Back on the air
So it's been a while since I've been around in blogland. been keeping an eye on it from afar, but it's been so hectic in tchickland i've barely had a second to scratch myself.
Good to see blogheadfuckroll back up, brilliant rant about VSU, but you really should have left your last rant up, there are a few people around these parts who I'm sure would have had something to say about that :P
There was an article in the Weekend Australian today (which I can't find online) about a fundamentalist Christian Shortwave radio station intent on spreading the word in Far North Western Kununurra. Local residents are campaigning to have it shut down for fear that it may make them terrorist targets. What caught my eye was not the exploration of australian nationalism and xenophobia (is that really surprising?) but this little gem:
"HCJB grew out of the ham radio movement, which was at its height in the 1920s and '30s. The invention of wireless was akin to the invention of the Internet - an amazing technological breakthrough that overcame the limits distance placed on the human voice. Anyone with a shortwave transmitter powerful enough could be heard in every corner of the world. Today's Internet bloggers, offering their voices and opinions to anyone who clicks on are the direct descendents of these ham radio nuts"
I'm having a little trouble drawing this comparison myself.
When I was about five years old I was given a pink transistor radio. It had three channels, FM, AM and SW (Shortwave). At night I would lie awake late, flicking through Shortwave channels eavesdropping on everything from banal weather reports to the illicit affairs of local farmers. It was better than soap operas. Husbands and wives filling each other in on the events of the day, SES workers mopping up after minor disasters, kids chatting to each other about their lives.
Ok sure I do the modern equivalent of that from time to time - that is i browse randomly through people's blogs. I once spent an entire afternoon enthralled by an incomprehensively vapid twenty year old american chick's blog. She had just bought a pair of sandals at the mall with her mother that morning and couldnt decide whether to wear the pink or the black dress to the party that night. (She was also trying to convice her boyfriend that just because she sent him a catalougue of diamond rings, she didnt really expect him to propose - but I digress).
Anyway, It's late in the day and I've had a cunt of a week, so I'm having trouble explaining why this comparison doesnt sit well with me so well. I guess what I'm getting at is just because the internet makes it easy for the average joe blow to write down their streams of consciousness for all to see, doesn't necessarily mean they're offering "voices and opinions", nor does it mean that anyone is actually listening. Operating on the idea that "i blog, therefore I'm interesting" is not enough.
I simply don't think the advent of blogging can be seen as a "amazing technological breakthrough that overcame the limits distance placed on the human voice" Just because you're in the public sphere, doesnt mean you're interesting. Take Big Brother for instance.
So before I start ranting on and drawing comparisons between blogs, Big Brother and Foucault's panopticon or Lyotard's "death of meta-narratives", I've decided I need to get away from my computer and get a life. So guess what I'll be doing for the rest of the weekend ....
only kidding ...
Good to see blogheadfuckroll back up, brilliant rant about VSU, but you really should have left your last rant up, there are a few people around these parts who I'm sure would have had something to say about that :P
There was an article in the Weekend Australian today (which I can't find online) about a fundamentalist Christian Shortwave radio station intent on spreading the word in Far North Western Kununurra. Local residents are campaigning to have it shut down for fear that it may make them terrorist targets. What caught my eye was not the exploration of australian nationalism and xenophobia (is that really surprising?) but this little gem:
"HCJB grew out of the ham radio movement, which was at its height in the 1920s and '30s. The invention of wireless was akin to the invention of the Internet - an amazing technological breakthrough that overcame the limits distance placed on the human voice. Anyone with a shortwave transmitter powerful enough could be heard in every corner of the world. Today's Internet bloggers, offering their voices and opinions to anyone who clicks on are the direct descendents of these ham radio nuts"
I'm having a little trouble drawing this comparison myself.
When I was about five years old I was given a pink transistor radio. It had three channels, FM, AM and SW (Shortwave). At night I would lie awake late, flicking through Shortwave channels eavesdropping on everything from banal weather reports to the illicit affairs of local farmers. It was better than soap operas. Husbands and wives filling each other in on the events of the day, SES workers mopping up after minor disasters, kids chatting to each other about their lives.
Ok sure I do the modern equivalent of that from time to time - that is i browse randomly through people's blogs. I once spent an entire afternoon enthralled by an incomprehensively vapid twenty year old american chick's blog. She had just bought a pair of sandals at the mall with her mother that morning and couldnt decide whether to wear the pink or the black dress to the party that night. (She was also trying to convice her boyfriend that just because she sent him a catalougue of diamond rings, she didnt really expect him to propose - but I digress).
Anyway, It's late in the day and I've had a cunt of a week, so I'm having trouble explaining why this comparison doesnt sit well with me so well. I guess what I'm getting at is just because the internet makes it easy for the average joe blow to write down their streams of consciousness for all to see, doesn't necessarily mean they're offering "voices and opinions", nor does it mean that anyone is actually listening. Operating on the idea that "i blog, therefore I'm interesting" is not enough.
I simply don't think the advent of blogging can be seen as a "amazing technological breakthrough that overcame the limits distance placed on the human voice" Just because you're in the public sphere, doesnt mean you're interesting. Take Big Brother for instance.
So before I start ranting on and drawing comparisons between blogs, Big Brother and Foucault's panopticon or Lyotard's "death of meta-narratives", I've decided I need to get away from my computer and get a life. So guess what I'll be doing for the rest of the weekend ....
only kidding ...
posted by tchick at 4:13 pm
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