Spring 2014 Commencement Issue

Tufts Observer VOLUME CXXVIX, ISSUE 7

APRIL 28, 2014

HOW SUSTAINABLE ARE DIGITAL DETOXES? (PAGE 3)

THE INTERNET ACCORDING TO GOOGLE (PAGE 20)

YOGA BEYOND LULULEMON (PAGE 22)

The commencement issue

Staff editor-in-chief Nicola Pardy managing editor Evan Tarantino creative director Bernita Ling asst. creative director Ben Kurland section editors Anika Ades Robert Collins George Esselstyn Nicholas Hathaway Justin Kim Ben Kurland Moira Lavelle Katharine Pong Sahar Roodehchi

April 28th, 2014 Tufts Observer, since 1895

Volume CXXVIX, Issue 7 Tufts’ Student Magazine

Table of Contents

publicity director Stephen Wright photography director Knar Bedian photography editor Alison Graham art director Griffin Quasebarth lead artists Mia Greenwald Eva Strauss lead copy editors Eve Feldberg MT Snyder copy editors Joey Cheung Savannah Christiansen Carly Olson design assistants Anastasia Antonova Erin Conces Claire Selvin web director Kumar Ramanathan web developers Manvi Goyal Thomas Wang staff writers Allison Aaronson Ellen Mayer Jamie Moore Xander Landen editor emeritus Molly Mirhashem

FEATURE Deconstructing the Digital Detox

by Moira Lavelle

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

by Nicola Pardy

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NEWS Dollar Democracy

by Eve Feldberg

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NEWS Digital Protest

by Allison Aaronson

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OPINION The Old Media Exodus

POETRY Old Saybrook Steam

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by Jamie Moore

by Molly McLaughlin

GRIFFIN QUASEBARTH

ARTS & CULTURE The Appropriation of Yoga

by Ani Shahinyan

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The Observer has been Tufts’ student publication of record since 1895. Our dedication to in-depth reporting, journalistic innovation, and honest dialogue has remained intact for over a century. Today, we offer insightful news analysis, cogent and diverse opinion pieces, creative writing, and lively reviews of current arts, entertainment, and culture. Through poignant writing and artistic elegance, we aim to entertain, inform, and above all challenge the Tufts community to effect positive change.

@tuftsobserver

CONNOR CUNNINGHAM

www.tuftsobserver.org

PHOTO INSET Lightyear

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Contributors

POETRY Conversation

by Jonathan Heutmaker

Elizabeth Billings Connor Cunningham Jamie Moore Sarah Strand Andrew Terrano

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CAMPUS iSIS: A Year in Review

by Aryadita Balakrishnan and George Esselstyn

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GRIFFIN QUASEBARTH

ARTS & CULTURE Netflix Rising

by George Esselstyn

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OPINION Electronic Elitistism: Google’s OPINION Imperfect Democracy Where My Ladies At?

by Anika Ades

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by Molly Mirhashem

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Cover photo by Nicola Pardy

Letter from the Editor T

he smell of pine on campus means it’s springtime at Tufts. Along with the tiny yellow buds that rear their heads after four long months of icy hibernation, the smell of pine mulch means it’s that time of year we’ve all been waiting for.

Now when we leave Tisch in the evenings, we’re met with a balmy breeze in place of that wintry nighttime chill. The Prez Lawn is speckled with books and blankets, and we can finally get that vitamin D fix we’ve been so desperately craving.

Apart from the sunnier weather and dispositions, though, some things at Tufts have not changed through the seasons. For members of the Observer staff, for instance, late-night layout sessions and staff meetings have predictably punctuated each week. Our staff members have known to expect some unforeseen miscommunication with a writer, or a dreaded ‘conflicting copy’ of an article they’ve painstakingly edited on DropBox on a weekly basis. Perhaps there have been times this year when they’ve wondered how they ever voluntarily gave up so much time to assigning, chasing, editing, designing, and postering for our issues.

But each week, they’ve turned up, even if it has been in a state of post-midterm delirium or in the midst of an internship week from hell. What’s more, our staff members have come back to meetings with more ideas, more inspiration, and more stake in the magazine as the year has progressed.

Our photo director, Knar, left layout one Tuesday after finishing her work around midnight, only to return 30 minutes later with a piping hot pizza box in hand for the remaining staff members to share. (She has since earned the nickname, Food Fairy for her continued contributions of yumminess.) Robert, our news editor, drafted a plan over his spring break to begin a section of the magazine dedicated exclusively to investigative journalism. His ideas launched our first Pro-Publica sponsored endeavor, #ProjectIntern, to investigate unpaid internships at Tufts and around the country. Our creative director, Bernita, once spent two hours scanning balls of yarn for a cover photo idea we ended up abandoning at the last minute.

These are just a few instances where the hard work and dedication of this staff has astounded me—and there are so many more.

I encourage everyone at Tufts to plug in to the communities that make them happy. Whether that be a sports team, a sorority, or a group of people that feel just as strongly as you do about the use of oxford commas (I’m looking at you, Evan), your communities here will constitute the fabric of your college experience.

At the risk of sounding cheesy, I want to say that I feel extremely lucky to have been part of such a bright, interested, and talented community. You guys make the conflicted copies worth it in the end.

To our staff seniors—Anika, Evan, Knar, Justin, and Molly— and to all the members of the senior class graduating next month—this Commencement Issue is for you. We hope you’ll relish these final few weeks at Tufts and the communities that have made your time here worthwhile.

On behalf the Tufts Observer, congratulations, everyone!

Nicola Pardy Editor-in-Chief 2

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April 28, 2014

GRAPHICS BY BERNITA LING

FEATURE

Deconstructing the

By Moira Lavelle

F

reshman Daria Thames deactivated her Facebook account one month ago and has not logged on since. “I feel like I have more genuine connections with people even though it’s only been a month,” mused Thames.

“I talk to the people I want to talk to, instead of just checking in on everyone.” Sophomore Daniel Welch also deactivated his Facebook account for over a year.

“I overheard these freshmen talking about things that were happening on Facebook in the real world, and it was treated as a worthy of topic of conversation, as if something had actually happened. So I deleted my Facebook. It was brash but I appreciated my gumption in the morning.”

More and more people are signing offline because they feel, in some capacity, overwhelmed. It is as if they are being consumed and subsumed by the infinite sources of social and web media, and either are not getting as much work done as intended or feel that they are missing out on the genuine moments of real life. Sherry Turkle, a psychologist at M.I.T. who recently published the book Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other argues that we can never be satiated with the sorts of interactions afforded to us online. “We are tempted to think that our little ‘sips’ of online connection add up to a big gulp of real conversation,” explains Turkle. “But no matter how valuable, they

FEATURE

Almost every digital detox is accompanied by a triumphant digital return. do not substitute for conversation.” Turkle is a huge proponent of the digital detox—the idea that we as a society need to log off every now and then for a few days, or a week, or a year, in order to regain control of our lives.

The digital detox movement has gained incredible momentum as of late. Book deals abound: Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, Lee Siegel’s Against the Machine, Mark Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation, Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur, Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget, and Evgeny Morozov’s The Net Delusion all warn against the dark dangers of the Internet and extol the values of unplugging. Randi Zuckerberg, the older sister of the famous Facebook mogul who is involved with the corporation

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herself, has written two books—one autobiographical, one picture book—urging people to cut down on their time spent online. The older Zuckerberg doesn’t suggest signing off forever, but she does provide etiquette instructions about moderating one’s time. Others from the dot-com world are providing instructions on how to cut down: Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post has created “GPS for the Soul,” an app to help people detach for a minute to find a sense of calm, and Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman, has announced his pledge to make sure his family dinners are “gadget-free.”

For those who really need to detach, the group Digital Detox recently hosted Camp Grounded in northern Cali-

FEATURE

fornia. The $350 trip for media and social elite encouraged people to unplug and enjoy real experiences, like seeing the stars and having uninterrupted conversations. There was even a National Day of Unplugging from sundown on March 7th until sundown on March 8th created by the nonprofit Reboot “to help hyperconnected people of all backgrounds to embrace the ancient ritual of a day of rest.”

Their argument is that there is such a thing as being too connected, and we can only benefit from cutting back our time online to indulge in our time offline. In their eyes, there is the real world and the Internet world, and the two oppose each other.

Popular social media theorist Nathan Jurgenson has written extensively about this idea that the real world and the Internet are entirely separate, which he calls the “fallacy of digital dualism.” Jurgenson explains that the idea of digital dualism is an “outdated perspective as Facebook is increasingly real and our physical world increasingly digital.” We are ourselves on the Internet just as much as we are ourselves offline—there is simply a different medium.

Jurgenson argues that the two realms are one—that we live in a reality augmented by digitality.

And as many detoxers have discovered, disconnecting oneself from the digital world often equates to disconnecting oneself from the real world. The two are linked too closely to allow for anything else. Popular technology blogger Paul Miller spent a year without any internet, wanting to focus on bettering his human relationships, getting more work done, and embracing serendipity. As he chronicled his year abroad in the analog world, Miller initially found some benefits: his attention span lengthened and he wrote more prolifically. But in his return post on The Verge one year later, Miller wrote, “I was wrong.” He explains that his problems with getting distracted or connecting with people were internal issues that simply manifested themselves digitally, and that in unplugging, he unplugged from much of humanity. He couldn’t keep up with friends far away; he couldn’t Skype with his nieces and nephews; he couldn’t’t collaborate with coworkers; and he couldn’t meet up with friends as easily. Everyone else stayed plugged in, so Miller simply felt left out.

Daria Thames also feels this difficulty of logging off when others have not: “I feel like I’m a little bit out of the loop. It’s a very strong part of how we connect with each other. Tufts groups often organize and talk through Facebook pages, so it can be a tad inconvenient.” Daniel Welch reactivated his Facebook after one year to connect with people more easily. “I didn’t have that many long distance friendships, so I could keep in contact with a few people over the phone without Facebook,” Welch explained. “But then I got mono and I was stuck in my house all day and I wanted to connect with people so I figured I would reactivate it just while I was sick to fill my time and communicate with friends.”

This is why, as Casey Cep wrote in a recent New Yorker piece, almost every digital detox—such as the National Day of Unplugging, or the use of apps such as SelfControl that help one limit time online—is accompanied by a triumphant digital return. For many of these detoxes, the goal is to return to digital technology with a renewed appreciation and approach. In this way a digital detox is much like a juice cleanse—the idea isn’t to convert to a juice-only diet forever, but rather to restart and approach food with a new perspective or with more self restraint.

The idea of a digital detox is meant to introduce moderation and show that we can live without the Internet, but not necessarily suggest that we should.

Critics of the detox movement, such as Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic or Nathan Jurgenson, explain that it isn’t the idea of digitally detoxing that is inherently flawed.

It is the fact that the discourse surrounding detoxing insinuates that technology is inherently unnatural and that unplugging solves every problem. This idea that detoxing is the simple and entire solution detracts from other more important and complex questions about our technologically integrated world : Is the disconnect that people feel when using Facebook a symptom of physical or emotional distance? What are the ethics of cutting down on technology? What are the privileges of our digital age? Why have humans been pushing back against supposedly “unnatural” technology since the invention of the wheel? Our digital world looks like it may be here to stay, and we can’t turn it off, but we can critique it.

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NEWS

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Dollar Democracy

The McCutcheon Decision

DADEROT

By Eve Feldberg

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he Supreme Court is dismantling campaign finance regulations one decision at a time.

On April 2, the Supreme Court ruled in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission to strike down aggregate limits on individual donations to political campaigns, continuing the Roberts court’s trend of deregulating campaign finance. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that, under the First Amendment, aggregate limits on individual donations were unconstitutional.

While the $2,600 base limit on individual contributions per candidate was left unaltered, the elimination of aggregate limits means that donors can now contribute that maximum amount to an unlimited number of candidates.

Larry Noble, a former general counsel of the FEC who currently works for the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C., told the Observer that he sees the decision as significant on the state level: “You may see more money going into local elections. What you’re gonna see is more money coming in from out of state; you’ll see a wealthy donor giving to these joint fundraising committees and Massachusetts candidates will get money out of this one large donation being made.”

Even before the McCutcheon decision, out of state donors were significantly influential in Congressional elections. According to Opensecrets.org, in the 2012 Senate race, Elizabeth Warren received 97 percent of her funding from individual donors, and the top three zip codes those donations came from were in California and New York, not Massachusetts. The same goes for her opponent, Scott Brown, who received 49 percent of his funding from out of state donors.

Teresa Walsh, a political science professor at Tufts, thinks that this influence will become instrumental in local elections as well: “My prediction is that 11 attorney generals are going to release letters to the various state organizations and say to them, under the recent holding, aggregate limits should be struck down.”

This has already happened in Massachusetts. On April 2, the same day McCutcheon was decided, the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance

NEWS

released a statement saying it “will no longer enforce the $12,500 aggregate limit on the amount that an individual may contribute to all candidates.”

McCutcheon follows a series of rulings over the past four decades that have altered federal regulations of campaign finance.

The first of those rulings was Buckley v. Valeo in 1976.

Professor Walsh explained the legal history to the Observer: “Buckley held that base limits were constitutional because the State had demonstrated a ‘sufficiently important interest’ in limiting quid pro quo corruption and the appearance of such corruption.” Walsh said that Buckley “found that [aggregate limits] were a permissible corollary to base limits because they prevented evasion of the base limits.”

The decision in McCutcheon didn’t make changes to those base limits, but it did revisit the idea of quid pro quo corruption as it relates to aggregate limits. Larry Noble said, “The rationale for Congress to impose aggregate limits was to stop large campaign contributions which gave rise to real or apparent corruption; at least that’s what the court said in Buckley.” However, according to Noble, McCutcheon “narrowed the definition of corruption so that it only applies when someone directly bribes a member of Congress.” It was this redefinition of quid pro quo corruption that led to the elimination of aggregate donation limits.

Paul Sherman, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice in Virginia, was the counsel of record for an amicus curiae brief in favor of McCutcheon, submitted to the Supreme Court before oral arguments. According to Sherman, “The Supreme Court has said you can only regulate campaign finance to prevent corruption or the appearance of corruption. The thing is that, historically, all the weight has been on the appearance of corruption standard because there is no systematic evidence that contributions actually lead to increases in corruption.”

Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion was similar to those of Sherman and his colleagues who submitted similar briefs: “Spending large sums of money in connection with elections, but not in connection

with an effort to control the exercise of an officeholder’s official duties, does not give rise to … quid pro quo corruption. Nor does the possibility that an individual who spends large sums may garner ‘influence over or access to’ elected officials or political parties.”

However, for many critics of the decision, there is something much larger at

“ The First

Amendment means everyone has the right to speak, not that the wealthy can speak the loudest.

”

issue: the use of the First Amendment to justify lifting aggregate limits. A letter to the editor in the Washington Post calls the Court’s decision “a perversion of the First Amendment”. Justice Breyer explains in his dissent, “the First Amendment advances not only the individual’s right to engage in political speech, but also the public’s interest in preserving a democratic order in which collective speech matters. Corruption…

derails the essential speech-to-governmentaction tie. Where enough money calls the tune, the general public will not be heard.”

Paul Sherman thinks the Court interpreted the First Amendment correctly. He told the Observer, “The First Amendment protects the right not just to speak but to speak effectively, and to speak effectively to a mass audience you have to raise money.

You can’t run an effective campaign without raising money. So when the government restricts campaign finance it is limiting speech.”

Larry Noble sees things differently: “Clearly money is used for speech, but money is not speech, and my other problem…is that it really puts the democracy for sale. The First Amendment means everyone has the right to speak, not that the wealthy can speak the loudest.”

Sherman sees this disparity as “relatively minor.” He went on to say, “There were only a small number of people who were hitting the aggregate limit in the first place.”

But for Professor Walsh, this is precisely the problem. “Its been estimated there are about 159 extraordinarily wealthy donors who can write checks for over $1 million, and this [ruling] will give those donors the ability to do so in an unfettered way. It marginalizes, arguably, the voice of someone who cannot give these large amounts.”

For many people, giving the maximum allowed amount, $2,600, to even one candidate is less than feasible. Paul Sherman characterized this base limit as “not that much,” but in Massachusetts, $2,600 is nearly half of the average family’s monthly income. Paul Kamenar, the counsel of record for another amicus curiae brief filed in favor of McCutcheon, suggested to the Observer that perhaps people who couldn’t afford to donate could volunteer instead: “You can knock on doors and pass out fliers…that kind of human labor is very valuable to campaigns.”

Kamenar went on to say, “Sure, there are arguments that say the little guy’s being forced out, but basically it’s the little guy who has the same kind of voting power as the billionaire: they both have one vote…right?” O

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Digital Protest

By Allison Aaronson

W

hile a Jacksonville jury spent 30 hours deliberating the case of Michael Dunn earlier this year, Georgetown University senior Shavonnia Corbin-Johnson sat fuming in her room. Dunn, a white man, fired several shots into a car of black teenagers after they refused to quiet their loud music, killing 17-year-old Jordan Davis. Dunn was convicted of four of five charges, but the jury failed to come to a decision over the most serious charge: first-degree murder.

“I couldn’t believe this man was killed in his car for listening to music,” said Corbin-Johnson. Scrolling through her Facebook newsfeed, Corbin-Johnson read many posts expressing anger and frustration regarding the verdict, but saw very little action. “I didn’t want to sit idle,” she explained. “I just wanted to do something that shows that I am not okay with it. And being of the technological generation, I knew it had to be social media. That’s all we do.”

A few days later, Corbin-Johnson got the idea for Dangerous Black Kids Of Georgetown University (#DBKGU). Inspired by a Huffington Post article that displayed satirical tweets of adorable black toddlers accompanied by #DangerousBlackKids, #DBKGU challenges racial 8

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assumptions by posting pictures of black students next to a list of their impressive achievements.

The photo campaign is on Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram, and captures students wearing both formal and casual attire. A message accompanying the campaign explains, “Whether we are in casual clothes or dressed well and regardless of all we have achieved, it is our skin, our blackness, that causes society to perceive us as dangerous, but there is always more than what meets the eye.” The message asks viewers to consider, “Are these ‘Dangerous Black Kids’ or ‘Black Kids In Danger’?” #DBKGU is one of many student-created racial justice social media campaigns that have gained popularity this year.

Conceived in response to different issues, these projects have similarities that expose the pervasiveness of racism on college campuses. Across the country, students are experiencing affirmative action-fueled hostility, racial profiling in the criminal justice system, and the feeling of a lack of belonging. The viral nature of these campaigns also points to a growing trend of students’ refusal to accept misconceptions about race, and their readiness to speak out.

This November, students at the University of Michigan launched the #BBUM

Twitter account, an acronym for “Being Black at the University of Michigan.” The movement is aimed at giving voice to an increasingly diminishing population. Black enrollment at Michigan has dropped from 7 to 4.65 percent in the last seven years, according to the Michigan Daily. This decline has been met with increasing intolerance.

The Twitter was initially created after the Theta Xi fraternity at Michigan hosted a “Hood Ratchet Thursday” party, which invited “rappers, twerkers, gangsters” and others “back to da hood again.”

Most recently, black Harvard students have gained mainstream media attention with their “I, Too, Am Harvard” photo campaign on Tumblr, inspired by a play of the same name. The play was written and directed by sophomore Kimiko MatsudaLawrence, and is based on interviews with over 40 Harvard students who identify as black.

For the Tumblr campaign, sophomore Carol Powell photographed students with white boards displaying commonly made racist remarks and would-be responses to them. Wearing a colorfully printed shirt and a fierce expression, Matsuda-Lawrence holds a blackboard at arms length, with the words “Can You Read?” printed across the center. In another photo, a traditionally

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clad African student points at the camera, his whiteboard reading “This too is swag.”

The campaign protests the general sense of alienation and lack of belonging felt by students of color at Harvard. Though 11.9 percent of Harvard’s admitted class of 2018 identifies as black, this growing minority continues to feel silenced. The Tumblr page states, “Our voices often go unheard on this campus, our experiences are devalued, our presence is questioned.

This project is our way of speaking back, of claiming this campus, of standing up to say: We are here. This place is ours. We, TOO, are Harvard.”

Though these institutions differ widely, each of these campaigns expressed similar grievances. Racial profiling was discussed in each of the movements. An “I, Too, Am Harvard” photo shows a female student dressed professionally in a black and white checkered dress, her eyebrows raised at the quote, “You’re dressed like you might shoot me right now—such a thug.” One Michigan student tweeted, “#BBUM is praying my black male friends don’t get arrested/questioned for fitting VAGUE crime alert descriptions.”

Corbin-Johnson admits that she feels racially profiled by the campus police, saying, “Black parties always get shut down.”

She recounts having her bag checked “for safety measures,” and being told by campus police that they “don’t believe I am a Georgetown student.”

Another widespread theme is the role of affirmative action debates in creating an unwelcoming atmosphere for students of color. Matsuda-Lawrence told Buzzfeed that almost every student she interviewed mentioned a Harvard Crimson article titled “Affirmative Dissatisfaction” as a major source of unease. The writer, Sarah R. Siskind, compared affirmative action to “helping the visually impaired become pilots.”

Several of the photographs from “I, Too, Am Harvard” deal with issues of questioned academic success. One student stands with a tight-lipped smile, her whiteboard displaying the offensive words of an old classmate, “You’re lucky to be black… so easy to get into college!” In the next photo, a male student stares unsmilingly at the camera, his whiteboard reading “Surprise! My application to Harvard wasn’t just a picture of my face.”

The debate over affirmative action is not limited to Harvard. One #BBUM user tweeted “Being ‘smart for a black person’ instead of just being ‘smart.’”

Many students expressed increased pressure to prove their intelligence to fellow students when completing group projects. Corbin-Johnson recounts being questioned about whether or not she understood a discussion about Pakistani military groups, a topic on which she considers herself an expert. Knowingly, Corbin-Johnson asked the student why she doubted Corbin-Johnson’s understanding. Hesitating, the student quietly responded, “Because of affirmative action and stuff, I don’t really know how smart people are.” Corbin-Johnson said she was speechless.

Social media spearheads racial justice movements at universities.

This controversy makes it difficult for students of color to feel welcome at their respective universities. One Michigan student bemoaned, “Being a third generation Wolverine and still hearing, ‘Are you a first generation college student?’” Michigan Black Student Union Board Member Capri’Nara Kendall told the Huffington Post, “I can’t begin to express the number of times I’ve been asked if I’m here on an athletic scholarship when I’m really here on an academic scholarship. It makes me feel like I’m not welcome here unless I’m some type of athlete.”

These brief and commonplace racial insults, coming to be known as “microaggressions,” may negatively affect student success.

In the promotional video for “I, Too, Am Harvard,” one student said, “I feel the burden of being black in the classroom.” According to the US Department of Education, the col-

lege graduation rate of black students is 22.3 percent lower than that of white students.

“When students feel repeatedly hurt and diminished, it is hard to expect them to be academically effective at the same time,” says Karen Gould, a former Tufts University Associate Dean and lecturer on race and class in higher education. “It negatively impacts their grades, their psyche, and their wellbeing.”

These social media campaigns are notable in their denial of the popular notion of a “post-racial society.” In a recent Gallup poll, 72 percent of white people rated current race relations as “very good” or “somewhat good.” Corbin-Johnson explains, “When they’re confronted about it they say ‘Oh I don’t see it,’ or ‘oh it’s not a problem.’” In discussing whether or not white students are aware of racism on college campuses, Gould said, “I think some know. I imagine others don’t want to know.” By spreading their message through such a viral medium, these students are powerfully interrupting this entrenched narrative.

Inspired by the work of these campaigns, many students are creating branches at their own universities, showing that these race issues are not isolated incidents.

The Being Black hashtag has spread to numerous universities including Michigan State, Cornell, and Georgetown. CorbinJohnson reports that several other universities have reached out to her to adopt #DBKGU, and she is working to unite with other universities in DC in the hopes of eventually changing the title to #DBKDC. The “I, Too, Am” movement has also spread to McGill, Oxford, and Cambridge.

“Our movements are connecting brothers and sisters across a whole ocean,” CorbinJohnson said. “Everyone’s experiencing the same thing.”

Gould is optimistic about the continuation of conversations about race in higher education. “Universities like to contain and control every aspect of their image,” she says. “That’s not how the world works anymore. Colleges need to work for as many students as possible, something that is easy to advertise but much harder to do.

The sun is finally shining on how students really feel. Students are finally speaking up, and they have found a vehicle through which to do so.” O April 28, 2014

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OPINION

By Jamie Moore

I

f you consume the news—not just read it, or skim it, but actually and voraciously consume it—then by now you have memorized the narrative for journalism in the 21st century: print media is being bled to death by the Internet, television news is the intellectual equivalent of a vacant lot, and radio, while a decent supplement to other news sources, doesn’t have the market penetration or depth of services to exist as a primary news source.

This dire diagnosis gets repeated all over the news landscape, and every time new information comes out about the declining readership or profits of some former print titan, more media hand-wringing ensues.

However, despite the amount of attention devoted to the fates of major media outlets, there have been some gaps in the coverage. Most notably, many major news outlets have missed out on the recent trend of major writers abandoning their previous old-media homes to helm new webbased news companies. The most recent print acolyte to jump ship was Bill Keller, formerly of The New York Times. This underreported trend is, to me, more important than circulation numbers and yearly profits. It is one that will only continue as media technology evolves, and will ultimately shape both how we consume news media and how it is delivered to us. The future of journalism will be writer-driven, not outlet-driven.

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This development is an entirely welcome one that is woefully underreported. A renewed focus on the actual people behind the news not only allows for fair recognition and reward for their good work, but also encourages the development of greater personal accountability for what journalists produce. In addition, a writer-driven news market encourages diversification: instead of a few monolithic news companies doing a little reporting on a lot of topics, there are many individuals or small groups doing in-depth writing on their chosen topic. We’ve already seen this process of diversification happen with blogs and special interest/opinion writing, but with the growth of Internet news with a focus on reporting and investigation—like Ezra Klein’sVox, Bill Keller’s Marshall Project, and newly minted Tufts Observer partner ProPublica—we can expect a similar leap in terms of the breadth and depth in that area as well.

This stands in stark opposition to the last century of news media, where the vast majority of public and critical praise for good reporting was lavished on the responsible outlet rather than on the individuals creating the content. Apart from a few journalists who served as the faces of their network or publication, the general public knew little about the actual humans

behind the news that they consumed. After all, a columnist could be pretty easily followed week after week, but there was no guarantee when a favorite reporter might next be published. Furthermore, if someone read an article and liked a particular writer’s style, the work involved in finding other things that they had written was significant: you would have to go to a library, find back copies of their newspaper or magazine, and then search through their old articles. This was obviously too much for most sane people.

However, with the invention of the Internet and online archives of printed publications, it suddenly became feasible to have a favorite journalist, or a stable of favorite writers at several publications.

Now, this is doubly true: every journalist has some sort of personal blog, Twitter page, or personal archive for interested readers to explore. It is now possible for any journalist to have a personal following. However, there are also more “star” level journalists out there, who command immense critical and public respect. Perhaps the original example of this change is the career arc sports journalist Bill Simmons, who was one of the first writers to leverage the Internet platform, moving from a blog, to a subpage of the ESPN website, to his semi-autonomous ESPN affiliate site, Grantland. Of course, his quickly-rising fortune coincided with the

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A renewed focus on the actual people behind the news encourages the development of greater personal accountability for what journalists produce.

explosion of Internet use and then later with the rise of reblogging and shared culture on social networks.

The second change that the Internet has brought to journalism is openness and expansiveness. The barrier to entry for old media is wealth-based; there is very little room for competition to suddenly spring up, as there is a small pool of existing old media firms and almost no chance for new, profitable ones to arise. The web, by comparison, is very open. The barrier to enter the Internet news market is skillbased: can a journalist code a website from scratch, operate a hosting or blogging service effectively, or are they good enough to convince appropriately-skilled people to join them? Ezra Klein is a great example of a writer who used the Internet to build a news brand independent of his newspaper. After gaining recognition for his work with The Washington Post, Klein left the paper to found Vox, an online news site published by the web-exclusive Vox Media company.

The web also has very few practical limits on the amount of material that a journalist can churn out, apart from the time they wish to devote to writing.

There is no page limit, no set amount of inches, and no need to set aside space for advertisements. If a piece needs some background information, there’s no need to make room for a sidebar; a

writer can just insert a link to whatever relevant information the reader might need. As Klein noted in the video introduction on Vox, there are significant limits to print media that don’t exist on the web: “The nature of the space constraint [with print] was that we couldn’t put all the information we needed. But we don’t have that constraint on the web.” With the web format also comes room for experimentation and creativity regarding formatting and mixedmedia content. Internet media is inherently more expansive than print or television can ever be.

These two changes are behind the wave of recent departures from major newspapers. What unites the former print journalists who have recently moved to web platforms—among them the aforementioned Ezra Klein, Nate Silver, and Bill Keller—is a desire to build a brand around what the web offers: a unique chance for personal recognition, and the perfect platform to do so. In particular, Keller noted when talking with the New York Times that the web platform will allow him and his staff at the newly created Marshall Project to “use all the tools that digital technology offers journalists in terms of ways to investigate and present on a subject.”

It is worth noting that all three of the names I have mentioned above have

some sort of big-name financial backing: Silver is backed by ESPN and ABC, Keller is backed by the journalist-turned-hedge fund manager Neil Barsky, and Klein is backed by Vox Media, a prominent web publishing firm. However, the key when considering the importance of these backers in web news versus traditional news media is that, in web news, the backers are attracted to the following and talents of the individual journalists they are backing; in the newspaper/broadcasting model, the individual journalists are much more at the mercy of the publishing corporation. Because of the vastly different power structure for Internet journalists, it’s obvious that we’ll see more high-profile departures from major old media outlets in the future.

The structure of the modern Internet is perfectly suited for media personalities to build around personal brands rather than aggregates. We’ve already seen the way that journalistic personalities who became famous exclusively in new media (such as Arianna Huffington and Andrew Sullivan) by leveraging this structure. As more prominent writers shift from old media to the web, and new voices emerge from the realm of blogs and social media, old media companies will likely shift to a more personality-driven model as well, and begin to bring to the front the journalists as much as the headlines. O

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POETRY

Old Saybrook Steam

By Molly McLaughlin

You’re in your November hour.

Cheek grasses cling, pewtery rough.

June’s honeysuckle breath aged to spice.

And smoke.

And Abraham gave up the ghost.

Sunk into the rufous leather, my damp hair rests beneath your brambles.

Cast iron promises clang in my consciousness. We’re all polished by the years.

On the stove, something’s simmering. Future forged.

We clamor to be near it.

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nningham connor cu

lightyear

anika ades

MAY 7, 2012

TUFTS OBSERVER

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Elizabeth billings Alison graham Anika ades

Anika ades

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TUFTS OBSERVER

MAY 7

Ana-maria Murphy-teixidor

MAY 7, 2012

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sarah strand

Elizabeth billings

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chelsea newman

POETRY

Conversation

By Jonathan Heutmaker

You sit with your hands stiff, listless like your stony eyes that shoot cyanide stares from the top of the stairs, with loaded words packed into a suitcase for no ears to hear, fated to seep into the silken matter of that brain that you keep sealed in a glass jar under your bed to be taken out and examined under the safe solitude of the night.

And we let the broth-like silence fill the room and flow through the cracks underneath the doors, soaking the still shifting house until salty quiet hangs in the air, before wasting our breath on another chance like some vagrant Vegas dreamer panning for a stroke of luck, all the while longing for the safe sound of a still night.

Words fall out in systematic order, swiftly, stealthily meshing single file into smoky sentences, like jigsaw puzzles manufactured in a faulty factory; the pieces are fitted into a perfect rectangle but the picture inside lies disconnected in fragments and lines; a scene cut apart, scattered and stitched together.

And the quiet comes again, with its uncertain tenure lasting ever longer as the breath of the night rattles the windows and the echo of one or ten minutes ago buzzes evermore faintly.

It presses against us as we return to the earnest language of rounded glass on gray matter, uncovered in the dead of night.

ART BY ANDREW TERRANO

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17

CAMPUS

iSIS: A Year in Review

By Aryadita Balakrishnan and George Esselstyn

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CAMPUS

T

o the rest of the world, Isis represents the mythical Egyptian goddess of motherhood and fertility, or the jihadist group that is taking over large swaths of territory in Syria. But to a small and increasingly selective (cue this year’s admission statistics) group of people known collectively as “Jumbos,” the word iSIS represents everything one could most possibly abhor—or love. Some consider iSIS akin to magic, while others are hesitant to even call it functional. If you fill a room of Tufts students to the brim, you’ll hear loud and heated arguments on everything from Israel to divestment; but the one thing that will unite them all (aside from Beyoncé) is the acknowledgement of iSIS’ digital dominance. In a world of ohso-smooth Apple and Google software that knows what you want before you want it, iSIS is a warm and friendly reminder of the good old days—the days when computers loaded pages at a glacial speed, and when the notion of “user interface,” or “user” for that matter, didn’t exist. But design and speed aside, iSIS does its job.

On the Tufts IT website, there’s a tab titled “Timeline” that leads to a crafty page dedicated to what most iSIS-haters

No doubt that with time, finesse, and continued polishing, iSIS will transform into that slick and graceful software that everyone dreams it to be. oft overlook. The timeline is dotted with 14 bold check marks, each noting a successful point in iSIS’ infancy. From Financial Aid Student Interfaces to Course Enrollment to Transcripts, the progress made deserves its rightful checkmarks. Like that of Blue Ivy Carter, the short but well-documented career of iSIS is well on its way to academic stardom. But like any digital ride, there have been bumps along the way.

Like Isis, the protective goddess of motherhood, iSIS doesn’t want you making any mistakes. You need to make each selection a hundred times until you’ve ended up with Chinese 1 instead of Comp 11, you’re registered in a class in the Veterinary School, and you have to make it back in time for Econ 5 which begins fifteen minutes later in Cohen. The amount of time spent clicking around on iSIS, from “Enrollment” to “Select Classes” to “Select Subject,” can feel like a small exercise routine. (Click the back button for another round).

The “Shopping Cart” feature is one that is particularly handy because it allows you to put courses into a virtual “Shopping Cart,” and then when you’re ready to “Check-Out,” it’s just a click of a button thereafter. The questions every Tufts student probably asks at some point during his or her registration are why on earth it’s called a “Shopping Cart,” and why does such a redundant step exists between choosing the class and actually enrolling in it. On the iSIS FAQ section, one question reads,

“The term ‘shopping cart’ sends the wrong message. Can we change this to something less commercial?” The automated answer is sympathetic, but unmoving: “Not only would [changing the name] be an expensive change for Tufts both upfront and at each upgrade, but many experienced consultants rightfully point out that the ‘shopping cart’ concept is one very familiar to today’s students as a simple assemblage of items they have chosen and want to save to consider, rather than a commitment to buy.” Controversy aside, the “Shopping Cart” is a somewhat refreshing reminder that someone is trying to keep up with the times.

If you click on “Plan,” you’ll find the option to “Create a What-if Scenario,” an incredibly complicated feature that doesn’t really do anything. In an ideal world, it lets you plan out your schedule over a set of semesters so you know you’re achieving your degree requirements. Sadly, that’s only in an ideal world.

What it actually does is have one of those ceaseless loading signs (throwback to the days of Windows 98), and creates a what-if scenario which goes something along the lines of “WHAT-IF I keep acting as if I am loading, how long will it take this Jumbo to crack?” But when the “What-if Scenario” finally loads, there is a surprisingly helpful set of steps available that will eventually link a student to a human being. The “submit request” option is sent through the complex twists and turns of the site, ultimately leading to a person willing to help. While there is a balance of necessary patience and impatience with some (or most) of iSIS’ features, the results are often positive.

But registering for and planning classes is only one of many functions iSIS serves to the Tufts Community. Whether we like it or not, iSIS continues to digitize the old-accountant positions in the administrative building on Boston Avenue. iSIS subtracted close to $60,000 dollars from the bank accounts of many Jumbos this year, and next year, it will take 4 percent more. We use iSIS to pay our bills and discover our grades−the two areas where the program is found to be dreadfully efficient. iSIS has its own Narnia’s closet in the little tab aptly titled “Additional Resources.” Here students will find everything they’ve always wanted, but never thought iSIS had. “Additional Resources” can help you feature yourself in your hometown newspaper or give you democracy’s foremost power: the ability to vote. Whether you love it or hate it, iSIS really is an all-pervasive program: just as housing depends on it, your past, present, and future lie among its complex servers.

This year was iSIS’ first in action. Before that, the portal was supposedly much worse, and even before that, you had to queue up for hours on end to work with an old librarian who took three hours to register each student—or something like that. Perhaps in the next year, iSIS will improve its design and its speed to better serve the students and faculty. There’s no doubt that the iSIS staff has worked hard for four years (remember the checks) and a software such as this can only get better. No doubt that with time, finesse, and continued polishing, iSIS will transform into that slick and graceful software that everyone dreams it to be. iSIS, for all intents and purposes, is a freshman in the Tufts Community−the only freshman who doesn’t plan on graduating anytime soon. O

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OPINION

Electronic Elitism Google’s Imperfect Democracy

By Anika Ades

W

hen the Internet became accessible to the public with the advent of Personal Computers (PCs), it existed in a state of anarchy. Though there were millions of live sites, they were disorganized and unsearchable without specific domain names or a background in programming.

Critics dismissed the World Wide Web as an unusable outlet of the unverified claims and the voices of the rabble.

Search engines emerged as the valuable key that allowed individual Internet users to make sense of the web from their PCs in their own home. These online search engines generally ranked results by the number of times the term appeared on

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the page, a slow process that could overlook the optimal search results. But without a better search engine to optimize the access to resources online, web surfers were dependent on these early providers.

In 1999, when Google earned its first patent as an online search engine, the organization of the Internet faced an overhaul of revolutionary proportions. As Google.com became the search engine of choice for the ballooning ranks of Internet users, it effectively democratized the Internet. Google’s “PageRank” algorithm was a bottom-up approach to organizing the Internet that empowered individual users. It valued websites based on how

OPINION

Put in political terms, Google has become an oligarchy. many other sites linked to them. According to Google, “As the web gets bigger, this approach actually improves, as each new site is another point of information and another vote to be counted.”

By crowdsourcing linking information, Google’s organization gives primacy to web creators and their organic network of relationships to provide searchers with the best results. In other words: one link, one vote.

Effectively, each of these links was a sort of digital vote that pushed certain pages higher in the search result output and relegated sites with less traffic or fewer links at a lower ranking. This allowed the average Google user to optimize his or her search results in very little time. In under a second, the massive chaos of the Internet could be distilled into meticulously organized results, all based on the interconnectedness of individual websites.

Using this algorithm, Google was the simplest, fastest, and most accurate search engine on the web.

As Google itself became a hub of the Internet, sites quickly adjusted to its algorithm to maximize Google pages’ visibility to searchers. Early websites that established themselves prior to Google’s launch had an advantage in search ranking because they had more exposure time for linking. Sites with early exposure acquired links exponentially, potentially pushing out smaller, newer, and potentially better sites.

This early establishment of a small number of websites as the frequent top results in Google makes it more and more difficult

for startups to get traffic without a significant marketing budget.

This suggests that Google’s algorithm, though once revolutionary, has stopped making room for new voices, instead concentrating the finite resources of the web among an elite and wealthy few. In political terms, Google has become an oligarchy.

Matthew Hindman, author of The Myth of Digital Democracy, writes that the content on these few sites has also fallen into the laps of a small set of elites. Though there are hundreds of thousands of Americans blogging about politics, for example, a majority of online traffic goes to fewer than 20 mainstream professionals writing on larger outlets.

While the Internet has created a vocal channel for marginalized citizens and has potential as a mobilizing tool for democracy, elites still strongly shape how material online is expressed.

If true democracy fails online, even when governed by a benevolent algorithm without the capacity for prejudice or partisanship, how can democracy be expected to thrive when muddled by human passions, greed, and antagonism?

Until a more egalitarian and equally efficient system is implemented and popularized, replacing Google with a more egalitarian search engine provider seems absurd. Perhaps the old bastion of liberalism, Winston Churchill, had it right when he said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” O

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ARTS & CULTURE

The Appropriation of

YOGA

By Ani Shahinyan

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ART BY GRIFFIN QUASEBARTH

ARTS & CULTURE

H

e wears only a loincloth, as his beard drops to his chest, and his thick hair swirls into a knot.

He sits with his shoulders pulled back, legs crisscrossed, and arms stretched forward.

The tip of his forefinger meets his thumb, forming a circle. The Hindu yogi gazes straight ahead with a firm squint.

Neha Madhusoodanan glances at the sculpture to note the yogi’s hand gesture, or mudra. As a classical Indian dancer, she has graced the stage at Tufts University for four years, moving in rhythmic patterns that animate ankle bells and make gold accents shimmer. Her dance couples precise postures with emphasized hand gestures, and the yogi demonstrates just one. Different mudras tell different stories; some serve to cultivate inner strength. In yoga, they serve to clear thoughts and channel energy, in order to experience one’s true self and, ultimately, achieve liberation from the cycle of birth and death. The stone sculpture embodies the serenity and strength that yoga demands.

Neha looks back at the yogi and says, “Can you imagine explaining to this dude what yoga pants are?”

The appropriation is not limited to just yoga pants. From sacred texts to inspirational tweets, from the banks of the Ganges to pristine health clubs, yoga has turned on its head. In the last three decades, a 5,000-year-old practice has transformed into a $27 billion industry, coming second only to Microsoft, as Yoga Journal reports. Students, professionals, retirees, and celebrities have turned to cushioned mats to shape up and to relieve stress, fatigue, and pain. In crowded, mirrored rooms across the country, yogis stretch in colorful spandex. Groupon offers discounts on yogalates, Amazon.com lists DVDs for any yogi interest, and Lululemon sells skintight yoga pants. Tufts offers yoga classes every semester and even had a “Yoga in the Gallery” event in the art gallery on April 10. Explaining Nintendo Wii

Yoga to the ancient yogi would pose even greater difficulties.

In fact, yoga is so prevalent that we can take its presence for granted in American culture. Equally prevalent are misconceptions about yoga, according to Neha. Raised in Long Island by a mother from New Delhi, who is “convinced that yoga can cure anything,” she muses about how modernity defies antiquity. The original yogis were Hindu scholars who established a sacred healing practice, from scientific knowledge that was incredibly advanced for the time.

“Still, all of these accomplishments are minimized,” she explains, “because of the deliberate need to make it ‘non-religious,’ and ‘safe’ for Western audiences.”

The Hindu practice began to western-

Yoga might be the one spiritual discipline that bends people backwards, but it’s not the only one that bends. “The porosity of any religion depends on what function it is serving, and what it can get away with,” says Joseph Walser, Professor of Eastern Religions at Tufts University, “and yoga is no different.” Walser explains how malleable culture can be, noting that such exchanges can occur mutually, since “you’ll find just as much spandex in yoga studios across India.”

Behind the witty professor, floor-to-ceiling shelves carry books that all narrate these very trends. Tucked in between are statues of the Buddha and Hindu deities.

Neha’s mom explains that Hindu deities have multiple avatars “because people need different types of teachers, to help them through different times.” Yoga shifts too, depending on function and context.

Dan Steel sits with his back erect, bearing the Hindu om symbol on his beaded necklace, surrounded by the white walls of the sunny studio. He draws long breaths and exhales slowly. Two years ago, he walked into a free yoga class on a whim. With a background in martial arts and gymnastics, he embraced the physical contortions of yoga and soon, its potential for healing and self-discovery.

He has since completed not just the 200 hours required for instructor certification, but 500 hours, permitting him to incorporate Sanskrit names into his classes. “Some yoga instructors will say ‘standing split,’ instead of a whole Urdhva Prasarita Eka Padasana,” he comments without a pause.

But just as the commercialization of yoga both provides a gain for American society and affects the nature of yoga practices in India, the appropriation of yoga as a practice complicates both American yoga practices, and narratives of yoga in India.

In considering the ways in which yoga plays out in our society, we must recognize that the appropriation of yoga affects the practice both here and at its roots. O

“Can you imagine explaining to this dude what yoga pants are?” ize in the mid-19th century, according to Mark Singleton, author of Yoga Body. At a time when India was a British colony, the postural contortions of yogis, or asana, were associated with backwardness and superstition. Vivekananda, the monk credited with exporting Hinduism, worked to eliminate “unsuitable” aspects of yoga for outside appeal. The turn of the century introduced a global physical culture, manifesting in India as the revival of postural yoga, and allowed it to flourish abroad in the mid-20th century. Photography aided in communicating the physical postures of asana yoga, propelling it into the Western mainstream. Modern yoga is the product of this dialogue, which explains why Neha finds it “appropriated” and impossible to explain to a 4,000 year-old yogi.

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ARTS & CULTURE

Netflix Rising

By George Esselstyn

Internet TV will replace linear TV, apps will replace channels, and Netflix is leading the way.

I

n January, Robin Wright took center stage at the Golden Globe Awards ceremony and admitted—with confidence— that she had nothing to say. In a gold gown hugging her strong frame, Wright gripped the prize in her hands, stumbling over words to show her appreciation for her historic award. In her brevity, the star of the acclaimed House of Cards managed to thank Netflix and the show’s creators for allowing her to create a character that she could “mold out of marble.”

As Wright celebrated, Netflix did a dance of its own. Netflix, too, had made something of a masterpiece out of hard and doubtful marble—an undertaking that nearly left them for dead.

The DVD rental and online video streaming company was almost a cautionary tale in 2011 when a series of poor strategic

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decisions led to plummeting stock values. Today, however, the company is enjoying the title of this year’s top-earner for Standard and Poor’s 500 and Wright’s award as the first web-only TV winner at the Globes. What was almost a disaster suddenly became a Wall Street success story.

The comeback was a surprise to say the least. Back in July 2011, Netflix’s stock celebrated a high of $300 per share. But this financial profit led to a series of hapless decisions that put the company in a vulnerable position: subscription prices jumped from $11 to $16 overnight, and Netflix lost nearly 800,000 subscribers in the vital third quarter. Critics jumped to blame Netflix’s management team for the catastrophe, citing the firm’s insensitive price hikes during a vulnerable time of recession. This

ART BY GRIFFIN QUASEBARTH

ARTS & CULTURE

calamity was coupled with an announcement that the DVD and streaming services would be separated. That plan was ultimately given the kibosh, but the oncesoaring stocks felt the pain. And, just a year later, Netflix shares went from an all-time high to an all-time low. At a rate of $53 per share, Netflix was left for dead.

In October 2011, The New York Times Magazine ran an article titled, “Reed Hastings Knows He Messed Up.” Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, knew exactly what was happening—and wanted some slack. In the interview with the Times Magazine, Hastings said, “[Netflix] simply moved too quickly, and that’s where you get those missed execution details.”

Hastings went on to describe the subsequent “internal reflectiveness” as a result of the decisions. “We know that we need to do better going forward,” he said. “We need to take a few deep breaths and not move quite as quickly.” When asked if he would consider stepping down for the benefit of the shareholders, Hastings replied, “No, not for a second.” Citing the leadership failures as “martial missteps,” Hastings spoke positively about the future of Netflix, hoping that the site’s critics would back off: “It’s a mistake to measure everything by what happened last week or last month.”

To a certain extent, he was right.

A little over a year later, Netflix’s first original show, House of Cards, made a quiet debut. Following soon after came Orange is the New Black. While Netflix was on the brink of becoming a has-been, it reworked its strategy and held true to the most honest of business goals: customer satisfaction.

In a competitive battle before the 2011 calamity, Netflix outbid HBO for the rights to 26 episodes of Beau Willimon’s House of Cards for $100 million. The series, a dark political drama starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, would eventually be the company’s saving grace; the launch of House of Cards helped the company post $1 billion in quarterly earnings after its 2013 premiere, not to mention the additional rave reviews and nominations. With a second season up on the site, as well as

a confirmed third season in the works, House of Cards is amassing a sizeable cult following.

In July 2013, Netflix did it again. Orange is the New Black, an unapologetic prison “dramedy” directed by Weeds’ Jenji Kohan, helped the company earn even more money—and viewers. By the end of the same month, Netflix boasted over 30 million subscribers, both domestic and foreign—a sure sign of growth from 16.9 million subscribers in 2010. Orange is the New Black has held on tightly to the coattails of House of Cards: the second season premieres this June.

For Hastings and the rest of the team at Netflix, the answer to their woes was more than just adding millions of subscribers— it was creating a new cultural phenomenon with the introduction of addictive original content: binge watching.

According to a survey conducted by Netflix itself, binge watching is defined as “watching between 2 to 6 episodes of the same show in one sitting.” Sixty-one percent of Netflix users said that they bingewatch regularly, which is no surprise.

Though Netflix guards its viewing figures carefully, an outside network estimates that nearly 10 percent of Netflix’s US subscribers watched the first 13 episodes of House of Cards season two during its premiere weekend. That’s roughly 660,000 people watching 12 hours of online TV in two days. For Netflix, that’s good news.

Netflix’s April 2013 white paper—a company report addressing progress and proposals—suggested that the shift to original content would propel the company to the forefront of modern television. In the paper’s summary, the company claims that internet-TV will replace linear TV, apps will replace channels, and that “Netflix, HBO, and ESPN are leading the way” in this regard.

In the white paper, Netflix examines the success of online original content instead of regular TV episodes. “[Linear competitors] have to attract an audience for Sunday at 8pm, say. [Netflix] can be much more flexible. Because we are not allocating scarce prime-time slots like linear

TV does, a show that is taking a long time to find its audience is one we can keep nurturing.” Nurturing is the right word. With over 40 million viewers today, Netflix can be sure that new subscribers will not only catch on, but also catch up with their content—especially if they binge watch an entire first season in one weekend. The white paper also notes Netflix’s ability to “commit to a whole season, rather than just a pilot episode.” According to the company, this liberty allows for more “creative storytelling.” With original content in its own hands, Netflix can vary runtimes per episode based on storylines, do away with week-to-week recaps, and change what constitutes a “season.” Netflix believes this makes it “easier to attract talent.” And in January, Robin Wright’s Golden Globe was proof enough.

From near death to a high position on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2014, Netflix has had a turbulent career. Stocks at around $450 per-share in today’s market are a far cry from $53 three years ago. A few poor decisions were quickly remedied by the success of original content, which has givenNetflix its underdog narrative. Today, Netflix is clearly leading the way in internet-TV, with competitors like Amazon, Hulu, and HBO following closely in its shadow. But what’s beyond the success of House of Cards and Orange is the New Black? What will Netflix do next to stir the media pot? How will the company stay relevant? Spending $2.5 billion on content each year means pushing subscribers to pay more, but as Netflix has learned in the past, no one likes opening their wallet.

With the past in mind, Netflix has a challenge ahead. To keep its place at the forefront of online-TV, Netflix must continue to invent addictive content without angering its subscribers with increased prices. As the tango between satisfaction and price rolls on, the online-streaming mogul deserves to revel in its successes, thanks to a winning actress and a loyal band of House of Cards binge-watchers. And hey, even Obama is watching.

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OPINION

Where the Ladies At? Untangling the Debate About Women & Digital Media

by Molly Mirhashem

I

n a sense, it’s old news that women are underrepresented in most forms of “serious” journalism and are often pigeonholed into writing about topics that are less respected. Organizations like the International Women’s Media Foundation release annual reports chronicling the status of journalism for women, and change isn’t occurring very rapidly.

While this trend extends throughout most platforms of media, the most recent attention has been devoted to the supposed lack of women founding digital media startups.

It’s nearly impossible to avoid the obsessive chatter about Vox.com and Fivethirtyeight, two young startups whose founders—Ezra Klein and Nate Silver—no longer require an introduction. About a month ago, a writer for The Guardian named Emily Bell penned a frustrated piece about the dearth of female hires at these two outlets. In titling the piece, she left the reader doubtless about her message: “Journalism Startups Aren’t a Revolution if They’re Filled With All These White Men.”

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OPINION

A female lack of “assertiveness” or “confidence” is a recurring theme in writing about the gender gap in journalism as well as other fields.

The piece cites then-recent announcements from both Silver and Klein as they built their respective staffs, and remarks that the number of women being brought on to these organizations is unsettlingly low. Bell mocks Silver’s comments about constructing “clubhouse chemistry,” and says that Vox.com, formerly known as Project X, “looks a lot more like Project XY.” Ann Friedman, a freelance journalist and former editor who is often found on the frontlines of the conversation about women and journalism, wrote a piece about this phenomenon for the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) in mid-April. Her approach was to highlight the work of 16 outstanding women whose digital media accomplishments were as significant as Klein’s and Silver’s, but not gaining nearly as much attention. “So let’s discuss the women who are out there with their own media startups,” she writes.

“Their biographies share much in common with more venerated media darlings.”

For the most part, her piece was a godsend. Rather than passively commenting on the imbalanced coverage of women’s and men’s media projects, she actively promoted a handful of highly successful endeavors that were deserving of equal airtime. The best way to move towards a more level playing field for women in journalism is to consciously seek out talented women, rather than settling for the status quo and focusing on men’s work—which is much more readily available.

Friedman mentions several different online outlets in her piece, but a few stand out for various reasons. News Deeply, a project headed by Lara Setrakian, takes an approach that strongly resembles Vox.com’s explanatory style of web journalism. The project began with Setrakian’s flagship effort called Syria Deeply, designed in 2012 to help readers develop a grasp on the developing situation there. In principle, the idea behind News Deeply is very similar to Vox.com—but we hear a lot less about it. (The first story about News Deeply that comes up on a Google search is from Rookie, the feminist online magazine that also appears on Friedman’s list. Search for “Vox.com,” and a deluge of coverage comes pouring in—from the New York Times to The Washington Post to New York magazine and countless others.)

Now, there are other variables between Vox.com and News Deeply aside from the gender of their founders. So the above example isn’t a perfect comparison. But here’s something that’s hard to ignore: Vox.com has 3 co-founders— Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, and Melissa Bell. Most narratives about the startup mention only Klein, or Klein and Yglesias. Bell is a founder within the same organization, and her name was hardly mentioned in the original tsunami of the outlet’s attention.

Friedman addresses this in her CJR piece, but there is something problematic in the quotes she selects for the piece. Friedman quotes Bell as saying: “I felt like maybe me not talking about my

role was part of the problem […] that I hadn’t been asserting the fact that I was a founder, that I hadn’t been asserting the fact that this was my idea along with Ezra.” She goes on to add: “Is it the media’s fault for picking up on Ezra? Is it my fault for not speaking up?”

Bell’s conclusion that some of the problem is her own fault is truly disheartening. A female lack of “assertiveness” or “confidence” is a recurring theme in writing about the gender gap in journalism as well as other fields.

Some have hypothesized that women’s lack of pitching confidence lands them fewer assignments, which in turn leads to more male bylines in magazines. A recent popular story from The Atlantic focused on the “confidence gap” between men and women that hinders success for the latter. This explanation for inequality in the workplace places much of the blame on women themselves, rather than on systemic factors.

To reiterate, the surest and most productive way to achieve more equality for female journalists is to seek out their high-quality work and promote it—as Friedman did with her CJR story, and as many female-centric outlets (such as The Hairpin and Rookie) are already doing. Women are doing serious work in the realm of digital media, and should be recognized in the same fashion as their male counterparts.

Friedman’s list is by no means exhaustive, but it highlights a very important point: this lack of attention does not indicate an actual shortage of high-quality work produced by women. O

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EXTRAS

By Eve Feldberg and Moira Lavelle

Dancing in the Dark

Friday, April 4, 11:50pm

TUPD responded to a panic button that was pressed near Curtis Street.

Officers arrived at the residence to find a small group of people there playing music and dancing in complete darkness. The officers proceeded to turn on the lights and confiscate three empty handles of vodka.

Three handles of vodka, and they still needed to turn off the lights to be blackout.

Chicken Little

Satuday, April 5, 4:55pm

Officers were dispatched to Robinson Hall, responding to a reported disturbance. They arrived to find a confused Wall Street prep course minus one student and plus one raw chicken. They put a trace on the missing student’s ID fob, and when they found him they asked why he’d left a raw chicken in the class. Displaying his middle finger to the officers, the student responded, “I wanted to give them the bird.”

Nothing

Sunday, April 20, All Day

When asked if anything of note happened on 4/20, Sargent McCarthy responded, “No, not really. Couple of medicals… couple of fire alarms, a sick person… a baseball hit a window… that was pretty much it. Why?”

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Tufts Observer

April 28, 2014

Connor Cunningham Tufts ‘15

PARTING SHOT

April 28, 2014

Tufts Observer

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please recycle