The Spectacle

The Manjoo and Hedges articles, along with Dr. Lowe have all brought up the fact about the spectacle this week. I feel as though many people enjoy being unmoored, or detached, to escape reality. New Media plays a large role in this. From website like twitter, facebook, myspace, or even TV shows, much like the Jersey Shore, people become detached from real life. Hedges discusses in his article, ”Our Country is Lost Believing in What it Sees on Screens, and We Are Going to Pay a Nasty Price for It”, the American public and how disillusioned it is by technology. One sentence which stood out at me was, “We believe that no matter how much damage we do to the earth or our society, science and technology will save us.” I agree with this statement. Many people will tune out what is happening in the world by the use of new media, whether it be “reality” TV shows, or texting updates to Twitter to take their minds off of what is going on. Although Hedge’s discusses the spectacle, it is quite myopic, or lacking foresight. We know how to tune out issues now through media, but what will we do in the future when technology improves even further? What is going to happen with the countries problems? These are issues which I would have found interesting to hear Hedge’s perspective on more.

I also found Wong’s article interesting. Since I am one of the people who reads from a Nook and buys e-books religiously, I enjoyed the section about the publisher’s self destructing the book itself. E-Readers are changing the book world, quickly. These days, the reality of students going to the library to actually take out books has changed. Now students will go to the library for meetings or to study, but rarely do I see someone actually taking a book out. This reason for this is simple: the internet. As Wong proved in much of his article, most of the information we need today can be found on the internet. I feel as though the need for human interaction is decreasing quickly, which makes me worried about what will happen with future generations.

People today expect to have information given to them immediately. As Manjoo says in “Why the Facts No Longer Matter”, “On the Web, television, radio, and all manner of new devices, today you can watch, listen to, and read what you want, whenever you want; seek out and discuss, in exhaustive and and insular detail, the kind of news that pleases you; and induldge your political, social, or scientific theories...grounded in reality you’re so far out your floating in an asteroid belt, among people who feel exactly the same way as you do.” I feel the same as Manjoo in this excerpt. The thrill of going out to find information, meet new people, or learn from even museums seems to have diminished. I strongly believe that new media tools, as great as they are, are part of this downfall. Many people are now even meeting other people from websites such as eHarmony instead of going out to public places. As I said before, this does scare me a bit, and begs the questions, “What will happen to future generations?”

The good, the bad, the ugly.

As in the Jenkin’s video, in “Our World Digitized”, Jenkins talks about today’s communication space. Throughout the discussion, Jenkins, as the moderator, brings up questions of whether or not the internet is fostering a convergence culture. Sunstein claims that the internet is still lacking a large portion of what should be on the internet, but it does have many beneficial qualities. Benkler does not talk as much about the public’s internet freedoms but rather our ability to create, destroy, and investigate the internet.

Sunstein states “Any well functioning society depends on relationships of trust and reciprocity on whether people see their fellow citizens as potential allies and willing and deserving to help when help is needed.” Sunstein is also quoted saying, “A well functioning society also has 2 distinct requirements. First people must be exposed to materials they would not have chosen in advance. The second is any or most citizens have a range of common experiences.” The third statement from Benkler is, “the new freedom holds great practical promise. As a dimension for individual freedom, as a platform for better government participation, as a medium to foster a self reflective culture, and an increasingly dependent global economy, as a mechanism to achieve improvements in human development everywhere.” Sunstein and Benkler agree on the self-reflexsive culture aspect of the claims, although Sunstein gives the Internet a C- as a grade. Benkler believes the “degree to which the practical constraints on action are determinative on how we evaluate the level of normative life lived as a practical matter.” I agree with Sunstein. I believe he gives the internet a fair grade. It has many benefits, especially with being able to now contribute to the convergent culture we live in, although it does have several “cruelties.” In the Jenkins video, he states that average citizens now have the power to take control & tell their own stories. Convergence culture is shaped as much by teenagers as it is Viacom board members. A large part of the convergence culture is discussed by Danah Boyd in “Twitter vs. Facebook” Boyd states that anyone from celebrities to average people checking in on high school friends use these services. Some choose one service over the other due to a better fit, more privacy, the other people on the service, or sometimes people can’t articulate why they choose one service over the other.