Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Welcome to the class blog for JMC 562, Media Studies and Culture, Fall 2009
We will use this class blog to post reading questions for each day's assigned material, as well as to post presentations on final projects toward the end of the semester. Feel free to include images, video, etc. as fit your posts.
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Questions about the Kellner text:
ReplyDeleteThese were some things I thought of while reading it.
1. It seems that for media studies academics, audience reception--or knowing what media consumers think--is the holy grail of this field. So much could be discovered if they could know how all of these people understood and responded to a text or product. This is why so much importance is placed on ethnographic research, etc., and the "seven subjectivity positions" to cultural reception. These positions include age group, gender, class, nation, ethnicity, and so forth. Like, because a person is this race, or this age, he/ or she will behave in a certain way. So does this mean that a great deal of research is based on stereotyping, which is often such a pejorative word?
2. The chapter also talks about the Madonna pheneomenon, and how she came to embody the material excesses of the Reagan era (with songs like Material Girl). She was the poster girl for consumer culture at a time when capitalism was unleashed, companies were merging and industries were being deregulated. I've heard about the Madonna analysis before, but I was trying to think of another celebrity that represented the culture at the time they appeared. One might be Larry the Cable Guy--that asinine comedian that rolled with the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. He was really popular in 2005, and I think at the time Larry echoed President Bush to a tee, as well as reflected the general mood of the country. Larry's jokes were often anti-gay and xenophobic during a time when Republicans and what seemed like most of the country were complaining about both gay marriage and immigration reform. Larry and Bush also had the same kind of folksy way of talking and a simple-minded view of the world that some critics called bigoted. With Madonna and the Cable Guy aside, are there any other celebrities whose media artifacts can be contextualized for their time?
On page 10, Kellner states, "learning how to read, criticize, and resist socio-cultural manipulation can help empower oneself in relation to dominant forms of media and culture. It can enhance individual sovereignty vis-a-vis media culture and give people more power over their cultural environment." How can we re-train ourselves to view media differently since media has played a vital role in our daily lives? Is this even viable?
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this article I was also wondering if ethnographic research is the best method when studying media culture. Everyone brings their own values, norms, etc when engaging in all forms of media culture. Even within the seven "subjectivity positions" there are still differences among those who belong to the same "positions". So with all the biases that are among the consumers and adding in the researcher bias, how accurate are the findings of ethnographic studies in media culture? How do the researchers control or limit or account for these errors?
-For the first reading by Kellner, I was surprised by something he stated on page 10. He said,"persons who identify with subcultures, like punk culture, or black nationalist subcultures, look and act differently than those in the mainstream, and thus create oppositional identities, thus defining themselves against standard models." I wondered why Kellner would agree with this idea, in that I feel it rejects the idea of pseudo-individualism, the very idea that says these types of people that try so hard to oppose the mainstream actually become a part of it.
ReplyDelete-I also found it interesting when he spoke of how Madonna became popular in large part because of her marketing strategies and videos that appealed to large audiences. I wonder how Kellner would explain the popular sensations of today that have found fame similar to Madonna's that may not necessarily market themselves to a diverse audience, but rather a smaller diverse group with a large amount of followers, like Britney Spears.
While reading the first piece by Kellner, I was wondering what he meant by Marxian ideology. I think I've heard of it before, possibly dealing with Carl Marx, but I am not sure. Another thing I wondered was what he meant by antithetical approaches. I also wondered what he meant by hegemony in this reading. I know I have heard the term before, but forgot exactly what it entails. Other than those few things, it was well written and had a lot of truth and good points about media and culture. It got me thinking more about the differences between high culture and low culture, and how "mainstream media" fits in, as well as it seems to always be changing somewhat. It reminds me of an old saying "One man's trash is another man's treasure." I just find it interesting how cultural values of certain types of media vary depending on the individual and/or groups in a certain culture.
ReplyDeleteReading Assignment #1
ReplyDeleteKellner, "Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture"
Some questions I developed while reading the article:
1) While I think that studying the media is an important tool for understading culture and society, I often wonder if some methods used are ethical, or an invasion of privacy. On page nine of the article, Kellner discusses audience research as a key factor in media and cultural studies. But, in some ways, is audience research an invasion of privacy? For example, Kellner mentions the pornography industry; is it an invasion of privacy to perform ethnographic research on the viewers? Would the audiences who enagage with those texts really want to be studied? Similarly, is it ethical to monitor or control violent media in order to prevent violence in children (as Kellner mentions on page 11), or could it be considered a violation of the First Amendment?
2) Similar to some of the posts by other students, I found myself wondering if it's really possible to study the media and audiences from every angle. How can we classify anyone into one group or another? The reality is that many people don't consider themselves of one race, class, sexual preference, etc. Instead, they identify with numerous classifications. By performing audience research, aren't we also stereotyping subcultures and the non-mainstream, thus perpetuating their inferiority in a capitalist society? Also, Kellner mentions decoding media messages...but aren't these subjective also, as one person's view may be completely opposite from another's?
3) Early in the reading, Kellner mentions the media's role as a determinant in former President Reagan's electoral success. Through political economy and an alterior motive from the government, the media helped persuade audiences to join conversative efforts and elect Reagan (Kellner, 4). Do we still see these games being played in our current government? Do you think that polical economy had anything to do with the outcome of the 2008 election? Similarly, is the same thing happening with the Iraq war, as the American outlook has changed significantly since Bush left office?
A couple questions I had about the Kellner reading,
ReplyDeleteOn page 13, when Kellner talks about how pop music stars marketed themselves by "deploying the tools of the glamour industry and media spectacle to make certain stars the icons of fashion, beauty, style, and sexuality, as well as purveyors of music." does he think that the media conglomerates motives for pushing a "sexy" product were purely profit driven or would they have benefited in any other ways by pushing their product into the culture?
Secondly, on Page 16, when Kellner talks about how people's engagement in media can lead to the creation of communities amongst fans, such as Trekkies. A number of people in society tend to look down on these groups by saying things like they have too much time on their hands, or they need lives, but as a whole, doesn't society benefit from these communities by giving people an outlet for expressing themselves as fans of a media?
Kellner Reading
ReplyDeleteA Point of Clarification:
On page 14, Kellner describes qualitative, quantitative and semiotic textual analysis. I am having a hard time understanding what exactly semiotic analysis is, or rather how it enhances/is different from qualitative analysis. Is semiotic analysis an aspect of qualitative research?
Speculation:
On page 15, Kellner states,“Because there is a split between textual encoding and audience decoding, there is always the possibility of a multiplicity of readings of any text of media culture.” He then goes on to say that there are limits to the openness or multiple meanings of any text of media culture.
How can there be a limit to a text’s possible meanings? That seems to suggest preset categories of interpretation that each text reader will inevitably fall into.
Berger Reading
ReplyDeleteFor Berger’s essay, I wondered about the Barbie doll example he used in describing denotation and connotation. He said that Barbie herself denotes a toy doll made in the U.S. in 1959, but her connotations suggest her arrival as the end of motherhood. What signs make up this connotation? Is it based on advertising, or people’s opinions about the doll? Who decides what something means if it is not directly implied?
I also questioned his ideas concerning the example of jeans vs. fancy clothes. Berger said that in order for semiotic analysis, there has to be oppositions. So, for example, many jeans are handmade and are very expensive, so if that is the case, is there no pairing now between what jeans denote and what fancy clothes denote?