Affective Media

Don't get me wrong, LIVE 8 was an amazing media feat.  Yes, it may be an inflection point, from cable to the net, from MTV to remix your own.  That, itself, is a victory for consumers.  But isn't there a certain irony for celebrating a victory for more consumer choice and control for a handful -- around an event on global poverty?  Is the highpoint of net-enabled media a mass entertainment event that draws us to SMS or click on a petition and feel we have done our part?

We love our technology and models of media, but we can't forget the cause (no matter how complex) and what we can do.

At Supernova, a gamer claimed that the capacities of those engaged in gaming was advancing past the rest of us.  Seemed so familiar.  And sometimes the way other bloggers help me learn makes me believe the same.

Our newer media, helps us when it engages us by deeply engaging us in the issues to understand them.  But it also enables us to effect change by organizing action. 

Maybe I have it wrong, and should celebrate all the conversations that have occurred.  It's fairly pompus to say we can do more.  Or maybe I'm hoping a handful of people are moved to build something.

"Poverty is not natural. It is man made and can be overcome by the actions of human beings." -- Nelson Mandela

Comments

[Bill]

Although I've blogged about Live 8, and will probably again, I can't help thinking about the fact that the people affected by poverty are not reading blogs largely because they don't have access. I mean, when food and water are issues, blogs are not a high priority. Or text messaging. Or ... and so on.

Still, I'm impressed by how technology is being used in this instance and hope the event and its follow up can be catalysts to achieving something worthwhile. If it's successful, however (unlike the way much of technology works), that success isn't likely to be immediate but incremental.

[Bill]

Although I've blogged about Live 8, and will probably again, I can't help thinking about the fact that the people affected by poverty are not reading blogs largely because they don't have access. I mean, when food and water are issues, blogs are not a high priority. Or text messaging. Or ... and so on.

Still, I'm impressed by how technology is being used in this instance and hope the event and its follow up can be catalysts to achieving something worthwhile. If it's successful, however (unlike the way much of technology works), that success isn't likely to be immediate but incremental.

[Nogbad]

"Our newer media, helps us when it engages us by deeply engaging us in the issues to understand them. But it also enables us to effect change by organizing action."

And isn't that the key to all this? The power is in the interconnectedness of all this - we are talking about it now and we have to continue these conversations until we start seeing the changes that stop people dying.