Everyone's favourite cultural presenter, intellectual crumpet, wit, mother and all round lovely Lauren Laverne ran a session on her last 6 Music show discussing entertainment franchises that have infected our thinking in the real world (ie 'I watch so much of The Wire that when I need a beer I ask my hopper for a re-up' etc)
I sympathise, in that my addiction to the incredible Fallout 3 has moved into the desperation phase and recently I keep being reminded of video game metaphors as I go about my real-world life...balancing out the usefulness of Firefox add-ons against bandwidth and speed is much like the
pay-offs between the weight of your kit and your speed in Fallout 3.
Trying to work remotely on your laptop you often end up in frantic
searchesfor plug sockets to literally 'power-up', just as in most games.
This relationship between entertainment and our psyches has been vigorously debated at least as far back as the release of the novel Pamela in 1740, reaching its fiercest point in the late 90s with the suggested influence of Doom and Grand Theft Auto on the Columbine High School massacre and the killing of Jamie Bulger. While I believe the majority of negativity around gaming to be reactionism, I defy anyone to play a recent GTA game for an hour and then not feel differently. However, entertainment (including video games) also has the huge potential for positive resonance too.
In an interesting act of synchronicity this afternoon I came across two references* to the first ever best-selling social science book Understanding Media back in 1964. Marshall McLuhan's voice was not only popular but prescient, predicting 'broadcasting would fuse with computing and telecommunications into one demiurgic technology.'
He believed the effect technology has on society is in fact more profound than any other factor, including religion, industry, politics. McLuhan believed that the printing press was as much responsible for the nation state as it was the renaissance, and had led to what he called 'print consciousnes - the indifference of rationalism'.
And so it followed that the 'electric global network' would lead to a new political system, one underwritten by 'electronic media consciousness - the empathy of intuition'. It's been a long time coming, but we are perhaps finally beginning to see this happening.
Barack Obama's much lauded social media campaign that helped to secure him the White House has largely been dropped now (there has been one tweet since January). However, what we are seeing right now is both a lot of positive and engaged debate around the G20, from 50 top international bloggers being given full press accreditation and access at G20 Voices to the We 20 tool facillitating people's own debates around the topic, to Audioboo facillitating mini podcasts live from the protests, to the protest itself being organised on Facebook.
Most of the commentary is very smart, informed and engaged. At the same time occasionally some attitudes have threatened to dip into the old school of political protests - through either violence or its opposite One Love hippydom. So, it remains to be seen what the effects of both this hugely pressured summit and this 'very English protest' will be. But it could just be the start of something better...
* Richard Barbrook quotes McLuhan in his fascinating book Imaginary Futures, which examines the relationships between computers, ideology and society from World War II and through the Cold War.
As does James Harkin, discussing his new (fascinating sounding) book Cyber Realism in the Observer Film Quarterly more on which later...
Great post, frightened me slightly but lots to ponder
Posted by: Sam | April 15, 2009 at 01:19 PM