Quotulatiousness

November 6, 2010

The geeks are not the “elite”

Filed under: Media, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:27

Virginia Postrel looks at TV and what it reveals about popular culture:

American culture is experiencing one of those periodic waves of anti-elitism that have roiled and defined the country ever since Andrew Jackson’s day. Intellectuals, symbol manipulators, universities and people who think they’re so damned smart are out. Regular folks are in.

Yet “The Big Bang Theory,” the CBS sitcom featuring Sheldon and his three almost-as-elite geeky friends, is among the most popular shows on TV. Kicking off the network’s now-dominant Thursday-night lineup, it attracts about 15 million viewers a week. Now in its fourth season, it’s the top-rated Thursday-night program among adults 18 to 49 years old and those 25 to 54.

[. . .]

Something more is going on. Surveying the fall TV lineup for Harvard Business Review’s blog, the anthropologist and marketing consultant Grant McCracken suggests a trend behind the show’s success. “Our heroes used to be the people who stole lunch money,” he observes. “Increasingly, they are the people from whom it was stolen. This has got to have something to do with the rise of Silicon Valley and people like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.”

[. . .]

As anyone who has been abroad knows, American culture exists. But rather than a monolith, it’s best understood as a set of overlapping subcultures. Assume yours is the norm, the “real,” or the best expression of true Americanness and you miss a lot of important aspects of the culture as a whole, making it much less interesting and devaluing a lot of other people’s lives.

November 1, 2010

It’s not liberal bias: it’s statist bias

Filed under: Liberty, Media, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:49

Radley Balko uses the media positions on California’s Proposition 19 as a proxy to determine the actual bias:

For the last few months, my colleague Matt Welch has been tracking the positions of California’s newspapers on Proposition 19, the ballot measure that would legalize marijuana for recreational use. At last count, 26 of the state’s 30 largest dailies (plus USA Today) had run editorials on the issue, and all 26 (plus USA Today) were opposed. This puts the state’s papers at odds with nearly all of California’s left-leaning interest groups, including the Green Party, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Service Employees International Union, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; progressive publications such The Nation, Salon, and The Huffington Post; and a host of prominent liberal bloggers. According to a CNN/Time poll released last week, it also pits the state’s newspapers against 76 percent of California voters who identify themselves as “liberal.”

On this issue, the state’s dailies are also to the right of conservative publications such as The Economist and National Review, prominent Republicans such as former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a growing portion of the Tea Party movement, and even Fox News personality Glenn Beck. (Beck has said he favors marijuana legalization, although he has been typically schizophrenic on Prop. 19.) So who are the newspapers’ allies? Nearly all of California’s major elected officials are against the measure, and the No on Prop. 19 campaign has been funded mainly by contributions from various law enforcement organizations, including the California Police Chiefs Association, the prison guard union, and the California Narcotics Officers Association.

It’s telling that the loudest voices opposing pot legalization are coming from the mainstream media, politicians, and law enforcement. The three have a lot in common. Indeed, the Prop. 19 split illustrates how conservative critics of the mainstream media have it all wrong. The media — or at least the editorial boards at the country’s major newspapers — don’t suffer from liberal bias; they suffer from statism. While conservatives emphasize order and property, liberals emphasize equality, and libertarians emphasize individual rights, newspaper editorial boards are biased toward power and authority, automatically turning to politicians for solutions to every perceived problem.

October 22, 2010

Ever hear the phrase “the camera never lies”?

Filed under: Media, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 16:11

With Photoshop and other image manipulation tools, still photographs have become less and less dependable for preserving “reality”. It’ll be very soon that video will be just as undependable, but in real time:

The effect is achieved by an image synthesizer that reduces the image quality, removes the object, and then increases the image quality back up. This all happens within 40 milliseconds, fast enough that the viewer doesn’t notice any delay. As the camera moves, the system maintains the illusion through tracking algorithms and guesswork. It does seem to be thwarted by reflections though; a cell phone removed from a bathroom counter is still visible in the mirror.

I don’t think the mirror is the limitation in the video: either it’s currently limited to a single point of “invisibility” or the operator forgot to highlight the reflection for the program.

H/T to John Turner for the link.

October 12, 2010

Female characters in modern fiction

Filed under: Books, Humour, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:13

The Female Character Flowchart looks at “the one- and two-dimensional female characters we see over and over again in modern fiction.”


Click image to see full size flowchart

H/T to Royce McDaniels for the link.

Mitch Miller, drawing upon years of “men are simple/women are complicated” media memes, responded:

Wow! That’s a lot of female characters, considering that there’s only five male characters:

The Good Guy
The Bad Guy
The Good Bad Guy
The Bad Good Guy
and
The Sidekick

October 4, 2010

Winning the media war

Filed under: Asia, Media, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:03

Strategypage reports on the ongoing struggle by both the Taliban and the NATO/US forces to influence media coverage, both inside Afghanistan and in the outside world:

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have been very successful with the media, mainly because they give the media what they want, or an offer they can’t refuse. The Taliban know that the media loves stories where the underdog prevails, or where the powers-that-be screw up. Put out the right kind of disinformation, and the media will take it and run it as the truth. Or at least something that could, might or ought to be true somewhere.

The Taliban media people know what the Western and regional media want, and this is provided. For example, the Taliban have invented the idea that Western troops are causing most of the civilian deaths in the Taliban effort to regain control of Afghanistan. But the truth, which is published but not emphasized much, is that most of the civilians are killed by the Taliban, and the Western troops have been killing fewer and fewer civilians, even at the risk of more Western casualties. The Taliban regularly use civilians as human shields. Again, the media mentions that, but it’s something for the back pages. The headlines stress what the Taliban wants, mainly that they are winning, even when they are losing.

For a backwards, almost medieval group, the Taliban (or their non-Afghani advisors) have developed a talent for manipulating the international media coverage:

But you don’t have to bribe or threaten Western media. Just package your lies in an acceptable manner, and your message will be delivered. The Taliban are smart enough to constantly recast their press releases to suit the perceived needs of Western and regional media. All they have to do is note what stories editors are running, and work up new stuff with a Taliban angle. Thus while corruption has been an Afghan cultural problem for centuries, the Western media will swallow whole a Taliban press release suggesting that the Taliban are less corrupt (they aren’t) and this more attractive to the average Afghan (not according to opinion polls, or reports from American troops who deal with local Afghans every day.) But in the Western media, you survive by pushing what will sell, not what is actually happening.

October 3, 2010

Losing my “mass media” awareness

Filed under: Media, Randomness — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:05

Elizabeth and I have been working through the DVD set of Castle season 2 over the last week (a couple of episodes per night, then off to our respective other activities). We got to the end of the last disc, watched the bonus features and briefly skimmed through the “sneak peak” offerings. All but one of the featured DVD sets was completely unknown to me (“Is that Sally Field?” “I didn’t know there was a mainstream sword-and-sorcery series” “Have you heard of this one either?”).

I’m going to have to hire an inveterate TV watcher to keep me posted on just the names of the current TV shows . . .

September 25, 2010

Colbert performance mocks the legislators who invited him

Filed under: Humour, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:17

Mary Katharine Ham observes how this will play out during the remainder of the American election this year:

One wonders exactly what Democrats thought would come of this. A Roll Call story Thursday showed at least a few members of Congress were concerned that the event would become a side show (implying, rather frighteningly, that some thought it wouldn’t).

Now, they’ve managed to portray themselves, not just as fat and happy incumbents willing to irresponsibly throw our money at problems, but as fat and happy incumbents who hire a court jester with our money to entertain them while they irresponsibly throw our money at problems. That ought to be great for the party’s message this fall.

[. . .]

And, as Jim Geraghty notes, this allows every single Republican challenger to ask the incumbent Democrat he’s running against, “Can you justify this embarrassing use of our tax dollars, and the literal mockery that the Democratic Congress has become?”

[. . .]

The problem is not that a comedian made jokes in front of a Congressional committee. Colbert’s hilarious. The problem is that his appearance laid bare what voters suspect about Congress — that it’s just one really expensive joke.

September 20, 2010

“I can do whatever I want”

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Media, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:11

H/T to LibertyIdeals for the link.

The first debate in the Delaware Senate race

Filed under: Humour, Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:08

I haven’t been following the Christine O’Donnell campaign, but this is quite funny:

[George Stephanopoulos] Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first official debate of this election cycle. I’m George Stephanopoulos, and with me tonight are two candidates for the United States Senate, Delaware Democrat Chris Coons, and Republican Christine O’Donnell.

[Chris Coons] Hello George, it’s a pleasure to be here.

[Christine O’Donnell] YOUR VOICE IS THE PITIFUL WHINE OF GNATS, AND YOU REEK WITH THE STINK OF FEAR.

[George Stephanopoulos] Outstanding. The format tonight will be as follows: I’ll ask each of you a question, and you will have two minutes to respond. Your opponent will then have one minute in which to offer a rebuttal. Christine O’Donnell, the first question goes to you: The economic stimulus bill passed last year has been the topic of much discussion. Some argue that it gave the American economy a much-needed shot in the arm, while others claim that it’s effects have been marginal or even harmful. What is your opinion on this, and what, if anything, should we have done differently?

[Christine O’Donnell] JUST AS THE GODDESS CIRCE DID DECEIVE THE COMPANIONS OF ODYSSEUS INTO DRINKING OF THE ENCHANTED WINE, SO DID PRESIDENT OBAMA THROUGH HIS CUNNING DECEIVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. HE HAS BOUND OUR ECONOMY TO THE YOKE OF PUBLIC SPENDING, MUCH AS THE TRICKSTER GOD LOKI WAS BOUND BY ODIN TO THE ENTRAILS OF HIS SON, NARI, WHOSE SCREAMS WERE AS THE CRIES OF A THOUSAND DYING EAGLES.

It gets better from there. As they say, read the whole thing. H/T to Ace.

September 15, 2010

Will Old Spice parodies be the Downfall of 2010?

Filed under: Humour, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:59

H/T to Rob Beschizza for the link.

September 12, 2010

Taking the term “Space Opera” too literally

Filed under: Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:49

Get your tickets now for the first opera to be performed entirely in Klingon:

Die-hard “Star Trek” fans may want to dust off their Klingon dictionaries and take a transporter to Europe for the debut of the first opera ever to be completely sung in the invented science fiction language.

The opera, called “u,” kicks off a three-day run at the Zeebelt Theater today in The Hague, Netherlands. The title “u” is the Klingon word for “universe” or “universal.”

Tickets for the performances were still available as of Friday morning, according to Reuters.

Klingon, which is spoken by members of the fictional “Star Trek” warrior race of the same name, has evolved into a significant pop culture phenomenon since the American science fiction TV series first hit the airwaves in the late 1960s.

Fans worldwide adopted the alien dialect and made it one of the most popular constructed languages, opera organizers said.

September 8, 2010

When the guys who do Monster Truck ads meet religious fanatics

Filed under: Humour, Media, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 15:55

H/T to BoingBoing.

September 7, 2010

The problem with knee-jerk reactions

Filed under: Books, Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:28

Too often, they make you look like a jerk:

The CRTC has nixed the idea of “mak[ing] us all pay” for Fox TV News for now. But a CRTC under a compliant chairman could rubber-stamp whatever sort of licence Quebecor wanted, purely for political reasons, and the Fox News-ification of Canada would be unstoppable. Would that not be outrageous?

Yes. It would be outrageous. I’d sign a petition protesting it. But Ms. Atwood seems to accept this theory as fact. And it isn’t fact. Fact is that the petition is called “Stop ‘Fox News North’ ” and refers to its product as “hate media.” In a particularly astonishing Tweet on Thursday, Ms. Atwood revealed that she hadn’t even realized the Quebecor network wasn’t, in fact, to be called Fox News North! Had she done any due diligence whatsoever?

Anyone who supports Quebecor’s right to beam its product into our homes under reasonable commercial circumstances, as Ms. Atwood claims to, would do well not to sign that petition. It’s clearly opposed to the existence of Sun TV News, not just to the Prime Minister’s hypothetical meddling in the CRTC’s affairs. She’s far from the first celebrity to embarrass herself by blundering headlong and uninformed into politics (an urge that still baffles me). But she could at least own up to the gaffe. Surely it’s not a far-fetched idea that one’s signature beneath a block of text signifies approval of the foregoing.

Because I don’t watch much TV (except for NFL games), I must have missed the mass takeover of American TV by hate mongers. Yet another advantage of avoiding TV watching, I guess.

September 1, 2010

“The Stig” to be unmasked

Filed under: Books, Britain, Law, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:31

As I mentioned a while back, the BBC went to court to try to prevent a book publisher from revealing the identity of Top Gear‘s mysterious race car driver “The Stig”. The court has ruled against the BBC. James May, one of the presenters on the show, had this to say:

“Obviously I’m now going to have to take some legal action of my own, because I have been the Stig for the past seven years, and I don’t know who this bloke is, who’s mincing around in the High Court pretending it’s him.”

August 23, 2010

Unmasking “The Stig”

Filed under: Books, Britain, Law, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:03

A court case will decide whether HarperCollins can publish a book that reveals the identity of Top Gear‘s anonymous driver:

Publisher HarperCollins is in a legal dispute with the BBC over a book that reveals the identity of Top Gear‘s The Stig, BBC News understands.

Both sides appeared in London’s High Court on Monday after the BBC confirmed it was trying to halt its publication.

The Stig regularly takes to the track on the BBC Two show, but never removes his helmet on screen.

The BBC says the publication of the book breaches contractual and confidentiality obligations.

HarperCollins declined to give any official comment.

The dispute comes amid suggestions from several newspapers speculating that the character’s true identity is former Formula Three driver Ben Collins, based on the financial reports of his company.

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