This is also my last assignment of the semester. Woo!
The following is a post I made for class (on blackboard, of course, so I can’t link to it here). We were assigned to watch and post about V for Vendetta. I wish I could link to other student’s great posts.
Every time I watch V for Vendetta, I can’t help but think about Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s Nineteen eighty-four. All three envision a future where information has been distorted and suppressed. In V for Vendetta and Nineteen eighty-four the Government distorts the past and filters information, in a Brave New World the government simply obliterates information, providing entertainment instead. All these tales include people who would rather not know, who are quite happy staying clueless. All governments are bolstered by the threat of war or came into power because of it- in the case of V for Vendetta, the threat was government created.The thread among the three stories that I find the most fascinating is that of willful ignorance. In V for Vendetta, Evey is not sure in the beginning she wants to participate- by not participating, she is safe. V has to stage rather large events to shock people into coming forward, and even then, they do so masked initially. Nineteen eighty-four is very similar- the main character works as a fabricator of history, and in the end happily accepts the government. Brave New World contains people that live in blissful ignorance- the government rules by making them happy. Brave New World is, in a way, the scariest to me, because I can see it happening. If people are happy, well fed, entertained, and can indulge in anything they want, they may be less likely to rise up in the face of an unjust government.
In Neil Postman’s book “Amusing ourselves to Death” he quotes Huxley: “the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny ‘failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions” (1985, forward, pp. vii-viii). The challenge of information literacy isn’t to make people understand the information- I think most can understand it easily enough. I’m always amazed at how good people are at finding information when it interest them. The really hard part is getting people to care about information literacy. It is here where I run into a roadblock- how can I make people care? I can make all the tutorials in the world, but if no one wants to watch them, it’s useless.
I don’t believe hope is lost. I think the emerging culture- one that involves creating, not passively consuming, material is key to avoiding the kind of future described in these utopian/dystopian stories. People today create more content than ever before. They broadcast their likes and dislikes, and they speak up and act out when they see something wrong. This is why I think information literacy is as much about teaching people how to create content as teaching them how to consume information. Content creation is essential to democracy, and it should not be in the hands of a few elite. Joan K. Lippincott (2007) “suggest[s] using a framework that focuses on higher education’s need to prepare students to be content creators within their disciplinary or professional specialties” (para. 2). The author also points out that such content creation necessitates the skills to legally use and remix material. Built into this education is a conversation on responsibly using information. Over a year ago, I posted an entry about an old idea of mine- a community content creation center. I said:
“I guess what I would love to see is a more information literate community, and also one that encourages more people to share their knowledge and thoughts online. I personally would love to see more blogs by, say, WW II vets, retired schoolteachers, grandparents. There’s a huge number of people out there with interesting stories to tell, whose stories I would love to read, but who have no clue where to start. I would like to help with that” (2006, Dalziel, para. 12).
I keep coming back to this idea of libraries as a place for communication, a place for community, a place to say what you think. It is a bit off from the library’s traditional role as passive deliverer of information, but not by much.
It took me longer to format this post than to write it. I much prefer the blogger/journalistic style citation method of internally citing and linking to content.Cited:
Dalziel, K. (2006, August 29). Creating work. Retrieved November 30, 2007 from “nirak.net – Musings of an LIS Student” http://www.nirak.net/2006/08/29/creating-work/
Lippincott, J.K. (2007). Student content creators: Convergence of literacies. EDUCAUSE Review, 42(6), 16–17. Retrieved November 30, 2007 from http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm07/erm07610.asp?bhcp=1
Postman, N. (1985). Amusing ourselves to death public discourse in the age of show business. New York: Viking.
Consulted:
Huxley, A. (1946). Brave new world. New York: Harper & Bros
Orwell, G. (1992). Nineteen eighty-four. New York: Knopf.
Portman, N., Weaving, H., Rea, S., Hurt, J., Hill, G., Silver, J., et al. (2006). V for vendetta. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video.