Multimedia Capstone Final Response - Essay Example

Multimedia Capstone FINAL Response Please respond to each of the 11 questions in essay format; one or two paragraphs to half a page per response. 1.       In Changing Minds  Gardner talks about Fundamentalism. How does this manifest?  (We are not talking about religious fundamentalism, we are talking about the key philosophical aspects that make up fundamentalist behavior – think outside the typical association of fundamental thought to the roots of what fundamentalism means) What does it do to the minds of those you would wish to change? How can you approach such a person or group and attempt to change their minds? Fundamentalism, in the sense that Gardner refers to it, manifests in a way that is similar to programming in a bio-computer. The mind of the individual with the fundamental view about some aspect of reality, be it in his or her own individual life, the corporation, or society, is taken to be a given. This is similar to what in logic is considered an ‘a priori’ assumption – the decision has already been made in the individual’s mind about the way things are or should be, thus the person does not really think or consider the different solutions to the problem, or propose solutions that challenge traditional norms. Because of this, what we are programmed to believe becomes almost like instinct, shaping the way we view the world and our concepts of freedom within it as expressed through our actions. For this reason Gardner considers fundamentalists hard to convert to a new view, not because the fundamentalists believe the root tenets of a particular thought system and base their philosophy upon that, but because their pre-conceived notions are fundamental to the way they view the world. This has the effect of conforming the mind of the fundamentalist individual to the programming patterns of the belief system to which he or she subscribes. From this, if one needs to actively change the mind of a fundamentalist individual or group of individuals, as in business management system changes or social movements, there has to be a means given that allows the individual to step above or outside of his or her own belief system, and see it as it is, as a belief rather than a universal truth or indisputable fact. With this there needs to be a situation where the alternative solution appears at the same time as the person steps outside of the fundamentalist belief. This is teaching through skillful means and may necessitate different approaches for different individuals, as not all personalities are the same or respond to the same effects in the same manner. So one must sculpt the teaching to the individual characteristics and sensitivities of the fundamentalist person or group and approach the situation as educational. 2.       In Changing Minds Gardner talks of an ‘Integrated viable identity.’ How can the work of a site such as ours impact and attempt to create change in a way that supports the development and enhancement of any existing ‘integrated viable identity’ in any of our readers? (Hint – this is hard to find yet findable – look at references provided in the back of the book to help you find it if needed). As Gardner is interested in creating a science of mind change, he is concerned with the subject both before and after the adoption of the new view. When he discusses the “integrated viable identity,” it is in reference to the individual after they have converted from a fundamentalist view to the view of the reformer or innovator who is seeking change. The individual who has been changed must have an integrated viable identity for the conversion or reform to be considered a sustainable solution in the society or group. If the new idea is not integrated into the individual, it fails to take hold in the mind and thus will not be fully recognized, understood, or used as intended by the person. If it is not viable, as in the idea is not consistent with the life experience of the individual or needs of the group in action, then the new idea will also not be maintained. Finally, the focus on identity means that the person who’s mind has changed from a fundamentalist view must make the new idea his or her own, and identify with it, or the conversion attempt will fail a third time to be sustainable. Creating sustainable, integrated solutions to problems caused by wrong ideas leads Gardner to develop a vision of success that is the “integrated viable identity” of the individual after mind change. 3.       In Changing Minds Gardner speaks of ‘Representational Redescription.’  Explain what this is, and whether we have it in our site. If we do, describe where it is and how it works in the site.  Also, explain how you might effectively use it in the future. “Representational Redescription” as intended by Gardner is a process where the reformer or activist must change the dominant way that an individual or group views a topic, by reversing the traditional associations that relate to a concept, symbol, or process in popular mental conception. An example of this might be Nicholas Taleb’s concept of the “Black Swan.” In traditional Greek philosophy, swans were viewed as a synonym for whiteness, the Greeks never considered or entertained the notion that swans could be black, it was against their fundamental concept of what a swan was, namely a white bird. When black swans were discovered in Australia with the same genetic family as white swans, the related destruction of the philosophical symbol was complete. Swans would no longer be synonymous only with whiteness, whiteness could no longer be an essential characteristic of the swan. Thus examples used in debate must be changed, and so forth – as Taleb points out, when this type of unforeseen conceptual challenge appears out of the blind-spot of a society, group, or individual, the effects can be severe, as in the economic crisis. Yet the Black swan is a basic example of Representational Redescription that changes fundamentalist paradigms. In our course we see something similar in the term “dirty gold” for gold is a philosophical symbol of pureness, royalty, and enlightenment, the sun – not generally associated with the dirt and the ground. Thus, using Representational Redescription to change the association of gold serves the purpose of activism, namely to draw attention to the environmental problems that stem from gold mining. 4.       In Changing Minds Gardner describes how ‘Designated Driver’ became a household word internationally. Using this model, what could be done on this project or others in the future to successfully establish a similar acceptance of an idea in the average public person? What would you do differently on the project knowing this? Since my interest is in social change movements, it is interesting to observe how the semantic term “designated driver” and its introduction into society was actually a driver of policy and value change within the greater society as it brought near universal awareness to the problem and solution of drunk driving. In activism, we want to see change penetrate through society to the same extent driving issues. “Green Gold” is actually an excellent example of this, as it does include the problem (environmental issues in the Green context) along with the solution (Green policies) within the same context. The key to having this term become as ubiquitous as designated driver is to have a media campaign that introduces it nationally through commercials and continues long enough to gain acceptance. With this there is also the need for local, on site introduction of the term – on location at gold extraction sites “Green Gold” needs to be a universally used and understood term. Finally, there needs to be an educational campaign that is sufficient in extent to bring “Green Gold” into the larger society as a new term, so that individuals in social contexts will ask each other “Is that Green Gold” any time gold is associated in their mind. This is a massive task, but shows the resources that had to be mobilized by MADD and other groups to get designated driver introduced into society in a mainstream manner and with it the intended policy solutions. 5.       In Changing Minds, Gardner talks about Wetware, Dryware and Goodware. Explain these terms and how you either used them in our project or how you might use them effectively in the future. Be sure to integrate and compare all three in your response. When Gardner speaks of Wetware, he is invoking science fiction and cyberpunk terminology that reference the actual hacking of the brain or the creation of cyborg entities that fuse technology with the human nervous system and brain. This is contrasted with Dryware, which represent more traditional computer processors, servers, cloud computer centers, data processors, and the application ecosystem that runs on top of them. Goodware is a term of association that Gardner himself coined in reference to the other terms in order to introduce his ideas about charity, altruism, and service to the community. It is through Goodware that people can program themselves to do the right thing in a cultural context. It is a type of bio-programming in the brain, because it is fueled by good education and information. Our project is based essentially on Goodware. Through good ideas and programming ourselves with them, sharing them in groups, we organize to change practices in the greater society through creating awareness. Dryware in terms of computers, servers, and other technological devices that enable communication are used by our project extensively. Wetware at this point is out of the range of our project, but may be used in the future by activists who want to share information quickly, or develop new communities based upon Goodware. 6.       By now in the class you have learned that miscommunication, dropped communication and conflicting communication are part of the human experience both in the class and when working with the public. Based on your experiences in the class what communication strategies would you try in the future to attempt to improve upon your ability to successfully communicate either verbally or in writing? What strategies might you try in the future to gain the maximum impact on communicating with the public in general? Personally I would like to try more mental visualization when preparing for public speaking, creating symbols that represent more complex ideas and patterns of ideas and sculpting the symbol as a painting that represents a collage of thought processes. From this, I would like to practice a more intuitive way of speaking and writing in order to synergize many aspects of research and contemplation into one. I hope this will lead to both increased creativity and fluency in expression, but it also requires proper organization before the process of visualization. This in many ways is related to memory enhancing ideas and practices that I have read about. I feel that memory enhancement and training exercises will also fuel spontaneous expression in a more organized and coherent manner for public communications. In order to attain the maximum impact in society, any communication written or verbal will have to be mass-produced, duplicated, and disseminated on a wide level. The best way for me to do this personally is through the internet – writings can be distributed through blogs and video of oral communication, interviews, and speeches can be broadcast on YouTube or other video sites online – reaching a worldwide audience for free. From this I can also cross-promote links and build community by embedding or re-posting on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, dig, Delicious, and so forth in order that I can reach a larger audience with my writings and video. 7.       The second half of the class is about implementation. I asked you at the mid-term to set out some goals for yourself for the rest of the term. Please re-state briefly what your goal was and how the pursuit of the goal unfolded for you. Was it successful? Why? Did you run into roadblocks? How did you overcome them? What would you do differently in the future based on what you learned in this class experience about building and working with other team members and the general public? If it was unsuccessful, why? What would you do differently in the future? My goal in the class since mid-term was to learn more about activism and mind-change that I might put the knowledge to use in social work in justice and environmental issues. For example, I feel strongly about social issues and want to see change in society on a number of fronts, namely related to how our society organizes and prioritizes the use of collective resources. I wanted in many ways to overcome a feeling of dissatisfaction and apathy by learning more about activist techniques. One of the goals I set was to become more involved. Our project taught me something of volunteer organization and the need for community. In order to become more involved, I attended a Greenpeace meeting and lecture on global poverty. In this meeting I did come in contact with some new friends and felt more connected over all locally, while still dissatisfied on the larger social level. Thus, to a certain degree I was successful in learning more about activism, getting involved in social causes I believe in, and meeting new people with a like mind. The obstacles we face however are difficult for it involves social education on a macro-level to be effective. I have been considering more effective strategies and media methods to get the environmental message out, but continue to see blogging as one of the few real individual options I have in communication. In the future, I will likely go to more meetings, lectures, and direct actions in order to become more involved with Greenpeace. While I don’t want to change my feelings of hope, I may opt for a more realistic set of expectations as regards to social change to avoid continual disappointment. I think the roadblocks to change in society are possible to be overcome, but the path is gradual and based in education. Therefore, I will likely continue to study education and look to become a teacher in the future, and work to make a change in that manner. 8.       Consider your interaction with the public, whether it be client, web-based contact or personal contact. One component of the Capstone is to be able to experience service-based learning by providing service in the community. Describe how the work you did in the capstone can benefit the community, and what you would add next or do next to make it more effective if you had the time and resources to do so. I believe the work I did blogging to raise awareness of environmental issues had benefit to the community to the degree of reinforcing a wider sense of solidarity with other Greens and writers, but I am concerned it did not have a larger audience. I am going to install Google Analytics on my new blog to have a better sense of site traffic and country dynamics so I can see more clearly what type of audience my writing is attracting online. As stated previously, I may also begin video-blogging on YouTube as a means of reaching a wider audience, or build a number of interviews and post them online. Another action I am seriously considering is performing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on my blog to gain a higher page rank on Google. Pages that are buried in the tenth or hundredth page of the results rarely get visited or viewed, so the more I can improve my return in the search engines, the wider an audience I will be able to receive for my blog. I have already begun building community through my social networking accounts on Facebook and Twitter, so continuing to build like-minded friends on those sites and engaging in debate and conversation with people on the issues are the main aspects of my approach, which I intend to continue in the future. Social media can be a powerful source for change as shown in the Obama election, and I believe we can harness this power further by creating custom social networking sites for our own heart causes. 9.       Awareness of diversity issues, as they are now in society or might be in the future since diversity issues will always exist to some extent or another, is always an important consideration in the development or evolution of a project. Are there any facets of our project that might be inaccessible or misunderstood due to any diversity issues? If so, describe, and explain several ways these could be mitigated in the future, time permitting. Bridging the digital divide is essential for our work for if people cannot access the web, how can they view the blogs and information prepared in relation to the project? I believe our project and its subject matter are fairly technical enough to not offend any particular culture over diversity or minority related cultures. To date, we have seen more surprise and recognition when people realized the issue existed for the first time, but rarely if ever has anyone been offended by the information. If anything, there has been more amazement in the responses, to the point of “why haven’t I thought of that before,” which is technically the correct response the project was designed to achieve. I believe the reliance on computer technology and the internet for the bulk of our communication and information networking makes our information inaccessible to the poor, and in some ways this is a problem of greater difficulty than the limited and targeted nature of our project in the industry. Corporate interests are rarely considered under diversity clauses, so we are not required to be overly sensitive to the needs of the corporate activity we are resisting, but we do need to approach all people we come into contact with according to standards of diversity. 10. For the most part, we are all wealthy, relative to the rest of the world. Some parts of the world live on only a few dollars a day per person and at that level, they don’t often if ever have time to think about sustainability, they are too focused on daily life and surviving. This is a socioeconomic diversity problem. Their level of poverty makes them unable to respond to calls for sustainability, unless programs are developed and implemented that interact with them on their level, day-to-day.  The question: Is it better to put time and energy into educating the wealthier world citizens who can cause greater change and disseminate the message more widely through their influence; or is it better to focus at the bottom and educate and change the minds of the masses of world population at that level; or is it better to spread the same amount of energy into some combination of both? Build and argue your case for one of these three. Support it with your rationale, logic and facts. Remember, regardless of your proposed solution, you only have the exact same amount of energy to put into any combination. Which do you think would yield the better results, and why? One of the concerns we raise when considering fundamentalist thinking patterns is the degree to which ideas are deeply ingrained within the individual consciousness to the point of being unconscious, this is the nature and power of a priori assumptions. We recognize then that education is the main cause of bad views just as it is the main cause of good views. If people do not get correct information in the educational system, they will have bad programming that limits them throughout their entire life. Yet, it is unlikely that we will cross paths with the disadvantaged on the internet searching for information on Green and environmental issues. Targeting the educated members of society can be an instance of preaching to the converted if only people already interested in the movement are reading the literature. We are interested in growing awareness as much as changing awareness, but in our instance – targeting the very small minority that actually does have management control in the industry, the workers involved, and the investors – this creates a limited set of influential individuals whose conversion in the way of thinking could actually create the change required. But it may not be in the interest of those in management, ownership, and investment to listen to the views of activists, they may already see themselves as opposed fundamentally, no matter what is said and done. They may also resist outside pressure to the end. Thus the major question is whether to target industry insiders in an awareness raising campaign, or to try to build a larger social pressure from the outside that forces insiders to change. I believe education should be the foundational and basic tactic, and from this, disadvantaged communities should receive equally to rich communities the education, information, and activism that fuels social change, even if it requires a volunteer corps to serve in developing world locations or in poor neighborhoods in the USA. While the greater education with the young should be continual and progressive as a tactic, it will also build quickly the leadership of the next generations of activists. From this a plan targeting insiders and powerful vanguard within the industry or sector, to encourage change and make the issues clear, understood, and articulated, maybe even for the first time in some corporate or industry contexts. There should be pure saturation of knowledge in the industry, so Green facts are as well known as fundamentals. If from that wave of activism industry insiders to not change their minds, even when presented with the knowledge, then the activists should build a pressure group from the wider society that targets the insiders in other ways to force the change. But as Gardner suggests, without the insiders really having an honest change of mind and principles, the reform movement will not be sustainable or meet its goals. 11. Consider our issue this term.  How much did you know of this issue beforehand? How much did you learn this term? What, if anything about the topic, surprised you? What aspects did you learn on your own and what did you learn? Will your behavior, thoughts, or actions change? Do you anticipate educating others after the term on this issue? If so, why? If not, why not? Honestly, I knew less than I thought I knew about activism and the psychology of social change in groups and individuals when I began the course. I started because I wanted to become more involved and learn basic organizational tactics that can be valuable when working with NGOs in the developing world or charities. I was interested in environmental activism previously, but this course and others this semester have opened up a new understanding of the depth and interconnection of issues I hadn’t really considered before. But I am also disappointed in some ways about the slowness and realities of the change process. I was hoping change would be more immediate – and I see now ways to make change more immediate through individual education, but the sluggishness of the process when applied on the level of millions or billions of people, what is needed for real international reform is really discouraging. This is why I believe it is valuable to study people like Gardner and their writings, because we need methods that accelerate change from an activist standpoint, and while education cannot be escaped as a non-violent tactic, it is a really slow, generational process that allows many things to get worse before they change, if they ever do at all. So I learned to a certain degree to be patient, as I can see many people doing their best, giving all of their time and energy to ideas and causes and then burning out quickly because they cannot make an impact or people resist their efforts. I will continue to be involved in activism and social change movements for Green issues in the future. I don’t see my dedication waning there, and I am planning to pursue a course in teaching or NGO work so I can continue my path or activism as a career. I learned through my writing, sharing of ideas in conversation, and activist meetings outside of class that friendship and common purpose can make a world of difference in convincing people to change their minds. I hope to teach my friends, family, and even strangers on the street or met passing by on the bus the information I have learned, and hopefully will be more skillful in debate and communication when making my points to them. If I become a teacher, it will be the best way to work every day in changing minds to recognize the importance of Green issues in society, so I am planning on this as a life goal in the future. I hope to balance that with travel, research, and volunteer service so my life is integrated, sustainable, and the example of what I want to teach to my students. Please take time to think through your answers. Your final paper grade will be on the depth and detail of your responses and how they reveal your thought process, and how you integrated the concepts of the text to the topic for the term. Read More