Living in Vermont, I've been to Canada (namely, Quebec, or more specifically, Montreal) a handful of times in my life. I love Canada as any quality person of French-Canadian descent should. I eat goulash, have been to the Biodome far too often, and feel that, if necessary, I could return to my ancestors’ homeland to flee for my life and/or save the world.
However, this appreciation for Canada also highlights a reality of my life: I've never left North America. Truthfully, I've never left the eastern portion of North America (Fun fact: I've driven through every eastern coastal state in the United States). There are plenty of reasons for this, of course: Lack of time, lack of money, lack of...time. Okay, so the reasons are more like excuses and are rather poor ones at that. I suppose, the public deserves to hear the truth of the matter.
It all comes down to this: travel abroad concerns me. Okay, perhaps terrify would be more appropriate. The thought of embarking on a journey - getting on a plane, landing in a country, exploring the land - sends shivers down my spine. I am the first person to admit that this is not a rational fear, but it is based on facts.
Fact 1: Foreign countries are new, ergo full of possibility, the bad kind.
Fact 2: There is no safety net abroad - no family, no friends, no police who would understand that, "No, officer, that cocaine was NOT in my purse when I entered the airport. Clearly, I have been used by a drug ring" (See Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason).
Fact 3: I know this place, I know these people, I speak the language (fairly well, although that are days in which I feel as if I have lost my mastery) - three things that I do not have abroad.
But I do dream of it - being a woman of the world. I don't want to be a tourist. Yes, I am trigger happy with my camera, but that's for documentation purposes only. I want to live the culture, be the country for a time. I want to take my Facts and use them for good: To embrace the unknown, to find new safety nets, to learn about the place, the people, the culture.
Of course, this was just a dream. I was never going to do anything about it. It's like imagining winning the Oscar for Best Actress - I have my acceptance speech ready ("Oh my, I never imagined this day would come..."), but I'm not exactly preparing to procure a role in which such a speech would be awarded. To be a woman of the world - a beautiful, intangible dream.
Until now.
In the winter of 2008, China fell from the sky. Metaphorically, of course. My Contemporary Media Issues professor at Champlain College, Rob Williams, presented an opportunity to visit northwestern China in the summer of 2009 through the New Student Ambassador's 2009 MOJO Service Camp experience. This is not a normal trip abroad - it's an adventure with a mission:
First, we're visiting untouched, rural China that is facing major migration issues.
Second, it's a trip of service and goodwill, including assisting a monastery, teaching English, and setting up the groundwork to establish a private school in the region.
Third, we're going to China as mobile journalists (MObile JOurnalism - catchy, no?) to share the experience, the people, and the culture with our North American colleagues.
China is an expansive country that has managed to maintain a sense of mystery to Westerners. However, in the world economy where intercultural communications is key, that shroud is no longer acceptable. It's time to learn, to see, to understand. Through the MOJO Service Camp, this is a possibility.
And so, with the appearance of the Chinese Ningxia (Ning-shay) province at my doorstep, it made sense to face my fear and make my limited North American travel history, well, history. I can travel abroad with a group of dedicated, passionate, and intrigued individuals and start my woman of the world journey.
But I need your help.
Remember one of my travel excuses - money? It's still a valid excuse as the trip to China will cost $3,000 in total. I can cover some of that, but, as a working college student, that "some" is not enough. So, to paraphrase the ancient Chinese curse, perhaps if I "get everything I ask for" I "may live in interesting times." For this experience, I welcome such this curse at my doorstep.
If you can, please make your contribution securely through this Chip-In widget to my PayPal account. From a Canadian-traveled girl from Vermont, I thank you so very much.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Looking Down
I look down when I walk alone. It’s a habit I picked up in high school when it was a lot easier to focus on the floor than make awkward eye contact with a complete stranger (or worse, someone I vaguely knew) in an empty hallway. Despite the positive or negative nature of my little habit, it does help in the observation of the world around me. Or, more honestly, the world just below the ankles of my fellow pedestrians.
So, I notice footwear. From shoes to boots to sandals to nothing at all, I instantly look to people’s feet when I walk. This is an entirely self-preserving practice, one that was again cultivated in my early teens to look somewhat normal in a crowd – or, better yet, not to be noticed at all. For instance, if I noticed enough people wearing sandals in March, I knew that it wouldn’t be entirely foolish to pull out my Tevas. If I saw classmates with barn boots in November, I could wear mine without too much fear of scorn. Of course, it’s highly unlikely that anyone a) really cared about my potentially embarrassing footwear, and b) looked at my feet at all, as shoes are one of the last things that most people seem to notice on a daily basis. Nonetheless, my search for proper attire below my ankles has flourished to this day.
With my eyes to the ground, my internal footwear catalogue has blossomed – too bad my shoe collection hasn’t followed that trend.
I wonder what other people see when they look down.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Big Bird, China, and Me
My first glance at China was through the eyes of Big Bird. With CTW's production of Big Bird in China (and the magic of VHS player and my patient parents), I went to China over and over again and saw magic. There were mythical phoenixes, dancing monkeys, beautiful writing, and stone lions that came to life. To my elementary mind, China was magical, plain and simple. And that still holds true today, just in a different light. A light that, ironically, Big Bird himself mentioned in the movie, saying:
"Well, what a good thing it would be if a great big American bird went to meet that beautiful Chinese bird! I mean, she could tell me everything about China, and then I could come home and tell everybody here!"
I'd like to be Big Bird. I never thought I'd utter or write that sentence for the whole world (okay, that's a hyperbole) to read. But in this instance, it makes sense to me, to be Big Bird.
And it's possible - The 2009 Spring Student Ambassador MOJO Experiment makes it possible. It's almost too much to grasp - me, in China? But it's real, tangible.
Now, I may be able to see China through my own eyes, all thanks to Big Bird.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
And the fat lady Tweets
Ever since finishing this article about the expansion of social media in 21st century life, I've wondered. Yes, wondered. I've wondered about this idea of ambient awareness, virtual connectivity, and the addictive nature of micro-blogging, Web 3.0, and creating your own identity defined by 0s and 1s.
I've wondered... and realized that wondering does very little to confirm or deny my curiosity. Action is where the answers lie.
In my life, I have acted as a member of the "9" in the 1-9-90 rule (90% of users are "lurkers," 9% of users contribute from time to time, 1% of users participate very often and account for most of the contributions ). I maintain two blogs (one for 7 years, the other here), contribute the occasional video to YouTube, and finally created a Facebook account last year. And yet, I'm not truly active in creating content, in my own opinion.
So, why not do something that requires little attention to create a lot of content?
It's called Twitter and now I tweet here. 160 characters to make the most mundane elements of my day worthy of 15-minutes in the limelight. Maybe now I can start to get some questions answered.
But I still think I'll be wondering by the end of this...
I've wondered... and realized that wondering does very little to confirm or deny my curiosity. Action is where the answers lie.
In my life, I have acted as a member of the "9" in the 1-9-90 rule (90% of users are "lurkers," 9% of users contribute from time to time, 1% of users participate very often and account for most of the contributions ). I maintain two blogs (one for 7 years, the other here), contribute the occasional video to YouTube, and finally created a Facebook account last year. And yet, I'm not truly active in creating content, in my own opinion.
So, why not do something that requires little attention to create a lot of content?
It's called Twitter and now I tweet here. 160 characters to make the most mundane elements of my day worthy of 15-minutes in the limelight. Maybe now I can start to get some questions answered.
But I still think I'll be wondering by the end of this...
Monday, December 8, 2008
Keurig: The Roommates
Keurig, bringing people together with an inculsive coffee philosophy. Who would have guessed? Everyone, of course :)
(Now, bring on the coffee makers!)
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Top 10 Media Revelations
1. Partipulation
Advertising executives want to create loyal, emotionally connected customers who believe that their decisions are entirely their own – hereby wanting to generate the structure to mold the agency, or create partipulation. According to Tony Schwartz in “The Persuaders,” partipulation is the act of inducing someone to persuade themselves; having one actively participate in one’s own manipulation. Television is an obvious medium for partipulation, as television harbors commercials (blatant selling) as well as hyper commercial, narrowcasted networks, which do not impart new information to the audience as much as it appeals to feelings/thoughts/concerns (limbic and reptilian brain) that the audience already harbors (Croteau 74). However, partipulation lives in the news, as well. In Censored 2009, the news coverage of 9/11 drove people to not only persuade themselves of the validity of the official 9/11 explanation but to persecute those who reached beyond their limbic and reptilian brains for further understanding (Phillips 342). Partipulation proliferates in media because it applies directly to our emotional core – see below.
2. Media and Language
The media have a major influence on our cultural lexicon. With the advent of each medium, new words creep into our vocabulary – from photograph and telegram to Google and Tweet. The characters in Feed are the perfect example of this occurrence, using Internet slang in everyday conversation (meg rad, unit, mal, null, omigod, etc.) because the feed defines their culture. The convergence of their media creates a lexicon that reflects not only the technology but also what the society has become and what it values. As Media and Society states, language is never neutral as it always reflects a particular framing of the world (216). With that in mind, what exactly does the proliferation of the words Google, Tweet, AIM, creeper, PWND, and more say about the world today? Or, for that matter, what about the popularity of the following:
3. Ownership
The media are dominated by six multinational corporations, each the result of hundreds of mergers and deals that provide the public with fewer diverse perspectives in everything from books to films to news (Croteau 34). In Feed, FeedTech provides all feed users with personalized yet structured information, limiting the capacity to learn and, as Violet says, creating a nation of idiots (113). The concentration of ownership has placed more pressure to perform economically, resulting in 35 percent of respondents in a journalist survey knowing of or avoiding stories that could hurt the financial interests of their employers (Censored 259). As The Myth of the Liberal Media outlines, ownership is a filter for what information is shared with the public. With more independently owned outlets, the public would have more choice, greater opportunity to compare sources, and ultimately better ability to reach logical conclusions on their own.
4. Media and the Brain
The human brain is composed of three regions: the reptilian, the limbic, and the neocortex. However, since the epistemological shift occurred with the invention of the telegraph and photograph, media have focused increasingly on the emotional brain of its viewers. According to Postman, television trivializes important epistemological topics through its very structure and in a more modern sense, Nicholas Carr states that the proliferation of the Internet as a universal medium has modified human intelligence for the sake of efficiency, immediacy, and ease of access to information (Postman, Carr). Media have changed the brain to the point where rational thought is rarely required, especially in advertising. The Persuaders present the concept of love marks, or brands with loyalty beyond reason. For such an event to take place, the neocortex must be bypassed at all costs, as can be seen in the following clip:
5. Hegemony
Hegemony is the ongoing mediated process of contested ideas, which are created, challenged, and reasserted daily (Croteau 168). At this concept’s core lies the search for truth, or at least an idea that can be agreed upon as truth. However, as the media have shown, truth, as well as reality, is subjective. The stories of Censored 2009 reveal multiple constructs of reality – the mainstream interpretation and the independent one. For stories like the million Iraqi casualties in the Iraq War or the militarization of NATO, hegemony resulted in the deviancy of those stories because they contested a constructed reality that was already normalized (Philips 20). Going against a media approved norm is dangerous, as it was shown in Feed when Violet breaks from the prescribed feed culture to chastise Titus and his friend’s blank acceptance of society (201). Hegemony always allows for debate – see below.
6. Ambient Awareness
The newest and fastest growing medium of the Internet has created a level of intimacy that books, radio, and television were never able to reach: ambient awareness. Ambient awareness refers to the social networking phenomena that allows for one to be continually conscious to one’s online friend’s behavior, specifically through constant, up-to-the-minute updates that allows for a sense of connection without connection (Thompson 3). This is the latest incarnation of Postman’s telegraph and photograph issue: this convergent medium has made time and space irrelevant in communication (Postman 64). One can have hundreds of connections online, be aware of what they’re doing via microblogging, and then update them on one’s own happenings in seconds. But the quality of said connections is still being contested, as ”Growing Up Online” participants mentioned, one may have 500 Facebook friends but one only really knows 50 of them and of that number are close to only half. The online medium allows for shallower connections that simply would not function in reality - see below.
7. Media and Politics
The role of media in politics could be a glorious one – revealing new information, informing the public, forcing politics into transparency and responsibility and vice versa. However, as Postman wrote, media, especially television, has emphasized the appearance of confidence, competency, and knowledge rather than the actual thing when it comes to politics (Postman 126). In one sense, media uses politics as a means of entertainment in the twenty-first century – see clip. In another, media is used by politics to perpetuate a message not always correct or even remotely so, as was the case when the Pentagon invented the concept of embedded reporters during the Gulf War (Croteau 115). While media and politics could heighten the reliability of the other, instead they act as bedfellows under the guise of propriety.
8. Agency and Structure
The only way that individuals interpret media and construct meaning from them is through agency, or individual choice, and structure, or social systems. Audiences actively construct meaning but within certain constraints presented by society as well as the medium of choice (Croteau 273). When individuals go against structure they impart in interpretative resistance, such as the entirety of Censored 2009 as a stance against corporate media, Violet questioning everything in Feed, or the filming of Al Jazeera in Control Room. Interestingly, such resistance against structural constraints emphasizes the polysemy of media – that there is multiple meanings in all texts (Croteau 269). The public can choose the message they take because of agency, but when information is given so freely within the structure, why should they bother going farther?
9. Privacy
Privacy is hard to come by in a Web 2.0 world where cultural shift from privacy to surveillance has occurred. Whether one is on a social networking site, has a YouTube account, or simply uses Google, information is constantly collected, sorted, and analyzed to better serve the public – and the corporations such as Google that use said information to create better advertisements (Carr 5). In truth, confidentiality is becoming a foreign concept in all facets of society not just online: the No Child Left Behind Act allows for military recruiters to access high school students records and visit them on campus (Phillips 325). Just as in Feed, corporations like FeedTech can tap into the user’s interface without permission and that, having become a routine aspect of life, is acceptable to the public. The concept of privacy has been redefined with new media – it’s not longer about keeping something secret, but rather about keeping some something secret that everyone can see.
10. Media and News
Postman stated that one of his primary concerns with television was that is made everything entertainment, or infotainment if speak of the news. The “Now…this” complex of news in the media makes news superficial, so that nothing but entertainment can be news (Postman 112). While Censored 2009 reports on a barrage of important news stories that failed to be covered by the corporate media, the junk news that was – from Jessica Simpson to Britney Spears – reveals that Postman’s concerns were valid (Phillips 162). It is impossible to fully comprehend a news item in a 30-second segment and take it seriously, just as skimming activity online rarely results in the full consideration of an issue (Postman 103, Carr 2). Once again, the media and news could be wonderful partners – if only the need to entertain our trivialized culture wasn’t such a high priority - see Katie Couric below.
Watch CBS Videos Online
Advertising executives want to create loyal, emotionally connected customers who believe that their decisions are entirely their own – hereby wanting to generate the structure to mold the agency, or create partipulation. According to Tony Schwartz in “The Persuaders,” partipulation is the act of inducing someone to persuade themselves; having one actively participate in one’s own manipulation. Television is an obvious medium for partipulation, as television harbors commercials (blatant selling) as well as hyper commercial, narrowcasted networks, which do not impart new information to the audience as much as it appeals to feelings/thoughts/concerns (limbic and reptilian brain) that the audience already harbors (Croteau 74). However, partipulation lives in the news, as well. In Censored 2009, the news coverage of 9/11 drove people to not only persuade themselves of the validity of the official 9/11 explanation but to persecute those who reached beyond their limbic and reptilian brains for further understanding (Phillips 342). Partipulation proliferates in media because it applies directly to our emotional core – see below.
2. Media and Language
The media have a major influence on our cultural lexicon. With the advent of each medium, new words creep into our vocabulary – from photograph and telegram to Google and Tweet. The characters in Feed are the perfect example of this occurrence, using Internet slang in everyday conversation (meg rad, unit, mal, null, omigod, etc.) because the feed defines their culture. The convergence of their media creates a lexicon that reflects not only the technology but also what the society has become and what it values. As Media and Society states, language is never neutral as it always reflects a particular framing of the world (216). With that in mind, what exactly does the proliferation of the words Google, Tweet, AIM, creeper, PWND, and more say about the world today? Or, for that matter, what about the popularity of the following:
3. Ownership
The media are dominated by six multinational corporations, each the result of hundreds of mergers and deals that provide the public with fewer diverse perspectives in everything from books to films to news (Croteau 34). In Feed, FeedTech provides all feed users with personalized yet structured information, limiting the capacity to learn and, as Violet says, creating a nation of idiots (113). The concentration of ownership has placed more pressure to perform economically, resulting in 35 percent of respondents in a journalist survey knowing of or avoiding stories that could hurt the financial interests of their employers (Censored 259). As The Myth of the Liberal Media outlines, ownership is a filter for what information is shared with the public. With more independently owned outlets, the public would have more choice, greater opportunity to compare sources, and ultimately better ability to reach logical conclusions on their own.
4. Media and the Brain
The human brain is composed of three regions: the reptilian, the limbic, and the neocortex. However, since the epistemological shift occurred with the invention of the telegraph and photograph, media have focused increasingly on the emotional brain of its viewers. According to Postman, television trivializes important epistemological topics through its very structure and in a more modern sense, Nicholas Carr states that the proliferation of the Internet as a universal medium has modified human intelligence for the sake of efficiency, immediacy, and ease of access to information (Postman, Carr). Media have changed the brain to the point where rational thought is rarely required, especially in advertising. The Persuaders present the concept of love marks, or brands with loyalty beyond reason. For such an event to take place, the neocortex must be bypassed at all costs, as can be seen in the following clip:
5. Hegemony
Hegemony is the ongoing mediated process of contested ideas, which are created, challenged, and reasserted daily (Croteau 168). At this concept’s core lies the search for truth, or at least an idea that can be agreed upon as truth. However, as the media have shown, truth, as well as reality, is subjective. The stories of Censored 2009 reveal multiple constructs of reality – the mainstream interpretation and the independent one. For stories like the million Iraqi casualties in the Iraq War or the militarization of NATO, hegemony resulted in the deviancy of those stories because they contested a constructed reality that was already normalized (Philips 20). Going against a media approved norm is dangerous, as it was shown in Feed when Violet breaks from the prescribed feed culture to chastise Titus and his friend’s blank acceptance of society (201). Hegemony always allows for debate – see below.
6. Ambient Awareness
The newest and fastest growing medium of the Internet has created a level of intimacy that books, radio, and television were never able to reach: ambient awareness. Ambient awareness refers to the social networking phenomena that allows for one to be continually conscious to one’s online friend’s behavior, specifically through constant, up-to-the-minute updates that allows for a sense of connection without connection (Thompson 3). This is the latest incarnation of Postman’s telegraph and photograph issue: this convergent medium has made time and space irrelevant in communication (Postman 64). One can have hundreds of connections online, be aware of what they’re doing via microblogging, and then update them on one’s own happenings in seconds. But the quality of said connections is still being contested, as ”Growing Up Online” participants mentioned, one may have 500 Facebook friends but one only really knows 50 of them and of that number are close to only half. The online medium allows for shallower connections that simply would not function in reality - see below.
7. Media and Politics
The role of media in politics could be a glorious one – revealing new information, informing the public, forcing politics into transparency and responsibility and vice versa. However, as Postman wrote, media, especially television, has emphasized the appearance of confidence, competency, and knowledge rather than the actual thing when it comes to politics (Postman 126). In one sense, media uses politics as a means of entertainment in the twenty-first century – see clip. In another, media is used by politics to perpetuate a message not always correct or even remotely so, as was the case when the Pentagon invented the concept of embedded reporters during the Gulf War (Croteau 115). While media and politics could heighten the reliability of the other, instead they act as bedfellows under the guise of propriety.
8. Agency and Structure
The only way that individuals interpret media and construct meaning from them is through agency, or individual choice, and structure, or social systems. Audiences actively construct meaning but within certain constraints presented by society as well as the medium of choice (Croteau 273). When individuals go against structure they impart in interpretative resistance, such as the entirety of Censored 2009 as a stance against corporate media, Violet questioning everything in Feed, or the filming of Al Jazeera in Control Room. Interestingly, such resistance against structural constraints emphasizes the polysemy of media – that there is multiple meanings in all texts (Croteau 269). The public can choose the message they take because of agency, but when information is given so freely within the structure, why should they bother going farther?
9. Privacy
Privacy is hard to come by in a Web 2.0 world where cultural shift from privacy to surveillance has occurred. Whether one is on a social networking site, has a YouTube account, or simply uses Google, information is constantly collected, sorted, and analyzed to better serve the public – and the corporations such as Google that use said information to create better advertisements (Carr 5). In truth, confidentiality is becoming a foreign concept in all facets of society not just online: the No Child Left Behind Act allows for military recruiters to access high school students records and visit them on campus (Phillips 325). Just as in Feed, corporations like FeedTech can tap into the user’s interface without permission and that, having become a routine aspect of life, is acceptable to the public. The concept of privacy has been redefined with new media – it’s not longer about keeping something secret, but rather about keeping some something secret that everyone can see.
10. Media and News
Postman stated that one of his primary concerns with television was that is made everything entertainment, or infotainment if speak of the news. The “Now…this” complex of news in the media makes news superficial, so that nothing but entertainment can be news (Postman 112). While Censored 2009 reports on a barrage of important news stories that failed to be covered by the corporate media, the junk news that was – from Jessica Simpson to Britney Spears – reveals that Postman’s concerns were valid (Phillips 162). It is impossible to fully comprehend a news item in a 30-second segment and take it seriously, just as skimming activity online rarely results in the full consideration of an issue (Postman 103, Carr 2). Once again, the media and news could be wonderful partners – if only the need to entertain our trivialized culture wasn’t such a high priority - see Katie Couric below.
Watch CBS Videos Online
Works Cited
Anderson, M. T. Feed. New York: Candlewick P, 2004.
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid." The Atlantic July-Aug. 2008. 3 Sept. 2008
Croteau, David, and William Hoynes. Media/Society : Industries, Images, and Audiences. New York: Pine Forge P, 2002.
Philips, Peter, and Andrew Roth, eds. Censored 2009 : The Top 25 Censored Stories Of 2007-08. New York: Seven Stories P, 2008.
Postman, Neil, and Andrew Postman. Amusing Ourselves to Death : Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin (Non-Classics), 2006.
Thompson, Clive. "Brave New World of Digital Intimacy." The New York Times 7 Sept. 2008. 15 Sept. 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Growing Up Online and Dying with an Audience
Fla. teen commits suicide with live Web audience
"Biggs announced his plans to kill himself over a website for bodybuilders, authorities said. But some users told investigators they did not take him seriously because he had threatened suicide on the site before."
Ambient awareness- knowing without knowing. When does online knowledge create a call for action? Is it even possible to act when it is called for?
Questions. Always questions.
"Biggs announced his plans to kill himself over a website for bodybuilders, authorities said. But some users told investigators they did not take him seriously because he had threatened suicide on the site before."
Ambient awareness- knowing without knowing. When does online knowledge create a call for action? Is it even possible to act when it is called for?
Questions. Always questions.
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