And That's How Rumors Get Started

With all the ruckus over Romney's statement about cutting funding for PBS in the first Presidential Debate, Sesame Street and its various characters (especially Big Bird) have been getting a lot of air time lately.  Now, I haven't watched Sesame Street in 15 or so years, but I still have fond memories of Big Bird, the Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, and, of course, Bert and Ernie (I mean, "Rubber Ducky" is simply a musical classic).  In all my fond memories, though, there is one jarring note.  I remember I was in middle school when I heard that Sesame Street was planning to kill Bert.  They were caving in to parental fears that Bert and Ernie were teaching their children to be gay by having Bert get run over by a vegetable truck.

This is Bert's mug shot--because apparently he's evil and that's another  reason for killing off Bert

This rumor has circulated for a really long time, and you can find multiple variations of the rumor: Bert was going to be killed in some sort of motor vehicle accident or by some heavy-duty disease; Ernie was going to be killed in some sort of motor vehicle accident or by some heavy-duty disease; Bert was going to be killed because he was gay; Bert was going to be killed because he was evil (see this website); Ernie was going to be killed because Jim Henson (Ernie's muppet-teer) actually did die. According to Snopes.com, the first reliably recorded instance of this rumor was back in 1991.  That's a long time for a rumor to still be floating around.

What does Bert and Ernie have to do with digital culture, you might wonder.  I mean other than the fact that Bert and Ernie are awesome and that there is actually a Bert is Evil website, I think we can learn a valuable lesson from the Bert/Ernie dies rumor.  Rumors spread quickly, even without the internet, but think of how much faster they can spread and how much bigger they can get when spread through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.  For example, remember my post about Facebook status updates? (If not, you can read it here)  Let's say I had posted some vague concern about my older sister's welfare.  How many people  could see that and jump to the worst conclusion--as people are so wont to do? In a more real-time example, I had a friend who posted a picture of his completely totaled car yesterday morning and by about 2 P.M. that same day he had already had 15 people asking if he was ok.  It turns out he wasn't hurt at all, and the car was crashed back in July, but since he didn't post any information along with the picture, people started to freak out.  And that, my friends is not only how rumors get started, but with the power of digital culture, that's how rumors can get out of control.

Halfway Through: thoughts on the class

One of the most surprising aspects of the first half of this semester was how much I actually enjoyed the nonfiction book I chose to read.  I expected Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commandments for a Digital Age, by Douglas Rushkoff, to be a somewhat stiff book about how to program software.  Instead, it is more of a psychological look into how we are using digital media and how we should be using digital media.  One thing that I really liked about Rushkoff's writing is that he pointed out both the good and the bad components of digital media.  For example, in the chapter titled "Identity: Be Yourself," Rushkoff discusses the problem of anonymity vs owning your identity on the internet.  In this chapter, he discusses how there is a time and place for everything, including both anonymity and taking ownership over your own identity on the internet.

This example of identity vs anonymity turned out to be a crucial point to think about as I was reading Going Postal byTerry Pratchett, and also as I began working with Project CCC on our collaborative novel.  In both Going Postal and the collaborative novel, the main character struggles to find a since of identity.  Both of the character must be able to remain anonymous in order to perform their respective jobs, but they are soon forced to show their "true" identities.  Moist von Lipwig (the main character of Going Postal) even admits that he feels naked without his various personalities. Throughout the story, Moist finds that he can be so much more productive when he doesn't have to constantly worry about whether or not he's used that particular guise before.  I've become more interested in this anonymity vs identity as the semester has gone by, and I've started to notice that other people have discussed this.  For example, on October 8 Casey Deans posted a thought about whether or not people put their best selves forward on Facebook.  That led me to this CNN.com article.  I think it is an important issue that is only getting bigger as social media becomes more important in our lives.

It's been an interesting semester so far, and I'm excited to see where it goes, especially as we get rolling with Project CCC and the collaborative novel.

Self-Publishing with Amazon

First off, let me just say that Amazon.com is amazing, and I love that website.  Seriously, if I could do all my shopping there--and I do mean all--I would.  Their prices are almost always unbeatable, they have excellent customer services, and their sell-back prices for textbooks are like 1000% higher than the BYU Bookstore's sell-back prices (that may or may not have been a slight exaggeration).  One of the coolest new things from Amazon is their self-publishing feature.

There are two ways to self-publish with Amazon: publish with CreateSpace or publish with Kindle Direct Publishing.  CreateSpace is a more traditional method of publishing.  You sign up with CreateSpace through Amazon.com, upload your content, select your royalty, and they begin creating your product.  Kindle Direct Publishing is the same basic concept, but instead of actually creating a physical book you simply create a digital copy of your novel.  I have to give it up to Amazon.com for being awesome enough to create the opportunity for authors everywhere to get their works published and into circulation.

Although Amazon.com started their self-publishing deal fairly recently, many authors have found success using this option.  Check out this article from USA Today to read about Amanda Hocking's stellar success story.  Of course, Hocking used a lot of tactics and didn't simply rely on publishing for success.

In the non sequitur of the year, Projecct CCC's (the crowd-sourcing novel project) ultimate goal is to publish  a novel and hopefully sell copies of said novel to people other than our moms.  Self-publishing with Amazon.com is only the first step for our group's project, and we will need to make full use of our promoting skills, but self-publishing will be an extremely important first step.

Using Blogs as a Source of Information

Blogs get a bad rap.  Of course, their bad reputation is not unwarranted.  There are quite a number that are pretty frivolous and don't have much substance (although those can be fairly amusing)--like this blog, for instance.  Sometimes, people use their blogs as an online journal, which is perfectly great, but it's not very enlightening for anyone other than family and friends.  There are, however, more serious blogs that aim to tackle world issues, keep up with political movements, or analyze classic literature.  I think these more serious blogs, with authors who are legitimately trying to reach out, share thought-provoking ideas, and collaborate with other great minds, deserve our attention and our respect.

In chapter 4 of the ebook Writing about Literature in the Digital Age, Ashley Nelson analyzes James Joyce's Dubliners.  She talks about her search for information and about how blogs and fan fiction were actually influential in her analysis.  Nelson admits that it's probably not the wisest idea to add a blog to your Works Cited page at the end of your 15 page research paper, but why not?  As we are moving even further into a world of ebooks, Wikipedia, and even the blogosphere, why can't we use some blogs as a source of information?

Yes, we have to be careful which blogs we are using, even if we are simply using a blog as a springboard for our research.  Then again, you have to be careful which book you're using, or which scholarly article you're quoting from.  All research must be taken with a grain of salt, including blogs (although we may have to use a pinch or two when it comes to blogs).

Adapting the Classics

Lately in my English 495 class (or my way awesome Senior Seminar which is all about fairy tales), we have been talking about the role of the storyteller in today's world with books, TV shows, and movies.  Darnton, a fairy tale scholar (yes, there are fairy tale scholars), once said that books were "lifeless" and that the tales lost  a lot of their meaning as soon as we write them down because the reader doesn't get to hear the storyteller's pauses, the voice inflections, etc.

I think there is a lot of truth to what Darnton is saying, but at the same time, I think books and different TV and movie adaptions give fairy tales a whole new kind of life.  With books each new reader becomes their own personal storyteller, and that is only enhanced when people decide to read to each other (and I'm proud to say that I read to my mom...whenever I can.  Because I am AWESOME at doing different voices for different characters).  Books create thousands of storytellers every day; isn't that awesome?!  So take that Darnton.  Books are cool.

I also think that TV shows and movies are a great way to create storytellers.  One of my new favorite TV shows is Once Upon A Time, which literally takes fairy tale characters and puts them in modern-day Maine. A lot of people might criticize the way they are portraying the characters is completely ruining the integrity of the fairy tale characters, but the producers/writers/directors/whoever else makes decisions about TV shows took that opportunity to simply retell the story.  Which I think is brilliant.  Also, British phrases are brilliant, but that's besides the point.

 With each adaptation, each movement rather--whether we move from an oral tradition to a written one, and from a written one to an audio/visual one--fairy tales get reinvented, and that's good, isn't it?  Times change, cultures change, storytellers and readers change.  Fairy tales, and any other kind of tale (classic, ghost...you get my drift) for that matter, must change too or else they run the risk of eating the Dorito-orange colored sun-tan dust of reality TV.  And that is a truly depressing thought.

Using Media to Grow Closer to God

I have been reading Douglas Rushkoff's book Program or Be Programmed: The Ten Commandments for a Digital Age, and I've actually found it really interesting.  I'm a little surprised by this because I honestly thought that it would be all about teaching the reader how to create and develop programs--which, I'll be honest with you, is just not my cup of tea.  Rushkoff isn't just telling his audience how to program. Rather, he discusses the importance of understanding the programs that we are using everyday in digital media.

The first thing that caught my attention in this book, however, was actually in the introduction.  Here was the one quote that really stood out to me as something that I haven't thought about before:

"In the long run, each media revolution offers people an entirely new perspective through which to relate to their world.  Language led to shared learning, cumulative experience, and the possibility of progress.  The alphabet led to accountability, abstract thinking, monotheism, and contractual law.  The printing press and private reading led to the new experience of individuality, a  personal relationship to God, the Protestant Reformation, human rights, and the Enlightenment.  With the advent of a new medium, the status quo not only comes under scrutiny; it is revised and rewritten by those who have gained a new access to the tools of its creation." (Bold font added)

I think the most important aspect of the digital media, and digital revolutions, that often gets overlooked is the fact that it can bring us closer to God.  In learning the basics behind each program that we use we give ourselves the power to create, and aren't we promised that we will become creators if we reach Celestial glory?

It's a small step that we are taking here, but it's an important step.  I agree with Rushkoff in that we must be active in this digital media revolution.  The Gospel teaches us the importance of being active rather than passive, and I think that applies to digital media as well.  We can use new technology to benefit the Church and to bring more people to the Gospel, but we can also develop a more personal relationship with God as we learn to become creators ourselves.

Program or Be Programmed: A Review

Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commandments for a Digital Age by Douglas Rushkoff

My Rating: 3 of 5 stars

In this book Douglas Rushkoff not only discusses what it means to be a participant in this new, fast-paced digital world, but he also outlines ten rules (or "commandments" as he calls them) for for us to use so we don't get swept off our feet in media streams. Rushkoff takes his time delving into the possible repercussions of Time, Place, Choice, Complexity, Scale, Identity, Social, Fact, Openness, and Purpose.

Rushkoff begins his chapter by defining what he calls the "computer biases" concerning each of the ten aspects of dealing with digital media. With Place, for example, "digital media are biased away from the local, and toward dislocation." He then discusses both the benefits and disadvantages of each of the computer biases.

I really like Rushkoff's style of discussing each of the ten commandments of digital media. I appreciate how he presents both the good and bad in each aspect. I think a lot of people become one sided in the debate over the how good/bad the Internet is for its users, but Rushkoff tries to steer clear of that. Rather, he invests his time in trying to help readers understand how to stay on top of digital media so they don't become overwhelmed. There are times when his reasoning becomes convoluted, but his tone stays very upbeat and engaging.