'Moral Panics' an Introduction, by Charles Krinsky

'Moral Panics' 

In the article 'Moral Panics', Charles Krinsky addresses the prevalence of drug, alcohol, and other substance abuse in youth culture, and highlights the recent fear of such behaviourism's as being similar to the concept of the 'Folk Devil': the demonisation of the young.

Firstly, the new implement of mass social networking, and the traditional medium of discourse and personal perception of sociological values, may produce the idea of unnatural social acceleration, and the adjacent fragility of extended communities. Also, in thoughts of mass paranoia, hysteria, and 'Moral Panics' as concepts which may shake the foundations of a larger expanse of moral equilibrium, view of the normative individual, and the literal, aesthetic stereotyping of the young in promoting the idea of pseudo-individualisation, and mass deception as a form of control and narcosis: 'through the creation of folk devil stigmas, a process of marginalization is undertaken. Personas of 'otherness' are defined and cultivated, legitimizing folk devils as targets of fear, hostility and restraint' (Lemmings and Walker [2009:223]).

In relation to Adorno and Heinhorker's article, the idea of the model macrocosm and authoritarian aesthetic as being shaped and formed from beyond the confined walls of the microcosm, may give social implication to the idea of false-consciousness being inadvertently conformed to through the consumption, and active use of the computer game, domestic social networking, and passivity to both local and global political agenda. In addition, the control of the mass may be seen as a form of implemented narcosis, in the tactical building of the authoritarian macrocosm, and the use of fragmentation and separation of different social stereotypes, societies, and communities as a ways of promoting a notion of false-consciousness and false-identity.    

In addition, the psychology of narcosis and substance abuse may be witnessed as an unconscious reaction to the view and influence of the model macrocosm, and of the unnatural extensions of the physical, mental, and emotional acceleration of new human associations, which are addressed in Marshall McLuhan's article "The Medium Is the Message". Also, the sense of the implosive narcotics of medium and substances, and the fragility of youth in their natural challenging of model, authoritarian, and the father figure, may reveal the underlying issues of new human associations and accessibilities to mind-altering substances and objects.  

Additionally, it may be said that in a time when moral panic fought violence with violence, such as corporal punishment, there could be witnessed a threat in deviance and in the consequence. However, it may be said that in modern culture, it is now the threat which is the 'moral panic', which makes the threat a reality, and to which the consequence is then objectified and challenged to be established, in thoughts that 'distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and also the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people' (Calhoun, Gerteis, Moody, Pfaff, Schmidt, and Virk [2002:26]). This is perhaps the rule of the father, and the delegate vision of the devil as a notion of the prerogative of the dejected youth as these imagined folk devils, in relation to 'the stages in the psychological reaction to threat, paying particular attention to the defence and coping mechanisms which inhibit a realistic assessment of the approaching disaster' (Cohen [2011:163]). Alternatively, the new human association and need for industry created products, such as the false vision of war figurines, war film, and the war game as implementing aggressive notions of a last-stand mentality in these medium, and the use of certain ideologies and clothing as an indicator of the war or gang uniform creates consequently turbulent, and morally ambiguous communities: 'one of the most recurrent types of moral panic in Britain since the war has been associated with the emergence of various forms of youth culture (originally almost exclusively working class, but often recently middle classed or student based) whose behaviour is deviant or delinquent' (Critcher [2006:29]). 

In the theory of these new reflections of media and of 'moral panics', and projection of youth culture and views may be witnessed in the music medium in contemporary media, denoting metaphors of drug abuse, the narcosis of the television, authoritarian figure, model macrocosm, pseudo-individualism, religious and political influences and coerce: 

Reference List:

Calhoun, C. Gerteis, J. Moody, J. Pfaff, S. Schmidt, K. and Virk, I. eds., 2002. Classical Sociological Theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 

Cohen, S. 2011. Folk Devils and Moral Panics. London: Routledge. 

Critcher, C. ed., 2006. Moral Panics and the Media. Berkshire: Open University Press. 

Lemmings, D. and Walker, C. eds., 2009. Moral Panics, the Media and the Law in Early Modern England. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. 

'Rethinking Interactivity' By Yuping Liu and L.J. Shrum

'Rethinking Interactivity'

- The article begins by establishing the ambiguity of interactivity, and the unusual idea of the equally ambiguous presence, understanding, and recognition over the prevalence of interactivity, which can be witnessed on a global scale. In addition, the article then goes onto stating that the complexities and conceptualisation of interactivity, which may become paramount in establishing the profound effects that it has had on the contemporary world, and on our new evolution of human association.

The idea of advertising as being a fundamental view of the 'persuasive communications' of interactive media, which are based around the prevalence of digital technology that can interpolate users into a mediated environment; of which they are led to believe that they can modify or control. Also, the concepts of temporal and spacial affordances of digital and technological interactivity are stated to be witnessed particulary in large business cooperations, which may target users through email and other notifications that are formatted and compiled for the specific individual; giving reference to automated technology, and our human associations with those kinds of personalised communications and messages.

Also, 'user-machine interaction', 'user-user interaction', and 'user-message interaction' is approached as being three generic and useful points of analysis over the nature of interactivity. These three ideas combine the use of machine based interaction, and new or traditional notions of human interaction, in which the structure, medium, or framework of the interactivity becomes the message. Similarly to Marshall McLuhan's article "The Medium Is the Message", it may be said that the analysis of new human associations with the object rather than the content of interactive based media can be represented by the idea of The Mirror Stage. In addition, the psychoanalytical implications may suggest that where technology is interacted with physically, where the content is interacted with mentally or subconsciously, and where the notion of the nature of the interactivity is similar to The Mirror Stage; where mental recognition, self-reflection, sense of detachment, the desire for the object once more, and the transition from the old ways to the new beneath the view of the normative and the real model forms a new association on interactivity.

It may also be said that the new human association and need for technological medium and interactivity may have the eventual reverse effect, in which the desire for the object or the medium consequently makes the content the nature. This presents the need for, and the notion of, a new model figure in society and more traditional associations of the individual in that community. This may give reflection on Adorno and Heinhorker's article that the model macrocosm, and the view of the normative individual, is applicable to the prevalence of interactivity in the notion of new human associations and inadvertent requirements.

Additionally, the need for the notion of two-way communication in the media may be said to show how the need for interactivity and audience control is essential in the development in new media, as an industry which can both surveil and be surveilled, in the efforts for a sense of democracy and independence from the digital communication, information, education, and leisure industries; giving a sense of false-consciousness.

'Imagine Communities'

This article challenges the differentiated concepts of Nation, Nationality, and Nationalism, and explores the classical sociological theories of Marxism and the social science to determine how the notion of nationalism may have been utilised in the effort of imperialism, and also capitalism, under the 'neurosis' of false self-consciousness.

Also, the notion of globalisation, and the transition from the proletariat 'bourgeoise' to the national bourgeoisie, is stated to add to the effects of Nationalism, and the false or imagined sense of community, comradeship, and the dichotomy between the idea of liberty and fascism becoming evermore blurred and catalytic.  

'The cultural roots of nationalism', and the phenomena of the imagined commune between strangers made uniform to the same community shows an anthropological effect in which hostility and segregation, or homogenisation, of the 'self' and the 'other' comes to the fore in the making-spectacle of the 'cultural artefacts', which become the foundations of an international, false-identity, and a form of imperialism: 

'The Culture Industry: Enlightenment As Mass Deception' by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer

'Enlightenment As Mass Deception' 

'Enlightenment As Mass Deception' is a phrase used by Adorno and Horkheimer to illustrate the idea of film, radio, magazine, and the mass media as being representations of false consciousness and false identity amongst cultures, used as a tool of political and capitalist control witnessed 'as a mode of engaging with the world, it builds by playing first to the proximate over the distant, the personally salient over a range of varied degrees of relevance, the discretely detailed over the broadly scoped (Neiger, Meyers, and Zandberg [2011:27]).

The false notion of a greater knowledge of culture and sub-culture, as having individual identities, reflects on the idea that these cultures have left their mark on everything in the media and in politics, and results in society as producers and consumers of most content. Also, these impressions of multi-culture are consistently being homogenised through the social utility of film and radio, which have become nothing more than business industries due to their commodifying of a macrocosm and uniform society or structure: 'This process is evident in the reemergence of avant-garde strategies of representation in art, in aesthetics and sociology through the search for alternative modernities, and in politics through the return of absolutist discourses of power' (Smith, Enwezor, and Condee [2008:165]).

The article also considers the loss of influences that had once derived from established religions, literature, and art in the control of the normative structure of society, and invokes the appeal of capitalism, and social differences that is touched upon in Marshall McLuhan's article "The Medium Is The Message". Although, particularly in McLuhan's article, the idea of technological development and specialisation in cultures that can afford it, is stated as being used as a form of homogenisation and control over many other global microcosms and communities, which are inadvertantly being pulled into the artificial model, and are slowly but surely being made identical.

Also, the concept of technology as simply a means of standardisation and a means of establishing the normative, and model figure is represented as a means of unifying the mass, or a different approach to globalisation. Also, the idea of technological prestige is challenged as being interwoven with most medium, and in reference to the film industries, such as Pixar, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros, it is stated that the need for connoisseur's discussion and avid competition is almost entirely non-relevant, as the key amplifications and projections of technology and film remain alike and have no relation between factual values and the meaning of those products.

In reference to film and television, the article goes onto the subject of rationalism and irrationalism as being contrasted to the real world through the anthropometric, mimetic cartoon animation in which the viewers will naturally associate to, and experience an almost vicarious sense of irrationalism and escapism. Also, through the cartoon character, the viewer may almost sense both a defiance and compliance to the Formalist's notion that industry provides the data and structure of human experience, and how we understand or translate leisure and work. The concept of natural reason in the influence of the industry and the model structure is portrayed as illusory, and that the constant involvement of ubiquitous visuals in modern culture is a ways of occupying the minds of the consumers as to not allow them any notion that they can reject those visuals in thoughts that 'this is the result not of a law of movement in technology as such but of its function in today's economy. The need which might resist central control has already been suppressed by the control of the individual consciousness' (Rivkin and Ryan [2004:1242]).

This video denotes the construction of the 20th century through industrialisation, consumerism, technological advancements, automated technology, fragmentation, abstract art, political coerce, false identity, war, pre-capitalism, communism, western democracy, false consciousness, media propaganda, elitism, and economic union:

 

Reference List:

Neiger, M. Meyers, O. and Zandberg, E. eds., 2011. On Media Memory, Collective Memory in a New Media Age. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Rivkin, J., and Ryan, M. eds., 2004. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.  

Smith, T. Enwezor, O. Condee, C. eds., 2008. Antinomies Of Art And Culture, Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity. London: Duke University Press.

"The Medium Is The Message" - Marshall McLuhan

'The Medium Is the Message'

In this extract, Marshall McLuhan defines "The Medium Is The Message" as an idea that integrates human feeling and thought, with technological medium, and the theory of self-reflection in thoughts of 'it is, perhaps, of the bias of our intensely technological and, therefore, narcotic culture that we have long interpreted the Narcissus story to mean that he fell in love with himself, and that he imagined the reflection to be Narcissus' (McLuhan [1991:42]).

Also, McLuhan explores both modern and traditional forms of human expression, and shows how fragmentation of different medium helps to create a meaning or a message, such as thought into discourse, discourse into writing, and writing into print or press, in relation to 'not only the exponential explosion of print in the nineteenth century but also the massive proliferation of a wide variety of popular mechanical devices, from the kaleidoscope, thaumatrope, phenakistoscope, zoetrope, praxinoscope, and kinetoscope to the stereograph, photograph, telegraph, typewriter, player piano, telephone, phonograph, and early film' (Colligan and Linley [2011:1]).

McLuhan highlights how thought and language as a medium is extended through the use of machine, and automated technology, and the way in which we use these technologies as amplifiers, and a general and prevalent acceleration of human life, society, and explores the positive and negative effects of the growth and change that these technologies and processes have on the modern world and 'the extent to which new media change culture, necessitating answering changes to the norms of social attitudes and behaviors' (Bruce and German [2011:192]).

However, McLuhan then goes on to explore how content is defined by the medium, such as the meaning behind a painting, or the visual or message on a TV screen, which is shown through the individual medium of electronic light.

Also, McLuhan presents the idea that content can be determined by the allowances that technology implies, such as a painting in contrast to computer graphics, or even the telephone in contrast to speech which defies the restrictions of time and space, and therefore becomes an amplification or acceleration of already existing processes; replacing much more realistic or traditional forms of human association and communication through means of new technology, and presenting technology as an extension of ourselves. 

Although, the view of technology as both a positive and negative growth in society is stated as being neither good nor bad, and that it is in fact the way that we use technology that gives it value.

However, in contradiction to this, the article then goes on to highlight the psychological effect of technological medium, and the message that is being communicated through society's response to new technologies, such as technology being used as a tool of homogenisation in particular cultures and societies that can afford and access it. 

Therefore, technology may be seen as a segregative force between certain cultures and social classes, and being used as a means of control and structuring certain cultures and communities. Also, the psychology of technological medium is metaphorically referenced in the article as being a slave to society, and that this mentality is unknowingly and unwittingly influential on the unconscious, causing communities to become influenced by the notion of slavery, and therefore society responds as slaves to the technology that surrounds us, giving new meaning to "The Medium Is The Message".

The growth of new technology and its effects on mass, contemporary societies shows a considerable determination on the creation of medium, in which the motive, the consequence, and the implications on human nature becomes the message. The affordances of spacial, temporal, mental, physical, and behavioral extensions and changes may become a primary concern for the nature of the future, the human race, and the nature of both the individual and the homogenized macrocosm. Also, “The Medium Is the Message” may be a term which can apply to a new study of both human and technological evolution as uniform concepts:  

Reference List: 

Bruce, E. Drushel., and German, K. eds.,  2011. Ethics of Emerging Media: Information, Social Norms, and New Media Technology. London: The Continuum International Publishing Group. 

Colligan, C., and Linley, M. eds., 2011. Media, Technology, and Literature in the Nineteenth Century: Image, Touch, Sound. London: Ashgate. 

McLuhan, M., 1991. Understanding Media, The Extensions Of Man. London: The MIT Press.