Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
“An awful lot of highly educated folks, skilled in all sorts of traditional media literacy, are hopelessly lost on the web. (Many of these people are faculty).”
It was Ray Bradbury that said predicting the future was easy. You just look around and predict more of the same. But he wasn’t having it.
“To hell with more,” he wrote, “I want better.”
In the area of digital media literacy education, the “more” prediction is easy. There will be more of it. States, provinces, and countries will begin to roll out larger programs. People will be hired. Initiatives will be funded. Consultants will be engaged and new programs designed. Edtech startups, lurching out of recent personalized education failures, will sense money to be extracted from the public purse and pitch last year’s wares with a brand new pivot. 2016’s coding microcredential platform will become 2018’s information literacy solution.
There will be 32 headlines that claim a newly funded company has “solved the information literacy problem,” all dutifully transcribed from the latest Y Combinator press releases. They will use the term “fake news.” The irony of this will be lost on both startup and tech press transcriber.
So that’s the more. But what about the better?
Lost initially in the mad rush to monetize the most recent crisis will be the fact that underneath the new coat of paint many of these solutions are decades old. That’s fine, of course, if it turns out these solutions help folks make sense of the web. Maybe the failure of them is due just to underuse. It could be.
Me, I’m skeptical. I’ve been involved in online literacy for a decade and I’m not convinced “more” does it. Recent studies seem to support this conclusion, finding that an awful lot of highly educated folks, skilled in all sorts of traditional media literacy, are hopelessly lost on the web. (Many of these people are faculty).
Given this, 2018 could be the year that we refactor media literacy, bringing the insights of people with teaching experience together with experts on the current information environment and people (such as fact-checkers) that most closely model target competencies. This project would start by asking what a citizen needs to be able to do online, and what skills, understandings, and dispositions they need to do it. It’d work backwards from there, tapping into the insights of the newly thriving interdisciplinary field of misinformation. It’d make something new, and suited to the purpose in front of us.
Far-fetched? Maybe. But media literacy has always been crisis-driven, and has undergone major revisions to address perceived threats before. The interdisciplinary collaboration that we see the misinformation field currently engaging in is inspiring, and provides a possible model. This could be the year.
Don’t bet on that of course. Always, always, bet on more. But put your heart and soul into achieving better.
One other prediction, on the rise of the right to be informed.
In our mental model of tyranny, Orwell’s 1984 has an outsized influence. The government chirps its preferred narrative repeatedly at the people, monitors their acceptance of it, maintains the only historical record, and bends history and perception to its centralized will. Orwell’s “boot stamping on a face — forever” is always government-issue footwear, the make and shoe size clearly visible.
In Orwell’s world, and indeed in the world of many past totalitarian regimes, the right to speak and the right to be informed — the ability to hear views outside of what the government provided — were inextricably intertwined. The government had monopoly power over narrative, which it both exercised (keeping the population uninformed) and protected (preventing expression of divergent views). Our society, always set up to fight the last war, has tended to see these rights as intertwined.
This model, however, is outdated. Modern totalitarian regimes do not exercise monopoly control over narrative. Rather, they use a variety of technological and organic means to make competing narratives inaccessible to or untrusted by the public. They leverage the use of “patriotic trolling,” as seen in the Philippines, and armies of paid commenters and fake profiles leveraging real participation. In the U.S., the hordes of bots and people who talk like bots invade competing hashtags and disrupt political communication. Weaponized transparency, defended by free speech advocates, is used to overwhelm the public’s capacity to separate fact from fiction, as we saw with the Podesta email “leaks.” Speech — whether automated or organized — is being used strategically to prevent access to information the public needs to govern itself.
In such a world, we will start to see people, out of necessity, peel apart the right to free speech from the right to be informed. The right to be informed will need to take into account, as Zeynep Tufekci has argued, the limits of attention and the way bad information can be used to crowd out good. It will take into account the deleterious effects of information overload, and wrestle with the impact of systemic harassment in wiping out minority voices. This evolved conception of free speech as a right to expression that sometimes conflicts with a parallel right to be informed will begin to form a legal, technical, and educational framework which is better able to defend against the tyranny face instead of the tyranny we remember.
Mike Caulfield heads the Digital Polarization Initiative at the American Democracy Project.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1803.10 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #854 - Clutter and Noise - again
Hi Mom,
Fell behind on blog production.
Quickies until I catch up.
This one is also for my students because I referenced it in class the other day, so why not reprint it?
I still the world is much too full of clutter and noise.
At times, it seems deafening, and so I sit in my house with ambient music playing and the noise of the outside world turned down to only a trickle. But if I open up the fire hose...
and so...
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #614 - Clutter and Noise - a Culture Jam post, part one
Hi Mom, I have been working on this one all week. I have decided there will be multiple parts.
I have been having this problem lately: distortion. Or maybe better phrased as "clutter and noise" in my head.
I feel like my head is full, and I am having trouble thinking. It's not that my head feels full of white noise, though sometimes it does, but it feels full of all the things of life: scraps of songs, anxieties about work, Twitter feeds, Facebook notifications, anxieties about homework, plans for a new course assignment, an assignment I need to find the time to do, blog work, a grocery list, anxieties about my personal life, the email back log, the physical clutter in my office that must be trimmed, what to do about the mailbox that was ripped off its post by the wind, wondering what the dogs are doing, remembering where I am in the current laundry/food/cleaning processes, and about a hundred other things.
The term "clutter and noise" comes to mind because it was featured in a documentary I used to show in my gender and media class called Dreamworlds created and narrated by Sut Jhally. He used the term to describe the flood of jump cuts, sound effects, music, and other "jolts" delivered in music videos to keep viewers engaged and to prevent them from changing channels.
For years in that Gender and the Media course, I taught the book Culture Jam written by Adbusters publisher Kalle Lasn, and now since switching courses I have taught the book in Effective College Reading. Despite being published in 1999, it's surprisingly fresh and relevant.
In fact, the evaluation of American consciousness as mentally ill is still accurate if not even more prevalent and common.
Early in the book, Lasn chronicles the landscape of postmodern mental health hazards in a section he calls "The Ecology of the Mind." He examines the mental pollution of "infotoxins" of the modern media-rich world of music videos, advertisements, TV, and more. This is the same panoply that Guy DeBord and the Situationists called "The Spectacle." Lasn describes modern media ecology in terms of noise, jolts, shock, hype, unreality, erosion of empathy, information overload, infotoxins, loss of infodiversity, and finishes the section by calling for an "Environmental Movement of the Mind" to restore peace and harmony to ourselves and our world by combating the mental pollution in which we are drowning (Lasn, 9-27).
adbusters_127_hollowman
As Americans and consumers, we're all terribly ill because our culture makes us mentally ill. At the beginning of "The Ecology of the Mind," Lasn describes the statistics of psychological ailments from which we Americans suffer. In counting the various illnesses, he concluded that 77% of the population "is a mess," calling us a nation of basket cases (In some cases, this claim does not apply to Lasn who is a Canadian -- Vancouver, Canada.) (Lasn, 9-27).
Lasn castigates consumerism as one of the culprits for America's "suffering" (which he criticizes as an embarrassing claim). "Plenitude is American culture's perverse burden" (Lasn, 11). He goes on to describe the quest for "MORE" to fill empty lives that seem to have "LESS." It's instant gratification that's the problem. Americans can gratify needs without having to wait, no denying their desires, no want, no hunger. "Eat the instant you're hungry," Lasn writes, "and, as the Buddhist master put it, "You will never find out what your hunger is for." Plenitude feeds the malaise as it fills the stomach" (Lasn, 11).
The idea of never feeling hunger is one that bears additional thought. Perhaps there are spiritual benefits to fasting after all.
Perhaps I need mental fasting. I need isolation. I feel as if I am suffering from a lack of simplicity and a disconnection from Nature.
Part of my problem is too much noise. We're drowning in noise. According to Lasn, "in 1996, The World Health Organization declared noise to be a significant health problem, one that causes physiological changes in sleep, blood pressure, and digestion" (Lasn, 13). Noise is still a problem in 2017. Maybe even more so.
I am sitting in the quiet now. I am not playing music. The TV is off. Nothing on the computer is jangling at me. I have muted notifications. I have not checked my phone in over an hour. And yet, the noise in my head has not been swept back into the sea; it has not been reclaimed by the tide and the undertow. I am still struggling to think clearly. I am still drowning in the clutter and noise.
adbusters_128_excavation
In 1999, in the writing of Culture Jam at both the end of the century and the millennium, Lasn commented that our culture was "stimulation addicted" (Lasn, 14). People want background music all the time. They cannot jog without ear buds and a Walkman. They cannot study without the TV on. Just think about how this passage would be updated today in the world of social media and smart phones. I live near a university. The majority of the students are literally on their phones all the time. Routinely, there's a lag now at traffic lights because the driver is looking at a phone screen and not the traffic light. Not a day goes by that I do not hear a driver honked at for sitting at an intersection with a green light. Sometimes I am the one honking. I see students looking at phones while the car is in motion or while they are walking through hallways and across campus. Dead time? Look at the phone. A lull in activity when nothing is captivating their attention? PHONE.
Though noise is still the same problem it was in 1999 if not worse, in some ways, the phone thing has reduced the noise. Granted, there are people's ringers and notification signals going off too often and at really inopportune times. I am a maverick as I am the only one in my family or circle of friends whose phone DOES NOT make noise when I get a text. But the other noise levels are somewhat reduced as people have ear buds stuffed in their ears most of the time. Fiftteen years ago, I was a rebel for plugging in my iPod and ear buds when I did the grocery shopping. For a couple of years, I was the only shopper listening to music (at least that I saw). Now, there are many. I can count on my fingers the number of students I see crossing campus who do not have earbuds in. Many are talking on their phones via ear buds and remote microphones on walks, on runs, or while walking through a store. Hearing their conversations adds to my noise level but not as much as the squawking walkie-talkie-like Nextel phones of yesterday. I almost punched a woman once in Subway for arguing with her boyfriend on one of those squawking devices while ordering food for three children that she was not wrangling well at all.
Someone speaking somewhat quietly to an attached mic is not comparable at all, and yet, part of the "noise" is irritation. Just seeing all the users and thinking of all the bandwidth being used for useless crap drives me insane. And yet, I am a hypocrite because I do it, too. Though I try to be sensitive to those around me, I listen to my music (or audio books) a great deal with ear buds on walks, bikes, rides, going across campus; I talk on my phone in the car; I have texted or checked my phone while sitting at a red light. In fact, I am often following along in the paper copy of the book with the audio narration playing on my speakers while sitting at a stop light. So, I am hardly a paragon of virtue and have no just cause to be self-righteous, and yet moral superiority is so gratifying, it's difficult not to indulge.
adbusters_129_forgetting-to-live
Lasn refers to these diversions as "psycho-effluent." He cites the example of the advertisements in washroom urinal stalls. These are far more ubiquitous in 2017 than 1999. The consumer culture machine wants the spectacle in our face all the time. We are not far from the advertisement nanobots painting walls and the very air around us with shimmering, laser-light ad bait to charm and distract us like Faerie dust. Of the psycho-effluent, Lasn writes that "adspeak means nothing. It means worse than nothing. It is "anti-language" that, whenever it runs into truth and meaning, annihilates it" (Lasn, 21).
That's the clutter and noise I am writing about. Words that mean nothing. Talk as garbage. Information that is "disconnected from usefulness" (Postman in Lasn, 24). And it's not just a little clutter and noise, it's INFORMATION OVERLOAD. Remember, the Police did a song on this issue back in the 1980s -- "Too Much Information."
Lasn writes about the hazards of information overload. He cited William Gibson and the character Johnny Mnemonic from the eponymous short story, who would get the "black shakes" from information overload. He cites Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death (which I have read but it may be time for a re-read): "'Most information has long stopped being useful for us,' wrote Neil Postman...'Information has become a form of garbage. It comes indiscriminately -- directed at no one in particular, disconnected from usefulness; we are swamped by information, have no control over it and do not know what to do with it. And the reason we don't is that we no longer have a coherent conception of ourselves, our universe, and our relation to one another and our world. We do not know where we came from, where we are going, or why we are going there. We have no coherent framework to direct our definition of our problems or our search for their solutions. Therefore, we have no criteria for judging what is meaningful, useful, or relevant information. Our defenses against the information glut have broken down; our information immune system is inoperable" (Postman in Lasn, 24). I usually tell me students to avoid huge quotes, but that's a good one, innit? I put the last sentence in bold and italics with color for emphasis. But this quote sums what I have been trying to get at with "I suffer from clutter and noise." It's all garbage. The language is key in this quote: we're swamped, and we cannot control it. Ever open the Twitter feed all the way? It's like opening a fire house and trying to take a drink. And this flood affects our ability to understand ourselves,
Like you, I too am disconnected from the real world, from nature, from the energy pulsing at the center of the universe. I need to get back. I need to know where I came from where I am going, and why I am going there. I need the answer to "what does it all mean?"
Or, as some say, the answer is 42, so I just need the right question, but that's another topic (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in case you didn't get it).
adbusters_129-cover
I love that Lasn provides a term for the problem: infotoxins. I am suffering from the toxic wastes of toxic culture. I am infected with infoviruses that leave behind the toxic waste. I need innoculation. I need the cure.
Lasn asks if we can come up with antidotes to these infoviruses that infect our minds (Lasn, 25)?
Yes, I think we can.
I bought a copy of Adbusters at the People's Food Co-Op of Kalamazoo last month. I love that I can buy a copy of Adbusters at the People's Food Co-Op of Kalamazoo, that's a brilliant thing.
There's great stuff on the site and in that issue that I will explore in further detail later. This is enough show and tell (and whining) for now, Mom.
I am going to continue this struggle with the clutter and noise malaise in a future post part two.
But to close, one last thought and the results of some Google searching.
Outside of reading more current issues of Adbusters, I have not checked to see if Lasn has published an updated version of Culture Jam or a new book that addresses the era of social media. And yeah, there's a book from 2012 called Meme Wars, which is the other passage I teach along with "Jolts," which is part of "The Ecology of the Mind."
It's interesting what a Google search produces for "clutter and noise" and for "my head is filled with white noise."
GOOGLE SEARCH FOR "my head is filled with white noise"
Dec 12, 2016 - In the constant fluorescent glow of his isolated cell, Sam has no way to keep track of time. It passes strangely, warped and disorienting like the ...
Also, have you (the OP) ever tried a white noise maker? Sound filled my head (distorted, slowed screaming) time slowed to an excruciating crawl, my visual field ...
My friends had to cut the white noise in the headphones because they said it looked like I .... Words can't explain the horror that filled my head when I saw her.
With very low ambient nose levels, such as when you are in bed with no other noises, you can ... Sign In. White Noise · Noise ... I occasionally hear small electric-like noises inside my head. What causes .... My head is full of noise from the past.
... white? I feel dizzy Like my fucking head is full of dynamite... ... Cover your body with my autograph. So let's get ... Sounds like fucking white noise in my head
Finishing with the drawers, he went into the closet and started throwing my ... I was grabbed and slammed against the wall, my head filled with white noise as the ...
Jump to Clutter-limited or noise-limited radar - In addition to any possible clutter there will also always be noise. The total signal competing with ...
As nouns the difference between noise and clutter is that noise is various sounds, usually unwanted while clutter is a confused disordered jumble of things.
Unwanted signals in a search radar are generally described as noise and clutter. (Noise was discussed earlier in detail concerning the Radar Basics.) Clutter is ...
Jul 24, 2015 - Clutter isn't just on our shelves, in our closets, and on our calendars. In this thriving digital age, information is one of the most pervasive forms of ...
Jul 23, 2014 - Getting Attention - Breaking Through the Clutter and Noise. By Gregory P. Demetriou. There are almost as many URLs as there are stars in the ...
Calculation of Radar Probability of Detection in. K-Distributed Sea Clutter and Noise. Executive Summary. Modelling of the radar returns from the sea is required ...
Clutter is an obstacle to flight and produces extraneous background echoes that must be discriminated from prey echoes. Water noise may also interfere with ...
of the ratio of radar signal to clutter and noise. These effects are atmospheric turbulence, target fluctuations based on the. Swerling models, zero-mean Gaussian ...
He knew that it was trash day, when the garbage collectors made all the noise .
Sound or signal generated by random fluctuations
(technology) Unwanted part of a signal. (Signal to noise ratio )
(genetics) The measured level of variation in gene expression among cells, regardless of source, within a supposedly identical population
rumour or complaint
The problems with the new computer system are causing a lot of noise at Head Office.
Derived terms
* noises off * noiseless
Synonyms
* (Various sounds) sound
Hyponyms
* (Various sounds) bang, boom, crash, thud
References
(Genetics meaning)'' "[http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5743/2010 Noise in Gene Expression: Origins, Consequences, and Control]." Jonathan M. Raser and Erin K. O'Shea (2005). ''Science . 309 (5743):2010-2013.
He saw what a clutter there was with huge, overgrown pots, pans, and spits.
*{{quote-magazine|year=2013|month=May-June|author=[http://www.americanscientist.org/authors/detail/william-e-conner-1 William E. Conner]
|title=[http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/2013/3/an-acoustic-arms-race An Acoustic Arms Race] |volume=101|issue=3|page=206-7|magazine=(American Scientist) |passage=Nonetheless, some insect prey take advantage of clutter' by hiding in it. Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the ' clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.}}
(obsolete) Clatter; confused noise.
(Jonathan Swift)
Background echos, from clouds etc., on a radar or sonar screen.
|date=2013-05-25|volume=407|issue=8837|page=74|magazine=(The Economist) |url=http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21578357-plan-assess-peoples-personal-characteristics-their-twitter-streams-no |passage=In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%. That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.}}
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1711.07 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.
