Personal Reflection on the Class

Well, where to start?

I think it's best for me to break this down by issues in the class.

Mediation:

I, personally, found the creation of wiki pages more useful than the rest of the assignments. I like to work as part of a group and develop an idea rather than work by myself. I also like the blog - it gives me a place to put my ideas without necessarily making them part of the text of everyone else's responses like Ning. With this class and how this semester is going, I'm incredibly paranoid that I'm not understanding the readings, but when I read other's comments I find that I'm actually on par. I think my paranoia goes down the more separate my ideas are, unless they're working directly with the ideas of others. I guess I don't like the "call and response" type of threaded conversation Ning provides. I also wish these were all in the same location.

Flow and Interruption:

This was obviously a problem for me in that I had personal interruptions in my work in the class (as evidenced on Ning and the wiki in particular). But I also think the flow of the class struggled because we took on huge topics each week (not a bad thing, mind) and each had posting to do, but when it came time for commenting on each other's work, we were limited by the time that they posted or by the time that we posted. I think to really flow, this class would have to have multiple due dates for the same posts so that people kinda "cycled through" an early turn-in date and a later one. I also think some more overlap in teh schedule between weeks would help - it seems that we often drop an author or issue when the readings change.

I'm not sure how I can prove that I've worked on this class since my big interruption - I'm not sure how to bridge the interruption and return the flow. I've been posting all my work on my blog. I feel ashamed for turning work in on Ning after everyone else, like I'm asking them to go back and give me feedback or like I'm chiming in out of sync in some horrible rendition of some horrible song, off-key and a beat behind.

Scope:

Any class that is titled "Media Culture" can be expected to have a very broad scope, but I found it odd that it was so "western" in thought. I think it'd be really interesting to look at works that really either come from other cultures or from a range of historical periods - like Plato's Phaedrus, or something - to develop a more historical and global understanding of media culture.

Representation:

I don't feel as though I can best represent my understanding of each of the readings and questions online. I felt more comfortable using Prezi or some other kind of representation for some of the ideas that felt so abstract - representing them visually or with other types of text really helped me.

Final Essay

Here is the text of my final essay:

Anne Coyle

Dr. Anne Wysocki

ENG 742: Media Culture

Final Essay

16 May 2011

Knowing All the Plots: The Relationship Between Audience and Mass Media

When Norma Desmond descended the stairs of her mansion, ready for her close-up, it was impossible to not draw parallels to the images and stories of fallen Hollywood starlets. Though Norma is fiction, her story is all too familiar to anyone who, even sixty-one years after the debut of Sunset Boulevard, is familiar with the machinations of the Western mass media. Joe Gillis, the everyman of the story, works with Norma in an attempt to develop a screenplay that might allow him to pay his bills and pursue his lady love. As those who have seen the film will know, he fails because Norma does not allow him to alter any of the script, which she jealously guards, deciding based on her perception of herself and her desires what the public should receive. The work is largely a commentary on the cult of Hollywood, with such memorable lines as: “We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!” (Wilder). How Sunset Blvd. conceptualizes the way Hollywood, as part of the mass media, works, is evident in exchanges between characters that discuss the role of the writer in producing content for the screen. Joe’s film about Okies and the Dust Bowl played out on a torpedo boat, as one example. Another example focused on the screenplay Joe and Norma are writing: Betty notes that “Oh, the old familiar story. You help a timid little soul cross a crowded street, she turns out to be a multimillionaire and leaves you all her money” and Joe replies “That's the trouble with you readers, you know all the plots” (Wilder). And readers do know all the plots.

Having the readers know all the plots seems counter-productive in a capitalistic system in which the marketability of programs is the primary concern of the business. However, as theorists Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, and later Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Jean Baudrillard find, reproducing the same material repeatedly works to influence the culture and consumptive behaviors of the masses. Mass media, even in the revelations the function of the system in Sunset Blvd., serve to control the interests of their audiences. How the masses function as either producers or consumers, and what their role is as audience, is the means to discovering how the mass media can be altered to function less as an industry reproducing a culture and more as an active exchange between all participants. Benjamin and Adorno and Horkheimer locate not what humans should be doing in their interactions with media, but instead focus on what they observe as human relationships with media. Enzensberger and Baudrillard, however, move from how media and humans negotiate the intersections of their interests and more on what they should be doing with technology and media. Through close analysis of the mass media theorists listed above, I explore the relationship between audience and mass media before developing a sense as to how the system can be challenged. As we have moved towards supposedly more participatory media in the digital age, it is important to locate the qualities that indicate a difference between passive reception of media and the active interaction that lead to genuine conversation and inclusion.

Walter Benjamin, writing from the middle of the Great Depression, identifies the shift between the medium though which sensory perception happens and historical circumstances. He states that “During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence. The manner in which human sense perception is organized, the medium in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well” (Benjamin). To support this claim, Benjamin begins with a reflection on earlier works and traditions of art, identifying the qualities of the social institutions surrounding the works as well as to what purpose the works were put. Through his reflection of the language used to describe art, the functions of art, and the political systems and social behavior surrounding art, during different periods of time, Benjamin establishes a theory of art that focuses on the exchange of art between those who produce and those who consume. More specifically, he calls attention to the way in which art is consumed. Following the technological ability to mechanically reproduce works of art, the reaction of the masses changes, such as how “The reactionary attitude toward a Picasso painting changes into the progressive reaction toward a Chaplin movie. The progressive reaction is characterized by the direct, intimate fusion of visual and emotional enjoyment with the orientation of the expert. Such fusion is of great social significance. The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public” (Benjamin).

The enjoyment of the public, as well as their criticism, is dramatically altered by what Benjamin identifies as their ability to pay attention to the artifact. “The painting invites the spectator to contemplation; before it the spectator can abandon himself to his associations. Before the movie frame he cannot do so. No sooner has his eye grasped a scene than it is already changed. It cannot be arrested.” The constant changing, the movement of images and sound through movies is what disrupts the viewer’s ability to process the discrete elements of a film and “constitutes the shock effect of the film, which, like all shocks, should be cushioned by heightened presence of mind” (Benjamin). And, as Benjamin states, “Clearly, this is at bottom the same ancient lament that the masses seek distraction whereas art demands concentration from the spectator.” But just as Benjamin notes that Marx’s criticism of the capitalist system began when the production system was in its infancy, Benjamin’s criticism of film may have overlooked how the mode of analysis changes with the mode of production and the mode of consumption.

Benjamin’s analysis of distraction and concentration states that these form “polar opposites which may be stated as follows: A man who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by it. He enters into this work of art the way legend tells of the Chinese painter when he viewed his finished painting. In contrast, the distracted mass absorbs the work of art,” rather than being absorbed by the work of art. Benjamin’s analysis of film focuses too much on the discrete elements, as though each individual frame, each sound were open to interpretation. However, even with painting, which he identifies as an art in which the audience concentrates, rather than becoming entertained and distracted, the audience does not grasp all layers and discrete elements, even when concentrating. He does, however, note that the distraction, while negative, works hand in hand with the exposure it provides to the masses; “The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one” (Benjamin).

What Benjamin assumes about the audience of mass media such as film is that they are passive in their reception of the artifact they consume. He assumes that the shock of constantly changing and moving images and sound overwhelms them. “The spectator’s process of association in view of these images is indeed interrupted by their constant, sudden change. This constitutes the shock effect of the film, which, like all shocks, should be cushioned by heightened presence of mind,” but which Benjamin does not see in film. Passive audiences do not challenge that which they receive, but instead receive it in a state of distraction. But Benjamin does acknowledge that the masses become critics through the medium of film, because through the distance between the performance and the audience, the performer is unable to adapt to the audience. The audience becomes critical because the performance is unable to adapt appropriately to their reception. But while their “Reception in a state of distraction […] finds in the film its true means of exercise. The film with its shock effect meets this mode of reception halfway. The film makes the cult value recede into the background not only by putting the public in the position of the critic, but also by the fact that at the movies this position requires no attention” (Benjamin). If they become critics because they have a distance from the actor that isn’t present in theater, but they aren’t attentive, then they are simultaneously present and not present, critical and uncritical. Thus, the critical capabilities of the audience, the masses, is present but impotent.

Written before World War II, Benjamin’s analysis is less pessimistic of mechanical processes in media and reproduction than Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, I would argue precisely because it was written before the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis had not yet become common knowledge, though their Fascist aesthetic was prominent[1]. Their chapter “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” from Dialectic of Enlightenment criticizes the media and industry for creating the “culture industry”, which is “the achievement of standardization and mass production, sacrificing whatever involved a distinction between the logic of the work and that of the social system.” The goal of this system “forms part of the economic mechanism of selection. In addition there is the agreement – or at least the determination – of all executive authorities not to produce or sanction anything that in any way differs from their own rules, their own ideas about consumers, or above all themselves.” There is nothing outside of the system, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, because the system subsumes dissent by either silencing it, by refusing to disseminate it, or adopting it as part of the norm and adopting it to the existing structures and styles. Adorno and Horkheimer focus on the way the culture industry perpetuates its own interests through the dissemination of content designed to be consumed by the masses in predictable and scripted ways. As they say, “The man with leisure has to accept what the culture manufacturers offer him. [...] Its prime service to the customer is to do his schematizing for him.”

Like Benjamin, Adorno and Horkheimer note the “They [the mass media, in particular sound films] are so designed that quickness, powers of observation, and experience are undeniably needed to apprehend them at all; yet sustained thought is out of the question if the spectator is not to miss the relentless rush of facts.” The viewer is forced to passively observe the rush of relentless facts - if they were to think about what they were experiencing, they would miss the next experience, much like the shocks Benjamin noted. Unlike Benjamin, though, they point to the alertness required for the perpetuation of the mass media agenda. They note that “The entertainment manufacturers know that their products will be consumed with alertness even when the customer is distraught, for each of them is a model of the huge economic machinery which has always sustained the masses” (Adorno and Horkheimer). Benjamin saw this as distraction, rather than alertness. And in one way, they are all speaking to the same issue: alertness without thought is not far removed from distracted criticism. After all, the illusions of the culture industry leave “no room for imagination or reflection on the part of the audience, who is unable to respond within the structure of the film, yet deviate from its precise detail without losing the thread of the story; hence the film forces its victims to equate it directly with reality.”

Adorno and Horkheimer go farther than Benjamin in their criticism in the role of the audience in contact with mass media. Benjamin, who noted their passivity, did not go as far so to declare that “No independent thinking must be expected from the audience: the product prescribes every reaction: not by its natural structure (which collapses under reflection), but by signals. Any logical connection calling for mental effort is painstakingly avoided” (Adorno and Horkheimer). Here those who own the structure work to eliminate the thought that may challenge what is presented. Referring to the mid-1940s, they note that “Today, when the free market is coming to an end, those who control the system are entrenching themselves in it. It strengthens the firm bond between the consumers and the big combines” (Adorno and Horkheimer). And that bond is effective in keeping consumers roped into the system because “The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them” (Adorno and Horkheimer).

What Adorno and Horkheimer notice, but fail to account for, are alterations in the interaction between audience and media either based on the work of individuals that refuses to engage with the system or the progression of technology to disrupt the producer-consumer system. To them, all dissent is absorbed by the culture machine, all technological media are mass media in which the line between producer and consumer is jealously guarded. Benjamin recognized that as printing progressed technologically and became more prominent, readers increasingly became writers as well. He states: “For centuries a small number of writers were confronted by many thousands of readers. This changed toward the end of the last century. With the increasing extension of the press, which kept placing new political, religious, scientific, professional, and local organs before the readers, an increasing number of readers became writers” (Benjamin). While he did not see this trend in film, he was writing from the early age of talkies, in which films with sound became increasingly easy to reproduce following the invention of filmstrip that could economically provide synchronized sound and image. The shift from the strict segregation of producers and consumers of mass media content is what Hans Magnus Enzensberger takes up in his essay “Constituents of a Theory of Media”.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger draws a distinction between older media, which he argues is non-communicatory, and new media, which allows for participation from the masses. Though his work was written long before what we conceive of as the newest, most recognizable participatory media, I believe the principles apply. Old media, according to Enzensberger, prevents communication that requires reciprocal action, much like Adorno and Horkheimer’s statements about the lack of response available in film. He states: “In its present form, equipment like television or film does not serve communication but prevents it. It allows no reciprocal action between transmitter and receiver; technically speaking, it reduces feedback to the lowest point compatible with the system” (262). In other words, without a response, or reciprocal action, it is simply delivering information, not communicating. The audience is restricted to the role of observer, which would allow the culture industry to continue to perpetuate itself without dissent that it couldn’t absorb.

One example of this is what Enzensberger points to as a common feature of nightly news shows on television. He describes the “Democratic Forum” portion of the news, in which "There, tucked away in the corner, 'the reader (listener, viewer) has his say,' which can naturally be cut short at any time. As in the case of public opinion polling, he is only asked questions so that he may have a chance to confirm his own dependence. It is a control circuit where what is fed in has already made complete allowance for the feedback" (Enzensberger 266). An easily recognizable type of interview that fits as a “Democratic Forum” segment is the “man on the street” interview, in which a reporter will ask targeted questions of the interviewee to later edit down to a shorter section that will actually air. In fact, editorial decisions could potentially eliminate dissention from interviews. Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, originally published in 1988, explains that the American broadcast media form what they call a “propaganda model”, a variant of the culture industry offered by Adorno and Horkheimer. This model is described as “an analytical framework that attempts to explain the performance of the U.S. media in terms of the basic institutional structures and relationships within which they operate. It is our view that, among their other functions, the media serve, and propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them” (i). Financing is very important, as Enzensberger’s examples show – if the media equipment that allows for the production and dissemination of content is expensive, only those who can afford them have the ability to produce. But if the equipment becomes cheaper, like contemporary smart phones, then more of the masses can become producers, thus providing the opportunity for consumers to become producers and pushing against the monopolistic propaganda model and culture industry.

Expense aside, the main feature that makes this reciprocal action possible is allowing for each party to become both a consumer and a producer. Enzensberger states “The technical distinction between receivers and transmitters reflects the social division of labor into producers and consumers, which in the consciousness industry becomes of particular political importance” (266). Essentially, the older forms of media that Enzensberger says restrict reciprocal communication and instead become lines of transmission do so by relying on the one way transmission of producer to consumer, but the consumer has no option to communicate in return. New media, according to Enzensberger, are more productive, allowing for material to be recorded and reproduced at will and for consumers to also function as producers. In this way, “The new media are oriented towards action, not contemplation; towards the present, not tradition” (265). And these new media should be social and “accessible to anyone” (265). And because these new media are defined by a structure that allows for the complication of the producer-consumer binary, “The contradiction between producers and consumers is not inherent in the electronic media; on the contrary, it has to be artificially reinforced by economic and administrative measures” (266). However, to believe that "Anyone who imagines that freedom for the media will be established if only everyone is busy transmitting and receiving is the dupe of a liberalism which, decked out in contemporary colors, merely peddles the faded concepts of a preordained harmony of social interests" (Enzensberger 267). The only way to effectively make use of new technologies that allow for the consumer to become producer and work against the interests of those who traditionally held power over mass media is to organize, according the Enzensberger, because new media demands interaction.

Enzensberger’s analysis is challenged by Jean Baudrillard, whose “Requiem for the Media” argues that Enzensberger gets caught up in a transmission model of communication. Revolution against the mass media, Baudrillard says, requires revolutionary models of communication, rather than agreeing to the function within the mass media’s communication model. Baudrillard points to the flaws of a producer/consumer transmission model and focuses on how such a model simplifies the message intended, reducing it to two-way transmission and not an exchange of genuine immediacy, in which "there are neither transmitters, nor receivers, but only people responding to each other. The problem of spontaneity and organization is not overcome dialectically here: its terms are transgressed" (286). While identifying an existing medium that fits this description is difficult, we can see how complicating the back and forth of the transmission model is when instead of a reciprocal action, there are multiple responses. Instead of allowing content to flow both ways in the media, Baudrillard is pushing for a media that allows responses from more than two parties in a way that requires a response from the parties – a continuing conversation among groups and individuals with the goal of producing genuine interaction. The transmission model, is as Baudrillard says, “This ‘scientific’ construction […] rooted in a simulation model of communication. It excludes, from its inception, the reciprocity and antagonism of interlocutors, and the ambivalence of their exchange” (285). And as he notes, using an example similar to the “Democratic Forum” Enzensberger describes, “On a more practical level, the media are quite aware how to set up formal ‘reversibility’ of circuits (letters to the editor, phone-in programs, polls, etc.) without conceding any response or abandoning in any way the discrimination of roles” (286). An endnote explaining this statement points out that “Underestimating the ability of the system to integrate its own revolutionary innovations is as delusory as underestimating the capacity of capitalism to develop the productive forces” (288). By integrating the revolutionary innovations as part of the system, Baudrillard identifies the absorption of dissent evident in Adorno and Horkheimer’s analysis.

The audience, for Baudrillard, is not deprived of the technological means to interact as both producers and consumers, but is instead deprived of voice. He states “It is a speech that answers itself via the simulated detour of a response, and here as well, the absolutization of speech under the formal guise of exchange is the definition of power” (Baudrillard 281). The transmission model is based on the consumer participating in a system in which their response is either pre-determined or detoured by the apparatus of the system itself. Using the technology in the way in which it is prescribed merely perpetuates the existing order of the interests of mass media producers. The audience, by participating in the system designed to silence their voices, is silenced. Only by removing themselves from the transmission model and revolutionizing the function and structure of media can they overcome their technological laryngitis and challenge the authority of the existing homogenizing structure. It’s important to note that no one has any idea what such a system would look like, much less be able to identify it in practice, with the exception of Baudrillard’s example of graffiti. Graffiti, he says, responds immediately to the presence of media, responding against the design on the system by literally placing itself alongside or over the material to which it is responding. The saboteur becomes a full participant by refusing to participate in the role prescribed for him by the mass media. How this might look in other forms, though, is unknown.

Whether or not today’s digital media, the new media of production Enzensberger identifies, is actually allowing more consumers to become producers is only to be judged on the merits of interaction. It’s not enough to be able to write or create and disseminate that information, because according to Baudrillard, the same interaction takes place, reproducing the transmission model and perpetuating the culture industry. To refuse to be passive, to defy classification, to interact against the grain, is what humans should do to combat the culture industry and promote their own interests over the interests of those who have the power. Like poor Joe Gillis, the masses can hope that as producers, they can work “writing words, words, more words! Well, you'll make a rope of words and strangle this business! With a microphone there to catch the last gurgles, and Technicolor to photograph the red, swollen tongues!” (Wilder). But unless they act in the moment and respond outside of the system, the function as they have been told. Without dissent, there progress is arrested, voices are silenced, and the masses navigate media without reflection.

Works Cited

Adorno, Theodor and Max Horkheimer. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” Dialectic of Enlightenment. 1944. Web.

Baudrillard, Jean. “Requiem for the Media.” The New Media Reader. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort. Cambridge: MIT, 2003. 277-88. Class PDF.

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Marxists.org. 1936. Web. Feb. 2011.

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus. “Constituents of a Theory of Media.” The New Media Reader. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort. Cambridge: MIT, 2003. 259-75. Class PDF.

Herman, Edward S. and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. 2^nd ed. New York: Pantheon, 2002.

Wilder, Billy, dir. Sunset Blvd. Paramount, 1950. Web.

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[1] See Susan Sontag’s Under the Sign of Saturn for a full description of the Fascist aesthetic.

The Post-Project Reflection

How was working on -- thinking through -- your project different from thinking through a seminar paper?

My project was easier for me to work through than my paper, not because I was more familiar with that type of composition, but because it helped me work through my ideas like I tend to in class conversations. It seemed like working with the text was like having a conversation with a partner or friend, like I was trying to explain my ideas without having to explain everything verbally.

How are you mediated differently through your project than through your seminar paper?

My project shows, rather than tells, what I'm trying to work out in my paper. It's almost as if I get to present my ideas they way they appear in my head - when I think of the video examples I want to use, I just use them - instead of having to fit them into the conventions of academic writing. I love writing, and I love academic writing, but this seemed much easier for me. It felt more fluid in general. Though, at the same time, I felt more restricted by my disability. When writing, I don't get caught up in my tendencies to try to make everything straight and symmetrical and I don't get distracted by videos. But I think overall it was a good experience.

I think I might start using Prezi as a tool to help me develop my arguments, to discover how things fit together, in the future.

What sorts of differing thoughts about your topic/area of interest arose for you because you approached this work through differing media?

Well, actually, focusing on how to design my project made me realize that structure and design were the areas I wanted to focus on in my essay. It made me more objective, I think, though I know my essay is still based on my own subjective experiences.

Reposting My Final Project

I don't know why, but apparently Blogger was having problems and deleted all posts between Wednesday night and this morning, which means that I have to repost this. Enjoy, again.

Final project!

Here's my final project.

Okay, scratch the link. Sorry about that - I'm not sure why it won't open for you guys. I thought I'd made it public, but here it is:

Revisiting Definitions

POST ONE
When you use "media" now, what do you understand by the term? What do
you understand by "mediation"? How do you understand technology relative
to media?

Media is, for me, what concepts/communication moves through between two thinking processes - whether these be individual minds or groups.

Mediation is the impact of the media on the concept/communication from as it was intended to how it was received. It doesn't have to be all negative - some of the intended communication comes through loud and clear, but some might be altered to a point where it becomes a misunderstanding.

Technology is the physical embodiment of media, or what is used to make media possible. This includes language, image, etc.

POST TWO
Imagine that you were to give a lecture on media culture to an undergrad
class. To work toward such a lecture, identify two or three repeated
themes that run through some majority of our class readings: in your
writing, identify the themes and trace each through the readings,
chronologically, identifying shifts and changes and contemplating why
there would be such shifts. Discuss why you chose the themes you did:
why does each theme stand out for you such that you think it should be
emphasized in a lecture to undergrads, and how should the theme shape
their thinking about (their engagements with) media?

I first tried to think of this as a sort of "tagging" by repeated issues or subjects that come up, but then I realized that for me to really "tag" it, I'd have to create a chart of sorts. But then I spent too much time pondering. Here's what I came up with:

I realized that some of these seem simple and some are more difficult to find within the texts, and that if I really wanted to, I could probably make inferences about all of these issues within the all the texts if I wanted to or if I had the time.

For undergrads, I'd focus on participation and the difference between the structure of technology and the development of technology, as well as the concept of "media" in general. I think that undergrads can best reflect on their interactions with media, which is largely participative (at least based on how many "friend requests" I've gotten from them or how many times I've caught them Facebooking in class). Also, so many of them seem to think that technology and media are without consequences and spring out of the ground like some sort of god-given gift for man. I'd like them to explore how things come to being and how their function impacts the society in which they are used.

POST THREE
What's missing? By this, I mean both "what's missing from the media
culture theories we have read?" and "what do you think is missing from
your understanding?" Look back over your media charts: what have our
readings encouraged you to add, shift, or resee since the beginning of
class -- and what do our readings not encourage you to discuss? What
questions about media are still left hanging for you, and where do you
see gaps in your own understanding of the work?

My understanding of everything feels so fragmented at the moment that I'm not sure if something's missing or if I personally missed it. It's a lot of work to play catch up and keep up when my brain is still so bombarded in every aspect of my life with some sort of drama or distraction. Oh, that's a four letter word for me - distraction - right up there with "focus".

Some areas I'd like to see more essays/articles about: mediation of the appearance of the body/body as mediation (beyond McLuhan!), subversion of the "norms" of conversation via media (Baudrillard and graffiti?), the place of media in public and private, more about online mediation ...

The readings have definitely encouraged me to think of the perspective of each writer as they analyze and philosophize and theorize about the way our world is altered and mediated. I would like to read more historical accounts (before Benjamin, are there any?) of expected impacts of technology.

Seminar Paper Draft

Anna Coyle

Dr. Anne Wysocki

ENGL 742: Media Culture

Seminar Paper DRAFT

17 April 2011

Something Something Labor, Rhetoric, and Media (Need Wit!)

On February 11^th, 2011, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker declared his intentions to introduce emergency legislation to fill a gap in funding in the state budget. The proposed law, as originally written, required Wisconsin public employees to pay more for their health care and pensions while also decertifying and essentially removing collective bargaining rights from public employees. While the reality of the so-called “budget crisis” has been called into question, the proposed law, which in its most recent form still removes collective bargaining rights, passed the legislature and was signed by the governor. What concerns this essay, however, is not the destruction of human rights in the United States or even the legality of the law’s passage. What concerns this essay is what happened between the February 11^th announcement of the proposed legislation and the passage of the bill on March 10^th. After tens of thousands of students, workers, and citizens took over the Capital Building, one of the primary concerns for union organizers was news coverage outside the state of Wisconsin. Several criticisms were leveled against the bias of national news organizations, most of whom either did not cover the story or covered the story by adding an institutional bias.

Media, when used as tools for dissemination of content, are shaped by the institutions or individuals that own them. In his chapter “Mass Media” in the book Critical Terms for Media Studies, John Durham Peters states “Typically mass media are the playthings of institutions. They are expensive to run, usually require distinct castes with specialized knowledge (scribes, programmers, ‘talent’) to operate them, and are of great strategic importance politically, economically, culturally, or otherwise” (277). The institutions that have the financial ability to run and attract specialized knowledge to operate them – in the case of the American media, these are major corporations – have access to a strategically multi-faceted media that can influence political, economic, and the cultures within which they operate. Peters continues: “Rarely in history have mass media operated apart from the central power sources of a social order, and they are typically under the management of the palace, the market, or the temple. Where mass media are, there is usually power”, power to represent content in a particular way through the media they control (Peters 277).

In this essay, I will explore how the conglomeration of the American broadcast media, in particular television news media, has influenced the coverage of the Wisconsin union protests. Next, I will discuss how the potential use of digital media, in particular social media, can serve not only for the dissemination of news specific to a particular cause, but also for actual union organizing and activism. (And if I have the space, which I probably won’t, I’d like to address the issue of net neutrality. Actually, I probably won’t have time to even get there, but I’d like to use this as an argument for net neutrality.)

As I am discussing the bias of broadcast media organizations, I feel it necessary to acknowledge my own bias in the example I provide. As a union organizer and public employee in the state of Wisconsin, I helped organize the protests at the Capitol Building and participated in the three-week-long occupation of the building and grounds. I continue to participate in protests and actions supporting a pro-union cause. I acknowledge my bias because I cannot pretend that my experiences do not drive my passion to write on this subject or my analysis of the event and its news coverage. However, I do feel my experiences give me insight into the direct implications of the events and media coverage and media-prepared content of that coverage in comparison.

Before continuing, it is necessary to delve into how the conglomeration of power both is structured and how it works. Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, originally published in 1988, explores the focusing of power as the owners of broadcast media repeatedly consolidate and merge, leaving the American broadcast media dominated by a hegemony of nine, and later five, major corporations. Chomsky and Herman explain that the American broadcast media form what they call a “propaganda model”. This model is described as “an analytical framework that attempts to explain the performance of the U.S. media in terms of the basic institutional structures and relationships within which they operate. It is our view that, among their other functions, the media serve, and propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them” (Chomsky and Herman xi). The nine major corporations that control and finance broadcast media at the time of publication of Manufacturing Consent’s second edition are Viacom, Disney, General Electric, AOL Time Warner (now just Time Warner again), News Corporation, Bertelsmann, Sony, AT&T, and Vivendi. These corporations have further condensed, leaving Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, and CBS as the largest media corporations in 2010.

Chomsky and Herman claim that “Media centralization and the reduction in the resources devoted to journalism have made the media more dependent than ever on the primary definers who both make the news and subsidize the media by providing accessible and cheap copy” (xvii). Basically, the news the public receives is restricted by the interests of those who control the medium through ownership, power that is concentrated as the media outlets continue to merge. These corporations then define and make the news. And ultimately, these issues open the content of the media open to infection of hegemonic bias. Chomsky and Herman continue:

The representatives of these interests have important agendas and principles they want to advance, and they are well positioned to shape and constrain media policy. This is normally not accomplished by crude intervention, but by the selection of right-thinking personnel and by the editors’ and working journalists’ internalization of priorities and definitions of news-worthiness that conform to the institution’s policy. (xi)

The news-worthiness of potential content, then, is sifted through the ideological bias of the controlling organization. Thus the media can never, as long as driven by concerns based on market and economics, remain neutral. Issues that the public may care about are pushed aside as the concerns of the media interrupt the coverage of important events. The public would an explanation as to why they are “working harder with stagnant or declining incomes, have inadequate medical care at high costs, and what is being done in their name all over the world. If they are not getting much information on these topics, the propaganda model can explain why: the sovereigns who control the media choose not to offer such material” (Chomsky and Herman xix). The material I believe the “sovereigns who control media” chose not to offer in the case of my experience is the perspective of the unions and their members, in particular the concerns of the protests.

Paul Krugman, an economics professor who also writes op-ed pieces for The New York Times, called the mainstream broadcast media’s surprising lack of coverage “a virtual blackout on the huge demonstrations in Wisconsin, except on Fox, which portrays them as thuggish and violent”. Alternative news sources, primarily on the Internet or Comedy Central, covered the news of the Madison protests while questioning the message of Fox News and the near-complete blind spot on other networks. The Huffington Post, a privately owned, notoriously liberal online news source and Internet start-up, covered the controversial coverage of The New York Times. (Incidentally, the Huffington Post has just been acquired by AOL.) (Insert more here)

I can attest to the sense among union organizers that the mainstream media was ignoring the protest. Estimates of protesters range from some hundreds on the first day of the occupation, February 14, to a high of 100,000 on March 13^th (Richmond). While the news that the Capitol Building was being occupied by students and union workers made national news, it quickly faded into the newscape as the national news began to focus on the plight of Middle Eastern attempts to rebel against oppressive regimes.

…

Peters explains “Raw technology is probably less important than the ways it gets implemented and configured” (276). The media itself is neutral, but its use is not. It is, instead, influenced by the ideology of the creators and thus the organization that funds the production. Labor issues in particular are in opposition with the function of the broadcast media. Continuing with this claim, Peters states “The fact that mass communication has typically been studied in terms of few speaking to many (as with radio and TV) rather than many speaking to few (as in strikes, petitions, boycotts, protests) shows an ideological bias toward standing power: indeed there are many forms of mass communication in which senders, and not just receivers, are large collectives” (276). The labor movement itself, through the actions they undertake in their efforts to further their collective agendas, performs a sort of mass communication. But if their efforts are not broadcast through a media that provides regional or national coverage, their actions remain visible only to those who are directly affected by the actions, such as townspeople and other union members.

Because “Mass delivery has great diversity in time and space, scale and speed” the means of delivery depends on the media used to deliver the material (Peters 274). These “Means of delivery can unite audiences in time but scatter them in space (classical broadcasting, text-based diasporas); scatter them in time but unite them in space (the Internet, pilgrimage); unite them in both space and time (assembly); or scatter them in both space and time (writing and printing)” (Peters 274). In the case of the labor actions the means of delivery “unite [the audience] in both space and time” as an assembly. For the action to become publicized, including broadcast by the media, the action must appeal to the ideology of the corporation. If the action does, and it is publicized, it is scattered in space, reaching a larger audience.

How much of the audience receives the transmission is measured in different ways, depending on the media used to disseminate the news item. Broadcasting “ratings mechanisms have sought a statistical picture of audience behavior and size, with varying success. With Internet ‘cookies’, it is much easier to track what kind of engagements people have with remote environments, though the mystery of what happens at the other end of a sending still remains” (Peters 275).



(End of work so far) Woo-hoo. Below is the link to my essay draft.

Essay DRAFT Link

Possibilities for the Seminar Paper

thinking toward the seminar paper

What ideas are you flirting with or otherwise considering for your paper?

I want to do something about the union protests for a few reasons. First, it could help me work through the shock of it all. Second, it's pressing. Third, it was mediated in about a gajillion ways. I'm thinking of starting with a discussion of the mass media and the somewhat-censorship-like-way in which they covered the protests, but I know that's not "media-y" enough yet. I'll work on it in that direction and see what I can get out of it.

What will you need to do to develop these ideas into a paper-length consideration?

A new brain. (Joke)

No, I'll need to meet with Anne and talk to some of my classmates, but I think more than anything I'll need to reread the materials from the course (which I've been having trouble keeping in my brain anyway - maybe related to the shock, maybe related to the density of some of them, most likely related to a combination of both) and think about what light they can shed on the work I want to do. I'll also need to spend hours an dhours and hours in the library.

What assistance from others could you use in thinking this through?

I could use many, many sets of eyes. I work best in f2f conversations, and I could use a few of those with classmates/Anne to make sure I'm working in the right direction.

What ideas do you have about how we can use online resources (as well as the other resources of class) to support you in writing the most kick-ass (or insert otherwisely appropriate adjective here) seminar paper of which you are capable?

Actually, online resources will be really useful for me for different reasons than most people, I think. Because the whirlwind of mind-blowing cacophony (from which I am still recovering ;( ...) surrounding the union protests, I am unable to remember discrete moments during that time. In fact, I don't even really recall my birthday, which was February 25th, because of everything else that happened. I've never really suffered such a huge shock before, so it's uncharted territory. But the archive of posts from our union Twitter feed and from my personal Facebook page could help me remember what happened in a more specific way than I can from memory (insert Steigler here, I'm sure) and help me find the sources I need to reference the union protests as accurately and hopefully as objectively as possible.

Week 10 Reflection

What sorts of activities, support, or discussions would be most useful to help you finish our class both most gracefully and most fruitfully?

I liked this week's assignment. I realize that it wasn't super involved, but it gave me a way to work through the assigned readings by forcing myself to work on something less specifically related to the reading at the same time. So while I was working through Kittler, I was working through how I saw the future of the "new media" wiki page. It's not unrelated, but it isn't focused just on this reading, either. It seemed to help me make some of the connections between readings I would normally have made, had this semester not been so crazy.

I think I need to keep making strides towards academic recovery at a steady pace.

Also, please think ahead two weeks, to when your first drafts of your seminar papers are due, for workshopping. What suggestions do you have for strategies we can use for workshopping these papers online?

I find actual face to face conversations much better for workshopping. We tried a few different ideas for online collaboration and peer review in the writing center I worked at, and while they were somewhat effective, I didn't particularly like them. One idea might be to post our essays on the wiki and have others give us comments or add questions in different fonts or something.

New Newspaper Chart

Hey all,

So here's my chart. I've tried to show how my understanding of a few of the readings work through newspapers, but I tried to do so with visual representation. I'm trying out Prezi after trying several other programs. We'll see how it turns out.

Here's the link:

http://prezi.com/wjh0f3gh0p2r/edit/#0_2638445

Here's the direct link to my previous attempt:

http://grammarbandits.blogspot.com/2011/01/sold-and-integrated-over-in-on-and.html

Have a great night, all.

Anna

Mediation of Current Events

Everyone in this class is having a mediated experience around Governor Walker's bill for "fixing the budget." If you would like to share your experiences, and discuss here your observations of the part of mediation in these ongoing events, please do.

I appreciate the thoughtfulness and respect you all bring to our discussions, and look forward to learning from each of you how you are understanding the mediation of what is happening.

I had written a response to this, but I deleted it because it was too angry. Instead, this is how I feel:

(by the way, look at the media connection not only in the fact that this is my Facebook profile and linking to another article, but that it's an article about the media and the protests)

The hypocrisy of all of this is summed up by

A & H Ning Questions

For a final alternative, use this quotation — “Love is downgraded to romance.” — as an opening to try to explain the overall argument(s) of the chapter.

Downgrading love to romance is, I think, more obvious when you've been in love. Love isn't exciting, it's not a bunch of roses or fighting with Matthew McConaughey until he chases you down in the airport, it's not something that follows the plot of the movies. At least that's my experience.

Adorno and Horkheimer are talking about the representation of human relationships through the culture industry. Love becomes romance when romance films and shows begin to tell the masses what "real" love is - it's roses and Matthew McConaughey, or the taming of the shrew (see McClintock!, for example). When we're told what certain emotions look like, or certain human relationships, we're more likely to act in what is considered appropriate ways. I can remember going to a funeral and a wedding as a child and trying to figure out how I was supposed to behave - I relied on the culture industry's representation of normative behavior to figure it out.

(An example I refer to based on my own, very Western upbringing, is that "there's no crying in baseball", or really, ever. Crying is a sign of weakness and weakness is unacceptable, regardless of gender. This is a lesson that I work every day to forget - not because I cry every day, but because I have cried twice in the last four years, and one of those times I had to make myself cry by drinking a beer and watching Steel Magnolias (yes, I get the irony of exploring representation of emotion and relationships throught the culture industry while using a film as an example for how I can become more "cultured"). Le sigh.)

Generalize about how you might apply what you've read in the Benjamin and the Adorno and Horkheimer: describe (again quickly!) a media object you would like sometime to analyze, and add a sentence or three about what our background-theory readings allow or encourage you to say about the object.

Actually, to combine all three of them, I'd like to analyze an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. The reproduction of images, often popular or historical images, in the cartoons, could be really interesting for exploring the aura of the art object, particularly one that has been completely altered for the sake of a different audience. Python often uses images of high art and high culture, but repurposes them for the masses.

Barthes, Language, and Communication

Well, I think my biggest tripping point is that I never took a linguistics class. There are terms in here that I'm familiar with, and I'm following it just fine, but then all of the sudden there's an example that I don't understand at all. Usually the examples are the best way for me to understand something, so I can see a concept in practice, but Barthes' examples (with the exception of the car window example) are more confusing than the concepts. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding the concepts.

For the two chapters, I find the fact that they're referring to each other pretty useless, since I'm just as bewildered by both of them when they're talking about Luhmann. I think the "Language" article almost explained it to me, but then I took a break from reading it because it gave me a headache and I lost the train of thought that illuminated what Luhmann was saying. I never got it back fully. After the third reading of both chapters, though, I started to get it. I think that what makes this difficult for me is that I'm used to having a synchronous conversation about concepts that I don't understand and negotiating my understanding in the moment, rather than returning hours later. Mentally, I'm like a dwarf in "The Lord of The Rings", dangerous at short distances, but not cut out for long distances. I have no attention span for the long haul, and these chapters require the long haul. I'll keep reading them to see if I can understand any more than I do now.

I do find the historical/theoretical groundings provided on the course website very helpful for overcoming some of my confusion.

The concepts I do have a hold on in these readings are Saussure's (which spellcheck keeps trying to make "Sausage", so if I miss one, it's supposed to say "Saussure"). I understand the signifier and signified, and the signification, and I get the little chart that moves to the idea of myth and myth's appropriation of the sign. I understand that there is the actual meaning of an item/object/phrase/article/whatever, and then there is the meaning I associate with it, and then there is the ideological level. I'll try to explain this with an example that isn't useless to me.

Look! It's the Duke, so you know we're in for a fun time, right? Okay, so here is my take on this business with the Duke.

1. This is a picture of John Wayne, el dukerino, in front of an American flag.
2. John Wayne is an American movie star and mostly starred in war flicks and Westerns, so we associate him with guns and general badassedness. (Sign)
3. The myth in this picture, for me, is the ideology of American badassedness, of Manifest Destiny, and American Exceptionalism.

The way I understand these three is:

1 = what it is
2 = what it does
3 = to which use it is put, ideologically

If this were, say, Stephen Urkel from Family Matters in front of the American flag, it would counter the ideology of the Duke. If it were the Hoff in front of a German flag, it would do the same thing as replacing the Duke with Urkel - it would alter the meaning and the ideology that the image represents.

I think I get it.

Reflection #4

The contextualizations have been extremely helpful to me. I don't have any additional suggestions, particularly since my biggest problem with this class so far isn't anything that's related to anything you (Anne) has done as a teacher. My biggest problem is finding time throughout the week to do all the work.

Ninging/D2L prompts have been useful, but I'm not sure the discussion thread works for me as a student. It requires me to return to a conversation hours later, which I'm not very good at. I'm best in the moment - all this focusing and refocusing and unfocusing and refocusing makes my brain hurt. I'm pretty sure I'm not living up to expectations, but I'm sure yours are fine. I do enjoy the comments and the feedback I get from you and they do make me think.

I don't think the tone of the class is not conducive, I just think the form of the class is not conducive. I'm learning just as much about myself as a learner as I am learning about media studies. One of the therapeutic techniques my old doctor used to make me do was to try to make myself aware of how I work best and then working to make the environment as distraction-free as possible. But on the interwebs, there is endless distraction ... and on classmates' blogs. If I can continue to "stray" to other people's work, I can keep myself engaged and learn something as well.

I'm pretty sure that anything that could be altered to accommodate me would do so to the detriment of my classmates and the depth we are attempting to get at in the readings. For me to operate best, I think a central location that does blogging, Ninging/D2L-ing, class calendar, etc, would be great, at least until I find a way to organize all these damn tabs. Otherwise, I think it's up to me to make my experience in this class more productive and efficient.

A & H 1

On your blog, try to summarize the understanding Adorno and Horkheimer have of how the culture industry shapes human sense of self and possibility.

I think Adorno and Horkheimer believe the culture industry both teaches and responds to the sense of self that humans have. It shapes their possibilities by defining what is desirable and what is available, and if what we desire defines who we are, then it shapes who we are as well. I don't think this is new to the culture industry, necessarily, except in shaping what we desire economically.

Reflection #3

I think what's most important for me to hang on to after these three weeks is the slow work I'm making towards some workable definitions. I think tomorrow I'll make up a chart to see if I can describe them more accurately. The definition of image provided in this week's reading is far too broad for me to find acceptable, but I like Drucker's definition of art and I found a new appreciation for the Benjamin article.

The concept that most matters to me is actually part of the structure of this class, that of a community of learners. I need to be more active in the community. I'm struggling to keep some sort of order with the format of the forums and discussions, and I think most of it is just in my head. I like to read everyone's contributions and synthesize them before responding, and that takes a lot of time.

I am enjoying how philosophical our conversations tend to get about the terms we're struggling to define. It makes me feel less like I've got to find a way to come up with the be-all-and-end-all definition of a concept and just focusing on making some headway, rather than completing a marathon. I'm looking forward to the weeks when we read "Senses" as well as next weeks' readings.

"Art" and "Image"

"Art":
Drucker provides a very clear and concise history of artistic styles, movements, and appreciation. She claims, and I think rightly so, that "the characteristics that long distinguished fine art from ordinary objects or mass media - the use of special materials, particular kinds of imagery, and aspirations toward higher values - are no longer definitive" (3). She also says that "the emphasis on media as an aesthetic device and art as a specialized form of experience within the larger realms of mediated perception", stemming from her analysis of Janet Zweig's The Medium. In that quote, she defines both the role of media and art in experiences modified by mediation.

"Image":
Mitchell provides a brief explanation of image through history, including examples of banned images and biblical law. Later, he defines an image as "as sign or symbol of something by virtue of its sensuous resemblance to what it represents" (38-9). He claims that "the persistence of these qualities is what ensures that, no matter how calculable or measurable images become, they will maintain the uncanny, ambiguous character that has from he first made them objects of fascination and anxiety. We will never be done with asking what images mean, what effects they have on us, and what they want from us" (47). I'm a little worried by the last part of that quote, which makes images sound autonomous.

Benjamin, Art, Reproduction, Media

My understanding of the concept of media in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" is based on one particular sentence in the article. "The technique of reproduction" [media] "detaches the reproduced object" [message] " from the domain of tradition" [context]. In Benjamin's work, media is how something is transmitted, and with mass media, reproduced and transmitted. In retransmitting/producing a particular object/artwork/message outside of the bounds of its time and place, the new context "reactivates the object reproduced", giving it a new meaning, without the aura of the original.

Benjamin notes that it is not just the photograph, film, or sound recording that has changed the ability to reproduce artifacts, but rather the numbers of their production. He says that "In principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made artifacts could always be imitated by men. Replicas were made by pupils in practice of their craft, by masters for diffusing their works, and, finally, by third parties in the pursuit of gain. Mechanical reproduction of a work of art, however, represents something new". Mechanical reproduction make reproduction easier and a part of industry in a way that the previous mode of reproduction could not compete.

Photography, a mechanized tool for reproduction, "freed the hand of the most important artistic functions which henceforth devolved only upon the eye looking into a lens". Following photography, combining sound and multiple photographic images, Benjamin describes how "These convergent endeavors" became another media, film. Media are able, it seems, to combine to make another type of media.

Other contemporary theories of thinking about media include those who seem to be dazzled by its opportunities, who think it is some sort of supernatural spectacle to be celebrated without thought. Benjamin’s examples of them include such film theoreticians as the man who theorized that film was the new hieroglyph, the man who said it was “a dream”, and the one who thought it was like prayer. He also relies on explanations of acting and the behavior of actors when filtered through a media from Pirandello, a novelist and playwright.

I think Benjamin was arguing against those who blindly accepted and embraced the distractedness of reproduced art, who likely include those who also praise it without thought, calling it “fairylike, marvelous, supernatural”. But even more so than those dazzled by the reproductions, Benjamin is arguing against the fascists. Benjamin equates “The violation of the masses” by Fascism, which “forces [them] to their knees” to “the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of ritual values”. He says “[mankind’s] self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order. This is the situation of politics which Fascism is rending aesthetic. Communism responds by politicizing art”. So, by using mechanical means to reproduce ritual values, which is mankind’s destruction, in the form of entertainment and “aesthetic pleasure of the first order”, Fascism is rending politics aesthetic. Whew. Benjamin says that doing so can only result in war.

And he was right. This work, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, published in 1936, and mechanically reproduced, dates itself to the few years preceding the start of World War II, as Fascism use their propaganda machines to promote war against their neighbors.

Reflection #2

I really liked the definition of humanity given in the Hansen and Mitchell reading. They seem to be very welcoming of all voices in a conversation, which I think gives graduate students a place to converse, unlike some of the other books I've read for other courses. I would like to think that by making "media culture" such an encompassing field that it is not just describing something, but also practicing an open attempt at honesty and acceptance of difference. Doing so opens up conversations and avoids binaries, which I dislike. I don't think I see any methods that aren't applicable to media culture.

My own interests are fairly broad. I am always interested in technology, but I'm also interested in pedagogy and the classroom, as well as how things (from culture to batteries powered by potatoes to whatever else) work.

The wiki is going less than well for me at the mo'. I struggle with paying attention at times (a shocker!) and I struggle with overstimulation, which I am afraid may be a side effect of this course. I will, however, power through. I find that I enjoy the class discussion a lot, but not in the way it works on D2L. I like that we can have asynchronous conversations, but I don't like the way they are threaded on D2L. I would take more initiative in the discussion if I had more time, but just reading all of the discussions takes hours.

I suppose I'm not encouraging participation much, but I could try to do so. The readings have helped me be analytic, as well as my conversations with my classmates both online and in person. So, since those conversations are participation, participation may be the next goal on my list of goals.

(Revising) My Chart

I wish I had done several things with my chart. I think a list will work best. The list:

1. Make it bigger. Even though it wouldn't load at a bigger size, I should have linked to it.
2. Make it digitally, even though glue sticks are fun. It would have been more legible.
3. Narrate it. It would have made more sense that way. Also, I need to practice narration.
4. Look at the production of newspapers over time in a more collective way, rather than how newspapers work in individual lives.

I think that's about it. Really, by the time I did all that, it would be a different project anyway.

Second Set of Readings

In "Severed Voices", Liebes and Pinchevski focus on how content and medium can come together to facilitate the healing of a collective tragedy by offering voices to those who had been denied their own stories by unspeakable horrors. Their discussion of media focused on the content, unlike the definition offered by Hansen and Mitchell, whose definition focused on the actual media as the content. They claim that radio allowed "for a new kind of participation at a distance", based on their studies of Holocaust accounts and interviews with Israelis who were young at the time. I see parallels (to varying degrees) to the television reports following the September 11th attacks, as well as the Challenger and Columbia tragedies and the Chilean mine rescue.

Morris' theoretical article explores how culture reacts to other cultures' influences and develops an understanding of the word "culture". Like Liebes and Pinchevski, Morris focuses on the collective experience of those within a culture, rather than the individual concerns. "Ideas and cultural symbols are carried from place to place by individuals and via communications technologies," which ultimately enhances the cultures these ideas and symbols come into contact with. The most interesting claim in Morris' article, though, was that "while identities may not be destroyed by imported media, local media industries are indeed vulnerable". Echoing the complaints against many a new Walmart, this claim is based on the value of local exportation of culture via media, as well as the reception of aspects of different cultures via the same media. By valuing local as a benefit to a global exchange, this argument makes "media culture" both local and global. I see the concerns of both Pinchevski and Liebes and Morris falling into the category of "Society" in Mitchell and Hansen's book.

Mattson's review states that "we use the term media to refer both to the instruments by which we distribute messages and to the messages themselves." And, as he praises the reviewed book for appealing to both layfolk and experts alike, I say Mattson sees media studies as inclusive, like Mitchell and Hansen's attempts to include as much of the various perspectives on media studies as possible. Also, like Liebes and Pinchevski, Mattson praises work that avoids falling into simplistic binaries.

D'Souza focuses mainly on the lack of politics in a work analyzing the work of Gustave Courbet, who used his art as a commodity by "selling out" to support the development of his more exciting works. The author D'Souza criticizes claims that this was how Courbet took advantage of a newly developing media culture involving the press. And D'Souza doesn't exactly disagree. D'Souza's criticism, then, that the book ignored the political entanglements of the painter shows that D'Souza sees media culture as at least partially political.

I see myself, thankfully, working towards a definition of terms and understanding of definitional differences in all of the different uses of the word media, as well as the word culture. There's hope. Possibly because of my struggle to conceptualize terms, I have spent most of my free time during the week pondering the similarities between these articles, hoping to have some sort of lightening bolt of inspiration strike me and help me see something more concrete...

I like the idea of an inclusive media studies, one that has conversations across disciplinary boundaries. I'm just going to work through the mind-vibrating cacophony that is, so far, my understanding of media studies. That, for right now, is where I am.

Responding to Mitchell and Hansen's Introduction

Media studies, in Mitchell and Hansen's "Introduction", is a messy combination of multidisciplinary forays into the topic of media and mediation and a "failure to communicate across borders that divide the technophiles, the aesthetes, and the sociopolitical theorists" (xvi). In response to what they see as an all-encompassing field with seemingly ironic communication issues, they chose to include multiple perspectives in each of their three topics - aesthetics, technology, and society. Their hope for "doing media studies" is to be critical and open to the variety of information created by the multidisciplinary field of media studies.

Their definition of media is an "intervening substance", which makes media "content, not just a vehicle or channel". Their description of media on page ix, which includes the statement that "Shakespeare had no concept of media, but his plays may be profitably studied as specific syntheses of varied technical, architectural,, and literary practices", seems to describe media as a combination of form, genre, conventions, and physical manifestation.

Not to be overly dramatic, but I really felt that the stakes of media studies for Hansen and Mitchell were described when discussion Grusin, Kittler, and Bolter. Their statement, "what is lost in the process is a broader sense of the existential stakes, of how these operations of mediation tie in with the form of life that is the human", seems really bold. To say that it's an existential question that will help us understand what it is to be human is a powerful statement.


What matters for them in doing media studies? What do they hope we will attend to in doing media studies?

Reflection #1

I think I have the same concerns as many of us, including with the first term this prompt asks us to consider. My concern with the word media is finding a stable, workable definition that I agree with, at least the gist. As my significant other is an anthropology student, I end up having a lot of conversations about "culture", though not "media culture".

I want to talk about culture in a way that is not American-centric. I'm hoping that I can conceptualize a meaning for culture that extends beyond my own in a meaningful way, because I would hope that I can understand more than where/how/that within which I was raised.

This class is, hopefully, going to help me complicate my understanding of media and culture in a way that also helps me find some stability in terms. I also think it will help me understand the other big web project I have so far this semester - finding a way to best promote our GA union.

Approaching My Chart

I'm not one for hippie dippie serendipity most of the time, but this assignment came to me while I was knitting and listening to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, as evidenced by the presence of Rita Skeeter on the chart. As I was listening, Rita Skeeter told Hermione, Harry, and Luna that "The Prophet [the wizarding newspaper] exists to sell itself", which I realized was the problem with newspapers.

Newspapers are struggling now because early attempts at online subscription fees proved problematic. Now they put their content online for all to see, which drives down the desire for the traditional form of their product (and the product they charge for). They sell themselves, but with reduced subscriptions, the invention of Craigslist, and the availability of online advertisements that will potentially reach more consumers, newspapers are struggling to make ends meet.

I wanted to show, in this chart, how newspapers have traditionally worked. I wanted to also show how the newspaper works in our everyday lives throughout time from birth announcements to obituaries. The bottom layer, which looks like a ruler, is supposed to show the passage of time and how newspapers report on the past and announce future events.

I chose to make my chart by hand, partially because I had just refilled my pens and that seemed like a good project to use new ink on, but also because it was easier to physically move the parts into place. I learned about trying different mediums - I tried making my ideas function in a word document and a Prezi - before settling on the final outcome. Next time, though, I will not be drawing by hand and I'll be using more color. Probably. Maybe. Depending on the content and layout I conceptualize, I guess.

I like the way that many of the other charts focus on specific aspects more than mine does. I think I'll try to have a more focused approach for the next assignment.

Anna C.

Sold and Integrated Over, In, On, and Through Time