This past week, I was asked to take on the media consumption habits of a classmate. That's right, all of them. My partner, Else Puig, has very different media habits than I do, and after 48 hours of this, I think I may have gone into withdrawal.
One of the major differences between the two of us is the fact that she watches television to bond with her family. For a period of two to three hours a day, she sits with her parents and sister to watch Hispanic television, and discusses what they saw that night after the show. This is different for me because I do not watch Hispanic television and since I am no longer living with m family, I don't really have the opportunity to watch television with them. Watching shows like A Mano Limpia and MANAHIBIRA (SP), as well as Spanish News, was a completely different experience for me. I will be the first to say that I have a strong dislike for Hispanic television. I feel that is poorly produced, cheesy in the worst way, and show news that is worthless in the grand scheme of things. I may be biased, but watching some of these news shows makes FOX news look good(well, not really, but you get the picture) and that's saying something. I am not saying this to be mean, but compared to its American counterpart, Hispanic news has a long way to go. But viewing this show with the mindset of my partner, I was able to appreciate it a bit more. Else watches these shows to connect with her Cuban parents, and after sitting down and watching this with an open mind, I was surprised that I was able to actually receive some interesting information,
Another difference that Else and I share is the fact that the only show she watches in English is The Secret Life of the American Teenager. This was the hardest part for me, not only did I have to watch this shoe, but I couldn't watch the regular shows I watch Like House M.D. and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. It was horrible! The Secret Life is very corny, but if I was slightly more romantically inclined, I could see why it has viewers I suppose. But what really hurt me was the fact that Craig Ferguson had Stephan Fry has his guest for the entire show! It was very painful for me to not grab the remote and start watching. Stephan Fry is an amazing man, and I follow him on Twitter and on his blog, so not being able to do any of this stuff, seeing as she doesn't do this, was hard.
After experiencing Else's media habits, I found that I was surprised to find that although I didn't actually keep up with my normal media habits, I still stay informed. It broadened my perspective on the world around me, and I was able to understand that people stay informed in very different ways. This experience has thought me that the media I consume is shaped by the values I have, abd while Else's value don't necessarily match mine, out values expand our access to "actionable information."
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
News Information Black Out
News is everywhere, you can't escape it. When you stop to think about it, you will be surprised by how much news seeps into our everyday life without us even realizing it, i certainly was. I was asked to perform an experiment that made me black out all news media for 48 hours. Before this experiment, i thought that i would be able to go through with my days as usual, but i was surprised to find myself jittery and anxious.
But why? Why was I incapable of spending the day without reaching for my phone to check the New York Times? I would try to substitute ways around that, but it would seem my life is saturated by news. Twitter, Facebook, and even entertainment shows, like The Daily Show, have some type of news involved. Even speaking to my freinds was a challenge, and the result were empty distant and boring conversations.
In Deresiewicz's article, The End of Solitude, he explains that people of my generation are bred for boredom. We have to be doing things constantly, connected to someone at all times, and i find this is true. I can never really find an instance where I am not doing something. I have no time to find solitude and I sometimes I think I don't really want to either, but with this experiment, I was surprised by the fact that I did enjoy the moments that I had by myself.
After this experiment, I think that news is a necessary intrusion in our lives if handled correctly. It influences our actions and thoughts in a way other sources cant. It breaks through out solitude and gets us to think about things outside of ourselves.
But why? Why was I incapable of spending the day without reaching for my phone to check the New York Times? I would try to substitute ways around that, but it would seem my life is saturated by news. Twitter, Facebook, and even entertainment shows, like The Daily Show, have some type of news involved. Even speaking to my freinds was a challenge, and the result were empty distant and boring conversations.
In Deresiewicz's article, The End of Solitude, he explains that people of my generation are bred for boredom. We have to be doing things constantly, connected to someone at all times, and i find this is true. I can never really find an instance where I am not doing something. I have no time to find solitude and I sometimes I think I don't really want to either, but with this experiment, I was surprised by the fact that I did enjoy the moments that I had by myself.
After this experiment, I think that news is a necessary intrusion in our lives if handled correctly. It influences our actions and thoughts in a way other sources cant. It breaks through out solitude and gets us to think about things outside of ourselves.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Aristotle's and Plato's Influence on How We Communicate Today
Aristotle and Plato are some of the world's greatest philosophers. They are viewed by many scholars as the pioneers in the written discourse in English composition. Aristotle and Plato have both had a big impact on how we, as writers, use rhetorical analysis and how this has affected how we communicate today.
To being with, Aristotle was the first to devise a total rhetoric for arguing toward probable truth and deduction to convince one's audience. He made the rules, a systematic method for rhetoric. It uses deduction to convince the writers audience. This has, over time, degraded to the point where the rules have made for predictable, if well-structured, persuasive discourse. Students tend to become complacent when using Aristotle's method of rhetorical analysis. he used three methods to achieve a higher level of deductive reasoning, ethos, the appeal to the will, logos, the appeal to the intellect, and pathos, the appeal of emotions. All three are needed to write a good composition. But these can cause problems as well. Today, we are so accustomed to having to keep these three proofs , that we tend to ignore everything else but making sure that our composition is grammatically correct and includes all the proofs. This forces us to focus our attention on the superficial aspects of out paper, instead of going in deeper to find a more in depth analysis.
On the other hand, Plato says the writer discovers new knowledge. His method is of a more contextual conversational method. This is sometimes seen as the weaker method compared to Aristotle, because it needs an outside force, like a teacher or professor, to direct conversation into a goal that can be the subject of a composition. Plato believed that dialect were the key to a great discourse. By being able to debate, finding contradictions and counterarguments, students are more able to find new ideas and knowledge. Plato's three part structure consists of defining particular terms, analyze subject matter into smaller categories, and moving up from concrete thoughts to more abstract thoughts to reach a satisfactory conclusion. This method is more flexible and inductive than Aristotle's method.
Aristotle's system of invention is influential in teaching writing, but Plato's dialectical invention is also important because it affords a communicative context for writers to rehearse and practice their thinking relative to the composing processes.
To being with, Aristotle was the first to devise a total rhetoric for arguing toward probable truth and deduction to convince one's audience. He made the rules, a systematic method for rhetoric. It uses deduction to convince the writers audience. This has, over time, degraded to the point where the rules have made for predictable, if well-structured, persuasive discourse. Students tend to become complacent when using Aristotle's method of rhetorical analysis. he used three methods to achieve a higher level of deductive reasoning, ethos, the appeal to the will, logos, the appeal to the intellect, and pathos, the appeal of emotions. All three are needed to write a good composition. But these can cause problems as well. Today, we are so accustomed to having to keep these three proofs , that we tend to ignore everything else but making sure that our composition is grammatically correct and includes all the proofs. This forces us to focus our attention on the superficial aspects of out paper, instead of going in deeper to find a more in depth analysis.
On the other hand, Plato says the writer discovers new knowledge. His method is of a more contextual conversational method. This is sometimes seen as the weaker method compared to Aristotle, because it needs an outside force, like a teacher or professor, to direct conversation into a goal that can be the subject of a composition. Plato believed that dialect were the key to a great discourse. By being able to debate, finding contradictions and counterarguments, students are more able to find new ideas and knowledge. Plato's three part structure consists of defining particular terms, analyze subject matter into smaller categories, and moving up from concrete thoughts to more abstract thoughts to reach a satisfactory conclusion. This method is more flexible and inductive than Aristotle's method.
Aristotle's system of invention is influential in teaching writing, but Plato's dialectical invention is also important because it affords a communicative context for writers to rehearse and practice their thinking relative to the composing processes.
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