Today, new blogger Wendy Faunce comments on a recent news story that confirms society's emphasis on appearance. The balance between religion and government is a tricky issue, especially when it comes to the case of a woman referred to as “D” by London court’s Judge Murphy. For the sake of modesty, “D” prefers to wear a niqab (pictured below).
The problem is, “D” has been called to testify in London court and the jury and judge feel that they cannot judge her testimony fairly without a full view of her face. This has resulted in many problems for the courts, but many more problems for “D” herself.
It is the jury’s job to make judgments about “D’s” person based on her testimony. However, the fact that she chooses to wear a niqab already has the potential to make an immediate impression on the jury. As a result, the jury members are likely to judge her based on her religion instead of her testimony which, of course, would be unfair. More conflict has been stirred by the fact that she has been asked to remove her niqab for the entire courtroom, jury, and undoubtedly the press, to see. Because “D” has refused, awkward conversations must happen. This occurrence left me with more questions than information. Why haven’t issues concerning niqabs in courtrooms already been settled? Surely this is not the first case in the U.K. in which a woman covering her face for religious reasons has been called to testify. What has been done in previous cases? How did the women feel about either removing or keeping it on? Did they feel that they were being judged unfairly because of removing or keeping it on? Also, why is the fact that she began wearing the niqab last year an issue? This decision is a brave one and is an essential part of her personal belief. This decision, though it is a new one, must be respected as such. If a woman has only recently begun to wear modest clothing within the past year, does that make her less modest than a woman that has done so all of her life? Absolutely not. I commend this woman for staying firm in what she believes to be right. Just because her niqab poses an inconvenience for the court does not mean that she should be forced to do something that compromises her personal view of modesty. The London court system should accommodate her and all women who find themselves in a situation like hers by allowing her to keep her niqab on during her testimony.
This week on our radio show, Media Matters is talking about how Ball State feeds Muncie and vice versa. This Saturday, there will be no greater example of people feeding off each other than during the Muncie Zombie Walk. Not only does the event literally feed the community — with food donations benefitting the Second Harvest Food Bank and Animal Rescue Fund — it also spreads an infectious energy and sense of fun throughout the campus and surrounding area. But why use horror for this humane event? One of the zombie walk's head organizers Robert Abner points to the strong sense of community the horror genre creates — a great reminder of how media does, in fact, matter. "People come together for horror. Just look at horror conventions. You don't see action or comedy conventions," Abner said. "This genre sparks a connection between people unlike any other." As the Grace Village campus minister, Abner is often questioned for his love of these violent films. "These movies aren't just about bloody zombies," Abner said. "They're ultimately about people banding together for a common goal and what it takes to survive." That's precisely what the zombie walk is about as well. Muncie is not the only city that hosts a zombie walk, but no other city does it quite like Muncie. "Muncie is Muncie, you know? It has character," Abner said. He and I went on to joke about how Muncie is perfect for a zombie walk, as it has the quaint charm of a town from a George Romero zombie film. To Abner, the zombie walk opens people up to this town, especially students. "When I was a student here, it's like I didn't know there was anything beyond McGalliard. The zombie walk helps bridge that gap between Ball State and Muncie." Last year's walk had 350 zombies and helped raise over a thousand pounds of food and money, respectively, for charity. This year's walk will take place Saturday at 3, starting at the Quad. Participants should bring a few non-perishable food items or pet food. Tune in to 91.3 WCRD from 11-noon for more on events like this and the beneficial relationship between Ball State and Muncie.
For the past year, Media Matters has been an intimate organization. Four people sipping Starbucks and spouting thoughts about issues such as militainment, celebrity influence, advertising ethics, etc.
Now we want to invite others into our huddle. Thursday, September 5, this organization will stand with others at the Ball State Super Party in the hopes of gaining new members.
We want this to be a big group, but one imbued with intimacy. That’s the magic of Media Matters — it’s like a coffee chat with friends, but one that leads to provocative, environment-altering ideas. It’s a discussion that ultimately reminds us of the childlike wonder with which we should view the world of media. We want to step back from our screens and play a hand in this media that shapes us. Join us, and we will dissect film, television, music, politics, and all the other parts of what we call the public screen.
By Sam Watermeier The computer is like electronic cocaine. While that may seem like the kind of hyperbolic intro a college student like me would write to grab attention, it is actually the exact description of cyberspace uttered by Peter Whybrow, the director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. Experts like Whybrow assert that the Internet is infecting us like an addictive drug, "fueling cycles of mania followed by depressive stretches." While these cycles are certainly visible, most people probably wouldn't take them seriously, treating the notion of Internet addiction the same as the one that TV rots our brains. Apparently, though, there is actually proof out there that the Internet is changing our brain matter. In a study published last year (and cited in this article), Chinese researchers linked Internet addiction to "structural abnormalities in gray matter," specifically shrinkage of 10 to 20 percent of the brain responsible for processing of speech, memory, motor control, emotion, sensory, and other information. And the more time the surveyed brains engaged with the Internet, the more they showed signs of shrinkage. Studies like this are still in the chicken-or-the-egg phase in the sense that brain scans don't reveal which came first — the Internet abuse or the brain changes. But many clinicians contend that a link exists between Internet use and impulsive behavior and also that the rise in OCD and ADHD diagnosis is positively correlated to technology use. A 1998 Carnegie Mellon study linked Internet use over a two-year period to loneliness and depression. Skeptics of the study complained about its lack of range and diversity, specifically the fact that all the subjects lived in Pittsburgh. In the years since that study, numerous other studies have duplicated the Carnegie Mellon findings and expanded them, showing that the more people go online to find comfort, the worse they will feel, as the web displaces sleep, exercise, and face-to-face interaction — all of which contribute to our well-being. Scholars at Case Western Reserve University even correlated heavy social-media use to suicidal thinking. (Isn't that reflective of drug use — something with an initial mood-elevating appeal leading to self-destruction?) As stated in the hyperlinked article above, "if Internet use is unhealthy, it's clear that many Americans don't want to be well." Most of us stare at a screen for at least eight hours a day. Considering one of the early flags for addiction was spending more than 38 hours a week online, we are all addicts now. If the Internet is a drug, everyone is doing it. Internet use is encouraged. We're on the Internet right now! The trick is to avoid abusing it. Be sure to tune in to 91.3 this Saturday from 11 to noon when Media Matters will further explore the implications of Internet use.
In his book, "The Paradox of Choice," psychologist Barry Schwartz perfectly summarizes the way I'm sure we all feel when we park ourselves in front of some form of media to find fulfillment."We are free to be the authors of our own lives, but we don't know exactly what kind of lives we want to write," Schwartz states.
Media gives us writing prompts, so to speak — and enticingly
simple, easy prompts for that matter. Countless commercials tell us, “Do ____,
and you will be happy.” In other words, the media — particularly self-help
media — has turned us into satisficers, leading us to settle or tunnel-focus on
one path to happiness rather than embrace the multitude of routes to it (like maximizers). At
least it has had that effect on me. When it comes to how I can feel better about myself,
I tend to focus on big, tangible goals rather than taking each day at a time and
being the best I can be from moment to moment. In other words, I don’t do what
maximizers do in terms of considering all possible aspects of my life that I
can work on to improve my well-being. Over the past five years or so, I have
been almost entirely focused on three goals — getting published, losing weight,
and establishing romantic relationships. In my pursuit of these goals, I basically did what
Schwartz suggests in “The Paradox of Choice” — focusing my time and energy on
choices in my life that mattered most to me and thereby letting many other
opportunities pass me by. However, in hindsight, I think I let too many
opportunities pass. For example, when I dabbled in newspaper work, I sacrificed
my personal life for a professional one, even to the extent that I took my work
with me everywhere, talking about almost nothing but my writing with family and
friends. Although this complete focus on my professional
identity was a comforting distraction from my less comfortable personal
identity, it prevented me from engaging with other aspects of myself and those
around me. Friends’ eyes glazed over when I spoke as if I was dictating an
article. “Sam, relax. You sound like a newspaper,” they often said. And they
seemed even more frustrated when I beat myself up over not meeting expectations
with my writing. I wasn’t myself around people; I was always rehearsing to be
the ideal form of myself. And that rehearsal, that distance from the moment, made connections difficult. Losing weight isolated me more. I put so much time
into shaping up to be more socially confident that I forgot to work on actually
socializing, which would have helped even more when it came to starting romantic
relationships.
After all this work — building my creative, professional identity, improving my appearance, etc. — I'm finally in the
position I thought I needed to be in to successfully establish romantic
connections. But during all this time spent on doing what I thought
would make others approve of me, I forgot to explore what I approve in
myself. And it's quite difficult to form strong connections with people when you don't feel comfortable connecting with yourself.
I didn’t realize that people already saw good in me,
that I had intangible qualities. I thought I needed some tangible thing
to be happy with myself and other
people. (At least that’s what I thought when I saw ads for eHarmony and
Special
K.) Those ads create too much pressure and unrealistic expectations. A
self-esteem boost from some product
or endeavor should be a secondary side effect, not the primary
motivation for
jumping into anything. We need more ads like the one below, ads that remind us of
our inherent potential and encourage us to embrace it rather than
making us feel like we have to construct it.
While satisficing may be a good way to avoid the
stress of excess choice, I’ve realized that it can also be detrimental. We live
in a world that tells us all we need to do is find a career or lose weight or
get a girlfriend to make us happy. It’s not that simple. The key to happiness
is much less tangible. It’s about feeling comfortable with yourself first, even
before you head over to eHarmony or hit the gym. But learning to love yourself
isn’t as easy — or marketable — as popping a pill or the notion of quickly
choosing a flattering outfit. When those actions don’t work, it’s a relief to
know that there are other choices out there, other paths to happiness that we
can traverse. What the media doesn’t tell us is that it’s a hard road.
Happiness is not just a click away.
This kind of ad proves how words are sometimes mightier than weapons. What kind of language do you respond to most strongly? What are your God and Devil terms, the words to which your response reveals what kind of person you are? What is the most memorable "spin" you've seen put on certain phrases, like "weekend passes?"
Painter Steven James explained art best. "Nature is larger than life, and that's the way art
should be." Cultivation theory founder George Gerbner would argue that nature is larger than life because art made it seem that way. According to the cultivation analysis, heavy television viewers (who watch more than four hours a day) are more likely to see the social world as a reflection of the one depicted on TV. But if the social world is like the one on TV, wouldn’t we see less people glued to
their computers? In this age of passive online communication, TV
allows us to vicariously experience more upfront, honest expression. Take the
HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The hero Larry David says the kinds of
things most of us only feel comfortable expressing anonymously on the internet.
Impure thoughts are funny on TV because they're usually unexpressed in real life, David says. Therefore, the social world
isn't what we see on TV, as Gerbner’s theory suggests about the
way people perceive it.
Rather, television provides an idealized version of it. Even reality TV is essentially a fantasy or an amplification of the everyday. Surely women don't bicker as viciously all the time as they do on "The Real Housewives." David says he never worries about crossing the proverbial line because that's what viewers expect him to do, especially on HBO. It's his responsibility to express what they cannot, to be a vessel for their frustrations.
The nature of TV is that it is a
special dimension, giving its inhabitants a sense of power to do things others
normally wouldn’t in real life. It's troubling to step back from a show like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and realize you and most others around you are not as open and honest as Larry David's character. As Pablo Picasso said, "Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth." Apparently, David’s blunt honesty is bleeding
over into more objective television as well. Even so-called "fair and
balanced” news television is clearly becoming a myth, moving from a "just
the facts, ma'am" approach to more theatrical and opinionated entertainment
(e.g. "Morning Joe," "The O'Reilly Factor," etc.) There's a reason why people turn to the tube instead of other sources in the world outside of it — the reason being that television provides sensational spectacle. As soon as something is filtered through a camera, it loses a sense of raw reality and becomes something more exciting — a funhouse reflection of it. Our world will never completely be like the one on TV, as Gerbner suggests, because the very nature of television is larger than life. When heavy watchers see it as a reflection of their world, they are idealizing, imagining a reality that is as big and exciting as the art of television.
