Braden Pape
Culture
and Communications
Humans have always longed to communicate. Starting before
we evolved to speak, our ancestors made hand gestures and cave paintings to
connect to one another. We have, of course, come a long way since then and we
are in a time period where it is easier than ever to keep in touch over great
distances. Time and distance are no longer factors in how we communicate, and
information travels at the speed of light. In the film PressPausePlay, the evolution of technology in the media industry
is analyzed. The textbook chapter Culture
and Mass Communication this evolution is also connected to how it changes
our society. Another topic about communication is how humans feel about and
treat others. Jeremy Rifkin would argue in his lecture The Empathic Civilization that all people are, in their basic
nature, driven to be empathic. Roman Krznaric says in The Power of Outrospection that in order to be truly understanding
of another’s plight, one must step into their shoes and experience it
themselves. Joseph Garner documents a study on human generosity in his film Craigslist Joe and shows through it that
people can be more giving and loving than most people think. He also undermines
stereotypes about people with various lifestyles and ethnicities by being caring
and accepting of all people. Although we are in a good place as a society at
large, there are still faults that could prevent and fix many problems. Slavoj
Zizek respectfully points out the faults in mindless charity, claiming that the
real issue lies in our mindset that people who live in awful situations will be
happy if we give a few bucks. In his lecture First as Tragedy, then as Farce, he explains why we need to
extinguish poverty as opposed to momentarily mend it. In Changing Paradigms, Sir Ken Robinson highlights another issue we
have involving our public education system. He said we are employing a dated
strategy of standardization, and some kids don’t feel welcomed and included. Although
our society is not perfect with the way we communicate, we are evolving quickly
and technology is an essential tool in shaping our mass communication system
and our culture.
Before the invention of mass communication-allowing
technologies, media was spread manually and very slowly. Variation in what
people could do was limited, but with new devices, diversification of entertainment
took off. One example is with the electric guitar. Jimi Hendrix was a genius,
but he worked on the medium of the electric guitar, which was invented years
before. Bill Drummond discusses this, “The point I’m trying to make here is that
technology always comes first. Then the artist comes along” (PressPausePlay).
Especially in music, an engineer develops an instrument then an artistic genius
comes and defines the way art will be made from it. Different artists can
diversify how an instrument sounds, but won’t invent the instrument itself.
This relationship between the artist and the technology they use is what gives
us our media. After some sort of media has been created, an equally important
step in giving it out to the public takes over: distribution. Present day
technology, such as the website Napster, allows for instant sharing of music
and news on the internet to broaden the audience. Even though we can hardly
remember what it was like without it, the internet is relatively new as a platform
for mass communication. “What surprised many people was the fact that the
Internet, which became a bona fide news medium by the end of the 20th
century, also proved to be a successful vehicle for covering the story” (Culture
and Mass Communication). It is through big stories like the death of the
beloved Princess Diana that the popularity of the internet as a news source
came to pass. Another side of the internet is the ability to connect with
people through individual relationships. Joseph Garner conducted a month long
study to test the limits of this network by living purely from help from people
on the internet. The people were very generous, but the internet and the
website Craigslist provided a way for Joe to meet with them. With help
from these networks, “We can take care of each other”, says Joe (Craigslist
Joe). People put trust in him, and he put trust in them. Because of the accessibility
to meet new people on the internet, he was able to be touched by their
generosity and share that message through the mass media of film to everyone
who can watch it. Thanks to technologies such as the internet, and new
innovative ways of creating art, people are being exposed to such works much
more easily and more often. This creates a more understanding and knowledgeable
society which slowly changes our society itself.
The
increase of accessibility to Mass Culture does open us up to more ideas and
works, but it also changes the way we act and live our everyday lives. One example
of change that came about due the way the media covered it was the American ideal
of consumerism. The amount of “stuff” we buy today has jumped immensely from the
pre-industrial age era. “As our mass culture grows and expands and new forms of
mass media develop, consumerism grows with it” (Culture and Mass Communication).
With advertisements on T.V. and on the radio, people started to believe that the
more material things they owned, the better off they were. A society will also
change with media based on what is called the EPS cycle. This is dependent
greatly on the wealth and culture of a society. Because of limited access to
the internet and other ways of mass communication, some areas cannot progress
in the cycle. In the United States we are in the stage of “Specialization. In
this stage the media are consumed by highly fragmented segments of the
population, each with its own interests and cultural activities” (Culture
and Mass Communication). Due to the immense access to technology, we have
been able to diversify our media into almost any genre you could ever want. Because
of this difference in preference, the media is absorbed in many different
segments of our society, and almost no two people will watch and read and hear
the same things. One way to complete this cycle even for countries that have
immense poverty would be to eradicate the behaviors that lead to seemingly
unending poverty. Slavoj Zizek argues that although charity is noble, it is a
way of relieving one’s self from the knowledge that other people life
drastically different lifestyles. He says that “The real aim is to try and
reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible” (First
as Tragedy, then as Farce). By this he means that instead of giving them of
our wealth, we should teach them how to rebuild their infrastructure on a model
that has proven to be successful. If the whole world had the ability to
actually access the materials that we do in experiencing the media, as a race
we would be much more evolved. Life as we know it would change, and everyone
would be able to share ideas and feed off the ideas shared by others.
Just
as important as is the ability and desire to Mass Communicate is the importance
of the presence of an effective interface for people to connect. In theory, we
would have similar desires despite varying interfaces, but the EPS cycle shows
how technology can influence our media and Mass Culture. Jeremy Rifkin even
thinks that “We are actually soft wired not for aggression and violence and
self-interest and utilitarianism that we are actually soft wired for
sociability, attachment...affection, companionship and that the first drive is
the drive to actually belong - it's an empathic drive” (Empathic
Civilization). It would make sense that despite the apparent disconnect of
a computer, we would still be driven to care for each other and want to be
included. It is easier than ever to video call, message, or talk to people
despite being far away. These things can help to maintain an empathic
connection, but it might not be enough. Roman Krznaric doesn’t think that merely
knowing of someone’s plight is enough to feel it. He claims that the only way
to feel another’s feelings is by “Stepping into somebody else's world...it's
about understanding somebody else's world views, their beliefs, their fears,
and the experiences that shape how they look at the world” (The Power of
Outrospection). This might be able to be done over some electronic
interface such as the internet, but it would be much harder than a face-to-face
interaction, which they all were before the age of technology. Sir Ken
Robinson, however, agrees that our society needs to move away from our old ways
of doing things and just embrace the new age that is dawning. He speaks of a
new education philosophy, based upon divergent thinking. This idea also applies
to the way we interact with other people. He says that “The problem is they're
trying to meet the future by doing what they did in the past” (Changing
Paradigms). He would probably favor, then, a change to a more electronic
interface for communication, because it makes it much simpler and faster to acquire
a great deal of information and connections in a short period of time. It is
important to be personally connected to a person in order to be empathic
towards them. Whether or not it needs to be in person decides how we move on in
terms of our interface, but if true empathy can be achieved by online connections,
it would reduce distance and time between loved ones.
Our
society today is geared towards learning always, and we thirst for the ability
to discover things. We can learn to love things to a great extent because of
the accessibility which is given by technological advances. Although not yet
available to everyone all over the world, a great deal of people partake in
Mass Communication and become slightly more knowledgeable each time they read a
news article or listen to a song. This cultural diversification adds more
complexity to our society, but also gives each individual a greater view and
understanding of who we are as a race. Joseph Garner ponders that “Some say we
have lost the sense of community that used to carry us through hard times” (Craigslist
Joe) but he came to realize first hand that we can still love each other
and take care of each other. If we learn to use the tools at our disposal we
can evolve into a more understanding and culturally accepting society.
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