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by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright

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Practices of Looking: Images, Power,


and Politics
Viewers Make Meaning
Spectatorship, Power and Knowledge
Reproduction and Visual
Technologies
The Mass Media and the Public
Square
Consumer Culture and the
Manufacturing of Desire

Chapter 1
!

Everyday we are in the


practice of looking to
make sense of the world
around us.

To see is a process of
observing and
recognizing.

To look is to actively
make meaning of that
world.

Practices of Looking
!
!
!
!
!
!

To look is an act of choice.


Looking is a practice much like speaking or writing.
Looking involves relationships of power.
Looking can be easy or difficult, fun or unpleasant,
harmless or dangerous.
Looking can be conscious or unconscious.
Looking is used to communicate, to influence and to
be influenced.

A single image can serve


a multitude of purposes,
appear in a range of
settings, and mean
different things to
different people.

This image, of school


children in the early
1940s who see a murder
scene in the street, was
taken by Weegee.

Representation
!

Representation refers to
the use of language and
images to create meaning
about the world around us.
These systems have rules
and conventions about how
to express and interpret
meaning.

Representation
!

Do systems of representation reflect the world


as it is, as a form of mimesis or imitation, or
do we construct the world around us through
our use of the systems of representation?

Social constructionists argue that systems of


representation do not reflect an already
existing reality so much as they organize,
construct, and mediate our understanding of
reality, emotion, and imagination.

Is this image simply a reflection of this particular scene or does it


produce meanings about these objects?

Representation
!

We learn the rules and


conventions of the
systems of representation
within a given culture.
Many artists have
attempted to defy those
rules and conventions and
to push at the definitions
of representation.
Images such as this show
the complexity of how
words and images
produce meaning in our
world.

Rene Magritte, The Treachery of Images,


1928-29

The Myth of Photographic Truth


!

The creation of an image through a camera lens always


involves some degree of subjective choice through
selection, framing, and personalization.

Despite this, photography has historically been regarded


as more objective than painting or drawing.

The combination of the subjective and objective is a


central argument about photographic images.

The Myth of Photographic Truth


All images have two levels of meaning:
The denotative meaning of the image refers to its literal
descriptive meaning.
The connotative meanings rely on the cultural and historic
context of the image and its viewers.

HOME
Denotes a place
where one resides
Connotes family,
safety, love

The Myth of Photographic Truth

The term myth, as used by Roland Barthes, refers to the


cultural values and beliefs that are expressed through
connotations parading as denotations.

Myth is the hidden set of rules and conventions through


which meanings, which are in reality specific to certain
groups, are made to seem universal.

Images and Ideology


!

All images are produced within dynamics


of social power and ideology.

Ideology is the shared set of values and


beliefs through which individuals live out
their complex relations to a range of
social structures.

Ideologies often appear to be natural or


given aspects of everyday life.

Images and Ideology


!

Ideologies are produced and affirmed through the social institutions


in a given society, such as the family, education, medicine, the law,
the government, and the entertainment industry, among others.

Images are also used for regulation, categorization, identification,


and evidence.

Images often move across social arenas from documentary images


to advertisements to amateur video to news images to art works.

Each change in context produces a change in meaning.

How We Negotiate the Meaning of


Images
!

We decode, or read, complex images almost instantly, giving little


thought to our process of decoding.

We decode images by interpreting clues to intended, unintended,


and even suggested meanings.

These clues may be formal elements of the image, such as color,


shade, and contrast, or the socio-historical context in which it is
presented.

What does this image mean? When and where was it taken? What
kind of event does it depict?

IV. How We Negotiate the Meaning


of Images
!

!
!

The process of interpretation is derived from semiotics,


a theory of signs which is concerned with the ways
things (words, images, and objects) are vehicles for
meaning.
We live in a world of signs, and it is the labor of our
interpretation that makes meaning of those signs.
The sign is composed of the signifier (a sound, written
word, or image) and the signified (which is the concept
evoked by that word or image).

What is the
signifier, signified,
and sign in this
advertisement?

The Value of Images


!

What gives an image social value?

Images do not have value in and of themselves, they are


awarded different kinds of value monetary, social, and
political in particular social contexts.

For example, in the art market, a painting gains its


economic value through cultural determination
concerning what society judges to be important in
assessing works of art.

Vincent Van
Gogh s Irises sold
for $53.8 million in
1991.Why is this
painting worth so
much?

A Bold Bluff, 1903,


by C.M. Coolidge
sold with another
dogs playing
poker painting in
2005 for over
$590,000.

Raphael, The Small Cowper Madonna, c. 1505

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936

How do each of these images represent different icons of motherhood?

Viewers Make Meaning


Chapter 2

Viewers Make Meaning


! Meanings

are produced through a


complex social relationship that involves at
least two elements besides the image
itself and its producer: (1) how the viewers
interpret or experience the image and (2)
the context in which an image is seen.
! Works or art and media rarely speak to
everyone universally.
! Just as viewers create meaning from
images, images also construct audiences.

I. Producers Intended Meanings


! Artists,

graphic designers, filmmakers, and


other image producers create
advertisements and many other images
with the intent that we read them in a
certain way.
! However, people often see an image
differently from how it was intended to be
seen.

The visual clutter of the context alone may affect how


viewers interpret these images, in addition to juxtapositions
with other images.

I. Producers Intended Meanings


! This

does not mean that viewers wrongly


interpret images, or that images fail to
persuade viewers.
! Rather meanings are created in part when,
where, and by whom images are
consumed and produced.
! An artist or producer may make an image
or media text, but he or she is not in full
control of the meanings that are
subsequently seen in their work.

II. Aesthetics and Taste


The criteria used to interpret and give value to
images depend upon shared concepts of what
makes an image pleasing or unpleasant,
shocking or banal, interesting or boring.
! All viewers interpret two fundamental concepts
of value aesthetics and taste.
! Aesthetics refers to philosophical notions about
the perception of beauty and ugliness.
! Taste is something that can be learned through
contact with cultural institutions that instruct us in
what is in good taste and what is not.
!

How do museums and other cultural institutions influence


our interpretations of taste?

II. Aesthetics and Taste


! The

notion of connoisseurship refers to


one who is considered to be an authority
on beauty and aesthetics and is more
capable than others to pass judgment on
the quality of cultural objects.
! Thus, taste is not inherent in particular
people, but rather is learned through
exposure to social and cultural institutions
that promote certain class-based
assumptions about correct taste.

II. Aesthetics and Taste


! The

distinctions between different kinds of


culture have traditionally been understood
as the difference between high and low
culture.
! Traditionally, high culture has meant fine
art, classical music, opera, and ballet.
! Low culture was a term used for comic
strips, television, and initially for cinema.

How have divisions of high and low culture been criticized in


recent years?

III. Reading Images as Ideological


Subjects
! When

taste is naturalized, it embodies the


ideologies of its context and time.
! In the 1960s, French Marxist Louis
Althusser argued that ideology
represents the imaginary relationship of
individuals to their real conditions of
existence.
! In other words, ideology is the necessary
representational means through which we
come to experience and make sense of
reality.

III. Reading Images as Ideological


Subjects
The process of
interpellation refers to
how we are
constructed by the
ideologies that speak to
us everyday through
language and images.
! According to Althusser,
we are not so much
individuals but rather
we are always
already subjects.
!

III. Reading Images as Ideological


Subjects
! Althusser

s
concepts of
ideology have been
influential, but can
be seen as
disempowering.
! How much agency
do we have in our
lives?

III. Reading Images as Ideological


Subjects
In the 1920s and 1930s, Italian Marxist Antonio
Gramsci introduced the concept of hegemony to
understand the plurality of ideology.
! Hegemony emphasizes that power is not wielded
by one class over another; rather, power is
constantly negotiated and changing among all
classes of people, who struggle with and against
one another in the economic, social, political, and
ideological arenas in which they live and work.
! Counter-hegemonic forces are political movements
or subversive cultural elements which emerge and
question the status quo in ways that may not favor
the interests of the marketplace.
!

Barbara Kruger s work functions as a counter-hegemonic statement.


Who is the you of this image?

IV. Encoding and Decoding


! All

images are both encoded and


decoded.
! An image or object is encoded with
meaning with meaning in its creation or
production and when it is placed in a given
setting or context.
! It is then decoded by viewers when it is
consumed by them.
! These processes work in tandem.

How does encoding and decoding work in a television show?

IV. Encoding and Decoding


Three positions viewers can take as decoders:
! Dominant-hegemonic reading identify with the
hegemonic position and receive the dominant
message of an image or text in an unquestioning
manner.
! Negotiated reading negotiate an interpretation
from the image and its dominant meaning.
! Oppositional reading completely disagree with
the ideological position embodied in an image or
reject it altogether.

IV. Encoding and Decoding


The dominanthegemonic position
can be said to
decode images in a
relatively passive
manner.
! It can be argued
that few viewers
actually consume
images in this
manner.
!

IV. Encoding and Decoding


! In

negotiated reading viewers actively


struggle with dominant meanings, allowing
culturally and personally significant
meanings to transform and even override
the meanings imposed by producers and
broader social forces.
! Image decoders are active meaning
makers and not merely passive recipients.

How would a dominant hegemonic reading of the show Who


Want to Be a Millionaire be different from a negotiated reading?

V. Appropriation and Oppositional


Readings
! Appropriation

can be a form of
oppositional production and reading.
! To appropriate is to take something for
oneself without consent, to steal.
! Cultural appropriation is the process of
borrowing and changing the meaning of
cultural products, slogans, images, or
elements of fashion.

Andy Warhol appropriated


Da Vinci s The Last
Supper.
How does Warhol change
the meaning of the
dominant ideology of Da
Vinci s work?

V. Appropriation and Oppositional


Readings
!

As viewers, we can also


appropriate images and
text by strategically
altering their meanings to
suit our purposes.
For example, Great
Garbo has a cult following
among lesbian viewers
appropriating her
sometimes genderbending performances.
This is one method of
oppositional reading.

V. Appropriation and Oppositional


Readings
Bricolage is a tactic of
appropriation
meaning literally to
make do or piecing
together one s
culture with whatever
is at hand.
! How is the owner of
this low-rider
changing the meaning
of an automobile?
!

VI. Re-appropriations and Culturalbricolage


!
!

Appropriation, however, is not


always an oppositional practice.
For example, vintage thrift store
clothing fashions originally
associated with oppositional
youth were re-appropriated by
the mainstream fashion industry.
When hegemonic forces reappropriate tactics of
marginalized cultures into the
mainstream, it is a form of
counter-bricolage.

How is the
mainstreaming of rap
music an example of
counter-bricolage?
How does the
mainstream culture
constantly mine the
margins of culture for
meaning?

Spectatorship, Power, and


Knowledge
Chapter 3

Spectatorship, Power, and


Knowledge
We invest images with the power to incite
emotions within us, and images are also
elements within the power relations between
human subjects, and between individuals and
institutions.
! This chapter focuses away from reception to
concepts of address.
! Address refers to the way that an image
constructs certain responses form an idealized
viewer, whereas reception is about the ways in
which actual viewers respond.
!

I. Psychoanalysis and the Image


Spectator
Psychoanalytic theory has addressed most
directly the pleasure we derive from images, and
the relationship between our desires and our
visual world.
! Spectatorship theory emphasizes the role of the
psyche particularly the unconscious, desire,
and fantasy in the practice of looking.
! When psychoanalytic theory talks of the
spectator, it treats it as an ideal subject.
!

It can be said that particular films, targeted toward specific categories of


viewers during particular periods create and offer to their views and ideal
subject position.
Who is the ideal spectator for Star Trek films? How can the ideal spectator
be constructed

II. The Gaze


The concept of the gaze has been the focus of
inquiry in both art history and film studies.
! In common parlance, to gaze is to look or stare,
often with eagerness or desire.
! In psychoanalytic film criticism, the gaze is not
the act of looking itself, but the viewing
relationship characteristic of a particular set of
social circumstances.
! The concept of the gaze is fundamentally about
the relationship of pleasure and images.
!

II. The Gaze


!

In 1975, filmmaker and


writer Laura Mulvey
published an essay about
women in classical
Hollywood cinema.
She argued that conventions
of popular cinema are
structured by a patriarchal
unconscious, positioning
women represented in film
as objects of a male gaze
Her theory stated that the
camera is used as a tool of
voyeurism and sadism,
disempowering those before
its gaze.

II. The Gaze


!

!
Jean-Desire-Gustave Courbet,
Woman with a Parrot, 1866

In the history of art, most of


the collectors and primary
viewers were men.
In a typical female nude, a
woman is posed so that her
body is on display for the
viewer, who is implied to be
male.
John Berger wrote that in his
history of images, men act,
women appear.
This way of viewing women
thus defined them by their
appearance, in essence
their ability to be pleasing to
look at.

III. Changing Concepts of the Gaze


Today, we are surrounded
on a daily basis by images
of fashion models whose
looks conform to a rigid
set of normative codes
about beauty.
! The traditional roles of
men and women are in
upheaval and the
theoretical concept of the
male gaze has been
rethought.
!

III. Changing Concepts of the Gaze


! The

concept of regressive cinematic


viewers, who are encouraged to repress
their identities and to identify with the
screen has been replaced by a broader
set of models about the multiplicity of
gazes and looks that mediate power
between viewers and objects of the gaze.

IV. Discourse, the Gaze, and the


Other
!

Images can both exert


power and act as
instruments of power.
French philosopher Michel
Foucault uses the term
discourse to describe a
group of statements which
provides a means for
talking about a particular
topic at a particular
historical moment.
For Foucault, discourse is a
body of knowledge that
both defines and limits
what can be said about
something.

IV. Discourse, the Gaze, and the


Other
Photography has been
central in the functioning
of discourses since the
19th century.
! Photographs have been
deployed as a means of
categorization in order to
distinguish the normal and
the abnormal according to
the discourses of a
particular time.
!

V. Power/Knowledge and
Panopticism
Foucault believed modern societies are
structured on a basic relationship of power/
knowledge.
! Modern societies power relations are structured
to produce citizens who will actively participate in
self-regulating behavior, such as obeying laws,
participating in social norms, and adhering to
dominant social values.
! Certain kinds of knowledges are validated in
our society through social institutions such as
the press, the medical profession, and education
while other knowledges are discredited.
!

Who in these images are you most likely to believe?

V. Power/Knowledge and
Panopticism
!

For Faucault, modern


power is not something that
negates and represses so
much as it is a force that
produces knowledge and
particular kinds of citizens
and subjects.
In order to function, the
modern state needs
citizens who are willing to
work, to fight in wars, and
to reproduce, and to have
healthy and capable bodies
to do so.

V. Power/Knowledge and
Panopticism
!

Photographic images
are instrumental in
the production of what
Foucault called the
docile body of the
modern state
citizens who
participate in the
ideologies of the
society through a
desire to fit in and
conform

V. Power/Knowledge and
Panopticism
According to Foucault, we
internalize a managerial
gaze that watches over
us, and this imagined
gaze makes us behave
and conform. This is
called panopticon.
! It idea is that the structure
of surveillance, whether
active or not, produces
conforming behavior.
!

How prevalent is the idea of photographic


identification? To what extent is the photograph
integrated into institutional life? How are these
photographs tied to questions of power?

VI. The Gaze and the Exotic


! The

photographic gaze helps to establish


relationships of power, to represent codes
of dominance and subjugation, difference
and other.
! Images operate within binary oppositions
such as civilization/nature, white/other,
and male/female.
! Binary oppositions designate the first
category as unmarked (the norm) and the
second as marked (the other.

How is meaning established through difference?

VI. The Gaze and the Exotic


Images are central in the
production of Orientalism, the
ways in which Western
cultures attribute to Eastern
and Middle-Eastern cultures
qualities of exoticism and
barbarism.
! The consumer is interpellated
in this ad as a white person
who can buy an authentic
exotic experience.
!

Reproduction and Visual


Technologies
Chapter 4

Reproduction and Visual


Technologies
! Both

the conventions of imaging and the


concepts of the visual have changed
throughout history, through the evolution
of art, photography, and electronic
imaging.
! A viewer may make assumptions about
the historical status of an image from its
style, medium, and formal qualities.

I. Realism and the History of


Perspective
! Examining

the role of realism in art


throughout history helps us to see how
images indicate changing ways of seeing
the world.
! The concept of what makes an image
realistic has changed throughout history
and varies between cultures.

I. Realism and the History of


Perspective
The development of
perspective as a
convention of European
art during the 15th century
Renaissance marks a
fundamental shift in the
depiction of reality.
! Linear perspective
requires objects to recede
in size toward at least one
vanishing point.
!

I. Realism and the History of


Perspective
The European Renaissance has been defined
as a time of intellectual and artistic resurgence
that was fueled by a renewed interest in
Classical art and literature.
! Perspective emphasizes a scientific and
mechanical view toward ordering and depicting
nature, and focuses a work of art toward a
perceived viewer.
! Thus, through the development of perspective,
the relationship of science/technology and vision
is firmly established in Western philosophy.
!

Raphael, School of Athens, 1510-1511

II. Realism and Visual


Technologies
The history of image production in Western culture
can be viewed in four periods:
! (1) ancient art produced prior to the
development of perspective in 1425
! (2) the age of perspective until the era of the
mechanical, including the Renaissance,
Baroque, Rococo, and Romantic periods
! (3) the modern era of technical developments
with the rise of mechanization and the Industrial
Revolution
! (4)the postmodern era of electronic technology

II. Realism and Visual


Technologies
!

It can be said that


photography emerged as a
visual technology because
it fit certain emerging social
concepts and needs of the
time.
In combining scientific
technique with art, like the
technique of perspective,
yet also employing a
mechanical device,
photography is in many
ways the visual technology
that helped to usher in the
age of modernity.

II. Realism and Visual


Technologies
Many styles of modern
art that followed the
invention of
photography defied the
tradition of
perspective.
! For instance, the style
of impressionism
shifted its focus to light
and color and aimed
for visual spontaneity.
!

Claude Monet, Section of the Seine Near


Giverny

II. Realism and Visual


Technologies
Cubism was a style in
which painted objects as
if they were being viewed
from several different
angles simultaneously,
and focused on the visual
relationship between
objects.
! According to Cubists, it is
a means of depicting the
restlessness and
complicated process of
human vision and a new
way of looking at the real.
!

Georges Braque, The Portuguese, 1911

II. Realism and Visual


Technologies
! Modernist

styles declared vision to be


infinitely more subjective and complex.
! The idea that a perspective-based realistic
view is actually no more than one of the
many ways of representing human vision
has been taken further by many
contemporary artists.

What is the real image here? At what moment was this


image taken? Where is the spectator of this image positioned?

III. The Reproduction of Images


Mechanical reproduction changes the meaning
and value of an image and, ultimately, the role
images play in society.
! For instance, the invention of photography
coincided with a cult of originality.
! Thus the value of the one-of-a-kind art work is
derived from its uniqueness and its role in ritual.
! This aura of the image is a quality that makes it
seem authentic because of its unique presence
in time and space.
!

III. The Reproduction of Images


The concept of
authenticity refers to
something that is
thought to be genuine
or original.
! Paradoxically, we live in
a world in which the
concept of authenticity
is routinely reproduced,
packaged, bought, and
sold.
!

III. The Reproduction of Images


Many copies can exist of a photographic image,
of which their value lies not in their uniqueness
but in their aesthetic, cultural, and social worth.
! The original, however, is more valuable, in both
financial and social terms, than the copies.
! Some argue that the higher value comes not
from the uniqueness of the image as one of a
kind, but rather from it being the original of many
copies.
! Through reproduction, an image can now be
seen in many different contexts.
!

How is the meaning of Edvard Munch s, The Scream (1893),


changed in each new context? How does the reproductions change
the meaning of the original?

IV. Reproduced Images as Politics


Propaganda can refer to
any attempt to use words
and images to promote
particular ideas and
persuade people to
believe certain concepts.
! This definition could also
fit advertising images.
! This is what is meant by
the use of images as
politics.
John Heartfield, Adolf as Superman:
!

He
Swallows Gold and Spits out Tin-Plate, 1932

IV. Reproduced Images as Politics


Text can dramatically
change to
signification of the
image and can ask us
to look at an image
differently.
! This appropriation,
however, depends on
the viewer being
familiar with the
original meaning.
!

V. Visual Technologies and


Phenomenology
Phenomenology is the belief that all knowledge
and truth derives from subjective human
experience and not solely from things
themselves.
! This is a criticism of the rational age of scientific
inquiry.
! Perception, memory, and imagination are key
concerns of phenomenology.
! Phenomenology offers a means to examine the
distinct materialities of how various media such
as photography, film, and television affect the
viewer s experience of it, and its impact on the
lived body of the viewer.
!

VI. The Digital Image

Since the 1980s, the development of digital images


began to radically transform the meaning of
images.
! Analog images bear a physical correspondence
with their material referents and are defined by
properties that express value along a continuous
scale, such as gradation of tone.
! Digital images are encoded with bits of information
and can be easily stored, manipulated, and
reproduced.
! A copy of a digital image is exactly like the
original.
! The digital image gains its value from its
accessibility, malleability, and information status.
!

VI. The Digital Image


Most digital images
and simulations
cannot be said to
have been in the
presence of the real
world that they depict.
! How does this effect
the idea of
photographic truth?
! What impact does this
have on news and
historical images?
!

VI. The Digital Image


The discovery that a
news organization has
altered an image often
sparks controversy and
debate.
! These organizations
reputations were based
on modern notions of
photographic truth that
clashed with the digital
possibilities for image
manipulation.
!

VII. Virtual Space and Interactive


Images
!

Virtual images are simulations that represent


ideal or constructed rather than actual
conditions, and can be both analog and digital.

VII. Virtual Space and Interactive


Images
!

Virtual reality (VR) describe


the way that users
experience the computer
worlds in science and
computer games.
Virtual reality systems
attempt to create an
experience in which the user
feels as if he or she is
physically incorporated into
the world represented on all
sensory levels.
These include pacemakers,
hearing aids, flight
simulators, and game
systems.

VII. Virtual Space and Interactive


Images
Virtual space exits in
opposition to the rules of
traditional physical space.
! Users can navigate the
space to create their own
individual pathway.
! How can traditional cultural
notions of authorship
remain in place with the
introduction of digital
images and virtual space?
!

The Mass Media and the


Public Sphere
Chapter 5

The Mass Media and the Public


Sphere
Those of us in Western industrialized cultures
live in a multimedia environment in which
mechanical and electronic images, text, and
sound are an almost constant presence.
! The term mass media has been used to define
those media designed to reach large audiences
perceived to have shared interests.
! The mass media refers to forms and texts that
work in unison to generate specific dominant or
popular representations of events, people, and
places.
!

The Mass Media and the Public


Sphere
!

Some critics of the


media have argued
that radio and
television largely
control the exchange
of information by
restricting authorship
of information to
those with access to
the means of media
production.

The Mass Media and the Public


Sphere
!

There are
phenomenological
differences in the way
that we experience
media that are
particular to their
material qualities.

The Mass Media and the Public


Sphere
It can be argued that the
term mass media is no
longer entirely applicable.
! As more diverse media
forms emerge, such as
cable television and
internet, more fragmented
audiences form to replace
the undifferentiated mass,
and the mass media are
less pervasive.
!

I. Critiques of the Mass Media


!

The historical critique


states that TV and radio
provided a centralized
means for mobilizing the
new mass culture or mass
society around a unified set
of issues and ideas.
Current critics of the mass
media argue that the new
electronic technologies are
powerful new tools for
propaganda or mass
persuasion.
These critiques see
viewers as passive if not
gullible recipients of media
messages.

Leni Reifenstahl, Triumph of the Will, 1935

I. Critiques of the Mass Media


The concept of a narcotic
effect refers to the way
that time spent with the
media replaces actual
participation in organized
action.
! The mass media, in this
concept, is understood as
convincing people that
being informed about a
social issue by seeing it
covered in the media is
the same as doing
something about it.
!

I. Critiques of the Mass Media


A group of cultural critics known as the Frankfurt
School describes the culture industry as an
entity that both creates and caters to a mass
public that, tragically, can no longer see the
difference between the real world and the
illusory world that these popular media forms
collectively generate.
! In their view, the culture industry generates false
consciousness among its consumers,
encouraging the masses to buy mindlessly into
the ideologies that allow industrial capitalism to
thrive.
! They hold a traditional Marxist view of ideology.
!

II. The Mass Media and Democratic


Potential
Another view of the mass media
is that it is a promising tool for
democratic ideals which will
promote an open flow of
information and exchange of
ideas.
! This view challenges the very
idea of a mass media or mass
society.
! It stresses the potential of
individual media forms for the
development of community and
identity on a much smaller scale.
!

Goddess of
Democracy,
Tiananmen Square,
1989

II. The Mass Media and Democratic


Potential
!

A technologically determinist way


of viewing media implies that
content is not as important as the
medium through which you receive
it.
Canadian communication theorist
Marshall McLuhan argued in the
1950s-1970s that media
technologies give greater potential
for power to our individual bodies
by extending our senses and
thereby extending our power in the
world.
To put the means of media
production in the hands of ordinary
citizens they would be empowered
rather than being molded.

III. Television and the Question of


Sponsorship
!

Consumers watch television


programs primarily to see
programs, but what keeps
television afloat is the
viewers not-so-incidental
exposure to advertisements
for products.
In U.S. television s early
years, product
endorsements were
enmeshed with
programming itself, making
it difficult to separate the
product from the program.

III. Television and the Question of


Sponsorship
! Some

Western countries, such as


Canada, England, France, and Germany,
have opted for state-controlled television,
in which the government plays a more
active role in the industry and
programming.
! Meanwhile, U.S. television is shaped by
free market forces which relies on
corporate sponsorship and advertising.

IV. Media and the Public Sphere


!

A public sphere is ideally a


space where citizen come
together to debate and
discuss the pressing
issues of their society.
In events such as the
assassination of John F.
Kennedy, the funeral of
Princess Diana, and the
attacks of Sept. 11th, 2001,
the media serve to create
a sense of community at
local, national, and global
levels.

Princess Diana s Funeral

IV. Media and the Public Sphere


The television talk
shows creates a
forum for
contemporary issues
and thus promotes
the formation of public
spheres.
! Who is the audience
of this genre?
!

IV. Media and the Public Sphere


!

Some critics have faulted the media for


sensationalizing events involving stars and
notorious individuals over important global
news, such as wars, famine, and international
politics.

Scott Peterson on trial for killing his wife Laci and their unborn son.

V. New Media Cultures


The status of media in
contemporary culture
is contradictory and
mixed.
! It is diverse at both
the level of the media
themselves and at the
level of national and
cultural boundaries.
! What constitutes a
medium?
!

Consumer Culture and the


Manufacturing of Desire
Chapter 6

Consumer Culture and the


Manufacturing of Desire
! Visual

images play a primary role in the


commerce of contemporary societies.
! Commodity culture and consumer
societies are dependent upon the constant
production and consumption of goods in
order to function.
! Advertising images are central to the
construction of cultural ideas about
lifestyle, self-image, self-improvement, and
glamour

Consumer Culture and the


Manufacturing of Desire
The advertising world
works by abstraction, a
potential place or state of
being situated not in the
present but in an
imagined future with the
promise to the consumer
of things you will have,
a lifestyle you can take
part in.
! Images can be presented
as art, science,
documentary evidence,
or personal memories.
!

I. Consumer Society
Fundamental changes in the experience of
community in the rise of the consumer society
came through an increased complexity and
diversity of the urban population, increased
immigration, and a loosening of the hold of small
and stable communities and families on social
values.
! It has been argued that people derive their
sense of their place in the world and their selfimage at least in part through their purchase and
use of commodities which seem to give meaning
to their lives in the absence of the meaning
derived from closer-knit community.
!

I. Consumer Society
!

The late 19th century rise of


the department stores
represented the merge of
commerce and leisure.
Window shopping is thus
related to a more mobile
vision of modernity.
French poet Charles
Baudelaire wrote about the
flaneur, a man who strolled
the streets as an observer,
never engaging with
surroundings but taking an
interest in them.

I. Consumer Society
! Today,

consumption is thought of as a
form of leisure, pleasure, and as a form of
therapy.
! Commodities can fulfill emotional needs
but those needs are never truly fulfilled as
the forces of the market lure us into
wanting more or different commodities.

II. Commodity Culture and


Commodity Fetishism
The term commodity self is
the idea that our selves are
constructed in part through
our consumption and use of
commodities.
! Advertising encourages
consumers to think of
commodities as central means
through which to convey their
personalities.
! What precisely is it that ads
sell?
!

II. Commodity Culture and


Commodity Fetishism
Marxist theory critiques
the emphasis in
capitalism on exchange
over use value, in which
things are valued not for
what they really do but
for what they re worth in
abstract, monetary terms.
! Why are diamonds more
expensive than a
necessity such as water?
!

II. Commodity Culture and


Commodity Fetishism
!

Commodity fetishism refers


to the process by which
mass-produced goods are
emptied of the meaning of
their production and then
filled with new meanings in
ways that both mystify the
product and turn it into a
fetish product.
The experience of the labor
process is devalued and
makes it harder for workers
to take pride in what they
have produced.

II. Commodity Culture and


Commodity Fetishism
!

Pop Art in the late 1950s and 1960s engaged


with mass culture in a way that did not condemn it
but demonstrated their love of and pleasure in
popular culture.

Andy Warhol, Two Hundred


Campbell s Soup Cans,
1962

III. Addressing the Consumer


Like other images, advertising images
interpellate their viewers in particular ways,
hailing them as ideological subjects.
! The you that advertising addresses is always
implied to be an individual.
! Ads perform the very contradictory work of
convincing many different consumers that a
mass-produced product will make them unique
and different from others.
! This concept is known as psuedoindividuality, a
false idea of identity.
! Thus, it can be said that advertising asks us not
to consume commodities but to consume signs.
!

III. Addressing the Consumer


!

The advertising
strategy of repeating
a motif can be used to
establish familiarity
with a product and to
keep viewers
attention.

III. Addressing the Consumer


!

Ads operate with a


presumption of relevance
that allows them to make
inflated statements about
the necessity of their
products.
Ads also create a
relationship of
equivalence between
elements within the
frame and between the
product and its signifier.
Companies also
differentiate products
from their competition.

IV. Images and Text


It is through complex
compositions of
photographs, text,
and graphics that ads
speak to consumers.
! Text can often have a
powerful effect in
establishing or
changing the meaning
of the photograph or
image presented.
!

V. Envy, Desire, and Glamour


All advertisements tell
consumers that their
products will change their
lives for the better.
! They often do this by
presenting figures of
glamour that consumers
can envy and wish to
emulate.
! Advertisements make
references to art to give
their products a
connotation of prestige,
tradition, and authenticity.
!

V. Envy, Desire, and Glamour


The world of advertising
speaks the language of
self-management, selfcontrol, and conformity.
! Ads use anxiety by
suggesting to consumers
the ways in which they
may be not only
inadequate but potentially
endangered or weakened
without a particular
product.
!

VI. Belonging and Difference


!

Sometimes when advertisements ask us to


consume commodity signs, they attach to their
products concepts of the nation, family,
community, and democracy.

VII. Bricolage and Counterbricolage


Bricolage is a mode of
adaptation where things are
put to uses for which they
were not intended and in
ways that dislocate them
from their normal or
expected context.
! Counter-bricolage refers to
the repackaging of
bircolage commodities to be
resold to mainstream
consumers.
!

Counter-bricolage: Pablo
Picasso and Apple Computers

VIII. The Brand


!

The circulation of brand


names, trademarks, and
logos are a means
through which identities
are constructed not only
for goods and
corporations, but for
people who appropriate
signifiers of products for
a style of themselves or
their culture.

IX. Anti-ad Practices


!

Advertisements can be the subject of artistic


parody and the site of on-site political
messages.

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