So the issue is, of course,who can control whom and when. By bringing in blogging about a show, as well as Wikepedia, Aaron points a way at other kinds of controls than the obvious. In a conversation, people can move each other in directions that they might not have envisioned. The difficulty is in getting people into the conversation.

So, perhaps, though one might not be able to tame Oprah (or Rush Limbaugh, or any one of your favorite’s least favorites), one might try to engage them.

At the same time, I continue to be amazed by the level of critical thinking and analysis that people demonstrate they are capable of. Just from watching players play video games and the level of insight they bring to the (seemingly) most mundane things makes me feel that self-education is a skill that most people share, but are perhaps unwilling to bring into different contexts.

Just for another example (since we’re talking about pop culture), I was getting into the Bravo show Top Chef, which is a reality show where chefs compete against one another. The new season is on, but I was watching the older seasons just for fun. After watching the second season, I checked out the conversations on the Internet, and was fascinated by the amount of blogging that had went on, to the degree that the producers of the show felt like they had to respond both in words and in re-configuring the show (dropping a reunion episode). There were a few incidents that happened on the show that led to people blogging about the editing of the show, the sequence of events that transpired, who was accountable, whether the producers were trying to make some people more sympathetic than others, how that might foreshadow the outcome, and so on. This is quite sophisticated analysis. As much as scholars argue that we need more critical media education, I have a feeling that these bloggers are not coming only from people who took Critical Media Studies 101. These are smart people.

Perhaps this is a generational question (pure speculation on my part). Just as some people might be more willing to trust Wikipedia than others, I think this might also be the reason why some people gravitate towards the viewpoints that they agree with. It’s more comforting to think that you’re not completely alienated. The media distortion comes when you think that there is a significantly larger number of people who agree with you than others. This reminds me of this book I read called “The Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion,” which talks about why it is that we need to persuade people to share our views (even when it’s not a voting issue where we need their support). For example, the book argues that people who buy a product might feel the need to persuade others to buy the same product because they feel that it makes them more right (ask a Mac user). This is the taming process at work.

Latour’s book “Politics in Nature” takes on the Platonic cave head on, where he critiques, and then reinterprets, the metaphorical cave. In it, he discusses the paradoxical role that scientists play when it comes to who can talk about science. Like the Ph.D comic I sent you (http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174), the cycle of scientific ideas through academic journals and through the mass media can be very different and frustrating.

Perhaps Bourdieu and Baudrillard failed to take into account the diachronic aspect of scientific practice, and that, if you only take a snapshot of a semiotic domain, it can appear as if the sign has taken over the reality. But by taking a more historical view, the actual practice unfolds more clearly.

I’m tempted to go Latourian again (as usual), and I wonder how accurate it is to directly say that “death rate” can be linked to only one source “heart disease” or “cancer.” Is it always that clear cut? Certainly, “heart disease” is a vague term, and it seems like the decline of death rates could be linked to any number of factors. Perhaps heart disease is more preventable through better diet and exercise.

On a related note, I’m curious to know what the table for cancer only has whites and blacks. More specifically, I’m curious about what happened when the people collecting the data came across a non-white and non-black person. Did they disregard the data?

BTW, speaking of learning about the credit crisis, I learned it via youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0zEXdDO5JU

A while back I had come across an article by Rawls (2005) called “Garfinkel’s conception of Time”, in which she connects time with Garfinkel’s notion of “trust”, and the importance of time “as a constitutive relationship between the parts of a developing interaction” (p. 168). I didn’t focus so much on the importance of time and sequence in my dissertation, but that is definitely a topic I would like to explore in the future. Certainly, in this case, one can see how the evolution of their play and the dynamics of their relationship changes over time.

There are still many stories in the data that didn’t make it into the dissertation, for example, the whole structuring of how many players get to play, and when it’s okay to gang up on another. There was even a moment when the novice accidentally discovered a move that the experts didn’t know. The novice kept asking them what the move was, and the experts didn’t told her even though they were discussing among themselves. It seemed like a moment when the experts’ “expert status” was threatened. (I didn’t include this because I didn’t feel it answered my research questions, but it would’ve been great for a focus on instruction and learning).

Reference
Rawls, A. W. (2005) Garfinkel’s conception of time. Time and Society. 14. pp. 163-190.

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/04/10/lol.html

After more searching, here’s one that suggests that scientists say it’s okay to use these drugs even if you don’t technically need it: http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/dec/07/health/chi-brain-pillsdec08

I think that might be a source for how people get information on these drugs. It seems to be a lot of “underground” than one would assume. The more alarming thing for me is that, if these drugs do have a significant effect in improving one’s brain, then this creates a division that is most likely to fall along class lines once again.