The Outsider

Albert Camus' "The Outsider" is a bleak novel with a striking outlook on society. The book strongly challenges the normal conventions of society. Camus' term of "the outsider" refers to the idea that anyone who does not conform to perceived idea of society's law is deemed an outsider. With the novel's protagonist, Meursault, Camus examines the problems of possessing a non-conformist outlook, and the loneliness entailed within the existentialist way of life. Meursault commits murder without remorse, and is conveyed as somewhat of an anti hero as despite the fact he has indeed killed a man, he courageously refuses to lie about his actions and rebukes all the morals of a traditional society.

Despite the fact that I do not sympathise with Meursault who kills in a seemingly racist attack, he is successfully conveyed by Camus as very human. His behavior is indeed remarkably strange but very believable; he just comes across as devoid from emotion. Ironically, it is Meursault's inability to lie - a characteristic which is promoted by society - which labels him an "outsider". To me, this is the single most important aspect of the novel as something as 'pure' as the truth has lost any sense of worth within a "conventional" society (clearly an attack on a conformist outlook of society).

The fact that the narrative is first person is different in the sense that the novel appears to present the way society deals with the "outsider" as opposed to the way he deals with society. Meursault is passive in his outlook yet Camus opts for a first person narrative. We rarely are in formed of Meurault's feelings or opinions. I believe this narrative adds to the alien feelings that the protagonist feels towards society, and firmly heightens the existentialist argument with Meursault, wrongly or rightly, looking like the victim.

WINOL PRODUCTION: Week 2

Following the capturing of the constituency profile footage I then began to edit the packages so they were good enough to be played without any flaws. The editing process was rather lengthily, and although I am used to editing as I am quite experienced with editing software, it felt more stressful as I knew that failure to provide decent packages would hugely effect the quality of the election coverage.

Some of the biggest problems was that I was rather short of decent GVs. Although I had been out for roughly three days filming my footage I didn't believe that I had a huge amount of decent GVs. I think the reason that I was short of GVs was because Chanin and I had so many constituencies to travel to that we often didn't take into consideration the amount of GVs we had filmed.

Even though we didn't have an abundance of camera shots, all of the final packages turned out to be excellent. After hours of stressing they were complete and ready to be put into the general election night.

The Road To Serfdom

Hayek's The Road to Serfdom is a relatively straightforward read. It basically discusses how no one group can ever know enough to successfully run an economy. To some extent Hayek is correct in arguing that any attempt to plan an economic future is setting itself up for failure as can be seen with the German Wiemar Republic's failure. Hayek goes on to say that this failure inevitably results in the rule of a dictator as a last ditch attempt to avoid chaos. Here one can see a clear correlation between the Nazi Regime.


The new command economy represents the submission of the individual to the dictating planners; where power was once dispersed amongst industrialists it is now stuck with a select few. This reduces the common man to that of a "serf" as he is unable to his produce for the highest price.



The book is as relevant now as it ever was. It is a piece of of literature which defends private property and supports the idea that promotes the individual to decide. It puts forward the argument to keep centralised power out of economic matters, and to Hayek, the central control of the economy equals slavery and an abolition of democracy. On the matter, Leon Trotsky said, "In a country where the sole employer is the state, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle - who does not work shall not eat - has been replaced by a new one - who does not obey shall not eat". This planning then doesn't cease and man becomes a mere cog in a machine, with every aspect of life being planned.



Although a lot of Hayek's ideas appear rather drastic - people even joked that Hayek would have you believe that if there was an over-production of baby carriages, planners would insist upon people having more children as opposed to halting production - his general arguments, which are based upon 20th Century events do bring home a huge amount of truth and poignancy.

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.