The first step

           So I recently took a big step and tried to get in touch with my dad. I havent seen him or spoken to him since he decided to not show up for our day out and then never called again. I was sitting at home after school, I had rushed home and changed and then sat on the sofa and waited, and waited........and waited. I seem to recall my mum getting a message from him and telling me he had canceled but didnt say why. After that we waited to hear from him but I never did. He came round once while I was out and he and my mum spoke but that was it. I never got a birthday card or a phonecall again.

        Around the age of 8 I started having panic attacks and over the years they only got worse. When my dad stopped coming round, everything took a nose dive. I started getting depressed, my panic attacks were becoming more regular and I found it hard to talk to people. I mean at this point I didnt really know what was going on and I didnt tell anyone because I thought I was going insane. My mum knew about a couple of the panic attacks because they happened in front of her but I kept everything else to myself.

  When you hit double figures you really start caring what people think about you, If you look good and   you think about what bands you should like. So I never told anyone I just pretended that it never happened. I thought if people knew they would think I was mad and that would mean I wouldn't have any friends. So i done what everyone else was doing and ended up in a lot of situations I wasn't really comfortable with but went along with them anyway.

      It wasn't until I was about 21 that I started really talking about it I had been to the doctors before but never took their advice because I was in a state where I thought 'what was the point?'. I went to counselling and it turns out I have serious trust issues which is why i find it hard to talk to new people or just socialise with anybody I'm not always around.

   Ive been called a rude bitch, inconsiderate and god knows what else all because I tend to be quiet and I get really shy with new people. I never thought that my dad would make such a huge impact on me but just from that one day, I find I am constantly paranoid that people don't like me. I always feel that I have done something wrong or If something does go wrong it was somehow my fault. I am an absolute nightmare.

    Now after having the counselling I thought maybe If i tried we might be able to salvage a fraction of our relationship and not be like it was when i was a child but at least be on talking terms. I have two sisters, a brother and three nephews who I never see and it would be nice to talk to them. I have a feeling that he probably wont get back to me but at least then I have tried and I know that I tried. The ball will be in his court and if he doesn't get back to me I can move on and get on with my life.

  I know people still think I'm strange seeking escapes form comic books, game and fantasy worlds, some of them being my family and a lot of people think its strange that sometimes I don't want to go out, sometimes I just want to kill some zombies or go on a quest, but that's another thing I have just had to accept. It was hard when people would laugh in my face or throw things at me or tell others I wanted to be a vampire because I said I liked Buffy the vampire slayer but its easier now.

    There are a lot of people who have gone through similar problems or worse and I know that people can make them feel and think that they are abnormal. We as a society seem to have a stigma against those with any mental problems, people avoid them try not to talk to them or talk to them like children. Its hard to face people when you think they are just going to judge you and make you feel worse than you already do.

   Fingers crossed my dad does get back to me and we can sort something out but as I said I'm not going to hold my breath.
   

How Media can affect our conception of Reality

           The media constructs a vast amount of ways to keep us interested, to keep us ‘suckered in’, and the effect they have on us can be enormous. These ‘media artefacts’ are designed in a particular way to hide reality and to only show us the representations of reality.

           

           Representations of reality are what we ourselves form. Baudrillard’s rendition of the fable by Luc, a map is drawn to show an empire and it grows and decays as the empire overthrows and loses territory, until one day there is only the decayed map left. The map is the representation of reality made by the empire’s society. We make the representations so that we can break down and make sense of the things around us in the environments, therefore trying to understand reality.

           

            We can also use Baudrillard’s theory of Disneyland to emphasise the affect of the media artefacts. Baudrillard theorises that Disneyland is a construct of an ideal reality to hide the lies behind it. All illusion becomes reality. “Disneyland exists in order to hide that it is the ‘real’ country, all of ‘real’ America that it Disneyland”  (Jean Baudrillard, simulation, and simulacra).

“Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the ‘hyper real’ order and to the order of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology) but of concealing the fact that they real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle.”(Jean Baudrillard, simulation, and simulacra).  

            Disneyland is used as an example to show how we take what is in front of us as reality and how far the media can take it. The whole Disneyland construct is made up of different areas including the future, fantasy, adventure, frontier and main street. Each of these areas are created to represent the Disneyland saying ‘ Where dreams come true’. Each are of Disneyland is to appeal to the different individual dreams of our society, whether we want to be an adventurer, cowboy/ cowgirl, or a princess, they can cater to all these dreams and as Baurillard points out make everything  outside of Disneyland seem real , it hides the bad things and makes us feel like we are safe in our dreams and our fabricated reality.

            These examples of Baudrillard’s theories explain how the media artefacts work and why they are there. Baudrillard once said “ All societies end up wearing masks.”.(Jean Baudrillard, simulation, and simulacra) This is exactly how the masks are created.

            In Plato’s conception of reality, Plato writes that our world is subject to change because it is a sensory world, so what we know is always changing and constantly evolving. Plato also suggests that once a person has been enlightened and is free from the lies they must return to the darkened state of reality in order to understand it. In Plato’s simile of a cave, it is suggested, that when the freed prisoner returns to the cave only to find that he feels sorry for the others and that he could never go back to how it was before he was freed. The freed prisoner understood; after he was freed, that we need to ask questions of everything and not just accept what is in front of you as real.

              Another theorist who agrees that media artefacts affect our conception reality is Slavoj Zizek, a theorist who uses popular media to explain and support his theories of the post-modern. Zizek analyses the perception of reality in the film ‘The Matrix’, and focuses on the ‘inconsistencies’ in the film and the matrix itself, suggesting ways in which ‘cyberspace’ can actually affect our own lives. ‘The matrix’ focuses on a false reality created by ‘AI’ or artificial intelligence. The human created and AI and when it started showing signs of power the humans tried to stop them. The humans realised that a source of the energy was the sun, and so set fire to the sky but the AI realised that humans were an alternative power source and started to grow their own humans in factories. The matrix is the programme, which simulates reality for every grown human; nobody in the matrix knows about the real world, the humans believe what they see.

            To Zizek ‘The matrix’ is one of those films, which can start a chain reaction, it can start people asking questions and being about a realisation about reality. Zizek also plays with the theory that ‘ The Matrix’ reduces our sense of reality insinuating that our sense are weak and so this make it easy for us to be lied to. “On the one hand, VR marks the radical reduction of the wealth of our sensory experience to – not even letters, but –the minimal digital series of 0 and 1, of passing and non-passing of the electrical sign. On the other hand, this very digital machine generates the “simulated” experience of reality which tends to become indiscernible from the “real” reality, with the consequence of undermining the very notion of “real” reality- VR is thus at the same time the most radial assertion of the seductive power of images.” (The Matrix, or, the two sides of perversion, slavoj Zizek.)

           When the characters in the film are ‘plugged in’ to ‘The Matrix’ they are completely vulnerable. Zizek uses the example of when a character called Cipher turns against the rebels and starts helping the agents who are the AI police force. “While the rebels are experiencing themselves as fully immersed into ordinary reality, they are effectively, in the ‘desert of the real,’ immobilized on their chair on which they are connected to the Matrix: Cipher has a direct physical approach to them the way they really are “ helpless creatures” just sitting on the chair as if under narcotics at he dentist, who can be mishandled in anyway the torturer wants.” (Reloaded revolutions, Slavoj Zizek )

            We as a society are exactly like these character when they are ‘plugged in’, the character of Cipher is representing the media and manipulating us any way they want to and acting as a ‘ torturer’ as Zizek suggests. Zizek also seems to be connecting the matrix with the internet or the world wide web, this is our virtual reality in which people now communicate, play, learn and work. “New agers see in the source of speculations on how our world is just a mirage generated by the global mind embodied in the world wide web.” ( reloaded revolutions, Slavoj Zizek). 

            The Internet could be our version of ‘The Matrix’; most people in society have access to it. We have introduced into our cafes, shops, and our homes, we feel safe with it, we trust it. When we need to know something we can trust it to find the answers and we can learn from it. Just like the characters in ‘The Matrix’ we can download learning programmes, the characters are able to learn fighting, driving, really anything they want just by downloading the necessary programme. In the film, Neo in the real world has almost no hair and has ‘plugs’ that are at the back of his head and down is back but that changes when he enters the matrix. Neo visualises himself without the ‘plugs’ and with hair, this, as explained in the film, is his ‘residual self image’ or his projection of his digital self; the way Neo wants to look. This is similar to how we portray ourselves on social networking sites such as Facebook, Google +, Bebo and Myspace. In order to use these sites you must first create a profile page for yourself with a profile picture. You are able to choose what you write about yourself, what picture you use as your profile picture and also what other pictures you will upload onto the site for others to look at. We start to filter out things that make us look bad or that could potential make us look less attractive to others. We only write good things about ourselves and we tend not to write anything embarrassing about ourselves. This is our own ‘residual self image’; our own projection of our digital selves. We choose what things make us look good and use them to show others who we are. This is not the truth , it is not entirely ‘fake’ and ‘unreal’ but it is controlled reality.

           We have reached a point in our society where there are now people who rarely leave their homes to stay online or ‘plugged in’, and we who use the world wide web and interact with this virtual reality constantly and according to Zizek while this happens we cannot reach the true reality, we as a society need to be ‘unplugged’. Throughout the film, there a numerous examples of how the media takes over lives. One character states that they are born into a prison as a slave, but the prison is a prison for your mind. As long as we just accept the reality that we are given, as the Truman show suggests, we will never be completely free. We will forever stay asleep to the truth. Zizek uses the matrix as a way of explaining the desert of the real and the conception of reality because throughout the film the characters explain how the ‘real’ is only signals that are interpreted by the brain and how it is all about control and who has that control. “To deny impulses is to deny everything that makes us human.”(The Matrix Trilogy(1999) The Wachowski brothers). One character states this and is representing how we must listen to our instincts and trust ourselves not just the world around us, as the film says the matrix or the media ‘cannot kill who you are’. (The Matrix Trilogy(1999) The Wachowski brothers)

            The Truman show, directed by Peter Weir, (1998) is another film which displays these media artefacts and explains how they can affect our lives. The main character Truman Burbank was adopted by a media corporation and brought up in a false reality where everything is controlled, everyone around him are actors and actresses and he does not know anything is wrong. Truman is live on Television and watched 24 hours a day by millions of people all across the world and there are thousands of people hidden from him, hiding the truth of his life and hiding the reality from him. The character ‘Kristov’, the creator of the Truman show is referred to as ‘the architect’ in the film and can be quoted saying “ We accept the reality with which we are presented’. (The Truman Show, Peter Weir, 1998),This suggests that we do in fact just accept what is in front of us and do not question it, Baudrillard’s theory of Disneyland explains this whereby the illusion becomes the reality. We do not want to see outside of the illusion; we cannot see the truth through the lies.

            The Truman show also not only reflects the media but it also reflects our current situation with the media. The outlining story of the film links with baudrillard and how lies can masquerade as the truth. The film shows us a character that “ challenges – and ultimately escapes from- a contrived world that is an invention of media.” (http://www.transparencynow.com/trusite.htm) This character represents us as a society, or as the society that we should be. We must question our reality and ultimately seek the truth; we must keep asking the unanswerable questions. “We will have to stand up to the manipulators of television and news if we want to protect ourselves from absurdity and falsehood that now surrounds us at every turn.” (http://www.transparencynow.com/trusite.htm).

            The ‘landscape’ in which the film is set and in which Truman lives represents our own world. “ The fake landscape Truman lives in is our own media landscape in which news, politics, advertising, and public affairs are increasingly made up of theatrical illusions. Like our media landscape, it is convincing in its realism.”  (Sanes, Ken. (1996 -2001). Truman as Archetype.)

            The film is a way of highlighting everything that is wrong with how we view the media. We must not take everything that they tell us as the truth and as fact. Like the freed prisoner in Plato’s ‘simile of a cave’, Truman take his chance to go to the outside world; the real word. However, both are reluctant at first to leave their own fabricated world of illusion, they are scared because they do not know what is outside of their world, they are leaving everything they know and moving into the unknown. We, in a way, are Truman; every one of us. We are reluctant to realise that the media are lying to us and we are scared to leave the mediated environment in which we live in. “His growing suspicion that what he is seeing is staged for his benefit is our own suspicions as the media – fabricated illusions around us begin to break down.” (http://www.transparencynow.com/trusite.htm)

            In our society we are starting to realise that the media are able to lie and may have been lying to us for a long time we are only now starting to ask questions. Zizek also theorizes about the Truman show, in his words he suggest that ‘The Truman show’ is about breaking free, or as Plato put it, reach enlightenment, when we are able to see what is real. “This final shot of The Truman Show may seem to enact the liberating experience of breaking out from the ideological suture of the enclosed universe into its outside, invisible from the ideological inside.” (The Matrix, or, the two sides of perversion, Slavoj Zizek.)

            Although films are more generally used to convey these questions and realisations, Television and music are also able to do this in a more discrete and sometimes more  secretive way. Television in the way of reality TV and the news and Music by a band called Laibach are just some of the examples to show this. Reality TV shows such as big brother, the only way is Essex, Keeping up with the Kardashians and the real housewives of Orange County are supposed to be ‘reality’ showing how the people involved live their day to day life, but behind the camera the producers of the how are telling tem what to do, what to talk about, who to talk to. Their own reality becomes that of the fabricated media lie. Just like how Baudrillard tells the story of the map and the empire and how it replaces the reality of the empire, the Television show replaces the reality of the real people. The Television show begins to precede reality, we do not care about the real people, they become characters on a show and we only care about what it happening to them on the show. We they are real and have real lives but we are content with seeing a life that it controlled and in a way unreal. Just like ‘The Truman show’ the character of the director and creator of the show states, “Nothing is fake, it’s controlled.” (The Matrix Trilogy(1999) The Wachowski brothers). But how can it not be fake if it is not a true representation of life? The reality shows cannot be real because the situations and the conversation that surround the people in the show are not true to the people.  The news programmes are a perfect example of how reality can become distorted when mediated. The news that we ear from the media has gone through the filters and the ‘gate keeper’ of the media. An event can happen and we will only hear part of the truth as the media ‘gate keepers’  have filtered through the information and decided what information we should be given and what parts of the story should be kept from us. In the most recent news about Fabrice  Muamba , the footballer who suddenly collapsed on the pitch during a match , the media told us what they thought we needed to know, they did not want to admit that there was something wrong with the health checks performed on footballers and so we were told that it was his heart and that he would be fine. It has always been this way; the media constructs news to keep us from knowing the truth. Take the Afghanistan war for instance, the news that we hear and have been hearing since the war began is not the full truth, either media report how bad the ‘enemy’ is or how well we are doing, the deaths our soldiers also become part of their construct sending the message that what is happening is the right thing and we are not doing anything wrong; The soldiers dies for a good cause and they will be honoured. But we are never told how bad things really are and how not everyone in the ountry is a bad person and seen as the enemy. This creates fear in our own society and changes our perception of people from the region.

            Music by Laibach, a Slovian band who represents the ‘Neue Slowenishce Kunst’ or ‘NSK’ meaning ‘ new slovian art’, a political art movement. Laibach cause controversy with the music and their style. They can be seen wearing what would be described as ‘ Nazi’ uniforms but displaying their own logo and symbols on the arms. Over this controversy and being accused of being neo-nationalist Laibach simply answered “We are fascists as much as Hitler was a painter.” (http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-01-09-lillemose-en.html)

            Richard Wolfson states, “ Laibach’s method is extremely simple, effective and horribly open to misinterpretation. `First of all, they absorb the mannerisms of the enemy, adopting all the seductive trappings and symbols of state power, and then they exaggerate everything to the edge of parody…Next they turn their focus to highly charged issues – the west’s fear of immigrants from eastern Europe, the power games of the EU, the analogies between western democracy and totalitarianism.” (Richard Wolfson (2003) Warriros of weirdness)

            Laibach are able to take fact and what we know and present a whole new meaning to it. For the map preceding the territory’ by Jean Baudrillard , the map become the reality and Laibach uses previous symbols that precede the reality and show that they are just symbols and nothing more; the symbols meanings can change. The Nazi like  uniforms that Laibach choose to wear mean to us exactly that , Nazis. But Laibach remind us that the symbol for the Nazi reign was not created by them but previous symbols that had their meaning changed.  This means as Zizek and Baudrillard both suggest that we cannot just accept what we see as fact and reality because not every fact that we think is a fact is correct.

            “Facts change according to what we know, It was once ‘fact’ that the sun revolved around the earth, until Copernicus discovered a new mathematical proof of a different fact. So, we have been wrong, and we will be wrong again. ‘Infallibility’ is not a precondition of knowing what one does know, of firmness in one’s convictions, and of loyalty to ones values.” (Curtis Edwards, What is reality?). Edwards is able to explain clearly how we are able to understand reality. His theory can be linked to Baudrillard, Zizek, the Truman show, the matrix and Television. We take ‘fact’ to be a reality. In our society, we receive so many forms of fact, and in a way, reality is becoming interlinked with technology because of the internet and how we are linked with technology in the same way the characters are linked to the matrix and how Truman’s reality is created by technology.

            Media artefacts affect our conception of reality by parading lies and falsities in front of us and assuming that we will just accept what they call ‘facts’ as our own reality. The media will always try to hide what is real so that we never learn of their lies and use artefacts like Disneyland to do so. Therefore, we cannot base our perception of reality on the media but we must base our perception on our own experiences and the world of senses that is around us.

Bibliography

- Sanes, Ken. (1996 -2001). Truman as Archetype. Available: http://www.transparencynow.com/truman.htm. Last accessed 21/03/2012.

- Baudrillard,Jean (1994). simulation, and simulacra. 3rd ed. Michigan, USA: University of Michigan Press, 1994. 1 - 164.

- Zizek, Slavoj (October 28 1999). The Matrix, or, the Two Sides of Perversion,Inside the Matrix: International Symposium at the Center for Art and Media. Karlsruhe

- Zizek, Slavoj. (1998). The Matrix, or, the Two Sides of Perversion,Inside the Matrix: International Symposium at the Center for Art and Media. Available: http://www.lacan.com/zizek-matrix.htm. Last accessed 12/03/2012.

- Curtis ,Edwards. (unknown date). What is reality?. Available: www.yahoo.com/yahooanswers/whatisreality?. Last accessed 17/03/2012.

- Plato. "The Simile of the Cave.(1974)" Republic. Harmondsworth: Penguin,  240-48.

- Baudrillard,Jean. (1994). Baudrillard & The magic Kingdom. Available: http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/politics/wodtke/Baudrillard.html. Last accessed 15/03/2012.

- The Truman Show (1998) Weir, Peter. Paramount Pictures. United States.

- The Matrix Trilogy(1999) The Wachowski brothers. Warner Bros Pictures . United States.

The only way is essex (2010) Mcqueen, Mark , Lime Pictures, Essex, England , Uk.

-      Keeping up with the Kardashians(2007 – 2012) Ray, Chris. Bunim-Murray Productions (BMP) United States.

-      Big Brother (2000- 2012) Scott, alex. Channel 4 Televison Corporation, London, United Kingdom

-      The real housewives of Orange County (2006 – 2009) Elkins, Amy. Dunlop Entertainment, Coto de Caza, California, United states.

-      Richard Wolfson,(2003) The warriors of weirdness, The Daily Telegraph

-      Lillemose, Jacob . (2007). More fascist than fascism. Available: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-01-09-lillemose-en.html). Last accessed 18th March 2012.

Has the media influenced the way we live and behave as a society?

        There has always been debate on how the media industry has a negative influence on society, from influencing violence, to changing how people choose to look and live their lives. Over the years it has grown extensively from a minor claim to, in some cases, a national panic. There is no confusion as to why the media has had the reaction it has from society. Sources have looked at different aspects of the debate whether the media is the influence that has turned members of society to violence and to changing the way they live or whether it is the people themselves just being human and thinking for themselves, which mean that the media is not to blame.

        Annette Hills suggests in Media risks: the social amplifications of the risk and media violence debate (2001) that media can create an effect on society that causes the members of society to panic. Hill overviews the social amplification of risk in relation to society and the moral panic and media violence debate in Britain. Crime cases such as The James Bulger case in 1993 and the Dunblane massacre in 1996 are used as an example of ‘social amplification’ of the risks of ‘media violence’. The video recording act (1984) and The criminal Justice act (1994) were created after such events had created such public coverage. The media was blamed for the events because it had influenced the Bulger’s killers but then social groups, people who were protesting against the media used the media to report the case. Hill suggests that Organisations manipulated the ‘risk events’ to control the information about the event. This implies that it is not the case itself but the organisations that cause the social panic. Hill also suggests that the examples of media violence ranges from children’s cartoons to adult horror films that are represented as having negative effects on individuals and society as a whole and that the individuals that are effected by the films are most likely to try and recreate or reproduce the scenes and action that they have seen on screen. More recently Video games have been brought into this debate and are now being blamed for most of the recent cases of violence shown in the media.

Like Annette Hill in Media risks: the social amplifications of the risk and media violence debate (2001), Mark Coeckelbergh Suggests in Violent computer games, empathy, and cosmopolitanism (2007) that games like ‘Grand theft auto’ and ‘Manhunt’ cause public outrage due to the violent behavior because the games were seen to be  ‘glorifying’ violent actions as the whole point of each game is to be violent. The outrage was due tot the fact that teenagers, adults and, in some cases children who had managed to get hold of the game on way or another were repeatedly playing these sort of games and the worry of society was that they would try and reproduce the violent behavior they had encountered in the games. The people who play were defending all video games arguing that games are games and nothing more, they aren’t real and the players can tell the difference between the real world and the virtual world created in the game. Suggesting that there has to be something wrong with the person to begin with to be influenced by the games. Although Coeckelbergh agrees that some game can inspire some violent behavior, he also admits that’s there are also influences from environmental factors, what surrounds society and the players of the video games. Coeckelbergh states that no matter what there is always human freedom, which every person in society has which means they choose to play the games and they control the effect it has on them. They do not have to act violently they can simply choose not to, and that there is not enough evidence to show that playing video games is the most important factor in people acting violently.

Robert B kozma suggests that the media can have an influence on our educational system and how we learn at school or in higher education in ‘Will media influence learning? Reforming the debate (1994).’ He suggests that there are many different ways that media can help students with tasks and different situations., helping the children or teenagers to be taught in a more effective way. New media technologies that have been introduced to schools recently have been brought into the educational system with the use of black or white boards being replaced by projectors and boards that are connected to computers wirelessly. Kozma states that this type of media will help to advance the development of the whole system and although Information technology has been taught in schools around the Globe for many years yet it is only recently that the teaching has gone beyond the basic skills. Learning to create a website or in some cases learning to create a world of animation. But Kozma also recites the work of Richard Clark in 1983, which suggests that after reviewing results of comparative research that there are no benefits to be made from the media or “employing any specific medium to deliver instruction” stating that it does not influence students learning or achievement. Kozma looks at the debate form both sides, one being hat the media influence does develop learning and the other that it is students that advance their own learning not the media. It can be said that this is just a matter of opinion as Kozma suggests by looking at the process of mind within the debate.

             The media are constantly being condemned for the view that it has negative influence over society. There have been hundreds of studies to try and prove once and for all if this is true or not. Sarah Coyne suggests that these studies from over the last 60 years have shown that viewing violence can influence violent behavior. But she states that theses studies are all conducted in a laboratory so they do conclude that watching violence results in real criminal behavior. It is implied that the people who have seen to be influenced by the media already show aggressive behavior before viewing the violence. Studies are used to prove to society that the media does have a negative effect such as the Allan Menzies case in 2003 who killed his best friend and said that a character from the film ‘Queen of the damned ‘ told him to do it and the series of ‘clockwork orange’ murders in the 1970’s but as Coyne states ‘if violent television influenced violent crime’ there should have been an increase in violent crimes when television was first introduced into society, no matter where it had been introduced. Coyne looks at the research done on the subject and the results are that some people are just more prone to the effects than others. Which relates back to what Coyne was saying about how it could be the people who already have aggressive personalities that are affected. But there are many reasons as to why people would be more prone to the effects for example if they had been brought up in a violent home or a violent neighborhood or was never disciplined as a child and has never known right from wrong. This follows hat Mark Coeckelbergh suggests in Violent Computer games, empathy and cosmopolitan (2007) when he suggests that there are also influences from environmental factors, what surrounds society and the players of the video games.

              

          Testing casual direction in the influence of presumed media influence by Nurit Tal-or, Jonathan Cohen, Yariv Tsfati and Albert C. Gunther suggests that’s people do change their behaviors after watching a film or seeing an advertisement. They suggest that people see a new media technology or a film or advertisement and then estimate what could happen and ‘the potential effects’ and then they change their behavior according to the outcome of what they thing the effects could be. Cohen et al use the example of a parent who expects their children to be influenced by the violent behavior seen in the media such as in their cartoons and automatically gets a television with a v-chip. This is control what the children watch. They also suggest that the third person effect is some thing that can be blamed in this debate. Suggesting that it is not people’s fault that the influence is put upon them. As Hans Bernd Brosius and Dirk Engel suggested in 1996 that the third person effect is when people expect the media influence is to more of an effect on others than themselves. This can be seen throughout our society.

      

            K. Schoenbach reveals in Myths of media and audiences (2001) that we as a society use the claims against the media as a way of explaining why the world is the way it is to ourselves. Society likes to make these claims as a way of explaining why teenagers act aggressively and hurt people or why children sometimes thrash out at others. Schoenbach goes on to say that these claims are the reason that laws are created such as the video recording act (1984) which Annette Hill wrote about. These claims can inspire a lot more than just the law, according to Schoenbach, they can inspire people to spend lots of money on new media technologies, and blaming the media for not making changes to the world to make it a better place. But Schoenbach also suggest that none of these claims have never been confirmed or worked in ‘realty’ but are still widely believed. Any new medium that has been or is going to be introduced to society has and will be welcomed by myths, rumors and claims that they are dangerous to society, Schoenbach suggests that this has been the case since writing became a way of communication when Socrates complained that his memory had declined due to the new medium of written texts.  In 1971 Marshall McLuhan predicted that the video recorder would influence every part of our lives and Schoenbach agrees with him. The video recorder represents Media technology and Schoenbach stands by what McLuhan said and says that he was completely correct.

                  Another way that the media has been said to affect society is a personal one. The way we dress and look has, for a while, been blames n the media. Teresa L Marino carper, Charles Hegy and Stacey Tantleff-Dunn investigate this in relations among media influence. They suggest that the media has an effect on body image as in the way we dress, how we style our hair as well as our weight. Eating concerns including anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. This ties in with our weight and physical attractiveness. We as a society have a desire to be attractive and the media in one way or another with magazines and advertisements determine what is classed as attractive.  Carper, Hegy and Tantleff-Dunn ‘s results conclude that the most vulnerable to the influence form the media are women and gay men. Straight men are still influence but the numbers are much lower. These results partially accounts according to Carper for the relatively high number of eating disorders observed in our societies population.

                  The influence that the media has over the whole of society is a vast and an on going debate. According to most whatever the new media technology is it will come across claims from society. From video games to films the whole media industry is said to have negative influence on society but according to authors of such articles as Media risks: the social amplifications of the risk and media violence debate (2001), Violent computer games, empathy, and cosmopolitanism (2007) and ‘Will media influence learning? Reforming the debate (1994) there is not enough evidence to conclude whether these claims are the truth or merely myths as K. Schoenbach suggests in Myths of media and audiences (2001).

Bibliography

Brosius, HB Engel, D. (1996). THE CAUSES OF THIRD-PERSON EFFECTS: UNREALISTIC OPTIMISM, IMPERSONAL IMPACT, OR GENERALIZED NEGATIVE ATTITUDES TOWARDS MEDIA INFLUENCE? Int. Journal of Public Opinion Research, Oxford Journals. 8 (2), 142-162

Carper TL, Negy C, Tantleff-Dunn S. (2010). Relations among media influence, body image, eating concerns, and sexual orientation in men: A preliminary investigation , OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center. 7 (4), 301-309

Coeckelbergh,M. (2007). Violent Computer Games, Empathy, and Cosmopolitanism. Ethics and Information Technology . Ethics and Information Technology. 9 (3), 219–231.

Coyne, S. (2007). Does Media Violence Cause Violent Crime?. EUROPEAN JOURNAL ON CRIMINAL POLICY AND RESEARCH. 13 (3-4), 205-211

Hill, A. (2001). Media risks: the social amplifications of the risk and media violence debate . Journal of Risk Research. 4 (3), 209-226

Kozma, R. . (1994). Will media influence learning? Reframing the debate. Educational technology research and development. 42 (2), 7-9

Schoenbach, K. (2001). Myths of Media and Audiences. European Journal of Communication. 16 (3), 361-376.

Tal-Or,N Cohen,J Tsfati,Y C. Gunther,A. (2010). Testing Causal Direction in the Influence of Presumed Media Influence. Communication Research. 6 (37), 801-824.

Roots

                   A couple of years ago I took a trip to Ireland to get back to my roots. Half my ancestry has strung from a long line of Irish folk who were I may say not always the most sensible of people but they were successful in what they did. We have had Manual labourers, kings and queens, soldiers and believe it or not a wrestler. Before changing my name to Reardon because my mother got married to a Scotsman my surname was McDermott. I only found out recently from a relative who has spent all their free time researching the family tree, that the last king of Ireland was one of my great ancestors unfortunately our line comes from his eldest son who was removed from the family, gave up his title and married a gypsy; which explains where our lack of sensibility comes from. Although i'm not full Irish and only have the influence from my mother’s side with her father coming from Dublin I’m very proud to have it in me. Growing up I would always celebrate St Patrick’s Day in school, wearing ribbons coloured like the Irish flag in my hair but the sad thing is I’ve never grown out of that and the last St Patrick’s Day was no different 20 years old and I was sitting in my university lecture with ribbons in my hair. I’d never been to Ireland, which is something that maybe I shouldn’t admit but I hadn’t. I had never been taken but when the chance came up I took it. Going out to Ireland was something of a problem as I had never been on a plane on my own before and to be honest I was petrified, even when I was standing in the airport and looking for my terminal I wanted to turn back and the flight is only an hour long.  

                 

                    An hour later I was waiting in the arrivals terminal of Dublin airport looking for someone I recognised, the amount of people moving around me was slightly overwhelming in a sense it was hard to see anything and due to me only being 5ft 3in it made that all the more difficult.  Finally I see a woman running towards me with a huge smile on her face saying quite loudly ” Ah there she is, I can see her, how are you Sarah “. This woman was my great aunt Maureen someone who I hadn’t seen since I was about 6 so I’m still rather shocked that she recognised me.

  

       Touring around Dublin with my own guides and being driven everywhere worked out really well.
I’m the sort of person who loves to learn new things and who relishes in the idea of going to new places
with a lot of history so when we went to trinity collage, which was founded in 1592, I was in my element.
 Having spent quite a few hours relishing the history of a building a certain shop across the road took my
eye and shocked me because although I do like history and facts, sci-fi is also a huge love of mine and
across the road there stood a forbidden planet and was one of the biggest one I had seen so needless to say
I got unnecessarily excited and made myself look completely stupid as no one else knew what I was on
about. 

                  

     The food that my grandparents bought was always a product of Ireland and so when it came to eating
traditional food I did give it a second thought naively thinking that it wouldn’t taste the same as back home,
 I soon found out however that I couldn’t have been further from the truth. Their meat tasted completely
different the meat was so fresh, I later found out it came from the farm just down the road earlier that day.  

                  

    I am a really sentimental girl who loves her family and her friends. I love to learn and I can’t think of
anything better that learning new things about something that means a lot to me.  It’s something that money
 can’t buy which to be honest means its one of the most important things in life. Well to me it is anyway.

What does Heidegger mean when he claims that the essence of technology is nothing technological?

What does Heidegger mean when he claims that the essence of technology is nothing technological?

                   As humans we can only understand what we know and the way we interpret the world is through our understanding. We begin with an object and we process it’s being and ask certain questions; what it is? What does it do? What is its purpose? And what does this mean for us? We process the information and categorize this object into a simpler way of understanding it.  Martin Heidegger uses a tree as an example. What the object is we do not know but we process it and give it the name ‘tree’ so we can understand it. He uses the Tree as an example in trying to explore and explain technology and the essence of technology.

                  Through Martin Heidegger’s ‘The Question concerning Technology’ he explains that the ESSENCE of something is not present in the thing itself. So as far as the example of the tree it is merely a tree because we say it is but the essence of the tree it not present in any tree we have or ever will encounter. Heidegger dedicated his life’s work to explaining the meaning of the word ‘being’ but as two separate words, ‘being’ and Being’. ‘being’ meaning the physical state of being and ‘Being’ meaning the essence of something. But to understand the essence of technology we must first understand what technology actually is.

                  A computer to us is technology but in fact it is only one part of technology and is in a way just a result of technology. Because without previous technology a computer would never have been invented. According to Heidegger, throughout history there have been many answers to what technology is, some saying it is a human activity or a means to an end but although Heidegger agrees that both statements are correct he also says that they are not true. This is the way we perceive technology and what we believe and want it to be but it is not what technology itself is.

                  Kant expressed that there are two aspects of reality, the things itself and our experience of the thing. According to Kant all we know and all we can ever know is mediated through our experience so we can never know what the thing actually is. We can never breakthrough the boundaries of our senses; the ‘actually real’ is totally inaccessible to us.

                  Edmund Husserl a German mathematician and thinker came up with a way of understanding thinking called phenomenology (philosophy/psychology) which focuses on perception and how we perceive the world and how we make sense of the data we receive or the part of the process things go through for us to understand the world around us. There are two categories one is Noema which is ‘ meaning given’, we recognize the objects and circumstances and the process happens to fast that we do not realize that it has happened and we immediately understand what the object or circumstance is, in a way it gives itself meaning. The other is Noesis, which is ‘meaning giving’; this is the process of making the connection between the meaning that is given, the world of common sense and recognition. A table cannot be a table with out us making the connection but our processes of thought when faced with something no in our known world sill tries to understand.  For instance how do we know what unicorns look liked if they are not real? They do not exist yet we have pictures of them and they are in stories and we can imagine them. We have created an image of a unicorn in order to understand it.  Husserl argues that there are two levels of reality; there is a perceivable reality of things that do exist and a perceivable level of reality where things do not exist. Through his argument Husserl is trying to unite the external world of objects.

                  According to Alex Scott this is what Husserl was explaining through his phenomenology and his two ways of thinking. “The noetic meaning of transcendent objects is discoverable by reason, while the noematic meaning of immanent objects is discoverable by pure intuition. Noetic meaning is transcendent, while noematic meaning is immanent. Thus, noesis and noema correspond respectively to experience and essence.” Husserl believed that the representational function of naming thing could only get us so far; words have lost their meaning because we give them new meanings as our language changes.

                  This explains how the process of our understanding works but to Heidegger we still need to stop understanding everything and realize that we cannot know and fix everything. In ‘the question concerning technology Heidegger asks the unanswerable questions because if the essence of something is not present how can we possibly know what it is? Heidegger is not interested in finding out the answer because then as we have always done before we will find the answer process it and fixes it to a name and category. Heidegger is interested in trying to change our way of thinking from an optic to an ontological, from a closed to open way of thinking. He is interested in opening our thoughts and encouraging us to ask the unanswerable questions and realize that the world is always in a state of flux and forever changing, that we cannot hold it back and fix it into place we must flow with it and accept that nothing is permanent. Heidegger believes that technology is enframing us and we have to get out of it and to do so we must move to his new way of thinking.

                  Returning to what Heidegger said about what technology is or what Heidegger calls ‘instrumentality’, technology is a means to an end and says that that means to an end is human activity because it is human beings who recognize. Heidegger argues that this is correct once we get further into the truth. The truth is to uncover the essence of something because the correct is static, ontic and one-dimensional. But Ontic knowledge is fact and therefore not to know the truth. Knowledge what we take as fat does not give a full story because the truth is always changing, it is not ontic knowledge at all. Because of this Heidegger states that it is not what we know that is important it is what you are prepared to find out that gives us the real truth.

                  For Heidegger this way of thinking is an approach to life and is about the aesthetic of our existence. It becomes for Heidegger a way of living and this way of living means that we must be immersed in our existence, move on and accept change to not just accept the knowledge that is placed in front of us but to question it and always search for the truth.

                  Francis Bacon suggests that there is two ways of searching into and discovering the truth, axioms said by Bacon are statements of acceptable truths. The first way of discovering the truth is flies from the senses meaning to the information from your senses and then try to justify that our senses are right. The second way of discovering the truth is derives axioms from senses, meaning that when we see that leaves are green; Green is different types and shades so it asks the question of is are leaves green? We make a statement and then our senses use this information. According to Bacon the first way is absolute we believe what we see and as Heidegger would say it is fixed. The second way means that we never stop questioning we are open to change.

                   Heidegger argues that asking questions about cause and effect is the next step on from instrumentality and the means to an end. According to Heidegger there are 4 causes and uses a silver chalice as an example to explain the causes. The first is the casual materiarlis, which is the matter out of which something is made, the silver out of which a chalice can be made. The second is causa formalis, which is the form, or shape that the matter can enter, for example the shape that the silver will enter is the shape of a chalice. The third is Causa Finalis, the end that is given to the matter; the silver has become the chalice. The fourth and final cause is causa efficiens, the person that actually does the thing and brings it into being, for this instance it would be the silver smith.  However Heidegger does state that the concept must first exist for the end to be created.

                  Graham Harman argues that we have forgotten the question of being and just accept things equally just as we have forgotten how these 4 causes work. Something in the way we are as a population has made us forget that all these things interact and that they are not isolated. As a population and human beings we bestow responsibility to humans. We have taken the fourth cause the causa efficiens to be the most important and over time have completely forgotten about the third cause. We now always say that a person is the cause of something we do not look further into the process we just accept the knowledge that somebody has crafted something and that makes them the cause.

                  In this digital age people use radios and Television to the point where it actually can change the relationships they have with technology and people. Most people do not know how a Television works or how our mobile phones works, we do not know how they are made what materials are used in order to make them but we constantly use them and according to Harman we are subject to technology even though we do not know how it works.

                  Heidegger argues against Harman stating that one thing cannot be responsible. All these things and answers have to work together one is no more important than the other. Heidegger believes that the causa efficiens or the silver smith does contradict itself because he did not create the chalice the idea of the chalice already existed, he would not have made the chalice if somebody did not ask for the chalice. We need to think why we have things and what we use them for rather than just to know we have an item and that’s it. The 4 causes are always interlinked with the two aspects of bring forth Poiesis and Physis. Poiesis, a way of doing and creating and Physis meaning the nature, the Being , combination where things sync and works together. Heidegger believes these two words, Poiesis and Physis, have become separate because technical production is no longer seen as creative. but we now live in an era where these two words and functions are possibly being reconnected.

                   Foucault suggests that knowledge is not power, as human we think if we have knowledge we have power but because of our way of thinking the word knowledge has become separated from its root meaning. Our ‘knowledge’ of the world around us is not about unity with our environment or the concept of being. Every human being is seen as how much potential they have to an employer or to someone else. Heidegger also believe that the world is enframing us leading on from our flawed relationships. The world is enframed within discourse and there are parameters in which we exist. Heidegger believes that the world is not ours to freely explore. But the process of enframing is the essence of technology.

                  According to Paul Gorner a lecturer in philosophy at the university of Aberdeen the essence of technology is just a way of opening and revealing. “What lets things show themselves is what normally does not show itself ”The essence of something is that which does not show itself. Through Heidegger’s philosophical approach to the essence of technology it is apparent that Heidegger does not want to find the essence of anything but to rather search for the essence without an answer. The essence of technology is the Being of technology, what some people may call the spirit of technology. The essence of technology is information about technology that we as humans have been processing in our heads and have come up with nothing for our senses to understand.

                  In our digital age we are surrounded by technology but we do not know how it works or how it is brought about. We attribute the credit to humans such as the company apple and the founders Steve jobs and Steve Wozniak. They invented the ipod, the iphone and the ipad but we do not know how they were made or what they are made of and just like the four causes we have made the 4^th cause the most important we have not questioned the products we have just accepted that that’s the way things are.

                  Heidegger means that the essence of technology is what we must strive toward and question everything that we see and do not take it as true. The fact that Heidegger suggests that the essence of technology is nothing technological sets about a new way of thinking in order for us as humans to be free from technology. It is possible that it is not technology that it enframing us but it is in fact doing the opposite we do not need to get ourselves out by a new way of thinking because technology could actually be doing that for us.

                  The essence of technology is in nothing technological because anything that it technological can be a physical piece, something that we as human have taken, named, fixed in place, and understood. We are able to use computers because we understand them. The essence is something that cannot only be linked to technology but to most parts of our daily life. Religion can be used as an example because in all religions people believe in something. Anything religious can be a physical object like a book (the bible, the Koran) but what the people believe in is something, which cannot be seen or heard or felt.

                  For Heidegger he believes in the essence of technology is not just what we call technology such as a computer or anything that can be ‘categorised’ as technology even in its earliest forms. It is more like an idea that people can feed from and have other ideas from but something that no one can really think of. It is a chance for us as human to think a new way and join with technology not just to understand it but to question it and see it as ever changing and expanding, understanding that we can never stand still with technology, that we have to move with it.

                 

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Gorner, Paul. (2005). ends and means. Available: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/philosophy/endsandmeans/vol2no1/gorner.shtml . Last accessed 02 january 2012.

Alexander ferrari di Pipo. (2000). The Concept of Poiesis in Heidegger's An Introduction to Metaphysics. Thinking Fundamentals. 9

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Foucalt, Michel (1969). The archeology of Knowledge. france: Éditions Gallimard.

Heidegger, Martin (1962). Being and time. Germany: SCM Press.

Harman, Graham (2005). Guerrilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things. london: Open Court.

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The New Organon.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 4 Jan. 2012.

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Immanual Kant (1788). Critique of Practical Reason. Germany: Longmans, Green and co.