Violence in the Age of Social Media | James Densley | TEDxHamlineUniversity

[@jordanberg8438]

Truly a brilliant mind and an even better human being. "Your attention is your power. When we lead, no one has to bleed."

[@rahulkemp8347]

did he teach u? a great prof

[@soul5236]

This was so extremely well researched and structured.

[@handebarlas6248]

Thank you very much. I wish this talk was much longer. There is a lot of insight here and I would like to somehow contribute- if this is not a naive idea...Violence is so hard to bear.. a very heavy burden on my shoulders really. That is exactly how I feel yet do not know what-if anything- I can personally do this suffering.

[@rn4771]

Clear articulation. Thank you !

[@ceciliamaundu7231]

Master piece! This is such an enlightening talk

[@acon2211]

Currently doing researches about all this, glad to find this video, and I love the final idea about "attention is power". I always quote Qui Gon Jinn "Your focus determines your reality".

[@WeerdBeard]

Wow, what a toxic amount of smugness coupled to an alarming lack of substance.

[@spencerbrown6214]

Is there a group I can join for anti-violence in the media? how come it seems like more people don’t care about this issue? the world needs more goodness and media that promotes peace, not dark sadistic programming. TY 🌎

[@punkindhouse08]

I like this lecture a lot, it's very well structured and reflective. To say nothing of it begin a very urgent topic in our public discourse. That said, I take issue with Densley's statement, "Hate predates the Internet. Before 4Chan, 8Chan, and Reddit, and Gab, it lived a half-life on the fringes of society." This is objectively wrong. If we are to give any credence at all to the liberal argument of systematic oppression, history is littered with dominant forces espousing hatreds which consequently affected the general consensus - including the applicability of violence as a tool for subduing the Other. If anything, brotherhood and fraternity has more often than not been relegated to the fringes, only to emerge again when the violence of the common mob becomes too unstable as a productive means. The most prevalent form of this enabled violence is, of course, war. Moreover, I would argue that the internet has bifurcated and decerebrated any mode of clear thinking on this topic. Human nature cannot be altered in such a quick way that our propensity for violence vanishes. To seek to technologically or biologically engineer this out of our system is also grounds for a serious debate on free will (cf. A Clockwork Orange). So it will always be there. On the other hand, social media in particular re-contextualises our thoughts on violence in a way that seems like it's weaponised. It seems to me that we have to find our honesty about the topic again. Do we want to rid our exposure to violence on the Internet, i.e. sanitise it? Or do we want to make a real-world effect through its exposure? The latter features more limitations since the problem of violence itself is more complex than, say, fixing a piece of technology we constructed ourselves. It really isn't clear how we can properly mediate this yet. From reading an article on the ISIS beheading by Will Self, I think it's fair to say that our first steps would be to start discussing the language of violence. This 'language' is exactly what Densley refers to as 'patterns.' Again, as he states, lets start formulating a language of the effect of media violence from prolonged exposure as it applies to how we enact, manifest, and interact with real-world violence in relation to the individual. Props to Densley for suggesting in the Epilogue that creating a new critical mindset about violence is the key to effectively mediating and moderating our exposure to it on the local level.

[@rahulkemp8347]

oo