We have discussed the societal impacts of the industrial revolution and the assembly line is a popular topic of conversation in our course. I searched the word "assembly" in the Prelinger Archive to find a video that could provide insights as to what an assembly line actually looked like. The video Harvest of the Years brings viewers inside the a Ford plant. The narrator explains the innovations of the production process, but the visual allows us to see things such as worker conditions. I think this is useful for students in our class, and can relate well to our last discussion. One of the few positive effects of companies deindustrializing their production process was that workers could have a safer atmosphere in which to work. I think this video is a good way to see such an atmosphere, rather than just read about it.
https://archive.org/details/HarvestOfThe
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Over the weekend assignment: Prelinger Archives
https://archive.org/details/GreaterG1953
The video I chose to see is called "Greater Goal: The Human Dividends from American History." This video promotes the southern industrial industry as a hotbed of enlightened industrial progress in the 1950's. In the video, textile mills are shown in small towns as the center of the community. In these towns, the mills produce goods that are distributed across the whole nation. The video sells the industries to be a great thing to the workers, often referring to the "good life" as a fruit of mans labor in the mills. The video goes inside a mill and explains how goods are made through what looks to be an assembly line. The video then jumps into talking in great detail about the benefits the textile mills bring to the towns.
As I was watching this film, I was able to link it to what a current student would learn about. In relations to the information society, the video portrays the shift of industries to smaller rural towns, it promotes the idea of a better life to the worker, and it also promotes the idea of having more leisure. This film is useful to students because it serves as an example of what postindustrialism entailed.
The video I chose to see is called "Greater Goal: The Human Dividends from American History." This video promotes the southern industrial industry as a hotbed of enlightened industrial progress in the 1950's. In the video, textile mills are shown in small towns as the center of the community. In these towns, the mills produce goods that are distributed across the whole nation. The video sells the industries to be a great thing to the workers, often referring to the "good life" as a fruit of mans labor in the mills. The video goes inside a mill and explains how goods are made through what looks to be an assembly line. The video then jumps into talking in great detail about the benefits the textile mills bring to the towns.
As I was watching this film, I was able to link it to what a current student would learn about. In relations to the information society, the video portrays the shift of industries to smaller rural towns, it promotes the idea of a better life to the worker, and it also promotes the idea of having more leisure. This film is useful to students because it serves as an example of what postindustrialism entailed.
1960s Counter Culture in the Prelinger Archives
While looking through the Prelinger Archives, I stumbled
upon an eye-catching title that quickly caught my attention, “Seduction of the
Innocent.” I wasn’t really sure what this film would entail, but the date next
to the title hinted at counter-culture and the need to “fit in” with its
glaring 1960s stamp. The film was exactly that. A bunch of images of teenagers
doing drugs and drinking alcohol to “fit in” and “feel better.” The 1950s were
all about conservatism and listening to your parents, while the 1960s
counteracted that. The 1960s liberated teenagers and made them have a voice.
This film was able to show that to future generations, almost in an attempt to
say, “don’t go too far free or this will happen to society.” And the 1960s was
not a bad society, just more untamable and loose.
What I found particularly interesting with this film was the
importance of “happiness” and “good feelings.” The film shows a car full of
four teenagers, driving down the highway and popping pills. Pills in this era
were very popular as they were thought to solve every problem presented. There
was a sleeping pill, a vitamin pill and even a happy pill. The teenagers appear
to be taking the “happy” pill and the narrator exclaims, “After the drug wears
off, and the “coming down feeling” as they say is set in, you feel put down and
sad. But the temptation steps in and it isn’t long for you to try again and
again and again.” That quote is very indicative of the era; temptation played a
tremendous role on the culture. This temptation led to trying new things, like
drugs, alcohol, and sex to override old traditions and ways, and often people
became addicted and it became a habit that was difficult to kick. As a society today,
we too have to be wary of temptation. Lust and desire like that only lead to
habits that become very difficult to break and behavior that is difficult to
manage.
https://archive.org/details/Seduction_of_the_Innocent
Friday, September 26, 2014
Over the Weekend Assignment - Simplicity
In the modern era we live in, information is shot
around in every direction all the time.
Everyone is in a constant rush to know everything with very little down
time to relax in. Nothing is simple
anymore; everything has to bigger, better, more complex and do more things. The video I watched, called Once Upon a Honeymoon from 1956, made me
rethink the hustle and bustle of our current society. In the story, one of the characters had to
write a song on a piano before he could go on his honeymoon and unfortunately
he hit a writer’s block. The character
struggles all day to come up with a creative piece until his wife starts to
dial a phone number. The random clicking
of the numbers she was selecting were enough to inspire the man to write a
great piece. His inspiration came from
such a simple concept, something I feel most people today would not
appreciate. The average person today
does not appreciate the simple little things in life anymore. They are too preoccupied with the bigger and
better things technology has to offer that they forget to calm down and just
relax with the modest idea of simplicity.
I believe society would be a less agitated place if we, even for a
moment, forgot the hustle and bustle around us and just focused on the little
things in life. This video shows how
something extremely simple in our lives can have an extremely positive
effect. The modern day person,
especially the younger generation, needs to take a step back and enjoy the
small things in life to be able to relax.
The video does a great job at demonstrating how people need to sometimes
forget the big things in their life and instead let the little things show them
everything is going to be alright.
https://archive.org/details/OnceUpon1956
Over the Weekend - Tina Ignasiak
While trying to find a video that interested me for this assignment, I had a bit of a hard time. However, I have always loved travel, and Christmas is my favorite holiday, so I chose to watch the video: Pathe News Christmas 'Round the World (1950), from the Warner Pathe News Corporation. In the video new correspondents (and their cameramen) from around the world wish the American citizens a Merry Christmas. This video is very interesting for our information infrastructure because it visually and audibly shows how our advancement in technology and communication can bridge the gaps of countries around the world. In this video, many of the correspondents speak in the language of the country they are reporting from first, and then translate the sentence, which always means. "Have a Merry Christmas". This broadcast in different languages from different places around the world would have been unprecedented a decade or so before. Nowadays, however, this ongoing communication with the world through our television and computer screens in a common and everyday occurrence. It is great to see the benefits that the increase in information technology has had for the world (rather than the connotation of it taking away jobs), by seeing and hearing many different things, all under the same message of Merry Christmas.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Article Report- Lazonick
Sofia Corelli
“Globalization of the ICT Labour Force” -William Lazonick
This weeks article, titled “Globalization of the ICT Labour Force” is written by William Lazonick. Lazonick got a Ph.D in Economics at Harvard University, where he taught Economics after as well. He currently directs the Center for Industrial Competitiveness at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. He founded, and is President of, The Academic-Industry Research Network. Lazonick’s research and books are based on social conditions and economic development in emerging economies. He has been awarded many high achievements for his work, including the the 2010 Schumpeter Prize and the Henrietta Larson Award from Harvard Business School for best article in Business History Review in 2010. So, Lazonick clearly has high levels of expertise on the topic.
In this chapter, Lazonick begins by explaining how off-shore jobs used to be ones of low-wages and low-skill levels. However, now he explains them as, “low-wage labour to perform relatively high-skill work.” Because of the increase of information and communication technologies, off-shore labor is in need of higher skilled workers because of the need for knowledge and high levels of interaction with the technologies that they are working with. Many people thought that this type of high-tech work couldn’t be done abroad, but it indeed can. The chapter goes further to explain how East Asia is developing in a way that they acquire US ICT knowledge by coming here for higher education, and then bring it back to their countries in order to expand the global supply of ICT jobs and opportunities. Lazonick talks of a “brain-drain” where all of the East Asians seeking a higher education in ICT are going to America, which is leaving their homelands with minimal opportunities to provide this education. However, nations like Korea are working to reverse the “brain-drain” by creating job opportunities for these highly educated people once they come back home. Lazonick’s big claim is that all of this movement of people from East Asia to America, and then of ICT information back to East Asia, has big implications for the US. In order for the US to remain the leader in ICT, Lazonick believes that it will take academia, industry, and the government all working in collaboration. If not, the US will continue to lose high-wage ICT jobs to off-shore sites.
This Handbook of ICT was received well by the audience. Since it contains the work of 39 authors, all who have made huge and important contributions in the research of ICT, it has great legitimacy and is well respected. For example, Jean-Claude Burgelman, head of Communications and Strategies at IPTS, reviewed the book as “a most impressive OUP Handbook that contains the work of 39 authors, including many who have made substantial and lasting contributions to our understanding of the social science of information and communications technologies.” Each of the 39 authors have written articles in the Handbook of ICT, so the book as a whole gives a full array of opinions and ideas about the topic, Lazonick’s just being one of them.
Sources:
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Over the Weekend- Shayna Iorio
The archive I chose to watch was “Shopping Can Be Fun: A New Concept in Merchandising”. Considering the assignment asked to find the video that we personally are most interested in, I immediately clicked on the shopping archive videos. When I saw that the title was attempting to convince people that shopping was fun, I was automatically intrigued. The video is promoting the Hillsdale Shopping Center in California. It is an advertisement that is trying to draw customers into the center for its features that are different from any other, such as the farmer’s market, an Auto show, a fashion show, a famous sculpture, and more. I found it interesting that this was necessary in order to get people to come to the shopping center, because currently due to advancements in advertisements and marketing, people are always going shopping and spending time at shopping centers similar to this one. However, at the time, this type of publicity was a new concept, as were the newspaper ads, billboards, promotions, and special events, that are now major aspects in the Information Society.
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