media and mental representations
I was reading yet another book on media studies ("Asian Media Studies") and I realised the extent to which political ideology is ingrained in the media and in the education system. Tho it is widely acknowledged tt the Singapore media is restricted and despite having always been rather skeptical about the government, it is only now that i realise what this means and its implications.
Melb Uni's media and communications program has a strong focus on cultural studies while NTU's mass comm program is focussed on IT. While i recognise the importance of techical knowhow and lament my lack of IT skills (this blog is limit of my technical expertise), the media cannot be studied in isolation. Especially in Singapore where the media and education are the most powerful tool exploited by the government to disseminate its views and socialise people into their political ideology, and rationalise their governing practices. Our ability to see things from different points of views depends on oppositional views that we have been exposed to. For something as ingrained as ideology, unless we are presented with a different way of making sense of the world, what we have been taught would be the only way we view the world. Hence a narrowminded conception of society.
Enough about the media and more about psychology.
Today we learnt that there are 2 schools of thought--dualism and monism. Dualists believe that there are material and mental aspects of humans. In otherwords, there is a physical brain and an abstract mind. There is a person, "me" inside my head controlling my body. That's a funny concept if u actually think about it. My concept of me, my personality is a result of my behavious, which is in turn determined bybrain synapses and neural signals! Is there even a 'me'? or am i just a collection of physical processes which obey laws of physics and chemistry? This is the concept of Monism, where there is only material existence. No such thing as soul, spirit (not talking about ghosts). It is a frightening concept that we humans are in fact machines! It is definately more assuring to think we have control over ourselves.
The lecturer said that often the most happy people are also the most deluded!! hahaha. People who think too much about issues regarding self, especially Monism tend to be more depressed. Monism robs life of its richness and diversity, reducing us to machenical processes.
It's so weird to think i am using my brain to think about myself, and myself being the self-concept constructed by my brain. So is my brain thinking about itself?
Must be the lack of sleep.
Melb Uni's media and communications program has a strong focus on cultural studies while NTU's mass comm program is focussed on IT. While i recognise the importance of techical knowhow and lament my lack of IT skills (this blog is limit of my technical expertise), the media cannot be studied in isolation. Especially in Singapore where the media and education are the most powerful tool exploited by the government to disseminate its views and socialise people into their political ideology, and rationalise their governing practices. Our ability to see things from different points of views depends on oppositional views that we have been exposed to. For something as ingrained as ideology, unless we are presented with a different way of making sense of the world, what we have been taught would be the only way we view the world. Hence a narrowminded conception of society.
Enough about the media and more about psychology.
Today we learnt that there are 2 schools of thought--dualism and monism. Dualists believe that there are material and mental aspects of humans. In otherwords, there is a physical brain and an abstract mind. There is a person, "me" inside my head controlling my body. That's a funny concept if u actually think about it. My concept of me, my personality is a result of my behavious, which is in turn determined bybrain synapses and neural signals! Is there even a 'me'? or am i just a collection of physical processes which obey laws of physics and chemistry? This is the concept of Monism, where there is only material existence. No such thing as soul, spirit (not talking about ghosts). It is a frightening concept that we humans are in fact machines! It is definately more assuring to think we have control over ourselves.
The lecturer said that often the most happy people are also the most deluded!! hahaha. People who think too much about issues regarding self, especially Monism tend to be more depressed. Monism robs life of its richness and diversity, reducing us to machenical processes.
It's so weird to think i am using my brain to think about myself, and myself being the self-concept constructed by my brain. So is my brain thinking about itself?
Must be the lack of sleep.
posted by aine at 9:10 PM
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