Andre Ramirez

S.L.C.C. Mrs. Cawfield

Period 4

Is Communication Waning? 

    The Internet, the life blood of our modern culture, something that once it was created we could not live 

without. Starting with nothing but one or two websites when it was conceived, it soon became the growth 

that is society. This new development allowed for information to be shared throughout the nation and the world within a matter of seconds. This later lead to the giant Google which now owns many other internet booming websites. One such website being YouTube. Quite possibly one of the largest and most successful community hubs. Millions of people go on YouTube to either watch videos other people have uploaded or their own videos they've uploaded. Anything from comedy to tutorials can be found on YouTube; and with so much talent being thrown out there among the junk that is other websites, videos, etc...is communication being lost. Seeming as though people, talent, ideas, and possibly the future is being lost in the mass media that is the Internet. But is this all this talent and ideas really being lost out there in the internet or is it an opportunity to make themselves seen.

    Communication is an integral part in how the world develops and how it changes socially. Ever since it was created in the late 1960's to early 1970's with a variety of communication protocols. But when the Internet started to hit a growth in popularity and use was in the 90's where it began to explode in use. This later lead to the creation of YouTube as mentioned above on February 14, 2005. This lead to the present now and the explosion of ideas and of talents on the Internet as YouTube is the largest media site in the Internet. YouTube seeing more than 1 billion views in a month, those being people just visiting the site not the number of videos the watch while they are on YouTube. Thus leading to the first topic of discussion which has been enthralled by the film set on YouTube called Press Pause Play. This movie brought the attention of an idea as aid in the movie, "...that's why everyone now is buying camcorders and throwing their videos up on YouTube..." (Press Pause Play, Andre Keen). In this second interview with Andrew Keen, he began to talk about how the Internet has allowed people to make themselves known to people by throwing their stuff around on the Internet. The idea that they will be capable of achieving this level of stardom and wealth so easily. But on the other hand the people of whom have achieved or are achieving that level through their talent and skill are struggling as their work begins to get lost within the excess that is the internet. Starving for a chance to achieve more as their music is pirated or struggles to reach the masses that people can provide for their publicity. This in turn lead to something that was said in a short clip called Changing Paradigms by Sir Ken Robinson of which Robinson says this, "..academic and non academic, smart people and non smart people, and the consequence with that is that many brilliant people think they are not because they are being judged on this particular view of the mind..." (3:06-3:42). Robinson in agree with Keen in the way that the brilliant or talented are being shunt out with this rudimentary ideology that there is a dissociation or a lack of communication between society and what is that future. The message here is that communication is both alive and dead, between the people it is alive and well; but it has been waning with the dominate factor of society most of which being the government.
    Communication has a large role in society then one would think as it has a two part meaning, government and everyday society and the people that fill that demographic. Taking a page from First as Tragedy then as Farce. In this, Slavoj Zizek says this, "...more and more in today's Capitalism is to bring the two dimensions together in the same cluster..." (1:44-2:20). What he is trying to say is that there is more and more separation between the Consumers and the Anti-Consumers. By clustering these two groups of people cause a disassociation between them again going back to the communication that is within society in this case. Again is communication dead or is it just split among society and other areas such as government. Upon further scrupulous research, in a movie called Craigslist Joe, in which is entirely based off of societal communication. This Man Travels across the United States in an experiment to see if people are really out there and can provide help to other, the capacity to help other. Along the way he finds odd jobs to work, people who give him food shelter rides, ad other such means to live all across the nation. Now this movie is showing the communication between people in society is alive and well however, there have been times where this man in Craigslist Joe was in fact very lucky and could not make the communication with others for a place to stay or something to eat. Along those lines also he never once could get any government assistance thus showing the dissociation noted above with that communication, that interaction.
    It appears as though there is no clear deciding factor as to whether or not communication is alive or dead, however it is apparent that communication is ever changing. Whether or not that will change is undecided however there are no clear markers to suggest anything is happening, primarily underlying the obvious disassociation between society and the government of which guidelines that particular society. Thus all the videos an readings leave an unclear divider that is whether or not communication is waning?