The iPod as a tool

There are many reasons to use the media. D. McQuail has classified the most common uses:
1. information
2. personal identity
3. integration & social interaction
4. entertainment
The iPod fits all of these qualifications. It can be used to store an address book, calendar, music, CD booklets, games and documents. This means it fits criteria number one. The iPod has become a social status symbol in recent years, probably because there are so many different models and corresponding price tags. For number three, the iPod helps form connections – maybe the man sitting across from you on the bus or next to you on the airplane has his music blasting & you like the snippets of song that reach your ears. It becomes easy to strike up a conversation if you have something in common. Ultimately, the iPod is an entertainment tool however. It is incredibly simple to plug in & watch the landscape pass you by from the train window, or keep you head down and ignore the catcalls from the car driving by as you walk home. The iPod serves many purposes, but it is foremost a tool for its audience.


photo of three iPod models - sindhtoday.net

The Public Sphere

The 'public sphere', according to Jürgen Habermas is "made up of private people gathered together as a public and articulating the needs of society with the state".

My first mental image of this is a slightly re-imagined scene from Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451: mindless carbon-copy drones sitting in front of the television wall, taking surveys about their favourite news stories that played that night. (I have no idea where that came from.) I designed a poll to show my mental example; news stories taken from the NY Times, BBC News and MSN.

Which news story affected you the most tonight?
	AIG repays bonus money?
	world's cheapest car comes onto the market?
	the death of Sylvia Plath's son?
	that blacks and Latinos are losing their jobs faster?
pollcode.com free polls

The original conception of this public sphere was that it was constrained by the three following elements and was strictly 'bourgeois'. (from the second reading)
1. The sphere is formed by public discussion, often mediated.
2. It represents a new space of discussion for many who had been previously excluded.
3. Ideas presents were considered based on their merits, and not on the social standing of the speaker.

The 'public sphere' nowadays is moving online, with the close of so many printed news and the advent of technology making face-to-face conversation in coffee houses outdated. However, the latter two elements still survive in the Age of the Internet: ideas are taken as words on a screen with little thought as to the person sitting behind the monitor (as in a forum board) and if you have access to the Web, it's fairly easy to make your ideas known to the masses. I think the Internet and technology in general will continue to change the 'public sphere' subtly, but it's basic elements will retain what it once stood for.

“There is no non-commercial part of MTV.” the Frontline video “The MTV Machine” states. While that may have held true for the MTV in the beginning and its’ past, the face of the world famous music channel has changed. There are now a set number of hours devoted to music videos, usually in the early hours of the morning. The rest of the time reality television programs capture the audience, with many of them being a spin-off of the original that started it! Maybe the iconic channel has changed its image to better fit the socially defined perception of ‘cool’. I wonder where they will go, now that TRL has called it quits. Personally, I was a bit upset to hear that TRL was finished – I rushed home from middle school on the days my favorite bands would be performing. I made sure to stand in front of the window when I visited Times Square; it was a part of my pop-culture childhood. I have a feeling that once reality television has run its course and the next big idea for the cable-based audience appears (because hopefully we as a public will get sick of peeping into other peoples’ lives and invading their privacy, though that shall surely be far far into the future), MTV will shift itself to incorporate that new dynamic. Why? Because ultimately they are a business, seeking profit however they can make it.



Russian duo t.A.T.u. performing on TRL/March 3, 2003.
(taken from JAMD via Google Image search)
I clearly remember screaming on the phone to my friend that they were on TRL & performing live.