This past September, we witnessed on our social media feeds at least three graphic acts of brutal murder in the U.S.; a stabbing of a refugee woman in North Carolina, an assassination of a famous public speaker in Utah and the beheading of a motel-manager and father in Texas.
Whether we are people who avoid watching graphic images, or we consume them with horror and fascination, there is another dimension to violent news we don’t often stop to think about – and that is the context, technology and form of media consumption itself.
With the rise and spread of new communication technologies, our ability to understand, let alone critique and resist, manipulation and mendacity has been severely challenged.
Two decades ago, you probably had only a handful of commentators in the media who you could agree with or argue about with family and friends over dinner. Now, you have the disorienting and overwhelming experience of being flooded with not only violent images, but also insane amounts of commentary and reactions to it on social media.
As we scroll through reams of words and emojis, we are caught up in an avalanche of sensation, meaning and sometimes meaninglessness too.
So we premise our response to the suffering of others now on how we believe that suffering fits into the stories we believe about the world; a woman stabbed to death suddenly on a train becomes part of a story believed by many on social media that it happened because she was white and the assailant was black, or an Indian father had his head hacked off because his assailant was an “illegal immigrant”- but not because he was Indian. Stories about identity, race, gender, religion, among become loaded battlefields for the bigger political churns of our time. The story of human suffering that lies behind our glass screens somehow gets lost.
We are witnessing forces of history on a scale and intensity never before seen – in the form of endless confusion from the palms of our hands at least.
One way that we can survive the new media realities (or mendacities) of our time is to pay attention to the idea of media literacy, and recognize the role that media studies classes play in developing this critical talent.
It takes learning, and practice, to realize that most of the time, when we read the news or argue with someone or social media, it is not the events or reality itself but the medium, that invisible, intangible ecology of interconnectedness between us, that is the issue. Like a fish in water, we fail to see what we are living in now for what it is; a hyperconnected, hyper-intrusive, hyper-persuasive, miasma of missed opportunities for real, honest and kind connection. We are living and behaving in an unreal world as if we are still in the real one. The damage we are facing, in both, is frightening.
While media studies classes can teach you how to recognize these challenges and to make your own, better media, I would like to conclude with one simple aphorism for social media survival distilled from my research and teaching. As you scroll or swipe through your screens, just think of the phrase “Pass W.O.R.D.” It’s an acronym, and it expands as follows:
W – “Worm” – like an “earworm,” or “wordworm” – is what you’re about to type really you, or is it just an urge or habit you’ve picked up from others?
O – “Others” – who are the other people involved in this exchange? Are they real? Even if they are, is that one post of theirs that upsets you really who they are?
R – “Rasa” – a Sanskrit word for a concept from ancient Indian art meaning “emotional flavor.” What is your present emotional state? Is the rasa you are in contextually appropriate? Sometimes, even a casual “LOL” can sound flippant, if the subject is about something harsh like death or murder.
D – “Duty” – we tend to think of our online activities as an escape from our duties in real life (“venting” for example). But sometimes, and this is true especially of media people, it helps to think of your online presence as part of your duties to your society and, more importantly, to your future self too!
If you can “pass” through this “WORD,” maybe you can help make a difference to the online world, and the real people who live increasingly in it.
