Before starting this blog, I rarely checked Facebook, never posted online journals and didn’t have a Twitter account. Nine weeks later, this has clearly changed.
Media Studies has introduced me to many technological fads and has forced me to think critically of the world around me. As I’ve interacted with these various forms of media, a nagging question has consistently come up.
Is new media facilitating cleverly disguised narcissism?
Let me explain. Beginning with MySpace, the internet generation has gravitated towards sites that allow them to speak their minds. This in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. In fact, there’s no doubt that the internet has improved many aspects of 21st century life, among which include increased communication, new ideas gained through collective intelligence and the ability to post journals, blogs, pictures etc. around the world in real time.
However, this freedom to do and say whatever one wants, whenever one wants has led to many people choosing to talk about themselves. On Facebook and Twitter, people update their statuses, sharing some of the most mundane parts of their lives with the world. Blogger and WordPress are filled with rambling blog posts about the writer’s feelings. YouTube is packed full of bad videos of people attempting to be the next viral video star.
It seems to me that the internet promotes communication between people just as much as it promotes self advertising. My generation goes to a music concert and tweets during the middle of it. Late at night, I go onto Facebook only to see twenty new status updates informing me of the latest thing to happen to a friend.
Through the internet, people are trying to share the experiences that happen in their lives on a daily basis. However, it seems like we may be neglecting real world interaction in favor of online self promotion. Instead of watching concerts, people Tweet during sets (a trend that I was upset to see while watching a band at Gillette Stadium). Instead of meeting with friends in person, people write on Facebook walls and go on AIM. We’re increasingly relying on technology to get our gossip (Facebook stalking, anyone?) and to share our own personal stories. But do people publish their opinions online for their own enjoyment or for the chance to share their feelings with an anonymous group?
It’s probably a mixture of both. However, I can’t help but feel like we’re heading down a narcissistic road, one where we are constantly updating our online statuses to inform everyone around us of our generally mundane activities.
So, what do you think? Is the internet really creating a generation of kids who are more obsessed with their online profiles rather than their real world work? Comment below…
If you haven’t heard already, amazon.com has lofty goals for its electronic reader, the Kindle. With a sleek, white design and a simple interface, the people behind the Kindle are hoping to revolutionize the way we read books and newspapers in the same way that the iPod revolutionized the music world. To many, this is the future of reading, the epitome of simplicity in an e-reader.
However, don’t expect the revolution to come any time soon. Curiously, this device is lacking a lot of key features, like a backlight, a color display and a smooth, well crafted voice reader system. For a machine that costs a hefty $359, most people certainly aren’t willing to splurge on a half-baked electronic reader.
The Kindle is now planning on releasing textbooks through its online library, hoping to tap into the valuable college market. In Amazon’s perfect world, the Kindle will replace physical books in just a few years. Instead of lugging around bulky textbooks, college students can carry their textbooks in a slim machine. Instead of having bookcases filled with yellowing pages and stiffening spines, we could keep our Kindles on our nightstands. After all, books deteriorate. Kindles don’t.
The Kindle does open up many possibilities within the print media realm. There’s been talk that the Kindle could revive the dying newspaper industry by providing up-to-date, paperless subscriptions to the world’s most famous newspapers, giving people the impetus to begin reading the daily morning paper once again.
With all the possible benefits that come with the Kindle, there’s an interesting problem that’s just beneath the surface. Most books through Kindle’s online library are priced at a reasonable $9.99. While this is great for consumers, book authors will find it increasingly difficult to make a living off writing in a Kindle based world. You see, book authors get most of their income from royalties that are partly paid up front. Publishers attempt to determine how many copies a certain book will sell, and then they determine the amount of the royalty based on that number. Once the target sales goal is reached, the authors are then paid roughly 15% of the cover price of each book sold after that. However, in a Kindle world, this model would change. It is speculated that authors would simply receive 10-25% of online sales. Once one does the math, it becomes evident that an author would have to sell many more Kindle books to make the same profit as he or she would off of a hardcover sale. Essentially, the Kindle would economically harm authors, forcing them to take lower profits simply by selling their books’ rights to the Kindle library. If the world of print media goes the way of the Kindle, then it would be much harder for authors to make a living off of writing. This in turn would discourage more and more people from writing, effectively hurting the quality and quantity of books being released to the marketplace.
The Kindle offers a convenient alternative for consumers. However, the Kindle system ultimately hurts the authors that allow for the existence of the Kindle in the first place. As we go into an increasingly technological world, I personally hope that the Kindle doesn’t become the next big thing. Besides enjoying the experience of reading a hardcover book and the feeling of ink on paper, I can’t help but worry that the Kindle could do more harm than good. For now, we don’t have to worry; price and design issues are preventing the mainstream acceptance of this electronic reader. But, sometime in the near future, it is quite possible that we could see the widespread dissemination of the Kindle. If that’s the case, count me out. I’ll be sitting in the corners of Barnes and Noble, reading my choice stories from a bounded book.
In a culture where pictures are uploaded to the internet every second and YouTube is a household name, the possibilities for visual journalism are nearly endless. Indeed, many social justice groups and nonprofits have started investing in expensive cameras and video recorders in hopes of documenting the stories of the unheard and unseen.
As technology becomes cheaper and people around the globe have increased access to the internet, the ability to spread a social activist message to millions of people grows on a daily basis. Here are just three groups that are taking advantage of this new visual culture to give a voice to the voiceless:
WITNESS:: On WITNESS’ main page, a slogan immediately informs visitors of their goal. “See it. Film it. Change it.” It’s a simple message that provides the basis for a unique social activism project. WITNESS’ members travel around the world and film human rights abuses in action. WITNESS was created in 1992 by activist and internationally famous musician Peter Gabriel in collaboration with the Reebok Human Rights Foundation. Founded on the idea of visual media as a tool for change, WITNESS sports a simple but ambitious mission statement:
WITNESS is for filmmakers and artists, activists and world travelers. However, it is not an exclusive group. Instead, the project supports a sense of inclusive participation, welcoming all human rights groups to join in what is now a global initiative for social change. WITNESS provides equipment and training for filmmaking in hopes of empowering victims of human rights violations. WITNESS understands the importance of telling a compelling, well-made story, one that will tug at the heartstrings of people around the world, making sure that its YouTube videos garner millions of hits. At the moment, WITNESS has had major successes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the U.S., Senegal, Mexico and Sierra Leone, exposing the stories of torture, landmine victims and a corrupt juvenile prison system to name a few. As a tool for social change, WITNESS has learned how to maximize the viral nature of videos, bringing real attention to global problems.
Camfed:: Unlike WITNESS, Camfed does not mainly focus on filmmaking as its modus operantis. Camfed’s mission is to “eradicate poverty in Africa through the education of girls and empowerment of young women.” Camfed subscribes to the belief that only through education will a group of people be able to truly enhance their quality of life. However, Camfed realizes that video has the ability to educate large groups of people in a shorter time span. So, efforts have been initiated to teach these girls video editing software and basic filming techniques.
As one of the members said, “Advocacy video is not about filmmaking. It’s about change.” Camfed has already created one award winning documentary entitled Where the Water Meets the Sky. The documentary follows a group of Zambian women as they learn how to make film and to speak about their lives through visual arts. It’s a sort of meta-documentary – a documentary on the importance of advocacy documentaries. Camfed is the perfect example of a nonprofit that is starting to use filmmaking as a tool to support their cause in the 21st century.
The Skid Row Photography Club:: Taking a step away from filmmaking, The Skid Row Photography Club gives still cameras to people living on "Skid Row," an underprivileged part of downtown L.A., and teaches them how to compose an image. Through workshops, the participants learn about lighting, angles, color, framing and more. Then, these people are then allowed to roam the streets, documenting the things they identify with and witness. The images they create are quite often astounding, featuring subjects that most people ignore while walking down city streets.
Last November, the Skid Row Photography Club displayed the work of these artists in an upscale art gallery in L.A. Through this exhibit, the uncensored images of L.A. street life met the world of high end art, exposing the upper class to the struggles of the lower class. This photography might only reach a local L.A. audience, but it was still a huge hit. During the opening evening, it was estimated that 500 people saw the exhibit. Considering the success of Camfed and WITNESS, it seems likely that the Skid Row Photography Club could make a large impact within the Los Angeles community.
In all of these examples, regular people outside the realm of high end art and Hollywood production companies are using visual arts to expose a world often unseen by the upper class. A perfect example of participatory culture, visual advocacy can impact so many lives. The amazing thing about this art is that anyone with a camera and a message can go out and begin documenting their story; it’s a genuinely democratic form of art and communication. As we become more and more dependent on sites like YouTube, we can expect to see more visual advocacy promoting dialogue around the world. From a human rights standpoint, that’s a truly progressive thing.
