At first, when I entered the classroom, I was completely lost in translation about what was about to occur during the next hour and 20 minutes. After I got settled, my mind finally began to marinate the numerous discussions about Chapter 6 and 7. For me personally, I can usually multitask, but when it comes down to listening to and understanding everyone's views about Andrejevic's points in the chapters, I realized I had to listen and comprehend first, then write a blog. Honestly, I felt that some views did go around and were not consistent until about 10 minutes later. Nonetheless, I thank everyone for sharing their views and ideas to help me write this blog. What i basically derived from both the discussion and the readings about iWar and iPolitics were that:
The efforts of war are turning into profits. Also, Andrejevic states,"...Anxiety is especially productive, and risk can be leveraged for profit" (p. 184) I agree with these statements because the more that we become anxious about what is to occur, be it terrorism or any attack, the more that we are vulnerable to the government investing in weaponry in order to incite fear.
Some of the other ideas that were discussed were that the government tricks us into giving up our privacy, and that in order to be prepared, we are giving up every ounce of our privacy. Another idea that was brought up was the idea of a feedback loop of fear, where the government manipulate us into thinking that in order to not be afraid, we must be prepared. However, this motive of preparation is provoked through heightened fear. Also, because we are afraid of what can potentially happen, they can make us feel as if letting go of our privacy can contribute to preparation.
Another idea that was discussed was that technology is being used by politicians to gain voters. Also, if politicians have access to target companies and distribute personal messages, they can influence voters into thinking the politicians are sympathetic towards their issues and control. Also, it was also mentioned that social networks such as Facebook are being transferred into our physical lives, where people are buying into gated communities, yet people have limited control of what is being discussed or determined by the higher officials of those social communities.
Lastly, what was also brought up was that we do not recognize what the real source of terrorism is, and even if we attack a targeted terrorist, there is distributed network of terrorists. In addition, the internet could make us more engaged in democracy, but in reality there is still a higher force of political authority that places limits on what we can access and determine, yet the government can access all aspects of our privacy.
good summary of key points--sounds like a productive discussion
ReplyDeletelove your use of the word marinate in the first line or two
I kinda hoped that everyone would experience the dissonance of thinking, talking, blogging as a disruption of the ideology of multitasking--in other words, most of us can't actually multitask like we think we can; one of the purposes of the exercise was to try to bring this out.