Human beings have a tendency to favor pattern and order while disliking chaos and randomness. We like to “perceive trends [even when] there are none” to perceive (Levy 184).” This is one of the many reasons why we appreciate the ability of predictability so much. Many aspects of human lives is about predictability; do I need an umbrella for tomorrow, should I sell my stock right now, or whether the river card is going to be an ace of heart and get me a royal flush. Most of the gambling game especially poker based itself off of predictability and order. I remember reading an article about the first time a royal flush appears on TV and how everyone is making a big deal about it. The news article itself claims that the chance of getting a royal flush is 1 out of 650,000 and that he is such a lucky guy. However, if one really thinks about it, one will realize that the chance getting any other random hand is as low as a royal flush. People just like the royal flush because it consisted of pattern and order.
There are many more examples that prove these humans urge of pattern and trends. One of the most obvious examples is the phone numbers and the car license plate. It does not take a genius to guess what the most expensive phone numbers or a car license plate will look like. On 22nd May 2006, a phone number 666-6666 was sold for 1.5 million pounds – equivalent nearly 2 million dollars while the most expensive license plate number 1 is sold for 14.3 million dollars. Regardless of how much money these people have, what makes these numbers more favorable than my phone number 642-8349? One last thing that does not make sense to me about pattern and order is the idea of anniversary. Why don’t people appreciate the 11th years of marriage as much as they do with the 10th? or why is "there no reason anyone even attempts to give you as to why at sixty-five you should change your life (McKibben)." This further proves that Levy is right when he claims that “the human mind is just simply badly with randomness and chaos (Levy 183).”
The IPod takes advantage of this and came out with the “Shuffle.” One interesting thing about the IPod shuffle is that there are many controversies whether the shuffling process is really random. Many people including myself have a hard time believing that it is since the ITunes or IPod like play one album more than other. Some even claim that the IPod plays great song, many that exactly fit their moods. So out of my curiosity I went online and find out the probability of hearing 2 songs consecutively from the same album given 3000 songs and 300 albums. To my surprise, the chance is as high as 90% that I will hear 2 songs consecutively from the same album if I listen to a set of 15 songs 3 times a day. Moreover, I begin to realize that I tend to only notice and point it out to myself when there are two songs playing consecutively from the same album because it does not fit my perception of random. So actually, it is not really the “shuffle [that] is flawed, but the problem is actually in our heads (Levy 183).” Furthermore, chances are that the song one put in to the IPod are the songs one likes and commonly fits one’s mood, so again it is not odd for IPod to play songs that are great and fits the mood.
Since chaos is such a predominant part of reality, human beings tend to create order out of chaos. Using the IPod example, one way Apple create order out of chaos is by introducing the “Smart Shuffle” to the IPod enabling users to “control how likely [they] are to hear multiple songs in a row by the same album or artists (Levy 186).” Apple is basically patronizing the users and creating the illusion that fits the users’ perspective of random – which is the perception of dissimilarities. Creating order out of chaos has become so predominant that we now accept it as our nature and did not see the peculiarities behind it. Because when one really thinks about it, isn’t labeling, stereotyping and generalizing all of creating order out of chaos? Whether or not you admit it, we all live in chaos.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Presidential Election 2008 - Who's Responsible?
It should not come as a surprise for anyone to see bias at work in the media throughout this coming 2008 presidential election between Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama. Since I am not a United State citizen, I am not eligible to vote and therefore less incline to pay any attention to the coming presidential election (even though I realized that I will definitely be affected by whoever becomes president, either directly or indirectly). However, even though I did not follow the election as well as I could, I was still able to detect many forms of media biased that fits flawlessly well with many of Pierre Bourdieu’s arguments presented in “On Television.”
One of Bourdieu’s strongest arguments concerning today’s media is that, one principle that determines the selection “is the search for the sensational and the spectacular.” This search Bourdiue talks about can be clearly seen in the election as media try to focus more on the politicians’ characteristic and personalities rather than the very policies that put them in the place that they are. One of the stories that receive a lot of the attention is about Obama’s pastor; Jeremiah Wright. Although it is inarguable that Jeremiah Wright have said some controversial things using inflammatory rhetoric such as “God dammed America” or by claiming that America has brought 9/11 attack with its own terrorism; this does not at all mean that Obama agrees with all his ideologies and principles. The visiting author Pollitts, even raised the question “what happen to religion being a personal issue?” and mention that if one was to really investigate into another person’s religion, one can usually find something to criticize.
While Obama received a lot of attention on this pastor, McCain, regardless of how his pastor is, received a rather little to no attention. But if one was to dig into his pastor, one will find out that his pastor; John Hagee is rather controversial as well is not more. Some of many controversial views John Hagee has includes how “Hurrican Katrina is God punishment against New Orleans for hosting a homosexual parade” or that “Jew brought the Holocausts upon themselves for turning away from God.” Why then did one receive so much attention while another received as little if not at all? Is this simply media bias or what Bourdieu was talking about as he claims how “paradoxically television can hide by showing?” Furthermore, given all this, does it make sense to even consider comparing Jeremiah Wright with John Hagee, to uses something else other than the candidates themselves and their policies in improving this country to be the basis of one’s decision? I personally do not think so.
Another one of Bourdiue’s argument that clearly links to and supports the previous argument is that media tend to prefer to confront “individual instead of confronting their arguments.” Many who follow Howard Stern may have come across a video clip (at the bottom of the text) where he went around asking people why they support Barack Obama; responding to the view that people vote Obama simply because he is African American. So what he did was asking why these people support Obama while giving them a choice between two of McCain policies. Surprisingly, many did not even notice that the choices given were McCain policies and just plainly picked one or the other. He even asks whether they agree with Obama in selecting Sarah Palin as his Vice President. Again, everyone just simply say they agree with Obama and support Palin as Vice President. This raises many questions. First is whether this is a scripted questionnaire and that Howard Stern makes all this up. But if all of this is legitimate, this situation can be very concerning. One of the many things I wondered is whether this problem is caused by the media or simply just humans’ ignorance and foolishness.
Whatever it is, this incident further proves that people seem to care much more about the candidates’ personalities and the way they hold themselves rather than their policies and the strategies for improving the country. Did this happen because of how the media is trying to be sensational and dramatic and therefore totally skipped out on the politic it should originally be focused on? Though I would say I believe this is partly the individual’s foolishness, I have to agree that media did an excellent job of swaying individual to one way or another by just simply shinning a positive light or negative light on a candidate. I say this because, though I do not follow this election that closely, I am sway to support Obama, clearly not because I agree with anyone of his policies (I don’t even know them) but simply because he is a good talker. I fully realize that this is very superficial but I know there are more people like me out there and I guess this is something we as a society need to improve.
One of Bourdieu’s strongest arguments concerning today’s media is that, one principle that determines the selection “is the search for the sensational and the spectacular.” This search Bourdiue talks about can be clearly seen in the election as media try to focus more on the politicians’ characteristic and personalities rather than the very policies that put them in the place that they are. One of the stories that receive a lot of the attention is about Obama’s pastor; Jeremiah Wright. Although it is inarguable that Jeremiah Wright have said some controversial things using inflammatory rhetoric such as “God dammed America” or by claiming that America has brought 9/11 attack with its own terrorism; this does not at all mean that Obama agrees with all his ideologies and principles. The visiting author Pollitts, even raised the question “what happen to religion being a personal issue?” and mention that if one was to really investigate into another person’s religion, one can usually find something to criticize.
While Obama received a lot of attention on this pastor, McCain, regardless of how his pastor is, received a rather little to no attention. But if one was to dig into his pastor, one will find out that his pastor; John Hagee is rather controversial as well is not more. Some of many controversial views John Hagee has includes how “Hurrican Katrina is God punishment against New Orleans for hosting a homosexual parade” or that “Jew brought the Holocausts upon themselves for turning away from God.” Why then did one receive so much attention while another received as little if not at all? Is this simply media bias or what Bourdieu was talking about as he claims how “paradoxically television can hide by showing?” Furthermore, given all this, does it make sense to even consider comparing Jeremiah Wright with John Hagee, to uses something else other than the candidates themselves and their policies in improving this country to be the basis of one’s decision? I personally do not think so.
Another one of Bourdiue’s argument that clearly links to and supports the previous argument is that media tend to prefer to confront “individual instead of confronting their arguments.” Many who follow Howard Stern may have come across a video clip (at the bottom of the text) where he went around asking people why they support Barack Obama; responding to the view that people vote Obama simply because he is African American. So what he did was asking why these people support Obama while giving them a choice between two of McCain policies. Surprisingly, many did not even notice that the choices given were McCain policies and just plainly picked one or the other. He even asks whether they agree with Obama in selecting Sarah Palin as his Vice President. Again, everyone just simply say they agree with Obama and support Palin as Vice President. This raises many questions. First is whether this is a scripted questionnaire and that Howard Stern makes all this up. But if all of this is legitimate, this situation can be very concerning. One of the many things I wondered is whether this problem is caused by the media or simply just humans’ ignorance and foolishness.
Whatever it is, this incident further proves that people seem to care much more about the candidates’ personalities and the way they hold themselves rather than their policies and the strategies for improving the country. Did this happen because of how the media is trying to be sensational and dramatic and therefore totally skipped out on the politic it should originally be focused on? Though I would say I believe this is partly the individual’s foolishness, I have to agree that media did an excellent job of swaying individual to one way or another by just simply shinning a positive light or negative light on a candidate. I say this because, though I do not follow this election that closely, I am sway to support Obama, clearly not because I agree with anyone of his policies (I don’t even know them) but simply because he is a good talker. I fully realize that this is very superficial but I know there are more people like me out there and I guess this is something we as a society need to improve.
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