which have their own biases.

We've been doing this course blog for a few weeks now, and thus far I've been unable to think of anything to write in it. It wasn't that I couldn't think of something to write about, so much as I wanted to be sure that whatever I wrote was actually worthwhile, and not just me fulfilling my participation grade by repeating ideas I heard in class. But this dilemma is pretty interesting in itself - I feel as though I'm more worried about how my online persona (which maybe 50% or more of the class wouldn't be able to match to my real face) appears to the rest of my classmates than I am about whether my teacher sees that I've written anything, and that is a dilemma unique to the modern age.

While in the past there were similar examples of this in authors or journalists putting themselves and their ideas forward through their writings, it hasn't been until the digital age that this feeling was so readily available to everyone. Today children are growing up as "published" writers and artists who, as they are able to operate a computer, are documenting their lives on Livejournal or Myspace or sharing music they've recorded on Garageband or posting photos they take on deviantart, etc. And these online personas don't have to reflect the actual identity of someone at all. It's really difficult to just be yourself in these online worlds when you could really just be whatever you'd like.

This can have its benefits and drawbacks. In one of the sequels to Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game", an extremely intelligent child creates online personas, named after historical philosophers, and manages to affect world wide politics with his writings. This is an extreme example of course, but it really shows how someone can reach a potential they never could in real life through the internet. But on the other hand, that little boy took over the world using the internet... Uh oh!

So yeah, I'm sorry for not writing anything for a long time, Luis. But I just really want to look good on the Internet!

Yesterdays discussion of media got me thinking about how my old perception of media has changed over the past few weeks and I began to ponder about other people's perceptions to media and what our class will be able to gain from this course. Previously I would have defined media as any form of technology to brings news to our attention. Now, I don't think I can really pinpoint my own definition, but its much more holistic and complex than I once thought.
With that in mind, I was thinking more about my tattoo. I never really thought of it as a type of media, and I intentionally had it placed on a part of my body that isn't very visible. Not only does my tattoo decorate a part of my body, but it also holds meaning for myself. The design is original and the two symbols represent different things for my life. I suppose I am sharing these representations with others by having my tattoo, but I have never flat out told someone what they signify unless I have been asked.
Maybe in that sense, tattoos can be looked at as advertisements in magazines or television. There are plenty of ads during the superbowl which have some sort of image, but the company purposely avoids telling the audience what is actually being advertised. They will often offer a telephone number or a website at the end of the commercial to entice viewers to check out the product, or sweepstakes, or whatever it may be. The audience is not forced to look into the commercial any more than the visual aspect of it, but if they want to learn more, they will. In that sense, sure, tattoos are a form of media. I've placed an image on myself and beneath it lies a meaning. By having it there, I suppose I'd like people to notice and question its significance. The only way in which my tattoo and companies sneaky commercials differ is that I'm not trying to gain any sort of profit from a customer's curiosity.
I think someone touched upon this in a previous post, but our writing is also media, a representation of ourselves. In some cases, I think I may write or act differently to attract a different audience. As we all agreed in class.... media is culture and culture is media.

In our class discussion about the actually definition of "media," we came to a valid point about how individuals create media and also how things such as tattooing in our culture have come to symbolize a brand and in fact has become an individualized form of media. I read an interesting article a few weeks ago in the New York Times entitled "A Culture of Naming That even a Law May Not Tame" (see below for link) that ties in this this idea of personalized individualistic forms of media and how people create them. The article describes a legislative bill in Venezuela that is being introduced to outlaw the use of 100 names, some of these include names like "Superman," "Batman," "Hitler" and "John Wayne" just to name a few (no pun intended). The government feels these names are detrimental to the society because they hamper child development and are also hard to pronounce in the Spanish language. But what is really so bad about this? This I feel is similar to the concept of tattooing in our culture in someways, both naming and tattooing are both forms of permanent identity markers. We are all given a name at birth, and that name becomes a personal identifying trait much like a tattoo does for its "wearer."

So maybe this practice seems a bit foreign and at times really ridiculous but so does tattooing, right? Apparently, this practice of bestowing these names is not uncommon in other Latin American countries; the article points out that in Honduras several people have the name "Ronald Regan." But why are parents doing this? For the pure sake of being different? To honor whatever reference they are naming their children after? I'm not really sure. But I feel this is interesting because of the permanence and also the uniqueness of both processes. Both tattooing and naming give identity, allude to something, pay tribute, tell something about the person. In class we discussed what media actually is, we said media is a tool of communication, it translates, it's a manipulation of symbols and also media creates culture. Both the processes of naming and tattooing manage to do this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/world/americas/05venez.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1190257747-fauqRQyrOzl3nwHmdx1IJA

I was driving down the road yesterday and saw an ad for Vitamin Water on the back of a truck that read: "It works for 'Big Papi' (David Ortiz)". "Big Papi" was swinging a baseball bat, and there was a larger than life Vitamin Water bottle sailing towards the bat (as if it was a baseball that "Big Papi" was preparing to send sailing out of the ballpark). With some newfound media awareness, I started analyzing the ad. I used the 29 criteria created by the Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME) and determined that this ad used the following persuasive techniques: Simple Solutions, Testimonial, Strength, Card Stacking, and Timing. The Simple Solution is that drinking Vitamin Water will make you into a great baseball player, like "Big Papi". There is a disregard for the fact that a great deal of training goes into becoming a professional baseball player. The Testimonial is that "Big Papi" uses the product, therefore it must work. People respect this athlete’s career; therefore they might be persuaded to buy the product after seeing his endorsement. Card Stacking is evident through the “it” in: “It works for ‘Big Papi’ (David Ortiz)”. The real “it” is that the Vitamin Water beverage is hydrating and providing vitamin intake to David Ortiz. However, looking at this ad, the viewer immediately links his success as a professional baseball player with drinking the Vitamin Water beverages. The viewer is further persuaded to buy the product because of the timing. Sitting in traffic, or flying by the ad on the road, the viewer will not have the time or inclination to analyze what he/she is looking at. There is a quick flash of Vitamin Water with a picture of “Big Papi” with the words “It works…” in big bold print all thrown in your line of site for a brief moment. Are you affected by ads like this? I know they sure make spending the primo price for Vitamin Water seem more worth it to me.

P.S. I did some additional research and found this humorous "Big Papi" Vitamin Water ad on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRYOU4VKVcU

After thinking about today’s class and the readings pertaining to it, my concept of identity and how it is formed has been seriously challenged. The movie “Oh, What a Blow the Phantom Gave Me”, showed me just how powerful and controlling media can be. It has the power to reduce a complex and multi-facetted truth into its physical and often artificial manifestation. I keep on returning to McLuhan’s notion that “The media is the message”, because the medium, or the lens through which we see ourselves often times dictates or alters our individual identity.
When I reflect upon my freshmen year at UVM I have memories of a confused individual, out of my element, and as a lost babe wandering aimlessly through the icy and bleak landscape. While this is the memory I hold of that time period, I recently came across a picture of me and some of my friends from freshmen year embracing and possessing a youthful exuberance and confidence. So now I am presented with a severe dichotomy between my abstract memories, which are just an aggregate approximation of an array of emotions and experiences, and a single image, which reminds me of a plethora of different emotion that I experienced at this time. How am I supposed to mediate these very different portrayals of my freshmen year experience? The two ways through which I try to understand this period in my life provide two individual and self-contained realities and truths about the same moment in time. This single image of myself is so powerful in its nature that it has the power to manipulate my reality. Thus, a wide range of feelings and experiences has been condensed into a single entity, which turns into my known reality. This is the true power of media. It alters our images of truth while at the same time homogenizing our individual experiences and the cultures from which they spring.

After watching “Oh What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me”, I was particularly struck by the quote, “electricity makes angels out of us all”. I think that in the broad sense this implies that media is empowering. For me, I believe that empowerment is one of the most crucial feelings a person should experience. To understand your worth, what you are capable of, and knowing that you can do anything…these are all feelings of empowerment. Media allow us to feel this way through many mediums: art, technology, writing, broadcasting, and even tattooing as we discussed in class. When I think about the fact that media is empowering it worries me a little. I think that any form of empowerment is positive, if used in a good way, but is this the only way that our society tends to feel empowered…by use of the media? It seems that by putting so much emphasis on the “empowerment of the media”, we tend to think that we cannot achieve success in other terms.
Fame and power are two things that certain people strive for. And how could these be achieved without some form of media? We are so embedded within the culture of media, that it almost seems impossible to do anything without it. For example, if I wanted to start a campaign that promotes HIV/AIDS education, how would I ever do this without resorting to flyers, letters, advertisements, etc.? In this way media is definitely empowering, it can help us do good when we need outside help. But this is just it…can we actually do anything by ourselves anymore?
I realize the advantages of being able to spread your words and ideas across the community, but for me there is something un-empowering about having to rely on outside sources for your voice to be heard. Nowadays we can do so much in terms of personal technology…podcasts, youtube, facebook, etc. It makes me wonder what won’t we be able to do in the future? The impossible always seems to become the possible…and doesn’t that scare anyone a little?

I have more questions than answers for this entry, but some interdisciplinary action is going on in my head that I need to purge. I recently read a chapter for an economics class by Peter Singer (controversial, I realize) in which it states that those of us who are absolutely affluent all have a moral obligation to help those in poverty and distress because of our shared humanity. It goes on to say that although people abroad have a more extreme poverty level than the "relative poverty" found here in the U.S., it is human nature to want to "take care of your own", meaning our own citizens or race or neighbors or family members rather than invisible strangers around the globe.

This is when I thought of that Christian Save the Children infomercial thing that is a total buzzkill. It shows images and audio of starving children around the world who are in need of our help, which usually comes on right as I'm about to chow down on stupid food like wings and beer. I feel like a terrible person until the next commercial comes on but it never amounts to much more than that.

The use of media in this way is used as a mechanism to try and create empathy for people and places we don't typically see or come into contact with. It is trying to form empathy for those strangers around the world who experience a greater degree of poverty than we typically see in the U.S. With the collapse of time and space in this manner, is it possible that these images actually work to make the affluent feel as though these starving children are closer than they actually are (right in your living room) and to make their obligation to aid them a more urgent and real one?

Is this an effective, useful or moral way for media to work? Is there a way (since I'm not quite sure how profitable the Christian infomercial actually is) to actually create a sense of empathy and obligation through media that would provide incentive for the absolute affluent to be o.k. with giving to foreign aid?

It is more likely, I think, that our perceptions of what media is/does to us is already too jaded to work for a worthy cause. As we can tell by our "mind dump", whether there is truth in this or not, the media seems to be an untrustworthy way to try and do good. The quest to save the world from poverty and inequality could just backfire.

It is clear that media shapes culture, playing a role in the way we think, what we converse about, and in many other aspects. Our conversations and discussions with others for the most part surround media of some kind, whether discussing the news or watching a movie. Class discussion about “our” cultural norm of being quiet at a movie theater was quite interesting. Why do “we” expect that everyone should be quiet, while in the case of the Tongans, participation is to be expected. In the article about Tongan’s and their movie experiences I found it very interesting that audience participation was a component of movie watching, while in the United States and many other areas it seems to be shunned upon. I thought about the reasons behind the quiet nature of watching movies quietly in our society and could not come up with a good answer, other than the fact that we are an individualistic society, and increasingly so. With the introduction of VHS to the Tongan people, movie watching has become increasingly westernized, a perfect example that technology helps shape and affect the nature of our social interactions and relationships. This is especially true with the introduction of Netflix and other media outlets.
When trying to establish a definition of media as a class the list included many different items. It seems as though the definition has many components and will be hard to define into a clear, simple explanation. Before taking this course I never thought of technologies as media, for example cameras and the internet. Also, media can be social practices, with the example of Church St being constructed to mediate our interaction a certain way. I am certainly more aware of my surroundings and have been more critical when watching television since the start of lecture.
On a different note, going back to the persuasive techniques in media, I saw a commercial for the “We are Ellis Island” campaign. Like the advertisement in the magazine presented in class, with huge amounts of product placement. The ad also gave a website to find out more information, so I thought why not. I went to the website and found it was even more rampant with clothing by Arrow, also riddled with actors. Quite amusing if you ask me, check it out.

In the article "On Dance & Difference", Sullivan states, "Against this backdrop both rave and a current resurgence of Bushman trance-dances might be interpreted more broadly as acts of defiance and resistance in relation to the multiple constraints effected by the political economy and the cultures of modernity" (238).

Examples of trance-dance practices in the West and the Khoe people of Nambia seem to paint a vivid picture of a spiritual, ego surpressing, incredible, undefinable leaps into another celestial realm, where a group conscious takes over in the form of movement. Many cultures would not exist without this ceremonial type of passage into other worlds...These experiences go beyond the self...

But yet people in the West are a little taken aback...threatened if you will. The media, corporations, government want us to be as far away from these strange dance practices which create a social cohesion between minds and spirits....there are no longer any differences or judgements separating the people. Why go beyond yourself and your monotonous daily reality when you can consume and feel horribly insecure about your outer appearence? They want us to think that buying a pair of your favorite leather Frye boots or will have the same high, cosmic feeling as a traditional rave dance or ceremony. Consume! Consume! Consume! Don't get smarter than us....or else you will stop buying and then our corporations will go to hell....We rely on YOU, your insecurities and ignorance to keep our sales going!

Can you imagine how connected, smart, enlightened our world could be if we engaged in more of these self-expressing activities? We always seem to be searching searching for that feeling, that connection to others, that ego-less self. But we never find it when going to parties, when shopping, when getting drunk at bars. We keep thinking that maybe this night will be cool....might meet some chill people...But how many times is that the case? I was drumming with my friend last night at her house in Shelburne. We were out in the middle of a field, with the moonlight encapsulating our beats...I had never felt such a euphoric feeling...a deep connection to the earth....to the beats of our souls, the rhythms of our hearts. I didn't feel like I needed anything else (like that feeling you get when you're shopping....Oh! I've always NEEDED this!) THIS is what I have been looking for...searching for...I felt like for once I had escaped the media-driven, consumer world and saw what this life was really all about...

But the thing is....."they" never want us to find out...hoping that we will continue to blindly get lost in the maze....

We need to be smart enough to find these little wormholes that will open up what Huxley calls the societal "reducing valve"... This takes away most of our perception so that we unknowingly focus on what "they" want us to focus on..

We are no longer disoriented consumers when practicing these things (dancing, drumming, anything that dissolves the ego) . We are so oriented, so focused, so caught up in the moment, the REAL moment of pure BLISS...

One of the things that I found particularly interesting about last class’s discussion was that it raised points that seemed to directly contradict points raised during Tuesday’s class. On Tuesday we discussed the ways in which culture shapes the media. In our discussion of “The Tongan Tradition of Going to the Movies” and “Rambo’s Wife Saves the Day” we all seemed to agree that media is interpreted differently by different groups of people. While the same movies shown in the West were shown in Tongan movie houses, the Tongan experience of going to the movies was completely different from ours. The Tongan screenings were raucous events and involved intense audience participation. Tongan viewers seemed to be far more interested in the overall experience of seeing a movie (including audience participation and the input of interpreters) than in the meaning of the movie itself. This is obviously completely different from the Western tradition of going to the movies, where we sit quietly and pay attention to every detail of the movie. In this sense we see that the media is interpreted differently by different groups and has completely different roles and meanings within different cultures. Similarly, in the case of “Rambo’s Wife”, we see that the medium itself, in this case film, can take on completely different meanings within different groups of people. The article notes that in Gapun society meaning emerges as events are contextualized and embedded in the on-going flow of social life. Truth, or the idea of “truth”, has less to do with what might have actually happened, and has far more to do with the story that the village agrees upon. Events are essentially meaningless until the contextualizing voice of the village narrative negotiates their structure and meaning. For instance, villagers were shown the film Turkana in which there is a 63 second segment involving sorcery. When asked to describe the film, all of the villagers focused solely on the sorcery scene, and went on to describe events that hadn’t actually been part of the film. Thus, the film took on a completely different meaning for the Gapun villagers than it did for Western viewers.
In our discussion of these two articles we seemed to agree that in the act of consumption, people produce new meanings. They are not simply sucked in to a vacuum of pre-established meaning. On the contrary, the film Oh What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me presented a different view. The film suggested that the media essentially destroys culture and can be equated with an environment that constantly shapes us. Unlike the two articles, the film suggested that the world is becoming homogenized as the media swallows it. In essence, it is the media that has come to control culture rather than the other way around. I am more inclined to agree with view presented by the two articles and our subsequent class discussion. While I feel that the media has served to homogenize the world to a degree, I feel that we are missing something major and ignoring a number of important factors if we assume that the media is interpreted and used in the same way by different cultures. If anything, I would argue that the relationship between media and culture is reciprocal.

How has technology changed our perceptions of ourselves? I purport that it has fueled “our” narcissism and emphasis on the individual. Technology is term that encompasses an enormous variety of media-related things, so I am speaking quite generally. In "Oh What a Blow that Phantom Gave Me!", Edmund Carpenter said that “electricity has made angels of us all”. This is interesting because it calls attention to the disconnection between body and communication that many forms of technology and media create, that perhaps many of us don’t recognize. Telephone, e-mail, online chatting, answering machines, and recording devices have all drastically altered our perceptions of time and space. Where do these two seemingly conflicting ideas interact? Displacing communication from the body could potentially decrease the importance of physical communication and the visual image of the body. However, technology has allowed for the creation of powerful visual media, especially sexual images in advertising. Two extremes have emerged: a complete disconnection from the physical, illustrated by the online phenomenon “Second Life” (have you heard of it? Talk about creepy), and at the other extreme, an obsession with image illustrated by “fashion” magazines, television programs and advertisements. Technology has separated physical and oral communication, which may signify something larger that concerns me, which is a separation of people from the physical location in which they reside, also a result of technology and media. When we are so often exposed to selective photographs or other images of places around the world and where we live, it is easy to think of them as disconnected from ourselves. Maybe we will get into this more later in the course, but think of “nature shows” or magazines that depict landscapes without humans, or images of “the other” with no evidence of inevitable Western influence. What would we think of a picture of someone taking a picture? Carpenter’s film exposed this to some extent, and it was sort of uncomfortable. A photograph can never be entirely “truthful” because a larger context is inevitably absent. You could look at a picture of a smiling worker happily digging a hole and think that maybe he’s planting a shrub. Better yet, the caption reads “man digging hole for shrub”. But what the picture doesn’t show is the man pointing a gun at him telling him to smile to his left, and the chopped up carcass destined for the hole to his right. Okay, a bit gruesome, it just shows it’s all about FRAMING. A good idea, as I think Luis may have mentioned, is to think about what is absent from a picture or video image.

One uniquely human characteristic is the ability to think and communicate about events or things not in the present, immediate area. Technology has taken this to an extreme. When are we ever in the present? Technology and media have made us aware that we can multitask, plan, and have “control” over our tightly scheduled lives. However, extremely powerful entities have control over these media that allow us to craft ourselves…therefore we are not crafting ourselves but being shaped and strongly influenced by those with the resources to develop, buy, and use technology to meet their sinister ends. But we are “them”…damn it. Commence downward-plunging thought-cycle of negativity.

In class on Thursday, the idea that media allows people to fashion themselves came up. I've been chewing on this for a few days now, and now I think I've properly digested the thought and am ready to throw out some insights.
Basically, I agree with this idea. The media throws tons of information at us all the time and it is up to us to choose what we don't ignore and what we end of internalizing. I think it is easiest to articulate the "fashioning the self" idea by looking at advertising. With advertisement, the goal is to move the consumer to do something (be it to watch that show, buy that brand, sign up for that insurance...) When we listen to THAT advertisement, it becomes part of who we are. The people who pay attention to commercials for Slim-Fast and Weight Watchers ultimately probably have different perceptions of themselves than the people who stock up on Doritos and Pizza Hut. By using slim-fast, we perceive ourselves to be people mindful of our weights, our self-image, and we believe that we are taking care of and improving ourselves. By our ability to ignore the other advertising for "bad" things, we continue to shape our ultra-healthy mindset. Taking this further, if we take our hypothetical Slim-Fast and drink it in a public place, we are giving out an image of ourselves to everyone around us. We tell them "I'm losing weight! I'm changing for the better!" Ultimately, they will take this information and interpret it as they will... this could be a "I wish I had a slim-fast..." or a "I hate her" or "That is the dumbest thing I've ever seen" or any one of tons of possibilities. But we are constantly reacting to what people present to us, though to varying degrees of importance/consciousness... I hope that makes sense. It's hard to articulate, but basically the point I'm aiming to get across here is that the media we use, however we use it, gives the people around us information about who we are and perhaps how we want to be perceived by those around us.

So this is the second post that I'm making about UVM and some of the unfortunate goings down. I don't hate UVM. In fact, I really just don't like the true festival of bullshit and spectacle that is the Fogel administration. The focus of my ire this week has been the consistent "Green washing" that is occuring at UVM. The term green washing refers to media based campaigns usually, thought not exclusively, carried out by corporations that make token environmental considerations in order to bolster their public image. While I feel that the President's Climate Commitment (A document signed by Fogel promise a move toward Carbon Neutrality and LEED certification of all buildings) is a positive step towards minimizing UVM's ecological footprint, I feel that the campaign fails to critically examine the capitalist ethos of constant growth and happiness achieved through materialism.
In this way, the Davis Center, a LEED Certified (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) building, has been lauded for its low level of resource consumption in comparison to other buildings of comparable size. In fact, within the building itself, building managers and museum style displays create a narrative that highlights the conservative features of the structure. This narrative creates an outward appearance of conservation and environmental consciousness. However, I believe that this outward appearance belies a much more complicated and truthful reality. For example, while features like waterless urinals and self dimming lights are highlighted, it obscures the fact that UVM is kowtowing to market pressures to alter its built landscape in order to attract new students. This pathway to growth and improvement is problematic in that it emphasizes material development over human development. To clarify, the continuous monetary investment in "green" building seemingly takes precedence over paying workers and teachers better wages, while also linking educational quality to the quality of the built environment.
Within this growth framework, the Campus Master Plan, a document detailing all physical development at UVM, states that the University should, "be an exemplar of environmental ethics and a truly sustainable environment." What the plan doesn't include is a detailed assesment of the human impacts of this development. For instance, the Plan sets no standards for what types of firms will be constructing these buildings. In the past, the lack of responsible contractor policies has led to large construction projects, like the Davis Center, to be given to out of state construction companies, namely W Berry, that employ union busting tactics. I find these practices completely unsustainable in that they fail to support local firms that pay family supporting wages. Damian Hall from the Ironworkers local has told me that because UVM, among others, has used out of state contractors, it has eroded the in state construction business so much that he has to travel to Massachusetts every week in order to find work. Making workers drive hundreds of miles every week while sacrificing time with their families hardly seems sustainable or ethical to me.
Finally, altering UVM's physical landscape has also altered popular conceptions of necessity as well as institutional memory. By this I mean that buildings like the Davis Center and the activites that take place in them currently obscures the fact that those activities took place without the buildings in the past. In this sense, I've heard President Fogel make it seem like before the Davis Center was on campus, student groups didn't meet for lack of a location. Also, in last week's Vermont Cynic, SGA president Kesha Ram, in an attempt to justify a multimillion dollar renovation of the Athletic facilities on campus, stated, "When you talk about a sustainable school, it's not just about eco-design, it means having healthy students who take care of themselves and have the resources and opportunities to recreate." Ram's quote makes it seem like students do not currently have opportunities to recreate and that students aren't able to take care of themselves as a result of inadequate facilities. This notion is largely untrue given the fact that UVM was identified by Men's Health Magazine as the fifth fittest school in the nation. What's more, her statement fails to address the University community as a whole. What about the worker's health and well being? Can they even afford food on what they make? Are faculty members able to deal with consistently larger class sizes? Are students able to afford the six percent tuition increases per year that are being used to fund this construction? Perhaps a more pluralistic and critical development plan is necessary.

After watching the video on Edmund Carpenter and his book, “Oh What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me”, I began thinking about his idea that “electricity has made angels of us all”. In 1973, when Carpenter wrote this many forms of media that are common today did not exist. I would like to hear what he has to say about the internet. Today e-mail, AIM and social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook are quickly replacing face-to-face, real world social interaction. Human consciousness when channeled through a computer can take on a ghost in the machine kind of feel where the 16 year old girl you are chatting with could very well be a 50 year old man or a well written computer program. Games like Second Life bring this to a whole new level where a person’s representation in cyberspace is entirely self-designed and where their real world desires can come to fruition in a simulated reality. To some people their existence in these worlds feels more real than what is popularly considered the real world. I read an article recently about a man in China who played Second Life for seventy-two hours straight, neglecting his real world needs like food and sleep until he died. In most cases, however, I disagree that electricity removes us from our bodies so much as it extends certain aspects of it. The internet can bring your voice to millions of people, many more than you could reach by yelling really loud. The internet allows you to see places on the other side of the world without leaving your home. Of course that brings us back to the problem. There’s a lot to be missed by looking up a picture of New Zealand instead of going there, as well as chatting with a friend rather than visiting them. Win/lose I guess.

We spoke very early on in the semester about media accessibility, and the way in which it has been drastically increased in recent years by the development of certain forms of mass media. Specifically, the internet has placed the means of production in the hands of the people. Blogs have increased dramatically in popularity in recent years, and YouTube has become this generation’s soapbox to shout from.

And yet, there has always been a disconnect between this blatantly popularized form of media and the more “legitimate” commercial media. Despite the cynicism many people have towards many corporate news sources, most people would probably be more likely to trust a story from their local 11:00 news team than somebody’s most recent ranting YouTube post. They seemed to be two separate worlds of media, distanced by accountability.

Recently, however, this line was blurred. As I channel surfed one night last week, I noticed that the same story seemed to be playing on every single popular/entertainment/gossip news show. A YouTube user had recorded his very emotional opinions regarding the latest gossip and media frenzy surrounding Britney Spears. (Many of you may have seen the video, as it was the highest rated video on YouTube, and as I say, was broadcast repeatedly on television.) These television shows were playing this video, usually in its entirety, and discussing it. Some hosts used the occasion to mock and ridicule the man posting the video, while some discussed his opinions as a legitimate point in what we were meant to believe was an international debate that had developed on this slow news day.

It just seemed so very odd to see this YouTube video on the news. It seemed analogous to printing something from someone’s MySpace page in the newspaper—simply out of place. On a separate level, however, it seemed to be subverting the initial appeal of such people-friendly means of media production. People are attracted to blogs and YouTube because it allows them to broadcast on their own terms whatever they like. By rebroadcasting that material through a third party, it takes away from the initial ownership of the piece. It seems to beg the questions, do people have any ownership for items posted online, and is it the role of corporate media to rebroadcast independently published works?

I watched Factory Girl last night and the DVD opened with a truth ad. It was a man at a popsicle factory. He was trying to sell these popsicles that had shards of glass sticking out of them. At the end of the ad it said, "What if every company sold you products the way cigarettes are sold." Or something along those lines. Well, I though, most companies ARE, in fact, selling products that lead to ill-health, and we simply don't know it. Like this commercial I saw for Oust. Oust is a spray deoderizer. This ad showed a hearty-looking dinner being made and the woman was going on about how unpleasant it was when her house actually smelled like garlic or something that she would make, eat and feed to her family. She was detailing how the garlicy deliciousness would waft up the stairs and be so audacious as to hang around in her childrens' bedrooms! Lord save us! God forbid the smell of dinner should linger, and upstairs of all places! So she had to buy a spray (see ya ozone) and douse her house in chemical spray (peace out brain cells) so that her house would no longer smell of dinner.
So we should spray our house and family with toxic, odor-eliminating chemicals so that we can no longer smell dinner, but we should definitely not smoke a nerve-calming herb that is considered sacred in certain places? See how I turned that around?

I may have found the most beautiful advertisement on television today; and by "most beautiful" I mean "most edited." The campaign is called the Human Element. You may have seen the National Geographic-esque images of landscapes and human portraits surrounded audibally by a symphony of cellos and violins. The narrator's voice contains elements which resemble that of a kindergarten teacher reading to youth. We are bombarded with these vivid images and then realize that "life is elemental" and the complexity of science is reduced to simplicity. That a bogus periodic table entry "8 Hu 7E+09" can be introduced without concern hypothetically replacing... yes, oxygen (I had to look it up also). This ad was released by the Dow Chemical Company in order to highlight the social and environmental concerns in recent times, not to mention the overlooked human aspect in the industry. Dow has clearly come a long way since producing Agent Orange for U.S. military during Vietnam, a factoid that I contrast heavily with the beauty of this ad. While I am not bashing Dow, nor have a reason to, I want to address that this ad campaign isn't utilizing any of the persuasive techniques we learned about in previous lectures; it is in a unique category. The link to the commercial is as follows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3byt7xMSCA

In class, we talked about how the observer’s perception is molded by the “matrix”. We live in a computer-generated world, where everything is a simulation. There is no escape from playing the simulated game of life. Humans are used by technology as “batteries” and the image becomes a reality. Even currently typing an entry into this blog, I am becoming part and parcel to this increasing process of digital technology disembodying and dematerializing the previously essential face-to-face form of communication. Reality is molded by the computer-generated world in which we all live. How is it that we go to this point? How much is what we all accept as reality actually real? As populations of online communities develop, like “Second Life”, our ability to experience alternate reality increases. In some cases, many individuals’ alternate reality becomes true identity and bleeds into an individual’s perception of the self. How much are you truly molded by the “matrix”?

I have been thinking a lot about the question that Vivanco posed before we all went jaunting around campus. "What could an outsider learn about our culture just by listening to sounds?" As I closed my eyes outside of Williams Hall hoping to hear some sounds of nature, all I could hear was the monotonous drone drone blahhhhhhhh deeaaatthh of the Blondini's generator. I also heard some loud bus noises and a few conversations. Oh good, Luis just signaled that we are moving on to another part of campus. Maybe the sounds will get better......The splendid hiss and "beep beep" of the tractor backing up enveloped my ears in a symphony of "clang beep drilllllllll drilll zzzzzzzzaaap BOOM......" If I were an outsider hearing all of this commotion, I would run as fast I could back to the country where I came from, maybe to listen to the sad songs of the birds...It sure would be a lot better then this. How come I never really was as bothered by these mechanical noises before? Maybe because I had my ipod on maximum volume and was trying to drown out the noises...I also could be suffering from an acute case of denial.

This got me to thinking about ALL of the noises that are constantly surrounding us.....We all have become so accustomed to it, we barely notice it anymore. Even when we want to relax and go grab a beer at the local Davis Center Pub (which I don't recommend anymore considering the music selection) we are surrounded by loud music, kitchen sounds, and people yelling out "Michelle!" for food orders. What happened to SILENCE??? Do any of us know what that means anymore? Someone mentioned that before sleep, when we finally do get this precious silence, we start to think and worry and need to turn on a fan or some streaming brook from a sound machine...

I remember seeing something on tv about silence. They interviewed a monk who spends most of his days in silence...praying, meditating. He was perfectly content with his life and seemed to be more at peace and in balance then a lot of us.

Have we been so brainwashed and trained to constantly need some sort of sound, that even the boom hiss beep of the tractor is more of a comfort then complete silence? Yikes!

I think this calls for some meditation everyone....Your body needs the silence, craves the silence!

Today for the past three or four hours I've been working with my group to finish up our podcast. Initially we started with more than an hours worth of audio. Narrowing that down to two minutes was a challenge to say the least. Although, it was long, annoying, and more or less a pain to do, what I learned from the process was...priceless. After our activity today, where we tried to tune in on the different sounds that are associated with different areas I began to think more about different people's perceptions of sound. As was mentioned in one of the articles, sound can be nostalgic, or have a connection to some sort of context. It will be interesting to see people's opinions of my groups podcast because for us, who took the effort to put together the project, I feel as though I have some sort of relationship with it. And more importantly, I don't think a bus ride will ever just be a bus ride for me every again. That isn't to imply that our project opened up my eyes to a whole new world or that I'm going to go off and ponder buses, but I'm much more aware of what can occur in a certain situation. And those situations can vary depending on the time of day, the company, the physical outline of the place of interest, etc. With that being said, today someone mentioned that they couldn't handle silence. I on the other hand, appreciate the emotions that develop within me when I have a moment or two of silence. My main point here is that...with different people their perceptions and emotions towards different elements of culture will always differ, because I don't think any two people will ever here the exact same things, nor interpret them in the same way.

After participating in our soundscapes exercise in class today, I noticed just how noisy our daily lives are. We are constantly surrounded by background noises and this is most likely why many of us stated that we like to utilize some sort of ambient noise while we are falling asleep. The way that each of us interact with these sounds varies in the sense that each of us has an internal filter which we employ to make sense of the world that surround us. We each use our own cultural framework to understand the context of our auditory surroundings and that is why in each situation that we encounter, we expect to hear certain things that we associate with the environment. These prescribed sounds are often overlooked or taken for granted in our daily lives, but by documenting the sounds that we hear some of the sounds that I previously overlooked were identified and processed more thoroughly. One thing that truly surprised me after the completion of this exercise was how noisy flip flops are. At the forefront of each soundscape context was the ever-present “pop! Pop!” of flip flops on the tile or concrete floor. I wonder if these shoes are so popular because of their style and comfort or if the real reason goes deeper than that. Part of me truly believes that in the super-saturated auditory world that we live in, flip flops are used as one of these auditory fills that they are a device used by our culture to fill the empty auditory space not occupied by other ambient noises. While I am sure that this is not a conscious decision, we are constantly surrounded by “white noise” and I wonder if the flip flop phenomenon is working on a subconscious level and if they are so popular because of our need for constant stimuli.

Expanding on the concept of silence and sound…Yesterday as we were walking around campus, it was very interesting to actually pay attention to the background ambience of the school. Sitting outside Williams, everyone was actually silent, paying attention to the noises and writing down the sounds they heard. However, after heading to the library and then to the Davis Center, much of the focus seemed to be lost. Many of us started talking without bothering to write anything down. I thought about this and I think this might be contributed to the fact that we are just simply bored with simple sounds. Many forms of media are so saturated, so in your face, with frames flashing before you can even figure out what something is. I feel we are so used to television, where every sound is meant to capture your attention. So, when we just sit and listen, there is not much that is captivating our attention. I believe that it is a characteristic of our society that we are so “plugged-in”, everything is always being sold or marketed to us. We tend to forget what’s actually happening around us. Maybe more people would actually just sit around and meditate, listening to the natural sounds of our campus if there wasn’t so much construction and “obnoxious” noise.

If I were to hear a recording of our campus without knowing where it came from, I might think that it is a recording from a war zone. But I feel we seldom think about this or even notice it, because we are just so used to it. In fact, I think we would only notice the sound if it wasn’t there. When I think about silence I can’t help but think about a horror movie, where there is scary, foreshadowing music followed by unnatural silence, and then someone dies. Why is silence so scary? I think the answer to this might be the fact that in our society silence is just so unnatural and simply does not exist. Our media-saturated world functions on noise…so much that we forget the noise is even there.

Here is a fun exercise: listen to some people around you talking but pretend you don't understand English. Can you tell what people are saying anyway? Our discussions and exercises about sound have made me more aware of all the sounds around me, it actually can drive you crazy if you listen too much...Listen to the soft jazz muzak in the mall hallway, people's publicly audible private conversations. This brings me to something else I have been thinking about: do people think their voices can only be heard within the 3-foot diameter plastic sphere surrounding their heads? Maybe it is my fault for "overhearing". It is interesting to listen to not only the content of, but the pattern of speech and verbal expressions people make in different situations.

Yes, all this talk of sound has really gotten me listening to everything. I found it was helpful to close my eyes when we were listening around campus. Most of the distractions were visual.
In reference to the Taachi article, the idea of "social silence" has also made me realize that so much of what we say is really quite pointless. We are all jabbering away about nothing, all the time...but it's not really about nothing. Maybe it is comforting to be surrounded by our voices and the voices of others, as others have mentioned and we talked about in class. Blah blah blah.

There's an article in today's Burlington Free Press about a change in VPR's format. As you read through the article, it's striking how much individual's responses to the change touch on issues of personal comfort, the place of radio in the fabric of their everyday lives, etc.--the same issues we've been discussing in class.

See the article here:

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070930/NEWS02/709300326/1007

Friday’s adventure around campus listening to sounds and assumptions we make was a fun activity. Starting with listening to sounds outside of Williams hall, I began to realize that many different things were going on. While if I was walking to class for example rather than sitting and listening to the environment I wouldn’t have noticed nearly as much of the sounds around me. Our next stop, the first floor of the library was even noisier than outside of Williams. The noise level was quite the contrary to what I would expect, since it is a library. The level of sound may have been more noticeable since it was the first floor rather than the third, where people tend to bunker down and study all day. Lastly, the Davis Center had many different sounds and noises, something that is to be expected since we were located in the atrium portion of the building, where people tend to meet up and talk with friends between classes. Doing recordings for the podcast has also opened up my eyes, or ears, to sounds that I normally wouldn’t recognize or think twice about.
I found Tuesday’s discussion about sound, more specifically about the idea of soundscapes as very fascinating. We discussed how sound is everywhere, where in one second, it’s “there” and in another instance, it is gone. The idea of sound varies culturally, where in ours we think of it as “background”, an example, turning on the television to help you go to bed. Whereas the Kaluli people have a theory of “lift-up-over-sounding”, which is composed of many different interlocking sounds. One interesting fact of the Kaluli is that they can identify some hundred birds by their sound, but not by sight. This fact demonstrates that sound is relied upon much more than in some cultures. They also use song for expression, rather than spoken language, which is relied upon the most in the United States

I’ve been thinking about last Tuesday’s class this week since I cant seem to get these ideas of the “post human world” out of my head. I think I’ve always assumed that technology was going to continue to advance and continue to amaze and shock us, but it hasn’t really occurred to me that it could become this force that overpowers ourselves. Talking about Kurzweil and the end of media to fiber optics, I felt really small in the face of something that had been created by men in the first place. Our technological capabilities seem to have escalated into a force that we can no longer control. Our achievements can’t slow down now, and while the direction media and technology are headed in are the fruits of our own labor, they are out of our control.
It was hard for me to grasp the idea that fiber optics are bringing and end to media. First, I really don’t understand what, how, where, or anything about fiber optics, I pretend to since it’s a hot topic everywhere, and second, the fact that one type of cable can alter everything just doesn’t add up right. What we’ve been talking about this semester looks at the variety and complexity of media and the idea that in the future all media will be streamlined to just one fiber optic capable seems to contradict and undermine media in general. Maybe this is the argument they were bringing up, that it will end media. I just don’t see a future, and hope I never will, where technology operates equally at human levels and media has died because of the most advanced cable ever made. All of this is gaining its own momentum and getting away from us, but in the end we are creating what is out there and we are receiving media from more source than one cable.

The idea that "the image is central to contemporary society" (p.4 "Reading National Geographic") stood out for me in light of Thursday's class activity. When we first began to focus on the sounds around campus, all of us were relatively alert. Sitting outside of Williams, everyone looked focused and deep in thought. When we arrived at the library more of us became distracted. People began talking to one another and seemed to be looking around more than actually listening. And by the time we got to the Davis center most of us seemed to have forgotten about the listening assignment altogether. While I think that in part this happened because we moved from a relatively quiet and distraction free area of campus (the steps and grass in front of Williams) to busier and perhaps more social areas, it also seems that most of us were unable to remain focused on sound.
I have tried similar activities in the past. For instance, I have tried to remain "present" in yoga classes, listening to my breath and to the sounds around me, and in general I simply find myself getting antsy and bored. I think that because we are constantly bombarded with images, we find it difficult to focus on, and be satisfied with sound. I would argue that a majority of people in my generation would rather watch the news on television then listen to it on the radio. In part, because the combination of sound and picture keeps us focused by forcing us to use more than one sense, and in part because images tend to bring things to life, or make them seem more real. The phrase "I'd have to see it to believe it" sums this idea up pretty well. Sound, with the exception of music, just doesn’t seem to cut it. We can listen to it for a while and then simply become distracted by images.