Disclaimer: Please be aware that the aim of your initial discussion post is to touch on each of the prompts listed below, but how you choose to order and frame your response is entirely up to you. Divide your argument into 2-3 paragraphs as opposed to a single block of text, and please do not exceed 1100 words. Do not number your responses, and please cite your sources appropriately with MLA in-text citations and page numbers.
Theorizing Mass Media and the Homo Digitalis: How do Bo Burnham: Inside and “In Persuasion Nation” engage
with themes addressed by the theoretical readings? For instance, consider both Guy Debord and Byung-Chul
Han’s critique of what Han terms the “flight into the image” (Han 27-30) in contemporary mass media, the effects
of social media on our relation to others (ibid 24-25), the distinction between outrage and rage in public discourse (7-8), and the loss of narrative meaning and the disappearance of the real (35), among other themes. What do you make of the attitudes toward mass media as expressed by Burnham and Sanders? How does the structure of both
texts express ideas about mass media?
“That’s How the World Works”: Consider Guy Debord’s final claim in the chapter—“The spectacle is capital accumulated to the point that it becomes images.” In what way do Inside and “In Persuasion Nation” engage with this idea? Are commodities (everything with monetary or generative value) now essentially a collection of images? How do bothe texts engage with the phenomena of branding?
Exchanges of “Value”: In both “In Persuasion Nation” and Inside, the concept of “value” is debated over and over again. What is the meaning of “value” in both works? What is the relationship between the “commodity” and the “valuable”?
Silly Songs: Consider Terry Eagleton’s discussion on humor’s relationship to value. How does the humor in Inside
and “In Persuasion Nation” affect your interpretation of meaning and value? Are the songs in Inside and humorous moments in “In Persuasion Nation” just meaningless fun or does the humor serve a greater purpose? Be specific in your use of Eagleton – he employs several theorists, Freud included, in thinking through humor and laughter – how might these ideas apply here?