Disney and CorpSeCorp Dominating the World? Could Be More Likely Than You Think by Jessica Stormoen5/3/2018 The Disney company has been slowly consuming other, smaller companies from Lucas Films to their most recent purchase, Fox. The acquisition of a large portion of Fox’s assets and studios adds to their already extensive assortment of studio assets, affirming that the Disney company is a media empire. This does cause concern in how similar it sounds to the start of CorpSeCorps, a fictitious corporate conglomerate in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Year of the Flood. One of the protagonists, Toby, details CorpSeCorps rise to power, noting that “they’d started as a private security firm for the Corporations, but then they’d taken over when the local police forces collapsed for lack of funding, and people liked that at first because the Corporations paid, but now CorpSeCorps were sending their tentacles everywhere” (Atwood, 25). CorpSeCorps started small by helping and supplying smaller, more local industries that were unable to support themselves, and then started to reach into other areas, like healthcare. CorpSeCorps growth from minor purchases to more large-scale assets as they gained the means to do so, this is similar to the way most companies rise to power, it is nothing unheard of on the surface, but in the world Atwood depicts CorpSeCorps does not stop. Their interest in power and wealth did not stop at just companies, they absorbed healthcare in the form of HelthWyzer, a pharmaceutical company as well as the healthcare provider. CorpSeCorps also consumed all forms of government, at least that is what is implied when Toby states that “the CorpSeCorps outlawed firearms” (Atwood, 24). CorpSeCorps create and enforced the laws, they are the only authority in The Year of the Flood. They have taken over every facet of power that they could get their hands on, this is not dissimilar to Disney.
The Disney company has a history of beating its direct competition and has been stretching out into different markets. They were able to beat out the Fleischer Studios, an animation company that took a much darker and adult edgy than their counterpart (Silver). Disney was able to become the main studio for animation, especially feature length films, and through this studio rivalry they came out stronger. Disney used this momentum to merge with Pixar Studios and other media studios and companies. Disney’s acquisition of Fox has diversified the Disney portfolio even more with the addition of “Fox’s movie and television studios, regional sports networks and international holdings” (BBC). Disney is now branching out into ESPN and Hulu, two markets that are different from the brand that Disney has built. ESPN and Hulu are a new step forward for Disney, showing that they are ready to start acquiring more than what their original brand limited them to. CorpSeCorps and Disney are similar in their progression towards dominating the markets they started in and then branching out. Disney may be working a bit slower than CorpSeCorps, and they may be trying to control the media and not security, but their paths have similarities. Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. The Year of the Flood: a Novel. Anchor Books, a Division of Random House Inc., 2017. Silver, Charles. “MoMA | Disney, Iwerks, and Fleischer in the 1930s.” InsideOut, 8 Feb. 2011, www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2011/02/08/disney-iwerks-and-fleischer-in-the-1930s/. “Walt Disney Buys Murdoch's Fox for $52bn.” BBC News, BBC, 14 Dec. 2017, www.bbc.com/news/business-42353545.
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Throughout the twenty first century social media rains complete influence on impressionable viewers, encouraging them to fulfil a bottom line agenda focused on viral viewership. These videos may not seem dangerous to the passive viewer, however on social media platforms viewers can actively participate in the viral craze by creating responsive content. This at home participation can range from leaving a comment to completely recreating the viral video as a parody or response video. The distinction between creator and viewer completely disappears as the viewership of the video increases. Most of the time the original video loses value as the content is distorted by the viral viewership. The message of the original content becomes lost as the viewers morph the video into a meme or challenge.
The most dangerous example of this being challenge videos. Creators create an exciting challenge for the viral viewers to replicate and conform to the agenda of the creator. In 2001 this started out with the gallon challenge, viewers were challenged to drink a whole gallon of milk in less than one hour without puking. This juvenile challenge was only the start of the viral hazing, the need to belong to social media by completing challenges. As the years went on the challenges became more controversial to ensure maximum virality, like the fainting challenge. This challenge asks viewers to choke themselves unconscious proving their loyalty to social media. Viewers are willing to risk their body for feeling of prestige and acceptance on social media. Vial videos can insight a panic and eventually lead to death of viewers attempting to belong on the platform. The millennial and gen-z would see the tied-pod challenge as a viral plague, the sickness of virality manifesting itself into the reality. Many parents tell their children, “If you saw someone jump off a bridge would you jump too?” however about 30,000,000 people tell them to participate in the world by acting in these challenges. Viral peer pressure subtly engages the viewer by sharing videos and consolidating a community around viral videos. The worst part about vial videos seems to be the ability of becoming viral by utilizing the human emotions of joy, sadness, and disgust. Humanity always finds a way to manipulate views and content to pander to the basic human emotions. Viral videos have perfected the art of pandering, much like how New focuses on tragic or inspirational stories. Although, viral social media has greater stakes then a segment on the local news because of the element of participation. Just by “liking” a viral video creates more buzz and promotion for the video, resulting in it growing. Humanity feels the community need to collectively like or dislike content, following and sharing ideas, distracting them from the actual harm of the content. Most people don’t realize by contributing to the viral collective they are forgetting the individual. Maybe the tide pod challenge started as a joke, but it was shared and liked by millions, contributing to 12,000 calls to poison control in early 2018. Memes are all fun and games until virality enters reality. Works cited Shaer, Maththew. “What Emotion Goes Viral the Fastest?” Smithsonian Magazine, Apr. 2014. Last week Kanye West tweeted “You don't have to agree with trump but the mob can't make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don't agree with everything anyone does. That's what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.” A wildfire of comments erupted following the tweet.
Some liked the tweet. Some not so much. Tweeter kept active taps on West’s account following the tweet heard around the world. For whatever reason social media thought it was relevant to check which celebrities unfollowed West after comments. Justin Bieber, BTS, The Weeknd, Rihanna, Ariana Grande, Harry Styles, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, and Kendrick Lamar have all report unfollowed West. Seeing tweets commenting on who unfollowed someone on because of something they said reminded me of our class discussion on Mae and Annie’s PartiRank. When Annie enters herself into the PastPerfect project and discovers her ancestors were slave owners, she is terrified that people will take it out on Annie and her PartiRank score. PartiRank score is very similar to followers on Twitter, so I found it entertaining and noteworthy how Kayne West reacted to the backlash he received for supporting President Trump. Rather than backtrack or apologize for his tweet like Annie tries to do, West tweeted a picture of a “Make America Great Again” hat, signed by Donald Trump. Receiving even more backlash, West went a step further. Last Saturday, April 29th Kanye West released “Ye vs. the People”. In the song West elaborates on his initial tweet. West explains how he don’t align himself against Trump and Conservatives because it is the “popular” thing to do, especially as he believes in Conservative principles. Whether you like or dislike what President Trump and West stand for and support, I think it is important to hear what he is saying, especially after reading The Circle. Mae and the other employees of the Circle are effectively without the “independent thought” that West refers to. Every action is done as a show for others so that they can be well-liked and their PartiRank improve. They conform whether they believe in what they are conforming to or not. Their opinion is not their own. If we blindly follow the status quo, the popular choice, we lose free will and we lose ourselves. West isn’t saying that everyone should get on board with Trump, he’s actually doing quite the opposite. West is encouraging everyone to sit down, do their research, come to their own conclusions, free of the crowd mentality, and to support what you believe rather than what is popular. This is one existential question I had not anticipated on answering when arriving to Bada Bing’s pizza with friend Jenn Ryan on a rainy afternoon. What I had in mind was a semi-quiet affair discussing classes and exams as I munched slowly on veggie pizza.
Instead, I was greeted with this question, the great “Who am I” of philosophical debates. Sure, there are myriad answers out there that I could give, such as daughter, sister, cousin, student, writer (I pause to claim this title), or sorority girl. However, as I sat there and pondered, I realized there was so much more depth to this question than just who I am. Who am I to be so egocentric that I don’t think of the countless identities we have read in this class? As a white, 20 something female, I am not one to question my background. Unlike the character’s in Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, I know from whence I came. My ancestors were not forcibly taken from their homes to serve others through murderous labor. Unlike the people in Art Spiegelman's Maus 1 & 2, my ancestors were not butchered in the Holocaust. I never had to experience the burdens of my parents suffering through the greatest of traumas. At this point, I had to take a moment to pick up a garlic knot and shove it in my face and realize this question on a countertop probably didn’t intend on sending someone into an existential epiphany-- but I’m so thankful that it did. Who am I to not think of the thousands of lives we have read in this class over this past semester? Who am I to think that I’m not carrying these lives with me at all times? Often we joke #NeverAgain or something like it, but in truth this is dangerous practice. By vowing to never again have tragedy of racial profiling, or any form of disaster, catastrophe, or havoc enacted on humans by other humans, we acknowledge that not only does such a thing exist, but that our society perpetrates it every day by just existing. This is what these books mean to teach us, and who are we to forget this? What would living in a world where we are able to be identified anywhere and anytime look like? Well, we may soon be living in one. Much like the developments within The Circle Axon has been developing facial recognition software—and has currently created an ethics board to determine where the line stands in incorporating it for public use. The technology has already been tested in places such as the UK and China. Its use as a tool in law enforcement is something not currently in the works, but has all the potential—toting the moral ideology similar to The Circle’s SeeChange. Rick Smith, CEO of Axon, stating that “real-time recognition might be useful for extreme cases like child abductions or terrorist manhunts.” Just as SeeChange aims to hold those accountable for their actions in the name of human rights and knowledge (Eggers 67), the technology behind real-time face recognition is much the same. Framed in the name of protection, it seems as though the benefits outweigh the risks.
The ethics board, is said to be able to hold Axon “publicly accountable.” Straight from the mouth of Axon’s spokesman, it bears close resemblance to the idea of “transparency” within the circle; the idea that if we know how they are using this technology, perhaps they have nothing to hide, or that it may not be harmful at all. While issues unapparent in The Circle, such as facial recognition’s current abilities to identify those who are not white, it fails to mention what may occur once the technology reaches that point; such as what information may be available simply from scanning one’s face, and what other uses may arise out of its development—perhaps even the ability to search for anyone, anywhere in real time, just like The Circle? While the ethics board seems to be a start in stepping away from the impact of a Circle-esque future, it is worth noting that their main goal seems to be “developing public trust,” which indicates the privacy factors and other ethical issues may not be deemed as important as Axon wants us to believe. With enough support and with the idea of public safety at risk, it may be worth considering just how much further they could go; and how much closer we are to a society monitored like The Circle. https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/26/17285034/axon-ai-ethics-board-facial-recognition-racial-bias Eggers, David. The Circle. Knopf, 2013. Print. If you’ve ever wondered how a real life PartiRank system would work, look no further than our very own China. Okay, I know you’re picturing the whole country, but you need to zoom in a little bit. Little more. W-w-w-w- wait. Back up. Tiny bit. THERE! Stop right there! See that town right there? Suining? That’s where our story begins.
Back in 2010, Suining officials began to make assessments of each of their 1.4 million citizens over the age of 14. The average citizen started out with 1000 points, and points were added to or subtracted from that score based on a range of behaviors. Things like performing charitable acts, helping the elderly, and even buying diapers were enough to significantly raise your score, while driving drunk or bribing officials really tanked it. Points were then tallied up and citizens were given a grade of A, B, C, or D. Just like school! “A” citizens, those with higher ratings, were given lots of great perks like priority for school admission and top-notch employment. “D” citizens, on the other hand, were probably pretty salty. Their low scores meant that they could be denied licenses, permits, and even access to public transportation. Inspired by Suining, other cities across the nation have begun to implement their own social credit systems. These systems are not identical to Suining’s, but they’re pretty close. So close, in fact, that corporations like AliPay WeChat have begun to gather user data in an attempt to create a more streamlined and efficient social credit systems. They collect information such as your cell phone number, and scans of your national ID card, license, plates, and engine numbers. Through contacts added on the in-app social network, Alipay’s system, which is called Zhima Credit, can even factor in your social relationships when considering how to score you. If your friends have high scores, you’re in luck! Their good behavior really does rub off on you! Well, at least on your social credit score. And watch out for those low-scoring friends. They can really bring you down. Literally. No seriously. Connecting with “bad people” makes you look like a bad person. I guess your mom wasn’t that paranoid about a “wrong crowd,” after all. And as if that weren’t enough, Zhima Credit has cut a deal with the Chinese government for access to one of their blacklists. This list, which names more than 6 million people who have defaulted on court fines, is integrated into Zhima’s database and becomes yet another factor in determining a social credit score. But Big Brother won’t stop there. The Chinese government has released plans for an initiative which would assign a social credit score to all its citizens. Every. Single. One. All of them. 1.4 billion people. The government plans to integrate data gathered in local systems into one giant, national system, developed by Baidu, a massive tech corporation. The government partnership with Baidu will help develop facial and voice recognition technologies which can be used to identify government dissenters online. And it doesn’t stop there. With more than 600 million security cameras on the streets, Chinese officials can easily pinpoint pedestrians and drivers who violate social norms and adjust their scores accordingly. Add to this mix the government’s stockpile of blacklists, and we’ve quite a formidable system on our hands. And with potential consequences including the denial of basic public services, like transportation, one is left to question how ethical this system can be. Those living in poverty will struggle to raise their scores, as they can’t afford to make charitable donations or buy big-ticket, Chinese made items. The government claims the goal is a better, purer, and kinder society. But how can we be sure this system isn’t tyranny in disguise? What better way to spread news across the country that by having the same mass message spread from station to station, channel to channel, in almost the same droning script that claims that “Our greatest responsibility is to serve our _____________ communities” in San Antonio, Eastern Iowa, mid-Michigan, and all across the United States? Recently, a video was released in which several news stations were played next to, above, and below each other, all in a real-time montage, to show viewers that news stations across the country are broadcasting the same messages and stories across the nation, but instead claiming that their greatest concern is for their region. Coincidence? That is highly unlikely. Power possessed by modern-day media has grown to an alarming rate in which people have been believing whatever they read/see/hear online. After all, it’s online, so it must be true…right? Without people actively fact-checking multiple sources, they are surrendering themselves to self-acclaimed ignorance. These news stations all claimed that “one-sided news stories are plaguing our country,” and yet, these stations are feeding right into the “fake news” generation by feeding the same messages to their audiences. It’s a cycle that is bound to repeat itself if these stations keep spoon-feeding the same sloppy news to its viewers, claiming to care for their specific population’s well-being, but proving otherwise with an identical teleprompting scrip as a region across the country. These news stations have also claimed that “the sharing of false news has become all too common on social media,” and that no is checking their facts, which lead people to mindlessly believe whatever they hear/read online or on social media. In the final minute of the video, news stations are added to the screen so that by the end of it, there are 36 “different” news casters all saying the same thing: “unfortunately, some news social platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think.” Interesting. The final montage of the video consists of each news station saying, “This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.” Yes. Yes, it is. Upon finishing Dave Eggers’s novel, The Circle, I have become frighteningly more aware about the influences of mass communication and “fake news” exhibiting control over its audience. Eggers’s makes valuable and satirical commentary on the advancement of technology and the sharing of information online and on social platforms. Nothing is private—everything is known. The problem today is that we do not know the real truth. We can thank the news for that. (Video name: “This is What Mind Control Looks Like” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL1zwMtz_Ho) When Omar El Akkad published American War in 2017, his birth nation of Egypt as well as the rest of the Middle East was no stranger to warfare. Although most Americans’ historical perception of conflict in the Middle East only goes as far back as 2001 for millennials and the early 1990s for those old enough to remember the Gulf War, the Middle East has been more or less politically unstable since the end of WWII. This conflict in large part stems from the exodus of colonial powers in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Britain’s departure from Palestine in 1948 and the subsequent establishment of the nation of Israel has been particularly conflict-filled. Violence in the region has only intensified in the last decade, most recently in the nation of Syria. Syria has been mired in a bitterly fought civil war for the last seven years, with major Western powers taking sides, resulting in a proxy war not dissimilar from those fought during the Cold War between the United States and the U.S.S.R.
Within the last 24 hours since the writing of this post, the government of Syria has launched an alleged chemical attack on the city of Douma, which is the last rebel-held city in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta. Although the reports coming out of Syria have yet to be verified by an independent agency, medical personnel in the city have tweeted out “graphic images showing several bodies in basements.” The use of chemical weapons is not foreign to the Syrian government, as UN reports confirmed the use of Sarin gas in early 2013 in the Syrian conflict. Although the UN report did not specify who was directly responsible for the use of the weapons, several Western powers, including authorities within the United States government “said only Syrian government forces could have carried out the attack.” The level of chaos within this war-torn nation mirrors the chaos that El Akkad depicts in American War. Although the Camp Patience massacre in American War was not a chemical attack, the deaths of many innocent people along with the chaotic scene during the event mirror the real-world tragedy taking place in Douma. As well, just as the Bouazizi empire feeds the Free Southern State’s war effort against the Blue, the Syrian government has been backed in its efforts by the Russian Federation. The Russian government has begun engaging in a war of misinformation surrounding the use of chemical weapons in this most recent attack. The Syrian government has “repeatedly denied ever having used chemical weapons,” while the Russian government claims that the photos and claims of chemical warfare were “staged.” Just as the Russian and Syrian governments have denied responsibility for the claims, the Blue government likewise denied responsibility for the Camp Patience attacks. Before Sarat cuts him off, Gaines tells Sarat that the perpetrators of the massacre “call themselves the Twenty-first Indiana[…] they’re a militia, not enlisted, but there’s no doubt the Blue commanders knew what they [planned, etc.]” (170). Sarat doesn’t wait around to hear the rest of Gaines’ explanation, but instead wants only to kill those whom she deems responsible. As in American War with Sarat’s desire for revenge, we can likely expect a retaliation of equal proportions by the opposition forces in Syria. Even though there are no official reports of responsibility, those whom are believed to be responsible will ultimately be the recipients of the Syrian rebels’ retaliation. While the claims of innocence from the Russian and Syrian governments seem highly questionable, the truth of the matter has yet to be verified by an independent source, as the claims of chemical warfare are only being made by pro-opposition groups via Twitter. The misinformation of the Russian Federation mirrors that of the Bouazizi Empire in the Civil War depicted in El Akkad’s work, as the president of the Bouazizi Union claims “the government of the Bouazizi Union has no desire to impose its will on the affairs of any other nation” (144). In the world El Akkad depicts, the roles have simply been flipped; rather than the Western nations blatantly lying about their intentions and roles in conflict in the Middle East, it is the leader of the now powerful Middle East lying about his government’s role in the conflict in America. Although written in the same contemporary time frame as the Syrian conflict, the parallels between El Akkad’s text and the current situation in the Middle East are disconcerting to say the least. El Akkad’s text in this context helps reframe the conflict in Syria in terms Americans can understand, as the conflict has been brought to bear on their own present and future. Through this perhaps we can understand that the crisis in Syria is not a problem unique to the Syrian people, but is a crisis on a global scale, and requires a global humanitarian response. At present let us pray for a ceasing of violence which has to date left over 350,000 Syrian people dead, many of them innocent people and children like Sarat and her siblings. (Source for news on the Syrian gas attacks - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43686157 ) Ever been scrolling through Facebook, like one does, and see a link one of your “Friends” has posted saying, “Can you spare a moment to help___?” or, “Help ____ Get More Signatures!” While there may be many go-getter sites with similar catch phrases on the web, the one I’ve been seeing more and more of in my newsfeed is from change.org. Change.org is a private corporation whose mission statement is, “to empower people everywhere to create the change they want to see. We believe the best way to achieve that mission is to be a technology company using the power of business for social good” (change.org). Sounds good, right? Using the power of social media to enact change across the world for “social good.” Also sounds familiar. Didn’t Mae and Bailey and the rest of the Circlers think that through the power of technology they could complete the Circle and use their tools for social good? What’s even more frightening about change.org is the information they are subtly taking, using, and distributing from their users, which includes over 100 million people. There’s the usual information: name, address, phone number, picture, and other social media sites you link up to. Then there’s the information collected “through cookies, pixel tags, and other technologies,” zip code, geographic information, browser information, as well as “information about you that we collect from third party providers” (change.org). They assure users that the information collected from these third party providers was already consented by you to be collected and shared. Remember the terms and conditions agreements that everyone definitely reads before clicking the box? If we learned anything from The Circle, it’s how easily powerful corporations can collect significant amounts of information on you and use it to their advantage. Search information, political views, and the random fun-facts about yourself that you put on your social media sites are all being collected and fed into algorithms. Small pieces of your information can make up more than we think, slowly fitting pieces of the circle together until it is complete. Even further, change.org collects this wide array of information every time you log into your profile. All of your activities are tracked on their platform, and other platforms that your account is linked to. Suppose you share that great petition on Facebook, spread it on Twitter, and post the link in your Instagram bio. Now, change.org has the right to access all the information associated with those accounts that you shared the link to. Sign this petition, it’s for the social good. Sign this one too, and this one, and this one. I’ve watched as my friends sign their names on petition after petition. Change.org makes it easy for you to find the right issues for you. Simply click on the “featured,” “popular,” or “browse, tab at the top of the website and be directed to pages of petitions. Sign them with feverish ambition, and make sure to share the link on your social media platforms so your friends know how to really elicit change, and so these for-profit corporations, like change.org, know you on an even deeper level. As we all know, North Korea has been our enemy since really I can remember. This was mainly because of the looming threat of destruction that the country was willing to impend on the rest of the world. It wasn’t as much about what they did, but what they were possibly going to do, and that reminds me of a constant state of fear that I see most Americans living under in one way or another.
Now, I know that North Korea has come out and promised that all of that is over—that we are finally binding towards some peace with them. However, who else is still scared and anxious about what the hell may still happen? I’m writing this with the fear in the back of my mind of what could possibly happen if the exact location I was in was either attacked by radical terrorists, or one of those great big missiles were to come flying down and connecting with the building I am in, killing all of us. I’m not wrong, maybe pessimistic, but not wrong, about this fear that I have inside me. Some of it stems from not believing the words on television of anyone, not even our own people, and some of it stems from my mind always running with possibilities. North Korea’s statement about committing to peace in the recent weeks has me, more than ever, gearing up for something awful to happen in this world. Peace just doesn’t pop up and burst from nothing, and when things like this happens, it is portrayed in that way; that way that makes it seem like whatever is said is Truth. This blog isn’t so much about the words and actions that North Korea is taking, but rather the anxious feeling of an impending disaster that sits in moments of faux safety. That exact feeling represents so many characters from the novels and stories we have read, and it’s partially why I chose to write about this. While I may not believe the world all that well, I still find myself listening to it and letting it impact my emotions. However, with that said, when will I decide enough is enough? That these current events, these pointless speeches of peace, are not important to me? Maybe never if I always think they are lying. Maybe never if I always read about disaster and destruction. See, we listen to liars; we watch disaster. We want to know who and what they are going to lie about next, basking in what we feel to be our own truth. With that, we also want to see the next disaster that strikes; we sit around and wait and wait for it like we truly don’t mind it. It’s disgusting; shoot I’m disgusted writing this. Will North Korea keeps its promise? Will I ever stop listening to the wild thoughts and words of this world and its leaders? Will this world ever not be disgusting? Probably not. |
Dr. PolakWrangler of the attendant ne'er-do-wells. Archives
May 2018
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