Reflections on theme 2: Critical Media Studies

The lecture was partly a history lesson with a lot of interesting relationships between scientists and society. I thought it was especially interesting to think about why certain inventors and philosophers have drawn the conclusions they have. To think about history in a more holistic perspective is new for me but I enjoy it. It gives a greater understanding. Anyway, to connect to philosophy, which sort of is the theme for this week as well, is also to think of it in a more holistic way. To understand why Benjamin committed suicide and the relationship he had with Adorno and Horkheimer contributed higher level of knowledge about the texts to me.

I have also gotten a greater understanding of the meaning of dialectic in the sense of Benjamin, Adorno and Horkheimer refer to it. It can not only be explained as two sides of an argument but also as the metaphoric relations between an artist and a photographer as well as the relation between a magician and a surgeon.

Furthermore the movie shown at the lecture got me thinking. I was watching the countdown for the Swedish election this Sunday and was surprised how alike the political culture and the sport culture are. Not only have politicians opponents like athletes, they also have fans. When I’m attending soccer games I’m always fascinated of how people act together like one unity. They tend to sing the same songs and “dance” in the same way. When I was watching the countdown of the election these behaviours was shown but with political fans instead of sports fans. As long as it is just for fun and doesn’t hurt anyone, I think this is okay and even cheerful behaviour. However after I watched the movie at the lecture I draw the parallel to the second world war and Germany. I’ve thought a lot about this kind of group behaviour in the last couple of days. How come we can engage in arrangements like this without questioning it? Or are we fully aware what we are doing at all times? I know that many germans didn’t understand what they were doing. It is hard to write about this and perhaps the parallels are silly but I think it is a bit creepy how similar the events are. A swedish xenophobic party received over ten percent of the votes in this weekend’s election. I hope people voting for that party don’t really know what they’re doing either.

Adorno and Horkheimer wanted change. The lecture raised the question: how is the Media Technology being misused? This has made me think even more critically when watching TV and seeing commercials on the subway. Am I being tricked on a daily-basis? Haha, it sounds like I’ve gone all paranoid and perhaps that is the only solution to be a true philosopher. Anyway, I think it is very interesting to experience how this knowledge on different fields in philosophy affects me.

To write something about the seminar. It was a good seminar and I realized the value of perceiving information in swedish over english. I didn’t realize that the vocabulary has such a great importance. However I think this is very good practise, both to write in english but also to learn how to gain knowledge in another language.

We talked about universal and particular things. The universal are shared of all people, such as the knowledge of a chair for example. We can all picture the universal chair with four legs and perhaps a back side. The particular chair is on the contrary different to all of us. The particular things are only shared by some. I might think of a blue chair while you think of a green one. Adorno and Horkheimer argues that there only exists particular things.

During the seminar we also discussed in what ways the culture have revolutionary potentials according to Benjamin. Someine raised the examples of the camera and the telephone. They have really changed how our perspective on things. Nowadays everyone has a camera in their phone and can take snapshots of the everyday-life. Before the camera, the need for a camera didn't really exist but now we pretty much can't live without it.

I wonder if it's the same for social network sites, such as Facebook. I mean Facebook in specific will perhaps not change our everyday-life but along with all other sites I think it sure will. I can't imagine a world like we had for only 10 years ago. I remember not having broadband connection and only being able to log in to MSN messenger and sometimes the social network sites playahead and lunarstorm. Nowadays I'm on Facebook several times a day and I also use apps like Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and WhatsApp on a daily-basis. What if we someday don't have smartphones and social media? Will strangers start talk to each other on the bus and will people not look at their phone as soon as they're feeling bored? Scary. I think the smartphones with the social media tool really has changed our way of living.