Mediascapes + Conscientisation

Alex Burnsalex@alexburns.net

Oases Graduate School‘Time, Media & Consciousness’ Unit

27th April 2009Version 1.0

Mediascapes & Conscientisation

Arjun Appadurai’sMediascapes

Mediascape: 1. Situates media images, production and dissemination in global cultural flows. 2. Digital media artefact

Micro: The Moment of Insight

[Fictional] Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan has a moment of insight, through information revelation, of Uganda’s idealistic utopia under ruler Idi Amin: a brutal, corrupt dictatorship

Micro: ‘Remorse of Conscience’

Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire was Force Commander of UNAMIR, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda, during the Hutu-Tutsi genocide in 1994

Micro: Whistleblowers

Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, a former VP of R&D at Brown & Williamson, becomes a whistleblower and reveals to 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman some ugly truths about Big Tobacco research

Meso: Feet of Clay Leaders

The last days of the Third Reich in Hitler’s bunker, from the viewpoint of Hitler’s young secretary Traudl Junge, contrasted with the Allied forces’ capture of Berlin

Meso: Shadow Organisation

Law firm ‘fixer’ Michael Clayton uses cunning (metis) to protect the unstable attorney Arthur Edens, in a class action suit against U-North, an agricultural conglomerate

Meso: Strategic Games

Peter Morgan’s play depicts the strategic games and bargaining negotiations around David Frost’s 1977 television interview of former US President Richard Nixon

Meso: Ethics & Decision Traps

Dr. Manhattan, The Comedian, Ozymandias and Rorschach illustrate different ethical perceptions of good and evil, and group decision traps in dealing with macro and civilisational threats

Meso: Group Dynamics

Explores the group dynamics, radicalisation process and splintering of the militant activist group The Weather Underground including the ‘Days of Rage’ and ‘Prairie Fire’ periods

Macro: Shadow Globalisation

The interconnectedness of Malthusian epidemics, environmental degradation, poverty, religiopolitical ideologies, and arms trade flows

Macro: Deep Politics

University of Notre Dame’s Carolyn Nordstrom conducts ethnographic research on the deep politics of war, political violence and extra-legal international networks

Sheldrake-McKenna-AbrahamTrialogues

‘Trialogue’: A method to facilitate discussion amongst three people which explores new vistas and complex problems

Questions?