Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 09:37:56 -0500 (EST)
From: "JULES D. TUYES" <antjdtx-AT-gsusgi2.gsu.edu>
Subject: re: consumerism and freedom, again.



First, Nick Mamatas,
I appreciate your response to my concerns over media imagery that works 
against the goals that establish as an activist--fair access to 
resources, economic justice, and the media appropriation of those 
causes.  I agree, this is no new phenomenon.  Post-modernism reminds us 
that the viewers of television are subjects, not passively receiving these 
particular manipulative images.  Unfortunately, I believe that corporate 
commercial imagery has reached a new level with claims like, "even in an 
oppressed society, you can still have fun [the driver drives a 
hyundhai.], or "freedom to choose [with two blimpie's subs on sale].  I 
am hesitant to allow the corporate world to appropriate the real work of 
CITIZENS for these ends.  Just keep your eyes open, as a media scholar, 
I'm sure they already are.  
As you maintain, the locus of "blame" remains focused on the 
recipient of the images rather than the producers.  How different is this 
from the use of the "work ethic" to bind wage-slave-laborers to their 
job, rather than a popular assessment of the more severe injustices 
associated with corporate ownership.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jules David Tuyes                     | "You're walking, and you don't 
                                      |  always realize it but you're 
                                      |  always falling. With each step, you 
                                      |  fall forward slightly, and then 
                                      |  catch yourself from falling. 
                                      |  Over and over."    
antjdtx-AT-gsusgi2.gsu.edu               |
                                      |                     --Laurie Anderson
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