...of WSPC Culture Wars by on week, unfortunately.
On February 4th, however, we will be back, good as new, as fun as new, and kicking off a new season with author Keith Stern telling us about his book, "Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgenders."
Don't miss it!!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
This is just too easy...
Last week the new Kaiser Family Foundation report on children's media use was released and it made a few headlines.
The crux of the report was something that most people who are somewhat aware of their surroundings, who are in the proximity of young kids - maybe if you go to the mall or get pissed off in a movie theater when all the cell phones are lighting up around you - pretty much expected to read: kids are using the media more than ever. They are using new media more than their elders and they are using what Fordham Professor Paul Levinson calls "new new media" (twittering, texting, blogging, YouTube, facebook) more than anyone. Frankly, Levinson's new book, "New New Media," is a much more enlightening and engaging read about these technologies and a book I highly recommend. The Kaiser study is a series of statistics based on surveys of teenagers...hey, it is what it is.
But now I just ran across something I was sort of expecting to see once the Kaiser study appeared: its paranoid misinterpretation.
The first people to point to the Kaiser report's statistics and issue portentous warnings about the decline and fall of civilization (again) are my good buddies in the Parents Television Council. The PTC is doing its usually thing in light of the study: jumping to completely unwarranted, censorious, hysterical conclusions. They can be read in their weekly warning newsletter right here.
The PTC piece is erroneously called "Children Overwhelmed by Media." This is impressive in itself because the very title of the article is already a misinterpretation of the Kaiser data. Some could call it a willful misrepresentation perhaps, an outright lie, but I really don't want to give the PTC that much credit. After my past experience with the PTC, including my debate with their 2008 "activist of the year," Crystal Madison, I've come to the conclusion that from the rank and file of the PTC and all the way to its top leadership, these people are simply too ignorant of social science research methods and data interpretation to even come up with a sophisticated lie about a simple survey like the Kaiser study. The study does not talk about whether or not children are "overwhelmed" - the loaded, negative connotation of that term is obvious - but that children are using new new media a lot more than before and they are using media in a different way than their elders, than children in the past. Why does this data mean that children are "overwhelmed?" Who has ever conclusively proven and established what is a "normal" level of media use and what is "pathological?" Thus, what standard is the PTC using to determine that the media-use percentages of the Kaiser study qualify as "overwhelming."
By the way, as a side note, one should go ahead and check out who some of the most committed activists of the PTC are by visiting their web page, http://www.parentstv.org/, and looking at the "grassroots" link. This has information on all their regional directors, including brief biographical information. What's obvious is that none of these people have any real background in social science research whatsoever. They appear to be a lot like the busybody neighbor, Gladys Kravitz, in the old "Bewitched" sitcom; the shrill, judgmental prude who can't make it through the day without sticking her nose in other people's lives. The sole reason for the PTC's existence is for its own censorious prudes to stick their noses in other people's lives and tell them how to run their families.
As for the PTC analysis of the Kaiser study, as you read on, you find it getting more and more amusing as it goes along. The more I think about it, as a matter of fact, the more convinced I am that I can use this as a piece of teaching aid in the future when I need to illustrate the most incompetent way to misinterpret the basic meaning of statistical data. But anyway, just after summarizing the Kaiser study, the PTC goes on to its rant about the data's "Impact." Naturally, according to the PTC brain turst, this data conclusively proves that children are harmed, they are turned ignorant, violent, sexually promiscuous band of little savages. The article rails against all the "harmful" media content children are now exposed to, including pornography and violence.
Except, of course, that the Kaiser study says nothing of the sort. First, the Kaiser study does not talk at all about the specific content of the information its subjects view or listen to. The PTC assumes that the subjects are watching porn and violence. And need we bring up the old joke about what you do when you assume...? Ok, sure, let's bring it up: you make an "ass out of U and me." The PTC, though, seems never to hesitate in making asses out of themselves. Second, the Kaiser study very clearly states that CAUSALITY IS NOT TO BE INFERRED from this data. Even when the data claims that more of the children who are the heaviest media users (47 percent of the children with high-use levels) tend to have lower grades (C or lower), the authors write "the study cannot establish a cause and effect relationship between media use and grades." This conclusion, by the way, is not merely "political correctness," as the PTC founder Brent Bozell has claimed in his past articles when he cavalierly equated a statistical correlation with a causality, it is a FACT!! Maybe kids who are lazy, unmotivated slackers in school to begin with tend to waste time on their iPods and their computers and smart-phones more than the over-achieving kids. Generations of slackers have found ways to waste their time long, long before the arrival of new media. Moreover, I'm also just kind of impressed by the fact that even 53 percent of the new new media's high users DO NOT get bad grades.
But such a laughably incompetent interpretation of simple statistics is not much of a surprise when it comes to the PTC, its activist members, or any of their adjunct organizations like the Media Research Council or the Culture and Media Institute. These are the folks who put links on their web pages to studies that prove the exact opposite of what the PTC et al. is trying to argue. These are shrill, authoritarian censors who, apparently, are too busy to be bothered to read a study past its title. Perhaps they should ask their illustrious advisory board, made up of such intellectual giants as Pat Boone and has-been Disney actor Dean Jones, to do a better job of advising them about the meaning of very basic scientific data.
The crux of the report was something that most people who are somewhat aware of their surroundings, who are in the proximity of young kids - maybe if you go to the mall or get pissed off in a movie theater when all the cell phones are lighting up around you - pretty much expected to read: kids are using the media more than ever. They are using new media more than their elders and they are using what Fordham Professor Paul Levinson calls "new new media" (twittering, texting, blogging, YouTube, facebook) more than anyone. Frankly, Levinson's new book, "New New Media," is a much more enlightening and engaging read about these technologies and a book I highly recommend. The Kaiser study is a series of statistics based on surveys of teenagers...hey, it is what it is.
But now I just ran across something I was sort of expecting to see once the Kaiser study appeared: its paranoid misinterpretation.
The first people to point to the Kaiser report's statistics and issue portentous warnings about the decline and fall of civilization (again) are my good buddies in the Parents Television Council. The PTC is doing its usually thing in light of the study: jumping to completely unwarranted, censorious, hysterical conclusions. They can be read in their weekly warning newsletter right here.
The PTC piece is erroneously called "Children Overwhelmed by Media." This is impressive in itself because the very title of the article is already a misinterpretation of the Kaiser data. Some could call it a willful misrepresentation perhaps, an outright lie, but I really don't want to give the PTC that much credit. After my past experience with the PTC, including my debate with their 2008 "activist of the year," Crystal Madison, I've come to the conclusion that from the rank and file of the PTC and all the way to its top leadership, these people are simply too ignorant of social science research methods and data interpretation to even come up with a sophisticated lie about a simple survey like the Kaiser study. The study does not talk about whether or not children are "overwhelmed" - the loaded, negative connotation of that term is obvious - but that children are using new new media a lot more than before and they are using media in a different way than their elders, than children in the past. Why does this data mean that children are "overwhelmed?" Who has ever conclusively proven and established what is a "normal" level of media use and what is "pathological?" Thus, what standard is the PTC using to determine that the media-use percentages of the Kaiser study qualify as "overwhelming."
By the way, as a side note, one should go ahead and check out who some of the most committed activists of the PTC are by visiting their web page, http://www.parentstv.org/, and looking at the "grassroots" link. This has information on all their regional directors, including brief biographical information. What's obvious is that none of these people have any real background in social science research whatsoever. They appear to be a lot like the busybody neighbor, Gladys Kravitz, in the old "Bewitched" sitcom; the shrill, judgmental prude who can't make it through the day without sticking her nose in other people's lives. The sole reason for the PTC's existence is for its own censorious prudes to stick their noses in other people's lives and tell them how to run their families.
As for the PTC analysis of the Kaiser study, as you read on, you find it getting more and more amusing as it goes along. The more I think about it, as a matter of fact, the more convinced I am that I can use this as a piece of teaching aid in the future when I need to illustrate the most incompetent way to misinterpret the basic meaning of statistical data. But anyway, just after summarizing the Kaiser study, the PTC goes on to its rant about the data's "Impact." Naturally, according to the PTC brain turst, this data conclusively proves that children are harmed, they are turned ignorant, violent, sexually promiscuous band of little savages. The article rails against all the "harmful" media content children are now exposed to, including pornography and violence.
Except, of course, that the Kaiser study says nothing of the sort. First, the Kaiser study does not talk at all about the specific content of the information its subjects view or listen to. The PTC assumes that the subjects are watching porn and violence. And need we bring up the old joke about what you do when you assume...? Ok, sure, let's bring it up: you make an "ass out of U and me." The PTC, though, seems never to hesitate in making asses out of themselves. Second, the Kaiser study very clearly states that CAUSALITY IS NOT TO BE INFERRED from this data. Even when the data claims that more of the children who are the heaviest media users (47 percent of the children with high-use levels) tend to have lower grades (C or lower), the authors write "the study cannot establish a cause and effect relationship between media use and grades." This conclusion, by the way, is not merely "political correctness," as the PTC founder Brent Bozell has claimed in his past articles when he cavalierly equated a statistical correlation with a causality, it is a FACT!! Maybe kids who are lazy, unmotivated slackers in school to begin with tend to waste time on their iPods and their computers and smart-phones more than the over-achieving kids. Generations of slackers have found ways to waste their time long, long before the arrival of new media. Moreover, I'm also just kind of impressed by the fact that even 53 percent of the new new media's high users DO NOT get bad grades.
But such a laughably incompetent interpretation of simple statistics is not much of a surprise when it comes to the PTC, its activist members, or any of their adjunct organizations like the Media Research Council or the Culture and Media Institute. These are the folks who put links on their web pages to studies that prove the exact opposite of what the PTC et al. is trying to argue. These are shrill, authoritarian censors who, apparently, are too busy to be bothered to read a study past its title. Perhaps they should ask their illustrious advisory board, made up of such intellectual giants as Pat Boone and has-been Disney actor Dean Jones, to do a better job of advising them about the meaning of very basic scientific data.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
War's just been declared!
After a bit of a layoff, I wanted to get back into the swing of things on this blog by updating the status of the WSPC Culture Wars broadcasts.
On January 28, Ernabel Demillo and I will be back on the air for a whole new season of talk, debate, and entertainment.
Listen to the show live at www.spc.edu/WSPC next week. In the meantime, you can listen to the podcasts of last year’s shows at www.culturewars.libsyn.com
On January 28, Ernabel Demillo and I will be back on the air for a whole new season of talk, debate, and entertainment.
Listen to the show live at www.spc.edu/WSPC next week. In the meantime, you can listen to the podcasts of last year’s shows at www.culturewars.libsyn.com
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Just calm the f%^& down!
Wow, I just ran across this new article about sexting and I was surprised to see that the great sexting debate might not be some fleeting, momentary, absurd moral panic. It appears to be an absurd moral panic that has some staying power.
Apparently some polling data is showing that a larger number of older teens (16, 17) are doing sexting than their worried parents might have thought.
Now it remains to be seen if more anti-sexting laws will be pushed once again.
But where is the great surprise in all this? And quite frankly, I scratch my head over the sort of outrage and paranoia this is inspiring. I mean, let's see now...teenagers, kids going through puberty, are going to start experimenting with sex and exploring their sexuality. Who da thunk it? You know what? If you got anywhere close to a passing grade in high school biology class, you would think this sort of behavior was perfectly normal and expected.
Or perhaps the the kids of the folks in those morality groups like the Family Research Council or the Culture and Media Institute or the Parents Television Council might not be doing anything like this. You know, those people who have their kids sign the virginity contracts (and whose kids are having sex and getting pregnant at the exact same rate as all other teenagers who don't sign the contract and don't go to alcohol-free dances where you're supposed to stand at least a foot away from your partner and leave room for Jesus).
But, then again, who ever got pregnant from a "sext" message? Or caught a social disease from one? There are quite a number of other statistics on the sexual behavior of "these kids today," and they are also more likely to be engaging in safe sex activities than ever before. If a teenager is going to be having sex today, it is more likely that they will be using condoms than ever before. And, again, if sexual experimentation merely involves the cell phone, you don't even need to be worried about a leaky condom or a missed birth control pill.
So, with all the risky ways teenagers can explore their sexuality, texting might actually be the safest and best alternative.
And, of course, if today's parents, those creaky old squares, are giving too much static, junior can always remind them that grandma dropped acid and had sex with three guys at Woodstock.
I'm in complete agreement...
This is a really cool piece about the former Mrs. Marilyn Manson discussing the art form of burlesque dancing.
And I think she's quite right about the U.S. being somehow more Puritanical now then it was 70 years ago. But, then again, today we have certain groups who think TV shows like Lost and Heroes and Fringe are obscene.
And I completely support burlesque dancing in all its forms!!!
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
*%#^ 'em if they can't take a joke!
How can we tell when the world's going to hell in a hand basket? Maybe it's when political correctness gets spread all over the globe.
Check out this hilarious piece about the Labatt's Blue ad in Canada. The advertisement urges its audience to leave some beer for Santa this Christmas instead of milk and cookies. Naturally, some busy-bodies are upset over it. Even though the ad is really for Labatt's alcohol free beer. Alcohol free?? What a wimp out.
Although the best part is that Mothers Against Drunk Drivers is one of the groups not too worked up exactly because the libation is without alcohol and they don't feel like this is endorsing drunk driving.
But remember what was behind Grandma getting run over by a reindeer!!
Monday, December 7, 2009
The last days of the FCC...I hope!
Check out this piece on Yahoo News I was recently interviewed for here.
Of all the possibilities posed by converging media, especially the movement of so much broadcast material to the cable and the Internet, what especially excites me is the coming obsolescence of the Federal Communications Commission.
Since the FCC has no regulatory power over the Internet or cable, a very-near future (the nearer the better!) of online entertainment should be completely free and unfettered, completely independent of the meddling of a bunch of ill-read, double-digit IQ Church Ladies like the members of the Culture and Media Institute, the Parents Television Council, the Family Research Council, and the rest of their moralistic ilk. These are the folks who usually like to start their letter writing campaign to the FCC every time they hear the words "hell" or "damn" on TV, then turn around and claim to represent the values and sensibilities of the "average American." I don't think so!
But this sort of puritanical control over expression in the broadcast media will see its days numbered in the world of digital convergence and the move of ever more entertainment content to the Internet. And it's about time the FCC and its unconstitutional assaults on free speech was put out of commission for good.
Of all the possibilities posed by converging media, especially the movement of so much broadcast material to the cable and the Internet, what especially excites me is the coming obsolescence of the Federal Communications Commission.
Since the FCC has no regulatory power over the Internet or cable, a very-near future (the nearer the better!) of online entertainment should be completely free and unfettered, completely independent of the meddling of a bunch of ill-read, double-digit IQ Church Ladies like the members of the Culture and Media Institute, the Parents Television Council, the Family Research Council, and the rest of their moralistic ilk. These are the folks who usually like to start their letter writing campaign to the FCC every time they hear the words "hell" or "damn" on TV, then turn around and claim to represent the values and sensibilities of the "average American." I don't think so!
But this sort of puritanical control over expression in the broadcast media will see its days numbered in the world of digital convergence and the move of ever more entertainment content to the Internet. And it's about time the FCC and its unconstitutional assaults on free speech was put out of commission for good.
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