Media Deprivation

  It was 10:07 am on Thanksgiving day, according to my father, when I finally dragged myself out of bed. I thought to myself, "nine hours down, 15 to go." This would be, as Washington Post writer and American University professor Dana Walker would describe as “The Longest Day." Earlier that morning, at around 1 a.m., I turned off my XBOX 360, and somberly headed off to bed. I tried killing time with the usual getting-ready-for-bed activities, brushing teeth, changing into my sleeping clothes, etc. But it still felt weird. Something wasn't right. Something was missing. The thing that surprised me the most was that when I usually did these things, mostly during break from the 1 a.m. SportsCenter telecast on ESPN or a "South Park" re-run, it seemed to take forever, and I would miss what part of what was on or several instant messages from my friends, but with none of these media outlets available,  it felt like it took no time at all.    Back to later in the morning. I didn't want to cheat, so I turned my digital clock off. I went to take a shower when getting out of bed because we needed to leave by 10:25 to get to our Thanksgiving breakfast with my family on time. My family is big so everyone eats dinner with different people, so my im mediate family has a bagel breakfast on Thanksgiving. So, being the half-asleep teenager that I am, I thought that dragging out the time it took to shower was a good idea. I let the water get as hot as possible, shaved, put on a special new deodorant, cleaned my ears, brushed my teeth, all trying to take up some time. I thought I would be out and dressed by exactly 10:25, unfortunately my 12-year old sister starts banging on the bathroom door while I was still in the shower, saying it was 10:25. Normally, I would have set an alarm on my cell phone but I couldn't. I rushed to get dressed, didn't even comb my hair, and ran upstairs to hear a cry of pain. My dad, also apparently half-asleep, had somehow managed to slam a door on his toe. Well, we were running late, and he was having trouble walking, but I didn't want to get tempted by media, so I convinced him to walk to my grandparents' house a few minutes away instead of driving. Selfish, maybe, telling your dad to man-up, awesome. We get there, eat and hang with the family, I spent time plying with my four year-old cousin and her one ear-old sister. Got back at 1 p,m,, and I was halfway there.        I saw my phone vibrating when I got back into my room, but I couldn't pick it up, and it was so painful. I was bored so I thought I'd check Facebook, but I couldn't, watch football, no. I was so bored, I screamed. I ran up to my parents begging them to let m e paint the deck or something, and they said I could read a book. A book is an old-fashioned storytelling device with written words spread across several pages. Turned out we had several books on a book shelf right next to my room, I always thought it was just decoration. I read some of the book Ball Four before I got really tired, and figured I would take a long nap until dinner started at 5. Got in bed at 3, I was going to hide my remote control so I didn't wake up and out of instinct turn on a football game or ESPN, but it wasn't on my night stand or in its drawer so I gave up, and just fell asleep.      I woke up at 4:45 really, really, really groggy, and turned over. I saw that ESPN was on and started watching. I noticed that I was laying on something and it hurt, I pulled it out, and it was the remote. I started to remember that I wanted to hide it, but I couldn't remember why, then it hit me, Crap! My control must have been in my sheets, and I roll around in my sleep so I must have knocked the TV power button turning the set on. That is the last time I let my 12-year old sister make my bed.     I had made it 16 hours, but had failed, out of habit. Whenever I'm home, I wake up and turn the TV on. Those 16 hours were pretty difficult. There was media everywhere in the house. Normally I text friends or surf the Internet, but this was hard. I wanted to scream, someti mes I broke into a cold sweat. It felt like I couldn't do anything without breaking the rules. I rely way too much on technology. I could have read a book for school, but I forgot the page numbers and it was on the syllabus, on the Internet. I am constantly texting or doing work on the computer. Sometimes I can't do homework without the television on. At home, I normally nap with the TV on, which is why I didn't freak out when I awoke to it being on.    I expected it to be painful, but not as painful as it turned out to be. I rely way too much on the media. Half the time I have my computer on the Internet while watching television so I can look up random information that is said on television or look up words said that I don't know. I feel that that is the norm in today's society. Eevrything is dependent on the media. Even books are electronic, thanks to Amazon's Kindle. Bluetooth allows people to talk hands free. Many places have free wi-fi because people need to have access to the internet at all times. Even the new Yankee Stadium will be completely wireless. People need to be constantly connected. The best example of this that I can think of is that there are now wireless cards that allow people to be on the Internet, on airplanes.     Overall, I learned that while it is possible to go through an entire day without media, society in itself makes it tough. Dana Walker even said that allowed her students to  realize that their friends who they talked to a lot were no where near them geographically. I coldn't talk to my friend in Detroit or the one in Anahiem for a day because I couldn't text or instant message them. I never realized that friednships like this would be hard to maintain without technology. I'd like to leave with this thought, One of Walker's students said she wasn't ashamed over her media use, and I have to agree. As previously mentioned, the media of today is part of our culture and it won't change, and it never will go back to the way things were years ago. Most people don't read the newspaper, they read the articles on-line. The average newspaper readership is about the age of 50 and up. This age is more technical than any before, and it can only get "worse". But, truth be told, that's just fine with me.

TV vs The Written Language-Which has More Control in Our Society

When reading the essay entitled "The Two Culters-Television versus Print" I couldn't help but stand behind the side of television as defended by University of the Arts (Philadelphia) professor Camille Paglia over NYU professor Neil Postman.

The debate is raged over a meal of fish at a restaurant which adds a nice backdrop to the conversation at hand. Their food selection occasionally makes its way into the conversation and does a wonderful job of separating issues, basically as a new food comes a new part of the debate begins. Now, that's all I have to say about the setting it's time to explain why Paglia is absolutely correct in this argument.

The debate begins with a verse from the Bible "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"-John 1:3. Paglia immediately attacks this statement saying that "In the beginning was nature" which she says creates opposition, whether it is via an image, such as an idol, or something else, and this Nature (yes, a capital N) "predates and stands in opposition to the ordered, structured world created by the word." I believe she is correct in this; the world may be under control by word, but nature will always control the variables of the world. By this I mean that nature will always be able to control everything that can change in the world and these are the thing that Word fights to control.

The next argument, though it has nothing to do with television but everything to do with proving word is not superior, of Paglia that caught my attention was the mentioning of Martin Luther being an example against Word. Traditionally Martin Luther is associated with the rise of written language and literacy, as well as breaking free from oral theocracy of the times,  in religion through his use of the printing press to spread his message and religion. Paglia took a different approach, stating that visual imagery, an early comparison to television, spread among the "poor, outcast, and unlearned" which is what led to idolatry and the Protestant Reformation. 

Paglia's next argument put me firmly on her side. When Postman argues that the challenge in literacy is to get children accustomed to sitting still so they can be literate, Paglia argues that while many people are just naturally inclined of the sedentary lifestyle required by reading, many others are brilliant but have learning deficiencies can use physical activities and other visual art forms to express themselves. I am one who cannot sit still when reading. I am not going to lie when reading the essay I sat, leaned on and laid down on my bed among others things just to keep focused on finishing and taking in everything in the reading. I use my camera to show my emotions and express myself, and I enjoy allowing my movies to stir emotions in people and allow them to want to go and express themselves too, literacy doesn't ned to be the only form of expression in this world et alone this country.

I found myself thinking similar to Paglia as well, she talks about needing to have the television on and/or headphones blasting rock music on to write her paper. I myself, half the time, find i have had the television on while writing a paper and when I turn it off it feels too quiet so I turn it back on. I also enjoy, like most current high school and college students, listening to my iPod as I work, for some reason it helps me focus. It has also helped here at school because as Paglia herself put it, rather well I may add, "TV is a medium that makes us feel at home". 

Lets face it television is a large part of our society, Paglia says people in our society today know how to read television. She brings up the example of the 1988 presidential election when everyone was calling George H.W. Bush a wimp or a ninny just trying to chase the shadow of Ronald Reagan. Paglia points out how Bush transformed before everyones eyes when he picked Dan Quayle (later on of Murphy Brown fame) as his running mate. When Bush picked him he had made a "rite de passage"  on and for television. Paglia says Bush became a new man, stern confident, and "completely in charge" all because he had picked a symbolical son on National television. She continues to say that if you didn't know how to read television you would have completely missed the entire transformation.

The final issue in which Paglia and I agree is that the ideal education should be logocentric. By this it is meant that, according to Paglia, "The student must learn the logical, hierarchal system." TV will then allow the other part of the mind to freely move outside of the system. She says television based culture culture can develop mental flexibility, to which I agree, children must learn how to deal with concepts that are on television such as what is right and what is wrong, figuring out how to solve issues before them, and even understanding that the television is not reality. TV is not reality but is as close and true to reality as one is going to get, by the way it asks you to change emotions so quickly and abruptly, it allows us to put a different look on life, which is why I feel television beats print.

Election Coverage Drenched in Purple Rain

The most intriguing and barely noticed fact of the media coverage of the election was the color purple.

I am not referring tho the Alice Walker novel, or the movie or play of a the same name, but the actual hue.

What I mean is that in an effort to appear unbiased in any way, many network anchors and reporters wore 

purple or purple ties to show non partisanship. They could have worn yellow, orange, or green, but since blue

and red make purple, it seems like a reasonable choice.

According to espn.com writer Paul Lukas' uniform blog on November 5th, dozens of reporters on election night 

wore the color those in Baltimore and Minnesota associate with their football teams. Please press play and turn your volume up before reading the next part. 

When watching coverage I could not help but have Prince's "Purple Rain" 

rushing through my head as background music. He even made a T.V. screen  grab compilation 

(provided by his readers' submissions) of purple clad reporters including this shot which has 

an anchor with a purple straw in her drink. It is a pretty odd phenomenon, but if it makes the network honchos

feel good enough to sleep at night then they can go ahead and do it for all I care. Most people are smart enough 

to realize which way the networks usually slant and choose which one to watch based on this.

Overall, though, the media did a good job in delivering election coverage. Being politically non-partisan is

hard, but on election night all networks were forced to try and do it. Networks did the best job they could at 

delivering the news without appearing biased. Even when Barack Obama mathematically locked up the race 

by winning Ohio, the networks tried to wait the half an hour until west coast polls closed before calling the 

election for Obama. They went out of their way to fill air time; CNN interviewed musician Will I Am via, as 

unusual as this may sound, hologram in that time, while other networks just went over the mathematics of 

the situation.

Networks did gamble by projecting states for Obama and McCain as soon as the polls closed based 

on traditional values, mainly calling the election for Obama as soon as polls closed in California which was 

declared for Obama with 0% reporting. Fox News, what many consider epitome of conservative media, was 

the first network to give Obama the victory in Virginia, as well as being the only one to have given him the 

state when he was declared the winner. NBC, the supposed epitome of "Liberal Media", was very reserved 

in waiting to call any state for either candidate. All the networks, though, did best when the election was 

declared over to let the camera do the talking. By this I mean anchors and talking heads alike shut their 

mouths and let the candidates and supporters emotions show everything. The transition from McCain's 

concession speech to Barack Obama's speech had little to no words. The speeches had no commentary 

while being said, nor were any quotes from the candidates, typically inserted below the picture to show 

what the candidate had just said, shown. 

Other than two of the three major networks (NBC and ABC) referring to the Obama victory as a 

landslide during their morning news programs, when in fact the win was about 5 percentage points and 

not the huge victory they predicted, the coverage was pretty fair. The media let emotions cover the 

election's end game, not the other way around.

 

Works Cited

"Uni Watch" 5 Nov. 2008 <www.uniwatchblog.com>