Please Let Me into the Class

I’m Rosalinda Pascual. Although once upon a time, my dad was a computer programmer, I still don’t know how to
manage technology. This is my fourth year at Brown and I’m an International Relations concentrator – in the PCI track. Although my fluency in technology is limited, my understanding of media is not. I’ve always been interested in how media covers what society is doing, and how the relationship between the two are interdependent. When I was younger, I wanted to be in Broadcast Journalism. But after realizing I was better at gathering information then presenting, I became obsessed with media analysis.

After taking Violence and the Media here at Brown, I learned how to articulate myself as a critical viewer of media. Taking more classes at Brown, including Global Ethnographies and American Advertising, that emphasize the importance of media has further honed my ability to criticized what is captured, but also note what is excluded from media. I could spend my life doing research on what is not captured in media, particularly in documentaries. Film, especially, can only include so much of what is labeled the truth. If we could focus on what truth is beyond that – on what is left out – we can better understand the subjectivity of the media creator as well as the situation which we are observing. Basically, I want to make a documentary and talk about other people’s documentaries – it sounds like fun.

Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers

In Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers, Roland Barthes writes “For writing can tell the truth about language, but not the truth about reality” (320). Although this is explained near the end of his piece, it created my ability to understand his points closer to the introduction. It is most intriguing how speech is that reality. It captures what is in the moment and what will automatically be insinuated by the speaker’s connotation. If one can understand this, one can began understanding Barthes’ statement, “No help for it: language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety” (311).

What I can gather from Barthes’ statement is that speech is always influenced by who you are and where you come from. There are certain social, economical, and even emotional judgments that the listeners will imply about the speaker and what he or she is trying to say. That is why a teacher, as Barthes explains it, “must become conscious of the staging imposed by the use of speech” (310). If a speaker does not stage according to the mainstream expectations of language, he will either not be understood or not be credited as a valid speaker. This reminds me of humanitarian activists who claim they are the voice for the disenfranchised. They speak on behalf of those whose voices are not understood- those who are powerless.

It just crossed my mind – how is someone criticized if they have the power to but choose not to? I was taught form a young age to pick and choose my battles – and although, I often snap back, I should hold my tongue for the sake of not creating unnecessary confrontation. Is that what Barthes means by “no innocence, no safety”? It seems the only way one can be protected from the judgments on their speech is if he or she does not speak it all. But then that must create a judgment on ones power. I seem to be going around in circles, but it all leads to Barthes’ main idea – speech (or lack thereof) is never free of criticism.