Segmentation Fault

Violence in the media - Destructive to youth?

2004-11-14T15:44:00.000-08:00

I read Gerard Jones’ article “Violent Media is Good for Kids” today, and quite honestly I was moved and impressed by the ideas that he articulated. More than that, however, I applaud Jones for having the courage to take such an unpopular stance: that violent movies, video games, and other media actually help more children than they harm.

First, let me give you some of my own personal background. Until I came to Stanford, I lived in Greenwood Village, Colorado, a small city about two miles from the now-infamous Columbine High School. Here, on April 20, 1999, two students (Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold) murdered twelve of their classmates and one teacher. While I was fortunate to not have lost any friends or family from the shootings, I knew several people who did.

Immediately after the Columbine massacre, Denver – and the rest of the nation – saw a large public outcry against violent movies and video games. The shooters had dressed in black trench coats, which led many observers to believe that they had been inspired by The Matrix.

Looking back now, however, with a clear head (which I admit was hard to keep immediately after such a tragedy), several points are apparent.

The Columbine shooters, Harris and Klebold, are the exception among teenagers – not the rule. 99.9999% of today’s youth have never had, and will never have, the intention to actually murder others in cold blood.
As for Harris and Klebold themselves, it is obvious that they were so filled with fury, hate and insanity that they would have committed the same crime had violent movies and video games never come into existence.
Despite the public backlash we observed after Columbine, many video games and movies have nothing to do with “realistic” violence (by which I mean violent acts that could actually occur here and now). For example, games such as Microsoft’s Halo and movies such as The Matrix are clearly fantasy: they explicitly deal with alien worlds and alternate realities, and do not lead the audience to believe that the actions they portray could actually occur.
Finally, what of today’s youth who truly do feel passionate anger and rage? I’d say it’s hardly an uncommon emotion, given the situation in America and in the world today. We are a country deeply divided, at war with terrorism and with Iraq, a country that hears reports of beheadings and the death of soldiers almost daily. Yet I think here, Jones’ argument really comes through: “through immersion in imaginary combat and identification with a violent protagonist, children engage the rage they've stifled, come to fear it less, and become more capable of utilizing it against life's challenges.”

Ultimately, what I most agree with in Jones’ article is his belief that imaginary worlds provide youth an outlet to vent emotions that would truly be dangerous if expressed in the “real” world. His last sentence sums everything up the best: “When we try to protect our children from their own feelings and fantasies, we shelter them not against violence but against power and selfhood.” Again, I congratulate Jones for having the audacity to take such a politically incorrect stand on violence in the media.

Academic blogging - Rhetoric of the ivory tower

2004-11-08T10:07:00.000-08:00

Yeah, wasn't that a clever entry title? Huh? "Rhetoric of the ivory tower." I've clearly been in a PWR course too long, since they all have similar descriptions..."The rhetoric of rhetoricians' rhetoric..."

Anyway - back to academic blogging. Unfortunately, I think the current blog assignments from Fall 2004 E-Rhetorics aren't very worthwhile, either to illustrate the concept of blogging or to create meaningful discussions about the topics involved. First, in terms of the concept of blogging, I feel that getting a "read this article and respond" assignment is way too restrictive, and doesn't allow the student-blogger to create a natural blog entry (be it expressive, content-driven, journalistic, etc.) It forces me to write in a more traditional essay format, which is certainly not the way many blogs are structured. Second, as far as potent intellectual discussions are concerned, I feel that having specific sources to read restricts the opinions I am posting in the blog.

So, my advice for future E-Rhetorics blog assignments would be to allow students as much latitude and liberty as possible in the topics, themes, and content they can write about. Maybe allow them to write blog entries that deal only with their daily lives...since that's what so many blogs are. :) Overall, I just think that more balance and freedom is necessary. Let students decide what they want to blog about, perhaps with the restriction that a certain number of their blogs deal with particular academic topics. For example, "Write 5 blogs during the course of the quarter, two of which deal with themes from this course."

OK, time's up. That's all for now, folks.

AIM: Man's Best Buddy?

2004-10-31T13:20:00.000-08:00

So here I am, trying to write a blog entry about AIM, and what do I have running in the background? Yes, you guessed it. AOL Instant Messenger is busy doing what it does best: distracting me from getting my work done.

OK, signed off. Back to the blog.

Reading two Stanford Daily articles about instant messaging - one concerning the problem of IM addiction and the other dealing with the possibility of a campus-wide IM network - I was struck by the contrasting positions each author took. Consider these quotes, taken (respectively) from the two articles:

"AIM is no longer a casual channel of communication. Its a valid addiction, right up there with money and porn. A pleasurable vice, AIM eats away at your precious time while contributing to the diminishment of your mental and physical faculties."

Or...

The collaboration from IM for group projects would be great....Maybe if I had IM freshman year, it wouldnt have taken me so long to graduate.

Which is it? A veritable waste of time or a valuable use of time? As I argued with PowerPoint, it's all in how you use it; the software is not inherently good or inherently bad. Instant messaging certainly has its worthwhile applications, such as allowing students to communicate with professors or collaborate on group projects. At the same time, as I and many other IM'ers know, instant messaging can certainly turn into a dangerous and powerful addiction, a colossal distraction from other daily activities (like work and sleep).

With all of this in mind, I still commend Stanford for their instant messaging initiative. In my opinion, the university's act of providing an IM network to students is no different than its offer of cable television. Both services are justified by their valuable educational purposes, and Stanford is not responsible for any addictions that may result from their use. (Perhaps this last phrase should be a disclaimer that is included with the Stanford IM software).

Then there's the issue of IM rhetoric, that unique breed of discourse that has emerged in the Internet's private chat rooms. Feng, who argues that instant messaging has become an addiction, deals briefly with this terminology, citing the "unique lexicon (Y aren’t u LOL? I was j/k about ur gf) and etiquette rules (who will IM whom first?)" of the IM world.

Clearly, instant messaging is intended as a medium of quick and informal communication (hence the name "instant" messaging), and there are no formal grammatical conventions in this mode of rhetoric. After all, who could reasonably enforce them? At the same time, I have always taken issue with IM'ers who abbreviate excessively, shortening every other word to a single letter. "Why are you" becomes "y r u," a dialect that seems so immature and childish that it doesn't belong in any domain of communication. I personally wish that denizens of the IM world could take the extra half-second to type two more letters, in the hope that their speech would become more respectable and recognizable.

Anyhow, I have a few dozen AIM conversations to get back to. See you next week...

Balancing acts

2004-10-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

I took the opportunity today while reading Michael Cripps' "Hypertext Theory and WebDev in the Composition Classroom" to think about its relevance to my own research project, now in the not-so-distant-future in my schedule, and to academic hypertexts in general.

It seems to me that writing an academic hypertext is a delicate balance in many respects. First, with regard to linearity (or multi-linearity), the author of an academic hypertext must be careful to not let his audience become lost in a network of seemingly unrelated nodes, links, and connections in a multi-linear design. As Cripps puts it,

"With each node standing alone, linked to other nodes by hyperlinks, the relationships between linked nodes can dissolve. The result is a series of associations between chunks of text with potentially little authorial work to explain the relations."

Yet at the same time, scholars writing for the Web must be cognizant that hypertext is, by design, a nonlinear medium of expression. To force the reader into an endless sequence of Next Page, Next Page, ... without any alternative navigation options is to disrespect both the audience and the purpose of hypertext itself. In my opinion, therefore, care must be taken by a web site's author to ensure that her readers remain focused and directed down the path of her argument, yet at the same time are free to explore nodes and external content at their discretion.

In addition to navigation and linearity, authors of academic hypertext are confronted with the sticky problem of graphics: How much is too much? When, where, and why are different forms of visual rhetoric appropriate to the "rhetor's" ultimate goal -- to advance a persuasive intellectual argument? I think Cripps makes another good point when he states that "the contribution of the visual to the text's meaning in the print essay is not usually considered....[but with] hypertext, the visual is more easily recognized as an important component in authorship." As with linearity, then, I think balance is the key factor (though this may be easier said than done): the author of an academic hypertext should use graphics judiciously, for while they are central elements of electronic rhetoric, they also have the potential to distract readers' attention.

Of course, all of this is complicated by Cripps' final point, that "academic hypertext remains largely in its infancy, at least as hypertext that employs elements that...theorists claim are central to hypertext." In other words, scholars do not yet have a common model for creating formal academic hypertext as they do for more traditional, "last-millennium" pen-and-paper essays. Nevertheless, I believe that simply by applying consistent, logical design rules and common sense -- e.g., "don't overwhelm the audience with graphics, but don't deprive them of visual aids either" -- this lack of standardization will ultimately result in more freedom and creativity for this millennium's digital scholars.

Too hard on PowerPoint?

2004-10-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

I was honestly confused and outraged by an article I recently read lambasting Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation software. Quoting critic after critic, from inventors of the Internet to Yale professors, the document bashes the program's harmful influence on today's presentation style. Here are some of the kind words these folks use to describe PowerPoint:

"Power corrupts and PowerPoint corrupts absolutely" (Vint Cerf, Internet co-founder)

"...very loud, very slow, and very simple" (Edward R. Tufte, professor at Yale University)

"PowerPoint is a broken tool." (Jimmy Guterman, writer)

Allow me to throw my own two cents into this debate: while I respect the opinions of these eminent commentators, I think they have missed the point (no pun intended) of PowerPoint. They speak as if every presentation created using Microsoft's software dooms the presenter to value glitz and glamour over content, lull the audience into a digital coma, and overuse fancy graphics and bullet points. Have they not considered the many valuable applications of PowerPoint which, in my mind, clearly strengthen the effectiveness of rhetoric?

For example, suppose I'm giving a presentation about video games, and I want to reference a particular scene in a particular game to make a statement. My options are: (a) without PowerPoint, fumble around blindly for words to describe it: "you know, that game, has anyone played it? well, there's this one part, where...oh. Nobody's played it? Too bad..." or (b) with PowerPoint, simply show a quick video clip from the game to illustrate my point.

Now, I'm not saying every slide should include flashy clip art, obnoxious "whooosh" sounds (people do seem to overuse these, don't they?) or inane movies pulled off random Internet sites. When used improperly, these devices do little more than distract the audience, as the critics in the CNN article suggest. I'm not even suggesting that every presentation should use PowerPoint at all; many are much more effective without it, for they focus attention directly on the presenter at all times.

However, through judicious use of PowerPoint, a presenter can organize his ideas more effectively, delineate the most important sections of his presentation, and use alternative media (sounds and video) to enhance his arguments. And if he wants to draw the focus back to the spoken word...well, there's always that little "X" button sitting so calmly at the top of the screen.

I'm reminded, in conclusion, of another article I read recently over at Wired, called "Blah, Blah, Blah and Blog." It quoted science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, who stated:

"Sure, 90 percent of science-fiction is crud. That's because 90 percent of everything is crud."

So is PowerPoint inherently evil or worthless if 90 percent of PowerPoint users misuse it? Absolutely not. But I think that critics should spend their time encouraging effective applications of PowerPoint, not rejecting its use altogether.

Research - the stuff stanford is made of

2004-10-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

Welcome, brave soul, to Ryan's first E-Rhetorics blog entry. This week we bring you...preliminary ideas for the research project on digital culture! So what crazy neural ramblings have I cooked up so far? Take a look, and decide for yourself.

Political rhetoric - How do John Kerry and George W. Bush use websites, blogs, email, and other communication technologies in their campaigns for the 2004 Presidential Election? Do these sources of information make them more or less credible in the eyes of prospective voters? How do those following the race -- from inexperienced bloggers to seasoned pundits -- use electronic discourse both to stay updated, express their opinions, and pursue activism? Technorati has some interesting analysis of the different sources of political information, such as news feeds and blogs, as well as graphs comparing the number of blogs supporting each candidate. They also offer a guide to following blogs during the campaigns, for people (like me) unfamiliar with such things.
Speech recognition and natural language processing - This would be a really fascinating topic for me to research, mainly because I've been doing research in it for the past year (including this past summer, during the Summer Research College). Our goal at the speech group has been, quite simply to, improve upon the state-of-the-art in speech recognition; that is, to make computer systems faster and more accurate at recognizing human speech. This area of research and its implications raise a whole slew of interesting questions (beyond How does it work?). For example, will accurate speech recognition systems ultimately bring an end to traditional mouse-and-keyboard input devices? And would we really want these older, "legacy" devices to just fade away (i.e. would our comfort speaking directly to the computer make up for our irritability when it is wrong)? I found Wikipedia has a good not-too-technical introduction to the field of speech recognition...you know, one that doesn't include too much about Hidden Markov Models and vocal tract normalization algorithms.
Hackers and the rhetoric of hacking - This idea came into my head when I recalled a recent news story telling how a couple of desperate virus-writers encoded a hidden plea into two variants of the MyDoom worm: "We searching 4 work in AV [anti-virus] industry." It made me wonder how these people justify (both to themselves and to the rest of the world) the acts of writing and releasing computer viruses. Are they motivated by the personal satisfaction derived from exposing new bugs in Microsoft's Swiss-cheese OS? By the lure of fame in the underground hacker community? By the ludicrous dream of being hired by Symantec, McAfee, or other antivirus firms? Or, do they simply not care about the effects of their code, releasing viruses out of sheer spite and malice toward humanity? A tangent to this theme could be the question of whether viruses - or, more generally, computer programs themselves - are forms of rhetoric (I personally believe they both are, though the former in my opinion is a "vulgarization" of the latter). IBM Research published an extensive study on the psychology of hackers and virus writers, though I think the Introduction and Demographics sections are the most interesting. For example, take a look at this assessment of teenage hackers:
"The data tend to show that the adolescent virus writer is ethically normal and of average/above average intelligence. Responses from members of this group showed respect for their parents and for authority (to some degree). While members of the group tended to understand the difference between what is right and wrong, (i.e. directly damaging data that belongs to other people is wrong) they typically did not accept any responsibility for problems caused when their own viruses appeared in the wild."

So it seems that I have indeed rambled on longer than is necessary. Take it away, commenter.