Comments on: Barack Obama, David Palmer, and the Hypermediation of the Political Realm

By: The Weekly Rader

The Weekly Rader — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:04:33 +0000

This article is smart, as are the posts. I’m interested in the way media shapes what we consider to be possible; how it helps us imagine eventualities. Like you, I am curious to what degree 24 has paved the way for Obama, but I’m also wondering about representations of female presidents.

I write about this in my post from yesterday, which, if you are interested, you can read here:
http://weeklyrader.blogspot.com/2008/02/has-tv-paved-way-for-hillary-more-than.html

By: dsethi

dsethi — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:38:54 +0000

Consider the horrible movie, Wag the Dog. In it, the US President engages in a fake war, which left the American people confused and distracted. More so than usual. It deflected attention away from the President’s misdeeds and onto a war nobody understood. I think they picked a fake, imaginary country like Albania or something. I know, I know. They should have thought of a more believable name. Regardless, their attempts were effective in provoking fear.

Sound like reality?

By: ron

ron — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:09:38 +0000

Hi Rob! Apologies for not having been by sooner, but the baby’s been a handful… amazing stuff, this parenthood.

To sort of approach from a different angle, part of my excitement about the tech/media revolution we’re in now, with smart, well-written blogs (like yours!) being in the forefront of adding a new, much more accessible, element to the media soup that is part of our culture… wait, wait. I could fashion a clause to finish that sentence, but who would want to read it? Let me just re-start: The media has always been shaped by individuals, writers, corporations, etc., but the access to the technology, as it were, or the ability to publish, has been much more restricted than what we’re starting to see (remember how relatively recent blogging is). I can’t help but see it as a sort of revision in a way: we’re regaining the importance, or potential importance, of the individual as a voice in the cultural discussion. What effect any individual element has in the discussion is always the game, a dynamic evolution of revision, status, and meme. And the other part of this revolution, I feel, is the expectation we as individuals have as members of this culture: we see ourselves as agents rather than consumers.

And as we saw via our experience(s) at Burning Man, culture, even a brief experience if the wind is right, can have a profound impact on an individual’s perception and presentation of himself in a cultural setting.

I should probably blog about this…