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Posts Tagged ‘media’

UFOs, anomalistics, and “wild science”

Posted in Cultural politics, Science & society, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 9, 2021 | Leave a Comment »

Of all the theories of what UFOs might be—optical illusions and misperceptions, hallucinations (solo and mass), hoaxes, et al—the one that raises the most epistemically troubling questions is not the Extraterrestrial Visitation Hypothesis (EVH) but the Inter-Dimensional Hypothesis (IDH), popularized by astronomer, computer scientist, and venture capitalist Jacques Vallée. Once you open up to the possibility that there are other dimensions that interpenetrate with ours, all epistemological hell breaks loose… Not only do all religious and folk beliefs become plausible, so do all manner of interaction between the imagined and the real: from human-experimenting reptilians and human-reptilian hybrids (like those Hollywood personalities and high-level Democrats that QAnons go on about) to time-traveling benevolent and malevolent forces, Pleiadians and other star people, and anything else that might pop out of anyone’s cognitive closet. All they need is the technology to “materialize” and “dematerialize” in and out of our reality. Lordy mama help us then.

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“I am become Death…”

Posted in Politics, tagged , , , , , , , on November 12, 2020 | Leave a Comment »

Trump’s parting electoral tantrum puts the exclamation mark on the fundamental flaw of democracy that his presidency has revealed: that a poorly informed electorate can willingly choose its own demise (even as it recites platitudes to the contrary). Two institutions are most implicated in this flaw: public education and the mass media. In well functioning […]

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Covid-19 conspiracies and the media: or, Toward an epidemiology of media trust

Posted in Media ecology, Science & society, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 17, 2020 | 4 Comments »

The global pandemic of Covid-19 has been accompanied by a proliferation of competing narratives of what the crisis is and means, and how it should be addressed. The UN and the World Health Organization have called this an “infodemic,” that is, an epidemic (or pandemic) of information that, in its confusing diversity, has made it […]

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Pandemic epistemology

Posted in Science & society, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 30, 2020 | Leave a Comment »

One of the silver linings about the coronavirus pandemic is that it has made some people, and even institutions, more generous (at least temporarily). Among them are popular and academic journals that have removed their paywalls and offered their publications for free. (I shared one of my own articles in that category yesterday. The irony, […]

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Green new dealing it…

Posted in Climate change, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 9, 2019 | 21 Comments »

For someone who teaches media and environment, it’s heartening to see people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and one of her advisors, Cornell legal star Robert Hockett, break through the media din. Even Tucker Carlson had to admit that “it’s nice to have a smart person” on his show to explain things. (Students, take note.) First, Ocasio-Cortez:

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Media hygiene 101

Posted in Media ecology, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 2, 2017 | 6 Comments »

My book Ecologies of the Moving Image provides some suggestions into how we can become better consumers and co-producers of media. But these suggestions come couched within a 400-page treatise of media (and environmental) philosophy that includes a history of cinema, analyses of various films, and much else. While the focus there is on cinema and […]

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A time for grieving, a time for analysis

Posted in Cultural politics, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2015 | 1 Comment »

Sometimes discussions in social media feel like the internal conversations of a person with severe multiple-personality disorder trying hard to give equal voice, or at least free rein, to their many voices. And I find I can agree with all or most of those voices; and at the same time disagree. In a facebook debate […]

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Cultural policy in the 21st century

Posted in Cultural politics, Media ecology, tagged , , , , , , , on January 15, 2015 | Leave a Comment »

A few quick reflections on the Charlie Hebdo affair… 1. In the age of social media, we are all producers of images and meanings. The difference is only a matter of degree. 2.  In a globalized world, those who traffic in media ought to have some knowledge of the cultural and ethical implications of their trafficking. 3. […]

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“Lest you think we’re a faceless entity…”

Posted in Media ecology, tagged , , , on March 25, 2014 | 2 Comments »

This ad is making the rounds, but in case you haven’t seen it yet, here it is. It is brilliant.     As Jeff Beer puts it, the stock video footage firm Dissolve illustrates the “marketing strategy equivalent of paint-by-numbers” by putting its own goods to the words of Kendra Eash‘s brilliant McSweeney’s piece.

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SCMS Media & Environment group

Posted in Cinema, Eco-culture, Media ecology, Uncategorized, tagged , on March 23, 2014 | 1 Comment »

The Media and Environment Scholarly Interest Group just won the prize for best attended business meeting at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Or so we were informed by the SCMS interest group liaison present at the meeting. This year’s SCMS featured what to my mind was by far the largest assemblage of panels and papers […]

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A little riot going on

Posted in Politics, Spirit matter, tagged , , , , , , , on August 22, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Little time this week, unfortunately, for me to keep up with the Pussy Riot conviction (as promised here) or anything else. But I recommend Charles Cameron’s series of posts (six so far, and counting) over at Zenpundit, including his annotated summary of their closing statements. The statements themselves are very lucid and articulate, as one […]

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Wall Street occupation

Posted in Media ecology, tagged , , on September 26, 2011 | 6 Comments »

Why are the Wall Street protests not getting the media coverage similar events in other countries, or in Tea Party country, get? (Keith Olbermann asks this, below.)  Discuss. More here and here.

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