"Sublime Adventures in Buffoonery"

The Spectacular Evisceration of Lebron James

2010-12-02T20:02:00.003-07:00

As Lebron James prepares to return to his former team for the first time following taking his talents to South Beach, he finds himself in uncharted territory, as one of the most hated figures in professional sports.

Lebron’s image has taken a decidedly steep descent since his hour-long television special announcing his free-agency decision.

While there are many theories as to the turn his image has taken, mine involves using Guy Debord’s notion of spectacle as a theoretical lens to deconstruct Lebron’s relationship with sports fans.

Debord describes spectacle as: “The illusory paradise that represented a total denial of earthly life is no longer projected into the heavens, it is embedded in earthly life itself.” (Thesis 20) and “The real world is replaced by a selection of images which are projected above it, yet which at the same time succeed in making themselves regarded as the epitome of reality.” (Thesis 36)

Lebron James was raised by spectacle, his High School games were featured on ESPN, and his market profile resulted in a $90 million contract from Nike before he began his NBA career. The spectacle crowned him King James, anointing him as the next great sporting icon, and proclaiming the rest of us as ‘witnesses’ to his ascent to the throne.

Lebron James was also raised on spectacle, he belongs to the portion of the population Debord referred to when he wrote: “The spectacle’s domination has succeeded in raising a whole generation moulded to its laws. The extraordinary new conditions in which the entire generation has effectively lived constitute a precise and comprehensive summary of all that, henceforth, the spectacle will forbid; and also what it will permit.” (Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, 7). Having been surrounded by media for most of his life as most North Americans typically are, he is immersed in the “world view that has been materialized… view of the world that has become objective” (Thesis 5) constructed by the spectacle.

Lebron’s athletic gifts were highlighted within the spectacle, which also attempted to construct a narrative around his life that was similar to that of archetypal superstar athletes. The story of a humble boy from a humble background playing for his hometown team was a powerful interpellative force that aligned Lebron with many of the great athletes considered superstars before him. Debord wrote: “The spectacle presents itself as a vast inaccessible reality that can never be questioned. It’s sole message is: ‘what appears is good, what is good appears.’” (Thesis 12). If Lebron is constructed within the spectacle as the next coming of Michael Jordan, then who is the audience to question the logic of the spectacle?

The spectacle built Lebron, and he was more than willing to use it to further his image. His televised free-agency decision, along with its two-hour pre and four-hour post analysis, attracted millions of viewers. And as he joined the two other top free agents to form a Gold-medal adorned triple-threat in Miami, dancing on stage and laying claim to the next 6-7 NBA championship trophies, the professional sporting spectacle seemed poised to rise to previously unforeseen heights.

Debord wrote: “The spectacle is the stage at which the commodity has succeeded in totally colonizing social life. Commodification is not only visible, we no longer see anything else; the world we see is the world of commodity.” As a free agent, Lebron was the most sought after commodity in the NBA, and the decision special was the ultimate spectacle, celebrating his commodification alongside millions of viewers with a seemingly vested interest.

And now things aren’t things aren’t working out as planned, and as he returns to play his hometown (kind of ) and original team, with his new team floundering around .500, Lebron finds himself fighting against the reverse tide of the spectacle, as it uses it’s logic to further and further distance itself from the disappointment it ultimately set up. Debord wrote: “Since no one may contradict it, it has the right to contradict itself, to correct its own past.” (Comments… 28)
Spectacle is the promise that is never delivered, a constructed worldview based in images that appears superior to reality, but which in reality is a worldview that can never be attained. The spectacle may consider Lebron king, but in sports the crown is earned, and that truth is undeniable, even within the parameters the spectacle creates.

While undeniably supremely gifted as a basketball player, Lebron’s career has not had the same trajectory as the peers the spectacle places him among. He simply has not achieved the levels of success requisite to be placed alongside the legends of sport. Yet the spectacle places him among them nonetheless, and this stature is one Lebron wholeheartedly endorses.

But Lebron’s lack of success, for whatever reason, failed to live up to his construction within the spectacle. This caused ambiguity within the spectacle that was quickly subverted through the free agency extravaganza of 2010. The free-agency decision was fascinating because the superstar was choosing where he was going to build his legend, deciding where he would finally affirm his position among the greats of sport. Debord wrote: The society of the spectacle (is) where the commodity contemplates itself in a world of its’ own making. “ (Thesis 53) The spectacle was using it’s own logic to propel itself forward…

But then Lebron forgot he is not the entire spectacle himself, merely a component of it. By choosing the Miami HEAT in free agency, he opposed the entire narrative the spectacle had constructed for him. He left his hometown team, who had contested the spectacle themselves within negotiation, attempting to use the constructed narrative to convince him to remain. When he did leave, he did so in a callous manor (on a TV special), spurning not only his home team and its’ narrative, but also teams in New York and Chicago where the media presence would have only increased his profile within the spectacle. Miami as an NBA destination offered little spectacular appeal outside of the notion of the ‘big three’ that had come through free agency. As well, the HEAT are a team with a firmly entrenched superstar in Dwayne Wade, one who has already achieved more success than Lebron by winning an NBA Championship. In joining another established star, on his team, Lebron ignored an essential component of the archetypal superstar, that they achieve their status as a result of individual achievement along with their team. By going to Miami Lebron abdicated his role as king of spectacle, choosing to share the throne.

Heavy is head that carries the crown, but the spectacle offers no space for understanding outside its' own priority . Debord wrote: “With the most scientific assurance, the spectacle can identify the only place where disinformation could be found, in anything which can be said that might displease it.” (Comments, 47) His desire to play with friends in a less competitive environment was another step in opposition to the archetypal alignment the spectacle provided him with.
As the losses mount, the worldview constructed by the spectacle around Lebron is dissolving. Lebron cannot live up to the unreasonable expectations set out for him by the spectacle as the archetypal superstar athlete, he cannot carry a team to multiple championships in the way the spectacle constructed Michael as having done (despite the talent of his Bulls teams), and as a result the logic of the spectacle has turned on him.

The spectacle used to be about building him up, but now he is a living, breathing metaphor for the death of the spectacle. Ultimately the world of images presented by the spectacle is false, and cannot live up to itself. Regardless of his teammates, Lebron would have had his work set out for him achieving the level of Michael, inside or outside the spectacle, his actions and claims surrounding his free-agency decision were done for the benefit of the spectacle, but now reality has set in and its not as easy as his role in the spectacular narrative as the King of basketball may have liked it to be.

Now that he is not working in favour of the spectacle, it is working to marginalize and deligitimize him. Coverage that was previously favourable or sympathetic is quickly becoming vitriolic. The audience of the spectacle is disappointed and angry that the spectacle has let them down yet again, but because they are captured within its logic the spectacle is allowed to scapegoat Lebron as though it his fault he cannot live up to the worldview it constructed. Debord wrote: “The spectacles instruction and the spectators’ ignorance are wrongly seen as antagonistic factors when in fact they gave birth to each other.” (Comments… 28)

The logic of the spectacle has reversed, and now his every move within it pushes him further away from his previous role as king, so when he asks in his newest commercial “Who do you want me to be?”, he continues to abdicate his throne. The spectacle tells the audience, it does not ask.

The spectacle will find another king, and Lebron will continue to be the scapegoat for its’ perpetual failure.

But there is hope for Lebron, after the spectacle has completely eviscerated him, he has the opportunity for resurection if he can recreate the magic that made him the subject of spectacle in the first place. Debord wrote: “The spectacle is the material reconstruction of the religious illusion.” (Thesis 20)

The comeback archetype is also extremely powerful in both sports and spectacle, ask Mike Vick…

Suit Up:  The Commercial Exploitation of the 1980’s ‘New Man’ through the Dialectical Tensions between Aspiration and Debasement.

2010-09-17T19:34:00.005-06:00

The suit is an established signifier of masculine distinction. Though feminine fashion has traditionally shifted along with the seasons of the calendar year, the suit remains a standard for male attire. Yet despite its’ ubiquitous presence in the closet of Western men, the foundational piece of male fashion can still serve the purpose of distinguishing the class and status of most men. With only slight variations and few accompaniments, the shirt, trousers and jacket work to homogenize the male body through their choice of adornment. At least it does for those who can afford to purchase and functionally wear the suit; the first mark of distinction. A suit is neither rugged nor functional; it can be considered a poor choice in dress for anyone who has to perform physical labour. At this fundamental level the suit separates classes of men: only those whose employ or social status removes them from physical work or labour are likely to be seen wearing a suit. Men who do not need to worry about their clothes getting dirty, torn, or tattered over the course of a days’ activity are often considered of a higher station in the class hierarchy, where their means afford them the luxury of wearing a suit. Men in lower classes often wear clothing better suited to their employment, and a suit is a luxury that is simply not practical for regular wearing. Though the suit has been around for centuries in a variety of incarnations, the modern men’s suit has been a sartorial standard since the beginnings of urbanization, a standard with it’s own rules and regulations that require knowledge to navigate. Diana Crane wrote: “Since it achieved its present form at the end of the nineteenth century, there have been strict rules about exactly how a business suit is to be made and worn… These rules enhance the usefulness of the business suit as an indicator of social class. Knowledge of subtle changes in the basic style of the garment is more likely to be available to those with the best tailors.” (173) Following the Second World War as returning veterans were re-assimilated into society, part of the process consisted of the continued homogenization of men and their bodies through their dress. The uniforms they had grown accustomed to while battling the Axis were switched in favour of a new uniform. The ‘organization man’ who toiled in an office wearing a suit was considered ‘white collar’, as opposed to the subordinate class of ‘blue collar’ man who wore no suit.

The contemporary, yet traditional version of the man’s suit can be attributed to the Protestants, who achieved a great measure of success in the early days of industrialization. The ‘Protestant work ethic’ of diligence and temperance was reflected in the modest clothing they wore, and it became a prevailing style in the conservative business world. Marcel Danesi wrote: “Puritans ethics and fashion in the workforce have influenced British and North American business culture… The business suit is a contemporary version of puritan dress. The toned down colours (blues, browns, greys) that the business world demands are the contemporary reflexes of the Puritans fear and dislike of color and ornament.” (Danesi, pp. 148-149) For men considered above the ‘blue collar’ labourers in the class hierarchy, the suit does appear somewhat egalitarian, in that it does have every man looking similar. Edward Buscombe wrote: “(The suit is) adaptable to a variety of occasions, both business and leisure. It’s classless, or at least relatively so; the plutocrat and the office worker wear the same uniform. The film star is dressed like the rest of us.” (203) Despite this normalized appearance, there are means of differentiation that occur within the basic construct of the suit. Subtle modifications in a suit’s design are used as modes of intense classification, separating the plutocrat and the film star from the rest of us. The worn suit classifies men through its display, as there is an accompanying body of knowledge required to choose, wear, and appreciate the proper suit. The ability to develop the peculiar cultural capital surrounding the suit is strongly indicative of an individuals’ position in the class hierarchy. Those who possess the means and the time to develop an understanding of the nuance that marks the differentiation in suits display their position within high taste culture by their suit choices. This means of distinction became especially relevant in the 1980’s with the arrival of the ‘new man’, his newfound sartorial interests, and the subsequent importance in the cultural capital surrounding the suit. This paper will examine the role Men’s fashion magazines Esquire and GQ played in exploiting the ‘new man’ archetype by using the suit to compel men towards the dialectic of aspiration and debasement in a fashion aesthetic that had traditionally been a feminine domain.

The ‘new man’ is considered an ideal of the upper-middle-class Western male that is considered to have developed in the beginning of the 1980’s. The new man was alleged to have been more interested in activities and behaviours traditionally considered feminine. Polly Toynbee wrote of the myth of the new man as one who: “Gets up at night to the crying baby, cooks with gusto, washes up, attends not only ante-natal classes but also the baby clinic… He is thoughtful and considerate to his wife, shares sensitively, and the children now turn to him just as often as they turn to their mother for comfort. And he doesn't just do it on Mothers' Day.” The new man’s motivation came from a rejection of their father’s post-WWII personal ethic and the cold, sober and dispassionate approach that they appeared to bring to family life. As Toynbee wrote: “The new man has one guiding light. He doesn't want to be like his father.” This rejection of the previous generation’s masculine values extended to appearances, where one of the many qualities assumed by the new man that had traditionally been considered feminine was an interest in fashion. While their fathers wore non-descript suits made as utilitarian as possible in the spirit of WWII conservationism, the new man valued appearance to the extent that sartorial decisions became meaningful. Joanne Entwistle wrote: “That decade has been seen as a significant moment in the history of men’s fashions, representing a break in traditional notions of masculinity… the ‘new man’ of the 1980’s was seen indulging in pleasures of consumption previously associated only with ‘femininity.’” (The Fashioned Body, 174)

The new masculine values were representative of a larger shift in masculinity that had began with industrialization, continued through and after the wars, and was finally putting itself on display through the new man. The traditional role of the male had been to provide for their families through physical labour. As men and their families moved off their farms and into industrialized life in the cities, their roles in building industrialized societies remained largely physical and labour–based, and as industrialization continued and the industrialized wars commenced, men took predominant roles in fighting for and defending their nations. As the wars ended, the men who served in combat were expected to return to roles much different than those they were accustomed to before they left. The shift for this generation of men from the battlefields to the offices that continued up until the 1980’s was accompanied by a steady increase in the role of women in society. Women had evolved from almost anonymous homemakers to fighting for status and opportunity similar to their male counterparts. As such, though not at nearly comparable numbers, by the 1980’s having women in positions of power within the workplace was becoming more common. With traditional notions of masculinity appearing less relevant, the new man was representative of a shift in the definition of standard masculinity. Tim Edwards wrote: “Masculinity is seen as increasingly dependent on matters of style, self-presentation and consumption as opposed to more traditional models of masculinity centered on work and production, or to put it more simply, masculinity is perceived to be increasingly predicated on matters of how men look rather than what men do.” (111) This shift in masculine values surrounding the new man did not occur unaided or as a natural progression. It was a theme that was heavily exploited by different commercial media with the purpose of pushing men into more consumptive behaviours. By getting men to embrace values and activities traditionally considered feminine, it was hoped that men would begin to consume at levels closer to their female counterparts. “The New Man was seen as the result of a series of shifts within commercial culture itself since the Second World War, including the rise of tailoring en masse for men and the development of various entrepreneurial initiatives in the 1980’s… the New Man was seen precisely as a figure of spectatorship constructed at the level of advertising itself.” (Edwards, 110) One of the main media industries used to exploit the new man archetype in the attraction and maintenance of audience is the men’s fashion magazine, which burgeoned in the 1980’s as a new source of emulative inspiration for a generation of men for whom adornment became a source of identity. The new men found themselves mirrored on magazine pages that also offered them a mainline into the body of knowledge surrounding the suit, encouraging any and all aspirational men to consume their way up the class hierarchy through fashion.

The notion of fashion is rooted in ephemeral beauty, that there is an attainable pure aesthetic through adornment at a particular moment. It is a projection of ones’ desired identity during the moment of wearing. As a result, proper exhibition of fashion requires not only possessing the clothing, but also the proper knowledge surrounding the clothing, as well as the ability to wear the clothing. The cultural capital surrounding the clothing becomes as important as the clothing itself. Entwistle defines fashion as: “The combined accumulation of forms of cultural, social, symbolic capital: to be in fashion, one has to know particular designers, labels, fabrics, styles. However, knowing is also about being able to demonstrate this knowledge through bodily enactments and expressions.” (The Aesthetic Economy of Fashion, 41). The ability to differentiate ones self through the use of fashion allows it to play a unique role in the negotiation of individual and group identity as a means of displaying ones individuality through adornment. Yet the ability to express ones self through fashion is largely contained within the body of accepted fashion standards. In this sense fashion is a collectivizing process, especially for men who face the immediate constriction of the suit. As Jennifer Craik wrote: “Cycles and changes in men’s dress have been longer and less dramatic… Men’s fashions typically have used a smaller range of fashion garments, with a basic wardrobe consisting of shirt, trousers and jacket… men’s fashions have offered few choices at any one moment and therefore acted to impose conformity on those adhering to fashion.” (178) No matter the fashion, whether one is ‘in’ or ‘out’ of fashion, they are nonetheless contained within it as a paradigm. Fashion and one’s personal choices are a ubiquitous element of society. As a result of this tension, fashion becomes a sorting device. Individual tastes and choices made within the context of the established fashion hierarchy become a means of establishing ones place within the social hierarchy. This separation occurs on the foundation of the Western colonial binary of civility, the premise that the bourgeoisie could be considered the height of human possibility and achievement, and that all others are uncivilized in comparison and should aspire to this greater ethic. Civility encouraged the cultured individual to express their station in life through their choice in fashion, as Craik noted: “Fashion relates to particular codes of behaviour and rules of ceremony and place. It denotes and embodies conventions of conduct that contribute to the etiquette and manners of social encounters.” (10) The emphasis on male adornment encouraged inclusion and continued participation as it provided the potential for improvement in social status. In wearing the right suit properly, the man projects his possession of cultural capital that suggests a series of attributions about his character. As a result, the development of the body of situated knowledge about the suit and how to wear it has became not only a marker of high taste, but a performance of personal valuation as well. Pierre Bordieu wrote: “The objects endowed with the greatest distinctive power are those which most clearly attest the quality of their appropriation, and therefore the quality of the owner, because their possession requires time and capacities which, requiring a long investment of time… therefore appear as the surest indications of the quality of the person.” (281) The choice of ones suit and the body of knowledge put into choosing and wearing it properly are therefore a means of valuating an individual, of immediately appraising their virtue.

With the competition in the cultural and economic climate of the 1980’s, the importance of the new man’s appearance as contributing to his espoused persona opened the door for a men’s magazine market that thrived through the encouragement of consumption as a means of creating value around oneself. By showcasing men in everyday situations wearing advertised products and providing a glimpse of the cultural capital required to wear them properly, the men’s magazine industry inspired the aspirations of a generation of men. Georg Simmel wrote: “The fashionable person is regarded with mingled feelings of approval and envy; we envy him as an individual, but approve of him as a member of a set or group. Yet even this envy has a particular coloring. There is a shade of envy which includes a species of ideal participation in the envied object itself.” (304). While the magazines may have inspired a new audience of men through the creation of aspiration, they maintained their audience through the process of debasing previous suits and their surrounding cultural capital. The dialectical tension between the aspiration and debasement in the magazines delivered an interested, invested audience to advertisers who were interested in their products regardless of their affluence. Though seemingly opposing, aspiration and debasement, wanting something and not wanting it, work in tandem and require each-others support. Aspiration itself has an endpoint, the possession of what is aspired to. In order to re-engage aspirational feelings, whatever is possessed must be debased and devalued, so that something new can be placed on the aspirational pedestal. Debasement is also used as a protective mechanism by those who dictate what is aspirational, allowing them to keep space between themselves and those who continue to possess what they aspire. The men’s fashion magazine exploits the tension between aspiration and debasement to create a cycle of continuous consumption of fashion by men that would rival the consumptive patterns of women’s fashion despite the constriction of the suit.

Men’s fashion magazines like Esquire and GQ provided inspiration for emulation as personal style became a consideration for the new man. These magazines provided information on what to wear, as well as how and why to wear it. Style suggestions were complemented by images of men turning the seemingly mundane extraordinary through their choice of attire. Mark Tungate remarked: “This generation of men is the first that has been acclimatized to spending money on fashion. It started with the rise of style magazines in the 80’s when men started seeing images of themselves projected back at them for the first time. Suddenly you were looking at pictures that resembled you.” (172) The men in the images seemed to be going through daily activities while adorned in the latest in mens fashions, which outside of leisure wear, consisted predominantly of the suit. The images on the magazine pages were accompanied by brief stories, commentary, and/or factsheets that provided a brief or partial glimpse into the body of knowledge surrounding that style of suit. By displaying luxury products and providing the situated knowledge for their proper use, the magazines created a market for those who aspired to a higher station of life; the magazines provided a simulacrum of their desires and expectations.

Thorstein Veblen attributed the aspirations of the lower classes to the assertion and expression of one’s location in the class hierarchy through conspicuous consumption. “Veblen argued that fashion was one aspect of conspicuous leisure, conspicuous wealth and conspicuous waste he held to be characteristic of an acquisitive society in which the ownership of wealth did more to confer prestige on its owner than either family lineage or individual talent.” (Wilson, 50) As a result, Veblen saw a co-relation develop between the expense of an object and it’s attributed beauty, one became based on the other. Something cannot be expensive unless it is beautiful and something cannot be beautiful unless it is expensive. The expenditure of exorbitant amounts of money on luxury objects, an example of conspicuous consumption, is considered valorizing. Veblen wrote: “The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.” (95) Veblen described the relationship between beauty and expense with his code of pecuniary beauty, writing: “the canon of expensiveness also affects our tastes in such a way as to inextricably blend the marks of expensiveness, in our appreciation, with the beautiful features of the object, and to subsume the resultant effect under the head of an appreciation of beauty simply.” (97) The overt display of wealth by some provided a source of class and status identification through exhibition, and this dynamic trickled down throughout the various stratifications of society. To Veblen, those higher in the class hierarchy create the standards that form the basis for the lower classes as well. As a result, the values associated with conspicuous consumption shape groups of people who do not have the means to pursue similar consumptive patterns to those of a higher class stature; those groups of people who cannot afford instead aspire. Veblen wrote: “The leisure class stands at the head of the social structure in the point of reputability; and its manner of life and its standards of worth therefore afford the norm of reputability for the community. The observance of these standards, in some degree of approximation, becomes incumbent on all classes lower in the scale... the members of each stratum accept as their ideal of decency the scheme of life in the next higher stratum, and bend their energies to live up to their ideal.” (70) The creation and maintenance of aspiration is the driving force behind the men’s fashion magazine, aspiration for the products they promote is the basis for aspiration of the lifestyle perpetuated on the magazines pages. Only the highest class, whose image is the basis for the aspirational projections of the magazines, may be immune to their interpellative power. Everyone else can find something in the range of products featured on the magazines pages worth aspiring to. According to Douglas Holt, aspiration occurs: “For the majority with relatively small and declining incomes, living in a society that so emphasizes material satisfactions constructs relative material deprivation as an intense lack, and thus, their tastes are structured around attaining glimpses or simulacra of elite comforts.” (Holt, 19)

The images of the exorbitantly expensive suits featured in the pages of magazines like Esquire and GQ provide a glimpse into a world of fantasy for the lower classes that will seemingly invite their participation based on the consumption of the featured products like suits. The display of the suits alone may be enough to drive the aspirations of those who would like to be able to afford to wear them, but what about those who can afford the suits? For those with the means to purchase the clothing featured on its’ pages, men’s fashion magazines also offer entry into the body of situated knowledge which truly differentiates both the suit and the wearer. Information about the proper style and cut of a suit, or on the ideal choice of fabrics, allows those of slightly elevated stature to begin to develop the body of knowledge possessed by those above them. Veblen referred to this body of knowledge and its enactment as ‘punctilious discrimination, the ability to: “discriminate with some nicety between the noble and the ignoble in consumable goods… this cultivation of the aesthetic faculty requires time and application.” (64)

Discriminating taste as a distinguishing characteristic traditionally relied on the privileging of the body of knowledge solely to those who had the time and the means to develop it. Men’s fashion magazines provide a condensed version of this body of knowledge for those with neither the time nor the means to develop it for themselves. The information is incomplete and intended to promote the products on the pages of the magazine, but in this way it feeds the aspirational tendencies further. The partial information identifies that the body of knowledge in fact exists while simultaneously prioritizing it. Those who buy the suits in the magazines cannot merely be satisfied with wearing them, they must wear the right suit and wear it properly. Ideally the right suit worn correctly would provide whoever is wearing it with attributions of the higher class that are impeded by their individual pecuniary strength.

Within the magazine the projection of elevated stature through adornment draws the aspirations of those who desire a high level of distinction, while the images complement the body of knowledge. But closing the proximity between aspiration and possession must be counteracted, by creating new space through debasement. While the men’s fashion magazine provided a source of knowledge and inspiration for the lower classes, for those at the top of the class hierarchy the magazines began erasing established barriers of class distinction that were exhibited through the suit. The ready availability of the body of knowledge negated their ability to distinguish themselves from the masses; making the information more available made it more common. Those at the top of the class hierarchy do not want new members, the dissemination of their body of knowledge weakens their stature while subsequently improving the stature of those in lower classes. The fact that the information put forth by the magazines is condensed or partial takes away from its supposed refinement because it requires a mere fraction of the effort put forth to truly develop the body of knowledge required in choosing what suit and why. As a result the aspiration of particular styles and trends become opposed through debasement, and the cycle of aspiration begins again.

Debasement can be considered a pattern of behaviour used by those in higher classes to ensure their distinction as such against an onslaught of imitative aspiration. Following Veblen’s notion of lower classes aspiring to those higher up in the class hierarchy, eventually the interests of the high class become too common, as those of lower stature increasingly possess and display them. Not only the item itself, the appropriation of practices and performances of connoisseurship surrounding objects increase the perception of their value, providing stature to the mundane while enhancing the esteem surrounding established objects. But as these practices and performances become known and understood by those who are not considered to be of the stature to possess them, the value associated with these items becomes lessened and they are consequently considered inferior, or debased. In their place, new items are valorized and the cycle begins anew. Georg Simmel describes the process: “Just as soon as the lower classes begin to copy their style, thereby crossing the line of demarcation the upper classes have drawn and destroying the uniformity of the coherence, the upper classes turn away from this style and adopt a new one, which in its turn differentiates then from the masses; and thus the game goes merrily on. “ (299). The protection of an individuals’ distinctive projection is instigated as items previously considered their domain become appropriated by the lower classes. As this occurs the distinction surrounding the item becomes lost along with interest in the item; it is debased. The function of debasement is the maintenance of class distinctions by the creation of binaries between existing practices and the constriction of new practices with the explicit purpose of exclusion.

The constant and consistent recreation of standards of taste for the higher classes are a means of distinguishing their position in the social hierarchy through the retention of a body of knowledge which valorizes both the item and the owner. Herbert Gans described the process as occurring as: “Popular culture borrows content from high culture with the consequence of debasing it… When an item of high culture is borrowed, however, the high culture public may thereafter consider it tainted because its use by the popular culture has lowered its cultural prestige.” (38-39) When an item or behaviour is considered debased, something must take it’s place, and in this way the process of debasement also works to ignite and propel aspiration. Just as an objects prominence grew throughout the class hierarchy earlier due to it’s association with a higher stature of class, so do the debased objects quickly become devalued for the lower classes. Once the esteem surrounding an object fades, its ability to valorize its’ owner fades along with it. Debased items offer nothing to any of the aspirational classes, because everything that made them aspire to it is lost. In its place is a new object with appropriated practices and performances and a body of knowledge that valorizes it and provides its owner with distinctive qualities through possession. The aspirational classes strive to catch up and the process continues onward.

Debasement is particularly relevant in the fashion industry, whose economy is based on cycles and seasons and the constant and consistent shifting of standards of propriety and the body of knowledge surrounding them. The projection of taste and subsequent virtue that results from the wearing of certain clothes can only occur if they are the right clothes at the right time. Simmel wrote: “Fashion also supplements a person’s lack of importance, his inability to individualize his existence purely by his own unaided efforts, by enabling him to join a set characterized and singled out in the public consciousness by fashion alone.” (310) As the value of a fashionable appearance became a focus of men in the aspirational lower classes, they began to learn, choose, wear, and appreciate different types of suits, those styles become commonplace, exemplify standardization and lose any distinctive or valorizing quality for the wearer. The top of class hierarchy then turn to the fashion industry to defend their ground by debasing the distinctive qualities of those particular suits in favour of new ones that require a new, distinctive body of knowledge.

One problem facing the truly distinguished gentleman from the poseur is that now anyone with desire and a credit card can go and don themselves in the most fashionable of attire. Simmel wrote: “The increase of wealth is bound to hasten the process considerably and render it visible, because the objects of fashion, embracing as they do the externals of life, are most accessible to the mere call of money, and conformity to the higher set is more easily acquired here than in fields which demand and individual test that gold and silver cannot affect.” (299) In the past one’s wealth was displayed by their ability to possess objects deemed of the highest quality, but in contemporary society highly valorized objects are more readily available. The demarcating lines between classes become increasingly blurred through the mere financial barrier to valorized possession. As a result, the practices, performances, and body of knowledge surrounding an object become the gauge for an individuals’ stature. The object or item has become second to the cultural capital surrounding it. For men and suits, this involves a body of sartorial knowledge, the understanding of the tradition and nuance in the suit and its features, requires a body of intellectual, social and educational knowledge that can only come from having the opportunity to learn these things. Anyone can wear an expensive suit, but only those who know how can wear it properly. Mens fashion magazines provide a brief, weightless, and easily digestible glimpse into the cultural capital surrounding the most current fashion. They provide their readers with images combined with tips on how to dress like those at the top of the class hierarchy, contrasting the new styles against the old ones that have been debased and replaced. To properly examine and elucidate the aspiration-debasement dialectic, we will use the covers’ of 1980’s issues of both Esquire and GQ as examples.

The magazine cover carries many similar attributes and values as the suit in its relationship to the body it is presenting; the magazine cover is in effect a suit for the magazine. The cover creates its’ value through ephemeral attraction, it is intended to catch its’ audiences attention, presented to the world as a representation of the contents inside of it. To examine the role of Men’s fashion magazines in the development and maintenance of the dialectic of appropriation and debasement, the following case studies are a series of semiotic analyses on magazine covers from both Esquire and GQ from the 1980’s. Though not all covers of both magazines during that era featured images of men in suits, there are elements of the aspiration-debasement dialectic at work in many of them. For the purposes of this paper, case studies were chosen based on the criteria of a suited male in the image.

The magazine cover attracts its’ audience through the shaping of image and text to complement each other in the presentation of a united message. The image which may be open to varying interpretations has its’ meaning constrained by the words that appear with it on the page. Roland Barthes referred to this relationship as anchorage, explaining: “When it comes to the ‘symbolic message’, the linguistic message no longer guides identification but interpretation, constituting a kind of vice which holds connoted meanings from proliferating, whether towards excessively individual regions.” (39) The words not only work to moderate the intended meaning of the cover, but the image works to reinforce and elevate the message contained within the words. The design standards for magazine covers during the 1980’s encouraged the allowance of the background of the photo to be seen. The lack of visual clutter on magazine covers during that era, which is prevalent on contemporary covers, allowed for a more focused set of intended connotations. This is the point of anchorage, to encourage a specific direction of thought surrounding the image in question. Barthes wrote: “Anchorage may be ideological and indeed this is its principal function; the text directs the reader through the signifieds of the image, causing him to avoid some and receive others; by means of an often subtle dispatching, it remote-controls him towards a meaning chosen in advance.” (40) For magazine covers in the 1980’s, despite a limited amount of text with which to anchor the image, there remain two predominant groups of text, the main captions or headlines, and the title of the magazine itself. While there is other subordinate text that often fills the remainder of the page, its’ messaging is often overshadowed by the title, image, and key text, and for the purposes of these case studies, it will not be considered.

The titles of the two magazines being examined carry with them strong connotations of hierarchical masculinity. The first, Esquire, is a word that traditionally has denoted a man of privileged upbringing, while the second, Gentleman’s Quarterly or GQ, has itself become itself a colloquial descriptor for a well-dressed man due to the magazines popularity. Immediately through their titles the two magazines are attempting to assert themselves as locations and sources of the style aligned with elevated stature within the class hierarchy. The titles work to constrain the men in the images as ‘esquires’ or ‘gentlemen’, and these images in turn display their intended meaning. The magazine title features the largest, boldest letters and is typically the most predominant text on the cover. Subordinate to the magazine title is the caption or headline text that informs the reader on the content of the magazine. Although rather than merely inform they are intended to tease, attract, and engage the reader into further examination. They represent an initial, decisive message to potential and existing audience about the overall intended connotations of the content within the magazines pages. They also work in harmony with the image to further constrain the intended meaning of the cover, often quite overtly. Of course this text must change to suit each issue, as does the content of the image each month, and it is within these changes that the development and maintenance of the aspiration-debasement dialectic occurs.

The September 1980 issue of Esquire magazine (see appendix) provides a strong example of this dynamic. The most predominant text is large, bold and black in the centre of the page, it reads: “Who Will Make Money in the 1980’s?” There is subtext that is smaller, italicized, coloured red, and runs before the main text that reads: “We know you’re smart, ambitious, and you talk a good game. But…” The image is of a smiling man in a suit walking along a sidewalk, about to step into an uncovered manhole. Above the sidewalk is nothing but white space, which allows focus to remain primarily on the predominant text, then subsequently on the subtext and image. The question in the predominant text, “Who Will Make Money in the 1980’s?” is the foundation, and seemingly the solution for, feelings of aspiration. As mentioned earlier, the magazine promised its’ audience a glimpse of high class style as well as a window into the cultural capital required to appreciate it’s distinctive qualities. However, none of this is possible without money. The magazine is aligning its name and its’ associated connotations with the values surrounding making money, doing so in lettering that takes up almost a quarter of the page. The subtext: “We know you’re smart, ambitious, and you talk a good game. But…” is a direct assertion of distinction, and a statement that foreshadows the notion of debasement. It calls into question attributes directly associated with financial success, suggesting these traditional qualities will not necessarily provide the audience with what they desire. This text anchors the image of the suited man about to step into an uncovered manhole, making it a visual metaphor that reinforces the message of the text. The man in the image is not wearing a traditional, dark, sober, business suit, he is instead wearing a light beige suit with pants that appear to have a bit of a wider cuff, which takes on the slight appearance of a bell-bottom. The style of suit worn by the man in the image is strongly associative with the styles predominant in the 1970’s, and he is about to step into an open manhole with a large smile on his face, indicating that he knows no better. The man is carrying a briefcase and a newspaper, signifiers commonly associated with the archetypal businessman. That’s who the man in the image is intended to be, an archetype the audience can associate with. As he is about to step into an open manhole, which carries connotations of human waste and filth, he is about to be ‘flushed’ into the toilet of the past. The cover suggests that within the pages of the magazine is the solution for survival in the ‘new world’ of the 1980’s, and that the first step has nothing to do with improving traditional business skills, but with losing the dated suit. Who will make money in the ‘80s? Answer: Those who not only carry the requisite skill set, but who do not look like they are from the 1970’s. The audiences traditional notions of what it takes to succeed, as well as what a successful man looks like are summarily debased, while at the same time the fundamental aspirational question remains in big, imposing letters.

The September 1986 issue of Esquire magazine (see appendix) provides another strong example of the use of the aspiration-debasement dialectic used to attract and maintain audience. The cover features the aforementioned archetypal male of the 1980’s, the new man. The image is predominantly filled by Tim McCarver, an all-star and champion baseball catcher turned broadcaster. As an acclaimed athlete, McCarver undeniably embodied the traditional notions of masculinity. As a baseball player, he represents ‘America’s Pass-time’, the everyman’s game that is steeped in tradition. In the image he is featured wearing a grey suit with wide, bold stripes along with a purple and gold tie and a pocket square. A living archetypal American male is dressed as a new man, and seemingly enjoying himself based on his grin. McCarver is holding a baseball in his hands and one of his World Series championship rings is visible, both strong signifiers that reaffirm his association with traditional masculinity. The aspirational notions that accompany athletics and celebrity in contemporary culture are transferred from McCarver as an individual to the clothes he is wearing by association. By juxtaposing the ideal male with the new man, the cover debases established notions of masculinity in favour of aspiration towards the more flamboyant style of the new man. The predominant text which anchors the image reads: ‘How to Buy Clothes’, with the subtext reading: ‘The Essential Guide for the American Male.’ The text creates aspirational anxiety by using the term ‘essential’. The word carries dual connotations of being absolutely necessary while at the same time being a mark of authenticity. The styles are not only required of the modern man, but indeed display his essential character as a man. McCarver affirms as much as the essential American male, baseball in hand and all, so his appearance then could be considered by association to be the essential male appearance. He is intended as metonymical representation for classic American masculinity, and anchored by text that tells the audience the magazine will inform them on ‘How to Buy Clothes’, it debases conventional masculine style in favour of the more colourful and extravagant style of the new man. If Tim McCarver, a “man’s man” enjoys the new style of dress, ‘essential’ men everywhere should be experimenting with more colourful suit arrangements. In fact the image in concert with the text suggests that the style of the new man had become the new measure of masculinity, framing fashion typically considered effeminate as aspirational while debasing the restrained moderation of the classic men’s suit.

(NOTE: These next two kind of suck. I only had a handful of magazines to look through as GQ's website's cover archive link is dead. Lame, I know.)

The magazine covers for GQ took a while stylistically to catch up with Esquire in the 1980’s, initially using excited singular adjectives as their key text. But by 1983 they began to use text to more effectively anchor the accompanying image. The September 1983 issue of GQ magazine (see appendix) features predominant text that reads: “ The Great Fall Looks for Success”. The text directly infers that style is a requisite for success, and it anchors the image of the head and partial chest of a smiling man in a suit, an image which reinforces the text. The man is dressed for success, and the magazine promises to show its’ audience how to do the same within its’ pages, encouraging aspiration towards the man in the image. The text states that success has a specific look, aligning appearance with achievement so that they are codependent. Not only can appearance lend the impression of achievement, but success also requires style in order to be recognized. This text encourages everyone but the admitted abject failure to aspire to the “…Looks for Success” as one should either aspire to be more successful than they are. At the same time, those who are successful should fear their prosperity would go unacknowledged without the proper sartorial choices. There is also a secondary meaning to the text however, in that “The Great Fall Looks for Success” also suggests that success has a particular look for the fall. In the tradition of feminine style, which runs in cycles along with the seasons, and style of seasons past are debased in favour of the newest trends. This was the major goal and eventual achievement of Men’s fashion magazines during the early 1980’s, to create consumptive patterns in men that more closely mirrored their female counterparts. In this way the use of text and image on this particular cover can be considered derivative, but nonetheless effective. The great looks for success in the spring or summer will simply not suffice if one is to look successful in the fall. All previous suits and the cultural capital around them are made meaningless, debased in favour of the new look of success. If the new “…Fall Looks for Success” are the means of presenting oneself as successful, than by association those who do not participate cannot look successful. Not looking successful means looking like a failure, further encouraging the aspiration-debasement dialectic in the name of appearance-based valuation.

The January 1984 issue of GQ magazine (see appendix) features the face and upper-chest of actor Donald Sutherland, and established and acclaimed actor who appeared in three films in 1984. Dressed in a sport jacket with tie and topcoat, the image of Sutherland is anchored by the predominant text: “Living With Style”, which is coloured red. Considering his position at the time as a celebrity, the image along with the text indicates that Donald Sutherland lives in style, and that those who aspire to merely live themselves with style, or live in the style of Sutherland, can find helpful information within the pages of the magazine. The cover promises to not only show you how to dress with style, but the text promises to provide you with the cultural capital to live in harmony with style, to make style part of the audiences daily existence. The use of the word “Living” carries connotations of participating in a specific lifestyle based on style; the accompaniment of living life in a stylish way. But the word also connotes notions of life itself. In this way the magazine aligns style with the living, and lack of style with the dead. The inference is that aspiration for style is aspiration for life, as without style there is no living, only death, or perhaps non-existence. Notions of debasement run parallel to the aforementioned connotations associated with the cover. If living with style (as displayed by Donald Sutherland) was the mark and measure of masculinity during that era, then the traditionally masculine lack of interest in style, the lack of desire for a nice suit and the cultural capital that allows one to wear it properly became debased as a result. It is not a specific trend or style that the magazine cover intends to debase, but the entire tradition of masculinity and its stubborn functionality. To ignore style was to appear old, antiquated, or dead; the new man lived, and lived with style.

The men’s fashion magazine industry, along with other mass media, intended to exploit the archetypal new man to create consumptive patterns that were closer to those seen in women. By framing style as a virtue that can signify success, the magazines prodded men into aspiring to style as a measure, and indicator of success. Traditional skills were not necessarily antiquated, but a value based on appearance became established. The role of fashion as a cultural industry in concert with other cultural industries is to align the audience into specific patterns of consumption of the industries’ design. What was new about the ‘new man’, besides the acceptance of more maternal responsibilities, was the manufacturing of desire surrounding appearance. By getting the 1980’s generation of men to embrace fashion, the industries also trapped them within the constrictions of the fashion economy, at the whim of the aspiration-debasement dialectic. The notion of dressing for success developed a momentum during the new man era that continues forward. Design standards may have changed along with the fashion trends in the three decades since the new man era, but both magazines continue to employ similar tactics to attract and maintain their audience. The emphasis on male adornment remains today, and while the slight variations on the proper style of suit continue to shift, magazines like Esquire and GQ continue to provide their audience with a glimpse of the suits and it’s associated cultural capital. Though definitions of masculinity have continued shifting since the 1980’s, there has been no return to the sober, utilitarian fashion ideals that existed before the new man era, afterall what commercial calue is there in that? Commercial exploitation of the new man was the beginning of a trend of encouraging greater consumption by men through the media, a trend that grows on today. It marks a moment where the commodification of men shifted from emphasis on their value as labourers, to emphasis on their value as consumers, an open market of half the population available to be exploited for commercial gain.

Works Cited:
Barthes, Roland. Image, Music, Text. Trans. Stephen Heath, 1976. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1977.  
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction. Trans. Richard Nice, 1984. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1984.  
Buscombe, Edward. ‘Cary Grant’. Fashion Cultures: Theories, Explorations and Analysis. eds. Stella Bruzzi and Pamela Church Gibson New York, NY: Routeledge, 2000. 
Craik, Jennifer. The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion. London, England: Routeledge, 1994. 
Crane, Diana. Fashion and its Social Agendas. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 2000. 
Danesi, Marcel. The Quest for Meaning: A Guide to Semiotic Theory and Practice. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2007. 
Edwards, Tim. Cultures of Masculinity. New York, NY: Routeledge, 2006. 
Entwistle, Joanne. The Aesthetic Economy of Fashion. Oxford, England: Berg Publications, 2009. 
-----. The Fashioned Body. Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 2000. 
Esquire Magazine. (1980, Septmeber) 
------. (1986, September)
 Gans, Herbert. Popular Culture and High Culture. (rev. ed.) New York, NY: Basic Books, 1999.  Gentleman’s Quarterly Magazine. (1983, September) 
------. (1984, January) 
Holt, Douglas B. (1998) ‘Does Cultural Capital Structure American Consumption?’. Journal of Consumer Research. Vol. 25.
 Simmel, Georg. On Individuality and Social Forms. Trans. Donald N. Levine, 1971. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1971.  
Toynbee, Polly. ‘The Incredible, Shrinking, New Man’. Guardian UK. Nov. 6, 19 Retrieved April 8, 2010 from:http://century.guardian.co.uk/1980-1989/Story/0,,110228,00.html 
Tungate, Mark. Fashioning Brands: Branding Style from Armani to Zara. London, England: Kogan Page Limited, 2005. 
Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. Boston, Mass: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1973.  
Wilson, Elizabeth. Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. London, England: Virago Press, 1985.

On the connoisseurship of connoisseurship...

2010-04-02T00:51:00.005-06:00

Today we’re going to take some time to develop a body of knowledge surrounding connoisseurship. I want to start with a couple of questions: What is a connoisseur? Do you consider yourselves connoisseurs of anything?

As scholars we are in a privileged position to be afforded an opportunity to study some of the finer things in life, similar to those with the affluence to develop their own cultural capital.

Where we will differ today is that rather than look at specific objects of connoisseurship, we will instead look at connoisseurship as spaces where class politics and distinctions are developed

We are effectively going spend a pleasant afternoon becoming connoisseurs of connoisseurship.

We’ll begin by taking some time to discuss what a connoisseur is, before we look at some criticisms of the connoisseur. Following that we’ll put on the theoretical lenses of Veblen, Bordieu, and Gans to look at connoisseurship before taking a look at the blurring lines between connoisseurship and fandom in postmodernity.

Before we go any further, lets watch a couple of videos on connoisseurship:

Ernest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM3QqTcM55k
Columbo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3g3TARlQfU
Sadat X: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO1SWelNk48

What is connoisseurship?

Connoisseurship is rooted in the French word for knowledge: ‘connaissance’. A connoisseur is someone with a developed body of situated knowledge about specific objects, or groupings of objects considered to be of high taste. This body of knowledge is put into a performance of actions and language that create distinction between the connoisseur and everyone else.

In the West, our understanding of art and culture is hierarchical, there is a tacit assumption that understanding and appreciation of finer objects can only be achieved through proper understanding and expert bodies of knowledge.

The connoisseur is an expert, distinguishing themselves from the consumer through their knowledge and appreciation of quality. The body of situated knowledge a connoisseur possesses allows them to form critical judgments on an object, and the integrity of the connoisseur is the guarantee of worth for objects of connoisseurship.

Connoisseurship involves the development and display of mastery of the senses; the triumph of the mind over the baser instincts indulged by the lower classes. Determinations of quality are established and shaped through connoisseurship.

Distinctions of value are used as a tool of connoisseurship as well as the goal of the practice. In this way connoisseurship is completely self-referential, the connoisseur is continually deferring to themselves and those like them in creating and reifying standards of quality. As a result, in order to be considered a connoisseur one must be recognized as such by others

In: ‘Considering the Connoisseur: Probing the Language of Taste’, by one Dr. Charlene Elliot, found on page 14 of Google Scholar if one enters the term: ‘connoisseur’ by the way, the author posits the four determinants of a connoisseurship as: consumption for status purposes, the witnessing of taste, specialization or discrimination in goods consumed, and the cultivation of particular language to negotiate the terrain.

In order to be considered a connoisseur, one must publicly enjoy consuming products considered of the highest quality, while knowledgably reasoning, and participating in their enjoyment and consumption, in the proper way.

Connoisseurship is best considered a circular process affecting both the object of attention and the means of perceiving said object. Not a fixed set of attributions; the "truths" of connoisseurship are generated in practice and put on display through performance.

In this way, and for our purposes this afternoon we will look at connoisseurship as defined through both practice and performance, consumption and discrimination in practice, and the witnessing of taste and cultivation of language in performance.

Connoisseurship has been around since antiquity. Initially the connoisseur was concerned solely with the notions of attribution and authenticity. Their goal was limited to examining works of art to for personal style determine authorship and provide attribution.

Giorgio Vasari wrote Vite in 1568 and in it, provided one of the first modern descriptions of connoisseurship. Carol Gibson-Wood, author of: Studies in the Theory of Connoisseurship: From Vasari to Morelli, described that in Vite, Vasari was: “Assuring his readers that his statements about the authorship of art works have been confirmed by an authority greater than the word of Ghiberti, Ghirlandaio, or Raphael: the authority of his own eye. He is referring to the practice of what is now called attribution or connoisseurship: the identification of authorship by examining a work’s style.”

So the tradition of connoisseurship is in the authentication of fine art, but what about quality? As the connoisseur is considered the definitive guarantor of an objects quality, their practice and performance of calculated mastery over their senses must be given every impression of objectivity, even if the practice itself is subjective.

In Evaluating Your Collection: The 14 Points of Connoisseurship, Dwight P. Lamon defers posthumously to Charles F. Montgomery of Winterthur Museum. Montgomery wrote:

“The true connoisseur will cultivate habits of skepticism, humility, and objectivity. He will avoid avarice (read: insatiable greed) and flee like the plague the desire to get a great bargain. Instead of leaping to conclusions, he will be skeptical. Remembering that ‘pride goeth before a fall’ the wise connoisseur will also exercise the virtue of humility. The humble collector will not, like a peacock, parade his knowledge before the seller and in doing so stop the flow of information that might be had for the asking, or court the reactions always engendered by the know it all.’”

Montgomery goes on to provide 14 different measures for determining value for works of art as a connoisseur, including: Overall Appearance, Form, Ornament, Materials, Finish, Colour, Craft Techniques, Trade Practices, Function, Style, Attribution, History of Ownership, Condition, and Evaluation.

If this sounds very empirical, it is. The application of scientific principles to practices of connoisseurship is due to the visual bias of art and the ability to establish common agreements on the visual appearance of objects. As in science, the observability of art was the basis for comparison and evaluation.

In his seminal 1908 work Rudiments of Connoisseurship, Bernard Berenson wrote: “Connoisseurship, then, proceeds as scientific research always does, by the isolation of the characteristics of the known and their confrontation with the unknown.”

The development of fixed rules and standards through this scientific approach to connoisseurship created the structure around which comparison and value could be imposed on the quality of an object.

Berenson defined connoisseurship as: “The comparison of works of art with a view to determining their reciprocal relationships.” In this way Berenson positioned the connoisseur as the valuator of quality, but he also maintained that the role of the connoisseur was also to determine authenticity, writing:

“Connoisseurship is based on the assumption that perfect identity of characteristics indicates identity of origin- an assumption, in it’s turn, based on the definition of characteristics as those features that distinguish one artist from another.”

Of course connoisseurship moved beyond the artworld and into a myriad of cultural objects, all appropriated to the highest of classes through the development of a body of knowledge around their consumption. This extended the principles of connoisseurship that were established by those like Berenson to senses other than the eye. But, the application of the same empiricist approaches of connoisseurship to non-verifiable senses is problematic.

Afterall, most people share the assumption that we see the same things; we all see the tables and chairs in this room, and we all see the blue sky outside, and even if we see them from a different vantage and even if we value them differently, we still see them. We can confirm with each other that we see the same thing and that assumption pervades our society, privileging sight among the senses. The other senses are purely subjective, and it is very difficult to approximate, evaluate, and rank sensorial reactions empirically. Yet this is precisely what connoisseurs have done.

Though they are considered the institution that imposes value on cultural objects, connoisseurs do not have universal standards for their evaluations. As a result there is no base on which to formulate their judgments. Regardless they are considered the accepted authority to ascribe properties to an object and value and rank it accordingly.

But the scientific approach to classifying sense-based subjectivities and the self-referential nature of connoisseurship are merely two of its criticisms.

In his book On Art and Connoisseurship, Max Friedlander begins the chapter entitled: ‘Problems of Connoisseurship’ by proclaiming: “Charlatanism, the professional malady of experts, springs from the unstable nature of artistic judgment. The moment I formulate a statement in a way which goes beyond inner certainty, honesty begins to waiver.”

By this Friedlander means that there has traditionally been a problem with connoisseurs who lose their humility and overextend their abilities and expertise, and in doing so, valorize themselves.

Friedlander wrote: “Connoisseurship becomes more, and more specialized, takes on the character of a mystery…. circumstances which contribute to an increase in the power of the expert, and the danger of misusing the power.”

For those of a lower moral and ethical fibre, connoisseurship offers a great deal of temptation. Because their evaluations and rankings are essentially weightless, it would not be difficult for the connoisseur to use their knowledge for their gain at the expense of others. Like a mechanic who is dealing with someone with little knowledge of cars, their principles play an equal role in the valuation of the object along with the conceded value.

To Friedlander, these kind of dishonest actions not only adversely affect the collectors, but the circle of connoisseurs as well.

He wrote: “The complaints regarding frivolous and untruthful expert opinions are all too justified. They have caused a reaction, so that timorous (read: fearful) minds nowadays go to extremes in judging negatively or with reserve. The people say ‘no’ in order, at all events, to be confused with the ‘yes men.’ Now prudence is not only the mother of wisdom, but the daughter of ignorance. What must be done is to steer the right course between the rocks of a conciliatory complaisance on the one hand and a negative attitude, on principle, on the other.”

Friedlander saw that connoisseurs were forced to err too far on the side of caution in their authentication and valuation, and that too much opposition was the refuge for the timid, and risked blindness. Temperance and vigilance were prescribed for the true connoisseur.

The articles this week criticizing the wine-scoring system are casting a similar shadow of doubt on the notion of the wine connoisseur. How is even the most refined palate supposed to differentiate between an 89 and an 89.5 on the 100 point wine scale? And what is that judgment based upon? Too much black currant? Not enough? The connoisseurs subjectivity becomes the established standard from which those without the cultural capital or knowledge base form their evaluation.

Key in elevating the connoisseur in both practice and in performance, convincing the world of their integrity, is the use of language.

Language

The knowledge and use of language to valorize an object is a common practice to all connoisseurs. The use of unique and specific language by connoisseurs works to attribute and differentiate value between objects, and in doing so legitimizes the object as one of value. Any attention paid to an object by a connoisseur is indicative of its inherent value and that ladder ascends, as the more they discuss an object the more value it is prescribed.

This works in a series of directions, first off, the value judgments of connoisseurs, their practices and performances, roll downhill so to speak. Regular consumers, be they of objects of prestige or not, use similar standards for the valuation of theses objects.

Secondly, as we’ve discussed in this class in relation to Starbucks, one can apply language to a seemingly mundane object to create the impression of prestige. The appropriation of practices and performances of connoisseurship surrounding objects of value on mundane objects can increase the perception of their value.

To continue along with criticisms, as I mentioned earlier, distinctions of quality are both practice and tool for the connoisseur, and as such they are surrounded by an impenetrable armour of their own subjective discourse.

The scientific approach to connoisseurship allows the connoisseur to make value judgments based on subjectivities. Objects with a visual bias are somewhat confirmable, but the empirical descriptions of other sense are marred in subjectivities. As a result there are two tenants of scientism that are unachievable: falsification and predictability. This means that the value judgments can neither be rejected nor validated, they just exist.

This causes a great deal of self-reflexivity among connoisseurs. Just as a connoisseur can only be recognized as such by other connoisseurs, they also must support each others valuations because their whole structure is interwoven. The connoisseur must aspire to prevailing judgments and standards to remain legitimate within the on-going discourse of their particular field of expertise.

This relates nicely to the Fine reading: ‘Wittgenstein’s Kitchen: Sharing Meaning in Restaurant Work.” If you’ll recall from that reading, each chef brought their own background to their work, with their own taste preferences. Of course there is no way of differentiating between individual palates; there is no way to come to a common agreement or disagreement on how something tastes. All the chefs in the text are actually approximating their subjectivities and attempting to create common understandings of meanings through language.

With all of that in mind, lets now go through the three main theorists we’ve looked at this semester, Veblen, Bourdieu, and Ganz, and see where notions of connoisseurship might fit within their work.

Veblen

Connoisseurship to Veblen would be a means for those of a certain stature to display their body of knowledge for others to see. The discriminating taste of the connoisseur, according to Veblen:

“not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a specialization as regards the best quality of the goods consumed…. Since the consumption of these more excellent goods is an evidence of wealth, it becomes honorific.”

Veblen would refer to connoisseurship as ‘punctilious descrimination’, and it is a privilege only afforded to those who have the time and the means to develop the body of knowledge that grants one the title of connoisseur. According to Veblen:

“This cultivation of the aesthetic faculty requires time and application, and the demands made upon the gentleman in this direction therefore tend to change his life of leisure into a more or less arduous application to the business of learning how to live a life of ostensible leisure.”

The irony here for Veblen is the hard work the connoisseur puts into understanding cultural objects that truly are intended for leisure. Of course the expenditure of exorbitant amounts of money on art and other luxury objects which become subjected to connoisseurship is valorizing, an example of conspicuous consumption. Veblen wrote:

“Throughout the entire evolution of conspicuous expenditure… runs the obvious implication that in order to effectually mend the consumers good fame it must be an expenditure of superfluities. In order to be reputable it must be wasteful…. It is here called waste because this expenditure does not serve human life or human well-being on the whole.”

To Veblen expense and beauty are co-relational, one is based on the other. Something cannot be expensive unless it is beautiful and something cannot be beautiful unless it is expensive. Veblen described this as his code of pecuniary beauty, writing:

“This diversity of views as to what is beautiful in these various classes of goods is not a diversity of the norm according to which the unsophisticated sense of the beautiful works. It is not a constitutional difference of endowments in the aesthetic respect, but rather a difference in the code of reputability which specifies what objects properly lie within the scope of honorific consumption for the class to which the critic belongs. It is a difference in the traditions of propriety with respect to the kinds of things which may, without derogation to the consumer, be consumed under the head of objects of taste and art.”

But while Veblen understood connoisseurship as a means of performing ones class distinction, he also understood that the process was weightless, that connoisseurship was a means and an end onto itself with no room outside of it’s own constrictions, writing:

“Neither in matters of art and taste proper, nor as regards the current sense of the serviceability of goods, does this cannon act as a principle of innovation or initiative… Conspicuous wastefulness does not directly afford ground for variation and growth, but conformity to its requirements is a condition to the survival of such innovations as may be made on other grounds…. The law of conspicuous waste does not account for the origin of variations, but only for the persistence of such forms as are fit to survive under its dominance. It acts to conserve the fit, not to originate the acceptable.”

Veblen’s notions of the connoisseur are at times aligned and at times opposed by Bordieu, so lets take a look at what he said about connoisseurship.

Bordieu

Bordieu has a somewhat different understanding of the notion of connoisseurship. In Distinction he wrote: “The competence of the connoisseur, an unconscious mastery of the instruments of appropriation which derives from slow familiarization… Learning it presupposes the equivalent of the prolonged contact between disciple and master in traditional education, ie. repeated contact with cultural works and cultured people.”

To Bordieu, the connoisseur does not form class distinctions, but is instead formed by their class distinctions. The ability to surround one’s self with the foundation of knowledge on which to develop connaissance of an object or group of objects is predetermined for those with the privilege to do so.

The key term in the quote above is appropriation. Bourdieu feels as though while many groups may have an appreciation for similar objects, that the upper classes appropriate them through the development of a requisite body of knowledge or cultural capital to fully appreciate and enjoy the activity or object. Bordieu wrote:

“Through the mastery of verbal accompaniment, preferably technical, archaic and esoteric, which separates informed tasting from mere passive consumption, the connoisseur shows himself worthy of symbolically appropriating the rarities he has the material means of acquiring.”

Appropriation brings distinction between classes, and it is performed through the use of specific language necessary to express and understand the cultural capital surrounding the object. Distinction is the notion that one acquires or has acquired the proper faculties to properly enjoy those things relevant to their station in the class hierarchy. Of course simply because someone has found themselves more affluent, does not mean they have the distinction of taste that elevates them within the socio-cultural hierarchy, appropriation further distinguishes between the connoisseur and the consumer, even in high culture.

This of course relates back to that old chestnut of Bordieu’s: “Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by their classification, distinguish
themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly,
the distinguished and the vulgar.”

So connoisseurship as an act of cultural distinction provides from the top-down, social, moral, and legal classifications for those who consume them. The unification of morality with high culture and connoisseurship comes from the notion of mastery of one’s senses, and a firm resistance to the facile. For Bordieu:

“The refusal of what is easy in the sense of simple, and therefore shallow, and cheap, because it is easily decoded and culturally undemanding, naturally leads to the refusal of what is facile in the ethical or aesthetic sense, of everything which offers pleasures that are too immediately accessible and so discredited as childish and primitive.”

The facile is opposed by pure taste, which has a fixed, distanced, relationship with the spectator. They are there for each other, each a means to their own end. This brings an element of authenticity to the work, and again, the evaluation of authenticity was the primary tenant of the connoisseur. According to Bordieu, there is an association between authenticity and beauty, he wrote:

“The artificial representation of the object is no longer distinguishable from the nature of the object itself in our sensation, and so it cannot possibly be regarded as beautiful.”

Bordieu also noted the problem of self-referentiality as a perpetual force in the shaping of connoisseurship. Take his Derrida inspired musings on the philosophy of art, where he wrote:

“The field is the historical product of the labour of the successive philosophers who have defined certain topics as philosophical by forcing them on commentary, discussion, critique, and polemic… constitute objectified philosophy impose themselves as a sort of autonomous world on would-be philosophers, who must not only know them, as items of culture, but recognize them, as objects of (pre-reflexive) belief, failing which they disqualify themselves as philosophers.”

Connoisseurs knowledge is based on connoisseurship and works to create and legitimize the discourse of connoisseurship among connoisseurs. In this way there is an inherent imposition of structure that constricts and shapes the discourse of connoisseurship.

Bordieu understood that the pure taste of the high class would be used as the foundation on which distinctions would be made for class separation, writing:

“Empirical interest enters into the composition of the most disinterested pleasures of pure taste, because the principle of the pleasure derived from these refined games for refined players lies in the denied experience of a social relationship of membership and exclusion.”

The exclusion and distinction practiced by the higher classes through appropriation and connoisseurship was very troubling to Bourdieu, who saw the relationship created between aesthetics and ethics and wrote:

“Pure pleasure-ascetic, empty pleasure which implies the renunciation of pleasure, pleasure purified of pleasure- is predisposed to become a symbol of moral excellence, and the work of art a test of ethical superiority, an indisputable measure of the capacity for sublimation which defines the truly human man. What is at stake in aesthetic discourse, and I the intended imposition of definition of the genuinely human, is nothing less than the monopoly of humanity.”

Though far more nuanced and eloquent, Bourdieu’s understanding and interrogation of the role of the higher class, and the connoisseur by association, shed light onto the power of the connoisseur in shaping values outside the realm of their expertise. This leads me to a question:

Gans on Connoisseurship

Looking back at the Ganz reading from earlier in the semester, he never really did address connoisseurship. That said, a great deal of his work in relation to taste cultures can be used as a lens with which to examine how connoisseurship works to differentiate class.

Connoisseurship and it’s high values, standards, and learned practices could be considered the highest form of ‘taste culture’, while connoisseur’s of various objects or phenomena can be considered a ‘taste public’, and the difference between what people are connoisseur’s of can be considered ‘aesthetic pluralism.’

If one considers the parallels between the critic and the connoisseur, who are like connoisseurs in practice but perhaps not performance, then there is particular resonance when Ganz writes:

“Critics are sometimes more important than creators (in high culture taste publics), because they determine whether a given cultural item deserves to be considered high culture, and because they concern themselves with the aesthetic issues which are so important to the culture.”

The connoisseur’s valuation of an object is the only thing that provides an object with value. There is no measure for the value of cultural objects that exists; it is shaped by the traditions of connoisseurship. This is how Antique Road Show works.

People have junk sitting around their attics and garages, though they have very little knowledge about the value of cultural objects, but they have just enough to suspect that their junk may be of value. They bring it to the connoisseur on television who assigns a value based on scales and standards that can be explained, but are ultimately foundationless. They are based on consensual agreements among connoisseurs. This body of knowledge, and the ability to gain it, is the foundation of a taste hierarchy. Those who do not know must defer to the expertise of the connoisseur, and in doing so display their location within a particular taste culture. Gans wrote:

“As for taste hierarchy, it continues to exist because of the educational, occupational, and other inequalities in the country’s population and because it becomes a useful sorting device.”

Therefore for Gans connoisseurship is also a way of maintaining class distinctions. By privileging the practices and performances of connoisseurship and the body of knowledge surrounding it, those of higher class are able to keep themselves distinct from those in lower classes. Gans wrote:

“The critique (of mass culture) is a plea for the restoration of an elitist order by the creators of high culture… who are unhappy with the tendencies towards cultural democracy that exist in every modern society.”

As culture and the body of knowledge surrounding cultural objects becomes more available to those in lower classes, the higher classes defend their territory by constricting and making the objects and their practices and performances more exclusive. These actions are justified through what Gans refers to as the historical fallacy: that quality of life continues to regress and decline as urbanized, popular culture continues to grow in prominence. Gans wrote that this historical fallacy is:

“self-serving, oriented to the interests of high culture alone and to the maximization of its power and resources… that critique is partly an ideology of defense, constructed to protect the cultural and political privileges of high culture.”

When items previously of high culture and connoisseurship become appropriated by the lower classes, high culture loses interest in them, considering them to be debased. According to Gans debasement occurs: “When an item of high culture is borrowed… the high culture public may thereafter consider it tainted because its use by the popular culture has lowered its cultural prestige. Popular culture audiences, on the other hand, may be pleased if their fare is borrowed from or by a culture of higher status.”

The debasement of cultural objects could be considered a hallmark of the postmodern connoisseur, where the lines between collector/fan and connoisseur have been blurred almost beyond recognition. Gans foresaw this when he wrote:

“The consumers of culture may also ignore high culture and its’ standards as their prestige-bearing status declines and as more people are freer to choose what they and their peers want.”

With that in mind, lets delve into the postmodern connoisseur for a moment.

Postmodern connoisseurship

Connoisseurship has undergone a transformation in its postmodern age, since much like everything else, the values have imploded and the distinguishing lines have blurred. First of all, the body of knowledge or cultural capital required for connoisseurship is much more readily available than it ever has been, meaning even those of lower classes can readily emulate the appropriative performances and practices of connoisseurship. This could be considered as I mentioned a moment ago, what Ganz referred to as the debasement of certain objects.

As well, the items that have become subject of connoisseurship have shifted. In postmodernity the lack of belief in a universal, pure asesthetic means that many objects can be valued for a variety of reasons. The standards of connoisseurship are applied, and value is attached, to whole new groups of cultural objects. For example, the book I referenced earlier: Evaluating Your Collection: The 14 Points of Connoisseurship, gives a facile explanation of connoisseurship through Baseball cards, applying the principles first to the cards, then to traditional forms of art.

In this way one can be a connoisseur of any number of things and in any combination of high culture, kitsch, or anything in-between. The hierarchical boundaries do not exist as those from higher classes look down while at the same time those from lower classes look up. This has caused a bit of ambiguity when differentiating between the connoisseur and the fan.

Another example Charlene and I discussed was the notion of the connoisseur replacing the fan. For example, when we watch hockey there is a certain level of connoisseurship that provides separation between levels of fandom. On the broadcasts, the talking heads are framed as experts, connoisseurs of the sport. They take the time at breaks and during intermissions to explain the nuance of the sport to the perceived lay-viewer watching at home. Since there is no real way of qualifying a true connoisseur of hockey, they are appointed from a collection of players and coaches, chosen in not-altogether equal parts from their knowledge, expertise, accomplishment and camera-appeal. These freshly ‘donned’ experts are able to use their previous experience as coaches or players to appropriate and prioritize their cultural capital around hockey.

This notion of expertise trickles down into the legions of fans, who often assign themselves value and rank as fans due to their connoisseurship of the game. In order to be a true fan one needs to know that backstory to the team, the rivalry, and the individual players. They must know how to statistically rank players from their own team against others to provide evaluations to appreciate the action ongoing in front of them. And again, those who grew up playing the game possess a stronger understanding than those who did not.

Note: This is a set of notes from a presentation for COMS 717- Communication and Taste

Camera Lucida as Methodology

2010-03-02T10:49:00.003-07:00

Camera Lucida is Roland Barthes final work. In this Book, Barthes is looking specifically at photographs, how the photograph uniquely affects the viewer, or spectator as they are referred to in the text. This is actually considered one of the most important books ever written about photography. To Barthes the photos have the ability to stir the emotions of the spectator in a way that is unlike any other visual form or medium. Photography has it’s own unique ‘noeme’, it’s own thought, which distinguishes it from other images. On the first page he wrote: “I wanted to learn at all costs what photography was ‘in itself’, by what essential feature it was to be distinguished from the community of images”

The questions Barthes is pursuing in Camera Lucida surround the biases of photography's distinguishing characteristics. How do photos think, or induce us to think? What is it about certain photographs that catch our attention and animate our imagination?

The book is also a eulogy to his at the time recently deceased mother, it is written around the experience of going through her old photographs. Barthes makes himself researcher as subject, he writes about his subjective experience as he looks through photographs from his and his mothers past. In this way Barthes is developing a phenomenological layer to his semiotic analysis. This is a tremendous departure from his early work in Mythologies, which is stringently structuralist.

Barthes had referenced photography in earlier essays: in ‘Photography and Electoral Appeal’ from Mythologies he proposes a brief, and solely structuralist deconstruction of photos. He wrote of ‘full face photos’ and ‘three-quarter face photos’ as having fixed effects. In ‘The Photographic Message’ from Image-Music-Text, he states his intention to investigate the “definition of the initial difficulties in providing a structural analysis of the photographic message.” This would seem to indicate a movement away from the rigidity of structuralism, but his notion of connotation as the second level of meaning in photographs was still considered imposed and structured on the spectator.

Camera Lucida is firmly rooted in his subjective experience with certain photographs. In this way it represents both an evolution in his thinking tthat brought him to the other polemic of his structuralist past, as well as an active piece of rebellion against positivism and empiricism. Rather than focusing on deconstructing normalized conventions, Barthes is interrogating why he, personally, looks at certain photos, and why even fewer ignite painful emotions inside him.

On page 21 he writes: “…the anticipated essence of the photograph could not, in my mind, be separated from the ‘pathos’ of which, from the first glance, it consists… As spectator I was interested in Photography only for ‘sentimental reasons; I wanted to explore it not as a question (a theme) but as a wound: I see, I feel, hence I notice, I observe, and I think.”

Making it very clear he himself was not a photographer, claiming he was ‘too impatient’ for photography, Barthes instead he frames his perspective as coming solely from that of a participant in, and viewer of photographs, no different from the majority of society. He states: “I possessed only two experiences: that of the observed subject and that of the subject observing…”

Barthes investigation in Camera Lucida is made up of two parts. He begins by investigating why certain photographs capture his attention. Barthes saw a multitude of photos every day, and many of them pass by his eyes without registering. The same thing happens with us, we see countless photos during our daily travails, they mean nothing to us, invoke no emotion. Other times something about a photo will subjectively pique our interest. There is something within the photograph which appeals to you. To Barthes there does not have to be a reason for why the photo catches your interest, just that it does. This is what he referred to this as the photographs studium, the component of a photo that elicits the most basic of attention, that separates it from all the other photos you mindlessly discard. Barthes was writing about why certain seemingly mundane photographs caught his attention, so his research material in the first part could be considered to extend to any and all photographs that he has ever seen in his life. With only his subjective interest as reasoning behind his method, Barthes is directly contradicting positivist notions of rigor in selection.

On pages 7 he writes: “So I went on, not daring to reduce the world’s countless photographs… I found myself at an impasse and, so to speak, ‘scientifically’ alone and disarmed.” And on page 9 he states: “I make myself the measure of photographic knowledge.”

Studium is based on one’s own “sovereign consciousness’, in that sense it runs in opposition to his previous structuralist notions, as they had no room for individual subjectivities. But to Barthes, studium was “coded” nonetheless. There was still structure involved in ‘studium’ because the attraction could be attributed to preferences and conventions. Studium was only the first step in understanding the noeme of photography, for it only accounted for why he liked certain photographs, not why others affected him so profoundly.

As Barthes continued musing on photographs he noticed that certain photographs had a small, unintentional element within them that not only caught his attention, but transported his consciousness, and inspired his imagination. This small unintentional element is not a key feature to the photograph, but is instead seemingly inconsequential. I say seemingly because what this tiny component of the photo does is move the spectator to a new, deeply personal place in their mind, it instigates their imagination by taking them to this unique place. “While it is only one tiny detail, it becomes the focal point of the photograph; it fills the whole picture. The photo stops becoming a sign, or a representation of a moment of past reality, it instead ‘annihilates’ that reality, and is no longer a sign, but the source of inspiration.” On page 57 he wrote: “Once there is a punctum, a blind field is created (is divined)” Punctum can either ‘Break’ or ‘punctuate’ studium according to Barthes. It can either enhance the studium of a photo, or it can destroy it altogether, if a seemingly inconsequential photo, one that would not even appeal to one’s studium, stirs deep emotion and animation.

To Barthes this transcendent detail in a photo was it’s Punctum, Latin for puncture, because this tiny component was actually deeply emotionally wounding. It doesn’t only transcend the image itself and take the spectator to a personal space in their mind, it also stays with them after the fact. This ‘divined’ space is created by the punctum of a photo and exists henceforth. One of Barthes’ methods for investigating punctum involved distancing spectator from the photo itself. On pages 53 and 55 he writes “in order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes…. The photograph touches me if I withdraw it from it’s usual blab-blah: ‘Technique’, ‘reality’, ‘reportage’, ‘art’, etc., to say nothing, to shut my eyes, to allow the detail to rise of its own accord into affective consciousness.” He wants the spectator to look at the photo without using their eyes, to find and appreciate its’ punctum within their own mind.

Now for a moment, just think about how far away from empiricist notions of investigation this method is. There is no induction or deduction, no verification or falsification, there is only an individuals subjective emotions and imagination. It is not tangibly measurable and does not fit into imposed structures or codes. It is only unique experience between individuals and photographs. Barthes is directly opposing scientism by focusing solely on the embodied meaning of photographs.

Part one ends with Barthes’ dissatisfaction with his investigation. While the punctum of certain random photos did animate his imagination, he was not satisfied that he had truly answered his questions about the noeme of photography. On page 60 He wrote: “I had to grant that my pleasure was an imperfect mediator, and that a subjectivity reduced to its hedonistic project could not recognize the universal. I would have to descend deeper into myself.”

And for Part 2 that is precisely what Barthes did. He opened up the deeply personal wounds that came from his mothers’ loss through one photo, another seemingly inconsequential photo of his mother that he calls the ‘Winter Garden Photograph.’

Barthes explained that in going through his mothers’ old photographs, he was reliving the life of someone he loved dearly backwards; from the year of her death back through to her childhood. It was upon looking at the ‘Winter Garden Photograph’ that Barthes found what he referred to as: “something like an essence of the photograph.” On page 73 he wrote: “I therefore decided to ‘derive’ all photography (it’s nature) from the only photograph which assuredly existed for me, and to somehow make it a guide for my last investigation.” The ‘Winter Garden Photograph’ meant so much to him, it resonated so deeply, that Barthes seemed to have felt as though if the noeme could not be determined there, it would not exist at all.

By positioning his study this way, Barths entrenches himself firmly in opposition to any semblance of scientism. First of all, in choosing one photograph, Barthes is taking a direct challenge to empiricism, which requires replicability, verification, falsification and sample size. He is saying that he can derive a universal from his unique experience with one photograph. Barthes in his words gives himself to the image, in opposition to the rigid definitions and classifications of family provided by positivist science. His profound love and loss could not allow him to fit his mother within that paradigm for his investigation.

Though Barthes speaks in great detail of his beloved ‘Winter Garden’ photograph, it is not among the many photos in the book which he also references within the text. He simply could not include the photo that meant so much to him, as it could never have achieved a fraction of the same emotional resonance for any spectator reading the book as it did for him personally. He states this on page 73 when he wrote: “I cannot reproduce the Winter Garden Photograph. It exists only for me. For you, it would be nothing but an indifferent picture… at most it would interest your studium: period, clothes, photogeny, but in it, for you, no wound.”

So I thought it would be appropriate to do an analysis similar to what Barthes performed in Camera Lucida, but in order to choose a photo for analysis I had to look into my own life, and this was difficult. In fact this whole project has been very difficult, since I was reading Camera Lucida and working on this during the sixth anniversary of my own father’s death from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. When trying to decide what to do for this analysis I ultimately realized that in my Spartan student apartment I had only one photo out, this photo.

After my fathers death as I sorted through his belongings around our old house I found this photo in his old work area. It’s a photo of me as a child, on my old sailboat on Lake Winderemere, taken by my father. I never went through our old photographs after his death, it was one of the few responsibilities I didn’t assume, but I found this one pinned onto one of the shelves in his workroom, took it, and found it in my apartment last week. That I had taken it, framed it, and held onto it, indicates its’ appeal to my studium. But as an individual who has been trained as a photographer and snapped countless shots in my day, I wondered why this photo with it’s non-descript composition appealed to me, beyond of course my fondness for my old boat.

Having thought about it after reading the text, I did in fact notice my very own punctum, it undoubtedly had to do with the timing of everything and my subsequent empathy with Barthes, but if you look closely you’ll notice the front sail is still wound-up while I’m fixing the mainsail. This is actually an error on my part; it is the normal convention to undo the front, or jibsail, first, and to let it flap while getting the mainsail set. Once the mainsails is up and tight, you’re basically moving, so the other sail should be ready. This made me think that perhaps I had been aware my father had been taking the photo and that had affected me as I rigged the boat.

In thinking of the motivation behind my behaviour on the boat the punctum transcended the photograph and inspired my imagination, as I realized that this photo may have been my father’s ‘Winter Garden Photograph’ as well. After all he was also a photographer, but our house had a limited number of photos on display, save for a wall of family photos. This photo was in his work area, one of the few spots in our cramped house that was solely his. I began to wonder why this photo would mean so much to my father.

To explain further I must put into context that my father was an orphan in Holland during WWII, the Nazi’s took everything from him and his brothers and sisters, and he came to Canada at 19 with nothing, not speaking a word of English. From there, while developing a comparably modest life to most Canadians, he found a home, and built a family.

When he was a child he couldn’t have a soccer ball because the Gestapo would take it, they had to play soccer with paper tied with string. He saw things so horrible that only on his deathbed did he begin to speak of them. So for him to have a shack near a lake in Canada for his family where he could watch his son learn to sail, may have been the realization of his Canadian dream; this photo to me captured the essence of his life’s work. That the photo is of me casts the weight of this Canadian dream, his life’s work, upon my shoulders, and that, is the puncture that I can only feel, that wounds only me.

I only looked photo briefly hours before writing this in order to follow Barthes’ method, to let the punctum develop as naturally as possible. In doing so I gave new life to the photo, and I believe this opposes Barthes notion of the photo as signifying death, or the defeat of time. While to Barthes describes photos as: “that is, and that is going to die.”, the photographs transcendence also creates a new life that exists outside the image.

In using this photograph for this project, I am not only giving it new life through my transcendent thoughts about it. But by presenting them here, as a graduate student, in this setting, I am re-actualizing and updating the same dreams my father had, and had worked his whole life for, when he took the photo originally. The photo is therefore to me not a marker of death, but an agent of life.

So the unique nature of this more phenomenological approach to semiotics is of course its’ emphasis on the individual experience with a sign as opposed to established conventions associated with them. In Part 2 Barthes differentiated between the ‘voice of banality’, or common convention, and the ‘voice of singularity’, which is unique to each individuals experience. The ‘voice of banalty’ represents his established notions of semiotics, while the ‘voice’ of singularity represents this new direction, and this new way of understanding the construction, and embodiment, of meaning within photographs. Had he not died before Camera Lucida was published, it would have been interesting to see if his work had incorporated both voices going forward. Thank you.

Note: Notes from presentation for COMS 615- Research Methods

Structuralism, Poststructuralism, Post-poststructuralism, and Semiotics

2010-02-23T11:35:00.002-07:00

Structuralism
Structuralism, or structural social analysis is rooted in a traditional French intellectual debate between humanism and naturalism. A reaction against the humanistic belief in the power of the individual, structuralism sees the world as composed of existing structures of power that are determinant. Rather than looking for intrinsic or essential meaning, structuralism involves a more positivist analysis of not only the individual, but almost any artefact or aspect of society. The individual or individual unit under scrutiny is regarded as muted or irrelevant, instead naturalized and overarching rules, conventions, or ‘structures’ are viewed as controlling social life and relations.

From anything as simple as traffic lights controlling traffic to something as complex as the organization of western society, structuralism became en vogue as a means of thought and criticism in the 1950’s and part of the ‘60’s.

Linguistics played a major role in the development of structuralism, primarily the work of Ferdinand de Saussure. In his work: “Course in General Linguistics”, Saussure outlined a system of language based on langue and parole. Langue is the underlying rules and conventions of language that allow for common use and understanding. Parole is the variable use of language that comes whenever one speaks. By separating the two, Saussure was able to focus on the underlying framework of langue as a system of signs. Words and language have no value unless they are constrained by structures which give them meaning through negative difference. Traditional linguistic systems are based in the idea that words have a relationship with what it is they represent. Saussure turned this on its’ head by stating that the meaning behind words in a system is not based about what they are, but what they are not. For example, the word elephant has no relationship with an actual elephant, so we know what the word means because of what it is not, it is not a dog, or a frog or a log, etc… And once you go through all the list of what the word is not, the only thing that is left is an actual elephant, therefore that’s what the word means.

The conversion of structural linguistics to structural human studies was brought forth by Claude Levi-Strauss, who opened up structural analysis to the world outside texts which linguistics was limited to. Strauss felt that the linguistic structures Saussure brought forward in his structural linguistic work was relatable to limitless elements of society. In fact, Levi-Strauss claimed that all of society was in fact a superlanguage, a set of universal conventions and rules that work to constrain people. By imposing Saussures analytical framework onto studies on kinship, myth, and ceremonies, Levi Strauss contended that the modernist ideals of individual self-determination were really just universal structures so deeply imbedded that they are normalized as to contain individuals.

These two thinkers were among a group who became world famous for this structuralist perspective, but interestingly, it was tangible action that brought the next theoretical shift into post-structuralism that came in the late ‘60’s.
 

Post-Structuralism
The birth of post-structuralism is considered to have occurred in 1968, but let’s go back a little bit further to the end of WWII. France was in shambles after the war, it had been fought partially on French soil and had been occupied by Nazi Germany. As a result, the land was in shambles, the economy was a mess and French national identity took a bad hit as well. France had been a world superpower for centuries, and they came out of WWII as an aside to the burgeoning United States and Soviet Union. France and French society were going through radical transformations.

In March of 1968 students at the University of Paris at Nanterre occupied an administration building to protest class discrimination and University bureaucracy. Police were called and though the students left eventually without trouble, conflicts continued. In early May 1968 the University administration closed its’ doors due to continued subversive behaviour from students. A few days later 20,000 students marched towards the Sorbonne and were taken on by riot police. The battle continued as the students fought back and barricaded themselves into portions of France. They were progressively joined by a series of other organized professional and trade unions, lawyers, actors, musicians, journalists and physicians. By the end of May De Gaulle had curbed the uprising, but the spirit of the moment remained.

In the wake of May 1968, life changed. The positivist nature of structuralism no longer held any weight with many thinkers. Instead post-structuralism focused on deconstruction with a political slant, interrogating how external forces like class, gender, ethnicity and history conceal existing power structures. Looking at primarily text and sign, poststructural analysis destabilizes the fixed relationship between signifier and signified, and looks to uncover power relations that affect these as meaning shifts. Rather than emphasize the signifier, as was the case in structuralist thought, poststructuralists are more concerned with the way in which the signifier contextually affects the signified, and how the signified can change the context of the signifier. In terms of Saussurian linguistics, where structuralism is focused on langue, post-structuralism is more focused on parole. Poststructuralism is a subversive for of thought forged in revolution, a spirit which it carries forward as a lens with which to deconstruct the political.

There are a number of excellent poststructuralist theorists who have made strong contributions to the field, but today we’ll focus on the most impotant figure in poststructural analysis, Jacques Derrida.

Considered the most important figure in poststructuralism and deconstruction, Derrida spent a good part of his life attempting to critically undermine hierarchical dualities that are so prevalent in western society. His conception of dualities came from his frustration surrounding the focus on western cultures valorization of speech over text. This was the first of the dualities Derrida picked up on, but he soonfound examples of dualism prevalent throughout western society. Examples of these dualities are: text and speech, center and periphery, positive and negative, signifier and signified, cause and effect, man and woman. With each of these there is a superior and a subordinate in the relationship. This has encouraged western culture to order their existence within these dualities. To Derrida, western culture was fixated on logos as the foundation of a transcendent truth about existence, and the shifting nature of meaning within these logos was a source for deconstruction. To think through his idea, he conceived of Différance

Différance is an analogous theory that in and of itself deconstructs the hierarchical dualities; it is the invisible, unspoken convention that focuses us on dualist perspectives. As a word, Différance does not exist. The French translation for difference is spelled d-i-f-f-é-r-e-n-c-e. Différance replace the ‘e’ in ‘ence’ with an ‘a’. When the two words are spoken you cannot tell between them, but the separation between the two is inaudible. When we look at the two, we can see the dissimilarity between the two, but we can’t see why we know there is one. Though the two sound similar, Différance also exists within spoken letters that differentiate the sounds of words and our understanding of the differences between these sounds.

As a response to Saussure who saw relations in difference, Derrida sees relations between differences. Différance in this sense is not a word, because if it were it would be a signifier and would fit into the dualist system. Différance sits between dualities, and represents the space where deconstruction begins.

Q: Some thinkers like the “gang of four”: Jacques Lacan, Claude Levi-Strauss, Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes, moved from Structuralism to Post-Structuralism, why do you think they converted?

In my opinion, converted structuralists like the gang of four moved towards post-structuralism when they saw the vast disparity between theory and reality. As more and more of the organized elements broke and joined the students in upheaval in 1968, the efficacy of the structuralist argument began to fade before their very eyes. As individuals began to rise up against the structures imposed on them, re-conceptualizing the notion of power in society became necessary. And as different groups and individuals fragmented themselves from these imposed structures only to re-gather in opposition, deconstruction of existing power structures and accounting for individual determination became more than relevant, but necessary.

Opinion: What I took from the post-structuralist movement, is the efficacy of student organization. Whenever we hear the North American story of ‘60’s radicals it ends up with most of them eventually submitting to the forces they fought against. In France, students rallied an entire nation and caused real change, not only socially but philosophically. That is quite an inspiring achievement, and a useful retort to the cheese-eating brats who claim their disengagement is a result of seeing previous efforts and movements die in vain.

Case Study: “Stealing the Signs…”

I must begin this section by apologizing about this article. When I originally glanced over it, the paper looked really interesting and while I did indeed find it interesting, I also found the argument off base, and contradictory.

Author Ron Bishop makes the argument that “fan discourse around sports now revolves to an alarming degree around acts of consumption, about the desire to consume team-related items”, and that “colors and a flashy logo are as powerful a lure today as a dominant team or dynamic player was 15 or 20 years ago.” Basically his paper states that fans feel such disconnection with contemporary athletes because of their exorbitant salaries and inauspicious exploits that fans now throw their support behind logos. Teams’ logos change and multiply while at the same time mass-media has encouraged fan support of teams they are not regionally linked to. The logo has taken predominance as a sign that is commodified and exploited by the vested interests; professional sports leagues and teams.

Bishop’s argument is rooted in placing logos within Baudrillard’s second order of simulacra, and in my opinion this is off base. According to the order of simulacra, a first-order sign is intended as a representation of a real item. These types of signs are associated predominantely with the pre-modern era. A second-order simulacra is one whose association with the real dissolves through mass-production; where imitation threatens to overtake the real. These could be considered television and advertising among others. Third-order simulations are representative of post-modernity, where the simulation becomes the real. Baudrillard cites the example of Disneyland, a real-life park that simulates films (simulacra themselves) where real people can enter simulations of simulations. Confusing I know… especially when one looks back at the title of the paper and notes the “Semiotic Analysis” portion. I personally can’t see where the logo can be considered a second-order simulation, what do you think?

Bishop spends the paper making an argument that is also based on assumptions and generalities about the nature of fandom, the fans relationship with athletes and team ownership, and team ownership’s relationship with the fans. The paper was so rife with generalizations and contradictory statements that I don’t want to take too much time going through them all, but one of the more glaring contradictions should be pointed out. On pages 30 and 31, Bishop claims free agency has made it: “difficult for fans to maintain loyalty to a particular team.” First, that is a broad generalization and a questionable assumption. As well, the implication of that statement is that the fans loyalty is with the free agent athlete, the one who Bishop claims earlier the fans have become disenchanted with- the reason for their affinity for logos as a replacement.

Two final problems I have with this paper are style points, first you’ll note on page 25 the author sources a dictionary. I suggest there may be more appropriate sources for definitions, especially for something as essential as the definition of ‘logo’ in a semiotics paper. As well, the author’s language throughout the text is heavily slanted and filled with emotional appeals, for example: referencing the “soul of the game” and “untainted individuals”. While the author admits to a romanticized vision of sport in the second last line of the paper, throughout the text he comes off sounding like an embittered fan trying to fit his frustrations about the contemporary nature of sports into an unfriendly paradigm.

Where does any of this fit into the field of communications?

To look at how all of this fits within our field, let’s turn to the Grossberg article: “The Ideology of Communication: Post-Structuralism and the Limits of Communication”

Lawrnece Grossberg is currently the Chair of the Executive Committee of the  University Program of Cultural Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, he received his PHD from the University of Illinois at Urbana while studying alongside James Carey. Grossberg’s work focuses on studies of popular culture, as well as of the philosophy of communication and cultural studies.

In the text, Grossberg gets reflexive, turning the lens of post-structuralism inward to the field of communications, and states that: “… we have failed to undertake a philosophical exploration of communication, but that such reflections have effectively been blocked.”

The contention is that communication is regarded as ubiquitous and natural, an invisible conduit of information. The spirit of post-structuralism simply wont allow Grossberg to accept communication as a given he states a desire to ‘denaturalize’ the role of communication itself in our lives.” In this way the article is a challenge to each of us to get reflexive, and look at this inherent bias of communication affects our perceptions.

Much of the structuralist and positivist thought involves the use of binaries to explain phenomena; this extends to communications where there is the individual and the social. Grossberg is saying that communications itself has a stake in this binary.

According to Grossberg: “’Communication’ articulates the mediation in which the individuality of meaning is transcended in an experience of intersubjective meaning, and thus claims transcendental status for itself – i.e., that it is a universal constitutive condition of our humanity.”

As a result the inherent bias in communication is communication itself, whew, heavy… this is why I love this stuff.

And who do we blame for this? I for one, blame one Maria Bakardijeva for my decent into this worldview, for it was in her undergraduate history of communications class that the idea that communication is the most fundamental component of our existence dawned on me. In the class I pictured primitive humans figuring out how to communicate together onward through the evolution of spoken word and media, and the pragmatic nature of communication normalized its positioning for myself. But this class is not about pragmatism, it’s about theory, so Grossberg’s assertion seems appropriate.

The reading is broken into two key sections, ‘The Transcendental Status of Communications in Modern Thought’, and ‘Deconstructive Materialism and the Philosophy of Communications’.

In the first section communications is identified as both a causal relationship where individual acts and meanings produce social reality, as well as an established and self-imposed set of contextual social conventions. This notion creates an individual/ social dyad, what Grossberg calls “transcendental dualism”, that communication mediates. Considerations of experience taken into account, as with phenomenology and hermeneutics, are flawed as well according to Grossman, where both eventually reify the transcendental status of communications within the individual/social dyad. This individual/social dynamic extends to the sign, where the signifier and signified share a similarly codependent relationship, with communication situated similarly in between. He concludes that since most theories place communication between dual entities, they cannot look at why or how communications manages its’ privileged position. This is a fundamental flaw which undermines the project.

The second section begins with a call for the reconsidering of key philosophical questions surrounding what Grossberg calls the ‘transcendental ‘ nature of communications. He asserts that communication is not natural and ubiquitous, but that the current “regime of communication”, where communication not only defines existence, but takes up considerable time and resources as well. At the same time, differences in the context and practices of communication are gathered together as one within the field. Based on those assertions, Grossberg deconstructs notions of communication through subjectivity and discourse.

By decentering the individual and subjectivity, instead situating them as the product of discourse, the individual is always becoming, never fixed. There are no multiple selves that work to conceive the self; instead the self is formed through discourse. This process of becoming through discourse then becomes the place to examine communications. The process produced within discourse is where Grossman sees the field of communications moving, studying the practice of communication, rather than communication itself. He articulates as much by saying: “Thus, the very importance and power of communication is a form of domination, for particular interests, articulated within a context of ideological practices.”

What I really liked, is then rather than leave it at a challenge, Grossberg then went on to make a suggestion for the examination and interrogation of the field in a seemingly Foucaudian genealogy of the relations between subjectivity, discourse, and elements of power that influence them.

Though this paper was brutal, I think some extremely valid points about our field were raised. Looking at communication as some sort of “invisible hand”-like process leaves out a fundamental aspect of its impact and importance, and terribly constrains us as academics in our pursuits as well as our approaches. Reflexivity on not only ones own situation but on the field of communications at large can only make us better academics.

Opinion: This is an element of reification of the field of communications. By espousing the virtues of the field before systematically tearing them down he is actually situating communications on an even higher pedestal before because of this refelexivity.

Semiotics 
To finish off today, we’ll be going over some basics of semiotic analysis. Semiotics is a methodological lens with which to examine relations of signs. Semiotic analysis interrogates how meaning is constructed within shared symbols. Along with C.S. Pierce and Umberto Eco, the founding of semiotics is another triumph of Ferdinand de Saussure. His outline for semiotics, or as he referred to it, semiology, is also found in his “Course in general Linguistics”.

To Saussure, the sign is a physical object with a meaning. The sign is composed of a signifier, or a physical existing sign, and a signified, which is the mental concept associated with the signifier. For example, the word ‘tree’, carries notions of ‘treeness’, or our conception of a tree, allowing us to categorize and understand it. The two work together to give signification or provide meaning to the tree as sign. It is important to note at this point that both the signifier and signification are heavily culturally and contextually specific. As a result, the meaning of a sign can only be defined in relation to other signs. Meaning is also an active process constantly being defined while at the same time actively defining; signification is the result of dynamic relations between the sign, the interpretant, and the object in referece.

The sign is arbitrary in nature and is decided by convention. Conventions are the social agreements that dictate the dimensions of the signs meaning. Signs with no convention are private, they have no outside referent. Our experience with the convention of signs allows us to respond appropriately to a symbol. For example, our conventional understanding of a stop sign causes us to stop as we pull up to one. If there is someone to our right, the convention is that we allow them to go first.

The degree of convention of course is not fixed; it is dependent on the type of sign as well. Icons are signs where the form of the signifier is determined to some extent by the signified; there is a matching resemblance. Using the tree example from before, a picture of a tree or a tree-shaped logo are both icons. The shape of the tree in the sign has a direct correlation to the picture of a tree in our mind. Iconic signs are highly motivated. The signifier is motivated by the signified; the one has a firm relationship with the other as the signified determines the shape of the signifier.

Arbitrary signs are those where there is no similar relation between sign and signified, again the word ‘tree’ has no physical similarity to an actual tree, it is a purely arbitrary assignment of meaning. Arbitrary signs are considered unmotivated, or constrained in their meaning. This constraint is what allows for the shared meaning among all of us. As the signifier becomes more constrained by the signified, the sign becomes more motivated.

The arbitrary or iconic nature of a sign, along with the degree of convention or motivation it possesses occurs on a sliding scale, though the purely iconic image could be considered a simulation, and therefore would never be pure.

The organization of signs in Saussurian semiotics is based in Paradigms and syntagims, which closely mirror Langue and Parole, which we discussed earlier.

Paradigms, similar to langue, are fixed systems for signs that provide convention for common use and understanding. Paradigms occur on a number of levels, so for example there is the base level of letters as its own paradigm, then words as collections of letters are their own paradigm in the same way the vocabulary of a language is a paradigm, and even specific collections of words within said language are a paradigm. At all levels, paradigms follow the Sausurian principle of being defined by what they are not, rather than by what they are; the understanding lies in the difference between paradigms.

The syntagm is similar to Parole, in that it involves the specific uses of paradigms. For example, writing a sentence is a syntagm using words and letters from specific paradigms. In a syntagm, signs are affected by their presence among others; meaning is conveyed through the relationship between the different units within a syntagm. Using the sentence example, the combination of words in the sytagm: “the weather is terrible but school is great” conveys a different meaning then “the weather is great but school is terrible.”

Semiotic analysis from Saussures perspective is very structuralist. It is an examination of the underlying rules and conventions that construct language. This structuralist perspective emphasizes the signifier as the source of meaning. The physical form of a sign is the place where the meaning is constructed and maintained, and that the signified is fixed among those engaged.

Post-poststructuralism?
Finally, let’s take this stuff forward for just a quick moment and look at post-poststructuralism. In his 2000 work TDR, Richard Schechner, a professor of performance studies at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU questioned the positioning of poststructuralism in contemporary society. He refers to poststructuralist thought as having become canonical, that a few key thinkers have taken a firm hold over a large part of the field. This leaves an appearance of finality that runs contrary to the very essence of poststructuralist thought.

Différance as defined by Derrida does indeed have presence as sort of a universal, and though it claims no assertion of reality, it was in fact conceived by Derrida, a man, and therefore is ideologically founded.

The main problem Schechner has with poststructuralist thought is the lack of emphasis on experience within considerations of deconstruction. Interrogating poststructuralist thought through a performative lens, Schchner says poststructuralist thought has moved to far into theory, and too far away from practice. Theory determines what is selected for analysis, deducing what practice is examined

Post-poststructuralism is rooted in performance theory. Rather than use traditional theories which do not adequately account for performative dynamics, the challenge to performance theorists is to create their own theories from performance, and in bringing considerations of experience to the forefront, will change the nature of poststructuralist analysis. Thank you.

Note: This is a collection of notes from a presentation for COMS 613 - Communications Theory

Bourdieu and Distiction

2010-02-03T23:32:00.003-07:00

‘Taste classifies and classifies the classifier.”

Hi, today we’ll be discussing the Pierre Bourdieu readings on distinction from his work, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. According to Bordieu, your taste is not only a representation of what you like, but who you are. By liking and disliking certain things, a person is symbolically positioning themselves within a socio-cultural hierarchy. The food you eat, the clothes you wear, the music you listen to, the way you comb your hair, the places you want to visit and any other way that you differentiate your taste from others’ is a reflection of you and your standing in life. The sense of taste is not as powerful as the context taste resides within for Bourdieu, who feels that tastes are predetermined by the economic and cultural capital of ones family.

“Taste is amor fati, the choice of destiny, but a forced choice, produced by conditions of existence which rule out all alternatives as mere daydreams and leave no choice but for the necessary.”

So as opposed to Veblen and much of the sumptuary legislation we studied last week, Bourdieu is saying that classes don’t aspire to higher taste at all, and instead, other classes taste doesn’t make sense to those in lower classes. Veblen posited that lower classes would assume the taste and taste-markers that the upper classes enjoy in order to symbolically associate themselves with people of that stature. Many of the sumptuary laws we studied also involved legal constrictions to ensure only the absolute upper-classes enjoyed what they deemed to be in the highest of taste.

What Bourdieu is saying is that the lower classes have their own tastes that are independent of those held by the higher classes. They don’t want Prada jeans, think the cut of them is weird and that they cost way too much money; they think Levis 501’s are just fine. It is for this reason that one is able to distinguish between the classes, as it is based on what it is they choose to like. So to Bourdieu money alone does not equal taste. Distinction is the notion that one acquires or has acquired the proper faculties to properly enjoy those things relevant to their station in the class hierarchy. Simply because someone has found themselves more affluent, does not mean they have the distinction of taste that elevates them within the socio-cultural hierarchy.

Economic capital is of course related to money, but cultural capital involves the body of intellectual, social and educational knowledge that comes from having the opportunity to learn these things. Ones cultural capital plays a determining role in their habitus, which is not only ones taste and the way they displays this taste, how it surrounds them in daily life. Bourdieu refers to habitus as:

“A system of practice-generating schemes which expresses systematically the necessity and freedom inherent in its class condition and the difference constituting that position, the habitus apprehends differences between conditions, which it grasps in the form of classified, classifying practices (products of other habitus), in accordance with principles of differentiation which, being themselves the product of these differences, are objectively attuned to them and therefore perceive them as natural.”

Ones habitus encourages them to pursue and possess different activities and objects from those in other classes, or the same activities and objects for different reasons. This is tangibly accomplished through appropriation, where one not only possesses an object or participates in an activity, but has the requisite body of knowledge or cultural capital to fully appreciate and enjoy the activity or object. This causes distinction between tastes and between classes, the basis for Bourdieus’ theories and analysis.

So what I want to do now guys is apply Bourdieu’s theories to two components of contemporary life and see how everything fits. First off, let’s take a look at where organic food fits into notions of distinction.

‘Tell me what you eat: I will tell you what you are.” -Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

When we look at Bourdieu’s references to taste in food as being reflective of one’s stature, he brings in the notion of different classes seeing a different function in food.

He speaks of the higher class interest in their palate, in the aesthetics of the meal, in the performance of manners, in the type of food they choose to eat and how it is prepared. This ran in opposition to the lower classes who saw food as functional, as nourishment that would enable them to continue working.

We can see this today in the increasing prevalence of organic food around. Organic food is ostensibly no different from non-organic food; an organic pear looks and tastes similar to a non-organic pear. But the perceived notions of labour that go into the production of organic food allow it to A) Be priced higher and B) claim levels of authenticity and exclusivity simply not available to other. As a result, organic food has been appropriated by the upper classes.

Many people considered to be in lower classes do not see the added value that comes with paying more for organic food. To them the function of food is to feed them, to provide nourishment. As long as what they eat keeps them full and provides the fuel to get through their day, they do not want to pay more for something with little tangible difference.

“’Taste’, a class culture turned into nature, that is, embodied, helps to shape the class body.” Meaning, taste actually works to shape the bodies of people in different ways depending on their class.

In regards to eating organic food, perceived notions of increased healthiness that comes from eating organic food feed into the notion in the Holt reading of the cultural elite movement towards embodying their taste. Holt claims that with the traditionally significant symbols of status now readily available to those not in the upper class, those who are upper-class have moved to displaying as much through embodiment.

Appropriation has extended to ones own physical body, where one needs the requisite time and knowledge to build their bodies with aesthetic priority. Distinction now comes from the ability to provide the ultimate care to ones body. The time that goes into proper eating and exercise is not afforded to the subservient classes who have to spend too much time working. As cultural capital was once based in notions of situated knowledge Holt suggests that the aestheticization of the physical body is now a part of ones habitus that distinguishes between classes.

So organic food not only reinforces class distinctions through its cost and the work that goes into its production, but also in that it provides the best possible nourishment for the healthiest body resulting in the body looking its’ very best.

Interestingly, this aligns with the placement of cheaper food as well. Pre-made meals and fast food for the busy-body are often more inexpensive than fresh-made ones. They are mass-produced and processed; not nearly as healthy or aesthetically pleasing as their fresh-made counterparts. Pre-made meals are designed to quickly feed the lower classes so they can go back working and consuming for those who enjoy the time to prepare and enjoy actual meals. By eating such unhealthy foods most in the lower classes cannot keep their bodies as well-nourished and healthy as those in upper classes and therefore look physically less healthy. As a result class becomes embodied, as those looking less healthy can be considered to be in a lower class than those looking healthier.

Another interesting idea t that I would like to go over in more depth is relating Bourdieu’s theories from his work on distinction to the news. Bordieu’s later work appeared to go into news and the media, but I didn’t look into that for today. As well, we all probably have different notions of what and where the news is so feel free to disagree with me, but this is how I see things.

In order to fit news within Bordieu’s cultural hierarchy, we have to look at two separate elements: the news source, and the source of the news. By that I mean we need to look at where the news is produced, and how the news is consumed.

That news is produced for different audiences is not exactly, well, news… but the kinds of news different organizations cover, emphasize, and slant, as well as their format and production, are all intended to align with certain class groups.

“The decision makers, the people that matter in our country read the Globe and Mail." - David Taras

And while these important Canadians may have little time for the Calgary Sun, with it’s 30 pg. sport section, sunshine girl, and veritable dearth of international news, so equally may Sun readers not have any interest in the nuances of another corporate merger or cabinet shuffle. Different types of news have been appropriated for different classes. Those in the lower classes may not possess the cultural capital to understand the news from higher class news sources or to use this news in any meaningful way. In the same sense, higher classes see lower class news as useless and irrelevant to their daily lives.

Of course this also means the advertising associated with the news works alongside it to convey similar principles of socio-cultural determination.

Where people physically receive their news from is a relevant display of ones status as well. News is readily available from a litany of sources in a variety of means, but these means are class restrictive. This occurs primarily through cost. Though decreasing, the cost for access to media is usually in both the access and the means by which to access it. Someone in a lower class may only have access to non-cable television and radio as news sources, whereas those in the higher classes may have several channels as well as high-speed internet on a variety of devices, and multiple newspaper and magazine subscriptions. Those in the higher classes have more money for more and faster access to a variety of news sources. As well, the more time they have to consume their variety of sources as well as the intelligence and knowledge they are perceived to have allows for distinction through the development of a presumably more rounded understanding of news events.

Now its important to note that news is not just an object that can be appreciated at different levels. It is information that helps the majority of the world structure their daily lives. People’s perceptions of the world around them are constructed in no small part by the news. So when we talk about different types of news being appropriated for different classes, we’re not only saying that the form in which they take in the news are mired in distinction, but also the content of said news. In this way news can work to reinforce class on a number of levels while normalizing class discourse as news and information.

In fact, the weight of importance different classes give to their news is probably distinctive too. Those with more cultural capital are more likely to search out other sources, take information in critically, and contextualize news themselves while those with less cultural capital may not have the interest or ability to perceive news in those manners.

In the last two examples we’ve looked at how taste can shape the class body, as well as shape the class mind. Within Bourdieu’s paradigm, these work very well as sources of appropriation, rooted in cultural capital, that create fairly rigid elements of distinction between classes. What I don’t like about Bourdieu’s work is its strict, structurlaist foundation. Bourdieu has no consideration for the abilities of individuals to determine their tastes and habitus, instead seeing the two as predispositions and impositions. While I can think of countless people who can be classified within Bourdieu’s theories, there are also people who fit outside his constrictive boundaries. On the other hand Veblen’s incorporation of agency into his theories on may also be considered constrictive, but can also allow for subjectivities to play a role in the determination of taste.

Note: This text is comprised of notes from a presentation for 'Communication and Taste'

Master of Arts Thesis Proposal

2009-12-17T13:46:00.001-07:00

Hockey is a unique cultural force in Canada. It is a sport that a limited number of Canadians have the opportunity to play, yet its’ narratives and mythologies are firmly interwoven into Canadians’ notion of national identity. In a country whose populace is as spatially separated, diverse, regionalized, fractured, and with as contentious of a recent history as ours, hockey appears to be one of the few unifying forces for Canadians from coast to coast, north to south. The relevance of the game reaches far past the win/loss column, and has become ingrained into notions of contemporary ‘Canadianness’. Critiques of contemporary society like those of Neil Postman who argue that entertainment has subsumed political engagement are validated by Canadians’ relationship with the sport, especially considering the majority of Canadians’ experience with hockey occurs from the position of spectator, primarily viewing men’s professional hockey on television. As a result, the mediation that occurs between the actual game action, the camera, and the audience plays a significant role in the development of Canadians’ national identity. But the camera is not the only source of event mediation that occurs for the television spectator; in order to capture and keep their attention, the camera is not sufficient. A constructed spectacle is necessary to enhance the entertainment value of the game action and give the event commercial credibility. The spectacle of professional hockey starts with bright lights and camera angles, but grows to encapsulate the entire multimedia sports industry. The spectacle has accelerated to the extent that it is in danger of cannibalizing the sport itself. I want to direct my research towards exploring the ways the spectacle surrounding professional hockey impacts the audience’s experience with the game itself. How is the integration of the camera and its’ associated spectacle into professional hockey constructed to mediate the television audiences’ experience? How do television cameras create new forms of truth telling and construct the mythology that has established hockey as our national pastime? What kind of economic, ideological, hegemonic, or merely practical choices goes into the construction of the hockey-based myths and narratives?

As a Canadian communications academic, I feel it is vital to explore an element of Canadian culture, to contribute to a growing body of work within the developing ‘Canadian School of Communications’. Communications as an academic field is uniquely situated to examine the dynamics of the overt mixing of hockey and culture that exists in Canada. Robert Craig wrote: “Because communication is already so much talked about in society, communication theory can be constructed inductively through critical studies of the everyday practice, in part by transcribing and theoretically reconstructing the ‘situated ideals’ articulated by people in their everyday metadiscourse.’ (130) Hockey plays a significant role in development and maintenance of identity and values in contemporary Canadian culture. Hockey’s status as our nation’s national pastime was surpassed in 1994 when the ‘National Sports of Canada Act’ was passed, naming hockey as Canada’s national winter sport, alongside lacrosse, which was relegated into cultural tandem as the nations official summer sport. While the positioning of hockey in Canadian culture is an overt example of the way professional sports impact western culture, their impact on contemporary society are tangible, making sports, and in Canada particularly hockey, a rich and valuable cultural resource worth exploring. “As prime sites for not only leisure, but also the production, reproduction and contestation of identities, sport… balance(s) precariously between a set of recurring contradictions… frivolous yet serious; categorical yet personal; ephemeral yet abiding; and, relegated to the field of leisure, supposedly on the margins of everyday life, yet the focus of burgeoning economic industries and formidable political interests.” (Dyck and Archetti, 2) A significant number of Canadians take part in the regular, ritualized spectatorship of hockey on television and derive meaning and value from their experiences, and with Canadians in general and contemporary western society at large less and less engaged in traditional notions of citizenry, there is value in examinations of the relationship of hockey and its’ audience. As Michael Real wrote: “Ignoring Mediasport today would be like ignoring the role of the church in the middle ages or ignoring the role of art in the Renaissance; large parts of society are immersed in media sports today and virtually no aspect of life is untouched by it.” (MediaSport, 15) The implications and importance of resonate further when the dynamic of the constructed spectacle are included. The spectacle, which is constructed to enhance the entertainment value of an event, interpellates its’ audience into its’ constructed reality, in that way, according to Guy Debord “The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.” (Thesis 4) As a result, deconstructing the spectacle is essential to unraveling the relationship between sport and society, between hockey and Canadian culture. According to Douglas Kellner: “Media spectacle provides a fertile ground for interpreting and understanding contemporary culture and society because the major spectacles provide articulations of salient hopes and fears, fantasies and obsessions, and experiences of the present.” (Kellner, 27) In studying media spectacle, there are two primary courses to take, examining the construction of the spectacle, and examining audience reception of the spectacle. Especially in regards to the latter, the resonance of hockey in Canadian culture is not unchartered academic ground by any means. Dr. Richard Gruneau of Simon Frasier University is the most accomplished hockey scholar in the field, and his book, Hockey Night in Canada, is the seminal work on the role of hockey within Canadian culture. Yet Gruneau himself admits there is a great deal of space to study the construction and inscription of cultural values on Canadian culture from the angle of production, writing: “… assessments of relationships between sports “texts” and their “contexts” have been speculative at best.” (135) This is where I intend to make the entry point for my research. Positioning myself from a post-structuralist perspective, I want to develop a socio-cultural history of the hockey as spectacle alongside a semiotic analysis of the visual tropes and symbols used. Unraveling the type of values, ideologies, myths, and priorities that are encoded into the production of the televised hockey spectacle can provide valuable insight into both the nature and content of contemporary Canadian culture, hopefully making it a rich addition to Canadian communications academia.

The primary component of my research will be rooted in the camera’s mediation of the hockey event, or game. Though thousands of fans attend almost every professional hockey game, with few exceptions every game is also televised on either regional, national, or sport-based networks. The television viewing audience, especially in Canada, outnumbers live audiences exponentially, meaning the majority of professional hockey’s audience has the camera mediating their viewing experience. “Camera’s do not simply ‘show’ us sporting action; they position us as viewers by placing us in a particular spatial relationship to the action being viewed.” (Gruneau, 148) The camera closes the proximity between the audience and the game through simulation, engaging the audience in telepresence, or the feeling of being in a location other than the one where they are situated. But the simulated game on television is certainly not filmed from one camera in a static position; there are a series of cameras at a variety of angles catching different aspects and components of the action, which are chopped immediately ongoing for the duration of the game. The live event is subjectively fragmented through the editing process into a series of images which reassemble the game narrative, important and exciting images are further fragmented and reassembled into micro-narratives which are used to both augment the action, and retain audience interest in between games. Many of the choices made in the assembly and harmonization of the images into the game narrative are done to benefit the television audience, to enhance their game-viewing experience. “When the comforts of home or the pub are placed alongside technological improvements in television broadcasts such as bigger screens, high-definition images, stereo surround sound, multiple camera angles and slow motion replays, then it may be concluded that this is no mere compensation for not being there; it is, instead, a more satisfying and pleasant way of experiencing sport.” (Rowe, 147) While the camera and its’ subsequent manipulations of the game provide a visual product for television, with the evolution of television programming, the desire to provide entertainment value for the television audience, thereby ensuring the audience’s loyalty to advertisers, brought forth the spectacle. According to Tony Shirado, the constructed spectacle consists of the following four characteristics: “First, attention is all-important – it must be attracted and maintained. Second, vision is arranged, organized, and disposed within various hegemonic visual regimes, the most influential and pervasive of which is that of capitalism. Third, everything is (potentially) reduced to the status of commodity, and there is an emphasis on necessary, repetitive, and mobile (visual) consumption. Fourth, the subject-as-spectator relates to the social and the self through the consumption of commodities: this process stands in for, and functions as a simulation of, the social.” (104) While the camera is closing proximity between the game and the audience, the spectacle surrounding the game interpellates the audience; it catches their attention, maintains it, and leaves them wanting more. The result of this encouraged consumption is the game itself turns into a commodity. “With the help of postmodern technologies, sports media elicit a type of ‘fetishism’, or fascination directed toward a spectacle, which encourages sports consumption. Fetishes or objects of fascination are created when athletes and their actions are commodified-transformed into commodities to be examined, appraised and consumed.” (Rail, 152) This fetishism and commodification through the spectacle surrounding game action is the result of hockey’s position as a cultural industry, a key consideration when approaching my research.

The first hockey game was televised in February 1940. The game between the New York Rangers and Montreal Canadians took place at Madison Square Garden in New York City, with the Rangers claiming a 2-1 victory. (Marill, xii) Since the game became televised it has evolved into one of the nation’s leading cultural industries, shaping specific notions of Canadian’s identity in alignment with the values of the game itself. While this helped in unifying a national identity, it has done so under the auspices of an industrial, capitalist system which is driven by layers of consumerism. “Although sports (are) an important mode of participation in, and assimilation into, modern societies, during the post-industrial era spectator sports have emerged as the correlative to a society that is replacing manual labour with automation and machines, and requires consumption and appropriation of spectacles to reproduce the consumer society.” (Kellner, 66) Sports like hockey are ideally suited to television. They create narrative drama similar to other forms of television but with the added benefits of action, immediacy, and originality, as well as a final, indisputable outcome. The added spectacle turns the game into a televised event, raising its prestige and perceived significance, but in doing so turns the competition into nothing more than a saleable commodity. Michael Real wrote: “‘Commodification’ reduces the value of any act or object to its monetary exchange value, ignoring historical, artistic, or relational added values. In addition, commodification has a fetishistic quality in which the commodities, because they represent commercial advantage, take on a bloated psychological importance to the individual or group.” (Real, 21) The perceived significance increases as each game builds into the larger narrative running throughout the season, and in professional hockey there is an 82-game season, along with a pre-season and a four-round playoff each year. Despite the ebbs and flows in the various narratives that run throughout professional hockey each season, wins and losses are only important if they maintain audience. “What parades as progress in the culture industry, as the incessantly new which it offers up, remains the disguise for an eternal sameness; everywhere the changes masks skeleton which has changes just as little as the profit motive itself since the time it first gained its’ predominance over culture.” (Adorno, 33) The perpetuated relevance and importance of hockey in Canada is inflated by the cultural industries consumerist agenda, and the season, along with their messaging, stretches professional hockey from September into the following June. Along with summer off-season coverage by sports networks and other media outlets, professional hockey has become a year-round, ubiquitous element of contemporary Canadian culture. Genevieve Rail wrote: “Mass media are so present in societies of reproduction that they tend to become reality. The overproduction of images creates a world marked by a proliferation of information and a decrease in meaning. Meaning is literally imploded when the information is devoured and then reformulated by the media.” (150) This implosion of meaning for Canadians has allowed the commercial interests at the heart of professional hockey to ingrain themselves into Canadian culture, as hockey’s myth’s, values, and ultimately identity move closer their own. More and more people follow professional hockey regularly while at the same time as voting rates approach all-time lows. Interest in professional hockey action and spectacle has taken priority over basic civic engagement, as contemporary society becomes more and more consumer-centric. Increasing numbers of Canadians are substituting hockey fandom for participation in society, and the lines between the two are being blurred. In fact, fandom and its associated rituals make an important component of the spectacle in and of itself.

A unique element of my research will examine the role of ritual and performance in the construction of spectacle. As Dwight Conquergood states, “The constitutive liminality of performance studies lies in its’ capacity to bridge segregated and differentially valued knowledges, drawing together legitimated as well as subjugated modes of inquiry.” (152) From modes of dress, to normalized expressions/actions and near-universally understood activities and conventions, fandom and spectatorship require a specific type of situated knowledge which creates a community among spectators. The situated knowledge of spectatorship is largely rooted in the participation of the event. Spectators have developed a notion of agency in the world of professional sports, where they feel as though their latent participation in the event will have an effect on the outcome. Eric Rothenbuhler wrote: “The spectator is, then, not simply a viewer but a participant in a larger system… spectatorship is another part of certain ritual forms.” (96) Rituals and performances work to engage and interpellate the audience through their own participation as spectators. Spectators watching other spectators participate in rituals and performances draw them in as they become active participants in a continuous cycle of production and consumption. The participants/spectators are also working to develop the myths that permeate Canadian culture through their actions. Cultural industries understand the active role of the spectator in the construction of spectacle through their rituals and performance, and how to shape and encourage this behaviour through production. Inclusion of a performative lens into my research will make for a richer understanding of the game-camera-audience dynamic.

Though the detail of my research approach is still largely to be determined, there are some baseline methods which will certainly provide a foundation on which to explore my hypothesis. Counting and sorting the selection of shots in a particular game may have some foundational value, but quantitative methods will likely not be adequate. Methods like content analysis of games and historical analysis of the role of the camera and spectacle in professional hockey should provide a sound groundwork, but the richest information will likely be gathered through qualitative means. Due to what John Fiske would refer to as the ‘polysemic’ value of television texts, there is likely to be a variety of decoded meanings between different spectators. The multitude of interpretations available to an audience has to be accounted for as best as possible by the producers of the game/spectacle if they want to appeal to the largest possible audience. The most appropriate way to explore the dynamics of this spectacle construction includes performing ethnographies of broadcasting production meetings as well as during game-time in the production room/van. As well, visual and discourse analysis of hockey games and the hockey–related spectacles that pervade the multi-media news, analysis and meta-media programming that accompany the games themselves. My goal is to separately, but simultaneously deconstruct the spectacle of professional hockey through semiotics and political economy, in order to find how and where the two are interconnected.
As stated by Garry Whannel: “… searching for modes of analysis that enable an understanding of signification and commodification both separately and together, recognizing both their separateness and their interconnectedness, while avoiding collapsing one into the other.” (68) The signification and commodification dyad at work in the spectacle will require methods that can provide data that can be compared and cross-analyzed. The investigation and exploration of the performative and ritualistic dynamic of spectatorship within the constructed spectacle will require unique methods as well.

Understanding the way the camera engages the hockey-viewing audience, from the camera to the spectacle, can provide valuable insight into the relationship between contemporary audiences and the media content they consume, as well as the placement of professional hockey within our national mythology. Concessions to accommodate the television viewer are continually being done, designed to make the process more enjoyable for the audience in order to ensure their fidelity to the event. In this way hockey can guarantee an eager, affluent, consumerist audience to advertisers and corporations. As well, in accommodating their audience, they are further interpellating the spectators, leaving them susceptible to encoded meaning from sources with a consumerist agenda. The construction of spectacle in professional hockey broadcasting works to shape Canadian myths, values, identities, and culture, though this construction has both intended and unintended consequences. Through my research I hope to illuminate the way ‘Canadianness’ is defined through hockey as a sport, as well as how it is defined through hockey as a spectacle.

Works Cited:

Adorno, Theodor. “Cultural Industry Reconsidered.” Media Studies: A Reader, 2nd edition. eds. Paul Marris and Sue Thornham. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Print.

Conquergood, Dwight. “Performance Studies: Interventions and Radical Research.” The Drama Review 46:2, Summer 2002: 145-156. Print.

Craig, Robert T. “Communication Theory as a Field”. Communications Theory 9:2, May 1999: 119-161. Print.

Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. Trans. Keith Knabb, Feb. 2002. Dec. 2, 2009 <>

Dyck, Noel, Archetti, Eduardo P. ‘Introduction’. Sport, Dance, and Embodied Identities. Oxford & New York: Berg, 2003. Print.

Gruneau, Rick. “Making Spectacle: A Case Study in Television Sports Production.” Media Sports & Society. Newbury Park, London, New Dehli: Sage Publications, 1989. Print.

Kellner, Douglas. Media Spectacle. London & New York: Routeledge, 2003. Print.

Rail, Genevieve ‘Seiemography of the Postmodern Condition’ in Sport and Postmodern Times ed. Genevieve Rail State University of New York Press: New York, 1998. Print.

Real, Michael R. Real ‘MediaSport: Technology and the Commodification of Postmoder Sport’ in MediaSport. ed. Lawrence A. Wenner. London & New York: Routeledge, 1998. Print.

Rothenbuhler, Eric W. Ritual Communication: From Everyday Conversation to Mediated Ceremony. Thousand Oakes: Sage, 1998. Print.

Rowe, David. Sport, Culture, and the Media. Open University Press: Buckingham, 1999. Print.

Shirato, Tony. Understanding Sports Culture. London: Sage, 2007. Print.

Whannel, Gary. “Between Culture and Economy” in Marxism, Cultural Studies and Sport eds. Ben Carrington and Ian McDonald. Routeledge: London and New York, 2009. Print.

Note: This paper is for COMS 601 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Communications

‘Spy vs. Spy’ and Cold War Abstractions

2009-12-17T04:53:00.002-07:00

Images and visual language possess a unique relationship and powerful relationship with those who derive meaning from them. As one of the most primal communicative forms, images and symbols are understood by most anyone with even basic visual literacy. As signs, many images and symbols have near-universal meaning due to common signification; almost everyone knows what they represent. Words and letters have fixed encoded meaning, images both denote certain objects, and also provoke the viewer’s imagination through a series of connotations and contexts. Comics are a complex interplay of signifieds harmonizing to form of a narrative, displayed and constrained within a sequence of frames. Charles Hatfield wrote: “Comics, like other hybrid texts, collapse the word/image dichotomy: visible language has the potential to be quite elaborate in appearance, forcing recognition of pictorial and material qualities that can be freighted with meaning.” (133) Those who are reading comics are participating in a system of signs, a language of visual symbols and images whose ubiquity overshadows individual languages and their static signification of letters. The power and influence of the encoded meaning within images has been both used and feared by those in power for centuries, as have the effects of satire; the use of humour to approach tenuous discourse. Nicholas Roukes wrote: “Satire possesses a conscience-raising advocacy—a propaganda designed to convert thought and further causes of justice.” (87) Satire, and its use of humour to probe difficult ground aligns itself well with comics, a form whose visual style is typically a hyperbolic and magnified vision of reality. The two originally found unity in the political cartoon. “In its depictions of characters, physical objects, and landscape, all comic art draws upon and clearly belongs to the tradition of caricature and comic exaggeration. There is no such thing as realism to be found in comics. Either in the photographic sense or the sentimental sense of a Norman Rockwell.” (Inge, 12) The lack of realism is compensated for by the viewers’ imagination, making comics a powerful visual tool, especially when combined with the rhetorical benefits of satire, which enamor one to the audience while positioning them against the opposition.

Antonio Prohias knows the power of images firsthand. A renowned cartoon artist in Cuba, Prohias turned into a contemporary iconoclast, using his cartoons as critiques of Fidel Castro and what Prohias knew was an incoming communist government. At the time he drew for a number of magazines and newspapers in Cuba, winning awards and acclaim for his work, but the fervor created by Castro’s rise to power rigidly separated his followers from those who quickly became subversives. Many in Cuba not fully supporting Castro were often accused of espionage, fated to a firing squad. Editorial pressure was bearing down on Prohias, as were the fanatics who recognized him on the street. Fearing for his safety, only six days before Castro rose to power in Cuba, Prohias fled to New York City, where he toiled in a clothing factory and honed ‘Spy vs. Spy’, the comic strip that landed him work with MAD magazine. The first ‘Spy vs. Spy’ appeared in the January 1961 issue, and in the decades since: “‘Spy vs. Spy’ has, by now, become part of the fabric of American culture. The image and name of the cartoon are often used to invoke any endless, futile conflict. Six originals are in the collection of the Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C.” (Reidelbach, 126) While the spies remain entrenched in America popular culture, their role within it, and therefore the meaning derived, has shifted. In trying to understand the relationship between ‘Spy vs. Spy’ and its’ audience, I will examine the comic looking at the semiotic relationship between text and audience, as well as the relationships between Prohias and his audience, MAD and their audience, as well as culture industry and their audience.

Pt. 1 – Joke and Dagger Dept. (Semiotics)
‘Spy vs. Spy’ is based on two identical characters (spies), juxtaposed black and white, in trilby hats, overcoats, and sunglasses. The two spies scheme, plot and attempt to kill each other using a variety of tools and gadgets. “Spy (vs. Spy) work was essentially a kind of one-note samba; endless brilliant variations on the same theme.” (Geissman, 10) One spy usually sets out a trap for the other, only for the supposed dupe to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing with a counter attack at the ready. Occasionally there is a third degree of trickery, where the first spy sets the second spy up, anticipating the counterattack with his own countermeasures. “(Prohias) typically started his drama in panel one, developing it into pure mayhem by panel three, before reversing the odds quickly and ending in panel six with some sort of explosion, assorted body parts flying.” (Edwing, 235) Both the Black Spy and White Spy each best the other fairly equally, occasionally both perish together, especially on that rare occasion the female Grey Spy made an appearance: inevitably both spies would hopelessly fall for the Grey Spy, making it easy for her to bring about their demise in tandem. The majority of ‘Spy vs. Spy’ comics are actually two comics on one page: there’s the strip itself, as well as a drawing over and around the title which captures either a moment of anticipation before one spy defeats the other or the moment of ones demise. The usual custom is for the alternate spy to then come out on top in the actual strip.

JOKE AND DAGGER DEPT.
Here’s another installment of that friendly rivalry between the man in black and the man in white, both dedicated to the ‘cause’… of outwitting each other as --

JOKE AND DAGGER DEPT.
When Fidel (the man with the sword) ordered Antonio Prohias (the man with the pen) arrested for his anti-Castro cartoons, the Cuban artist fled to the U.S., where he now graces MAD’s pages with…

There are a series of captions similar to the two above which appear at the top of each Spy vs. Spy comic, often drawn above the title. This represents the only written text on the entire comic page, with the occasional exception of words which appear on objects (such as a door) to denote its’ purpose (identifying the room on the other side of the door) and the even more rare descriptions of sounds from within the narrative action. Outside of this text the comic is purely based in symbols and images. Prohias’s tales were told through visual language, systems of symbols with common signifieds to depict action and advance the brief narrative. If, as Roland Barthes states, all images and symbols are polysemous, these ‘Joke and Dagger Dept.’ texts, along with the encoding from ‘Spy’ as a signifier in the title work to anchor the signifieds that make up the comic narrative. The title ‘Spy vs. Spy’ carries a fairly straightforward denotation, but carries connotations of nationalism, opposition, competition, deceit, treachery, and many other attributes associated with espionage. ‘Joke and Dagger’ is a reference to ‘Cloak and Dagger’, a colloquialism that refers to intrigue and mystery, and was often used in regards to activities undertaken by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). As a comic that was launched in the midst of the Cold War, inspiring these notions in the audience would be easy, as ‘spies’ were part of the national paranoia surrounding the conflict. Both the title, and the subsequent ‘Joke and Dagger Dept. text constrain connotations associated with the floating signifieds into Cold War discourse and then use them hyperbolically and ironically to satirize the violence and deceit perceived to be involved in espionage. Though looking at characters in hats and trench coats using guns and bombs may not immediately frame them as spies in the audiences mind, the text at the top constrains notions of what the characters and objects can and cannot represent, and direct the audiences imagination towards notions of ‘spyness’, guiding their interpretation of the system of symbols. Barthes wrote: “…the anchorage may be ideological and indeed this is its’ principle function; the text directs the reader through the signifieds of the image, causing him to avoid some and receive others; by means of an often subtle dispatching, it remote-controls him towards a meaning chosen in advance.” (The Rhetoric of the Image, 20) Though constraint exists through anchorage, it merely limits the type of connotations available to the viewer. Spy vs. Spy uses iconography as it’s language, which anchored into context, feeds into perceptions of deceit and trickery that many in the era associated to the Cold War. For Antonio Prohias, developing a comic strip like ‘Spy vs. Spy’ is a series of drawings that have to connect into a narrative. The only words used in the comic anchor the narrative from the onset, but guiding the storyline involves the use of symbols in the characters themselves, as well as the ‘props’ drawn for them. Their actions and emotions must denote the action in order for the audience to follow along. Will Eisner wrote: “The rendering of the elements within the frame, the arrangement of the images therin and their relation to and association with the other images in the sequence are the ‘grammar’ from which the narrative is constructed. In visual narration the task of the author/artist is to record a continued flow of experience and show it as it may be seen from the reader’s eyes. (39) The anchored connotations of the symbols within the comic create a contextual visual mini-language, where the constrained abstract notions associated with the symbols are decoded in the audiences imagination, allowing them to follow the narrative and ‘get’ the joke the comic provides. This understanding is based on connotations which are rooted in social conventions. The audience has to share in the understanding of the connotations, but also constantly refer back to the anchoring of the comic’s symbols as representing elements of ‘spyness’ to understand the comic. Scott Macleod wrote: “Icons demand our participation to make them work. There is no life here except that which you give to it. It’s your job to create and recreate (the image) moment by moment, not just the cartoonists.” (59) The spies costumes are identified and understood as the wardrobe for the spy archetype, and their weapons, anchored by the text at the top of the comic, all work to reaffirm each other as a system of signs within Cold War discourse. The use of the symbols within the narrative of the comic work to keep its’ associated connotations in the audiences mind, but to encourage the audiences’ imagination, to bring them into a world of abstraction with common understanding, the details of the symbols are kept as bare as possible. “By de-emphasizing the appearance of the physical world in favour of the idea of a form, the cartoon places itself in the world of concepts.”(McCloud, 41) Limiting detail the detail of drawings makes them more abstract, more universal as a language, and more interpretable by the audience, but it also adds to their polysemic capabilities. To overcome the polysemous value of images and symbols and clearly articulate the story to an audience purely through symbols, visual artists like Antonio Prohias take on the dual role of artist, as well as author.

Pt. 2 -… -.-- .--. .-. --- …. .. .- … (Authorship)
Below the title cartoon on each of the over 240 Spy vs. Spy comics drawn by Antonio Prohias was ‘By Prohias’ written in morse-code (-… -.-- .--. .-. --- …. .. .- …) For Prohias as well as his contemporaries, abstract thoughts become reality beginning when they draw the first line on a blank page. The author/artist attempts to explain these abstractions in a non-congruent symbolic language, a process which gives meaning another degree removed from the original conception. Those who draw, paint, or mimic these activities digitally, instinctively bring their abstractions to reality for an audience with similar visual literacy. Simon Downes wrote: “Drawings are aggregations that can only refer to what things look like; ‘naming objects’ that we recognize is not how we respond to a drawing. It is a more complex process of seeing, thinking, relating, and remembering… Drawings think around a subject: they are discursive. As aggregates of experience, they can only suggest and refer to ‘reality’ or appearance. Similarly, when looking at a drawing, we search for possibilities that match our experience.” (XV) Shared experience and understanding highlight the way in which the relationship between Prohias and his audience was much different from that of an author and their audience. Prohias was forced to find commonalities with his audience not only in the visual symbols used as text but in identifiable narratives that remain fresh while continuing the established convention of parodying the East-West conflict. Though brief, the stories told in ‘Spy vs. Spy’ comics had to use familiar symbols, expressions, and movements to convey the proper messaging. “When an image is experienced, one should note, it is not seen by the eye, but is constructed within memory by the ‘mind’s eye’… The experience of the image then, is constructed from stored information in the memory and resembles perceptual experience.” (Wigand, 36) Prohias, and other visual artists like him, are forced to use standardized visual tropes to ensure shared understanding of their message. Despite the anchoring of polysemous values, author/artists must draw on their relationship with their environment and societal relations in order to find common ground to share their stories. Graphic representation of objects, emotions and circumstances involves tapping in to collective abstractions, finding common ground between connotations and denotations that are near universally acknowledged and accepted. Directing story lines through solely visual means, without the established convention of language is an onerous task for the author. “The artist has to insure a clear flow of the narrative and the reader has to discern more intently all the elements in each panel or page in order to follow the story clearly. The narrative in wordless comics, therefore, demands more visual competency from readers than traditional comics.” (Berona, 20) Again, labour is involved for the audience in decoding the harmonized symbols and images to derive the encoded story. But while the reader must work harder to read the comic text in order to derive the authors’ intended message, the author also has a responsibility to their audience to integrate their audience into their work. In this sense, author/artists like Prohias personify Barthes’ ideal as expressed in ‘The Death of the Author’. Barthes, who argued that an author would prioritize themselves in the use of words to construct a narrative, but that: “a text’s unity lies not in it’s origin but in its destination.” (The Death of the Author, 124) Furthermore, Barthes claims that “positivism, the epitome of capitalist ideology… has attached the greatest importance to the ‘person’ of the author.” (The Death of the Author, 121) While this emphasis on the importance of the authors’ intention(s) when creating a text may be common to written language, the complete opposite is necessary for visual authorship. In using a visual language to guide the ‘Spy vs. Spy’ narrative, Prohias was forced to accommodate the audience completely in order to construct his tale so that the audience could comprehend and follow along. Any intended meaning in visual language cannot be assured of being conveyed, as connotations and even denotations can be fragmented and understood differently in different contexts. For this reason the author/artist is obligated to defer to their audience when it comes to constructing their work. The author/artists ability to express their vision is completely dependent on the audiences interpretation of the encoded messaging and meaning in their work. If the audience cannot decipher or understand the intended messaging, the author/artists work is ultimately in vain. Prohias and his ilk kill themselves, or at least their predominant role in the construction of their stories, in order to give life to the reader, accommodating the ease of their entry into and understanding of the work; becoming subverted in the act of doing so.

Besides designing his system of symbols to indulge his audience, Prohias overcame this narrative demands of audience compensation by never deviating from the established plotline and instead repeating the same narrative structure with differing elements. This simplified his relationship with his readers, as they developed familiarity with the characters and plotlines, and were compelled to recall previous ‘Spy vs. Spy’ comics, developing an idea of what to expect based on past reading experience. For its’ audience ‘Spy vs. Spy’ is: “… an open-ended dramatic narrative essentially without beginning or end about a recurring set of characters on whom the reader is always dropping in in media res (in the midst of). Relationships have been established before we arrive, and they continue with or without our attention.” (Inge, 3) The repetitious nature of ‘Spy vs. Spy’ guided audience expectation for the narrative, but the humour of the strip was in the action within it. In order to bring form to his abstract thoughts while consistently recreating the same circumstances in new and original ways, Prohias was forced back into consideration of all those in his potential audience, accommodating them fully by using symbols with a fairly universal signified value. His narrative vision could only be understood if he drew images the audience can understand. “Comics have always forged a personal-almost singular- relationship between the artist and the reader. With the added commitment required of artist and reader in wordless comics, this personal relationship increases.” (Berona, 39) Prohias’ limited understanding of the English language proved beneficial as the author of ‘Spy vs. Spy.’ Rather than use words as a crutch to more easily direct the narratives of his strips, he instead used the established systems of signification to form his images and tell his tales. This was ordinary practice for Prohias in his early work, where he sparsely included Spanish words within his comics. He is attributed with saying: “As far as I’m concerned, drawing is a language in itself. I feel words are superfluous. In fact, even in Cuba I used Spanish as little as possible. All the power was in the drawings.” (In Geissman, 8) Though he primarily focused on ‘Spy vs. Spy’, Prohias also contributed a series of other comic strips to MAD during his time with the magazine. As his health declined, Prohias passed the responsibilities of drawing the strip to Don ‘Duck’ Edwing, a longtime associate at MAD. Edwing kept the aesthetic conventions of Prohias’ work, but also introduced a few innovations to the rigid format of ‘Spy vs. Spy’, including the use of sound effects (written in text), the occasional expansion of the strip into an 18-panel format, and even the addition of a spy dog. “I felt like the first guy to make a talkie during the era of silent films,” said Edwing of his experiments. Though Edwing drew ‘Spy vs. Spy in a very similar fashion to Prohias, the comic underwent a significant aesthetic change when Peter Kuper was enlisted to take on authorship. In 1998 Kuper, an established political cartoonist was brought on to provide new energy for the strip. Kuper followed the same basic narrative format as his predecessors, but continued to experiment with the rigid aesthetic design of the comic. The bold, simple lines Prohias and Edwing used were replaced with stencils and paint, the traditional design format was almost completely disregarded, and there was even the incorporation of some colour into the strips. For Kuper, who was an established cartoonist who had authored a series of wordless strips and graphic novels, the opportunity to work on the ‘Spy vs. Spy’ was an opportunity to pay tribute to one of his greatest influences. Kuper said: “From the moment I put pen to paper, I felt like the spies had been encoded into my DNA. I was flooded with pleasurable memories of following their escapades as a teenager, and I rediscovered the impact Antonio Prohias’s storytelling had on my own work.” (281) Prohias’ unique gift was his ability to incorporate humour into his basic visual language. Finding and making light of the ludicrous, ironic, hypocritical in Cuban politics through little more than this visual language had Prohias, an award-winning cartoonist in Cuba, chased from his homeland, when he arrived in New York City, one magazine drew him in with their name.

Pt. 3 What, Me Worry? (Satire)
Satire as a literary and rhetorical form has been practiced throughout western history since the days of antiquity. Perceived shortcomings in individuals, groups, ideals and beliefs are brought into a humourous light with the intention of inspiring improvement. “To satirize life and institutions is to believe in a better mode of conduct which people fail to live up to, and humour may serve as a gentle but sometimes bitter angry corrective.” (Inge, 12) Though satire was traditionally found in writing and oratory, cartoonists and caricaturists like Antonio Prohias use their systems of symbols, their visual language, to mock and ridicule. “Satire is sometimes labelled ‘negative art’, but this designation is unfair since its raison d’etre is often rooted in the belief in a more joyful life and a stable and lasting environment. Paridoxially, satire—whether obliquely caustic or explicitly vicious—is a way of getting at the truth. The role of the satirist is to serve as a ‘public awakener’ who has an avowed goal to communicate directly from one inward world to another in such a way as to render a ‘shock of experience.’ (Roukes, 85) Satire is recognized as coming out of Roman times; it has been divided into two forms, juvenilian and horatian, both named after Roman satirists. Juvenelian satire is more direct and cruel, while horatian satire is softer and rooted in wit. (Britannica, 2009) Though MAD could be considered almost solely juvenelian, elements of horatian satire were interspersed throughout the magazine, one of the most notable being ‘Spy vs. Spy’. Since its first issue in 1952, MAD has been one of the forbearers of American satirical humour. The full title was originally: Tales Calculated to drive you MAD—Humor in a Jugular Vein, and from its’ launch in 1952, it has been considered a leading source of parody and mockery in the United States. MAD in style and substance has taught an entire generation of mostly male children and teenagers, about base, juvenile satire and humour, launching innumerable imitators in the decades since it first hit newsstands. “Satires allow one to say what the ordinary critic has to omit, for it is easier to laugh at the object under attack than to examine it objectively… MAD also attacks the increasingly obvious evils of American society, as well as the manner in which those evils are dealt with by the Left and Right.”(Reitberger & Fuchs, 219) In setting the standard for satire, MAD mercilessly lampooned elements of American culture of that era, the magazine took aim at the government, the press, advertising, Hollywood, fashion, subcultures, social practices, and anything else it saw fit. “The style of MAD in the sixties was heavily marked by the film and television satires of the era as well as the superb artist and caricaturist Mort Drucker, the way-out humour of Don Martin, whose oeuvre is the best example of sick humour in the comics style.” (Reitberger & Fuchs, 217) Originally a comic, the imposition of the Comics Code of 1954 forced E.C. Comics, producers of mostly horror, crime and science fiction comics to convert MAD into a magazine. When the other major comic companies agreed to the Comics Code to preemptively deter government regulation, they agreed to censor content of violent, or sexual nature. Due to this industry self regulation, E.C. comics was forced to abandon all of its’ titles with the exception of MAD, which subverted content regulations by changing to magazine format. William Gaines was the original publisher and Howard Kurtzman was the initial editors, though Kurtzman left in the magazines infancy and was replaced by Al Feldstein, who hired Antonio Prohias and launched ‘Spy Vs. Spy’.

The comic was intended as a satirization of the futility of conflicting Cold War postures between East and West, including the arms race, detante, and mutually assured destruction. Despite occasional public shows of attempts at diplomacy between the two, both sides of the wall were engaged in combat through espionage, propaganda, and war-by-proxy that went on from shortly after the end of World War II in the late 1980’s. Prohias had been chased out of Cuba for being anti-Castro, and then found himself on the other side, a newcomer to American soil with what was considered a questionable background during the midst of Cold War tensions. Not situated on any side of the conflict, Prohias perspective on the Cold War was displayed in the creation of ‘Spy vs. Spy.’ Gombrich wrote: “A nation’s art, no less than it’s philosophy, religion, law, mores, science, and technology, will always reflect the stage in the evolution of the Spirit, and each of these facets will thus point to the one common centre, the essence of the age.” (136) From Prohias’ unique vantage, the senselessness and absurdity of the conflict was apparent, and ‘Spy vs. Spy’ reflected as much. Forgetting about or perhaps toying with the traditional associations of white and black as representing good and evil, neither spy was framed as good or bad, both were equally devious and callous, and the victor was fairly evenly rotated between the two. The black spy-white spy dyad crystallized the circular, contradictory, and senseless nature of the Cold Wart conflict. Each month anonymous spies would repeat their antics and inevitably the comic would end with one spy killing the other, if not both of them ending up dead, signified by putting an ‘x’ over each eye. Though not particularly graphic, the losing spy often met a brutally violent end. The violence with which the spies brought each others demise framed them both as villains. Matthew Costello wrote: “Villains tend to recur in these stories, and which villains are prevalent and what they desire is a key element to the cultural representation in comic books… villains populate a given period and how they are portrayed are vital components to the cultural meaning of the books.” (21) By situating both spies as antagonists, Prohias was making a statement about both sides of the Cold War conflict, that altruistic ideology did not matter, right and wrong did not matter; it was simply two sides of the same coin. The simplicity with which he made his point was compounded with its’ repetition, month after month, issue after issue. According to Nicholas Roukes: “Visual humorists are visionary fools; they possess the imagination and wit to fabricate worlds that transcend reality, to generate playful disorder.” (87) Prohias, along with MAD magazine’s staff, the ‘Usual Gang of Idiots’, set the standard for American satire in the 1950’s until the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, where it has abandoned many of it’s traditions and is now floundering without cause or direction. During its’ reign MAD was merciless and callous in its’ depictions of cultural industries, however their offices neighboured, with many of the offices of key companies within the culture industry, and their messaging often aligned as well.

Pt. 4 MADison Avenue (Cultural Industries)
For the first few decades of the MAD’s existence, up until the mid 1990’s, the magazines’ offices were located on ‘MADison Avenue’ in New York City, the heart of many business that form American cultural industry. MAD magazine found its’ unique niche when satirical humour became a saleable commodity in the 1950’s. By fitting itself within the economy of the publishing industry, MAD magazine, and ‘Spy vs. Spy’ by association, commodified their particular style of humour for mass audiences. Looking to understand the role of the commodification and mass production of comics, Matthew McAllister asks: “Why and how may comics challenge and/or perpetuate power differences in society? Do comics serve and celebrate and legitimize and dominant values and institutions in society, or do they critique and subvert the status quo.” (2) Despite the intentions of Antonio Prohias, who intended his comic to be a statement against Cold War postures, the connotations associated with ‘Spy vs. Spy’ worked to reinforce the established adversarial and antagonistic dynamics between the opposing sides of the wall. Intended as a counter-hegemonic denouncement of the conflict, the comic’s messaging quickly became assimilated within the existing hegemonic metanarrative which facets of cultural industry like the publishing industry work tirelessly to construct and maintain. According to Theodor Adorno: “The concepts of order which (culture industry) hammers into human beings are always those of the status quo… The concoctions of the culture industry are neither guides for a blissful life, nor a new art of moral responsibility, but rather exhortations to tow the line, behind which stand the most powerful interests.” (36) By illuminating the humorous nature of ongoing dispute, Prohias’ work was exploited through the industrial, economist logic of culture industry to bolster existing power and ideologies. Though the visual language of the comic invites the imagination, it also works to constrain the imagination within the established paradigm. In the case of ‘Spy vs. Spy’, this paradigm is constructed around Cold War fears and antagonisms. In this sense, the comic is coercing the audience into passive acceptance of existing power structures. By laughing along with the antics of the two spies, the reader is submitting to the ideologies and power structures they represent. And not those as originally intended by Prohias, but the imposed values and ideals of the culture industry as imposed through the processes of production, distribution, and consumption. The kind of coercion used by culture industry runs along the same lines as some of the coercive actions of Fidel Castro, which was contrary Prohias’ intentions for his work. While MAD had provided Prohias with a platform for his work, the magazine had since it’s inception as a comic, been designed to exploit the publics insatiable taste for satire for pure profit. As co-founder William Gaines once said: “Our official reason for publishing MAD was, we were tired of the horror, weary of the science fiction, we wanted to do a comic comic. That was not true; it was just publicity. It was so (Howard) Kurtzman would get a 50 percent raise.” (In Goulart, 262) MAD magazine relentlessly attacked all suitable elements of American society and culture, especially politics and advertising. But in appropriating existing cultural artefacts as the base source of their satirical attacks, they are in fact legitimizing the original artefact they ridicule, while at the same time reifying its’ position and the power dynamics that surround it. In the decades since it appeared on the pages of MAD, ‘Spy vs. Spy’ has ingrained itself into American popular culture. Beginning as a mere monthly comic, it has since spawned board games and video games. The spies were brought to life for skits on MAD magazine’s television incarnation, MADTV, and they have also been featured in advertising campaigns for Altoids mints and Mountain Dew soda. The spy image has also been placed onto a litany of consumer goods, as the original message of the comic is marginalized further. As Adorno and Horkneimer wrote: “Amusement itself becomes an ideal, taking the place of the higher things of which it completely deprives the masses by repeating them in a manner even more stereotyped than the slogans paid for by advertising interests.” (13) While cultural industries certainly provided the platform for Prohias and his work, his intended meaning was quickly hijacked by the same cultural industries, as it became aligned with and helped to reinforce the same forces it was created to oppose.

Of all of the various gags, caricatures, and lampoons done by MAD over the decades of its large-scale popularity, ‘Spy vs. Spy’ was often the least overt and offensive comic in the magazine. Prohias’ work was tame by MAD’s standards, but also by his own. In Cuba, one of his most famous comics involved a character named ‘El Hombre Siniestro’: “The Sinister Man. A dark and dastardly character, EL Hombre Siniestro thought nothing of chopping the tails off dogs, or even the legs off little girls.” (Geissman, 8) His political cartoons were often scathing as well, a virtue which ultimately caught the eye and subsequent ire of Fidel Castro. The decision to soften his work for ‘Spy vs. Spy’ was likely both personal and editorial. While in Cuba Prohias was privy to a great deal of inside political information, this gave him a more firm and nuanced understanding of ongoing events and worked to shape the commentary intended in the messaging of his drawing. His limited understanding of the English language as well as American politics dissuaded him from the abstract violence of the two spies, but it was likely not only his decision. William Gaines, the publisher of MAD, was front and centre when comic books fell under the wrath of the red scare. In 1954, Gaines was involved in a very public defense of his company, EC Comics, and by association, the entire comics industry. Gaines was called to testify in front of the Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency and respond to “A government funded investigation into the detrimental and subversive effects of comic books on the youth.” (Holmes, 180). The result was the other major comic companies agreeing to the Comics Code, and the subsequent loss of every title under EC Comics with the exception of MAD. Having felt the wrath of McCarthyism firsthand, Gaines undoubtedly wanted to ensure his incorporation of the work of a known Cuban defector would not bring similar ramifications. Regardless, the horatian satire of ‘Spy vs. Spy’ is light when compared to the rest of the content in MAD. The true essence of the humour in the comic was based on the endless repetition of the same plot and the futility it represented. Unfortunately the cold war has long ended, and the conflict they were created to symbolize has ceased to exist. Instead Prohias’s satirical message has been subsumed by cultural industries as the spies have come to be meaningless cultural images. The spies are floating symbols whose encoded meaning has long been eroded and redirected, as a once abstract notion in the mind of the author has become abstract again in the mind of contemporary audiences who do not understand the comics’ context.

Works Cited:

Adorno, Theodor. “Cultural Industry Reconsidered.” Media Studies: A Reader, 2nd edition. eds. Paul Marris and Sue Thornham. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Print.

Adorno, Theodor and Horkheimer, Max. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Continuum, 1993. Print.

Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” The Routledge Critical and Cultural Theory Reader. Eds. Badmington, Neil and Julia Thomas. New York, NY: Routledge, 2008. Pp. 121-125.

Barthes, Roland. “The Rhetoric of the Image.” Studying Culture: An Introductory Reader, 2nd edition. ed. Ann Grey and Jim McGuigan. London: Arnold, 1997. 15-27. Print.

Berona, David A. “Pictures Speak in Comics Without Words: Pictoral Principles in the Work of Milt Gross, Henrik, Dorgathen, Eric Drooker, and Peter Kuper.” The Language of Comics: Word and Image. eds. Robin Varnum and Christina T. Gibbons. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2001. Print.

Costello, Matthew J. Secret Identity Crisis: Comic Books & the Unmasking of Cold War America. New york & London: Contiuum, 2009. Print.

Downs, Simon. “Introduction.” Drawing Now: Between the Lines of Contemporary Art.
London: I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2007. Pp. ix-xxi.

Eisner, Will. Comics and Sequential Art. New York: F+W Media, Inc., 1994. Print.

Geissman, Grant and Edwing, Don Spy vs. Spy: The Complete Casebook. New York: E.C. Publications Inc., 2001. Print.

Gombrich, Ernst. “Style” (1968) International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 15 (1968) 352-361. Print.

Goulart, Ron. Ron Goulart’s Great History of Comic Books Chicago: Contemporary Books Inc., 1986. Print.

Hatfield, Charles. “An Art of Tensions” A Comic Studies Reader. eds. Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2009. Print.

Holmes, Eric A. “Horror, Crime, and Red Dupes: The Agitative Rhetoric of Entertaining Comics.” International Journal of Comic Art. 7:1 (2005) Print.

Inge, M. Thomas. Comics as Culture. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1999. Print.

McAllister, Matthew P., Sewell, Edward H. Jr., Gordon, Ian. Comics and Ideology. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2001. Print.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: Paradox Press, 1993. Print.

Reitberger, Reinhold. & Fuchs, Wolfgang. Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium. London: Studio Vista Publishers, 1972. Print.

Roukes, Nicholas. Humor in Art: A Celebration of Visual Wit Worcester: Davis Publications, Inc., 1997. Print.

“Satire” http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/524958/satire. Britannica.com, n.d. Web. December 14, 2009

Wigand, Rolf T. ‘Toward a more Visual Culture through Comics.’ In Comics and Visual Culture (eds. Alphons Silverman and H.-D. Droff) Munich, New York, London, Paris: K.G. Saur, 1986. Print.

Note: This essay was written for COMS 603 - Media Studies

Infowars.com: Counter-hegemonic Exploitation through Consumption

2009-12-13T13:07:00.004-07:00

American history since it’s birth as a nation has been rife with fodder for conspiracy theories. Having been birthed and grown under the scrutiny of news media, from newspapers, to television and now the Internet, events in American history have been disseminated and archived for the public. Newspapers covered the series of scandals and corruption that took place during the nations’ infancy, continuing into the 20th century where television and radio joined alongside. These media provided news and information to the citizenry in a one-way, top-down manner. The Internet has shifted this dynamic, giving voice to individuals, while providing vast new space for social identification. In the days before the Internet, as well as having little choice but to accept the news one was given, one would have to physically search to find those with similar interests and beliefs, and even then contact was constrained in individual circumstances by their spatial-temporal dynamics. Online small, marginalized, and niche groups have space to meet, gather, and share virtually at the time and with the frequency of their leisure. One group that has been largely traditionally marginalized is conspiracy theorists, those who believe in alternate, and often treacherous versions of and rationales behind events, and are typically dismissed as outlandish and overzealous. Despite this, the foundational requirements of conspiracy theory involve being politically aware, involved, and upset. While they may be on the absolute fringe of the political, conspiracy theorists are undeniably engaged as citizens. In the spirit of globalization, conspiracy theorists have not only developed visions of global domination, but have been connected online with innumerable people who share views that fit into their paradigm of reality. Infowars.com is a site which unifies a large range of the public, from the disaffected to the militant, claiming the source of their trepidation is an intricate web of conspiracy. Infowars.com, whose slogan is ‘Because there is a war on for your mind’, develops an ongoing metanarrative based on mostly alternate interpretations of policy decisions, events, and the way mass-media covers them. The goal is information for emancipation, that by informing their audience, Infowars.com is propelling them out from under the corrupt and oppressive thumb of the elite. The question is: does the website break down the constraining walls of political discourse provided by mainstream news media; inspiring emancipatory praxis by those who receive the message, or does the Infowars messaging reinforce dominant ideologies by submitting to the fate of most counter-hegemonic movements; becoming subsumed by the dominant culture it purports to deconstruct.

Infowars.com is the virtual home of the ‘infowarrior’ movement, the official leader of which is Alex Jones, a radio host based out of Austin, Texas. Along with the website and radio show, Jones is a documentary filmmaker and activist. Infowars.com, along with it’s sister-site, Prisonplanet.com, provide live audio as well as recordings and video of the daily radio programs, Jones’ video documentaries (including ‘The Obama Deception’, ‘Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement’, and the recently released ‘Fall of the Republic’), message boards, and a news section which primarily features stories involving the United States, but also Canada and the other parts of the planet, especially the West. Stories primarily come from traditional media sources, but they are placed alongside exclusive Infowars pieces. All of them feed into the Infowars metanarrative. Jones’ trans-media content provides a constitutionalist, populist unification of a series of conspiracy theories into a metanarrative of truth that often runs in opposition to the portrait of reality painted by the mainstream media. The infowarrior metanarrative involves control of the masses by the oligarchic and financial elite, who use governments and individual politicians and the structures under their power to bring their eugenically-driven policies of societal control through both latent means (media manipulation) and overt action (police/military force) in the name of the rise of a global ‘New World Order’ and the near-universal enslavement and exploitation of the human population. To infowarriors, current policies are rooted in logic of Orwellian ‘doublespeak’, where American anti-bullying legislation is designed for surveillance and oppression, the flu pandemic was staged to impose martial law, and the environmental movement is being used to enslave the poor and middle-class through carbon taxation. Rooted in a Jeffersonian patriotism, Jones and his followers feel the United States Constitution has been subverted and want an uprising similar to the original American Revolution to take place against what they consider to be similarly tyrannical forces. The left-right paradigm is under constant attack by infowarriors, who believe it is a sham which cloaks the reality of an oppressive class-based system perpetuated by hegemonic media practices and corrupt government, which has led to the middle and lower classes becoming virtual share-croppers, tethered by increasing expenses, declining prospects, and mounting debt to the same financial elite who they purport to be in control. Infowars.com provides voice and space for people ranging from those disenfranchised and frustrated with the government, to more populist members of the right and left, to militias and conspiracy theorists who believe in the imminent arrival of their worst fears.

Infowars.com is set up like a traditional news website. There are featured stories and archives, as well as links to multi-media content, the discussion forum, contact information and a merchandise shop. News is currently grouped under the following themes: Media, Police State, Big Brother, Science & Technology, Border Control & Illegal Immigration, War on Terror, Iraq, Iran, World at War, Economic Crisis, and 9/11 Activism, as well as a featured archive of pieces related to the flu pandemic. There are some stories that are attributed to Infowars.com, whose authors are presumably either Infowars staff, or volunteer/citizen journalists. A number of stories come from blogs as well as mainstream news sources. Stories featured on the site were predominantly American or involved U.S. interests under the aforementioned categories. Infowars.com often featured international reporting on events. The range of information and perspective in the international media about the U.S. is used by Infowars to oppose and contradict mainstream American news. Their examination of international reporting of American events often displays the differences in dissemination and interpretation of information that exists between American mainstream media and their counterparts around the world. This is used as partial evidence of the mainstream media’s collusion with the elite in producing coercive messaging as well as to reaffirm preexisting repressive theories or notions. Infowars.com has three other associated sites, Prisonplanet.com: which offers more global news, as well as the main online forum for infowarriors, and subscription-based access to superior-quality audio and video, as well as Truthnews.us: an alterative news site, and Jonesreport.com: a low-production news amalgamator. Alex Jones also has his own channel on YouTube that features most of his documentaries as well as video recordings of recent radio broadcasts. With an entire counter-hegemonic trans-media metanarrative behind them, Infowars takes an oppositional role against the establishment, with particular aim at the misrepresentation and manipulation done by the mainstream media.

Public distrust of mainstream media among the public is at increasingly high levels and as the Internet provides new sources for news and perspective, the mainstream media’s prestige is weakened. With independent news sites, amalgamators, and blogs given similar priority online to the established news corporations’ sites, as well as the niche news available for individuals’ preferences, the mainstream media no longer possess the audience, nor the control over their audience, that they enjoyed in the days of newspapers, radio, and television. Established news organizations in the United States are seen as partisan, slanted, and largely a communicative appendage of political parties and industry. This aligns with the Infowars metanarrative, which engages its’ audience by providing an alternate accounting for almost all major and some relevant minor events that can be fit into its conspiracy of elite global control. This frames the media as subservient to elite interests and complicit in the oppression and domination of the middle and lower classes. In this way Infowars.com works as a media watchdog, as the community will leap all over stories and statements that seem to be supporting the ‘elite agenda’. The site also fights the mainstream media’s control of the knowledge economy online by providing access to news that was slanted, filtered, ignored, or otherwise marginalized. Conspiracy theorists have traditionally been marginalized because their work is largely speculative, and cannot be confirmed by established institutions of power and knowledge. Infowars.com attempts to subvert this marginalization by providing established news and perspective that exist outside established power structure, as well as through the production of their own news and perspective. In this way the information is made accessible to even the moderately disaffected citizen, from one who is sick of the lies coming from their elected representative, to those who believe in the Illuminati. This makes the potential Infowars community extensive. By encouraging any criticism or conspiracy that fits into their metanarrative, they create space for a large, and largely marginalized portion of the population. They then encourage their audience to engage themselves politically, but in a subversive way. An essential feature of the content throughout the Infowars universe is the promotion of agency in their audience. The audience is compelled and prodded by Jones and his associates into action, primarily through becoming informed and aware, but also through grassroots campaigns of awareness raising, boycotts, and vocal or written opposition to government policy. As well as instigating a variety of non-violent political action, Infowars encourages the audience to prepare themselves, including through armament, to defend themselves, their families, and their property from insurgent government oppression. As the site grows in popularity and awareness, the communities’ collective efforts to watch over the U.S. mainstream media, as well as their unified oppositional voice towards government and corporate culture, it holds the potential to shape coverage. With more people becoming disaffected with the established media, they may begin to move closer to Infowars’ perspectives in order to appeal to a wider audience while re-establishing their own projections of agency. In doing so though, Infowars would risk succumbing to the fate of many counter-hegemonic movements, as they are absorbed into the hegemonic domination they initially opposed.

As a counter-hegemonic movement, Infowars is walking perilously close to regressing into another facet of the hegemonic edifice it professes to be attempting to disassemble. One problem is the unabashed consumerism of the site. Infowars alleges to be out of the mainstream, but Infowars.com contains many characteristics similar to commercial-based websites. Running down each page, parallel to the news on the right side of the page, there is a great deal of peripheral advertising for commercial products primarily intended for self-sufficiency and preservation. These ads do not link to typical consumer goods, instead they are products like solar panels, commercial espionage equipment, health supplements, and discounted arms training. The rhetoric used in these advertisements is often populist and conspiratorial, targeting the same fears perpetuated by the sites’ content. The framing of the circumstances within the Infowars metanarrtive as immediate and dire prioritize the need for complete self-sufficiency for preservation in the face of elite oppression. And Jones is able to deliver to his advertisers an audience who potentially have a perceived need and see immediate value in their product as a result of the perpetuation of the sense of impending catastrophe by the sites’ content. These same products are judiciously advertised on Jones’ radio and online broadcasts with glowing, individual, and personal recommendations. Then there are Jones’ own Infowars branded products. There are similar numbers of advertisements for Infowars products on the site as there are for the other consumer goods. All the advertisements link to the Infowars shop, which does not offer a link back to the actual website. Jones has t-shirts, hats and posters with various images and slogans for sale, as well as books, music, and DVD’s. Jones also sells his own self-preservation gear directly through the site, including short-wave radios, antennae, and water purifying equipment. In a sense Jones has created an economy of conspiracy. Those who feel compelled by the Infowars metanarrative can seemingly increase their participation, take control of an increasingly unfathomable situation, and by take part in engagement by association; purchasing consumer goods that will ensure they are prepared as they wait with baited breath for their government to come and oppress them. Though no one can fault Jones for trying to earn a living from his work, the overt consumerist nature of the site encourages consumption more than action. By aligning consumer goods with his message, he is aligning audience with advertisers, a key tenant of the cultural industries that infowarriors are sworn enemies of. The sources of Infowars.com’s news content are also problematic. Though they do produce some of their own, original news content, the majority of their news is imported from blogs or mainstream sites. Positioning themselves against mainstream media, Infowars frames the press as an elite appendage of oppression. In linking to mainstream news, even handpicked stories, for their content, they are in fact contradicting their counter-hegemonic values. Linking stories to mainstream media sites also works against Infowars. The metanarrative is constructed in part by the same forces it opposes. The site claims there is a “war on for your mind,” and that the mainstream media is one of the battlegrounds for this war, yet it regularly uses the same media as a base source for their information. Not only does the foundation of their argument that the media as a whole is working in collusion with the elites to coerce and oppress society lose validity when they then use them as sources when the situation merits it, in linking back to news stories the site is not merely supporting, but reifying the media power structure. Though the news stories are placed alongside original Infowars stories as well as blog entries, this works to normalize and subsequently legitimize the established media within the counterhegemonic metanarrative of Infowars. Furthermore, the directly oppositional, alarmist, and hyperbolic rhetoric used throughout Infowars.com and the rest of the Infowars metanarrative makes it an echo chamber for the disaffected. The blatant subjectivities at work feed into the beliefs of the audience, but make it difficult to appeal to those with moderate views. The other effect of the Infowars echo chamber is that it is really perpetuating established hegemonic controls through the promotion of scare tactics. In constructing their metanarrative of eugenically driven, deeply ingrained corruption and increasing oppression and topping it up daily with more examples of the same thing, Infowars is reinforcing existing hegemonic discourse. Despite encouraging action, they are continually framing the world as unchanging and unchangeable, normalizing class distinctions and their associated notions of power while trying to fight them.

In this way Infowars.com is a confounding site for civic engagement. It proclaims to be empowering its’ audience, but in its use of cultural industry tropes makes the empowerment look like another wrinkle within the existing hegemonic cycle. If Infowars was indeed started as a counter-hegemonic movement then it appears to have lost it’s footing and positioned itself within the oppressive cycle it opposes. By unraveling layers of government and corporate collusion and corruption they are confirming their audiences existing beliefs while affirming their helplessness in the situation outside of a few grassroots efforts. Even the activism promoted on Infowars.com is rooted in the use of their material, purchasing and sharing their documentaries, printing and disseminating their posters, wearing their shirts, subscribing for their video, and purchasing the products advertised. In this way the activism is just consumption of niche products, and actual engagement is subverted by the same hegemonic powers Infowars stands in opposition to. If the audience is satisfied with merely consuming Infowars products and sharing them with people, they are not likely to increase their efforts as citizens, especially given the constant reminders of their oppression at the hands of the elite. The false activist movement in reality appears to be rooted in Jones’ own financial and personal benefit. This, along with the endless topping up of alarmist rhetoric on the immediacy and inevitability of impending doom increases the anxiety of its’ audience and has the potential to lull them into a civic stupor. Alex Jones may be the face and voice of the conspiracy movement, but his approach to engaging the public in what he asserts are issues of absolute importance and consequence is more alienating than inclusive with it’s alarmist and oppositional posture. As well, the commercial nature of Infowars.com and the whole Infowars movement appears to be little more than commercial exploitation of a niche market. Using the time honoured tradition of appealing almost solely to the emotions of his audience, Jones draws them into a world constructed on paranoia where consumption replaces engagement. Less hypocritical than misguided, in terms of political engagement, Infowars.com has its’ audience pointed in the wrong direction.

Note: This paper was writen for COMS 627 - Identity & Politics in New Media

Thesis Review: Television and the Olympics (1986)

2009-12-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

Richard K. Alaszkiewicz’s Master of Arts thesis, Television and the Olympics, interested me for a number of reasons. Primarily, as I intend my thesis work to surround the mediation of professional hockey that’s resulted from television cameras, I hoped Alaszkiewicz’s work would provide me with some insight and further orientation. As well, Television and the Olympics, which Alaszkiewicz finished in 1986, appears to represent one of the first Master or Arts theses produced by the Faculty of Communications & Culture at the University of Calgary. With that in mind, I was interested in the type of scholarship going on in the field both at that time and during the infancy of the C&C graduate program.

Television and the Olympics was written as a case study examining the evolving power relations between the American television industry and the Olympic Games. The research Alaszkiewicz did for his thesis involved dissecting the shift in financial dynamics that occurred between the International Olympic Committee, American television broadcasters, and their advertisers as the Olympics rose in prominence and popularity with television audiences. Alaszkiewicz posits that the vast (and at the time exponentially growing) sums of money networks pay to deliver Olympic audiences to advertisers caused the Olympics to subvert some notions of its’ established, cultivated, and celebrated image. Alaszkiewicz wrote: “… traditional ideals and mores of the Olympics have been transformed as the Games have shifted from an athletic event to a big business and a major media (advertising) event.” (6)

Organizational theory is the theoretical perspective Alaszkiewicz uses to guide his case study. Alaszkiewicz wrote: “…organizations functioning in an open system have to exchange resources with their surrounding environment to survive and prosper. That is to say, successful organizations output and input resources to and from their environment in such a way to maximize profits and minimize losses.” (8) Alaszkiewicz extends organizational theory to describe a symbiotic relationship between television and the Olympic Games, before exploring the shifting power dynamics between the two that occur as a result of the increase in revenue (due to advertising) all have helped achieve. Following the establishment of his theoretical framework, Alaszkiewicz builds his case study as a qualitative political economy of the relationship between the Olympics, American network television, and advertisers. He provides historical context for each of the three as well as detailed financial data that he uses to build his argument in the case study.

Alaszkiewicz outlines the history of the Olympic Games, from the original competition in Ancient Greece, to its reincarnation at the end of the nineteenth century, when Baron Pierre de Coubertin revive the Games and: “…entrenched the critical concepts of amateurism and internationalism which have comprised the guiding force for the Olympics through the twentieth century.” (Alaszkiewicz, 32) Amateurism in terms of the Olympics is the notion of athletes competing for the sake of sport, that they should not receive monetary benefits for their performances. As Alaszkiewicz notes, this was not a rule for the athletes of Ancient Greece, and in the modern Olympics it’s a quaint mythology that certainly wasn’t universal, and that disappeared altogether once the Games began being broadcast on television. Internationalism was the ideal that the Olympic Games be a space where issues between nations were left behind, where different cultures could be shared and explored through athletics. Alaszkiewicz is clear that this ideal wasn’t really realized either, as host nations often used the games to promote nationalism, and that the games had been cancelled during the two world wars. Along with the symbols and rituals associated with the Olympic Games, the ideals of internationalism and amateurism work to construct what Alaszkiewicz refers to as “Olympism”. After setting up the traditional positioning of the modern Olympic Games, Alaszkiewicz begins to explore the relationship between broadcasting and sport.

Beginning with the increased prominence given to sports coverage during the days of ‘yellow journalism’ that occurred during the decades on the cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Alaszkiewicz explores the history of the relationship between media and sport. Attributing the commercialization of sport to the radio era, he writes: “In fact, the popularity of boxing on radio had significant economic implications for radio manufacturers… during the radio era, the interdependent relationship between the mass media and sport was solidified. Radio promoted sport and sport in turn sold the radio.” (Alaszkiewicz, 60) Following WWII, sports became an increasingly important portion of television programming, as it possessed a number of qualities that appealed both to broadcasters and audience. According to Alaszkiewicz: “Sport provides television with superb programming that contains action, drama, suspense, and immediacy, attributes otherwise difficult to program. Sport delivers a desirable demographic profile to advertisers and also has been relatively inexpensive to produce.” (65) Television featured primarily major American sports until 1961, when under the guidance of Roone Arledge the American Broadcasting Network (ABC) launched a program called ‘Wide World of Sports’ which featured obscure and foreign sports and athletics. The idea of the program was to creates an audience for these events, and the knowledge and experience Arledge derived from his experience with ‘Wide World of Sports’ encouraged and enabled ABC to refine Olympic coverage and position itself for decades as the ‘Olympic Network’. The audience for the Olympic broadcasts was huge, and filled with ideal demographics for advertisers. As a result, competition between the major U.S. networks for exclusive Olympic coverage have driven the caused the prices for rights to increase exponentially with each subsequent games, with few exceptions. According to Alaszkiewicz: “…the ever increasing importance of television in popularizing the games, while supplying the Olympic system with needed revenue, presents the possibility of an alteration of the historic ideals and principles of the modern Games.” (11) Having established the symbiotic relationship between television and the Olympics, Alaszkiewicz then explores the impact of advertising on the dynamic.

Using “Network logic” as his guiding theoretical framework for his chapter on advertising, Alaszkiewicz explains that broadcasters sell audiences to advertisers, who exert control over programming in their desire to have their advertising reach the most lucrative demographics possible. Alaszkiewicz establishes the Olympics as an event that draws a large audience ripe with desirable demographics, causing the prices to soar and bidding between companies for advertising space and broadcasters for exclusive broadcasting rights to soar. With an overwhelming majority of the International Olympic Committee’s profits coming from American broadcasters and advertisers, Alaszkiewicz notes a series of examples where American interests have taken precedence in the organization of the Olympic Games, from the choice of a disproportionate number of North American host cities chosen, to the preferential adjustment of schedules for competitions popular in America so they can be shown during ‘prime-time’ television hours in the U.S. Alaszkiewicz feels this has decimated the fundamental ideals of ‘Olympism’, that the vast sums of money involved in the Olympic Games as a result of television broadcasting have fundamentally changed the nature of the games, writing: “Instead of depicting the games as a true meeting of all nations and competitors, television, because it reflects considerably higher ratings, adopts a very nationalistic perspective concentrating on the exploits of its own nation’s competitors… Amateurism, always under commercial pressures since the early days of the modern Olympics, has been transformed by televisions extensive transmission of the Games. Corporations… find the successful athlete to be effective as a spokesperson.” (152) National television networks focus their resources on covering their own athletes and preferred competitions, which contradicts the universal and inclusive vision of de Coubertin. As does the use of athletes as paid spokespeople, which Alaszkiewicz feels can be so lucrative for athletes, that he attributes it to the rise of performance-enhancing drug use which was only gaining prominence in the 1980s.

Television and the Olympics was not at all what I expected from a Master of Arts thesis. Alaszkiewicz’s conclusion aligns with my ideas about the relationship between television and sport, that: “The Olympic games over the last thirty years have become an American television entertainment spectacular. The role of television itself is emerging to be as, or even more, important than the actual games.” (155) His approach in pursuing this conclusion, from the theoretical construction of his case study to the quantitative and historical nature of the data gathered, seems base in relation to today’s political economy work. Alaszkiewicz builds a solid historical perspective for the relationship between the Olympics, television broadcasters and advertisers, providing strong context for his argument, however the majority of work involved following the dollars involved, and attributing power solely to financial considerations. This brought a very narrow focus to the study, leaving a number of fundamental questions that would require examination by contemporary communications academia, including further explorations of the implications of these new found power relations on athletes, participating countries and/or the audience (which is by no means homogeneous), or the ways in which the changes television requires work to perpetuate dominant discourses of nationalism and colonization. These types of explorations would be better served using more difficult theoretical constructs, which may not have reached prominence or even acceptance in 1986. Television and the Olympics would appear to reflect the contentious nature of the field in the 1980’s, as communications attempted to situate itself in academia and the University of Calgary’s program undoubtedly was attempting to find its own footing. Alaszkiewicz is making qualitative interpretations from almost purely quantitative data, situating them historically, and fitting them loosely into the premise of his symbiotic relationship as defined through organizational theory. It appears to be an attempt at interdisciplinary that moves too far towards traditional positivist research and analysis, and lacks the incorporation of critical theory that effectively encourages and legitimizes qualitative analysis. As well, Alaszkiewicz also directly inserts his opinion at a couple of points in his writing. For example, when he refers to the Olympic Games as “spell-binding entertainment.” (69). Despite his evident passion for the traditional ideals of “Olympism”, editorializing doesn’t seem to have a place in academic writing at this level. Ultimately, Television and the Olympics provided an indication of just how far our field has progressed in just under a quarter-century. The depth of research done by Alaszkiewicz is impressive, but the scope of the thesis overall seems limited compared to the work I’m currently engaged in and preparing for.

Works Cited:
Alaszkiewicz, Richard K. Television and the Olympics. (Master of Arts Thesis: University of Calgary) 1986.

Winning the Battle, Losing the War: Canadian Civic Disengagement through ‘War Room’ Politics

2009-11-15T12:31:00.002-07:00

Civic engagement in Canada has become a serious problem. Voter turnout in elections at all levels are approaching or surpassing all-time lows, as Canadians are feeling more and more marginalized by a government that many feel neither speaks nor listens to them. Affirming many of these negative perceptions is Warren Kinsella’s The War Room: Political Strategies for Business, NGOs, and Anyone Who Wants to Win, an unfortunate commentary on the state of politics in contemporary Canada, where competing parties are admittedly concerned with little more than attracting votes at that time when the party in power deems it strategically viable to hold an election. Kinsella, one of former Prime Minister Jean Chretiens’ chief spinsters, provides his guide to “Business, NGOs and Anyone Who Wants To Win” (cover) first on framing discourse as purely oppositional and confrontational, and then how to defeat your developed opposition within said framed discourse. Through his anecdotal tales of political success and failure through pure spin (his attribution), Kinsella encourages aggressive strategies and tactics to sway public image in your direction. The chess pieces pictured on the cover of The War Room are appropriate, as Kinsella clearly views politics solely as advanced chess for elites, where citizens whose lives are profoundly affected by government policies aren’t on the chessboard, nor are they even seated at the table on which the chessboard sits, but are instead a passive mindless audience watching from the distance. The book is not about democracy, it is about winning. It is about selling a bill of goods to the public, whether they want it or not. The line between politics and the political could not have been drawn more clearly by Kinsella, who shows little-to-no interest in the latter. In looking at a couple of Kinsella’s quotations in the context of the book in its entirety, he frames one of the two biggest political parties in Canada as completely disinterested in the citizenry, and his work as described within the text can be concluded to be responsible for the Americanization of the Canadian political landscape, which promises further disengagement by Canadians.

The War Room begins with Kinsella developing his conception of a ‘war room’, which he openly admits to having stolen from former United States President Bill Clinton’s chief spinster, James Carville, whom Kinsella repeatedly and reverentially refers to as ‘God’. Carville’s ‘war room’ was a 24-hour public opinion development and maintenance machine. Workers not only produced positive spin for Clinton, they scoured every existing bit of information or conjecture released about their candidate, ready to counterpunch against anything negative within minutes. At the same time, they also searched for any dirt on their opponents that didn’t overstep their ethical boundaries. The attacks were non-stop and merciless, and apparently effective in securing victory for Clinton. With an unwavering faith in Chretien and the best of intentions for the direction of the country, Kinsella convinced his boss to copy the Carville model for the 1993 Federal Election. Kinsella’s version of the ‘war room’ apparently proved to be effective for the federal Liberals and Jean Chretien, who won a majority and held office for three terms. Kinsella wrote The War Room feeling his strategies and tactics were appropriate for those outside politics who are equally eager for public approval, and in the book he provides ten superfluous and dispensable lessons on banal topics ranging from the importance of having relevant facts and numbers, to the benefit of new media and mainstream news media in getting messages out with minimal expense. At the onset of the book, Kinsella claims spin is inherently democratic: “because dictators and autocrats have no need to persuade the masses” (63), a claim which he seems to feel carries with it the divine right to shape messaging in the name of competition under the guise of democratic altruism. The reality is that through both design and unintended consequence, The War Room reveals Kinsella’s strategies for narrowing and distorting political discourse for short-term gain, much to the detriment of any democratic ideal.

“Given the choice, John and Jane Frontporch will always choose a plan that is more hope than fear. They will always succumb, first and foremost, to the appeal to the heart, and not just the cold play for the intellect. They will always choose to listen to the person who talks to them, and not just at them. They will embrace the leader who is willing to take risk and isn’t just playing it safe – as they do, every single day, juggling mortgage payments and utility bills, trying to catch up with their sleep, worrying about keeping their jobs, and saving up every damned penny to give their kids a better life than the one they had.” (152)

This particular quotation when unpacked illuminates the absolute disconnect Kinsella, and those of his ilk have with the Canadian citizenry. Throughout The War Room Canadian citizens, those whose votes Kinsella depends on for his survival, are referred to as ‘John (occasionally Joe) and Jane Frontporch.’ His use of this term shows a complete disregard for the range of hopes, needs, desires, and priorities that voters possess in a country as regionalized, ethnically and culturally diverse, and fragmented as Canada. The term is a bastardization of traditional American references to the ‘Joneses’, ‘John and Jane Smith’ or the more recent ‘Joe the Plumber’, all of which completely marginalize the foundational element of democracy, the citizen, into a complete abstraction. Kinsella then surmises the homogenous masses will ‘succumb’ to messaging, rather than have any opinion or agenda that may direct their individual vote. Following this is possibly the most absurd line in the entire 287 pages of text, the claim that: “They (voters) will always choose to listen to the person who talks to them and not just at them”. The entire premise of The War Room is the absolute necessity of the strict controlling and dissemination of messaging. Kinsella admits as much when he claims: “Our objective, my objective, has never been to change the minds of the media or the thinking of ‘officialdom’. The objective has been – through the media (if possible) and through websites (if necessary) – to capture the support of Joe and Jane Frontporch, and to keep it.” (244). The War Room is dedicated to talking ‘at’ people, with absolutely no consideration of talking “to” anybody at any point in the entire book. Talking ‘to’ someone involves recognition and reciprocity based on more than their mere presence. With that in mind, it can be understood that Kinsella means creating the impression of talking ‘to’ your audience, with an inevitable result of further distancing one self or message from a public Kinsella himself admits are increasingly savvy. Voters, consumers, and most average people can tell when they’re being patronized, and they are sick of it. The last line of the paragraph is one of a handful of times in the book where Kinsella feigns empathy with the actual struggles those outside of his inner-circle are faced with, and it works to delegitimize his argument even more. During these moments Kinsella admits to a keen awareness of the problems that face the average Canadians, but merely uses this as part of the emotional appeal since after all, ‘facts tell, stories sell’. His lack of respect for the individual citizen is evident throughout the book; one example comes from his suggestion of whom to bring in to answer questions in times of crisis: “Hand the messes to solid, dull, factual, unflappable guys to answer all of the questions, until people get bored and start playing bridge again. After all, that’s why God invented solid, dull, factual, unflappable spokespeople.” (165) According to Kinsella when all else fails, do your best to dull the people who will be affected by your decisions so you can go ahead with them; part of his playbook is to encourage disengagement. Despite its distasteful nature, Kinsella’s argument remains persuasive throughout the book. But in the final pages his attempt to address the problems of citizen disengagement undermine……..

Be it ponderings or an attempt at penance, Kinsella spends a moment in the final pages of The War Room ruminating on the problems that face campaigns, namely that less and less people seem to care about or be affected by their messages. “It is as if political types secretly worry… they had something to do with the circumstances that led to the disinterest, disaffection, and disenfranchisement that now besets too many campaigns, political and otherwise.” (Kinsella, 282) Of course they had something to do with it! They hold a place of public trust with less and less concern with the public that provide for them, let alone the public at large, which have been completely eliminated from Kinsella’s version of political discourse. In referring to the success of a campaign in propagating a particular message, his solution to “the disinterest, disaffection, and disenfranchisement that now besets too many campaigns” is to bang the drum louder, and to bury your opponent even deeper. This speaks to the heart of the problem of his version of democracy; it’s built entirely through oppositional and confrontational discourses. Since the moment children are old enough to take part in the most basic group activity, through school and into the workplace, they are forced to learn the most basic of premises, that you are never going to get along with everybody, and sometimes you have to cooperate with those you don’t get along with. One of the things common to many Canadians Kinsella overlooked while marginalizing them is that part of their daily responsibilities is also dealing with people they do not agree with or particularly like. There’s also the fact that Canada is one of the most inclusive nations in the world, and a portion of our fledgling national identity is based on embracing this inclusion. Blind opposition and vitriolic confrontation are just not part of the daily exchange that goes on between most people. In an attempt to sway swing voters, both Liberals and Conservatives move closer and closer to the middle, making their policies more and more similar, so the direction of the confrontation and the line in the sand that the parties have drawn is growing less clear. The hostility that exists between parties has been long revealed as pure spectacle; it does not show voters that their constituent is fighting for them, because as Kinsella clearly articulates in his book, those in charge are not fighting for their constituents, they are fighting for re-election. Winning is not everything to the majority of voters, who ultimately want something more tangible out of participating in the political process than the ephemeral buzz that may come from having your candidate win. Kinsella admits his book “has been about doing all that you can do to grab the attention of busy people. It has been about how to get people to choose your side over the other side.” (285). The problem is these sides aren’t defined in ways that the public can identify with any longer, and all the spin in the world can’t force identification, let alone the next step up from identification, which can be loosely defined as ‘caring’. As well, anyone who goes to the extents Kinsella suggests in order to have his homogenous public choose their side, is almost assuredly going to completely alienate those not on their side, a practice that can have devastating consequences in the long-term.

The old adage from Pearl Harbor goes: ‘They won the battle, but we won the war.’ Unfortunately this American saying is unflatteringly appropriate to Kinella’s American-style ‘war room’ politics, where his strategies may have won a battle or two, but the Liberals use of the same oppositional and confrontational discourses that have beset American politics may ultimately cause Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats, Greenies… and even Marxists Leninists to lose the war, as more and more people become disinterested, disengaged, and distanced from anything political. The natural extension of Kinsella’s political ideal has ultimately already been realized under the American Bush II administration and their chief spinster, Karl Rove. Under Rove’s guidance, the Republicans achieved re-election by rallying just enough voters to defeat the democrats by appealing solely to those on their side of the aisle. Perpetuating ‘war room’ politics and a win at all cost mentality turned the United States into a nation of ‘red and blue states’, arguably as divided today as at any time postbellum. In a country as regionalized, fragmented, and with as contentious a recent political history as that of Canada, disengagement may no longer be the biggest problem for our nation if we become similarly divided.

Works Cited:

Kinsella, Warren. The War Room: Political Strategies for Business, NGOs, and Anyone Who Wants to Win. Toronto &Tonawanda, Dundurn Press, 2007.

Note: This book review was done for COMS 627 - Politics and Identity in the New Media Age

Journal Review: Communications and Critical/Cultural Studies

2009-11-14T20:43:00.003-07:00

In attempting to represent the changing landscape of communications studies, the National Communications Association (NCA) launched Communications and Critical/Cultural Studies (CCCS) in 2004. Published quarterly, in March, June, September, and December, it is one of ten journals published by the NCA. Despite such a large number of existing NCA journals, CCCS has a unique mandate of promoting discourses of cultural criticism within the field of communications. It is also the first NCA journal to position itself to encourage: “scholarship for an international readership on communications as theory, practice, technology, and disciplines of power… critical inquiry that cuts across academic boundaries to focus on social, political and cultural practices from the standpoint of communication.” A full one-third of the editorial board is from outside the United States, and about one-third of the submissions are international as well.

The CCCS adheres to a policy of double-blind peer review where all references to the author within the submission must be removed before evaluation. As of September 2008, they have an acceptance rate of 14.8% for unique manuscripts and 11.1% for all submitted manuscripts, making them one of the more competitive NCA journals.

The National Communications Association is the largest professional association of scholars, educators, students and practitioners on the planet. They have over 7,000 members all across the United States as well as in 25 other nations. As such, the CCCS is a traditional scholarly journal. The NCA publications board oversees all of the associations’ print and electronic publications. They make recommendations on publication policy, nominate editors, and act as liaison between the NCA and their publishing partners (currently Taylor & Francis, and EBSCO publishing). Members of the publishing board are representative of the various research traditions and modes of inquiry that fall under the umbrella of the NCA. In searching for an editor, the NCA publications board puts out a general call to membership for nominees. After reviewing those nominated, the publications board makes their recommendation to the executive committee, who then endorse the nominee to the NCA legislative assembly, who are representative of all the different units and areas of study covered by the NCA. The legislative assembly holds the deciding vote on the editorial nominees. (M. Fernando, personal communication, November 2, 2009)

In 2004 Dr. Robert L. Ivie, a professor of rhetoric and public culture at Indiana University, was chosen as the inaugural editor of Communications and Critical/Cultural Studies. Dr. Ivie had edited the Western Journal of Communication from 1985-87, as well as the Quarterly Journal of Speech from 1993-95, and his interest in the use of rhetoric for political critique and cultural production aligned well with the founding mission of the journal. Dr. Ivie wrote: “I was especially engaged by the question of how to articulate critique in a scholarly voice. I suspect there are multiple ways to do this within the bounds of the genre of scholarship. The journal presented an opportunity to experiment with different critical approaches and to learn from the experience.” (R. Ivie, personal communication, October 30, 2009)The journal was an experiment in many senses for Dr. Ivie, not only in terms of content, but organization as well. Starting a publication from scratch means there is no backlog of submissions to go through, and as a result he was forced to cast a wide net in search of suitable works to publish. Such a search opens the door for lower quality submissions or those not necessarily aligned with the CCCS’ stated intentions, which had the potential to derail the journal at its infancy. To navigate these difficult waters Dr. Ivie relied on the strength of the editorial board, who were: “selected with the aim of promoting and nourishing critique and also with the aim of making the journal more international than NCA journals have typically been. This seemed especially appropriate given the transnational interest in critical cultural work.” (R. Ivie, personal communication, October 30, 2009) Another issue Dr. Ivey faced was mediating aspects of critical theory and cultural studies within the communications spectrum; a foundational mandate of the journal. According to Dr. Ivie: “My inclination was to make all of the work critical and cultural, thus opening the door to various approaches to critique (not just critical theory) and pushing cultural studies toward more of a critical consciousness… those were my goals for the journal. The jury is still out.” (R. Ivie, personal communication, October 30, 2009)

In 2006, after three years at the helm of CCCS, Dr. Ivie passed editorial responsibilities to Dr. John Sloop, the associate Dean at the College of Arts and Sciences at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Sloop’s areas of interest include rhetorical theory and criticism, public discourse, gender studies, and media and cultural criticism. Upon assuming the position of editor, Dr. Sloop felt that the journal overlapped with the other NCA journals, especially Critical Studies in Media Communications, which began publication in 2000 and focused on media criticism within the United States. Despite this, Dr. Sloop saw CCCS as unique in that: “The journal is/was an attempt to allow an outlet for those in Communication Studies who had been influenced by cultural studies and/or those critical theories that can be loosely grouped under poststructuralism.” (J. Sloop, personal communication, October 29, 2009) Along with his desire for interdisciplinary and multifaceted scholarship, Dr. Sloop stated his mission as editor of CCCS was to: “produce work that is timely, detailed, rigorous, and politically meaningful, and that, most importantly, draws upon the diversity of our international community, the creativity of our collective imagination, and the strength of our different intellectual commitments.”

One innovation to the journal Dr. Sloop instituted was the addition of a new feature, a forum where scholars could make short statements on timely issues. Dr. Barbara Biesecker of the University of Iowa became forum editor, and she intended to see the forum “supplement productively our general aim by publishing thoughtful, provocative, and particularly timely work on vital topics in critical and cultural studies; on academic, cultural, social, and political events; and on significant books and monographs, both ‘old’ and ‘new.’ In the spirit of promoting lively exchange, the Forum Series will feature the reflections of seasoned as well as emerging scholars.”

Beginning in 2010, CCCS will be under the control of a new editor, Dr. J. Macgregor Wise, associate professor of communications studies at Arizona State University. Dr. Wise’s areas of interest include cultural studies of technology, media studies, and globalization. In inviting submissions for upcoming issues, Dr. Wise has announced a new editorial policy, where he is encouraging scholars to engage a dynamic range of topics. Dr. Wise wrote: “Essays may address (but are not limited to) subjects such as race, class, gender, sexuality, justice, everyday life, space, affect, consumption, technology, security, surveillance, rights, mobility, and new formations of governmentality, modernity, and global cultural flows. Essays may address the global circulation of theories and concepts of communication and critical/cultural studies themselves.”

Measuring the impact of CCCS has been difficult because in many regards the journal is still in its infancy and is too new to qualify on the impact factor list, which rates publications based in part on the quality of scholars included and the number of times articles from the journal have been cited. Based on comments from the editors, the journal appears to be continually developing a unique voice and positioning within the NCA, as well as within international communications academe. That it is a NCA publication will undoubtedly encourage the development of its’ reputation and standing within the field. Dr. Wise’s new editorial policy appears to favour cultural exposition within the field of communications, and if he carries forward Dr. Ivie’s vision of expanding the notion of critical studies and spurring international contributions, Communications and Critical/Cultural Studies has the potential to develop a valuable niche as a space for communication academics across the globe to share and explore their collective intellectual resources.

Note: This was written for COMS 601 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Communications

Norman Fairclough & Critical Discourse Analysis

2009-11-04T21:18:00.002-07:00

Media messaging is the primary way contemporary society receives their information, but increasingly the interests behind the messaging are impacting the content produced. With the convergence of media in both form and content, increased complexity in the hybridization of discourse has created a web that traditional forms of analysis can’t always adequately untangle. In ‘Critical Analysis of Media Discourse’, Norman Fairclough, one of the forebearers of critical discourse analysis, explains his motivations and methods. Discourse analysis is employed to make sense of the ways in which media convey meaning and how construct differing versions of reality, while critical discourse analysis is concerned with power relations in discourse. Language and discourse are closely aligned, though language is a component of discourse, it can also include almost any for of communicative action. Roland Barthes wrote: “Myth is a type of speech chosen by history… speech of this kind is a message. It is therefore by no means confined to oral speech. It can consist of modes of writing or of representations; not only written discourse, but also photography, cinema, reporting, sport, shows, publicity, all these can serve as a support to mythical speech.”(1972) All forms of textual interaction on a certain subject or body of knowledge, all the ways of speaking, of writing about, or capturing, of discussing, of explaining, and of engaging in any communicative procedures based around an issue, subject, or theme, can be referred to as discourse. But it goes further than that; it includes the social process of creating relationships of power, involving the construction, legitimization and maintenance of current truths, which falls under the auspices of critical discourse analysis. It is a qualitative analysis of language, rooted in the understanding that language is not only a neutral medium for communicating information, but in fact a domain in which people’s knowledge of the social world is shaped. In going through Fairlclough’s academic history, as well as the history of critical discourse analysis and the disciplines in which it’s use has become more commonplace, the unique nature of Fairclough’s vision comes forward.

An emeritus professor of linguistics at the University of Lancaster in Lancashire, England, Fairclough felt linguistics and sociolinguistics merely describe power structures within language, rather than explain the relationships between language and power. Deborah Cameron wrote: “During the 1980s and 1990s, a number of critical discourse analysts, notably the British Linguist Norman Fairclough, turns their attention to a rather different kind of project… their examination of ‘language and power’ and ‘ language and ideology’ broadened out into an investigation of the role of discourse, and the manifestation in discourse, of ongoing and significant social changes which were increasingly being discussed by ‘critical’ theorists across disciplines.”(2001) Fairclough wanted to deconstruct language-based ideologies purely as assumptions; feeling that ideology manufactures consent and that power is achieved through ideology. He attributes Michel Foucault’s descriptions of discourse in The Archaeology of Knowledge and Jurgen Habermas’ “theory of communicative action” as key theoretical contributors to his work. In describing his epistemological beliefs, Fairclough wrote: “I reject equally positivist accounts of economic and social facts which exclude their social and discursive construction, and voluntarist forms of discourse analysis which fail to recognize that the socially constructive effects of discourse analysis are subject to certain non-discursive conditions, in favour of a research which emphasizes the dialectical character of relations between different elements of the social including discourse.” (2006). Traditional forms of deconstruction did not explore the qualitative depths Fairclough felt were essential to a thick understanding of discourse, leading him to adjust traditional disciplines for discourse analysis.

Invented by Ferdinand de Saussure, linguistics are concerned with the system of language, but not the practice of using it, which completely marginalizes Fairclough’s emphasis on the social. Sociolinguistics explore the social implications of language use, but it is a positivist field which focuses more on the analysis of quantitative data and often neglects the dynamics that caused the numbers. This lack of critical examination in sociolinguistics works to actually legitimize the power relations Fairclough seeks to unravel by affirming the factuality of the quantitative data. Pragmatics, another field of study associated with discourse, pertains to the study of actions and motivations surrounding speech, but focuses solely on the individual, and as such marginalizes the dynamics of power that affect individuals when they speak in different contexts. Discourse studies are also heavily rooted in the study of rhetoric, which is one of the foundational disciplines of our society. “Since antiquity, the notion of rhetoric has been associated with Aristotle, Cicero, and Quitilian. Their theories are fundamental to the ideas of using rhetorical features to, on the one hand, persuade and convince an audience and, on the other, to become eloquent as a speaker. Based on this understanding, the study of rhetoric was for several years regarded by scholars as a meaningless enterprise as it was perceived as the study of linguistic ornamentation. However, at the beginning of the last century scholars regained an interest in the study of rhetoric in recognition of rhetorical skills being important for communication in a modern society… all sorts of communicators, mediators and scholars became interested in rhetoric as a practical tool for building up texts meant for the public sphere and as a analytical tool for the critique of public argumentation.” (Dam, Holmgren, Sturnck, 2008) Classical rhetorical studies were based on the relationship of the audience with the rhetor, how to best use the power of language to illicit the proper response from those listening. Rhetoric has gone under attack in the centuries since ancient Greece and Rome. Isocrates wrote Against the Sophists in response to the sophists of his time who alchemized language to serve often less than noble purposes. There was also criticism that rhetoric was purely ornamental, and that any real meaning was lost in an ocean of eloquence. But discourse analysis is no longer just associated with language studies; there are a range of academic fields which have incorporated discourse analysis. Cameron wrote: “Working with spoken discourse is an interdisciplinary enterprise: among those who may be engaged in it are anthropologists, linguists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, students of media or education or the law” (2001). Establishing discourse analysis as a useful tool across a variety of academic disciplines was the original intent of Fairclough, who wrote: “If discourse analysis is to establish itself as a method in social scientific research it must move beyond a situation of multidisciplinarity and pluralism towards interdisciplinarity.” (1992) Critical discourse analysis shares the interdisciplinary spirit of traditional discourse analysis, but in moving towards audience agency it is a rather unique type of deconstruction.

Critical discourse analysis is rooted in Fairclough’s critical language study. The complexity of media and the messaging presented in contemporary society cannot be adequately identified by only paying credence to the linguistic dynamics of the messaging. Fairclough wrote: “Although I continue using the expression ‘critical language awareness’ (CLA) because it is relatively well-known, it has also become clearer that what is at issue is a critical awareness of discourse which includes other forms of semiosis as well as language: visual images in particular are an increasingly important feature of contemporary discourse.” (1999) Essential to Fairclough is that critical discourse analysis provides a path towards empowerment; that by dissecting and understanding the power structures influencing media messaging one can move out from under their control. “To help correct a widespread underestimation of the significance of language in the production, maintenance and change of social relations of power… to help increase consciousness of how language contributes to the domination of some people by others, because consciousness is the first step towards emancipation.” (Fairclough, 1989) Understanding the power structures inherent in language not only allows one to avoid falling under its ‘spell’, but it allows the audience to unshackle themselves from dominant ideologies. In ‘Critical Analysis of Media Discourse’, Fairclough outlines his guide to the process by explaining language is “constitutive both in conventional ways in which help to reproduce and maintain existing social identities, relations and systems of knowledge and belief, and in creative ways to transform them.” (1995). The complex relationship between visual language and the spoken and written word necessitates two streams of examination within critical discourse analysis, looking at discourse as a communicative event, and looking at the orders of discourse within the specific discourse being examined. Dissecting discourse as a communicative event involves looking at the text itself, the processes of discourse production and consumption, as well as the cultural zeitgeist and any potential impacts it may have. The order of discourse, which runs parallel to analysis of the communicative event, involves examining the merging of the public and private discursive practices by those putting the messaging out. Fairclough wrote: “The negotiation and renegotiation of the relationship between public and private discursive practices which takes place within the order of discourse of the media has a general influence on the relationship between these practices, and between the public and the private in an overall sense, in other domains of social life.” (1995) Contemporary media make private information public, and make public information private, and do either at their leisure, meaning that the “negotiation and re-negotiation is an ongoing process. Understanding orders of discourse involves looking at how a communicative event is really a chain of communicative events that have involved choices on the content along the way. Figuring out where and why the messaging has shifted through a particular chain illuminates the power relations that influence the messaging.

A key element of critical analysis of discourse in both looking at the communicative event, and the order of discourse, involves pairing textual analysis of the language with intertextual analysis. “The question one is asking (through intertextual analysis) is, what genres and discourses were drawn upon in producing the text, and what traces of them are in the text.”(Fairclough, 1995)) In looking at discourse in contemporary media, intertextual analysis is the qualitative measurement Fairclough felt traditional linguistic analysis lacked. It is not immediately quantifiable, but involves developing an understanding of the social and cultural issues surrounding a particular communicative event. “Intertextual analysis draws upon society and history in the form of the resources made available within the order of discourse… also draws attention to how texts may transform these social and historical resources… crucially mediates the connection between language and social context, and facilitates more satisfactory bridging of the gap between texts and contexts.” (Faiclough, 1992) Textual analysis legitimizes intertextual analysis and vice-versa, they are both essential to a thick discursive understanding. The dialectical relationship between language and the social is a key tenant of critical discourse analysis, as it is through the power for language and discourse to make change that Fairclough’s hopes for emancipation rest. Along with detailed explanation of methods and their reasoning, Fairclough also included a case study to highlight his methods.

In ‘Critical Analysis of Media Discourse’, Fairclough’s case study is an article in the May 24, 1985 issue of the UK Sun newspaper, which called for military assistance in combating the local drug trade. In 1985, the Controlled Drugs (Penalties) Act was passed in the United Kingdom with the stated intent of: “increase(ing) the penalties for certain offences relating to controlled drugs within the meaning of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.” (OPSI, 1985) Concerns about drug use in the United Kingdom aligned with the ‘Just Say No’ movement going on at the same time in the United States. Crack cocaine was gaining prominence, and the devastating effects of cocaine use were well established. The act increased the penalties for drug production and sales from 14 years in prison to life in the United Kingdom in an attempt to curb what the article stated was: “the greates threat ever faced by Britain in peacetime.” (Kemp, 1985). Looking at the story as a communicative event, Fairclough discusses the hybridization of official and colloquial discourse within the article, noting that the author makes great pains to align the drug problem with actual war at a number of junctures. In looking at the order of discourse, he notes the mixing of official positions with colloquial language works to appeal to the working class audience of the Sun while at the same time encouraging and maintaining the hegemonic dominance of controlling interests.

Unfortunately, Faircloughs vision of critical discourse analysis isn’t realized in his case study. While he does break down the power structures involved in the dissemination of the information in the Sun article, the only alternative vision he presented in the analysis was his perspective of: “Drugs – as a symptom of massive alienation associated with the effects of capitalist reconstruction, unemployment, and inadequate housing, and so forth.” (Fairclough, 1995) In terms of intertextual analysis, Fairclough does not adequately contextualize the article around the social and cultural climate in the United Kingdom in 1985. And while he establishes the hegemonic normalization of the position on drug use, as presented, Fairclough’s textual analysis offers no suggestions on how the official-colloquial dynamic can be turned on its head in recognition of alternate viewpoints. If emancipation is the goal, breaking down the power relations in discourse can be the first, but not only step. As one of the leaders in the field, Fairclough could have pushed his analysis towards agency and empowerment, and helping shape media content rather than merely dissecting now it shapes us.

Works Cited:

Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies. (A. Lavers Trans.). New York: Hill and Wang. (Original work published 1957).

Cameron, D. (2001) Working with Spoken Discourse. London, Thousand Oakes, New Dehli: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press

Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Text. Discourse & Society. Vol 3 (2) April 1992 London, Newbury Park, New Dehli: SAGE Publications.

Fairclough, N. (1999) Global Capitalism and Critical Awareness of Language. In The Discourse Reader. (2006) (A. Jaworski & N. Coupland ed.) New York: Routledge

Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and Power. London: Longman

Fairclough, N. (2006) Language and Globalization. London: Routeledge

Fairclough, N. (1995) Critcal Analysis of Media Discourse. In Media Studies: A Reader. (2000) (P. Marris & S. Thornham ed.) New York: New York University Press

(2008) Rhetorical aspects of Discourses in Present-Day Society. (L. Dam, L. L. Holmgren & J. Strunck ed.) Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Office of Public Sector Information. Controlled Drugs (Penalties) Act (c.39) [Data file]. Retrieved from: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1985/cukpga_19850039_en_1 on October 17, 2009.

Note: This is text from a presentation on Critical Analysis of Media Discourse by Norman Fairclough for COMS 601 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Communications

Moving Past Entertainment and Developing Effective Civic Engagement

2009-10-16T10:15:00.004-06:00

Civic culture is in decline. Public engagement in the political is at near-historic low levels in contemporary society, and though the breadth and depth of information and opportunity available has and continues to increase exponentially with new media technologies, interest in the political continues to wane. Media, politics, and people have become hopelessly intertwined, and Peter Dahlgren attempts to untangle the three strands to see how one can affect the other in Media and Political Engagement. While the complexity of Dahlgren’s argument and his scope of consideration leave little room for debate, his conclusion and proposed model for instigating civic engagement is flawed based partially on his own argument. If economism has resulted in the lowering of quality information from mass-media and has caused a subsequent disengagement by the public, attempting to develop increased civic accountability through the Internet, which Dahlgren admits is used primarily for entertainment, is likely to bring similar results. Instead, Dahlgren’s focus on igniting the passions of individuals offers a more effective means for developing civic engagement.

Dahlgren begins Media and Political Engagement by setting the premises on which he bases the remainder of his book, namely that “the character of democracy is changing because its basic preconditions are in evolution” (6). Mass media has helped negotiate the relationship between public and government since the seventeenth century, but new media is changing the dynamics of audience interaction with mass media, mostly to their detriment. Economism, which Dahlgren refers to as a “reductionist mode of rationality” (20), has caused collectivity throughout the layers of modern society, notably through the convergence of modern media, both in content and form. As a result, mass media has trivialized itself in the eyes of their audience by lowering the quality of their service, while at the same time their established (but weakening) power over their audience has been piggybacked by societies foundational institutions like politics, and religion. Citizen’s identity, their understanding of their role in contemporary society, has been bombarded to the point that it has been dulled so that many people don’t understand their role in modern democracy, or have been dissuaded from believing they have a role at all. Unfortunately the only way to truly understand ones’ civic role is to participate and: “develop the requisite virtues, skills, and identities for effective civic competence” (Dahlgren 72). The Internet by its very nature promotes engagement, but where it has increased the inundation of information exponentially, it has also allowed for what Dahlgren refers to as “thin” trust, a condition of loose relationship forming that is a feature of online networks. Participation necessitates engagement, but participation is dangerously low, so how does a citizenry become reengaged? Dahlgren suggests reigniting passions as the first step, as it will motivate action as well as a sense of community with others of a similar persuasion. The key then is to use casual forums and affiliations as foundations for political action. The “thin “ connections based on similar interests, along with the multiple opportunities to engage oneself online can foster the community, and a motivated citizenry can adjust existing online behaviors and skill-sets to benefit the democratic process. Before working towards Dahlgren’s vision of civic engagement, it is important to understand his premise for the foundation of its decline, primarily the economist influences on contemporary society.

The free market and its’ associated value system has built our world into its current state, for better and worse. Though the benefits are tangible and numerous, capitalism has been mostly detrimental to civic culture. In explaining economism, Dahlgren wrote its’: “Definitive characteristic is to assert the priority of economic criteria over all other values or mode of reasoning. Corporate values such as winning, efficiency, calculability, and profitability are supplanting democratic values in ways that erode civic vitality.” (20) Economist values have co-opted democratic ones, they are often considered one and the same despite the fact the two sides are often completely incongruent. Contemporary societies’ emphasis on the virtues of capitalism, propelled forward by a fourth estate that has also succumb to corporate culture, have narrowed the citizens vision of themselves to the extent that: “the notion of the citizen as a social role becomes marginalized by that of the consumer, where people understandably can find more freedom and pleasure” (21). As corporations half-heartedly align themselves with political movements (eg. Environmental responsibility), the notion of the political power of purchasing becomes more plausible. Unfortunately consumerism does quite the opposite: by satisfying one’s political urge through the purchasing of products, not only are they not engaging in an activity that is even remotely civically meaningful, the money spent is largely going directly to the same corporations and institutions who continue to support the decline of democratic principles. “Television and the rest of the media mellieu position us as consumers: … It is in the domain of consumption where we are to be empowered, where we make choices, where we create ourselves.” (Dahlgren 147) Mass media’s role in the decline has been that of facilitator, but now they too are succumbing to the same economist forces they built their legacies on. Mass media news content is extremely expensive to produce, and the audience fragmentation that has come from their desire for multiple revenue streams, along with the perpetual motion of new media, is forcing mass media to lie down in a bed of their making. It starts with the quality of programming; convergence of mass media companies brought the convergence of content and form, as newspapers, radio stations as well as local and national television stations shared ownership and an emphasis on efficiency brought a lower scope and depth of reporting. Corporate interests have consumed the fourth estate, causing a homogenization of content in order to appeal to the largest possible audience. Dahlgren wrote: “Media industries’ economic response to journalism’s difficulties has to a considerable extent taken the form of increased tabloidization… news values lead to a focus on scandals, entertainment, and sports, and little on traditionally important areas such as society, politics, and economics… news is given a reduced position within an overall media mix.” (45-46) Finding examples of this proposition is not difficult. Non-urgent political news falls at best along the same lines as sports, popular culture, traffic conditions, and the weather forecast. The positioning of the political on an even plane with the remaining milieu of media noise causes a condition Dahlgren describes as: “Indifference… an ‘alienation’ that can psychologically treat politics as irrelevant, at least in its representations in the media. It becomes a topic or an activity on par with, say, ‘sports,’ ‘music,’ or other forms of free-time pursuit… citizenship implicitly becomes reduced to one of many possible lifestyle choices.” (82) Referring to citizenship as a “lifestyle choice” is a scathing but accurate indictment of the current political malaise. Furthermore, while mass media marginalizes the news content that is essential for the public to negotiate its civic identity, it also expands the audience’s worldview. And while this can build affinity between individuals who feel more connected to a world they can only see, it also causes an expansion of what is considered political, and as the constitutive definition of the political expands, it encourages further stupor from an audience who feels more connected but less in control. Even within mass media content citizens are positioned separate from civic action. “Citizens are represented as responding to issues and situations, but are almost never portrayed as offering political suggestions or other constructive thoughts” (Dahlgren 131). This is a reflection the nature of mass media, which has always been one-way in nature. To oppose this downward cycle, Dahlgren hopes that the inclusive and participatory nature of new media is the best hope to change behaviors and encourage civic engagement.

Even the most basic online activity involves some awareness, familiarity, and a basic skill set, much like fundamental civic involvement. The participatory nature of online activity has worked to its benefit as the Internet has flattened the hierarchy of information dissemination that journalism has been perched upon for a couple of centuries. Now “professional communications mediators” and average citizens are competing on the same comparative level for audience attention, and the audience is less and less concerned about the source of their content. In fact, online participants relish their newfound roles in the news making process, to the extent that now, as Dahlgren wrote, news editors understand: “It is important to go beyond ‘birds-eye perspectives’, and get detailed information about fast-breaking stories, all news organizations today invite their audiences to send in materials” (175). Increased participation and production by those online encourages more of the same, and Dahlgren’s hope was that ultimately the political would find a place among people’s other online interests and activities. At the moment though he admits: “the use of the net in daily life for political purposes is far overshadowed by other uses, such as general social contacts, entertainment, chatting, shopping, gaming, nonpolitical information, not to mention pornography” (170). This is not exactly a revelation, but the majority of these “other uses” are primarily controlled by the same corporations and interests that are responsible for the economist reduction of mass media Dahlgren attributes earlier as contributing to the decline of civic engagement to begin with. The Internet’s current profit scheme is largely based on data commodification, which is the epitome of “corporate values such as winning, efficiency, calculability, and profitability” (20). It is during his exploration of television in Chapter 6 that Dahlgren begins to espouse the virtues of entertainment as the route to civic engagement, writing that: “popular culture can process and communicate collective experience, emotion, and even knowledge; it offers opportunities for negotiating views and opinions on contested values as well as explicit political issues” (138). The observation that popular culture allows one to navigate the social world, though absolutely correct, works to elevate celebrity news, music, and sports to the level of politics, a point of contention in Chapter 4. Dahlgren’s argument can be considered enthusiastically ambitious about the Internet’s potential for widespread civic engagement, but his belief in the old adage of the personal being political may have more resonance in effectively engaging public participation in civic life.

Individuals face a myriad of issues and challenges of varying degrees on a daily basis, drawing those issues and challenges into the realm of the political offers an opportunity for meaningful engagement by citizens. Dahlgren wrote: “While the media are very much entwined with their life experiences, most political experiences take place in the life zones beyond the media, and the civic self hovers largely at the margins of these people’s identities” (p.120). The personal is indeed political, especially when the chips are down, as in times of economic hardship. Global thinking has drawn the focus away from communities, whose ties have weakened as a result. Refocusing on one’s community, where many of the issues reside, and where the tangible effects of political action are visible can re-empower individuals civically. A return to the grassroots can build a foundation for engagement that can be fostered and developed. Education is key, developing an understanding of specifically how individuals’ “collective action frames” can be called upon as a component of remedial teaching, by drawing on their sense of injustice, identity, and illuminating avenues for agency as part of basic curriculum; much like environmentalism is now. Mass media can even get in on the action. By investing more resources into local, community-based reporting, they can reconnect with their fragmented audiences while rebuilding their reputation and re-establishing their position and prestige as the Fourth Estate. The Internet has an essential role in any contemporary grassroots movement, as it certainly possesses the attributes to assist in civic engagement. Cyberspace offers new links between people, new ways of linking and sharing with people, and different versions of communities. But bridging the gap between issues, problems, and crises takes an engaged citizenry, and becoming engaged does not happen merely by participating in online activities. Dahlgren’s vision in Media and Political Engagement is dependent on the political acclimatizing to current leisure-based web behaviors, which is less likely to achieve the level of engagement he desires. Instead, understanding real life implications to civic action (or inaction) elevates the political above the remaining media milieu while allowing media technologies to be used as tools instead of sources by a citizenry rather than an audience.

Works Cited:

Dahlgren, Peter. Media and Political Engagement: Citizens, Communication, and Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Note: This is a book review done for COMS 627 - Identity and Politics in the New Media age.

Bridging Flames fans' online and offline worlds

2009-10-08T14:25:00.006-06:00

...As I’ve mentioned, I’m a web content producer for calgaryflames.com, the official website of the Calgary Flames, our local hockey club. The Flames compete in the National Hockey League, which is made up of 30 teams from across North America.

Oral histories have provided evidence of an ancient hockey-like game played among the Mi'kmaq First Nation in Eastern Canada. The NHL was formed in 1917, and this year marks the 30th Anniversary of the Flames in Calgary (they originated in Atlanta). Going into the upcoming season the Flames are also considered one of the top contenders for the Stanley Cup, hockey’s championship trophy, which is largely considered the most beautiful, the most prestigious and hardest trophy to capture in all the major North American sports.

To show you a bit about what hockey is like, here’s a quick video, note the difference between professional hockey rinks with adverts on the boards, and recreational hockey without...

Though it is played across the globe, hockey is firmly ingrained into the Canadian identity; ‘The Hockey Sweater’ is a story that has been shared by families and in schools for decades. Boys and girls of all sizes and backgrounds are encouraged to embrace hockey at a young age. Unfortunately the cost of playing hockey for children can be very prohibitive, but understanding hockey as a key tenant of Canadian culture is encouraged in most circles. The Canadian National Men’s Hockey team, composed entirely of NHL players, is arguably the most unifying source of pride that exists in our nation today.

Calgary as a city is no different, the team has firmly entrenched itself into the very fabric of our community. Interestingly and uniquely, the Flames hockey operations are run by an Alberta farming family, the Sutters, of who all but one of is involved in professional hockey in some capacity. The team’s general manager Darryl Sutter has enforced a mandate of pursuing primarily, but not solely, Alberta-born, and western-Canadian players. He also hired his brother as head coach, has two other brothers who work underneath him, and drafted his son into the organization.

Hockey itself is just a game, but professional sports are an experience. What we try to do at calgaryflames.com is enhance the audience’s experience, both by providing extra content, and also by giving the perception of closed proximity to the players they revere. The more content thing is easy; you can access highlights, audio/video interviews, statistics, articles, features, contests through the website. Increased content also helps with the closing of proximity, but that also happens due to the nature of the web, where fans can interact and comment back to the site. Even though my boss and I are the only ones who end up reading them, it lends to the perception of closed proximity.

What makes the Flames unique is that we are testing a newly developed social media site that will eventually be used by every team in the league. It’s called the C of Red, which is also the nickname for the collection of fans at Flames home games, as everyone is expected to show up dressed in red. What I’ll go over with you today is the unique nature of social media sites, along with how I believe they benefit professional sports organizations like the Flames.

What is Social Media?
Social media is an all-encompassing term that refers to websites that enable and enable and encourage interaction and the sharing of information and content between people online.
The Biggies:
Facebook
MySpace
Twitter
Youtube

The C of Red combines elements of most of these (not Twitter) into one site, where Flames fans can meet and exchange.

Web Audience = Target Audience.

Why? Because they have the money to afford a computer and internet access, meaning they have money for tickets, jerseys, etc.

And the best part is, online, the audience comes to us. We don’t compete above the fold, or accommodate TV attention spans. In order to get to us people have to click or type in our name, and that’s why we know we have them.

Social Media users = Target Audience

Why? Social media harnesses the collectivity of users as they are all linked to each other. This also allows targeted messaging to reach marginal users unobtrusively. These sites link people, and have transformed individuals from consumers of content, into self-publishers of content. Individuals are able to create, share, and access content.

Benefits of Social Media to the Flames
Social media has a number of benefits to cultural industry organizations like the Flames:

More trusted- People simply do not trust mainstream media as a reliable information source. They trust what they hear from friends and family. Social media directly messages friends and family, who can pass information on painlessly online.

Direct, Immediate to Audience- With one mouse-click, friends, followers etc. on social media sites receive your message directly. Since they’ve chosen to follow us, be our friends etc., we already know they’re interested, so we’re avoiding people who have no interest.

Messaging under our control- Rather than have to battle the columnists and TV talking heads for audience opinion and mindshare, our message, word for word, is delivered directly and immediately to our audience.

Growing, and not stopping- Not only in number of participants and users, but in the available applications. Open source software design means that anyone with the knowhow can adjust, improve, or invent new ways to use the existing social media technology. The only limits now are individual’s imaginations.

Produsage: Content production through audience use/participation.
By engaging in online activities like creating videos, blogging, message boards… users are creating content that draws in more audience who in turn create more content themselves. Social media and Web 2.0 are both built on produsage.

To the Flames, produsage has immeasurable intrinsic value in developing ethos with our audience. Acknowledging their efforts brings them closer to us; it engages and entertains them on a whole other level by making them active participants. Acknowledgement of audience efforts allows us to appear closer to the audience, community, more authentic= more trusted.

My goal with the C of Red is to merge the offline and online communities. It should be where you can get psyched with fellow fans, find out a cool place to catch the game, share your opinions and express your creativity. I want Flames fans to feel as though they’ve missed out if they didn’t participate in the online community around the games. How do you propose I begin to do that?

Note: This is the text for a presentation I made for COMS 627 - Identity and Politics in the New Media Age

Back and better than ever...

2009-10-06T16:30:00.004-06:00

In order to keep my blog from the vestages of the Internet ether, I've decided to use it as a forum to both support the open source movement, as well as for my own shameless self promotion.

If you ever wondered what graduate school was like, look no further, as all my brilliant work will find it's way right here. Everything will be published word for word as submitted, and only completely irrelevant work will be excluded.

The blog will represent a series of signposts that I'll set out as I figure out exactly what the hell it is that I'm doing. I'll try to add original entries as well, but given my track record to this point, this will mostly be used as my online graduate archive.

So with now further adieu, here is my very own intellectual introduction, my first assignment as a real deal graduate student...

If I had to attribute the spark that lit my academic universe to one person, as difficult as that may be, I would have to give it to one Irwin M. Fletcher. ‘Fletch’, as he was known to most, was an investigative reporter who wrote under the name Jane Doe. I watched Fletch work the drug-riddled beaches of Los Angeles, take on a variety of assumed identities, and eventually name Chief Karlin as the biggest heroin dealer in town. Despite being a fictional film character played by Chevy Chase, both the vigor and panache with which Fletch attacked his mystery inspired me from a young age. Fletch went to ridiculous depths to get to the bottom of his story, I appreciated his wit, and empathized with his lack of respect for imposed authority. I watched his movies, read his books, and was convinced I could recreate his spirit in reality.

Journalism seemed like an ideal place for my inquisitive nature, and I was accepted into Mount Royal College’s Applied Communications program as an immature 19-year-old. As I worked through the program I became dissatisfied; writing stories, taking and processing photos, shooting and editing tape, all under the strict faculty regime, simply wasn’t fulfilling. I still remember when the program chair ordered pages 7/8 torn out of each copy of ‘The Journal’, our weekly newspaper. I had written a story, which had been approved by our instructor from the start, on a classmates’ punk rock band who called themselves ‘The MotherFuckers’. And despite starring out all of the swearing, the faculty heads made the executive decision to give its’ students a lesson in old-time censorship. That story was on page 7; I had another one on the reverse, page 8, and at least four other students lost the opportunity to have their stories published. If this was the way the Fourth Estate was controlled while being trained and developed, what was the professional world like? Near the end of my degree I signed up for the dreaded communications theory course. “Don’t ever ask me for help, seriously, ever.” was the unanimous reply from students who had taken the course, which was a senior requisite at Mount Royal College. Ironically, the MRC Communications Faculty saved the only thought provoking, paradigm shifting course for the end of their program, when the majority of students were programmed. Despite the passion of the professors, the majority of students wanted nothing to do with the class, fighting the ideas with every bit of wisdom they had amassed and armed themselves with for the professional world. The truth was, the MRC Communications Faculty was almost solely focused on producing both Cogswell Cogs and Spacely Sprockets, representative of both sides of the aisle, eager young labour for the media machine, ready to perpetuate the same dominant ideologies without a great deal of thought as to why.

One of the few exceptions were the two theory professors, Dr.’s Avril Torrence and Lee Easton, who used these theories and thinkers I had never heard of to challenge the class’s worldview. The theories were difficult, but they began to explain the nature of the flawed power structure I had been brought up to question. While most of the students loathed the class, I embraced it, and worked tirelessly on my term project. ‘The Real Thing’ was a theoretical deconstruction of the American image Coca-Cola used to sell their beverage globally. My premise was that for its advertisements, Coca-Cola would create hyperreal drinking experiences, “sheltered from the imaginary, and from any distinction between the real and the imaginary” (Baudrillard, 1983). This hypereality was uniquely and ephemerally American by design, done in order to appeal to non-Americans generalized other, or the “general class category or group of people that you use to assess your actions.” (Wadsworth et. al., 2001). The result was that Coca-Cola had become more symbol than substance, creating through its advertising a world of spectacle where “each moment imposes the total knowledge of a passion which rises erect and alone, without extending to the crowning moment of a result.” (Barthes, 1972). The result was cultures around the world were lining Coca-Cola’s coffers, trying to get a taste of America by drinking ‘The Real Thing’. The work was narrated over a Coca-Cola video montage of commercials and other video footage (which was very cutting-edge at the time, as there was no youtube and everything had to be individually digitized). The medium for presentation was intended to speed up the overwhelming amount of images Coca-Cola spewed out individually to overwhelm the audience.

‘The Real Thing’ received my professors’ acclaim, but then class was over, and there was no structured opportunity to pursue these wonderful theories any further. I spent some time doing not-for-profit public relations, quickly deciding bartending would be more lucrative, much more interesting, and in some cases more ethical. Finding myself in Vancouver on the end of another drunk’s worldview, I decided to move back to Calgary and attempt to make something of myself. Initially I decided to return to school with the intent of going to the Haskayne Business School to make my millions. They informed me I needed one semester of open study with a reasonable average, along with a proper GMAT score, and I would be in. Fortunately I was permitted my choice in courses, and enrolled in a collection of senior communications classes due to my familiarity and fondness for the subject matter. Immediately the passion and depth of knowledge my professors possessed struck me. Finally I had the opportunity to continue studying in the area that made my world make sense. I diligently pursued a path into the Master of Arts program, and am both elated and overwhelmed at being here.

My graduate studies are not intended as a destination. As I continue forward I've found that despite my previous notions, I have barely scratched the surface of critical social theory. As I pursue graduate studies I am quickly finding out that what I believed is really only prologue. It involves only a partial understanding, a great deal of what I think I know now will undoubtedly be proven false, and what I thought was unbelievable will be shown to be quite plausible. But this is where, and how, I intend to begin to figure it all out. As I approach the next two years, I do so currently believing that we live in a state of hegemony which the media perpetuates. Ruling powers, with a vested interest in the maintenance of their dominance, exert influence at all points of the media machine to ensure the status quo is both perpetual and permanent. My starting point is Baudrillard’s concept of simulation, according to which contemporary media, primarily television and the Internet, create simulations of reality which are presented to their audience as true, accurate representations of actual reality. The symbolic exchange and hyperreality that are created by media content has engaged the audience into production through consumption. Audiences produce value for cultural industries in a number of ways, but most importantly they shift, mediate, and eventually construct their own reality through their consumption.

I'm concerned with the forces behind the production of identity, meaning, value, and to an increasing extent, reality, that occurs through the consumption of content. More and more of people's daily existence is spent engaging in virtual communication and information exchange, to the extent that absolute reliance on this communication and the media that provides has become an issue. Cultural industries, who at best influence, and at worst control, the majority of media content, are working hard to ensure that more media offers more content with less meaning under the guise of more information. As the audience consumes this mass of information, they become further detached from reality, and further interpellated into a world created and controlled by simulations. Lulled into passivity and blind acceptance, hegemonic domination continues for the audience, as the excess of content and increasingly perceived importance of the content blurs the line between simulated and tangible reality, and causes an uncertainty that encourages more media consumption in search of a solution. The search for the solution of this uncertainty is paradoxically seemingly solved within the provided content, which provides examples and archetypes that dictate in what Foucault referred to in his writings on discipline and punishment as what is normal and what isn't, what is acceptable and what isn't, etc... While one example alone may not sufficiently or necessarily impact an individual or audience, the manipulation and harmonization of the content by cultural industries is able to appeal to a majority of the population in one form or another. The myriad and affluence of media casts an immeasurably wide net, and once entrapped, the simulated reality provided by media does not end when the technology is turned off; it has lasting effects on their audience's construction of reality.

Works Cited:

Barthes, Roland (1972). Mythologies. (A. Lavers Trans.). New York: Hill and Wang. (Original work published 1957).

Baudrillard, Jean (1983). Simulations. New York: Semiotexte

Wadsworth, Sherwyn P. Morreale, Brian H. Spitzberg, J. (2001). Human Communication: Motivation, Knowledge, and Skills. (Kevin Barge). Florence, Ky: Wadsworth Publishing

Note: Written for COMS601 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Communications

Brangelina & the Next Evolution of Celebrity

2009-07-16T14:18:00.000-06:00

Ahhhh Brangelina, how do you do it?

They’ve got a hold of me, I’ll admit it. I love going to the grocery store, as I know when I get to the chekout, the tabloid covers will catch my attention and I can get an update on the state of Brangelina. Last time if I recall they were getting a trial separation or has that passed and now they’re adopting again?

There are plenty of reasons to love ‘em. They're hot, they're in a few quality flicks, they're saving the world... But the main reason I love em is that they’ve re-invented the concept of celebrity for the 21st century.

The archetypal celebrity has shifted a number of times since the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood, when the studios were almost solely responsible for the construction and promotion of their stars. While there are still manufactured stars, as well as anti-stars like those of the new breed, for most contemporary stars the act of celebrity has become an essential labour for their career as performers.

The shift from the traditional celebrity to the contemporary version is often attributed to Madonna’s ascent to stardom. Her relationship with the media involved many concessions of her privacy, causing a shift all the relationship between celebrities and the media going forward.

The blurring of private and public creates the extratextual body of the stars, and the media are integral to this. As a result, most stars work with the media in both their public and ‘private’ lives, establishing and maintaining their celebrity as a full-time job.

It would seem that individually, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had reached the pinnacle of celebrity. They sold out theatres regardless of the film, their characters were never just the characters in the film, they were Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie playing the characters in the film. They were big time, but it wasn’t until they ditched the dead weight and joined forces, that they realized their full potential.

Together, Brangelina have taken stardom to a whole new level, evolving their celebrity to the point that their craft has become supplementary. In order to begin the process they needed an introduction unlike anything ever done before, and they did just that with Mr. & Mrs. Smith

In terms of content, Mr. & Mrs. Smith is pure spectacle. The film provides virtually no opportunity for identification with the narrative or the characters. All major moments in the relationship of Jane and John Smith occur in the midst of extradiagetic distractions, the conversations where they explore the increasing complexity of their relationship occur as bullets whiz by, or in the midst of explosions. This works to prevent identification between the characters and the audience, but also works to build identification between the audience and the stars. Since we cannot identify with John and Jane Smith, we instead identify with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

During promotion of the film, stories began to leak about the burgeoning romance between the two stars. Mr. & Mrs. Smith took a traditional Hollywood promotional tool, the use of romantic rumour and innuendo, and developed it a step further by building the entire film around these rumours and innuendo. Pitt and Jolie invite the audience in through the spectacle of their characters and the spectacle of the film itself, and they frame the promotion of the film so that it appears as though they also invited the audience to watch their ‘real’ lives. The Smiths find out in the film’s narrative that their whole lives had been faked, this manufactures authenticity around their relationship as they fall in love all over again, and given the extratextual framing of the film, it also manufactures authenticity around the idea that the audience is actually seeing Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie falling in love at the same time. In this sense the film is not text, it is an extratextual account of the Brangelina love story. And in using film text to further their extratextual personas, Pitt and Jolie changed the relationship between stars and their labour.

The use of media for celebrity enhancement is commonplace, but the use of Mr. & Mrs. Smith to develop the textual, identity of Brangelina marks a new direction in the evolution of celebrity. If contemporary celebrities treat the development and maintenance of celebrity as an integral part of their work as actors, Brangelina are the exact opposite. They used Mr. & Mrs. Smith as a vehicle to promote their celebrity, instead of using their celebrity as a vehicle to promote the film. In this sense they are positioning celebrity as the priority, and acting in films as the requisite labour of their trade.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith began the process of a complete redefinition of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s extratextual personas. Since the film they have repositioned themselves as the fore bearers of the responsible, conscious and altruistic celebrity, one who uses their power to improve the world instead of their own careers. But in doing so they have redefined themselves almost solely as celebrities, at the expense of their reputations as fairly acclaimed actors. Mr. & Mrs. Smith assists in this redefinition by providing us a spectacular extratextual love story that doesn’t allow for any acknowledgement of their acting ability, instead focusing on the grandeur of their position as celebrities.

Note: This argument is mostly taken from an essay I wrote in November 2008 on Mr. & Mrs. Smith for a class on Celebrity Theory

Sports=Life, again...

2009-05-11T13:19:00.002-06:00

Appologies are due, as the blog has been under a temporary delay. I somehow managed to score a job writing for CalgaryFlames.com during the Flames’ run to the playoffs and resulting first round departure (Click on the video link at the bottom of the entry to see video of Flames head coack Mike Keenan chew me out).

Feel free to go look me up on the site for other delightful insight on our underachieving group… Here, I don’t worry about the performance of multi-million dollar athletes, instead I worry about why the fans who make a slight fraction of the income of professional athletes and seem more invested in the team than the athletes themselves, and that’s not at all to slight the desire of the athletes, for the most part...

My job over the course of the last bit has consisted of joining the sports media in full force. As a huge sports fan and avid reader of sports writing, it was an absolutely phenomenal experience. I went to practice, attended press conferences (see below), scrummed it up in the locker rooms, sat in the pressbox next to two of Canada’s top sportswriters, and enjoyed the kind of privileges usually reserved for contest winners. The biggest perk is obviously the access and the sports conversations you can’t buy with money, and though all conversations basically do revolve around sports, during the final pre-game press conference of the season I enjoyed a conversation with Globe & Mail sports columnist Al Maki that transcends sports, and is a larger commentary on the current state of the battle for mindshare.

Our discussion was based on the fact that Flames’ players and coaches, despite the fact I love ‘em, would basically tow the company line, align the proper catchphrases with the proper situation/emotion, and literally expound on absolutely nothing until the media receives enough to take to a loyal, ravenous fan base. Maki believed that future sports journalists would be disappointed that past (current) sports journalist merely accepted what they were told, and didn’t dig deeper with their questions when a coach for example, sprays water on a fan during a critical playoff game, the same playoff game he happened to sit a player for unruly behaviour in the midst of the previous game. Why are people in positions of authority actually allowed to defy answering legitimate questions that the paying public want answers to. Not answering shit questions (see above) is fine, but ignoring legitimate queries is like selling fugazi jerseys or watering down the beer.

This phenomenon is related to a condition I think of as the prophetic nature of sports journalism, basically that sports are the coolest/most interesting/relevant element of the news, so good sports journalism is basically at the forefront of style, form, and content. In terms of media, this means that the kind of sports coverage you get from the news is eventually going to be the ‘Life’ & ‘News’ coverage you get from the news. I'm not going to criticize certain organizations or individuals, after all I now get paid to bang the flames' drum in a similar fashion to Harvey the Hound. A much better critic than I, the excellent Jason Whitlock, wrote an elloquent piece about the state of sports journalism. My position is that the problems with sports journalism have permeated into all forms of exchange between media and bureaucracy.

Let me lay the problem for you as a sports fan, when your team is playing well and you’re happy, then there are no worries. But as soon as your team starts shitting the bed, naturally you want answers. So you actually go to the team, the players, the coach, the GM, and you ask them, and they give you nothing. Oh there are words, sentences, claims, boasts, analysis, interpretation, but rarely do players go into a scrum or press conference and admit why, for example, they consistently take penalties at the beginning of games when their team is trying to build momentum.

Then, the coach, the leader, and the symbolically smartest dude in the room, uses his time and his podium to offer any combination of strange metaphors and comparisons, stories from past experiences, contradictory analysis, but little ‘newsworthy’ besides the daily affirmation of already known injury status.

Maki’s point was that journos should not merely be asking about what injuries a particular player has sustained, but they should dig into the troubles that face a team when they struggle; give the fans real, specific answers as to why those who they hold in such high esteem aren’t performing to their standards. Unfortunately, the cost of that kind of query may be the loss of access, the real currency for journos.

So these ongoing dramatics exist to serve the public, the fans, the commodity, where they are consuming more and more media: multiple 24-hour sports networks, websites, talk radio, newspapers and everyone else who garners audience through the Flames have created result unrealistic expectations for information that for a number of reasons simply isn't there. The commodity needs a topping up of info to keep the affinity strong, so we report and audiences read the same standard lines over and again. As a result, the fans get two performances: The game itself, and the extra-athletic (if you will) performances that the sports media construct.

If this sounds familiar, it's because your team probably does it too, but also because this is not a phenomenon that is limited to sports. Strict control of communication content occurs throughout the majority of contemporary institutions and journalists of all types are often held hostage to bureaucratic interests by threats of access restriction. But the public interest, the desire for constantly refilled information that has been constructed by cultural institutions and their technologies, has turned into the fourth estate into willing actors in a hegemonic pantomime.

From my experience the journos on the hockey beat, I've ever dealt with were almost all cool, and take their jobs pretty seriously. Unfortunately they have to march in formation, or risk falling out of favour with the team, who are the purpose for their existence. In a sense it feeds the drama. Fans get pseudo-information that they use as fuel for their fan bus, but the bus can only get to its destination in one direction. While the journos can dig up as many supposed controversies as they like, at the end of the day only a limited amount of specific information is actually getting out, it’s all simply surrounded by noise…

Life is a lot like that these days. Unhealthy food, unattractive singles, unproven drugs, benefits, bailouts, borrowing, buying, binging, purging, gauging, splurging, stressing, messing, second-guessing… We look for answers, and we want those giving it to us give us the raw deal, so we ask and try to get it, but keep hitting a wall of ivy, elusion, and bullshit. Eventually you just stop asking, eventually you just take the bullshit, what else can you do. You can’t ignore your cultural institution; it’s a part of your life. Eventually it wears on you, and you just buy in. But then it becomes your framework, then your arguments and criticisms fall into the parameters created around their bullshit. The real questions go unanswered, because the now convenient questions have as convenient answers.

In sports, this ongoing exercise in futility is frustrating, in day-to-day life, it's potentially catastrophic.

The Jack Bauer Litmus Test

2009-02-26T01:08:00.003-07:00

One dude I would never mess with is Jack Bauer. I can't imagine anything more frightening than dating Jack Bauer's daughter. I know Dion Phaneuf is a tough guy and everything, but his steely gaze is no match for the death glare Jack Bauer throws down as often as most of us smile. Even one of the toughest defenseman in the NHL is a mouse when compared to the last man standing between the terrorists and the complete and utter destruction of Western Civilization as we know it.

Wait, Jack Bauer is a fictional character in a show called '24' you say, his real identity is legendary drunk Kiefer Sutherland you say, and he is in fact Canadian. I'm not buying it for a second, that's just his cover, and all the drinking is to drown away the pain of lost loved ones, as well as all those innocents he had to sacrifice in the name of Uncle Sam.

As the American right does their best to convince the new leader of the free world, B-Rock, that the Geneva Conventions are in fact "quaint," they have referenced the brave service of Jack Bauer as an example of a doomsday scenario where the clock is ticking, and the only way to get the information that will save American lives is to torture anyone, including terrorists, citizens, co-workers, friends, and family.

Torture as they say, is no picnic, but the last administration and their right-wing leftovers seem to be quite fond of it. And the use of a contrived, fictional television series to justify tangible action in the real world is perfectly acceptable to them.

The format of '24' blurs the line between simulation and reality. By running in 'real time,' even through commercials (complete with preceding cliffhangers), the show interpellates the audience into its paranoid, fear-filled hyperreality.

Within this hyperreality, Jack Bauer performs intertextual acts of 'patriotism' by not only killing all the bad guys and saving countless American lives, but also by mediating his viewers' relationship with torture. By simulating the worst conceivable doomsday scenario (season after season amazingly), '24' allows the audience to decide how they feel about torture under the softening light of simulation.

The concept of torture on '24' is run through what Baudrillard refers to as the 'Precession of Simulacra,' where you begin with the real, actual, nails-pulled-out torture. This really real torture is then manipulated by the television medium and the show itself, but at the same time this manipulation is masked. The end result is that on television the torture appears real, the audience has been interpellated into the show so they suspend disbelief willfully and believe it is at least equivalent to, if not actually real, when it is in fact very much hyperreal.

This dynamic softens the horrible, inhuman reality of torture, and frames the debate over its use in a completely absurd way. By watching '24's hyperreality unfold, one cannot help but support Bauer's unique brand of vigilantism. Jack Bauer is not a sociopath; he's an altruist who has sacrificed his entire being for God and Country. But again, '24' is not reality, and reality is certainly nothing like '24'; the acceptance by an audience of simulated realities that involve the use of torture to obtain information propels the audience down a slippery ethical slope. Allowing Jack Bauer, or any other fictional character, to dictate our moral compass, is the equivalent of driving eyes-closed while someone else sits shotgun and tells us which direction to steer.

A-Roid and the Death of Baseball Mythology

2009-02-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

A-Roid's (formerly known as Pay-Rod) latest litany of omissions, half-truths, and flat out lies in regards to his performance enhancing drug (PED) use are in the process of being systematically torn apart by intrepid journalists.

The same group of intrepid journalists who covered baseball while its top players were engaging in the 20 year (approx.) statistical aberration known as the 'Steroid Era', are the same group who are trying to compensate for the shameful neglect of their responsibilities by now half-heartedly going after, but full-heartedly expressing their disgust with both the accused and the guilty.

Baseball journalists are held to a higher standard than their peers who cover other sports, because baseball journalists are the ones who vote to decide who is allowed into the Hall of Fame. Cooperstown is the foundation of baseballs mythology, and baseball journos are its gatekeepers. Accountability has become a major issue for these guys, since it appears one of the most realistic and reliable voices of the 'Steroid era' is Jose Canseco, the biggest villain in baseball since Pete Rose.

But the disgraceful treatment of the PED epidemic in baseball by its gatekeepers speaks to a larger problem. That overt PED use was tacitly ignored by the media is representative of the lack of caring about PED use exhibited by the public at large. It is the dirty little secret thinly veiled in professional football: that PED use is part of sports, and that owners, sponsors and fans don't want to condone their use, but they love the improved performance they provide.

The mythology of professional sports as the athletic ideal, the ultimate celebration of body mastery and physicality, is now going the way of the mythology that used to surround professional wrestling. There are virtuous heroes and depraved villains engaging in ongoing story lines that overshadow the events themselves. What's next? Folding chairs in bench-clearing brawls, catchers throwing salt into the eyes of batters, scantily clad women accompanying batters to the box, a belt for the MVP, none of these would surprise me.

Baseball is still based on individual achievement for the betterment of team, but the teams have changed, now the players and agents are on one team, the cap the player wears is just to block out the sun. The veil is off, the game is now just another cultural industry, one that promotes base values like unhealthy competition, greed, and the lust for fame.

Baseball is a game whose popularity is largely based in the legends, myths, and symbols that are a part of its history. The statistical achievements of, and comparison between, the games' greatest players, are essential symbols to the games legend; they are the part of the game that make fans feel like they're part of something bigger than the individual game (1 of 162 for each team each season). The records are revered, and none more so than the home run record. When Barry Bonds stole the record from Hank Aaron a couple of years ago, it was quickly dismissed since the game's golden boy; the highest-paid, highest-profile, and statistically most promising player, Alex Rodriguez, was going to inevitably break Barroids' record and restore the legitimacy, notoriety, and grandeur to the most hallowed record in sports.

Now for the next decade at least, we all get to watch A-Roid, the highest paid athlete in the history of team sports, admitted cheater, and pants-on-fire liar, line-drive nails into the coffin of Major League Baseball. Every hit, every home run, inches both himself, and baseball as a whole, towards disgraceful infamy. Because when the two most statistically accomplished players in the long history of the game are PED users, the entire foundation of baseball's history and mythology is covered by the shroud of the "Steroid Era."

By the way, those who say PED's fit under the old baseball adage that "if you're not cheating you're not trying" are undermining the very mythology and legend of the game, disgracing the traditions of spitballs, pinetar, stealing signs, and all the other in-game advantages that give baseball its unique character.

When baseball historians re-examine the "Steroid Era" of baseball, they should note that it not so coincidentally coincides with the "Absolutely ridiculous contracts for grown men to hit, catch, and throw a ball" era. Contracts in baseball are higher than in any sport, and though the economic downturn has caused marginal players to take paycuts, contracts for top-tier players continue to rise astronomically, so what message does that send to marginal (or even worse, aspiring) baseball players?

The mythology of sport ideals has been lost, now it is apparent that in sports, much like life, the rich get richer, the poor try to get by, cheating does prosper, and good guys may not finish last, but they certainly don't finish first. Today winning isn't nearly as important as that next contract; the game is only a game to the fans, for everyone else it is a cut-throat industry, a paycheque.

This is not exactly breaking news, but what is interesting is that no one really cares. Perhaps this is because the initial shock of hearing that baseball superstar after baseball superstar is chemically enhanced has worn off. But I think it's because baseball isn't exempt from the harsh realities of life, fans realize the idealized myths associated with "the old ball game," and with sports in general are beyond antiquated, they only exist as legend to get butts into seats and to generate revenue.

And so why shouldn't A-Roid get his piece, if government, business, friends, and family don't need to be accountable for their actions why should he? If politicians can spin the most asinine lies into seeming truth, why should he answer follow up questions at his "coming clean" press conference? If executives from failing companies get to keep their bonuses, why shouldn't he get to keep his bonuses for cheating to break baseball's records? In a sense, A-Roid is a prophet, the ultimate athletic icon for our times, since his myopic quest for fame and riches have overshadowed any and all of his athletic achievements.

A-Roid is not alone though, baseball players, and more and more professional athletes, care less and less for the game itself, it is simply the best way to earn a massive paycheque given their skill set. And that may be A-Roids ultimate legacy to the game, that the game itself really doesn't matter anymore. Every one of his at-bats for the next decade-plus will act as reminders that the innocence, and idealism of baseball, with it's "peanuts and crackerjacks" simply does not exist.

My All-PED Team:

Leading off...

Rotation:

Bullpen:

What a team!!!

Apologia

2009-02-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

1st!!!!!!

Oh wait, it's my blog...

As I pursue my academic goal of sticking the proverbial 'it' to the metaphorical 'man' with the requisite seriousness that graduate study entails, i feel it's important to actually get some content out.

With that in mind, welcome to my blog; the title comes from a line in one of my favourite films, 'Spies like us.' I think put into context it appropriately symbolizes the dynamic I'm trying to explore with this project (plus my original title: "It has a certain je ne ces quoi, but I'm not quite sure what it is" was too long). This project is not about the destination, I intend to use it as a series of signposts that mark my progression, and the progression of my thoughts. One thing I've recently found is that despite my previous notions, I have barely scratched the surface of critical social theory. As I pursue graduate studies I am sure what I think I know now will be proven false, and what I thought was unbelievable will be shown to be quite plausible, this is where, and how, I intend to figure it all out.

Where I stand now my basic premise is this: we live in a state of cyclical hegemony that the media perpetuates. This is done by the ruling powers, which have a vested interest in the maintenance of their dominance. My starting point is Jean Baudrillard's concept of simulation, according to which contemporary media, primarily television and the Internet, create simulations of reality which are presented to their audience as true, accurate representations of actual reality. The symbolic exchange and hyperreality that is created by the content has engaged the audience into production through consumption. Audiences produce value for cultural industries in a number of ways, but most importantly they shift, mediate, and eventually construct their reality through their consumption. I'm concerned with the forces behind the production of identity, meaning, value, and to an increasing extent, reality, that occurs through the consumption of content. More and more of people's daily existence is spent engaging in virtual communication and information exchange, and cultural industries ensure that the more media offers more content with less meaning under the guise of more information. This further detaches the audience from reality and further interpellates them into a world created and controlled by simulations. This allows hegemonic domination to continue, as the excess of content, and increasingly perceived importance of the content, blurs the line between simulated and tangible reality, and causes an uncertainty that encourages more media consumption in search of a solution. The search for the solution of this uncertainty; paradoxically is seemingly solved within the provided content, which provides examples and archetypes that dictate what is normal and what isn't, what is acceptable and what isn't, etc... While one example alone may not sufficiently or necessarily impact an individual/audience, but the manipulation and harmonization of the content by cultural industries has lasting effects on their audience's construction of reality; the simulated reality provided by media does not end when the technology is turned off.

This isn't conspiracy theory stuff; this is a theoretical exploration of relationships of power that are exerted, and therefore exposed, through the media. Whatever I feel is pertinent, interesting, offensive, awesome, crazy, meaningful, hilarious, despicable, inspired, or otherwise theoretically worthwhile will be included. No holds will be barred, and I may dip into any number of realms.

My personal epistemological beliefs include an emphasis on history, a strong understanding of critical social theory, an at-minimum cursory interdisciplinary understanding of as many fields as possible, and the reflexivity to understand one's positioning within their chosen field of study, and the world at large. I intend to root my study and research in a foundation based on some of the concepts proposed by theorists like those of the Frankfurt School, as well as Baudrillard, Foucault, Althusser, Gramsci, Fiske, Hall, and McLuhan. As I study and explore further, I will incorporate new thinkers, and adjust my writing, as well as my thoughts accordingly.

My goal is the promotion and development of increased public awareness about the effects of our relationship with contemporary media. This is not a linear process, and as a result I appreciate any feedback that you can provide; I'm always open to new directions and ideas. I will try to update and add content regularly as I explore the opportunities and features a blog provides.

Thanks for stopping by,

Peter Zuurbier

"Sublime Adventures in Buffoonery"

The Spectacular Evisceration of Lebron James

Suit Up: The Commercial Exploitation of the 1980’s ‘New Man’ through the Dialectical Tensions between Aspiration and Debasement.

On the connoisseurship of connoisseurship...

Camera Lucida as Methodology

Structuralism, Poststructuralism, Post-poststructuralism, and Semiotics

Bourdieu and Distiction

Master of Arts Thesis Proposal

‘Spy vs. Spy’ and Cold War Abstractions

Infowars.com: Counter-hegemonic Exploitation through Consumption

Thesis Review: Television and the Olympics (1986)

Winning the Battle, Losing the War: Canadian Civic Disengagement through ‘War Room’ Politics

Journal Review: Communications and Critical/Cultural Studies

Norman Fairclough & Critical Discourse Analysis

Moving Past Entertainment and Developing Effective Civic Engagement

Bridging Flames fans' online and offline worlds

Back and better than ever...

Brangelina & the Next Evolution of Celebrity

Sports=Life, again...

The Jack Bauer Litmus Test

A-Roid and the Death of Baseball Mythology

Apologia

Suit Up:  The Commercial Exploitation of the 1980’s ‘New Man’ through the Dialectical Tensions between Aspiration and Debasement.