From: Freya (email suppressed)
Date: Sun Jan 01 2006 - 06:24:18 PST
--- Jack Sargeant <email suppressed> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> how do we as
> >> individuals watch something, what frame of
> reference
> >> do we put around
> >> it, and what are we not seeing, how do we relate
> to
> >> this not-seeing?
> >
> > I think you are saying that people will respond to
> > media differently as individuals here? Not really
> sure
> > why you say that.
> >
>
> Not responding to media but in understanding texts
> (in the wider sense,
> films, videos and so on), for example if I watch
> Craig Baldwin's
> Tribulation 99 I can watch it 'knowing' the politics
> and 'knowing' the
> conspiracies, and I can look at its style and
> contexualise that as
> experimental documentary cinema and found footage
> art and so on, these
> my frames of reference. However, somebody else may
> watch it who is an
> expert on old science fiction movies, and they may
> contextualise it via
> an appreciation of sci-fi bricolage, neither reading
> is right or wrong,
> but each is specific to the frame we put around the
> watching of the
> film. In terms of mainstream film the frame of
> reference may also
> incorporate a wider metanarrative that includes
> advertising, interviews
> with actors on tv, book tie ins, and so on.
Well I guess that might affect the way that people
respond to content to some extent but I think I was
talking more about the way people respond to media
more than their understanding of content. Often they
may not really have a great level of understanding of
the content at all but they still might respond to the
media or have an understanding of the media itself as
opposed to its content.
Although I can't remember exactly what I was talking
about! Maybe I need to change my seettings so it sends
me my own mails! ;)
> >>>
> >>>
> >> Or, worse, the news agenda we are thinking about
> is
> >> set by the
> >> mainstream media.
> >
> > I'm not sure what you meant here.
> >
>
> The spectacle. We think about famine in East Africa
> because the
> mainstream media reports on it, but when it doesn't
> report on it the
> famine is still there, but the news agenda has moved
> onto something
> else. Look at the flooding of New Orleans, for a
> week or two it was
> everywhere, but now it is forgotten, it is no longer
> news worthy, but
> clearly there are still many stories about it, but
> pictures of.... I
> don't know...say, for example, poor people cleaning
> houses aren't as
> exciting as pictures of flood waters rising.
>
> Watch Outfoxed about Fox TV news, a great
> documentary that is in part
> about how the news agenda is constructed.
Okay I think I understand a little what you mean, yes
it is annoying because I was following the New Orleans
thing avidly and then it just went away and for a
couple of months after I was still trying to find out
what was happening but there was no information. As
far as I know the city was a mess they pumped out the
water a second time and everything had gone mouldy,
then they shot all the animals and the city was
abandoned except for the posh people who ran
buisnesses up town but now no longer had any
customers. The end.
>
> > You could self publish and I know people that
> have.
> >
> > You also don't have to get it out there in the
> shops,
> > you could just create a "vanity publication"
>
> But if you want people to read it you need to
> distribute it, same as
> with a film you need to get people to see it.
> Jack
Well yes. It depends of course who you want to see it
or read it, you could of course just show a film to
friends or give them your book.
But also there are alternative means of distribution
and there are conventional but underground means of
distribution. There is even mainstream normal
distribution and I know people who have started their
own publishing and delivered through all these means
just like with music.
But the point is that this kind of thing is all true
of the web as well for the most part. It's a similar
situation. I just don't think it really holds up to
suggest that everything published on the world wide
web is random stuff put out there by anyone and that
books are full of the truth and all sacrosanct because
they have editors and are subject to review by people
etc.
In fact I can give an example, there is a film studies
book, which is a major educational text on film
studies. In fact it is written by the same people who
set the exams for the film studies course that I did
apparently. It's actually a really good well written
and clear text for the most part, but it has a big
thing wrong with it. It gets the plots for some major
mainstream films completely wrong. Sometimes in ways
that relate to what they are trying to explain.
For example it gets the plot to "Star Wars" completely
wrong and suggests that the plot of star wars is that
Luke saves the princesses planet from destruction when
they destroy the empires base of operations. Now I'm
not a fan of Star Wars, and I only saw it when I was
little, long, long ago. However I do remember that the
princesses planet is destroyed right at the beginning
of the film because I remember being shocked and
horrified by this and couldn't believe what I had seen
in a film that was supposed to be U certificate. Also,
I seem to remember the empires base of operations just
flys into the sunset (yes not literally) at the end of
star wars thus allowing you to have sequals and stuff.
On a similar note they suggest also that the tyrell
corportation in Blade runner creates androids or
cyborgs or something like that (I can't remember what
just now) which means they have missed the whole point
of that film.
I wanted to write to them somehow and let them know
they had these errors because it was a little bit
embarressing, but I didn't know how to contact them.
This is a book with multiple authors and editors which
ought to be more acturate than the world wide web
exactly according to the definition of the mantra.
Even if you did believe that anyone could stick
whatever they like on the internet and they can't in
books.
The whole statement is a lie and one repeated over and
over by different people word for word without really
thinking about what they are saying.
Actually that suddenly makes me thing of Jerusalem by
William blake. :)
love
Freya
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