Once in a while we run across the words “colective aesthetics”, but few can explain to us what they mean in terms anyone can understand. This brief article achieves this seemingly unsurmountable task, through exposing us to a fun and short test no-one “flunks”, no-one fails to answer. Not only does it make us laugh, it also makes us think why in the world we all know these things. If our brains strive innately to learn and retain them, then –somehow, they are necessary for our survival both as individuals and as societies. It naturally follows that those literatures that feed on these elements and keep them alive, constitute a premier social institution, even if our society frequently fails to appreciate it.

Steven Pinker, in his book “The blank slate; the modern denial of human nature”, gathers scientific evidence in regards to the fact that all humans are born equal in terms of those traits which are innate to our species.
This renown neurolinguist talks here about what has been discovered to be essentially human, and why this knowledge has irated so many people, despite the fact that it can save arts, media, and the humanities in general.

This article analyzes the consumption of cultural works in Mexico, at the end of the XXth century.
In the years elapsed since it was published, however, the number of copies magazines sell -like national papers’ and other media products’ sales, have plummeted.
Several best-selling magazines it mentions, have disappeared from the market; and others are publishing less than a fourth of the copies they did at that time, as a consequence of the very same issues this article analyzed: Creators, producers and distributors of both “high brow” (elite) and “low brow” (popular) works, have alienated themselves from their audiences, and through the continuous opposition to the latters’ values, ideas and beliefs (through both veiled and overt contestation), they have lost their consumers’ trust. And also their money.

In other words: What this article concluded, is still true, including the fact that people -even the younger generations, are reading… –yes, indeed!; but not what some would like them to read.
In the end, this is more positive for society in many senses, than the consumption of media works that would otherwise have corroded even more, the social and cultural tissue of our countries.
What we have observed is the displacement of average audiences, towards works that better reflect the latter’s values, ideas and beliefs, as we should have expected since the beginning: This facilitates the survival of the larger part of the social group and its culture –the part that has been less influenced by media in general, by the way.

Anyone could have foreseen what has happened, from a social-anthropology or systems-theories’ frames of study –we certainly did, and published it all around, while many stared at us in disbelief. Nowadays media fear for their very survival; but the social-body demonstrates a vigour and an intuition, few would have vowed for. It will soon produce new works, away from dominant content agendas, that most of us (but sadly not all), will love.

Like any other schooling system, Modern formal education in the Western world, tends to reproduce in students a certain mindset -a certain frame of mind, therefore privileging a particular type of intelligence –the literate one in this case, over others.
We must not forget that this type of intelligence is not the only one humans can access, however: There are other intellectual abilites which it is also worthwhile to acquire, like those an oral culture appreciates, and which are innate to our species.

If we keep basic concept like this is mind, we will be able to make more accurate assumptions about reality, thus improving the quality of the decisions we make, the worth of our opinions, and their impact in the world.

This article mentions one clear example: How the differences between the oral and the literate mindsets, and their intrinsic biases, reduce the possibility of reaching a durable and fair solution for conflicts as serious as the Chiapas rebellion in Mexico, thus gravely affecting the life of a whole nation. The paradigm shift is another example.
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This is a short version for the general audience, of a very long specialized article that the Revista Digital Universitaria de la UNAM, published in 2002.

Many say that the Digital Revolution –the birth of the internet, mobile (cell) phones, etc.– killed traditional electronic media (radio, tv and cinema), as well as paper media.
Nevertheless, when we analyse media sales-and-consumption statistics around the world –and particularly in the Western world, we realize that they started to lose credibility, reach and financial viability, long before the Digital Age.
This talk makes a quick review of seemingly indestructible mainstream media along centuries and decades of our history –many of whom we are still familiar with, and how and why they met their end.

A brief examination of what highly educated people really read when nobody is watching them, allows us to conclude that it is humanly impossible to refrain from reading popular works –to maintain a “purely highbrow diet” comprised of only elite works.
We put forth the following explanation: Works applauded and esteemed by the elite arts in the last 100 years or so, envision a sordid, bitter, and hopeless world –thus frequently becoming toxic or harmful for their readers’ emotional and general health, as we shall analyse in other articles. A “purely-depressive works” diet would certainly kill its reader.
No wonder most people, and even highly educated ones, tend to prefer popular works, even if they lack the prestige of the “high arts”. What a pity it is, though, that even popular works have been contaminated by the biases that have progressively killed the “high” arts, thus diminishing the spontaneous and joyful pleasure we hope and expect to obtain from them.

Around 1995-6, a new television company started to broadcast its signal to the Mexican audience. Some said it was being transmitted from Miami, but no-one truly knew where the signal was being aired from. Its programming was attractive, and was largely composed by reality based contents –mainly newscasts and documentaries. Its advertising campaign promised to deliver only truth to a country who hungered for it. Despite this, its news programs did not even mention the humongous national demonstration (with simultaneous massive local marches in all main cities), that repudiated the agreements signed by the Mexican delegation at a world population conference. Incongruities like this one happen all the time and in every media –internet included; and the expert reader uses them to filter the information he/she receives in order to discover truth –that is: the true image of reality, despite the many political, ideological and economic agendas which currently shape media contents.
In the time elapsed since this happened, that television channel went bankrupt, was taken over and changed its programming, …but never recuperated the audience it had initially attracted and lost. The audience is smarter than many think…

What interests us in this talk?. The public recognition by a top neurolinguist, that previous to the word –previous to the form, shape and channel we may choose to transmit a message, there is a communicative intention –the content we want to transmit, the message itself. Everything else depends from it, and derives from it, as we will incredibly addapt any available means and resources, to fulfill our communication goal, to transmit our message.

Few times do we talk about what the “message” of a literary work is, even amongst those of us who study literature. Finding out what the message is behind any human expression, however, is fundamental for surviving, as it allows us to filter what we are being told –to separate and retain what serves us, and to prevent us from falling prey to cheaters and liars.
Learning to see through information, allows us to make better use of media, too, without resorting to censorship or limiting our freedom of expression.

Evelyn, the movie (with Pierce Brosnan in the leading role), is a popular work, which was produced to help advance an unpopular political agenda amongst the general audience. The slant, the bias, the way reality was altered in it, in order to promote such agenda, is so great and evident, that it easily serves us to exemplify what a “message” is –what we are talking about; and to show how even a reality-based narration can be manipulated in order to fulfil a given goal.

People desultorily dismiss Mexican/HispanicAmerican telenovelas wholesale; and they praise and value programs made elsewhere in the same uncritical way –for example: those from the United States–, without engaging in a case-by-case analysis of each to decide if what is being promoted is useful or beneficial for society, or not.

This article examines several fictional works based on the Cinderella schema –“La niñera” (Nanny Fine), and some telenovelas written by Carlos Romero–, to show that the locally produced works –the Mexican ones– are in fact superior to the imported series, precisely because of the values, ideas and beliefs extolled by each culture.

The amazing facts and positive aspects of the evolution of the internet and its social networks in Spain.

Media works should dignify and show due appreciation, for domestic professions, because of how deeply both influence our family and social lives.
If we do not want to create the opposite effect, however, this must be done lovingly, knowledgeably, and with a natural respect for our culture: We do not want the audience to laugh at them, or at us, instead of realizing how much of our wellbeing, is the handywork of those who spend their lives creating homes, out of spaces that otherwise would have only been living quarters. Or perhaps not even!