- Stop hiding - get back in the public eye - do something a little wild every day
- Go to Kenya, Brazil, India - rub shoulders with the activists there
- Explore visionary ideas - then embrace one of them
- Join a Third Party - then put up the fight of your life
- Work on your morals - admit that whichever way you look at it, abortion is a tragedy (not sure if i agree with this totally...)
- Meditate on what happened before the Big Bang
- Live without dead time
Friday, August 31, 2007
blueprint for a new left
From the adbusters editorial from issue 70
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Me Against the Media: From the Trenches of a Media Lit Class
Adbusters : The Magazine - #70 Blueprint for a New Left
Extract from the article...
So, what can media activists do? I think the first step is to find ways to appeal to members of this generation on the level of the individual. Young people might not initially care about the plight of a Nike worker in Vietnam or a Wal-Mart worker in Houston. They may, however, be concerned with how credit card companies lure in college students, or how college bookstores jack up prices needlessly, or how car insurance companies charge them exorbitant amounts. When I ask students to give examples of how corporations have screwed them over personally, the room fills up with raised hands. This is a good way to show them that although consumerism has brought them happiness in their lives, it has also brought them problems.
A second activist strategy of reaching Generation Y is to find examples in popular culture. Generation Y is all about pop culture. I’ve found that my students are amenable to discussions about how advertisers and media producers consciously create media content that “trains” young people to be consumers. Young people need to know that corporations see them as a market to manipulate, and often will respond to this argument, because who wants to be manipulated? The trick is to find popular culture texts they relate to that have a strong pro-consumerism bent. I’ve had some success in the past with the “Pottery Barn” episode of Friends. In this episode, Rachel lies to her roommate Phoebe and tells her their new furniture is antique. Actually, it came from Pottery Barn, but Phoebe hates commercial furniture. Rachel is caught in her lie when the two walk by Pottery Barn and see most of the furniture in the display window. But then Phoebe sees a lamp in the window and decides she must buy it. Phoebe learns her lesson: commercial furniture is good. Another good source of pro-consumerism media is reality television, a favorite of students and chock-full of product placement.
A third strategy is simply to get young people to talk to their parents about their experiences growing up and how people “back in the day” felt about corporate power and consumerism. These are the children of Baby Boomers, after all, so even if they haven’t been around activism, their parents have. One of my favorite assignments is to get students to interview older family members about popular culture and their past experiences. Students love this assignment.
Extract from the article...
So, what can media activists do? I think the first step is to find ways to appeal to members of this generation on the level of the individual. Young people might not initially care about the plight of a Nike worker in Vietnam or a Wal-Mart worker in Houston. They may, however, be concerned with how credit card companies lure in college students, or how college bookstores jack up prices needlessly, or how car insurance companies charge them exorbitant amounts. When I ask students to give examples of how corporations have screwed them over personally, the room fills up with raised hands. This is a good way to show them that although consumerism has brought them happiness in their lives, it has also brought them problems.
A second activist strategy of reaching Generation Y is to find examples in popular culture. Generation Y is all about pop culture. I’ve found that my students are amenable to discussions about how advertisers and media producers consciously create media content that “trains” young people to be consumers. Young people need to know that corporations see them as a market to manipulate, and often will respond to this argument, because who wants to be manipulated? The trick is to find popular culture texts they relate to that have a strong pro-consumerism bent. I’ve had some success in the past with the “Pottery Barn” episode of Friends. In this episode, Rachel lies to her roommate Phoebe and tells her their new furniture is antique. Actually, it came from Pottery Barn, but Phoebe hates commercial furniture. Rachel is caught in her lie when the two walk by Pottery Barn and see most of the furniture in the display window. But then Phoebe sees a lamp in the window and decides she must buy it. Phoebe learns her lesson: commercial furniture is good. Another good source of pro-consumerism media is reality television, a favorite of students and chock-full of product placement.
A third strategy is simply to get young people to talk to their parents about their experiences growing up and how people “back in the day” felt about corporate power and consumerism. These are the children of Baby Boomers, after all, so even if they haven’t been around activism, their parents have. One of my favorite assignments is to get students to interview older family members about popular culture and their past experiences. Students love this assignment.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
How to blog anonymously
Reporters sans frontières - Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents
Perhaps it's time to go underground...another webpage from EFF here.
Perhaps it's time to go underground...another webpage from EFF here.
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