Lost Part One

Lost

gah!

I am a huge fan of the tv show, "The Office" (American version), and in this week's episode, the main character, Michael Scott, talks about Wikipedia. To set the scene up, Michael is preparing to go into a meeting in which one of his workers is asking for a raise, but he cant give it to him. Thus Michael goes to wikipedia to find different actions he can do to demand a dominant position over the worker asking for the raise. The clip i show is an aside he says to the camera about Wikipedia.



So he basically hits upon exactly what we are talking about in class, issues with participatory culture. Michael talks about how anyone can add to the site and thats why it was a great place to get information, since many people brought knowledge to the table. As we talked in class earlier, this is good to an extent, when people start posting "ilovemichelle" randomly throughout pages, the information seems less reliable. While Michael sees wikipedia as a viable source, its important to realize that his character is the unintelligent one, therefore when he praises wikipedia, the show is really talking about ridiculous it is. And as avid as a fan i am, i am not sure i really believe that.

As horrible as the idea may be (to look up tactics on the internet on how to avoid your underpaid worker) I have realized that I rely on wikipedia for weird things as well. No i do not cite it if I am writing a paper on Chinese footbinding practices, but you better believe i searched wikipedia first to get some key people and phrases to search for on scholarly journal websites. So i guess i would have to say that wikipedia is definitely the first step in a lot of my searches. We toyed around with this idea in class, that wikipedia can be the answer to a lot of random things you may want to know the general answer to, however it is not as well-suited to be used in pieces that require qualified claims.

im tired!!

The part of this section that interested me the most was the ideas behind commodity culture. Although we do not think about it everyday, the idea of commodity self is very much apparent in our lives. Everyday we send messages to others through our clothing, music, and hobbies to help establish individuality. These choices however are not truly unique to us, unless of course you make your own clothing, music and hobbies, and as a result we clump the different styles together in stereotypesto make it easier. Living in LA, hell even at USC, we can see this idea of commodity self already. BMW's Mercedes, Lexuses or Lexi (sp?) line the streets here at school. These cars have a certain status attached to them, and this status contributes to the make-p of the driver. The consumer wants these items of status to confirm to the rest of the community of his achevement and success. Having expensive luxury items, like cars, shows how well-off you are, and directly affects the way people percieve you. This desire to be different and ultimately better, makes it more convienent for advertisers as well, as they now have different target audiences according to these desires to express yourself. Ads prey upon this need for individuality and address it directly. Instead of advertisements that state facts and random infromation, newer ads address the viewer. Ads that prey upon your emotional knowledge rather than soley on logical has erupted because of the desire to look inward. Consumers like to be addressed in the advertisement, it gives them a sense of belonging and makes them feel special (even though that exact ad is read my millions). I just think that hte way we use different products to define ourselves is crazy to think about but very true.

Spectrum Series

Earlier today I went to the spectrum series, entitled New Media and Youth. Featured panelists were Danah Boyd (whom we are all familiar with), Justin Hall (the pioneer of blogging), Sasha Costanza-Chock (media analyst) and moderated by Cory Doctorow (science fiction author). I was disappointed with the panel for a few different reasons 1) more time was spent on the backgrounds of the differnt panelists than on their actual points within the discussion 2)there was a backchannel that was supposed to be used for different comments regarding the panel, but everyone was using it to discuss meaningless things, and I found it more distracting and almost rude that they were posting things about the Lakers and Captain Planet when the speakers were trying to speak about something that we are obviously a part of 3) lastly, the entire event seemed more like an introduction to an issue rather than a real panel. That being said, there were a couple of things I found really interesting. First of all Doctorow brought up David Brin's theory of the "transparent society" which he basically summed up as a society in which everyone's every action is recorded; and he argues that this would then prodce this utopia and crime and violence would disappear because people would be aware that they were being watched all the time. The panelists were quick to pick apart the problem of this theory; stating the main problemwould be that the people with authorial positions would talk advantage of this power and only punish other people, which creeped me out. Not only the fact that everyone being filmed doing EVERY thing but also that this could be taken advantage of, and the thing that is most creepy is the fact that it could happen so easily. We already have things that can track us; be it a cell phone, which can be traced to location, we post pictures, we write blogs about our lives, we display our age, where we live, email addresses, and allow people to stalk us, not to mention access it in the future. The fact that we do it so freely without much thought to the consequences makes me think that putting up cameras all over the city (which i believe they said was coming here, but dont quote me on that) might not even warrant a second glance from most people, i dont even know if I would take notice truly. Anyway this brings me to the next point that intrigued me in this panel, which was that at DisneyWorld they are now taking fingerprints upon entry. I dont want to write an essay here, but basically Disney world is taking fingerprints when you enter to prevent ticket fraud. They have a new machine which scans two fingers for the shape and takes one fingerprint, which they claim only looks at "numerical information." They state that they only use the information to attach it to the ticket. It is under must scrutiny, as the park does not claim that the scanner is a fingerprint machine, while other experts claim it is. Also, there is an alternative, so if the guest does not want to scan their finger, they can show a photo id, however this option is not advertised by the park anywhere before entering. if you want to read more the link is
here
there is also a video on that website which goes through the process as well.

I thought the reading about the different critiques of mass media was interesting. It discusses the difference between the two extremes television and other mass medias have on the viewer, which on one hand is this utopian ideal and the other a fear of world domination through media. It also states that the mass media has grown more popular as industrialization has flourished and thus promotes central communication rather than more personal ways. The critique stated that television and its ability to show the same messages to everyone created conformity, however what they didnt thinkabout was how people take the messages completely differently. Of course Hitler was used as the main example of mass media propaganda and its possible effects citing his many different films in which through different strategic camera tricks he made it seem as though the entire country was in his hands. When I read this I immediately thought about subliminal advertising, and how initially it may support the argument that media canbe harmful to the minds of the viewers, but that in reality subliminal messages have not been proven. Police have used them to get serial killers to turn themselves in, and it didnt work. It can also be seen in Fight Club in which before the very end of the movie a pornographic clip plays for a frame, I discovered this when i saw a flash go onscreen and I decided to slow it down to see what it was.... yea I was shocked to say the least. Anyway I think that the idea that media can shape us into one people with one mindset is completely false.

Reproduced Images

I think that the book, specifically, Walter Benjamin has a very interesting point when he talks about the fact that reproducing images leads to a political message. Benjamin wrote this in the time when fascism and Nazi propaganda were everywhere and this idea still holds true today (while it occurs on much smaller scales as well). When people take well-known images and rework them to create a new meaning they take what people already know about the original and play off of it. The key to this idea is that there must be some sort of prior shared knowledge of the image they are playing off of, in order for the viewer to see the connection, irony, or message. For example, the recent reports of Britney Spears shaving her head has spurred many reproductions of other famous bald images. There is one with a Mr. Clean reference and one with a Gollum (from LOTR), and not to mention the hundreds of past photos of her that have been photoshopped to have her bald head. These images, while both amateurly done and on a much less politcal statement than the AIDS posters and Hitler image in the book, are examples of how pop culture utilizes this idea. In the Mr. Clean reference, the image is entitled Ms. Crazy, referring to her behavior as of late, she is drawn with tattoos on her arms of such labels as Cheetos. These tattoos are referring to first the fact that she was getting a tattoo when she was first seen with her bald head but also as a sign of her "trailer park-ness." Images of cheetos also reinforces this idea, as her food of choice is normally some junk food (see second image). This image would not make sense to the viewer if they hadn't known of Mr Clean, the ubiquitous bald reference, or of Britney Spears' latest mishaps. While this example isn't exactly of the politics the book refers to, it shows how this idea of reproducing images whether to make fun of someone or to convey a message has become such a popular process today in response to different breaking news reports.