Listening to Denton’s Better off Dead was great. I’m hoping this helps me identify some further listening as I thought this was a good quality piece and although rather traditional in its format it was a fresh topic and one that hasn’t been covered much. Picking apart the ethics and moral decisions of producers of these types of stories has been intriguing and a very philosophical debate. There are lots of angles to consider and each person has a different moral compass of course. The real ethical boundaries are quite grey in regards to these transgression pieces and are quite circumstantial.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the Radio Diary format of Thembi’s AIDS Diary and consequently Emily and I have pursued it for out weekly update in week 4. It’s a perfect context for discussing ethics and provides some interesting discussion – or at least hopefully will – when we lead the class next week. Having been pulled by the human interest and candidness of the Radio Diary I began to explore some of Joe Richman’s other work with Radio Diaries, etc, and have been enjoying his work.This would be an area that I would like to dabble in perhaps later down the track.

Rebecca’s guest lecture was interesting. It was refreshing to hear some of these sorts of topics brought up again after having two years away from Rebecca’s Communication Histories and Technologies class. Rebecca’s discussion about transgression and mutual exclusion resonated with me – mostly in regards to her views that transgressions such as racism, sexism, etc can’t be fixed by turning around the A/Not A relationship and that to truly fix an inequality A and Not A must be able to merge and become a group of A,B,C, etc. That was a rather simplified explanation, but the point stands. That’s the sort of gear that I work on internally and how I approach life.