Do you think media is aware if itself as media? That is, does the media in its delivery of content reflect a self-critical or self-aware role it has either in its constitution / composition or as part of an overarching genre? For this blog, find a newspaper article (or any other media source around you) on a topic of your choosing and ask if it contains a metatextual component. In this way, does it reconfigure or recognise itself as writing? If so, do you think it means to subvert, satirise, or accurately depict the content? This blog topic wants you to explore the different relationships that exist before our eyes in media, especially in relation to our role as reader/listener/viewer as well as to the role of the journalist or media source in general.
New Study Finds Humans May Have Some Capacity For Compassion
February 2, 2012 | ISSUE 48•05
TUCSON, AZ—A University of Arizona study published this week in the American Journal Of Sociology suggests that some adult humans may occasionally feel compassion, a trait scientists have long considered beyond the capacity of the species. "A small percentage of the roughly 900 subjects we observed seemed at times to exhibit genuine empathy toward another person experiencing either psychological or physical pain," said the study's lead author, Dr. Benjamin Trumble, who later added that these individuals did not appear as though they were looking to gain anything from their compassionate reactions, but, to the surprise of researchers, were simply concerned about another person's well-being. "Of course, we'll need to conduct further tests to rule out the possibility that these demonstrations weren't the result of statistical noise or the expression of some sort of very, very rare genetic mutation." The study also reaffirmed previous research indicating that 95 percent of individuals are capable of convincingly feigning compassion.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-study-finds-humans-may-have-some-capacity-for,27245/
I absolutely do believe that the media is self-aware in its delivery of content. The media targets peoples emotions; either presenting fearful, humorous, or joyous news. The news presented above is quite humorous. The article does not blatantly recognize itself as writing, but it does have meta textual content. The article definitely presents the illusion of news, but is highly satirical. Humans have compassion? No way! This article focuses on how although humans are capable of compassion, we do not show it very often. This leaves the reader chuckling to themselves and then asking, "hey wait a minute, I am a compassionate person...Aren't I...?" However, the article does seem to impose a slight truth in that many people pretend to be compassionate, perhaps due to social pressures.
Other works that have meta fictional content is in films such as The Princess Bride, Inception and Stranger Than Fiction. The novel If On A Winter's Night Traveler by Italo Calvino has a meta-fictional component in that it is about a reader reading a book. By having that meta fictional component the reader is able to feel an extra level of involvement in the article. However, with the news I do not feel that people share that same feeling of involvement; unless, of course, you are in the news. Although sometimes even if you are in the news the media can shift what you say or what you meant in a way that is more appealing to a particular audience.
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Monday, 6 February 2012
Days Before The Internet...
Your first blog/journal topic is on radicalism in printing. For this, you will want to think about how technologies of (print) production shape our access to information. For example, consider Gutenberg, Martin Luther, William Blake to SOPA and beyond in your responses. Given our discussion on open-source, you may want to use "Wikipedia" as your first point of entry for each aforementioned person or political bill.
A long, long time ago, in a world I can’t even imagine…people passed down extensive stories verbally. In mythology class most stories such as The Odyssey, or many of the other stories learnt were passed down in such a fashion. As years passed, Johannes Gutenberg in the 15 century started a revolution- the age of the printed book in the west, which was a monumental step forward. Another important time for writing press was with Martin Luther who spoke out against certain practices in the Catholic Church. He wrote the Ninety-Five Theses and posted them on the door of the Church, this was a bold statement of Luther wanting to correct what he saw as mistakes within the Catholic Church. In class we discussed a few of William Blake’s works, during his time there was no internet. In order to talk about political issues without being blatantly rude our outspoken, one could write a book, a newspaper article, or in Blakes’ case write a poem.
Times before the internet seem hard to imagine. Having the ability to look up something in an instant is a luxury people would be lost without. The day Wikipedia did the ‘blackout’ and was completely disabled for viewers, I honestly probably would not have noticed unless it was talked about on the radio. I do go on Wikipedia to scope information, however, 95.3 was talking about it that morning and I probably would not have known unless they did. As they brought up SOPA they reminisced on the days before Wikipedia and finding information. They joked about going to the library and talking to the librarian for information. One of the girls commented “ya, you just go up to the librarian, press a few buttons and information comes out” something humorous along those lines. They could hardly recall the days before the internet. They pondered the days when people frequently used maps and tried to navigate around, now lots of a people have a GPS or even a GPS on their phone! In a way I feel that you could argue that free technology and software actually does not increase intelligence. Since there are cases of people simply copying and pasting information for homework or notes, they may not get to understand the topic in depth but just the basics. However, for my own reasoning and purposes I love the idea of free software and information. It is stress-free and convenient. With textbooks being so incredibly expensive I definitely have looked for other sources that offer the same amount of credited information. Wikipedia is generally considered not an academic source, but can be quite the starter for basic information, such as in this case for touching up on SOPA.
Radically speaking, nowadays if someone had a problem they could simply email a higher power (of course this depends on how high up you want to speak to, some political powers may be harder to reach than others). Or if they were trying to be more secluded about their thoughts they could write a book or perhaps even start a blog, something not as direct. It really depends on the society you live in, obviously the more developed the area the more flexibility to post thoughts or opinions online; Whereas some lesser developed countries may resort to writing a book, or perhaps even more basic a simple diary with all their thoughts. It is annoying to think that information may be kept away from viewers due to money; People wanting to copyright their goods so no one else can use it without paying. It almost seems selfish. In the article Hackers, Humanists, and Intellectuals: Lessons from the Open Source Revolution by Matthew Ogle, in the 1970’s:
“corporations discovered that software could be packaged and sold at handsome profits, especially since once development was complete, duplicating the end product (the computer program itself) was practically costless. (Prior to this “discovery,” hardware sales were the primary source of income for the vast majority of computer companies.) Of their academic sponsorship, corporate sponsors realized that the software they were paying for was valuable intellectual property to be protected, not shared. The corporations began copyrighting anything their sponsorship produced, restricting the right of programmers to release their code and build on the code of others. (Lowe 1)”
I understand intellectual property, but why not shared? What is the point of holding back? Is there a fear it would get into the wrong hands (whatever that may be)? People sometimes use money as a tool for scouting what product is better. If it is more expensive, it must be better right?! Not totally true, but sometimes it is a more secure product. I understand people need to make a living, hence why profiting off of software could be beneficial for some, and I may be reaching out to those who do not have enough money to stay up to date on the latest software and intellectual texts, but it could very well be those people who are unable to attain this information that could be the ones making a change in the future, so why hold them back?
A long, long time ago, in a world I can’t even imagine…people passed down extensive stories verbally. In mythology class most stories such as The Odyssey, or many of the other stories learnt were passed down in such a fashion. As years passed, Johannes Gutenberg in the 15 century started a revolution- the age of the printed book in the west, which was a monumental step forward. Another important time for writing press was with Martin Luther who spoke out against certain practices in the Catholic Church. He wrote the Ninety-Five Theses and posted them on the door of the Church, this was a bold statement of Luther wanting to correct what he saw as mistakes within the Catholic Church. In class we discussed a few of William Blake’s works, during his time there was no internet. In order to talk about political issues without being blatantly rude our outspoken, one could write a book, a newspaper article, or in Blakes’ case write a poem.
Times before the internet seem hard to imagine. Having the ability to look up something in an instant is a luxury people would be lost without. The day Wikipedia did the ‘blackout’ and was completely disabled for viewers, I honestly probably would not have noticed unless it was talked about on the radio. I do go on Wikipedia to scope information, however, 95.3 was talking about it that morning and I probably would not have known unless they did. As they brought up SOPA they reminisced on the days before Wikipedia and finding information. They joked about going to the library and talking to the librarian for information. One of the girls commented “ya, you just go up to the librarian, press a few buttons and information comes out” something humorous along those lines. They could hardly recall the days before the internet. They pondered the days when people frequently used maps and tried to navigate around, now lots of a people have a GPS or even a GPS on their phone! In a way I feel that you could argue that free technology and software actually does not increase intelligence. Since there are cases of people simply copying and pasting information for homework or notes, they may not get to understand the topic in depth but just the basics. However, for my own reasoning and purposes I love the idea of free software and information. It is stress-free and convenient. With textbooks being so incredibly expensive I definitely have looked for other sources that offer the same amount of credited information. Wikipedia is generally considered not an academic source, but can be quite the starter for basic information, such as in this case for touching up on SOPA.
Radically speaking, nowadays if someone had a problem they could simply email a higher power (of course this depends on how high up you want to speak to, some political powers may be harder to reach than others). Or if they were trying to be more secluded about their thoughts they could write a book or perhaps even start a blog, something not as direct. It really depends on the society you live in, obviously the more developed the area the more flexibility to post thoughts or opinions online; Whereas some lesser developed countries may resort to writing a book, or perhaps even more basic a simple diary with all their thoughts. It is annoying to think that information may be kept away from viewers due to money; People wanting to copyright their goods so no one else can use it without paying. It almost seems selfish. In the article Hackers, Humanists, and Intellectuals: Lessons from the Open Source Revolution by Matthew Ogle, in the 1970’s:
“corporations discovered that software could be packaged and sold at handsome profits, especially since once development was complete, duplicating the end product (the computer program itself) was practically costless. (Prior to this “discovery,” hardware sales were the primary source of income for the vast majority of computer companies.) Of their academic sponsorship, corporate sponsors realized that the software they were paying for was valuable intellectual property to be protected, not shared. The corporations began copyrighting anything their sponsorship produced, restricting the right of programmers to release their code and build on the code of others. (Lowe 1)”
I understand intellectual property, but why not shared? What is the point of holding back? Is there a fear it would get into the wrong hands (whatever that may be)? People sometimes use money as a tool for scouting what product is better. If it is more expensive, it must be better right?! Not totally true, but sometimes it is a more secure product. I understand people need to make a living, hence why profiting off of software could be beneficial for some, and I may be reaching out to those who do not have enough money to stay up to date on the latest software and intellectual texts, but it could very well be those people who are unable to attain this information that could be the ones making a change in the future, so why hold them back?
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