a class in review

Well another semester is coming to a close and with it comes my final Comm class of my college career. I think it is very fitting that it was this one because it encapsulated a lot of the theories that are paramount to the Umass Comm curriculum. I really did enjoy the subject matter but I have a few points I would like to address.
First I would like to say that i enjoyed the online discussions for what they were. I prefer in class discussions far more but given the circumstance I feel that the online medium was a good middle ground.
Next I would like to say that as much as I liked the class, the structure of open discussion, and the subject matter I felt that it became a bit repetitive and this is a topic that we could spend half a semester on.
Third as I said in my midterm review, the blog is not my favorite medium. I often felt as if some of my posts were forced but at the same time when I was particularly intrigued by a film the blog provided an interesting outlet. It has grown on me to some extent but I still feel put off by it.
Finally i would like to say that i enjoyed the text, although it seemed one sided at times and I don't think it analyzed the actual fear that the media induced in the public but rather how the media portrayed certain topics. In other words I didn't see public reaction, which comes down to the idea of Halls reflective theory of representation versus his constructivist approach. Meaning in every instance has the public really been measurably affected or is that the idea that we are to assume that what is portrayed in the media is what the public is thinking.
At the end of it all I think this was an enjoyable class that I looked forward to attending each week and would like to say that I truly appreciate the level of discussions we had week in and week out.

the nightmare part 3

So in my last two posts I have expressed conflicting opinions. In the first I expressed how much I enjoyed the first part and in the second I was highly critical of the means in which it was filmed. Now I find myself thinking critically about what I just watched. I have tried my best this time to watch this latest installment as neutrally as possible. What I took out of it has been a mix of my past two reviews.

I felt that this installment seemed less preachy then the previous but at the same time I do not feel it was particularly great. I believe they touched on some valid arguments but was incredibly one sided. I recall only one testimony from a former member of the Pentagon that expressed any sort of disagreement with the overall message of the film. Putting my feelings on the way in which the film was shot aside I feel that the film came to some interesting points that I am in no position to refute (I like to enter documentaries like this with a critical eye). One of the things that struck me was the idea that the war on terror was one built on a “network” of lies. The first being this creation of a terrorist organization that did not quite yet exist (or never did?). I think that the statement that stood out to me the most was one uttered by one of the defense lawyers from the sleeper cell trials who said something along the lines of the government started out with a conclusion and filled in the blanks later. This fits into the idea of the creation of the terrorist network and using questionable testimonies to build a case.

The last thing I wanted to touch on is one of the last things brought up in the series, which is the idea of a precautionary principle. The idea that a government will act in a way so as to prevent the imaginary scares me deeply. I truly believe that there needs to be a fully established justice system where evidence needs to be presented in each and every case and in a world where we act preemptively evidence does not play a role. The government’s role, in my opinion, is not to presume what will happen and act on thoughts lacking in solid proof or to manufacture proof. We deal with what we have and act on information we gather we should not fabricate information to prove a point, rather the other way around.

The Power of Nightmares Part 2

This evening I watched the second part to the Power of Nightmares and I have had a change of heart about this series. Last week I was very into the film and was excited to watch the next part, but now I am beginning to have second thoughts. I found that the film was making large assumptions and stretching their facts. They presented the film in a manner that is very biased and over simplified. The film gives a very narrow sense of the incredibly complex issues that surrounds Middle Eastern politics. Just as they understate the role that other groups had in the respective situations in America and Afghanistan, they overstate the role that the neo-conservatives had in the US (unfortunately I do not know enough about Middle Eastern politics in the 1990’s so I cannot fairly speak to some of the information that the film provides on Osama Bin Laden). I found that their heavy bias highly influenced the credibility of their positions and I had a hard time accepting a lot of what they were saying. I do not deny the historical events in any manner it is just the conclusions and connections they make seem to directly connect every major action in Middle Eastern affairs to two groups, the neo-conservatives and the Islamic Jihad.

In all honestly what this film does, through its use of ominous music and conspiracy theories, is attempt to scare the audience. after watching this far into the series I am now just more motivated to do my own research into this time period because the facts in the film I think are mildly distorted.

The Power of Nightmares Part 1

The American Nightmare has been to date one of my favorite videos that we have watched for this class and I am rather excited to watch next week. With that said I would like to point out one flaw I found with the film. Interestingly enough this is a flaw that made me more attracted to piece. What the BBC did with this film was the further production of this binary system. There are the Neo Conservatives in America and the Muslim extremists in Egypt. This idea made for a great story telling device that simplifies a complex course of events. After watching it is hard to see it the transgression in a different manner but the truth being is that there was a lot more going on behind the current as is with every situation.

However I do believe it was quite brilliant in the manner the film framed these two groups as overly similar but at the same time can fundamentally not co-exist. The story telling method the contrasted the rise of both groups in the same time frame was very intriguing. As well the first part of this series has done a great job in exploring the past. All to often we are confronted with the story of the here and now but ignore what got us here and now. The film makers managed to show, with what I think was little bias, how these two groups rose up and their reasoning behind their ideological growth into the current incarnations.

I find it hard to pick out specific moments in the film that were my favorite but rather I really enjoyed, as I have said, how the story unfolds. They attack the issues from a different angle than I am used to. Maybe this is because it is a BBC production and it did not come out of the US. I think this must play an important role because they are able to have a comment on American culture and politics in a manner not usually addressed. In this regard then I would say that the moment s covering American history were particularly intriguing to me. I will hold my final recommendations on this series until I have viewed it in its entirety, but as it stands now I believe that people who are interested in the world of terror that we live in today should watch this to gain some perspective.

HipHip: Beyond Beats & Rhymes

Let me start this post with a little bit of an anecdotal story. This weekend I went home for the holidays. For me home is Queens, New York. I was driving my friend home as well. Now on this drive, as I always do, I listened to music. The entire way there and back, my friend and I both of who are white Jewish kids, were blasting rap of all varieties. We were listening to Kanye West, Jay Z, A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, The Roots, Biggie, and the like all the while singing along to these lyrics. In fact just this week I bought tickets to see J. Cole at the Mullins center and Chiddy Bang at Smith College. Then I watched this documentary “Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes” by Byron Hurt and I found myself chuckling when Jadakiss said “after 700,000 its all white people”. I just wanted to put out there the mind-set I was in when I began watching.

With all this said, I really enjoyed the documentary. It pretty much hit the nail right on the head. The qualities that are constantly pervaded through the lyrics are these ideas of hyper masculinity that is made up of hyper mal sexuality and degradation of the female gender through both degrading women but insulting men by feminization. The film did a really good job at addressing the issues that people know are there but either through ignorance or choice doesn’t talk about.

Hands down I would say that my favorite part of the documentary came around the 40-minute mark when Byron when to the Hip Hop power summit in New York hosted by Power 105.1 FM. There he stood outside talking to some aspiring rappers who spit some rhymes for him. After they were done he asked them what they thought about the fact that everybody who spits a rhyme for him is always talking about rape, guns, violence etc… and all of the sudden the conversation changed from the lyrics they were spitting to addressing why they were doing it. These guys are out there, primarily, because they want a record deal, they want to get paid. The fact is that the only way they see it happening is if they rap about violence and bitches. One of the gentlemen saud he could spit something nicer and cleaner but as he said “that’s nice, but they don’t want to hear that right now”. They were addressing the fact that the days of rap where people can drop songs like “Self-Destruction” are fading away. It comes down to what is selling, just as every other industry in America is. Like Chuck D states, “It aint their fault its all systematic”.

Review

I have thoroughly enjoyed this class thus far. I must say however, that the blog format is not my favorite medium of conversation. I really enjoy the discussion board, I have found that on occasion I have had some really good conversations. Without a doubt though my favorite part of the class is the class itself. I feel that is the best medium for me to succeed in a class and I find that we have some really intriguing conversations. Even in weeks where I don't find readings entirely compelling I find the discussions in class quite riveting. As well I feel most people do participate which only adds to the rich conversation. All too frequently I find in class that most of the class stays quiet, but here we have succeeded in creating a good atmosphere where everyone can safely build off each others ideas. That is really what I'm looking for in a class, a place to shape my own ideas by listening to my peers relay their thoughts, relaying my own, and generally bouncing ideas back and forth.
Speaking to the content of this class I have found myself very intrigued. In fact I discovered a whole new genre of film that I now enjoy (clearly horror). The readings are interesting for the most part, which makes it easy to actively engage with them in class and in the discussion.

The Myth of Oz

What are we really seeing when we ingest what the media is feeding us? For this week I watched quite a few clips from the HBO series Oz, trying my best to get a good range of characters. What I saw confirmed what I had already believed to be true, that Oz is in fact a very unrealistic look into the American penal system. The show reinforces and exaggerates preconceived stereotypes that people already have about what goes on in the prison system (on a side note maybe that could be one explanation to why critics call it so realistic).

From all the character profiles that I came across a shocking few were in Oz for drug charges. The reason this is shocking, as many of you know, is that the vast majority of people are in jail not due to violent crimes but for drug charges. Nearly all the criminals in the show that the audience gets acquainted with are hardened killers many of which are sociopaths that take no reservation to murder and rape. However, according to the film The War on Drugs: The Prison Industrial Complex and the Glassner reading, this portrayal is not an accurate view. As the documentary pointed out there are a ton of incentives, funding being the primary, to put away drug users. As well, the sentencings for these people are unnecessarily harsh. People are put away for 10 years for mere association with actual drug dealers. One example in the film was of a college student who mailed a Fedex package for a friend was unknowingly trafficking crack and was sentenced for around 15 years. In fact, another example given showed that a second offense drug charge wound up to more years in prison than that of a convicted rapist.

The point that I am getting to here is that despite exorbitant amount of people in the prison system due to drug charges of some sort, they are seriously underrepresented in the shows portrayal of prisoners. In all of clips that I watched I witnessed that drugs were only mildly addressed and used as means of addressing a power system once people were in jail but that was not the reason they were in there in the first place. I found one story where a cop was going in undercover to infiltrate one of the prison gangs got hooked on what I believe is cocaine. Other than that I didn’t find too many story lines that addressed people being incarcerated for possession. Which leads me back to my original question; what are we really seeing when we ingest what the media is feeding us?

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