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Posts Tagged ‘ media ’

Leveraging Cultural Memory: Can NASA Use the Past to Shape Its Future?

By Linda Levitt | June 15th, 2009 | Category: Featured, Issue 4, On Public Life | No Comments »

Was it really one giant leap for mankind? Conspiracy theorists deny it. GenXers couch it in Cold War nostalgia. Millennials shrug their shoulders. The 40th anniversary of the lunar landing presents NASA with both an opportunity and a need to reframe the cultural past. As American exceptionalism fades, the moon landing can be repositioned as a scientific marvel, rather than a one-up victory over the Soviet Union, the Cold War foe of another era. NASA can focus on its long history of technological triumph to regain some of its lost cultural capital. Reframing the Mercury and Apollo programs can make these narratives relevant to a younger generation, and potentially make the space program meaningful in new ways. Doing so, however, will take some work.


I Am Indignant!: Why Am I Forced to Buy Media on the Internet?

By Paloma Ramirez | June 15th, 2009 | Category: Issue 4, On Cultural Life | No Comments »

When I was a small child relishing the miracle of my family’s brand new VCR, we would all pile into the car and go to the video rental place. I learned the pleasures of browsing the shelves, looking at titles and poster art, debating whether we should get a comedy or action movie based on what we felt like watching at the time. It was a social activity. As an adult, I still enjoyed roaming from one genre section to another thinking about what kind of mood I was in and whether it was more conducive to an indie thriller that I’d heard was really good or the romantic comedy that I already knew I liked. Or maybe something else entirely would catch my eye and be the perfect choice even though I hadn’t known it existed before. Or feeling indecisive, I could just ask the film geek at the desk for a recommendation. The options were endless.