Response to Chapters 1, 8, 9, & 10

On The Sleeper Curve (Chapt. 1):

An idea in the reading that I found thought-provoking, but not necessarily convincing, was the "Case Study" spread titled "The Sleeper Curve." In this two-page section, the authors of the textbook diverge from the common opinion that over-saturation of media -- mainly the increase of advertisement and entertainment-based media seen since the introduction of television -- is dumbing us down. Specifically, the section refers to the theory presented by author Steven Johnson (Everything Bad is Good for You, 2005) that our modern, 21st-century brains are seeking out more complex narratives (whether it be TV shows, books, or video games) because as a result of our multi-tasking culture, we crave deeper, more multi-layered entertainment.

On one hand, you say to yourself, "Well, the guy kinda has a point." Let's face it, 24 is a lot more complicated than Leave It To Beaver. Even modern comedies like The Office and Arrested Development (sorry, Prof. Skutsch, I know how you feel about Arrested Development) are more reliant on an ongoing, serialized storyline than I Love Lucy ever was. The jokes in these modern comedies employ a lot more character-based jokes as well -- the characters in the show have many more subtle, unique personality traits than the slapstick acts of the 40's and 50's did, where the characters were either clown or straight-man. Reality shows aside, fictional television shows airing today are definitely much more multi-layered and complicated than ever before. (This is perhaps aided by the internet, which allows us to discuss, analyze, and replay all the juicy details long after the show has aired, something that really wasn't possible up until a few years ago.) Video games, as well, are being put out to appeal to a much broader and varied audience than ever before, and so inevitably more games that require some level of brainpower are picking up popularity. I'm no expert on video games, but from watching friends play Halo 3 I can say that it involves a lot more strategy than the old-school computer game Doom.

I think the real problem with this theory is that yes, on one hand, our brains may be seeking out (and yes, maybe even solving and enjoying) more complicated, challenging entertainment. But the keyword here is entertainment. We are not seeking out more complex media as a whole, only more complex distractions. As Gitlin would argue in Media Unlimited, we (as a culture) are becoming more and more invested in emotional releases that we can turn on and off, trying to escape from the real world and its real problems. So maybe we are turning to multi-layered, "deep" entertainment. But we're still turning to entertainment. In search of a puzzle to solve, I do not turn open the New York Times and spend a half hour trying to figure out what's going on in the Middle East. My brain is not craving intelligent, multi-layered dissertations on foreign policy. We can discuss and dissect our TV shows and games and movies, and we may do so with big vocabulary words, with eloquence and intensity, but that's not making us smarter, and it's especially not making us more aware. If anything, we are flattering and deceiving ourselves into thinking that we are still being smart and aware when we're really not. And that is my problem with this theory -- it's really in denial. We're still being dumbed down, but it's about lack of awareness, not about being unable to appreciate a complex, challenging plot. At the end of the day we are still seeking distraction, no matter how lofty of a form that distraction takes.

On Chapter 8:

A piece of history I found interesting in this section on newspapers was the segment about USA Today and how the paper was designed and marketed to be reminiscent of television. The paper was so thorough in its connection to TV -- first there was the unprecedented choice to use so much color in its design; and visually, the short, bold headlines were a throwback (or maybe I should say throw-foward?) to television. But USA Today didn't stop there -- the actual articles themselves were shorter, simpler...made to mimic news briefs and hold the (by now drastically-shortened) attention span of the average American. But even that wasn't enough (and this is where I think they really went overboard, although, hey, I guess it worked) -- the USA Today vending machines were consciously made to look like TVs. There's something kind of sick about that, I think. Does the average American really romanticize television so much that we can be expected to, on a subliminal level, be more drawn to a vending machine that looks like a television? The USA Today history really shows the insidious yet still overwhelming influence the introduction of TV has had on our culture.

On Chapter 9:

Reading this chapter, the biggest impression it had on me was that magazines go further into specialization and appealing to niche audiences than any other form of media. You could argue that cable TV operates similarly, but in my opinion magazines take it even a step further than cable. One of the major differences is that with cable (or satellite, etc) you have to pay for the whole package of what is usually 100+ channels just to get the three you're actually going to watch. And cable is usually pretty expensive, even basic cable, so in a way you're excluding one chunk of the audience right off the bat -- those who can't afford cable TV, i.e. low-income families, starving art school students, etc. But that aside, it seems to me that magazines get even more exclusive and targeted than even the most niche television stations. First of all, there are so many categories for them to be divided into: first we start with consumer vs. business/trade vs. farm, then commercial vs. noncommercial, then men's vs. women's, then age, ethnicity, audience interest.... I found it especially fascinating that some magazines cater specifically to region or income level within their own publication, so that there will be 'regional editions' of the same magazine with a different cover, depending on where it will be sold; or that Time "developed special editions of its magazine for top management, high-income zip-code areas, and ultrahigh-income professional/managerial households." (pg. 304) These seem like such subtle distinctions, it's hard to believe the company would go to such trouble to print separate editions for each, but I suppose if there's a profit to be made, nothing is too much trouble.

One segment I found amusing was the anecdote about Generoso Pope purchasing the Enquirer with the intention to use it to "fight for the rights of man" and "human decency and dignity" and then completely going back on his wholesome vision in the name of making a profit. "By the mid-1960s, the Enquirer's circulation had jumped to over 1 million through the publication of bizarre human-interest stories, gruesome murder tales, violent accident accounts, unexplained phenomena stories, and malicious celebrity gossip." (pg. 301) I think that has got to be the most contradictory result to "human decency and dignity" that anyone could possibly have produced.

On Chapter 10:

I don't really have much to dispute or discuss on the books chapter other than perhaps the topic of e-books. For the past several years (the past decade, even) there has been a lot of buzz about e-books. It starts up, it dies down, it starts up again, and the e-book seems to constantly be hovering on the horizon, threatening to conquer the market once and for all, and yet...it never really comes through. And I think the reason for this is fairly simple: the traditional book doesn't really need much improving upon. The makers of e-books are eager to start a new "revolution" in reading, but at the end of the day, why fix what isn't broken? If anything, the true revolution came with Amazon.com, and the idea that books could be sold and traded, old and new, bestseller or obscure, via the internet. I think Amazon, and other similar online bookstores, have already done the best job possible to capitalize on books using the medium of the internet. E-books, whether bought to be read on an ordinary computer screen, or bought to be read on a Kindle (or generic Kindle-like-device), just don't have any tempting attributes that tangible, "real" books don't. Sure, you can argue that with e-books, you can obtain them instantly, anywhere, anytime -- and that's admittedly convenient, but is it really worth the $300 you're going to spend on the Kindle? Furthermore, having spent that $300 on the Kindle, it's almost more stressful to carry around a small, expensive piece of technology, worrying about it getting scratched, dented, broken, stolen, or lost, than it is to worry about carrying around a $9.99 paperback. The paperback book can handle being crushed, bent, folded, annotated, dropped in a puddle, and, even if it does get stolen or lost, you're only down by ten bucks. And despite the many recent advances are made in "digital paper" technology, so far there is no screen that is easier on the eyes than an "old-fashioned" sheet of paper.

I think e-books may, eventually, find a place in the media, but for now the technology is lagging way too far behind the convenience, affordability and simplicity of the ordinary book. I hypothesize that in the next few decades technology will advance, and e-books will become more common and seem less frivolous and impractical, but until then they're not life-changing development that publishers are advertising them as.

An article in The New Yorker on the Kindle, which you may find entertaining:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/03/090803fa_fact_baker?currentPage=all

Media Unlimited (Response)

In Media Unlimited, author Todd Gitlin attempts to categorize and analyze the many facets of media in our current “information age.” Generally speaking, Gitlin produces a detailed report on media in many ways, but at the same time, the concept of “media” is such a fluid, intangible, and rapidly-evolving part of our world that it becomes difficult for anyone to summarize it with complete accuracy. Here and there Gitlin strays into slightly exaggerated theories, but despite this Media Unlimited provides an informed and in-depth portrait of how media has infiltrated society over the past century to become irreversibly interwoven throughout our everyday lives. For this response I am going to focus on the two segments that interested me the most: the "torrent" and our constant acceleration, as spurred on by the media.

Of the ideas introduced in the book, “the torrent” is perhaps the most vital. The word itself is an especially apt label to describe the ceaseless stream of visuals and audio that constantly surround and threaten to overwhelm us. On one hand the word “torrent”, when used to refer to media, evokes a slightly comical mental image (a rushing, cascading neon river of Times Square billboards, commercial jingles, and TV screens) but perhaps that’s somewhat appropriate, because I think most of us are at least dimly aware of the effect of the media on our lives, and are able to step back and poke fun at ourselves for being so completely engrossed in it. On the other hand, the concept of “the torrent” is really somewhat horrifying -- a torrent implies a fast-moving, liquid force that sweeps us up and carries us along with it, powerless to swim against the rushing current. Gitlin writes in Chapter 3, “By definition, a torrent is indivisible. ...Any item may look and feel like a trifle -- indeed, that may be its point -- but the onrushing torrent is an enormity. It may seem at times like a cornucopia of delights, or a grotesque wilderness of mirrors, or the humdrum furniture of life, or a waste of time, but one way or the other it requires attention and response.”

Remembering that the torrent is not just there, but also ceaseless and all-consuming is important. It is easy to give a nod to its existence, but then underestimate the vastness and saturation -- “supersaturation,” as Gitlin defines it -- of the media torrent. While reading Media Unlimited on the subway home I looked up and, just for the heck of it, attempted to count the number of images and digital devices I could see from where I was standing. There were the expected subway ads running down the entire length of the car, more ads in the “map spaces,” photocopied flyers stuck over the real ads, and then the things people were holding or carrying: the covers of other books, newspapers, an open magazine with at least four photos on the page, PSP’s and Nintendo DS’s, iPods, Blackberries, not to mention the logos on shirts and shoes and bags...and what if I could go through every purse, backpack and messenger bag to count the images inside? I got dizzy and gave up. In about fifteen seconds, I found more images playing “I Spy” on the subway than the typical seventeenth-century Dutch family would own in a generation.

Another section of Media Unlimited that resonated particularly well with me was Gitlin’s discourse on speed. Gitlin brings up some very valid points here, and not least of all because the speed of the media torrent is perhaps the aspect of it with the most negative reputation. The idea of instant gratification and an ever-quickening pace of production and delivery (for both tangible goods, like a pair of shoes bought online, and intangible goods, like the visual and audio delivered to our eyes and ears while watching TV) is frequently (though not necessarily wrongly) blamed for shortening our attention spans and making us rush breathlessly through everything we do. “Not surprisingly, in the era of television, the term attention span began to be heard -- and worried about,” Gitlin writes on page 110. Our shortening attention spans are something of a cultural phenomenon; A.D.D., attention-deficit-disorder, is not just a legitimately recognized disorder but also a household acronym we throw around, cracking jokes like, “Oh god, I’m so A.D.D. today!” when we can’t focus or get easily distracted. Indeed, MTV even runs a program named “A.D.D. Video” where it shows the popular music videos of the week -- but instead of allowing them to run in full, shows about 30 seconds of each video before abruptly switching to a different video. “For thirty frenzied minutes, A.D.D. Video hits viewers with three turbo-charged chunks of videos, each grouped by theme,” MTV boasts on its website. (Perhaps as a sign of hope that we do still have standards, this incredibly obnoxious half-hour of programming has never achieved much widespread popularity.) But in general, the pace of media continues to steadily roll onward faster and faster, a snowball gathering speed as it hurtles down a mountainside.

“...the prospect of unending, out-of-control acceleration is unnerving. Can all this clutter and haste really be good for us? Some who accept the inevitability of ever-increasing speed wonder whether the acceleration will someday -- perhaps soon -- crash against barriers of nature or psyche. How fast can montage go without leaving perception behind? How much shorter than seven seconds can a sound bite shrink? How much quicker can Internet access get? How much multi-tasking, how many advances in Palm Pilotry, can customers bear? How many channels can we surf more or less simultaneously without going mad?” (pg. 115)

The questions Gitlin asks here are all valid, all questions that we ourselves ask, and all questions without answers. Gitlin does explain the hunger for speed; beyond the rational explanation (“time is money”) is that which we less-readily admit to: people enjoy going fast. “The dirty little secret is that ours is a civilization that revels in the pure experience of speed.” (pg. 105) But simply reaching that realization alone is not enough to answer the question of, "when will enough be enough?" The same goes for the churning media torrent -- how much more saturated and congested can the stream of audio and visual get before we are so overwhelmed by quantity of content that we are unable to decipher anything of significance from it? It seems that only time will tell when, or rather if, we will ever find a stopping point, nevermind a reversal of the madness that is the modern media.