I come from a large family and as mention on my Aunt’s BlahBlahBlog we have had our fair share of thanksgiving cooking disasters. Yes, that would be my mom in the “Sauerkrat Disaster” photo sporting the awesome 90s hairdo and cotton overall ensemble (sorry mom). Minus the cooking disasters in my families past, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because it is an excuse for all 16 members of my extended family to fly from California, New York, and Boston to all be together if only for just 24 hours. Every year it’s the same routine: the men play football (the fathers get hurt), my mom and aunts do the cooking, we fight over which movie to see (this year its either War Horse or The Descendents, or both) and at dinner we do that cheesy thing where we go around and say what we are thankful for. While I am not openly a fan of such cheesy things – this also includes cheers, I hate cheers. Lately I have come to look forward to hearing what everyone is thankful for, so in spirit of this holiday where thousands of turkeys are killed for people to celebrate American dominance, I thought I’d tell I’d discuss a few things I am hoping to be thankful for in the upcoming year…
I would be ever so thankful if Republicans would stop attacking Planned Parenthood. According to CNN Planned Parenthood is 90% preventative. Therefore if Rep. Mike Pence gets support in his campaign to cut federal funding of this organization because he does not support abortions, in actuality this bill would be detrimental for both “women's health and bad for the fiscal health of the country.” Regardless of ones opinions on abortions the fact that Planned Parenthood provides affordable cancer screening, birth control, treatment and testing for STD’s makes the organization important enough to keep around.
Another thing that I would be thankful for would be peace in Egypt. These protests in Tahrir Square have lasted for too long and have been without justice for the citizens of Egypt. A movement that was sparked by social media worldwide has been much more difficult than expected and the number of deaths reported in the news have been catastrophic. Most recently as the protestors make a wall around the Interior Ministry protestors have been killed as the police created a buffer zone. While the generals did offer an apology for these deaths, according to The New York Times the Egyptian Government has refused to delay elections. The disparity between the people and the government occurring in Egypt seems to be without an inevitable end or resolution and this is deeply troubling.
While I can’t help but hope for these two not so small matters to come to a favorable end in the next year I also am aware of the many blessings that exist currently in my life and in America and for that I am truly thankful. And who knows, maybe I will look back on this thanksgiving 20 years from now and make cracks about the outfit I was wearing…
Everyone has those accounts that they secretly follow on twitter – don’t try and deny it. Two of mine are Total Sorority Move (TSM) and Total Frat Move (TFM) and I began following them because I thought they were somewhat accurate and also hilarious. But lately I have just become more and more offended with the tweets appearing on TSM and TFM’s newfeed and I am seriously debating not following them anymore.
Here are just a few examples of some recent tweets that have upset me lately:
“We don’t hate you because you aren’t in a sorority. You aren’t in a sorority because we hate you. TSM”
“Getting a mass text from the Chapter President asking who has clean urine he can use. TFM.”
“If the chaser isn’t diet, I’ll take it straight. TSM.”
“Not needing a presidential bumper sticker because the Z71 package on my Tahoe tells you exactly which party I am for. TFM.”
“Totes excited to change the clocks tonight because we gain an hour of drinking. TSM.”
““Did we order a stripper” In response to a female cop knocking on our door. TFM.”
The thing that most bothers me about these twitter handles is that not only do the speak horribly about people who aren’t involved in the Greek system, but they reflect a view point that is not only so far from my own view but also so far over the line that I’m not sure where on the political spectrum these account holders fall. While everyone is entitled to freedom of speech, with the rise of the internet, freedom of speech has become accessible and viewable to everyone. The problem with TSM and TFM is that they are followed by more than just members of the Greek community. They are followed by high schoolers and even middle schoolers who probably can’t understand that the messages being broadcast on these pages are one: not reflective of the whole Greek community and two: not 100% truthful or friendly.
Greek life is about creating life long brother and sisterhoods not putting down GDI’s (god damn independents aka non-Greeks) or even the houses that are considered to be of a lower caliber. In all honestly these twitter feeds have become a new source of cyber bullying because while they aren’t directed at a specific person their messages demean and make fun of many different groups of people. Aside from being offensive, these accounts just reaffirm all the negative stereotypes that non-Greeks have about Greeks: exclusivity, cattiness, drama, and hazing – just to name a few. Even though so many successful people have been members of a Greek community, people “in the real world” don’t attribute success to being in a fraternity or a sorority because of all the negative connotations that come along with out letters. Despite, some individual’s dislike for the Greek system being in a fraternity or sorority does do some good. From traditions one learns respect, from sisterhood/brotherhood one learns the importance of family, and from ritual and scholarship one learns the about work ethic and responsibility. While these correlations may seemed farfetched once you are a part of a chapter you can seem the relationship, and while some parts of Greek life go away after college (weekly themed parties, mixers, tailgates and the like) the lessons learned during that time will never fade away.
Ah, Smalls, not to mention, Squints, Yah-Yah, and Repeat – the classic nicknames from one of my favorite sports movies of all times: The Sandlot.
The Sandlot is just one of many films that features unforgettable nicknames. But when I think about all the great nicknames in motion picture history I find it troubling that there is a one group scarcely given nicknames: women. Maybe it the sports film genre or maybe I am being overly feminist, but why can I only remember the male nicknames. This notion has always slipped my mind until my father asked me if girls got nicknames in school, to which my brother interrupted “not like guys do dad.” My brother goes to a all-boys school where pretty much every kid has a nickname, and the majority of the time the guys don’t even know the kids real name. But what about us girls? I graduated from an all-girls high school and believe it or not must of us girls were given nicknames too.
I think the seemingly unimportant issue stems from one of my larger problems with today’s society. In a world where women are now able to hold the same positions as men, we are still considered inferior in many ways. When a male boss is a jerk in the office people pass his behavior off as being “just business” or that he is “in it to win it.” But when a woman acts the same way she is called a bitch. After all of the strides women have made in modern society, why do we still struggle in the professional world? Sure, we are successful but we are always regarded as girly or emotional.
The only solution to this problem in the short term is for women to come together in the workforce instead of fighting amongst each other to get ahead. This is not to say that women shouldn’t aspire to be the leaders of companies but we need to have a conscious attitude of who is treating us unfairly. I think women need to take some advice from comedian/ actress/ writer/ producer/ overall boss woman Tina Fey:
“So, my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism, or ageism, or lookism, or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.”
Not only do should we not hire people who were jerks to us in the past, but we should not become jerks ourselves when awarded positions of power.
Justin Bieber sure has been singing the “(It’s not my)baby, baby, baby” blues this week. In case you haven't hear J Biebs supposed 20-year-old baby mama is suing the pop star for impregnating and abandoning her and the three-month-old child. Sadly, while the world is facing debt, poverty, and war, this story is the one getting major media attention. While being 16 and being pregnant is a terrifying situation, thanks to the media teen pregnancy has been distorted into just another hot topic and craze for teenagers. The shock and disgust that arose when the 2008 Massachusetts pregnancy pact broke headlines has since transformed into a national obsession in this pandemic. Teen pregnancy has become “the new black” and the trend doesn’t seem to be shifting. If there is going to be a solution to this problem it is going to have to begin, not with the media, but by mandating that all public schools teach an all-encompassing sex education curriculum.
The generation affected by teenage pregnancy is perhaps the most engaged with media than all other generations and the media is the one seriously distorting this issue. Since the 2008 scandal, programs such as 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom came onto the air to profit from the hype. Soon after these shows arose ABC Family and Lifetime also capitalized on the trend by creating The Secret Life of the American Teenager and The Pregnancy Pact and now today, the madness of this genre has been taken to the stage in a new play called Milk Like Sugar. Regardless of the media’s intentions, the duration and popularity of these programs has created a catastrophic epidemic amongst teenagers today. While the camera tries to show (through both scripted and non scripted programming) the hardships that pregnant teens and their families go through, the fame, how ever bad the publicity may be, is enchanting to many unknowns.
The play Milk Like Sugar features a group of 16-year-old girls who according to New York Times contributor Charles Isherwood in his article Teenage Motherhood is Serious, Especially with Baby Bling at Play, claims the young girls are “a delight to watch”. When one of the girls becomes pregnant she is excited because this means that she will now have “optimal means of securing some slick designer stuff for the baby”. Isherwood, unlike the girls in the play, or the playwright for that matter, understands that teenage pregnancy is a serious problem. Furthermore Isherwood states that teen pregnancies “aren’t the result of careful planning, but its opposite, pure carelessness.”
While Isherwood claims that teenagers are careless, I believe the root of this problem lies in education, or the lack there of. On November 1st. 2011 the Guttmacher Institute released the most up to date statistics on sex education in the United States. Their findings are as follows: only 21 states and the District of Columbia mandate sex education. 20 of those states and the District of Columbia mandate both sex education and HIV education. Further, 29 states and the District of Columbia mandate that, when provided, sex and HIV education meet these certain requirements: 13 states require that the instruction be medically accurate, 27 states and the District of Columbia require that the information be appropriate for students’ age, 9 states require material to be appropriate for a students’ cultural background, and finally, 2 states prohibit the program from promoting religion. The Guttmacher Institute also states that in 35 states and the District of Columbia parents have the right to remove their children from instruction, and in 22 of these states and the District of Columbia require that parents be notified before sex education or HIV education is provided.
But to some people, young pregnancy is engrained into their culture mindset. As seen in Milk Like Sugar only one character is able to “use her intelligence as a ladder to escape the world of poverty and limits she was born into” but this is not the case for the others, and unfortunately many teenagers in the real world suffer from the same problems. This very notion is the reason why shows like 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom promote the wrong mindset. The women on the show try to balance pregnancy with schoolwork and usually fail because they can’t afford both or because they don’t have the time or the energy. Instead, the young women on the show fight with their parents and the boyfriends and are barely surviving. For instance, Teen Mom Jenelle Evans has been arrested twice and busted for drug use. But, her story has been seen on the cover of People, Star, and Us Weekly multiple times which gives teenagers in the same position as her the wrong idea. In reality, yes Jenelle is “famous” but she is famous for being a train wreck and her child is ultimately the one suffering. Even shows such as The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which features a more well off socioeconomic group, sends the wrong message. The lead character Amy gets pregnant at 15 and the series follows her trying to raise her baby while hooking up with different high school guys and getting into girl drama. While Amy is able to stay in school, the lack of difficulty she is able to do so with glosses over the matter of teen pregnancy and romanticizes it.
No shows on television at the moment truly illustrate the seriousness of teen pregnancy and the repercussions that come along with it. Whether girls are searching for fame and a way to make money or trying to emulate a fictional character from ABC Family, teen pregnancy isn’t going to decrease without the help of nation wide, all-encompassing sex education. While J Biebs will probably continue to be accused of fathering someone’s baby, if both young men and women are given proper sex education through school and through programs that could go out into the streets, the next generation would become more educated and more sensible when trying to protect themselves against unplanned pregnancy.
According to The New York Times author Brian Stelter in his article "Twitter and TV Get Close To Help Each Other Grow" Twitter has become the new snail mail. In the olden days when someone would object to something on TV or want to submit an idea to producers a letter would have to suffice, and most of the time those letters would be thrown straight in the trash by the production company. But today, producers are not only embracing, but curious about the public's opinion and have turned to Twitter for help, or so it seems.
Simon Cowell's "X Factor" has turned to Twitter to get feedback. Instead of casting your vote via phone or text one can tweet their vote and include feedback about the show. Cowell reads these tweets himself (or has someone else read and report on them) and says, "it's like having millions of producers working for you." But is Cowell's new found interest in the public for real or is it just another ploy by corporations to make money?
The chief executive of Twitter, Dick Costolo says "benefits will accrue to us" from this new relationship with TV. While Costolo refused to comment on whether or not Twitter will make an actual profit from the joint venture, it certainly seems like they will. Author Brian Stelter remarks on the venture:
"the proliferation of Twitter logos and language on news and talk shows and now “The X Factor” is not an accident; it is the product of a strategy that started nearly three years ago with the hiring of Chloe Sladden, a former vice president at Current TV, who put Twitter messages on screen during the 2008 presidential election."
While, a venture between television and the internet seems beneficial for both the viewer and the corporation it could also be harmful. Yes, it is exciting to be able to communicate with your favorite TV shows via twitter and vice versa but the merging of these two markets also creates a monopoly. Now, not only are the things shown on TV censored by the corporations that own them - think about GE's ownership of NBC - but twitter is jumping on board as well. Can we still trust the messages being displayed on twitter or are they just another another ploy by major corporations to influence the masses?
While "The X Factor" is attempting to be technologically savvy and attract a broader audience through participation this unification could lead to something else down the road. For now, it seems safe to express ones opinion about a TV show or network via twitter, but users must remain aware that the information they receive in return might not be the truth.
Kiss Cookie Monster, Elmo, Oscar and Big Bird good-bye kiddos because the American Academy of Pediatrics thinks that television for toddlers should be all but banned. But is banning television for youngsters really a solution? We live in a world completely saturated by the media so rather than isolating toddlers from media all together parents should be conscious of the types of programs and advertisements they expose their toddlers to.
The Academy’s initial announcement in 1999 “called on parents of young children to all but ban television watching for children under 2,” but after receiving much criticism from parents and the entertainment industry alike, this past week the Academy reissued their original announcement. While the new policy is a lot less restrictive the Academy is still sticking to their belief that “video screen time provides no educational benefits for children under age 2”. Furthermore, studies have shown that “children learn a lot more efficiently from real interactions – with people and things – than from situations appearing on video screens.” So the question remains, how can we change parent’s attitude towards their children’s media consumption? How does one separate from the 40- 60% of households who report having the TV on in the background during the whole day to those parents who put their kids in front of the TV only while they make dinner or take a shower? The problem is that there isn’t any long-term research on this topic, so until there is said research some parents will use the TV to entertain their youngsters instead of interacting with them.
But how interactive can parents be with the degree of media saturation in America today? According to The New York Times author Benedict Carey in his recent article “Parents Urged Again to Limit TV for Youngest”, states that nowadays an average household can have 10 or more screens in it so banning children’s media access is nearly impossible. Despite the copious programs for infants and toddler, the Academy has unwaveringly stated that there is “no such thing as an educational program for such young children.” But, who determines what is educational and what isn’t? It isn't just to rule out all types of entertainment as non-educational when the media plays such an huge role in day-to-day life.
However, parents must be wary when deeming programs educational. One must pay attention to not only the content but also to the advertisements presented along with the show. While networks such as PBS Kids and Nick Jr. are non-commercial, the same cannot be said for other children’s networks such a Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Disney. These stations air product ads that target the interests of the youngsters who watch the shows. For example, a young girl loves Dora the Explorer and watches it everyday. Parents think the show is harmless, even educational; it teaches kids Spanish, but they are wrong. This little girl is unknowingly becoming a consumer through the ads she is being shown. She learns how to want and need products such as the “Gourmet Cake Bakery Set” or “Swim with me Barbie.” It is scary to think that children are being treated as consumers from such an early age. While advertisements do not appear during shows for toddlers, who knows what’s next? The Academy would argue that children of such a young age do not have the capacity to understand what an advertisement is, but as soon as these toddlers learn how to form words or even just point, they are going to be pointing to what they see on the TV – and it won’t be Spanish words, it will be dolls, easy-bake ovens, and other useless products.
Despite the dangers of advertisements media should not be banned, but the content of the entire station should be evaluated. This can be done through a process known as Entertainment-Education. Entertainment education, a theory best described by author Martine Bouman in his essay "Turtles and Peacocks: Collaboration in Entertainment-Education Television". believes that media outlets and health providers can work together to promote awareness about social, cultural, and health related issues. Entertainment-Education can be seen on TV shows such as Scrubs in which they dedicate a whole episode to postpartum depression and provide contact information at the end of the episode. But can Entertainment-Education be reflected in programs for children? While the Academy would say no, the long terms love and appreciate of shows such as Sesame Street project a different answer.
Sesame Street is a program that teaches about life-long friendship, happiness, and promotes learning. While the show in a vacuum may not teach children under two these values, with reinforcement from parents, program like Sesame Street will have a positive effect on children. Media and entertainment is only growing more and more prevalent in today’s society and it is the duty of industry professionals to create more programs that stimulate young children and are free from advertisements. Do parents need to be grouchy like Oscar to get commercial free content? He doesn’t have advertisements in his trashcan!
Here are two op-ed pieces that I think are worth looking at this week as they combine my interests in entertainment, media, and consumer culture. The first one, Hollywood Dishonors the Bard, responds to the upcoming film "Anonymous" and how it paints Shakespeare as nothing but a fraud. The second, How we succeed by failing, talks about success of Steve Jobs and the public's dedication to Apple products despite the company's various failings. Enjoy.
In a recent New York Times Op-Ed entitled No More Adventures in Wonderland, author Maria Tartar remarks on the degree of adult content present in books supposedly written for children and young adults. Tartar compares children's classics such as Alice in Wonderland to today's best-sellers Harry Potter and The Hunger Games remarking that, "children today get an unprecedented dose of adult reality in their books, sometimes without the redemptive beauty, cathartic humor and healing magic of an earlier time." This certainly seems to be the case and makes me wonder why the media is the main culprit of the "mature youth culture" if the books children are reading for pleasure promote the same type of content their parents are trying to shield them from in the media.
The trouble with today's best sellers is not the fantastical yet somehow realistic worlds they inhabit but rather the fact that "the safety zones are rapidly vanishing as adult anxieties edge out childhood fantasy." Furthermore Tatrar points out that the dangerous yet enchantingly magical world displayed in Carroll and Barrie's Alice in Wonderland has been replaced by dangerous worlds without a lick of enchantment. Is it troublesome that parents let their young children read The Harry Potter series after author J.K. Rowling described it as a story "about death"? What about allowing your child to delve into the post-apocalyptic world of The Hunger Games where children are forced to kill one another for sport? These books are accepted by parents because they are well-written, engaging, and clearly fiction, but are children really able to understand what is acceptable if they are reading these books at such a susceptible age? Furthermore, these books seemed to have proved that their content is really for an older audience as many of the series most loyal fans are young to mid adults. However mature the fan base of the the series are it does not detract from the fact the books are mainly being marketing to children and placed in the young adult section of libraries and book stores.
I think the answer to this problem won't be solved through censorship of these books, but rather through a program best explained by author Henry Jenkins called media literacy. Instead of implementing programs that help people make sense of the messages and subtext presented in the media, a concept which Jenkins is strongly in favor of, programs could be implemented in grade schools to help children and young adults make sense of the messages and subtext presented in books. Programs like this would help children and young adults better understand why the fictional worlds presented in Harry Potter and The Hunger Games are fictional because while children may grasp that witches and wizards are not real they may not understand why so many innocent people are being killed.
The millennial generation and generation X have always been allowed freedom of speech under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The declaration, which was adopted in 1948 states that:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Today, when I check my Twitter and Facebook feeds I seldom think of the socio-cultural possibilities these new media platforms present because of my right to freedom of speech. Americans have the right to tweet, post, and blog about whatever they believe in whether it is discriminatory or not, the government does not and cannot interfere. However, this right to free posting or even free speech has not been accepted by the whole world. In particular, the governments of the Middle East and North Africa have maintained control over their people for decades through oppression and violence. Now, with the rise of new media the people living in the Middle East and North Africa are able to broadcast their opinions for the whole world, and despite governmental attempts the message of the people can no longer be silenced. While some bloggers, academics, and politicians across the world have expressed concern that the use of social media in these locations has only fueled more terror from the government, others think the opposite. Sociologist Mark Granovetterbelieves that platforms built on social media activism are “weak ties” because on Twitter and Facebook users often have many followers that they have never met. Ultimately, Granovetter argues that the distance between social media users allows for power to be exploited through a “diffusion of innovation” meaning that “these ties seldom lead to high-risk activism.” While Granovetter raises an excellent point about the power of social media, others believe that weak ties are beneficial because they often lead to a persons greater understanding because acquaintances provide many innovative ways of thought. Despite the differing opinions it cannot be denied that social media has organized, empowered, and led to high-risk activism in Iran and Egypt, thus indicating that the Internet can stand up to governmental oppression - however double-edged the outcome may be.
In Malcolm Gladwell’s article Small Change, Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, Gladwell addresses the role of social media in a revolution. He begins with an overview of the book “Here Comes Everybody” written by NYU professor Clay Shirky, which argues that Internet provides “the ease and speed with which a group can be mobilized for the right kind of cause.” Clay proves his point through the story of a man named Evan and his girlfriend Ivanna. Ivanna left her sidekick in a taxicab, and when Evan tried to get the phone back the teenager who had it refused to return the device. Evan was angry, and set up a website with a photo of the teenager and a description of the event and sent it around to all of his friends. The website got linked to MySpace and its degree of popularity allowed the story to be picked up by the local news and the N.Y.P.D was able to return the phone to its rightful owner. Clay argues that Evan would have never gotten the sidekick back without the help of the Internet. While Clay agrees with Granovetter that social media outlets are a series of weak ties, Clay, unlike Granovetter, believes that these ties do effectively allow activists to express and spread their message. Furthermore, Clay argues that these ties “shift our energies from organizations that promote strategic and disciplined activity and toward those which promote resilience and adaptability.” While Clay’s notion of a shift in strategic energy makes sense, can social media outlets organize anything greater than one man’s quest for a lost phone? Do these weak ties even have the possibility to promote real activism?
The Atlantic article How Governments Deal with Social Media by Alex Howard, like Granovetter, deals with the importance of the weak ties social media produces. Howard draws attention to Alex J. Ross who is the senior innovation designer for Hilary Clinton. Ross believes that “connection technologies, including social media, tend to devolve power from the nation state and large institutions to individuals and small institutions.” Meaning that the rise of new media has taken power away from large institutions (the government) and given it to the individuals (the protestors). This has certainly been the case in both Egypt and Iran, however, the government has not stopped trying to regain control. In terms of governmental practices, Ross states that governments who do not engage with social media opens themselves up to attacks and uprisings, which was one of the main reasons that citizens of Egypt and Iran were able to rise up: the government wasn’t web 2.0 savvy. Furthermore, with the mainstream media constantly merging with social media, successful governments need to be technologically current as nowadays more people tweet than watch TV. Despite the power of social media Howard draws the conclusion that “under repressive governments and autocracies, social media can act as a tool of oppression as well as freedom.” Recent events in Egypt have proved that while social media has an impact in starting a revolution, it is also extremely dangerous. One story in particular that illustrates the role social media can have on a population is that of Khaled Said. Khaled was a 28-year-old Alexandrian who was brutally beaten and murdered in public by two policemen. The attack was witnessed by many, captured on cell phones and posted on YouTube. A man by the name of Wael Ghonim, who was born in Egypt and had worked as a Google marketing executive was particularly outraged by Khaled’s murder. Ghonim anonymously created a Facebook page to protest the murder and the page soon attracted over 473,000 followers. In Steve Coll’s article The Internet: For Better or For Worse he details that after the creation of the Facebook page Ghonim communicated with people on the ground in Egypt and physical protests ensued. Ghonim was arrested for his actions, but the revolution could not be stopped. A revolution Ghonim believes “started online.”
Protest in Tahrir Square
The main protest began in late January 2011 in Tahrir Square and spread throughout Cairo. Despite the widespread believe that the power of the Internet started the revolution, others disagree. In the article In Unsettled Times, Media Can Be a Call to Action, or a Distraction, Noam Cohen assesses those who disagree with the idea that the power of the Internet led to the Tahrir Square protest. Cohen draws upon Navid Hassanpour work as his main example. Hassanpour believed that because of the rowdiness social media groups caused during the protests the Egyptian government had just cause to shut down the Internet. Hassanpour believes that the protest got out of hand because “full connectivity in social networks sometimes can hinder collective action”, meaning that while social media is beneficial for organization, using it during real action can created confusion, pandemonium, and a delay of truth. On paper Hassanpour’s point seems to make sense, but in reality, when the government shut down the Internet in Egypt it only fueled more anger.
In Egypt, social media was used to shed light on corruption, but as author of The Net Delusion, Evgeny Morozov points out social media and the Internet are “an arsenal of weapons…far more potent than police baton, surveillance cameras, and handcuffs.” Illustrated best in Steve Coll's article, this was certainly the case during the 2009 Green Movement Uprising in Iran. The outrage that followed the 2009 Iranian elections led to a widespread revolt that was not initially fueled by the citizens of Iran but rather by Iranian exiles abroad. Morozov details that the exiles relied on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook to spark internal war. The revolts became so violent that the Iranian government asked that all forms of social media be suspended inside Iran. While the United States urged Twitter and YouTube providers to hold off on doing so, as it gave hope to the protestors, the Iranian government seized as many social media users in Iran as they could find and threw them in jail. According to Morozov, the United States attempted diplomatic act “triggered a worldwide Internet panic and politicized all online activity, painting it in bright revolutionary colors and threatening to tighten online spaces and opportunities that were previously unregulated.” The Green Movement Uprising fueled by Internet providers outside of Iran actually created dangerous unrest. By comparing the use of social media during the protests in Egypt and Iran, Morozov is correct in saying that technology and social media can indeed be used for both good and evil.
Despite the danger social media presents in these countries, as illustrated in Steve Coll’s article, Hillary Clinton believes that Internet freedom is desperately needed in all countries because it has become “the public space of the twenty-first century.”
The clip above is taken from Clinton’s major policy speech (1/21/10) and further illustrates Coll's point in regards to the power of the Internet. Clinton illustrates that since the Internet is “a network that magnifies the power and potential of all others it critical that that is users are assured certain basic freedoms.” However, Clinton does not take into account that while Internet freedom is important, if governments are resistant, the Internet will cause more harm than good. Despite some governments extreme resistance, Clinton is not the only one who believes in the importance of immediate universal Internet freedom. Author of The Master Switch, Tim Wu, agrees with Clinton that the Internet is an extremely powerful and influential medium. Wu draws parallels to the rise of radio, pointing out that when the radio was first introduced people tried to ban and censor it because it connected people like never before. But, the difference between the radio and the Internet is that because the Internet allows for discourse it has changed the democratic process like no other medium. Ultimately, Wu states that, “the individual holds more power than at any time in the past century, and literally in the palm of his hand.”
Social media has presented an interesting and complex dilemma that doesn’t have one correct answer. Banning social media in places of unrest seems to only fuel the unrest further and when social media is used as a way to end injustice the government responds with anger and violence. The main thing is that whether governments like it or not social media has been introduced to the people and their voices can no longer be silenced. In a Paley Center discussion entitled The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change a group of professionals gathered together to discuss the social media revolution. In response to this question, Andrew Rasiej, social entrepreneur and co-founder of techPredient quoted academic Dave Perry, reinforcing the mentality that, “you can turn off the public Internet but you can’t turn off the Internet public.” Rasiej uses this quote to illustrate his point that “people who use the Internet just think differently.” He points to Egypt specifically in this argument, commenting on the fact that the protestors in Egypt believe that organized minorities are far more powerful than disorganized majorities which is why protestors are attacking anyone who attempts to fill the majority void. Egypt itself is also a perfect example of the double-edge sword that social media presents because while the protestors became organized through the power of the Internet have created a seemingly permanent solution in sight.
This protests in Egypt have transformed from being solely on the web to now taking place primarily on the ground. One Paley Center commentator in particular wonders why the effects of media have led people to loose faith in larger institutions. I think the people in Egypt and Iran have lost faith in larger institutions because those institutions have been nothing but oppressive to them in the past. The power of social media allows people to join together and become their own institution. In Martha Raddatz’s news broadcast: Social Media Fuels Protests in Iran, Bahrain, and Yemen, she discusses an effect called “cyber wildfire.” Solidarity Demonstrations: organized and uniformed protests in Iran, have caused “wildfire” due to the protestors persistence in posting photos and videos from each protest. The cyber traffic Solidarity Demonstrations have experienced only further inspires people in Iran and helps them organize more and more protests. Now 90% of Solidarity Demonstration followers on Facebook are located in Iran. Not only are Iranians being inspired to protest by other Iranians, they are being inspired by Egyptians – an effect that would not be possible without the aid of the Internet. In the article Middle East in 2011: Social Media to Take on Government, Firas Al-Atraqchi details the exponential rise social media sites have seen in Egypt and Iran. The Committee Project Journalists (CPJ) states that Iran is the most dangerous place for bloggers and activists who use the media as their main resources. Furthermore, Al-Atraqchi states “the Internet Advertising Bureau estimates that year-on-year growth of Twitter users in the Middle East and Africa surged by 142% to five million.” Meaning that despite the violence, people in the Middle East and North Africa are still joining social media sites to broadcast their messages.
According to Fira Al-Atraqchi, this “constant tug of war between media reformists and the public on the one front and repressive policy-makers and authoritarian figures on the other” that the Middle East and North Africa are experiencing is not one that is going to go away anytime soon. This notion poses a great issue: how are these countries going to prosper, not to mention, survive without a balance between the ideals of the people and the goals of the government? The continuous power struggle in both Egypt and Iran prove that there isn’t a simple answer, and in my mind I do not see a compromise between the people and the government as a possibility. Both sides (protestors and officials) want vastly different outcomes, so one side will have to give into the others demands eventually. If there is one thing I am sure of is that I agree with Mark Pfeifle, former national security advisor, in his belief that Twitter should be nominated for a Noble Peace Prize because “without Twitter the people of Iran would not have felt empowered and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy.” Without the power and freedom Twitter and others forms of social media have given the people of Iran and Egypt there would not have have been a sword for them to fight with - however double-edged it may be.
works cited:
Al-Atraqchi, Firas. "Middle East in 2011: Social Media to Take on Governments." The Huffington Post. 31 Dec. 2010. Web. 29 Sept. 2011
Cohen, Noam. "In Unsettled Times, Media Can Be a Call to Action, or a Distraction."The New York Times 28 Aug. 2011. Web. 29 Sept. 2011.
Coll, Steve. "The Internet: For Better of For Worse." The New Review of Books 7 Apr. 2011. Web. 29 Sept. 2011.
Gladwell, Malcolm. "Small Change, Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted." The New Yorker 4 Oct. 2010. Web. 29 Sept. 2011.
Howard, Alex. "How Governments Deal With Social Media." The Atlantic 9 Aug. 2011. Web. 29 Sept. 2011.
Osnos, Peter. "Social Media’s Impotence During the Turmoil in Libya and Japan." The Atlantic 22 Mar. 2011. Web. 29 Sept. 2011.
The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change. The Paley Center for Media, 2011. Web.
Social Media Fuels Protests in Iran, Bahrain, and Yemen. Perf. Martha Raddatz. ABC, 2011. Web.
Sarah Palin has become quite the TV darling. First, her infamous interview with Katie Couric in 2008 which led to Tina Fey's impersonation of her. Next, Palin herself appeared on SNL, and now, she has her own reality show. When the show premiered in 2010, many thought that the reality show: Sarah Palin's Alaska was created to help her gain favor in the 2012 presidential election, but its 2011, and Palin has shown no signs of running - was it the reality TV show that hurt her?
While the reality show is not the sole reason Palin isn't running for president, it definitely fueled many of her critics. In her book Entertaining Citizens, author Liesbet Van Zoonen tackles the role of politics in the realm of entertainment. In a conversation with USC Professor Daniela Baroffio she helped explain the major theme seen in Van Zoonen's book in relation to Sarah Palin. Van Zoonen articulates that:
"politicians have to commute constantly between the different requirements of politics and entertainment in order to maintain their position and status in the political field, as well as their relevance to everyday culture" (69).
In other words, Van Zoonen means that a politician must be both proximate and distant ora political leader is both "one of us and one of them." I agree with Professor Baroffio in that Palin's failings as a politician is a result of her being too proximate.
All throughout the 2008 presidential campaign Palin tried to gain favor by relating only to the "hockey mom" types through her casual jokes and familial display and didn't spend nearly enough time gaining national favor by showcasing her true political knowledge. However, it is not entirely her fault. One of the flaws in McCain's shaping of Palin is that his strategists firmly believed that the role of the politician had been transformed solely into that of a celebrity. Yes, people did become obsessed with everything Palin said, what she wore, etc, but the strategists did not prepare for the backlash. Where and when did the backlash occur? In my opinion, it happened when people realized that Palin was unable to transition back and forth between her personal and public image: yes, Palin could make jokes but could she answer the hard-hitting questions?
Even after the backlash during the presidential campaign, Palin still decided to go ahead with her reality television show, a program that showed the "true Sarah Palin." In my mind what makes this whole situation so ironic is that America has already seen so much of Palin's personal life (i.e. Bristol's pregnancy) so why would exposing the public to more of it make people take her more seriously? She would already get the votes from the viewers that would take her show seriously, while only further alienating her haters by providing them with a forum to mock her once again.
This Palin disaster symbolizes a serious shift in the role of modern day politics. The fact that some politicians (and strategists) are more concerned with their status in pop culture rather than engaging in actual intellectual discourse is a troubling mindset. While Americans want to know their candidates, they also need to have faith that they will be able to lead our country (state, city, town, etc) to greatness and watching Palin on a snowmobile definitely isn't a convince Americans of that. In the upcoming presidential campaign I would like to see a return to the "issues" - I don't want to see candidates on SNL or exploring the wilderness, I want to see them at the podium making speeches. I do want to know the candidates personalities, but more importantly I want to know where he/she stands on the issues.
In the September 12th New York Times Article, "These Celebrities Feel the Hate, and Confront It", author Brooke Barnes talks about the CW's TV show H8R - a reality program where celebrities confront their cyber bullies. This show, Barnes details, along with MTV's If You Really Knew Me and Bully Beatdown attempt to combat the cyber bullying kids (and adults) encounter on websites such as twitter and facebook. While the President of the CW Network, Mark Pedowitz says that the intended message of the show is to “think before you type and don’t believe everything you read on a blog", I find the whole concept of the show quite laughable.
The CW Network is trying to increase ratings by putting B, C, and D list celebrities on camera to confront their bullies. Showing washed up reality TV stars sand low list celebrities trying to reveal their true identity to their "attackers" just gives bullying a bad name. One of the episode in particular I find to be quite offensive: The Snooki Episode. Snooki confronts her bully saying, “I just saw you rant about me. What is wrong with you? You have no idea who I am as a person.” Wait - I'm sorry, who doesn't hate Snooki a little bit? She has only made a fool of herself on national television multiple seasons in a row, has been arrested for public intoxication, and gives Italian Americans in general a bad name. But, Reality TV is supposed to be real isn't it? So why shouldn't the world think of you (Snooki) as that type of person and why shouldn't we dislike you for it? The confrontation and reconciliation that occurs on H8R is far from what happens in real life and does nothing to help the real victims of bullies.
In the real world things are messier. Scared, helpless victims of bullying hardly ever confront and resolve problems with their attacker, and viewing this show won't provide actual help and advice to those who need it most. If one is looking for a more realistic picture of bullying I suggest turning to Glee. While Barnes dumps the show into the list of reality programs I mentioned above, Glee deserves to be in a class of its own. While the spontaneous musical numbers and ridiculous characters scare some people away, the issues creator Ryan Murphy addresses are real and heartfelt. In season 2, Kurt (played by Chris Colfer), terrorized by a homophobic bully is so traumatized by it that he has to transfer schools - not even the glee club could help him stand up to his bully. Murphy takes the storyline a step further by exposing the weak side of the bully, showing that he is really the one who is insecure and afraid. When Kurt returns to McKinley at the end of season 2 and confronts his attacker with kind words and a helping hand, the bully accepts and they become friends. While I realize this resolution is definitely not what happens with most bullying cases in the real world, Glee is certainly more truthful than H8R.
How much does the CW network really want to help victims stand up to their bullies? I don't think very much. While the show did decline Hiedi and Spencer Pratt's ('The Hills') demand for a "six-figure appearance fee" others guests such as Eva Longoria and Kim Kardashian hardly have anything in common with real life victims of bullying. Part of being a celebrity comes with the acceptance of haters because not everyone can be liked by everyone, and passing that dislike off as bullying just isn't right. If the CW must broadcast a show about bullying they should focus on helping actual victims, instead of passing celebrities off as them.
Correction: Regarding my September 8th post about President Obama's speech on jobs - The unemployment rate is holding steady above 9% - not falling. Also, in regards to my September 10th post, Here are a few photos I thought applied to my profile of Susan Faludi:
Public Intellectuals: an inner circle of scholars, the intelligentsia of the world, experts in their field, and a voice that the general public listened and responded to. Before the rise of the internet and the creation of the millions of blogs that now exist, the definition and the role of the public intellectual was much more identifiable. But, with the rise of the blogosphere, America’s democratic voice has taken full force as millions of people publish opinions that were formerly only tackled by said public intellectuals.
Despite this new platform, the vast majority of bloggers and authors are not true public intellectuals. However, today, the democratic voice is challenging the role and the importance of the public intellectual. As detailed in The Brecher Brief’s post: The Decline of the Public Intellectual, Richard Hofstader believes that the social, economic, and cultural capital of education is so rooted in the American Dream, that American’s who do not believe they have such capital are hostile of those who do. Furthermore, Hofstader believes that many Americans feel that action and experience are better indicators of knowledge and intellectualism rather than simply writing about it. Today, these “experienced” intellectuals are able to voice their opinions at the click of a button, however this easy access leads to a greater problem: how do people sort out the real intellectuals from the “fake” ones? Is the youth of America going to trust the voice of a much older Pulitzer Prize winner, scholar, and author over a “regular” person who has experienced the events that said Pulitzer Prize winner has only written about?
There is a way to salvage the role of the true public intellectual. The Brecher Brief is correct in saying that the role of the public intellectual can be redefined if Americans stop looking at public intellectuals as a stogy and elitist class, but rather decide a public intellectuals importance based on the function of their work. Public intellectual, Susan Faludi, could be judged by mainstream America as simply an elitist, intellectual member of society, with her Harvard (1981) education and journalistic ventures at The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other prestige worthy newspapers. But, instead of allowing her education, the places she has worked, or the social circle she “runs in” determine her qualifications as a public intellectual, let’s examine the actual work she has done.
In her three books, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Woman, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, andThe Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America, Susan Faludi explores feminist issues and the role of women in American culture and society. Faludi’s book, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Woman is particularly interesting because it examines how the American woman was reflected onscreen during the Reagan Era. During this era motion pictures depicted a false image of how women were supposed to act and be treated in American society. As Faludi details in the introduction of Backlash, Movies such as Fatal Attraction (1987) painted a loving picture of the stay-at-home mom while punishing those women who chose to be independent or to have a career. Fatal Attraction, a thriller about a single woman (Glenn Close) who goes insane after having one night stand with a married man (Michael Douglas,) dramatizes the challenges women faced in real life during the Reagan era. To portray a single, professional woman as clinically insane and the wife (Anne Archer) as the martyr, Faludi believes, was an attempt to scare women out of the workplace and back into their home: during this time women were told that they could not be both a wife and professional.
Apart from Faludi’s exploration of cinema, in Backlash, she also explores the written material presented to women during the Regan Era. Faludi attacks the critically acclaimed self-help book: Smart Women/ Foolish Choices, which argued that, “a woman’s distress was an unfortunate consequence of feminism,” Through Faludi's examination of all facet's of American culture during this time she proves (with the aid of film, print, and legislation) that the material presented to women during the Reagan era (such as Smart Women/Foolish Choices) did more harm than good. Faludi doesn’t stop there, she also points fingers at the lawmakers, detailing that “The U.S. Attorney General's Commission on Pornography even proposed that women's professional advancement might be responsible for rising rape rates.” The Attorney General justified this claim by explaining that because more women went to college, the more of an opportunity they had to be raped - A claim which Faludi attributes to the Government's push to have women return to the home. Faludi’s pointed and detailed exploration of the Reagan era shows that not only has she “done her research” on the era, but she also incorporates other esteemed political and intellectual figures into her argument. A public intellectual doesn’t just blame and call attention to a problem, but rather, a public intellectual is a critic that criticizes with factual evidence and poses a possible solution.
Faludi certainly drew critics to her work as she released all of her books at crucial times in American history. Backlash was released in 1991, only two years after Regan left office, Stiffed in 1999, before the impending Y2K and possible “end of the world,” and finally The Terror Dream in 2001, post September 11th. But, in true public intellectual style, Faludi was not afraid of criticism.
The Terror Dream, Faludi's most controversial book, argues that 9/11 caused a return to old-fashioned gender roles created a divide amongst critics. Pulitzer Prize winner Michiko Kakutani thought that The Terror Dream is: “the sort of tendentious, self-important, sloppily reasoned book that gives feminism a bad name.” While New York Times cultural critic John Leonardbelieved that the book is: “a splendid provocation of a book, levitating to keep company with Hunter Thompson's fear and loathing, Leslie Fielder's love and death and Edmund Wilson's patriotic gore." The critical conversations that arose from Faludi’s book shows that she has succeeded, substance wise, as a public intellectual: she researched, articulated, and criticized which in turn allowed others to respond and criticize her work. Furthermore, the rise of the blogosphere, allows American’s to reflect and criticize her work further, which keeps the importance of Faludi’s work ever present.
Another point that The Brecher Brief raises in defense of the public intellectual is that they are not paid publicists and they aren’t in the “pocket” of officials: their job is to critically look at an issue and respond to it. Susan Faludi is a great example of this, because she is an equal opportunity critic. Although her attack of Regan is read as a liberal interpretation of women’s rights, her other articles point out the faults of republicans and democrats alike. In Faludi’s TimearticleThe Mythical “Security Mom,” she responds to pollster David Winston’s (GOP affiliate) articulation of the 9/11 attacks. Winston states:
"My first inkling that 9/11 would have more than just a passing impact on women came only a month after the attacks. As Congress considered legislation to allow the arming of pilots, I did a survey for the Allied Pilots Association and United Seniors Association. One finding surprised a lot of people: Married women with children were the biggest proponents of putting guns in the cockpit—favoring the idea by a whopping 78 percent, five points higher than men."
Faludi calls Winston out on his claims, arguing that Winston’s claim is incredibly narrow in relation to such a large statement about cockpit safety. Winston only used one 2004 study on safety concerns to justify his claim, which Faludi argues is simply not enough proof. Despite Faludi’s call for reconsideration, both democrats and republicans used the idea of familial safety in their 2004 campaigns. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake told USA in 2004 that “[women] want someone who will do what it takes to protect America.” But what about men? Aren’t they equally concerned with the safety of America? Similarly, on the Republican side, Bush’s “W Stands for Women,” based on the same platform of familial safety, targeted the emotional tendencies of women. Faludi's critique of both sides shows that she has no obligation to a particular party, but rather she is only concerned with the delivery of her message.
Susan Faludi is a true representation of a “modern day” public intellectual. Her devotion to her area of expertise outweighs the old school, elitist image of the public intellectual. Faludi's allegiance is to her work, rather than any type of political or social affiliation allows her to be equally critical. With the rise of the democratic youth it is most important for public intellectuals to write without bias, thus providing an equal opportunity to criticize and be criticized.
