WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.229 [Villanova University Ignite Change Now] 00:00:01.410 --> 00:00:02.850 [Fatal Amusements Nov 3, 2014 Garey Hall - Villanova University] 00:00:02.850 --> 00:00:03.806 [Contemplating Contemporary Media] 00:00:03.806 --> 00:00:05.416 [Dr. Lance Strate Harron Family Chai in Communication] 00:00:05.416 --> 00:00:06.683 [Villanova University does not endorse and assumes no liability for the materials apearing or opinions expressed in this video] 00:00:06.683 --> 00:00:08.167 (Applause) (Lance Strate) Well thank you 00:00:08.167 --> 00:00:10.350 I don't think, I don't know, does it matter? Do we need the microphone? 00:00:10.350 --> 00:00:11.920 do we need them 00:00:12.784 --> 00:00:17.312 Can you hear me, you hear me OK? 00:00:17.860 --> 00:00:25.670 OK, so we will set aside this prop and thank you very much I am indeed honored 00:00:25.670 --> 00:00:29.837 to have been chosen as the Haron Family Chair for this year 00:00:29.837 --> 00:00:37.755 and I'd like to thank the NBC family, Provost Mcginty Dean Landmeyer Maurice Hall, of course, (check) 00:00:37.755 --> 00:00:43.360 the chair of the department Heidy Rose and Cheryl Bowen and the rest of the 00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:47.670 Department of Communication, including the ones who really run the place, 00:00:47.670 --> 00:00:49.149 Loretta and Maria. 00:00:49.774 --> 00:00:54.040 It's been a great pleasure to be part of this faculty this semester 00:00:54.049 --> 00:00:56.223 and especially to spend time 00:00:56.223 --> 00:00:59.015 with the wonderful graduate and undergraduate students 00:00:59.015 --> 00:01:01.674 that attend here at Villanova. 00:01:02.920 --> 00:01:08.980 So I think it's, no doubt, it's something of a cliche 00:01:08.980 --> 00:01:13.430 for visitors to begin by making reference to our close proximity 00:01:13.430 --> 00:01:16.629 to the birthplace of the US. 00:01:16.629 --> 00:01:19.519 And far be it from me to break with tradition. 00:01:20.294 --> 00:01:25.150 So let me begin by posing the question: If Benjamin Franklin we're here today, 00:01:25.150 --> 00:01:29.519 what do you think he would make of the possibility of Donald Trump as president? 00:01:29.899 --> 00:01:31.359 (laughter 00:01:31.359 --> 00:01:34.689 Or to put it more generally, what would the founders of the American Republic 00:01:34.689 --> 00:01:39.271 have to say about the State of the Union in the 21st century? 00:01:39.479 --> 00:01:44.409 Now, I hasten to add that when I speak of the Founders, I want to set aside 00:01:44.409 --> 00:01:47.554 all that racism sexism all the other awful isms 00:01:47.554 --> 00:01:52.035 that were part and parcel of their times. 00:01:52.035 --> 00:01:55.979 I just want to consider them as embodiments of the ideals 00:01:55.979 --> 00:01:58.200 that they set forth in their writings. 00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:02.001 And you can say I'm being a romantic but this is my thought experiment 00:02:02.001 --> 00:02:07.327 so you'll have to bear with me, and so I ask you to imagine what these champions 00:02:07.327 --> 00:02:12.483 of reason and rationality, freedom and equality, justice and democracy 00:02:12.483 --> 00:02:15.785 would make of contemporary American culture? 00:02:15.785 --> 00:02:18.274 What would they make of a culture that's been shaped 00:02:18.274 --> 00:02:23.144 by instantaneous communication, that's dominated by the video image, 00:02:23.144 --> 00:02:28.011 transformed by the internet social media and mobile devices? 00:02:28.011 --> 00:02:31.317 What would they make of the ways in which public discourse 00:02:31.317 --> 00:02:36.206 has been altered and influenced by our electronic communications? 00:02:36.660 --> 00:02:40.030 Well, let me suggest to you that some of the words that might come to mind 00:02:40.040 --> 00:02:47.100 might be: disturbed, disappointed, maybe even disgusted. 00:02:47.100 --> 00:02:48.669 And don't get me wrong: 00:02:48.669 --> 00:02:52.213 I do think they'd be duly impressed by all the progress that we've made 00:02:52.213 --> 00:02:56.318 in science and technology over the past 230 years. 00:02:56.318 --> 00:03:01.449 I also think they'd recognize the progress we've made regarding human rights 00:03:01.458 --> 00:03:03.640 over the past two centuries, 00:03:03.640 --> 00:03:06.239 but I do believe that our founders would express 00:03:06.239 --> 00:03:09.658 grave and profound concern about our future 00:03:09.658 --> 00:03:14.670 When Benjamin Franklin uttered the ominous reply regarding the kind of government 00:03:14.670 --> 00:03:18.912 they had created "A republic, if you can keep it," 00:03:19.320 --> 00:03:25.150 The danger he foresaw was a return to some form of authoritarian government 00:03:26.022 --> 00:03:30.674 but what George Orwell depicted in his novel 1984, 00:03:30.674 --> 00:03:34.330 that would have been more extreme than anything that Franklin had known 00:03:34.340 --> 00:03:40.090 but he would easily understood the basic premise of coercion oppression and fear 00:03:40.101 --> 00:03:43.550 under which totalitarian regimes operate. //// 00:03:43.550 --> 00:03:48.579 what franklin never imagined in his wildest dreams that the reports that 00:03:48.579 --> 00:03:51.010 wrote the Republic might be lost 00:03:51.010 --> 00:03:57.200 not by force of arms but by fulfillment of our desire to have fun and he 00:03:57.200 --> 00:04:02.280 therefore would have been baffled by the kind of dystopia depicted in Aldous 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:07.690 Huxley Aldous Huxley in his novel brave new world but I believe that he would 00:04:07.690 --> 00:04:13.440 agree that Huxley was more prophetic the Norwell a point that Neil Postman 00:04:13.440 --> 00:04:18.988 observed in his best-known book amusing ourselves to death so let me quote to 00:04:18.988 --> 00:04:24.250 you now from the opening of that book postman wrote 00:04:24.250 --> 00:04:29.160 what orwell feared was though where those who would ban books what Huxley 00:04:29.160 --> 00:04:32.880 feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book for there would be no one 00:04:32.880 --> 00:04:38.890 wanted to read one or welfare those who would deprive us of information 00:04:38.890 --> 00:04:42.650 Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to 00:04:42.650 --> 00:04:49.090 passivity and egoism orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us 00:04:49.090 --> 00:04:55.090 oxley fear the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance orwell feared we 00:04:55.090 --> 00:05:01.000 would become a captive culture oxley feared we would become a trivial culture 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:07.200 preoccupied with some equivalent of the Feelies the orgy porgy and the 00:05:07.200 --> 00:05:14.340 centripetal bubble puppy as Huxley remarks in brave new world revisited the 00:05:14.340 --> 00:05:20.430 civil libertarians and rationalists failed to take into account man's almost 00:05:20.430 --> 00:05:28.479 infinite appetite for distractions in 1984 Huxley added people are controlled 00:05:28.479 --> 00:05:33.470 by inflicting pain and brave new world they are controlled by inflicting 00:05:33.470 --> 00:05:40.870 pleasure in short orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us Huxley feared 00:05:40.870 --> 00:05:48.060 that what we love will ruin us now as you may have noticed the title of my 00:05:48.060 --> 00:05:53.810 talk fatal amusements is a tribute to the book that post published thirty 00:05:53.810 --> 00:05:58.610 years ago and in my thought experiment I'd like to think that Franklin 00:05:58.610 --> 00:06:02.710 Jefferson and company would find a glimmer of hope and postman's 00:06:02.710 --> 00:06:09.390 explanation of how public discourse is shaped by our media of communication and 00:06:09.390 --> 00:06:14.110 since this is my thought experiment I'd also like to imagine that they gain some 00:06:14.110 --> 00:06:19.160 additional encouragement from the footnote and follow-up to post mean that 00:06:19.160 --> 00:06:24.150 I published last year a book entitled amazing ourselves to death in the old 00:06:24.150 --> 00:06:28.490 postman's brave new world revisited I want to believe that 00:06:28.490 --> 00:06:32.509 and in all fairness to benjamin Franklin he certainly would have been familiar 00:06:32.509 --> 00:06:38.800 with the old saying Nero fiddled while Rome burned which is a popular metaphor 00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:44.389 for irresponsible and foolish action in the face of serious events fiddling 00:06:44.389 --> 00:06:49.150 while Rome burns has been used in particular to refer to inaction on the 00:06:49.150 --> 00:06:54.280 part of political leaders in the face of a crisis but as citizens in a democracy 00:06:54.280 --> 00:07:00.210 responsible for governing ourselves there are no solo acts when it comes to 00:07:00.210 --> 00:07:06.319 fiddling around we're all playing in the band fiddling while Rome burns might 00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:11.120 well have been an alternative title for amusing ourselves to death which postman 00:07:11.120 --> 00:07:18.449 wrote not in puritanical condemnation of all pastimes and leisure pursuits nor is 00:07:18.449 --> 00:07:22.800 an elitist screed promoting the poor taste of youth today or the loss of 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:28.039 manners or moral standards the problem that post man identified is not that we 00:07:28.039 --> 00:07:32.659 seek pleasure or like to have fun or amusements are part of what make us 00:07:32.659 --> 00:07:33.870 human 00:07:33.870 --> 00:07:39.840 the problem instead is one of context in the context of a city on fire 00:07:39.840 --> 00:07:46.030 we ought to expect to serious response from our leaders not a musical one in 00:07:46.030 --> 00:07:51.219 the context of certain activities such as a courtroom trial religious ceremony 00:07:51.219 --> 00:07:56.550 or classroom we ought to expect a certain measure of decorum and behavior 00:07:56.550 --> 00:08:02.199 appropriate to such situations at the very least to prevent their destruction 00:08:02.199 --> 00:08:06.710 and in the context of the vital matters that must be dealt with within a 00:08:06.710 --> 00:08:12.630 democratic society we ought to expect some serious discussion and debate as a 00:08:12.630 --> 00:08:15.150 basis for making decisions 00:08:15.150 --> 00:08:20.229 understanding context is at the core of postman's message and understanding 00:08:20.229 --> 00:08:26.229 eloquently expressed in ecclesiastes to everything there is a season and a time 00:08:26.229 --> 00:08:32.219 to every purpose under heaven postman's argument and is that there's a time for 00:08:32.219 --> 00:08:37.520 amusement and it's time to be serious and as our media and technology of 00:08:37.520 --> 00:08:42.020 expanded our ability to amuse ourselves we've lost the ability 00:08:42.020 --> 00:08:46.770 to distinguish between the two and this blurs the boundaries in favor of 00:08:46.770 --> 00:08:51.600 amusement as a consequence we find ourselves suffering from too much of a 00:08:51.600 --> 00:08:57.400 good thing we know quite well that too much of the food that nourishes us leads 00:08:57.400 --> 00:09:03.120 to obesity that too much of the exercise that strengthens the body can cause it 00:09:03.120 --> 00:09:08.010 damaged that too much of a dose of medicine that cures disease can be 00:09:08.010 --> 00:09:09.240 deadly 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:14.820 the primary value for any ecological system is balanced and post man 00:09:14.820 --> 00:09:20.180 identified late twentieth-century American culture as dangerously out of 00:09:20.180 --> 00:09:24.860 balance his reference to death in the book's title amusing ourselves to death 00:09:24.860 --> 00:09:31.170 was no mere hyperbole but an indication that our loss of balance had called into 00:09:31.170 --> 00:09:36.490 question the very survival of our culture of liberal democracy and even of 00:09:36.490 --> 00:09:42.320 humanity as a species so whether the tune we imagine Nero playing was a 00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:44.640 raucous fire on the mountain 00:09:44.640 --> 00:09:51.220 rendition of hearts and flowers in the face of such nihilistic soundtracks we 00:09:51.220 --> 00:09:57.020 might invoke an altogether different more hopeful musical that of Fiddler on 00:09:57.020 --> 00:10:02.560 the Roof Inn at musical texture the main character says of himself and his fellow 00:10:02.560 --> 00:10:07.620 villagers that every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch 00:10:07.620 --> 00:10:13.100 out a pleasant simple tune without breaking his neck and while he goes on 00:10:13.100 --> 00:10:18.050 to sing about tradition the theme of the play is the need to cope with change 00:10:18.050 --> 00:10:24.120 with modernization in the face of events that would have otherwise been entirely 00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:29.490 demoralizing disorienting and destabilizing tradition served as a 00:10:29.490 --> 00:10:32.370 much-needed counterweight again 00:10:32.370 --> 00:10:37.370 context is essential under other conditions and unchecked emphasis on 00:10:37.370 --> 00:10:42.560 tradition might lead to a rigid inflexible culture unable to adapt to 00:10:42.560 --> 00:10:49.240 changing circumstances so context and balance or two fundamental elements of 00:10:49.240 --> 00:10:54.130 an ecological approach to understanding media which is to say that they are 00:10:54.130 --> 00:10:55.410 fundamental 00:10:55.410 --> 00:11:01.990 to the field of media ecology a postman introduced the phrase media ecology back 00:11:01.990 --> 00:11:08.879 in 1968 defining it as the study of media as environments and noting that he 00:11:08.879 --> 00:11:12.970 was not inventing the field that it was already in existence and that he was 00:11:12.970 --> 00:11:18.269 just naming it and to this side at that the best known most frequently cited 00:11:18.269 --> 00:11:23.819 media ecology scholar would be Marshall McLuhan and its famous maximum the 00:11:23.819 --> 00:11:28.819 medium is the message can be considered the first axiom or rather the first 00:11:28.819 --> 00:11:34.170 aphorism of our field to put it succinctly the medium is the message 00:11:34.170 --> 00:11:40.899 asks us to pay attention to how we do things because the way that we do things 00:11:40.899 --> 00:11:46.279 as much to do with what we end up doing and with the results of our actions and 00:11:46.279 --> 00:11:51.709 with who we are and who we become idea has been expressed in many different 00:11:51.709 --> 00:11:59.139 ways winston churchill said we shape our buildings there after they shape us and 00:11:59.139 --> 00:12:04.819 the Koolance associate John culkin expanded that as we shape our tools and 00:12:04.819 --> 00:12:10.279 thereafter they shape us back in the nineteenth century Henry David Thoreau 00:12:10.279 --> 00:12:17.170 remarked we do not ride on the rail wrote it rides upon us and Mark Twain 00:12:17.170 --> 00:12:20.259 quipped that when you have a hammer in your hand everything else looks like it 00:12:20.259 --> 00:12:26.500 now you know my mother was fond of saying how you make your bad so you 00:12:26.500 --> 00:12:32.860 shall sleep which has its origins as a 15th century French proper course the 00:12:32.860 --> 00:12:38.279 English version is you made your bed go sleep on it which is more go sleep in it 00:12:38.279 --> 00:12:45.019 which is more judgmental s media logical but also in the 15th century the English 00:12:45.019 --> 00:12:50.309 rider and pioneering printer William Caxton published a retailing of Aesop's 00:12:50.309 --> 00:12:55.449 fables that had the first English version of the same ask a silly question 00:12:55.449 --> 00:13:00.920 get a silly answer and it's a fundamental idea and media ecology that 00:13:00.920 --> 00:13:06.759 the kinds of questions we ask have quite a lot to do with the kinds of answers 00:13:06.759 --> 00:13:07.900 that we obtain 00:13:07.900 --> 00:13:11.970 pain but you can find this idea in the Bible as well in the New Testament 00:13:11.970 --> 00:13:18.210 Gospel of Matthew Jesus declares all that live by the sword shall die by the 00:13:18.210 --> 00:13:23.780 sword and in the hundred fifteen psalm of David there's a passage about the 00:13:23.780 --> 00:13:29.640 worship of idols that concludes they that make them she'll be like onto them 00:13:29.640 --> 00:13:36.790 yay everyone that trusteth in while the basic idea is an ancient 11 of the 00:13:36.790 --> 00:13:42.060 direct sources of inspiration from the Coons famous saying came from the 00:13:42.060 --> 00:13:48.080 anthropologist Ashley Montegut who wrote that and I quote in teaching it is the 00:13:48.080 --> 00:13:53.280 method and not the content that is the message and not Montacute went on to 00:13:53.280 --> 00:13:57.930 declare that the quote that education quote does not depend upon the 00:13:57.930 --> 00:14:02.490 transmission of knowledge but upon the manner in which the knowledge is 00:14:02.490 --> 00:14:08.600 transmitted by the teacher so from the media ecology perspective a teacher's a 00:14:08.600 --> 00:14:12.970 type of medium and the student is the message or to put it another way the 00:14:12.970 --> 00:14:18.940 relationship between teacher and student is the medium relationships are media 00:14:18.940 --> 00:14:23.910 and the teacher-student relationship is the most important medium of education 00:14:23.910 --> 00:14:29.840 of all at this point let me acknowledge them trying to provide a brief 00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:34.060 explanation of the field of media ecology but I've already exceeded the 00:14:34.060 --> 00:14:40.070 time limit and given for what's come to be known as an elevator speech is also 00:14:40.070 --> 00:14:45.100 known as an elevator pitch the concept is based on the way in which in elevator 00:14:45.100 --> 00:14:49.740 ride shapes our relationships and discourse given the fact that it's 00:14:49.740 --> 00:14:53.940 characterized by a captive audience a relatively intimate space in the 00:14:53.940 --> 00:14:58.990 relatively brief duration we might contrasted then to the ways in which our 00:14:58.990 --> 00:15:04.280 relationships and forms of discourse are influenced by the characteristics of a 00:15:04.280 --> 00:15:09.660 classroom or a living room or a bar room we might also note how all of these 00:15:09.660 --> 00:15:14.840 instances differ from the relationships we enter into and the forms of discourse 00:15:14.840 --> 00:15:20.070 we encounter when we read a book or go to the movies or you 00:15:20.070 --> 00:15:25.110 use social media as you probably have noticed I'm using a much broader 00:15:25.110 --> 00:15:31.370 definition of the terms media and medium and scholars in other fields use it 00:15:31.370 --> 00:15:36.640 incorporates all of the ways in which we communicate that means and methods we 00:15:36.640 --> 00:15:41.550 use the many modes and codes of communication available to us the 00:15:41.550 --> 00:15:47.940 situations and spaces the contacts and relationships all of the ways in which 00:15:47.940 --> 00:15:53.780 we mediate between each other and with our environment and this includes all 00:15:53.780 --> 00:16:00.190 manner of technology and technique not just those associated with communication 00:16:00.190 --> 00:16:06.220 but communication is a particular focus because it's central to the human 00:16:06.220 --> 00:16:07.550 condition 00:16:07.550 --> 00:16:11.320 language and simple uses what distinguishes us from other species 00:16:11.320 --> 00:16:16.750 giving us what Alfred Krzyzewski referred to as the capacity for time 00:16:16.750 --> 00:16:20.960 finding for preserving knowledge transmitting it to future generations 00:16:20.960 --> 00:16:27.740 and evaluating what we know in order to make progress so media ecology 00:16:27.740 --> 00:16:32.530 scholarship's are often concerned with the differences that distinguish one 00:16:32.530 --> 00:16:37.060 medium or form of communication from another which in turn means that 00:16:37.060 --> 00:16:41.800 different media affect us in different ways as the influence and shape the way 00:16:41.800 --> 00:16:48.660 that we think he'll act use our senses organize ourselves collectively and 00:16:48.660 --> 00:16:53.710 create and maintain cultural continuities this means that the 00:16:53.710 --> 00:16:58.980 introduction of a new medium can have profound effects on individuals and 00:16:58.980 --> 00:17:05.520 societies and that's because media constitute environments that shape and 00:17:05.520 --> 00:17:10.240 influence us in the same way that biological and geological environments 00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:17.920 shape and influence organisms and species it follows that media ecology is 00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:22.140 concerned with the process of change when you introduce a change into an 00:17:22.140 --> 00:17:28.439 interdependent system its effects can give rise to secondary effects and those 00:17:28.439 --> 00:17:33.180 two church sure you effects and so on through many generations of interactive 00:17:33.180 --> 00:17:37.930 facts that's why we understand that the introduction of a new medium has an 00:17:37.930 --> 00:17:43.700 ecological effect not simply added to the old system plus the new medium but 00:17:43.700 --> 00:17:48.900 transformative resulting in a change to the entire system throughout the entire 00:17:48.900 --> 00:17:54.240 system and because of the complexity of ecological strange we should understand 00:17:54.240 --> 00:17:59.020 that some of the effects will be unanticipated on an unpredictable that 00:17:59.020 --> 00:18:03.550 we'll never know for certain all of the consequences of any given innovation 00:18:03.550 --> 00:18:07.800 this means there'll always be negative effects that accompanied the positive 00:18:07.800 --> 00:18:13.960 effects that every benefit will come with a cost and it may well be that the 00:18:13.960 --> 00:18:19.160 benefit is worth the cost but does it really make sense to buy into an 00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:25.390 innovation without first looking at the price tag the old sales slogan buy now 00:18:25.390 --> 00:18:31.030 pay later pretty much sum saw our contemporary approach to technology and 00:18:31.030 --> 00:18:35.770 much like buying on credit we never really know how much will pay for our 00:18:35.770 --> 00:18:38.670 purchases in the end 00:18:38.670 --> 00:18:43.640 given the concern with change media ecology provides us with the way to 00:18:43.640 --> 00:18:45.950 understand human history 00:18:45.950 --> 00:18:50.920 simply put language and speech are basic to the human condition 00:18:50.920 --> 00:18:56.670 systems of notation and especially writing systems are intimately connected 00:18:56.670 --> 00:19:01.900 to the transition from tribal societies to more complex forms of social 00:19:01.900 --> 00:19:09.690 organization cities kingdoms and empires alphabetic writing and particulars what 00:19:09.690 --> 00:19:14.740 gives Western culture what gave Western culture its distinctive characteristics 00:19:14.740 --> 00:19:20.910 the invention of the printing press with movable type is closely associated with 00:19:20.910 --> 00:19:26.600 the shift from the medieval to the modern era in Europe and the electronic 00:19:26.600 --> 00:19:33.180 media brought the modern era to a close moving us into a new era some refer to 00:19:33.180 --> 00:19:38.770 as postmodern of course the spells the end not only of modernity but of almost 00:19:38.770 --> 00:19:44.860 4,000 years of alphabetic culture and that's why mcluhan once pointed out 00:19:44.860 --> 00:19:46.419 pointed to a TV set 00:19:46.419 --> 00:19:52.369 and he said the following this is from one of his biographies quoting do you 00:19:52.369 --> 00:19:57.799 really want to know what I think that thing if you want to save one shred of 00:19:57.799 --> 00:20:02.970 her breakup greco-roman Medieval Renaissance enlightenment modern Western 00:20:02.970 --> 00:20:11.090 civilization you'd better get an ax and smash all the sex is being a bit extreme 00:20:11.090 --> 00:20:17.109 you might say hi and even postman who was often labeled and died would agree 00:20:17.109 --> 00:20:22.230 but the important point is that all the benefits that we've gained from our 00:20:22.230 --> 00:20:27.059 electronic media come with the cost we need to know what the cost has been and 00:20:27.059 --> 00:20:32.340 what it yet might be so we can start by noting that the first form of alphabetic 00:20:32.340 --> 00:20:38.590 writing the Semitic alpha put it as used by the ancient Israelites went along 00:20:38.590 --> 00:20:43.730 with the introduction of monotheism and religion based on a sacred texts with 00:20:43.730 --> 00:20:49.019 the first historical narrative in the first system of codified law and what 00:20:49.019 --> 00:20:53.289 went with it was a generalized conception of justice and human rights 00:20:53.289 --> 00:20:58.419 and this was followed by the Greek alphabet which made possible rhetoric 00:20:58.419 --> 00:21:04.460 and philosophy theater and theoretical science the first monetary system in the 00:21:04.460 --> 00:21:10.399 first form of democratic government the shift from a reality to literacy vastly 00:21:10.399 --> 00:21:15.859 increased our capacity for time binding opening the door to significant progress 00:21:15.859 --> 00:21:22.980 in all aspects of human life now the printing press amplified the impact of 00:21:22.980 --> 00:21:28.169 the written word well introd introducing new effects of its own so given the fact 00:21:28.169 --> 00:21:33.149 that Villanova is an Augustinian University you no doubt are thoroughly 00:21:33.149 --> 00:21:40.169 familiar with the confessions and what augustine says about the reading habits 00:21:40.169 --> 00:21:45.529 of British Bishop Ambrose but just in case you slipped slipped your mind let 00:21:45.529 --> 00:21:54.009 me remind you quote from it when he was reading his I glided over the pages and 00:21:54.009 --> 00:21:58.640 his heart searched out the sense but his voice 00:21:58.640 --> 00:22:05.610 tongue where I rest we see the fact was that silent reading was greeted with 00:22:05.610 --> 00:22:13.240 incredible astonishment and it's an indication that reading out loud was all 00:22:13.240 --> 00:22:18.360 that people knew about for the almost entirely until the advent of the 00:22:18.360 --> 00:22:25.470 printing is highly legible typefaces which made the process of decoding taxed 00:22:25.470 --> 00:22:30.560 easier and faster print media also amplified the written words biased 00:22:30.560 --> 00:22:35.820 towards individualism and Privacy Act of reading and writing especially when it's 00:22:35.820 --> 00:22:42.260 silent requires a high degree of social isolation as opposed to speaking and 00:22:42.260 --> 00:22:48.000 listening which is a collective group centered activity printing increased 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:53.320 access to information dramatically leading to a knowledge explosion as well 00:22:53.320 --> 00:22:58.800 as increased specialization and standardization and easy access to the 00:22:58.800 --> 00:23:04.720 accumulated knowledge of centuries past facilitated scholar ship it spyridon 00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:09.220 research and it led to the rise of modern science and with it what became 00:23:09.220 --> 00:23:14.160 known as the age of reason the Enlightenment and printing created a 00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:20.010 reading public which constitutes the basis of democracy increased access to 00:23:20.010 --> 00:23:24.630 political information made it hard to argue that individuals don't know enough 00:23:24.630 --> 00:23:29.670 to govern themselves so the breaking of the state's monopoly of knowledge 00:23:29.670 --> 00:23:35.040 resulted in the democratic revolutions of the modern era as Thomas Carlyle Road 00:23:35.040 --> 00:23:41.460 in the nineteenth century he who first shorten the labor of copyist spy device 00:23:41.460 --> 00:23:48.060 of movable types was disbanding hired armies and cashiering most kings and 00:23:48.060 --> 00:23:54.780 senate's and creating a whole new democratic world I wish I could do in 00:23:54.780 --> 00:24:00.430 English accent is that's really what that requires but printing also fostered 00:24:00.430 --> 00:24:07.060 it did foster centralized political economic and social control and the 00:24:07.060 --> 00:24:09.170 building of colonial empires 00:24:09.170 --> 00:24:13.080 it also made possible the Enlightenment ideals of political emancipation 00:24:13.080 --> 00:24:19.390 self-determination equality before the law along with a new emphasis on 00:24:19.390 --> 00:24:26.590 individualism rationalism and scientific method so out of the typographic media 00:24:26.590 --> 00:24:30.820 environment come we came the Enlightenment and out of the 00:24:30.820 --> 00:24:35.530 Enlightenment result we have resulted in the creation of the American republic 00:24:35.530 --> 00:24:41.070 which is the first nation to be founded on the basis of a reason 00:24:41.070 --> 00:24:47.960 logical argument has put forth in the Declaration of Independence now the 18th 00:24:47.960 --> 00:24:52.270 century media environment was one in which the spoken and written word 00:24:52.270 --> 00:24:56.410 achieved a fruitful but a delicate balance which is why they're given 00:24:56.410 --> 00:25:02.050 special protection in the first amendment freedom of speech freedom of 00:25:02.050 --> 00:25:07.320 the press so what happened to public discourse over the past century and a 00:25:07.320 --> 00:25:13.530 half but we could boil it down to three factors the first involves images from 00:25:13.530 --> 00:25:17.880 the invention of photography to subsequent developments and graphics 00:25:17.880 --> 00:25:26.100 film television and video we do take it into an image culture one in which 00:25:26.100 --> 00:25:31.970 images have replaced and displaced words as the philosopher Susanne Langer as 00:25:31.970 --> 00:25:37.380 explained images do not make claims they don't make arguments they don't put 00:25:37.380 --> 00:25:42.990 forth statements or propositions if I say that it's raining outside right now 00:25:42.990 --> 00:25:48.590 you can look out there and determine whether that's true or false you can 00:25:48.590 --> 00:25:54.700 gather the evidence and image if I show an image though what is it it's a 00:25:54.700 --> 00:26:00.950 concrete representation if I show you a picture of a ring of rain out there it's 00:26:00.950 --> 00:26:06.560 neither true nor false it can be used as evidence but it makes no claim about 00:26:06.560 --> 00:26:07.960 anything 00:26:07.960 --> 00:26:12.430 a picture can be tampered with it can be airbrushed photoshopped but it's not a 00:26:12.430 --> 00:26:18.470 fake until it's attached to a statement the bias of the image as a symbolic form 00:26:18.470 --> 00:26:21.810 favors gut feelings over rap 00:26:21.810 --> 00:26:27.790 coherent organization of ideas it evokes emotional reactions rather than rational 00:26:27.790 --> 00:26:33.750 thought that's the first factor the second is information and the problem is 00:26:33.750 --> 00:26:39.220 that our capacity to transmit and store information has continued to expand over 00:26:39.220 --> 00:26:45.770 the past two centuries so that we find ourselves in a time of TMI too much 00:26:45.770 --> 00:26:52.440 information otherwise known as information overload media professionals 00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:57.140 are well aware of the problem of cutting through all the noise and clutter but 00:26:57.140 --> 00:27:02.320 for audiences the problem is making sense of so much stimuli evaluating the 00:27:02.320 --> 00:27:08.360 messages determining what small amount of them is really relevant to us and 00:27:08.360 --> 00:27:14.760 what small amount of those are actionable the third factor is immediacy 00:27:14.760 --> 00:27:20.180 beginning with the Telegraph electricity made instantaneous transmission of 00:27:20.180 --> 00:27:25.320 messages possible this contributes to information overload and incoherence 00:27:25.320 --> 00:27:29.940 there's no time to sort things out especially as the acceleration of 00:27:29.940 --> 00:27:35.730 communication favors rapid turnover against any type of contextualization 00:27:35.730 --> 00:27:41.310 and speed gives us an abbreviated form of discourse the sort we associate with 00:27:41.310 --> 00:27:46.730 the telegram the newspaper headline the advertising slogan more recently the 00:27:46.730 --> 00:27:52.770 text message status update in tweet contemporary critics such as Nicholas 00:27:52.770 --> 00:27:56.820 Carr know that there's a significant amount of reading the takes place online 00:27:56.820 --> 00:28:01.660 but it's not that deep reading associated with print culture instead 00:28:01.660 --> 00:28:06.700 it's a kind of rapid scanning and skimming accompanied by a good deal of 00:28:06.700 --> 00:28:12.670 linking and clicking speed also places a new emphasis on efficiency which is 00:28:12.670 --> 00:28:17.650 essentially a numbers game based on measurement and statistical analysis and 00:28:17.650 --> 00:28:22.750 in this sense the balance between the spoken and written word comes under 00:28:22.750 --> 00:28:28.660 assault from another direction in the form of counting and calculation were 00:28:28.660 --> 00:28:33.740 caught then between two extremes of image and number of the irrational 00:28:33.740 --> 00:28:39.320 and the hyper rational so images information and immediacy come together 00:28:39.320 --> 00:28:44.570 as never before with the medium of television with television language 00:28:44.570 --> 00:28:49.550 takes a back seat to the image as the medium allows us to see what is 00:28:49.550 --> 00:28:55.809 happening for ourselves as it is happening the verbal report is no longer 00:28:55.809 --> 00:29:00.210 the main source of information as it was previously it 00:29:00.210 --> 00:29:06.130 newspaper reports and even with radio but now the purple report is reduced to 00:29:06.130 --> 00:29:11.610 commentary coming after the fact of the live image the difference between a 00:29:11.610 --> 00:29:16.270 televised experience in the report can be seen especially in the sports program 00:29:16.270 --> 00:29:22.130 as Walter on pointed out the voice on a live television sports broadcast lags 00:29:22.130 --> 00:29:28.490 behind the audience's perceptions on also argues the sense of immediacy is 00:29:28.490 --> 00:29:34.470 central to the television forum I quote not all television presentations are 00:29:34.470 --> 00:29:41.200 simultaneous with reality but in a way to pull television presentation seem to 00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:46.590 be the fact that the instrument is capable of such presentations defines 00:29:46.590 --> 00:29:52.990 its impact so whereas for example the motion picture always communicates in 00:29:52.990 --> 00:29:57.620 the past and it's always something that has happened already 00:29:57.620 --> 00:30:03.970 the television broadcast communicates in the present tense instilling in a very 00:30:03.970 --> 00:30:10.940 strong form of present mindedness now over the three decades that followed the 00:30:10.940 --> 00:30:15.890 publication of amusing ourselves to death Tirmidhi environment has evolved 00:30:15.890 --> 00:30:20.070 through the vast expansion of the cable and satellite and through the 00:30:20.070 --> 00:30:24.440 popularization of the internet the introduction of the web social media 00:30:24.440 --> 00:30:30.280 media mobile technology and some had hoped that our new media would counter 00:30:30.280 --> 00:30:35.190 the negative effects of television but I want to suggest that in many ways they 00:30:35.190 --> 00:30:41.919 have much in common and as further elaborations of electronic media but 00:30:41.919 --> 00:30:46.970 let's consider our longest running reality 00:30:46.970 --> 00:30:51.780 shun series you know the one that with the slogan that goes outwit outplay 00:30:51.780 --> 00:30:59.710 outlast you know that one if you think I'm referring to survivor the mistakes 00:30:59.710 --> 00:31:04.200 understandable when actually referring to could be called who wants to be the 00:31:04.200 --> 00:31:08.080 president it's easy to confuse the two 00:31:08.080 --> 00:31:14.970 both conclude with all but one player being voted off the island and when so 00:31:14.970 --> 00:31:19.159 much of our political campaigning is played out on television is it any 00:31:19.159 --> 00:31:23.700 wonder that the host of another reality series The Apprentice could be our next 00:31:23.700 --> 00:31:28.480 president this is despite the fact that donald Trump has no government 00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:34.500 experience offers platitudes in the place of campaign platform and is not by 00:31:34.500 --> 00:31:40.020 any traditional standards eloquence or even all that coherent but he has a 00:31:40.020 --> 00:31:45.860 decade of experience hosting The Apprentice and long before that can 00:31:45.860 --> 00:31:52.100 spent considerable time and effort on publicity and self-promotion simply put 00:31:52.100 --> 00:31:59.549 he knows and much like ronald reagan our movie star turn president from the 00:31:59.549 --> 00:32:06.840 eighties donald Trump knows how to look into look into the camera how to talk to 00:32:06.840 --> 00:32:11.870 the viewers he knows what works and what doesn't work on the television screen 00:32:11.870 --> 00:32:16.299 and this more than anything is the reason for his early success in the 00:32:16.299 --> 00:32:22.000 polls along with a certain ability to use new media it's not to say that being 00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:27.230 telegenic will guarantee victory but it is to say that anyone who's not very 00:32:27.230 --> 00:32:30.140 telegenic will pretty much go down in defeat 00:32:30.140 --> 00:32:36.250 regardless of their qualifications and this includes this now incorporates the 00:32:36.250 --> 00:32:42.559 use of new media and you can think back to 2008 and the Obama girl YouTube video 00:32:42.559 --> 00:32:48.570 and the way that Obama and now Trump has very effectively used interacted with 00:32:48.570 --> 00:32:53.380 campaign supporters through Twitter now it may be hard to believe nowadays but 00:32:53.380 --> 00:32:56.780 that was a time when appearing on an entertainer 00:32:56.780 --> 00:33:00.860 program was considered beneath the dignity of apollo of a serious 00:33:00.860 --> 00:33:06.500 politician really now it's a part of every candidate's campaign strategy 00:33:06.500 --> 00:33:11.510 fred thompson deter fred thompson just passed away and it's worth noting in 00:33:11.510 --> 00:33:19.360 2008 fred thompson whose previous career was a film and television actor went on 00:33:19.360 --> 00:33:23.500 The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to declare his candidacy for the president 00:33:23.500 --> 00:33:28.060 and he wasn't the first candidate to go that route but he did this instead of 00:33:28.060 --> 00:33:34.910 participating in the Republican primary debate being held that same night as a 00:33:34.910 --> 00:33:38.080 veteran of the big and small screen he knew that a late night entertainment 00:33:38.080 --> 00:33:43.790 program hosted by comedian would provide him with a much better platform for 00:33:43.790 --> 00:33:48.570 launching his campaign than discussing issues with other politicians and who 00:33:48.570 --> 00:33:53.450 can blame them it's simply a matter of choosing which of two forms of 00:33:53.450 --> 00:33:57.380 television programming he should go with and selecting the one that has the 00:33:57.380 --> 00:34:02.520 bigger audience in our current election cycle being a guest on late night talk 00:34:02.520 --> 00:34:03.330 shows 00:34:03.330 --> 00:34:08.230 has become a routine for candidates as routine as taking part in debates and 00:34:08.230 --> 00:34:14.090 running political commercials and once the election is over image politics 00:34:14.090 --> 00:34:19.239 persists as part and parcel of governing promoting policies and political 00:34:19.239 --> 00:34:24.880 advocacy he's back in March of last year President Obama appeared on the comedy 00:34:24.880 --> 00:34:30.830 program hosted by Zach Galifianakis right between two ferns and his 00:34:30.830 --> 00:34:35.550 motivation was to urge young adults to sign up for health care there's no 00:34:35.550 --> 00:34:41.489 question that that program was highly entertaining whole areas there's no 00:34:41.489 --> 00:34:45.590 question that he was able to reach his target audience the question now is 00:34:45.590 --> 00:34:50.070 whether the message he was trying to convey got through it all or whether it 00:34:50.070 --> 00:34:54.770 was lost in the context of comedy in stark has and the overarching question 00:34:54.770 --> 00:35:01.220 is whether the learning of entertainment and politics makes it all possible to 00:35:01.220 --> 00:35:07.590 engage in the serious discourse that's vital to our democracy you know thirty 00:35:07.590 --> 00:35:08.730 years ago 00:35:08.730 --> 00:35:12.830 broadcast journalists working on network news complain that they had less than 00:35:12.830 --> 00:35:17.580 half an hour to report on the day's events they couldn't help but be much 00:35:17.580 --> 00:35:22.370 more than the headline service so now we have cable news channels with 24 hour 00:35:22.370 --> 00:35:26.970 news cycles and we find that the coverage is not that much different as 00:35:26.970 --> 00:35:31.640 it turns out most people to an end to cable stations news stations only for a 00:35:31.640 --> 00:35:36.720 limited time so rather than lose viewers they tend to provide repetition in place 00:35:36.720 --> 00:35:37.430 of death 00:35:37.430 --> 00:35:42.190 the news stories are also kept short out of concern of losing the audience's 00:35:42.190 --> 00:35:49.290 attention and essentially essentially Fox News CNN and Ms MSNBC of all 00:35:49.290 --> 00:35:54.690 discovered they can build larger audiences by providing more entertaining 00:35:54.690 --> 00:36:00.130 programming emphasizing dramatic confrontations confrontations that 00:36:00.130 --> 00:36:06.030 resemble not so much sort of pro and con newspaper op-eds but more like 00:36:06.030 --> 00:36:12.250 confrontations we see on televised professional wrestling programs the old 00:36:12.250 --> 00:36:17.650 adage in TV news was if it bleeds it leads and that perfectly sums up the 00:36:17.650 --> 00:36:22.360 fact that decisions on what stories to report how much time to devote them and 00:36:22.360 --> 00:36:27.490 where to place them in the broadcast are heavily influenced by the presence or 00:36:27.490 --> 00:36:32.440 absence of compelling footage and this trend has been greatly amplified by the 00:36:32.440 --> 00:36:37.240 availability of video recorded by smartphones dashboard cameras 00:36:37.240 --> 00:36:43.340 surveillance video and the like we find that the caught on camera genre has 00:36:43.340 --> 00:36:48.750 become a new kind of news program one whose only rationale is 2% entertaining 00:36:48.750 --> 00:36:54.340 video to attract audiences in this way journalism is reduced to a spinoff of 00:36:54.340 --> 00:36:59.520 America's Funniest Home Videos but why not after all 00:36:59.520 --> 00:37:05.320 television news programs are called shows their show business they have 00:37:05.320 --> 00:37:08.320 theme music is music 00:37:08.320 --> 00:37:14.530 theme music for the newscasters wear makeup they had their hair styled their 00:37:14.530 --> 00:37:19.880 costumes appropriately they become celebrities they appear on talk shows 00:37:19.880 --> 00:37:23.820 the appear in fictional movies and TV episodes 00:37:23.820 --> 00:37:29.210 blurring the line between fiction and nonfiction you know many viewers 00:37:29.210 --> 00:37:35.450 lamented the loss of Brian Williams whose main qualification as anchor the 00:37:35.450 --> 00:37:39.760 NBC News was the fact that he looked and sounded like a traditional network 00:37:39.760 --> 00:37:46.630 anchor and acclaimed TV critic marvin kitman refer to Williams is Brian the 00:37:46.630 --> 00:37:52.020 mediocre and he called it described him as someone a quote 00:37:52.020 --> 00:37:56.130 who came across as a nice guy always well-dressed but more of an actor / 00:37:56.130 --> 00:38:02.980 model playing a newsman course it didn't matter much by that time who took over 00:38:02.980 --> 00:38:07.270 the anchor's chair cuz it was led by that time was longer observed that most 00:38:07.270 --> 00:38:12.460 young adults have been getting their news from the monologues of late night 00:38:12.460 --> 00:38:17.080 talk shows from Jay Leno and David Letterman at the time you know Walter 00:38:17.080 --> 00:38:23.500 Cronkite who anchored the CBS Evening News from 6281 was commonly referred to 00:38:23.500 --> 00:38:29.510 as the most trusted man in America but if anyone could claim that title in 00:38:29.510 --> 00:38:34.330 recent years I think it would be Jon Stewart host of The Comedy Central cable 00:38:34.330 --> 00:38:39.520 program The Daily Show and of course Stewart like leno letterman in others as 00:38:39.520 --> 00:38:45.440 a comedian not a journalist which you know certain got to ask if so many 00:38:45.440 --> 00:38:49.960 people get their news from comedians that mean the journalism has become a 00:38:49.960 --> 00:38:55.110 joke and I think it's particularly telling that when Stewart announced that 00:38:55.110 --> 00:38:59.160 he was leaving the Daily Show earlier this year you know who want to the name 00:38:59.160 --> 00:39:06.680 was mentioned about who might take over forum Brian Williams I should add that 00:39:06.680 --> 00:39:11.750 it's not at all clear that new media provide an adequate substitute Twitter 00:39:11.750 --> 00:39:16.240 simply gives us a new form of telegraphic discourse while YouTube 00:39:16.240 --> 00:39:21.800 Instagram our new manifestations of image culture the internet contributes 00:39:21.800 --> 00:39:27.020 in a major way to information overload and does not provide a forum for shared 00:39:27.020 --> 00:39:32.170 a shared forum for discussion and deliberation really what it does is it 00:39:32.170 --> 00:39:37.870 situates us in isolated silos that intensify the divisions in american 00:39:37.870 --> 00:39:39.450 society 00:39:39.450 --> 00:39:45.940 offer contrast the recent visit of Pope Francis to the united states right the 00:39:45.940 --> 00:39:51.110 leader of the Roman Catholic Church is a serious individual who communicates a 00:39:51.110 --> 00:39:57.460 strong sense of dignity compassion and moral authority he's not someone who was 00:39:57.460 --> 00:40:03.000 chosen because of his ability to perform for the television camera or to share or 00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:08.610 his willingness to share personal details via social media he's not a 00:40:08.610 --> 00:40:14.020 celebrity not an entertainer and I want to tell you that I personally was very 00:40:14.020 --> 00:40:19.940 moved by the Interfaith service that he led at the 911 memorial back in 00:40:19.940 --> 00:40:25.790 September but I have to confess that I watched it on CNN was sitting on the 00:40:25.790 --> 00:40:32.510 couch in the living room wearing pyjamas sipping coffee and eating a bagel and 00:40:32.510 --> 00:40:36.680 when it was over I change the channel 00:40:36.680 --> 00:40:43.020 how different then was that experience from watching appointment moving on HBO 00:40:43.020 --> 00:40:49.150 what happens to religious experience when it becomes televised or tweeted or 00:40:49.150 --> 00:40:55.480 Instagram as Walter on the explains sound is intimately connected to our 00:40:55.480 --> 00:40:58.910 sense of the sacred the human voice 00:40:58.910 --> 00:41:04.420 the most distinct and unique element of the human person is produced by breath 00:41:04.420 --> 00:41:10.250 which is closely associated with life itself in hebrew the words for breath 00:41:10.250 --> 00:41:17.370 and winds are synonymous with spirit and soul both human and divine it is worth 00:41:17.370 --> 00:41:22.170 asking therefore if it makes a difference if the voices heard in song 00:41:22.170 --> 00:41:28.890 and prayer are breathless in a sense of being electronically disembodied the 00:41:28.890 --> 00:41:34.090 problem is always as one of context participating in a religious ritual 00:41:34.090 --> 00:41:39.490 Lisa sauce in a special context that's different from all about context it 00:41:39.490 --> 00:41:44.140 situates us in the distinct media environment one that asks us to play 00:41:44.140 --> 00:41:49.800 different roles and play by different sets of rules whether the location is a 00:41:49.800 --> 00:41:55.950 church a synagogue temple or mosque or outdoors religious experiences Mirchi 00:41:55.950 --> 00:42:02.320 Aliotti explains is characterized by a sense of sacred space and sacred time 00:42:02.320 --> 00:42:08.630 separate and distinct from profane space and time into the deep meaning of 00:42:08.630 --> 00:42:14.700 sanctification and consecration traced back to the Hebrew word Kadosh is to set 00:42:14.700 --> 00:42:20.980 up heart to differentiate so what happens to our sense of sacred space and 00:42:20.980 --> 00:42:27.470 time when congregants in the pews here a cell phone ringing receive text messages 00:42:27.470 --> 00:42:33.790 or even stop to answer them our experience of the sacred is associated 00:42:33.790 --> 00:42:40.810 with the still small voice of God as described in the Bible with quiet and 00:42:40.810 --> 00:42:46.770 silenced many religions incorporate some form of silent prayer in their worship 00:42:46.770 --> 00:42:53.850 services and silences in to grow to contemplation and meditation during the 00:42:53.850 --> 00:42:58.540 20th century especially in the aftermath of the second world war there was quite 00:42:58.540 --> 00:43:05.150 a bit of discussion about concerning what was referred to as God's silence 00:43:05.150 --> 00:43:11.150 and on suggested that it may not be so much that God is stop start speaking to 00:43:11.150 --> 00:43:16.290 us as it is that our electronic media generates so much noise that we've 00:43:16.290 --> 00:43:21.780 drowned out that still small voice now whether religious spiritual experiences 00:43:21.780 --> 00:43:26.570 conceived of as communion with something greater than ourselves whether it's a 00:43:26.570 --> 00:43:31.900 personal day D or transcendent understanding of the universe whether 00:43:31.900 --> 00:43:37.210 it's just a matter of an inner journey a soul-searching sort simply an effort to 00:43:37.210 --> 00:43:43.130 better understand our own minds and consciousness the loss of silence in the 00:43:43.130 --> 00:43:44.790 constant deluge 00:43:44.790 --> 00:43:50.150 of distractions can be nothing short of devastating to our collective spiritual 00:43:50.150 --> 00:43:56.230 health as well as our prospects for cultural survival now when it comes to 00:43:56.230 --> 00:44:00.110 education schooling has always been about learning to read and write 00:44:00.110 --> 00:44:04.540 television in the electronic media offer us a different and incompatible 00:44:04.540 --> 00:44:09.700 curriculum and so it's worth asking if it's in the best interests of young 00:44:09.700 --> 00:44:14.860 children to spend time playing with tablets and smartphones and watching 00:44:14.860 --> 00:44:23.350 programs such as Teletubbies poop and Yo Gabba Gabba you know cable television is 00:44:23.350 --> 00:44:28.380 given a specialized educational programming via the National Geographic 00:44:28.380 --> 00:44:32.290 Channel The History Channel the Discovery Channel this is private 00:44:32.290 --> 00:44:37.510 provided a wonderful avenue for the dissemination of documentaries but what 00:44:37.510 --> 00:44:44.220 audiences are specially drawn to our programs such as moonshiners ancient 00:44:44.220 --> 00:44:53.770 aliens UFO files and then Estrada mass effect on the Animal Planet channel two 00:44:53.770 --> 00:45:02.270 specials entitled mermaids the body found and mermaids the new evidence he 00:45:02.270 --> 00:45:06.380 gave the cable outlet its highest ratings in its seventeen year history 00:45:06.380 --> 00:45:12.500 and these fake documentaries were assumed to be real by many so many 00:45:12.500 --> 00:45:18.140 viewers so many viewers that they prompted the National Oceanic and 00:45:18.140 --> 00:45:23.450 Atmospheric Administration to issue an official statement stating that mermaids 00:45:23.450 --> 00:45:32.760 do not actually exist it's almost too easy it's just too easy but I'll do to 00:45:32.760 --> 00:45:38.390 mention the learning channel TLC which achieved its highest ratings by turning 00:45:38.390 --> 00:45:45.450 to reality programs such as toddlers in tiaras and its notorious spinoff here 00:45:45.450 --> 00:45:51.730 comes honey boo boo you know the most recent fad in higher education has been 00:45:51.730 --> 00:45:56.410 the massive open online course abbreviated as much 00:45:56.410 --> 00:46:02.080 a move can contain as many as 100,000 students that raises the question of in 00:46:02.080 --> 00:46:08.130 what census muka course what sense is the instructor really teaching it's 00:46:08.130 --> 00:46:14.660 revealing I believe that the acronym move is a variation on other new media 00:46:14.660 --> 00:46:23.820 terms such as mmm RPG that stands for a massive multiplayer online role-playing 00:46:23.820 --> 00:46:28.900 game in other words the primary connection is with gaming not schooling 00:46:28.900 --> 00:46:34.090 and came in can be educational but the question is can learning be reduced to a 00:46:34.090 --> 00:46:42.160 game or are we talking about grand theft education well as another in variation 00:46:42.160 --> 00:46:47.270 on the inside that the medium is the message Hannah Arendt insisted that I 00:46:47.270 --> 00:46:54.860 quote there are no dangerous thoughts thinking itself is dangerous so the 00:46:54.860 --> 00:47:00.220 question we're left with is to all of our amazing new media technologies allow 00:47:00.220 --> 00:47:05.870 us the space in the time to pause and reflect and think things over here is 00:47:05.870 --> 00:47:11.120 our ability to think drowned out in a flood of images and noise and pushed 00:47:11.120 --> 00:47:16.230 aside in favor of calculation and automation at this point you might 00:47:16.230 --> 00:47:21.290 imagine that if we could travel back in time and show benjamin Franklin how 00:47:21.290 --> 00:47:26.390 things turned out he might have put his kite back in his closet and not ventured 00:47:26.390 --> 00:47:32.400 out into that thunderstorm to unleash the power of electricity but I think 00:47:32.400 --> 00:47:37.010 it's more likely that he would have sat down to write up some ideas about how we 00:47:37.010 --> 00:47:42.490 might still be able to keep our republic what we would have to do to counter the 00:47:42.490 --> 00:47:47.470 bias ease of the brave new world his discovery would unleash it would begin 00:47:47.470 --> 00:47:53.690 with something along the lines of McCune statement mcluhan wrote there is no 00:47:53.690 --> 00:47:59.480 inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is 00:47:59.480 --> 00:48:06.050 happening with you see contemplating the contemporary media environment is one of 00:48:06.050 --> 00:48:08.620 the main purposes of media 00:48:08.620 --> 00:48:14.480 ecology scholarship and as for postin he was well aware of the flaws and failures 00:48:14.480 --> 00:48:20.240 of american society but as a proponent of Enlightenment ideals he believed in 00:48:20.240 --> 00:48:25.090 its promise and potential to do agree he would agree with abraham Lincoln's 00:48:25.090 --> 00:48:29.770 characterization of the American experiment is the last best hope on 00:48:29.770 --> 00:48:36.450 earth but it also echo lincoln's concerned about a nation so on happily 00:48:36.450 --> 00:48:41.650 distracted but now it's not the horror of civil war that has sidetracked us 00:48:41.650 --> 00:48:46.870 rather we find ourselves diverted from a higher calling but a constant stream of 00:48:46.870 --> 00:48:52.750 entertainment information and innovation post comments argument speak to the 00:48:52.750 --> 00:48:58.110 future of humanity in its entirety especially in this era of convergence 00:48:58.110 --> 00:49:03.450 and globalization and again it comes down to the question can we think and 00:49:03.450 --> 00:49:09.080 can we talk about what we're doing and where we're going we live in the midst 00:49:09.080 --> 00:49:14.420 of a temp this by which I refer to the turbulent nature of the electronic media 00:49:14.420 --> 00:49:21.240 environment as it's a digital technologies wave after wave of changes 00:49:21.240 --> 00:49:26.280 to our mode of communication and interaction or tools for thought and 00:49:26.280 --> 00:49:32.080 social action have altered and continue to alter our societies and cultures as 00:49:32.080 --> 00:49:37.210 well as our psyches and ourselves as human beings we are certainly well 00:49:37.210 --> 00:49:42.670 equipped to survive a passing storm but it's far from clear whether we can build 00:49:42.670 --> 00:49:48.770 a sustainable way of life in the midst of permanent upheaval be a natural or 00:49:48.770 --> 00:49:54.200 cultural how are we to survive while keeping our humanity intact that's the 00:49:54.200 --> 00:49:59.050 fundamental question raised by postman and by the field of inquiry he called 00:49:59.050 --> 00:50:04.200 media ecology now there's no turning back the clock no point in arguing that 00:50:04.200 --> 00:50:09.330 we abandon our media and technology and try to retrieve an earlier age or less 00:50:09.330 --> 00:50:15.620 advanced way of life nor does it make sense to deny that there are legitimate 00:50:15.620 --> 00:50:19.260 benefits that are inventions have brought us what we need to do 00:50:19.260 --> 00:50:24.230 then is to engage in concerted evaluation of what we're doing how we go 00:50:24.230 --> 00:50:29.180 about doing it to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of our technologies 00:50:29.180 --> 00:50:35.240 to consider what are the appropriate uses of our media and what uses might be 00:50:35.240 --> 00:50:40.890 inappropriate to proceed with caution understanding that our innovations will 00:50:40.890 --> 00:50:44.900 always result in unanticipated affects many of them 00:50:44.900 --> 00:50:50.170 undesirable and to provide just a few practical suggestions we need to 00:50:50.170 --> 00:50:56.050 strengthen our commitment to the spoken word to conversation public speaking and 00:50:56.050 --> 00:51:02.230 oral performance and reading out land as well we need to place greater emphasis 00:51:02.230 --> 00:51:07.450 on the written word on literacy and the practice of deep and sustained reading 00:51:07.450 --> 00:51:13.810 that requires significant periods of quiet time at which takes effort so one 00:51:13.810 --> 00:51:19.350 example is the pioneering efforts of the movement to observe a weekly technology 00:51:19.350 --> 00:51:23.510 sabbath write a day when you turn everything off 00:51:23.510 --> 00:51:27.640 ultimately though what's needed is cultural change and that ought to 00:51:27.640 --> 00:51:32.400 include strengthening the four cornerstones of the American American 00:51:32.400 --> 00:51:37.680 experiment all of which were products of literate culture and the typographic 00:51:37.680 --> 00:51:43.380 media environment that is democratic politics a free press 00:51:43.380 --> 00:51:50.620 religion and schooling as Shakespeare's play The Tempest includes the line 0 00:51:50.620 --> 00:51:55.470 brave new world that has such people in it and that's where huxley took the 00:51:55.470 --> 00:52:01.420 title of his prophetic novel shakespeare's main character prospero is 00:52:01.420 --> 00:52:07.430 a powerful sorcerer living in exile and like prospero we possessed extraordinary 00:52:07.430 --> 00:52:11.320 powers through the use of media and technologies that are nothing short of 00:52:11.320 --> 00:52:17.810 magical shakespeare concludes his play with prospero finally willing to give up 00:52:17.810 --> 00:52:23.830 his sorcery in order to embrace the world of rationality and reconciliation 00:52:23.830 --> 00:52:29.780 with family and community can we do the same perhaps not entirely abandoning or 00:52:29.780 --> 00:52:32.130 gifts but being mindful of their contacts 00:52:32.130 --> 00:52:39.290 and our need for balance to once again invoke ecclesiastes there is a time to 00:52:39.290 --> 00:52:44.890 weep and a time to laugh at time to mourn and a time to dance time to 00:52:44.890 --> 00:52:50.920 embrace and a time to refrain from embracing a time to keep silent and a 00:52:50.920 --> 00:52:58.100 time to speak but promised that the electronic media environment we inhabit 00:52:58.100 --> 00:53:06.500 in that environment the time is always a uniform 24 7 365 and the season never 00:53:06.500 --> 00:53:11.450 changes so can we make the time and can we create what mcluhan referred to as 00:53:11.450 --> 00:53:17.240 counter environments safe spaces where the biases of the electronic media to 00:53:17.240 --> 00:53:23.500 not hold sway such as can be found in sanctuaries and sacred spaces in schools 00:53:23.500 --> 00:53:30.070 classrooms and sites devoted to art and creative expression against the fact 00:53:30.070 --> 00:53:35.250 that we've been fiddling around as we are amusing in forming an amazing 00:53:35.250 --> 00:53:42.160 ourselves to death can we find the means the method the way to start speaking and 00:53:42.160 --> 00:53:47.910 thinking and teaching ourselves back to life that's the question I leave you 00:53:47.910 --> 00:54:35.660 with thank you very much 00:54:35.660 --> 00:54:49.240 well I think that when you talk about journalist says as people some are some 00:54:49.240 --> 00:54:55.450 of them are are very much on the side of cultural change some of them lament the 00:54:55.450 --> 00:54:56.869 situation 00:54:56.869 --> 00:55:01.390 postman's book amusing ourselves to death was one of five books that tom 00:55:01.390 --> 00:55:06.809 brokaw he was the guy who was the anchor of NBC Nightly News before Brian 00:55:06.809 --> 00:55:12.440 Williams the email listed five books that every journalist should read and 00:55:12.440 --> 00:55:17.180 amusing ourselves to death was the only book that wasn't specifically about 00:55:17.180 --> 00:55:23.910 journalism so I and that critique was very popular among serious journalists 00:55:23.910 --> 00:55:30.270 but you know the problem they face is that is organizational where they're not 00:55:30.270 --> 00:55:38.299 able to do what they want to do so I wouldn't put the blame on on journalists 00:55:38.299 --> 00:55:43.990 but I get there is this kind of technique that goes with the whole 00:55:43.990 --> 00:55:52.460 organization of media industries that pushes them towards working with the 00:55:52.460 --> 00:55:59.160 bias of the media not against it so I mean the answer from a democratic point 00:55:59.160 --> 00:56:04.220 of view is it's us we're the ones who you know I was a Gundy said be the 00:56:04.220 --> 00:56:09.289 change you want to see in the world and I think you know also echoing post 00:56:09.289 --> 00:56:14.829 minute and others education is very much a part of it that it starts through 00:56:14.829 --> 00:56:20.119 education it's what we try to do and what we try to instill in our students 00:56:20.119 --> 00:56:27.680 the you know anyone to hold out some hope because in some folks take from 00:56:27.680 --> 00:56:32.470 this you know conclude that it is hopeless I think it's difficult it may 00:56:32.470 --> 00:56:39.529 take something catastrophic to wake people up but at the very least there's 00:56:39.529 --> 00:56:45.740 the idea of let's preserve something of you know in the sense of when you have 00:56:45.740 --> 00:56:49.170 dark ages at least let's have some places 00:56:49.170 --> 00:57:29.210 those where people are still enlightened and and certainly it starts with schools 00:57:29.210 --> 00:57:35.670 thanks you know I I try I felt like I was saying I was writing this I felt 00:57:35.670 --> 00:57:41.550 like how many times should I say that there are benefits and it's i mean but 00:57:41.550 --> 00:57:49.710 and the problem is that the benefits are clear to people for the most part and 00:57:49.710 --> 00:57:57.080 the problem is recognizing the cost but certainly access to information can be 00:57:57.080 --> 00:58:05.460 very advantageous and can be with parading the ability for people to 00:58:05.460 --> 00:58:14.070 organize I think it is a very powerful benefit of the new media so that people 00:58:14.070 --> 00:58:19.990 who are there's a kind of empowering people who are on the margins and able 00:58:19.990 --> 00:58:26.210 to to organize themselves for political action so I mean I think there are 00:58:26.210 --> 00:58:35.760 definite benefits that what you're asking and it but I think that you know 00:58:35.760 --> 00:58:39.870 again I mean what we find is that people really to do all those benefits i mean 00:58:39.870 --> 00:58:43.870 you know how many times have you heard how much access to know how wonderful it 00:58:43.870 --> 00:58:49.460 is that you can say hey Google and get whatever the answer to any question you 00:58:49.460 --> 00:58:58.690 have everyone knows that that's that's that's easy you know and I perhaps less 00:58:58.690 --> 00:59:03.260 obvious but I think you know certainly significant is the fact of people being 00:59:03.260 --> 00:59:08.400 able to connect with one another and especially for individuals who feel 00:59:08.400 --> 00:59:13.980 isolated from one reason or another that that's a powerful boon for the problem 00:59:13.980 --> 00:59:18.170 really comes down to how to find that balance and how to say no because we 00:59:18.170 --> 00:59:22.230 just have this tendency to just keep going in the same direction and keep 00:59:22.230 --> 00:59:23.820 going and keep going 00:59:23.820 --> 00:59:31.300 Joseph wise and pound he was the head of a professor of computing at MIT back in 00:59:31.300 --> 00:59:36.440 the sixties he created one of the first artificial intelligence programs little 00:59:36.440 --> 00:59:38.350 program called allies 00:59:38.350 --> 00:59:44.520 mimicked a psycho rosier aryan psychotherapist and just reflected back 00:59:44.520 --> 00:59:48.200 what people were saying and he found any thought that this was just like a goof 00:59:48.200 --> 00:59:54.160 and then he found that a lot of people in this office we're like leave me alone 00:59:54.160 --> 00:59:59.740 I'm talking to allies and and you know and even worse that the American 00:59:59.740 --> 01:00:05.670 Psychological Association hearing about this came out with this idea that 01:00:05.670 --> 01:00:10.680 wouldn't it be wonderful if we had computer kiosks so anyone in need to go 01:00:10.680 --> 01:00:16.930 to one and get psychotherapy and wise and pound said usually worry we don't 01:00:16.930 --> 01:00:23.090 use too much thought you said just because we can to something ought we to 01:00:23.090 --> 01:00:29.950 do it right and that's the question we don't so that's why I mean I think the 01:00:29.950 --> 01:00:36.000 question is what's appropriate what's the appropriate use and I think that's a 01:00:36.000 --> 01:00:38.420 reasonable question what is appropriate 01:00:38.420 --> 01:00:42.080 what's not appropriate 01:00:42.080 --> 01:00:45.950 the other side of it is what's effective and what's not effective in these two or 01:00:45.950 --> 01:00:51.190 not don't go together because sometimes what's effective is you know may be good 01:00:51.190 --> 01:01:48.730 for the immediate purpose but not in the long run so I can see that 01:01:48.730 --> 01:01:57.670 what's appropriate right i mean we all know the phenomenon of spending all your 01:01:57.670 --> 01:02:04.030 time taking pictures and not experience what's what's actually going on so I 01:02:04.030 --> 01:02:14.860 mcluhan in particular so are as as essential and as away as a kind of way 01:02:14.860 --> 01:02:20.370 way to educate ourselves about media because he believed that he argued that 01:02:20.370 --> 01:02:27.590 media were extensions of our senses art speaks to our senses and helps us to see 01:02:27.590 --> 01:02:36.340 how are using our senses so this is not so much about art but you know again we 01:02:36.340 --> 01:02:43.790 wouldn't expect against talk about democracy for example we wouldn't expect 01:02:43.790 --> 01:02:51.740 that a treaty is negotiated on a week we don't find the question of how to deal 01:02:51.740 --> 01:02:59.060 with Iran way out of that threw me through art I mean it's a different it's 01:02:59.060 --> 01:03:03.830 not the appropriate medium or the appropriate approach to do that sort of 01:03:03.830 --> 01:03:10.070 thing so it's not about art so much as it is about knowing when it's time for 01:03:10.070 --> 01:03:13.870 art and when it's time for something else 01:03:13.870 --> 01:03:14.870 22 01:03:14.870 --> 01:03:49.240 be employed 01:03:49.240 --> 01:04:01.100 one hand it's just a progression and it's not that newspapers where three of 01:04:01.100 --> 01:04:07.160 criticism they had their faults as well but then reading the news and print had 01:04:07.160 --> 01:04:12.869 a different set of biases than seeing it on television so it's a natural 01:04:12.869 --> 01:04:19.810 progression from nightly news to comedy programs because they really are about 01:04:19.810 --> 01:04:26.890 eliciting responses gathering audiences eliciting responses rather than trying 01:04:26.890 --> 01:04:35.190 to arrange things in a coherent and logical manner so it's all relative so I 01:04:35.190 --> 01:04:42.880 mean compared to what used to be the nightly news it's it's further sliding 01:04:42.880 --> 01:04:48.880 further downhill but it's not that the nightly news was that was particularly a 01:04:48.880 --> 01:04:54.670 great way to get news either you know there was a time when no serious person 01:04:54.670 --> 01:04:59.420 would say that they got their news only from television if you ever heard of the 01:04:59.420 --> 01:05:04.740 the novel being there by Jerzy Kosinski the movie they made out of it it was 01:05:04.740 --> 01:05:11.410 like the big joke in the novel was that this one fellow says I like to watch and 01:05:11.410 --> 01:05:15.540 that people said it's so refreshing to see someone who says they get their news 01:05:15.540 --> 01:05:19.420 from television actually read it into the character but I don't know if you if 01:05:19.420 --> 01:05:25.520 you remember or noticed a man who is this moment when Katie Couric was 01:05:25.520 --> 01:05:29.100 interviewing Sarah Palin and she says well where do you get your news from 01:05:29.100 --> 01:05:33.530 what newspapers do you read and she couldn't answer to all I read all of 01:05:33.530 --> 01:05:34.390 them right 01:05:34.390 --> 01:05:38.170 could tell she was just bullshitting right i mean that she couldn't answer 01:05:38.170 --> 01:05:45.890 and more recently I forget who was it someone asked a trump you know what 01:05:45.890 --> 01:05:49.680 who are as military involved Bazar what does he get his military advice from an 01:05:49.680 --> 01:05:57.580 800 i watch the shows I mean this is a problem it's also a problem by the way 01:05:57.580 --> 01:06:00.410 as PowerPoint which is also saw the usual 01:06:00.410 --> 01:06:05.030 medium no supe seriously they found this a major problem for the military 01:06:05.030 --> 01:06:10.090 that the pentagon there they look at the power points they don't get the 01:06:10.090 --> 01:06:14.760 explanation and they think they have that's what people say it's also in 01:06:14.760 --> 01:06:20.290 business they say oh I mister talking I C you can you know Casey your PowerPoint 01:06:20.290 --> 01:06:30.580 and its abbreviated its visual but they don't get the context 01:06:30.580 --> 01:06:44.730 condemnation 01:06:44.730 --> 01:08:00.140 story is the latest version and of course what can be harder than trying to 01:08:00.140 --> 01:08:07.470 get a young child to sit still I mean it goes completely against the grain 01:08:07.470 --> 01:08:12.859 you know that's why we have to learning to read and write is completely 01:08:12.859 --> 01:08:18.130 artificial learning to speak and listen isn't that's natural to us reading and 01:08:18.130 --> 01:08:23.080 writing is artificial and its fragile for that great reason to keep trying to 01:08:23.080 --> 01:08:29.680 find ways to make it fun and you know and get some game applications just the 01:08:29.680 --> 01:08:35.109 latest version of that and the problem is that with all these attempts to use 01:08:35.109 --> 01:08:39.810 formats whether it's that or sesame street and posting was an early critic 01:08:39.810 --> 01:08:45.270 of Sesame Street as being all about advertising formats you know that it 01:08:45.270 --> 01:08:48.450 really was more about that than anything else 01:08:48.450 --> 01:08:53.560 it teaches that's what it teaches that you know it's the manner not 01:08:53.560 --> 01:09:00.339 content so it teaches game playing and I love playing games I spent when I was 01:09:00.339 --> 01:09:04.910 younger I spent many a late night on computer games in and I still play like 01:09:04.910 --> 01:09:09.319 plants vs zombies and in some of these other games not angry birds they're 01:09:09.319 --> 01:09:15.920 stupid but you know but they're not that that's what they teach you they teach 01:09:15.920 --> 01:09:20.890 you how to play games and that's very different from learning to read and 01:09:20.890 --> 01:09:25.660 write I tell you when I was two years ago and posting was still alive I was 01:09:25.660 --> 01:09:32.319 teaching and M a class and I had him in as a guest lecturer he was my mentor or 01:09:32.319 --> 01:09:40.500 and really friends and I wanted to play devil's advocate so I and my son was 01:09:40.500 --> 01:09:46.850 just a few years old they said you know he's watching he's watching Sesame 01:09:46.850 --> 01:09:51.149 Street and he's learning letters and numbers from Sesame Street and postman 01:09:51.149 --> 01:09:56.960 said well you know lance and they're only 26 letters in the alphabet and 01:09:56.960 --> 01:10:01.510 children have been able to learn this for thousands of years without the 01:10:01.510 --> 01:10:08.590 benefit of television and that's really the case so you know i mean it's very 01:10:08.590 --> 01:10:09.880 hard to do 01:10:09.880 --> 01:10:18.060 education is very hard so you know where we love to look for technologies to try 01:10:18.060 --> 01:10:23.580 to make it easyer but in the end it's the teacher and the student that's what 01:10:23.580 --> 01:10:24.360 it comes down to