Our Group Manifesto

The Official Document.

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We initially started to research the issue of racism, as we wanted to work on a topic that has affected many people and has been a problematic issue for many years. Although we felt this was still a dominant issue, we wanted to touch upon an area that the majority of people could relate to as well as something that stems directly from the module itself. We decided after much thought that racism may have been too specific as it only affected a particular group of people rather than all people in general.

From the onset, our seminar groups discussions have been heavily related to the Internet, in particular Facebook. With an increasing number of people joining Facebook, and the internet becoming more of a focal point in our lives, we aimed to explore this issue in more depth. The internet was our main influence for our final topic of discussion. We feel that the internet has taken the world by storm. It is a whole new world that gives ordinary people unrestricted access to completely uncensored information. We discussed positive and negative aspects of the Internet, as well as discussing the issues that have been made most public, controversial, and problematic. One of which was violence. The increase of violence in modern society has always been linked to the increase in violent shows on the media. Now, it appears that the internet is taking the blame as well. Street violence, especially gun violence in Britain is on the rise in the younger generations with teenagers being shot dead almost every week in large cities. Recently, Anthony Anderson was jailed for three years on account of ‘outraging public decency.’ He urinated on a dying woman whilst his friends filmed the footage and then claimed, “This is a youtube moment!” Is the internet to blame for his behaviour or are we just using the internet as a scapegoat for much deeper problems within British society? Is violence is an outcome of the Internet and whether the Internet contributes to violence as a form of entertainment.

Our objective is to present our audience with an issue and tackle it through discussion. We felt that by staging a live debate that concentrated on the issue of the internet contributing to violence being seen as form of entertainment, we would not only be able to express our own individual views on the matter, but also gain the understanding of the public. We wanted to question the public’s understanding of violence as entertainment and whether or not they feel it has a place.

As a group of four strong minded people, we felt it necessary that we all had our own say. Our intent is not to force our opinions on others, but provide them with a choice and let them reach their own decision. There is no right or wrong answer to the question proposed, it all comes down to personal opinion. The aim of the debate is to demonstrate this, by getting our audience involved they too can voice their opinion, after hearing the research and opinions that we put forward and taking part in an in depth discussion. In order to do this we understand that it is vitally important that we have provided them with enough information for them to make a decision for themselves.

Violence affects everyone in one way or another; it is present in all types of media, television, newspapers and the internet! But would violence as entertainment still be present without the internet? Has it contributed to crime rate and sadistic behaviour? What do we view as acceptable entertainment and should we interfere with the contents of the internet by using censorship? Through our discussion and debate we aim to try and bring some light to these subjects, and even if we do not come to solid conclusions- we hope to get our audience members thinking about them.

Our main aim was to produce a live structured debate open to the audience to contribute and speak their opinions. We wanted to use an issue that is growing rapidly but is often disregarded therefore we wanted to raise awareness. By having a debate we hope to produce a valid argument that covers points both for and against violence in the media contributing to real acts of violence in today’s society. We hope to achieve a heated argument between the four of us, but we also hope to provoke to audience, raising elements that they may be able to identify with or feel strongly towards. By having a group debate, we are able to have a general idea of what contribution the media has to violence today. By aiming our debate around young students who are highly opinionated and less influenced by the media than young children for example, we hope to form a successful argument by stepping out of the box and looking at these issues as outsiders. As students and young adults we are very prone to violence, and we often regard it as part of the binge culture we live In today, therefore it is interesting to look closer at something we are affected by everyday, the media, and question whether it is causing or influencing these problems.

By taking part in virtuality in performance, we have learnt the huge affect of the media and technology on our lives without realizing the extremes of these effects. By forming our debate we hope to discover what these effects are.