WINOL PRODUCTION: Week 1

For the second part of the semester I have started working on the production team with Winchester News Online. I am acquiring new skills, which adds to my ever-growing and impressive BJCT accredited skills. The prior skills I had before moving over to production include reporting skills, camera use, editing skills, etc and all of these are transferable skills to some extent, which have only helped me more quickly adapt to life on production.

The first week of being on production everyone's efforts were firmly focused on our live election broadcasting. Here I mixed production skills with basic beat reporting skills as we prepared for what is set to be our biggest venture on Winchester News Online to date. The first week I was assigned the task of going out and filming numerous constituency profiles so that on the night of the election we would have VTs to showcase the constituencies to provide background and political history of areas in the south. The constituencies I covered was the Meon Valley and all of the Portsmouth seats. I was particularly proud as my Meon Valley profile contained interview shots of which I had taken for my Gonzo journalism piece, and as it transpired George Hollingbery (the interviewee) won the seat for the Conservatives. In addition to this I was very pleased with all of my piece to cameras and general views, all of which were shot in interesting locations such as inside the Spinnaker tower or by the ferry port.

As well as profiling my assigned constituencies, I also helped Chanin film his areas. For this we pretty much travelled from one side of Hampshire to the other, which was rather tiring. We profiled Hampshire East in the east over to New Forest in the west. These also turned out very well as again we shot a variety of interesting shots, which included Chanin doing a PTC in front of Fawley power station.

After we filmed the footage, which was collated over nearly three days, we then moved over to production side and edited our packages. Depsite the fact that I had hours of footage, I often found myself short for decent GVs. AN example of this was my footage captured inside the Spinnaker tower, which despite being breathtaking shots, were often jumpy or the panning was too fast. These factors aside, Chanin and I were pleased with our work, which combined a good mixture of eye-pleasing general views with an equal amount of information, and history and heritage of all our assigned constituencies.

Fear and Loathing New Journalism

The godfather of Gonzo journalism and arguably new journalism has got to be Hunter S Thompson. His techniques are unmistakable, taking the reader through every stream of consciousness conceivable with such intricacy that the imagery can almost be smelt. The most notable of his works is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which embraced new journalism and smashed open the doors of Gonzo Journalism.

Though many perceive Thompson’s writing in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as frantic, restless, or overzealous, I must argue that as a narrative it is easily up there with any novel in the way it sets the scene so carefully through first person narrative with Raoul Duke’s analysis of events through facts and questions. One could even go further in admitting that he may not be to everyone’s taste but he does change his style at various points to add nostalgia and poignancy amidst his anarchic monologues, which only enhance his already brilliant descriptive technique.

It is particularly interesting how his utterances within his consciousness do constitute as journalism. “The race was definitely under way. I had witnessed the start; I was sure of that much." There is definitely no way one can challenge the factual information within this statement, which warrants it as viable journalism, it just isn’t written with the age old conformist journalistic technique… hence “new journalism” I guess.

I feel if it were not for the reflective, calm parts within the novel then many of Thompson’s fans would view his work as just mad ramblings, which lack any substance, however the reflective points add eloquence and finesse to a very formative and interesting journalistic approach. Despite the fact that these reflective points can be very opinionated i.e. the reflection of the 1960’s drug, I strongly believe that they only act as a catalyst in heightening the journalism by bringing it to life.

The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Reich believed that the masses are doomed to enslavement, and that freedom could only be realized if suppression were removed. Much of this suppression is focused around sexuality and the confusion it induces on one's rationality.

One of the questions asked in The Mass Psychology of Fascism, is why do people support and promote groups, which are both harmful and detrimental to themselves? Reich was of the opinion that the roots of harmful authoritarianism lay in the authoritarian family, and that through sexual repression within family life, the masses become submissive and promote "reactionary thinking", which is a fear of freedom.

Where the figure of the father relates family, fuhrer is mirrored through nation. "In their subjective emotional core the notions of homeland and nation are notions of mother and family."
The fuhrer evokes emotional family themes in the masses, and this makes him an authoritarian father figure. He attracts all the emotional attitudes that were meant at one time to be attributed to the father. The masses had need for protection and were allowing the dictator to manage their needs. The more hopeless the people in Nazi Germany became, the greater their connection with the Fuhrer became.

Reich believed that the sexual repression can lead to sadism and is brought about by mysticism and ideology (both of which are prominent features within the Nazi regime). Where the Nazi regime really succeeded was in the way it managed to appeal to the people's sense of duty, which is all a part of mysticism (another correlation with sexual repression). This mysticism is somewhat euphoric and indoctrinating, and the swastika symbol only furthers this sense of unity and primal urges.

Reich attributes much to Freudian sex-oriented psychology and a concept of sex economy. Evidently, sex economy is based on control through sexual repression and suppression. Reich finds a strong link between sexual suppression and economic exploitation.

Being and Nothingness

Heavily influenced by Nietzsche, Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" rebukes any higher being or entity which goes beyond the physical make-up of reality, and reaffirms that the physical being is the only true reality. Sartre believes this view as not a negative one, and despite somewhat bleak philosophy, people should perceive the physical, experiential world as the only ultimate reality truth.

The main theme in Being and Nothingness is the concept of being-for-itself and being-in-itself. These concepts are relatively easy to interpret. The being-for-itself is a way to describe the subject and consciousness, whereas being-in-itself deals with the physical nature of objects. The two can be overlapped and often mistaken for the other. For Sartre, "nothingness" is the defining characteristic of the for-itself. An inanimate object is unable to establish its "being", and thus remains in the nothingness. Conversely, man has has to make his being through his behaviour, instead of being nothing.

Sartre makes the point that a being-for-itself will interact with another being-for-itself, and he explores aspects such as “the gaze” and “the other”, which he views as abnormal and alien. The way in which humans are aware of the way they are seen not only causes them to deny the consciousness, but also lets them see this denial in others. In turn, we view the other who looks at us as superior and dominating, even if we know that his gaze as detrimental to us.

In response to the gaze of the other, we will assert ourselves as free and conscious and attempt to objectify the individual who objectifies us, and the relationship is reversed. This view is very true indeed and is a superb analysis of the way in which human minds work. There are almost endless examples throughout society, which suggests that Sartre's analysis on relationships is almost spot on. Freedom for some often results in the restriction in another as can be seen in the way women have been treated in the past compared with how they act in the present day.

If he Kant do it no one can

Kant was of the opinion that things which make people happy and satisfy do not have to be "good" acts, and that the most "evil" things can bring people happiness. This reigns true throughout modern society as people commit heinous crime - not knowing why - but they know that a particular "evil" act makes them happy. But the argument goes much deeper than that as society itself manipulates concepts of "good and "evil", and to go further more, it could be argued that morals change across the globe i.e. in the media at the moment there are many reports of so-called "Honour Killings" in countries such as Turkey, where some feel it is right to kill woman who they believe have brought shame upon the family. Paradoxically, if such events were to occur in the UK there were be major uproar and answers would be demanded.

Furthermore, he argues that characteristics which are usually perceived as positive traits such as intelligence and courage can all be used for "evil" and are thus evil. This can be seen in any war throughout the ages, as to achieve a goal which a particular nation sees as essential for their own survival, people from opposing nations must be killed thus this act of courage is inherently evil.

Kant employed the word "good" to represent "good will" and duty, and he was adamant that by using reason one would discover their duty and then "good will". I divulge in opinion here, and I would have to agree with the likes of Hume on this topic. Hume's philosophy was that morality was more felt than judged with any kind of reason. For Hume, morality is a matter of feelings and impulses of sympathy, which are carried out by rules.

Kant differed a lot from other philosophers in that he believed that there had to be an afterlife because without an afterlife there would be no point in any morality. He was of the opinion that if everything was predetermined in life than morality would have no place in any society. I cannot fully agree with him here as although I am no religious man I do feel that life is definitely not predetermined, however I can agree that in a hypothetical world of predetermined activity, that morality holds no weight.

Despite Kant's estranged views on good and evil, to say he was in anyway a nihilist, or indeed an anarchist, would be entirely incorrect. He was of the opinion that humans must live by laws to give any action that anyone acts out a sense of worth in the world. He agreed in a society where laws and rules can be applied prior to one's own existence. Conversely, just when I thought I could agree with Kant he had to stray with MY "moral" beliefs; Kant said that rational people create the laws that they live by. I feel that this can be interpreted in two ways: firstly he is implying that ratioanlity is the way to live, as if one is rational then the right way to live will surely follow, which is a positive way to live. However, to me it feels like if everyone saw themselves as rational and made their own laws then a common morality cannot exist as everyone's morals would vary astronomically.

Thus Spoke Jon

In the Biblical parody of “thus Spoke Zarathustra’, the rhetorical narrative is so well crafted that this masterpiece really does stand out as one of the greatest philosophical books ever, and really acts as a tribute to greatness of both Neitzche’s philosphopihalc and lexical talent.

The book is steeped heavily in irony with the text resembling the nature of the Bible to induce biting resentment. The book itself acts firmly as an attack on the juade-christian beliefs of good and evil; the belief that the world is a battle between two different sets of forces.

Neitchze’s take on Zarathustra urges us to get over the diacotmy of Good and Evil, which Zarathustra himself introuded. ZarathustraUrges us to forget ideals of “the other worldly”, and strongly projects neitcheze’s philosophy that there is only the world we are in now and nothing more.

This book, despite having few themes, does contain some continuing themes as can be seen in earlier works such as “the gay science”. The book reaffirms the philosophy of ‘God is Dead’, as the protagonist notes to himself after encountering a hermit, “'DEAD ARE ALL THE GODS: NOW DO WE DESIRE THE OVERMAN TO LIVE.'” This quote brings me nicely onto talking about another theme in the work, the theme of the overman. Nietzsche makes a point that the overman is not the true end for a person, but more the journey of self-discovery and knowing.

Hegel: The Best Yet?

As far as philosphers go, I am enjoying the works of Hegel.

Hegel believes that reality is a matter of a process of change and understanding objects as processes of change.

He argues, when you contemplate something, the thought is a process of change in itself. One cannot separate the act of thinking about something from the nature of that something you are thinking about.

Contemplation of things is stimulates change. When you have concluded your thought then the object in topic is believed to have then changed… there is no certainty. The only certainty is that the subject has tried to understand it; this concept is commonly known as the Geist.

Hegel philosophy is that history has a goal of freedom and no alienation in the sense of the Geist knowing itself.

Hegel shared Kantian dialectic views, with the ideas of thesis and antithesis. This theory shows that all propositions have their own negatives. For anything to occur there must be opposites i.e. the analogy could be weather, if there was no rain or sunny days then there would be no concept of weather.

No thesis can exist without an antithesis i.e. an EXISTENCE is a THESIS and NON-EXISTENCE is a ANTITHESIS, thus creating history, which is a SYNTHESIS. After this, history becomes the new thesis and then the process continues.