Response#4

To start off, I will link the common thread between all of the pieces. Through all four pieces, there is a common thought that the tool or form of technology that is used to convey a point may have an affect on the resonance. In the Postman article “Media as Epistemology”, there is a quote from Northrop Frye stating, “Through resonance a particular statement in a particular context acquires a universal significance.”(Postman 17) Postman’s piece speaks on the differences in resonance between the spoken and written word in regards to the truths that each is believed to hold. One of the examples used is the idea of oral exams and a scholar being questioned on the legitimacy of a quote based on its oral and not written source. Postman later points out, “ ‘Seeing is believing’ has always had a preeminent status as an epistemological axiom, but ‘saying is believing,’ ‘reading is believing,’ ‘counting is believing,’ ‘deducting is believing,’ and ‘feeling is believing’ are others that have risen or fallen in importance as cultures have undergone media change.” (Postman 24) This is the connecting tie between all of the pieces. McLuhan’s “Reversal of the Overheated Medium” similarly speaks on the idea that knowledge is transforming and becoming more inaccessible as technology becomes a focal part of society.

In looking at the Nail essay, the Zapatistas used the media as a way to allow their political stance to crossover into the mainstream world. Nail discusses the mask as resonating a new meaning to the political sphere. “The classical political subject is the one whose identity is represented by the party, the state, or the dominant definition of ‘the people’.” (Nail 33) The mask resonates the idea that politics and the individual are no longer as far apart as they were conceived to be. Parallel to the ideas in The Corporation, the origins of the term and functions of a corporation have come a long way from its origins. The corporation has come to resonate an idea of greed.