Social Changes

After reading what Ed had to say about the issue of whether or not to close the fraternities, I thought I'd share my thoughts on the matter.  I agree completely with Ed's views on this issue. While I think that there are some imperfections in the social "system" here at Trinity, I don't think that the fraternities should be shut down in order to alleviate them.  I appreciate the school's interest in pooling more funding from general alumni over simply receiving money from brothers, however I think that eliminating the fraternities entirely will deplete the school's appeal in applicants' eyes.  Trinity might be respected as an academic institution, but students will probably be less apt to apply here if the social scene is altered that dramatically.  I, for one, really enjoy the fact that we have the fraternities as an option on weekend nights. I am not overlooking the negative incidents that have been occurring more recently in the fraternities/involving the fraternities, but I do think that the fraternities are important to the social scene at this school. Without them, I think that students might turn to forming "underground fraternities".  Should those come to existence on this campus, the purpose of having shut down the fraternities will have been for naught.  These "underground" fraternities might cause bigger problems for the school, as well, because they will be even less regulated than the current, "official" institutions on our campus.  Whether or not the school actually shuts down the fraternities, I think that, yes, something does need to change.  But instead of demolishing a significant portion of the current social scene, why don't we add to other aspects of the nightlife on this campus?

True Enough.

Farhad Manjoo’s book, True Enough, raises many thought-provoking issues pertaining to the media coverage, logistics, and varying interpretations of the attacks that occurred on 9/11.  Manjoo uses 9/11 as an example of a situation where personal perspectives collided with the media’s perspective, as a confusion of individual thought and general media propaganda occurred in the aftermath of the attacks on that day.  Using topic as the basis for his novel, Manjoo examines the differences between forming personal opinions based on individual experience and interpreting a situation based on how the media portrays the incident and conveys the news to the public.

One of the concepts that I found more interesting than others was the concept of “flashbulb memories” (found on page 65).  The idea behind these memories is that they are formed at moments when your mind is so shocked by a specific surprise that it remembers every aspect of your surroundings at those moments when you were surprised.  This was interesting to me because I can clearly remember where I was and what I was doing when I was told about the attacks on September 11^th, 2001.  This concept relates to Manjoo’s overall analysis of interpretations – while I did not witness the attacks firsthand, I was able to watch footage of the attacks on the news later that day.  I have a vivid memory, however, of how my day transpired on September 11^th.  The concepts are somewhat disconnected, but they are similar in the sense that, specifically on 9/11, as Manjoo pointed out in this section of the reading, “if you were alive on 9/11, what you remember is what happened at the scene. You saw it unfold. Your flashbulb memory is of the thing itself” (65). So, while I was not at the immediate scene of the attacks, I viewed them on television – a live filming of the attacks.  I did not analyze the attacks. I did not spend time studying them.  I just watched them unfold.  I witnessed history firsthand, as opposed to reading about it in a newspaper at a later time. 

Another aspect of this book that I found very interesting was Manjoo’s argument that the inclusion of a greater amount of media coverage of a situation can lead to greater uncertainty and confusion regarding the interpretation of that situation.  He makes a valid point.  A particular multimedia clip has the potential to be interpreted in so many different ways that, though the clip might have recorded an incident, the details of that incident might be blurred if the incident is over-analyzed. Over-analyzing situations can lead to false conclusions.  As Manjoo noted, “42 percent of Americans believe that ‘the U.S. government and its 9/11 Commission concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11^th attacks” (65).  This outcry was based on the viewing and over-analyzing of “thousands of photographs and sounds recorded that day” (65). 

While there were other aspects of Manjoo’s examination of the media in this book that I found interesting, these were some of the concepts that have stuck with me.  I know that I will always remember every detail of my day on 9/11.  And the next time I watch the news, I will be sure to consider the angle from which the news is being covered.  I will consider the news station’s credibility before fully believing every aspect of the story.   More so than I did before reading this book, I can now better appreciate the media’s great influence on our lives.  And reflecting on what happened on 9/11 has made me think about the media has portrayed the events over the past decade.  There are always multiple interpretations of every story.  This book has made me think about the extent to which the media influences the opinions I shape.

The "Dr. Fox" Effect

The “Dr. Fox” Effect (beginning on page 113) is an interesting concept.  It is true that, if persuaded effectively, people will begin to believe in something that does not actually exist or is not true.  This experiment immediately made me think of how little children are so quick to believe concepts they know nothing about.  Could adults – well-educated, probably very successful doctors – really fall under the spell of brainwashing so quickly without questioning the validity of the information they are being told? Very interesting. Very disturbing. We need to be more active when it comes to learning new things – we need to question things, and extract answers.  This experiment is a good example of how society digests false information it is fed.

TE: Pages 85-94

I found the information on pages 85-94 to be simultaneously very disturbing and interesting.  The fact that Dylan Avery fabricated information and used information that was possibly incorrect from websites that were probably not secure makes me consider the way news and rumors about significant events is spread to the public.  What is true and what is fabricated? Who are we supposed to believe if the media is a conspiracy? I do rely on my local news and national newspapers for secure information, but I will admit that I often fall victim to the fabricated information I learn from magazines and tabloids.  The fact that Avery was able to create scenes that made viewers wonder why the government hadn't done certain things/why the general public was not privy to certain information surrounding the issue (i.e. "Why don't we see any aircraft debris at the Pentagon scene?") makes me think of how tabloids, however silly they may seem to us, do actually make us see the celebrities they are portraying in the way that they are portraying them from then on.  Once an opinion about someone else is established, we tend to create concrete judgments about others without realizing that, whether or not we change our superficial opinions about others, we will always harbor those initial judgments about them. I see a relation between the two concepts - the brainwashing techniques used by celebrity tabloids and the brainwashing that exists in the media.

I know that I am not the only American citizen who believes things like what Avery was promoting in his film.  I did not see his film, nor had I heard of it when it was created, but reading about it now, I can imagine that, were I to have heard of it, I probably would have been intrigued enough to have watched it.  I am naïve enough to probably have believed the information I would have learned from watching it.  I can’t imagine how viewers were influenced by the messages in this film.