Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA25684 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 23 Apr 2001 19:12:24 +0100 Message-ID: <000901c0cc25$eccba840$d39ebed4@default> From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745DD4@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Is Suicide Contagious? A Case Study in Applied Memetics ( Lon gDraft) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 20:47:14 +0200 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Hi Vincent, you wrote,
> Well, these comments reflect a central concern in media teaching at the
> moment- the status of contemporary media standards, and the conflict
between
> the public interest, and what the public are interested in (always seen as
> distinct things that aren't particularly compatible).
<< Couldn 't it not be that what the media standards are concerned that
the double standard of the public plays a far more greater roll than we
expect !?
After all, the conflict between the public interest and what the public
really wants aren 't particularly compatible like you rightly write, but are
in fact
in contradiction which eachother.
Where on the one hand a program like ' Telefacts ' ( Belgium) let us see
how youngsters deal with things like sex, drugs, pregnacy, alcohol, AIDS,
nudity,.. and where the response of the public concerned ( the parents) is
in a measure highly irrational ( Not my daughter, she won 't) and on the
other hand where a program like ' Jambers ' ( Belgium) let us enjoy the
story of 4 young nymphomaniacs, the response of the public is quite the
opposite, ( Ah, well, it is her life)...
I suspect that in a sense people in general are more attracted to what
is forbidden; to what they really want but can 't get for some reason;
those forbidden desires and wishes where Freud was so fond of, you
know !
In a way watching nymphomaniacs comes to meet some hidden desires,
( and is not a perversity) but watching girls doing it with 10 or more guys
in a disco knowing that your little girl is of the same age and went out
dancing, is something else.
Doing nothing would be like being indifferent to own children wouldn 't
it, and society would see your attitude as a ' perversity '...
In a way this comes to meet my doubts concerning the bounderies of
public right and private right.
Nowadays, they overlap eachother, where the one ends we don 't see
actually the beginning of the other and in a sense where the media has
to forfill its role in supplying information and entertainment, it can 't
really
grasp that boundery which runs through ours societies.
The media is balancing on a thin blue line between what happens private
in a home and what is concerned as public politicy.
Here, IMO, you have once again the contradiction between individual
and collective, and for that matter, that same contradiction, a split
actually is inbedded in us.
I believe I said this before, I always get that gut feeling that we dangle,
that we are fluctuating in and out the distiction collectiveness/
individuality
and back again.
What your last paragraph is concerned, I agree with your argument
that it is very difficult to constitute legitimate forms of representation
of certain social problems and in a way I comment this in the above.
Thanks for reading,
Best,
Kenneth
( I am, because we are) people
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