this reminds me when I was a teenager and discovered that the school allowed
us to go in the local library lunchtimes(as I remember perhaps it was part
of the school- and it took me sometime to find out that we were allowed to
look at the reference section-and the excitement of opening an encyclopędia
britannica for the first time --!!!!!!!!!all those volumes &all that leather
another teenage memory is trying to make a drink last all evening(times have
changed!!
cheers patrick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christine Murray" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 9:51 AM
Subject: Re: Media and control
> Chris,
>
> I think that "information as control" needs to be more seriously studied
> right now, and continuously in future. As topic it goes straight to the
> heart of power relations, hegemony, the scaffolding of hierarchical
> community and questions of freedom rhetorical and material.
>
> I find your comments on this and the referral to Tomkins intriguing. I
will
> look into this further. There is something trying to be said or to be
> recognized in all this--where else do such apparently different things
like
> affect, information, control, and freedom coincide?--few places, I think.
>
> The image of students hunched over and withdrawn, even fearful: haunting.
> Yes, I see them here, looking and acting very busy, distracted, and
buzzing
> together, trying to figure things out, to stay under the radar, as it
were,
> I guess. It's a strange time to be a poet with the current undertow and
> undertones, culturally, politically. Stranger to be a teen, maybe.
>
> But as you say--libraries as sanctuary,are a saving grace in so many ways!
> And also the upstairs attics (for now) of *information.* I'm reminded, of
> course, of Borges--an early commentator, in some ways, on the question of
> information as control.
>
> And teens, are, well, teens: distant to everyone else, and now perhaps
also
> growing distant to themselves even though self-centeredness is their usual
> demeanor. I'm still trying to figure out if it is anything especially
> different or exceptional in the current moment, or if maybe I never knew
> much about them as a group to begin with--but one thing I do know is that
> they do not like being referred to as "teenagers," or so I learned, too,
> from hearing that much at home. That they might be deprived from being so
> self centered is not easy to respond to--they might inadvertently create a
> rhetorical situation where media might have to change the dominant modes
of
> appeal. Then we will have Aristotle turning over in his dusty topoi, for
> sure.
>
> Thanks for your comments.
>
> Best,
>
> Chris Murray
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
> poetics
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: 12/6/2003 8:23 PM
> Subject: Media and control
>
> On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 10:01, Christine Murray wrote:
>
> > But I find all students suffering to some degree by being overwhelmed
> by
> > constant innundation from various forms of media: suffering from
> barrage of
> > information and demands of their consciousness in terms of time and
> > distraction. It is as if they are intellectually torn in too many
> > directions and have, like deer in headlights, simply frozen their
> thinking
> > in one (however precarious) place, incapable, then, of moving out of
> that
> > mental freeze. It's an interesting trend to study right now: what
> does
> > being overwhelmed by information do to a person's ability to be
> curious?
> > That's one way of framing the question, anyway.
>
>
> This is what I have been thinking about recently. Information
> as control. I am more inclined to approach this from the affect
> theories of Silvan Tomkins and his freedom of affect where freedom is
> needed for control. In this way information, as giving form and as
> representation, would not be a redundancy which would not be a question
> and can instead be understood in terms of control in a complexity (or
> the more popular term cybernetic) system.
>
> If lack of control is a lack of freedom and a redundancy as Tomkins
> also argues, then it becomes a question of control itself. A
> different media analysis can follow from this where the barrage of
> media images is able to be understood quite differently to that which
> has a currency in Media and Cultural Studies as understanding media
> representations as redundant.
>
> I have only been on campus a few times a year in the past few years
> but I have noticed that the undergrad students seem to be withdrawn,
> cringe and walk slumped over as if in some sort of fear and if you stop
> one of them to ask directions they look like they are going to have an
> anxiety attack. But I did get cruised a couple of times while looking
> for books in the French literature section of the university library.
> Good to see this section of university libraries are still a gay
> pick up point... some things never change?
>
> The problem with today's teenagers: no sense of irresponsibility.
>
> best wishes
>
> Chris Jones.
> --
> Chris Jones <[log in to unmask]>
>
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