Writing this here is really interesting and also somewhat inappropriate, because this really good radio piece critiques media, the Internet, and blogs, which is exactly where I’m mentioning it. These pieces are collected from the Your Radio Nightlight radio show and come from a series of pieces that the shows producer made to reflect his feelings being confronted with all of the socio-political events that we’ve all been bombarded with of late. The piece that I find most interesting is the last one in this radio show. Initially, I thought his metaphore was crude and contrived, but the point he makes is a very good one. That is, that the problem is that people aren’t misiniformed. He argues, that with the Internet, people have access to a number of alternative news sources. He describes the process of trying to tap into this information in an attempt to do something, anything. However, even when bombarded with this fair and more accurate information, it still leaves him and the people around him feeling powerless.
I share this sentiment completely and I had that eerie feeling when listening to the radio piece that one only gets when they hear someone else describing their own life. I think alternative media is very important. Without it, we would all be more ignorant. Things are so bad, also, that I think it’s important to have some sort of documentation, maybe as a cautionary tale for future generations, maybe as a marker for future historians to pinpoint where things started going horribly wrong, or maybe for us, here, now to force us to aknowledge that yes, things really are this bad.
Still, for all the information, for all the reality that we consume, filtered through televisions, headphones, and computer displays, we are just as frustrated, just as afraid. Knowledge is power, but in this case, it’s not enough. The difficult question is, with all our knowledge, our awareness, even our empathy or concern or fear, what happens next?