12/21/17 Daily Log Blog: Purpose, Audience, and Tone in Ajit Pai's video

Today in class we analyzed a rather cringe video by Ajit Pai. We had spent yesterday learning about the issue of net neutrality and relating it to Ready Player One through allegory. In the real world, Ajit Pai is the chairman of the FCC and leading force behind deregulation of 2015 net neutrality rules. A week ago he published a video called "7 Things You Can Still Do On The Internet After Net Neutrality" which tried push back against the back he's receiving and reassure internet users (mostly millennials) that nothing would change. We analyzed this video in class for purpose, audience, and tone. In addition to the main purpose I said before, we determined in class that Pai's purpose was also downplay the seriousness of the issue and make himself more a meme. Pai and the cutesy music behind him take on a playful tone while he tries (and we argued fails) to appeal to his target audience, young internet users like us, through cringy references to seflies, fidget spinners, and memes. It's tone deaf because he doesn't actually know his audience - us - well enough for any of the references to be relatable. It also depicts the internet as something kids only go on to do the silly things he does in the video, completely ignoring the communication, discussion, and research that happens on the internet.

Later, we're going to related this to Ready Player One's allegory of corporate control, but in the meantime, there is one aspect of the video I found especially interesting. In class we touched upon the word choice of "restoring internet freedom" Pai uses when talking about his deregulation. The words make it seem like a good thing, when in fact he is proposing (and has succeeded in passing) the opposite of freedom for internet users. This kind of oxymoronic language is all over the place in dystopias, namely in George Orwell's 1984. In 1984, there is a whole language called doublespeak which involves saying the opposite of what you mean. The book even features the lines, "War is peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is Strength." It reflects the way many governments, corporations, and other powerful organizations twist words to hide what they do from the masses.

Ajit Pai's video