Surprisingly I never thought of writing or the alphabet as something that is new technology. For some reason I have never thought of a time when there were different ways of communicating with each other. Ong brings up the idea primary orality, which means a culture that has no knowledge of writing. Forms of writing including print or even digital sources we see in mass media are a new invention that we have recently started using. In medieval times they had the transcript and it had to be handwritten. Newer technologies have made it easier to use print and words so that is where we are at in our society now.
Once print came into place, we moved to secondary orality and then to electracy. Thinking of the cognitive shift that words and the alphabet have caused is overwhelming. Not only do we have books, we have all forms of mass media. We can now what is happening around the world in seconds. We have advertisements that are made with the intentions of reaching all and selling products. The list may never stop. Lines of communication have opened up to never-ending possibilities. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds slowly over time and see where we are going next.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Carnival of CYBORGS!?!
In this past week's blog posts some are still pondering bell hooks while some are taking on the challenge of understanding what it is to be a cyborg and its significance within our culture.
I fell like brent5722 got hooks point about how mass media, specifically movies, create the ideas we have about race and gender. This is an important point in understanding rhetoric and how we get our beliefs and how we are persuaded.
http://brent5722.wordpress.com/
And now for the cyborgs.....
Orange6677 says makes an important point about traits of women being seen as more emotional and how it is seen as a negative thing. We as society believe that only one way works and that is the one we are used to and that is being strong. Orange6677 comments "not showing emotion which hinders our society’s freedoms and humanisms." The tough facade is a metanarrative used in our culture to show that tough guy is admirable but really may not be the case.
http://orange6677.wordpress.com/
shrtygrlmj notes that Haraway "considers irony a rhetorical strategy and a political method that could be put to use in socialist-feminism." This blog does a nice job of breaking down how we interact with our culture to build cultural constructs and how looking at things through a cyborg POV breaks down gender barriers and ideas.
http://shrtygrlmj2006.wordpress.com/
subliminal piracy's blog also focuses on how ideas and definitions are constructed in our culture saying "This is an inevitability of man/nature because we have made it such." There is few that is "natural" but rather what we have made it. Through all these ponderings, subliminalpiracy seems to have more questions the answers which a piece like Haraway's can leave you with, saying "Perhaps it will be a useful tool to create a more unified world between the masculine and feminine. Perhaps it will destroy us, because we blind ourselves to the real issues. Who knows…"
http://subliminalpiracy.wordpress.com/
The Wilmington Witness focuses more on the solution to our gender based society saying that the author "urges us to reconstruct the boundaries of everyday life, in partial connnection with others, and in communication with all of our parts." in order to destroy gender constructs.
http://charlierox.wordpress.com/
uncwgirl puts it well saying that Haraway's "feminist views show how there is always a male-focused way of looking at things and it will be a long time until that is overcome. She sees it is a form of evolution; a link in time that will change forward to new ideas to benefit humankind." can't sum it up much better than that.
http://uncwgirl.wordpress.com/
kj08 gives a refreshing and creative view of the cyborgin their. I don't fell that I should break it up by trying to pick out the main idea or an important point , it really should be taken as a whole.
see it here... http://kj08.wordpress.com/
Finally to conclude this carnival i will include the comments of Kmoney393: "with the addition of these new technologies, efforts are made to make men and women equal. the key to doing this is to change the way of thinking about male domination. it shouldn’t be attacked with hostility; the hardships should be embraced and the mindset should be based on survival in new areas of society outside of old ideas of women in the kitchen, not male bashing." While changing ideas we have about sex and gender we gotta keep it positive and enlightening.....
http://kmoney393.wordpress.com/
I fell like brent5722 got hooks point about how mass media, specifically movies, create the ideas we have about race and gender. This is an important point in understanding rhetoric and how we get our beliefs and how we are persuaded.
http://brent5722.wordpress.com/
And now for the cyborgs.....
Orange6677 says makes an important point about traits of women being seen as more emotional and how it is seen as a negative thing. We as society believe that only one way works and that is the one we are used to and that is being strong. Orange6677 comments "not showing emotion which hinders our society’s freedoms and humanisms." The tough facade is a metanarrative used in our culture to show that tough guy is admirable but really may not be the case.
http://orange6677.wordpress.com/
shrtygrlmj notes that Haraway "considers irony a rhetorical strategy and a political method that could be put to use in socialist-feminism." This blog does a nice job of breaking down how we interact with our culture to build cultural constructs and how looking at things through a cyborg POV breaks down gender barriers and ideas.
http://shrtygrlmj2006.wordpress.com/
subliminal piracy's blog also focuses on how ideas and definitions are constructed in our culture saying "This is an inevitability of man/nature because we have made it such." There is few that is "natural" but rather what we have made it. Through all these ponderings, subliminalpiracy seems to have more questions the answers which a piece like Haraway's can leave you with, saying "Perhaps it will be a useful tool to create a more unified world between the masculine and feminine. Perhaps it will destroy us, because we blind ourselves to the real issues. Who knows…"
http://subliminalpiracy.wordpress.com/
The Wilmington Witness focuses more on the solution to our gender based society saying that the author "urges us to reconstruct the boundaries of everyday life, in partial connnection with others, and in communication with all of our parts." in order to destroy gender constructs.
http://charlierox.wordpress.com/
uncwgirl puts it well saying that Haraway's "feminist views show how there is always a male-focused way of looking at things and it will be a long time until that is overcome. She sees it is a form of evolution; a link in time that will change forward to new ideas to benefit humankind." can't sum it up much better than that.
http://uncwgirl.wordpress.com/
kj08 gives a refreshing and creative view of the cyborgin their. I don't fell that I should break it up by trying to pick out the main idea or an important point , it really should be taken as a whole.
see it here... http://kj08.wordpress.com/
Finally to conclude this carnival i will include the comments of Kmoney393: "with the addition of these new technologies, efforts are made to make men and women equal. the key to doing this is to change the way of thinking about male domination. it shouldn’t be attacked with hostility; the hardships should be embraced and the mindset should be based on survival in new areas of society outside of old ideas of women in the kitchen, not male bashing." While changing ideas we have about sex and gender we gotta keep it positive and enlightening.....
http://kmoney393.wordpress.com/
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
bell hookd and mass media
bell hooks uses her writing to demonstrate to others how some are oppressed in our society or marginalized. Those who are dominant in our society use their power to stay in power. The dominant class is particularly upper class, males, white and heterosexual. This is the norm our society is ran by. bell hooks isn’t interested in who runs our society but the way they stay in power and particularly the way they stay in power through the use of language.
In Teaching Resistance: The Radical Politics of Mass Media bell hooks explore how language used in forms of mass media is used to keep the dominant as the leaders and keep African Americans in their role, as the submissive. bell hooks gives many examples of movies and how they damage the image of the black person. I can think of a recent example that wasn’t taken very well.
Norbit, in which Eddie Murphy played several roles including the leading role of a black lady, could have cost him his academy award for Dream Girls. Norbit was an obese older African American lady and played into many stereotypes about black people. Some enjoy this movie while many were taken aback by its blatant racial stereotypes that the movie put across. Eddie Murphy should have thought about this role a little bit more and tried to portray a positive image instead of perpetuating the same old myths about his race. In the end, the academy saw this serotype being portrayed and didn’t like it and this played a major role in Eddie Murphy not winning the academy award that year which I think is an important step in getting people to realize stereotypes like this seen in mass media everyday and change them.
In Teaching Resistance: The Radical Politics of Mass Media bell hooks explore how language used in forms of mass media is used to keep the dominant as the leaders and keep African Americans in their role, as the submissive. bell hooks gives many examples of movies and how they damage the image of the black person. I can think of a recent example that wasn’t taken very well.
Norbit, in which Eddie Murphy played several roles including the leading role of a black lady, could have cost him his academy award for Dream Girls. Norbit was an obese older African American lady and played into many stereotypes about black people. Some enjoy this movie while many were taken aback by its blatant racial stereotypes that the movie put across. Eddie Murphy should have thought about this role a little bit more and tried to portray a positive image instead of perpetuating the same old myths about his race. In the end, the academy saw this serotype being portrayed and didn’t like it and this played a major role in Eddie Murphy not winning the academy award that year which I think is an important step in getting people to realize stereotypes like this seen in mass media everyday and change them.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Ideas about Post-Modernists
I feel that Richard Rorty puts a main idea of post-modernism the best in the short phrase: “our task in the U.S. is to keep ‘the conversation going rather than to find objective truth’” (Smith 377). Perceptions of each person are put into perspective and this completely changes things. Objective truths that so many have argued for can now be seen as something that may work for some but not all. Lyotard makes arguments against metanarratives or how these stories don’t all sides of the story but are frequently used.
An example of a metanarrative would be Freud and his belief that human history is a narrative of the repression of sexual desires. Also, Christians believe adamantly in their religion and see everyone else as sinners. In a postmodern view, there is no one real answer or no one way to live out one’s life. It is what is appropriate at that moment or what sounds they best given a certain situation. Generalizations are conforming. Baudrillard adds other ideas about steering away from one objective truth.
Baudrillard argues that we are a culture of the “simulacrum.” As Saussure introduces ideas of the sign/signifier/signified, Baudrillard refutes this by introducing the simulacrum. The classic example of simulacrums is saying that someone owns and orginal Grateful Dead’s Aoxomoxoa CD. Baudrillard would say that Grateful Dead’s Aoxomoxoa is just a simulacrum. This CD is not really the one and only copy out there (or original) and the person who purchased the CD really doesn’t own it. To see the CD as an “original” is no longer true. The “distinction between the original and the copy is destroyed” (Storey 133). There are a million copies out thre that mean something different to each owner. Another example is that Andy Warhol paintings can be seen all over the place now. His paintings are on t-shirts, bags and notebooks to name a few. These paintings were once originals hanging on museum walls but now they reprints mimicking the original. The paintings have deviated from their original intended meaning from the author and now have thousands of meanings.
These ideas all play heavily into rhetoric because this creates multiple perspectives to which one can take. And to understand your audience in order to articulate yourself most effectively, all the perspectives that an audience member might understand should be taken into account and the post-modernists give us new ways of understanding these.
Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. An Introduction. 4th ed. The University of Georgia Press: 2006.
An example of a metanarrative would be Freud and his belief that human history is a narrative of the repression of sexual desires. Also, Christians believe adamantly in their religion and see everyone else as sinners. In a postmodern view, there is no one real answer or no one way to live out one’s life. It is what is appropriate at that moment or what sounds they best given a certain situation. Generalizations are conforming. Baudrillard adds other ideas about steering away from one objective truth.
Baudrillard argues that we are a culture of the “simulacrum.” As Saussure introduces ideas of the sign/signifier/signified, Baudrillard refutes this by introducing the simulacrum. The classic example of simulacrums is saying that someone owns and orginal Grateful Dead’s Aoxomoxoa CD. Baudrillard would say that Grateful Dead’s Aoxomoxoa is just a simulacrum. This CD is not really the one and only copy out there (or original) and the person who purchased the CD really doesn’t own it. To see the CD as an “original” is no longer true. The “distinction between the original and the copy is destroyed” (Storey 133). There are a million copies out thre that mean something different to each owner. Another example is that Andy Warhol paintings can be seen all over the place now. His paintings are on t-shirts, bags and notebooks to name a few. These paintings were once originals hanging on museum walls but now they reprints mimicking the original. The paintings have deviated from their original intended meaning from the author and now have thousands of meanings.
These ideas all play heavily into rhetoric because this creates multiple perspectives to which one can take. And to understand your audience in order to articulate yourself most effectively, all the perspectives that an audience member might understand should be taken into account and the post-modernists give us new ways of understanding these.
Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. An Introduction. 4th ed. The University of Georgia Press: 2006.
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