The Braindead Megaphone By Jon Ronson

The first is the stigmatisation of sexual assault victims,. In the documentary we see how Audrie Pott was sexually assaulted, and how pictures of the crime were were circulated on social media. She committed suicide after being harassed, and even blamed for her own assault. Victim-blaming is shockingly common in modern society and its impacts are exacerbated by the capabilities of social media. Within our piece we explore this through a video of Sierra being raped being circulated online, receiving over 100,000 views on Facebook. Comments on the video also depict a culture of character assassination by viewers, ‘look at this slut, she’s probably got an STD’. One audience member reflected on the portrayal of social media within our piece, ‘it was amusing at times and also realistic, especially the victim-blaming comments.’ Overall, we were happy with how the social media scene reflected the realities of stigmatisation, however we also reflected on how to

George Saunders writes about human behavior with some modern and not so modern examples. He invites the reader to imagine themselves at a party where someone is speaking into a megaphone. Soon the focus of the party becomes the topic the megaphone speaker is flooding into the party atmosphere. Saunders also talks about new broadcast,he mentions a news reporter reporting busy shopping activity at a mall during holiday season . What a surprise!

Newspapers have since become an exceptionally poor means of reaching a motivated audience that can justly enforce change. Social media has the capability to uphold a broader grasp of an audience that encompasses forwardness. Furthermore, the use of an Internet platform, such as Facebook, to present the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” would have accelerated a positive outcome to the brutality of Birmingham by broadening the audience without differentiating the rhetorical situation.

Jon Ronson is on twitter, and he sees another account made under his name with his picture and tweeting as if it were his. At first Ronson blows it off because it did not have any followers but, he kept watching it. As he kept watching it he noticed that it had gained followings from people he knew in real life. Ronson decided to track down the owners and put a stop to the second Jon Ronson on twitter. Eventually Ronson got the owners of the “spambot” to take the account down but Ronson recounts, “The spambot left me feeling powerless and sullied. My identity has been redefined all wrong by strangers…” (Ronson 3). This experience gives Jon Ronson credibility to be writing about others experiences of when they felt powerless and violated and could not do anything about it. If Ronson had not included his story of the spambot, many could say that he could not write a book on shaming and not know what it feels like. He could be viewed as a hypocrite or taking advantage of others sorrows for profit. But, because he includes his story the reader automatically trusts Ronson to tell others accounts about their personal

The megaphones in our lives today do a lot more than just influencing. The megaphones in our world can range from the people we look up to, to our political leaders, parents, and mostly mainstream media. He gives us simple, but perfect examples of how they intrude their thoughts with ours. How the way a simple voice change can make us think completely different than the way we thought of it before. It makes us look at the media or our role models to be our idolized figures. Saunders jumps around with different stories about the megaphones we experience in our everyday lives. After reading his thoughts and examples, I have come to realize that there are in fact many different “megaphones” that do intrude on our worlds thoughts and views.

The article in The New York Times, “How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life”, by Jon Ronson seeks to persuade and inform people developing good narratives of just how people’s lives are being changed by the effects of social media. Showing us that everyone can be broken down in the eye of the public but is this the right thing to do? Ronson goes on to discuss his eye-opening experience as he interviews people that have gone through social media rejection.

Ignorance is demonstrated in society where the government dominates the media. Bradbury warns that in order to avoid the destruction of society, man must avoid depending on a false reality. This is shown through society’s reliance on technology, the fear and intimidation of governmental control, and the

This book proves that the Civil Right movement was very impactful. This book is composed of 40 essays, each "capturing the complications behind the public spectacles and charting the competing impulses of grace and rage--the proper province of reporting, reflection, and writing," as editor Jon Meacham mentions in the introduction. A abundance of popular writers and authors such as Rebecca West, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, Eudora Welty, E.B. White, William Faulkner, Tom Wolfe, Maya Angelou, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin along with many great writers who managed to capture moments that otherwise would get lost in history if not documented. Combining the work of artists and journalists is a handy resource to look back

In “The Problem with Public Shaming,” an essay that first appeared in the Nation, Stryker argues against the form of public shaming promoted by online networks and how people have figured out a way to deal with crimes but not with social media. Stryker introduced the essay’s subject matter through social media examples, while reflecting on past experiences and stating important details that reinforce the subject of public shaming as well as “dox” and discusses this term throughout the essay. Stryker helps define the term “dox” by listing the common traits and information “doxxers” try to gather, which include—name, phone number, address, social security and financial

the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide...was itself a punishable offense” (Orwell, 65). In 1984, looking suspicious or emotional in front of a telescreen was dangerous and considered a punishable offense. In the present day, social media is the equivalent to the telescreens, it’s the means by which individuals display themselves publicly. Posting the wrong thing on social media can be dangerous because if it’s public, it’s exposed to open interpretation. Jon Ronson from the New York Times Magazine published an article giving a few instances of people sharing controversial postings on social media and receiving a major backlash for it. Specifically, Ronson talks about a woman named Justine Sacco who tweeted, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” Upon her arrival, she realized this tweet was trending. She was judged by her friends and family, and the tweet generated threats and harassment on the internet from the general public. As a result, Sacco lost her job and was scared to leave her own home. This incident is an example of the reasons why, in this day and age, we must be very careful with what we share publicly. Social media exemplifies of how our world is becoming like 1984. Any misstep in our words or actions can wind us

Social media has evolved dramatically in its way it impacts our community, nation and world as a whole. Websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are the reason that we are so aware of our surroundings and everything going on around the world today. It is incredible when we think about how much these social media platforms allow us to see, from what is going on in The White House, what is going on in our local community, or even the latest fail videos uploaded to YouTube. The way videos can go from being filmed on one’s personal phone or camcorder, to being the top viewed video on the internet is truly mesmerizing. In 1992, there was an incident in California that involved Rodney King, a taxi cab driver who had a run in to the police that

An “I told you so” echoes from the grave of Neil Postman as a Reality TV star lead the polls for the GOP primary nomination in the 2016 presidential race. Meanwhile, a symbol of the most turbulent times in American history was recently removed from a state capitol and designated for museum status. Today’s latest social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, has assisted the Internet ‘steady growth and influence of society for over twenty years now. Three authors, Neil Postman, Daniel Solove, and Walter Lippmann have explored how various media and symbols have shaped society through history to today. Postman, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, Public Discourse in Age of Show Business saw the dangers in the medium of television turning the serious subjects of religion, the news, and particularly politics into forms of entertainment. In his book, future of reputation, David Solove argues, the law must meet the challenge to address these ever-changing technologies’ effect on one’s reputation and strive to protect the privacy while ensuring the freedom of speech. In the book, Public Opinion, author Walter Lippmann, explores how symbols are planted by authority figures to corral the public into their camp. While each author takes a different approach, each provides insights into a changing world and a route for an informed society to achieve better citizenship.

The only thing Stryker and I can agree is the old way of public shaming doesn't work. In this day and age, you can't do things like that anymore, as it simply doesn't work. as Stryker says scarlet letters stopped working because with planes, trains and automobiles, if people were being shamed they just left and moved somewhere else. “So we turn instead to public humiliation, an organic form of social control that never went away completely,” (Stryker 2.) The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts a woman pregnant out of wedlock and she gets branded with a red A for adultery, a very clear case of public shaming and humiliation. Like Stryker discuss scarlet letters just don't work anymore. If that happened today (even though it wouldn't) she would just leave town and live somewhere else. So I do agree with Stryker that things like that are a way of the past. Doxxing is the new world of public shaming and it's working. As seen in this story from the Charlottesville riots in august. “Logan Smith, the man behind the Twitter account @YesYoureRacist, began posting photos of alleged white supremacist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia—and gained over 300,000 followers in a single weekend, some of whom helped him expose the identities of the protesters. One of the people Smith outed has since been fired

The emergence of the Internet in the 21st century has dramatically changed how we communicate. It has opened a new avenue for facilitating human interaction. Information that would otherwise take hours or even days to be made public, now take seconds with a click of a button. Is this good or bad? What are the consequences of rapid-fire quick communication style that we have adopted? In articles “How Black Lives Matter Uses Social Media to Fight The Power,” and “The Attorney Fighting Revenge Porn,” authors Bijan Stephen and Margaret Talbot, discuss the pros and cons. Stephen discusses new mass mobilization structures social media has provided for social activists, while Talbot reflects on a new type of sexual harassment as a consequence of the

Imagine; you’re at a party with your friends just having a casual chat, when all of the sudden a man with a megaphone starts yelling about whatever it is he’s thinking about in that moment. How are you and your friends supposed to continue your conversation when all you can hear is this stranger yelling about how much he loves early mornings in spring? George Saunders begins his essay “The Braindead Megaphone” with this exact scenario - the megaphone being used as a metaphor. Saunders uses the metaphor of the megaphone to depict, and further - criticize the way news media has been corrupted and how this impacts the people that have become subject