Term Paper

The following is my Mass Communication term paper, to which I've made reference in various earlier posts. Most notably the laurel resting one... I don't believe it necessary to share the grade, for fear that it give you some predisposition towards it's worth and or value. I say only that I was more proud of it than of any essay I'd ever written.


Grant Tabler 
Ian Reilly 
AHSS 1060 Mass Communication 
November 10, 2009

The Instant World

We live in an age of digitization. On a daily basis we are assaulted by a flurry of high tech, solutions to all our problems. Usually the message is a simple one; buy our product to better yourself. However, recently there seems to be more products boasting the ability to make your life easier, happier, and better, with little effort on your part. In this respect, society seems to have lost its way, though not just because of technological advancements. Our need to have everything done automatically has led to an instant gratification market. We want things done quickly and easily with as little input from the user as possible, we have become increasingly dependent on automatic solutions, and I believe this has become especially prevalent because of new technology and available media.

With advances in technology, people are able to buy “miracle” products that don’t require any hard work or change in their behaviour. Instead, people can become thin and sexy without all that troublesome diet and exercise business. This is the essence of the instant gratification market. The instant gratification market is predicated on the idea that businesses are able to make large quantities of money by giving people “something for nothing”. In reality however, it is more of a nothing for something relationship. For, although the consumer sees the process as getting results without effort. What is really happening is the business is giving a temporary solution, and getting money out of it. This is only a temporary solution because it is too easy; it does not require the person to change their negative behaviours. 

Multiple Essays Submitted Together...

Grant Tabler

Alison Bruce

MDST 1010 – 01

December 7^th 2009

Squandering a Medium

Our media immersed culture thrives on our ability to quickly attain information. This ability is enhanced by online video hosting. YouTube and the National Film Board of Canada, have sites that allow the public free access to information. However these sites have different ideas when it comes to what should be posted and by whom.

Computer Wars

Computer Wars

Grant Tabler
Feature Writer

While most students opt to buy a laptop for their first year of University, the operating system often varies. The choice is a simple one, Mac or PC, but the reasons behind this choice are somewhat more complex.

Mass Communication in the Digital Age

"The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate." Joseph Priestly

"Electronic communication is an instantaneous and illusory contact that creates a sense of intimacy without the emotional investment that leads to close friendships." Clifford Stoll

These are both really interesting quotes, the first I heard years ago, though I really didn’t understand it then. The second I’ve found only recently though it is remarkably eloquent in voicing an idea I’ve, as of yet, been unable to.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine...

Just thought I would let my readers know, (both of you) that the course required blog posts are complete. However, I will endeavour to continue posting blogs and try my best not to let them degenerate into rants about what I hate about society. As a real blog, a true dissemination of information and ideas is not the crude thing many have used it for. As such I will attempt to post several of the blogs I wrote during the semester that had no relevance to the topics I was given.

Until then, feel free to bask in the overwelming writing prowess of my previous blog posts. Until I get the marks back for them and see that I've failed them...

All the Best
Grant

The Matrix Manifesto

This was my personal response to Mass Communications and the final assignment we were asked to complete for the course. I was inspired to create this one night after re-watching The Matrix. That movie had been a theme for me all though the course and indeed so far all through University. This piece of writing started, like most of my writing, from feverish scribbling of an idea that enveloped my mind though threatened to disappear. This being a personal reflection I suppose it wasn't originally meant to be published and seems to be more aimed at my professor and possibly my fellow students. None the less I shall post it here as a recollection of this writing endeavour, should I ever lose track of it on my computer. As media can occasionally be somewhat troublesome in that regard.
This is probably the longest complete essay type reflection I've ever written. Though I still maintain that it is "As long as necessary and as short as possible." -Ian Reilly. Perhaps, "As Simple as Possible but not Simpler." -Einstein


Grant Tabler

Ian Reilly
AHSS 1060 Mass Communication
December 1^st, 2009

The Matrix Manifesto

I believe The Matrix is the single greatest media analysis and portrayal in a movie that I have seen. I seem to constantly inference things to it or quote from it. Since writing about the matrix was the first real writing I did for Mass Communications, I think it fitting that the last writing I do for this class should continue the theme. I saw it again recently, and every time I see it I see different things. I now try to decipher its semiotics. I see themes and symbols that I did not recognise earlier.

First, before I begin talking about The Matrix, semiotics, and a demonstration of what I have learned, I would like to make a comment about this course. I have thoroughly enjoyed this course, it is the most analysis and critical thinking I have ever had to do. I would like to thank Ian Reilly and Paul Vermeersch for this. I do not know what I will face in the coming years, but I cannot help but hope that there are more courses as fantastic as this one.

Era of the Casual Activist

I am not a political activist. Nor am I involved in any such cause or group. However, I believe that the majority of people are not involved in any cause. I think all too often we become caught up in our own lives, trapped in our affairs. We do not get around to supporting activist groups.

Though, at the same time I believe that we do not join up with or contribute to activism because the task seems too monumental to make a difference in. This is often the case with things like Free Tibet or various global warming groups. I think this lack of activism is added to by our society’s facebook mentality. On facebook if you want to support something or raise awareness for it you join a group. This non-committal behaviour is perpetuated in actual causes as well.

Most people are willing to support a cause, or pay lip service to it, such as with environmental causes, so long as we do not have to do anything that will severely change our lives or habits. Many causes are aimed at making very small changes to our habits in order to affect change when it is done on a large enough scale. Such is the case in environmental causes like FLICK OFF. “Try carpooling. Ride a bike. Turn this stuff around so it applies to you. There are so many little things you can do to lessen your impact on the planet.” (FLICKOFF)

We seem to be moving away from the era of severely devoted activists that organize huge demonstrations to protest something, and moving into the era of the casual activist. Moving into an era where everyone can be an activist, if we can only find the time in our day to do so. Therein lays the catch.

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Work Cited

FLICKOFF. "What you can do." FLICKOFF.org. Environmental Defence, n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2009.

Tis the Season

Participatory culture is a direct opposition to consumer culture. Participatory culture is the concept of creating something to add to current culture, often from something else which previously existed. Rather than just buying or using something that was already there.

Our Society has a similar concept with presents given from children to parents at Christmas. Kids are encouraged to make their own gifts. Partially because they have neither money, nor private access to stores; partially because of the sentimental value attached, but nonetheless the thought of creating rather than consuming is still inherent. It’s funny that such a present making relationship isn’t reciprocal. I suppose kids are a bit too overwhelmed with consumerism to fully appreciate a created item as equal.

Participatory culture takes a number of forms. A common one is people making remixes, a creation of new music from a combination of older music. Though any cultural creation counts. My class has a wiki, which is like a personal sharing space where the whole class can make pages and contribute, similar to Wikipedia. The wiki, even Wikipedia itself are both participatory culture. They contribute to a knowledge base.

Blogs can also count, in a similar respect to remixes. Blogs take old knowledge and information, and create and propagate new ideas. Good blogs, blogs that really seek to make changes in the world, blogs that move beyond the occasional rants about what bugs the author about society, those blogs are participatory. A true blog, one which is not merely used as a proliferation medium, uses analysis and critical thinking in its posts. For this reason all blogs in this course are graded for such. I believe these are the grade determiners because without those elements of refinement, a medium such as this loses its worth. For a blog to truly be participatory culture it must present something that is not already disseminated everywhere else.

Like in all other participatory media, a blog author such as myself must strive to create something unique, something that gives the reader new ideas and forces them to re-examine previous beliefs. That is my contribution to participatory culture.

The metonym of Iwo Jima

Culture jamming is a process of parody. We have all seen culture jamming, though often without such a moniker. Whenever you see fake ads, comically skewed corporate logos or slogans, basically any satire or parody of something corporate it can be classified as culture jamming.
I think this process says something interesting about our society. We have the ability to openly slander powerful organizations without fear of repercussion. That takes an inherently free society to pull off.
Below I’ve included an example. A picture of American soldiers in Iraq, in a famous war pose. The picture is a reproduction of the flag raising at Iwo Jima. Something has changed though, from that picture to this one, from that war to this one. The flag, which symbolizes what they are fighting for, has changed. It has changed from the original American flag, displaying the triumph of freedom and democracy to a consumer logo of an oil company. The culture jam is exemplifying the difference between this war and the last. This is not a war for people but rather a war for oil companies, they are the real winners in this.

Good culture jamming should do more than just make a statement though. It has to stir something in people, force a reaction. We see so many advertisements in our day to day lives we learn to tune out the vast majority of them. The whole idea of culture jamming is to stand out of these ads. This is a controversial parody. It could be interpreted as saying that Americans are dying for a needless war for profits invented by the oil industry. This may cause a lot of outrage in people, and that is exactly what culture jamming should be trying to do. If you want to get people to do something you need to spark something in them.
Just as Napoleon put it when referring to leading soldiers, “A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him.” (qtd. in Fifield 218) The idea is equally true for leading people to a cause. You cannot expect people to really commit themselves to a cause they see no incentive to join. In order to rally people they need to understand that this cause is a moral imperative, such that the consequences to do nothing would be catastrophic.

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Work Cited

Fifield, Paul. Marketing strategy: the difference between marketing and markets. Butterworth- Heinemann, 2007. Print.

Do or Do Not There is No Buy

Buy Nothing Day, a day at the end of November when people attempt to stave off the temptation to give into materialism and "bring the capitalist consumption machine to a grinding– if only momentary – halt." (Adbusters) A one day boycott of buying things and using lights, and non-essential appliances.

This is of course the work of an activist movement; politically charged one at that, based on the use of the word ‘capitalist’. Now I suppose the short sighted attack at this event would be simply: people will just buy twice as much the following day to make up for it. The counter to this is probably the idea that people will attain some kind of self actualization. That people will realize they don't need to consume to be happy and will swear off their overly commercialized ways forever. As tempting as it is to aruge against such a naive idea, I'm not writing this blog to argue such a short sighted attack as my main point.

I would prefer to ask a different question. One that people should ask about all activist movements. Is this about doing good, or feeling good? By this I mean, are people who participate in these kinds of things, rallies, protests, one day boycotts, etc. really trying to change things? Or are they in fact just doing this for their own conscience?

There are a slew of issues facing our society, and there are even more activist movements opposing such issues. How many are making changes and how many are just a rallying party for people to feel better about themselves? If I get together with my friends and do some of these activities, like pretending to be a zombie in a mall, or making a conga line in Wal-Mart, are we really changing people's minds about consumption? Or are we just doing it because it's fun and we're bored that night?

Buy nothing day is an interesting concept, but from my experience people are already painfully aware that the environment is going downhill and we're to blame. Adbusters should be trying to do something that will actually make changes on a measurable scale, like government reforms. Instead they're just organizing an ad campaign that's marketing, like the "flyer your neighborhood" (adbuster) idea, probably causes more pollution then it stops. This campaign is just letting people ease their conscience and take the easy way out. People need to make real changes and not just pay lip service. As master Yoda would put it, “Do or do not there is no try.”

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Work Cited

Adbusters. "Buy Nothing Day." www.adbusters.org. Adbusters, n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009.

Net Neutrality and Chrome OS

Net neutrality is an important, if often overlooked, issue facing our internet immersed culture. The concept is a simple one. The belief that one person, who pays to access the internet, should be able to use the internet as they see fit. This is an issue because many internet service providers are attempting to put limits on your internet usage, or prioritize certain sites to increase profits.

The Canadian bill C-552 proposed the enforcement of net neutrality. Though it did not go through due to the dissolving of the 39th parliament last year.

“Network operators shall not engage in network management practices that favour, degrade or prioritize any content, application or service transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination.”(Angus 1)

The business model proposed by some is aimed at making the internet more like TV. Media companies will manufacture the content, rather than individuals. The internet would go the way of radio; no longer can any individual broadcast their ideas, only specific providers owned by media companies do. No one should be able to “own” the internet, yet if we do not take a stand on this net neutrality issue companies will begin locking things down and charging people to access them. How do you feel about 50 cents an email, or a penny a click when you are on the web?

There is something else concerning about this issue. Google recently unveiled their Chrome operating system. This is the first ever, cloud based operating system. This means that nothing is stored on your computer, it’s all online, and your computer is just an access point. This is a fascinating new technology but think of the implications with net neutrality.

Google, the world’s most successful search engine, is a trusted site that’s sole purpose is to allow for the quick easy and cheap dissemination of information across the internet. They create an operating system that could be cheaper and more efficient then Windows or Macs. Ipso facto people quickly make the switch and buy that operating system. Then, just as everyone becomes totally dependent on the internet, the internet service providers crack down on internet usage and laws are finalized to limit usage and lock down the internet. Do we have reason to worry?

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Work Cited

Angus, Charlie. Bill C-552. Ottawa: Publishing and Depository Services, 2008. Print

Digitalizing Human Interaction

This was a scrap of writing I've found in my documents referencing many of the "experience cheapened by immediacy"points. It may perhaps be overly cynical, though I suppose it is in line with many of my posts from this time period.

"The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate." Joseph Priestly

"Electronic communication is an instantaneous and illusory contact that creates a sense of intimacy without the emotional investment that leads to close friendships." Clifford Stoll

These are both really interesting quotes, the first I heard years ago, though I really didn’t understand it then. The second I’ve found only recently though it is remarkably eloquent in voicing an idea I’ve, as of yet, been unable to.

It is an idea that Kittler talked about in Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Klosterman has also spoken on this topic when addressing Twitter on a radio show, and it was a major theme in my term paper.  The idea is a simple one. All technology, all media, detract from our connection with life. They detract from the processes that make up life. It's the little things that constitute the experience, and we're delegating the little things to technology.

It's like having an assistant that does your work for you; it takes away from what you experience. It takes away from the experience itself.

With things like email and social networking sites people have the ability to contact each other, though for the most part we seldom do. The attitude is: "I have 800 Facebook friends, 12 of whom I actually talk to, 2 of which I see in the real world." Talking on Facebook, texting, emailing etc. detracts from the experience of talking to a person in person. Just as the answering machine even the phone, to a somewhat lesser extent, does this.

The reason is something I touched on in my term paper recently. It's the idea that when we are not present in a conversation physically, we lose the nuances of conversation. The inflection and body language. Although also because these media are not two-way the other person has as long as they want to filter their response before they respond. You no longer get an honest sense of their personality.

The more connected we are to people digitally, the less connected to them we are personally. We diverge, we use technology as a go between so that we don't have to really be there, talk to them, experience the conversation. We have become a third party to the whole process.

Technology detracts from our connection with life because it cheapens the process, and removes the need to experience. Just as these new means of communication and social networking are digitalizing human interaction.