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?

The most memorable motion of last week is our involvement with this documentary of which is called Press Pause Play. This movie is taking a dive into the idea that art, culture, media and technology have been dehumanizing what is the creative and talented process of the world. One of the largest points being that whether the democratization of the  of the music and artist (broad) culture is a good thing, is it the evolutionary step to the creative process or is the cultivation of these ideas leading to the developmental steps or towards innovative collapse. With the growing disassociation of an artist and the fans or in this day and age, the growing artists of the general consensus of people due to technology.

Last week was a solid mash of P.T.S.D. and . An infusion of not only a real life contemplation of an Ex Navy Seal its like going to planet smoothie and having the most amazing strawberry banana smoothie...maybe even throwing some blueberries or raspberries if your feeling fruity! Well for a little more specificity, there were two days of study time which by I am extremely thankful for! Also we met the Ex Navy Seal, Clayton of which is not his native name. Not only by being a certified bad ass his commitment to putting his life on the line is incredibly admirable, choosing a path that few of us dare to follow. Well all I can say about that man is he deserves respect and I hope to fight alongside him one day.

Alright, as a of last week, we were on that ceremony train! All week it was just completely going over our quotes/annotations. Doing group or sometimes solo seminars as to understand what has been happening throughout the chapters. As you subdivided the book into sections of which we had to have read along with a way to guide ourselves through the book as there are no definitive chapters. Also there was much in the way of figuring out Silko's straight nonsense as her writing is so ridiculously trivial.

Well now for the most recent blog post of which can only be assumed to be tonight's post as today is when the post is due. Of which the mean topic for this post being the Reel Injun which is a movie which speaks of the unfair along with the altercations that Hollywood caused for native Americans. The fact that they were once sen as something mysterious and something that needed to be understood. But that ideology was changes as they began to be idolized by Hollywood as savages in order to exemplify the cowboy. Knowing that the Native American population was on the decline. Living in these poor neighborhoods, the addition of a distaste of the crowd doesn't help too much. Along with the movie we also made citations and recorded quotes of the book Ceremony. Also on a slightly different note, we turned in a response to hte movie along with the notes we had been assigned to take.

As this is a late response to the previous post date that was to prior to this weeks, I should start with that and proceed to this weeks blog post. approximately two weeks back there of course was reading of the ceremony. This novel being quite possibly one of the most inconceivable books i have laid eyes upon, even after going through our first seminar so to speak, it is still massively twisting like a maze that you can never quite find the end too. The constant character shifts along with the near instant and awkward time shifts often leave you falling in and out of time. One instance being in the modernized then to the past in the middle of a war, taking twist and turns in this seemingly unstructured novel. Sometimes even finding myself in a dazed confusion as to what is happening, taking look after look into the same pages in order to seek to analytically answer to the questions which have been thrown into the unknown void of this scripture.

For the start of the new semester we got our new assignment as to purchase the book Ceremony along with a new task. Our first task being the study of Dancing With Wolves. As we are now diving into the study of film, we are beginning by observing then nature of which the movie is presented. Along with this we are assigned to take notes of the film for a future essay I can only assume. As of today for the past few days we have been observing and taking notes on the movie until we finish the movie.