[csaa-forum] polling booth participant observation 101

[Jason Wilson]

Can I open by saying that I really want Chanel to win, too. 
 
However, the implication of complicity in the process of political disengagement here is a little disturbing. I'm familiar with all of the arguments about the transformation of the public sphere, about the nexus between celebrity and power and the interesting ways in which reality tv articulates this, about how idol and other shows do really interesting things in the way in which they involve their audiences etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. 
 
My questions are (1) Given these very arguments, do our students really NEED much help to engage with Australian Idol meaningfully and critically; (2) Does many students' almost complete disengagement with old-skool capital-P Politics mean that electoral results and mainstream political processes don't affect their lives? I know a lot of my students at Griffith will be affected by up-front payments, prospective labour market reforms, aspects of the FTA... long after Chanel, Anthony, Courtney and the gang have faded from memory (3) Given these two, should we be assisting them in doing what they by and large are doing anyway - i.e. disengaging from key political processes and engaging instead with new forms of participatory culture - or should we be attempting to reorient them slightly towards some kind of consideration of these, at least insofar as, in our judgement, they NEED to consider them? 
 
I'm not talking about encouraging them to vote in any particular way. And I'm not talking about abandoning questions of popular culture for something more 'serious'. 
These, rather,  are genuine questions, from someone else who is not much older than his students, about our role and duty. 
 
My own theory about the Howard ascendancy is that it is premised upon his mastery of this mood of disegagement - if you don't know or care, why not go for the guy waving the most money and making the most convincing scary noises about the opposition.
 
 

Kirsty Leishman <kirsty_leishman at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
--- charlotte wrote: 
and there's little wonder that young
> people are 
> disinterested in the voting process (scary but true
> to think that i 
> have more in common with the australian idol
> contestants than i do with 
> the members of the senate!).

As I was catching a bus after a class on Monday night,
one of my students received a text message. He turned
to me and reported "Oh my god, Ricki-Lee just got
voted out of Idol". I responded, "I thought she was
going to win", then he said, plaintively, "I know!" 
The very next day, in another subject,
self-recriminations abounded. One girl covered her
face with her hands and lamented it had been the first
week she had not voted for Ricki-Lee. 

After watching Inside Idol it seems the devastation
was widespread. Dicko blames a complacent fan-base.
Mark and Marcia agree: you have to vote. I voted for
Chanel, three times, because she has been in the
bottom three on a regular basis. And I want her to
win.

Kirsty


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