Cindy McCain, not quite what I was expecting

I must admit that I didnt think an interview with Cindy McCain would interest me much. I mean during the campaign she just wasn't at the forefront as much as Michelle Obama was. I am sure part of that was due to the media hype surrounding the Obamas at the time. Nevertheless, I must say with details of a multi-million dollar liquor empire, a past addiction to pain killers, a spontaneous adoption in Bangkok and the portrait of the strong, enduring yet caring homemaker--I was sold.

As sternly as I opposed the McCains during the election, this interview didn't necessarily trigger the polarizing feelings usually accompanied with writings about political figures. How did Levy manage such a thing? I wonder if it was the intermingling of intriguing anecdotes and the pieces of the past that nicely strung together to give the reader a more human portrait of Cindy. But parts of this interview confused me. There were times when I honestly couldn't tell whose side Levy was on. Parts of the interview seemed like an attack or perhaps just took on a more condescending tone that disrupted any kind of sympathy that I begun to feel for the typically stoic-looking woman.

But anyway, for my interview I might consider weaving the background/biographical stuff throughout the piece. I liked the way Levy introduced the background information in places that were the most relevant to the present. It was obvious that she was trying to show a different side of Cindy McCain or at least explain the public's common impression of her. I am just not sure it was always successful.

Day One. Just Thoughts...

Welcome to the chaos that is my mind (hahahaha). It is a new semester and I'm excited about taking this blog in a whole different direction for this class. New ideas. New Sources. New Angles. Yeah! Okay that's too much excitement, but you got the idea.

So I started posting a few things that peaked my interest recently but I haven't gotten a chance to really think about them. Lately I have been thinking about the global perspective on American issues. Like how the election of President Obama has affected the rest of the world. Or what the world thinks about the American debate over universal health care. Basically, how are our issues being presented and what kind of reactions are out there.

I'm also interested in the whole Palin thing. She's obviously not going away but I just love how Fox and other media outlets have almost legitimized her name. It's crazy. I want to follow her and I'm sure the rest of the country will be as well. It's not like they have a choice. Honestly I see a presidential run in her future and frankly I'm scarred.

But back to the point, I want to follow some more international, non-American based outlets of news. I'm going abroad next year and I think getting a more non-America centrist perspective would enrich my experience. Not to mention, that CNN is really pissing me off these days. But I digress.Lets talk about how the Haiti relief effort is being covered since it's the biggest and saddest headliner as of recent. Or the recent Massachusetts election and what that means for Obama's health care bill. But all that will come in due time I guess. Stay tuned.

A Non-Conclusion

My conclusion is that there is no conclusion (ha! how pretentious is that for an answer). Seriously, I can't agree or disagree with McLuhan completely and I still can't difinitivly define any of the many outlets that we have examined this semester either. The Internet is so undefinable and yet new media analysts devote so much time to doing just that. Being a part of a generation raised in the tempo of new media, it was really healthy for me to slow down and examine the medium that has determined a lot for me already. But I am not sure what it really changes, knowing all that I know now about the nature of Wikipedia and Google. Do I have any more choice in whether or not I participate? Probably not. If truth and education are suppose to liberate my mind and being in more ways than one, then I must say I feel a little more entrapped.

The Medium is the Message

Let's talk about this video as the medium.

McLuhan, chapter 25

McLuhan:

"The electric gives powerful voices to the weak and suffering, and sweeps aside the bureacratic specialism and job descriptions of the mind tied to a manual of instructions. The "human interest" dimension is simply that of immediacy of participation in the experience of others that occurs with instant information" (254).

It is as if McLuhan is talking about how the Internet has transformed the media rather than the telegraph. New Media by nature is about human interests. It is about the reaction rather than the action itself. McLuhan talks about the immediacy of the telegraph and it was perceived by literary sophisticates as distasteful. It reminded me a lot of Murdoch's attitude toward aggregators. It is the attitude of those who feel left behind by a medium they don't understand and would rather not try to understand. The difference between the effect of the Internet and the telegraph, I think, is that the telegraph was a compressional force. It forced different mediums to come together (i.e. The Associated Press example). The Internet, I think, is expansional. It forces companies like Google to expand beyond its original intention, beyond its original specialization. And the nature of the Internet itself (inter connecting networks world-wide) makes it the perfect medium for organizations to stretch beyond itself and link multiple outlets together, which creates sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc and aggregators like CT Report. That, of course, explains a lot about how my generation prefers to communicate. We constantly want to be connected, yet have no idea how to do it with our senses alone.

Aggregators Are Just Not That Good

I thought a lot about news aggregators when we were discussing possible models for the CT Mirror. It strikes me as odd that so many people use sites like Digg and Memeorandum in the first place. Honestly, Digg is just like the news version of Twitter, pushing only the most popular stories to the forefront and neglecting, consequently, anything more contextually relevant. Memeorandum does a great job of grabbing everything but a crappy job of sorting it based on relevancy or some kind of quality analysis. I still use nytimes.com and Cnn.com. Arguably one might say that I am limiting myself and not getting the whole picture of the news that is out there but whose to say that the Huffington Post is either. As for Mr. Dankosky question: No I wont pay for any of it. I wont pay for the Nytimes or the Huffington Post. There are just to many sources of news out there and none of them are so outstanding and exclusive to warrant me buying a real subscription.

Aggregators are great for traditional newspapers, expanding their readership and becoming their "free paper boys." But as a consumer, personally I would rather go straight to the source. On most days, I am not interested in being linked to the New York Post or the Courant. As for the argument by Murdoch that they don't invest in journalism, I think is just annoying. Don't get mad at The Huffington for doing your dirty work or for saving you money. Aggregating is not the same as plagiarism and while I think they certainly have a role to play, I hope that this is not the future of media. There is already enough of a top-down model to journalism. Aggregators just become another filter that consumers have to get through. Some find it convenient. I just think it's superfluous.

WNPR was talking about new stories as intellectual property. I fear this idea. On the one hand, we all need and want quality journalism, good reporting and well-written stories. But for the most part, the news itself is the gold. Just tell me what happened and dont claim it as some kind of entitlement because you discovered it first. It belongs to the public. Yes, a journalist should be given credit but I have a problem with Murdoch's attitude. He doesnt own the actual news part of a story.

Twitter...may be not like all the rest

At first I didnt think that Twitter was anything new. I mean the FB status updates do virtually the same things as Tweets. One of the biggest criticism of sites like Facebook and Myspace is that they are one of the most obvious indicators that today's youth are overly self-indulgent and Twitter is no different. I mean honestly who cares about "what's happening," with you at any random moment of the day or what the 411 is every time your mood status just happens to change. Lots of cultural analysts have written about the whole, "everybody wants to be a hyper local celebrity" phenomenon but Twitter is bigger than that I think. Sure, on the surface it indulges the current trend of of Facebook, Myspace and Youtube, which allows people to "broadcast themselves" in a way that doesn't make them seem completely insecure and shallow.

But I think the Osterman Blog has a point, Twitter is about the followers as well as the followed. It is not AS one sided and self-indulgent as Fb, which really doesn't have a way of telling its profilers how many views they receive daily or what their followers to followed ratio is, because that was never the point of FB. ITS ALL ABOUT YOU. I think it is fair to say that Twitter's low retention rate is in part due to the intimidation users' first feel looking at their f:f ratio. Nobody wants to have to work for popularity, acceptance or fame. I mean if you cant even be a celebrity of your on Twitter world than what the hell is the point.