A Lamp in a Dark Room
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Category Archives: Media & Culture
How to fix Facebook
The NYT asked nine experts how to “fix” facebook. Kevin Kelly (my favorite tech guru) offered the following suggestion:
“Facebook should reduce anonymity by requiring real verification of real names for real people, with the aim of having 100 percent of individuals verified.”
“Companies would need additional levels of verification, and should have a label and scrutiny different from those of people. (Whistle-blowers and dissidents might need to use a different platform.)”
“Facebook could also offer an optional filter that would keep any post (or share) of an unverified account from showing up. I’d use that filter.”
News is bad for you
“News items are bubbles popping on the surface of a deeper world.” I’m one week away from one full year without TV/Cable news. It stopped being an experiment a while back. It has been satisfying in ways I can’t really explain. This article takes a shot at it:
The daily repetition of news about things we can’t act upon makes us passive. […] Out of the approximately 10,000 news stories you have read in the last 12 months, name one that – because you consumed it – allowed you to make a better decision about a serious matter affecting your life, your career or your business.
News is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don’t really concern our lives and don’t require thinking. That’s why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-coloured candies for the mind.
Most news consumers – even if they used to be avid book readers – have lost the ability to absorb lengthy articles or books. After four, five pages they get tired, their concentration vanishes, they become restless. It’s not because they got older or their schedules became more onerous. It’s because the physical structure of their brains has changed.
Reaching people on the internet
Radio stations no longer required to have local studios
Was fortunate to work in radio before “consolidation.” Even small towns might have two or three radio stations, each with different owners and management. After the rules changed, it soon became common for one company to own/operate ALL radio stations and automation (some software on a computer back in the 80s) made it possible to get rid of lots of on-air staff. But to call yourself a “Hooterville radio station,” you had to have a studio in Hooterville. No longer, it seems.
“Stations will still be required to keep a toll-free or local number staffed during normal business hours.”
Where a town once had a radio station with a tower and a transmitter and some DJs and maybe a news guy or two… now has an answering service.
“Because of the rule change, Newsmax Media CEO Christopher Ruddy predicted that “local news production could be moved to places such as New York and Washington as the big networks buy up local stations.”
Truth be told, that’s been happening for a long time. Some of that blood is on my hands but it’s an old story and too long to share. Let’s just say we stretched the definition of “local” to the breaking point. Glad I didn’t miss local radio when it was still local.
Fear Culture, USA
Next month will be one year since I stopped watching TV/cable news (and listening to radio news). I feel… lighter? More awake? Difficult to describe.
Michael Amato explores this inescapable hold the media has on American life in Fear Culture, USA. His carefully staged photographs depict TVs glowing from corners in living rooms, gas stations, and other everyday environments. Sensationalist news stories beam from the screens, charging these otherwise untroubled scenes with a sense of doom. “Cable news projects fear into everyday environments,” Amato says, “and it can be very overwhelming.”
The Crossroads
Barb and her pal Carla are headed to Destin for a week of fun+sun but they’ve stopped for the night in Clarksdale, Mississippi, to take in some blues at Red’s and Ground Zero. She knew she was back home in the Delta when two mosquito trucks went by.
Old Safe
Stopped by a local locksmith this week to have a key made and spotted this old safe. It had been in someone’s barn for a while and they brought it in to have it opened to see what was inside. The locksmith drilled the safe and found what looked to me like one of the first iPods. Would love to know the story.
Nomophobia
“This “no mobile phone” phobia is an emerging term that some psychologists use to describe the fear people have of being without their smartphone. And the latest evidence suggests that it happens because these devices have become so personalized that they are seen as extensions of ourselves. […] While previous research has linked nomophobia to anxieties around an inability to communicate and a fear of missing out, the new research suggest that phone owners also form strong personal attachments to the devices themselves, due to the photos, messages and other data that they hold.”
10 Most White Trash Towns in Missouri
My hometown doesn’t make a lot of Top 10 lists so I was pleased to see it near the top (#3) of this list. What did it take to make the cut? Using publicly available government data, as well as Google Maps, data was collected on the following white trash metrics:
- Cities where there are lots of white people
- Cities where residents are poorer than average
- Cities where a high number of residents are high school dropouts
- Cities with a high number of single parents
- High drug use
- Higher than average Payday Loan Outlets
- Violent cities (measured in aggravated assaults)
- Cities with a high number of residents on welfare
Alas, Kennett has fallen on hard times since I left in 1984, not to mention when I grew up there in the 50s and 60s.