Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!hypatia!phil From: phil@hypatia.rice.edu (William LeFebvre) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: Space muzak (Mission Status Report #12) Message-ID: <2953@kalliope.rice.edu> Date: 27 Mar 89 22:19:41 GMT References: <18927@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> Sender: usenet@rice.edu Reply-To: phil@hypatia.rice.edu (William LeFebvre) Organization: Rice University, Houston Lines: 31 First off, let me say that I am using the term "media" about as poorly as "bobman" did: I'm using it to refer to the high visibility national network TV and country-wide newspaper media. I am not referring to the corner of the media that caters to the technical crowd (such as AvWeek). In article <18927@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) writes: >I am not objecting to music in space. I think it's fine that the astronauts >aren't being treated as humorless automatons. > >I AM objecting to the media treatment of this (and other missions), which >emphasizes such things and downplays or ignores activities that have >scientific content. I do not believe that it makes the space program more >palatable to people who are unsupportive of it; I think that it rather gives >them reason to feel that the program is doing worthless things. The "media" doesn't report on the scientific activities because the "media", typically, doesn't *understand* them. Nor does the average american. Shoot...the average american probably thinks that the SHARE pipe experiment was a waste of time and money and that nothing informative came of it because it "didn't work". And when the "media" does report on the scientific activities, they usually get it wrong anyway. Face it: the "media" is driven by sensationalism and human interest, and *not* by newsworthiness. William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University