Assignment 3

How and why does society change in a certain way is the eternal question of social sciences. The theory of Thecnological determinism offers an explication which is that it is the change in the technology that causes change in the society. In case of modern situation we could easily draw parallels between technologies that enable us easier communication and change in the firm of the communication that such technologies bring. If technological development is in most cases something we look forward to it is also something that scares us. And if we look into the past we can see that the relationship between people and technology has always had these two elements amazement on one and fright on the other side.
It was the time of the industrial revolution that we can observe for the first time how new technologies were changing the economy, landscape and social relations. Steam engine was making Europe smaller, production faster and workers no longer needed at the same time as new nations of Europe were being born. It was from the 19th century onwards that we can observe a stronger dependence on technology in everyday life. New machines were being developed that would make products quicker and in a standardized way and changing the demand of the working force. That there was a change happening in the basic social relationships between the employer and the employee we could understand when Marx wrote “Like any other increase, in the productiveness of labor, machinery is intended to cheapen commodities, and, by shortening that portion of the working-day, in which the laborer works for himself, to lengthen the other portion that he gives, without an equivalent, to the capitalist” (Marx, 2004: 280). Technology has since always had a very important function saving money and time. And like the machines of the 19 century influenced the demands of work force and production in a very drastic way, this is what has happened to the ways and forms of communication in the 20 century.
But even if I believe that we are dependant on the tools that we use, and that each historic society is defined by its tools, these tools were created due to the need of the society, or as McLuhan said how we create our tools and they in turn shape us. It is so that the tools in my personal opinion are shaping the society only to the limit of the societies need and desire to use them. There have been thousands of inventions that have appeared needed and practical but were rejected by the society. The Idea of technological determinism is there fore difficult to use in a way in which we would say that the tools made it possible for a society to achieve a certain level. I believe that this concept is much more useful in way in which we could explore what were the priorities in a certain society by examining which technology was the most used and crucial in a certain time period.
If I would apply these thought to the modern situation I am certain that the communicational capabilities that we use are by far not developed to the limit, but are limited by those who use them. This could be understood by a certain degree with sense of insecurity that many of us feel toward technology that has been in use for a short period of time. As there are many examples of abuse of technology that has appeared benign but has showed its “dark side” after time.
-Daniel Chandler, Technological or Media Determinism. Available at: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/tecdet/tecdet.html
-Marx Karl, Engels Friedrich (2004): Communist Manifesto, Wages, Price and Profit, Capital (selections), Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. The Collector’s Library of essential thinkers. London: CRW Publishing Limited
- Slides Technological Determinism of Marshall McLuhan, http://www.usm.maine.edu/com/techdet/sld001.htm

Celebrity support of the candidates

After nine months of fundraising, the candidates for president in 2008 have already raised about $420 million. This presidential money chase seems to be on track to collect an unprecedented $1 billion total. By some predictions, the eventual nominees will need to raise $500 million apiece to compete--a record sum. Year-end reports are due to the Federal Election Commission by Jan. 31.

The politics and showbusiness have always been strongly connected. The support of the celebrities always came in two ways the financial support and the personal promotional support. In 2004 presidential elections gave the movie, TV and recording industries $33.1 million to federal candidates, which represents an enormous support, but next to the money the celebrities and the entertainment business also promote their candidates trough the media.

For the presidential election 2008 some of the numbers connected with celebrity support are already known and are presented in an article on CNN web site
( http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/13/celebrity.donors.ap/index.html )

Celebrities like Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Mary Steenburgen, Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Chris Rock, Sidney Poitier and Branford Marsalis, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Isaiah Washington, Tyra Banks, Morgan Freeman, Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker,George Clooney, Ed Norton, Jennifer Aniston, Zach Braff, John Cleese, Leonard Nimoy, Brooke Shields, Harry Connick Jr., Hill Harper and Rob Reiner have financially supported the campaigns of one or more Democratic candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich. (if you want to see more precise information on which selebrity supports whom see the folowing article:http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-et-cause11jan11,0,7865509.story?coll=la-politics-campaign ).

For the Republican candidates John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee support and endorsements were given by Pat Boone, Lorne Michaels, Chuck Norris, Kelsey Grammer, Adam Sandler and Ben Stein.

Most of the celebrities gave up to $4.600 dollars per campaign in support of the candidates but were not as generous with public endorsements. Most of the celebrities have namely still not endorsed any of the candidates. What is clearly visible from the two lists is that also in this election the entertainment world is more strongly supporting the Democratic candidates.

Let the games begin

The presidential campaign in the States has begun to reveal who the candidates in 2008 campaign will be. The voters of Iowa were the first to vote for the candidates that will run for the president of the country. It is obvious that the public's eye is on the Democratic party which is where the next American president is the most likely to come and in any case it would be something new in the American history. If one of the two most powerful candidates on the democratic side would win, Hillary Clinton would be the first woman president and Barack Obama the first African American president ever.

Their campaign has begun almost a year before and what is also new to the whole thing is the complexity of use of internet as a media of political propaganda.
Sites like www.hillaryclinton.com and www.barackobama.com are both highly interactive and appealing.

But the war for votes also takes place on other parts of the internet. One of the most interesting is the one taking place on you tube. There we can see that even if Se. Clinton was the first to use you tube for its promotion its opponents have taken the opportunity and posted very critical videos of her. So if on 8th of January 2008 you typed inn her name the first five posts are all critics or parodies on her.
If we make a search for Barack Obama we can see that the first five results are all pro-Obama. Obama has been namely very strongly supported by the internet users and probably one of the greatest successes of the whole campaign was the music video made the so called Obama girl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKsoXHYICqU.