critical

Contrary to whatever misconceptions may arise after you read this entry's title, this article is not intended to be taken as an attack against Facebook or its well-meant creators and developers. It is not my goal to offend those 31 million active users the Web 2.0 company claims to have. Rather, I believe it is important to raise awareness of its flawed purpose and structure and to take a critical look at its very nature as it inevitably begins to form part of our lives. Here's a scoop on what the Web 2.0 has come down to.

A group of New York graduate students is developing a system that is surely going to piss off Communication Theory teachers, such as my own Robert Danisch, around the world. In fact, simply reading Botanicalls' opening paragraph on their website, would make them all flip their lid. Those involved in the project claim to have opened a "new channel of communication between plants and humans" that will improve "interspecies understanding." Here's the scoop on the new communication system.

Clearly losing ground every week against reruns and Big Brother in the States and Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? in Canada, Mark Burnett's Pirate Master has finally been canceled by CBS this past Monday. Although CBS will broadcast the remaining episodes online, in Canada, CTV has so far only added a note to the show's web page indicating that it is no longer being aired. It is in moments like this that one wonders what would happen if CTV or any other Canadian stations actually had a say on whether shows stay or go.

Here's the follow up of the first critical article I posted last month. This one looks at the semiotics behind advertising and what Roland Barthes calls "myths." Put in simple terms, a myth is, for Barthes, a second-level semiology. A semiotic analysis involves the analysis of the relationship between the signifier (or "thing," as Williamson puts it) and the signified (or social "idea") as they come together to form a sign that is used in all acts of communication. Barthes makes a point about the arbitrary relationship among these communicative elements.

In my first year at Concordia University, I took one of the hardest courses I have ever been faced with. Although it involved a lot of reading, writing, and critical thinking and it consumed most of my weekends, Communication Theory was an eye-opener. During the course of the term, we were asked to write critical reviews of some of the essays and journals read in class. You will find the first one below. It may take several readings for you to get an insight into the issues being posed. If you're up for it, I'm sure you will find it as intriguing as I do.