You may remember Lowell Bergman, the 60 minutes producer played by Al Pacino in The Insider. Here’s a chance to see what he really looks like AND see him uncover another story that is BOTH newsworthy AND in the public interest. More importantly- if you you are playing a sport in college it is IN YOUR INTEREST to check this out. Forewarned is Forearmed.

Death of Osama Bin Laden: How Significant a Moment? – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com

Here’s a fascinating innovation of social media capturing our (or an audience’s) visceral response to this vastly significant event. What captures my attention is how it creates a picture of 13,000 responses from all over the country (respondents identified by first name only).  It looks like a Cartesian plane, like a graphed formula, an algorithm.  13,000 voices graphed on an x, y axis. As fascinating as it is, I survey the comments only to find that they are not very interesting to read.  Many of them are pedantic.  A curious portrait of the predictable and insubstantial.  Is that the intent, then? To show us that we look pretty much like we thought we looked? Awesome graphic, but why is the New York Times asking us this question? Why is it telling us stuff about ourselves that we already know?  Have we entered an age of Post-Modernist journalism? 

As inventive as the graphic is, I immediately start to wonder how long it will be interesting to me. Turns out, that isn’t long at all, because the substance of what it conveys is trite.  As soon as I become familiar with the novelty, I lose interest entirely.  Perhaps it has done its job, though, by getting my eyes on the page.  It doesn’t matter if I find it interesting as long as it gives this site a chance to keep my eye balls on it- to win the war, not of ideas, but of eyeballs. 

Here is an update on the case we talked about at the beginning of the semester. This case emphasizes the social phenomenon of bullying and the role that technology is increasingly playing. Many people say that technology is exacerbating bullying. My suspicion is that for the first time in history it is bringing it to light because of the intractable nature of the record it leaves behind. Both these young men were in peril when Ravi decided to regard his roommate as less than human and make a reality TV show out of him. Among those things about which to be horrified is Ravi’s inability to consider that his actions would incur consequences. Clearly, this powerful tool was in the hands of an amateur. Not because he didn’t know how to use it. He is very clever, of course. But because he lacked the character, or the frontal lobe, the conscience to use the tool responsibly. Without the technology, we perhaps may dismiss him as a fool. But the technology armed his foolishness. Now he is a criminal facing very serious jail time.

As I have been teaching 1984 again this year I continue to be newly intrigued by Orwell’s stunning analysis of the human mind and his imagination of how technological advances influence our thinking. Recent brain research has observed a phenomenon that is called brain plasticity. Scientists have documented how physical changes occur in the brain based on sensory stimulation over extended time. For example, there is a separate cluster of neurons in your brain for each of the fingers on each of your hands. If you were to lose your fingers, those separate clusters would reduce into one.

It is interesting therefore to note the trends of social media, primarily generated in the west, within cultures around the world. Just as with other forms of “cultural imperialism,” such as McDonald’s and Hollywood movies, social media appears to be embraced with a passion and with it the inevitable cultural values that produced it.

Yet, the lecturer here suggests that those values are not inherent to the technology. Other values are free and likely to use these tools in ways that may indeed be in direct conflict with western values. Perhaps those ways are as yet unimagined or unborn but inevitable just the same. Perhaps.

In the end we will always have to make our decisions on faith. I put a lot of faith in the value of deliberative conversation. When people are in conversation, when they are skilled at listening to each other and articulating their ideas to their own satisfaction, more than not they will be less likely to need or want expression through violence. I do believe in the power of dialogue and that this power is endemic to human experience irrespective of culture or class.

For more on government manipulation of the blogosphere see this link: “The microblogs [have offered] an alternative platform for people to communicate,” says Ying Chan, a professor of journalism at Hong Kong University. She says the government has decided it cannot stop such new platforms developing, and so must try to channel and control them.

Check out this link and watch the movie to find out how I posted the clip below.

I was watching Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live when Seth Meyers went into this bit about guns. I thought it was kind of funny but then I realized that if fits all of the parameters we have set for our blog posts. It may be a little short but the fact that it’s a video compensates for the length. The topic of the post is directed by the writer but it presents a culturally relevant perspective on an item of news. Most importantly, the piece follows the tenants of good essay writing. It is succinct, clear, and well structured. The fact that it’s funny only adds to its appeal.

Mom Sentenced For Using Facebook As Son Drowned

by The Associated Press

Ever lose yourself in a phone app while you’re walking down the street and almost get hit by a car, or walk into a street sign or another pedestrian.  Ever swerve off the road while texting. The ease and immediacy of social media on cell phones habituates us to have at least a bit of our consciousness some where other than where we actually are with more and more regularity.  The seduction of letting your conscious wander habitually is that most of the time you will not face a consequence for being inattentive.  Unfortunately, the habit of being “on line” as a matter of habit reduces your ability to be conscious, and as this article demonstrates, the consequences of that inability can be devastating.