Thursday, September 30, 2010

Modern Family and the Implications of the "Like" Button - Media Meditation #2




(Courtesy of Google Images)

One of my current favorite shows is Modern Family on ABC. The second season just launched, and I think this show is a great contemporary take on the amount of diversity and non-traditional structure found in American families today. The show's witty and often awkward use of humor begs viewer's limbic brains to tune right in. 

While I typically am not the biggest fan of many prime-time TV series, I do think this show has a lot to offer.  It's an innovative, cleverly produced series that embraces both traditional American family values and the idea of a rapidly evolving norm of what we can consider your "average" American family.  

If more television were like this series, I think I would not be as wary as I am about how badly TV is otherwise polluting our minds.  

Here's a clip from the show:


Another interesting bit of news I recently stumbled upon was an article called What the 'Like' button means for web traffic


(Courtesy of Google Images)

The article discusses how the 'Like' button, which apparently has only been around since April of this year, is supplying Facebook even more endless amounts of statistics and user information.  

I've always been aware that Facebook is obviously a hugely influential tool for advertisers and social researchers, and it has always bothered me that people are constantly mining data to gather facts about every little detail of our life. But with all the new information the 'Like' button is providing, I think it's time to maybe reconsider how much time I really spend on the good old 'book. 


(Courtesy of Google Images)


It comes down to the issue of a cultural shift - from a time of privacy to an age of almost constant surveillance.  It's almost Orwellian, the amount of data out there that is always being collected and analyzed so that someone always knows what we're up to.  

Like we recently talked about in class, more and more people are having a hard time knowing when to unplug from their social media and technology sources.  

Which brings me to my final topic, that of Mashable.com's article titled When It's More Polite to Unplug, which brings up similar concerns.  This article basically offers a breakdown of situations when it's just absolutely unacceptable to communicate with someone via social media technology instead of face to face (or at least voice to voice).  On the list were birthdays, deaths, saying thank you for a gift, tragedies... etc. 

It's just sad we need people to write these articles for us.  We really don't know when to unplug! Digital devices are becoming an increasingly intrinsic part of our everyday lives, and who knows how far this trend will go.  In my opinion, the reality that MT Anderson presented in Feed is much more probable than some people might think. 


Catfish... Hook, Line, and Sinker - Media Meditation #1


Perhaps you have seen this very interesting trailer for the new movie Catfish


I know what you're thinking. Another movie about Facebook? Come on.

But I bet you're pretty intrigued none the less. 

When I first saw this trailer, I got angry. Really angry.  Because honestly, I'm sick and tired of movies that claim to be "true" over and over again, and even go to extremes in their production techniques  such as filming in psuedo documentary/mockumentary styles that further convince gullible audiences what they're seeing is real.  I'm not entirely sure if Catfish is legitimately true or not, but if it's anything like past movies with identical claims, it isn't. 

Remember that movie The Fourth Kind

It was presented in a similar fashion:


And it turned out to be 100% fabricated. 

Crazy right? The way these trailers hone right in on our limbic brain, getting us all concerned and emotionally invested about what's going on because, oh it just looks so interesting! Real footage! Wow! Great reviews! I have to go see this right now! Without ever even considering that maybe it's all a crock of shit... ?

These false claims are irritating. I mean honestly, what kind of message are film companies sending the world when they are blatantly lying to their audiences? I understand that maybe for the purposes of "theater" and "entertainment" some people might think it's okay to make false claims such as these, but in reality it's perpetuating an even bigger problem in our society.

It brings us back to the importance of always QUESTIONING the media. Reflecting back to the first chapter of our textbook, we are told that in order to create a healthy relationship between the MEDIA and the PUBLIC, "readers (or viewers, in this case) of media products must actively interpret media messages."  This idea parallels that of Neil Postman's thesis in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death - that the infiltration of the television into American families has contributed immensely to the 
downfall of American politics, as well as education, religion, and numerous other social institutions.



(Image courtesy of Google Images)

It also echoes the concept of an overall decline in the state of human intelligence as brought up by Nicholas Carr in his article Is Google Making Us Stupid?  Carr argues that the overwhelming amount of instant information available to us is quickly eroding our ability to perform even the simplest of tasks - like taking the time to read an entire book or even an entire online article without skimming along or becoming distracted.  This need for a variety of quick and constant mental stimulation is prohibiting people from critically analyzing what they are exposed to and essentially forming any thoughts of particular depth.  



(Courtesy of  Google Images)


We have to start THINKING for ourselves, and about ourselves.  A decline in individual self-reflection makes us more and more susceptible to manipulation from outside entities.   


It's pathetic. More and more of the media we are exposed to are just big lies built to expand profits at the box office and at corporate headquarters.  And as we all know it's not just the film industry that's lying to us.  Lies and misinformation are plastered all over the media, and the sad part is we don't even care... we still buy the products and pay to see the movies and believe way too much of what we hear without ever really trying to get to the bottom of it.