Week 12: Ad Breakdown & Activism Sites

Part 1: Ad Breakdown

I decided to use ads for products which I use, and consider to be eco-friendly, and then go a bit further and try to find out what the true nature of the product is. I chose Irish Spring soap which has an eco-labeling on the back of the box which says it is considered eco-friendly, and its ad on the internet shows the pristine "Irish" environment, the crystal spring and lush greenery. Of course, the entire ad and image being sold to you is that of fresh natural processes, the wonder of life, the perfection of nature being equated to the fresh, perfect feeling you will receive upon using the product.

I used the Organic Consumers Association website to try and figure out what is actually in my bar of soap, and as most would assume the label eco-friendly couldn't be farther from the truth. According the links from the website, my bar of soap contains 1 & 4 Dioxane's which have both been linked to cancer and to developmental/reproductive toxicity. The idea that advertising and connecting the consumer with one or more forms of environmental brainwashing with absolutely no regulation as to the validity of the marketing, can get me to use a soap which is potentially poisoning me, is a mortifying fact.

Week 11: The End of "Toxic Sludge" & The Search for the "Good" in America

Chapter 12 "Toxic Sludge":

In the opening for this final chapter, in a book which I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend, is a poignant statement of fact as to the devices of PR and its development in America. As I have read I reached a plateau of emotions, having ridden the wave from fear, to sadness, to hopeless, to numb, and I can honestly say that my final feeling is hopeful having read the final chapter. It is important to understand that in order to create change, even in its simplest forms, first one must know the truth. The fact that it shocks you, or makes you sick, is a sign that you need to step up and make something happen. For me, the story of Lynn Tylczak and her minor league defense against corporate PR being a success, is a major victory for the little guy, and in all seriousness we are all the little guy. Anyone can make something happen, its ideas, and emotion, and anger, and perseverance that builds momentum for any cause, and that all it takes is a spark, that first truth.

Now I didn't really want to sit down and detail my perfect world, because I felt like I had come so far in working away from feeling beaten, and that visualizing my Utopia would only drag me down (in that it would be so far from reality). But when you think about it, for me at least, my Utopia is a conscious America, one that knows the facts, can decipher the propaganda from the reality, and stand to make things of the highest quality for everyone. I guess I just wish everyone read this book, and "Feed", and Bill Mckibbens work, and David McCullough, people working in the system to feed the truth to whoever will listen. I'm hopeful, and not afraid.

Observing Two Sides of America:

Lone Rock Point: I sat at Lone Rock Point as I have many times before, my legs dangling over the edge of one particularly steep drop, and as sat there I realized that to me the importance of the natural world is clarity. To be out in nature, the air, the water, the growth, both its destructive power and its creation of new life, I don't feel separated, but connected. Nature isn't trying to sell you something, and I'm not trying to be simple about it, but really nature doesn't ask anything of you, it exists on a plane unlike that of humanity, because it doesn't need us, but it still struggles to coexist. I think that for me nature is about clarity, honesty, the order of things, and finally it's about knowing who you are, and you are of nature; Humanity is imbibed with all that that nature is, all the good, a history of great successes, and to realize that you must give yourself up to the natural world even if its for 30 minutes.

Televised America: So I spent 30 minutes in front of the television, knowing full well I would be experiencing a variety of flashes and colors, catch-phrases and sales pitches, and a slice of how corporate America sees the American people. I chose not to flip channels, imagining the experience would be disorienting enough, and as I watched I focused on the manner in which, we the American people are perceived on television, how we are represented. And from what I gathered the American is oversexed, unintelligent, loud, vulgar, forceful, and egotistical. Not melodious, beautiful, sensitive or creative, understanding or intelligent, but rather senseless "boobs," but then again that's why its called the "boob-tube." I'm glad I don't have to do this experiment everyday.

Week 10: Chapter 8&9 "Toxic Sludge is Good for You"

Chapter 8

1) The number of chemicals in sewage sludge and the manner in which these companies use words like "biosolids" to define the sludge when in reality it sits and poisons the environment for generations.

2) The idea that cities dumps tons of toxins and chemicals into their waterways for years is ridiculous to try to comprehend. What kind of limited brain power does it take to think that was a good idea? All I could think of was the Cuyahoga River fire in 1969, and how it took 6 foot high flames on a river to get Ohio from polluting their waterways.

3) Toxic sludge being called an organic by companies with no scientific or logistical data for the title. Straight up lies! But no one calling them out on it? Where is the help?

4) The shipping of toxic sludge across the country? Cost-Effective? Logical? Not really, but out of site, out of mind, that's been our policy for generations.

5) I loved the section about the "greasing" of mayors and other public officials by companies needed a place for their toxic waste. The idea that all it takes is a little cash in hand, and a publicly elected representative will allow someone to plop 50 tons of sludge on your town. So wrong.

Question: When are we going to get some serious legislation and protection from the government? Some officials with pride, morals, consciences?

Chapter 9

1) As stated in "The Corporation," the news is what the company who owns the broadcast says it is. So I was not shocked by the thought that only 40% of news is broadcast unedited, I actually thought it would be more like 20%.

2) The topic of companies altering their names so that the public might not quite understand what the company is or does. It made me think of all the companies you think are small organics, Annie's, even Vermont Bread Co., all owned by major conglomerates. Check this website out, it has a great chart of the companies connected to a number of my old favorites http://www.certifiedorganic.bc.ca/rcbtoa/services/corporate-ownership.html.

3)Earth Day sponsored by McDonald's? Ridiculous!

4) The title organic, or green becoming an exploited marketing strategy where consumers have no idea the true nature of the branded green products background. When are we going to get some strict regulation, and blatant/clear icons for registered green products?

5) Are we the problem?

Week 9: Letter to Lasn & Coporation (Part Deux)

Part 1:

Dear Mr. Lasn,

I am writing you because I have just finished reading your book "Culture Jam," and I have a few topics which I would like to bring up that I connected with, as well as a few that I found to be a bit foreign. I am currently a student at the University of Vermont, and I am an Environmental Studies major, who has spent many semesters toiling within the realms of consumerism and media marketing (I worked for a food & beverage consultant for two years), and I found your book like that of William McDonough's "Cradle to Cradle," to be an experience in new methods of thinking.

On that note, I find that the most inspiring topic you discuss is that of our disconnection with the natural world, through media inspired internalization and commercialization of natural experiences. The means by which corporation's use media and the environment to sell things, to as they put it "create an experience" with their product, I find to be one of the most haunting facets of your novel.

I have a few disagreements with the manner in which you develop and portray your ideas, and I found that even though you state in your book that "someone has gotten into our brains. Now the most important task on the agenda is to evict them and recover our sanity," but other than pointing out certain aspects of media's influence in our lives you fail to really delve into how to beat the system. Perhaps the honest answer is that there is no straight answer, I understand your book to be that moment of realization for the reader, rather than the blueprints for a revolution.

You, like McDonough, question the manner in which the industrial age gave birth to the domination and removal of nature from the American psyche, but where McDonough gives examples as to the manners in which people are tearing down the old system with new designs and models for the future, I felt with your book that I was only finding a means in which to fear what I already knew existed. I need some positivity, some means by which I can stop disconnecting completely, and instead connect and dissent, to create change rather than dissolve defeated.

Cheers,

Pete Moseley

Part Deux:

The end of the Corporation I found to be just as scaring as the first half. If I had to state in one word or phrase why I found the second part horrifying I'd have to say I'd put down, "Competitive Intelligence Professional." What the Hell! So freaky. "The Death of Birth."
I loved the battle between the news crew and the Fox studios over what was news, and who controlled it. But I hate that they lost, same with the loss of control over life, the idea that we have so much life that's patented in our country makes me sick to my stomach.
Probably one of my top five documentaries I have seen in the last year. Up there with Food INC and the likes.

Week 8: Culture Jam Continued & "THE CORPORATION"

Culture Jam & Final Thoughts

1) First I'd like to say that the entire time I was reading this book I found myself questioning every purchase I have made and its connection to media placement, or peer influence, and it can be pretty scary not quite knowing the difference between your personal preference and that preference which has been sold to you. The idea that the American consumer is really a Manchurian consumer, is a pretty difficult pill to swallow.

2) Also the story Lasn told about the neighbor who slowly transformed from a very open and outgoing person to a reserved, net addict was certainly an example in its extreme. However there are many forms of this addiction, and in some ways everyone who uses the internet has some attachment or connection to one or many of the nets many facets. I knew a kid who had destroyed his computer, when he "woke up" and realized that he was spending all of his time on chat rooms, and online games, and was missing important things in reality. He was very much like the woman described in Lasn's book, not knowing they forgot to eat, not showering so as not to disconnect. VERY SCARY.

3) Now that I am on the subject of connection and disconnection, I'd like to mention that I don't think there is a way to disconnect completely know that the media world has become some kind of omnipresent entity. Would disconnecting be considered anti-social? Can these MUD's or multi user domains, be considered social environments, or is it simply a veil? Security in the multiverse should be considered at all times, you are never truly alone. You have no way of knowing, if where you are surfing, who you are speaking to, what you are looking at, is private anymore, and who or what is watching and for what reason.

4) I found the section on selling an experience, creating emotion, especially the section on Princess Diana, and how the mass public who lacked any real care for the British Royal family, thought that Diana's death was the greatest loss in our lifetime. The idea that she sold an experience to the public even today seems vile to discuss, but in reality I don't think my family knew anything of Diana other than her media stories, and for some reason I do remember them being incredibly distraught at her death, as if a loss in the family. Very Strange.

5) Lastly, "MOST OF OUR ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTIONS ARE RED HERRINGS." The idea that we are expending all this energy doing little things for the environment, recycling and such when the only way to effect real environmental change is to attack the source of the pollution, waste, and so on. Lasn wants you to rise up, and acknowledge that you cannot create change sitting at home.

The Corporation:

-the idea that the corporation was a subordinate to the people, but that it developed the thirst for more power, the need to absorb and spread. If you can't deprive a person life liberty and the pursuit of happiness (14th Amendment), well then that applies to a corporation as well, opening the floodgates for exploitation of people, places, and things.

-limited liability explains a lot, jeez.

-designed to think about stock holders, not about stake holders (the community), the idea that we created these corporate persons who now have the right to control and destroy as they please.

Week 7: Culture Jam

After reading the beginning to the book "Culture Jam" by Lasn, I found that I do agree in almost all respects with his views on advertisements, corporations, and societies general disconnection with nature. However, it is with these sorts of topics, which I start to find myself spiraling into the same sort of general social pessimism every time I am confronted with the dark facts of the world around us. The nature of our current society, and the cogs which turn the wheels within corporate AmericaTM, are working below the surface yet surround us, strangling our ability to manage our lives without influence at all turns, and it is this knowledge which breeds my pessimism.


However, I did think that Lasn made a number of quality points in the space of nearly 40 pages, his view on our disconnection from nature, surfing the television as a means of brain numbing, and the general fact that our everyday lives are managed by strangers (to an extent.) I think the best way in which he presented his point, other that the quote where he discussed the Earth as kin rather than an item to be used, was the quote, "When you cut off arterial blood to an organ, the organ dies. When you cut the flow of nature into people's lives, their spirit dies."

Week 6: Facebook & Media Minds

Facebook Article

1)Thesis: Facebook and the like are destroying peoples ability to make human connections.

2)Observations:
I think it is important to understand the aspect of Facebook that is most dangerous is that it follows our most deep seeded social requirements, our thirst as human beings for social interaction, however with Facebook the connects made are simply superficial, the virtual world interaction. Thiel makes reference to the sad fact that instead of dancing, drinking, and having fun with friends people end up surrounding themselves within this media environment so as to stay connected when in reality there is no connection at all. I also found that Thiel's argument on the terms of Facebook's privacy profile, and its connection to big brother falls directly into my feelings on Facebook. I spent two years off Facebook when I found out in an email, that although I had deactivated my account, that in cyberspace it was still in existence, floating in the ether.
I disagree with the terms in which he discusses the future of Facebook and its destructive capacity on the social connectedness of the future. I also disagreed with the way in which he wrote the article, very accusatory and it seemed less intelligent and more crackpot the further you moved down the article.

"Making of a Media Literate Mind"
I really liked the premise of corporate story telling, and its ability to shape the consumer and cultural marketplace. I also agreed with the mindless absorbtion discussion, in terms of readily available media in all facets finding ways to seep into our consciousness.

Killing Us Softly 3
1) Ovulen 21 "Works the way a woman thinks... By weekdays, not "cycle days'"
2) 3000 ads per day, and 3 years of life spent watching tv commercials
3) Women as objects/things, less than human = inevitable violence
4) Sell more than things, but an image
5) Does your husband wish you had larger breasts?
6) The more you subtract, the more you add.

Assignment #5

Ad Nauseam Sections 5&6

I found these two sections of the book, equally if not more disturbing than previous chapters, simply because the discussions on the evolutions of brands, and marketing seems shocking. I always had a feeling the subliminal marketing gears weren't always turning, but I am certain they exist in ways which weren't mentioned in the book. The real scary part is that although people understand that this technology in media is in existence, whether on purpose or simply because advertisements are trying to define a motto, or a brand and by definition it has to be grabbing and stay with the consumer.
For section 5: my question is why are people so afraid of the campaigns towards subliminal messaging advertisements, when by definition advertisements are meant to do that very job?
For section 6: my question is how do you know if you have fallen victim to the nature of advertising and the lure of brand marketing? How can you honestly tell anymore whether you enjoy the consumed item, or you just liked the label and then grew to enjoy the product.

Twitter Article
1. Thesis: to defend twitter's ability to connect people to the now, and to define the less than evil nature of this media network.
2. Agree 1: I agree with Johnson on the fact that twitter can be used as tool which promotes certain positive ends, environmental, social and so on. The idea that you can have a forum for any number of ideas which can be picked up and tweaked by the masses is impressive.
Agree 2: I also agree with Johnson in the fact that unlike Google, twitter gives people a forum which is connected to the current of information in the now, and that it allows people to stay in touch with whats happening around the world at this very moment.
Disagree: I disagree with Johnson on the topic of Twitter's perfect presence that the nature of twitter is for stronger connectedness rather than true social distortion. I believe and as we have discussed in class, that Twitter and other social media like Facebook spread our ability to connect socially very thin. We have less and less time to think independently of the masses, because we are immersed in it 24 hours a day.
Personal Use: I worked for a company which had begun using Twitter last summer, as well as the increasingly popular LinkedIn, which is a corporate job search and connection forum. Both of which I thought in the beginning were fruitless exploits of a company looking to spread their name around the technological highway. However, I was incredibly surprised at the speed in which is paid off, as a consulting firm, we had emails and more hits to the company website on the month we had installed twitter and linkedin, than any other month in the companies 15 year history.

5 things from merchants of cool

1. teens disposable income
2. paying "trendsetters" to create buzz and marketplace for companies
3. women=sexy men=macho/violent, wrestling? come on.
4. TV ups shock value, reality & TV melding
5. marketing strategy = manipulate teens world

Ad Nauseum: Who Are You?

I think the most important connection I can make in terms of how Ad Nauseum and that which we have already discussed and study, is the constant struggle I have with who I really am. The ideas within Feed, and The Ad and The Ego, Ad Nauseum and even in Brave New World, its that the corporate or branded world, is defining us rather than us defining it. In the opening chapter of Ad Nauseum, they make reference to ad's being predatory, and that in their development, it went from trying to help you, to trying to control you. I feel that like Feed, Ad Nauseum is hinting at the world we are not supposed to see, the world that is planning your next vacation, what and where you eat, who your friends are. I feel that "it" is getting closer and closer to creating our reality for us, brand naming it, and selling it to us a discount price, because you've "got a nice face."
The scary part is that you do not know how deep it goes, nor how you have been affected subliminally. That lemonade you bought may be your favorite drink, or maybe you just think its your favorite drink, or maybe its because you were corralled to like that drink. It plays on the subject of how in control are you in your own life, when at the start of your life, you are inundated with the wishes of others. So at what point is it your choice.
In Ad Nauseum, it discusses how although ad's from an outside perspective may seem silly (the Viceroy Cigarette Ad was classic) they still connect with people, and still play on insecurities and symbols which within the human psyche are important for "perceived success." As long as one can attain those characteristics you view as important in your happiness, whether its being sexy, having money, having tons of friends, ads play on the human thirst for societal acceptance.
For example, in "How Real is Real?", by Paul Watzlawick, he makes reference to a series of tests done a University of Penn professor in which a group of students are asked to look at a card with a single line, and then on a second card pick one of three lines which matched the length of the line on the first. At first all the students pick the correct line on their own, but for the second part of the test all but one of the subjects is told to choose the wrong line, and see whether the lone subject will choose on his own or submit to the pressure of the group.
The results were that 75% of the time, they chose the wrong answer alongside the group. The test played on the ideas discussed in our texts, that although we do not believe we are susceptible to the pressure of our peers, inherently we all do strive for some sort of acceptance, some form of connection, and if that means buying this or supporting that, than that's what we strive for.
As Willie Loman told Biff before his interview in Death of a Salesman, "Don't whistle on the elevator."

"Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by David Carr: Response

(1) Thesis: the human brain has begun to devolve in its capacity to sponge useful information from long format sources, and that the internet and instant media sources are the responsible for the creation of mental disorder's like ADHD.

(2) I agree with Carr on the subject of Google's influence in the world's inability to focus and develop skills in reading literature in its totality and then picking out the key information. It is common knowledge that on college campuses around the country, students are using Wikipedia, and Google, to do most of the work for them, when in the age without computers, one had to read a book from cover to cover to truly understand a subject in its totality. Even as I type this right now, I did not capitalize Wikipedia or Google, and my computer's spell check let me know that they are meant to be capitalized.
I also agree with Carr on the idea that our brains are so malleable that this new form of research and learning, has retooled our brains capacity and even the manner in which we develop ideas and process information. I really enjoyed the excerpt on Friedrich Nietzsche and the way in which the technology of the typewriter, changed the manner in which he processed his words, perhaps its the non-personal touch of the keys rather than the pen to the page. I personally prefer writing things out before I type them, because I feel I have better control and develop better thoughts when I am writing freehand, rather than staring at a white screen trying to create a cognitive thought.
I do not however agree, and I am not sure he was actually saying this, that the nature of our current difficulties with reading and paying attention, can be blamed completely on the technology of today. Although, I do agree that it plays a large part in this general malaise, I believe that there are other factors which must be taken into account. Things like what we teach our children to appreciate, the importance of the past, and the passing down of generations of ideas, culture, and technology. Our separation from our heritage, and the replacement of the personal, all play enormous factors in our ability to connect and focus in today's technological world. We don't know what it was like without the internet. Instead of practicing cursive writing, we are having kids learn to write on keyboards. Its all connected, even when its not.

FEED & Brave New World Review

Part One - Resist the Feed:

1. Link: ugly, tall like Lincoln, wealthy, happy go lucky, competitive.
2. Meg: crazy, insane, super
DA DA DA: like blah blah blah, same old same old, boring
Unit: buddy, or friend
3. Like Our Culture: instant connectedness almost sickeningly close to ours, the control of thought through advertisements, or even the molding of personal belief through things, and the hunger for things or materialism, the importance of having rather than being.
4. Not Like Our Culture: the literal control of all personal choices made by corporations, the lack of nature's existence, and the idea that you are plugged into the consumer market, literally fused to media.
5. Themes: the destruction of self, the importance of choice, the nature of corporate greed.

Part Two - Brave New World:

(1) The thesis of this article is that the nature of the human condition is one that requires a certain standard of social interaction, however the new terms in which we define our social connectedness has removed personal interaction and has created a climate of intense personal scrutiny in a privacy less forum.

(2)Ambient awareness describes the social attitudes within the new technology of instant social connectedness. It basically identifies the emotional interactions with others based on a similar model of peer by peer social codes, and relies on the constant influx of personal expression through non-personal means to define ones social "circle," which in today's current climate could be called a social "black hole."The idea that one must adhere to the new media, or otherwise be left out of close multi-personal relationships, creates a system of pressure for acceptance and conformity, as well as a carelessness for ones own privacy even down to the most mundane day to day life experience.
I can relate, in that I once had a Facebook account, and I checked it once every 5 hours, and I cared very much at how my page looked, what my pictures might say about me, what people were discussing on large Facebook forums. But I came to a point, when I looked at my friends list, and realized only about 20 of the 500 were actually close with me, and the others were social media connections, Facebook started to make me feel alienated from reality. I felt that by creating a Facebook, and giving into that world, I was creating a somewhat false reality, and that I was furthering a standard of inconsequential experience and connections in my own reality, my own world.
(3) Thompson makes reference to the idea of privacy being a necessary tool in this new world of instant media, and I agree wholeheartedly. I think that in order for social media to exist and to expand properly, it must be regulated by its users, in terms of what one wishes to have broadcast and who they want to see it.
Thompson also made reference to the ideas of connections which are not close and that are merely internet acquaintances, can be used as incredibly powerful tools for self promotion and personal success. I believe that having the ability to connect oneself and use that connection to create a niche market or to further ones career can be very beneficial. However, it also is something I don't agree with fully, because within this social tool, there is a great deal of room for exploitation. As we read in "Feed" the nature of the machine, or the corporate world, is for greed, and I believe that we are not far from corporations creating fake users to pump promotions and commercials to the public.
Also I do not agree that the social media connects a person to thyself, and that only through personal interaction, and not screen to screen contact, can one grow socially. If you leave yourself only the friends you have on the internet, where would you be if it all went down. Alone.

Media Childhood & Feed Review

(1)Media Memoir: When I had to sit down and think of my exposure to media as a child, I discovered that a great deal of my media exposure was from my peers rather than my family. I grew up in Darien, CT, about an hour north of NYC, the heart of Fairfield County. I was an only child until I was 8, so the rules were quite different in my development than that of my sisters, in that I was the first child and my parents were just figuring out how they wanted to raise their child.
In my childhood, I was not allowed to watch TV, only the news and only if my parents were already watching. Movies were certainly allowed, and I loved them, and I pushed the boundaries of my parents no movies over PG policy on many occasions (I won a few times). I guess not instead, or because of, but I am sure that in some way the lack of televisions influence in my childhood may have helped me develop my love of reading, and sports. (Also the majority of my friends when I was very young, had parents who refused TV and other influences)
Now my sister is a completely different story. She was born when I was eight, and my parents had already played (rulemeister) to their first child, so Molly got the abbreviated rules of a nearly ten year old child rather than that childhood I had received. As my television restrictions were that of no TV at all other than news, my parents became lenient, now putting on childrens television for Molly, believing that she could be entertained and perhaps learn, while they go their errands done.
Perhaps its the changing the global American psyche from my first years, and my sisters, or perhaps its just a betterment in technology, the ability to reach and span socioeconomic gaps, find supple minds further and further away from home. I did not grow up in the internet age, although I am a slave to its influence in society today, my sister however was a member of the internet age. She was using the internet to talk to people, before my parents even knew we had gotten a router, and it used to show a lot in her daily interactions with people and family, a little reserved, a little awkward.
As I was typing this though, I found that I don't think either of us were molded by media, sure the nature of the human experience is through social connections and in some terms that has become media's MO, but it really is what you are taught at that most important of developmental stages. I feel that my parents did a good job raising us to be social, moral, and understanding people, and although media plays a big role in development these days, its the "harness" you have on what your child filters and what he lets mold him, that makes a difference.

(2) "The Children of Cyberspace": This NYTimes article spoke bluntly on the scientific and future repercussions of this instant media age, as well as the outstanding developmental deviations which future generations may inherit from this technological age. What stood out most for me, was the discussion of the "multitasker," the idea that those not under the age of 20 can multitask up to 7 different technologies, and that for those in their thirties can only handle about 5 and a half. I feel this fact can be connected to a large number of stress and study disorders, like ADHD, and people with panic attacks, the constant flow of instant connection, and the isolation that comes along with social connections through technology, I believe is having a terrifying effect on future generations. I feel that as technology becomes obsolete and the next generation supersedes it, I believe that in this technological climate, certain necessary social functions will be replaced by technologies new instant format, and when you forget the past, the self no longer exists.

(3) "The Machine is Using Us": the video by Michael Wesch, hints at the idea that the nature of the internet and communications has changed, and that "the machine" or the heart of our connectedness, our channel for interaction in the digital world, has become a tool that learns from our constant interaction with it. Its important I think to understand that what Wesch is in turn defining, is the ways in which this "machine" has to be managed so that in order for it to be appreciated rather than abused, it must be regulated in order to protect the people using it. I found it incredibly interesting, the nature of the development of new forms of structure and definition for the technology of this modern age, and the ways in which development can in turn be a devolution in terms of the nature of the content. It will be fun to see how all facets of technology develop in our lifetime, and its important to understand but also know when to turn it off.