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chirpsythismorning · 1 year

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Your last post is amazing and I want to share with you that I had a similar journey when it comes to shipping byler.

I first watched the show when season 2 had just come out in 2017, and I was a hardcore milkvan shipper (I was 13 and I didn't know any better and lacked critical thinking skills lmao). While watching season 3 for the first time I noticed Will being gay (I gasped at the rain fight scene), but just like you I assumed milkvan would be endgame. After watching the infamous last milkvan kiss in the last episode, I was left with a weird feeling about it for the next week but I was never able to put my finger on what exactly had felt so wrong in that scene.

Like you, I also have never shipped ships where I didn't notice that there was clear buildup towards endgame (I even watched outer banks for the first time earlier this year and a lot of the fandom swears there has been jiara buildup from the first season, but I know that's not true and the only scene I can identify as true buildup is in the last episode of season 2). However, two years ago I began studying film and how it works, first in highschool and last year in college. I learned a lot about visual storytelling and I also gained an incredible amount of media literacy. Exactly a year ago, a month before vol 1 came out, I was bored and decided to rewatch the whole 3 seasons.

With my older age now and my better understanding of cinematography and narrative, I stopped liking milkvan in the first season because of the born sexy yesterday trope, but I also began to notice how Mike was surrounded by queer coding, both narratively and by the framing of his scenes with Will (the hand hold close up hello). Then I got to the end of season 3, watched that kiss again... and I noticed Mike's eyes were full open and the closet (Wills closet!) door was perfectly dividing Mike and El as if there was a wall between them. That's how, years after, I realized why that scene had felt so wrong to me the first time I watched it. I saw that boy was gay.

However, I was still skeptical precisely because I never fell for queer coding. But I went onto to Tumblr and I decided to read byler theories. I went in with an open mind and I realized that it made perfect sense and it was set up way too perfectly, so it couldn't be a coincidence, either it was queer waiting or true.

I went into vol 1 so excited, I noticed Mike's queer coding on episode 1 alone was SO heavy (I went 🤨 with his bedroom posters and one way sign, the way he looked at Eddie, the people he wanted to ask to be subs in Hellfire...). Then when he dropped the famous "were friends, were friends!" that's when I knew they were going there. And they I saw that he couldn't say I love you to El? That was the moment I smiled widely, and ever since that moment, I've known byler is endgame and I've never had a single doubt ever again. Not even in the aftermath of volume 2. I knew Mike's speech being based on the painting attributed to El when it's actually Wills mimicked the plot of many teenage early 2000s movies (yes I was the girl who wrote you that love letter not her, I'm the one who actually loves you like that... And then boom they always end together). Then, El wasn't speaking to him, and I saw the last shot with the couples standing together. I knew that it was intentional for them to be positioned that way, and at this point I knew it wasn't queerbaiting

YES!

It's so cool to hear other bylers experiences with being introduced to all the evidence and just hearing about similar experiences in general!

I feel like a lot of bylers are just sort of lumped in with this naive stereotype of someone who always falls for queer-bait? Like we kind of just get lumped into it when the circumstances for Byler are completely different than the queer-bait ships that came way before.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being a frequent queer-baitee. There literally isn't. Especially bc queer-baiting is referring to instances when a queer non-canon pairing is supported by the fans and the creators sort of humor it while knowing full well it won't happen?

Obviously times are changing at like lightening speed.

For example Stranger Things came out in 2016 and tbh 2016 is a completely different era of representation that 2023. 2016 was like the end of the queer-baiting era almost, give or take a few years. As we got closer to the 2020's, we started to see more queer rep that I feel like wasn't very overtly obviously queer-bait, but often queer characters at the forefront as the main or being more than just another example of the 'bury your gays' trope.

Also I took film classes in high school and I'm now majoring in film studies! So that was also something that no doubt had a massive impact on my perspective of things changing throughout that time from s1 to s4's release as well!

Even despite that I am a little bit slow about catching onto things, and so like it doesn't even matter that I have extra terminology under my belt or something. For example, I have a sister who hates movies, but when I do manage to convince her to watch a movie or show that I think she'll like, she'll notice stuff I didn't notice upon watching for the first time, while I on the other hand didn't notice that detail until like my 3rd rewatch. And it seriously pisses me off so much!!!!! She doesn't even appreciate her gift!

I remember watching s4 with her, and literally having no knowledge of anything outside of half paying attention while watching, she was like, Mike's pocket looks like an arrow... And I just looked at her completely silent and had to look away like seriously fuck you I had to go online and hear hundreds of bylers obsessing over it to think about it that way. But that's also just us as a fandom seeing stuff simultaneously and figuring it out together. Maybe I would've figured out the arrow pocket myself if I had actually not been exposed to the flurry of theories while s4 was promoted and released.

Still, it just goes to show that while yes extra knowledge about film is extremely helpful, like very helpful obviously, someone without any experience can be capable of picking up on things you missed regardless. And I do love that because it's just a reminder that no matter peoples bias' we can work together and figure shit out.

Also why I sometimes still enjoy lurking reddit bc they can be smart, and even a homophobes POV can come in handy bc I feel like they are avoiding the gay subtext at all costs so they're able to focus on things that we might overlook?

I do notice that a lot of people treat bylers like they are pervs and need to stop shipping boys together bc it's just not going to happen and we shouldn't be crying queer-bait, or this or that?

But like, first of all, it's half-canon my friend. One of the characters is, in canon, in love with the other. And there's still one more season left. And the other character has no idea that the other character is in love with them...

That doesn't happen bro. It just doesn't.

And not only that but, we were obviously milkvans at one point... I personally skipped entire episodes for those bitches...

And yet, even despite that, I also noticed something off between them just like 90% of the ga did before even looking up theories or picking up on byler fully.

This isn't a case of a bunch of people shipping two boys for shits and giggles (and even if it was, who fucking cares).

What's happening on Stranger Things is not something that happens, ever. You don't make the main couple become this pairing that the audience is indifferent to in the 3rd and 4th season, practically repeating the same storyline of them being incompatible, only to make their love for each other fail at saving the day... and with unresolved feelings between the main guy and his best friend being unaddressed... It's not a thing.

If more fans realized that this isn't even about shipping and it's just about literally paying attention beyond seeing what you want to see, then they'd understand where we're coming from. I shipped Milkvan but it's clear to me that the story is trying to convey they are not right for each other. I'm not going to hold onto a romantic relationship between two characters who met when they were like 12 and were sort of pressured into being romantic instantly, just bc love at first sight or something? That's stupid. If it was built up more satisfying, and if Will wasn't there being in love with Mike and with Mike clearly holding similar feelings then it wouldn't be what it clearly is. A fucking story that is clearly heading in the direction of a straight-bait/endgame main queer couple.

#byler #queer-baiting is sooo complex #the history behind it is also soooo complex #bc back in the day gay people were so vilified that ANY representation was a fucking godsend #even being teased and mocked was like well we're getting something?#it was at least something #that's the shitty part #but over time #dead gay character after dead gay character #it got exhausting #it wasn't even unique anymore #it wasn't something anymore #it was just the same recycled tropes reused by coward showrunners #who instead of telling the audience it wouldn't happen #they would joke about it very subtly in the show #like so subtely barely even there #but never actually have the characters talk about it #while also joking about it all the time in press #it was always like a big laugh fest while also humoring it even though... they knew it wouldn't happen #so byler is so interesting bc despite will being in love with mike #they refuse to go beyond discussing the other side of it #if they wanted to avoid queerbait they would have had mike be obviously aware of will's feelings rn and end the confusion #instead they tell fans that mike is still clueless #and then they're like next question #WHY do that if you see that everyone is starting to hate your main ship and support them?#why not be like sorry not happening?#probably because it would be awkward to backtrack from that statement when it does happen *gunshots*

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m6ka · 7 months

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From Screen Time to Screen Life: The Price of Growing Up Online and What It Means for Tomorrow's Generation

Do you remember your parents ever warning you about the internet? Saying stuff like "Don't talk to strangers online!" and "Don't go on sketchy websites!" or them telling you to be careful what you surf on the web? Well.. just ask yourself this, as an individual that has grown to use the internet, have you come to realize your parents' concern about how the internet is back then?

The internet and new media is a spectacle, from entertaining artistic content in all kinds of forms like videos, music and games to large online communities that anyone is free to participate in; that is the Internet at the surface in the very least. The internet is like a coin, and much like a coin it has two sides. At the very core, the internet is vast especially in today's era, from AI technology becoming more prevalent each passing day and at the other side of the coin there is the shortening attention spans due to the fast paced short form content. The internet and new media only continues to progress in a path at an alarming rate, It is especially concerning for the future of the internet, where it will lead to and how it will impact those who are active participants of it.

With parents' warnings and guidance about the internet and being exposed to the contents within it especially at a young impressionable age, it is not the only thing that kids nowadays should be warned about. As from the aforementioned, anyone can do anything in the internet, individual responsibility of being a user and consumer of new media has only become a bigger deal now, as the impact of unchecked media consumerism can lead to severe mental effects; that is why it is important to develop the skills and awareness of media literacy as a social media user whether you are on the younger or older generation.

"What is media literacy anyway?" A reader might be thinking, then let me explain. Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media content in various forms, such as text, images, videos and audio, to better understand its messages, biases and impacts; in other words it is in fact a part of critical thinking, but under the terms of media.

From a more professional source, "The ability to navigate within our complex and ever-changing media landscape depends on acquiring skills and tools to know how to consume and evaluate information, ask critical questions, avoid manipulation, and engage in digital spaces safely and confidently." this is directly from medialiteracynow.org.

It is without a doubt that we live in an age where we have an insane amount of information that is easily accessible just by our fingertips alone and at any point in time, literally. There are people who fully believe that this topic is not a serious issue just because they are not affected by it, but just because you are not personally affected by it doesn't mean that it's not an actual problem that it isn't happening in real time and that it isn't affecting others.

"What's so dangerous about the internet and new media? Why do kids need to learn about media literacy?" The main reason why it's encouraged and even advised to properly learn media literacy is due to the fact that media engagers evidently lack it. An example of this happening is when several k-pop idols but namely Choi Soobin from the group Tomorrow X Together (TXT) was being cancelled by k-pop and anime fans because they had openly stated to have watched an anime titled 'Made in Abyss'.

The reason why k-pop and anime fans came to cancel the k-pop idols was because the anime according to the fans, is deemed as problematic due to the graphic nature of it. Fans sought to cancel Choi Soobin for simply saying that he had enjoyed the anime, going as far as even accusing the idols to be "pedophiles" for merely watching said anime (more about this here). The fans who attacked the idols clearly lack media literacy skills, it goes to show that they believe that just because a person has watched a piece of media that is considered as problematic or controversial, is actually in support of said problematic issues. Having media literacy skills will make an individual understand to not take things at face value, but instead to analyze it's content and context beforehand. With many fans accusing them, it is also easy to see how an individual is easily swayed with enough people of the matter to also become a participant of it, much like bandwagoning.

"The Bandwagon Effect, aka the tendency to follow trends and fads, occurs because people gain information from others and desire to conform." so much like the k-pop and anime fans mentioned and the controversy that had spiraled, it is a phenomenon that occurs and is called as 'herd mentality', which is just another negative example if you do not use your media literacy and critical thinking skills.

That is why media literacy should be taught especially to the younger generation but not exclusively and limited to them, as everyone needs to gain media literacy and critical thinking skills. Majority seems to treat the internet and media lightly, blissfully surfing on the web and apps is just not enough anymore because after one thing or another, us as individuals ourselves can subconsciously become a participant of the very thing we are avoiding.

So now that we've come to an awareness of this issue, would you heed your friends, family members, and loved ones much like when your parents or anyone had come to warn you about the internet? Have you grown to be concerned now of the future of the internet and new media for yourself and the coming generations? Rightfully so. Now the only question left is, how do we change things for the better?

If you want more insight about this matter, I recommend you to watch "The Joker VS Society meme" by Pewdiepie and "Game Theory: Why Everyone HATES Youtube Short... And You Should Too!" by The Game Theorists; these videos provide examples of the topic at hand.

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yeli-renrong · 5 years

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I remember the phrase "sound it out" from school, and I vaguely remember learning something about long & short vowels or such and to (on Between the Lions) but I don't think I ever understood that or paid it any thought since there were so many exceptions. of course, that doesn't mean it didn't do me any good, just that I didn't consciously recognize that it did (perhaps explaining what non-phonic approaches to teaching reading could be contemplated to begin with?)

One non-phonic approach to reading instruction is based on the belief that reading is a process of integration of syntactic, semantic, and graphic (i.e. whole word shape) cues -- in other words, a series of context-based guesses. This model has no allowance at all for the fact that spelling isn’t completely irregular -- as far as it’s concerned, the English alphabet may as well be a logography!

The paper that originally laid out this model (doi:10.1080/19388076709556976) can speak for itself:

Simply stated, the common sense notion I seek here to refute is this: “Reading is a precise process. It involves exact, detailed, sequential perception and identification of letters, words, spelling patterns and larger language units.”

In phonic centered approaches to reading, the preoccupation is with precise letter identification. In word centered approaches, the focus is on word identification. Known words are sight words, precisely named in any setting.

This is not to say that those who have worked diligently in the field of reading are not aware that reading is more than precise, sequential identification. But, the common sense notion, though not adequate, continues to permeate thinking about reading.

Spache presents a word version of this common sense view: “Thus, in its simplest form, reading may be considered a series of word perceptions.”

The teacher's manual of the Lippincott Basic Reading incorporates a letter by letter variant in the justification of its reading approach: “In short, following this program the child learns from the beginning to see words exactly as the most skillful readers see them . . . as whole images of complete words with all their letters.” In place of this misconception, I offer this: “Reading is a selective process. It involves partial use of available minimal language cues selected from perceptual input on the basis of the reader's expectation. As this partial information is processed, tentative decisions are made to be confirmed, rejected or refined as reading progresses.” More simply stated, reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game. It involves an interaction between thought and language. Efficient reading does not result from precise perception and identification of all elements, but from skill in selecting the fewest, most productive cues necessary to produce guesses which are right the first time.

The argument in favor of this position is... a handful of case studies of reading errors made by young children! (And some Chomskyist stuff that I don’t care to work through.) And Ken Goodman, the author of the paper quoted above and one of the major proponents of ‘whole-language theory’, had some studies to back this up:

In a study conducted by Goodman (1965), students in grades 1-3 first read lists of words. Then the children were presented the same words to read in meaningful text. The students made many more errors when they read the words out of context (i.e., when the words were in lists) than they did when the words were read in context. This, of course, is consistent with the hypothesis that reading will be facilitated when semantic-contextual and syntactic-contextual cues are present (i.e., when words are read as part of a text) compared to when words are read devoid of context cues (i.e., when words are read on lists). This finding has been used repeatedly to defend the meaning-emphasis practice of teaching students to recognize words by analyzing syntactic, graphemic-phonemic, and especially semantic cues.

Nicholson (1991) detected several very serious shortcomings in the Goodman (1965) study, however. First, no attention was paid in the Goodman (1965) investigation of the patterns of performance by good and poor readers. In addition, the participants always read the lists followed by reading of the words in context, and thus there was the possibility that the improved performance in moving from list reading to reading in context might reflect some type of practice effect (i.e., the words in context had been seen before, on the lists).

In Nicholson (1991), students once again were asked to process words in lists and in context. In this study, however, the list-context order was manipulated such that some participants read the lists first and others read the words in context first. Moreover, the study included systematic analysis of reading as a function of the grade of participants and their reading abilities relative to other students (i.e., good, average, weak). The outcomes in this study were anything but consistent with Goodman's (1965) results:

- Some readers did benefit from reading the words in the sentence context -- namely, poor readers at each age level and average 6- and 7-year-olds. - In context, a positive effect on reading was obtained in sentence context for good 6-year-old readers and average 8-year-olds only when reading words in sentence contexts followed reading words in lists, consistent with the practice effect explanation of the original Goodman (1965) finding. - There was no positive effect derived from reading words in context for good 7- and 8-year-old readers. Indeed, when the 8-year-old good readers did sentence-context reading first, they did better on reading of the words in list format.

Oops!

In very simple terms: how do you prompt a student who’s struggling with a word -- “Sound it out!” or “Context clues!” (The teachers I had always said clues instead of cues; I don’t know if that was because children would be more likely to know the former word or if someone misread it somewhere in the chain of transmission.) And there are a few problems with that:

- No attention is paid to the process of encoding. Even if treating words as logograms whose readings are to be inferred from context works to teach children to read (it doesn’t), how are they supposed to learn to write? (At the height of whole-language theory’s influence, some states banned public schools from buying spelling books.)

- What happens if you hit a proper noun? Take the following sentence: “Notably, Ross' classification does not support the ☃☃☃☃ of the Tsouic languages, instead considering the Southern Tsouic languages of Kanakanavu and Saaroa to be a separate branch.” Context cues let you extract meaning from this sentence without knowing the reading of ☃☃☃☃, but if you have to read it aloud and you can’t sound things out, you’ll hit “Kanakanavu” and produce garble. (You might still be wrong even if you can sound it out, because stress is unwritten and English words aren’t marked for which rule-set to use -- consider the words alveolar and maraschino -- but there’s a difference between being wrong and producing garble. Garble will probably accurately represent the cues, including the vague, impressionistic shape of the word, but a stress or rule-set error will at least convey the spelling. Buegehti for Buttigieg is a good example of garble -- you have the word-shape cues (starts with Bu, most of the letters are there) and the semantic cues (weird surname from the periphery of Europe; I assume Buegehti is pseudo-Finnish), but it’s not even close, and probably unrecoverable without context. (So contextual information isn’t totally useless.)

- Even if the relevant actors were willing to accept lack of attention to spelling and inability to decode phonetic information that context won’t help you with in order to get gains in reading ability... there are no gains.

But, as things do, whole-language theory got a lot wackier from there. Its proponents started referencing Chomsky’s language instinct to posit a reading instinct, which, the theory went, would lead children to automatically acquire reading with no instruction necessary (except highly technical facilitation was still considered necessary, because if schoolteachers aren’t essential, what’s the point?); claiming that phonics actually impeded literacy; attacking opponents of their theory as part of a far-right conspiracy to suppress teachers’ freedom and destroy public education; calling whole-language education a ‘revolution’ that would lead to true liberation and model the egalitarian society of the future; and so on.

For example, Shafer 1998:

Over the years, various writers, politicians, and media sources have taken aim at whole language, vilifying its motives and misrepresenting its goals. While many of the attacks have come from a lamentable ignorance on the part of T.V. reporters and talk show hosts, evidence exists that a portion of it has been carefully orchestrated by conservatives who clearly seem threatened by the implications of a whole language curriculum. Indeed, the list of writers who have opposed whole language initiatives reads like a who's who of conservative pundits. William Bennett, Phyllis Schlafly, Cal Thomas, and Chester Finn have all written articles deriding whole language, despite its overwhelming acceptance among academic organizations and respected scholars.

Many theories have been offered as to why whole language has become so partisan and acrimonious - and why conservatives in particular seem threatened by its humanistic objectives. What seems glaringly clear, in the end, is that whole language - with its caveat for student liberation and control - scares people who want to maintain a hierarchical, top-down approach to learning. The threat of whole language, at least from my perspective, lies in its bold challenge to traditional icons and time-honored practices. Some teachers feel intimidated by the notion that their way is not the only way - that their favorite authors shouldn't be their students' favorite authors.

When students cease to be receptacles of information and begin generating their own ideas, they occasionally formulate theories that are disconcerting to those who want to maintain "authority" in the classroom. Thus, the recent controversy over teaching a literary canon and classes in western civilization helps illustrate the result of whole language - where students question rather than absorb - and where learning comes to be a very personal, reflective activity. "To study," argues Paulo Freire, "is not to consume ideas, but to create and recreate them" (4).

(On the same page: “It seems clear that people learn best when they are progressing from whole to part so that they understand the importance of correctness and the viability of certain non-standard dialects in certain settings.” First, what the fuck is this supposed to mean? And second, I can’t see something like “progressing from whole to part” without having flashbacks to the polemics against Hegel from one of my philosophy professors -- the direction of progression and the concomitant assignment of more basic status to that which one progresses from, he said, was what distinguished Hegelian from analytic philosophy, and the Hegelian progression from whole to part underlay all the most prominent horrors of the 20th century. It was hard enough to quibble with that then, but it gets harder every time I see someone try to shore up nonsense with that ‘Hegelian’ formula.)

Edelsky 1993 (doi:10.2307/3587486):

Whole language (WL) is, first of all, a perspective-in-practice, anchored in a vision of an equitable, democratic, diverse society. A WL perspective highlights theoretical and philosophical notions about language and language learning, knowledge, and reality. In a WL perspective, language is an exquisite human tool for making (not finding) meaning. The WL view is that what people learn when they learn a language is not separate parts (words, sounds, sentences) but a supersystem of social practices whose conventions and systematicity both constrain and liberate. And the way people acquire that system or are acquired by it (Gee, 1990) is not through doing exercises so that they can really use it later but rather by actually using it as best they can with others who are using it with them, showing them how it works and what it is for (Smith, 1981). ...

Appropriating the label, the jargon, or the typical materials and activities of WL without taking on the liberatory (and therefore status-quo-disrupting) political vision, and without adopting a WL theoretical perspective, is a sure way to prevent genuine change.

And from the sewer of journalism, Metcalf 2002:

Why the infatuation with testing? For its most conservative enthusiasts, testing makes sense as a lone solution to school failure because, they insist, adequate resources are already in place, and only the threat of exposure and censure is necessary for schools to succeed. Moreover, among those who style themselves "compassionate conservatives," education has become a sentimental and, all things considered, cheap way to talk about equalizing opportunity without committing to substantial income redistribution. Liberal faddishness, not chronic underfunding of poorer schools or child poverty itself, is blamed for underachievement: "Child-centered" education, "progressive" education or "whole language"--each has been singled out as a social menace that can be vanquished only by applying a more rational, results-oriented and business-minded approach to public education. ...

Why is the same conservative constituency that loves testing even more moonstruck by phonics? For starters, phonics is traditional and rote--the pupil begins by sounding out letters, then works through vocabulary drills, then short passages using the learned vocabulary. Furthermore, to teach phonics you need a textbook and usually a series of items--worksheets, tests, teacher's editions--that constitute an elaborate purchase for a school district and a profitable product line for a publisher. In addition, heavily scripted phonics programs are routinely marketed as compensation for bad teachers. (What's not mentioned is that they often repel, and even drive out, good teachers.) Finally, as Gerald Coles, author of Reading Lessons: The Debate Over Literacy, points out, "Phonics is a way of thinking about illiteracy that doesn't involve thinking about larger social injustices. To cure illiteracy, presumably all children need is a new set of textbooks."

Whole-language theory isn’t as popular now as it used to be. But the underlying Lysenkoist tendency has taken strong root in L2 education, which is why most of the people in my second-year German class couldn’t properly decline the definite article.

Sometimes you just have to drill.

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ofeoladapo-literacy-through-art · 5 years

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Literacy Through Art: An Analysis of Banksy’s “Sweeping It Under the Carpet”

By: Oreofeoluwa Oladapo

This street art painting was painted by Banksy, an anonymous artist, in Chalk Farm, London. This painting, entitled “Sweeping it Under the Carpet,” is a portrait of Banksy’s maid from a hotel room that he stayed in while he was in Los Angeles, and the artwork symbolizes how the governments in the western world ignore and fail to address many of the issues that occur in the world. The more developed countries are essentially sweeping pressing global issues under the rug and pretending that certain problems do not exist. Specifically, people who knew Banksy said that the portrait is meant to symbolize "the West's reluctance to tackle issues such as AIDS in Africa." Personally, I am very passionate about the idea of using street art to convey messages. Some people would consider wall art to be vandalism or graffiti, but I think that it is a form of self expression that is very necessary in world culture. Banksy was anonymous, so he focused on using his art to convey messages as opposed to making money off of his work. I enjoy the simplicity of this portrait and the meaning behind it is extremely powerful upon hearing the explanation, but, even though Banksy had the intention of silently protesting through his artwork, it would be difficult to understand his underlying message just by looking at the painting. The portrait simply resembles a maid lifting up a rug to sweep under it, but the portrait does not convey emotions of frustration or any particular issue that Banksy was aiming to address in itself. When I looked at the painting prior to reading an explanation or receiving any context, all I could conclude was that the image is of a maid cleaning. The colors also do not help convey the intended message; the black and white contribute to the simplicity of the portrait, but it is difficult to interpret the underlying meaning because black and white are associated with blandness and neutrality. The color scheme makes it difficult to feel the painter’s frustration through the image. A color like red would have been good to include in the portrait to express anger. Also, the maid’s facial expression could have been used to express emotion through the image. Overall, this portrait is a good example of visual literacy, but the painter did a mediocre job in conveying his exact message through the image.

My classmate, Khawla Elnour, is also a fan of Banksy’s work, but she seems to appreciate the simplicity more and discusses the power of his art. Elnour stated, “As someone who has never developed a deep interest in visual arts, Banksy has always been the exception. I have always seen his works circling around social media and thought they were amazing. I have always been especially attached to this piece in particular, “Sweeping It Under the Carpet”. Like the rest of his works, it is simple, but holds great meaning. Banksy uses this painting to make several statements. Here he is calling out the inability of government authorities to acknowledge and act upon the injustices people face worldwide. I resonate with this message because I constantly find myself frustrated with this lack of action. The witty manner in which he conveys this message is very creative. By having a maid pictured sweeping under a rug, he speaks against the people who spend their lives purposely ignoring and dismissing major issues. Overall, I have an appreciation for Banksy’s unique application of literacy. The art silently protests in a way traditional words cannot. In this case, his art is used as a platform of literary expression rather than a means of monetary gain or to create something that is just beautiful. Every aspect is significant because these are what serve as the supporting details and evidence of his work.”

A Fictional Interview with Khawla and Dr. David Kirkland (in the form of a televised talkshow)

Ofe (announcer/producer/technician): Welcome to another night of “Khonversations with Khawla!” starring Khawla Elnour! On tonight’s episode, we have a very special guest! He is New York University’s Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and The Transformation of Schools Executive Director, and he wrote an article about literacy through tattoos, the black community, and the adoption of a new English Education! Everyone give it up for Dr. David Kirkland!

Audience cheers

Khawla (host): Welcome Dr. Kirkland! How are you tonight?

David (guest): Oh please, call me David. I’m doing swell!

Khawla: We love to hear it. I understand that you worked with someone named Derrick Todd to learn about he tells his story through his tattoos. Do you think there are other forms of literacy that capture stories without using the typical paper and pencil?

David: Of course! I think paintings, drawings, sculptures, statues, and even memes use artistic methods to tell stories, and these types of works definitely should definitely be considered to be forms of literacy and discussed in English courses.

Khawla: That is so true! Speaking of paintings, I have been interested in this painting for years now! It’s called “Sweeping it Under the Carpet.” It’s by this anonymous street artist in London who’s known as Banksy.

David: Wow, I LOVE street art! It is a form of literacy that serves even more public purposes than tattoos do! It is an amazing way to truly get your story out there! Let me take a look at it!

Khawla pulls up an image of the “Sweeping It Under the Carpet” painting on her phone, and Ofe displays the same image on the large screen for the audience to see.

Audience murmurs in confusion

David: Um...so...what is it?

Audience laughs

Ofe inserts this image on jumbo screen:

Audience laughs hysterically

Khawla: With all due respect, what do you mean by that?

David: All I see here is a woman lifting up what I’m assuming is a carpet.

Khawla: There is so much more to it!

Ofe inserts this image on the jumbo screen:

Audience breaks out in laughter

Khawla (facing Ofe, angrily): You know, we can change the name of this show to “Khonflicts with Khawla” if you want to!

Ofe: Hey, I’m just doing my job.

Khawla: Anyway, the painting has a significant meaning behind it. Banksy made this painting of his maid from a hotel he stayed in sweeping under the carpet. The artwork signifies how the western world sweeps many worldwide issues under the rug, such as the AIDS crisis in Africa. Banksy used his art to express his frustration about the situation. I personally resonate with this message because I am also extremely frustrated about the lack of action!

David: Did you read a summary about the painting?

Khawla: Yes.

David: Of course you did. That meaning is powerful, but how was I meant to get all of that out of a black and white image of a woman cleaning? I couldn’t feel the struggle, pain, and frustration through the painting at all.

Ofe inserts this meme on the large screen:

Audience, collectively: Oooooooooooooooo

David: I do love the painting, and I believe that it is a great form of literacy because Banksy intended to express his views on a very valid and important issue in today’s world, but there was a lack of emotion in the image. The painting is black and white, and the expression on the maid’s face is extremely neutral. This painting is beautiful, but it gives me a vibe of neutrality and emotionlessness, not frustration. Like honestly, how was I meant to figure out the underlying message in that painting?

Khawla: I guess you are right, Dr. Kirkland, but you do have to say, once that message is uncovered, the painting is ten times more powerful

David: Certainly! Thanks for having me!

Khawla: Thank you for coming to converse with me, and thank you all for tuning in to “Khonversations with Khawla!” On the next episode, I will be interviewing Megan Thee Stallion to see how she feels about the recent tweet that Howard University’s professor, Dr. Gregory Carr, posted regarding her performance. You won’t want to miss it! I love you all. Remember, if you want to be “khool, khome khonverse with Khawla!”

Audience applauds

Curtains close

A Video about Art as Literacy

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This video is about a school that teaches art as literacy where the students learn how to read and understand images. From 1:49-2:05, one of the students discusses how color helps her to interpret the mood in a piece of artwork. This shows that simple elements in a piece of artwork such as color have a powerful impact on the message that the art conveys.

Important Questions to Consider

Can one measure proper attribution and citation in writing formats that borrow heavily from non-peer reviewed sources?

A non-peer reviewed source is a work that was published by a single author without other people’s revision. These types of sources will rarely be found in publications that are meant to be peer reviewed. Examples of non-peer reviewed sources include editorials and opinion pieces. Some editorials found in newspapers have no author or are written by an “Editorial Board.” This means that it may be difficult to measure proper attribution in non-peer reviewed sources; people can only give as much credit as the author gives, and people do not always know who the author is. If the author of an editorial does not cite the sources used to make his or her conclusion, then the only person who will receive proper attribution is the author. If the specific author is not known, whether it was written by an anonymous author or an editorial board, then readers do not know who to credit for the opinion. Writers who borrow heavily from non-peer reviewed sources can only give as much attribution as their sources provide.

What responsibilities are most important for writers? To adhere to the conventions and   expectations of their disciplines and professional communities? Or to address and persuade   mainstream readers of the perspective each writer values most?

Writers have many responsibilities, and it is important for writers to consider which responsibilities have the most weight and which rules can be bent when they are writing their works of creative expression. Many writers believe that it is crucial to adhere to the expectations and standards set by their professional community, but others believe that the most important duty in writing is to convey their message and persuade the audience of their perspective, no matter how they do it. I believe that the most important responsibility of a writer is to get their message across, even if the most effective way of doing so is to break away from the standard conventions and formats. Adhering to certain rules while writing can be very limiting, but using formats and modes of expression that are not considered standard in literacy allows writers to convey their messages in a way that’s easier for the readers to grasp and more fun to read. An example of a writer who breaks away from the standard essay format who I still consider to be professional is June Jordan. In her article, “Nobody Mean More to Me Than the Future Life of Willie Jordan,” she used multiple formats to convey her message; she included a dialogue from Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, letters, prayers, lists, and a dialogue from Ibsen’s A Doll’s House while discussing black English in the classroom. Her use of various elements in her writing made the essay more exciting and interesting for the reader and helped her to convey her perspective effectively.

Can writing ever be too neat? Too organized? Can writing with too few sources still be considered critical?

Many writers strictly adhere to the “proper” organization of essays by building on points that other people made in their writings and leaving out certain points. Although it is very common for writers, especially high school and college students, to try to perfectly follow the expected organization, I believe that writing can often be too neat. If a writer is so focused on organization, he or she is less likely to be focused on the actual content of the essay or piece of writing. This could result in a writer not fully expressing all of his or her views because they are afraid of ruining the organization or breaking from the standard writing format.

Works cited

Jordan, June B.. “Nobody Mean More to Me than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan.” (1988).

Kirkland, David E. “The Skin We Ink: Tattoos, Literacy, and a New English Education.” English Education, vol. 41, no. 4, 2009, pp. 375–395. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40607891.

O'Neill, Brendan. “Backstory: A London Scene Set by Guerilla Art.” The Christian Science Monitor, The Christian Science Monitor, 9 Jan. 2007, https://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0109/p20s01-alar.html.

Links to Images

***all memes were created using https://imgflip.com/memegenerator

https://www.canvasartrocks.com/products/banksy-maid-sweeping-under-the-carpet-wall-mural-wallpaper

Links to other sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esUawrdkxEo

#literacy #art

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michaelamcneeceaugie-blog · 6 years

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Gender and Sexuality Portfolio Post One: Introduction to Special Interest Topic

In striving for political rights, governmental status, and overall representation, women often find themselves with limited, inadequate opportunities. Despite advances in women’s rights, political representation for women is poor compared to men. As we have seen with recent elections, heads of state still have the tendency to choose male representation over women, and while many countries are exploring measures to change this, the United States has put in generally no effort to increase the governmental status for women. As I will discuss in this essay, there is little research on why this (under-representation) is occurring.

The topic I selected for my special interest topic is women in politics in the United States. I selected this topic because it not only affects me, it also affects our local and national government. I want answers on why women aren’t being represented in office, despite the fact that women make up 50% of the population. Is it simply that women aren’t running for political positions, or is it something a little more complicated? In our recent presidential election, the nation saw Hillary Clinton lose the presidential election despite her winning the popular vote, and with Trump’s cabinet being almost all men, it leads me to believe that there is a serious issue not just with our society, but deep within our political system. I hypothesize that sexism and prejudice are to blame for women’s under-representation, and I believe that the reason for women’s lack of political participation also has to do with this atmosphere of inferiority.

As personally expected, there was not a lot of search results on women in politics, especially in regards to the United States. At first, I only researched women in politics, and although this is a very broad topic I was interested in seeing the types of articles that would appear. Interestingly enough, the journals were almost always about other countries. A large amount of attention was particularly paid to smaller countries and countries with poor (general) women’s rights - such as India and countries in the Middle East. Finally, when I decided to focus my topic on the United States, there was little to no adequate research articles. While this made finding lengthy, decent articles very difficult, I was determined to stick to my topic. I came to the conclusion that my topic was extremely important, not just to me but to everyone in general. The good articles deserved recognition and the lack of articles needed to be discovered. After rewording my topic over and over again - from women in politics, to women in politics in the United States, to United States politics, to women’s representation in government - the most articles I could find was 140 articles (which was about 5 pages of search results); however a big reason why this occurred was due to there being little recent research from 2016 - 2018 (if you did not put a restriction on the publication of the articles there were over a thousand search results). At first, I was very discouraged and disappointed with my findings, but after thinking about it I realized that this was something I really needed to see. It is important to recognize what we are failing to discuss, and the reasons behind this inadequacy. I found it a little ironic that there was both little women representation in government and on Ebsco search results. Yet, I was still able to find very interesting and helpful articles that aided in my search for answers.

With every article I choose they all aimed to understand the reasons behind the underrepresentation of women in elected offices in the United States. They all acknowledge that there is little data behind this reality. Due to this, almost all of the authors reference past elections and review the general public opinion on women in the government. Hanson and Dolan use data from a 2014 CCES (Cooperative Congressional Election Study) survey, Angevine uses a dataset of three Congresses (2005-2010), and two other articles reflect on the election between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (West), and Clinton and Trump (Parikh). The other articles tended to focus on books and other types of data collection. All of their data ultimately leads to the ideas that the reasons behind underrepresentation for women are: voter percentages, media framework of women in office, individual factors, the environment in government, and deeply ingrained sociological ideas on women in politics (Funk, Coker). There are a lot of different ideas for future studies as we cannot generalize certain findings across past studies. A lot of the authors of the articles suggest watching the results of future political processes and environments surrounding women. Others suggest that we need to continue to find the differences and similarities in how men and women connect with voters and conduct themselves in office. The Parikh article discusses the election between Trump and Hillary Clinton, which is the most recent article I could find. For future studies, it will be important to write articles on their run for president. Finally, other articles suggest that instead of studying voters, that we should study Democrats and Republicans and how they view women in politics, which can have great influence on the general population when voting (Butler).

In the modern era, women continue to have great influence within governmental systems; however, equal representation is still lacking. Women make up an equal portion of the population so why aren’t we equally represented? The articles that I looked over attempted to answer this question through studies, interviews, data collection, and comparative analysis. Altogether, most agree that the problem lies with the general population and the government as a whole (including political parties) (Butler). Over time women are continuing to overcome these challenges, but as most of the articles state, we need to continue to collect data and observe the issues lying with women in politics.

Reference

Parikh, C. (2017). On the Road Again with the American Girl. College Literature 44(4), 491-497. Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved September 6, 2018, from Project MUSE database.

Bucchianeri, P. (2018). Is Running Enough? Reconsidering the Conventional Wisdom about Women Candidates. Political Behavior, 40(2), 435-466. doi:10.1007/s11109-017-9407-7

Crowley, J. E. (2016). Women in Politics in the American City. Political Science Quarterly (Wiley-Blackwell), 131(1), 206-208. doi:10.1002/polq.12456

Carroll, S. .., & Walters, S. D. (2017). Ask a Feminist: A Conversation with Susan J. Carroll on Gender and Electoral Politics. Signs: Journal Of Women In Culture & Society, 42(3), 771-783.

FINNEMAN, T. (2018). "The Greatest of Its Kind Ever Witnessed in America": The Press and the 1913 Women's March on Washington. Journalism History, 44(2), 109-116.

West, E. A. (2017). Descriptive Representation and Political Efficacy: Evidence from Obama and Clinton. Journal Of Politics, 79(1), 351-355. doi:10.1086/688888

Butler, D. M., & Preece, J. R. (2016). Recruitment and Perceptions of Gender Bias in Party Leader Support. Political Research Quarterly, 69(4), 842-851. doi:10.1177/1065912916668412

When Women Win: EMILY’S LIST and the Rise of Women in American Politics. (2016). Pennsylvania Literary Journal (2151-3066), 8(2), 41-45.

Funk, M. E., & Coker, C. R. (2016). She's Hot, for a Politician: The Impact of Objectifying Commentary on Perceived Credibility of Female Candidates. Communication Studies, 67(4), 455-473. doi:10.1080/10510974.2016.1196380

Winslow, B. (2017). The Highest Glass Ceiling: Women's Quest for the American Presidency. Journal Of American History, 103(4), 1115. doi:10.1093/jahist/jaw619

Angevine, S. (2017). Representing All Women: An Analysis of Congress, Foreign Policy, and the Boundaries of Women's Surrogate Representation. Political Research Quarterly, 70(1), 98-110. doi:10.1177/1065912916675737

Burden, B. C., Yoshikuni, O., & Masahiro, Y. (2017). Reassessing Public Support for a Female President. Journal Of Politics, 79(3), 1073-1078. doi:10.1086/691799

Dolan, K., & Hansen, M. (2018). Blaming Women or Blaming the System? Public Perceptions of Women's Underrepresentation in Elected Office. Political Research Quarterly, 71(3), 668-680. doi:10.1177/1065912918755972

LEVITOV, D. (2017). Using the Women's March to Examine Freedom of Speech, Social Justice, and Social Action through Information Literacy. Teacher Librarian, 44(4), 12-15.

McCall, L., & Orloff, A. S. (2017). The multidimensional politics of inequality: taking stock of identity politics in the U.S. Presidential election of 2016. British Journal Of Sociology, 68S34-S56. doi:10.1111/1468-4446.12316.

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theculturedmarxist · 6 years

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Is there a doctor in the house?

“How do you expect anyone to do anything in Communism? If a doctor is paid as much as a janitor, why would I do all the work to be a doctor? Checkmate, commies.”

Trying to talk to people about Communism, and the general conception of what that entails, can be a tricky sort of process. Generally speaking, communist thought is contingent on at least passing knowledge of the principles derived from the broad and numerous bodies of socialist thought in the 19th and 20th centuries. There are innumerable books, pamphlets, essays, and so on full of rigorous thought and speculation about the circumstances of today and what they entail for our future, and how we as communists should go about ordering that future.

One of the greatest difficulties though when introducing someone to Communist thought is trying to coax them out of the bourgeois conception of society that most people have been ingrained with more or less from birth. The above is a tiresome refrain of those believing they’ve btfo Communism. It frequently jockeys with the whole ridiculous mudpie “argument” for the most popular brainlet thought-ending cliche.

If you look back to the media of the previous century, with the advent of the Space Age and then the Computer/Information Age, you can see a variety of imaginations trying to conceive of what all these radical changes will mean for society. Disease would be banished. Poverty would be impossible. Racial and religious differences would be treated as irrelevant, just as they truly are. Humanity would have bases on the Moon and Mars, toeholds that set the stage for mankind embracing its spacial destiny. There would be plenty for all, onerous work would be obviated, and the potential of the individuals of the world would finally be enabled to expand to its fullest.

In short, people were imagining a world beyond what they had then. What of now? Popular media, especially in the realm of science fiction, is emaciated. There is no future, no daring or imaginative alternatives. “Now” stretches on and on into forever, even when it would make no sense for such an arcane system as Capitalism. This isn’t because people are content with things as they are, but because their conception of what is possible has been carefully curated so that any alternative is branded as “utopian,” and anyone with a burning need or passion for change is only a single step away from the ever-lurking Liberal geist of “fanaticism.” Robespierre did his job only too well, apparently.

The soil of the imagination has been salted by the bourgeois enamoration with things as they currently are, and in seeking to maintain the status quo, anything as dangerous as an alternative to Capitalism has to be either excluded from public thought to the greatest degree possible, or else slandered and lampooned until all that’s left is a ridiculous straw man of anything or one that could endanger the unmitigated flow of profit.This is why in popular media, Capital is an omnipresent force, whether in fantasy, historical or contemporary drama, or projections into the future. “We’ve reached the end of history,” blah blah blah.

It’s difficult then for people to understand what Communists want, and how Communism is conceived. There are innumerable dogmatic conventions on what Communism should look like and how, which to describe them all in an exhaustive sense would be beyond this post, so for now I suffice with an unspecific, generic meaning when I’m speaking of “Communism.”

As Capitalism is the absolute, when non-Communists listen to Communists describing the things they want and the changes they make, they don’t consider what any of these alterations would mean, or what would need to happen in order to make them possible. For whatever reason, they can only conceive of now, but different, as if such a thing were possible.

Inevitably the question gets asked, “why would I be a doctor instead of a janitor?” It immediately gives away how deeply subsumed they are by their ideology. Health isn’t an interest of the individual or community, it’s not something to be cultivated, or even a fundamental human need; to them, it’s a service or commodity to be dispensed by a “professional.” Their class character is exposed, along with their ignorance of life outside of their comfortable cell. The suffering or need of others is dispensed with, and human life is devalued to whatever baubles this person believes they should be showered with for all of “their effort.”

Do they imagine that people would simply do without? Just lie down and die if people refused this tyrant’s “expertise?” It flies in the face of reason and precedent. Previous to modern times, educated medical professionals (to the standards of their time) were vanishingly rare. Most ailments were treated with a variety of home and traditional remedies. Do they really imagine then that a parent would sit idly by as their child wastes away due to lack of a doctor? As reckless as it might be, if the likely ultimate result either way is death, then WebMD and a prayer is certainly preferable to looking on in impotence.

This hypothetical would-be doctor imagines that society as it would exist then would be society as it exists now, only with a mandatory minimum wage. “No one would become doctors if they didn’t get rich doing it.” Again, reason and evidence shows them definitively to be in error.

I am not a fan of Cuba’s interpretation of Socialism, but I can’t help but admire their resourcefulness in such extreme deprivation. In retribution, the criminal blockade by the United States starves and isolates the island, but examining the circumstances of life there and the accomplishments they’ve managed despite that are quite remarkable. It isn’t much talked about, how Cuba, immiserated by poverty as it is, has an astonishingly small ratio of doctors to patients. They export their medical expertise to other countries, trading doctors for necessary resources. They’ve managed to eliminate mother-to-infant HIV transmission, and have even developed a cure for a certain cancer. Doctors are well respected, but they aren’t nearly as privileged in Cuba as they are elsewhere in the world.

I doubt every last one chooses their profession out of simple altruism, but to my understanding they aren’t made rich, either.

One of the most remarkable manifestations of Cuba’s adaptations to their radically changing circumstances was its reaction to the disappearance of the Soviet Union. The USSR provided most of Cuba’s industrial needs, and their sudden collapse meant not only the disappearance of Cuba’s most significant trading partner, but also the immediate evaporation of the means to maintain their existing industry and produce new goods.

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Unable to provide for their people, they took the radical step of providing the people with the knowledge and expertise they needed to provide for themselves. Technical and engineering manuals and textbooks were distributed. Everything was recycled as needed. Motors from broken washing machines were cannibalized to motorize bicycles.

As the crisis grew more severe, people’s creativity grew more powerful, and everywhere you looked you saw solutions. Ernesto Oroza

In Trotsky’s 1934 article, If America Should Go Communist, he makes a very salient point.

At present most Americans regard communism solely in the light of the experience of the Soviet Union. They fear lest Sovietism in America would produce the same material result as it has brought for the culturally backward peoples of the Soviet Union.

American and Russian circumstances were and are worlds apart. Russia’s expression of Communism resulted from the dire situation it was left in after the first World War. Its industry was smashed. Its people were starving. The interim Liberal government that came to power after the abdication of the Tsar continued to fight the ruinous war against the Central Powers, pouring millions of men into the theater of industrial murder. No sooner do the Bolsheviks take power and end the war than every industrial power on the planet invades. On top of years of misery under the Tsar, are compounded years of civil war the most vast country on the planet. After this, it is scarcely another decade before another World War washes over the CCCP, killing tens of millions of people and leaving Russia’s industrial and agricultural heartlands in devastated ruin. Despite all of this, the CCCP managed not only to industrialize, expand education and literacy to its large population of impoverished, illiterate peasants, but managed to make it the number 2 power, and eventual superpower, on the planet, and the first space-faring nation to boot.

America would not have such problems, Trotsky says. Is he wrong? The US is majority literate (more or less). They have already a sprawling (if crumbling) infrastructure, the benefits of the Internet, already existing industrial and technological capacity, to say nothing of the country’s rich farmland and abundance of natural resources, much of it mapped and explored and exploitable at need. They have over 200 years of democratic experience and tradition, and one of the most educated populations on the planet.

Believing that the United States, were it to adopt communism, would look anything like Soviet Russia in form or function, is nothing but ridiculous. It’s an immature bogeyman, a ghost story the bourgeois use to convince workers that, like children, they should be afraid of the things they imagine lurking under their bed.

Adopting Communism would mean dispelling the bourgeois fiction of private and intellectual property (as opposed to one’s personal property). It would mean an end to the dictatorship of capital, and the social controls that the bourgeoisie have erected to constrict human activity in order to farm us for profit.

Instead of educating our children to prepare them for “a career,” they could be educated in the skills of living. Our health and physical education classes could indeed return to teaching health and physical education. The whole population could be given the basics of medical care and the rudiments of identifying and treating disease.

Freed from the anxieties and pressures of Capitalist society--no longer having to worry about where one will live, or how one will eat, or where all the other necessities of life will come from--at a stroke much of society’s afflictions would be eliminated, improving health dramatically without a single pill or incision. With no profits to sustain it, the sugar industry would wither and die, severely impacting national obesity rates. Imagine the impact the elimination of the automobile industry would have as well, reducing the number of wastefully produced luxury vehicles and their billions of tons of emissions, clearing our air and skies. The ridiculous regime of mandatory testing, and the poisonous “education” that has evolved to support it, would vanish. With access to higher education a guarantee, and no private property to starve such “unproductive” members of society, our children could enjoy the simple pleasures of recess again. No longer cooped up in jobs that they loathe and indeed make them ill, Americans would have uncountable hours instead to spend in recreation with their friends and family, enjoying among other things their country’s wealth of natural beauty.

Technology changes more and more day by day, and we’re rapidly approaching the point where even the most rural areas have access to the sum of medical knowledge on the internet. Where infrastructure or remoteness limit the availability of medical care, an internet connection to sophisticated medical AI can provide millions with immediate and accurate medical advise. Consider technology like the epipen or asthma inhaler. While I don’t imagine it’s possible to simplify all medical devices to such pick-up-and-use types of equipment, with the medical education they receive in school and access to reliable medical information via the internet, it would be possible to make equipment and techniques that any able individual could use to treat themselves for common and mundane afflictions. Medical care need not be the exclusive province, or entitlement, of some wealthy elite class of privileged gatekeepers.

Yet, still, what about the doctors? There would still be a need, however improved living conditions and education become. Some things cannot be left to amateurs, however enthusiastic or skilled, and specialized training will remain a necessity to one degree or another for some time. Would we need then to elevate doctors above the mean of hoi polloi, just to ensure that these necessary skills exist in our society?

I believe that assumption to be fundamentally false, and indeed another unconscious betrayal of the pervasiveness of bourgeois ideology. The popular belief that money is the primary, if not only, motivating factor for people. Despite the use of money being the exception rather than the rule throughout history, the fantasy that people are indigent and lazy without cash in their pocket or a knife at their back has been relentlessly cultivated in the popular mind, and yet we know that this simply isn’t true. Most people aren’t motivated by money, and compulsion only breeds misery.

Without the constant population shuffling caused by the modern market economy, I believe that people would begin to settle as they did in bygone decades. Individuals would no longer need to leave home to “find a job.” Friends and family and other social connections would congregate, and the community could rebuild itself. This would be the source of your doctors and surgeons, the natural human instinct toward community participation and effort, and those remarkable people that feel this most strongly. Those individuals who become physicians only to grow rich would be excluded--and rightfully so--from the profession, and the quality and abundance of medical care would rise. That’s aside from the salutatory effects of the diminishing alienation resulting from strengthening communal ties. Happy people, surrounded by friends and family, secure in their bodies, homes, and livelihood, are fundamentally healthier people. This would be the most major contributing factor in expanding the availability, access, and quality of medicine: to begin with, there would be fewer sick people. There would be fewer sick doctors, too, no longer burdened by the insane costs of medical school and the large debts accrued from long years of study.

This is a rather rosy estimation, but I think it is the correct one. Communism doesn’t mean poverty; it doesn’t mean now, but different; nor does it mean Capitalism, everyone makes the same wage. Communism is the complete transformation of society, by our own hands, by our own rational actions to satisfy our own needs and those of our community, in the absence of all the coercive and exploitative forces by which we’ve been imprisoned and to which we’ve been conditioned. Just the thought makes me feel better already.

#medicine #medical care #Communism #Socialism #Communist Society #CCCP #Cuba #a different world is possible #and we can make it

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kootenaygoon · 5 years

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So,

Shortly after losing a job in November 2017, an event which led to an escalating series of manic episodes, I ended up in the psych ward of Vancouver General Hospital. They informed me that my antidepressant was partially to blame for my uncharacteristic behaviour, then gave me a prescription for lithium — a drug I’d only ever associated with Kurt Cobain, the Nirvana frontman who took his own life with a shotgun. I understood that I would have to do something drastic if I wanted to regain a level headspace and a sense of normalcy.

Stewing in my parents’ basement for a number of months, painting and wasting time on social media, I could feel my body swelling from the inactivity. My depression was coming back with a vengeance and I knew I needed something to distract and engage me, ideally some sort of endeavour that was physically demanding and could bring me closer to the fitness level I’d enjoyed as a competitive swimmer in high school. I needed something that touched on all the fundamental aspects of physical literacy: competence, confidence, motivation, knowledge and understanding. Going for a jog every once in a while wasn’t going to cut it.

Most jobs wouldn’t give me this, though, and the majority of the opportunities I looked up involved being sedentary at a desk for 40 hours a week — a recipe for disaster, I figured. That’s when whitewater rafting occurred to me. As a teenager I’d rafted the Thompson River in Lytton, the third largest commercially rafted river in the world, and I’d long fantasized about becoming a guide like the charismatic foreigners who had piloted my rafts decades before. From the age of 17 through 27 I’d planned to enroll in guide school each summer, but I always found some excuse not to: a new job, a new girlfriend, lack of money. Now suddenly I found myself with no conflicts, and no reason not to jump at this chance. I called up one of the owners of Kumsheen Whitewater Rafting, Braden Fandrich, and put down a deposit to hold my spot. I was 33 years old and ready for a new profession.

When all was said and done, I ended up developing my competence by rafting six different rivers over the course of the 12 gruelling days of guide school. Not only did I learn proper oar and paddle techniques, I also picked up knot-tying skills, became an expert at tossing rescue throw-bags, and experienced swimming through roiling rapids. Though I was significantly out of shape, I went in confident that the aquatic skills I’d developed as a kid would serve me. As it turned out, though, the rivers absolutely kicked my ass on more than one occasion. I found myself more and more feeling an unfamiliar sensation: fear.

That’s when Braden gave us a little speech.

“There’s something I’ve learned with rafting, and I guess it’s the same with other extreme sports but it’s especially true of being on the river — when things get scary or overwhelming, it really gives you an opportunity to either let that fear make you weak, or let it make you stronger,” he said.

He held his paddle in his lap, calmly sitting there in his dry suit as we drifted down the Nicola. “I guess what I’m saying is, choose to let it make you stronger.”

This was the first major skill I learned that would be pertinent to my outside life: fear management. This fell under one of the most important aspects of physical literacy, confidence, and it bled out into my everyday existence. And once I was hired that summer at Adams River Rafting in Scotch Creek, doing an hour-long course that involved a Class 3 rapid called the Canyon, I became well-versed at recognizing the moments when I was afraid and funnelling that energy in a productive direction.

By this point I was working on developing two other aspects of physical literacy, knowledge and understanding. I talked through the play-by-play of that same 35-second stretch with my boss Clif Garcia multiple times, discussing how to negotiate each hit and how to compensate for all the forces outside my control. Repeatedly I found myself facing down waves that I thought would absolutely wreck me, and each time I took a deep breath and made the most of it.

When it comes right down to it, water is just water, and making it successfully down the river has more to do with your composure than the actual mechanics of all that surging H20.

By the end of the summer, I had navigated the Adams River nearly 100 times. I watched my skin darken, my hair bleach and the pounds drop away. It wasn’t just the time on the water that was keeping me fit; there were also the mundane tasks like lifting the rafts on and off the trailer, hiking up the canyon wall to lead clients in a cliff jump, and bending over the side of the raft to grab ahold of clients by the lifejacket and heave them back into my boat. My energy surged, my depression faded, and I felt a growing pride in my newfound skill set. I was legitimately good at something, and thinking about that felt better than fixating on the series of mistakes I’d made in the months before. I had developed the motivation to become the best guide I could possibly be.

The other thing is that I was bringing people joy, and that brought me joy. Every day when I loaded my boat with new clients I saw faces ranging in age from five years old to 90, from all sorts of backgrounds. Some could swim, some didn’t even know how to paddle. Twice I shared a raft with Paralympian Josh Dueck, another time I went down the river with hockey star Shane Doan and his family. One trip would be a group of co-workers, the next would be a bunch of camp kids. Sometimes we made adjustments, such as when one of my clients didn’t have a left hand and needed to switch sides, but we always figured out a way to make things work. If you were game to come down the river, we were game to take you.

After the summer was over I took a storytelling position at Sport for Life, intrigued by this new term “physical literacy”. Though I was initially skeptical, I eventually became a full convert via writing about the various success stories and triumphs we’ve experienced as a non-profit. Lives were being changed for the better, whether that meant a field hockey team tweaking their inclusion practices, some government adopting an active living mandate or a hockey program embracing the tenets of Long-Term Development in Sport and Physical Activity. What I was most impressed by was Sport for Life’s commitment to walking their talk, ensuring the workforce is diverse and introducing things like standing desks and walking meetings. They were looking to change the culture and that started right in our office.

In our flagship publication Developing Physical Literacy: A New Normal for all Canadians, Sport for Life lays out a game plan for how to address the physical inactivity crisis. It’s a multi-faceted enterprise, with varying implications for different age groups and populations, and it requires large-scale buy-in. Ultimately, the aim is to have physical literacy mentioned in the same breath as numeracy and literacy, and to have it prioritized in the same way. When it comes to mental health, according to research done by experts like Dr. Guy Faulkner at UBC, there is growing evidence that physical activity may play an important role in the prevention of mental health problems like depression and anxiety. It also notes that exercise and physical activity are now recommended as first-line therapies in the treatment of mild to moderate depression.

So when it came time for the rafting season to return, I knew which approach to take when asking for time off: I wrote my bosses an email, explaining that returning to my raft gig for the summer would be “a crucial part of my physical literacy journey”. I was being slightly facetious, but also dead serious. In Victoria I’d struggled to find regular fitness opportunities, and multiple times I had to give up my CrossFit membership because I couldn’t afford it. I had regained the weight I’d lost the previous summer, and I could feel my depression rearing its ugly head. It had been coiled in the shadowy corners of my mind, waiting patiently.

But the moment I got on to the river again this past summer all of that angst wafted off into the sky. I was in my element again, joshing with the customers and making up tall tales. It felt like having my own personal watery highway as I commandeered my bright yellow boat around each bend. I practiced each maneuver over and over, waking up my arms from their eight-month slumber, and relished every moment of crashing through the Canyon. I wasn’t afraid anymore; I was having the time of my life. Afterwards I would stand hip-deep in the river and take deep nostril-shots of forest air while the clients hung out on the beach, reminding myself repeatedly how lucky I was to be there.

Sometimes saving someone’s life is less dramatic than rescuing them from a burning building. Sometimes it’s as simple as teaching them how to properly climb back into a raft without assistance, or how to tie all the knots and deploy all the necessary carabiners to complete a Z-drag pulley system. Maybe it’s as simple as giving them a job, then telling them to do it. Imagine a physical literacy-based mental health system that prescribed a dose of whitewater rafting to patients feeling lost, suicidal or hopeless. The prescription would say “River Time - Min: Two Summers”, and would come with a paddle.

It worked for me.

The Kootenay Goon

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philippagoranson · 7 years

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Essay: Can we move beyond lip service on the art of listening in health care?

Listening in healthcare can be a very complicated matter and concerns many different aspects of healthcare encounters. Even if one spontaneously asks oneself: is it not the most common sense thing to do? I have been caught up on this topic due to previous bad experiences in healthcare where the lack of listening properly or even listening at all was completely missing – even if I was speaking to a healthcare professional in the same room. After some time I got to read the medical journal, that one of the specific non-listening physicians I had met had been writing and realized I was only being observed. I even remember very clearly hearing myself saying repeatedly: “Can you listen to what I say?” Even that did not help. It just made things worse. It is as if it is up to the healthcare provider to decide when or even if to ask the relevant questions or if they even are going to be asked at all. That way of being from the healthcare provider’s side of things was just pretending to hear. At this point of time in my life, I had had physicians whom all acted likewise – they always excluded what I was trying to communicate and they got it all wrong. Incorrect diagnosis, wrong treatment ideas, no one even tried to put my story together properly. They seemed to want to start the discussion from a set of ideas or rules on how to ask questions and what questions to ask that does not always correspond to what the patient really has to say. Their structure of things made their comprehension of why I even was attempting to get help into complete chaos. Later I came to understand what I had been subjected too and this is part of why listening in healthcare does not always work. The culture of evidence-based medicine is reductive, it simplifies and cannot handle the complexities of life that need to be interpreted and put into context. Evidence-based medicine devalues individual experience. At this early stage, I started to wonder if I no longer could express myself. I have previously been a radio broadcaster and am a verbal person and I like words so that was not the problem. Actually, being a humanities student made me react to this hierarchical structure very strongly and it made me lose faith towards the realm of healthcare and start to question their knowledge production. If they can’t listen properly what else are they getting wrong about medicine as a scientific field? Are healthcare providers not supposed to be humanists too? My idea of the humanist is about meeting the other and this kind of reasoning can be found in different philosophical schools of thought. At one point when the lack of listening was exceptionally frustrating, I was asking myself: do we have to make listening in healthcare a human right? That was when I started to go to the university library to find books on other people’s experiences of healthcare and it was very helpful to see other people had noticed the same things as I and, sad to say, had even had even worse encounters than my own. I even started reading books on the medical law to help me get a bigger picture of the idea of healthcare.

In the end, everything turned out, but I had to force my narrative structure and storyline on top of how healthcare providers usually want to be addressed. I was sensing a cultural sensitivity problem and this aspect is imperative to better listening in healthcare too. Interaction is on the linguistic level. I understood I had to find a medical professional that comes from a different culture where the speaking structure is different from the Swedish way. Medical humanities research has also explained that to get the right diagnosis the patient and healthcare provider need to be on the same page when it comes to the use of words and their interpretation and how they are applied to make sense to each other. Not just that, Iona Heath explains in an essay in the BMJ: “Clinicians need to be just this – experts in the feelings we attach to words – otherwise our efforts to communicate with our patients will oscillate between the tedious and the cruel”i. There is also another side to this aspect explained by Dr. Gavin Francis in Aeon magazine “Storyhealing”: “War metaphors in health and healing can be valid, but bringing different ideas to the mind of each patient – an appreciation of storytelling can assist physicians to choose the metaphor that will best help their patients, and also help patients articulate inner experience to their physician.”ii As a patient, one always has a story of some kind that cannot be neglected. My new encounter in healthcare was to become a part of a shift of paradigm in my life. The big difference now in this new encounter also was the attitude this person had towards information and sharing ideas with the patient and the appreciation shown towards a complete story as to how I also had come to understand myself. This medical professional happily took everything I had and replied: “Great! Otherwise, I would never have understood!”. At the time it felt like a surprise and that this person was actually listening. I could see it in the facial expression that something else was going on inside of this person. Later this doctor told me he even had one of my illnesses too. What actually happened here was the combination of the how and the why I even got ill and where a medical professional was integrated as in a more interpretive listening process. I was also due to all this going through a change from just being a passive patient into a combination of what is known to be called the healthcare consumer (knowing my patient’s rights and becoming better informed) and being the expert patient (knowing how to strategically manage myself through the healthcare system). This was something I had to learn by myself. One needs to be empowered before even being listened to properly in healthcare.

I have read a big amount of patient experience books, pathologies, medical humanities research and research by the nursing science. I do not even have to look far into social media to stumble across a Twitter account defending patient’s rights where the beholder of the account defines the account with a message that says: “I am not a slave; I will not comply to tyranny”. Not being listened to is tyranny. On Twitter, I have also come to know the phenomenon called the patient’s voice. The fact that this has appeared also shows it is close to a human’s rights issue. The concept of the patient’s voice can be interpreted as the downside of the patient’s status in healthcare. The attempt of the patients’ voice is about something else. Patient’s Voice is about change and is challenging to the healthcare structure. The patient’s voice phenomenon wants to create a better awareness on how hard thing can get for a patient and is a way of questioning what is not working. On a personal level, it can also be about just being listened to in healthcare in a one-to-one situation. The idea of doctors’ ears is not being used very much on social media to debate the lack of listening in healthcare. At least not yet.

There are a variety of hashtags on Twitter and one even explicitly concerned with listening to patients’ #listentopatients. It is as if healthcare providers have a particular form of hearing impairment. Hearing is easily something that can get mixed up with listening. Listening is a much more complex process than just hearing. The big difference between hearing and listening is that listening is part of a hermeneutic process that integrates both intellectual and emotional capacities to extract the correct meaning.

How can patients be perceived through the lens of listening instead? A listening culture or feature is about trust. Researchers have come to regard, especially three components as most important to listening: empathy, being inclusive and supportive. This is not easily handled in healthcare. Still, is it not just common sense?

Over and over again, I see the same thing being pronounced and debated about healthcare and the big problem with not being able to deliver the right care and attending or even listened to. Headline such as: “Healthcare has to be able to listen to patients” just appeared the other day in the Swedish daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladetiii. The headline concerned a report from the Swedish authority that analyses healthcare from the point of view of the population, Myndigheten för Vårdanalys, “Vården ur befolkningens perspektiv” (Healthcare from the point of view of the population). Only one third agree to that Swedish healthcare is actually working. There is an international comparison and Sweden is not the worst country in the world but the strangest thing is that Sweden, in general, is understood as a democratic country, not in the healthcare setting. The level of patient participation is 69 %. Germany is ranked as best on patient participation by 87 %. Do healthcare professionals explain things so patients understand? 78 % of the Swedish population responded positively. In Australia, 93 % of the population responded positively to having being addressed comprehensively. Only 43 % of the Swedish population says doctors even discuss treatment options and risks. Australia ranks highest at 69 % in this regard in the report. Only 23 % of Swedish patients get a care plan to help them navigate their care. In France, the population says yes to this by 53 %. This just to give some examples. The study is the results from The Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Surveyiv. Why are the cultural differences as big as they are? Does it have to do with if a country has a national health literacy strategy or not? More in-depth political, cultural and historical processes can give explanations beyond that I am sure.

What I am missing from this Myndigheten för Vårdanaly is the phenomenon the patient’s voice – the struggle people have in the healthcare process. How hard it can be to even get the correct diagnosis and integrated care needed. At some point, these repetitive stories people have need to stop. An article by Tiffany Simms,”When ‘Once Upon a Time’ gives us more than a story” gives a very good account of these problems and the problems patients encounter in terms of not being listened too. Tiffany is discussing from the listening point of view and her example concerns people with autoimmune disease and how many years it can take for the patient to even get the correct diagnosis. In the meantime, many are being really badly treated even when it just comes to communicating. It is sort of like a battlefield about what symptoms seem to be real or not or how they can be interpreted and Tiffany adds: “Even when patients are listened to, healthcare providers only care for the symptoms and leave root causes unaddressed.” Lab reports trump patient experiences. Or as Tiffany is explaining and I am sure many patients or their next-of-kin will recognize themselves in the following statement: “A doctor should be a partner in making you healthy, but for the most part I feel on my own. I feel like a doctor should say, ‘Okay let’s start with the most natural, least invasive way to help you heal, and if we need to go to a stronger regimen then we will’ instead, it’s always ‘here’s a medication with worrying side effects. Next, please”v.

If I go hunting on different social media channels or patient engagement accounts for patient advocacy, health literacy, patient participation, patient associations, individual patient bloggers, and even medical professionals – they are more or less telling the same story of what a catastrophe the lack of listening is in healthcare. Have we really looked deeper into what this lack really is about?

It is not about the lack of soft skills. I just need to look closer at what narrative medicine is about and the threat against it to understand how hard listening in healthcare is. On Wikipedia the obstacles against narrative medicine goes like this: “People who are physicians have been trained to believe, that it is a scientific objectivity that makes them most effective, in their efforts to understand and resolve the pain that others bring them, and a mental distance that protects them from becoming wounded from the difficult work. Objectivity, empathy, and global thinking are stated not to be incompatible with a degree of dissociation from the patient’s suffering that is sufficient to protect oneself.”vi It is not only that. I have looked at textbooks that are passed out for educational use on patient communication and these texts always look good. The bigger problem against listening in healthcare is what is being said and can be taught in medical education classes. I even attended a medical class once just to see for myself what is going on and what is being said and how long it takes to see and hear how healthcare professionals are taught not to respond to patients and to deliberately not pass diagnosis out even if that is what a patient seems to have. I only needed to be a fake medical student for one medical class and it all happened within ten minutes. I know this is not representative for the whole, at the time I told myself I do not need to see more because I was sure it might even get worse if I saw or heard more. The culture of oppression in healthcare is real. My observations can be confirmed with the help of the medical memoirs of the Swedish novelist and doctor P. C. Jersild. In his memoirs, he explains how it usually works, when and how doctors are taught not to listen to the patient’s story. When practitioners train medical students in the healthcare setting, they also teach them how not to listen. If a medical student tries to be attentive and lets the patient speak from beginning to finish the teaching practitioner, will make sure to correct the medical student and then make sure to show how the patient’s voice is not allowed by being interrupted as soon as possiblevii. This is just one part of the problem with listening in healthcare. Other sides of these non-listening behaviors are actually even stranger than what has just been said. Doctors are trained to think thematically and they at times do not even let the patients explain themselves. Doctors are not trained in how to make meaning out of how a patient narrates. Already just on their way to greet a patient in the waiting room, they can have decided beforehand what the patient has or that patient does not have anything at all. At least 20 % of all misdiagnosis are due to this kind of error in thinking strategies according to Dr. Jerome Groopman. Doctors do not want to interact with people with mental illness conditions. Doctors do not even want to interact with people who cannot communicate properlyviii. I remember sitting in a waiting room and a woman next to me grabbed my arm and asked what is wrong with doctors. It is as if they already have made up their mind on what one is seeking help for even before one has had the chance to explain oneself. The healthcare setting is disturbing and constructed in such a way that it actually creates harm. It is not easy to make oneself heard in this environment.

In the healthcare debate, there are very many different managerial concepts that might just help make things worse. Sometimes it almost seems like different managerial concepts for healthcare are most suited for debate and not the reality of healthcare. The debate is of course very interesting to follow, but does it really help? Are these concepts really helping to reshape the culture of healthcare? The situation is very ad hoc concerning who actually listens to the patient or not. All these different managerial concepts are tiresome. And the only thing they really have to do it to listen to the patient to get it right. Physicians often deliberately choose not to take into account what the patient actually is saying and why it counts. Even when a patient is just trying to give correct information or add on details that have been lost in the continuum of the healthcare process.

The debates I have been reading concern the following concepts:

New Public Management. The patient is currency.

Patientcenteredcare. The patient is an individual. The patient is interpreted by others.

Valuebasedcare. The patient reported outcomes measures. Doing the right thing. Patient participation.

Personcenteredcare. A holistic approach to the patient’s life and health issue/s. Patient awareness.

Healthcare providers do not discuss prognosis or what the patient can do to improve their quality of life. The providers do not even explain what steps are to come next regarding treatment plans. They do not let the patient be involved in how to help the patient also help themselves to better healthcare outcomes. Listening to patients is also about giving patients the right kind of information at the right time. The other day I read a blog entry by the most prominent Swedish e-patient Sweden even has, Sara Riggare.

Sara Riggare explains that being an informed patient is a provocation. She uses herself as an example to show how the culture of healthcare works to force her to diminish herself instead of making her more competent or even feel better. Just trying to ask well-informed questions is a provocation on the healthcare structure. Instead of being able to knowingly being a part of a patientcentreredcare situation where the physician actually listens to her questions she is forced into a physciancentered way of managing herself and it makes her play the role of being ignorant. The culture of healthcare is always very apparent for a patient and Sara Riggare has learned she has to play by the rules as of an Albert Einstein quote: “You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.ix” Sara Riggare is an empowered patient who only wanted to be listened to. She just had concerns regarding medical research in regards to herself. The saying goes that listening is a key to leadership. Suzanne Gordon explains in a BMJ Opinion article: “Research shows that hierarchy, by its very nature, dramatically reduces speaking up by those lower down in the pecking order. We are hard-wired, then socialized, to be acutely sensitive to power, and to work to avoid being seen as deficient in any way by those in power.x”

A tweet concerning what patient empowerment is about also revealed how physicians misinterpret a well-informed patient and patient empowerment due to the hierarchical culture of healthcare: “Empowerment isn’t about bestowing one’s power on another. It’s education so they find their own power.” Team. Intake-Me retweeted @Intakeme

Another way of putting it more nicely concerning listening in healthcare is how Sharon Roman explains herself in the British Medical Journal: “While years of experience may make way for a knowledgeable doctor, years of listening help make a great one. I am aware that I may talk too much, but I also need to feel heard.” There is more to it than this. Often a practitioner will think he/she has seen it all before. Sharon adds on: “Listen to what I have to say without prejudice, not racing ahead to the answer you may or may not already know”. Sharon then explains patients have to be let to ask questions, even if the questions are no good, answer anyway xi.

I have been listening to stories in healthcare and listening still seems to be something that mostly happens by chance. Dr. Alicia Conill shows a typical example of that when one of her patients takes her off guard by making her listen to her patient’s story. Dr. Alicia Conill concludes on listening in healthcare that: “Listening to someone’s story costs less than expensive diagnostic testing but is key to healing and diagnosis” xii.

The biggest obstacle for a better culture of listening in healthcare is the hierarchical structure and how doctors are trained to have the status of a God. At times, it can even be worse than this because this Godlike doctor does not even talk to the other semi-Gods in the healthcare setting or care to listen to when the patient explain why they need a certain treatment. This makes the doctor the same thing as an autocrat. The someone listened to. Not the listener. This is the opposite of what a culture of listening is about. I have read a patient story about exactly that when an anesthesiologist refused to listen even if there are national guidelines on how to proceed and it was exactly how the patient was explaining why the treatment she already was on was essential to her before surgery. The problem being the anesthesiologist was trying to remove it. The medical professional’s response went like this: “I am not going to let this happen – a patient is trying to tell me how I am supposed to do my job.” The author Åsa Moberg who wrote about it called her article: Doctor’s prestige is lethal xiii.

I want to focus on the most typical concepts used and the Sara Riggare blog entry put it into place. The dichotomy patientcentric versus physciancentric. If you take a closer look and think about these definitions you should be able to see how narcissistic they both are. The idea or ideals of listening in healthcare need to be rethought and restructured in terms of communication structures. Communication is still seen as speaking “which unfortunately is still a phallogocentric enterprise” according to reasoning on the practice of interlistening by Jaishikha Nautiyal in the International Journal of Listening demonstrates that since nobody listens to this it wrecks the cultural practice of listening itself. We need to make way for the Silent Other in the part of the listening process. Communication is a lost project. “And while speech thinks that it is whole and healthy, it does not realize that the denial of listening as a lost and melancholic object only thrives in the pathologies of speech. In sickness and in health: there is no speaking and thinking without listening”. Patients are often interrupted within seconds. There is almost no room for them to voice their concerns properly. No time to stop and think and for the healthcare provider to really understand what good listening can do to enhance their own professionalism. I have seen figures saying patients in Sweden get 18 seconds to explain themselves, in France 23 seconds and apparently in England as much as 54 seconds before they are interrupted. The act of listening is both an empathic and an ethic approach toward the Other. The problem in the healthcare culture in regards to listening is that it is not seen as an active process. In traditional communication theories, listening is excluded from the participatory dimensions of sensing in communicative experiences. “There is a homological pattern to the absence of listening from the academic discipline of communication that privileges speech acts and speech making”xiv. This is also typical of the culture of the west. This way of thinking mirrors democratic processes in the western school of thought. So, is a culture of listening in terms of democracy going to come from the East? Or am I just stuck in stereotypes…

Dr. Danielle Ofri explains from her book presentation on “What patients say, what doctors hear” that doctors do not wish to let patients voice their concerns properly because they think it will take too much time. A study she comments upon explains that patients do not really need as much time as doctor’s fear. The patient really needs something between one and a half minute and four minutes to explain themselves properly. She also adds on that doctors loathe informed patients. Even if the debates say they are for. Doctors prefer to work against this development xv. The art of listening in healthcare has still a very long way to go. Some time ago Sara Riggare posted on Twitter that if she only did as her health provider said she would be worse off. Sara Riggare also added in that healthcare providers need to be more attentive to patient information needs. The fact that she is a successful patient is because she at least is listening to herself and making sure she is properly informed. No wonder people are all over the Internet, health apps and social media. The Internet always gives the impression of listening. The biggest truth of them all is that it is not a health professional who is the best listener. A fellow patient is often the one who best understands another patient’s needs. One just has to start hunting on different social media and find bloggers to realize how it all really works out. Being a listening officer on the Internet is mind blowing in this regard. Another example I can add in to make you, the reader, think a bit more is from when I a few years ago I read an article in The Language of Caring about a cancer specialist who herself was attained by cancer. She stated that it was first after being a patient herself that she truly understood what patients need to know. My question to this is: why does medical training not include this or even think it by itself? Why is medical education not teaching listening to patients? Today it is all still called communication. How much can narrative medicine really help to turn the culture of healthcare into a listening one?

What do we actually need as a remedy against the non-listening culture in healthcare? The culture of listening is about openness and awareness. Still, maybe we need a managerial concept or policy of listening in healthcare. If we do not think about it before acting upon it nothing will change. Change can start bottom up or top down. The culture of healthcare needs a serious shift towards what the culture of listening is about. I am not sure it is going to work by itself from the bottom up.

Health policy, in general, is based on evidence-based medicine and founded on utilitarianism or egalitarianism and the values of clinicians are hopefully deontological. The last commitment is, according to Iona Heath, “poorly understood and little appreciated by policy makers, whose priorities relate to population or societal levels. Yet, without this foundation in deontology, patients would find themselves unable to trust clinicians, with less efficiency at societal level”xvi.

There is a need to make way for change. A policy is needed since there also is a need to be able to evaluate. To begin, the development of patient policy to make sure legislation and organizations act according to how a listening policy that empowers patients and at the same time enhances professionalism of healthcare providers to become better listeners. The making of listening policy sculptured to align the patient experience in accordance with what modernized patient participation is. Patients need to be included in the making of listening policies. It is time to move beyond lip service on the art of listening in healthcare.

©Philippa Göranson, Lund, Sweden, March 2017

I am open to the idea if others want to share this blog content on other publication forums but I ask to be contacted first and want to know where I am agreeing to before and want a reference. A shortened version can also be discussed as long as the meaning of this text is not altered.

This essay is originally written for http://www.globallisteningcentre.org/ and published by them.

This essay has been published as an entry on Sweden's first patient association for patient safety http://www.patientperspektiv.org/ Patientperspektiv on Twitter: @PatientPersp

This essay has been published on the Dahlborg Healthcare Leadership Group. Thomas Dahlborg is Studer Group Coach & Speaker, President of DHLG & Author of the forthcoming book: From Heart to Head and back again. Thomas Dahlborg is debating on the cause of relationship-centered care and empathy in healthcare. Thomas Dahlborg on Twitter: @tdahlborg

This essay has been published on Healthcocreation forum in Spain. Healthcocreation is part of the first Patient Experience Institute in Spain iexp. One of the founders Carlos Bezos Daleske has made this happen. On Twitter: @Carlos_Bezos

References:

Dr. Alicia Connell, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storytold=100062673

Suzanne Gordon, blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2017/01/26/Suzanne-gordon-on-soliciting-input-not-just-listening

Dr. Jerome Groopman, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3XxS-p31qY

Dr. Jerome Groopman, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0AEGnQ0L5s

Dr. Gavin Francis, https://aeon.co/essays/medicine-and-literature-two-treatments-of-the-human-condition

Iona Heath, http://www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i5705?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Dr. P.C. Jersild, Mina Medicinska Memoarer, Albert Bonniers Förlag, Stockholm, 2006

Åsa Moberg, https://turtagning.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/lakares-prestigelystnad-kan-fa-dodlig-utgang

Myndigheten för Vårdanalys, www.vardanalys.se/Rapporter/2016/Varden-ur-befolkningens-perspektiv-2016--jamforelser-mellan-Sverige-och-tio-andra-lander

Jaishikha Nautiyal, www.tandfoline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10904018.2016.1149773

Dr. Danielle Ofri, http://www.youtube.com/watch+v=mv0R2PXZHSQ

Sara Riggare, www.riggare.se/2017/02/18/patientcentrerad-eller-personcentrerad-vard-for-lakarcentrerade-patienter

Sharon Roman, blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2017/02/28/sharon-roman-notes-from-the-less-comfortable-chair

Tiffany Simms, https://tincture.io/when-once-upon-a-time-gives-us-more-than-a-story-f312734c2382#.5o7ttqfk0

Svenska Dagbladet, www.svd.se/sjukvarden-maste-kunna-lyssna-påa-patienterna

Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_medicine

Footnotes:

i http://www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i5705?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

ii https://aeon.co/essays/medicine-and-literature-two-treatments-of-the-human-condition

iii www.svd.se/sjukvarden-maste-kunna-lyssna-påa-patienterna

iv www.vardanalys.se/Rapporter/2016/Varden-ur-befolkningens-perspektiv-2016--jamforelser-mellan-Sverige-och-tio-andra-lander

v https://tincture.io/when-once-upon-a-time-gives-us-more-than-a-story-f312734c2382#.5o7ttqfk0

vi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_medicine

vii P.C. Jersild, Mina Medicinska Memoarer, Albert Bonniers Förlag, Stockholm, 2006

viii https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3XxS-p31qY & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0AEGnQ0L5s

ix www.riggare.se/2017/02/18/patientcentrerad-eller-personcentrerad-vard-for-lakarcentrerade-patienter

x blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2017/01/26/Suzanne-gordon-on-soliciting-input-not-just-listening

xi blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2017/02/28/sharon-roman-notes-from-the-less-comfortable-chair

xii www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storytold=100062673

xiii https://turtagning.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/lakares-prestigelystnad-kan-fa-dodlig-utgang

xiv www.tandfoline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10904018.2016.1149773

xv http://www.youtube.com/watch+v=mv0R2PXZHSQ

xvi http://www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i5705?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

#healthcare

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bloodinkandiron · 8 years

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LET’S TALK ABOUT FACTS, BABY

LET'S TALK ABOUT FACTS, BABY {see citation 8}

We have now entered into a scenario in our public discourse where the long-standing respect for evidence-based conclusions has come under attack by those in power. Information previously accepted as fact or truth based on reproducible experimentation, quantifiable observations, and legitimate reporting has now been called into question. In an era where many Americans obtain their news from social media (1), proving the veracity the facts and information presented as "news" no longer falls on those that create it. Given the creation of our self-made spheres of influence, our ability to remove from our view those ideas that do not conform to our worldview, the task of assigning "truth" has now fallen on your shoulders, dear reader.

But where do we start? What tools do we need to tell truth from fiction? Propaganda from research? The reality is, the tools required to rebuild our faith in facts have been withheld from the general public since they were created. Those in power have no incentive to create an electorate of informed people able and willing to hold them accountable for their unsubstantiated accounts of the world. Until now, we have--for better or worse-- put our faith in the institutions of science, medicine, journalism, among others, to maintain the sanctity of fact, to boldly state that, yes, truth exists. We no longer have that luxury, when our leaders denounce universally-accepted climate change as a "hoax" {2}, or suggest that journalists are "among the most dishonest human beings" {3}.

What can we do? We all get information from the internet. How do we make it better?

-Read before you share. We all fall prey to clickbait headlines. I sure do. A recent study {4} showed that many shared links on social media (Twitter in the case of the study) were never clicked, suggesting no one read them. Then there was the dissemination throughout social media of the "weed contains Alien DNA" blog post made to mock the very mass shares it enjoyed {5}. Read the articles you're sharing. Know where your information came from. Is it a news source? Is it opinion (or satire) masquerading as news? When was it published? Do you really trust this source, or does their web design just look great?

-Fact Checking...or...unpacking Fake News Easier said than done. The moral here is to BE SKEPTICAL. The chorus in our echo chamber is not always accurate. Bias exists, but there is good journalism being performed out there. There is actually a way to accurately estimate how many people were at the inauguration {6}, {7}. Those facts are out there, and they are easy to find. The media is, for the most part, unwilling to call something a lie, as it implies intent, but we should not be so accommodating. While some of the following resources have their own biases and influences, they often use citations for their information, which is a start (major funding sources in parentheses):

http://www.politifact.com/ (Tampa Bay Times) http://www.factcheck.org/ (Annenberg Policy Center) https://www.opensecrets.org/ (Carnegie, John S + James L Knight Foundation, Craigslist, Ford) https://sunlightfoundation.com/ (Bloomberg, Ford, Craisglist)

-But what about the numbers? This is probably the hardest task. Statistics are an art as much as they are a science, and hard numbers can be molded to fit any number of outcomes. Look, I personally got a B in biostats. I will not task you to learn advanced statistics. But spending a few minutes browsing through the general ideas of how they work, and how they can be manipulated, is important when we have, as a culture, been denied that knowledge by our science education (or lack thereof). Here is some reading on the subject:

https://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/ http://www.senseaboutscienceusa.org/aboutstats/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-isnt-broken/…

-CITE THE POWER Right now for many people, especially in those communities disenfranchised by our corrupt system ( POC, indigenous people, those of the LGBTQA+, disabled,and immigrant communities), empowerment through the sharing of ideas is one of the most powerful ways to resist the horrors unleashed by our government. We should all be constantly spreading ideas, but we should be spreading knowledge too. Cite your quotes with links to further reading. Share not only your emotional support, but links to financially support revolutionary causes. Never stop sharing your representatives' phone numbers. Literacy and access to information are privileges we should not take lightly. They think we're a snake. But we are really a hydra.

http://standwithstandingrock.net/donate/ https://abortionfunds.org/ http://blacklivesmatter.com/ http://www.ip-no.org/ http://nolaharmreduction.tumblr.com/ http://www.youthbreakout.org/ https://www.immigrationadvocates.org/nonprofit/

Reaffirming our relationship with facts is absolutely vital to democracy. Without facts, our decisions are molded by emotional outcries and insidious propaganda. How can we make decisions for ourselves and our nation if we have been blinded from what is real? We can't. The basis for any autonomous decision is a full understanding of all facets of a situation leading up to that decision. Our nation's leaders are working steadfast to make sure this never happens again. Please join me in spreading factual information, which is far more dangerous and threatening to those in power than any opinion any one of us may hold.

CITATIONS, BECSAUSE THEY'RE IMPORTANT:

(1)- Pew Research Report on News and Social Media http://www.journalism.org/…/news-use-across-social-media-p…/

{2}Don't let Donald Trump forget he called global warming a hoax. He did. http://www.politifact.com/…/yes-donald-trump-did-call-clim…/

{3} President Trump's statements at the CIA headquarters Jan 21 http://foreignpolicy.com/…/trump-goes-to-cia-to-attack-med…/

{4} Study on Twitter clicks versus shares https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01281190/document

{5} "Weed Contains Alien DNA" (it doesn't) http://www.iflscience.com/…/marijuana-contains-alien-d…/all/

{6} 2011 Article on the art of counting crowds http://www.popularmechanics.com/…/the-curious-science-of-c…/

{7} Tweets from the DC Metro on ridership during inauguration http://www.vox.com/…/14…/trump-inauguration-metro-attendance

{8} “Let’s Talk About Sex”, Salt-N-Pepa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydrtF45-y-g

#facts #noalternativefacts #evidence #science #statistics #education

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khalilhumam · 4 years

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Building safer online spaces in Myanmar

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/building-safer-online-spaces-in-myanmar/

Building safer online spaces in Myanmar

Facebook faces great scrutiny in Myanmar

A monk using his phone at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar. Photo and caption by Remko Tanis, Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

This article was written by Aye Min Thant, Tech for Peace Manager at Phandeeyar, an innovation lab in Myanmar. Every person in Myanmar above the age of 10 has lived part, if not most, of their life under a military dictatorship characterized by an obsession with achieving autonomy from international influences. Before the economic and political reforms of the past decade, Myanmar was one of the most isolated nations in the world. The digital revolution that has reshaped nearly every aspect of human life over the past half-century was something the average Myanmar person had no personal experience with. Recent reforms brought an explosion of high hopes and technological access, and Myanmar underwent a digital leapfrog with internet access jumping from nearly zero percent in 2015 to over 40 percent in 2020. At 27-years-old, I remember living in a Yangon where having a refrigerator was considered high tech, and now, there are 10-year-olds making videos on Tik Tok. Everyone was excited for Myanmar's digital revolution to spur the economic and social changes needed to transform the country from a pariah state into the next economic frontier. Tourists, development aid, and economic investment poured into the country. The cost of SIM cards dropped from around 1,000 US dollars in 2013 to a little over 1 dollar today. This dramatic price drop was paired with a glut of relatively affordable smartphones and phone carriers that provided data packages that made social media platforms like Facebook free, or nearly free, to use. This led to the current situation where about 21 million out of the 22 million people using the internet are on Facebook. Facebook became the main conduit through which people accessed the internet, and now is used for nearly every online activity from selling livestock, watching porn, reading the news, to discussing politics. Then, following the exodus of over 700,000 Rohingya people from Myanmar’s war-torn Rakhine State, Facebook was accused of enabling a genocide. The ongoing civil wars in the country and the state violence against the Rohingya, characterized by the UN as ethnic cleansing with genocidal intent, put a spotlight on the potential for harm brought on by digital connectivity. Given its market dominance, Facebook has faced great scrutiny in Myanmar for the role social media has played in normalizing, promoting, and facilitating violence against minority groups. Facebook was, and continues to be, the favored tool for disseminating hate speech and misinformation against the Rohingya people, Muslims in general, and other marginalized communities. Despite repeated warnings from civil society organizations in the country, Facebook failed to address the new challenges with the urgency and level of resources needed during the Rohingya crisis, and failed to even enforce its own community standards in many cases. To be sure, there have been improvements in recent years, with the social media giant appointing a Myanmar focused team, expanding their number of Myanmar language content reviewers, adding minority language content reviewers, establishing more regular contact with civil society, and devoting resources and tools focused on limiting disinformation during Myanmar’s upcoming election. The company also removed the accounts of Myanmar military officials and dozens of pages on Facebook and Instagram linked to the military for engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” The company defines “inauthentic behavior” as “engag[ing] in behaviors designed to enable other violations under our Community Standards,” through tactics such as the use of fake accounts and bots. Recognizing the seriousness of this issue, everyone from the EU to telecommunications companies to civil society organizations have poured resources into digital literacy programs, anti-hate-speech campaigns, social media monitoring, and advocacy to try and address this issue. Overall, the focus of much of this programming is on what Myanmar and the people of Myanmar lack—rule of law, laws protecting free speech, digital literacy, knowledge of what constitutes hate speech, and resources to fund and execute the programming that is needed. In the frenzy of the desperate firefighting by organizations on the ground, less attention has been given to larger systemic issues that are contributing to the fire. There is a need to pay greater attention to those coordinated groups that are working to spread conspiracy theories, false information, and hatred to understand who they are, who is funding them, and how their work can be disrupted—and, if necessary, penalized. There is a need to reevaluate how social media platforms are designed in a way that incentivizes and rewards bad behavior. There is also a need to question how much blame we want to assign to social media companies, and whether it is to the overall good to give them the responsibility, and therefore power, to determine what is and isn't acceptable speech. Finally, there is a need to ask ourselves about alternatives we can build, when many governments have proven themselves more than willing to surveil and prosecute netizens under the guise of health, security, and penalizing hate speech. It is dangerous to expect private, profit-driven multinational corporations to be given the power to draw the line between hate speech and free speech. Just as it is dangerous to give that same power to governments, especially in this time of rising ethno-nationalistic sentiments around the globe and the increasing willingness of governments to overtly and covertly gather as much data as possible to use against those they govern. We can also see from the ongoing legal proceedings against Myanmar in international courts, and Facebook's failure to provide UN investigators on Myanmar with evidence of serious crimes committed against the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities, that neither company policies nor national laws are enough to ensure safety, justice, and dignity for vulnerable populations. The solution to all this, as unsexy as it sounds, is a multifaceted, multi-stakeholder, long-term effort to build strong legal and cultural institutions that disperses the power and the responsibility to create and maintain safe and inclusive online spaces between governments, individuals, the private sector, and civil society.

Aye Min Thant is the Tech for Peace Manager at Phandeeyar, an innovation lab which promotes safer and more inclusive digital spaces in Myanmar. Formerly, she was a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who covered business, politics, and ethno-religious conflicts in Myanmar for Reuters. You can follow her on Twitter @ma_ayeminthant. This article was developed as part of a series of papers by the Wikimedia/Yale Law School Initiative on Intermediaries and Information to capture perspectives on the global impacts of online platforms’ content moderation decisions. You can read all of the articles in the series on their blog, or on their Twitter feed @YaleISP_WIII.

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supervidyavinay · 4 years

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When 57-year-old Mamta Mehta from Mumbai started feeling weak and uneasy a few weeks ago, she decided to take an online medical consultation. Mumbai, the city with the largest number of Covid-19 cases in the country, was on a strict lockdown which led Mehta’s son to quickly call on the helpline number of Portea Medical, a home healthcare startup.A video call to a doctor was set up soon. Mehta explained her symptoms to the doctor and mentioned the fact that her blood pressure level was borderline low. After understanding her detailed history, the doctor suggested that it may be a case of dehydration and advised Mehta to rest and drink electrolyte water.“I didn't find too much of a difference in terms of experience while consulting the doctor through video consultation in comparison to a face-to-face meeting,” Mehta told ET Digital.With Covid-19 preventing people from stepping outside, healthcare institutions, clinics, doctors and professionals decided to bring the services to patients’ homes, leveraging electronic media. Calls, chats and video consultations are now one of the most trending features in the healthcare industry, which has also given a push to healthtech startups such as Portea, Lybrate, Practo, Navia, medlife and 1mg.Dial a doctorOn March 25 this year, the Health Ministry of India issued guidelines on the use of telemedicine services to prevent risk of coronavirus spread between both patients and doctors. Prime Minister Narendra Modi too had encouraged the means of telemedicine to states to tackle Covid-19. The government itself launched a telemedicine app named Aarogya Situ Mitr offering free telemedicine and consultation services to address coronavirus-related queries.Since clarity around telemedicine arrived in the country, healthtech startups are seeing a spurt in the online consultations. “Our telemedicine platform grew by 500% since March 1st. Queries regarding fever, cough, cold, sore throat and body ache have increased by more than 200%. Most of the queries are from people in the age group of 25 - 40,” Alexander Kuruvilla, Chief Health Strategy Officer, Practo, told ET Digital.Practo’s telemedicine services include both phone calls and video consultations and 30-35% of the consultations are from women. According to Kuruvilla, Practo’s telemedicine services has been operational for the last two years, which means the startup has been able to get a lot of doctors to adopt technology.Another benefit of telemedicine startups, Kuruvilla says, is that it is time-friendly. “When someone has a stomach pain or something not too serious, he is either likely to get self medicated or run to the nearest pharmacy for a pill. At the most, people decide to visit a doctor someday later or evening when they feel they will be less busy. Now all these people can ask for a doctor in 60 seconds and get professional help,” he said.Practo is not alone when it comes to risk business. Experiencing similar sales figures, Lybrate, a Delhi-based healthtech startup had seen a sudden surge of doctors on its platform. With a growth of more than 120% since the lockdown began, the firm’s user segment lies in the age group of 25-45 years.“The questions being asked are related to health issues ranging from cold, cough, flu, fever, claustrophobia to joint pain, back ache, healthy diet, headache, meditation, yoga and stress and immunity, among others. Women, especially are asking the maximum number of questions across all age groups,” said Saurabh Arora, founder and CEO, Lybrate, which enables online consultations through phone calls, video calls and chats. 76275643Telemedicine appears to work wonders for patients having non-threatening and chronic conditions. For Gurugram-based Navia Life care, most of their patients require online consultations from general physicians, pulmonologists, internal medicine/diabetologists, and psychiatry.Further, the price disparity in online and offline health consultations is very appealing. Many telemedicine firms believe that telemedicine could cover the affordability gap among the user segment, particularly those who are often unable to afford frequent checkups and pay the consultation fee every time.Prakhar Singh, General Physician and a doctor at Lybrate, told ET Digital, “Many of the patients who come to us are those who do not have money to get access to a good doctor. At Lybrate, I charge about Rs 350 and we give them 20-25 minutes of time, which is often not given by many physicians offline.”He further added that apart from consultation fees, offline services also make the patient shell out money for their travel, parking and after consultation, any immediate testing or medicinal purchase can be very expensive.“In telemedicine, when we prescribe blood tests or any other tests online, then the patient has the time to wait and get it booked at a cheaper cost. Most of my patients are ordering medicines from networks and pharmacies who are giving 20% or more discount. People can also get medical tests like x ray, ultrasound, CT, MRI through the 1mg and other such portals, which are more affordable,” he said.Old concept, new boostWhile telemedicine seems to be finally striking the chord with both patients and doctors after the government cleared regulations around it a month ago, it is interesting to note that the term is not new in the healthcare industry. According to Singh, it has been more than seven-eight years since telemedicine has set foot in India.“According to the American Heart Association, which was the first body to regularize the services in America, anything that is not an emergency can be dealt over a call. Because what happens is we are generally using evidence-based medicine, which means that we need a proof of whatever we are treating. So, a patient can come to us with his chronic problems like diabetes, hypertension, thyroid, anything that is not an emergency,” he said. 76275775He added that, however, the government in India has set certain guidelines around medical conditions that cannot be treated through telemedicine, such as abortion is illegal in telehealth, even acute conditions like chest pain, abdominal pain cannot be treated through telemedicine, because they may be an indication of heart attacks.What lacks?Living in such a digitally-advanced era seems to have made telemedicine a seamless experience. However, the transition from traditional checkups with the physical presence of doctors to explaining your symptoms to doctors behind an LCD screen follows two main constraints- digital literacy and infrastructure.Prashant Tandon, CEO and co-founder of 1mg, told ET Digital that its online consultation services, which saw a more than 400% spike since it was launched, are currently present in precisely 1,600 cities in the country. Metros contribute a large share in the user segment, which Tandon believes is mostly because their services are not yet deployed in many local languages. However, the 1mg team witnessed a totally different behaviour in Tier II, III and rural areas when it comes to availing telemedicine services.“In metro cities, a lot of people will be doing their own consultations. In Tier II, II and IV cities what happens is that one account will undergo 30-50 consultations every month, that means different patients most of the time using the same account. Similarly, in villages, it is basically just one person who has a smartphone and is tech savvy. That person becomes a gateway to health care for everyone in the village, he or she is the local entrepreneur who facilitates that,” he said.If infrastructure is not an issue, incompatibility with technology with users can be a problem. “The biggest challenge that is often faced by telemedicine service providers like us is the lack of technical knowledge among the consultation seekers. Many times, the patients or their family members find it difficult to use the technology to effectively communicate with us,” said Portea’s Ganesh.The unease of sudden transition to online consultations was also felt among doctors. “Use of technology is not new for our doctors, but during their everyday practice the doctors are used to seeing the patients in person. So, getting them to adopt any new platform needs to fulfill certain critical requirements - ease of use, low complexity, and availability of support,” Gaurav Gupta, co-founder, Navia LifeCare said. 76275536Promising futureDespite the challenges and telemedicine being limited to chronic medical conditions and non-emergency cases, many firms see a bright future for it.Meera Iyer, Chief Marketing Officer, Medlife believes there will be a prolonged change in the behavior of people post-Covid which involves people not willing to step out of their houses. “This prolonged behaviour change will automatically set a new baseline where people will adapt to digital practices more including telemedicine. I think there is also going to be increased realization of the convenience and value when you give quality service. With telemedicine, routine checkups for chronic patients are going to be equally easy and will move much faster. When more and more doctors will come on the platform, patients will be able to select the doctor of their own choice.”1mg’s Tandon believes that there will be a structural change. “People will now first call to report anything they feel can be consulted digitally. Some people will still go for offline consultations for things they fear are more concerning. Still, I think people are going to find telemedicine the new normal, where the primary access to health care would be easily available,” he said. from Economic Times https://ift.tt/3dLTYxv

#News #Economy #COVID19

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shawnjacksonsbs · 5 years

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Don't let your growth as a person be stunted, when you control the height of the bar you set. 5-19-19

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it." - Kay from Men in Black played by Tommy Lee Jones You absolutely can, and when necessary you should, outgrow and pass right by people you used to strive to be like. Moral growth from generation to generation is based largely in part to the fact that society can find the flaws of the predecessors and try to correct them and to build on their positives to move forward. Just read a book, unless of course those a conspiracy too, (I have argued points with those who absolutely believe school lessons were fabricated to side with one side or the other, usually within our U.S. education, which is already lacking, some people believe its part of that "liberal agenda" lol). Its no wonder we lag so far behind so many other countries in this arena. It has been proven repeatedly throughout history with great strides progressing forward with equality as the end goal, that we were, in fact, moving forward at one, or rather, several points throughout time. Why are we slipping back??? " . . .there are some things you should know, and one of them is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re seventh in literacy, twenty-seventh in math, twenty-second in science, forty-ninth in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, number four in labor force, and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies… . . We sure used to be. We stood up for what was right! We fought for moral reasons, we passed and struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, and we acted like men. We aspired to intelligence; we didn’t belittle it; it didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn’t scare so easy. And we were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one—America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.” - Will McAvoy There was once a man from Nantucket, who just decided "Fuck it". I'm not from Nantucket though. I'm actually from right here in the great midwest, where the hate and ignorance go hand in hand and is spreading like wildfire in great part because of older people that should God damn know better by now. I'm torn between they have to know better and they just don't care, but either way, I'm done reading their nonsense, and I'll be damned if I'll ever hear them talk in real life they way post to social media. For the last time, IT IS NOT JUST A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION EITHER. I mean, in part, I suppose hating on a whole group of people is considered an opinion, but that's not all it is. And all the positive steps forward we've made toward equality is slowly and sickeningly, being unraveled and undone, right in front of us. The fact that it doesn't bother more people hurts my heart to the point of actual pain. It's gross and ugly the way we treat other people, the way we treat each other, whether its directly or indirectly, especially when we have such potential for greater works for all, through caring, empathy, compassion, and of course kindness. The same kindness that I am still convinced will eventually rule the day and save the world. Needless to say, that after favoring some rational thought, I had a couple of interesting things happen that swayed my hows and whys of social media. Having limited means to connect with people and conversate with people who have opposing views is getting increasingly harder for me to handle, because of how they act or react, and especially since I don't need it in my life at all. Keep your hate, I already lived that, so I'm good now. Except for a once a week check-in, at which time I'll post my entry, I am done with Facebook for a while, I imagine quite a while. I've got so much real and direct life things going on right now, I don't need the extra unwanted ridiculousness. I mean I could unfriend, unfollow, and block some of them, but they are people super close to my heart and that makes it even harder to not say something when they spread exaggerated falsehoods that promote more hate and turmoil. The fact that I sincerely feel most of them know it's wrong and still continue with it, only plays a part in how urgent the feeling is that I tell them, which rarely dissuades them from what I understand always ends up making them look bad, dumb, or ignorant or whatever. For what it's worth, they do that part all on their own. What I actually try to do is get them to understand this. It's wrong, why it's wrong etc. It usually falls on deaf ears anyways. People like that are living in a blissful kind of fear and hate because ignorance truly is bliss because they don't see a direct negative effect for their action. These are the same people who used to get on me constantly about grouping all cops together for the actions of a few bad ones, for which I learned to stop spreading the exaggerations as facts for all. It was absurd that I did this at all. I have grown, even if only slightly, in these areas. Its why I feel they know better, because in hindsight, in my heart, I knew it was wrong, but my hate for the few outweighed what was right for the good ones. I'm going to keep living my life as best I can. Making right decisions every chance I get. Living with integrity, honesty, goodness, and gratitude will continue to be the goals I aspire to, hopefully forever. I knew better then, and I damn sure know better now, and if they are over age 30, I got money on the fact they, too, fucking know better. WWFRD? Rest assured it wouldn't be any of that. Since I wasn't going to change that much of the world through Facebook posts anyways, I know in my heart that I'm cool with the decision to leave it alone. Its a great form of misleading the masses anyways. lol If it ever turns that part off, I'll come back regularly, but I don't see that happening anyways. Keep living in your "bliss", I'm out. I imagine it's going to be like when I quit smoking. I know its better for my health, but what do I do to fill in that time? lolol In real life, I'm building a life with my family and friends and making memories that memes will never outweigh, ever. I, unlike some people, will continue to live my best life the same way out here, as I say I do in here. Lol If you know me in real life, then you know I'm 100% the same as the words you read on these pages. It's such an easier, more peaceful, less stressful way to live anyways. I've helped serve food at missions. I've been to protests as well. I've had some real-life applications to my mission for kindness that I will keep working on here as well. I am still setting routine with the family, but the "free to help others" days are coming eventually. And, for the first time, I plan to actually vote when it comes time, because the state of our current situation isn't one that I am ok with, with the back peddling like we are, especially for my kids and grandkids to have to live in. Pathetic. I still, with my whole heart, know we can do better, be better as a people. Its usually when we are a collective that we become the ugliest versions that we can be as a people, but what if we can turn our collective into a positive and make good, sound, reasonable and rational changes to our future instead? Wouldn't that be awesome? I suppose I am finished with this one. The best part of emptying my thoughts and my heart in here every week, is the relief. I don't have to live weighted down, struggling to breathe on the inside. It works every time, even if no one was to read it. We all know what we carry in our hearts, but until we can all push that out into the real world, like all the time, we will all suffer a little. Good luck with holding any hate in your heart and then trying to relieve the stress it puts on your heart. Do better, be better, and it's not on just one of us. It's on all of us. Whether you adhere to it or not, its a shared responsibility for all of mankind. Some people just lack more than others. It's also nice living a life, so blessed that some of my biggest stressors are how others treat each other. lol That's a great feeling. Stop being ugly to each other, maybe start there, then. . . Share the love and the laughter you have with the world around you, and please, please be civil, as you push your way toward living in kindness. It should absolutely be a way of life, not just an event manifestation. Until next week; "Be inspired by those worthy of inspiration as you aspire to be inspirational." - Elizabeth A. Donley

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sheminecrafts · 6 years

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Fake news ‘threat to democracy’ report gets back-burner response from UK gov’t

The UK government has rejected a parliamentary committee’s call for a levy on social media firms to fund digital literacy lessons to combat the impact of disinformation online.

The recommendation of a levy on social media platforms was made by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee three months ago, in a preliminary report following a multi-month investigation into the impact of so-called ‘fake news’ on democratic processes.

Though it has suggested the terms ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ be used instead, to better pin down exact types of problematic inauthentic content — and on that at least the government agrees. But just not on very much else. At least not yet.

Among around 50 policy suggestions in the interim report — which the committee put out quickly exactly to call for “urgent action” to ‘defend democracy’ — it urged the government to put forward proposals for an education levy on social media.

But in its response, released by the committee today, the government writes that it is “continuing to build the evidence base on a social media levy to inform our approach in this area”.

“We are aware that companies and charities are undertaking a wide range of work to tackle online harms and would want to ensure we do not negatively impact existing work,” it adds, suggesting it’s most keen not to be accused of making a tricky problem worse.

Earlier this year the government did announce plans to set up a dedicated national security unit to combat state-led disinformation campaigns, with the unit expected to monitor social media platforms to support faster debunking of online fakes — by being able to react more quickly to co-ordinated interference efforts by foreign states.

But going a step further and requiring social media platforms themselves to pay a levy to fund domestic education programs — to arm citizens with critical thinking capabilities so people can more intelligently parse content being algorithmically pushed at them — is not, apparently, forming part of government’s current thinking.

Though it is not taking the idea of some form of future social media tax off the table entirely, as it continues seeking ways to make big tech pay a fairer share of earnings into the public purse, also noting in its response: “We will be considering any levy in the context of existing work being led by HM Treasury in relation to corporate tax and the digital economy.”

As a whole, the government’s response to the DCMS committee’s laundry list of policy recommendations around the democratic risks of online disinformation can be summed up in a word as ‘cautious’ — with only three of the report’s forty-two recommendations being accepted outright, as the committee tells it, and four fully rejected.

Most of the rest are being filed under ‘come back later — we’re still looking into it’.

So if you take the view that ‘fake news’ online has already had a tangible and worrying impact on democratic debate the government’s response will come across as underwhelming and lacking in critical urgency. (Though it’s hardly alone on that front.)

The committee has reacted with disappointment — with chair Damian Collins dubbing the government response “disappointing and a missed opportunity”, and also accusing ministers of hiding behind ‘ongoing investigations’ to avoid commenting on the committee’s call that the UK’s National Crime Agency urgently carry out its own investigation into “allegations involving a number of companies”.

Earlier this month Collins also called for the Met Police to explain why they had not opened an investigation into Brexit-related campaign spending breaches.

It has also this month emerged that the force will not examine claims of Russian meddling in the referendum.

Meanwhile the political circus and business uncertainty triggered by the Brexit vote goes on.

Holding pattern

The bulk of the government’s response to the DCMS interim report entails flagging a number of existing and/or ongoing consultations and reviews — such as the ‘Protecting the Debate: Intimidating, Influence and Information‘ consultation, which it launched this summer.

But by saying it’s continuing to gather evidence on a number of fronts the government is also saying it does not feel it’s necessary to rush through any regulatory responses to technology-accelerated, socially divisive/politically sensitive viral nonsense — claiming also that it hasn’t seen any evidence that malicious misinformation has been able to skew genuine democratic debate on the domestic front.

It’ll be music to Facebook’s ears given the awkward scrutiny the company has faced from lawmakers at home and, indeed, elsewhere in Europe — in the wake of a major data misuse scandal with a deeply political angle.

The government also points multiple times to a forthcoming oversight body which is in the process of being established — aka the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation — saying it expects this to grapple with a number of the issues of concern raised by the committee, such as ad transparency and targeting; and to work towards agreeing best practices in areas such as “targeting, fairness, transparency and liability around the use of algorithms and data-driven technologies”.

Identifying “potential new regulations” is another stated role for the future body. Though given it’s not yet actively grappling with any of these issues the UK’s democratically concerned citizens are simply being told to wait.

“The government recognises that as technological advancements are made, and the use of data and AI becomes more complex, our existing governance frameworks may need to be strengthened and updated. That is why we are setting up the Centre,” the government writes, still apparently questioning whether legislative updates are needed — this in a response to the committee’s call, informed by its close questioning of tech firms and data experts, for an oversight body to be able to audit “non-financial” aspects of technology companies (including security mechanism and algorithms) to “ensure they are operating responsibly”.

“As set out in the recent consultation on the Centre, we expect it to look closely at issues around the use of algorithms, such as fairness, transparency, and targeting,” the government continues, noting that details of the body’s initial work program will be published in the fall — when it says it will also put out its response to the aforementioned consultation.

It does not specify when the ethics body will be in any kind of position to hit this shifty ground running. So again there’s zero sense the government intends to act at a pace commensurate with the fast-changing technologies in question.

Then, where the committee’s recommendations touch on the work of existing UK oversight bodies, such as Competition and Markets Authority, the ICO data watchdog, the Electoral Commission and the National Crime Agency, the government dodges specific concerns by suggesting it’s not appropriate for it to comment “on independent bodies or ongoing investigations”.

Also notable: It continues to reject entirely the idea that Russian-backed disinformation campaigns have had any impact on domestic democratic processes at all — despite public remarks by prime minister Theresa May last year generally attacking Putin for weaponizing disinformation for election interference purposes.

Instead it writes:

We want to reiterate, however, that the Government has not seen evidence of successful use of disinformation by foreign actors, including Russia, to influence UK democratic processes. But we are not being complacent and the Government is actively engaging with partners to develop robust policies to tackle this issue.

Its response on this point also makes no reference of the extensive use of social media platforms to run political ads targeting the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Nor does it make any note of the historic lack of transparency of such ad platforms. Which means that it’s simply not possible to determine where all the ad money came from to fund digital campaigning on domestic issues — with Facebook only just launching a public repository of who is paying for political ads and badging them as such in the UK, for example.

The elephant in the room is of course that ‘lack of evidence’ is not necessarily evidence of a lack of success, especially when it’s so hard to extract data from opaque adtech platforms in the first place.

Moreover, just this week fresh concerns have been raised about how platforms like Facebook are still enabling dark ads to target political messages at citizens — without it being transparently clear who is actually behind and paying for such campaigns…

New ‘Dark Ads’ pro-Brexit Facebook campaign may have reached over 10M people, say researchers

In turn triggering calls from opposition MPs for updates to UK election law…

Organisations like Mainstream Network are an unaccountable cancer on our democracy, and other democracies around the world. If Facebook and Twitter continue to shield the dark ads funders, then we need new laws to force them to tell us the truth.https://t.co/F1jVqHQKpS

— Tom Watson (@tom_watson) October 22, 2018

Yet the government, busily embroiled as it still is with trying to deliver some kind of Brexit outcome, is seemingly unconcerned by all this unregulated, background ongoing political advertising.

It also directly brushes off the committee’s call for it to state how many investigations are currently being carried out into Russian interference in UK politics, saying only that it has taken steps to ensure there is a “coordinated structure across all relevant UK authorities to defend against hostile foreign interference in British politics, whether from Russia or any other State”, before reiterating: “There has, however, been no evidence to date of any successful foreign interference.”

This summer the Electoral Commission found that the official Vote Leave campaign in the UK’s in/out EU referendum had broken campaign spending rules — with social media platforms being repurposed as the unregulated playing field where election law could be diddled at such scale. That much is clear.

The DCMS committee had backed the Commission’s call for digital imprint requirements for electronic campaigns to level the playing field between digital and print ads.

However the government has failed to back even that pretty uncontroversial call, merely pointing again to a public consultation (which ends today) on proposed changes to electoral law. So it’s yet more wait and see.

The committee is also disappointed about the lack of government response to its call for the Commission to establish a code for advertising through social media during election periods; and its recommendation that “Facebook and other platforms take responsibility for the way their platforms are used” — noting also the government made “no response to Facebook’s failure to respond adequately to the Committee’s inquiry and Mark Zuckerberg’s reluctance to appear as a witness“. (A reluctance that really enraged the committee.)

In a statement on the government’s response, committee chair Damian Collins writes: “The government’s response to our interim report on disinformation and ‘fake news’ is disappointing and a missed opportunity. It uses other ongoing investigations to further delay desperately needed announcements on the ongoing issues of harmful and misleading content being spread through social media.

“We need to see a more coordinated approach across government to combat campaigns of disinformation being organised by Russian agencies seeking to disrupt and undermine our democracy. The government’s response gives us no real indication of what action is being taken on this important issue.”

Collins finds one slender crumb of comfort, though, that the government might have some appetite to rule big tech.

After the committee had called for government to “demonstrate how seriously it takes Facebook’s apparent collusion in spreading disinformation in Burma, at the earliest opportunity”, the government writes that it: “has made it clear to Facebook, and other social media companies, that they must do more to remove illegal and harmful content”; and noting also that its forthcoming Online Harms White Paper will include “a range of policies to tackle harmful content”.

“We welcome though the strong words from the Government in its demand for action by Facebook to tackle the hate speech that has contributed to the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Burma,” notes Collins, adding: “We will be looking for the government to make progress on these and other areas in response to our final report which will be published in December.

“We will also be raising these issues with the Secretary of State for DCMS, Jeremy Wright, when he gives evidence to the Committee on Wednesday this week.”

(Wright being the new minister in charge of the UK’s digital brief, after Matt Hancock moved over to health.)

We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment on the government’s call for a more robust approach to illegal hate speech. Update: A company spokesperson has now emailed the following statement: “The Committee has raised important issues and we’re committed to working with Government to make the UK the safest place to be online. Transparency around political advertising is good for democracy, and good for the electoral process and we’re pleased the Government welcomed our recent new tools to ensure that political ads on Facebook are open for public scrutiny. We also share the Committee’s concern to keep harmful content off Facebook and have doubled the number of people working on safety and security to 20,000 globally.”

Last week the company announced it had hired former UK deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, to be its new head of global policy and comms — apparently signalling a willingness to pay a bit more attention to European regulators.

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