Anthropology 295: Anthropology of Media

I had seen the film “Cannibal Tours” previously in a class and found the interaction between the tourists and the “natives” almost amusing to an extent. Repeatedly we see foreigners interpreting the native’s actions, such as their diet and their way of life. The tourists seem completely oblivious to the fact that they are intrusive and the natives despise them. I like how the director decided to do the filming, where there was little to no narration, rather the camera followed tourists around the native lands, filming them buying goods and talking about their ways of life. On another note we do not hear/see the person filming asking the questions. One quote that struck me came from one of the European tourists who said they (natives) needed all the help they could get, to get away from their primitive way of life, and that it will take years to happen but it “needs” to be done. This film does succeed in its goal, to show the “vast cultural divide between the tourist and the Other” as stated in Performative Pilgrims and the Shifting Grounds of Anthropological Documentary.
The film “Incidents of Travel in Chichen Itza” was quite different from “Cannibal Tours.” Rather than the etic nature of the latter, “Incidents” strives for an emic point of view. The goal and intentions of the filmmakers can be debated, whether they wanted to make people look stupid or to convey some knowledge about the area. The interaction between the person filming and those being filmed was quite different as well. In Cannibal Tours the questions are not spoken, whereas in “Incidents”, they are audible and the observer can see the ethnographer/film producer. I look forward to discussing how and with what intentions ethnographic movies are produced. On another note, as discussed in class the assumption and goal of showing ethnographic films to undergraduates is that they will become less ethnocentric and more open to different cultures, this actually reinforces ones ethnocentrism. I can distinctly remember students sneering during introduction to anthropology when watching films about the “Other.”

After reading some of "Watching Wildlife" and our class discussion on Thursday I began to realize how documentaries about animals are just as altered and manipulating as commercials. Although, unlike commercials, it is much more difficult to identify the message within animal documentaries. After underlying all the different aspects within "March of the Penguins" it became evident that these films are not as simplistic as they may seem. Although a young child may not be able to notify all of the different familial and other elements within the movie, they are subconsciously becoming aware of the American ideology of family/society. As someone mentioned in class, the subjects of the movie have a large influence on the viewer. The popularity probably would not have been as high as it was if the animal of choice was a hyena or a sloth. As interesting as those two animals really are, visually they would not invoke the same amount of excitement as the penguins do. In a way, penguins also personify the American perception of how individuals should be. Cute, beautiful, and loving. These are not bad traits to have, that's if they are on the inside as well.
Someone made a comment in class about Osa Johnson and the image of her baking pies after being out in the field with her husband. It is surprising to me that a women that I would perceive as being brave and outgoing enough to put herself into dire danger, would also have to be portrayed as an American women. Once again, there is the ideology of the family and individual.

After reading from "Watching Wildlife" and the "Environmentalism..." article, I started to think a lot about Steve Irwin and what he did during his career. In Luis' article, the interpretation was pretty critical, calling a lot of attention to the sensationalism of the crocodile hunter and the entertainment aspect. I admit that the entertainment value does overshadow the conservation messages/suggestions, but I still think that Steve Irwin was sincere in his statement about how he loved nature and wanted to spread that to people. I think that he went about things the way he did because this is TV/film we're talking about, and listening to people drone on about conservation isn't as exciting to watch. When I think about his show and watching it, it was really interesting to see all the animals and hear him talk about them and see how unique each creature was. Perhaps I wasn't thinking about how to preserve their habitat, but I certainly heard him talk about what was threatening the animals and why this was a problem. I don't know, maybe I'm just being too optimistic about his goals and purposes.
I found this video on youtube of him crying over the death of a crocodile. Here it is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVEVUxyxBJc
Anywho, I think that this shows some of the strong connection he has with the animals. While it might have been staged (bla bla bla...), it still is touching if you let yourself connect with him and try not to be really cynical while watching it. The connection he has is obviously really strong and my hopeful self believes that this video is an honest depiction of his feelings over this death. That he formed these relationships with animals like crocodiles shows people also that these animals can be related with in the same way we might love our cats or dogs.
Also, if you look around on youtube there are a lot of video tributes to him, if people want to see some of his 'best of' moments in a montage sort of way...

I thought the chapter about the giant panda in Watching Wildlife was very interesting. Although I have always been aware of the immense media coverage surrounding the importance of the giant panda, I have never really thought about it to the extent to which Chris explains the phenomenon. Clearly, sex is one of the most natural, basic instincts of the animal and human species. Sex, as a topic, is often uncomfortable in some situations, unless it has to do with nature or some sort of animal documentary. From an early age we have become used to seeing images of mating animals, and are basically forced to come to terms with its naturalness. But as Chris talks about in this chapter, what is so natural about forcing reproduction between giant pandas? For some reason it seems that as long as an animal is in nature it is allowed to reproduce as it pleases. But when an animal is confined to a zoo, there is some sort of power held over it, as the “naturalness” of its wild life is virtually taken away in every shape and form.
I’m not trying to go on a rant about animal rights or anything, but not only does the giant panda have its freedom taken away (as it is forced to live in some reproduced habitat), it is not even allowed to practice its natural mating habits. Why do humans always try to interfere with nature?
I know there is much worry about their endangerment, but as they seem to be striving for making reproduction more “natural” for the giant pandas, it just seems to be getting more and more unnatural. They have used artificial insemination, in vitro and even Viagra. Chris also talks about how they showed the males videos of panda mating to try and get them into the mood. As Chris says, all of these techniques “have all been utilized to improve on nature when it does not meet human goals for the species”. It seems obvious that humans do have specific goals for other species and for some reason we feel entitled to change their natural ways. I have always been enthralled by the giant panda, but I really had no idea about their role in terms of cultural assumptions about sex and even political issues.

I'm from the Bay Area, so you can imagine my disappointment when my dad informed me a few weeks ago that a proposal was made to allow corporate advertising on and around the Golden Gate Bridge. I mentioned in class one time that once you drive into the city, there is advertisting absolutely everywhere: billboards, posters, giant screens, the works. The bridge however, is completely free of the media monsters. Ever since coming to college 3,000 miles away from home, I absolutely love the first time I drive into the city on each return visit home. Coming out of the Waldo tunnel and driving down the hill toward the bridge is one of the most beautiful and enlivening sights. Hearing about the advertisement proposal infuriates me because it is the perfect example of trying to take control of one of the few things that are still untouched. Imagine pictures you've seen of the Golden Gate bridge, either on postcards or photography books or even in person if you've visited, and think about how different the effect would be if the bridge was plasted in advertisements

LUCKILY, the proposal was denied. (you can read about it at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/27/BAIPT1MHO.DTL). Apparently, some people thought it was necessary to allow this proposal in order to raise more money for maintenance of the city. I guess they realized, however, the irony that would lie in this because the corporations who would have paid for their advertising on the bridge probably don't care about the well being of the city as much as they do about making an extra buck.

This was a close call though. If they do ever succeed in passing a proposal for advertisments on something such as the Golden Gate Bridge, what else will they try to destory with media?

I really enjoyed today's presentation and discussion about cooking shows, particularly the idea of "gastro-porn". I laughed when I heard the term, because just recently while searching for news articles for another class I came across another term that is new to me: "global warming porn". This term is used to describe the apocalyptic predictions in news media that are used, according to some (maybe just wackos on random environmental blogs), to get the attention of viewers. One blog author cited that the U.K. was accused of using global warming porn to perhaps sway the opinions of people about it. So is the "-porn" suffix used to get viewers' attention as well? Does the alleged non-sexual use of porn to describe the representation of food or global warming in the media mark a change in attitudes toward porn? These two examples are quite different, but both refer to an unrealistic, fantastical representation of something. In the case of food, gastro-porn depicts food in a "perfectly" unrealistic way, that induces mouth-watering and a quickened pulse. Mmm glazed ham. In the case of global warming porn, words and statistics as well as images predict a violent end to the world (the end is near! the end is near!). The similarity between the two lies in the way that these types of "porn" are supposed to evoke an emotional response, the contrast lies in the emotions they evoke: pleasure and comfort versus fear and perhaps guilt (maybe that's just me). Perhaps the presence of these types of media and their labels indicate the extent to which we have been desensitized, so that those who want to get our attention have derived their inspiration from pornography...whatever that really means anymore.

The presentation today about food made me realize the strong connections between the ideal image of food and ideal body image. Both are obviously unattainable, yet we are so taken in by this perfection. I find myself glancing through magazines just to see these perfect, air-brushed bodies and faces. Could the same go for food? Why do my roommates spend hours everyday sitting in front of Rachel Ray, while eating cereal? There is something extremely alluring about these beautiful/manly people in their perfect, elaborate kitchens, shining a little too bright with stainless steel. There is also this strong idea of comfort. Many of us associate cooking with our mothers (or fathers) and this might make us think of the comfort of home....of the days when meals were prepared for us and we weren't off on our own, making our own decisions about food or life. A lot of us might also want to cook like Rachel Ray or the Iron Chef but get more pleasure out of somebody doing it in the perfect conditions, with all the right ingredients, perfectly chopped. There's no work we have to do....we just have to non-energetically stare into this box of the quintessential kitchen/world/woman/man/dish for dinner. It's so much better watching then actually doing. Are cooking channels or tv in general making us more passive? When we realize we could never attain this beauty/body/meal, it's easier to give up and apathetically watch others. Could we really attain this perfect dish if we tried??? Maybe we are afraid of failure so it's just easier to click to the cooking channel and see this ideal meal made in a fantasy world. And for the girls that mentioned the sexiness of Jamie Oliver etc. it's sometimes nice to see a hot man with a hot skillet using skills other than just looking good. And from the male perspective, it might be appealing to see a good looking woman use her expertise in the kitchen. I mean what more could a guy want? A hot woman who can also cook for them......

From the presentation today, it really seemed as if the presenter was implying this trend was becoming one of the great scourges of our society. But what's really so terrible with watching food that's visual end product isn't real. It's not as if the food doesn't taste any different. I don't care what my food looks like as long as it tastes great. Maybe I'm spoiled, my family can cook, I'm living with a Frenchman whose mother went to culinary school and I like to cook myself. But I realize home cooked meals may not always look beautiful but isn't it about the taste. The taste people, the taste?!
So in reality shouldn't I be the target audience for most of the shows on the food network? (I do find Giada extremely attractive, not to mention she can cook) I don't buy into that whole class of phonies (the Sandra Lees/Rachel Rays/Paula Deans; their food sucks and they have no culinary credibility). But I feel that there have been personalities on the food network whose names have been dragged through the mud by being labeled as making "food porn." I feel like their intention isn't to make food that looks good and solely that, but rather to turn people on to cooking. Isn't this something that our culture should encourage? With obesity on the rise maybe if more people ate in, making healthy alternative meals as apposed to eating fast food, the rate would decline. There are a few who aren't just for selling a product but rather would like to open people up to a world of food they may never try.
Just because these TV personalities are marketable and are good at what they do, why is this any different then professional athletes. But back to my point, who really cares if they're making food porn, is it warping the minds of our society. I mean granted they are manipulating visual elements to persuade people into believing something. This is relatively harmless. Having someone step into a kitchen and try to make a meal isn't detrimental. So why do people look at it negatively.

It seems that the do it your self-market has boomed from simple how to books to things like Food Network and Bravo. But if you look at it shows like Project Runway, which is by the way one of the best ways to waste a perfectly good hour. I really agree with idea that on these TV shows it’s no longer about the product and more about the drama. If you cut the time the “participants/host” talk, the meaningful distant shots to imply angst, and the pre-day preparations in which the participants doll themselves up, you probably end up with about 10 minutes of actual fashion time. Is this necessarily bad? I probably couldn’t watch an hour of cutting and sewing, this hybrid of drama and do-it-your-self is perfect way to feel like you could be learning but with all the blissful mind numbing qualities that TV imparts. In a world where your cell phone, can access the web, play your favorite music and amazingly make calls, is shocking that our TV shows are playing two roles. The other benefit to these Do-It-Yourself-Drama’s are the feeling you get that you’ve done something, the camera shots in both Top Chief and Project Runway make you feel like your right there helping the contestants make their product while all you’ve actually done is sit on your nice comfy couch. I in no way bashing this, TV can be great escapism in a world filled with paper dead lines, and personal drama, its nice to immerse yourself in someone else’s drama which is fit into a neat hour long package. So I will continue to enjoy my Do-It-Your-Self-Drama unrepentantly.

Before the presentation, I was completely unaware of the attempted manipulation provided by cooking television. What became even more interesting was that food tends to be associated with sexuality. I myself may not be able to look at a menu again without smirking over the idea of a luscious steak. Anyways, after the presentation I thought more about the juxtaposition of food and sex. What became apparent to me is that the majority of television has some sort of connotation with sexuality. The only justification I could come up with for the sexual obsession in our society is that sex is an innate and natural course which more or less is the means by which we exist. Sigmund Freud believed that the sex drive is the most important force by which we live, thus supporting the above idea. In order to maintain the interest of viewers, advertisements use this perhaps logical idea of the sex drive to grab the viewers, keep them hooked and in some cases obsessed. I have no doubt that there are alternative readings of the food television industry, but those that I have proposed seem fairly convincing.
Something that I was caught off guard by was the idea that many people watch the cooking shows, but they themselves do not actually prepare food. This doesn't really justify the whole sex drive idea, except for the concept of becoming obsessive and longing for the next good recipe. Food is a necessary thing, yet it is interesting that it has become a commodity and some people out there are making millions just from portraying attractive people as great chefs and the makers of great food/sex.

One of the big things that I've noticed with my experiences with the food network (and there are many, it's pretty much the number one channel in my apartment of six twenty-something year old dudes) is that while it goes out of its way to avoid promoting specific products, it definitely functions as a sort of advertisement. Like Mr. Mexico said below, it definitely pushes people to get into their kitchens and cook. However, like advertising for any product, it only really affects those who are already in the market for that product. For example I, someone who can barely boil water and has little to no interest in spending more than ten minutes preparing food that I want to eat immediately, and my roommate, who cooks for fun and comes from a long line of gastrofetishists, will sit and watch the food network, and afterwards he will have a strong desire to go in the kitchen and cook or go online and find the recipes he just saw, while I simply feel hungry, and will get my food in whichever manner I typically would have (usually for free from the grocery store I work at). So in this way, the food network is definitely just a big advertisement for cooking and chefs themselves, and if you aren't interested, it's just an entertaining commercial.

Hi Everyone --

Sorry to interrupt the obsession with gastroporn, but I just published a whole ton of comments folks had made on previous submissions that never got posted -- so check back through previous entries to see what people think of your hair-brained-- I mean deeply thoughtful--submissions.

I was very intrigued by the gastro-porn presentation given in class the other day. WHen i think of manipulative media, the Food Network is the last thing that comes to mind. If anything, I always considered cooking shows to be the most raw and honest kind of TV because really, what are they trying to convince you to think about our society as a whole? It never hurt anybody to do a little cooking. The presentation, however, totally revealed that cooking shows, just like most other forms of television, are surprisingly set up. While I was fascinated to hear about how milk is replaced with glue and bacon can be lathered in soapy water, I still was hesitant to dive completely into everything the presenter was discussing. I watch cooking shows myself but I never questioned why until this presentation was given in class (because let's face it, if it was up to me, every meal would be as easy to make as ramen noodles). My stepdad is an amazing cook and he's always talking to me about how cooking is an art. Yeah, you can you just follow the directions in a recipe but really knowing and understanding what ingredients work together on your own is a true talent. I thought I enjoyed watching these cooking shows because of the art behind it, but now I'm wondering if that's just me in denial and really, I've been sucked into the glory of gastro-porn! I will say this though - the best food show that nobody talks about is the one with Alton Brown (I think the show is called Good Eats?). The show is completely unconventional in terms of standard cooking shows - I wonder what the presenter from our class would say about this show. There's no glorification or fancy kitchen or sexy woman with convenient cleavage hanging out. The host, Alton, is extremely quirky and not only does he have great recipes, but the guy is full of information such as the history behind a certain kind of bread or why the different types of glasses are used for different types of drinks. It's great - if you're into cooking shows and you haven't seen it, make sure you check it out.

Another thing I wondered about was the idea that less and less people are cooking but more and more people are watching cooking shows. I never really realized that everyone else was watching the food network much in the same way I was - for pure entertainment and nothing else. I always thought cooking shows were supposed be helpful (I'm picturing that scene in Mrs. Doubtfire where Robin Williams learns how to make a perfect lobster just by taking notes off a cooking show). Apparently, not only am I not doing that, but neither is anybody else. The thing is, food shows obviously expanded and glorified themselves once people showed that they enjoyed them, but what was the original motive behind the first cooking show? Probably not gastro-porn but the hearty intent to show people how to cook food. But like everything else in the media, it becomes more about popularity and drama and desire than actual content.

Our discussion in class on Thursday really sparked a lot of questions and ideas about the role of television and its relationship with quality social time with family. All that talk about cars with multiple TVs in them and kids having TVs in their rooms at home really revealed how the dynamic of family relationships has changed in this technologically developing world. I think of commercials from the 1950's which would advertise cereal or pancakes or whatever and would show the perfect family sitting around the table and smiling because they were just so happy to be spending time together and eating such a fabulous product. Now the commercials portray the opposite, like the one I mentioned in class in which two parents look relieved that their brand new car has a TV in the back seat so their kids can zone out and not bother their parents. That's quality family time for ya. I'm trying to think of a commercial which shows a family sitting around a table eating a meal together, and the only one I can think of is the cell phone commercial where the dad is super excited that he can text on his new phone, so he texts his son to pass him the ketchup. He's more excited about his new technological toy than he is to have a mouth to mouth conversation with his son who is sitting across the table from him.

But as that last commercial portrays, it's not just TV that has changed the dynamic of today's standard of "family time." Two years ago, I went to Florida for spring break (cliche, i know) and I was resting on a bench with my boyfriend at Universal Studio's Islands of Adventure when we saw a family of four walk by: a mom, a dad, a son, and a daughter. No joke, the mom was on her cell phone, the daughter was listening to her iPod with her headphones, and the son was magically walking through the crowds while playing a gameboy. The dad wasn't do anything, but seemed to be unfazed by the fact that his family vacation was completely isolated and individualized because nobody was talking to each other. Granted, maybe this family was particularly different because really, who brings their gameboy to a theme park, but I still saw this experience as totally relevant to the discourse regarding today's family relationships. Technology, in all its forms, has changed the dynamic of all relationships whether it is a family relationship, friendship, or romantic relationship (e-cards, anyone?). But which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did people stop caring as much and technology and media jumped at the opportunity, or technology and media break through the standards of quality time as they already were?

I know this blog is a tad bit late but I forgot to post it, so here it goes. I found class on Tuesday, which focused on what we learn from watching television, specifically the food network to be entertaining and eye opening in a way. I have watched countless shows on the food network, my favorites being Iron Chef and Good Eats. Each show is quite different, whereas Iron Chef is high in intensity; Good Eats shows basic cooking recipes in a scientific/simple manner. The guest presenter touched on gastro porn, a termed I had never heard. After going through the examples of word, they are "dirty" in a sense, but I ask myself, does it really matter? It is one of the persuasive techniques utilized to draw us in and hold our attention, remember the Food Network's goal is to make profit. I feel that most of the food prepared on television is for the most part realistic. While in magazine's, photos can be doctored to make it look better, with food shows the hosts and chefs know how to cook. On the other hand, some of the shows display much harder cooking recipes, but those are for entertainment. I tend to have some sort of background noise when doing work and it is usually the Food Network, its entertainment and something to look at. Maybe the Food Network has me in its grip, but for some reason I do not think so. What matters in the end is that it functions as entertainment and provides ideas about food, both essential in one's life.

I guess I’ll keep the convo going about food…its really fun to talk about. It seems that when cooking shows first started to come out, their purpose actually was to help people learn how to cook and give them ideas for recipes. What started as an informative kind of show has launched into a huge industry of food entertainment. Nothing will survive on television without some form of entertainment and drama. Soon enough, people just begin to get bored with mere informative shows. I realized that the food network shows don’t have to be informative. For the producers it is more important to highlight the alluring hosts/chefs than to actually try and help people at home learn how to cook. Because of the numerous forms of media we can access today, it is much easier to simply log onto the food network website to look up recipes than actually sitting in front of the TV copying down everything that is said. Because of this, the cooking shows really are about entertainment, and for the few that actually do want the recipes, the internet is the place for that.
As we talked about in class on Thursday, there is always a desired outcome when it comes to television production. Obviously one purpose of television is pure entertainment…but do the production companies really care that we are happily entertained? Well of course they do…but only because by entertaining us they are able to sell us things. I believe one of the fundamental desired outcomes of television in our country is to boost the economy. What is the point of entertainment unless there is something to be sold? It is amazing to think that one form of technology has been so fundamental in shifting the nature of our family relationships. From our discussion in class, it just seems that with the introduction of new media, family relationships will continue to be undermined. With the option of occupying oneself with a million different types of technologies, there is often little need for personal engagement with family members.

After this last class’s discussion- how can we approach TV from and anthropological perspective to understands its use in society- someone’s concept of TV rooms and TV as the central point of furniture arrangements, I realized two things: 1. I watch too much Friends since I knew which episode someone quoted in class, and 2. I have a TV room at home with no TV in it.

So, like many of us in class, I grew up without a TV and watched very limited amounts of it when I was younger. But I still had a TV room, and the most ironic thing being that we actually referred to it as a TV room- but there was no TV to be found. It was a bonus room, play room, whatever other names exists for a TV room- we had a piano, the computer, and all our kid games, books, and crafts- and its where my siblings and I spent most of our time. I’m pretty sure now that it much have confused many a house guest to hear a say TV room, when in fact there wasn’t one. This makes me wonder- has television become so integral in our society that is has taken over actual names and places. Has it become more than just a form of media; is it actually an adjective, a state of being, and architectural tool?

As of recently my mom got a TV- I believed she cracked all because of the phenomenon many of us know as Lost- and our TV room has become legitimized. Also, I vow to avoid the name “TV room” in my house when I became a real person and have a family.

I got a letter in the mail today from Geico offering me free car insurance- little do they know i hardly have a bike let alone a car anymore- but it brought to mind something i meant to post about a while back.

Conveniently, right around the week we were studying commercial techniques in class, I saw an advertisement technique that made my jaw drop, literally. I spent that weekend lobstering in Maine. I was off shore, but in a fairly remote area- like a lot of Maine seems to be. Out on the water I looked up and was astonished at what I saw…. Was it a bird, a plane, superman?.... even better, it was GEICO.COM written repeatedly across the sky. Not only had I never before seen writing in a planes jet stream, it was probably the least likely thing I would have thought I’d see out on the water, in close to the middle of nowhere. I realize that I wasn’t so far away from Portland, that they could probably see it too, and that’s most likely who they were targeting, but it made me wonder. How much damn money does Geico have that they can just go painting the sky in the most obscure locations?

I’m not ever sure where to put this within the 25 or so definitions we received in class to analyze commercials- I do realize it wasn’t on TV- but some of those concepts are pretty general. I guess its more like a billboard, or ever when SGA people on campus chalk up the sidewalk- but this still seems to be in a league all its own. Is it possibly cheaper to do this since so many more people will see it, and if so why aren’t they doing this over LA or NYC. I’m not gonna lie- I liked it. It felt so old school and simple to me, and creative even. I wonder if in an age where media is taking over our lives and commercials have reached the point of absurdity- is getting back to basics the best bet?

I was really interested in the point brought up in class, that media creates this nostalgia for something you’ve never done. Nostalgia plays a big part in the media, trying to get us drawn in by evoking feeling of happiness linked to our past. But why is it that we can even be drawn in by nostalgia we don’t even have. It’s my belief this comes from the idea of the shared past, the idealized American past of apple pies, and family bonding, which while it’s held up as romanticize past but is one that very few people actually participated in. All nations have these idealized histories and it has come to play different roles at different times, just look at the creation of the Aryan knight myth used by the Nazis. I’m not saying that this created past is always a bad thing but it shuts us off from seeing the diversity of our past. When it comes to the nostalgia of media in the 21st century it’s more about selling you that box of cracker jacks, ‘like grandpa use to eat.’ So are we fooling ourselves or is media that we are being tricked by? Part of this seems to the human ability to block out what doesn’t fit with the picture we hold of ourselves in our minds. You can see on TV that commercial of a family seating down to eat Hamburger Helper and think ‘hey I miss my family’, but you can’t actually remember the last time you all sat down for a family dinner, except many be last Thanksgiving. We can see type of creation nostalgia every where, its been in television so long that we even get nostalgic for TV programs themselves, myself I love the Muppets or Rainbow Bite but that’s beside the point. We need to separate our own true nostalgia from the nostalgia we are told we need to have.

One of my other professors showed us this video of our dear friend Marshall McLuhan debating Norman Mailer (RIP) on Canadian national tv back in the 1960's. The topic of their discussion is about the involvment of technology in people's lives during the latter half of the 20th century. I thought this was very fitting because of our on going discussion of McLuhan's writings and also with the passing of Norman Mailer, one of America's greatest writers in the second half of the last century and one of my personal literary heros, this past weekend.

The two men don't always agree at their points but McLuhan brings up a good point in saying that "man has become engulfed in an electronic envelop." This is something, as a class, we have been discussing throughout the semester. At least in the way the electronic media and technology has come to dominate our everyday lives in this technological age. We really have become enclosed in this electronic envelop to a point where we more or less can't find the flap. The media is an example of this, along with our dependance of electronics in our everyday life. They go on to discuss and disagree on several other points. But I recommend watching this thing, they don't air programs like this anymore and these two men are brillant.

Check, check it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5470443898801103219&q=Norman+Mailer&total=110&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

I realized that I've sat in class all semester and not spoken a word, actually I take this back I'm usually making snide remarks to the person sitting next to me. But why, why do I have nothing to say? I mean I realize I'm probably no better then the next guy but I dunno, I don't pay attention to advertizements? At least not on TV, the moment that those things start running and the show takes a momentary break, I usually flip until I find something else that's good. Granted, I see split seconds of things and I probably don't even realize how they affect me but I feel as if I could care less about advertizing. Note* that exercise on the first day of class with the alphabet in product logos, I could name 95% of them, for proof talk to Ms. Pickering.

This could be from my years of TV viewing (yes to the gasps and awe of many, I had cable TV my entire life) which I feel was entirely beneficial in my up bringing. I think I turned out alright, I hope... Now I'm not discrediting some good parenting and it's not like I sat in front of the TV for most of my childhood, but I certianly lived on a relatively steady diet of television (insert fat jokes here). Maybe someone needs to just tell me that TV has destroyed my sense of being and electronic media has/will ruin the rest of my life. But at least I think I came out alright. I love TV, but my relationship with it has been altered as I got older. To be frank here, I saw through the bullshit. At least I think so. But I feel as if we haven't touched on the issue of TV being a marker of history. I remember finding out when the first and second gulf wars started, that Mark (Steriods) McGwire broke the homerun record, that JFK Jr.'s plane went down; and yes, I found out through the electronic vehicle of televised media. These our moments in our collective history, much like the lunar landing and The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. Television people, it has its benefits. Where do we get film footage of the major events in our history from the last 50 years? Yes! TV! How would we learn about said events without TV? Printed words, I think not. We want images, flashing colors with sound. I'm fighting for TV, if any of you want to join me, don't take my seat in the recliner in my living room.

I'm done here, My rant is over, and yes, I'm not spell checking this.

Before I start, I would like to say that I realize that I am talking about Tuesday's class. Yes, that was almost a week ago. However, what you may not know is that I have already written what you are about to read - twice - having my computer crash on me both times before I could hit save. So now I'm at the library. Anyways.

I really enjoyed the presentation on Tuesday on the cooking shows. I absolutely love cooking shows and don't critically analyze them when I'm viewing, nor do I really take the time to think about why I might be watching them - because it never really seemed like something i had to think too much about. However, many things that the presentation addressed struck me.
1 - The chefs as the hosts. Yes, I have noticed that the hosts of these chefs tend to be either very attractive and/or have great personalities. I want to learn about cooking from these people and I want to see them cook. The chefs who are on the heavier side all (in my opinion) have a sense of humor (Paula, Emeril) or are just the sweetest things you've ever seen (Ina.) They are entertainers and they are successful in making the cooking look like fun which brings me to my next point ...

2 - The cooking shows idealize cooking. Yes, I think they do. What we never see is the after part of the cooking - the cleaning of dishes, wrapping up leftovers, wiping down the counters... all of which is time-consuming and takes away from the glamour of a home cooked meal. However, it was mentioned that the food made was some sort of unattainable fantasy which I do not agree with. In my experience, I think that the recipes made on the network could be duplicated by anyone. Granted, some techniques take experience, but for the most part, I think that the recipes could be executed by anyone who tried (given that they had all of the proper cooking utensils and pots -- in my experience, the lack of certain items and also not being able to afford ingredients has held me back from making certain dishes.) That we don't see how much all the ingredients come to is feeding into the fantasy that you too could just HAVE this food if only you got off your butt to make it. I get frustrated sometimes when I see them whip up some incredible dish like it's SO easy but I know that I could never make it because the ingredients are just too pricy...

3 - After the minimalist from the New York Times was mentioned in class, I checked out an article from the website. I read this one about pan-fried pizza (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/dining/07mini.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) and recommend that people check it out. The style that the video is shot in is similar to the one used for food network shows, but I don't think that he would ever make it as a food network host. But the food sounds good... I also think that there is something to be said for the style that the minimalist uses here on the website. I like the article accompanying the video and think it is a good way to approach a discussion about food and cooking.

So when my favorite website and source of much of the joy in my life (oink.cd, a massive and all-knowing torrent based file sharing community) was shut down recently, its main page was replaced with a link to this blog: http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html

If you don't want to read it, it's basically about how the music industry messed up big time by not capitalizing on the internet's music distribution capabilities when it had the chance, and now it's lost the support of everyone. It's an interesting read - the guy is right about a lot of things.

It made me think about how interesting and complicated the issues of media control are. For a while people were alright with allowing large corporations to control the distribution of their music - their art. But with the coming of internet technology, there's been a really interesting resurgence of the idea that music is art and should be both free and available to anyone who wants it, if only because the internet provided a way for this to be true in the much-larger-than-in-the-past modern world. So strangely enough, with technological advancement has come a hybrid of the new combined with old ways of musical distribution, namely by the artist and those who appreciate the art.

So while oink may be gone, there's still google, and livejournal and yousendit and this and that and those, and tons of other ways to get what you need because, well, the digital world has revolted, O Industry!

I’ve been thinking about our conversations on what we learn from TV. I think the answer is simple. We learn what we want to. TV is simply the medium, a tool. We as people decide how to use it. By watching TV we learn what we value most as a nation. By watching TV we learn how to become consumers, believers, haters, lovers.
Through this tool that is TV we can see the world. Today we are able to travel more places in 60 minutes of primetime television than our great-grandparents could have dreamed of in a lifetime.
When I have access to TV the History channel and the Discovery Channel are my favorites. It amazes me to learn about places that exist in history, in myth, in world so removed from my own. In that way TV also becomes an escape.
TV is just a tool. IT does not manipulate, convince, coerce. It is the people’s interpretation of the data they are providing, the social understandings that are worked into what is being displayed and the same of the people ingesting it on the other end.
I’m finally digesting the meaning of “we” are “they”. It’s just us. We make the media, we take the media, we spew the media. The cycle just keeps going.

Today’s article got me thinking. What is indigenous? The people who have been there the longest? The ones that can prove that they have been there the longest? What is proof? What about the people who existed there before there could ever be records of their existence?
In 100,000 years time will the Euro-Americans and the African-Americans and the Chinese-Americans all be seen as natives of North America? What does it take?
I feel that war, and migration, and evolution are a part of humanities existence. I do not believe that there could be one place in this world that has been inhabited purely by one and only one group of people in it’s entire history.
So I wonder why the people that we see as “natives” and those that claim that identity feel so strongly about that identity. What happened to the voice of the people that came before these “native”, what will come from the voices of the people that come after.
In a few millennia will my decedents hold claim to any nativism? And will those still fighting to be recognized be forgotten, or remembered, or indifferent. I wonder if nativism is something that could only exist in a more “pure” world. Something that we associated with romanticized savage world. Can a new native ever be created?
I know I pose many questions in this entry. I would like to see if any of you have an answer.

I contrast last week’s presentation on gastro-porn with an email I received from my father quite some time ago. While the presentation put forth insights about the way food is portrayed, say on the Food Network, I thought I would be interesting to examine the exact opposite. Gastro-porn works to capture food in a "perfect" or "unattainable" way, which in turn entices viewers/audience and forces them to hold these images as ideal. The email presents the exact opposite; capturing the true essence of food, in this case Oscar Mayer salami. Mike Adams is a photographer specializing in macro-photography, which enables the photographer to get up close, high-resolution images of his/her subject. The resulting images depict fat blobs and unappealing textures found in consumer meat. Mike, obviously a health conscious consumer, wants to show how unpleasant a product, that American typically buy, can be and his approach is certainly unique. What is more important is that gastro-porn, which highlights the positive aspects of food, and this macro-photography, which notes the negative aspects (and health problems which can stem from unhealthy eating) operate in the same realm. Just like the Dove "True Beauty" advertising campaign (while less extreme) attempts to combated the fashion/glamour world, this "gastro-smut" (if you will) attempts to combat or shed light on the true nature of food.

The link to Mike Adams' "Mystery Meat Microphotography" is as follows: http://www.newstarget.com/phototour_mystery_meat_1.html

After reading the blog “TV and EDU”, I would agree with the writer in that TV is a medium, a tool, and that we ultimately learn what we want to by it. However, I disagree with the comment that TV “does not manipulate, convince, coerce.” Although it is up to the individual to decide how they interpret messages via television, their are certainly coercive tactics at work which influence our opinion and reality from what we gather from the news and/ or television shows. So yes, television is a technology in which we learn and are entertained from, however not for one second do I believe “we” aren’t manipulated and coerced into believing what we see.
Discussion of indigenous forms of media on Tuesday was quite interesting. Previously, before watching “Te Rua” I had never really encountered an indigenous feature film. I was quite confused about the plot and what was going on in the first portion of the movie, probably due to the frequent scene cuts. Learning that the film was directed with the function of a mask carver helped me appreciate this though. I wonder if indigenous forms of media can become its own genre, as Barclay proposes. I look forward to watching the rest of the film on Thursday, maybe it will all come together in the end.

does anyone else find it difficult to take this blog seriously when it's mostly filled with superficial entries on the topics we just talked about in class, which usually just restate points that were already made, and most of the comments are simple pats on the back? On top of that, our Professor actually said that when it comes to the blog it's "quantity, not quality" that counts? I think a much better way to do this would have been to have specific discussion points which may or may not be relevant to the recent class discussions posted by the Professor, and then have the comment space open for discussion. New topics posted by students would be worth some extra amount of participation points. We could also follow up on what is discussed in the blog more often in class, to at least make the need to read other posts more legitimate. That way, we could at least be guided towards discussing something fresh, and I know I would at least feel better about being graded on my quantity if I was having fun taking part in an active and unique discussion, rather than "post it and leave it" entries and unrequited comments. I apologize if this sounds harsh, I really do love this class but it's hard to know that while I enjoy taking part in our great real-world discussions, so much of my participation grade will be based on an incomplete digital replication.

I have some trouble with Barry Barclay’s description of fourth cinema. When I look over the films that he suggests would belong to this category, I find that all the ones that I have seen fit relatively neatly into a preexisting category. I must admit that I am still a little unsure of what differentiates fourth cinema from the rest but I believe I understand enough to make a few points. The philosophical distinction that Barclay suggests makes some sense, however I believe that it is superficial. The first film that Barclay suggests belongs to fourth cinema (that I have seen) is “Smoke Signals”. It’s been a few years since I watched this film but as far as I remember there were very few things that separated this film from any other Hollywood movie. I suppose it could be considered an indigenous film because it was written and directed by a Native American, but stylistically, visually and narratively (if that’s a word) it followed the same formula used developed by Hollywood. The difference between Hollywood films and art house films is infinitely more substantial then any difference between a Hollywood film and “Smoke Signals”. Because of this I would argue that it belongs to first cinema many along with an asterisks explaining that it was made by an indigenous filmmaker. The same argument can be applied to “Once Were Warriors” and what I have seen so far of “Te Rua.” I do not see enough of a difference between these films and the films that Ang Lee makes about his native China or that Coppola makes about Italian Americans to give them their own category in the way that Barclay suggests. Films that may qualify for their own category might be something like the Australian Aborigine films that Professor Vivanco mentioned in class, where there are profound differences in film style.

Well it is almost Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday) and that means that images of roast turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing are not only on my mind, but also on the minds of television execs everywhere. While I enjoy the holiday for the relaxation, the good food, and the endless hours spent watching football and James Bond, there is more to this holiday than simply enjoying these elements. I feel that every year the advertising for holidays, specifically Thanksgiving and Christmas start earlier and earlier as a means of inundating us with these well-known images and forcing us into the holiday spirit. It is clear that this advertising force is not simply there to make us feel more jovial, but in order to make us consume more of everything. More food, more television, more silly holiday trinkets, we are forced to be consumers with the guise of being festive.
Besides Thanksgiving, and, well, I cannot really think of any others, I really do not enjoy holidays and it is largely due to this inundation that is impossible to escape. Why is it that holidays automatically mean consumption? The feelings that accompany these holidays are warm and fuzzy, but the media storm that swirls around these festive days have a much darker feeling about them, at least to me. I wish that there was some way for me to escape this media hype surrounding holiday consumption, while still retaining the elements that I enjoy, but that is exactly the goal that media producers try to avoid. They try to force these images down our throats as a desperate plea to consume more of everything associated with these holidays.
Another one of my objections stems from Christmas songs and how they are piped through stores everywhere the day after Thanksgiving ends. It is as though our culture needs something to look forward to now that one holiday has passed. Is our existence that bleak and meaningless that we are in constant need of holiday cheer? This issue really heats me up…

Greetings all, my name's David Hoffman, UVM '05 alum and former Williams 511 junkie, and I'm looking forward to having a conversation with you about the following week's section on 'lives in cyberia.' I've put together some thoughts to share about virtual networks from some of my experiences working with social movements that make use of new web technologies and online communities in their advocacy efforts and campaigns. I'm eager to engage your thoughts, stories and questions; I've kept a keen eye on this space over the last semester, so I know there are some great ideas out there!

After watching Barry Barclay’s dramatic film Te Rua, I am left feeling more confused than clarified. This film was interesting on a number of levels, specifically in the way that Barclay combined the deepl moving and emotional reality of the Maori with cinematic features that almost removed the viewer from the situation. The Hollywood elements of this film made it more entertaining per se, yet it added a fictitious element to this story which made the narrative seem dramaticized, less relevant, and more removed from the very real and pertinent message of this film. I believe that Barclay accurately depicted the struggle of the Maori people, but the media techniques that he employed make it seem less reflective of the true nature of this culture. The inclusion of a romantic interest and other sub-plot point detracted from the message of the film instead of adding something to it.
Another aspect of this film that was problematic for me was how the translations and the subtitles were handled. The fact that the editors were not even able to translate all of the English dialogue accurately was troubling in itself, but it also made me question the accuracy of the translations of the native dialogue. I wonder if the portions of Maori songs are properly translations and if we are even given the opportunity to fully understand their meanings. In addition, the narrators did not even attempt to translate certain portions of the dialogue, which added to my reservations regarding this film.
While certain aspects of this film were troubling to me, I feel that it provided an interesting and stimulating “emic” lens through which we can more fully understand the Maori people. While certain elements should be taken with a grain of salt, this film allowed me to understand this tribe and the broader issue of repatriation and all the emotions that come with it on a much deeper level.

After reading "The Vibrant Shimmer," I have a better understanding as to ho\ indigenous film works to encompass and the reason why there are occasional critiques against them. I enjoyed how in Barley's essay he compares indigenous film to Gauguin's paintings. Although the metaphor is not completely clear to me, I now understand the basics. I suppose the most important aspects of indigenous films as that they incorporate traditional aspects of life, while still maintaining the legitimacy of the information and an accurate portrayal of life/tradition. The problem doesn't necessarily stem from films that are more Hollywood than others, but rather the existence of truth associated with the indigenous tribes.
More often than not, people from other countries are influenced by the media/films which are produced in the United States/Europe. Although indigenous films may have the same sort of mediums/technology as others, their is a sort of unspoken discipline, which promotes reality. There are many US films which I have seen that do not focus on tradition or realistic portrayals. This is something that I would be glad to see more of. Or rather, the whole story, or a painting in its entirety is what is essential.

The whole concept of Fourth Cinema is very interesting, considering that I usually only think of movies in terms of Hollywood or independent, more or less. Before we watched Te Rua, I had an image in my head of what “fourth cinema” would look like. I was pretty surprised by the inclusion of very “Hollywood-esque” characteristics. To me, it seemed as if the notion of fourth cinema would want to be drawing away from these elements as much as possible. Some of the subplots, like the love interest seemed to draw away from the main point of the movie. However, I thought it was very unique in the sense that it was completely from the view of the Maori. Because it was somewhat of a “heist” movie, I could totally see this movie being made in Hollywood, but from the other perspective. The museum curators would be fighting to keep their precious artifacts, while depicting the Maori as “savage” or “cruel” for wanting their lost possessions back. There are so many movies that have been made that only offer the view of those with power, while the indigenous groups are the ones that are depicted as an “obstacle” and you are left with little chance to understand or sympathize with their situation.
I commented about this on Zach’s blog…but I really think there was a problem with the fact that the songs weren’t translated. It was obvious that singing was a very important means of communication to the Maori people. Although a couple times they put subtitles up, most of the singing had no words to go along with it. It seems that it is often difficult to find a direct translation from one language to another, which can leave a big gap for understanding. I just thought that it would have been important to Barry Barclay for the audience to understand what was being sung, in order to better understand the feelings of the Maori.

So, halfway through the semester, I stopped posting on the blog. I was fairly up to date and on topic and time up until that point, but I then went on a very long stretch of forgetting to do this every week and comment every other week. I don't know exactly why I have so much trouble remembering to do this, but I do know that when I must leaf through a book or journal article, or type up, print out and staple together a paper, these things are always in the forefront of my mind, constantly reminding my procrastinating self to just get it done. No matter how many times I have written it down to participate in our virtual blog class discussion, the intangibility of it all allows me to give myself some kind of subconscious permission to forget about it. It is because of this that I am now sitting in Massachusetts, far away from the base of our UVM discussion (in the space and the, ahem, time that this should have been done in), yet finally posting. Please forgive me for regressing weeks back into the course and posting reactions to those long gone topics. But, after this, I'll be caught up and ready to discuss reactions to David Hoffman's essay in a more fluid route of discussion. Sorry for my next load of posts...

We watched parts of March of the Penguins in class on November 1st. It was really surprising to me how this nature film was appealing to so many audiences and that it also served as a way to reinforce our own cultural norms through the use of wildlife and nature. A big hit with Evangelical Christians, the film constructs feelings of normalcy around the formation of a nuclear family, sex and gender roles, and values. More specifically, these penguins demonstrated such human-like tendencies and actions, that the animals became personafied to embody a respectable human population or community. There is an intense dedication to the family through acts of self sacrifice, non-instant gratification and protection of the offspring. The film also produces a sense of community and a sense of naturalness about the existence of the nuclear family and monogamous, heterosexual love. It is this presence of naturalness, or maybe "God", and the human-ness of the penguins that creates these lessons and values to be acceptable to the viewing audiences. Ironically, penguins are not known in the animal kingdom as monogamous, nor heterosexual. However, I think that perhaps this type of media has even greater success at reproducing these ideals and expectations for the audience. People may be even more off guard for these messages to be present and prominent in a nature film, but more engaged to the themes and goals on the surface of the medium, therefore, allowing it to be very effective at subconsciously portraying these messages and pleasing Evangelicals and liberals alike.

The presentation on anti-wind power was an interesting perspective on the use of a media formula in order to achieve a certain reaction from the audience. This example was especially unique because of the counter-argument it makes to the typically positive reaction to clean energy sources. I thought the media presented held an important truth, but at the same time, angered me in the context of the globe, which changes the meaning of this outlet. The negative experiences held by people around the installation of wind mills and power are legitimate and of course important in considering planning for landscape changes and development. This is a different perspective than is typically never explored through mainstream media outlets until now, when the installation of wind mills has effected affluent white communities. Other situations, I believe, that are caused by forms of energy production (clean or not) are cause for more serious and urgent concern. It is in this context that this media takes on another meaning, not just one against wind energy, but it produces the existence of an individualized spotlight on one experience that lacks a more thorough examination of cause and effect. Because of the environmental racism that derives from the nuclear power industry (the mining, waste deposit and location of power plants on Native American lands and reservations) and the social, medial and economic repercussions of this are never protrayed in the media in the manner that this anti wind family was. While it may be judgemental to say, the effects of the nuclear power may be more deserving of attention like the type that was given to the anti wind campaign. The absence of this, in this case, speaks more that the presence of the anti wind media.

Great presentation on the food network's marketing of gastroporn. With the rising popularity of cooking shows, chef-personalities and pornographic images of unattainable food, and the decreasing levels of actual cooking, family dining, and non-microwavable or unpackaged food, the role of the media has helped transform our own perception and relationship with food in our lives. To me, it is intriguing that food has become manipulated in this way. The examples about using soap to give bacon the right off the griddle appearance, or the use of glue in cereal to appear more milk-like and milk even does, create images of the ideal food. Food also has undergone a makeover- from a necesity for survival and nutrition, to the status of art. With the illusion created by images and TV that it is possible to achieve this level of succulence, it truly isn't a possibility unless you want to eat soap or glue. This is part deception, part entertainment and it surprisingly doesn't bother me as do other forms of media that produce false hope. Perhaps it is because I know that I can't really achieve what Giada does, and nor do I try to, so I don't run the risk of disappointment and accept it simply for entertainment sake.

Te Rua as an indigenous media is very effective in portraying key values, ideas and goals that are present within the Maori Renaissance, such as the loss of tradition, struggles between Maoris and white people, and the role of family. But, the content, themes and perspectives of the "Hollywood style" indigenous film were engaging and satisfying to me as a western viewer. It is because of this, (and also the context of the film and connection to Germany) that makes me disagree with Edmund Carpenter's analysis of indigenous media as "media swallows culture. The old culture ways are there all right, but no more than a residue at the bottom of a barrel". Sure, Barry Barclay's production of Te Rua used Hollywood style techniques for appeal. But the central focus, his Maori-ness and his culture were not, in my opinion, overshadowed by the use and technique of this media. His experience and use of media as compared to the master Maori carvers creates a media that is unique and Maori by definition, not simply "western" because of perceptions on who owns Hollywood styles of production.

A recent article in the news reports a girl who, decieved by a bogus MySpace profile created by a family in her neighborhood of a new cute boy in town named "Josh", committed suicide. "Josh" had recently began an online relationship with the 13 year old girl, controlled by an old close family friend, and then began posting degrading rumors and insults to the psychologically unstable and medicated girl. So devastated that one of her positive friendships (albeit, virtual and web based) went sour and cruel, the girl went to the extreme. While this may be a sign of her medical state, it is possible that legal action could be taken against the family and their behavior on the online social network. Is it possible (or will it soon be common) to persecute someone for their online behavior, people other than the usual child predators seen on Dateline? Harassment is a plausible option, but does the family of the 13 year old girl have a case against the family for the death of their daughter due to web based relations? Things like this that occur on MySpace, I suppose, could be considered material for legal action if it were to take place with interpersonal relationships not in the virtual realm. In the future it may become possible (and probably common) that we'll see more and more legal actions specified particularly for online interactions.

So that expression, stop beating a dead horse… id like to through that out there about TV. Yes, TV is probably the largest and most relevant source of media in our American 20th century young adult lives, and yes its probably bad…. But I am gonna say that I was just on a jet blue flight for 9 hours and all I could think of was thank god for TV I love it.

So maybe I’m not alone in saying it, but im gonna go ahead and move away from the subject of the ever present tube. I’ve been thinking about this media artifact assignment we have to do, and it really made me think, if you forget about TV there are so many other media forms out there. Commercials come in all colors, shapes, and sizes, but what about this other kind of media, the media we get from each other. Tattoos, brand logos, clothes, cars, everything has a name on it. And then we’ve been looking at indigenous media and it made me think of some of the time I’ve spent traveling and the ways you learn about the culture around you.
Art.
Protests.
Graffiti is the streets.
Demonstrations.
Music.
Public concerts.

All of these things infiltrate are daily lives and views of culture also. Maybe we have become so aware of the harm in TV, commercials, the news, big conglomerate media, that we see its affects on us, but what about these smaller people to people, cultural and political ways people are trying to speak to us. I know what the commercial and news media is trying to tell me, but what do I take away from seeing a mass protest or “No War” scribbled all over the streets? Just something to think about. Happy holidays.

I’m really glad to see some reading and talk about the way media has become a tool in the global community not just for the spread of brand names, but to connect us to each other and increase humanity. Its really interesting to see how media has become a tool to promote and bring together NGO’s- anything to make the world seem smaller is great.

Two questions that I was thinking about after the reading, that were addressed and in some ways answered within it, have stuck out to me.

1. On a simple level, how do you make room for and deal with the difference of technological availability since the majority of the NGO’s and their representatives are in “third world” and developing countries, countries that tend to have less of the new and advances mechanisms of communication and computer use?
2. A more complex issue would be the socio-economic and culture differences among nations that create their own interpretations, uses, and biases that are inherent in media and its development. How does this play out on a global community scale of trying to work together and bring issues together?

David --

A few years ago I participated in an online initiative to bring together indigenous communities struggling with tourism development on their lands to share information on a new development taking hold in ecotourism policy circles: the rise of green tourism certifications. Very few indigenous communities knew anything about them, but their governments were beginning to promote them.

Over the course of a month, the organization I was participating in (Indigenous Tourism Rights International) sponsored a fascinating discussion and similar posting of information from all over the world on issues of certification. It had over 200 participants from 35 countries. We faced many obstacles to participation you mentioned in your paper (access to internet, even electricity, being a common one), and the North-South political divide was an ever-present tension. But when our organization which was hosting the online forum lost funding, we closed it down--just as the conversation was really getting going. Nobody has picked it up since.

But I think our initiative had some important impacts on the elite organizations pushing for certification schemes, especially seen in their increased wariness to reform their process to include indigenous perspectives. Certainly we strengthened the relationship between organizations participating (as long as there was funding).

In thinking about IFIwatchnet.org, I wonder what concrete political impacts it's had in bringing its participants together. One of its major objectives (I hope everybody in Anthro 295 has gone to the site and noodled around) is to "Improve participants' awareness of others' current and planned outputs and activities to allow better co-ordination of activities and identification of synergies". Can you give us an example of one concrete situation where coordination between groups has happened?

At home for break, I’ve once again discovered the beauty of television. I don’t have a T.V at school and have certainly been taking advantage of the opportunity to sit on the couch for hours and aimlessly flip through the channels. The fact that I have absolutely no idea what’s on T.V these days has not deterred me from getting excited by the hundreds of channels at my disposal. I flip from one crappy, mindless show to the next and can almost feel my brain shrinking. While I realize that I haven’t really been missing out (almost every network has been sucked in by the reality show craze), I have found many of the new commercials interesting. I don’t know whether this has always been the case or whether I have simply been paying more attention to commercials and advertising techniques, but I have been shocked by how hyper-sexualized most of the advertisements are. The idea that “sex sells” seems to have been taken into account by every advertising agency, and while it makes sense to use this idea to sell things like perfume, make-up and women’s clothing, it seems absurd, and almost sick to use it to sell things like Clearasil or other products intended for teenagers. In fact, almost everything on T.V (regardless of who it is aimed at) seems to be hyper sexualized. During the presentation on cooking shows and “gastroporn”, the presenter pointed out the ways in which the sounds and images of food on cooking shows are eroticized and intensified. I understand that this manipulation of sounds and images makes anything more attractive, which is essentially the aim of advertisers and T.V producers, but it seems wrong to use the idea that “sex sell” to sell products to teenagers.

At home for break, I’ve once again discovered the beauty of television. I don’t have a T.V at school and have certainly been taking advantage of the opportunity to sit on the couch for hours and aimlessly flip through the channels. The fact that I have absolutely no idea what’s on T.V these days has not deterred me from getting excited by the hundreds of channels at my disposal. I flip from one crappy, mindless show to the next and can almost feel my brain shrinking. While I realize that I haven’t really been missing out (almost every network has been sucked in by the reality show craze), I have found many of the new commercials interesting. I don’t know whether this has always been the case or whether I have simply been paying more attention to commercials and advertising techniques, but I have been shocked by how hyper-sexualized most of the advertisements are. The idea that “sex sells” seems to have been taken into account by every advertising agency, and while it makes sense to use this idea to sell things like perfume, make-up and women’s clothing, it seems absurd, and almost sick to use it to sell things like Clearasil or other products intended for teenagers. In fact, almost everything on T.V (regardless of who it is aimed at) seems to be hyper sexualized. During the presentation on cooking shows and “gastroporn”, the presenter pointed out the ways in which the sounds and images of food on cooking shows are eroticized and intensified. I understand that this manipulation of sounds and images makes anything more attractive, which is essentially the aim of advertisers and T.V producers, but it seems wrong to use the idea that “sex sell” to sell products to teenagers.

One of the things that my group talked about in our discussion of what we learn from television was the fact that most people in our generation seem to use T.V to fill a void. During the presentation on cooking shows a number of people in our class noted that they didn’t necessarily watch the food network because of the cooking tips, but rather felt “at home” while watching cooking shows. The shows reminded them of dinnertime at home. I think that reality shows operate in the same way. Not only do they appeal to people in the sense that people feel like they are watching people like them, but they also seem to make people feel like they have friends, whether or not this is really the case. I have certainly heard people talk about conversations between people on reality shows as though they were a part of them. This phenomenon is certainly not limited to reality shows. Shows like “Sex and the City” and “Entourage” seem to evoke the same sense of nostalgia. Viewers seem to bond with the characters and often aim emulate them. These shows essentially aim to evoke a sense of nostalgia for things and experiences that we may not even have had.

So I mentioned this in class once, but here it is - Marshall McLuhan's life in musical form. I stumbled across the script as I was working on the last assignment and couldn't quite believe what I had found. I recommend scrolling through it... it's pretty amusing.

Here's the link to a script pdf:
http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/downloads/mcluhan.pdf

From browsing over the script, there is a song that starts on page 69 that has some really thought provoking lyrics. I couldn't figure out how to copy paste the whole thing, but they are really good lyrics and one line in particular really struck me --- Does all this information and stimulation do anything to lessen your sense of isolation? Does all this fascination with visual sensation make you feel the world's more real or more empty?
I think this song makes a really good point that is very in line with McLuhan's thinking. I think that all the information and stimulation coming at us are way is just overwhelming. Over break, there were times when I was home alone with just the TV and watching mindless programs did not make me feel so hot, it just made me feel more alone and wishing that I were doing something else (for the record - I had no car and no motivation and no money and therefore very limited options). Also, some of the programs that I saw, like A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila (a very bad/good show), made me feel very disconnected from reality. Tila's show is a 'reality' love competition type of show where all of the people seem like fake people because they are just utterly ridiculous personalities. I suppose it was entertainment...? I don't know. Watching it made me feel like there was some other plane that these people were existing in. In comparison, my life scarcely made any sense. I think that a lot of the shows on channels like MTV and VH1 are dangerous because they are so hyper glamorous that they are starting to just become fantasies that people immerse themselves in. In these fantasies, people are connecting to characters, forming opinions on people, and basically wasting their time on people who don't know and will never know that they, the individual viewers, exist.

I came across an article on Macworld.com that talks about the influx of media content on the internet and a major consequence, i.e. capacity overload, which could result in as little as two years. In class we have used YouTube.com to display examples of certain media advertisements, and by doing this, have subtly praised its usage and success. We never think that there may be some consequences to all video content we create and post on the internet, nor should we, living in a time were computer hardware and storage is becoming smaller, more lightweight and accessible to users. The study estimated that within the next year web users will "create 161 exabytes of new data this year" where "one exabyte is the equivalent of about 50,000 years of DVD quality video." $137 billion in new capacity must be invested to prevent overload and brownouts. It seems like there is a major discrepancy between why the internet was initially created and what it has become.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/11/19/internetcapacity/index.php

I went onto IFIwatchnet after reading your report and was pretty impressed with the breadth and depth of information and resources on the site. But while I looked around, I couldn't help but feel like the whole site was only really appealing to those who have an extremely specialized interest in the issues surround NGO's and IFI's. While this may be, and probably is the purpose behind your site, I was just wondering if this network takes any steps toward giving people education or some kind of general awareness of these issues? I don't really know the first thing about any of this business, but after reading through several of the headline articles on the site and some of the blog sections, I definitely felt like this was another thing to put on my list of "important things I don't and probably can't know enough about." I think it would be a great place for people who don't know anything about these issues to get their first taste, as I did.

In your efforts to focus on development, personal rights and environmental policies, how does IFIwatchnet.org while addressing concerns of the “North vs. South” in global interests, also address issues of gender inequality with development? While the organization seems aware of certain technological concerns contributed to lack of access to internet through electricity and other such resources, what does IFIwatchnet take into consideration about, in particular, women’s access to education, technology and technological knowledge? Are cultural constructions and social norms that restrict women’s participation in this way powerful enough in suppressing special interests to gender equality?

Although I have many questions about the goals of IFIwatchnet (which I can begin to answer by looking at the site, which I did), I am interested in how the different participants of all the organizations represented by IFIwatchnet communicate with one another. What is interesting to me is that many people working for the project have never met in person. What kind of media technologies do you use to communicate with one another as "employees" of the project, and facilitate communication among other groups, and are there cases of miscommunication? I also find the challenge of representing different cultural perspectives interesting, and I would be interested to hear about how the North-South parties communicate with one another, and how issues like language and cultural assumptions play into communication in a virtual space. The accessibility of technology for some groups with limited resources also seems like an issue. My new knowledge of this project makes me realize the extent to which online communication can have a significant "real world" impact, perhaps one that is under-recognized.

After reading the David Hoffman's memo regarding his involvement in the IFIwatchnet.com project, I could easily relate to the difficulties of undertaking such a daunting task. During this semester, I have been working on a CDAE project to create a business plan (with complete financial forecasts) for Somali Bantu women living in Burlington so that they can operate a sustainable business. While working with my group as well as my professor, I've had to endure countless disappointments and high levels of frustration when dealing with the type of business itself and the financial aspects of running business. It was a big surprise to find that all dealings with NGO's are done online (including meetings between people who have not met), and how successful this method to help grow and foster communities actually is. I would have thought it would be near impossible (even using my small scale example) however, it seems that the right systems are in place to communicate. The memo mentions that "IFIwatchnet is not itself an organization nor does it advocate a particular perspective, but rather it is a collective virtual network...” Would you take the stance that this method for political engagement is simply tool, which can be used by NGO/society, or it is rather a neutral collective knowledge (more in line with term "developmental gateway")? Perhaps it is a combination of both? Another aspect of this venture, which I found particularity interesting, was the low or "no-cost" method of communication. This may play a major role in the future as mentioned later "challenges for the future” section when it talks about the increase in user-generated content. Also what upkeep is needed to keep this network online and does ITeM have the long resource needed to continue this project?

I realized relatively recently how much we take the internet for granted. It seems odd that something which a relatively small number of people used 10 to 15 years ago has become such a vital part of our lives. As soon as I moved into my house this summer I was eager to call Comcast and get my wireless running, and for the few days that I was without internet I felt like I was completely disconnected from the outside world. The reality is that my need for internet access is centered around school; however, the idea of being without it for even a few days (without even really needing it) seemed oddly unbearable. I think our generation has become so used to being connected and being able to access information quickly and effortlessly that we are lost without this ability.

Today's class brought many of the larger themes and ideas that we have been discussing in this class to the forefront of my mind. After contemplating the fourth cinema piece "Te Rua" and the discussion that followed, I feel that although I did not particularly like the film on a personal artistic perspective, it contains vibrant and vitally relevant concepts to my understanding of how media is utilized by indigenous societies. The main concept that grabbed me is Barclay's intreguing notion of spiritual ownership of cultural property. This concept, which Barclay proposes through this film places emphasis on the necessity for people within a culture to feel as though they have ownership and control over their cultural material. This is so important from an anthropological perspective, because one of the main goals of this discipline is to accurately represent and speak for societies that have not always, historically had this voice.
After taking a museum anthropology course last semester, the issue of repatriation is one that has been weighin on my mind for a prolonged period of time. I feel that it it vital for museums to return cultural material to its rightful resting place in the hands of its owners, or people who feel tied to the objects, as a means of maintaining the integrity of the very nature of museums in the first place. At the same time, I realize how this could start a slippery slope that would ultimately lead to the destruction of museums in the first place. This is why Barclay's notion seems so revolutionary and thoughtful to me.
This makes me ponder the question posed in class today of who the intended audience of this work was meant to be. It seems to me that the real strength of Te Rua is that it is meant to wlak the line between acceptance in both the indigenous and popular mindset and it speaks to such a wide audience. Barclay makes his case very clear, and shows how this message can be heard by the masses and should be applied on a grande scale.

I found our discussion about Facebook really interesting, particularly in light of the fact so many people in our generation have Facebook profiles. I don't have a Facebook account; however, I am interested in the types of information which people display on and omit from their profiles. Sites like Facebook and Myspace essentially enable people to create their identities and shape the way that others will see and think of them. One of the things that I think is really worth discussing is the way that Facebook has altered social interaction, not simply by allowing people to keep in touch and commicate frequently and effortlessly, but by providing people will access to an insane amount of information about people who they may or may not even know. You can check someones Facebook profile without knowing them and get a clear sense of what they like to do, who they hang out with and how they spend their weekends. In this sense Facebook and similar sites seem to have destroyed the "getting to know someone" process (you can meet someone and already know a lot about them), and have therefore dramatically altered the ways in which we think about and interact with one another.

"Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We're dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go do something." - K. Vonnegut.

This quote seems to always be in the back of my mind every time I log into facebook. Every wasted moment I spend on that rotten social network, I look at myself as a "dancing animal" or rather, as an animal that knows how to use a computer and likes to procrastinate. I would say that my relationship with "the book" is one of love/hate; I'm a member and user. I remember holding out for awhile when this new "thing" was just catching on my freshman year but then reluctantly gave up the fight and logged on. One of my friends, a senior now, held out until last spring and he was considered a rouge.

Here I am, 4 years later and what have I gotten from facebook, well for one thing I know what kids I went to grammar school with are now doing and it gives me the ability to creepily and facelessly scour people's pictures whom I see around campus. Let's face it we all do this, don't even try to say otherwise. But where has this technology gotten us as a society, especially members of my generation who have been the first to have this electronic disease released upon? Well getting back to the Vonnegut quote, this electronic community really does no good. It corrupts our social skills and our personal interactions with others. It destroys a certain level of privacy in our lives, that some seem to love (Tila Tequila).

There's really not much to do to fight this thing, like we talked about in class, the internet and now facebook has become normalized by the college set. Who do you know that doesn't have a facebook account? Few, rarely any. Luis, our professor has recently joined. While each users motive may be different in explaining why they have signed up, you can't argue that they still bought into this idea of an electronic community. Well one way to fight this is to be the dancing animal, get out there and actually talk to people rather then spending hours looking at how many friends you have in common with that girl you have Biology class with.

P.S. Friend me on Facebook, you can never have too many friends!!!

When thinking about Facebook, I have to say.....I'm not a huge fan. This doesn't mean that my fingers can't type f-a-c-e-b-o-o-k faster then lightning hits the ground...

but what is actually going on here? Is it really a "social network" or is it really creating a network of people sitting around on their asses, clicking through recent photo albums of friends? Are we really becoming more connected to each other or just lost in this maze of applications, pokes and photo tag requests? One thing that truly annoys me is the mini-feed. I really think this is outrageous and a little "big-brotherish" that every action of every friend you have is tracked. "Meghan just added Ryan as a friend. Leslie just wrote on Mike's wall." Really...who cares??? And, what happened to privacy? Maybe a little mystery? It might as well say....Michelle just felt a little heart-burn...could it have been the most recent meal she ate? Or maybe stress?

Facebook is getting a little too much for me...I don't know how anyone else feels but do we really feel more 'connected' to each other when we're looking at each other's photos of recent trips instead of getting together and chatting? Are we all becoming bonafide stalkers behind our computer screens, vicariously living through other people's experiences, when we should really be living our lives?

Just a warning for all us bloggers... I totally procrastinated this semester with the blog and am going to be backtracking and posting quite a lot in the next 2 weeks.... so sorry in advance for the bombardment of entries!
Anyways... today i really enjoyed the conversation about facebook and I think if we had more time it would have been even more interesting. I remember back in the day (circa 2004), when we were all invited to facebook and went on it to see who was going to UVM, and make some "friends". Facebook used to be a great networking tool as I mentioned in class, it was easy to find out who was in your classes, and keep in contact with your friends from high school. In addition, it was basically free from advertisements, made by college students for college students. However, it became a creep-land recently, with the owners getting money hungry and selling ad space and allowing everyone and their mothers to join in. What is incredibly interesting is that colleges and business are actually checking out profiles of prospective students and employees. Facebook is a big brother type of program, in which everything and anything is up for grabs. I have some issues with colleges using facebook, especially collegiate police forces looking on facebook, it seems to be #1 a violation of some rights, and #2 really sleazy on their behalf. I understand that when you are underage you shouldn't be drinking/doing drugs/anything illegal, and we shouldn't be stupid enough to take pictures and post them, but it is stepping over a line when police are going online to SEARCH for these things and then charge people based on pictures, and not something that was reported and seen. Any opinions on this? Facebook has become something that we have to use smartly, and carefully because there is literally someone looking over our shoulder every minute (or looking at us every second, which is shady enough). Does facebook really have a point anymore? Isn't email and online photo albums good enough? And how the hell has it become so addicting? Their slogan should be: Facebook: Its legal crack!

On my Facebook account I have about 75 friends. I know that some members of our class as believers in the more friends the better but I can’t help feeling uncomfortable that the guy I met once at a party, when he was to drunk to form a coherent thought, gets placed in the same category as my best friend Laura. What I need more buttons when it comes to Facebook. What I need is the acquaintance category, a nice little polite section of facebook that keeps people I don’t actually know were they belong, out of my personal space. Facebook is such an open network that when it comes to your friend list anyone on it can see you profile. There is very little editing when it comes to who sees and knows what. I need a category in Facebook that doesn’t make people feel like I’m brushing them off but doesn’t put them into a space where they have as much access to say my sweet snowman creation I just created, I love those stupid applications. Facebook is limiting in many ways when it comes to categories of people it lacks the subtle it real life, there is no language to express the facebook relations in real life. I heard a conversion between two girls walking up the stair case in which this sort of language played out, “So are you facebook friends, or friends friends?” Then there is all the different ways of expressing your friendship with people, the writing on the wall, the sending of the animal that hacks out of the egg, and the flowerpot. It becomes what you send rather then what you say to a person on facebook. To see who is real life friends with who you need to look at what kind of interactions they have.

After reading about David Hoffman's connection with blogs, I began to ponder over blogs in general. It is hard for me to fathom that NGOs have successfully managed to work, as a result of blogging. I think IFIwatchnet.org is a great idea, and it seems to meet people's needs. In terms of our class blog, I feel as though everyone provides a lot of really good ideas and opinions, but it is sometimes hard to collaborate them. Although, I suppose this collaboration is not really necessary, unless someone wanted to write a book.... any takers? The aspect I most appreciate about the blogs, especially being a fairly quite person in class is that the blogs allow us to express our feelings without feeling the need to express them to a public classroom. Often I have lots of opinions and ideas in class, but for some reason I withhold them. Here I begin to question myself and the reasons why I can write and think clearly in a virtual blog, which some people might not even read, while I barely open my mouth in front of an attentive classroom. Maybe it is the fear of the public that forces some people to prefer blogs over real life classrooms, or a secondlife over a real one, or a myspace love affair. Whatever the case may be, the internet, or web 2.0 provides us with a world virtually unseen by others, unless they are over our shoulders. And although I can accept that, I'm not sure that I like it. What ever happened to letters and face to face conversations anyhow?

SO, after reading the "Is This Man Cheating On His Wife?" article, I got to thinking about whether or not he was. On one level, he was not giving her any attention and was so absorbed with a fantasy life that he sort of lost his own REAL life. Him and his online wife, though not having plans to meet in real life, had a very clear relationship that was a lot better than the relationship he had with his actual wife. I can understand why his wife was so upset with him, to have her husband so distant in the home would clearly be difficult. What's more, he didn't seem to care at all.

So what is it about these virtual lives that gets people so addicted? Having played The Sims a bit freshman year, I can say that these games are a bit addictive. The power of getting to buy a house, buy furniture, go out when you want to... it's all very enticing. Sure, it's virtual, but it's also entertainment. The Sims (if I sort of decide to shut my brain off) could keep me content for a really long time if it needed to. Has anyone else played The Sims? Isn't it so sweet?

But then there is this whole OTHER type of community going on - the fantasy online community (we're talking dragons, Halo, Starcraft, etc.) where people can play interactively online. I remember back in the day when my brother played Diablo online and could type to other users online who were playing at the same time. Now, there are headsets and you can talk to people all over the world playing the same game as you. I've played Halo with a headset like this and it was really fun... I don't know. There is a sense of team that emerges when playing with other real people. Having said that, I remembered a funny website that my brother and I devoured the last time I was home. It's www.ventriloharassment.org and basically this guy busts into people's games and starts playing audio samples and messing with them. Sometimes it's a girl's voice, some times it's G.I. Joe, and often there are loud bomb noises. It's funny to listen to these and imagine the people he's messing with get all worked up, although this guy is being absolutely obnoxious. Here's a youtube clip that's short but gives an idea of what this guy can do with his soundboard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a2CDzV8VP0 In this, he's Lindsey and all the other noises that come up... there are a lot of these videos and they're pretty funny. In a lot of them, the people get really worked up and in one some kids more even gets involved and threatens to kick the harasser's ass - even though this is not really possible. Sigh.

On the way back to Burlington from home after Thanksgiving break, I made a stop at my girlfriend’s parent’s house in New Hampshire. She had made a plan to meet up with a high school friend of hers to pickup some new software for her computer. This friend is an Apple representative for his college and, after my girlfriends hard drive crashed, he answered a Facebook plea to anyone who could help her restore some her old programs. I have found Facebook to be useful for things like this but I am still very critical of it. I have an account but I seldom use it. My girlfriend, Elena, on the other hand, seems to be on it every free minute she has looking at her “friend’s” posted pictures. I call her a stalker and she admits that she is but gets too much voyeuristic pleasure to stop. Anyway, her friend with the software came by her house and after he caught up with her family I introduced myself. The exchange of words that followed puzzled me. After the standard “I’m Dylan. Nice to meet you,” he said, “Yeah. I guess we have never met for real.” It took me a few minutes to realize what (I think) he meant. As a savvy computer user I can only imagine he spends too much time on Facebook. His quick response to Elena’s plea also testifies to this. If he spends half the time that Elena does on Facebook he no doubt has checked out her posted photos of which I am in many. If he were even the slightest bit more curious, a link underneath Elena’s name would bring him to my profile where he could learn very few but probably still too many things about me. He then could have checked out my pictures. The more I thought about it the more creeped out I got. Without ever meeting me “for real” he probably had a good idea of what I’ve been doing for the past few years and probably knew more than some of my good friends about what my favorite books are. He was a nice guy and I didn’t have any problem with him stalking me necessarily, but I don’t want everyone with an Internet connection able to access too much of my personal information. When I got home I promptly deleted everything except my birthday and my hometown.

I recently went down to the Super-Ultra-Megapex while I was home over Thanksgiving to see "No Country for Old Men;" while I will say it was fantastic and if you're not sensitive to violence you should run out and see it, but thats not the point of this posting. You see after I sat down, I turned to the screen in front of me, which is usually running mindless Movie Trivia, only to find commercials being played. Now I have no problems with local businesses buying advertising space before the films start but as the lights dimmed, these ads for things like Verizon Wireless Service and Pepsi started showing. Now this is not a new trend (I have a copy of Home Alone on VHS and prior to the movie starting, there's a Pepsi ad) but while sitting in the theatre you can't fast forward past this commercial even if you wanted to.

Now a film like "No Country for Old Men" is a cinematic experiences and could very easily clean up at this year's Academy Awards and if you were to really break it down to it's barest credentials, it's a piece of art. While you can of course view advertising as an art form, but art is often made to challenge and dispel commercialism. So when the theatre (who I'm sure allowed for the ads to be run) shows commercials before their films, the viewer is forced to watch these ads and for a student of Media Anthropology, this could sully the experience of the film. Like is said "it could," I was a little bothered by it but not enough to walk out of the theatre. They're unavoidable, you're sitting in a dark room with nothing else to look at besides the screen. We can't escape advertisements even when we try to escape reality by going to see a movie.

Support your local, independent movie theaters.

One of my friends claims that Facebook and Myspace are CIA conspiracies used to keep surveillance on Americans. When pressed for more details, she asked you where facebook was created. And if you know where facebook was created, you say Harvard and she says that those are top recruiting grounds for the CIA and other such organizations. Though I disagree with her theory, she insightfully points out that sites like Facebook and Myspace, by their very nature, promote people to reveal ever more personal details about themselves, making it easy for any government agency or random person to find information about you. Americans are so funny when it come to privacy issues because if you violate there privacy without them knowing it ( like the Bush administration's wiretaps) people freak out and get pissed (rightfully so) but if there is a social incentive, as facebook provides, to give up privacy, people sacrifice privacy in all kinds of ways. This, then, is analagous to the larger media context in it creates the illusory notions of power and control amongst the general public. In other words, in the larger American media context, people are led to believe that they can form unique, informed opinions based upon the information that they receive from the five big media corporations that control an overwhelming amount of media outlets in this country. However, it is hard to form a unique opinion and or an incredibly informed opinion when you get your information from the same types of media sources with relatively similar economic interests. Thus, by making people believe that they have a choice in what media that do or do not watch/agree with individuals become more maleable because they feel that they are actually making the decisions. Similarly, when people feel as though they are willingly giving up their privacy it seems less harmful because they are the ones "making" the choice. I argue that choice is not equivalent to agency or the ability to have control/influence over someone or something because people are not engaging in negotiated relationships with the media as per their privacy they are more influenced by the media and the choices that its forms demand. While I'm sure that Facebook has responded to users desires to maintain privacy, the site's form or the social networking website medium, implores people to give up ever increasing amounts of personal details by offering ever increasing tools for "self-expression." In this sense, any privacy utilities provided by the site create a false sense of privacy in that they obscure the overall promotion of self-exposure as a means of attaining social status.

Mr. Rick otherwise know as Mr. Epstein is my friend Molly's dad and he is the editor of a small county newspaper in Hunterdon County, New Jersey called the Hunterdon County Democrat or just the Democrat for short. The paper is owned by a larger media corporation (maybe newscorp...not so sure). Either way its a small operation beholden to corporate interests. During my visit to joyful Jersey (I am starting to like the place so roundly written off as an industrial wasteland), I stayed with Molly and her family and had a number of interesting conversations with he dad about his struggle to maintain his small weekly paper's revelance amidst a digital age that emphasizes increasingly slick media packages and more rapid information transmission. I started off the conversation by asking him, "Given the shift to more online based news sources and falling newspaper subscriptions, how long do you think your paper can hold out?" To which I think he responded, "I hope that the paper holds out exactly until the day I die and that it shuts its doors there after....Really, though, they [newscorp] are pushing us to do all this new media stuff with the internet. Stuff like streaming video, local news blogs, and photo slide shows, but they aren't giving us the tools to do them. I don't know how to do this stuff." It was like they were trying to create a situation in which he couldn't possibly continue to put out a product that was of quality in media executives opinions. Perhaps there was some justification to what the executives were demanding because with news being available almost instantaneously now, a paper that is at least 24 hours old before it ever reaches subscribers is not nearly as relevant. And with more and more young people getting their news from the internet, its appropriate that they would be catering to said clientele. However, it important to ask for whom local papers are produced and why they are produced. As Mr. Rick explains it, local papers aren't so much about giving you breaking news as they are about giving a broader picture of the areas events. In this sense, the paper format seems just as apt as any other format. "People like to be able to see their kids in the paper and to save those clippings," as he points out.
Our discussion shifted to the piles job applications that he was sorting through in search of a new reporter. I asked him what he wass looking for and I think he said, "we get real hot for anyone with photography skills because that means we can have reporters take pictures for the stories they write," This struck me as incredibly similar to what Luis talked about in class with regards to the ongoing downsizing of the Burlington Free Press as they convert reporters to "reportographers." Although this may have helped the paper's bottom line, he indicted the quality of the writing that this style produced, remarking, "the photographers never pan out as writers." In this way, the many tasks that are being asked of reporters are not necessarily in the interest of quality writing as many are neither qualified, interested, or able to take on such a work load. Another quality he noted was that the applicants had to be from the area to even be considered. I found it interesting that there are still jobs where being from a certain geographic area are still in existance given ongoing outsourcing and debased workforces. It was encouraging to hear that locality still mattered to someone.

Hi Guys-
This is a video made in an introduction to anthropology class at the Kansas State University this past spring. Its pretty interesting, and is a great example of people using and making their own media. It was a class activity that was based off surveys from members of the class.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

After viewing the movie:
http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=119

This is a blog entry from the Professor who made the movie... read about it and think about it.

personally-
I agree with a lot of the statements made in the video, and i think its a pretty clever way of showing us stuff that shouldn't be ignored.
What do you all think about it?

So tonight i am watching the republican debate on CNN. i pretty much watch it so i can laugh at all the crazy republicans...but anyways... i was fascinated to see that youtube was not only a sponsor for this program, but also an intricate component of the events during the program. a youtube video would pop up, and a random person or group of people would ask one of the candidates a question or propose an issue. i think this is definately some sort of revolution of media in terms of republican/democratic debates. in the past, we have merely watched these programs and listened to (and critiqued) what the candidates had to say. however, i think it is amazing that this year, we "common people" are able to participate...by broadcasting on youtube and proposing a relevant question...a question that the candidates are forced to respond to seriously. i think this is a perfect example of a substantial shift of the media possibilities. never before have we been able to personally interact with the debates, with youtube, it seems we are suddenly awarded more power and we are granted with a special kind of access to this political world. it seems that politicians are often obligated to confront the issues of the people that are in the spotlight. however, in this case, a random person from some unheard of county can personally demonstrate their concerns. is this a completely revolutionary shift in terms of personal connections with politics? i don't know about anyone else...but this process seems to be very beneficial...and also funny in the sense that the people in the youtube videos often make the republicans look pretty dumb.....

I have been meaning to post this link since I saw the anthropologically rich 70s "mondo film" "Savage Man Savage Beast" over Thanksgiving break. My friend has this film in a collection of "B" movies from the 70s. It is an odd sort of eclectic documentary that includes what I presume to be "real" footage of various cultural practices and rituals, and also gratuitous animal violence. It shows Australian Aboriginal people hunting bats with boomerangs and drinking water from dirty puddles. It depicts an African ritual where men fertilize the ground with their semen. It shows hippies doing drugs and fornicating wrapped in plastic at a large festival gathering, and an elite fox hunt. It seems to contrast "high" and "low" culture, and emphasize some of the more "shocking" practices of native people. These representations of native people are perhaps what perpetuates the reproduction of the stereotyped native, which is a popular character in some other "B" films I also watched. Below is the link to the trailer and some clips from "Savage Man Savage Beast". Be sure to check out the clip where the lion mauls the nosy tourist as his family watches from the car.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=savage+man+savage+beast&search=Search

Hopefully this works. If not, just search for Savage Man Savage Beast on YouTube.
Bless the Internet.

I really liked watching both of Professor Wesch's Youtube videos today. Both of them bring up very important points about redefining communities, relationships, love, education. A lot of issues about modern education that have been recently bothering me were brought up. Like the fact that we pay so much money for textbooks we sometimes never open....the fact that some of these class sizes are so huge and your professor will never know your name, your problems, desires for a better education. I think one of the main points in Wesch's second video was that technology is bringing education to the brink of re-definition. What are we really learning when we sit in these classrooms? Are the SAT's really a reliable test for how smart or ready college students are? Will we be using any of these skills in our everyday lives in the real world? Is education really worth the 40,000 that is going to take most of us years to repay? I just read an article that said 70% of college students who graduate are living with their parents. What is going on here? There is a major problem and whether technology is helping or hurting the educational institutions, it definitely needs to be re-evaluated so students can get what they're paying for.

Whenever I think of windmills, I think of a very liberal, open-minded, energy-saving group of people, who want to make the world a better place. I found it bizarre that these type of people existed in Texas, the state with the greatest negative contributions to global warming.

I remember when the graduate student came to talk to us about the windmills in VT. I really thought the use of these eco-friendly, energy savers would only occur in a state like VT. But surprisingly, a little old cotton farmer named Cliff Etheredge got the idea when he started to see some windmills popping up in Roscoe. He took everything into his own hands and made an agreement with a company called "Airtricity" in Dublin to come to Roscoe and install 640 windmills. "Together they'll generate 800 megawatts, enough to power 265,000 homes".

Many people in the community were first opposed to this idea but now are getting used to it. "My wife and I talked about this the other day. We were coming in from church, and she said, 'You know, at first I really thought they were kind of trashy looking,'" says Daylon Althof, a farmer who has one turbine going up on his land. "But she said, 'The more I see these going up, they're kind of beautiful because we know what they're going to provide for the economy around here.'"

Very interesting. Check out the article. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16658695&ps=bb3

So over break I went to see "The Mist" (not very good) and saw a preview for a movie that I feel compelled to talk about. The movie is "Untraceable" and if you haven't heard about it, here is a synopsis from imdb...

"UNTRACEABLE" is about a secret service agent who gets caught in a very personal and deadly cat-and-mouse game with a serial killer who knows that people (being what they are - both curious and drawn to the dark side of things) will log onto an "untraceable" website where he conducts violent and painful murders LIVE on the net. The more people who log on and enter the website, the quicker and more violently the victim dies. Suspenseful, intense and action oriented, "UNTRACEABLE" also has a relevant and accurate message about todays society. Why are we drawn to "evil" in our media etc. Just look at the news or read a newspaper... it's all bad news and often murder, yet we are drawn to it and read about it. This film explores that but not in a preachy way but in a way that is both intense, entertaining and thought-provoking.

As the synopsis suggests, the film does offer a message relevant to our society. We absolutely do get sucked into the media and this film takes this a step further. In the preview I saw, they held a press conference to warn people to not go to the site and then the next clip showed tons of people logging in - the website becomes a media phenomenon, and nobody wants to be left out of those. By holding the press conference, the authorities opened the floodgates to people knowing about the website and planted the idea in their heads to go there. This may be a stretch, but I think that this type of conference is comparable to the media attention that goes to grisly crimes and school shootings that are later copied by other people. If Columbine hadn't happened, or if it had and somehow nobody found out about it (which is not what I'm advocating, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here), then I don't think that we would have had all the subsequent school shootings, or at least a good majority of them. The media attention plants the seed in people's minds and gives them ideas that they may never have come up with on their own. I mean, obviously people need to know what's going on and be informed, but maybe there are some things that we shouldn't know...? Or that shouldn't be rewarded with media explosions?

I really enjoyed our discussion about online schooling. One in five students take online courses as of 2007. This is an intermeshing of on and off-line worlds and experiences. Some of the benefits we discussed were increased class sizes, saving money and saving space. A virtual university does not require the upkeep of physical space and decreases the size of the infrastructure. We then argued the true value of the “college experience”. Many of us agreed that college taught us much more about how to live and exist with one another in society than we learned in the classroom. We generally felt that the higher cost was worth the life experiences that we gained by being away from home and living with other students in a community. Luis brought up an excellent point that we approach the use of our computers and the Internet as a form of entertainment. We don’t necessarily enjoy blogging because we would rather be entertaining ourselves with our computers and the Internet than doing class work. Although we are on our computers all the time, doing course work clashes with our desired use of the media. The computer is one of the most distracting places to do work. Furthermore, digital writing is modifiable, unlike verbal or hand-written communication. Therefore, written postings are more thought out because anything you publish online is permanent. What do you think about all of this?

I don’t know how many other people were a little confused by the random punk group throwing brinks and lighting things on fire at the “hide out house” in Ta Rua, but I felt that with all the work put into the movie it probably wasn’t an accident that the crowd was made up of what looked like Sex Pistol groupies. So why were they there? To me it seems a social commentary by Barclay, a sort of future vs. old school, with the museum on one side and the Maori and the new generation on the other, along with an establishment vs. the new way of doing things. It could also be playing on the marginalized group idea, Barclay is asking us to believe that this group of punk kids connects with the Maori as they are all disenfranchised. The group of punks also play a role as the foil of savagery over the Maori spokes man calming standing on the ladder, “And you call us savages,” while the group of white kids tips over a cop car. The group comes off as the unruly the savage but under the Maori cause in the movie they are able to rally to a worthwhile cause. In the end they all chat happily along with the Maori being held off in hand cuffs, (queue sunset and swelling music), its all to simplistic. I have to wonder why would these kids be there in the first place, they just show up. How much would someone in real life in that situation identify with the Maori plight? While Barclay does create both an entertaining piece to me it seems that he’s forcing it too much on the issue of everyone getting behind the Maori agenda.

It is a really important point that is brought up with the post on Untouchable. When thinking about issues such as "violence in the media" I often boil the concept down to its simplest element. The basic human mechanism of creating community is out of whack. In small societies and communities, harmony usually thrives because most people are on the same wavelength. People's schedules don't conflict, people have the same language so misunderstandings are uncommon, and the behavior of one person is copied by another to create a feeling of cohesion amongst group members. In a large society, where technologically created realities are often the purveyor of reality among vastly different groups, difficulties ensue. The basic human understanding of community is lost in a world where violence is acceptable and where it is consumed completely out of context. If violence happens in a small community, you feel it. You are part of it, you have links to it, you have a way of understanding it and relating it to yourself in a REAL way. When it is taken in from a distance it is stored in one's consciousness with different associations that so not reflect reality. The power of association is huge.
I am constantly appalled that our society feels the need to do studies and validate things that are so obvious and plain to see. If a child sees something then they are going to want to do it. I have two little half-siblings and when they were younger they would do things that I would do. This is what playing house or dress-up is all about, Cowboys and Indians, the list goes on forever. But when the things that humans are exposed to are no longer their mother baking for them to model "playing house" after, but instead unchecked violence, that is what is going to be played out in the form of school shootings, murders, etc. This is not to say that the only reason there is violence in the world today is because of media portrayal, but media is certainly an incubator for violent action.

Another thing that the Untouchable post brought up was the way in which we put so much focus on negative things, as though that is what is going to make a change for the better. I suppose media companies are only worried about their ratings, and they know (or think) that it is human nature to zoom in on the disasters. But why is this so? When I was in high school I would often read the newspaper and receive all of the environmental newsletters reporting on the latest disasters. I felt like this would somehow help me make progress and improve things as an environmentalist and world citizen. Instead it made me feel helpless and stressed out.
If anyone has seen the movie, or read the book, The Secret, you will know what I am talking about when I say that the only way things can change for the positive is not if we keep incubating in this negative media muck, but if we REMOVE ourselves from it and create a more positive reality. We watch the news because we think that we "should." We wouldn't be up-to-date if we didn't have knowledge of all of the negative goings on in the world, right? But since the media's portrayal of the world is so one-sided, wouldn't that mean that we are also not up-to-date on the positive, creative, beautiful things that are going on? In the movie The Secret there is a quote by Mother Theresa that I love and often use. She said that she would never attend an anti-war protest, but she would gladly attend a peace rally. This concept is so powerful. By attending an anti-war rally, you might as well be attending a pro-war rally because wither way the emphasis is on the war. Focusing on how much we don’t want violence will not make it go away. But focusing on what could be, on what could replace violence is where it’s at.
My point is not to suggest that we all stay ignorant about world happenings, it is simply that there is only a certain extent to which being informed about disasters is helpful. After too many fear-laden stories we become cynical and hopeless. And as much as I appreciate my generation and my country for so many things, I have had many conversations with peers who believe that media portrayal is reflective of how the world is, and these people have thus given up on any sort of hope for the world.
I watched the movie Enchanted with my little brother and sister last weekend and in it there was the stereotypical Disney princess who was naive and believed in true love and all of the things that Disney movies promise. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, What is wrong with being a little delusional for the positive? I think we could all use to put ourselves in the mindset of a dainty, Disney princess and blindly believe that wildly positive things are possible.