That Muppet Rip-off!

“That Puppet Game show” is a new TV series for BBC One co-produced by the Jim Henson Company, the people behind The Muppets and Sesame Street. You can catch it Saturdays on BBC 1 or on BBC iPlayer.

The Muppets played a huge part in my childhood so I was thrilled the first time I saw the advertisement for “That Puppet Game show.” I could tell the puppets had been created by the Jim Henson Company with their classic felt-y style, distinctive colours and impressive individuality. I was so excited that I immediately put it on series link.

I should not have let my nostalgic longing overridden my usual scepticism at the re-imagination of a cherished memory.

The show draws on many of the structures of the original Muppet Show such as backstage plots and a range of quirky characters with different relationships, including family members and even a little romance. What I found lacking, however, was humour. It wasn’t in those extra plots, it wasn’t in the characters and it certainly was not in the Clyde the crabby crab. In fact, it wasn’t exactly present in many of the games, at least not directly. The way the celebrities embraced the tasks and the hilarity that ensued, largely from their mistakes, was the only thing that made it funny, and even then it often dragged.

That’s not the worst part though. No, the worst part has to be how much they have tried to emulate The Muppets, even down to the characters. You have Amber, the diva (AKA Miss Piggy); Dr Strabismus, the crazy scientist (AKA Dr Honeydew) and The Amazing Ian, the weird one (AKA Gonzo the Great) to name just a few. I can’t help but think that if they had started it as an entirely separate new show rather than desperately replicating a previously successful show, they could have created something great. Sadly, that’s simply not the case.

Critical Reflection - Year 2 Semester 2

Critical Reflection

After the success of last semester’s WINOL (a local-news based online student editorial site in the UK), during which we managed to achieve an Alexa Rank of #476,793 globally and #10,338 within the UK, I chose to reprise my role as social media editor as I felt there were a lot of ways I could try to make the process of using social media more efficient for us to use as the improved use of this medium seemed to help radically improve our overall circulation.

The first step of this was to ensure that, at the beginning of the semester, I keep up a good twitter and Facebook presence to remind people that the website was once again operational. Whilst doing this, I also started researching other social media platforms that could be used to help us gain and maintain popularity as a local student journalism site. As well as finding out which would be most helpful and applicable to our needs, I also had to teach myself how to use them. Once things had become more settled in the news room, I began to compile a Social Media usage guide available on my blog which outlined the best ways to make use of our current social media profiles and how we could use newer sites to expand our audience and therefore increase our viewing figures. These included ways of making the process of posting messages more efficient, ways of increasing our online presence and increasing the number of people following our social media output which would then increase our page views. Whilst listing and presenting these concepts was relatively simple, trying to implement them into practice was considerably more challenging. As these new plans involved reporters serious alterations to the speed in which things are processed and the order in which reporters needed to upload their various articles. Whilst this was initially met with a certain amount of enthusiasm from the team, very little action was taken upon these initial recommendations. To try to encourage use of the points outlined in the document I also created an abridged version, also available on my blog, as I felt the length of the original post may discourage people from reading it. On top of this, I ensured I thoroughly briefed the team and made it incredibly clear that I would available to help if they needed. However, the notions made in the handbook were never properly implemented and many of the actions introduced were quickly lost to habit.

To an extent, this struggle to embrace innovation is reflected in the circulation statistics that I collected as an additional part of this role and have been posted on my blog. Over the semester our Alexa rank largely improved. Alexa.com is a website that makes rough estimates of websites' popularity over a period of 3 months; the lower the number, the more views the website has had. I began collecting this information on the 23^rd January and we had a global rank of #460,940 and #33,950 in the UK. At our peak, on the 6th March our global rank was #372,251 and we ranked #9,154 in the UK, our best rankings on record. However, after this point our rank began to slip; the following week our UK rank remained the same and our global rank was down 16,099 points to #388,350. To try and improve our slipping viewing figures, I ensured the team was fully briefed, explaining how Alexa works on a 3 month average and the reason we had not noticed this overall fall in site visitors before was because it seemed likely to be due to the skew created by our absence over the Christmas holidays but that this was no longer applicable to the period of time being averaged. Some members of the team met this idea with criticism, feeling that our work had been considerably improved since then and that the viewing figures should reflect that, especially due to some great spikes in visits seen in many of the Eastleigh by-election articles, and argued that the figures still included the poor figures from over the break. However, both other members of the time and I worked out the number of weeks ago the average started from and proved that it the time period of the average did not include the break, that even if it were it would have already been counted in all our previous averages and finally explained that whilst we may have had good peaks on some days, many others have had a fairly poor viewing result.

To try and improve upon these, I gave several solutions; the first and major one was to get reporters to promote the site on their accounts to spread awareness amongst people that may previously not have been aware of their work on WINOL or even that our local news site existed. Another that should have given a dramatic improvement was to ‘mention’ people involved in stories or groups that are likely to be interested in an article by ‘tagging’ them in twitter posts. By doing this, they are more likely to see the story and potentially share the tweet with their followers, potentially doubling the number of people that see that tweet and potentially follow the link to the article. This is especially good for sports stories as there are plenty of team and sport fan pages on twitter as well as profiles for a lot of the players of many of the sports. However few of these recommendations were acted upon by others which made the resulting improvement minimal compared to its potential impact if properly supported. Still, there was considerable improvement in viewing figures and social media use at the end of the semester and whilst our ending Alexa rank of #373,953 globally and #12,025 in Great Britain on 27^th March might not have been as good as it was at our peak on 6^th March, it was still an improvement on our final results from last semester of #476,793 globally, though we were ranked lower in the UK as we had achieved a rank of #10,338 at the same point in the previous semester.

As well as this, I also took on the role of Editor of new magazine site UK Today, a site that finds and compares the best Student Journalism in the UK, to try and get it running and improve my writing skills. The main difficulty in this was trying to balance the time needed to research and write the stories for the site whilst maintaining an effective presence in my role of Social Media Editor. Due to the difficulties I had in my role of social media editor, my work for this site had to take a back seat and therefore the project never really took off the ground. Another issue I had with running the site was that where it was completely new, there was no previous format or style to follow and, if necessary, improve upon. This made it difficult to find the right way to approach the articles and I had to make a lot of decisions on the tone, structure and content which is difficult when there are no real guidelines already in place.

However, I managed to find some time to try out some of the production roles. This began when the production team were short a few members and asked if I could operate a camera for them.  Since then I have been used on camera several times for live bulletins and pre-recorded content. I was also able to help in the gallery when we opened up the studio to allow anyone who wanted the opportunity to have a go at presenting for their show reel. During this, I was able to learn about how many of the technical aspects work and have a go at filling the roles of director, sound person and autocue operator as well as camera person. Often when on camera I have also had to act as a floor manager, in some respects, as the talkback for the presenter was not working and therefore had to rely on me to cue them in and relay information and queries from the gallery. I also tried to turn my hand at comment writing by trying to start a series of satirical news-based letters and job applications but this, much like UK Today, had to take a back seat due to social media commitments.

From this, I have learnt a lot about time management and prioritising projects as well as the way in which a news team needs structure to work properly and how various roles and systems work. Next year, to improve upon the use of social media, I would recommend greater use of facebook and  twitter as by maintaining a good social media presence helps create greater awareness. I would particularly recommend more use of mentions in tweets to target people likely to have an interest in the article as a way of getting more people to follow the link back to our site. These ideas and many more that would improve viewing figures through social media use are outlined in my social media guide and I would recommend anyone wishing to take on this role read through these if only to gain a greater insight into what things are likely to help and to see what protocols are already either in play or are ready to be implemented. In terms of looking at our circulation, I think we should try to move away from using alexa.com in favour of google analytics as this would be more in line with the way industry works. We should also use the ‘slim stat’ app on Word Press for more detailed and specific information on what our audience is particularly interested on our site to help us find out what style of articles we should try to focus on. Also, if UK Today were to continue next year, I would suggest to the editor to work out the exact tone and style they were looking for before starting any other work on it and to lay out these ideas in their own style guide for the site. As well as this, I would suggest they try to distribute the work between a small team of 2 or 3 other people as it is far difficult to run the entire site on your own. I am hoping to change roles next year and have decided to try to become the overall editor of WINOL as from my position as social media editor I have been able to observe all aspects of WINOL and seen both its positive and negative qualities and have come up with several recommendations to help improve WINOL’s efficiency, quality and therefore its popularity and viewing figures. Many of these recommendations have been outlined in my manifesto which I have submitted to my lecturers.

In general, WINOL has continued to improve this semester. It had maintained its lead, in terms of Alexa rank, against its closest rival East London Lines, seen in these graphs from my circulation blog post:

However, the quality of some aspects their articles (especially their still photography) far surpass our own. If we were to improve this, largely by ceasing our reliance on stills taken from VTs, our site would look more professional and therefore more likely to be frequently read. Having better quality photos would also help with our social media use as many of the sites we use show greater favour to posts with aesthetically pleasing photos to purely text based updates. A great enhancement made to WINOL’s content this semester is the continued improvement of our features section which makes our site ‘sticky,’ meaning that people spend much more time on the site after finding, in this case, an interesting feature than they had not initially intended to read whilst checking on the latest news. He have added several new magazines including the popular New Winchester Review which takes a look at culture and arts locally, nationally and internationally as well as maintained our popular magazines like Absolute:ly – our beauty, fashion and gossip based women’s magazine.

Overall, I feel that WINOL has still been fairly successful this semester and, perhaps, if we had not made such dramatic improvements last semester our achievements would seem even more impressive. Of course, there are still some flaws that should be ironed out – our news slider stopped working for several weeks, subbing stories needs to speed up and checked better and the turnover time for features between filming and upload can still be a little long – but our work has continued to improve which is still reflected in our overall popularity and rank.

Word count: 2,123

Existentialism and its Impact

Notes on HCJ4 topics ahead of a discussion show (similar to Emma Hofberg's & my one for HCJ3) with Amy Moore

Existentialism

Existentialism is a philosophical theory that individuals are free and responsible for their development in their existence. As according Nietzsche “God is dead,” there is no inherent meaning to our existence and so we are free to choose our own destiny. Unlike existentialists, nihilists think there is no meaning to life rather than use their freedom to create their own freedom. For more information on existentialism in reference to Albert Camus's "L'Étranger", click here.

Kant - "Critique of Pure Reason" - Existence is not the result of consciousness or being but a pre-condition of consciousness; consciousness is not proof of existence, it just is. This idea opposes Descartes' "I think therefore I am" argument.

Husserl - "Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint" - Phenomenology: the science of phenomena; study of perception & consciousness. Concluded that whether an experience was real or imagined the resulting feeling in no different and therefore there is no point distinguishing between mental and physical phenomena. Perception is important, not whether it is internal or external.
Phenomenology vs     Empiricism
 Internal world   vs  External world

Heidegger – “Being & Time” – first example of modern existentialism; though phenomenology was half-hearted – personal experience is important.
Dasein – “being” – absorption & satisfaction in life/a task – authentic life
Dasman – opposite of Dasein – boredom and complacency; overthinking - inauthentic
Facticity – ‘labels’ given/you are born into (gender, class, nationality, etc.) - inauthentic
Rejection of Descartes’ Self (& Freud’s Ego) – inverted “I think therefore I am” to “I am therefore I think” as consciousness is a predicate of existence.
Focus on present/next choice – past: guilt, future: unknown, present: dread – morality reduces guilt and creates indifference to future.

Satre – similar to Heidegger (anti-Cartesian ego) and agrees with Husserl that there’s no difference between fictional & factual phenomena if you believe it. Being ‘just it’ – it needs no definitions as it defines itself; opposite of the ontological argument to prove God. However, he can be considered more liberal than Heidegger.
Being creates desire to be God & control own life however, destiny/life is not fixed; humanity’s freedom is absolute and therefore we must not be defined by facticity.

None of this is possible without the liberation of Nietzsche’s claim “God is dead.”

However, before this, Kierkegaard came up with his own form of existentialism to fit around his religious beliefs; similar to Schopenhauer – rejects rationism & scientific objectivity and believes life is suffering; rejects religion despite being a Christian – “To be a Christian you must reject Christianity” – his reasoning was that if everyone was Christian, no-one would be; human condition (loneliness & suffering) creates knowledge through despair of unknowing; despair is ontological & therefore can’t be ‘cured’ – must transcend it; can transcend by passionate commitment from moment to moment; despair is due to not knowing your purpose in existing and alienation is separation from God – must submit to God to overcome; by irrationally & unexplainably submit to God, Kierkegaard dismisses systems of goodness & morality.

As no definite morality or guilt for actions, room is left for violence & aggression.

Debatable as people having violence enacted upon them do not have a choice which is key to living authentically according existentialism; by removing their choice you are forcing them to lead an inauthentic life & therefore your actions go against existentialism.

Franz Fanon – encouraged the idea that you could use violence as a way of speeding up political change that existentialism was already nurturing (if there is good cause to do so) which is therefore lead to, for example, Baader Meinhoff complex, Black Panther Movement, Algerian War, etc.

Arguably, to counter these sorts of ideas, modern totalitarian ideas formed:

·        Previous totalitarian leaders still had limits applied to them – new model formal C20

·        Arendt saw imperialism as precursor to modern totalitarianism as it encouraged racism by grouping people into superior/inferior

·        Individuality makes people hard to control – must be destroyed by

Either State Terror (degrade individuals – make them less than human)
Or Ideology (compliments terror – eliminates need for individual thoughts – absolves people  .    from guilt if they blindly follow orders without question – banality of evil; don’t have to .   .    be evil to do evil things, just follow orders; Milgram experiment)

·        Ideas of control seen in 1984 by George Orwell (through language) & A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (through social structure)

Counterculture (A way of life & set of attitudes opposed to the social norm)

Good example – 60s & 70s America – political & cultural turbulence:

·        JFK assassination (1963)

·        Vietnam War controversy

·        Racial discrimination -> Black Panther Movement

·        High teen population (from baby boom) -> power gained from large demographic skew helping lead to:

o   Sexual revolution – creation of the pill giving women choice; feminism

o   Prohibition of drugs – LSD introduced by CIA then banned leading to Hippie . .                                        communes, etc.

o   Musical revolution (jazz)

·        Influenced by existentialism & powered by new choices, freedom & anti-establishment beliefs esp. Franz Fanon, Malcolm X

 

For journalists:

·        Scepticism in press releases & importance in 1^st hand experience (arguably being lost in the technological/modern age) |_ research, checking quotes, interviews & asking the difficult questions

·        Use of more subjective & emotional language – sensationalised – to build a picture rather than just tell a story (e.g. Tom Wolfe)

·        Political objectivity – Associated Press – greater profit; wider audience

·        Abolition of 5 Ws and pyramid structure to make way for ‘story to bleed into the copy’ -> Make reader feel story & not just read it – Hearst, Pulitzer

·        Creation & popularization of ‘gonzo’ journalism

·        In features:

o   Use of scene by scene/cinematic story telling

o   Inclusion of dialogue

o   Adding opinion to help reader inside writer’s/‘character’s’ mind

o   Recording of even minor details (gestures, habbits, behaviour towards certain social groups, etc.) to show status & attitudes of those involved. 

Economics

Marx – Failure of capitalism as wages are less than product price due to profit margin; move to communism – everything provided everyone – obsolete due to Keynes

Smith, Hume, Ricardo, Mill, etc. – classical economists; large market, small state – also, arguably, obsolete due to Keynes

Keynes – to stop cycle of economic depression, print money and create jobs to circulate it – large state; small market

Weber – rise of bureaucracy as a means of increasing employment; gain power through charisma, maintain power from legality

Galbraith – wrote New Industrial State

·        Based on managed society of Keynes & Galbraith – critiques: Hayek predicts it would become highly corrupted

·        Effects of technology on this system

o   Speeds up process of production

o   Still creates jobs as machines have to be fixed

o   Likely to end up being run by the elite

·        Nature of employment – less blue-collar as replaces by machines; replaced by educated people who can repair machines

·        Motivation theory:

.            Carrot vs Stick

Compensation vs Compulsion

·        Power shift from entrepreneur to technology undermines unions

·        Regulation reduces workers’ need unions

Modern Logic
3 attitudes to numbers:

1)      Natural & can be empirically observed – Mill

2)      Intuitions of harmonic, perfect world – Pythagorians; Descartes

3)      Abstract logical objects; constructs of syntax – Frege, early Russell

(1) Through evolution, can naturally distinguish between:
0: Absence of objects/bananas
1: 1 object/enough bananas
2: More than one object/plenty or infinite bananas
Whilst you can immediately tell the difference between 3 & 4 at a glance, it’s hard to tell between 33 & 34 without counting; arguably, numbers above about 8-ish are purely syntax

(2) Pythagorianism
Prime numbers are pre-existing, eternal forms & necessary for consciousness.
Anti-Kant’s “existence is not a predicate” and therefore existenialism
Importance of 3 (first plural prime) in culture e.g. Trinity in Christianity, rule of thirds, 3 chord triads, etc.
“+1” has no defined meaning -> 0+1 <- infinitely bigger
                                                     1+1 <- doubles in size
                                                    N+1 <- infinitely smaller increase with each addition

(3) Numbers as logical objects
Rejects numerological empiricism
Frege’s axiom – all things which are identical are equal to themselves i.e. 2
Larger numbers are built upon these – e.g. a pair of pairs would be the equivalent of 4
1 is a class of things not associated with other things
0 is a class of objects not equal to themselves therefore 0 doesn’t actually exist

A long time in the making...

HCJ Year 2 Semester 1

Modernism:



Freud:





Economics:

Logical Positivism:

Conclusion:

Presenters: Hannah Hayesmore and Emma Hofberg

Editor: Hannah Hayesmore

Music: Ben Seretan - I Could Use Time to Just Chill With You



Existentialism & Ethics – Notes on Chapter 9 of "Philosophy in the Modern World"

According to Neitzsche, God is dead. As a result, there is no inherent moral system and therefore humanity is free to choose its own ethics.

Heidegger, a phenomenologist, says the true state of being is “Dasein” which is to be absorbed in life and the world in a positive way and to not be defined by you “facticity” (the definitions placed on you by society).

In existentialism, you are free to choose how you live and what you do but to be happy and dasein you should live an “authentic” life. As there is no inherent meaning in life, it just is, you should do what makes you happy. Also, if life is pointless and there is no morality, existentialists would say that you are free to try change society ‘for the better’ and by any means, including violence if you are in the same school of thinking as Franz Fanon.

Of course, existentialism is not the only potential form of ethics for the world.

Utilitarianism’s major idea is that we should aim to have “the greatest happiness for the greatest number” which Bentham linked to pleasure. For this reason, quantifying pain and pleasure is important.

In terms of ethics, here are two real types of utilitarian – absolutists and consequentialists. Absolutists consider some actions to be intrinsically wrong & should never be done, irrespective of their consequences whilst consequentialists believe the morality of actions should be judged solely on their consequences and that no act has special circumstances. As an example, if you could go back in time and kill baby Hitler, absolutists would tell you not to as murder is wrong, despite the fact it would save countless lives whilst consequentialists would be more than happy to do it as the action has such a positive impact.

Both Bentham and Mill were consequentialists. Whilst there are many criticisms of utilitarianism as a moral guide, such as the fact it can allow people to act in a way that would normally be outrageous by deciding there are special circumstances, Mill thought the real issue was that it can be so blinded by morality that it can overlook justice. Of course, another issue is that one person’s happiness can be sacrificed to increase the overall total happiness in a community. He also thought that certain types of activities that create utility have a higher value than others, i.e. going to the opera has a greater value than eating a doughnut or even watching a musical.

To Schopenhauer, the world is an illusion & true reality is the universal will. Because of this, his idea of morality is that is it the training of character. As everything in nature is determined by necessity, so too are a person’s nature and actions. According to this idea, given the right data we could predict and map a person’s future actions. Our will cannot be changed, nor can it be satisfied; Schopenhauer says we should renounce our self. Once we do this, we become ‘in touch’ with the rest of humanity and can therefore act morally and for the good of everyone.

Keirkegaard’s idea of moral ascent is similar to Schopenhauer in that both are pessimistic in their view of human nature and that both lead to renunciation. However, Keirkegaard sees renunciation as the first step on a spiritual journey that aims to give each person their own personality as a creature of God.

Nietzsche takes the opposite view to Keirkegaard. He believes we must undo the transvaluation from master-morality and restore the concept of higher classes being better and the order of “good=noble=beautiful=happy=loved by the gods” that was reversed with the uprising of slaves and the birth of Christianity. This overturning of the structure of society will help lead to a race that transcends the traditional master-slave relationships seen in life, the Übermensch.

Albert Camus - "The Stranger"

(Been meaning and forgetting to post this for months now - apologies for the delay)

Albert Camus’s “The Stranger” was first published in 1942 and translated into English in 1946. It is set in French occupied Algeria and is written from the perspective of Meursault whose perspective of the world can be likened to that similar to an existentialist. The translation I read was by American Matthew Ward in 1988, whose style was different to previous translations in that it was Americanised to fit in with Camus’s more American Literary style. It also differs in tone; whilst other translations can be considered cold, Ward’s is thought to be more curious and less insincere. Whilst the book is considered a great example of existentialism, it is said that Camus did not consider himself an existentialist. Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957 "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times".^[1]

The initial concept of the book is a little jarring. Whilst it is written from the protagonist’s (Meursault) point of view, the way it reads is quite matter of fact. This quite alien concept threw me to begin with, but highlights beautifully the novel’s link to existentialism. Meursault lives his life in the moment, much like existentialists & phenomenologists such as Husserl taught; by not thinking about the past or future, he does not feel either angst or despair. But it is this lack of forethought that eventually creates trouble for him. In terms of existentialism, Meursault is right to consider himself an individual and not to allow himself to be defined by things such as his job or that he is his mother’s son, but ends up in prison for two reasons. The first is that he anticipates that everyone else thinks and lives in the same way. Whilst for him, it is not essential for him to be grief-stricken at his mother’s funeral, society expects him to be in mourning as he is her son. By not conforming to his role or “essence,” he is considered an outsider of society. The second is that whilst he makes choices, he does not consider the impact of these. In terms of some types of existentialism, this would be the correct move to make. Many existentialists think you should live your own life and try to get to where you want to be. The problem is that you may never get there as other people could get in the way of this. For this reason, Meursault is right not to worry about consequences as, essentially, you should focus on yourself and not worry about others as they are not worried about you. However, others would argue that it is wrong not to consider the impact your actions have on others as if you limit someone’s freedom they cannot make a choice and lead a life according to existentialist values. You could also argue that it would be easier to live life if we all tried to help one another out by thinking about the consequences of our actions, which is reflected by society and further by the jury.

As well as an existentialist, Meursault can be considered an empiricist in the sense that he does not seem to deal with emotion but facts and measurements. When talking about going to his mother’s funeral, he describes it as being “about eighty kilometres away.” For most people, this could seem cold and callous but as you read further into the book, this neutral tone starts to become more and more natural. As you begin to realise how normal the unfeeling attitude begins, you realise how unsettling it is that distancing emotion and being absorbed into something, similar to Heidegger’s ideas about being dasein. This is not the only way, though, that the book links back to existentialism; some of the other characters in the book that contrast with Meursault serve to show how being dasein and dasman affect your life from an existentialist’s point of view. Salamano and his dog show that you should live for yourself to be dasein. Because he has made his dog his world, Salamano is not happy; he constantly swears at and beats the dog but, when he loses his dog, he is still dasman as he has lost his life’s purpose which he assigned to the dog. Contrary to this, the relationship between Salamano and his dog can also highlight the existentialist idea that we assign our own values to things as there are no inherent values or meaning in life. Another person that lives in the same apartment block to Meursault and Salamano is Raymond Sintès; it could be argued that Raymond’s outlook on life is similar to Meursault and that both could be considered existentialists to some degree. However, unlike Meursault, Raymond seems keen to live up to others expectations. For example, at the beach, the existentialist side of Raymond would have shot the Arab as that is what he wanted to do but as he was so keen to please Meursault, he did not. These characters’ social normalcy directly contrasts Meursault’s arguably more modern outlook.

At the end of the book Meursault’s thoughts become more obviously similar to an existentialist’s viewpoint. As he waits in prison, he stops hoping to be freed and begins to be almost content that he is to be executed as he realises that, in his mind, there is no real point to life. As he opens himself “to the gentle indifference of the world,” he concludes that nearing the end of life gives you a kind of freedom and with this knowledge he finds happiness. This links back to his mother and the way she acted in the time leading up to her death; originally, Meursault finds it difficult to understand why his mother “took a fiancé” whilst at the care home but as he realises the brevity of his existence, he understands the freedom that comes with this finality. It is debatable that his view point at this stage is almost nihilistic, depending on your interpretation of the text, in that aside from not finding any inherent meaning in the world he seems content to resign himself death, almost as though this lack of definite value makes living pointless. However, the fact that he imparts his own meaning onto the things he can see from his cell directly contradicts this idea.

It is easy to apply absurdism to Meursault’s perspective. Meursault applies his own values and meaning to things that generally differ greatly from that of others; for him it is reasonable to shoot someone accidently due to the heat of the sun and almost expects others to understand. Similarly, he does not try to apply meaning to his relationship with Marie. Whilst she attempts to find meaning with him by asking if he loves her and if he would marry her, Meursault appears indifferent. This indifference, it could be said, is not due to a lack of feelings for his girlfriend, but instead is him showing that he does not need to apply a meaning or label to the two of them as these differ from person to person and therefore are, to him at least, unnecessary.

Whether or not an existentialist would consider Meursault’s life authentic or not is difficult to decide. On one hand, you can argue that he does not allow his facticity (his past) to affect his life. This is seen at the beginning of the book when he says, “it occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over, that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had changed.” However, existentialists could also say that to entirely disregard your facticity is also to live an inauthentic life as you deny yourself. Plus, for existentialists, the future is the most important dimension as we are creatures of the possible; the very next decision we make is the most important in existentialism. As Meursault does not seem to consider the future at all, you could argue he does not live as an existentialist would. However, if he dwelled too long on the future, his life would also be inauthentic so it is difficult to work out if he has got the balance correct or not, particularly as this would differ with each fraction of existentialism and, indeed, each individual person has their own nature, as stated by Nietzsche; as “God is dead” there is not universal human nature so we are free to find and follow our own thoughts and ideals.

In terms of ethics, Meursault does not seem interested in the utility of others so is unlikely to subscribe to utilitarian thoughts on the subject, seen both in his lack of compassion when he discovers Salamono’s dog is lost but particularly when writing the horrible letter to Raymond’s girlfriend on his behalf. Neither does he seem to think transcending will is good, seen in the way that he indulges pleasures such as smoking and sleeping with Marie. Arguably, if he had transcended self and led a Christian life, as depicted in Kierkegaard’s concept of moral ascent, he could have avoided his fate and been happy. By marrying Marie or showing grief and following Christian observations at his mother’s funeral, the jury and therefore society, would have been less inclined to see him as a threat and believe that the shooting was in fact an accident. However, Meursault’s existential view point extends to his morality and he at least appears to try to live and authentic life.

When reading “The Stranger,” the factual tone and emotional distance of the protagonist to his account of the day, the immediate comparison I drew was to “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon. Both novels are written from the main character’s perspective and both are very factual in their accounts of the story. However, the major difference between them is that Meursault has the ability to understand emotion, he seems to deliberately distance himself from them whereas Christopher Boone from Haddon’s book is autistic and therefore finds it very difficult to understand and process emotion. Another similarity they share is that others do not understand them and in many ways, they do not understand other people. When Christopher is questioned by the police about the dog, his answers do not make sense to what the police officer expected; similarly, Meursault’s lawyer does not understand why he wants to tell the truth. Also, neither understands the thought process of those asking the questions. However, whilst Meursault cannot understand the necessity for certain questions to be asked, Christopher struggles to understand the questions or how he is supposed to respond which is seen in the way these characters describe these difficult conversations. Comparing these two characters is quite interesting; you could argue that, potentially, these similarities give an insight into the way both characters think and, in turn, how the mind of an autistic person works.

You could argue that, as both characters see life in quite a linear fashion, an autistic person’s brain is hard wired to think like an existentialist might. For example, a common part of autism is having fixations or obsessions with things such as a television show or computer game. This could be equated to their dasein as it is the person’s involvement with this that makes them happy. Of course, this concept could never be proved as there is not real way of telling how anyone’s brain works, per say, besides which, there are as many differences as there are similarities. For example, the nihilism of Meursault’s thoughts differ greatly to that of Christopher’s; whilst there is no meaning to life or a necessary natural progression of history for Meursault, you could easily argue that Christopher sees the world in a more teleological light. As he investigates the death of his neighbour’s dog, he indirectly uses the idea of ends and beginnings to history, which seems to be an intrinsic part of his thinking, to work back through time to find out who the killer was.

Circulation Statistics

These circulation figures are taken from alexa.com. Alexa makes rough estimates of websites' popularity over a period of 3 months. The lower the number, the more views the website has had.

23/01/13 (13.08)	GB	Global	Rep
WINOL	33,950	460,940	63
East London Lines	56,486	633,421	409
Leeds Student	165,265	799,977	179
JMU Journalism	170,128	3,161,398	54
WNOL	n/a	2,529,978	44
Spark Sunderland	n/a	2,574,326	96
Staffs Live	n/a	3,599,955	63

30/01/13 (11.10)	GB	Global	Rep
WINOL	24,690	459,347	63
East London Lines	60,140	648,223	411
Leeds Student	123,063	884,199	178
JMU Journalism	146,938	2,578,779	54
Spark Sunderland	n/a	2,439,553	101
WNOL	n/a	2,532,471	44
Staffs Live	n/a	3,435,190	63
UCLan	n/a	4,454,384	48
Bwire	n/a	8,692,341	8
CU Today	n/a	12,379,172	12
Trent TV	n/a	22,647,950	10

30/01/13 (11.10)	GB	Global	Rep
Daily Echo	1,761	54,222	1695
WINOL	24,690	459,347	63
Basingstoke Gazette	20,851	565,036	382
Hampshire Chronicle	33,712	657,311	336

06/02/13 (13.08)	GB	Global	Rep
WINOL	15,260	420,823	63
ELL	64,089	682,125	414
Leeds	131,235	929,914	176
JMU	137,026	2,636,029	54
Staffs	183,905	2,912,909	63
Spark	n/a	2,434,060	101
WNOL	n/a	2,568,491	46
Bwire	n/a	8,698,909	7
CU Today	n/a	12,386,050	11
Trent	n/a	22,620,729	10

06/01/13 (13.08pm)	GB	Global	Rep
Daily Echo	54,081	1,753	1713
WINOL	15,260	420,823	63
Basingstoke Gazette	20,310	553,616	382
Hampshire Chronicle	27,772	612,368	342

13/02/13 (11.37)	GB	Global	Rep
WINOL	12,142	397,704	65
ELL	68,309	753,733	409
JMU	125,632	2,565,258	55
Leeds	129,181	894,950	181
Staffs	187,250	3,083,326	62
Spark	289,196	2,376,009	103
WNOL	n/a	2,938,502	46
UCLan	n/a	4,797,923	50
Bwire	n/a	8,682,019	7
CU Today	n/a	10,451,796	11
Trent TV	n/a	22,534,209	10

13/02/13 (11.37)	GB	Global	Rep
Daily Echo	1,689	54,253	1713
WINOL	12,142	397,704	65
Hampshire Chronicle	18,992	543,376	1713
Basingstoke Gazette	19,698	547,459	384

20/02/13 (13.08)	GB	Global	Rep
The TAB (12 Universities)	6,260	145,497	151
WINOL	10,360	373,538	65
Soton TAB	42,057	1,255,665	34
ELL	64,969	778,273	410
Leeds	92,281	874,530	185
Staffs	119,931	2,645,362	57
JMU	137,283	2,054,356	52
Spark	175,138	2,218,449	105
WNOL	n/a	3,483,239	50
UCLan	n/a	4,324,447	50
CU Today	n/a	10,425,447	12
Bwire	n/a	11,919,558	7

20/02/13 (13.08)	GB	Global	Rep
Daily Echo	1,625	53,165	1713
WINOL	10,360	373,538	65
Basingstoke Gazette	19,730	544,832	384
Hampshire Chronicle	22,730	526,133	337

27/02/13 (13.08)	GB	Global	Rep
The TAB (12 Universities)	5,712	140,736	164
WINOL	9,198	357,362	69
Soton TAB	43,960	1,159,724	35
ELL	63,327	805,142	403
Leeds	77,884	859,336	192
Spark	104,322	2,273,721	104
Staffs	120,386	2,759,426	57
JMU	139,143	2,017,261	54
WNOL	n/a	4,287,363	50
UCLan	n/a	6,663,521	47
CU Today	n/a	10,406,393	12
Bwire	n/a	11,908,578	7
Trent	n/a	17,149,445	10

27/02/13 (13.08)	GB	Global	Rep
Daily Echo	1,620	52,854	1715
WINOL	9,198	357,362	69
Basingstoke Gazette	20,360	523,830	387
Hampshire Chronicle	23,503	497,788	336



06/03/13 (11.18)	GB	Global	Rep
The TAB (12 Universities)	5,866	133,162	182
WINOL	9,154	372,251	70
ELL	54,727	807,376	399
Soton TAB	62,468	1,174,661	34
Leeds	74,422	871,345	190
Spark	94,138	2,260,142	99
JMU	124,503	1,796,817	53
Staffs	128,769	2,647,164	55
WNOL	207,052	4,774,740	51
Bwire	n/a	11,728,671	7
UCLan	n/a	13,554,460	48
Trent TV	n/a	16,915,331	10
CU Today	n/a	17,926,947	12

06/03/13 (11.18)	GB	Global	Rep
Daily Echo	1,567	52,66	1687
WINOL	9,154	372,251	70
Basingstoke Gazette	18,316	489,190	373
Hampshire Chronicle	29,451	521,923	322

13/03/13 (11.19)	GB	Global	Rep
The TAB (12 Universities)	6,426	132,749	202
WINOL	9,258	388,350	71
ELL	43,367	782,341	394
Soton TAB	71,884	1,141,745	36
Spark	78,249	2,134,841	105
Leeds	91,612	880,696	189
Staffs	127,728	2,561,271	56
JMU	136,504	1,896,452	54
WNOL	n/a	4,770,346	52
Bwire	n/a	11,720,662	7
CU Today	n/a	13,874,712	12
Trent TV	n/a	16,917,974	11
UCLan	n/a	22,282,268	50

13/03/13 (11.19)	GB	Global	Rep
Daily Echo	1,587	52,494	1690
WINOL	6,426	388,350	71
Basingstoke Gazette	17,738	495,298	371
Hampshire Chronicle	50,315	465,680	326

   

20/03/13 (11.33)	GB	Global	Rep
The TAB (12 Universities)	7,065	131,144	202
WINOL	9,512	376,909	71
ELL	48,037	800,317	394
Soton TAB	103,524	1,154,146	36
Spark	97,725	2,231,159	99
Leeds	159,422	889,776	189
JMU	117,946	2,040,634	54
Staffs	206,051	2,718,845	56
WNOL	n/a	6,431,880	52
Bwire	n/a	9,501,020	7
CU Today	n/a	13,910,769	12
Trent TV	n/a	16,964,452	11
UCLan	n/a	22,340,609	50

20/03/13 (11.33)	GB	Global	Rep
Daily Echo	1,653	52,359	1690
WINOL	9,512	376,909	71
Basingstoke Gazette	18,261	464,622	371
Hampshire Chronicle	39,654	452,485	326

    

27/03/13 (11.16)	GB	Global	Rep
The TAB (12 Universities)	7,398	127,380	202
WINOL	12,025	373,953	71
ELL	49,664	783,444	394
Soton TAB	125,367	1,154,146	36
Spark	148,163	2,101,582	105
JMU	102,441	1,910,078	54
Leeds	n/a	935,191	189
Staffs	141,003	2,858,094	56
WNOL	n/a	6,472,006	52
Bwire	n/a	14,888,225	7
CU Today	n/a	14,001,739	12
Trent TV	n/a	17,084,465	11
UCLan	n/a	22,459,401	50

27/03/13 (11.16)	GB	Global	Rep
Daily Echo	1,755	52,148	1690
WINOL	12,025	373,953	71
Basingstoke Gazette	20,409	460,620	371
Hampshire Chronicle	37,995	439,765	326