Naomi Klein, the author of the book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, spoke at Carnegie Mellon University last week. Naomi said “Every time I go to New Orleans, I get mad.” That is close to the way I felt after hearing her speak.I left the auditorium feeling this desperate anger like “How could my country be doing this to people?”

I could be just talking about Katrina, or the Iraq war, but I’m talking about regimes in the U.S government that doesn’t strive to provide for it’s people. Citizens have to fight for every piece of policy that works in their favor instead of some business’s favor, when in fact, it is the sole job of the government to provide for the people.

Naomi read an email from a politician whom I can’t remember. It was a wish list with all of the policies he wanted to pass in the wake of Katrina that would help out big businesses. Instead of mourning the people in New Orleans, instead of being upset and angry about the situation people now have to live in, he viewed Katrina as a blessing because now all sorts of pro-business policies will be able to be passed. Is this the attitude of the whole government? Is this the attitude of the people who are supposed to provide for me? After hearing Naomi run through example after example of the government making decisions with this train of thought, I left the auditorium in feeling incredibly furious.

In writing class, we couldn’t get Naomi to speak to just 15 of us, so we watched the short movie created by Alfonso Cuaron and Naomi Klein called The Shock Doctrine Short Film. The film used a variety of editing techniques and Naomi Klein’s message to create a powerful piece of risk communication. In the short, six minute film, Alfonso and Naomi didn’t focus so much on specific examples such as Katrina or the Iraq War, instead she dealt with the metaphor of her Shock Doctrine book. A metaphor that I thought was especially interesting, that spills over to other aspects of life. The movie said that soldiers break down the door and bust in with guns and yelling. The idea is that I prisoner should be in a constant state of shock, never let out. That was an intense thought to me. Naomi describes this as a metaphor for disaster capitalism. After Katrina, people were in shock, and that politician who sent the email, was able to keep the U.S citizens in shock as he and his cronies passed the pro-big-business legislation listed in the email.

I thought the video was really effective in getting across this message and stirring interest for the book. Although it didn’t touch much on topics like Katrina or 9/11, it didn’t really have to since that is all in the book. The combination of fast, scary visuals and intense sound track kept me on edge throughout the whole six minutes. In fact, the video stirred enough interest in me that I went to see her speak.

My first picture has to do with the contrast between life with plentiful water and life with the absence of water. The picture shows lush, green flowers living over dried clay. The explicit message is that there is a starch contrast between life with water and life without water. Life with water is lush and life without water is dry and deadly. The implicit message is that there is a disparity in the world between developed countries who have access to water and undeveloped countries that don’t have access to clean water. There is a disparity in the lifestyles and health among these countries. I would use this image to enforce the contrast.

My second picture is aimed at selling an experience to my audience. This image shows a white, female student from a developed country, volunteering in Africa. The explicit message is studying abroad in Africa and being with African children is an amazing and necessary experience in one’s life. The implicit message is that anyone who registers for my study abroad program, H2Student will have a life changing and mind blowing experience. This is because that image shows more than just a white volunteer with an African kid, it is about the abroad experience that people in developed countries think is necessary for “finding themselves.” It also represents that same person making a difference in the world by helping create better water access in Africa. I would use this image to stir those emotions in the student who is thinking about signing up for my program.

My third picture is about how important clean water access is to human life. The image shows a few Tanzanians in despair as they look outward because their water hole isn’t very strong and is providing very salty water. The explicit message is that the lack of water in the area is very stressful and life threatening to the people living there. The implicit message is that something needs to be done to help provide more and cleaner water to these people. The implicit message is also a calling to the students reading who are reading about my H2Student program. I will use this image to spark them into action.

Today, some military officials came to speak at Pitt about future defense strategies and answer questions about current and past topics. At first the men introduced themselves and than began to host a Q & A session which brought up various topics such as forces in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay ethics, presidential candidates, troop removal and other topics. The crowd listened tentatively as the military men answered questions very formally and sensitively. They spoke like they knew they messed up big time, but at the same time they spoke defensively like everything wasn’t they’re fault. There was a very respectful and formal mood to the forum, well, that was until the hippies voiced out.

Dirty, raggedy, long haired…(insert hippie adjectives here) hippies have always been long time enemies with the straight edge, box cut, rifle toting military men. The image of the two sides evokes memories of Vietnam protesting and flowered V.W buses. The heroics behind the protesting the military guys is noble and should be respected, but this just wasn’t the place. Academics requested the military speakers as to get their perspective about the war. The ideas and points of view can be discarded or can be taken into consideration, but that is up to the listeners. The protesters weren’t giving the choice to anyone, they were forcing us to listen to their perspective and now one else.

I can understand the appeal of protesting the military, in fact, I would be down for it any day, but this event was the wrong place. This was a voluntary attendance event tucked away somewhere in a student Union room. No one was forcing anyone to attend or listen to the military men, only people interested went. Unfortunately the only thing that could be heard for about 15 minutes was the quacking of some non-thinking protesters. It was funny, I was laughing for the duration of the 15 minutes.

I recently watched An Inconvenient Truth which is a documentary starring Al Gore and discusses global warming. After viewing the movie, I wasn’t inspired to rally the people and fight global warming. In fact, I was a little depressed and hated the people of the world a little. There was one scene where Al Gore weighed gold on a scale with the world. He said we had to choose between money and saving our globe from global warming. If I could revise that metaphor, I would compare luxury and the saving the globe from us(human beings). Global warming is part of a bigger picture: there will be just to many humans for the earth to support. And to build on that, humans live a life of luxury at the earth’s expense. We use resources like oil, coal, and wood at alarming rates. It isn’t a slow procedure either. We blitzkrieg the land with drilling, mining and mass deforestation leaving the land stripped. To make matters worse, we spew the resources back into the world in a very unhealthy manner like fossil fuels and CO2. We use too much water, and pollute the sites from which we draw it.

Agent Smith from the Matrix movie claimed humans were like a virus, populating an area until it can’t hold us anymore then we move to a new area. Humans are throwing off the world’s natural cycle. We are overpopulating the world with our luxurious lives. We need to change the way we live and reduce our carbon footprints so that we can slow down our speed of destruction. Humans need to balance between living comfortable lives and caring for our earth. Right now we support our luxurious lifestyles more than we are caring for the health of the globe.

I would also like to add comments about the use of visual media in An Inconvenient Truth. In Al Gore’s actual presentation, he used quite a bit of visual media, but the visuals used in the movie were totally different.  Al Gore used images of nature to stir “homegrown” emotions about what we would be losing if we didn’t take care of the world now. He also used visuals of his life to personalize, and humanize the movie. In his actual presentation, he used many pictures of suffering glaciers because of global warming. He showed diagrams and charts to better communicate his ideas. He also used the famous scissor lift to enhance his point about growing CO2 levels. It was a good blend of visuals, very effective.

1. A new purifying device that would be distributed to poor villages in Africa.

A made up device, like a cauldron looking pot where small amounts of water can be held and the clean water leaks down to the bottom providing clean water for a family. The press release would aim to inform the public of the device and distribution plans. The hopes would be that the awareness would lead to investors and donations. The device would then pick up some steam.

2. News about an infectious water related disease that had an out burst in a town in Africa.

The news would raise awareness about the disparity in access to fresh water and sanitation. There are many press releases about how dirty water kills people all the time, so this could be another reinforcer. Keep pounding the idea in and maybe people will get it, that the water inequality in the world is killing tons of people. The press release would cry out to close the gap on the disparity.

3. News of a new foreign policy which will allot money toward developing water access infrastructure in developing countries.

This would be a press release about progress in closing the gap in the access disparity. It would be a way of promoting the new foreign policy.

    In chapter 10 of Having Your Say by Davida H. Charney and Christine M. Neuwirth, the idea of “A but B” is presented. “A” represents a desired outcome, goal or value and “B” represents the condition that prevents “A” from happening.

These are some examples of “A and B” statements as they relate to access to water and sanitation:

1.  There is plenty of fresh water in the world for everyone BUT, resources are no distributed and allocated equally.

2. Humans have the technology to sanitize water very effectively and efficiently BUT, wealth isn’t distributed in a way that even basic technologies can’t be utilized by all people.

3. Humans need to change the way we use and distribute water BUT, it is hard to change when there is no immediate threat to our life style and it is such a convenient and cheap resource to utilize in our society.

When we discuss risk communication, we have a tendency to want to disregard emotion and discuss an issue in a highly technical and objective voice. I can’t imagine this being the most effective way to convey a message to people. Although objective, technical language is an effective way to communicate a message, throughout history, it’s the stories that live forever.

It is thought that when people are tense, concerned or perceive a threat that they’re information processing abilities are incredibly impaired. When discussing risk communication, communicators want to be objective and want to clearly portray their message. As a risk communicator, it is hard to have your message heard when the audience’s mind is clouded with panicked emotions. So communicators write with an attitude similar to “Just listen, take a deep breath and relax. Just listen to me, follow my directions and everything will be fine. Here’s the problem and here’s what we’re going to do: (insert technical language here).” This would seem like a great approach to risk, it disregards all emotion and gets people thinking clearly, objectively and intelligently. But is disregarding emotion really an effective strategy given that one of the many fuels humans run on is emotions ?

The risks communication usually deals with negative topics; topics with bad out comes for the audience or stake holders like obesity in Americ, a deadly virus, flaws in the health care system and so on. People tend to put greater emotional emphasis on losses than on gains. This means that people’s emotions are stirring strongest about risk communication topics. Playing on these emotions could be devastating for the risk communicator because the negative emotions will cloud the audience’s mind and make it hard from them to receive the message. Why confuse and make people emotional at a time when you want them to be thinking clearly and objectively?

It would seem that keeping a risk communication piece as objective, technical and emotionless as possible would be the best approach to a risk communication piece. But there is another train of thought that says that humans remember messages best when they are communicated through stories. The more elaborate, personal and emotional the story, the better it relates to the listener and the longer it stays with them. Starting when we were younger and our parents told us stories, to impact novels that keep us up late at night; stories sticks with us. Before history could be documented, stories kept history alive. If a piece of communication can touch us personally, stir the correct emotions and provide a contextual story, there can be nothing more effective. People much rather attend poetry slams or gather around a great story teller at a coffee shop than listen some lecture. Culturally, stronger emotions and excitements are stirred from poetry slams and story tellers than from lectures. This same train of thought applies to risk communication. A highly objective and technical piece of writing clearly lays out the information, but stirs no emotion. In fact, it actually evokes emotions of boredom and staleness which makes it hard for information to be effectively communicated. The reader feels no emotional connection to a document. This only stimulates the critical thinking part of the brain and not the emotional part which is like moving at half speed or like cutting efficiency in half.

There needs to be an equilibrium. Too much emotional stimulation, and the reader gets clouded with mental noise, too much technical information and language and the reader’s mind becomes stale and the information doesn’t stick. Although each piece of risk communication is different, this emotional/technical equilibrium is a good blue print for effective risk communication.

    Water deprivation is part of the classic image of a poor African or Middle Eastern family. Many acknowledge the fact that clean drinking water is hard to come by in Africa and the Middle East and that sanitation is a big issue, but few respond to this knowledge. Since it doesn’t effect the Western world directly, it doesn’t get any attention. Only issues that are important and relevant to the Western world get the attention, hype and care needed.

The media world and the blogging world focus on issues like public heath, debt recovery politics and a wide range of issues. Focus never leaves the blogger or the blog reader, issues are always about the two. This makes sense, why write and read about things that don’t concern you? But this is exactly the issue, people and populations are so SELF INDULGED that focus can never turn from themselves. Blogs about the disparity in water access world wide will never get hot because people rather write and read passionately about things that are relevant to themselves instead of other people. Water access is not relevant to the Western world, but is a very important issue elsewhere is the world. There is a lack of attention to the outside world and everyone is just concerned about their own well being.  The problems created by the water access disparity in the world will never become a hot topic in the Western world.

By July 2005, an AOL study showed that about half of blog users in the U.S kept a blog because it served as a form of therapy. People in the U.S are so desperate to have someone to talk meaningfully with and have someone to vent to, that if there is no one, a blog is the next best thing to have. The blog is traditionally used to amplify the opinions of users from a grass roots level. It is used to voice opinions, thoughts, views and emotions that wouldn’t otherwise be heard through main stream media. But more and more, blogs are kept for emotional purposes. Underneath all of the political opinions and slanders, a blogger will reveal personal feelings and emotions. This is because venting on a blog is easier than finding someone who can talk, share and communicate on a personal level with the blogger. The blog has become an emotional outlet, not just an opinion outlet.

It seems silly to pour out one’s soul into the computer and put it in digital form for the world to see when there are plenty of people out there to talk to. But this isn’t so. U.S culture has evolved in such a way that people are too self involved to enter into another’s world. People are to self involved to take the time to listen to anyone and really think about what they are trying to communicate. People are always worried about what their schedule is like or what they are going to say next in a conversation, but never really take the time to listen and think about what a person is communicating, feeling and living. There is so much self indulgence, that it is driving everyone crazy because they don’t have anyone to turn to. So people turn to therapists and blogs to vent.

“Therapy blogging” is the result of the lack of a skill: listening. People across the U.S lack the skill of listening and being able to enter another person’s world and spirit. There for we have a country of normal people driven crazy because they have no one to talk to. SELF INDULGENCE is the product of a modern world and a current U.S. In later blogs, I will discuss some of the causes and dangerous of self indulgence and discuss why the period of Listening is a distant past. The lack of ability to enter another’s spirit and world has started an era of therapy blogging.

Hello World! Get ready to be introduced to El Mundo (the world).