tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post4423744298458836501..comments2024-01-03T04:56:16.207-08:00Comments on In the Dark: Commencement Round-up: Former Bush Chief-of-Staff Andrew Card Booed Off Stage at UMass; Cheney at West Point Says "Screw Geneva Conventions"Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-55916673553514714242007-05-31T06:44:00.000-07:002007-05-31T06:44:00.000-07:00That's a really good and really complex question, ...That's a really good and really complex question, and the answer is probably far too complicated to fit into a comment box on a blog.<BR/><BR/>In fact, I've been looking at the answer to this question (or very nearly this question) for the last several years in the book I'm working on right now, "The Metaphysics of Media."<BR/><BR/>One TV show would or could NEVER have that kind of effect on people. That's too much like older, discredited theories of propaganda that see TV as pure passivity. The metaphor used is usually "spoon-feeding information to us," and the common conceptual paradigm is usually of "brainwashing." Jacques Ellul taught us that this is pretty much nonsense.<BR/><BR/>But the overall change in television in the last thirty years, its ascendancy as a bulwark rather than a critic of a social status quo, the transformation of the conceptualization of information from a right central to the proper working of democracy to that of a consumable commodity, and the rise of newer networks -- like FOX -- with a clear ideological bent, all have had an effect.<BR/><BR/>So, of course, has 9/11. But then, look at how the rest of the world has reacted to terrorism and the threat of terrorism, and look at how we have...<BR/><BR/>24, I think, certainly provides many people with the narrative they are looking for regarding life in a post-9/11 world. The fact that it is fiction (and utter nonsense at that) doesn't seem to matter.Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-68501376011915683082007-05-30T19:14:00.000-07:002007-05-30T19:14:00.000-07:00I'm not Republican, conservative, or delusional......I'm not Republican, conservative, or delusional...I'm just curious. Does the effect of 24 on those West Point cadets relate to that theory that "the medium is the message" or to media ecology?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com