FYS thingamabob

Well, it’s not really a bad habit. It’s good.  Some people just find it weird. To each his own.

So my habit is that everytime I read something, I tend to look for rhetorical devices, mostly satire, but other things too. Why? Because of the books I had to read during high school.  I mean, Dickens’s Oliver Twist reeked with satire, and I loved it, and these essays I used to read by a guy called Cohen also were extremely satirical. I love satire. It beats exaggerating, and all that flowery speech–the satire just does it all.  My brain is just wired to look for satire. And I know this isn’t English class, but we’re still required to read, and therefore, I still look out for rhetorical devices. I can’t help it.

So this whole thing about how my brain is “wired” to look for satire just makes me think of more McLuhan thinking, and his point that the media influences the way we think.  I didn’t look at it this way till reading McLuhan’s essay.  Why do I look for satire (which I did a lot when we first started reading for FYS), even when it’s not there?  Because the books I read–Dickens, Fitzgerald, Cohen, etc. have all had satire and other rhetorical devices, and so when I read something new, the books I have already read have shaped the way I think, which is that the new book I read may be filled with awesome rhetorical devices. And then it turns out that it’s not. Sad day. Haha. But still–because of the books I have read, I tend to look for elements similar to what are in those other books. This form of media (books) has influenced the way I think and approach other things.

McLuhan is crazy. And right.

Ari xx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw_X5fpKwr4

For those of you who use Zunes….just stop. Haha, I’m totally kidding. I won’t judge. Well, maybe.

*awkward pause.*

Ok so, I wanted to talk more about the way media influences the way we think, and I want to incorporate music into this.

Anyway, I was thinking back on the days when I had my CD player, with the shock protection, so I could run with it, and we all thought that was so high tech at the time. And when I’d travel I had that case with a place for my CDs, so I could switch CDs.  Yea, I’m so glad I have my iPod.  I can hit shuffle and have all my songs shuffled, I can organize playlists, listen to only certain artists or a certain genre, put some cute album art, put the lyrics on the screen, if I have the genuis playlist I can have playlists created for me based on songs that go well together, which is something I’d definitely love.  I’m talking about all these features in an iPod in such a nonchalant way, as if it was something completely normal–which it is, but back when there were no iPods, it would not have been normal.  It would have been like, some profound futuristic crap, or something like that.  But the way I can talk about an iPod and the way I go about obtaining my music and listening to music has changed so much, and that only reiterates McLuhan’s statement that the medium influences the way we think.  Back when I had my CD player, if I wanted a certain song, I had to buy the whole CD.  But with the release of the iPod, the way we view listening to music and and obtaining music has changed so much.  Instead of saying, “Oh did you hear that new single by FOB? I gotta buy their CD!” (Ok honestly, who says that these days?) Anyway, usually people say something like, “I love that new song by FOB, gotta download it off of _________ (insert downloading program or iTunes here).” The way we think when it comes to listening and getting new music is so different.  And new things like Pandora have totally spoiled me.  I love discovering new artists in styles I like.  Youtube Deathcab for Cutie, The Rocket Summer, Cartel, and Daphne Loves Derby.

Anyway, results of new media such as Pandora and Youtube have led me to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEjwR2Jl9sY

Ari xx

McLuhan is brilliant. He’s crazy smart! Anyway, I find his writing and his ideas to be really complex.  It’s one of those things that won’t make sense right off the bat, but rather, takes time to break down, figure out what he means, and think about how it applies to you.  It’s quite a lot of thinking, but it’s good. And once it makes sense, it’s easy to find different examples of his idea that media influences the way we think.  I talked to Dr. Campbell today and he helped me better understand what McLuhan was trying to say.  The medium is indeed the message, but there is more to that.  How is the medium the message?  Because the medium is what influences what we do and the way we think.  When McLuhan wrote the essay, there was no TiVo or DVR, so he made the statement (when comparing different media) that if one wanted to watch a certain part of a movie, one had to watch the whole movie again.  When I first read that, I thought, “What? I can totally pause and rewind it!”  Which is a perfect example of McLuhan’s point.  Media influences the way we think.  Say you’re watching Oprah, but for some reason you have to leave the room. You don’t need to miss the show; you can pause it using DVR, you can record it using TiVo, or better yet, you can download it or watch it online.  We don’t think for a second that using any of these programs is a medium that influences how we think or how we do things, for we are too distracted by Oprah tearing down Chris Brown, or listing her favorite things that her live audience will actually get, while we sit at home and not get free stuff.  Using TiVo or YouTube is something so commonplace, yet if we were in the 90s and watching Oprah and had the sudden urge to clog our arteries, we’d have to wait till the end of the show, or at least commercial break.  Having something like TiVo allows us more flexibility in our schedule if we want to catch a certain show.  We don’t need to schedule our whole day around that hour of Desperate Housewives–we can TiVo it and watch it when we want to.

When we want to.

It’s convenient to do things when you want to.  But if you had asked someone who lived like, in the 1800s, convenience wouldn’t have been something that had entered his mind.  So why is convenience such a good thing for us? Because technological advances such as the ones I mentioned above have made us used to the convenience. Which futher reiterates McLuhan’s point that media influence the way people think.  We are so used to having things tailored to our lives and our needs and that’s why we like convenience and why we keep coming out with more technological innovations that make our lives even more easy.  As Robert Heinlein puts it, “Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.”

Let’s go back to the “watch TV when you want to.”  It’s great to not have to rush home to catch an episode of Ugly Betty.  This brings me to the statement McLuhan made, saying that although “electric light and power are separate from their uses[,] they eliminate time and space factors in human association exactly as do radio, telegraph, telephone, and TV.”  How do all these media eliminate time and space factors?  Second Life is a good example of this.  When we held class in Second Life, Dr. C was all the way in Spain, while the rest of the class was all around campus, in the dorms, etc., yet we were still able to converse and talk as if we were all in the same room.  Second Life eliminated the space barrier–we were all able to communicate effectively despite the fact that we were all in different places.  Another example–electric light, which is the example used in McLuhan’s essay.  What can we do in electric light? Just about anything. We can read, write, draw, paint, play sports, cook, or perform surgery in electric light.  Because of electric light, we don’t need to wait till there’s broad daylight to read a book; we can read perfectly fine at night because electric light provides us with the light we need.  In addition, electric light can be taken with you–flashlights are portable, so you can “bring” the light with you.  Or, if you’re like me and you use your cell phone to see in the dark, that too is small and compact, and that can be brought around as well. Electric light eliminates both the time and space barriers.  Technological advances have made communication, particularly over various places that are far from each other and in different time zones, much much easier and more effective, and have influenced the way we think about communication. Things that are mundane to us were not mundane to McLuhan, yet his assertions stand correct to this day.  So kudos to McLuhan.

Ari xx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx1piLQopUc

Here are just some thoughts as I read McLuhan’s essay.  I think his assertion that “the medium is the message” is quite brilliant.  “The medium is the message” is basically saying that the medium influences how the message is perceived.  Too often, people only pay attention to the obvious, which is the content of the message, but not the medium itself.  However, it is important that we do shift our focus of study to the media itself because it affects society, not only through the content of the medium but through the characteristics of the medium itself.

McLuhan uses “medium” in a broad sense.  He uses electric light as an example of his assertion that “the medium is the message.”  Electric light is a medium without a message. It does not have content in the way that a newspaper has articles or a television has programs.  Rather, electric light is a medium that has a social effect.  The “content” of electric light could be the activities one does using the electric light, such as if it were being used for brain surgery or night baseball.  The “message” of any medium is the effect it has.  For example, think of the creation of the railway.  The construction of the railway did not introduce us to movement or transportation; rather, it augemented what we already knew about those concepts.  It created new kinds of jobs and work and leisure.  The medium had an impact on society.  It “shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and interaction.”  McLuhan believes that the content of a medium blinds us to the character of the medium.  He uses companies like IBM, General Electric, and AT&T as examples.  Although those companies are completely different and make completely different products, they are, in a sense, the same medium–all their products move information in some way.  However, because we are so focused on the products themselves–the “content”–we don’t realize that all these media are related much more closely than we think.

I like how McLuhan uses lines from Shakespeare and other anonymous writers to explain different media, particularly the anonymous excerpt that reads, “Describes the scratch but not the itch.” This excerpt explains the increasing awareness to the medium rather than just the content alone.  I think it means that anything is meaningless without first understanding the medium, because the content of a medium is just another medium.  We pay so much attention to the content, but not the source of the content.

So….I recently became a fan of Jack’s Mannequin because it came up on my Pandora radio (thank you Pandora).

Speaking of Pandora, it can actually be thought of as a medium too. Does it not move information? It plays songs from different artists based on the artist/genre/something you specify. It didn’t introduce us to radio or music; it added to what we already knew, and it changed the way many people listen to music.  I never use iTunes anymore (sorry Eric); I just listen to Pandora. I’m glad I do, I love Jack’s Mannequin, Owl City, and Playradioplay! . All of whom I’ve never listened to before Pandora.  It’s introduced me to many new artists, it’s created jobs, for now people with a background in music theory are qualified to work for Pandora, and it’s revolutionized internet radio in general.  Pandora really is something I find truly fascinating.

As a result of Pandora radio, I’ve attached another lovely link to a song I’m starting to put on replay quite a bit.  Hope you enjoy as much as I did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnRfw-Bmlrw

Ari xx

I love laughing my ankles off I am currently laughing my ankles off. Hahahahaha. FYS class, you guys are so cute.   So today I’m going to talk about censorship.  This topic came to my mind today during FYS class, when I tweeted that I was “laughing my ankles off.” In addition, the class right before FYS, which is FDM 1303, is pretty closely related to what we talk about in class–well, certain topics.  It’s easy to relate what we talk about in the two classes.  In FDM, we talk about different forms of mass communication, including Internet and other advances in technology that have made communication much easier.  One of our topics in FDM was censorship.  Censorship is used so much–it’s used in movies, music, even books, sometimes (which really makes me mad).  So why is censorship used? I’ve always wondered that, and today in FYS class when we used the word “ankles,” the topic came to my mind again.  For example, when you use “F___,” we already know what it means, so why block it? Is it because you don’t want to read the word? Or because you find it offensive? Whether you find it offensive or not, the word is still there and you know it’s there, and you probably will “read” it anyway, so what’s the point? For some reason, I just have always had a big problem with censorship; I feel like it’s a barrier to learning.  When something is censored, whether it’s nudity in art or profanity in a song or a book, it just makes it seem like the person doing the censoring is letting us see only what he wants us to see, but not the whole thing.  I think that if we’re going to be showed something, if it has “censor-worthy” material, we should be exposed to it anyway. I mean, it’s just a part of the piece of work.  And besides, we’re 18. Well most of us, at least, and if some y’all are still 17…well, I’m sure it’s nothing you haven’t heard (or said) anyway. Just kidding. And I’ve heard the whole, “my 13-year-old likes to listen to Eminem (or some explicit rapper) but I don’t want him to hear Eminem’s profanity” argument. Like, ok soccer mom, I’m pretty sure your son has already heard and used Eminem’s profanity because he is a pre-pubescent kid who thinks swearing makes him cool like that.  And anyway, if you don’t want your child or whatever to be exposed to profanity, then don’t let him listen to artists who use it.  (Honestly, if you want him to listen to some “good, clean music,” give him some Switchfoot.)  Even though they have “clean” versions of their song, you still know what their songs are about, and you know what the “bleep” is covering up.  What makes a word profane? I think, personally, any word can be “profane” if you use it in a context that makes it profane.  It’s all really gray area type stuff, and the word “profane” to begin with is pretty subjective.  So before labeling certain words as profane, it’s important to stipulate a precise definition for what a profane word really is and in what way is it used that makes it profane.  It’s one of those disputed topics, but if any of you guys have any comments or anything to add to this, please let me know in the comments section!

Ari xx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhjsFWPXG2o