The Machine is (Changing) Us: YouTube Culture and the Politics of Authenticity
by mwesch on Jul 02, 2009
- 11,700 views
presented at the Personal Democracy Forum 2009. The real presentation also includes 15 minutes of mashed up YouTube videos - basically a shortened but updated version of An Anthropological Introductio
presented at the Personal Democracy Forum 2009. The real presentation also includes 15 minutes of mashed up YouTube videos - basically a shortened but updated version of An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU
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Mark Chang, www.free-ringtones.co.in/ www.free-ringtones-for-sprint.com/ 1 year ago Reply
The vídeo 'The Machine is (Changing) us, YouTube Culture and the Politcs of Authenticity' is a record of a speach by Michael Wesch (2009) in the 'Personal Democracy Forum'. Here a brief resume of the speach.
Wesch begins by stressing some parallels between '1984' by George Orwell and 'Brave New World' by Aldous Huxley. He also mentions the book by Neil Postman 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' where the media are not seen as mere means of communication. Marschall McLuhan is quoted with 'We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us'.Wesch also speaks briefly about the impact of some of the features of television as a 'mass media'.
Which leads to an extraordinary adherence to projects like 'American Idol'? Sociologists stud the feeling of loneliness and anonymity of people in cities and suburbs, but also in the workplace. It seem, also to be there a lack of connection between people and emerges the feeling of being insignificant as not recognized by the other.
Wesch states that the new media supports the search of Ourselves, but also changes the way we do that and, at the same time, changes notions such as authenticity. To whom are we talking when we present ourselves in YouTube or other services like blogs, micro-blogging or social networks? But it seems to be important, not how the other sees me, but how I will see me in an other moment in Internet. McLuhn called it 're-cognition and new forms of self-awareness'. Wesch observes that people in Internet tend to express a deep self-reflection.
Wesch continues with the argument that new media make possible a connection without constraints, allowing connections of different ways, building brigdes, communities, creating new forms of self-knowledge.
One comment from us was: An example of social change that we are suffering because of the influence of social networks and the Internet is in the language. The Internet communication induced people to simplify writing in order to be more efficient. Abbreviations and symbols are frequently used in informal communication between people. Will future generations know how to write properly or they will be more familiar with the web-language and will not be able to learn the formal spelling. Concerning the language, English is the international Internet idiom. Is the machine making us loosing our Portuguese and changing our cultural identity?
About the idea that the internet can sometimes allow us to connect more deeply than ever before, we asked ourselves why the Internet can be approximat? When we are dealing with a webcam, it seems easy to say everything that comes to mind, including having some kind of intimacy that in real life would be almost impossible. Can this be seen as an approximation with an unknown crowd, intense and even genuine? The one before the Webcam is the real one, he identifies himself with this crowd? Admires the other person's courage to expose themselves? Is this another way the machine is changing us?
Best regards from Lisbon
Juliana, Maria and Alberto 1 year ago Reply
Thank you for the inspiration and encouragement as always! 2 years ago Reply
Thank you, Michael! 2 years ago Reply