Text Response to Yochai Benkler’s “A Moment of Opportunity and Challenge”

Benkler’s reading describes how the development of technology has allowed for networked social media, such as Facebook, to become everyday use in society. However, according to Benkler, it has allowed for “political public sphere” (line 5 of “Democracy” The Networked Public Sphere”) to grow significantly.

Social media has given people the freedom to “participate in creating information and knowledge” (line 2 of “Democracy” The Networked Public Sphere”). This has therefore allowed people to share “political salient information, observations and comments and provide a platform for discourse” ((line 21 of “Democracy” The Networked Public Sphere”).

I agree with Benkler as my social media platforms (Facebook, twitter, etc.) are currently riddled with pro Trump or pro Hilary supporters sharing news, humiliating memes and/ or their own (clearly obvious) political expertise (why aren’t they president I wonder?).

However, what should be a calm, enlightening and open-minded experience of political discourse, it is actually the equivalent of a UFC-styled Octagon cage free-for-all, with a political twist.

People go head to head with each other to the extent that it feels like World War 3 is between filter uniformed keyboard warriors equipped with memes and shares of (in my opinion) inaccurate news sources such as “DailyWire”. Take a look at the following sample of what facebook has to offer:

Notice the use of the word “crooked” to describe a political opponent? This Trump supporter doesnt seem to have a good opinion of Clinton followers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig 2.

This Pro-Trump user states that “we” (I assume the population of America) can “sleep at night now knowing” his rights our protected. Most likely suggesting that the Obama and the democrats before Trump could not fullfil this.

Fig 3.

A post from the Hilary side of the war, an apparent quote from  Stevie Wonder saying that voting for Trump is like asking him to drive.

Fig 4.

This post suggests a racist attack being planned in the Trump camp towards “Mexicans”.

 

Benkler labels this phenomenon as the “Babel Objection” where “when everyone can speak, no one can be heard, and we devolve either to a cacophony or to the reemergence of money as the distinguishing factor between statements that are heard and those that wallow in obscurity” (line 6 of “Democracy” The Networked Public Sphere”). This is exactly what social media has snowballed into as more people now have access to the discourse platform and are therefore sharing their often-differing opinions. Examples of this can be seen in the following screen grabs:

A nice post to try and prevent political conflict on social media and try to promote respecting others views. Yet the comments will dictate otherwise ….

Here four users go come at each other in different paths to: prevent conflict (the post), undermine that prevention attempt (first comment), sympathise yet try to prevent further conflict (second comment) and then oppose and prove wrong the first comment (third comment)

 

A Trump supporter expressing their opinion with this image post.

To then be ambushed with unregulated debate from friends.

 

Furthermore, the use of the word “cacophony” (a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds) is an accurate description because the discourse platform isn’t moderated and is not necessarily conducted in real time, therefore making the progression of the debate fragmented and untamed. For example, when the United Kingdom left the EU my Facebook was on fire with heated arguments over what was best for the country. Many of those people voted to leave refereed to the point that the money we would save could be spent on a better health services. However, following the decision to leave, Nigel Farage (a politician campaigning to leave) came out on national television and went back on what he said claiming that they probably wouldn’t spend the money on the health care system. This of course left many people outraged and made those Facebook supporters look stupid from the point of view of someone looking back on that argument.

To conclude, I agree with Benkler’s argument that the “political public sphere” has grown, and it has led to the point where the “Babel Objection” has come true, which has negatively affected this discourse platform.

PoNM: Numerical Representation and Modularity

An example of Numerical Representation can be seen with cooking food such as pizza, as it provides chronological step by step (or number by number) order in which to cook the food. http://www.mysticpizza.com/cooking-instructions.php

An example of Modularity can be seen with the new Apple Watch Nike+ because it has many different components that represent data numerically, such as the distance the user has travelled and his heart rate. http://www.apple.com/apple-watch-nike/

Daily Response 3&4, “As We May Think”

3) Vannevar Bush talks about “the application of science” and how it has provided man with “well-supplied house” yet also the ability to inflict damage with “cruel weapons”. My question is, do the benefits outweigh the ‘costs’ of our application of science?

4) Bush also gives a gloss over how technology has come only, old cameras etc, and how they have been engulfed in the development of new and improved technology, my question is will there be a desire in the future for retro technology as we see with retro fashion? There are already glimpses of it with old game consoles (nintendo 64s) and old vinyls(-more for decorations though).

Text Response 2

The readings that were assigned to us this week brought me to a concept that I have seen many times before but haven’t really pondered over, nor truly realized the potential of; the types of narrative discourse used in movies.

In the Chatman reading “What Novels Can Do”, he describes on page 122 line 10 that “realistic narratives, the time of the story is fixed, following the ordinary course of a life: a person is born, grows from childhood to maturity and old age, and then dies” this, in my opinion, is the most common way of a film playing out. The perfect example of this type of narrative discourse is the 2014 film “Boyhood” which follows the life of a boy from the youthful age of 6 to his later teenage years of 18. Also more interesting because the film took 12 years to film as the film literally followed the “course” of the boys “life”.

However, as Chatman continues in later paragraphs, narrative discourse can have a completely different “time order” as it could “start with the person’s deathbed, then ‘flashback’ to childhood; or it may start with childhood, ‘flashforward’ to death, then end with adult life” (page 122 line 24). A perfect example of this is Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” where we start with an elderly man visiting a war cemetery who collapses in painstaking grief at the foot of a grave. This scene is then followed by a flashback to the D-Day landings at Omaha beach, where the movie in a “realistic” discourse would start, considering the subject of the movie is saving a soldier with the last name Ryan.

Furthermore, you could go as far as arguing that Saving Private Ryan does go further in fitting Chatman’s theories, especially “double time structuring… the time of the histoire(“story-time”) with the time of the presen- tation of those events in the text,” (page 122 line 5). This could fit Saving Private Ryan because the “time of the histoire” could be labelled as the quest to save Private Ryan and the “time of the presen- tation of those events” could be the real-life scenarios such as World War 2 and the Omaha beach landings of D-Day.

My question is: For the most part, which leads to a more entertaining and dramatic movie? Both have their own attributes and both can in their own ways develop a very entertaining movie.

The excitement in the narrative structure of films like “Boyhood” comes with the anticipation of what is to come next in the story because the audience is experiencing the narrative like they are walking side by side with the characters as the scenes unfold before them. As seen in “Boyhood” it is like we are growing up with the main character (Mason) and participating in his life.

On the other hand, structures like “Saving Private Ryan” leave the audience guessing by revelling the end and then reverting back to how the characters ended up in that last scene.

 

In my opinion I prefer the format that movies like “Saving Private Ryan” takes. From my own experience of watching this movie the layout mislead me incredibly. I believed that the old man we saw at the start was Tom Hanks’ character Captain John Miller, who maybe failed his mission of “Saving Private Ryan” which would explain his distress at the grave of a soldier (Private Ryan maybe? So I thought). This was supported by the scene that followed which was Captain Miller about to storm the beach.

The narrative then took a “realistic discourse” through the course of the movie by following the characters in the quest to save Ryan till the ending scene, which sees Private Ryan standing over Captain Miller as he dies and then flashes forward again to the ceremony scene where he is standing in the same fashion over the grave of (as we now know) Captain Miller.

Therefore from a personal point of view this layout of narrative was more misleading and therefore unexpected which in turn made it more entertaining for me.

New Media Analysis 1

In class on Thursday, we discussed how there are two different modes when viewing media in relation to being live. There are spatially and temporal modes. Spatially live would be if you are in the same location at the same time as the subject/ event is occurring; Temporally live would be if you are viewing the subject/ event at the same time as it was occurring.

I personally experience this regularly as I am big follower of Chelsea football (soccer) club, who are based in London, England. As a England native myself and a life long supporter of the club I have grown up supporting the club and regularly attended matches live at the stadium. Therefore this would have been both spatially and temporarily live while viewing this sporting event.

However, now that I attend Austin College in Sherman, Texas, there’s a six-hour time difference meaning the reasonable kick off times of 3pm on a Saturday and 12pm on a Sunday is now a painful 9am and, even worse, 6am. My love for the club and the sport are the main driving forces that gets me up to watch these games.  This leaves spatially not live as I am thousands of miles away but temporally live, the only time difference being the small period of time it takes for the live stream to arrive at my laptop.

Yet, there are more reasons that I am compelled to watch these games as social media is so prolific nowadays that it is almost impossible to not find out about things such as the scores and results of sporting events. I cannot simply record the sporting event and watch it at a later time, which would therefore make me spatially and temporally not live, because I would receive texts from both friends and family members who might be informing me of a joy or educating me of my misfortunes depending on the match result. Therefore it can be risky business if you are not at least temporally live.

With the speed of modern media there are ways around this problem if you are quick enough, as you can always read a match report that are normally fairly quick to be published following the conclusion of a match. As Chatman said on page 131 of his “What Novels Can Do” piece, “evaluative descriptions… invoke visual elaborations in the readers mind” therefore journalists can repaint the picture of the match for those of us who weren’t spatially or temporally live.

This therefore the way around not being live for sports events, if need be.

Daily 2, in response to Chatman’s essay.

On page 122 line 10 Chatman describes the “realistic narratives” (born, grow old, die) and then the ‘discourse time order” which can be completely different, such as “start with the person’s deathbed, then ‘flashback’ to childhood. My question is, what would make (in general or experience with movies we’ve seen) the better format for a dramatic movie?

Daily 1, in response to Walter J. Ong’s “Orality and Literacy” Reading

On page 81, the author says “writing provides for consciousness as nothing else does.”, I disagree. The definition of consciousness that I know is “the state of being awake and aware of one’s surroundings.” that is literally what it is but in terms of the subject and the reading I think the author is unfairly dismissing verbal communication. Surely verbal communication is a better way for providing consciousness because it has the added factor of translating emotions? Which writing, for the most part, fails to do.

Text Response 1 (Aristotle)

Within the opening weeks of class we have discussed the use of spoken media, specifically Rhetorical persuasion, as alluded to us by the Aristotle reading. Spoken media, and rhetoric, can be a powerful tool and can be put to many uses. For example, in Part 3 paragraph 1 of Aristotle’s reading he describes how rhetoric “falls into three divisions” one of which being “political”.

Political rhetoric, in my opinion, is the most prolific in modern (and recent) times. It is an “acquired habit” (part 1 paragraph 1) by all politicians of today as a tool to persuasively communicate with an audience in order to gain support.

This usage of political rhetoric was extremely relevant during Nazi Germany and Hitler’s rise to power. The Nazis often put on grand displays in order to ‘wow’ their audiences, which is hinted at by Aristotle as a suitable platform for persuasion to take place as he describes, “persuasion is… a sort of demonstration” (part 1 paragraph 5). Therefore this translates to the Nazis tactics of putting on grand displays quite effectively as these demonstrations of power and order gained them support.

Furthermore, Aristotle describes how the speaker, or politician in our case, is the true driving force behind persuasion as “persuasion is achieved by the speakers personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible” (part 2 para 3) this applies to Hitler tremendously as he appealed to his audience because he was; a veteran of the first World War, great public speaker and promised to solve Germany’s problems.

This carries on over to part 2 paragraph 1 where Aristotle says “Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion” because Hitler and this ability to feed off of the poor conditions the Germans were going through following the first World War and largely due to the Treaty of Versailles.

Aristotle describes some of the reasons to use rhetoric, as a tool to “defend themselves and to attack others” (part 1 paragraph 1) this is exactly what Hitler did as he defended Germany and his regime and instead blamed the Jews “it will prevent the Jewish people from intruding themselves among all the other nations as elements of internal disruption, under the mask of honest world-citizens, and thus gaining power over these nations.” (paragraph 5 under “Totalitarianism and Individualism: The Importance of Race”) this in turn led Hitler to using the extreme poor situation in Germany as a way to create hatred and discrimination towards them which in turn led to their near extermination in Europe.

Another example of Hitler using rhetoric as a tool for the “arousing of prejudice… and anger” (part 1 para 2) towards the Jewish race can be seen when he said “Jewish international attempt to destroy European civilization.”

To conclude Hitler fits into Aristotle’s fear of man using rhetoric for the wrong reasons as they can cause “the greatest of injuries by using them wrongly” (part 1 para 7) and this is exactly what Hitler did to get himself and the Nazi party into power.

Bibliography:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Rally

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/germany/hitlerpowerrev2.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Hitler%20Speeches/Hitler%20Speech%201937.01.30.html

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/jewishquestion.html