mid-term review com 327 february 26, 2013

Mid-term Review

COM 327February 26, 2013

Strategies…

For studying:

For writing:

Theoretical Foundations #1:Communication as Culture

James Carey. “A cultural approach to communication.”Key concepts: • Ritual vs transmission model of

communication

Identity & RepresentationTheoretical Foundations

Surveillance Society Political Economy

Communication as CultureCarey’s theories were rooted in media & cultural studies.

Raymond Williams:“Culture is ordinary” – culture is what we do every day. Culture is created through communication.

Marshall McLuhan:“Medium is the message” – the ‘content’ of communication is inseparable from the media used to deliver it.

Erving Goffman:“Dramaturgical” view of communication – we perform different versions of our selves under different communicational contexts (e.g. at work vs at school vs at the game)



Theoretical Foundations #2:New Media

Henry Jenkins. “The cultural logic of media convergence.”Key concepts: • Convergence• Participatory culture

Matt Ratto.“Critical making: Conceptual and material studies in technology and social life.”Key concepts: • Critical making



New Media

The study of ‘mass’ media is defined by concerns for what effects” the messages will have on audiences.

The study of ‘Web 2.0’ technologies is defined by how different groups of society use specific digital tools in specific ways...

We not only consume culture, we participate in & help construct it.



Identity & Representation #1:Reading Culture

Stuart Hall.“Encoding/decoding.”Key concepts: • Cultural studies• Encoding/decoding• Dominant/hegemonic vs counter-hegemonic reading

Identity & RepresentationTheoretical Foundations Surveillance Society Political Economy

Reading Culture

Hall used Marxist theory (society is characterized by struggle between ruling elite & working classes) to frame communication as a political struggle over meaning.

1) Mass media serves the ruling class, BUT -2) People have the power to interpret media in ways that do not align with, and can be resistant to, the dominant ideology.


Identity & Representation #2Cinema and the Gaze

Laura Mulvey.“Visual pleasure and narrative cinema.”Key concepts:• the male gaze• feminist theory

Alexander Doty.“Introduction” to Flaming ClassicsKey concepts:• queer theory• sex vs gender• heteronormativity• homoeroticism


Cinema and the Gaze

Mainstream media is deeply heteronormative: 1) historically made for male pleasure2) dominated by heterosexual relationships

Just like people in real life, we should not assume characters are straight just because they act straight.

Queer and feminist readings provide means for marginalized & oppressed groups to identify with mainstream media.


Identity & Representation #3:Colonialism & Imperialism

KA Ono & DT Buescher. “Deciphering Pocahontas: Unpacking the commodification of a Native American woman.”Key concepts:• Cipher• Cultural imperialism• Appropriation• Noble savage• Commodification


Colonialism & Imperialism

Mainstream media commodifies racial & ethnic identities, historical figures & practices

Reel Injun: Hollywood’s portrayal of Native Americans through the years says less about Native Americans, and more about the dominant (white) culture’s changing views on American history, colonization, and progress


Identity & Representation #4:Playing with Ourselves

Helen Kennedy“Lara Croft: Feminist Icon or Cyberbimbo?”Key concepts: • Playing as vs playing with an avatar• Interactivity (games) vs viewing (tv/movies)

Tanner Higgin“Blackless Fantasy”Key concepts:• Race & ethnicity as avatar “color choice” in games


Playing with Ourselves

Commercial games, like other mainstream media, reflect dominant ideological understandings & stereotypes about race and gender

But since games are INTERACTIVE, ‘avatars’ become powerful tools for reflecting on & performing identities (i.e. Kennedy’s notion that the guy playing as Lara in Tomb Raider becomes “in drag” or “transgendered”)


Surveillance Society #1:Watching Me Watching You

Mark Andrejevic.“Surveillance in the digital enclosure.”Key concepts:• ‘cloud’ vs ‘enclosure’• Surveillance society• Panopticon

Identity & RepresentationTheoretical FoundationsSurveillance Society

Political Economy

Watching Me Watching You

In Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Michel Foucault wrote that the modern individual is so used to being watched because s/he watches themselves, constantly.

‘The cloud’ separates us from our data & commodifies it. We don’t ‘own’ our data any more and have little say over who / what it is sold to.


Political Economy

Surveillance Society #2:‘I Agree’

F. Chee, N. Taylor & S. de Castell.“Remediating research ethics.”Key concepts:• Big Data• EULA• Digital literacy


Political Economy

‘I Agree’

End User License Agreements typically contain clauses that say that the company (Google, Facebook, Blizzard, etc) can give data collected on & about you away to a “third party” without your knowledge.

What does “digital literacy” mean under these kinds of conditions? Why is digital literacy itself not much of a solution?


Political Economy

Political Economy #1:Political Economy and Mass Media

Dallas Smythe.“On the audience commodity and its work.”Key concepts:• Consciousness industry

RW McChesney.“Global media, neoliberalism, and imperialism.”Key concepts:• Neoliberalism• Corporate ownership of media

Identity & RepresentationTheoretical Foundations Surveillance SocietyPolitical Economy

Political Economy and Mass Media

Neoliberalism is the ideology that says that all aspects of society (education, healthcare, law, etc) should be dictated by market forces, aka “the bottom line”.

The concentration of media ownership in a small number of huge companies is a serious threat to democracy. Means that whether in entertainment or news, only the views of the dominant/ruling class are communicated.

Smythe argued that we are doing ‘work’ on behalf of corporations by watching tv commercials. In the economic relationship between tv producers, advertisers, and viewers, the audience is the commodity.


Political Economy #2:Working for Play

N. Dyer-Witherford & G. de Peuter.“‘EA Spouse’ and the crisis of video game labour.”Key concepts:• Immaterial labor• Affective labor• Precarious labor• Playbor


Working for Play

New media industries (like lots of forms of work) demand that workers put in extra time, work longer hours, represent the company when they’re not working, and ‘love their job’.

The shift from material labor to immaterial labor means that jobs are less secure, workers have fewer rights, and corporations are less accountable to their workers than in the past.


Political Economy #3:Global Haves and Have-nots

Lisa Nakamura.“Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”Key concepts:• Gold farming• Racialization

L. Guo, S-H Hsu, A. Holton & S.H. Jeong.“A case study of the Foxconn suicides.• Framing


Global Haves and Have-nots

Both ‘gold farming’ and the attention to the Foxconn suicides emphasize how our leisure (games, smartphones, etc) depends on the precarious, dangerous and often ‘invisible’ labor of workers on the other side of the world.

Nakamura’s work shows how online gaming becomes “racialized”, as Western players mock & dehumanize “Chinese” gold farmers.

The Foxconn piece shows how corporate-owned media outlets frame them less as an issue about globalization & labor, and more about China’s human rights & the mental health of workers.


Political Economy #4:Let’s be Friends

Christian Fuchs. “The political economy of privacy on Facebook.”Key concepts:• Liberal vs Contextual Privacy


Let’s be Friends

Facebook relies on the unpaid (and ‘affective’) labor of users

Facebook (like MMOGs) require individual users to protect themselves from harm & surveillance


Question Set #1: - Theoretical Foundations- Identity & Representation

• Convergence• Participatory culture• Critical making• Cultural studies• Encoding/decoding• Dominant vs counter-hegemonic reading• Male gaze• Feminist theory• Queer theory• Sex vs gender• Heteronormativity• Homoeroticism• Cipher• Cultural imperialism• Noble savage• Commodification• Interactivity vs viewing

Question Set #2: - Surveillance Society- Political Economy

• ‘Cloud’ vs ‘enclosure’• Surveillance society• Panopticon• Big Data• EULA• Digital literacy• Consciousness industry• Neoliberalism• Corporate ownership of media• Immaterial labor• Affective labor• Precarious labor• Playbor• Gold farming• Racialization• Framing• Liberal vs Contextual Privacy

In groups:

Choose 4 terms -- 2 from each side.

For each term:1. Define the term in your own words2. State what main author(s) it’s associated with3. State what other terms & concepts it is related

to (anywhere across the course)4. Illustrate the term with examples from

everyday life & current movies/tv shows/games

mid-term review com 327 february 26, 2013

Documents

media cultural studies

gazemainstream media

content of communication

classicskey concepts

school vs

work vs

ordinary culture

cultural approach