But Enough About You… - Winston-Salem/Forsyth County …



BRIAN WILLIAMS is the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News. Born in 1959, he attended both George Washington University and the Catholic University of America before taking an internship with the administration of President Jimmy Carter. He then spent seven years with CBS News and joined NBC's rival news team in 1993, eventually becoming the network's top anchor. He has received five Emmy Awards, four Edward R. Murrow Awards, and in 2005 the Peabody Award for his coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Williams's writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and Time magazine, which honored him in 2007 as one of the "100 Most Influential People." Williams also writes frequently on his blog The Daily Nightly, discussing the work that goes into producing NBC Nightly News. He and his wife have two children.But Enough About You…As a nightly news anchor, Williams is in a good position to see how traditional television shows like his are losing viewers to other TV options, the Internet, and personal electronic gear. The media are more democratic, Williams concedes in this essay, but with all that choice we risk tuning out what we need to know. In the essay following this one --"Won't You Be My Friendster?" -- Andie Wurster looks at the new media from a different angle and comes to a different conclusion.While the mainstream media were having lunch, members of the audience made other plans. They scattered and are still on the move, part of a massive migration. The dynamic driving it? It's all about you. Me. And all the various forms of the first-person singular. Americans have decided the most important person in their lives is ... them, and our culture is now built upon that idea. It's the User-Generated Generation. For those times when the nine hundred digital options awaiting us in our set-top cable box can seem limiting and claustrophobic, there's the Web. Once inside, the doors swing open to a treasure trove of video: adults juggling kittens, ill-fated dance moves at wedding receptions, political rants delivered to camera with venom and volume. All of it exists to fill a perceived need. Media executives--some still not sure what it is--know only that they want it. And they're willing to pay for it. The larger dynamic at work is the celebration of self. The implied message is that if it has to do with you, or your life, it's important enough to tell someone. Publish it, record it ... but for goodness' sake, share it-get it out there so that others can enjoy it. Or not. The assumption is that an audience of strangers will be somehow interested, or at the very worst not offended. Intimacies that were once whispered into the phone are now announced unabashedly into cell phones as loud running conversations in public places. Diaries once sealed under lock and key are now called "blogs" and posted daily for all those who care to make the emotional investment. We've raised a generation of Americans on a mantra of love and the importance of self as taught by brightly colored authority figures with names like Barney and Elmo. On the theory that celebrating only the winners means excluding those who place, show or simply show up, parents-turned-coaches started awarding trophies--entire bedrooms full--to all those who compete. Today everyone gets celebrated, in part to put an end to the common cruelties of life that so many of us grew up with. Now the obligatory confession: In an irony of life that I've not yet fully reconciled myself to, I write a daily blog full of intimate details about one of the oldest broadcasts on television. While the media landscape of my youth, with its three television networks, now seems like forced national viewing by comparison, and while I anchor a broadcast that is routinely viewed by an audience of ten million or more, it's nothing like it used to be. We work every bit as hard as our television-news forebears did at gathering, writing and presenting the day's news but to a smaller audience, from which many have been lured away by a dazzling array of choices and the chance to make their own news. It is not possible--even common--to go about your day in America and consume only what you wish to see and hear. There are television networks that already agree with your views, iPods that play only music you already know you like, Internet programs ready to filter out all but the news you want to hear. The problem is that there's a lot of information out there that citizens in an informed democracy need to know in our complicated world with US troops on the ground along two major fronts. Millions of Americans have come to regard the act of reading a daily newspaper--on paper--as something akin to being dragged by their parents to Colonial Williamsburg. It's a tactile visit to another time ... flat, one-dimensional, unexciting, emitting a slight whiff of decay. It doesn't refresh. It offers no choice. Hell, it doesn't even move. Worse yet: Nowhere does it greet us by name. It's for everyone.Does it endanger what passes for the national conversation if we're all talking at once? What if "talking" means typing on a laptop, but the audience is too distracted to pay attention? The whole notion of "media" is now much more democratic, but what will the effect be on democracy? The danger just might be that we miss the next great book or the next great idea, or that we fail to meet the next great challenge, because we are too busy celebrating ourselves and listening to the same tune we already know by heart.QuestionsMeaningIn his opening paragraph, Williams refers to "a massive migration." What is he talking about, and what examples of this migration does he give? What is Williams's point in paragraphs 4-5, and how does this point fit into his larger argument? What does Williams see as the major problem with the new-media landscape he describes? What is Williams's THESIS, and where does he state it? Writing Strategy What EFFECT do you suppose Williams intended to have on readers? What makes you think as you do?What is Williams's purpose in paragraph 6? Why does he make this "confession," and how does he deal with its implications? In paragraph 9 Williams asks a series of questions. What is the purpose of these questions, and what is their effect? Consider the placement and wording of Williams's thesis. Why do you think Williams might have chosen this placement and wording? OTHER METHODS How does Williams's essay use CAUSE AND EFFECT? Language In paragraph 1, Williams refers to the mainstream media as "having lunch." What does this phrase suggest? What does Williams mean by the phrase "User-Generated Generation" (par. 2)? In paragraph 8 Williams says, "Millions of Americans have come to regard the act of reading a daily newspaper--on paper--as something akin to being dragged by their parents to Colonial Williamsburg." What is Colonial Williamsburg? What are the implications of this reference?ANDIE WURSTER was born in 1982 on an Air Force base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She studied at Emerson College, earning a BA in writing, literature, and publishing, with an emphasis on children's literature. Her children's book reviews have been published in the Horn Book Guide (2003), and she has also written for Lollapalooza Zine and Gauge magazine. Wurster owns and runs a design and custom invitation company, Run Grady Run. She lives in Seattle, Washington, and in her spare time enjoys reading, sewing, and printmaking.Wont You Be My Friendster?Social-networking Web sites such as Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook have become a cultural phenomenon, but just how social are they? For some users, at least, the sites clearly encourage the kind of self-celebration that Brian Williams, in the previous essay, deplores for shutting out the unknown and uncomfortable. But Andie Wurster argues that the sites can do more than that as well: By expanding knowledge and outlooks, they can lower barriers of space and culture that would otherwise divide users. Wurster wrote this essay for The Bedford Reader.First there was Friendster. After its early success, other social-networking sites, mainly Facebook and MySpace, inevitably cropped up. When these sites hit the Internet, I had no plans to take part in them. My friends were joining--posting their pictures, personal information, and lists of favorite everything--but to me it all seemed like time-wasting mirror gazing. Users now had Internet square footage to call their own, and they exploited it to admire themselves and shout their presence from the international rooftop. I preferred to keep my identity where it belonged, in the real world with my real friends and real life. Finally, though, I gave in to curiosity. My friends were excited about new online acquaintances, discussing music they first heard on the networks, taking me along to parties they'd been invited to online. When I joined, I learned that I and the many other critics of the networks had been both right and wrong about them. They do, in fact, catch users by appealing to the look-at-me attitude of millions of young people around the globe. However, those millions turn the sites into truly vibrant social networks that not only connect people but also expand their horizons. Even among people who already know one another, the social networks have a worthy function. In face-to-face interactions with our friends, how often do we try to define ourselves or respond to how they define themselves? As it turns out, those byte-sized lists of likes and dislikes can add up to say something significant, not just to strangers but to the people that we thought we knew. For just-acquaintances who would like to be more, the networks can be icebreakers. For friends who are distant, the networks can provide a daily link to keep the relationship thriving. Of course, it's in introducing us to people we don't know already that the social networks do their most revolutionary work. Instead of being confined to the people in our schools, workplaces, and physical communities, we can meet potential pals all over the world. Unlike our knowns, these unknowns often end up being quite different from ourselves. As someone with a long-term, insular group of friends in her daily life, I have met people I otherwise would never have encountered-people with different cultural backgrounds than my own, people with different interests and different goals. Our friendships started with shared tastes in music but have expanded to take in the very different circumstances of our lives. Such exposure doesn't happen for every participant, but when it does it lowers the barriers of distance, culture, and physical appearance that cause so many problems in the world. The networks foster connection and action within our physical communities, too. Online invitations for nonvirtual music shows and art openings result in events that bring together diverse people who would normally pass each other on the street without a glance. At the invitation of a friend I'd met online, I attended a private listening party for a band's soon-to-be-released album. By the end of the night, I had met a handful of possible new pals and had joined a volunteer group in my city that runs an after-school program for disadvantaged children. Many of my friends report similar experiences ofhaving their outlooks, and their activities, broadened beyond the previous limits of space and acquaintanceship. All this is not to say that there aren't problems with the networks. For all the friends I have whose knowledge and interests have grown, at least as many seem to spend half their waking hours refining their own pages and improving their skills as voyeurs as they visit others' pages. For many of the sites’ participants, the openness and remoteness of the Internet weaken healthy inhibitions, so that they post pictures of themselves scantily clad or conduct vicious verbal attacks on other users. Mass e-vites have led to out-of-control parties at which property and even attendees have been harmed. The networks themselves have been targeted for allowing too much advertising and maintaining links to commercial interests. Repeated security breaches put users at risk for spamming and identity theft. And, perhaps most disturbing, the networks' efforts to protect the safety of the youngest users have not always been successful. These criticisms are all valid, but they are only part of the story. The online social networks have given us a new medium that for many users means more communication, expanded sights and knowledge, and, paradoxically, increased experience of the real world. The networks are a place to exhibit oneself, yes, but they are also a place for connecting.QuestionsMeaning What is Wurster's THESIS, and where does she state it? What does the thesis suggest may be Wurster's ASSUMPTIONS about her readers' attitudes toward social-networking sites? What does Wurster see as the primary benefits of social-networking sites? Do you agree or disagree with any of them? Why? In paragraph 6, Wurster lays out half a dozen drawbacks of the networking sites. What are they? Do you agree or disagree with any of them? Why? Writing Strategy Wurster's first paragraph is devoted to her initial skepticism of social-networking sites. What is the EFFECT of this opening? Why do you think Wurster presents the networks' benefits in the order she does (pars. 3-5)? Do you think this arrangement is effective, or would you prefer another? Why? Identify Wurster's use of a specific EXAMPLE in paragraph 5. What does it contribute to her argument? OTHER METHODS Where in the essay does Wurster use CAUSE AND EFFECT, and how does it help further her argument? Language What does Wurster mean in paragraph 1 by "time-wasting mirror gazing"? Identify two FIGURES OF SPEECH in paragraph 1. What is the effect of this language? In paragraph 3 Wurster calls the networking sites potential "icebreakers" for acquaintances who want to get to know each other better. What does she mean by "icebreakers"? What are "nonvirtual" events (par. 5)? How are they distinct from "virtual" events? ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download