media journal

For a course I took last year, my book was Media Journal by Joseph Harris, Jay Rosen and Gary Calpas. I try to keep my books after courses are over, in case I need them again. Some I never kept because I knew I'd never keep them. I kept this one though, and I'm glad I did. Over the (very) long weekend, I found a few essays that went along well with the th, butemes in this course, and I'm going to post about each of them.

First, M. Kadi's essay "The Internet is Four Inches Tall," (reprinted from h2so4 issue 3), explores the concept of the Internet being somewhat like the Emperor wearing no clothes. It's this big, shiny new toy with plenty of possibilities, but the biggest one, at least now, is commercial possibility. First it's about the commercial situation of charging for the access. Then it explores what you're paying for. Back when this was written, in 1994, most of it was bulletin boards and chat rooms. Her final decision is that the Internet, while it has bells and whistles and speed, is still just another way of transporting information, which so far, isn't anything new.

I like this in relation to the Mythinformaiton essay. We aren't really connecting. We just have another tool to communicate, but it's not like we have new things to do. This really will play into my upcoming commentary essay on the pros and cons of social networking Web sites. Basically, through my research and experience, I'm compelled to say yes, we are somewhat cheating ourselves out of "human" experiences. And maybe someday, the amount of Facebook friends you have will change the way you live. I have 151 Facebook friends. I'm not on MySpace. But I'm not really friends with most of these people. For instance, only 2 or 3 could I call and ask to go to the movies with me. Or to help me move or anything else vaguely friend-like. I'm "networked" to them. I mean, it's a pretty good way to comprehensively list my acquaintances (or those that are on Facebook), but there's not much qualitative information there. Someone I've known and been close with almost 8 years is on the same level with someone I met once 3 years ago.

Ok, next essay. This one, by Andrew L. Shapiro, titled "Street Corners in Cyberspace" expands on the notion that the Internet provides a uniqueness that the user wants. "Don't like antiabortion activists, homeless people,news reports about murders? No problem–you need never encounter them," he writes. This is spot on. The Web is so customizable, and it's so easy to only get what you want. For instance, I personally subscribe to several RSS feeds. I have The New York Times arts section and BoingBoing. I also have The Onion, and the NYT front page. But it would be just as easy to ditch one and keep the other.

He uses two phrases I like: Cyberbia and Cyberkeley. These are the terms to juxtapose the Internet that's full of home shopping and advertisements vs. the Internet that's full of really intelligent information. But people in the middle, the street corners, are where there's a possibility for real growth and interesting developments on the Web.

There's a lot of interesting things out there, but I'm finding a lot of the same theories echoing over and over. I'm wondering if I'll ever find something different. Maybe it's trendy now, like it was a few years ago, to brag about hating television, or it being worthless. Maybe just right now, the trend is to discount the Internet as worthless. There are certain television shows right now, though, that prove there are dynamic, innovative and amazing minds out there creating them. Maybe it'll just take time for the Internet to come that way.