Values Not For Sale

Facebook:
Thesis: Facebook is a business, under the clever disguise of a social networking site, that is slowly taking a toll on the human relationship.
Agree:
I agree, that Facebook is “…profoundly uncreative.” The article states that it just “…mediates in relationships that were happening anyway.” All the while providing advertising agencies yet another way to reach the consumer. It’s true, if you think about it. Although I use Facebook and admit that it can come in quite handy when trying to make contact with someone you would otherwise not be able to, Facebook makes absolutely nothing. It’s just a space out in the wide-open internet for you to manage your relationships visually. Nothing more.
I also agree that Facebook is/has become quite the business (even though I don’t believe that Facebook is “…some kind of extension of the American imperialist programme…”) I had no idea the shear volume of money that Facebook was producing in investments and the like. A few people making butt loads of money off of the usage of what is essentially a product, however uncreative, by the masses…yup, sounds like a business to me.
I also agree that “…’share’ is Facebook speak for ‘advertise’.” That is quite the genius statement.

Disagree:
I disagree that Facebook is an ideologically motivated totalitarian regime. That seems a little harsh and slightly over the top. I also wouldn’t give it that much credit. I could be wrong, but I believe the people managing the site don’t do much but make occasional changes to the program hear and there. I believe it’s sort of a Twitter-esque situation where it is made into what it is today by its users. It’s only as much of a totalitarian regime as you let it be. If you let it completely consume your life, than yes maybe. But I think depending on how one uses it determines its level of totalitarianism regime-ness. Although I do not agree with a lot of what happens with Facebook, and the whole privacy issue.
I also disagree with Thiel’s philosophy of life. He ascribes to Thomas Hobbes view of life as being “nasty, brutish, and short.” He further feels that we should work towards a new virtual world where we have conquered nature…I’m going to have to dis agree 100% with this guy. Life is not nasty, brutish, and short. Its actually beautiful and the shortness of it makes one appreciate it ever so more (and last I checked, 80 or so years is quite a decent amount of time). And we should never want to conquer nature. It is not ours for the conquering. Furthermore, investing in immortality, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering are probably the worst, most dangerous, quality-of life-threatening things one could possible invest in, besides perhaps terrorism and death.


The Making of a Media Literate World:
I found this article to be quite interesting. Especially the idea of who or what owns the media that we are consuming. I liked George Gerbner’s point about how “…whoever is telling the stories within a culture has enormous power to shape how people act, think and buy”. And now since the “people” telling the stories are not actually people, but rather large corporations, our society is being run not by the people, but by the corporations. We are being sold our ideals and values through the media. I also like how Gerbner said that the people who do have stories to tell aren’t telling them because they are being drowned out by the distant conglomerates “…that have little to tell and everything to sell.”
I also thought it was great how towards the end of the article it talked about a hope for the future where the people will make the media instead of just blindly absorbing the media that is fed to us. It’s sort of a take-charge kind of message. I like it. We should be promoting our own values and ideals and beliefs, not accepting those values a company wants us to accept so they can later increase their profit….my values are not for sale, thank you very much.


Killing Us Softly:
-Advertising sells more than products. It sells values, images, concepts of love and sexuality, and of normalcy. It tells us who we are and who we should be. In this way, if they sell us what is normal, than they can always advertise products to sell along with this idea of normalcy. For them it’s a win-win situation. Sell us the concept, and then sell the product to “help” the consumer get closer to achieving this concept.
-Its bad enough that models are retouched so much so that as the film said, they have no pores, but now they have computer generated models. As if the ideal of beauty being sold was unreachable before, now even the basis of the picture isn’t even a real woman.
-I find the concept of turning people into things to be quite interesting. The film talked about how, in this case, females are turned onto/portrayed as things. The film then goes onto say that turning a human being into a thing is usually the first step towards justifying violence against that person. It was also crazy with what happens with women of color who are portrayed as animals and so called less-than-human. It’s just not right.
-I also found it kind of interesting how one aspect of the female anatomy can be used to sell such a wide variety of products. Who would have thought breasts would be a good advertising strategy for fishing line?
-I also found it interesting the concept of silencing women, where women were often portrayed with their mouths covered, or messages that implies that women should be quiet and passive and let their body do the talking and keep their mouths shut. And when women are portrayed with power, it is often with masculine power or the power is silly and trivial, such as using the men’s bathroom, ooohhh, how powerful.
-Sex is being used to sell everything from rice to jeans. And when one looks at the world of advertising, it appears to be the most important aspect of life, when really, its not the only thing out there. What continues to confuse me are the clothing advertisements where the people are, oh I don’t know, not clothed?!? And bondage being used to sell neck-ties…really? Come on people.