Chronology:
Smith: 1981- says Marxists ignore the roll of the audience in advertisment
Bourdieu:1984
Garnem:1986
herman&ChomskyL1988
Lubar:1989
Shiller:1991
Bourdieu:1998
PrownL2000
Mehan:2002
Artifacts:
Masrxist, Structure/Superstructure, Hajaminy
Theme: Hollywood Culture
How movies influenced 80's culture through their overarching messages
Concept: Hollywood as a political entity, the culture is influencing what you see on the screen and vice versa.
Era: 1980's
Exhibit: 1980's movies that diesplay Hollywood's influence and vice versa set in theatre
1: lighter- Little Darlings- during the movement to ban smoking in movies
2 boom box- Say Anything
3: car- Farris Bueller
4:Delorean- Back to the Furture
5:leg warmers: Flashdance
6:bomber jacket and aviator glasses- Top Gun
7:Cold War issues political meetings and press releases- Red Dawn
8:AIDS political struggle with people who had jobs, communities, schools, etc- Story Ryan White
9:a nerd commodity- Revenge of the Nerds
10:Where will Hollywood take us next? Fashion, Technology
What 80's Character Would You Be- incorporating artifacts
Approach: engage audience- visually, reflection by character profile
2- Exhinit: Evolution of femail undergarmets- inspiration: Miller article
circular exhibit, chronological (no dates)
"Are Women Liberated?"
Video clips that bring in examples of use
Stays >corset> pointed bra, girdle> liberation> exaggerated "Madonna"> WonderBra & Spanx> Victoria's Secret> Lady GaGa
comes full circle
the movements of politics correlate to the trends of women's undergarments and now it's a symbol of power, entertainment, and sexuality
Thursday, February 11, 2010
readings + assignments for 18 feb 10
again, i encourage you to undertake as many of the readings as you can...but this list represents your priority in terms of first efforts...
all read durham/kellner pp. 339-341 as well as lubar/kingery pp. 140-159
all read prown/haltman pp. 149-190, 243-252
erin/melanie/sarah/micah = durham/kellner pp. 342-365
michelle/serena/kaytee/emanuel = durham/kellner pp. 366-395
claire/suzanne/annie/sam = durham/kellner pp. 396-444
reporters for today's class (11 feb) = suzanne/annie and emmanuel/sam
questions for next week (18 feb) = erin/michelle/claire/melanie
all read durham/kellner pp. 339-341 as well as lubar/kingery pp. 140-159
all read prown/haltman pp. 149-190, 243-252
erin/melanie/sarah/micah = durham/kellner pp. 342-365
michelle/serena/kaytee/emanuel = durham/kellner pp. 366-395
claire/suzanne/annie/sam = durham/kellner pp. 396-444
reporters for today's class (11 feb) = suzanne/annie and emmanuel/sam
questions for next week (18 feb) = erin/michelle/claire/melanie
Questions 2/11
Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky:
1) With these five filters that they discuss in the article, are there any non-filtered sources of news left? Also, how has the increase in personal blogs, postings, etc affected the credibility of the new sources? Where does the internet fit in as a media source?
Pierre Bourdieu:
2) Bourdieu discusses the importance of TV as a media source for Americans, yet how has this changed with the increase of Americans using the internet as their main media source?
Leslie Shannon Miller
3) She discusses corset wearing as a symbol that modern day people can no longer understand outside of it being a torture symbol. Yet, don't we see versions of the corset coming out in todays society? Yes, it may not be the fashion necessity that it was in the late 1800s, but none the less it has not completely disappeared from our world. In terms of evolution, we may not see the corset with its tight stays and laces, but what about Spanx? Are these not a version of the corset? Women still want to have the flat stomach and can be aware of how their clothes fit, so have the ideas of the corset disappeared? We may not understand the corset in the same light that the late 1800s women saw them, but we still do see a version of them.
Class Notes – February 4th
First, we broke into groups to discuss the articles from Media and Cultural Studies (Durham/Kellner). Each group then reported to the class the main points from each article.
· (i) Operation Margarine; (ii) Myth Today (Roland Barthes)
o If you overanalyze an object, you take it out of its mythical state and take away its history.
o Amending the object’s faults protects it from other criticism – acknowledge faults, but emphasize benefits
· The Medium is the Message (Marshall McLuhan)
o The light bulb signified a new part to culture in the sense that people could now work all day and all night rather than just during daylight hours.
o The television evolved from radios – able to get information quicker and can now view the information.
o Internet – information is now at our fingertips
o How you get a message is the medium – what you are accustomed to
· The Commodity as Spectacle (Guy Debord)
o A spectacle becomes a commodity through production and how the dominant class influences production
o Everything man produces is a spectacle
· Introduction: Instructions on How to Become a General in the Disneyland Club (Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart)
o Disney is the “master of the spectacle”
o Adults create a commodity from a spectacle by producing children’s literature that is then consumed and perpetuated by children when they become adults. As each generation passes, the spectacle becomes more embedded in culture.
o Disney is understood by other cultures
· Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory (Raymond Williams)
o A superstructure is an organizational system for ideas and culture
o The base is the real social existence of man
o The base is the people and the superstructure organizes ideas and culture that emerge from their social interaction
o The base is a process not a state. The superstructure is tailored to fit the base as it changes based on social interactions.
o Hegemony is when a cultural process becomes so embedded in society that it becomes a normal part of everyday life.
o 2 types of cultures apart from the dominant: residual and emergent
§ residual cultures are “left over” practices and values from a previous culture that has been superseded
§ Emergent cultures are new meanings and values that are created separate from the dominant culture
o Because culture is constantly changing, what were once emergent or residual cultures can become the dominant culture over time
o There are always people outside of what is chosen as the dominant culture
o Conflict between object and practice, i.e. art – can be a work of art or a creative process
· (i) From Culture to Hegemony; (ii) Subculture: The Unnatural Break (Dick Hebdige)
o Culture is an ambiguous idea
o Culture becomes a natural, normal, everyday event ingrained in daily life – hegemony
o Subcultures exist separate from the dominant culture, but still exist
o Subcultures can become the dominant culture over time so subcultures must constantly change if they do not want to become the dominant culture
· Encoding/Decoding (Stuart Hall)
o Certain messages are encoded by the producers of objects
o Viewers decode these messages based on influences (culture, vocabulary, history, time)
o Once the message is decoded, reactions follow – can be the encoded messages or a reaction that is opposed (various opposing messages can result)
· On the Politics of Empirical Audience Research (Ien Ang)
o There are always going to be multiple messages because there are multiple audiences – never going to get down to just one message
o Layers of messages exist
o Empirical audience research takes a methodological approach
After reviewing the articles, we went over cultural studies as a “field.”
· Cultural studies
o The study of everyday life
o Focus on relations of power – hegemonic vs. counter-hegemonic
o Deals with semiotics, free play, expressive arts, language embedded in material sources or social practices
o Focus on conflict and subversion – where things don’t make sense
o More localized and strategic
o Involves continual self-critique – methods implicated in the structure
o Avoids master narratives
o Multiplicity of approaches – no purity
o Do away with strict boundaries – there are different ways of doing things
· What is media/mediation
o Create compromise
o Process of communication (different forms)
o Take something and interpret it – embed things in it
o Examples: spectacle of a group gathered talking, books, computer, clothing furniture
o Everything is media because everything communicates a message
Next we went over the different paradigms in cultural studies:
· Formalism
o Studies the formal properties of a work
o There are a limited number of works to study – only certain ones should be studied, no margins
· Structuralism
o Came from the Birmingham School in Britain
o Tries to uncover a deeper structure beneath texts
o Looks at parallels with other cultural work and themes – more comparative
· Post-Structuralism
o Takes fault with Structuralism
o Texts are viewed as infinitely interpretable in theory, but not in practice
· Feminism and African-American Criticism
o Opened up cultural studies to looking at things in different ways
· Marxist, Psychoanalytic and Historicist approaches challenged/supplemented formalism during its dominance
After taking a break, we came back together to look at the readings from History from Things: Essays on Material Culture (Lubar/Kingery) as a group. Sarah and Katie led the discussion.
· Gardens and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (Thomas Williamson)
o Discussed the idea that before cultural studies, conventional methods studied objects in a “vacuum” and did not consider other people or features. Made texts dominant.
o Author used other sources (i.e. maps, plans) to show that the traditional view of the park as an element that suddenly appeared on the scene in the 18th century was false. He traced it to the deer park of medieval times.
· Common Landscapes as Historic Documents (Pierce Lewis)
o This article was appealing to most people in the class because everyone could relate to the process he was proposing and envision it.
o Discussed whether or not the average student pays attention to a landscape. Decided that we, as a group, are different from the average student in this respect because of our interests. Decided that most students do not pay attention to landscape.
· The Sign of the Object (John Dixon Hunt)
o There are a variety of approaches to studying objects – all of the participants in the conference study objects, but not all agree on a certain method of doing so.
o This does not make the field less respectable – actually makes it stronger
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
2/11/2010 Reading Questions
A Propaganda Model
1). The article states that “anticommunism” is a national religion and a control mechanism. In today’s world, what has taken the place of “anticommunism?”
2). With the rise of internet news sites such as Politico, does the Propaganda Model still apply, or is it becoming outdated?
On Television
1) Is it possible that the news gained from the internet will face the same problems as televised news? For example Bourdieu stated that televised newscasts tell the audience what we “should think” about “social problems” and that TV news confirms what society already knows. Will this be a problem for online news?
The Many Figures of Eve
1) In the third footnote of the article, Miller states that pioneer women would wear corsets while still performing physical labor. However this a direct contradiction to her statement that women who wore corsets could not perform manual labor. Is Miller accurately portraying the symbol of the corset, or is she consciously manipulating the image?
2) Miller suggests that the corset represented security within society for women. Do you think that women of the 19th century viewed the corset as a security symbol or was it viewed as a necessary instrument?
1). The article states that “anticommunism” is a national religion and a control mechanism. In today’s world, what has taken the place of “anticommunism?”
2). With the rise of internet news sites such as Politico, does the Propaganda Model still apply, or is it becoming outdated?
On Television
1) Is it possible that the news gained from the internet will face the same problems as televised news? For example Bourdieu stated that televised newscasts tell the audience what we “should think” about “social problems” and that TV news confirms what society already knows. Will this be a problem for online news?
The Many Figures of Eve
1) In the third footnote of the article, Miller states that pioneer women would wear corsets while still performing physical labor. However this a direct contradiction to her statement that women who wore corsets could not perform manual labor. Is Miller accurately portraying the symbol of the corset, or is she consciously manipulating the image?
2) Miller suggests that the corset represented security within society for women. Do you think that women of the 19th century viewed the corset as a security symbol or was it viewed as a necessary instrument?
Summary of 2/4/10
Last weeks class began with the creation of small groups to discuss individual chapters from the assigned reading. Each group then presented the main ideas of the reading they discussed. Bellow Serena has done a good job drawing out the main point presented. In regards to the readings I will only add that each article/chapter contributed to the "big picture" that there are many ways to study objects. The readings were intended to open new pathways toward interpenetrating artifacts. The over all theme of the class was that multiplicity is an important part of scholarship.
The handouts are to help students narrow their perspective on the final project.( Due May 6th at 3:30pm)
The handouts are to help students narrow their perspective on the final project.( Due May 6th at 3:30pm)
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