Breeding paranoia or understanding
EPIC 2015 - by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson with original music by Aaron McLeranIn many ways, I’m extremely grateful for the education that I am privileged to receive. Many of my lecturers and tutors are passionate, fiercely intelligent people who are helping me to navigate the complexities involved in analyzing and understanding the world I inhabit on a deeper level than the superficial obsessions of daily motions. However, on some level, there is a part of me that is wary of this ‘opening of the eyes’. I can no longer watch an advertisement without a million thoughts racing through my head - not about the product, but about the company, semantics, the design, psychology and the notion of a capitalist/consumerist culture running through my head.
I can no longer just enjoy a movie, but whilst sitting down to watch, my brain is constantly whirring, trying to take apart the elements and critique how well they work together on the whole - camera angles, lighting, sound effects, edits, and even down to product placement.
Do you have ANY idea how difficult I find it to relax?
I avoid radio and music programming (other than the occasional spot of Rage) because I find the constant bombardment of advertising too nerve-wracking and the djs grate my nerves to no end. Even the music content is, for the most part (lets not include PBS - thank god for jazz) mind-numbingly boring.
No surprise regarding radio, really, when PRERECORDED MUSIC PROGRAMS (please note - programs, not songs) are provided in a block package by the likes of MCM Entertainment. And as far as chart-topping music goes, apparently the music charts in Australia are PREDETERMINED (or were, not so much now with bodies independent of Austereo such as itunes and ringtone download companies) by Austereo and record companies, who presell X amount of copies of singles and albums to stores, who must agree to push the product else fear losing access to other products. There is an acronym for the body involved here but it escapes my mind, will include it later if I get the chance
This world of new, digitized, computerized media appears to be all about choice - look, you can watch Bigpond Pay TV on your mobile phone (well, I don’t think it has been released yet but my last knowledge was that Telstra were in the middle of putting together the networks with Ericsson in order to roll it out) and have it wherever you go! GPS tracking so that you’ll never be lost again - and you can find out whatever you need to about your surrounds (incidentally, how many GPS device owners are aware of the fact that the satellite system that they tap into is owned by the Pentagon?). News websites are all about customization - we present you with choice so you can read just the news that YOU want! Public domains are broken as people carry more and more devices that ensure a capsule of privacy - mobile phones, ipods and palm pilots help us carry our personalized view of the world wherever we choose to roam. Thanks to the infiltration of the internet, we now have more in common with someone on the other side of the city than we do with our neighbours. Forget the other side of the city - try the country, or world. Social connections, relationships and community have to be reevaluated in the face of a world that is changing so rapidly that we do not have enough time to sit and evaluate the changes just passed.
We want everything right here, right now, and right for us.
We lose more and more of our privacy every day - every time you scan your fly buys card at Coles, a record of your transaction (purchases, location, day, time, date, amount spent) is sent to a filing system that files you into a number of demographics which can be sold to companies who want your spending dollars. Every time you fill out a form, you may be consenting for your information to be ’shared’ (very few will say the word ’sold’) throughout the relevant corporation, and most probably with other third parties that they have on board. Your telephone conversations do not belong to you - technically, they are the property of whichever telecoms you have decided to buy services from.
And at this moment, an ongoing debate continues about a national identity card (currently going by the name of the Access Card), which, though it will initially begin with replacing Medicare and Centrelink cards, will most likely progress to a a card that stores all the relevant information about your identity with one little swipe. You can lose your privacy in the blink of an eye, but getting it back is nowhere near as easy. The paradox here, of course, is that while the majority of us do not bat an eyelid at the loss of these privacies (I hesitate to say ‘right’ because, unlike the US, we do not have a constitutional right to privacy in this country), we get upset at the possibility of personal privacies being lost - our emails being scanned by employers, internet usage scrutinized, computers hacked.
I’m not saying that the latter is not important…just that perhaps we should consider the former as well.
And the news. Oh god, the news. When executive producers give memos to their staff, advising them to choose stories centered around the reader and the universe of their interest in order to achieve a satisfied viewer, how can we trust any of the political commentary that comes out - whether it be printed, downloaded or aired?
In a world where narcissistic tendencies are encouraged, is it possible to consider the good of others as well as your own?
…
Is it any wonder that I find it difficult to sleep at night?
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Comments
Phil Share most of your sentiments. Just a clarification on flybuys. While they do use the info to target offers to you, neither Coles nor flybuys sell your info to third party organisations. Flybuys privacy policy is reasonably clear on this and it’s independently audited every year.
Ellie 
But I can totally understand why you’d create a media blackout - without the ABC here, I’d probably do the same!
Phil - Due to the way that Flybuys operates, I didn’t think that they sold the information per se, but thanks for the clarification What I meant in that part of my rant is that once our individual information has been broken down and recompiled into separate demographics, the demographic can be used by marketers to target particular audiences. Technically, that would not count as selling ‘our’ information to third parties, yet we’re still being sold (IMO). Whilst this extension is, admittedly, speculation on my part, I don’t see how else Flybuys would operate in terms of point allocations, products and the ‘awards’ you can trade your points for.
Phil Hi Ellie. FlyBuys gets only “summarised” information from each participating business – essentially the points for the transaction, the transaction $ total and the store location – the latter two bits being necessary in case members ring up FlyBuys to query their points. The total number of points by participating brand is available for members to see on the FlyBuys website, so it’s pretty obvious to all what information FlyBuys has. But FlyBuys doesn’t know from its summarised information what goods have been purchased e.g. FlyBuys does know what you spent at Coles Supermarkets on a given day, but doesn’t know what products you bought. Now, the participating brands do have this product level information, but they don’t know all the other bits FlyBuys knows. Importantly, they don’t know your name and address and can’t market directly to you. However, FlyBuys may send communications and points offers to you (email, letter) on Coles behalf.
The critical bit here is this. If FlyBuys members generally felt it was too “big brother” then they’d leave the program – and they haven’t. From a member’s perspective, would you rather receive a targeted communication from FlyBuys – which, since FlyBuys knows a bit about you, might actually be of greater relevance and interest – or would you rather receive an untargeted potentially irrelevant bit of junk mail? Happy to hear further!
Ellie Thanks for writing back May I ask how you know so much about what information Flybuys do or do not have? Just a point of curiosity, as judging by what you say, it would appear that on this point, I’ve been given slightly incorrect information from one of my lecturers. Not that it is particularly relevant to the course material, but I would still like to have my facts straight.
Don’t get me wrong - I have no reason to believe you as, well, to be honest, you could be anybody and there is no level of trust established that I would consider your information to be accurate, whereas my lecturer is someone who has an already established level of trust with me. This isn’t to say that I am disregarding what you have to say, just that I’d like all the information before I decide to confront my lecturer on this point or look into it myself (which, to be honest, isn’t likely at this point in time due to an extreme lack of time!)
As for the Flybuys program itself - I’m not a member. I take my mother’s card when I go grocery shopping so that the points go to her account, but I get no marketing nor information from them so I don’t know what is presented in the customer communications. I tend to pay little or no attention to junk mail on the whole, other than the occasional/rare pamphlet from The General Trader in regards to kitchenware
Looking forward to your reply!
Cheers,
Ellie
Wow this is a heavy post, and I couldnt agree with you more. As you know MY country is famous for it’s half truths, and lack of forthrightness! I rarely watch the television and when I do they are shows like “The Daily Show” , or “Real Time with Bill Marh” which are as cynical about this stuff as we are. And the only periodicals I read are science magazines, or photography zines. It’s sad when remaining uninformed is the best way to keep yourself informed about the right thing. If that made any sense. If this makes any sense…did I go completely of topic? lmao!
Bottom line.. HELL YEAH Ellie!! Bring on the reality!! ; ) xo