Good Sense

Melissa Dereberry's Blog

Archive for the category “Media”

01 Nov 2011
4 Comments

Rebel Without A Cause

I’m trying to decide if this comment is going to come off judgmental, self-righteous, extremist, whiny— but I’m just gonna say it anyway.  I would already be a published author if I were:

  1.  Gay
  2. Minority
  3. Celebrity
  4. Someone with an obvious political agenda
  5. Someone with ANY agenda

I feel I’m somewhat qualified to say this because I’ve spent the past several months educating myself about the book publishing industry. Having gone through the Writer’s Market three times now, I’ve found myself continually skipping entries because of their rigid editorial requirements.  I’m not a political activist or gay.  I’m not from North Carolina.  I don’t write about Eskimos.  I don’t have a particular religious slant.  I don’t have an agent.  I don’t write stories about bodies of water or roads or sailing.  SKIP, SKIP, SKIP, SKIP.  I don’t do any of these things.  I’m an outsider, a rebel without a cause.  I just write.  Where’s the market for that?

Authors with agendas—that’s nothing new.  There are plenty of authors throughout history who’ve spoken out against the political and cultural conventions of their day via their art.  But there were also plenty of authors whose work got distributed simply because it was interesting or good, not because he or she wanted to change the world.  Emily Dickinson scarcely left her little home in Amherst, Massachusetts and yet she is considered one of our greatest and most published poets of all time.  She was essentially a recluse, with a lot of imagination, and talent.

I’ve spent the past sixmonths or so educating myself about the world of publishing, and I’ve come to realize that the industry itself is in a state of transition that, sadly, will leave a lot of authors perplexed, if not completely baffled (myself among the latter).  While snagging a publisher for a book has never been considered easy, authors are now up against a number of roadblocks that previous generations would have never imagined.  Technology and cultural diversity are impacting the prospects of traditional publishing. Publishers have become so specialized and exclusive that it’s nearly impossible to find mainstream outlets.

Authorship is no longer the quiet, solitary profession it once was—gone are the days when words were carefully crafted, slowly digested, and quietly discovered.  We now live in a world that literally runs on communication.  We think faster than we can get words onto paper.  We launch lightning fast emails and comments on social networking sites, often without even thinking about  what we are saying. We have to think fast, know what we want, and be ever-ready for the next turn in the conversation.  I think this constant barrage of communication is one of the reasons we have difficulty finding time to read or focusing on what we’re reading. I have personally found myself skimming books lately.  In ten years, we will probably all be speed readers, and it’s a lot easier to scan pages on a touch screen than it is to flip pages in a book.

Electronic publishing, for some, remains the only alternative.  While e-book sales are currently only about 10 percent of actual book sales, some say that eventually, books will join eight track tapes, albums, cassettes, floppy disks, and CDs in the catacombs of antiquated media.  Part of me absolutely believes this.  It just makes sense.  Digital media is faster, most cost effective—it’s environmentally and economically forward thinking.  And yet—part of me isn’t sold yet.  Books have been around a heck of a lot longer than CDs.  The only predecessors to the book are the spoken word and scribed documents.  Maybe books are just late bloomers when it comes to keeping up with their media cousins.  But then again, maybe there’s something in our collective psyche that just isn’t ready to give up the dream—the feel, the smell of a real book in our hands, the hard evidence of knowledge, belief and thought.  There’s something inalterably authentic about a book. Digital media can be copied, pasted, mass produced in a matter of minutes.  Does instant and far-reaching access only serve to cheapen the content?  Should the form of access even matter?  It’s still the same content—there’s just more and more of it, every day.  Perhaps what will ultimately cheapen literature is this endless variety.

So I’m hanging on—rather loosely at this point.  It’s a dream, but sometimes, a dream is better than a thousand empty realities.

Posted in Creativity, Culture, Literary agents, Media, writing, Writing Life and tagged , ,
19 Aug 2011

Dumb and Dumber

 

Random topics recently overheard as my kids watch t.v.:  An asteroid is enroute to Earth and it will destroy the planet unless the Wizards of Waverly Place can use their magic to avert it.  Someone’s babysitter is a vampire and somehow a bunch of teens turn into dolls.  Some cartoon characters get lost in a cave and one of them turns into a bat and terrorizes the rest of them.  And would you believe that the kids on A.N.T. Farm are also facing an impending asteroid? My husband and I have a saying:  “Well, I think we’re all a little bit dumber after watching that.”  Dumber, maybe—but worse off?  It’s the $10,000 question of the media generation:  Does t.v. have a harmful effect on kids?

My immediate response is no—and yes, I realize some of my friends will not approve.  I mean, my kids have watched hours upon hours of t.v., and they seem to be doing ok.  They do well in school.  They are pretty good kids.  But—I firmly believe t.v. does affect them.  I’m just not sure about the greater implications of it, the long term results.  I don’t know for sure that it’s bad for them.  Also, I don’t think t.v. stands alone.  There are plenty of books, movies, games, and peers to introduce kids to the “dark side.”  Have you ever heard of something called “The Exorcist Maze game?”  Most third graders have.  It’s basically an online game that pranks the user by inserting a pop-up of Exorcist girl’s face right in the middle of the game.  The responses of these poor unsuspecting gamers are so intense and (apparently) so hysterically funny, that entire YouTube videos have been devoted to featuring the shots, one after the other.  In one of them, a kid about five years old gets so upset he starts crying, which broke my heart.  Who would show this to a little kid?

(Sidebar:  The same people who would insert these kinds of things into any video on YouTube.  If your child likes to search for Nerf War videos and things like this, just be on the alert for this sort of thing – read the comment sections before you let your child watch).

Our kids are exposed to graphic, larger-than-life images, some of which would scare the flip flops off my generation and make those Wizard of Oz
monkeys look like Zhu Zhu pets.  Where do we draw the line between fun fantasy and just plain creepiness?  How worrisome are these shows?

A news story surfaced recently about a 19 year old Texas man who, claiming to be a 500 year old vampire, broke into a random woman’s home and attempted to bite her neck.  As expected, the media discussions turned to the vampire fad of recent years, particularly the Twilight series, and how it has effected today’s youth.  No concrete evidence was presented that proved this individual had ever read or been exposed to any specific piece of literature or film, and yet, the media made the connection for us by conveniently bringing up the subject immediately following the report of the crime.

In my opinion, a vampire movie is not going to create a would-be vampire, unless said vampire is already a little psycho.  When someone is messed up, he will find an outlet for that, some way to get his frustrations or troubles outside of himself—thus, we have serial killers, uni-bombers, and vampire wannabes.  Not to make light of serious crimes, but my point is this:  The world has a plentiful supply of wackos already.  I don’t think Twilight is going to create more of them.

Back in the day, I would jump off the bus after school, race down my driveway, and plant myself infront of the t.v. just in time to catch The Brady Bunch.  You remember those days—when the most pressing problems weren’t vampires or asteroids, but Marsha getting hit in the nose with a football and Jan wearing a big black wig because she wanted to upstage her sister at the party. When the tarantula got into the beach bag in Hawaii, a collective gasp was heard from grade school kids all across America.  Oh the drama!

I guess what bothers me more than anything about kids programming today is that most of it really is just plain dumb–and dumber.  We have teens landing on an asteroid in a toy spaceship, another gang that lives and goes to school on a cruise ship.  These shows do absolutely nothing to prepare kids for the real world.  At least the Bradys faced somewhat realistic problems.  I mean, I don’t know about you, but I knew exactly what to do if I ever lost my mom’s earrings in the drain.

 

Posted in Culture, Kids, Media, Movies, Parenting and tagged , , | Leave a Comment
20 Jul 2011

Distraction

Last weekend, our town held the annual “Take A Stand” rally, which uses lemonade stands to raise awareness about child abuse.  One of them caught my eye, as it displayed what appeared to be two adult-size skeletons on either side.  It was a bold statement:  Death is the most tragic result of abuse.  But for me, the intent of the skeleton display missed the mark.  Was it really a message about child abuse, or was it also a message—fueled by Casey Anthony’s recent acquittal and public outcry over the verdict—that suggested she belongs on death row, not walking out of the Orange County jail?  What appeared to be merely a strong statement was nearly as outrageous as the media circus that had surrounded the Anthony case from the beginning.  Such antics do little to serve truth or justice, but, rather, simply distract us from real issues and problems that deserve our serious consideration.

Admittedly, I was a little intrigued by the Anthony saga.  Like many Americans, I got sucked into the story. After the trial and acquittal, I gave in to curiosity and clicked on aFox News link to watch the footage of Anthony’s release from jail.  As she stalked stony-faced, cameras flashing, trailing an atypical entourage of lawyers and police officers, the only thing missing from the scene was a pair of sunglasses.  The Anthony case has been repeatedly compared to the OJ Simpson trial that became a national sensation in 1995, all the way up to the footage of an SUV carrying Anthony down a Florida freeway, following her release.  But this one has a twist.  OJ was famous before his infamous trial.  Casey Anthony, a woman completely unknown three years ago, has become a celebrity through all this—the kind throngs of people love to hate—starring in a reality show that has gripped the nation and the world.

Beyond the most obviously disturbing element of this case—the death of a little girl—what’s ultimately unsettling is the role that public opinion, driven by the media, has played.  The overwhelming sentiment is that Anthony is guilty, despite having been fully examined, analyzed, and judged by our judicial system.  These people who stand outside the jail, shouting condemnations are responding to a case to which they have no personal connection.  Are they simply caught up in the drama, upset it didn’t end the way they’d hoped?  Or is it something more?  Are they arrogant enough to believe they know something the rest of the people in that courtroom didn’t?  But then I remember.  Casey Anthony was guilty” from day one, from the very first day this story hit the media.  Of course people are going to be upset.  If a killer walks free, it’s a great injustice, a tragedy in itself.

My point is this:  This case has been nothing but a big distraction from beginning to end, and I for one am baffled as to why it has gotten so much
attention.  When Bill O’Reilly actually made a comment about Anthony being “a good looking woman,” suggesting that this factor had relevance to the attention the case had garnered, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  Is that what we’ve come to?  Really??!  REALLY? I know there are agencies and organizations that hand out awards to media outlets for outstanding journalism and the like, but please, if there is one that gives out Media Pinhead Trophies, can we just nominate Bill for that one, based on this one asinine statement?

Distraction.

Every day, children go missing, are abused or the victims of unimaginable crimes.  Most sources cite the number of children who go missing every year at around 800,000.  John Walsh, the host of America’s Most Wanted, is quoted as saying that number is closer to 1.5 million, with about 50,000 of those that go completely unsolved.  (http://www.operationawareness.com/about_5.html)

It’s mind-boggling and disheartening to think how much time and energy was devoted to the exploitation of this one case, when those resources, applied in the right ways and in the most needed places, could have helped find or save the life of another endangered or missing child. Educating and training kids to recognize and avoid a dangerous situation would be a good place to start—and these simple tools, incredibly, are not even discussed or taught in our public schools.

One could argue, I suppose, that the media attention to this case has raised a bit of awareness about child abuse and child endangerment. But this awareness has been fueled by anger and emotion, which isn’t positive, nor helpful, in most cases.  Unfortunately in this one, anger and emotion have created a media and a public that tries, convicts, and exploits.  A story surfaced, just today, that a church in Ohio actually conducted a service that included a mock Casey Anthony trial, which ended, ironically enough, with a hung jury.

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/18/casey-anthony-mock-retrial_n_901463.html)

Distraction:  I believe it is nothing more than a failure to acknowledge God’s sovereignty.

God, and only God, has the final say on all matters, including what ultimately happens to Casey Anthony.  Though we must have legal precedent and procedures in a civilized society, we ultimately have no right to say what she does or doesn’t deserve.  The twelve people who sat on that jury found her not guilty in the eyes of the law, not in the eyes of public opinion.  Yes, it’s possible they made a mistake, but creating a spectacle, protesting, and issuing death threats to the woman are not going to change the outcome—this is not a reality show; it’s simply Reality.  Distraction, as much as we may enjoy it, impedes God’s work from being put into action where it’s truly needed.  God help Casey Anthony, and God help us all.

Posted in Culture, Current Events, Media and tagged , , | Leave a Comment
14 May 2011
4 Comments

The Party’s Over

The Party’s Over

Have you ever noticed that Facebook is often little more than a barrage of personal vendettas, gripe sessions and complaints?  Don’t get me wrong—overall, there are a lot of positive things going on in social network central—everything from baby announcements to birthday greetings to weight loss to all manner of personal accomplishments and triumphs.  On the other hand, there’s a lot of bad news, too.  People launch indignant complaints and grievances like brooding teenagers at a sleepover.  Facebook is crawling with passive aggressive banter that can make even the most liberal of us groan with aggravated distaste. 

Here’s a paraphrase of one of my favorite Facebook grievances:

            I’m really sick and tired of so-called friends.  Yeah, you know who you are.  I’m so over it.  Moving on.

I have personally witnessed people on Facebook:

  • Criticize their spouse
  • Complain about their job
  • Slam law enforcement and public officials and administrators
  • Openly insult random people
  • Post provocative and/or crude photos or links
  • Make threatening or degrading statements to a person or group
  • Announce they are not home, on vacation, or that their spouse is not home (not a big deal amongst friends, unless your privacy settings allow your status to post to anyone who is searching or looking).

Most of the time, I am pretty open-minded.  Not much bothers me unless it is openly racist, pornographic or violent.  But I have to say, I am puzzled.  Why do people feel compelled to so willingly air their private information, thoughts and problems? 

It’s interesting, to say the least.  I mean, some of us are just more chatty or open with others.  We are the ones who never met a stranger, who wouldn’t mind sitting down with someone we just met and telling them about our crazy childhood, or our obsession with bubble wrap, for example.  We are social butterflies, flitting from one conversation to another, in hopes of squirming our way into them.

Then, there are those of us who are simply more private.  We tend to keep to ourselves.  We aren’t particularly social, but we have friends—often, we have more close, deep relationships with fewer people.  We are guarded.  It may take us months to tell a friend about a problem we have or a difficult experience we went through.

Some of us may fall in the middle.  We are outgoing and social, yet prudent in how we communicate, and in what we choose to reveal about ourselves.  We demand an understated respect from those around us.

I would classify myself amongst the second group.  I’m a private person—to a degree.  I’ve been told I’m hard to get to know, but then, once you get to know me, there’s a whole lot of deep stuff underneath the surface.  Pretty much pegs my personality, I think.  For those of us who fall into this group, Facebook can confound us.  We sit back, eavesdropping on other people’s lives, wondering, what on earth people are thinking.  The acronym TMI (Too Much Information) takes on new meaning. 

I mean, do people think no one is paying attention?  Are they firing off in hopes that the one person they’re mad at will suddenly, upon reading their post, have an “AHA!” moment and feel terrible for being such a jerk?  Are these ramblings merely cries for help?  Are they self-directed therapy of some sort?  Are they momentary lapses of reason?

Oh boy, I am probably going to lose some friends over this one…

I don’t know about you, but sometimes, I just want to check out.  Thankfully, Facebook gives me the option to do just that.  Have you ever, for the preservation of your own sanity, selected a blanket removal from your news feed of all posts by a particular person?  Have you ever just wanted to turn off the conversation?

I am going to show my age here, but when I was a kid, we had a party line.  For those of you young ‘uns who don’t know that that is, it’s a shared telephone line amongst neighbors.  In other words it’s like having about fifteen people in a house with one phone line and two telephones.  If you had a hankering to, you could pick up the phone all hours of the day and actually hear your neighbors’ private conversations.  As a kid, it could be wildly entertaining—hence the name, “Party”—until you got bored listening to some lady talk about her bunions and decided to hang up. 

Somewhere, sometime way back, a smart individual decided that party lines were a bad idea.  The whole modern day telecommunications industry was founded on the principle that everyone should have their own line because we don’t need to know each other’s business—for personal privacy, as well as safety reasons.  What a concept! 

Facebook is a little like a party line…except, I’m not eight years old, and I’m not back in my pink shag carpeted room with my Shawn Cassidy poster, muffling a giggle as the neighbors argue over dog poop on the phone.  Somehow, it’s not so fun anymore.  The party’s over.  Sigh.  Growing up sucks.

Posted in Culture, Media, Social Networking, Technology and tagged ,
28 Jan 2011

Where Were You?

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster.  Many of us remember exactly where we were, of course, as it is one of those impactful moments that one never forgets.  I was a junior in high school when it happened, and I was sitting in French class.  I can’t remember that teacher’s name, but her face is forever burned in my memory because of how it looked that day, pale and sallow as she stood at the front of the room and explained what had happened.  Honestly, I can’t remember if we were already watching the launch at the time, or if she turned it on afterwards so we could see the footage, but as we watched, I remember being very confused.  The impact of it did not come until later, as the footage and discussion of it circulated on the news and amongst everyone for days after that.  Remembering that event immediately makes me think of 9/11.  The day Elvis died.  Princess Diana’s tragic end.  I know exactly where I was those times.  But there are plenty of other events in my lifetime–arguably just as notable, equally as tragic–that I have little memory of.  Where was I when John Lennon was assassinated?  During the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan?  When the Berlin Wall fell?  When the World Trade Center was bombed the first time?  Oklahoma City bombing?  Columbine?  Why are some events catalogued so specifically in my personal history and yet others are not?

The media has a lot to do with why we remember events, of course.  The more media coverage, the higher likelihood we will see it, repeatedly, and remember it.  But why the specific moments?   

Perhaps our memory of events such as assassinations are detailed because they involve just one person–one important person.  It makes sense that our consciousness would save those because there’s less for it to keep track of.  The singularity of the event is key.  But what about events that involve several people?  The first WTC bombing for example.  I remember virtually nothing about it.  But I remember that I was sitting on a plaid couch in my pajamas, in my living room in Rolla, MO, just getting ready to get in the shower, when the Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2001.  Is there a tipping point with regard to the numbers?  Does the sheer number of people killed that day drive its impact, make it more personal?   Or does our brain go back to the singularity and seize on say, one specific image–such as an explosion?

Al sorts of variables come into play, of course–the environment we are in, whether or not a teacher or someone else is reinforcing the memory, how much we engage with the media, and what elements of our own personal history get stirred when a tragic event happens.  But are our memories of specific events so closely tied to who we are that the memory is manifested as where we are?  Does it matter much, cognitively speaking, if the person impacted is a head of state or a close family member, for example?  Does our consciousness distinguish events based on internal, or external, criteria? 

I remember where I was then my grandmother passed away.  I was sitting at a desk at work eating my lunch when the phone rang.  It was my aunt calling to tell me.  After I got off the phone, I stood up, walked around for a few confused minutes, then returned to the class where I was substituting.  The hallway became sort of surreal, people passing me in a haze.  I remember thinking, “My grandma just died.”  And I wanted to tell someone, but there was no one to tell.  It was a rather small event in the grand scheme of things, but to me, in that instant, it was as impactful as a bomb, a pulled trigger, something gone terribly, catastrophically wrong.  For me, it was a moment sadly, and so vividly, to remember.

 

Posted in 20th Century Events, Current Events, Media, Memory and tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment
05 Jan 2011

Birds Of A Feather

The Internet has been abuzz lately with reports of birds falling out of the sky and waterways filling up with dead fish.  Just google the words “bird deaths” and you will get everything from official news reports to chat rooms prattling on about conspiracy theories and apocalypse and humanity’s contribution to global climate change.  In Louisiana, 500 birds found.  In Kentucky, only a handful by comparison.  Now, there are similar reports in Maryland, Sweden and Brazil.  Chatter around the media has become as loud and overwhelming as a flock itself—and it’s getting bigger every day. 

Admittedly, when news of the nearly 5,000 birds found dead in Arkansas surfaced, I was intrigued enough to follow the story, and to take note of others that followed.  I found myself saying things like, “Maybe it’s the end of the world” and “What’s going on?”  But common sense tells me there is both less—and more—to this string of oddities. 

First of all, it all started, conveniently, just before midnight, on New Year’s Eve, at a time when people are naturally more susceptible to the impending uncertainty that surrounds the coming of a new year.  We get anxious when change is approaching.  A flock of dead birds on New Year’s Eve is fodder for this collective anxiety.  Imagine if this story had surfaced on the crux of the millennium.  Back then, Y2K was going to render our precious technology defunct, derail our computer systems, and throw us into an archaic tailspin.  Reports of dying animals would have sent most of us into a fetal position on the floor of our closet. 

 Secondly, I believe our country has grown increasingly paranoid over the last ten years, and paranoia is the media’s best friend.  A slow news day is particularly fertile ground for stirring up fear and trepidation.  Not only does the media exploit anxiety, but we eat it up.  Remember the  duct tape frenzy?  Retailers even got in on that one.  Face it, the media is quick to jump on our nerves and feed us just what we don’t need to hear—or, feed us what will serve the particular fear or even political squabble of the day.  The Arkansas bird story might not have made national news, say, five years ago, when we were under a Republican administration.

 The fact is, mass animal deaths are, according to experts, not that unusual.  In fact, if you go to the USGS (United States Geological Survey), you will find detailed reports on all sorts of weather, environmental and wildlife events.  In the following link, you will find quarterly reports specific to wildlife deaths. 

http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/quarterly_reports/index.jsp

What you will find is that millions of animals have been found dead—in groups numbering from a handful to hundreds of thousands—since 1995.  The causes range anywhere from gunshot to weather to starvation and diseases such as botulism, avian cholera and fungal infections.  For example, 10,000 birds were found dead in CA in 1995, reportedly due to botulism.  Nearly 30,000 birds of various kinds were found dead across the country in the third quarter of 2009.  And I’d venture to bet that few of you know about a million frogs dying off in 2009.  The cause?  Fungus.  Only a handful of these cases are unsolved.  For example, about 20,000 birds were found dead in Mexico in 1995, due to unknown causes.

The media is ruffling our feathers, and some of us are joining the flock.  Mass animal deaths are troubling, and they can be alarming, sometimes, depending on the circumstances.  As a nature lover and a supporter of conservation, I am saddened by these reports.  But, at the end of the day, most of these deaths can be attributed to natural causes.  The majority of them are the result of disease, not God’s wrath upon the earth, or man’s destruction of the earth.  What we are witnessing is the reality of the planet we share with the animals we love.

-Melissa Dereberry

Posted in Current Events, Media, Misc. and tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

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