Sramana Mitra has written a must-read column on Forbes.com, “Stop the Fear Epidemic.” I have talked a lot about the climate of fear in the U.S.--it is a vehicle for attracting readers, viewers, voters, policy-endorsers, rights-waivers, and customers. It influences how scholars do research as much as how policy-makers legislate. The media often gets targeted as the root of this phenomenon. Clearly media channels are the way information is distributed, but the media producers are not on one side of an impermeable wall with the “rest of us” on the other. Media producers are us. Media content reflects what we believe and what we believe will work. Sure, there are people persuading other people about stuff, but there is no us and them. It used to be that when one guy was worried, the only person that knew was the local bartender or his/her best friend. Now, through he miracle of modern technology, we all know. (How many of you got the email about jury duty … [Read more...]
Fear Psychosis & Personal Enterpreneurship
“The Simpsons” Make the World a Better Place
I am always looking for how to put the power of media technologies to work to make the world a better place. Wouldn't it be great if we didn't need to use so much energy hating some other person, group or country? If our lives are essentially the expenditure of energy over time, think about how much energy that would leave left over for stuff we wanted to do! The following is a great example. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a civil rights watch group. CAIR has thanked Matt Groenig of Fox's "The Simpsons" for an episode that challenges negative stereotypes. Shows like this can do a great service because they start to normalize more accepting beliefs. Often efforts to do the right thing are so grim and heavy-handed that they end up preaching to the choir, as the expression goes. If you directly assault someone's beliefs, it is more likely to close their ears than open their eyes. I like to think of effective education as, to quote novelist Nancy Mitford, as … [Read more...]
Gaming for Social Connection
There is a charming article on game developer/programmer Jason Rohrer "The Video-Game Programmer Saving Our 21st-Century Souls" as part of their "best and brightest" of 2008 stories. Rohrer is clearly a poet and artist, sensibilities that manifest here through programming skills. Esquire is offering a free download and hosting of Rohrer's new game "Between." It will, however, foil your antisocial urges to avoid social interaction, a common complaint among those who keep a running list of the evils of video gaming. "Between" has no single-player mode. I like that it draws attentions to the social nature of gaming. See how beautiful Rohrer's synopsis is from the Esquire site: You know exactly what you need to do -- you can see it shimmering right there in front of you. You can see it while dreaming, too, and the difference has become subtle. Dreams wake into dreams, and people blend in and out: real characters and dream characters, all woven into the same script. Finally, they … [Read more...]
