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Relevant bibliographies by topics / Austin Hall (Cambridge, Mass.) / Journal articles
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Author: Grafiati
Published: 28 July 2024
Last updated: 30 July 2024
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1
Cooper,DavidE. "Philosophical Passages: Wittgenstein, Emerson, Austin, Derrida. by Cavell Stanley Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell (1995). x + 200 pp." Philosophy 71, no.275 (January 1996): 164–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0031819100053353.
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Evans, Christopher, and Joshua Pollard. "The Institutional Façade: Architectural Recording at the Old Schools, University of Cambridge." Antiquaries Journal 79 (September 1999): 213–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003581500044528.
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The results of architectural recording within the North Range of the University's Old Schools are described. Argued to have stood independently as a hall in the later fourteenth century, the progressive development of the Schools' quadrangle, and extensive alterations to it – culminating in Wright's neo-classical facade of 1754–58 – reflects upon the historical development of academic architecture. The prestigious display of the complex in the mid eighteenth century, facilitated through the mass levelling of domestic properties, equally tells of the institutional ‘realization’ of the University.
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McCallum,DonaldF. "Hiraizumi: Buddhist Art and Regional Politics in Twelfth-century Japan. By Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1998." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland 12, no.2 (July 2002): 233–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1356186302450250.
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Anesko,MichaelW. "Harvard University Press: A History. By Max Hall. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986. 257 pp. Illustrations, notes, and index. $20.00.)." Business History Review 61, no.2 (1987): 337–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3115824.
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Morbey, Mary Leigh. "Reviews : Mary Flanagan and Austin Booth (eds), Reload: Rethinking Women + Cyberculture (Cambridge, Mass and London: MIT Press, 2002), 581 pp, ISBN 0 262 56150 6." Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 9, no.3 (September 2003): 93–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/135485650300900308.
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Pradel, Chari. "Hiraizumi: Buddhist Art and Regional Politics in Twelfth-century Japan. By Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998. xiv, 263 pp. $60.00." Journal of Asian Studies 59, no.4 (November 2000): 1045–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2659261.
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Pratt,T.K. "Joan Houston Hall, chief ed. Dictionary of American Regional English. Vol. IV: P-Sk. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 2002. Pp. xx + 1014. US$89.95 (hardcover)." Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 49, no.1 (March 2004): 127–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0008413100002863.
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Snapp,J.R. "Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England. By David D. Hall. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990. 316 pp. $12.95 paper." Journal of Church and State 33, no.4 (September1, 1991): 813–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jcs/33.4.813.
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Elmer, Peter. "A. Rupert Hall, Henry More: magic, religion and experiment, Blackwell Science Biographies, Oxford and Cambridge, Mass., Basil Blackwell, 1990, pp. xii, 304, £30.00 (0-631-17295-5)." Medical History 35, no.4 (October 1991): 457. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0025727300054272.
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Pratt,T.K. "Frederick G. Cassidy and Joan Houston Hall, eds. Dictionary of American Regional English. Vol. III: I-O. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1996. Pp. xvi + 927. US $75.00 (hardcover)." Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 43, no.2 (June 1998): 245–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0008413100020594.
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Royle, Jennifer. "Musical (Ad)venturers: Colonial Composers and Composition in Melbourne, 1870–1901." Nineteenth-Century Music Review 2, no.2 (November 2005): 133–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1479409800002238.
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In November 1874, the Melbourne Philharmonic Society (MPS) premiered a new sacred cantata, Adoration, as part of their subscription concert series at Melbourne's Town Hall. The composer, Austin T. Turner, lived in Ballarat, Victoria, and had come to Melbourne to conduct the premiere of his work, using the Melbourne Philharmonic's available force of three hundred performers. Turner was well qualified for the task, being known within the musical community as an organist, singing instructor and conductor of Ballarat's Philharmonic and Harmonic societies since 1864. Programmed for the second half of the concert, and following on from Beethoven's First Symphony and Mass in C, Adoration was certainly an ambitious project, consisting of thirty numbers divided into two broad sections. The text was based on the Psalms with some original words by Turner himself and some borrowed from the Hallelujah chorus in Beethoven's Mount of Olives. The music was described, with some commendation, as having a ‘kind of power about it’, although not being particularly individual or showing ‘a new turn of thought, either in the invention of his melodies, or the construction of his harmonies’. Turner demonstrated an ‘affluent mind in music’, as evidenced by his ability to keep his parts moving; perhaps a little too much according to the Argus critic, who found one or two simpler numbers ‘a great relief in the midst of the kaleidoscope combinations of sound in which in this composition he has revelled’. References in the style of known composers gave the work merit, the music partly reminiscent of ‘Haydn, of Beethoven, of Handel, of Mendelssohn, Arne, Purcell, and others … and in so far as it does this it is a worthy composition’. The Melbourne Age reviewer also assured readers that the work contained many genuine moments that ‘even the greatest composer need not be ashamed’, again citing the works of Beethoven and Mendelssohn as principal models for inspiration.
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Мірончук, Тетяна, and Наталія Одарчук. "Іллокуція англомовного дискурсу виправдання (на прикладі творів сучасної художньої англійської та американської прози)." East European Journal of Psycholinguistics 3, no.2 (December22, 2016): 69–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.29038/eejpl.2016.3.2.mir.
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У статті досліджується актоіллокутивний потенціал англійського побутового дискурсу виправдання шляхом зіставлення іллокутивних характеристик частотних у дискурсі виправдання мовленнєвих актів. Спираючись на змодельовані конструкти змісту виправдання, дифенсивну інтенцію мовця визначено передумовою породження дискурсу виправдання. У результаті вивчення наявних у науковій літературі класифікацій мовленнєвих актів визначено, що домінантна іллокутивна сила дискурсу виправдання включає складові інформування та переконування, що типово представлено констативом та асертивом. Власне мовленнєвий акт виправдання визначено як кредитив з включеною перлокуцією винесення виправдального вердикту, яким регулюється міжсуб’єктна взаємодія. Література References Вендлер З. Причинные отношения // Новое в зарубежной лингвистике. – Вып. 18:Логический анализ естественного языка. – М.: Прогресс, 1986. – С. 264–277.Vendler, Z. (1986). Prichinnije otnoshenija [Causal Relations]. In: New in World Linguistics,(pp. 264-277), Issue 18: Study in Logic of Natural Language. Moscow: Progress. Вендлер З. Факты в языке // Философия, логика, язык. – М.: Прогресс, 1987. – С. 293–318.Vendler, Z. (1987). Fakti v jazike [Facts in Language], (pp. 293-318). In: Phylosophy, Logic,Language. Moscow: Progress. Йоргенсен, Марианне В., Филлипс Луиза Дж. (2008). Дискурс-анализ. Теория и метод.Xарьков: Гуманитарный Центр [Humanitarian Centre].Jorgensen, M & Phillips, Louise. (2002). [Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method]. –London; Thousand Oaks; New Delhi. Карабан В. И. Сложные речевые единицы: прагматика английских асиндетическихполипредикативных образований: [монография] / Карабан В. И. – К.: Вища школа, 1989.Karaban, V. I. (1989). Slozhnije rechevije jedinitsi: pragmatika anglijskikh asindeticheskikhpolipredikativnikh obrazovanii [Complex Speech Acts: Pragmatics of English AsyndeticPolypredicative Formations]. Kyiv: Vyshcha Shkola. Остин Дж. Слово как действие // Новое в зарубежной лингвистике. – Вып. 17: ТРА. – М. :Прогресс, 1986. – С. 22–129.Austin, J. (1986). Slovo kak deistvije [Word as Action] In: New in World Linguistics, (pp. 22–129), Issue 17: Speech Acts Theory. M.: Progress. Хилпинен Р. Семантика императивов и деонтическая логика // Новое в зарубежнойлингвистике. – Вып. 18: Логический анализ естественного языка. – М. : Прогресс, 1986. –С. 300–318.Hilpinen, R. (1986). Semantica imperativov i deonticheskaja logica [Semantics of Imperativesand Deontic Logic]. In: New in World Linguistics, (pp. 300–318), Issue 18: Study in Logic ofNatural Language. Moscow: Progress. Шевченко І. С. Дискурс як мисленнєво-комунікативна діяльність / І. С. Шевченко,О. І. Морозова // Дискурс як когнітивно-комунікативний феномен: [кол. монографія] / [зазаг. ред. І. С. Шевченко]. – Х. : Константа, 2005. – С. 21–28.Shevchenko, I. (2005). Dyskurs jak myslenevo-komunikatyvna diyalnist [Discourse as Mentaland Communicative Activity]. In: Discourse as Cognitive and Communicative Phenomenon,(pp. 21–28). I. Shevchenko, (ed.). Kharkiv: Konstanta. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Auwera, J. van der. (1980). On the Meaning of Basic Speech Acts. Journal of Pragmatics, 4(3), 253–303. Auwera, J. van der & Alsenoy, L. van. (2016). On the Typology of Negative Concord. Studiesin Language, 40, 473–512. Bach, K. & Harnish, R. M. (1979). Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts. Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Press. Ballmer, Th. T. & Brennenstuhl, W. (1981). A Study in the Lexical Analysis of EnglishSpeech Activity Verbs. New York, Berlin: Ruhr-Universität. Dijk, T. A. van. (1997). The Study of Discourse. In: Discourse as Structure and Process,(pp. 1–35). London: Sage Publications. Grice, H. P. (1991). Logic & Conversation. Pragmatics, 305–316. Gruber, H. (1998). Disagreeing: Sequential Placement and Internal Structure of Disagreementsin Conflict Episodes. Text, 4 (18), 467–503. Habermas, J. (1981). Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. In: Handlungsrationalität undgesellschaftliche Rationalisierung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Leech, G. N. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. New York, London: Longman. Levinson, S. (1983). Pragmatics. London, New York, Melbourne etc: CUP. Rees-Miller, J. (2000). Power, severity & context in disagreement. The Journal of Pragmatics,8 (32), 1087–1111. Searle, J. R. (1979). Expression and Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schifrin, D. (2001). Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell. Schlieben Lange, Br. (1975). Linguistische Pragmatik. Stuttgart, Berlin: Kohlhammer. Stalnaker, R. (1978). Assertion. In: Syntax & Semantics, (pp. 315–333), Vol. 9: Pragmatics.New York, San Francisco, London. Tatsuki, D. H. (2000). If my complaints could passion move: an interlanguage study ofaggression. The Journal of Pragmatics, 7 (32), 1003–1007. Tannen, D. (1995). You Just Don’t Understand. N.Y.: University of California. Tsui, A. B. M. (1995). English Conversation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wunderlich, D. (1980). Methodological Remarks on Speech Act Theory. In: Speech ActTheory & Pragmatics, (pp. 291–312), Vol. 10. Dordrecht : D. Reidel Publ. Comp. Джерела іллюстративного матеріалу Sources Amis, M. (1991). Time’s Arrow. London: Penguin Book. Christie, A. (1945). Death Comes at the End. London: Fontana. Francis, D. (1992). Longshot. New York: Fawcett Crest. Gardner, J. (1987). The Sunlight Dialogues. New York: Vintage Books. James, P.D. (1977). Death of an Expert Witness. London: Penguin Books. O’Hara, J. (1985). Ten North Frederik. New York: Carol and Graph Publ. Pronzini, B. (1990). I didn’t Do It. In: New Crimes, 2, (136–140). London: Robinson Publ.8. Rendel, R. (1985). All Unkindness of Ravens. London: Hutchinson.
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KITLV, Redactie. "Book Reviews." New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 61, no.1-2 (January1, 1987): 55–114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/13822373-90002056.
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-Sidney W. Mintz, Mats Lundahl, The Haitian economy: man, land and markets. New York: St. Martins Press, 1983. 290 pp.-Regine Altagrace Latortue, Léon-Francois Hoffmann, Essays on Haitian Literature. Washington D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1984. 184 pp.-Robert Forster, Lieutenant Howard, The Haitian journal of lieutenant Howard, York Hussars, 1796-1798. Edited with an introduction by Roger Norman Buckley. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985. liv + 194.-David Bray, Bernardo Vega, Los Estados Unidos y Trujillo, año 1930. Santo Domingo: Fundación Cultural Dominicano, 1986. 2 vols. xi + 1120 pp.-David Bray, Bernardo Vega, Los Estados Unidos y Trujillo, año 1947. Santo Domingo: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1984. 2 vols. xi + 1018 pp.-David Bray, Bernardo Vega, Nazismo, fascismo y falangismo en la Republica Dominicana. Santo Domingo: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1985. 415 pp.-Tony Thorndike, Bruce J. Calder, The impact of intervention: The Dominican Republic during the US occupation of 1916-1924. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984. 358 pp.-Marcella M. Little, Jacques Barbier ,The North American role in the Spanish imperial economy 1760-1819. Manchester, England, 1984: Manchester University Press. pp. 232., Allan J. Kuethe (eds)-Janette Forte, Peter Riviere, Individual and society in Guiana: a comparative study of Amerindian social organisation. Cambridge, London, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. 127 pp.-Stephen D. Glazier, Jay D. Dobbin, The Jombee dance of Montserrat: a study of trance ritual in the West Indies. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1986. 202 pp.-Robert J. Stewart, Stephen D. Glazier, Marchin' the Pilgrims home: leadership and decision-making in an Afro-Caribbean faith. Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1983. xv + 165 pp.-Sidney M. Greenfield, Karen Fog Olwig, Cultural adaptation and resistance on St. John: three centuries of Afro-Caribbean life. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1985. xii + 226 pp.-Adam Kendon, William Washabaugh, Five fingers for survival. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers, Inc., 1986. xiv + 198 pp.-Evelyne T. Menard, Carnot (F. Moloen), Alors ma chére...Propos d'un musicien guadeloupéen recueillis et traduits par Marie-Céline Lafontaine. Paris: Editions Caribéennes, 1986. 159 pp.-Sally Price, Suzanne Slesin ,Caribbean style. Authors include Daniel Rozensztroch. Photographs by Gilles de Chabaneix. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1985. 290 pp., Stafford Cliff, Jack Berthelot (eds)-Allison Blakely, Gert Oostindie ,In het land van de overheerser. Deel II. Antillianen en Surinamers in Nederland, 1634/1667-1954. Dordrecht (Holland) and Providence RI (U.S.A.): Foris Publications, 1986. xi + 255 pp., Emy Maduro (eds)-Rosemarijn Hoefte, E. van de Boogaart ,Overzee: Nederlandse koloniale geschiedenis, 1590-1975. Haarlem: Fibula-van Dishoek, 1982. 291 pp., P.J. Drooglever et al (eds)-Frederick J. Conway, P.I. Gomes, Rural development in the Caribbean. London: C. Hurst and Company. New York: St. Martins Press, 1985. xxi + 246 pp.-Steve M. Slaby, Charles Edquist, Capitalism, socialism and technology: a comparative study of Cuba and Jamaica. London: Zed Books Ltd., 1985. xiii + 182 pp.-Joan D. Mandle, June Nash ,Women and social change in Latin America. South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, 1986. 372 pp., Helen Safa (eds)-Bonham C. Richardson, Michael L. Conniff, Black labor on a white canal: Panama, 1904-1981. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985. xv + 221 pp.-Brackette F. Williams, Stephen Glazier, Caribbean ethnicity revisited. A special edition of Ethnic Groups, International periodical of ethnic studies. New York, London, Paris, Montreaux, Tokyo: Gordon Breach Science Publishers, 1985. 164 pp.-Gert J. Oostindie, Frauke Gewecke, Die Karibik; zur Geschichte, Politik und Kultur einer Region. Frankfurt/M: Verlag Klaus Dieter Vervuert 1984. 165 pp.
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Кючуков, Хрісто, and Сава Самуїлов. "Language Use and Identity Among Migrant Roma." East European Journal of Psycholinguistics 6, no.1 (June30, 2019): 47–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.29038/eejpl.2019.6.1.hky.
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The paper presents the issue of language use and identity among Muslim Roma youth from Bulgaria, living in Berlin, Germany. Interviews with a structured questionnaire on language use and identity was conducted with Bulgarian Muslim Roma living in Berlin, Germany. The results showed that, in order to be accepted by the German Turks, Bulgarian Muslim Roma youth change their language use and identity from Muslim Roma to a new identity - Bulgarian “Osmanli” Turks. The findings showed that the change of language and identity among young Roma in this study served as strategies for integration and acceptance in the German society. References Bailey, B. (2001). The language of multiple identities among Dominican Americans. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 10(2), 190-223. Berry, J. (1997). Immigration, acculturation and adaptation. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 46, 5-36. Bleich, E. (2009). Where do Muslims Stand on Ethno-Racial Hierarchies in Britain and France? Evidence from Public Opinion Surveys, 1998-2008; 43, 379-400. Brizic, K. (2006). The secret life of a languages. Origin-specific differences in L1/L2 acquisition by immigrant children. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 16(3), 339-362. Broeder, P. & Extra, G. (1995). Ethnic identity and community languages in the Netherlands In: Sociolinguistica – International Yearbook of European Sociolinguistics/ Internationales Jahrbuch für europäische Soziolinguistik, 9, 96-112. Dimitrova, R., Ferrer-Wreder, L. (2017). Positive Youth Development of Roma Ethnic minority Across Europe. In: Handbook on positive development of minority children and youth (pp. 307-320). N. Cabrera & B. Leyendeker, (Eds.). New York: Springer Erikson, E. (1964). Childhood and Society. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Fishman, J. (1998). Language and ethnicity: The view from within. In: The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. (pp. 327-343). F. Coulmas (Ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. Fought, C. (2006). Language and ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Giles, H. (ed.) (1984). The Dynamics of speech accommodation. International Journal of Sociology of Language, 46, 1-155 Giray, B. (2015). Code-switching among Bulgarian Muslim Roma in Berlin. In: Ankara Papers in Turkish and Turkic Linguistics. (pp. 420-430). D. Zeyrek, C.S. Șimșek, U. Ataș and J. Rehbein (Eds.). Wiessbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Kivisto, P. (2013). (Mis)Reading Muslims and multiculturalism. Social Inclusion, 1, 126-135. Kyuchukov, H. (2016). The Turkish in Berlin spoken by Bulgarian Muslim Roma. Ural-Altaic Studies, 22, 7-12. Kyuchukov, H. (2007). Turkish and Roma children learning Bulgarian. Veliko Tarnovo: Faber. Larson, R. W. (2000). Toward a psychology of positive youth development. American Psychologist, 55, 170-183. Lerner, R. Et al. (2005) Positive youth development. A view of the issues. Journal of Early Adolescence, 25(1), 10-16. Lerner, R., Dowling, E., Anderson, P. (2003) Positive youth development: Thriving as the basis of personhood and civil society. Applied Developmental Science, 7(3), 172-180. Marushiakova, E. & Popov, V. (2004). Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria. In: Migration and Political Intervention: Diasporas in Transition Countries. (pp. 18-32). Blaschke, J. (Ed.). Berlin: Parabolis. Merton, R. (1968). The Matthew effect in Science. Science, 159(3810), 56-63. Ochs, E. (1993). Constructing social identity: a language socialization perspective. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 26, 287-306. Organista, P. B, Marin, G., Chun, K. M. (2010). The psychology of ethnic groups in United States. London: SAGE Publication. Padilla, A., Perez, W. (2003). Acculturation, social identity and social cognition: A new Perspective. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 25, 35-55. Peoples, J., Bailey, G. (2010). Humanity: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (9th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage learning. Rovira, L. (2008). The relationship between language and identity. The use of the home language as a human right of the immigrant. Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana, XVI (31), 63-81. Tajfel, H. Turner, J.C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In: Psychology of Intergroup Relations (pp. 7-24). Worchel, S. & Austin, W. G. (Eds.). Chicago: Nelson-Hall. Tabouret-Keller, A. (1998). Language and identity. In: The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. (pp. 315-326). F. Coulmas (Ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. Trudgill, P. (1992). Ausbau sociolinguistics and the perception of language status in contemporary Europe. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2, 167-178.
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Brownstein,MichaelJ. "Book Review Neurons and Networks: An introduction to neuroscience By John E. Dowling. 447 pp., illustrated. Cambridge, Mass., Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 1992. $45. ISBN 0–674–60820–8 . An Introduction to Molecular Neurobiology Edited by Zach W. Hall. 555 pp., illustrated. Sunderland, Mass., Sinauer, 1992. $46.95. ISBN 0–87893–307–7 ." New England Journal of Medicine 327, no.21 (November19, 1992): 1537–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/nejm199211193272122.
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Brown,EdwardJ. "Literary Craft in the Soviet Union - Pasternak on art and Creativity. By Boris Pasternak. Edited by Angela Livingstone. Cambridge, London, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne, and Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1985. xii, 292 pp. $39.50, cloth. - Boris Pilniak: Scythian at A Typewriter. By Gary Browning. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1985. 259 pp. Photographs. $25.00, cloth. - Mikhail Bulgakov. By Nadine Natov. Boston, Mass.: G. K. Hall, 1985. 144 pp. $21.95, cloth." Slavic Review 46, no.1 (1987): 123–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2498627.
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KITLV, Redactie. "Book Reviews." New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 70, no.1-2 (January1, 1996): 133–203. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/13822373-90002634.
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-Sandra L. Richards, Judy S.J. Stone, Theatre. London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1994. xii + 268 pp.-Lowell Fiet, Errol Hill, The Jamaican stage, 1655-1900: profile of a colonial theatre. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992. xiv + 346 pp.-Supriya Nair, Bruce King, V.S. Naipaul. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. viii + 170 pp.-Agnes Lugo-Ortiz, Donald E. Rice, The rhetorical uses of the authorizing figure: Fidel Castro and José Martí. Westport CT: Praeger, 1992. xviii + 163 pp.-Graciella Cruz-Taura, Juan A. Martínez, Cuban art and national identity: The Vanguardia painters, 1927-1950. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994. xiv + 189 pp.-Graciella Cruz-Taura, Luis Camnitzer, New art of Cuba. Austin; University of Texas Press, 1994. xxx + 400 pp.-Gary Brana-Shute, Richard Price ,On the mall: Presenting Maroon tradition-bearers at the 1992 festival of American folklife. Bloomington: Folklore Institute, Indiana University, 1994. xi + 123 pp., Sally Price (eds)-Erika Bourguignon, Stephan Palmié, Das Exil der Götter: Geschichte und Vorstellungswelt einer afrokubanischen Religion. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1991. vii + 520 pp.-Carla Freeman, Daniel Miller, Modernity, an ethnographic approach: Dualism and mass consumption in Trinidad. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1994. 340 pp.-Daniel A. Segal, Kelvin Singh, Race and class: Struggles in a colonial state: Trinidad 1917-1945. Kingston; The Press - University of the West Indies, 1994. xxii + 284 pp.-Evelyne Huber, Patsy Lewis, Jamaica: Preparing for the twenty-first century. Kingston: Ian Randle, 1994. xvi + 272 pp.-Diane Vernon, Elisa Janine Sobo, One blood: The Jamaican body. Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1993. vii + 329 pp.-Robert Myers, Patrick L. Baker, Centring the periphery: Chaos. order and the ethnohistory of Dominica. Kingston: The Press - University of the West Indies, 1994. xxviii + 251 pp.-Riva Berleant-Schiller, Debra Evenson, Revolution in the balance: Law and society in contemporary Cuba. Boulder CO: Westview, 1994. xiii + 235 pp.-Riva Berleant-Schiller, Mindie Lazarus-Black, Legitimate acts and illegal encounters: Law and society in Antigua and Barbuda. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994. xxv + 357 pp.-Michiel Baud, Luis Martínez-Fernández, Torn between empires: Economy, society, and patterns of political thought in the Hispanic Caribbean, 1840-1878. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994. ix + 333 pp.-Stanley L. Engerman, Jorge F. Pérez-López, The economics of Cuban sugar. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991, xviii + 313 pp.-Rosario Espinal, Michiel Baud, Historia de un sueño: Los ferrocarriles públicos en la República Dominicana, 1880-1930. Santo Domingo: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1993. 145 pp.-Birgit Sonesson, Carlos Esteban Dieve, Las emigraciones canarias a Santo Domingo: Siglos XVII y XVIII. Santo Domingo: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1991. iii + 185 pp.-Erna Kerkhof, Juan Flores, Divided borders: Essays on Puerto Rican identity. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1993. 252 pp.-Cruz M. Nazario, Joan Koss-Chioino, Women as healers, women as patients: Mental health care and traditional healing in Puerto Rico. Boulder CO: Westview, 1992. xx + 237 pp.-Forrest D. Colburn, Andrés Serbin ,El Caribe y Cuba en la posguerra fría. Caracas: Editorial Nueva Sociedad, 1994. 272 pp., Joseph Tulchin (eds)-Winthrop R. Wright, Nina S. de Friedemann, La saga del negro: Presencia africana en Colombia. Santa Fe de Bogotá: Centro Editorial Javeriano, 1993. 117 pp.-Rita Giacalone, Francois Taglioni, Géopolitique des Petites Antilles: Influences européenne et nordaméricaine. Paris: Karthala, 1994. vii + 321 pp.-Daniel J. Crowley, Salikoko S. Mufwene, Africanisms in Afro-American language varieties. With the assistance of Nancy Condon. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1993. vii + 512 pp.-Peter Bakker, Joan D. Hall ,Old English and new: Studies in language and linguistics in honor of Frederic G. Cassidy. New York: Garland, 1992. xxxiii + 460 pp., Nick Doane, Dick Ringler (eds)-Peter Bakker, Francis Byrne ,Atlantic meets Pacific: A global view of Pidginization and Creolization. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1993. ix + 465 pp., John Holm (eds)-Jacques Arends, George L. Huttar ,Ndyuka. London: Routledge, 1994. 631 pp., Mary L. Huttar (eds)-P.C. Emmer, Henk den Heyer, De geschiedenis van de WIC. Zutphen, Netherlands: De Walburg Pers, 1994. 208 pp.-Wim Hoogbergen, A.F. Paula, 'Vrije' slaven: Een sociaal-historische studie over de dualistische slavenemancipatie op Nederlands Sint Maarten, 1816-1863. Zutphen, Netherlands: De Walburg Pers, 1993. 191 pp.-Wim Hoogbergen, Bea Brommer, Ik ben eigendom van ...: Slavenhandel en plantageleven. Wijk en Aalburg, Netherlands: Pictures Publishers, 1993. 144 pp.-Gert Oostindie, Ben Scholtens, Bosnegers en overheid in Suriname: De ontwikkeling van de politieke verhouding 1651-1992. Paramaribo: Afdeling Cultuurstudies/Minov, 1994. 237 pp.-Edward M. Dew, Marten Schalkwijk, Suriname: Het steentje in de Nederlandse schoen: Van onafhankelijkheid tot raamverdrag. Paramaribo: Firgos Suriname, 1994. 356 pp.
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Hall,DavidS., Rhodri Jervis, LouisF.J.Piper, AlexandraL.Kersting, and ClareP.Grey. "Battery Degradation and Lifetime – Studies within the Faraday Institution on NMC811/Graphite Full Cells." ECS Meeting Abstracts MA2022-01, no.2 (July7, 2022): 341. http://dx.doi.org/10.1149/ma2022-012341mtgabs.
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Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) find use in a wide range of applications, each of which has its own design specifications and practical requirements. With regards to the role of LIBs in mitigating carbon emissions, and therefore climate change, it is desirable to support the rapidly growing adoption of electric vehicles and renewable grid-storage systems via development of higher energy density, lower cost, and improved rate capability. However, the design of energy-dense, low-cobalt, and/or high-rate cell chemistries is impeded by inherent trade-offs with cycling and calendar lifetimes. A key goal for the automotive and utilities industries is therefore to predict battery lifetime for new cell designs and chemistries at a very high level of confidence, for example through improved understanding of the physical and chemical processes that determine the state of health of battery systems. As part of the Faraday Institution, the UK’s independent institute for electrochemical energy storage technology, the Battery Degradation Project has built new understanding of the underlying physical and chemical processes that can lead to degradation in energy-dense NMC811/graphite lithium-ion cells as a model system. Led by the University of Cambridge (Clare Grey PI) in collaboration with eight UK universities, the research consortium is working closely with industry partners to create a new hub for lithium-ion battery research and to address key challenges and opportunities in the field. This presentation will give an overview of the research consortium’s diverse membership, key milestones, and technical progress. To date, the consortium has been applying a variety of analytical techniques to study degradation processes in NMC811/graphite cells. For example, electrochemical testing and operando solid-state 7Li nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) were combined to monitor processes in both electrodes individually, including Li-ion mobility and its changes with temperature.1 The method is now being applied to understand how the dynamics are affected by long-term structural damage to the NMC811 material. A series of differential voltage analysis experiments have been paired with operando X-ray diffraction measurements to propose the mechanism behind a critical ‘turning point’ in NMC811/graphite cells, following which degradation accelerates significantly.2 New operando cell designs have been developed to measure changes in cell pressure,3 which are being paired with solution NMR spectroscopy,4 and differential electrochemical mass spectrometry to quantify electrolyte oxidation. The role and rate of transition-metal dissolution in cells under stressed cycling conditions, namely cycling at high temperature (60 °C) and high upper cut-off voltages (4.4, 4.6 V), has been investigated.5 Scanning transmission electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (STEM-EDX) measurements were coupled with time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry (Tof-SIMS) to observe the Al-containing phases at NMC811 surfaces and grain boundaries.7 New spectroscopic methods are also being developed, including Kerr-gated Raman, which allows sensitive measurements of electrode materials and electrolytes with lower background signal than conventional Raman spectroscopy.6 Finally, X-ray computed tomography methods have been developed that enable operando imaging and spectroscopic mapping of heterogeneities at a sub-particle length scale and across large areas of electrodes, which are being applied to study the origins of microstructural defects, cracking, and redox activity during charging, cycling, or storage.8,9 Reference s: K. Märker, C. Xu, and C. P. Grey, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 142, 17447–17456 (2020). W. M. Dose, C. Xu, C. P. Grey, and M. F. L. De Volder, Cell Rep. Phys. Sci., 1, 100253 (2020). N. Ryall and N. Garcia-Araez, J. Electrochem. Soc., 167, 110511 (2020). B. L. D. Rinkel, D. S. Hall, I. Temprano, and C. P. Grey, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 142, 15058–15074 (2020). Z. Ruff, C. Xu, and C. P. Grey, J. Electrochem. Soc., 168, 060518 (2021). L. Cabo-Fernandez, A. R. Neale, F. Braga, I. V. Sazanovich, R. Kostecki, and L. J. Hardwick, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 21, 23833–23842 (2019). J. Lee, H. Amari, M. Bahri, Z. Shen, C. Xu, Z. Ruff, C. P. Grey, O. Ersen, A. Aguadero, N. D. Browning, and B. L. Mehdi, Batter. Supercaps, 4, 1813–1820 (2021). T. M. M. Heenan, A. Wade, C. Tan, J. E. Parker, D. Matras, A. S. Leach, J. B. Robinson, A. Llewellyn, A. Dimitrijevic, R. Jervis, P. D. Quinn, D. J. L. Brett, and P. R. Shearing, Adv. Energy Mater., 10, 2002655 (2020). C. Tan, A. S. Leach, T. M. M. Heenan, H. Parks, R. Jervis, J. N. Weker, D. J. L. Brett, and P. R. Shearing, Cell Rep. Phys. Sci., 100647 (2021).
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Hathi,DeepK., Heather Hall, Judith Mueller, MonaH.Cai, Yangyang Liu, Alexander Liede, and RahulK.Das. "Abstract 851: Machine learning (ML) model for prediction of pneumonitis using real-world data (RWD) on immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI)-treated advanced non-small cell lung cancer (aNSCLC)." Cancer Research 83, no.7_Supplement (April4, 2023): 851. http://dx.doi.org/10.1158/1538-7445.am2023-851.
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Abstract Background: Immune-related pneumonitis (IRP) is a rare adverse event (AE) associated with ICIs that may result in treatment interruption or death if not managed properly. IRP prediction is critical to identify at-risk patients and estimate background IRP risk for single-arm trials. ML modeling was used on electronic health records (EHR) to predict IRP risk in patients with aNSCLC using various IRP definitions. Methods: Patients with curated aNSCLC treated with ICIs between Jan 2015 - May 2022 were identified in a US-based oncology EHR database (ConcertAI®, Cambridge, MA). Survival XGBoost models were trained with 4-fold cross-validation. Due to lack of consensus on the IRP definition using RWD, putative IRPs were derived from a mix of human-curated AEs and ICD diagnosis (dx) codes (preexisting [<90 days of ICI start] codes excluded). Three IRP definitions were used: expert-curated (IRP1, n=237 IRP events), literature-derived (IRP2, n=445), and a broad definition (IRP3, n=1213). Risk factors were identified using SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) values and marginal hazard ratios. Results: The study cohort had 8928 patients. Validation cumulative/dynamic area under the ROC curve for IRP1-3 was 0.68, 0.70, and 0.71, respectively. Common across IRP definitions were predictors related to underlying lung conditions, comorbidities, polypharmacy, systemic inflammation, and de novo metastases (Table 1). Chemoradiation was a risk factor for the narrow definition (IRP1), while labs suggestive of organ dysfunction were predictive for broader definitions (IRP2-3). Unsupervised clustering of SHAP resulted in 4 patient clusters. Higher-risk clusters were driven by polypharmacy (IRP1-3), reduced platelets (IRP1), and comorbidities (IRP2-3). Conclusions: ML on different IRP definitions from RWD differentiated risk factors of pneumonitis from those inherent to lung disease among aNSCLC patients. Table 1. Risk factors for the 3 different IRP definitions as identified by ML models IRP1: Mean HR (95% CI) IRP2: Mean HR (95% CI) IRP3: Mean HR (95% CI) Comorbidities: Number of comorbidities ≥4 (vs 0) 1.17 (1.00, 1.49) 1.51 (1.30, 1.77) 1.73 (1.36, 2.22) Comorbidities: BMI ≥29.07 (vs ≤21.95) 1.25 (1.13, 1.45) 1.27 (1.17, 1.38) 1.27 (1.06, 1.53) Polypharmacy: Number of concomitant meds ≥13 (vs ≤5) 1.45 (1.17, 1.84) 1.62 (1.19, 2.11) 1.29 (1.06, 1.69) Polypharmacy: Local anesthesia (vs no) 1.12 (1.0, 1.23) 1.02 (1.00, 1.06) 1.13 (1.04, 1.21) Polypharmacy: Anti-arrhythmia agents (vs no) 1.07 (0.99, 1.14) 1.00 (1.00, 1.03) 1.00 (0.97, 1.02) Polypharmacy: Anticoagulants (vs no) 1.02 (1.00, 1.10) 1.12 (1.06, 1.21) 1.19 (1.03, 1.34) History of chemoradiation: Durvalumab line of therapy (vs no) 1.18 (1.00, 1.41) 1.00 (1.00, 1.02) 0.98 (0.89, 1.00) History of chemoradiation: Baseline thoracic radiation (vs no) 1.08 (1.00, 1.35) 1.01 (1.00, 1.03) 1.00 (0.97, 1.00) History of chemoradiation: Prior chemotherapy (vs no) 1.06 (0.99, 1.19) 1.00 (0.99, 1.01) 0.91 (0.86, 0.98) History of chemoradiation: Platelets count (103/mL) ≥343 (vs ≤203) 0.79 (0.67, 0.90) 0.97 (0.91, 1.06) 0.96 (0.86, 1.07) De novo metastasis diagnosis: M0 stage at initial diagnosis (vs M1) 1.08 (1.00, 1.21) 1.11 (1.00, 1.24) 1.08 (1.02, 1.15) De novo metastasis diagnosis: Lactate dehydrogenase (IU/L) ≥323.5 (vs ≤165) 0.87 (0.73, 0.96) 0.88 (0.75, 1.00) 0.88 (0.73, 1.02) Underlying lung conditions: Oxygen saturation (%) ≥98 (vs ≤94) 0.89 (0.72, 1.0) 1.00 (0.93, 1.05) 0.96 (0.83, 1.05) Underlying lung conditions: Respiratory rate (breaths/min) ≥18 (vs ≤16) 1.09 (0.97, 1.31) 1.08 (1.02, 1.17) 1.12 (0.99, 1.32) Organ dysfunction: Blood urea nitrogen (mg/dL) ≥20 (vs ≤11.7) 1.01 (0.86, 1.19) 1.13 (0.9, 1.58) 1.11 (0.96, 1.46) Organ dysfunction: Albumin (g/dL) ≥4 (vs ≤3.35) 0.97 (0.85, 1.11) 0.95 (0.90, 0.99) 0.83 (0.72, 0.94) Organ dysfunction: Serum protein (g/dL) ≥7.4 (vs ≤6.5) 1.06 (0.95, 1.18) 1.09 (1.02, 1.17) 1.22 (1.02, 1.44) Systemic inflammation: Neutrophils-lymphocytes ratio ≥8.59 (vs ≤3.12) 1.13 (0.99, 1.07) 1.18 (1.04, 1.30) 1.20 (1.00, 1.44) Systemic inflammation: WBC counts (103/mL) ≥10.88 (vs ≤6.10) 1.01 (0.88, 1.14) 1.05 (0.99, 1.15) 1.10 (0.95, 1.35) Footnote: BMI, body mass index; CI, confidence interval; HR, hazard ratio; IRP1 expert-curated definition, n=237; IRP2, literature-derived definition, n=445; IRP3, a broad IRP definition, n=1213; WBC, white blood cell. Citation Format: Deep K. Hathi, Heather Hall, Judith Mueller, Mona H. Cai, Yangyang Liu, Alexander Liede, Rahul K. Das. Machine learning (ML) model for prediction of pneumonitis using real-world data (RWD) on immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI)-treated advanced non-small cell lung cancer (aNSCLC) [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 851.
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Pratt,T.K. "Frederic G. Cassidy and Joan Houston Hall, eds. Dictionary of American Regional English. Volume II, D-H. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press. 1991. Pp. xv + 1175. US$59.95 (hardcover). - An Index by Region, Usage, and Etymology to the Dictionary of American Regional English, vols. I and II. In the series Publication of the American Dialect Society, 77. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. 1993. Pp. xxii + 178. US$19.00 (softcover). - Russell Tabbert, ed. Dictionary of Alaskan English. Juneau: Denali Press. 1991. Pp. vi + 294. US$47.50 (softcover)." Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 39, no.1 (March 1994): 81–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0008413100014948.
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Gunarti, Winda, Raden Sri Martini Meilanie, and Happy Karlina Marjo. "The Impact of Co-Viewing on Attachment Between Parents and Children." JPUD - Jurnal Pendidikan Usia Dini 17, no.1 (April30, 2023): 31–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.21009/jpud.171.03.
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Watching (screen viewing) has become a common activity carried out in early childhood. Generally, children aged 2-5 years do watching activities for about 3 hours more a day. This study aims to see how watching activities together can increase attachment between parents and children. This study uses a qualitative approach that produces descriptive data in the form of written words or messages from people and observed behavior and uses observation, interview, or document review methods. Observations were made on co-viewing activities carried out by a child and his parents at home because this activity was found to have an impact on the attachment relationship between the two parties. The selected respondent is one of the parents of a 3-year-old child (G) (Mrs. B). Data collection was carried out at the residence of Mrs. B and G for several weeks. The data collection techniques used were interviews and observations. The results show that watching activities together has a positive impact on the attachment between parents and early childhood. This can be seen from the characteristics of the safe attachment that children have after watching the activities together, after previously the attachment they had characterized as an avoidant attachment. It can also be seen how parents have a big role in the formation of this secure attachment. Keywords: secure attachment, co-viewing watching activities, parent-children interaction References: Arianda, V., Salim, I. K., & Ruzain, R. B. (2022). Secure Attachment (Kelekatan Aman) Ibu dan Anak dengan Perkembangan Sosial Emosional Pada Anak. Journal of Islamic and Contemporary Psychology (JICOP), 1(2), 67–74. https://doi.org/10.25299/jicop.v1i2.8603 Barr, R., Zack, E., Garcia, A., & Muentener, P. (2008). Infants’ Attention and Responsiveness to Television Increases with Prior Exposure and Parental Interaction. Infancy, 13(1), 30–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/15250000701779378 Belsky, J., & Nezworski, T. (1988). Clinical Implications of Attachment. L. Erlbaum Associates. https://books.google.co.id/books?id=NY1AQTAkhKAC Crain, W. C. (2011). Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications. Prentice Hall. https://books.google.co.id/books?id=z0ZeRwAACAAJ Dearing, E., McCartney, K., Weiss, H. B., Kreider, H., & Simpkins, S. (2004). The promotive effects of family educational involvement for low-income children’s literacy. Journal of School Psychology, 42(6), 445–460. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2004.07.002 Elias, N., & Sulkin, I. (2017). YouTube viewers in diapers: An exploration of factors associated with amount of toddlers’ online viewing. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 11(3). https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2017-3-2 Haridakis, P., & Hanson, G. (2009). Social Interaction and Co-Viewing With YouTube: Blending Mass Communication Reception and Social Connection. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53(2), 317–335. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838150902908270 Hiniker, A., Suh, H., Cao, S., & Kientz, J. A. (2016). Screen Time Tantrums: How Families Manage Screen Media Experiences for Toddlers and Preschoolers. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 648–660. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858278 Holloway, D., Green, L., & Livingstone, S. (2013). Zero to eight: Young children and their internet use (pp. 10–13). LSE, London and EU Kids Online. Iskandar, T. P., & Nadhifa, R. A. F. (2021). Fenomena Penggunaan Youtube Channel Pada Anak Usia Dini di Masa Pendemic Covid-19 [The Phenomenon of Using Youtube Channels in Early Childhood During the Covid-19 Pandemic.]. Jurnal Ilmiah LISKI (Lingkar Studi Komunikasi), 7(2). http://journals.telkomuniversity.ac.id/liski Kabali, H. K., Irigoyen, M. M., Nunez-Davis, R., Budacki, J. G., Mohanty, S. H., Leister, K. P., & Bonner, R. L. (2015). Exposure and Use of Mobile Media Devices by Young Children. PEDIATRICS, 136(6), 1044–1050. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2015-2151 Keene, J. R., Rasmussen, E. E., Berke, C. K., Densley, R. L., Loof, T., Adams, R. B., Mumma, G. H., & Marshall, A. (2019). The effect of plot explicit, educational explicit, and implicit inference information and coviewing on children’s internal and external cognitive processing. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 47(2), 153–174. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2019.1581367 Kirkorian, H. L., Pempek, T. A., Murphy, L. A., Schmidt, M. E., & Anderson, D. R. (2009). The Impact of Background Television on Parent-Child Interaction. Child Development, 80(5), 1350–1359. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01337.x Lemish, D., & Rice, M. L. (1986). Television as a talking picture book: A prop for language acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 13(2), 251–274. Cambridge Core. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000900008047 Moleong, L. J., & Surjaman, T. (1989). Metodologi penelitian kualitatif. Remadja Karya. https://books.google.co.id/books?id=YXsknQEACAAJ Papalia, D. E., Olds, S. W., & Feldman, R. D. (2007). Human Development. McGraw-Hill. https://books.google.co.id/books?id=tGHmxgEACAAJ Pempek, T. A., Demers, L. B., Hanson, K. G., Kirkorian, H. L., & Anderson, D. R. (2011). The impact of infant-directed videos on parent–child interaction. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 32(1), 10–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2010.10.001 Pempek, T. A., Kirkorian, H. L., & Anderson, D. R. (2014). The Effects of Background Television on the Quantity and Quality of Child-Directed Speech by Parents. Journal of Children and Media, 8(3), 211–222. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2014.920715 Pires de Sá, F. (2015). The co-viewing 2.0: Detaching from History and Applying in the New Media Age. КУЛТУРА/CULTURE, 5(11). Rachmat, I. F. (2019). Pengaruh Kelekatan Orang Tua Dan Anak Terhadap Penggunaan Teknologi Digital Anak Usia Dini [The Influence of Attachment of Parents and Children to the Use of Digital Technology in Early Childhood]. Jurnal Jendela Bunda Program Studi PG-PAUD Universitas Muhammadiyah Cirebon, 6(1), 14–29. https://doi.org/10.32534/jjb.v6i1.546 Santrock, J. W. (2009). Child Development. McGraw Hill. https://books.google.co.id/books?id=I58GLwAACAAJ Sims, C. E., & Colunga, E. (2013). Parent-Child Screen Media Co-Viewing: Influences on Toddlers’ Word Learning and Retention. Cognitive Science, 35. Skaug, S., Englund, K. T., & Wichstrøm, L. (2018). Young children’s television viewing and the quality of their interactions with parents: A prospective community study. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 59(5), 503–510. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12467 Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., & Rodriguez, E. T. (2015). Parents’ Role in Fostering Young Children’s Learning and Language Development. In Encyclopedia of the Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development (CEECD). Toth, S. L., & Cicchetti, D. (2013). A Developmental Psychopathology Perspective on Child Maltreatment. Child Maltreatment, 18(3), 135–139. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559513500380 Vaala, S. E., & Hornik, R. C. (2014). Predicting US Infants’ and Toddlers’ TV/Video Viewing Rates: Mothers’ Cognitions and Structural Life Circumstances. Journal of Children and Media, 8(2), 163–182. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2013.824494 Vandewater, E. A., Bickham, D. S., & Lee, J. H. (2006). Time Well Spent? Relating Television Use to Children’s Free-Time Activities. Pediatrics, 117(2), e181–e191. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2005-0812 Zimmerman, F. J., Christakis, D. A., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2007). Television and DVD/Video Viewing in Children Younger Than 2 Years. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 161(5), 473–479. https://doi.org/10.1001/archpedi.161.5.473
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Bray, Alan. "Historians and Sexuality - Sex, Death and Punishment: Attitudes to Sex and Sexuality in Britain since the Renaissance. By R. P. T. Davenport-Hines. London: Collins, 1990. Pp. xv + 439. £20.00. - Peers, Queers and Commons: The Struggle for Gay Law Reform from 1950 to the Present. By Stephen Jeffery-Poulter. New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, 1991. Pp. xiii + 296. $14.95. - Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare's England: A Cultural Poetics. By Bruce R. Smith. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 329. $29.95. - Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800. Michael Roper and John Tosh, eds. New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, 1991. Pp. x + 221. $15.95. - Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault. By Jonathan Dollimore. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. x + 388. $35.00. - Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. By Thomas W. Laqueur. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990. Pp. x + 313. $27.95. - Sodomy and Interpretation: Marlowe to Milton. By Gregory W. Bredbeck. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991. Pp. xv + 261. $36.95." Journal of British Studies 32, no.2 (April 1993): 189–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/386029.
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"A. Rupert Hall. Isaac Newton: Adventurer in Thought. (Blackwell Science Biographies.) Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell. 1992. Pp. xv, 468. $29.95." American Historical Review, April 1994. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/ahr/99.2.541.
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"The Fateful Triangle: Race, Ethnicity, Nation, Stuart Hall , Kobena Mercer , ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2017), 256 pp., $25.95 cloth." Ethics & International Affairs 32, no.1 (2018): 132–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0892679418000217.
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Yen, Nguyen Thi Linh, and Ton Quang Cuong. "Integration Mobile Technology into English Lessons: A case study at VNU-ULIS and VNU-UED." VNU Journal of Science: Education Research 34, no.2 (June11, 2018). http://dx.doi.org/10.25073/2588-1159/vnuer.4148.
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The purpose of this study is to investigate the mobile tools (based on Web 2.0 platform) for language activities in English lessons for non-linguistics students as well for linguistics specialized group of the two universities. While the first group is only introduced of English basic lessons with many language barriers, the second group of English linguistics students is attending to study linguistic phenomena. The study involved 21 newly enrolled Master degree students in Teaching Learning Methodology program (VNU-UED) participating in an introduction program of the English for educational purposes, and 25 linguistics specialized 4-th year students from VNU-ULIS. The participants were allowed to use their own devices (smartphone, Ipad, Tablet, Laptop) during English lessons, as well as introduced mobile applications based on Web 2.0 platform for all their activities in and after the class (speaking, writing, reading, listening, translating and homework doing). The participants were interviewed about their effectiveness of using mobile phones as well as recorded in a number of activities inside and outside the classroom to compare their language evolvement, perception and development. In addition, surveys, recording, logging of weekly mobile activities and observations were performed. The study results indicate that focusing English linguistic training with a mobile technology is useful and fun for both groups in term of developing language skills, as well as technology competencies which can lead to improved integration. Using a BYOD/BYOTs both inside and outside the classroom the participants expressed their need, interest and self-confidence in having more mobile apps for English learning despite of having linguistics background or not. Keywords Mobile technology, devices and apps, English learning, Technology acceptance References [1] Garrison, D. R. (2016). Thinking collaboratively: learning in a community of inquiry. New York: Routledge [2]. Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Estrada, V., Freeman, A., & Hall, C. (2016). NMC horizon report: 2016 Higher Education Edition. Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium. [3]. Vygotsky, L S (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [4]. Hymes, D (1974). Foundations in Sociolinguistics. An Eth-nographic Approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 78–79. [5]. Wertsch, J V (1998). Mind As Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [6]. Halliday, M A K (2007). Differences between Spoken and Written Language: Some Implications for Literacy Teaching. In Webster, J., (eds.,), Language and Educa-tion. Vol 9 i Collected Works of Halliday, M.A.K., (pp. 63–80). Continuum, London. [7]. Davis, F. D., and V. Venkatesh. (1996). A critical assessment of potential measurement biases in the technology acceptance model: Three experiments Internet. J. Human-Comput. Stud.45, 19-45 [8]. Vladimir L. Uskov, Jeffrey P. Bakken, Robert J. Howlett, Lakhmi C. Jain (2018). Smart Universities: Concepts, Systems, and Technologies. Springer International Publishing
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Holmes, Susan. "'The Only Place Where ''Success'' Comes before ''Work'' Is in the Dictionary...?'." M/C Journal 7, no.5 (November1, 2004). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2421.
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Reality TV has emerged as a visible site for contemporary debates over modern fame. In fact, while issues of ‘taste’ and cultural value have long since shaped conceptions of celebrity (Turner, Bonner, Marshall 178), the issue of fame has played a central role in the negative cultural criticisms of Reality TV. Reality programming is often invoked as short-hand to illustrate the moral ills of contemporary fame – as if it has somehow swept away the certainties of ‘the past’ where discourses of public recognition, visibility and reward are concerned. In exploring Reality TV as a site of contemporary fame, I examine here some of these claims to ‘transformation’, not so much to defend the form’s participation in celebrity culture, as to indicate that there is more going on here than these (increasingly familiar) critiques appear to suggest. We can note, for example, their tendency to simplify the history of fame (which of course then makes it far easier to situate Reality TV as a conclusive break with the past). Equally, these criticisms seem of limited use when it comes to considering what is clearly a broader cultural fascination with fame in Reality TV. Furthermore, such critiques tend to operate at a very general level, often paying little attention to how fame is actually articulated in Reality TV, and the possibilities of differences between formats. The period 2000-1 saw a number of global reality game shows emerge in the UK and elsewhere and in general terms, critics often foregrounded fame as part of a broader negative response to the use of factual programming as primarily entertainment. The pervasive screen examples of ‘would-be presenters’ or ‘wannabe models’ were invoked as antithetical to perceptions of factual programming’s traditionally more ‘worthy’ (and implicitly public service) agenda (Holmes, “All”). But in the context of fame, it is more appropriate to suggest that a number of critical positions on Reality TV have emerged. For example, in what is probably the most prevalent perspective in circulation, contestants have persistently been constructed as exemplifying, and in many ways accelerating, a shift toward a fame culture in which an emphasis on ‘famous for being famous’ has regrettably triumphed over the concepts of ‘talent’ and ‘hard work’ (Holmes, “All”) (even though this perspective is clearly far from new) (see Marshall 9-11). Second, and related to the emphasis on ‘undeserved’ fame above, has been a position which foregrounds the prominence of falsity and manufacture. Here, Reality TV contestants are seen as falling victim to the manipulative powers of a ruthless fame-making machine. Often yoked to an emphasis on the ephemeral nature of their celebrity, here we encounter cautionary tales about the price of public visibility and the lure of immediate wealth, a penalty when, as one programme put it, ‘instant television fame is over in a dream’ (Tonight with Trevor McDonald, ITV1, 13 Feb. 2004). In contrast, the centrality of the ‘ordinary’ person turned celebrity has been read in terms of democratisation, both in relation to access to the televisual airwaves (a position championed by broadcasters and producers, for example) (Bazalgette) and to the dynamics of public/ media visibility itself (see Biressi and Nunn). These positions clearly intersect, their distinctions largely inflected by the perspective of the observer. For example, what is the producer’s claim to ‘democratisation’ is the critic’s class-based distaste for all these ‘awful ordinary’ people on television (see Bazalgette). While each of these positions is limited and simplistic, collectively they do speak to changing cultural conceptions of fame. Joshua’s Gamson’s (Claims, “Assembly”) work in particular has usefully suggested a picture in which certain positions on, or ‘explanations of fame’, have had a historical significance in vying for cultural visibility (although the contours of these narratives must be swiftly drawn here). With the growth of the arts and technologies and the establishment of celebrity as a mass phenomenon (see Gamson, “Assembly” 261), public visibility became increasingly detached from aristocratic standing, with discourses of democracy – as epitomised by the American context – increasingly coming to the fore. With the Hollywood studio system representing celebrity’s later period of industrialisation, and with a controlled production system producing celebrities for a mass audience, the earlier theme of ‘greatness’ became muted into questions of ‘star quality’ and ‘talent’ (Gamson, “Assembly” 264). While the focus may now have been predominantly on the culture of the ‘personality’, Gamson argues that the primary narrative was still one of ‘natural’ rise (“Assembly” 264). However, what is crucial here is that the increasing visibility of the publicity machine itself gradually began to pose a threat to this myth. Shaped by industrial and cultural shifts such as the decline of the Hollywood studio system and the emergence of television, as well as the increasing growth of celebrity journalism, the second half of the 20th century witnessed the increasing prevalence of the ‘manufacture’ discourse, where it henceforth becomes what Gamson describes as a ‘serious contender’ in explaining celebrity (Claims 44). This is not to suggest that the older ideological myths of fame are entirely obscured but rather that, perhaps as never before, the two positions precariously jostle for visibility in the same space. Indeed, Gamson suggests that by the late 20th century, it was possible to discern strategies intended to ‘cope’ with the increasing potential for disjuncture here. In particular, he points toward the twin devices of the ‘exposure’ of the process and the construction of an ironic and mocking perspective on celebrity culture, both of which can be seen to offer the audience a flattering position of power (Claims 276). In many ways, Reality TV would appear to be paradigmatic of these discursive shifts in fame. While I emphasise the specificity of particular formats below, Reality TV in the form of Big Brother, Pop Idol or celebrity-reality shows (such as I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!), have made a particular claim to ‘reveal’ or ‘expose’ the process of fame construction – whether in terms of following ‘ordinary’ hopefuls from the audition stages to their entrance into the media world, or by claiming to offer us an unprecedented ‘access’ to existing celebrities (‘stripping’ away the celebrity façade). (While of course what Richard Dyer termed ‘the negotiation of authenticity’, or the bid to think in terms of ‘really’, has long since structured the textual mediation of celebrity, it can conceivably be seen to have witnessed an accelerated shift in these contexts.) Equally, in terms of the decline of older myths of fame, these shows exhibit a self-conscious acknowledgement of the process of image production and construction, and the use of celebrity for commercial purposes. Lastly, in mediating the threat of the manufacture discourse, they evidently speak quite explicitly to an emphasis on the ‘power’ of the audience given that, through the now familiar use of interactivity (see Holmes, “But”), they construct the audience as operating as the ultimate creator of the celebrity. This already begins to indicate how, responding to and participating in particular discursive shifts in fame, Reality TV negotiates contemporary discourses on celebrity in complex and contradictory ways. Yet this would also need to acknowledge the differences and specificities of particular formats. For example, Big Brother may well be invoked as the ultimate example of the decline of older myths of fame. The programme does not suggest that a special ‘talent’, or ‘hard work’, are necessary for fame. Indeed, time in the house is clearly organised around an excess of leisured time in which, as the primary antidotes to boredom, eating, sleeping and sunbathing are repetitiously played out before the camera’s gaze. Contestants talk self-consciously about being ‘produced’ as celebrities while in the house (in terms of the programme and wider press coverage), with the understanding that each other’s behaviour and self-presentation is clearly directed to this end. The highly opportunistic and potentially calculating conception of fame is thus self-consciously displayed in the programme itself. In comparison, drawing on the older genre of the TV talent show, the Reality pop programmes such as Popstars (2001, UK), Pop Idol (2001-2, 2003, UK), Fame Academy (2002, 2003, UK) and most recently, The X-Factor (2004, UK) are more explicitly configured around the ‘search’ for a star. In this respect, they are specifically concerned with dramatising a power relationship between music industry and audience, a dialogue which is mapped onto the narrative of the star-making process. Certainly, on one level, they are self-consciously a product of the manufacture era of fame, produced for the scrutiny of a media-aware audience entirely conversant with the concept of ‘image’ construction. In tracking the contestants through auditions, training and re-styling, we witness the open production of the famous self – often trying on different ‘images’ week by week – and the ideological constraints (such as those pertaining to body image or physical appearance) under which this process must take place. The judges equally claim to be representative articulations of the ‘reality’ of the business by foregrounding the importance of image ‘packaging’ and the selling of the self. (As the notoriously ‘nasty’ judge Simon Cowell explains in one edition of Pop Idol, ‘Ten year old girls in Hull have to want to be you… They have to buy into the “image”. Do you see?’) (12 Sep. 2003). In short, they often boldly foreground the capitalistic nature of celebrity production. But at the same time, these programmes clearly draw upon, and arguably engage the audience by, much articulating older myths of fame. Given that, in Gamson’s terms, the pervasive nature of the manufacture discourse ultimately represents a threat to the commercial enterprise of celebrity, these shows provide exemplary evidence of the ways in which the two claims-to-fame stories continue to jostle for cultural legitimacy. Celebrating a mythic emphasis on a unique, authentic and gifted self, there is a persistent bid to lay claim to an indefinable sense of ‘specialness’. Indeed, the phrases ‘you’ve got “star quality” or the “X factor” have become an increasingly self-conscious convention in the shows themselves – as suggested by the naming of the most recent UK format, The X-Factor. In their emphasis on ‘ordinariness’, ‘lucky breaks’, ‘specialness’ and ‘hard work’, they are paradigmatic of the meritocratic ideology of the ‘access myth’ (Dyer, Stars). As Fame Academy’s singing coach Carrie Grant gravely tells the contestants: ‘The only place where “success” comes before work is in the dictionary’ (14 Dec. 2002). In this respect, without the irony or humour that has become such a pervasive aspect of contemporary celebrity coverage (see Gamson, Claims, “Assembly”), the programmes clearly also re-peddle traditional explanations of fame for contemporary cultural consumption (Holmes, “Reality”). Dismissals of these programmes in terms of their promotion of ‘manufactured pop’ ignore the fact that ‘authenticity’ is not really configured around the music itself. Pop music (and particularly TV pop) has historically been configured as ‘the most inauthentic music’ (Moore 220), whether in terms of industrial production, form/ sound, or artist expression and identity. But in many ways the programmes openly acknowledge the derivative and packaged nature of ‘pop’. The aspirant pop stars often sing cover versions on the shows (although they are valued and praised for inserting their ‘individual’ style), and in Pop Idol we witness each of the three finalists record the winning song in the studio prior to the result of the (live) television vote. In this respect, evoking Adorno’s famous critique of popular music’s standardised form, their voice is a cog in a wider machine – a component part which can be substituted and exchanged. But Reality TV’s serial form, aesthetic style and pursuit of ‘the real’, asks us to buy into the authenticity of the self, that the participants are – despite the image packaging – somehow the same person that auditioned at the start. There is often equally the suggestion that Reality TV may bring out the ‘real’, ‘special’ self that was partly inside all along: As one contestant in Fame Academy is chastised after a live performance: ‘We’ve had you showing that you can be Westlife or Bryan Adams, but have we had Barry yet? Where, Barry, is the “Barryness” of Barry?’ (19 Sep. 2003). But in broad terms, with factory workers, waitresses or train drivers turning into superstars, contestants are often imagined as being more ‘authentic’ because of their class background, something which has historically been conceived to signify ‘ordinariness’ within narratives of fame. This is again paradigmatic of the older, traditional discourse of the success myth (and its close companion, the American Dream) (Dyer, Stars). In the Reality format, this is also factored though the sense that we have ‘known’ them in the moment of authentic ‘pre-fame’, when, in short, they were ‘just like us’. In the context of his wider argument that stars work to articulate ideas of personhood or selfhood (Dyer, Stars), one of Richard Dyer’s key interventions was to suggest that stars function to work through discourses of individualism (see also Marshall). Working from a broadly Marxist perspective, he explained how the perpetual attempt to negotiate authenticity in the star image worked to promote a particular concept of personhood on which capitalist society depends. Dyer conceptualised this as ‘a separable, coherent quality, located “inside” consciousness and variously termed “the self”, “the soul”, “the subject”…’ (9). Although, in the context of contemporary celebrity culture and the discourses of postmodernism, Dyer’s model of the self has been critiqued and challenged (see Lovell, King), it by no means seems redundant here. We are absolutely encouraged to seek out, recognise, and believe in, the ‘inner’ self in Reality TV, while the highly performative and mediated context of the form makes this quest more paradoxical than ever. In fact, while programmes such as Big Brother and Pop Idol may display significantly different discourses on, or explanations of fame, this ideology of selfhood permeates much of Reality TV. While in Big Brother there is much self-reflexive and dizzying discussion of ‘who is being their real selves? Who is simply playing up for the camera?’, we are asked to judge the contestants (and they are asked to judge each other), precisely by this criteria of ‘authenticity’. We only need note that – from Big Brother, the pop programmes to the celebrity-reality shows – winners are often chosen and applauded because they are seen to have been the most ‘true’ to themselves. Again, despite the self-reflexive and performative context of Reality TV, this suggests highly conservative ideologies of selfhood and individualism. As Dyer reminds us, we have historically valued stars who appear to ‘bear witness to the continuousness of their own selves’, given that ‘sincerity and authenticity are two qualities greatly prized in stars’ (11). While it is not my intention to make assumptions about audience reading strategies here, it is worth noting that existing audience research (Hill, Jones) into Reality TV has emphasised how viewers indeed obtain satisfaction from the search for ‘the real’ in Reality TV, and from actively negotiating the tensions between construction, performance and authenticity. Annette Hill describes how the ‘game’ is ‘to find the “truth” in the spectacle/performance environment’ (337), and as this quote implies, this is far from suggesting that audiences have given up on the idea of ‘the real’ in Reality TV (Hill, Jones). The primary site on which this is played out is the representation of the self – an arena which stardom and celebrity has historically placed centre stage (Dyer, Marshall). As this suggests, then, the two fields have much to discuss. While I have only touched briefly on the detail of the formats here, this discussion emphasises how Reality TV demands closer consideration in the context of claims suggesting its ‘transformation’ of celebrity. Its position with a longer history of fame, the specificities of particular formats, and the ideological parameters in which they function, all question any simple or homogenous interpretation of its impact on celebrity culture. References Adorno, Theodor. “On Popular Music.” 1941. On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word. Eds. Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin. London: Routledge, 1990. 22-38. Bazalgette, Peter. “Big Brother and Beyond.” Television (Oct. 2001): 20-3. Biressi, Anita, and Heather Nunn “The Especially Remarkable: Celebrity and Social Mobility in Reality TV.” Mediactive 2 (2004): 44-58. Dyer, Richard. Stars. London: BFI, 1979 (reprinted 1998). Dyer, Richard. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. London: BFI, 1986. Gamson, Joshua. Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Gamson, Joshua. “The Assembly Line of Greatness: Celebrity in Twentieth-Century America.” Popular Culture: Production and Consumption. Eds. C. Lee Harrington and Denise D. Bielby. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. 259-82. Hill, Annette “Big Brother: The Real Audience.” Television and New Media 3.3 (2002): 323-41. Holmes, Su. “’All You’ve Got to Worry about Is Having a Cup of Tea and Doing a Bit of Sunbathing…’: Approaching Celebrity in Big Brother.” Understanding Reality TV. Eds. Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn. London: Routledge, 2004. 111-35. Holmes, Su. “But This Time You Choose!: Approaching the Interactive Audience of Reality TV.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 7.2 (2004): 213-31. Holmes, Su. “Reality Goes Pop!: Reality TV, Popular Music and Narratives of Stardom in Pop Idol.” Television and New Media 5.2 (2004): 147-72. Jones, Janet. “Show Your Real Face: A Fan Study of the UK Big Brother Transmissions (2000, 2001, 2002).” New Media and Society 5.3 (2003): 400-21. King, Barry. “Embodying an Elastic Self: The Parametrics of Contemporary Stardom.” Contemporary Hollywood Stardom. Eds. Thomas Austin and Martin Barker. London: Arnold, 2003. 29-44. Lovell, Alan. “I Went in Search of Deborah Kerr, Jodie Foster and Julianne Moore But Got Waylaid…” Contemporary Hollywood Stardom. Eds. Thomas Austin and Martin Barker. London: Arnold, 2003. 259-70. Marshall, P. David. Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture. Minnesota: U of Minnesota P, 1997. Turner, Graeme, Frances Bonner, and P. David Marshall. Fame Games: The Production of Celebrity in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Holmes, Susan. "'The Only Place Where ''Success'' Comes before ''Work'' Is in the Dictionary...?': Conceptualising Fame in Reality TV." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/07-holmes.php>. APA Style Holmes, S. (Nov. 2004) "'The Only Place Where ''Success'' Comes before ''Work'' Is in the Dictionary...?': Conceptualising Fame in Reality TV," M/C Journal, 7(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/07-holmes.php>.
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Koh, Wilson. ""Gently Caress Me, I Love Chris Jericho": Pro Wrestling Fans "Marking Out"." M/C Journal 12, no.2 (May13, 2009). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.143.
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“A bunch of faggots for watching men hug each other in tights.”For the past five Marches, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has produced an awards show which honours its aged former performers, such as Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka and Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, as pro-wrestling Legends. This awards show, according to WWE, is ‘an elegant, emotional, star-studded event that recognizes the in-ring achievements of the inductees and offers historical insights into this century-old sports-entertainment attraction’ (WWE.com, n.p.). In an episodic storyline leading up to the 2009 awards, however, the real-life personal shortcomings of these Legends have been brought to light, and subsequently mocked in one-on-one interview segments with WWE’s Superstar of the Year 2008, the dastardly Chris Jericho. Jericho caps off these tirades by physically assaulting the Legends with handy stage props. Significantly, the performances of Jericho and his victims have garnered positive attention not only from mass audiences unaware of backstage happenings in WWE, but also from the informed community of pro-wrestling fans over at the nihilistic humour website SomethingAwful. During Jericho’s assault on the Legend Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka at the March 02 WWE Raw event, a WWE-themed forum thread on SomethingAwful logged over sixty posts all reiterating variations of ‘gently caress me Jericho is amazing’ (Jerusalem, n.p.). This is despite the community’s passive-aggressive and ironically jaded official line that they indeed are ‘a bunch of faggots for watching men hug each other in tights. Thank you for not telling us this several times’ (HulkaMatt, n.p.). Why were these normally cynical fans of WWE enthusiastically expressing their love for the Jericho-Legends feud? In order to answer this question, this paper argues that the feud articulates not only the ideal of the “giving wrestler”, but also Roland Barthes’s version of jouissance. Consuming and commenting on WWE texts within the SomethingAwful community is further argued to be a performative ritual in which informed wrestling fans distance themselves from audiences they perceive as uncritical and ill-informed cultural dupes. The feud, then, allows the SomethingAwful fans to perform enthusiasm on two interconnected levels: they are not only able to ironically cheer on Jericho’s morally reprehensible actions, but also to genuinely appreciate the present-day in-ring efforts of the Legends. The Passion of the SuperflyTo properly contextualise this paper, though, the fact that “pro wrestling is fake” needs to be reiterated. Each match is a choreographed sequence of moves. Victory does not result from landing more damaging bodyslams than one's opponent, but is instead predetermined by scriptwriters—among whom wrestlers are typically not numbered—backstage. In the 1950s, Roland Barthes thus commented that pro wrestling ‘is not a sport, it is a spectacle’ (Mythologies 13). Yet, pro wrestling remains popular because this theatricality allows for the display of spectacular excesses of passion—here Barthes not only means “an intensity of emotion”, but refers to the physically tortured heroes of medieval passion plays as well—giving it an advantage over the legitimate sport of amateur wrestling. ‘It is obvious that at such a pitch, it no longer matters whether the passion is genuine or not. What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself’ (Mythologies 16). This observation still holds true in today’s WWE. On one hand, the SomethingAwful fans go ‘gently caress Jericho, [Superfly] will MURDER you’ (Jerusalem, n.p.) in disapproval of Jericho’s on-screen actions. In the same thread, though, they simultaneously fret over him being slightly injured from an off-screen real life accident. ‘Jericho looks busted up on his forehead. Dang’ (Carney, n.p.).However, Barthes’s observations, while seminal, are not the be-all and end-all of pro wrestling scholarship. The industry has undergone a significant number of changes since the 1950s. Speeches and interview segments are now seen as essential tools for furthering storylines. Correspondingly, they are given ample TV time. At over ten minutes, the Jericho-“Superfly” confrontation from the March 02 Raw is longer than both the matches following it, and a fifteen minute conversation between two top wrestlers capstones these two matches. Henry Jenkins has thus argued that pro wrestling is a male-targeted melodrama. Its ‘writers emphasize many traits that [legitimate sports such as] football share with melodrama-the clear opposition between characters, the sharp alignment of audience identification, abrupt shifts in fortune, and an emotionally satisfying resolution’ (Jenkins, “Never Trust a Snake” 81). Unlike football, though, the predetermined nature of pro wrestling means that its events can be ‘staged to ensure maximum emotional impact and a satisfying climax’ (Jenkins, “Never Trust a Snake” 81). Further, Jenkins notes that shouting is preferred over tears as an outlet for male affect. It ‘embodies externalised emotion; it is aggressive and noisy. Women cry from a position of emotional (and often social) vulnerability; men shout from a position of physical and social strength (however illusory)’ (Jenkins, “Never Trust a Snake” 80). Pro wrestling is seen to encourage this outlet for affect by offering its viewers spectacles of male physical prowess to either castigate or cheer. Jericho’s assault of the Legends, coupled with his half-screaming, half-shouting taunts of “‘Hall of Famer’? ‘Hall of Famer’ of what? You’re a has-been! Just like all the rest!” could be read to fit within this paradigm as well. Smarts vs. MarksWWE has repeatedly highlighted its scripted nature in recent years. During a 2007 CNN interview, for instance, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon constantly refers to his product as “entertainment” and laughingly agrees that “it’s all story” when discussing his on-screen interactions with his long-lost midget “son” (Griffin, n.p.). These overt acknowledgments that WWE is a highly choreographed melodrama have boosted the growth of a fan demographic referred to the "smart" in pro-wrestling argot. This “smart” fan is a figure for whom the fabricated nature of pro-wrestling necessitates an engagement with the WWE spectacle at a different level from mass audiences. The “smart” not only ‘follow[s] the WWE not just to see the shows, but to keep track of what “the Fed[eration]” is doing’ (McBride and Bird 170) with regards to off-camera events, but also 'has knowledge of the inner-workings of the wrestling business’ (PWTorch, n.p.). One of the few “GOLD”-rated threads on the SomethingAwful smart forums, accordingly, is titled “WWE News and Other Top Stories, The Insider Thread”, and has nearly 400 000 views and over 1000 posts. As a result, the smarts are in a subject position of relative insider-ness. They consume the WWE spectacle at a deeper level—one which functions roughly like an apparatus of capture for the critical/cynical affect mobilised around the binary of ‘real’ and ‘fake’—yet ultimately remain captured by the spectacle through their autodidact enthusiasm for knowledge which uncovers its inner workings.By contrast, there is the category of the “mark” fan. These “marks” are individuals who remain credulous in their reception of WWE programming. As cuteygrl08 writes regarding a recent WWE storyline involving brotherly envy:I LOVE JEFF HARDY!!!! i cried when i heard his brother say all the crap about him!! kinda weird but i love him and this video is soooo good!! JEFF hardy loves his fans and his fans love him no matter what he does i'll always love JEFF HARDY!!!!!!!!!!! (n.p.)This unstinting faith in the on-screen spectacle is understandable insofar as WWE programming trades upon powerful visual markers of authenticity—nearly-bare bodies, sweat, pained facial expressions—and complements them with the adrenaline-producing beats of thrash metal and hard rock. Yet, smarts look down upon marks like cuteygrl08, seeing them as Frankfurt School-era hypnotised sots for whom the WWE spectacle is ‘the common ground of the deceived gaze and of false consciousness’ (Debord 117), and additionally as victims of a larger media industry which specialises in mass deception (Horkheimer and Adorno 41). As Lawrence McBride and Elizabeth Bird observe:Marks appear to believe in the authenticity of the competition—Smarts see them as the stereotypical dupes imagined by wrestling critics. Smarts approach the genre of wrestling as would-be insiders, while Marks root unreflexively for the most popular faces. Smart fans possess truly incredible amounts of knowledge about the history of wrestling, including wrestler’s real names and career histories, how various promotions began and folded, who won every Wrestlemania ever. Smart fan informants defined a Mark specifically as someone who responds to wrestling in the way intended by the people who write the storylines (the bookers), describing Marks with statements such as “Kids are Marks.” or “We were all Marks when we were kids.” Smarts view Marks with scorn. (169)Perhaps feeding on the antagonistic binaries drawn by WWE programming, there exists an “us vs them” binary in smart fan communities. Previous research has shown that fan communities often rigidly police the boundaries of “good taste”, and use negatively constructed differences as a means of identity construction (Fiske 448; Jenkins, “Get a Life!” 432; Theodoropoulou 321). This ritual Othering is especially important when supporting the WWE. Smarts are aware that they are fans of a product denigrated by non-fans as ‘trash TV’ (McKinley, n.p.). As Matt Hills finds, fandom is a mode of performative consumption. It is ‘an identity which is (dis)claimed, and which performs cultural work’ (Hills xi). Belonging to the SomethingAwful smart community, thus, exerts its own pressures on the individual smart. There, the smart must perform ‘audiencehood, knowing that other fans will act as a readership for speculation, observation, and commentaries’ (Hills 177). Wrestling, then, is not just to be watched passively. It must be analysed, and critically dissected with reference to the encyclopaedic knowledge treasured by the smart community. Mark commentary has to be pilloried, for despite all the ironic disaffection characterising their posts, the smarts display mark-like behaviour by watching and purchasing WWE programming under their own volition. A near-existential dread is hence articulated when smarts become aware of points where the boundaries between smart and mark overlap, that ‘the creatures that lurk the internet ...carry some of the same interests that we do’ (rottingtrashcan, n.p.). Any commonalities between smarts and marks must thus be disavowed as a surface resemblance: afterall, creatures are simply unthinking appetites, not smart epicures. We’re better than those plebs; in fact, we’re nothing like them any more. Yet, in one of the few forms of direct address in the glossary of smart newsletter PWTorch, to “mark out” is ‘to enthusiastically be into [a storyline] or match as if you [emphasis added] were “a mark”; to suspend one's disbelief for the sake of enjoying to a greater extent a match or [a storyline]’ (PWTorch, n.p.). The existence of the term “marking out” in a smart glossary points to an enjoyably liminal privileged position between that of defensively ironic critic and that of credulous dupe, one where smarts can stop their performance of cooler-than-thou fatigue and enthusiastically believe that there is nothing more to WWE than spontaneous alarms and excursions. The bodily reactions of the Legends in response to Jericho's physical assault helps foster this willing naiveté. These reactions are a distressing break from the generic visual conventions set forth by preceding decades of professional wrestling. As Barthes argues, wrestling is as much concerned with images of spectacular suffering as with narratives of amazing triumphs:the wrestler who suffers in a hold which is reputedly cruel (an arm- lock, a twisted leg) offers an excessive portrayal of Suffering; like a primitive Pieta, he exhibits for all to see his face, exaggeratedly contorted by an intolerable affliction. It is obvious, of course, that in wrestling reserve would be out of place, since it is opposed to the voluntary ostentation of the spectacle, to this Exhibition of Suffering which is the very aim of the fight. (17)Barthes was writing of the primitively filmed wrestling matches of the 1950s notable for their static camera shots. However, WWE wrestlers yet follow this theatrical aesthetic. In the match immediately following Jericho’s bullying of Superfly, Kane considerately jumps the last two feet into a ringside turnbuckle after Mike Knox pushes him into its general vicinity. Kane grunts at the impact while the camera cuts to a low-angled shot of his back—all the better to magnify the visual of the 150 kg Knox now using his bulk to squash Kane. Whenever Jericho himself traps his opponent in his “Walls of Jericho” submission manoeuvre, both their faces are rictuses of passion. His opponent clutches for the safety of the ring ropes, shaking his head in heroic determination. Audiences see Jericho tighten his grip, his own head shaking in villainous purpose. But the Legends do not gyrate around the set when hit. Instead, they invariably slump to the ground, motionless except for weakly spasming to the rhythm of Jericho’s subsequent attacks. This atypical reaction forces audiences—smart and mark alike—to re-evaluate any assumptions that the event constitutes a typical WWE beatdown. Overblown theatricality gives way to a scene which seems more related to everyday experiences with pain: Here's an old man being beaten and whipped by a strong, young man. He's not moving. Not like other wrestlers do. I wonder... The battered bodies of these Legends are then framed in high angle camera shots, making them look ever so much more vulnerable than they were prior to Jericho’s assault. Hence the smart statements gushing that ‘gently caress me Jericho is amazing’ (Jerusalem, n.p.) and that Jericho’s actions have garnered a ‘rear end in a top hat chant [from the crowd]. It has been FOREVER since I heard one of those. I love Chris Jericho’ (Burrito, n.p.).Jouissance and “Marking Out”This uninhibited “marking out” by normally cynical smarts brings to mind Barthes's observation that texts are able to provoke two different kinds of enjoyment in their readers. On one hand, there is the text which provides pleasure born from familiarity. It ‘contents, fills, grants euphoria; [it is] the text that comes from culture and does not break with it, is linked to a comfortable practice of reading’ (Barthes, Image-Music-Text 14). The Knox-Kane match engendered such a been-there-done-that-it's-ok-I-guess overall reaction from smarts. For every ‘Mike Knox throwing Mysterio at Kane was fantastic’ (Burrito, n.p.), there is an ‘Ahahaha jesus Knox [sic] that was the shittiest Hurracanrana sell ever’ (Axisillian, n.p.), and a ‘Hit the beard [sic] it is Knox's weakpoint’ (Eurotrash, n.p.). The pleasant genericity of the match enables and necessitates that these smarts maintain their tactic of ironic posturing. They are able to armchair critique Knox for making his opponent's spinning Hurracanrana throw look painless. Yet they are also allowed to reiterate their camp affection for Knox's large and bushy beard, which remains grotesque even when divorced from a WWE universe that celebrates sculpted physiques.By contrast, Barthes praises the text of rapturous jouissance. It is one where an orgasmic intensity of pleasure is born from the unravelling of its audience’s assumptions, moving them away from their comfort zone. It is a text which ‘imposes a stage of loss, [a] text that discomforts (perhaps to the point of boredom), unsettles the reader's historical, cultural, psychological assumptions, the consistency of his tastes, values, memories, brings to crisis his relation with language’ (Barthes, Image-Music-Text 14). In addition to the atypical physical reactions of the Legends, WWE cynically positions the Jericho-Legends segments during Raw events which also feature slick video montages highlighting the accomplishments of individual Legends. These montages—complete with an erudite and enthusiastic Voice-of-God narrator— introduce the long-retired Legends to marks unfamiliar with WWE's narrative continuity: “Ladies and gentlemen! Rrriiiicky “The Draaagon” Steeeeamboat!”. At the same time, they serve as a visually and aurally impressive highlight-reel-cum-nostalgic-celebration of each Legend's career accomplishments. Their authoritative narration is spliced to clips of past matches, and informs audiences that, for instance, Steamboat was ‘one of the first Superstars to combine technical skills with astounding aerial agility ... in a match widely regarded as one of the best in history, he captured the Intercontinental title from Randy Savage in front of a record-breaking 93 173 fans’ (“Raw #636”, WWE). Following the unassailably authentic video footage of past matches, other retired wrestlers speak candidly in non-WWE stages such as outdoor parks and their own homes about the Legend's strengths and contributions to the industry.The interesting thing about these didactic montages is not so much what they show —Legends mythologised into triumphant Titans — but rather, what they elide. While the Steamboat-centred package does reflect the smart consensus that his Intercontinental bout ‘was a technical classic, and to this day, is still considered one of the greatest matches of all-time’ (NPP, n.p.), it does not mention how Steamboat was treated poorly in the WWE. Despite coming to it as the widely-known World Champion of [the NWA] rival promotion, WWE producers ‘dressed Steamboat up as a dragon and even made him blow fire. ...To boot, he was never acknowledged as a World Champion and [kept losing] to the stars’ (NPP, n.p.). The montages, overtly endorsed by the gigantic WWE logo as they are, are ultimately pleasant illusions which rewrite inconvenient truths while glamorising pleasant memories.Jericho’s speeches, however, sharply break from this celebratory mode. He references Steamboat’s previous success in the NWA, ‘an organisation that according to this company never even existed’(“Raw #636”, WWE). He then castigates Steamboat for being a real-life sellout and alludes to Steamboat having personal problems unmentioned in the montage:It wasn't until you came to the WWE that you sold your soul to all of these parasites [everyone watching] that you became “The Dragon”. A glorified Karate Kid selling headbands and making poses. Feeding into stereotypes. And then you eventually came to the ring with a Komodo Dragon. Literally spitting fire like the circus freak you'd become. It was pathetic. But hey, it's all right as long as you're making a paycheck, right Steamboat? And then when you decided to retire, you ended up like all the rest. Down and out. Broken. Beaten down. Dysfunctional family ...You applied for a job working for the WWE, you got one working backstage, and now here you are. You see, Steamboat, you are a life-long sellout. And now, with the Hall of Fame induction, the loyal dog gets his bone. (WWE)Here, Jericho demonstrates an apparent unwillingness to follow the company line by not only acknowledging the NWA, but also by disrespecting a current WWE backstage authority. Yet, wrestlers having onscreen tangles with their bosses is the norm for WWE. The most famous storyline of the 1990s had “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and the WWE Chairman brutalising each other for months on end, and the fifteen minute verbal exchange mentioned earlier concerns one wrestler previously attacking the Raw General Manager. Rather, it is Jericho’s reinterpretation of Steamboat’s career trajectory which gives the storyline the intensely pleasurable uncertainty of jouissance. His confrontational speeches rupture the celebratory nostalgia of the montages, forcing smarts to apply extra-textual knowledge to them. This is especially relevant in Steamboat’s case. His montage was shown just prior to his meeting with Jericho, ensuring that his iconic status was fresh in the audience’s memory. Vera Dika’s findings on the conflict between memory and history in revisionist nostalgia films are important to remember here. The tension ‘that comes from the juxtaposition of the coded material against the historical context of the film itself ...encourages a new set of meanings to arise’ (Dika 91). Jericho cynically views the seemingly virtuous and heroic Steamboat as a corporate sycophant preying on fan goodwill to enrich his own selfish ends. This viewpoint, troublingly enough for smarts, is supported by their non-WWE-produced extra-textual knowledge, allowing for a meta-level melodrama to be played out. The speeches thus speak directly to smarts, simultaneously confounding and exceeding their expectations. The comfortingly pleasant memories of Steamboat’s “amazing aerial prowess” are de-emphasised, and he is further linked to the stereotypical juvenilia of the once-popular The Karate Kid. They articulate and capitalise upon whatever misgivings smarts may have regarding Steamboat’s real-life actions. Thus, to paraphrase Dika, ‘seen in this clash, [the Jericho-Legends feud] has the structure of irony, producing a feeling of nostalgia, but also of pathos, and registering the historical events as the cause of an irretrievable loss [of a Legend’s dignity]’ (91). “C’mon Legend! Live in the past!” taunts Jericho as he stuffs Superfly’s mouth with bananas and beats him amidst the wreckage of the exactingly reproduced cheap wooden set in the same way that “Rowdy” Roddy Piper did years ago (“RAW #637”, WWE). This literal dismantling of cherished memories results from WWE producers second-guessing the smarts, and providing these fans with an enjoyably uncomfortable jouissance that cleverly confounds the performance of a smart disaffection. “Marking out” —or its performance at least—results.The Giving WrestlerLastly, the general physical passivity of the Legends also ties into the ethos of the “giving wrestler” when combined with the celebratory montages. In a business where performed passion is integral to fan enjoyment, the “giving wrestler” is an important figure who, when hit by a high-risk move, will make his co-worker’s offense look convincing (McBride and Bird 173). He ‘will give his all in a performance to ensure a dual outcome: the match will be spectacular, benefiting the fans, and each wrestler will make his “opponent” look good, helping him “get over with the fans” (McBride and Bird 172). Unsurprisingly, this figure is appreciated by smarts, who ‘often form strong emotional attachments to those wrestlers who go to the greatest lengths to bear the burden of the performance’ (McBride and Bird 173). As described earlier, the understated reactions of the Legends make Jericho’s attacks paradoxically look as though they cause extreme pain. Yet, when this pathetic image of the Legends is combined with the hypermasculine images of them in their heyday, a tragedy with real-life referents is played out on-stage. In one of Jenkins’s ‘abrupt shifts of fortune’ (“Never Trust a Snake” 81), age has grounded these Legends. They can now believably be assaulted with impunity by someone that Steamboat dismisses as ‘a snotty brat wrestler of a kid[sic] ...a hypocrite’ (“Raw #636”, WWE), and even in this, they apparently give their all to make Jericho look viciously “good”, thus exceeding the high expectations of smarts. As an appreciative thread title on SomethingAwful states, ‘WWE Discussion is the RICKY STEAMBOAT OWN [wins] ZONE for 02/23/09’ (HulkaMatt, n.p.) ConclusionThe Jericho-Legends feud culminated the day after the Hall of Fame ceremony, at the WWE’s flagship Wrestlemania event. Actor Mickey Rourke humiliated Jericho for the honour of the Legends, flattening the cocky braggart with a single punch. The maximum degree of moral order possible was thus temporarily restored to an episodic narrative centred around unprovoked acts of violence. Ultimately though, it is important to note the three strategies that WWE used The Legends were scripted to respond feebly to Jericho’s physical assault, slick recap montages were copiously deployed, and Jericho himself was allowed candid metatextual references to incidents that WWE producers normally like to pretend have “never even existed”. All these strategies were impressive in their own right, and they eventually served to reinforce each other. They shocked the SomethingAwful smart community, celebrated its autodidact tendencies, and forced it to re-evaluate pleasant memories. Such producer strategies enabled these smarts to re-discover jouissance and perform a rapturously regressive “marking out”. References Axisillian. “WWE RAW is IN SOVIET RUSSIA, HEART BREAKS YOU for 3/2/09.” SomethingAwful 3 Mar. 2009. 5 Mar. 2009 < http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3089910&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=14 >. Barthes, Roland. “The World of Wrestling.” Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. London: Noonday, 1991. 13-23.Barthes, Roland. Image-Music-Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. Great Britain: Fontana, 1977.“Be a Part of the 2008 WWE Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.” WWE.com 28 Mar. 2008. 5 Mar. 2009 < http://www.wwe.com/superstars/halloffame/articles/hoffacts >.Burrito. “WWE RAW is IN SOVIET RUSSIA, HEART BREAKS YOU for 3/2/09.” SomethingAwful 3 Mar. 2009. 5 Mar. 2009 < http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3089910&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=8 >.Carney. “WWE RAW is IN SOVIET RUSSIA, HEART BREAKS YOU for 3/2/09.” SomethingAwful 3 Mar. 2009. 5 Mar. 2009 < http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3089910&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=6 >.cuteygrl08. “Jeff Hardy Fan MUST SEE!” Youtube Feb. 2009. 7 Mar. 2009 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQmW-ESiQAs >.Dika, Vera. Recycled Culture in Contemporary Art and Film: The Uses of Nostalgia. New York: Cambridge UP, 2003.Debord, Guy. “The Commodity as Spectacle.” Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Eds. Meenakishi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner. England: Blackwell 2001. 117-21. Eurotrash. “WWE RAW is IN SOVIET RUSSIA, HEART BREAKS YOU for 3/2/09.” SomethingAwful 3 Mar. 2009. 5 Mar. 2009 < http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3089910&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=13 >.Fiske, John. “The Cultural Economy of Fandom.” The Cult Film Reader. Eds. Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik. England: Open UP, 2008. 446-55.Griffin, Drew. “McMahons: WWE not to blame for Benoit's actions.” CNN 7 Nov. 2007. 8 Mar. 2009 < http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/11/07/mcmahons.transcript/index.html?iref=newssearch >.Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Eds. Meenakishi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner. England: Blackwell 2001. 41-72. HulkaMatt. “Wrestlehut 2000 Rules and FAQ - Last Update: 2/13/2009 - FRANK MIR FEARS BROCK LESNAR.” SomethingAwful 5 Aug. 2008. 5 Mar. 2009 < http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2922167 >.HulkaMatt. “WWE Discussion is the RICKY STEAMBOAT OWN ZONE for 02/23/09.” SomethingAwful 24 Feb. 2009. 5 Mar. 2009 < http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3085277 >.Jenkins, Henry. “'Get a Life!': Fans, Poachers, Nomads.” The Cult Film Reader. Eds. Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik. England: Open UP, 2008. 430-43.Jenkins, Henry. “Never Trust a Snake: WWF Wrestling as Masculine Melodrama.” The Wow Climax. New York: New York UP 2007. 75-101.Jerusalem. “WWE RAW is IN SOVIET RUSSIA, HEART BREAKS YOU for 3/2/09.” SomethingAwful 3 Mar. 2009. 5 Mar. 2009 < http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3089910&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=6 >.McBride, Lawrence B., and S. Elizabeth Bird. “From Smart Fan to Backyard Wrestler: Performance, Context, and Aesthetic Violence.” Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World. Eds. Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss, and C. Lee Harrington. New York: New York UP. 165-76.McKinley, Shane. “THE ABSURDITY OF IT ALL - ECW & IMPACT & SMACKDOWN: Sarah Palin vs. Rod Blagojevich at TNA PPV, Worst Catchphrase Feud, WWE Fake News Report 101.” PWTorch 13 Dec. 2008. 7 Mar. 2009 < http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/The_Specialists_34/article_28554.shtml >.nyratk1. “WWE RAW is IN SOVIET RUSSIA, HEART BREAKS YOU for 3/2/09.” SomethingAwful 3 Mar. 2009. 5 Mar. 2009 < http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3089910&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=43 >.RAW #636. WWE 23 Feb. 2009. 7 Mar. 2009 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dyq9nKr8KI&feature=related >.RAW #637. WWE 2 Mar. 2009. 7 Mar. 2009 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMQEuNVdjfk&feature=related >.Theodoropoulou, Vivi. “The Anti-Fan within the Fan: Awe and Envy in Sport Fandom.” Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World. Eds. Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss, and C. Lee Harrington. New York: New York UP. 316-27.“Top 50 Wrestlers List - #15 - Ricky Steamboat.” NPP 15 July 2008. 6 Mar. 2009 < http://www.nopantsprovided.com/top-50-wrestlers-list-15-ricky-steamboat/ >.“Torch Glossary of Insider Terms.” PWTorch 7 Mar. 2009. < http://www.pwtorch.com/insiderglossary.shtml >.
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Kuang, Lanlan. "Staging the Silk Road Journey Abroad: The Case of Dunhuang Performative Arts." M/C Journal 19, no.5 (October13, 2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1155.
Full textAbstract:
The curtain rose. The howling of desert wind filled the performance hall in the Shanghai Grand Theatre. Into the center stage, where a scenic construction of a mountain cliff and a desert landscape was dimly lit, entered the character of the Daoist priest Wang Yuanlu (1849–1931), performed by Chen Yizong. Dressed in a worn and dusty outfit of dark blue cotton, characteristic of Daoist priests, Wang began to sweep the floor. After a few moments, he discovered a hidden chambre sealed inside one of the rock sanctuaries carved into the cliff.Signaled by the quick, crystalline, stirring wave of sound from the chimes, a melodious Chinese ocarina solo joined in slowly from the background. Astonished by thousands of Buddhist sūtra scrolls, wall paintings, and sculptures he had just accidentally discovered in the caves, Priest Wang set his broom aside and began to examine these treasures. Dawn had not yet arrived, and the desert sky was pitch-black. Priest Wang held his oil lamp high, strode rhythmically in excitement, sat crossed-legged in a meditative pose, and unfolded a scroll. The sound of the ocarina became fuller and richer and the texture of the music more complex, as several other instruments joined in.Below is the opening scene of the award-winning, theatrical dance-drama Dunhuang, My Dreamland, created by China’s state-sponsored Lanzhou Song and Dance Theatre in 2000. Figure 1a: Poster Side A of Dunhuang, My Dreamland Figure 1b: Poster Side B of Dunhuang, My DreamlandThe scene locates the dance-drama in the rock sanctuaries that today are known as the Dunhuang Mogao Caves, housing Buddhist art accumulated over a period of a thousand years, one of the best well-known UNESCO heritages on the Silk Road. Historically a frontier metropolis, Dunhuang was a strategic site along the Silk Road in northwestern China, a crossroads of trade, and a locus for religious, cultural, and intellectual influences since the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). Travellers, especially Buddhist monks from India and central Asia, passing through Dunhuang on their way to Chang’an (present day Xi’an), China’s ancient capital, would stop to meditate in the Mogao Caves and consult manuscripts in the monastery's library. At the same time, Chinese pilgrims would travel by foot from China through central Asia to Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, playing a key role in the exchanges between ancient China and the outside world. Travellers from China would stop to acquire provisions at Dunhuang before crossing the Gobi Desert to continue on their long journey abroad. Figure 2: Dunhuang Mogao CavesThis article approaches the idea of “abroad” by examining the present-day imagination of journeys along the Silk Road—specifically, staged performances of the various Silk Road journey-themed dance-dramas sponsored by the Chinese state for enhancing its cultural and foreign policies since the 1970s (Kuang).As ethnomusicologists have demonstrated, musicians, choreographers, and playwrights often utilise historical materials in their performances to construct connections between the past and the present (Bohlman; Herzfeld; Lam; Rees; Shelemay; Tuohy; Wade; Yung: Rawski; Watson). The ancient Silk Road, which linked the Mediterranean coast with central China and beyond, via oasis towns such as Samarkand, has long been associated with the concept of “journeying abroad.” Journeys to distant, foreign lands and encounters of unknown, mysterious cultures along the Silk Road have been documented in historical records, such as A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms (Faxian) and The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions (Xuanzang), and illustrated in classical literature, such as The Travels of Marco Polo (Polo) and the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West (Wu). These journeys—coming and going from multiple directions and to different destinations—have inspired contemporary staged performance for audiences around the globe.Home and Abroad: Dunhuang and the Silk RoadDunhuang, My Dreamland (2000), the contemporary dance-drama, staged the journey of a young pilgrim painter travelling from Chang’an to a land of the unfamiliar and beyond borders, in search for the arts that have inspired him. Figure 3: A scene from Dunhuang, My Dreamland showing the young pilgrim painter in the Gobi Desert on the ancient Silk RoadFar from his home, he ended his journey in Dunhuang, historically considered the northwestern periphery of China, well beyond Yangguan and Yumenguan, the bordering passes that separate China and foreign lands. Later scenes in Dunhuang, My Dreamland, portrayed through multiethnic music and dances, the dynamic interactions among merchants, cultural and religious envoys, warriors, and politicians that were making their own journey from abroad to China. The theatrical dance-drama presents a historically inspired, re-imagined vision of both “home” and “abroad” to its audiences as they watch the young painter travel along the Silk Road, across the Gobi Desert, arriving at his own ideal, artistic “homeland”, the Dunhuang Mogao Caves. Since his journey is ultimately a spiritual one, the conceptualisation of travelling “abroad” could also be perceived as “a journey home.”Staged more than four hundred times since it premiered in Beijing in April 2000, Dunhuang, My Dreamland is one of the top ten titles in China’s National Stage Project and one of the most successful theatrical dance-dramas ever produced in China. With revenue of more than thirty million renminbi (RMB), it ranks as the most profitable theatrical dance-drama ever produced in China, with a preproduction cost of six million RMB. The production team receives financial support from China’s Ministry of Culture for its “distinctive ethnic features,” and its “aim to promote traditional Chinese culture,” according to Xu Rong, an official in the Cultural Industry Department of the Ministry. Labeled an outstanding dance-drama of the Chinese nation, it aims to present domestic and international audiences with a vision of China as a historically multifaceted and cosmopolitan nation that has been in close contact with the outside world through the ancient Silk Road. Its production company has been on tour in selected cities throughout China and in countries abroad, including Austria, Spain, and France, literarily making the young pilgrim painter’s “journey along the Silk Road” a new journey abroad, off stage and in reality.Dunhuang, My Dreamland was not the first, nor is it the last, staged performances that portrays the Chinese re-imagination of “journeying abroad” along the ancient Silk Road. It was created as one of many versions of Dunhuang bihua yuewu, a genre of music, dance, and dramatic performances created in the early twentieth century and based primarily on artifacts excavated from the Mogao Caves (Kuang). “The Mogao Caves are the greatest repository of early Chinese art,” states Mimi Gates, who works to increase public awareness of the UNESCO site and raise funds toward its conservation. “Located on the Chinese end of the Silk Road, it also is the place where many cultures of the world intersected with one another, so you have Greek and Roman, Persian and Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese cultures, all interacting. Given the nature of our world today, it is all very relevant” (Pollack). As an expressive art form, this genre has been thriving since the late 1970s contributing to the global imagination of China’s “Silk Road journeys abroad” long before Dunhuang, My Dreamland achieved its domestic and international fame. For instance, in 2004, The Thousand-Handed and Thousand-Eyed Avalokiteśvara—one of the most representative (and well-known) Dunhuang bihua yuewu programs—was staged as a part of the cultural program during the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece. This performance, as well as other Dunhuang bihua yuewu dance programs was the perfect embodiment of a foreign religion that arrived in China from abroad and became Sinicized (Kuang). Figure 4: Mural from Dunhuang Mogao Cave No. 45A Brief History of Staging the Silk Road JourneysThe staging of the Silk Road journeys abroad began in the late 1970s. Historically, the Silk Road signifies a multiethnic, cosmopolitan frontier, which underwent incessant conflicts between Chinese sovereigns and nomadic peoples (as well as between other groups), but was strongly imbued with the customs and institutions of central China (Duan, Mair, Shi, Sima). In the twentieth century, when China was no longer an empire, but had become what the early 20th-century reformer Liang Qichao (1873–1929) called “a nation among nations,” the long history of the Silk Road and the colourful, legendary journeys abroad became instrumental in the formation of a modern Chinese nation of unified diversity rooted in an ancient cosmopolitan past. The staged Silk Road theme dance-dramas thus participate in this formation of the Chinese imagination of “nation” and “abroad,” as they aestheticise Chinese history and geography. History and geography—aspects commonly considered constituents of a nation as well as our conceptualisations of “abroad”—are “invariably aestheticized to a certain degree” (Bakhtin 208). Diverse historical and cultural elements from along the Silk Road come together in this performance genre, which can be considered the most representative of various possible stagings of the history and culture of the Silk Road journeys.In 1979, the Chinese state officials in Gansu Province commissioned the benchmark dance-drama Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road, a spectacular theatrical dance-drama praising the pure and noble friendship which existed between the peoples of China and other countries in the Tang dynasty (618-907 C.E.). While its plot also revolves around the Dunhuang Caves and the life of a painter, staged at one of the most critical turning points in modern Chinese history, the work as a whole aims to present the state’s intention of re-establishing diplomatic ties with the outside world after the Cultural Revolution. Unlike Dunhuang, My Dreamland, it presents a nation’s journey abroad and home. To accomplish this goal, Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road introduces the fictional character Yunus, a wealthy Persian merchant who provides the audiences a vision of the historical figure of Peroz III, the last Sassanian prince, who after the Arab conquest of Iran in 651 C.E., found refuge in China. By incorporating scenes of ethnic and folk dances, the drama then stages the journey of painter Zhang’s daughter Yingniang to Persia (present-day Iran) and later, Yunus’s journey abroad to the Tang dynasty imperial court as the Persian Empire’s envoy.Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road, since its debut at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on the first of October 1979 and shortly after at the Theatre La Scala in Milan, has been staged in more than twenty countries and districts, including France, Italy, Japan, Thailand, Russia, Latvia, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and recently, in 2013, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.“The Road”: Staging the Journey TodayWithin the contemporary context of global interdependencies, performing arts have been used as strategic devices for social mobilisation and as a means to represent and perform modern national histories and foreign policies (Davis, Rees, Tian, Tuohy, Wong, David Y. H. Wu). The Silk Road has been chosen as the basis for these state-sponsored, extravagantly produced, and internationally staged contemporary dance programs. In 2008, the welcoming ceremony and artistic presentation at the Olympic Games in Beijing featured twenty apsara dancers and a Dunhuang bihua yuewu dancer with long ribbons, whose body was suspended in mid-air on a rectangular LED extension held by hundreds of performers; on the giant LED screen was a depiction of the ancient Silk Road.In March 2013, Chinese president Xi Jinping introduced the initiatives “Silk Road Economic Belt” and “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” during his journeys abroad in Kazakhstan and Indonesia. These initiatives are now referred to as “One Belt, One Road.” The State Council lists in details the policies and implementation plans for this initiative on its official web page, www.gov.cn. In April 2013, the China Institute in New York launched a yearlong celebration, starting with "Dunhuang: Buddhist Art and the Gateway of the Silk Road" with a re-creation of one of the caves and a selection of artifacts from the site. In March 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning agency, released a new action plan outlining key details of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative. Xi Jinping has made the program a centrepiece of both his foreign and domestic economic policies. One of the central economic strategies is to promote cultural industry that could enhance trades along the Silk Road.Encouraged by the “One Belt, One Road” policies, in March 2016, The Silk Princess premiered in Xi’an and was staged at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing the following July. While Dunhuang, My Dreamland and Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road were inspired by the Buddhist art found in Dunhuang, The Silk Princess, based on a story about a princess bringing silk and silkworm-breeding skills to the western regions of China in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) has a different historical origin. The princess's story was portrayed in a woodblock from the Tang Dynasty discovered by Sir Marc Aurel Stein, a British archaeologist during his expedition to Xinjiang (now Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region) in the early 19th century, and in a temple mural discovered during a 2002 Chinese-Japanese expedition in the Dandanwulike region. Figure 5: Poster of The Silk PrincessIn January 2016, the Shannxi Provincial Song and Dance Troupe staged The Silk Road, a new theatrical dance-drama. Unlike Dunhuang, My Dreamland, the newly staged dance-drama “centers around the ‘road’ and the deepening relationship merchants and travellers developed with it as they traveled along its course,” said Director Yang Wei during an interview with the author. According to her, the show uses seven archetypes—a traveler, a guard, a messenger, and so on—to present the stories that took place along this historic route. Unbounded by specific space or time, each of these archetypes embodies the foreign-travel experience of a different group of individuals, in a manner that may well be related to the social actors of globalised culture and of transnationalism today. Figure 6: Poster of The Silk RoadConclusionAs seen in Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road and Dunhuang, My Dreamland, staging the processes of Silk Road journeys has become a way of connecting the Chinese imagination of “home” with the Chinese imagination of “abroad.” Staging a nation’s heritage abroad on contemporary stages invites a new imagination of homeland, borders, and transnationalism. Once aestheticised through staged performances, such as that of the Dunhuang bihua yuewu, the historical and topological landscape of Dunhuang becomes a performed narrative, embodying the national heritage.The staging of Silk Road journeys continues, and is being developed into various forms, from theatrical dance-drama to digital exhibitions such as the Smithsonian’s Pure Land: Inside the Mogao Grottes at Dunhuang (Stromberg) and the Getty’s Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China's Silk Road (Sivak and Hood). They are sociocultural phenomena that emerge through interactions and negotiations among multiple actors and institutions to envision and enact a Chinese imagination of “journeying abroad” from and to the country.ReferencesBakhtin, M.M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1982.Bohlman, Philip V. “World Music at the ‘End of History’.” Ethnomusicology 46 (2002): 1–32.Davis, Sara L.M. Song and Silence: Ethnic Revival on China’s Southwest Borders. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.Duan, Wenjie. “The History of Conservation of Mogao Grottoes.” International Symposium on the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Property: The Conservation of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and the Related Studies. Eds. Kuchitsu and Nobuaki. Tokyo: Tokyo National Research Institute of Cultural Properties, 1997. 1–8.Faxian. A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms. Translated by James Legge. New York: Dover Publications, 1991.Herzfeld, Michael. Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology, and the Making of Modern Greece. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985.Kuang, Lanlan. Dunhuang bi hua yue wu: "Zhongguo jing guan" zai guo ji yu jing zhong de jian gou, chuan bo yu yi yi (Dunhuang Performing Arts: The Construction and Transmission of “China-scape” in the Global Context). Beijing: She hui ke xue wen xian chu ban she, 2016.Lam, Joseph S.C. State Sacrifice and Music in Ming China: Orthodoxy, Creativity and Expressiveness. New York: State University of New York Press, 1998.Mair, Victor. T’ang Transformation Texts: A Study of the Buddhist Contribution to the Rise of Vernacular Fiction and Drama in China. Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, 1989.Pollack, Barbara. “China’s Desert Treasure.” ARTnews, December 2013. Sep. 2016 <http://www.artnews.com/2013/12/24/chinas-desert-treasure/>.Polo, Marco. The Travels of Marco Polo. Translated by Ronald Latham. Penguin Classics, 1958.Rees, Helen. Echoes of History: Naxi Music in Modern China. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.Shelemay, Kay Kaufman. “‘Historical Ethnomusicology’: Reconstructing Falasha Liturgical History.” Ethnomusicology 24 (1980): 233–258.Shi, Weixiang. Dunhuang lishi yu mogaoku yishu yanjiu (Dunhuang History and Research on Mogao Grotto Art). Lanzhou: Gansu jiaoyu chubanshe, 2002.Sima, Guang 司马光 (1019–1086) et al., comps. Zizhi tongjian 资治通鉴 (Comprehensive Mirror for the Aid of Government). Beijing: Guji chubanshe, 1957.Sima, Qian 司马迁 (145-86? B.C.E.) et al., comps. Shiji: Dayuan liezhuan 史记: 大宛列传 (Record of the Grand Historian: The Collective Biographies of Dayuan). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959.Sivak, Alexandria and Amy Hood. “The Getty to Present: Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China’s Silk Road Organised in Collaboration with the Dunhuang Academy and the Dunhuang Foundation.” Getty Press Release. Sep. 2016 <http://news.getty.edu/press-materials/press-releases/cave-temples-dunhuang-buddhist-art-chinas-silk-road>.Stromberg, Joseph. “Video: Take a Virtual 3D Journey to Visit China's Caves of the Thousand Buddhas.” Smithsonian, December 2012. Sep. 2016 <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/video-take-a-virtual-3d-journey-to-visit-chinas-caves-of-the-thousand-buddhas-150897910/?no-ist>.Tian, Qing. “Recent Trends in Buddhist Music Research in China.” British Journal of Ethnomusicology 3 (1994): 63–72.Tuohy, Sue M.C. “Imagining the Chinese Tradition: The Case of Hua’er Songs, Festivals, and Scholarship.” Ph.D. Dissertation. Indiana University, Bloomington, 1988.Wade, Bonnie C. Imaging Sound: An Ethnomusicological Study of Music, Art, and Culture in Mughal India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.Wong, Isabel K.F. “From Reaction to Synthesis: Chinese Musicology in the Twentieth Century.” Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music: Essays on the History of Ethnomusicology. Eds. Bruno Nettl and Philip V. Bohlman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. 37–55.Wu, Chengen. Journey to the West. Tranlsated by W.J.F. Jenner. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2003.Wu, David Y.H. “Chinese National Dance and the Discourse of Nationalization in Chinese Anthropology.” The Making of Anthropology in East and Southeast Asia. Eds. Shinji Yamashita, Joseph Bosco, and J.S. Eades. New York: Berghahn, 2004. 198–207.Xuanzang. The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions. Hamburg: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation & Research, 1997.Yung, Bell, Evelyn S. Rawski, and Rubie S. Watson, eds. Harmony and Counterpoint: Ritual Music in Chinese Context. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.
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Krøvel, Roy. "The Role of Conflict in Producing Alternative Social Imaginations of the Future." M/C Journal 16, no.5 (August28, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.713.
Full textAbstract:
Introduction Greater resilience is associated with the ability to self-organise, and with social learning as part of a process of adaptation and transformation (Goldstein 341). This article deals with responses to a crisis in a Norwegian community in the late 1880s, and with some of the many internal conflicts it caused. The crisis and the subsequent conflicts in this particular community, Volda, were caused by a number of processes, driven mostly by external forces and closely linked to the expansion of the capitalist mode of production in rural Norway. But the crisis also reflects a growing nationalism in Norway. In the late 1880s, all these causes seemed to come together in Volda, a small community consisting mostly of independent small farmers and of fishers. The article employs the concept of ‘resilience’ and the theory of resilience in order better to understand how individuals and the community reacted to crisis and conflict in Volda in late 1880, experiences which will cast light on the history of the late 1880s in Volda, and on individuals and communities elsewhere which have also experienced such crises. Theoretical Perspectives Some understandings of social resilience inspired by systems theory and ecology focus on a society’s ability to maintain existing structures. Reducing conflict to promote greater collaboration and resilience, however, may become a reactionary strategy, perpetuating inequalities (Arthur, Friend and Marschke). Instead, the understanding of resilience could be enriched by drawing on ecological perspectives that see conflict as an integral aspect of a diverse ecology in continuous development. In the same vein, Grove has argued that some approaches to anticipatory politics fashion subjects to withstand ‘shocks and responding to adversity through modern institutions such as human rights and the social contract, rather than mobilising against the sources of insecurity’. As an alternative, radical politics of resilience ought to explore political alternatives to the existing order of things. Methodology According to Hall and Lamont, understanding “how individuals, communities, and societies secured their well-being” in the face of the challenges imposed by neoliberalism is a “problem of understanding the bases for social resilience”. This article takes a similarly broad approach to understanding resilience, focusing on a small group of people within a relatively small community to understand how they attempted to secure their well-being in the face of the challenges posed by capitalism and growing nationalism. The main interest, however, is not resilience understood as something that exists or is being produced within this small group, but, rather, how this group produced social imaginaries of the past and the future in cooperation and conflict with other groups in the same community. The research proceeds to analyse the contributions mainly of six members of this small group. It draws on existing literature on the history of the community in the late 1800s and, in particular, biographies of Synnøve Riste (Øyehaug) and Rasmus Steinsvik (Gausemel). In addition, the research builds on original empirical research of approximately 500 articles written by the members of the group in the period from 1887 to 1895 and published in the newspapers Vestmannen, Fedraheimen and 17de Mai; and will try to re-tell a history of key events, referring to a selection of these articles. A Story about Being a Woman in Volda in the Late 1880s This history begins with a letter from Synnøve Riste, a young peasant woman and daughter of a local member of parliament, to Anders Hovden, a friend and theology student. In the letter, Synnøve Riste told her friend about something she just had experienced and had found disturbing (more details in Øyehaug). She first sets her story in the context of an evangelical awakening that was gaining momentum in the community. There was one preacher in particular who seemed to have become very popular among the young women. He had few problems when it comes to women, she wrote, ironically. Curious about the whole thing, Synnøve decided to attend a meeting to see for herself what was going on. The preacher noticed her among the group of young women. He turned his attention towards her and scolded her for her apparent lack of religious fervour. In the letter she explained the feeling of shame that came over her when the preacher singled her out for public criticism. But the feeling of shame soon gave way to anger, she wrote, before adding that the worst part of it was ‘not being able to speak back’; as a woman at a religious meeting she had to hold her tongue. Synnøve Riste was worried about the consequences of the religious awakening. She asked her friend to do something. Could he perhaps write a poem for the weekly newspaper the group had begun to publish only a few months earlier? Anders Hovden duly complied. The poem was published, anonymously, on Wednesday 17 March 1888. Previously, the poem says, women enjoyed the freedom to roam the mountains and valleys. Now, however, a dark mood had come over the young women. ‘Use your mind! Let the madness end! Throw off the blood sucker! And let the world see that you are a woman!’ The puritans appreciated neither the poem nor the newspaper. The newspaper was published by the same group of young men and women who had already organised a private language school for those who wanted to learn to read and write New Norwegian, a ‘new’ language based on the old dialects stemming from the time before Norway lost its independence and became a part of Denmark and then, after 1814, Sweden. At the language school the students read and discussed translations of Karl Marx and the anarchist Peter Kropotkin. The newspaper quickly grew radical. It reported on the riots following the hanging of the Haymarket Anarchists in Chicago in 1886. It advocated women’s suffrage, agitated against capitalism, argued that peasants and small farmers must learn solidarity from the industrial workers defended a young woman in Oslo who was convicted of killing her newborn baby and published articles from international socialist and anarchist newspapers and magazines. Social Causes for Individual Resilience and Collaborative Resilience Recent literature on developmental psychology link resilience to ‘the availability of close attachments or a supportive and disciplined environment’ (Hall and Lamont 13). Some psychologists have studied how individuals feel empowered or constrained by their environment. Synnøve Riste clearly felt constrained by developments in her social world, but was also resourceful enough to find ways to resist and engage in transformational social action on many levels. According to contemporary testimonies, Synnøve Riste must have been an extraordinary woman (Steinsvik "Synnøve Riste"). She was born Synnøve Aarflot, but later married Per Riste and took his family name. The Aarflot family was relatively well-off and locally influential, although the farms were quite small by European standards. Both her father and her uncle served as members of parliament for the (‘left’) Liberal Party. From a young age she took responsibility for her younger siblings and for the family farm, as her father spent much time in the capital. Her grandfather had been granted the privilege of printing books and newspapers, which meant that she grew up with easy access to current news and debates. She married a man of her own choosing; a man substantially older than herself, but with a reputation for liberal ideas on language, education and social issues. Psychological approaches to resilience consider the influence of cognitive ability, self-perception and emotional regulation, in addition to social networks and community support, as important sources of resilience (Lamont, Welburn and Fleming). Synnøve Riste’s friend and lover, Rasmus Steinsvik, later described her as ‘a mainspring’ of social activity. She did not only rely on family, social networks and community support to resist stigmatisation from the puritans, but she was herself a driving force behind social activities that produced new knowledge and generated communities of support for others. Lamont, Welburn and Fleming underline the importance for social resilience of cultural repertoires and the availability of ‘alternative ways of understanding social reality’ (Lamont, Welburn and Fleming). Many of the social activities Synnøve Riste instigated served as arenas for debate and collaborative activity to develop alternative understandings of the social reality of the community. In 1887, Synnøve Riste had relied on support from her extended family to found the newspaper Vestmannen, but as the group around the language school and newspaper gradually produced more radical alternative understandings of the social reality they came increasingly into conflict with less radical members of the Liberal Party. Her uncle owned the printing press where Vestmannen was printed. He was also a member of parliament seeking re-election. And he was certainly not amused when Rasmus Steinsvik, editor of Vestmannen, published an article reprimanding him for his lacklustre performance in general and his unprincipled voting in support of a budget allocating the Swedish king a substantial amount of money. Steinsvik advised the readers to vote instead for Per Riste, Synnøve Riste’s liberal husband and director of the language school. The uncle stopped printing the newspaper. Social Resilience in Volda The growing social conflicts in Volda might be taken to indicate a lack of resilience. This, however, would be a mistake. Social connectedness is an important source of social resilience (Barnes and Hall 226). Strong ties to family and friends matter, as does membership in associations. Dense networks of social connectedness are related to well-being and social resilience. Inversely, high levels of inequality seem to be linked to low levels of resilience. Participation in democratic processes has also been found to be an important source of resilience (Barnes and Hall 229). Volda was a small community with relatively low levels of inequality and local cultural traditions underlining the importance of cooperation and the obligations of everyone to participate in various forms of communal work. Similarly, even though a couple of families dominated local politics, there was no significant socioeconomic division between the average and the more prosperous farmers. Traditionally, women on the small, independent farms participated actively in most aspects of social life. Volda would thus score high on most indicators predicting social resilience. Reading the local newspapers confirms this impression of high levels of social resilience. In fact, this small community of only a few hundred families produced two competing newspapers at the time. Vestmannen dedicated ample space to issues related to education and schools, including adult education, reflecting the fact that Volda was emerging as a local educational centre; local youths attending schools outside the community regularly wrote articles in the newspaper to share the new knowledge they had attained with other members of the community. The topics were in large part related to farming, earth sciences, meteorology and fisheries. Vestmannen also reported on other local associations and activities. The local newspapers reported on numerous political meetings and public debates. The Liberal Party was traditionally the strongest political party in Volda and pushed for greater independence from Sweden, but was divided between moderates and radicals. The radicals joined workers and socialists in demanding universal suffrage, including, as we have seen, women’s right to vote. The left libertarians in Volda organised a ‘radical left’ faction of the Liberal Party and in the run-up to the elections in 1888 numerous rallies were arranged. In some parts of the municipality the youth set up independent and often quite radical youth organisations, while others established a ‘book discussion’. The language issue developed into a particularly powerful source for social resilience. All members of the community shared the experience of having to write and speak a foreign language when communicating with authorities or during higher education. It was a shared experience of discrimination that contributed to producing a common identity. Hing has shown that those who value their in-group ‘can draw on this positive identity to provide a sense of self-worth that offers resilience’. The struggle for recognition stimulated locals to arrange independent activities, and it was in fact through the burgeoning movement for a New Norwegian language that the local radicals in Volda first encountered radical literature that helped them reframe the problems and issues of their social world. In his biography of Ivar Mortensson Egnund, editor of the newspaper Fedraheimen and a lifelong collaborator of Rasmus Steinsvik, Klaus Langen has argued that Mortensson Egnund saw the ideal type of community imagined by the anarchist Leo Tolstoy in the small Norwegian communities of independent small farmers, a potential model for cooperation, participation and freedom. It was not an uncritical perspective, however. The left libertarians were constantly involved in clashes with what they saw as repressive forces within the communities. It is probably more correct to say that they believed that the potential existed, within these communities, for freedom to flourish. Most importantly, however, reading Fedraheimen, and particularly the journalist, editor and novelist Arne Garborg, infused this group of local radicals with anti-capitalist perspectives to be used to make sense of the processes of change that affected the community. One of Garborg’s biographers, claims that no Norwegian has ever been more fundamentally anti-capitalist than Garborg (Thesen). This anti-capitalism helped the radicals in Volda to understand the local conflicts and the evangelical awakening as symptoms of a deeper and more fundamental development driven by capitalism. A series of article in Vestmannen called for solidarity and unity between small farmers and the growing urban class of industrial workers. Science and Modernity The left libertarians put their hope in science and modernity to improve the lives of people. They believed that education was the key to move forward and get rid of the old and bad ways of doing things. The newspaper was reporting the latest advances in natural sciences and life sciences. It reported enthusiastically about the marvels of electricity, and speculated about a future in which Norway could exploit the waterfalls to generate it on a large scale. Vestmannen printed articles in defence of Darwinism (Egnund), new insights from astronomy (Steinsvik "Kva Den Nye Astronomien"), health sciences, agronomy, new methods of fishing and farming – and much more. This was a time when such matters mattered. Reports on new advances in meteorology in the newspaper appeared next to harrowing reports about the devastating effects of a storm that surprised local fishermen at sea where many men regularly paid with their lives. Hunger was still a constant threat in the harsh winter months, so new knowledge that could improve the harvest was most welcome. Leprosy and other diseases continued to be serious problems in this region of Norway. Health could not be taken lightly, and the left libertarians believed that science and knowledge was the only way forward. ‘Knowledge is a sweet fruit,’ Vestmannen wrote. Reporting on Darwinism and astronomy again pitted Vestmannen against the puritans. On several occasions the newspaper reported on confrontations between those who promoted science and those who defended a fundamentalist view of the Bible. In November 1888 the signature ‘-t’ published an article on a meeting that had taken place a few days earlier in a small village not far from Volda (Unknown). The article described how local teachers and other participants were scolded for holding liberal views on science and religion. Anyone who expressed the view that the Bible should not be interpreted literally risked being stigmatised and ostracised. It is tempting to label the group of left libertarians ‘positivists’ or ‘modernists’, but that would be unfair. Arne Garborg, the group’s most important source of inspiration, was indeed inspired by Émile Zola and the French naturalists. Garborg had argued that nothing less than the uncompromising search for truth was acceptable. Nevertheless, he did not believe in objectivity; Garborg and his followers agreed that it was not possible or even desirable to be anything else than subjective. Adaptation or Transformation? PM Giærder, a friend of Rasmus Steinsvik’s, built a new printing press with the help of local blacksmiths, so the newspaper could keep afloat for a few more months. Finally, however, in 1888, the editor and the printer took the printing press with them and moved to Tynset, another small community to the east. There they joined forces with another dwindling left libertarian publication, Fedraheimen. Generations later, more details emerged about the hurried exit from Volda. Synnøve Riste had become pregnant, but not by her husband Per. She was pregnant by Rasmus Steinsvik, the editor of Vestmannen and co-founder of the language school. And then, after giving birth to a baby daughter she fell ill and died. The former friends Per and Rasmus were now enemies and the group of left libertarians in Volda fell apart. It would be too easy to conclude that the left libertarians failed to transform the community and a closer look would reveal a more nuanced picture. Key members of the radical group went on to play important roles on the local and national political scene. Locally, the remaining members of the group formed new alliances with former opponents to continue the language struggle. The local church gradually began to sympathise with those who agitated for a new language based on the Norwegian dialects. The radical faction of the Liberal Party grew in importance as the conflict with Sweden over the hated union intensified. The anarchists Garborg and Steinsvik became successful editors of a radical national newspaper, 17de Mai, while two other members of the small group of radicals went on to become mayors of Volda. One was later elected member of parliament for the Liberal Party. Many of the more radical anarchist and communist ideas failed to make an impact on society. However, on issues such as women’s rights, voting and science, the left libertarians left a lasting impression on the community. It is fair to say that they contributed to transforming their society in many and lasting ways. Conclusion This study of crisis and conflict in Volda indicate that conflict can play an important role in social learning and collective creativity in resilient communities. There is a tendency, in parts of resilience literature, to view resilient communities as harmonious wholes without rifts or clashes of interests (see for instance Goldstein; Arthur, Friend and Marschke). Instead, conflicts should rather be understood as a natural aspect of any society adapting and transforming itself to respond to crisis. Future research on social resilience could benefit from an ecological understanding of nature that accepts polarisation and conflict as a natural part of ecology and which helps us to reach deeper understandings of the social world, also fostering learning, creativity and the production of alternative political solutions. This research has indicated the importance of social imaginaries of the past. Collective memories of ‘what everybody knows that everybody else knows’ about ‘what has worked in the past’ form the basis for producing ideas about how to create collective action (Swidler 338, 39). Historical institutions are pivotal in producing schemas which are default options for collective action. In Volda, the left libertarians imagined a potential for freedom in the past of the community; this formed the basis for producing an alternative social imaginary of the future of the community. The social imaginary was not, however, based only on local experience and collective memory of the past. Theories played an important role in the process of trying to understand the past and the present in order to imagine future alternatives. The conflicts themselves stimulated the radicals to search more widely and probe more deeply for alternative explanations to the problems they experienced. This search led them to new insights which were sometimes adopted by the local community and, in some cases, helped to transform social life in the long-run. References Arthur, Robert, Richard Friend, and Melissa Marschke. "Fostering Collaborative Resilience through Adaptive Comanagement: Reconciling Theory and Practice in the Management of Fisheries in the Mekong Region." Collaborative Resilience: Moving through Crisis to Opportunity. Ed. Bruce Evan Goldstein. Cambridge, Mass., and London: MIT Press, 2012. 255-282. Barnes, Lucy, and Peter A. Hall. "Neoliberalism and Social Resilience in the Developed Democracies." Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Era. Eds. Peter A. Hall and Michèle Lamont. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 209-238. Egnund, Ivar Mortensson. "Motsetningar." Vestmannen 13.6 (1889): 3. Gausemel, Steffen. Rasmus Steinsvik. Oslo: Noregs boklag, 1937. Goldstein, Bruce Evan. "Collaborating for Transformative Resilience." Collaborative Resilience: Moving through Crisis to Opportunity. Ed. Bruce Evan Goldstein. Cambridge, Mass., and London: MIT Press, 2012. 339-358. Hall, Peter A., and Michèle Lamont. "Introduction." Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Era. Eds. Peter A. Hall and Michèle Lamont. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Lamont, Michèle, Jessica S Welburn, and Crystal M Fleming. "Responses to Discrimination and Social Resilience under Neoliberalism: The United States Compared." Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Era. Eds. Peter A. Hall and Michèle Lamont. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 129-57. Steinsvik, Rasmus. "Kva Den Nye Astronomien Kan Lære Oss." Vestmannen 8.2 (1889): 1. ———. "Synnøve Riste." Obituary. Vestmannen 9.11 (1889): 1. Swidler, Ann. "Cultural Sources of Institutional Resilience: Lessons from Chieftaincy in Rural Malawi." Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Era. Eds. Peter A. Hall and Michèle Lamont. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
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Yunxia, Zhu, and Peter Thompson. "Invitation or Sexual Harassment?" M/C Journal 3, no.4 (August1, 2000). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1859.
Full textAbstract:
This article aims to analyse an intercultural telephone invitation given by a Chinese tutor to an Australian student, and highlight general principles of intercultural invitations. This anecdote is based on a true story that took place in a university in Australia, but the persons' names used here are fictitious for the sake of confidentiality. Below is the transcript of the actual conversation between the Chinese tutor Dr Lin Liang (L) and his student Catherine Jones (C): C: Catherine speaking. L: Hi, Catherine, this is Lin. C: Hi, Teacher Lin. L: I would like to invite you to our New Year's party to be held in my house this Saturday evening. C: This Saturday? I am afraid I won't be able to make it because I am going to my best friend's birthday party. L: You know this is the end of our school year. It would be so nice for all of our classmates to gather together. C: But I have already promised my friend. L: En... It is a pity... C: Sorry about that, but -- L: Never mind. Enjoy your party then. C: Thanks. L: That's OK, bye. C: Bye. However, the story does not end here. About two hours later, Dr Lin rang Catherine a second time, asking if it was still possible for her to consider attending the Saturday party. Late in the evening around 9.00 pm, Dr Lin rang her yet again to invite her to the party, saying it would be OK even if she stayed just for a short while. The next day, Catherine lodged a complaint with the Dean, alleging that Dr. Lin's repeated calls constituted sexual harassment. Dr. Lin was highly distressed to learn of the complaint, and explained that he just wanted to indicate sincerity and warmth as required by an invitation, and had no other intentions. This communication breakdown invites a number of questions: What are the factors underlying Catherine's interpretation that Dr. Lin's repeated calls constituted sexual harassment? What are the factors underlying Dr. Lin's contention that his actions were intended to emphasise his sincerity? What factors would need to be recognised in order to facilitate culturally competent performances on both their parts? In order to answer these questions, this article will adopt a holistic approach based on an analytic framework encompassing three theoretical dimensions. This framework is comprised as follows: Differences in intercultural exchange and politeness behaviour; Aristotle's distinction between the three orientations of persuasive/rhetorical appeal; ethos, pathos, and logos; Austin and Searle's theory of speech acts, as applied to politeness behaviour and felicity conditions in communicative interaction as applied to the act of inviting. These approaches are conceptualised as three overlapping spheres, and their relatedness can be further illustrated: Figure 1 First and foremost, the case study in question is related to an intercultural interaction between the Australian and Chinese culture, and some research findings in relevant areas may help highlight the differences in politeness behaviour between high-context and low-context cultures (Hall). According to Hall, high-context cultures such as Chinese tend to stress the use of internalised or implicit message while low-context cultures tend to emphasise the use of explicit messages. In other words, in Chinese culture, the message may have some shared implied meanings that may go beyond the linguistic forms used in the message. Kaplan's model on oriental circularity and western linearity seemed to in accordance with Hall's model. Young's exploration of the directness and indirectness of American and Chinese requests further substantiated this point. In a similar way, differences may arise in determining the criteria for appropriate behaviour relating to the use of other directives across cultures. As Gao and Ting-Toomey suggest, Chinese culture seems to pay attention to qing (reciprocity and feelings of obligation) and guanxi (relationship building), while in low-context cultures such a stress tends to be missing. This difference may also help explain the differences in communicative patterns as discussed by Kaplan and Young. Zhu found that in making a sales offer, Chinese companies often try to establish a long-term relationship with their clients ("Structural Moves"). In contrast, Australian companies seem to mainly focus on promoting products. The stress on qing in Chinese culture may also be a crucial factor that contributes to the different criteria for a polite invitation as compared to the Australian culture. The following discussion will further explore the other two parameters (see Figure 1) the two cultures differ in when making an invitation, which may have finally led to the breakdown in communication between Dr. Lin and Catherine. As shown in Figure 1, the argument underpinning this approach is that a given illocutionary act reflects culture-specific preferences for certain persuasive/rhetorical orientations, thereby affecting the socio-linguistic performance, i.e. parole as opposed to langue (Cullen) related to politeness principles. In short, the persuasive/rhetorical orientation varies between cultures, which means that the nature of ostensibly equivalent illocutionary acts also varies. Consequently, cross-cultural competence will be limited unless one is aware of the rhetorical and politeness codes implicit in the performance of certain communicative actions. Note that rhetorical orientation may also influence the politeness behaviour directly as a specification of that orientation. This in turn requires an awareness of cultural preferences toward certain persuasive/rhetorical orientations. The interconnections between them and the theoretical utility of this approach will be made explicit in the course of this discussion. Austin and Searle conceptualise the speech acts as comprising of locution (langue) and illocution (parole). What is of vital importance is the illocutionary force of an utterance which is the performance of a speech act, such as an invitation. According to Searle, an invitation is a directive used to get the addressee to do something. Invitation can be understood as a particular form of persuasive speech act. It is generally intended to produce a particular response (i.e. acceptance). As an illocutionary action, an invitation seeks to establish a relationship of social expectations between the host and invitee. This requires certain felicity conditions to be met. In other words, for the speech act to be socially significant, it must create a shared sense of meaning in regard to some perceived change or modification to existing social relations. These are often so obvious that they require little explanation. However, felicity conditions in speech-acts are culture-specific and may include rhetorical and politeness devices that are not obvious to other cultures. Politeness behaviour in invitations, related to using appropriate language forms, is an important element in competent illocutionary performance. Leech contends that polite illocutions are likely to be seen as minimising the addressee's cost and maximising his/her benefits, and the opposite is true for the addresser. Politeness behaviour can also be further explained in the light of Brown and Levinson's face-saving theory. Many actions we perform with words are potential face-threatening acts, such as requests and invitations (Brown and Levinson). The addresser is thus often confronted with negative face wants and has to address them by applying Leech's principles, in which maximising the addressee's benefits is the dominant strategy to gain politeness. However, strategies to maximise the addressee's benefits can be culture-specific. This is further connected to the persuasive/rhetorical orientation. Based on Aristotle, the appeal from ethos emphasises the persuader's (host's) character and status or other social conventions which might oblige compliance. The appeal from pathos emphasises emotion/feelings (either positive or negative) in inducing the desired response. The appeal from logos emphasises reason and the logical consistency of the proposal with the ideas and motives of the persuadee (invitee). Moran and Stripp found that western cultures tend to have a logical orientation, while others such as Japanese and Chinese tend to be characterised by emotional or dogmatic orientations. In a similar manner, Chinese scholars seem to address ethos, logos and pathos at the same time, in particular the logos and pathos. These principles remain a well-accepted principle in Chinese writing theories. Li, for example, clearly explicates the persuasive principle in writing as qing li (the combination of the emotional and logical approaches). The explicitly preferred qing (feelings/emotions) can be seen as part of the Confucian values relating to harmony, consensus and relationship building as noted by Hofstede and Bond. The different rhetorical orientations are also further explored by Campbell. This difference may suggest that the preferred rhetorical orientations are also a key aspect underpinning competent illocutionary performance. For example in Chinese invitations, a stress on the emotional approach may validate behaviours such as repeating the invitation even after initial refusal. However, a stress on the logical orientation, such as in western cultures, may negate the validity of these politeness conditions. This clearly points out the necessity of understanding the criteria for competent performance across cultures. The felicity conditions of invitation in Euro-Australian culture require, first, that the potential host be in a legitimate position to offer hospitality, and second, that the potential guest be -- at least theoretically -- able and willing to accept. Thirdly, the locutionary form of politeness requires use of conventionally appropriate terms of address and wording. The illocutionary form requires that the host symbolically offer hospitality to the invitee without the imposition of charges or other demands. Furthermore, the implied benefit to the invitee would ideally be achieved though implied cost to the host (even if the invitee is addressed as if their presence constitutes the bestowal of a favour). Fourthly, depending on the nature of the relationship between the host and invitee, certain persuasive/rhetorical orientations are preferred over others (eg. an appeal to emotion may seem out of place in formal invitation). The initial invitation meets these criteria. Dr. Lin offers and Catherine declines, citing a plausible and legitimate reason for being unavailable. From Catherine's perspective, the felicity conditions for invitation are now redundant. She has already declined in a manner which makes it clear that she is socially obliged to be elsewhere. From a persuasive/rhetorical perspective, the first invitation was primarily based on an appeal from logos/reason. i.e. Dr. Lin did not know that Catherine had already committed herself to other plans and it would be reasonable to suppose that she might appreciate being invited to a social occasion. This was backed up by a secondary appeal from pathos/emotion, whereby Dr. Lin pointed out that it would be nice for the whole class to get together. However, the priority of attending a best friend's birthday-party over-rides both these appeals. In Euro-Australian culture, close personal friends enjoy greater social priority than classmates or more distant associates. For Dr. Lin, however, the politeness criteria for invitation were still applicable. From a Chinese cultural perspective, the illocutionary performance of invitation may require repetition of the offer, even if the initial approach has been declined. According to Zhu (Business Communication), in Chinese culture repeating invitations is an accepted ritual to indicate sincerity and hospitality. Thus in Dr. Lin's view the second approach is required to perform the illocutionary act competently. The persuasive appeal, however, has become oriented toward ethos, reflecting Chinese conventions pertaining to politeness behaviour. For Dr. Lin not to repeat the invitation might suggest that Catherine's presence was of merely casual concern. Therefore the sincerity of the invitation demanded the gesture of repetition, regardless of the logical grounds cited for the initial refusal. Unfortunately, Dr. Lin and Catherine perceive the second invitation in very different ways based on the illocutionary performance criteria of their respective cultures. For Catherine, the logical basis for her initial refusal renders Dr. Lin's performance incompetent, and creates uncertainty about his apparent motives. In Euro-Australian culture, the repeated invitation makes no logical sense, since a perfectly legitimate reason for declining has already been provided. Therefore the communicative action cannot be interpreted as an invitation. If it is, then it is performed in a culturally incompetent fashion which could legitimately be construed as pestering. Repeating an invitation which has already been declined may appear to be an emotional appeal. While an illocutionary invitation based on pathos conceivably may be competent in Euro-Australian culture, the only circumstances that it would occur in is between relatively close friends. The power-relations between Catherine, as student, and Dr. Lin, as tutor, precludes felicity in this case. Thus the same locutionary action is interpreted as two quite different illocutionary actions. This depends on the interpreter's culturally specific understanding of the social significance of the locution. Since Catherine's cultural conventions would implicitly deny the validity of a repeated invitation, the communicative action must be construed as something else. Catherine may have classified the repeated invitation as a minor issue of little consequence. However, when Dr. Lin called her up to invite her a third time, she interpreted the illocutionary act as harassment. From a contemporary Euro-Australian perspective, pestering may be irritating, but harassment is political in nature. Three factors lead Catherine to this conclusion. First, after two previous declinations, the third invitation could not fulfil the illocutionary performance criteria of a legitimate invitation. In particular, the persuasive/rhetorical orientation of the repeated appeals were not oriented toward logos, as befits the formality of the lecturer-student relation. Indeed, it was Dr. Lin's apparent attempt to approach Catherine in a non-formal manner (apparently oriented toward pathos rather than logos) which led her to this interpretation. Second, the fact that Dr. Lin' social status is higher than Catherine's introduced the problem of the implicit power-relations in the discourse. For Catherine, the third invitation was intrusive and pushy, and it seemed that her explanations had been ignored. The evening call demanded that she re-engage in the discourse of day-time student-tutor power-relations. Since she is subordinate to Dr. Lin, other strategies through which she might have asserted her rights may have carried the risk of subsequent disfavour. However, she obviously resented what she perceived as an attempt to inappropriately use status to interfere with her personal affairs and sought out higher authority to rectify the situation, hence the complaint of harassment made to the Dean. Ironically, Dr. Lin's third invitation in the evening may well have been intended to reduce the social distance between himself and Catherine created by workplace space-time power-relations. For Dr. Lin, the first invitation expressed the illocutionary intent. The second call made sure that the invitee was made to feel assured of the sincerity of the invitation, and the third ring expressed the would-be host's appreciation. Establishing a host-guest relationship is a key illocutionary function in Chinese invitation. Note though, that there may also be a 'face' consideration here. Dr. Lin attempts to facilitate Catherine's attendance by pointing out that it would be acceptable to attend for a brief period. This suggests a re-emphasis on the orientation to logos, since it points out a compromise which allows Catherine to attend both parties. It also allowed Dr. Lin to save 'face' by not having his invitation totally disregarded. However, it failed as an illocutionary performance because the felicity conditions for polite invitation had already been violated as far as Catherine was concerned, even though they remained intact throughout for Dr. Lin. In conclusion, it can be seen from the above analysis of the communication breakdown that persuasive orientations and politeness principles are interrelated and culturally sensitive. Euro-Australian culture stresses the logical orientation in illocutionary performance whereas Chinese culture seems to emphasise both the logical and emotional approaches. Without a recognition of this difference, specific politeness behaviours in intercultural invitations can lead to illocutionary incompetence. This has been exemplified by Catherine's misconstrual of Dr. Lin's intended invitation-performance as harassment. Therefore in intercultural communication, one ought not to judge a speech act such as an invitation based on one's own culture's felicity conditions. First and foremost, a basic understanding of persuasive orientations between cultures is essential. With appropriate understanding of these principles one can avoid misinterpreting the intent of the addresser, thus overcoming barriers in intercultural communication. Specifically, further appreciation of the interplay between rhetorical orientation, politeness codes and felicity conditions in illocutionary performances in different cultures is required for a fuller comprehension of potential cross-cultural incompetence. With this in mind, greater tolerance can be achieved, and intercultural competence enhanced. References Aristotle. Aristotle on Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Trans. George A. Kennedy. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. Austin, John. L. How to Do Things with Words. New York: Oxford UP, 1962. Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1987. Campbell, Charles. P. "Rhetorical Ethos: A Bridge between High-Context and Low-Context Cultures? The Cultural Context in Business Communication. Eds. Susanne Niemeier, Charles P. Campbell and René Dirven. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1998. 31-47. Cullen, Johnathan. Saussure. 2nd ed. London: Fontana, 1985. Ge Gao, and S. Ting-Toomey. Communicating Effectively with the Chinese. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1998. Hall, E. T. Beyond Culture. Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1977. Hofstede, G., and M. H. Bond. "The Confucius Connection: From Cultural Roots to Economic Growth." Organisational Dynamics 16.4 (1988): 4-21. Kaplan, R. B. "Cultural Thought Patterns in Inter-Cultural Education." Language Learning 16 (1966): 1-20. Leech, Geoffery. Principles of Pragmatics. New York: Longman, 1983. Li Xiaoming. "Good Writing" in Cross-Cultural Context. Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 1996. Moran, R. T., and W. G. Stripp. Successful International Business Negotiations. Houston: Gulf, 1991. Searle, John R. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1969. Young, Linda Wai Ling, ed. Crosstalk and Culture in Sino-American Communication. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1994. Zhu Yunxia. Business Communication in China. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 1999. ---. Structural Moves Reflected in English and Chinese Sales Letters. Discourse Studies (In Press). Citation reference for this article MLA style: Zhu Yunxia, Peter Thompson. "Invitation or Sexual Harassment? An Analysis of an Intercultural Communication Breakdown." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.4 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0008/invitation.php>. Chicago style: Zhu Yunxia, Peter Thompson, "Invitation or Sexual Harassment? An Analysis of an Intercultural Communication Breakdown," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 4 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0008/invitation.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Zhu Yunxia, Peter Thompson. (2000) Invitation or sexual harassment? An analysis of an intercultural communication breakdown. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(4). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0008/invitation.php> ([your date of access]).
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Mullins, Kimberley. "The Voting Audience." M/C Journal 10, no.6 (April1, 2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2716.
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Political activity is expected to be of interest to a knowledgeable electorate, citizenry or ‘public’. Performance and entertainment have, on the other hand, been considered the domain of the ‘audience’. The line between active electorate and passive audience has been continually blurred, and as more political communication is designed along the lines of entertainment, the less likely it seems that the distinction will become clearer any time soon. The following article will attempt to thoroughly evaluate the contemporary implications of terms related to ‘public’ and ‘audience’, and to suggest a path forward in understanding the now intertwined roles of these two entities. In political commentary of all kinds, the term ‘audience’ has come to be regularly used in place of the more traditionally political terms ‘public’, ‘electorate’, ‘constituency’ or even ‘mass’, ‘mob’ and ‘multitude’. (Bratich 249) This slight alteration of language would seem to suggest an ongoing, and occasionally unintentional debate as to whether or not our increasingly mediated society has become incapable of true political discourse – an audience to be courted and won solely on the basis of visual and aural stimulation. In some instances, the debate goes unacknowledged, with authors using the term interchangeably with that of voter or public. Others seem to be making a more definite statement, as do the authors of Campaign Craft, wherein the term ‘audience’ is often used to refer to the voting population. (Shea and Burton) In either case, it is clear that the ‘public’ and the ‘audience’ are no longer to be considered two entirely separate entities. To understand the significance of this shift, it is necessary to identify the traditional distinctions of these sometimes problematic terms. To do so we must look briefly at how the original and contemporary meanings have developed. Herbert Blau writes that “audiences, such as they are, are nothing like a public, certainly nothing like the capitalised Public of another time” (Blau 22). That “capitalised Public” he refers to is perhaps the ideal state envisioned by Greek and Roman philosophers in which the community, as a whole, is maintained by and for its own members, and each individual plays a significant and specific role in its maintenance. The “audiences”, however, can be popularly defined as “the assembled spectators or listeners at a public event such as a play, film, concert, or meeting” or “the people giving attention to something”. (Soanes & Stevenson) The difference is subtle but significant. The public is expected to take some active interest in its own maintenance and growth, while the audience is not expected to offer action, just attention. The authors of Soundbite Culture, who would seem to see the blurring between audience and public as a negative side effect of mass media, offer this description of the differences between these two entities: Audiences are talked to; publics are talked with. Audiences are entertained; publics are engaged. Audiences live in the moment; publics have both memory and dreams. Audiences have opinions, publics have thoughts. (Slayden & Whillock 7) A ‘public’ is joined by more than their attendance at or attention to a single performance and responsible for more than just the experience of that performance. While an audience is expected to do little more than consume the performance before them, a public must respond to an experience with appropriate action. A public is a community, bound together by activity and mutual concerns. An audience is joined together only by their mutual interest in, or presence at, a performance. Carpini and Williams note that the term ‘public’ is no longer an adequate way to describe the complex levels of interaction that form contemporary political discourse: “people, politics, and the media are far more complex than this. Individuals are simultaneously citizens, consumers, audiences…and so forth” (Carpini & Williams in Bennett & Entman 161). Marshall sees the audience as both a derivative of and a factor in the larger, more political popular body called the “masses”. These masses define the population largely as an unorganised political power, while audiences emerge in relation to consumer products, as rationalised and therefore somewhat subdued categories within that scope. He notes that although the audience, in the twentieth century, has emerged as a “social category” of its own, it has developed as such in relation to both the unharnessed political power of the masses and the active political power of the public (Marshall 61-70). The audience, then, can be said to be a separate but overlapping state that rationalises and segments the potential of the masses, but also informs the subsequent actions of the public. An audience without some degree of action or involvement is not a public. Such a definition provides important insights into the debate from the perspective of political communication. The cohesiveness of the group that is to define the public can be undermined by mass media. It has been argued that mass media, in particular the internet, have removed all sense of local community and instead provided an information outlet that denies individual response. (Franklin 23; Postman 67-69) It can certainly be argued that with media available on such an instant and individual basis, the necessity of group gathering for information and action has been greatly reduced. Thus, one of the primary functions of the public is eliminated, that of joining together for information. This lack of communal information gathering can eliminate the most important functions of the public: debate and personal action. Those who tune-in to national broadcasts or even read national newspapers to receive political information are generally not invited to debate and pose solutions to the problems that are introduced to them, or to take immediate steps to resolve the conflicts addressed. Instead, they are asked only to fulfill that traditional function of the audience, to receive the information and either absorb or dismiss it. Media also blur the audience/public divide by making it necessary to change the means of political communication. Previous to the advent of mass media, political communication was separated from entertainment by its emphasis on debate and information. Television has led a turn toward more ‘emotion’ and image-based campaigning both for election and for support of a particular political agenda. This subsequently implies that this public has increasingly become primarily an audience. Although this attitude is one that has been adopted by many critics and observers, it is not entirely correct to say that there are no longer any opportunities for the audience to regain their function as a public. On a local level, town hall meetings, public consultations and rallies still exist and provide an opportunity for concerned citizens to voice their opinions and assist in forming local policy. Media, often accused of orchestrating the elimination of the active public, occasionally provide opportunities for more traditional public debate. In both Canada and the US, leaders are invited to participate in ‘town hall’ style television debates in which audience members are invited to ask questions. In the UK, both print media and television tend to offer opportunities for leaders to respond to the questions and concerns of individuals. Many newspapers publish responses and letters from many different readers, allowing for public debate and interaction. (McNair 13) In addition, newspapers such as The Washington Post and The Globe and Mail operate Websites that allow the public to comment on articles published in the paper text. In Canada, radio is often used as a forum for public debate and comment. The Canadian Broadcast Corporation’s Cross Country Check Up and Cross Talk allows mediated debate between citizens across the country. Regional stations offer similar programming. Local television news programmes often include ‘person on the street’ interviews on current issues and opportunities for the audience to voice their arguments on-air. Of course, in most of these instances, the information received from the audience is moderated, and shared selectively. This does not, however, negate the fact that there is interaction between that audience and the media. Perhaps the greatest challenge to traditional interpretations of media-audience response is the proliferation of the internet. As McNair observes, “the emergence of the internet has provided new opportunities for public participation in political debate, such as blogging and ‘citizen journalism’. Websites such as YouTube permit marginal political groups to make statements with global reach” (McNair 13). These ‘inter-networks’ not only provide alternative information for audiences to seek out, but also give audience members the ability to respond to any communication in an immediate and public way. Therefore, the audience member can exert potentially wide reaching influence on the public agenda and dialogue, clearly altering the accept-or-refuse model often applied to mediated communication. Opinion polls provide us with an opportunity to verify this shift away from the ‘hypodermic needle’ approach to communication theory (Sanderson King 61). Just as an audience can be responsible for the success of a theatre or television show based on attendance or viewing numbers, so too have public opinion polls been designed to measure, without nuance, only whether the audience accepts or dismisses what is presented to them through the media. There is little place for any measure of actual thought or opinion. The first indications of an upset in this balance resulted in tremendous surprise, as was the case during the US Clinton/Lewinsky scandal (Lawrence & Bennett 425). Stephanopoulos writes that after a full year of coverage of the Monica Lewinsky ‘scandal’, Clinton’s public approval poll numbers were “higher than ever” while the Republican leaders who had initiated the inquiry were suffering from a serious lack of public support (Stephanopoulos 442). Carpini and Williams also observed that public opinion polls taken during the media frenzy showed very little change of any kind, although the movement that did occur was in the direction of increased support for Clinton. This was in direct contrast to what “…traditional agenda-setting, framing, and priming theory would predict” (Carpini & Williams in Bennett & Entman 177). Zaller confirms that the expectation among news organisations, journalists, and political scientists was never realised; despite being cast by the media in a negative role, and despite the consumption of that negative media, the audience refused to judge the President solely on his framed persona (Zaller in Bennett & Entman 255). It was clear that the majority of the population in the US, and in other countries, were exposed to the information regarding the Clinton scandal. At the height of the scandal, it was almost unavoidable (Zaller in Bennett & Entman 254). Therefore it cannot be said that the information the media provided was not being consumed. Rather, the audience did not agree with the media’s attempts to persuade them, and communicated this through opinion polls, creating something resembling a mass political dialogue. As Lawrence and Bennett discuss in their article regarding the Lewinsky/Clinton public opinion “phenomenon”, it should not be assumed by polling institutions or public opinion watchers that the projected angle of the media will be immediately adopted by the public (Lawerence & Bennett 425). Although the media presented a preferred reading of the text, it could not ensure that the audience would interpret that meaning (Hall in Curran, Gurevitch & Harris 343). The audience’s decoding of the media’s message would have to depend on each audience member’s personal experiences and their impression of the media that was presenting the communication. This kind of response is, in fact, encouraging. If the audience relies on mainstream media to provide a frame and context to all political communication, then they are giving up their civic responsibility and placing complete authority in the hands of those actively involved in the process of communicating events. It could be suggested that the reported increase in the perceived reliabilty of internet news sources (Kinsella 251) can be at least partially attributed to the audience’s increasing awareness of these frames and limitations on mainstream media presentation. With the increase in ‘backstage’ reporting, the audience has become hyper-aware of the use of these strategies in communications. The audience is now using its knowledge and media access to decipher information, as it is presented to them, for authenticity and context. While there are those who would lament the fact that the community driven public is largely in the past and focus their attention on finding ways to see the old methods of communication revived, others argue that the way to move forward is not to regret the existence of an audience, but to alter our ideas about how to understand it. It has been suggested that in order to become a more democratic society we must now “re-conceive audiences as citizens” (Golding in Ferguson 98). And despite Blau’s pronouncement that audiences are “nothing like a public”, he later points out that there is still the possibility of unity even in the most diverse of audiences. “The presence of an audience is in itself a sign of coherence”(Blau 23). As Rothenbuhler writes: There is too much casualness in the use of the word spectator…A spectator is almost never simply looking at something. On the contrary, most forms of spectatorship are socially prescribed and performed roles and forms of communication…the spectator, then, is not simply a viewer but a participant in a larger system. (Rothenbuhler 65) We cannot regress to a time when audiences are reserved for the theatre and publics for civic matters. In a highly networked world that relies on communicating via the methods and media of entertainment, it is impossible to remove the role of the audience member from the role of citizen. This does not necessarily need to be a negative aspect of democracy, but instead a step in its constant evolution. There are positive aspects to the audience/public as well as potential negatives. McNair equates the increase in mediated communication with an increase in political knowledge and involvement, particularly for those on the margins of society who are unlikely to be exposed to national political activity in person. He notes that the advent of television may have limited political discourse to a media-friendly sound bite, but that it still increases the information dispensed to the majority of the population. Despite the ideals of democracy, the majority of the voting population is not extremely well informed as to political issues, and prior to the advent of mass media, were very unlikely to have an opportunity to become immersed in the details of policy. Media have increased the amount of political information the average citizen will be exposed to in their lifetime (McNair 41). With this in mind, it is possible to equate the faults of mass media not with their continued growth, but with society’s inability to recognise the effects of the media as technologies and to adjust education accordingly. While the quality of information and understanding regarding the actions and ideals of national political leaders may be disputed, the fact that they are more widely distributed than ever before is not. They have an audience at all times, and though that audience may receive information via a filtered medium, they are still present and active. As McNair notes, if the purpose of democracy is to increase the number of people participating in the political process, then mass media have clearly served to promote the democratic ideal (McNair 204). However, these positives are qualified by the fact that audiences must also possess the skills, the interests and the knowledge of a public, or else risk isolation that limits their power to contribute to public discourse in a meaningful way. The need for an accountable, educated audience has not gone unnoticed throughout the history of mass media. Cultural observers such as Postman, McLuhan, John Kennedy, and even Pope Pius XII have cited the need for education in media. As McLuhan aptly noted, “to the student of media, it is difficult to explain the human indifference to the social effect of these radical forces”(McLuhan 304). In 1964, McLuhan wrote that, “education will become recognised as civil defence against media fallout. The only medium for which our education now offers some civil defence is the print medium”(McLuhan 305). Unfortunately, it is only gradually and usually at an advanced level of higher education that the study and analysis of media has developed to any degree. The mass audiences, those who control the powers of the public, often remain formally uneducated as to the influence that the mediating factors of television have on the distribution of information. Although the audience may have developed a level of sophistication in their awareness of media frames, the public has not been taught how to translate this awareness into any real political or social understanding. The result is a community susceptible to being overtaken by manipulations of any medium. Those who attempt to convey political messages have only added to that confusion by being unclear as to whether or not they are attempting to address an audience or engage a public. In some instances, politicians and their teams focus their sole attention on the public, not taking into consideration the necessities of communicating with an audience, often to the detriment of political success. On the other hand, some focus their attentions on attracting and maintaining an audience, often to the detriment of the political process. This confusion may be a symptom of the mixed messages regarding the appropriate attitude toward performance that is generated by western culture. In an environment where open attention to performance is both demanded and distained, communication choices can be difficult. Instead we are likely to blindly observe the steady increase in the entertainment style packaging of our national politics. Until the audience fully incorporates itself with the public, we will see an absence of action, and excess of confused consumption (Kraus 18). Contemporary society has moved far beyond the traditional concepts of exclusive audience or public domains, and yet we have not fully articulated or defined what this change in structure really means. Although this review does suggest that contemporary citizens are both audience and public simultaneously, it is also clear that further discussion needs to occur before either of those roles can be fully understood in a contemporary communications context. References Bennett, Lance C., and Robert M. Entman. Mediated Politics: Communication in the Future of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. Blau, Herbert. The Audience. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1990. Bratich, Jack Z. “Amassing the Multitude: Revisiting Early Audience Studies”. Communication Theory 15 (2005): 242-65. Curran, J., M. Gurevitch, and D. Janet Harris, eds. Mass Communication and Society. Beverley Hills: Sage, 1977. DeLuca, T., and J. Buell. Liars! Cheaters! Evildoers! Demonization and the End of Civil Debate in American Politics. New York: New York UP, 2005. Ferguson, Marjorie, ed. Public Communication: The New Imperatives. London: Sage, 1990. Franklin, Bob. Packaging Politics. London: Edward Arnold, 1994. Gamson, Joshua. Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America. Berkeley: U of California P, 1994. Keown, Leslie-Anne. “Keeping Up with the Times: Canadians and Their News Media Diets.” Canadian Social Trends June 2007. Government of Canada. Kinsella, Warren. The War Room. Toronto: Dunduran Group, 2007. Kraus, Sidney. Televised Presidential Debates and Public Policy. New Jersey: Lawerence Erlbaum Associates, 2000. Lawrence, Regina, and Lance Bennett. “Rethinking Media Politics and Public Opinion: Reactions to the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal”. Political Science Quarterly 116 (Fall 2001): 425-46. Marland, Alex. Political Marketing in Modern Canadian Federal Elections. Dalhousie University: Canadian Political Science Association Conference, 2003. Marshall, P. David. Celebrity and Power. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media. New ed. London: ARK Paperbacks, 1987 [1964]. McNair, Brian. An Introduction to Political Communication. 4th ed. London: Routledge, 2007. The Oxford Dictionary of English. Eds. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Rev. ed. Oxford UP, 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford UP. 1 Mar. 2008. http://www.oxfordreference.com.qe2aproxy.mun.ca/views/ ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t140.e4525>. Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York: Penguin, 1985. Rothenbuhler, Eric W. Ritual Communication. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, 1998. Sanderson King, Sarah. Human Communication as a Field of Study. New York: State U of New York P, 1990. Schultz, David A., ed. It’s Show Time! Media, Politics and Popular Culture. New York: Peter Lang, 2000. Shea, Daniel, and Michael John Burton. Campaign Craft. 3rd ed. Westport: Praeger, 2006. Slayden, D., and R.K. Whillock. Soundbite Culture: The Death of Discourse in a Wired World. London: Sage, 1999. Stephanopoulos, George. All Too Human. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1999. Webster, James C. “Beneath the Veneer of Fragmentation: Television Audience Polarization in a Multichannel World.” Journal of Communication 55 (June 2005): 366-82. Woodward, Gary C. Center Stage: Media and the Performance of American Politics. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Xenos, Michael, and Kirsten Foot. “Not Your Father’s Internet: The Generation Gap in Online Politics.” Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth. Cambridge: MIT P, 2008. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Mullins, Kimberley. "The Voting Audience." M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/03-mullins.php>. APA Style Mullins, K. (Apr. 2008) "The Voting Audience," M/C Journal, 10(6)/11(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/03-mullins.php>.
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Mullins, Kimberley. "The Voting Audience." M/C Journal 11, no.1 (April1, 2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.23.
Full textAbstract:
Political activity is expected to be of interest to a knowledgeable electorate, citizenry or ‘public’. Performance and entertainment have, on the other hand, been considered the domain of the ‘audience’. The line between active electorate and passive audience has been continually blurred, and as more political communication is designed along the lines of entertainment, the less likely it seems that the distinction will become clearer any time soon. The following article will attempt to thoroughly evaluate the contemporary implications of terms related to ‘public’ and ‘audience’, and to suggest a path forward in understanding the now intertwined roles of these two entities. In political commentary of all kinds, the term ‘audience’ has come to be regularly used in place of the more traditionally political terms ‘public’, ‘electorate’, ‘constituency’ or even ‘mass’, ‘mob’ and ‘multitude’. (Bratich 249) This slight alteration of language would seem to suggest an ongoing, and occasionally unintentional debate as to whether or not our increasingly mediated society has become incapable of true political discourse – an audience to be courted and won solely on the basis of visual and aural stimulation. In some instances, the debate goes unacknowledged, with authors using the term interchangeably with that of voter or public. Others seem to be making a more definite statement, as do the authors of Campaign Craft, wherein the term ‘audience’ is often used to refer to the voting population. (Shea and Burton) In either case, it is clear that the ‘public’ and the ‘audience’ are no longer to be considered two entirely separate entities. To understand the significance of this shift, it is necessary to identify the traditional distinctions of these sometimes problematic terms. To do so we must look briefly at how the original and contemporary meanings have developed. Herbert Blau writes that “audiences, such as they are, are nothing like a public, certainly nothing like the capitalised Public of another time” (Blau 22). That “capitalised Public” he refers to is perhaps the ideal state envisioned by Greek and Roman philosophers in which the community, as a whole, is maintained by and for its own members, and each individual plays a significant and specific role in its maintenance. The “audiences”, however, can be popularly defined as “the assembled spectators or listeners at a public event such as a play, film, concert, or meeting” or “the people giving attention to something”. (Soanes & Stevenson) The difference is subtle but significant. The public is expected to take some active interest in its own maintenance and growth, while the audience is not expected to offer action, just attention. The authors of Soundbite Culture, who would seem to see the blurring between audience and public as a negative side effect of mass media, offer this description of the differences between these two entities: Audiences are talked to; publics are talked with. Audiences are entertained; publics are engaged. Audiences live in the moment; publics have both memory and dreams. Audiences have opinions, publics have thoughts. (Slayden & Whillock 7) A ‘public’ is joined by more than their attendance at or attention to a single performance and responsible for more than just the experience of that performance. While an audience is expected to do little more than consume the performance before them, a public must respond to an experience with appropriate action. A public is a community, bound together by activity and mutual concerns. An audience is joined together only by their mutual interest in, or presence at, a performance. Carpini and Williams note that the term ‘public’ is no longer an adequate way to describe the complex levels of interaction that form contemporary political discourse: “people, politics, and the media are far more complex than this. Individuals are simultaneously citizens, consumers, audiences…and so forth” (Carpini & Williams in Bennett & Entman 161). Marshall sees the audience as both a derivative of and a factor in the larger, more political popular body called the “masses”. These masses define the population largely as an unorganised political power, while audiences emerge in relation to consumer products, as rationalised and therefore somewhat subdued categories within that scope. He notes that although the audience, in the twentieth century, has emerged as a “social category” of its own, it has developed as such in relation to both the unharnessed political power of the masses and the active political power of the public (Marshall 61-70). The audience, then, can be said to be a separate but overlapping state that rationalises and segments the potential of the masses, but also informs the subsequent actions of the public. An audience without some degree of action or involvement is not a public. Such a definition provides important insights into the debate from the perspective of political communication. The cohesiveness of the group that is to define the public can be undermined by mass media. It has been argued that mass media, in particular the internet, have removed all sense of local community and instead provided an information outlet that denies individual response. (Franklin 23; Postman 67-69) It can certainly be argued that with media available on such an instant and individual basis, the necessity of group gathering for information and action has been greatly reduced. Thus, one of the primary functions of the public is eliminated, that of joining together for information. This lack of communal information gathering can eliminate the most important functions of the public: debate and personal action. Those who tune-in to national broadcasts or even read national newspapers to receive political information are generally not invited to debate and pose solutions to the problems that are introduced to them, or to take immediate steps to resolve the conflicts addressed. Instead, they are asked only to fulfill that traditional function of the audience, to receive the information and either absorb or dismiss it. Media also blur the audience/public divide by making it necessary to change the means of political communication. Previous to the advent of mass media, political communication was separated from entertainment by its emphasis on debate and information. Television has led a turn toward more ‘emotion’ and image-based campaigning both for election and for support of a particular political agenda. This subsequently implies that this public has increasingly become primarily an audience. Although this attitude is one that has been adopted by many critics and observers, it is not entirely correct to say that there are no longer any opportunities for the audience to regain their function as a public. On a local level, town hall meetings, public consultations and rallies still exist and provide an opportunity for concerned citizens to voice their opinions and assist in forming local policy. Media, often accused of orchestrating the elimination of the active public, occasionally provide opportunities for more traditional public debate. In both Canada and the US, leaders are invited to participate in ‘town hall’ style television debates in which audience members are invited to ask questions. In the UK, both print media and television tend to offer opportunities for leaders to respond to the questions and concerns of individuals. Many newspapers publish responses and letters from many different readers, allowing for public debate and interaction. (McNair 13) In addition, newspapers such as The Washington Post and The Globe and Mail operate Websites that allow the public to comment on articles published in the paper text. In Canada, radio is often used as a forum for public debate and comment. The Canadian Broadcast Corporation’s Cross Country Check Up and Cross Talk allows mediated debate between citizens across the country. Regional stations offer similar programming. Local television news programmes often include ‘person on the street’ interviews on current issues and opportunities for the audience to voice their arguments on-air. Of course, in most of these instances, the information received from the audience is moderated, and shared selectively. This does not, however, negate the fact that there is interaction between that audience and the media. Perhaps the greatest challenge to traditional interpretations of media-audience response is the proliferation of the internet. As McNair observes, “the emergence of the internet has provided new opportunities for public participation in political debate, such as blogging and ‘citizen journalism’. Websites such as YouTube permit marginal political groups to make statements with global reach” (McNair 13). These ‘inter-networks’ not only provide alternative information for audiences to seek out, but also give audience members the ability to respond to any communication in an immediate and public way. Therefore, the audience member can exert potentially wide reaching influence on the public agenda and dialogue, clearly altering the accept-or-refuse model often applied to mediated communication. Opinion polls provide us with an opportunity to verify this shift away from the ‘hypodermic needle’ approach to communication theory (Sanderson King 61). Just as an audience can be responsible for the success of a theatre or television show based on attendance or viewing numbers, so too have public opinion polls been designed to measure, without nuance, only whether the audience accepts or dismisses what is presented to them through the media. There is little place for any measure of actual thought or opinion. The first indications of an upset in this balance resulted in tremendous surprise, as was the case during the US Clinton/Lewinsky scandal (Lawrence & Bennett 425). Stephanopoulos writes that after a full year of coverage of the Monica Lewinsky ‘scandal’, Clinton’s public approval poll numbers were “higher than ever” while the Republican leaders who had initiated the inquiry were suffering from a serious lack of public support (Stephanopoulos 442). Carpini and Williams also observed that public opinion polls taken during the media frenzy showed very little change of any kind, although the movement that did occur was in the direction of increased support for Clinton. This was in direct contrast to what “…traditional agenda-setting, framing, and priming theory would predict” (Carpini & Williams in Bennett & Entman 177). Zaller confirms that the expectation among news organisations, journalists, and political scientists was never realised; despite being cast by the media in a negative role, and despite the consumption of that negative media, the audience refused to judge the President solely on his framed persona (Zaller in Bennett & Entman 255). It was clear that the majority of the population in the US, and in other countries, were exposed to the information regarding the Clinton scandal. At the height of the scandal, it was almost unavoidable (Zaller in Bennett & Entman 254). Therefore it cannot be said that the information the media provided was not being consumed. Rather, the audience did not agree with the media’s attempts to persuade them, and communicated this through opinion polls, creating something resembling a mass political dialogue. As Lawrence and Bennett discuss in their article regarding the Lewinsky/Clinton public opinion “phenomenon”, it should not be assumed by polling institutions or public opinion watchers that the projected angle of the media will be immediately adopted by the public (Lawerence & Bennett 425). Although the media presented a preferred reading of the text, it could not ensure that the audience would interpret that meaning (Hall in Curran, Gurevitch & Harris 343). The audience’s decoding of the media’s message would have to depend on each audience member’s personal experiences and their impression of the media that was presenting the communication. This kind of response is, in fact, encouraging. If the audience relies on mainstream media to provide a frame and context to all political communication, then they are giving up their civic responsibility and placing complete authority in the hands of those actively involved in the process of communicating events. It could be suggested that the reported increase in the perceived reliabilty of internet news sources (Kinsella 251) can be at least partially attributed to the audience’s increasing awareness of these frames and limitations on mainstream media presentation. With the increase in ‘backstage’ reporting, the audience has become hyper-aware of the use of these strategies in communications. The audience is now using its knowledge and media access to decipher information, as it is presented to them, for authenticity and context. While there are those who would lament the fact that the community driven public is largely in the past and focus their attention on finding ways to see the old methods of communication revived, others argue that the way to move forward is not to regret the existence of an audience, but to alter our ideas about how to understand it. It has been suggested that in order to become a more democratic society we must now “re-conceive audiences as citizens” (Golding in Ferguson 98). And despite Blau’s pronouncement that audiences are “nothing like a public”, he later points out that there is still the possibility of unity even in the most diverse of audiences. “The presence of an audience is in itself a sign of coherence”(Blau 23). As Rothenbuhler writes: There is too much casualness in the use of the word spectator…A spectator is almost never simply looking at something. On the contrary, most forms of spectatorship are socially prescribed and performed roles and forms of communication…the spectator, then, is not simply a viewer but a participant in a larger system. (Rothenbuhler 65) We cannot regress to a time when audiences are reserved for the theatre and publics for civic matters. In a highly networked world that relies on communicating via the methods and media of entertainment, it is impossible to remove the role of the audience member from the role of citizen. This does not necessarily need to be a negative aspect of democracy, but instead a step in its constant evolution. There are positive aspects to the audience/public as well as potential negatives. McNair equates the increase in mediated communication with an increase in political knowledge and involvement, particularly for those on the margins of society who are unlikely to be exposed to national political activity in person. He notes that the advent of television may have limited political discourse to a media-friendly sound bite, but that it still increases the information dispensed to the majority of the population. Despite the ideals of democracy, the majority of the voting population is not extremely well informed as to political issues, and prior to the advent of mass media, were very unlikely to have an opportunity to become immersed in the details of policy. Media have increased the amount of political information the average citizen will be exposed to in their lifetime (McNair 41). With this in mind, it is possible to equate the faults of mass media not with their continued growth, but with society’s inability to recognise the effects of the media as technologies and to adjust education accordingly. While the quality of information and understanding regarding the actions and ideals of national political leaders may be disputed, the fact that they are more widely distributed than ever before is not. They have an audience at all times, and though that audience may receive information via a filtered medium, they are still present and active. As McNair notes, if the purpose of democracy is to increase the number of people participating in the political process, then mass media have clearly served to promote the democratic ideal (McNair 204). However, these positives are qualified by the fact that audiences must also possess the skills, the interests and the knowledge of a public, or else risk isolation that limits their power to contribute to public discourse in a meaningful way. The need for an accountable, educated audience has not gone unnoticed throughout the history of mass media. Cultural observers such as Postman, McLuhan, John Kennedy, and even Pope Pius XII have cited the need for education in media. As McLuhan aptly noted, “to the student of media, it is difficult to explain the human indifference to the social effect of these radical forces”(McLuhan 304). In 1964, McLuhan wrote that, “education will become recognised as civil defence against media fallout. The only medium for which our education now offers some civil defence is the print medium”(McLuhan 305). Unfortunately, it is only gradually and usually at an advanced level of higher education that the study and analysis of media has developed to any degree. The mass audiences, those who control the powers of the public, often remain formally uneducated as to the influence that the mediating factors of television have on the distribution of information. Although the audience may have developed a level of sophistication in their awareness of media frames, the public has not been taught how to translate this awareness into any real political or social understanding. The result is a community susceptible to being overtaken by manipulations of any medium. Those who attempt to convey political messages have only added to that confusion by being unclear as to whether or not they are attempting to address an audience or engage a public. In some instances, politicians and their teams focus their sole attention on the public, not taking into consideration the necessities of communicating with an audience, often to the detriment of political success. On the other hand, some focus their attentions on attracting and maintaining an audience, often to the detriment of the political process. This confusion may be a symptom of the mixed messages regarding the appropriate attitude toward performance that is generated by western culture. In an environment where open attention to performance is both demanded and distained, communication choices can be difficult. Instead we are likely to blindly observe the steady increase in the entertainment style packaging of our national politics. Until the audience fully incorporates itself with the public, we will see an absence of action, and excess of confused consumption (Kraus 18). Contemporary society has moved far beyond the traditional concepts of exclusive audience or public domains, and yet we have not fully articulated or defined what this change in structure really means. Although this review does suggest that contemporary citizens are both audience and public simultaneously, it is also clear that further discussion needs to occur before either of those roles can be fully understood in a contemporary communications context. References Bennett, Lance C., and Robert M. Entman. Mediated Politics: Communication in the Future of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. Blau, Herbert. The Audience. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1990. Bratich, Jack Z. “Amassing the Multitude: Revisiting Early Audience Studies”. Communication Theory 15 (2005): 242-65. Curran, J., M. Gurevitch, and D. Janet Harris, eds. Mass Communication and Society. Beverley Hills: Sage, 1977. DeLuca, T., and J. Buell. Liars! Cheaters! Evildoers! Demonization and the End of Civil Debate in American Politics. New York: New York UP, 2005. Ferguson, Marjorie, ed. Public Communication: The New Imperatives. London: Sage, 1990. Franklin, Bob. Packaging Politics. London: Edward Arnold, 1994. Gamson, Joshua. Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America. Berkeley: U of California P, 1994. Keown, Leslie-Anne. “Keeping Up with the Times: Canadians and Their News Media Diets.” Canadian Social Trends June 2007. Government of Canada. Kinsella, Warren. The War Room. Toronto: Dunduran Group, 2007. Kraus, Sidney. Televised Presidential Debates and Public Policy. New Jersey: Lawerence Erlbaum Associates, 2000. Lawrence, Regina, and Lance Bennett. “Rethinking Media Politics and Public Opinion: Reactions to the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal”. Political Science Quarterly 116 (Fall 2001): 425-46. Marland, Alex. Political Marketing in Modern Canadian Federal Elections. Dalhousie University: Canadian Political Science Association Conference, 2003. Marshall, P. David. Celebrity and Power. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media. New ed. London: ARK Paperbacks, 1987 [1964]. McNair, Brian. An Introduction to Political Communication. 4th ed. London: Routledge, 2007. The Oxford Dictionary of English. Eds. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Rev. ed. Oxford UP, 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford UP. 1 Mar. 2008. < http://www.oxfordreference.com.qe2aproxy.mun.ca/views/ ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t140.e4525 >. Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York: Penguin, 1985. Rothenbuhler, Eric W. Ritual Communication. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, 1998. Sanderson King, Sarah. Human Communication as a Field of Study. New York: State U of New York P, 1990. Schultz, David A., ed. It’s Show Time! Media, Politics and Popular Culture. New York: Peter Lang, 2000. Shea, Daniel, and Michael John Burton. Campaign Craft. 3rd ed. Westport: Praeger, 2006. Slayden, D., and R.K. Whillock. Soundbite Culture: The Death of Discourse in a Wired World. London: Sage, 1999. Stephanopoulos, George. All Too Human. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1999. Webster, James C. “Beneath the Veneer of Fragmentation: Television Audience Polarization in a Multichannel World.” Journal of Communication 55 (June 2005): 366-82. Woodward, Gary C. Center Stage: Media and the Performance of American Politics. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Xenos, Michael, and Kirsten Foot. “Not Your Father’s Internet: The Generation Gap in Online Politics.” Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth. Cambridge: MIT P, 2008.
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Bellanta, Melissa. "Voting for Pleasure, Or a View from a Victorian Theatre Gallery." M/C Journal 10, no.6 (April1, 2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2715.
Full textAbstract:
Imagine this historical scene, if you will. It is 1892, and you are up in the gallery at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney, taking in an English burlesque. The people around you have just found out that Alice Leamar will not be performing her famed turn in Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay tonight, a high-kicking Can-Canesque number, very much the dance du jour. Your fellow audience members are none too pleased about this – they are shouting, and stamping the heels of their boots so loudly the whole theatre resounds with the noise. Most people in the expensive seats below look up in the direction of the gallery with a familiar blend of fear and loathing. The rough ‘gods’ up there are nearly always restless, more this time than usual. The uproar fulfils its purpose, though, because tomorrow night, Leamar’s act will be reinstated: the ‘gods’ will have their way (Bulletin, 1 October 1892). Another scene now, this time at the Newtown Bridge Theatre in Sydney, shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. A comedian is trying a new routine for the crowd, but no one seems much impressed so far. A few discontented rumbles begin at first – ‘I want to go home’, says one wag, and then another – and soon these gain momentum, so that almost everyone is caught up in an ecstasy of roisterous abuse. A burly ‘chucker out’ appears, trying to eject some of the loudest hecklers, and a fully-fledged punch-up ensues (Djubal 19, 23; Cheshire 86). Eventually, one or two men are made to leave – but so too is the hapless comedian, evicted by derisive howls from the stage. The scenes I have just described show that audience interaction was a key feature in late-nineteenth century popular theatre, and in some cases even persisted into the following century. Obviously, there was no formal voting mechanism used during these performances à la contemporary shows like Idol. But rowdy practises amounted to a kind of audience ‘vote’ nonetheless, through which people decided those entertainers they wanted to see and those they emphatically did not. In this paper, I intend to use these bald parallels between Victorian audience practices and new-millennium viewer-voting to investigate claims about the links between democracy and plebiscitary entertainment. The rise of voting for pleasure in televised contests and online polls is widely attended by debate about democracy (e.g. Andrejevic; Coleman; Hartley, “Reality”). The most hyped commentary on this count evokes a teleological assumption – that western history is inexorably moving towards direct democracy. This view becomes hard to sustain when we consider the extent to which the direct expression of audience views was a feature of Victorian popular entertainment, and that these participatory practices were largely suppressed by the turn of the twentieth century. Old audience practices also allow us to question some of the uses of the term ‘direct democracy’ in new media commentary. Descriptions of voting for pleasure as part of a growth towards direct democracy are often made to celebrate rather than investigate plebiscitary forms. They elide the fact that direct democracy is a vexed political ideal. And they limit our discussion of voting for leisure and fun. Ultimately, arguing back and forth about whether viewer-voting is democratic stops us from more interesting explorations of this emerging cultural phenomenon. ‘To a degree that would be unimaginable to theatregoers today’, says historian Robert Allen, ‘early nineteenth-century audiences controlled what went on at the theatre’. The so-called ‘shirt-sleeve’ crowd in the cheapest seats of theatrical venues were habitually given to hissing, shouting, and even throwing objects in order to evict performers during the course of a show. The control exerted by the peanut-chomping gallery was certainly apparent in the mid-century burlesques Allen writes about (55). It was also apparent in minstrel, variety and music hall productions until around the turn of the century. Audience members in the galleries of variety theatres and music halls regularly engaged in the pleasure of voicing their aesthetic preferences. Sometimes comic interjectors from among them even drew more laughs than the performers on stage. ‘We went there not as spectators but as performers’, as an English music-hall habitué put it (Bailey 154). In more downmarket venues such as Sydney’s Newtown Bridge Theatre, these participatory practices continued into the early 1900s. Boisterous audience practices came under sustained attack in the late-Victorian era. A series of measures were taken by authorities, theatre managers and social commentators to wrest the control of popular performances from those in theatre pits and galleries. These included restricting the sale of alcohol in theatre venues, employing brawn in the form of ‘chuckers out’, and darkening auditoriums, so that only the stage was illuminated and the audience thus de-emphasised (Allen 51–61; Bailey 157–68; Waterhouse 127, 138–43). They also included a relentless public critique of those engaging in heckling behaviours, thus displaying their ‘littleness of mind’ (Age, 6 Sep. 1876). The intensity of attacks on rowdy audience participation suggests that symbolic factors were at play in late-Victorian attempts to enforce decorous conduct at the theatre. The last half of the century was, after all, an era of intense debate about the qualities necessary for democratic citizenship. The suffrage was being dramatically expanded during this time, so that it encompassed the vast majority of white men – and by the early twentieth century, many white women as well. In Australia, the prelude to federation also involved debate about the type of democracy to be adopted. Should it be republican? Should it enfranchise all men and women; all people, or only white ones? At stake in these debates were the characteristics and subjectivities one needed to possess before being deemed capable of enfranchisement. To be worthy of the vote, as of other democratic privileges, one needed to be what Toby Miller has called a ‘well-tempered’ subject at the turn of the twentieth century (Miller; Joyce 4). One needed to be carefully deliberative and self-watching, to avoid being ‘savage’, ‘uncivilised’, emotive – all qualities which riotous audience members (like black people and women) were thought not to possess (Lake). This is why the growing respectability of popular theatre is so often considered a key feature of the modernisation of popular culture. Civil and respectful audience behaviours went hand in hand with liberal-democratic concepts of the well-tempered citizen. Working-class culture in late nineteenth-century England has famously (and notoriously) been described as a ‘culture of consolation’: an escapist desire for fun based on a fatalistic acceptance of under-privilege and social discrimination (Jones). This idea does not do justice to the range of hopes and efforts to create a better society among workingpeople at the time. But it still captures the motivation behind most unruly audience behaviours: a gleeful kind of resistance or ‘culture jamming’ which viewed disruption and uproar as ends in themselves, without the hope that they would be productive of improved social conditions. Whether or not theatrical rowdiness served a solely consolatory purpose for the shirt-sleeve crowd, it certainly evoked a sharp fear of disorderly exuberance in mainstream society. Anxieties about violent working-class uprisings leading to the institution of mob rule were a characteristic of the late-nineteenth century, often making their way into fiction (Brantlinger). Roisterous behaviours in popular theatres resonated with the concerns expressed in works such as Caesar’s Column (Donnelly), feeding on a long association between the theatre and misrule. These fears obviously stand in stark contrast to the ebullient commentary surrounding interactive entertainment today. Over-oxygenated rhetoric about the democratic potential of cyberspace was of course a feature of new media commentary at the beginning of the 1990s (for a critique of such rhetoric see Meikle 33–42; Grossman). Current helium-giddy claims about digital technologies as ‘democratising’ reprise this cyberhype (Andrejevic 12–15, 23–8; Jenkins and Thornburn). One recent example of upbeat talk about plebiscitary formats as direct democracy is John Hartley’s contribution to the edited collection, Politicotainment (Hartley, “Reality”). There are now a range of TV shows and online formats, he says, which offer audiences the opportunity to directly express their views. The development of these entertainment forms are part of a movement towards a ‘direct open network’ in global media culture (3). They are also part of a macro historical shift: a movement ‘down the value chain of meaning’ which has taken place over the past few centuries (Hartley, “Value Chain”). Hartley’s notion of a ‘value chain of meaning’ is an application of business analysis to media and cultural studies. In business, a value chain is what links the producer/originator, via commodity/distribution, to the consumer. In the same way, Hartley says, one might speak of a symbolic value chain moving from an author/producer, via the text, to the audience/consumer. Much of western history may indeed be understood as a movement along this chain. In pre-modern times, meaning resided in the author. The Divine Author, God, was regarded as the source of all meaning. In the modern period, ‘after Milton and Johnson’, meaning was located in texts. Experts observed the properties of a text or other object, and by this means discovered its meaning. In ‘the contemporary period’, however – the period roughly following the Second World War – meaning has overwhelming come to be located with audiences or consumers (Hartley, “Value Chain” 131–35). It is in this context, Hartley tells us, that the plebiscite is coming to the fore. As a means of allowing audiences to directly represent their own choices, the plebiscite is part of a new paradigm taking shape, as global culture moves away from the modern epoch and its text-dominated paradigm (Hartley, “Reality” 1–3). Talk of a symbolic value chain is a self-conscious example of the logic of business/cultural partnership currently circulating in neo-liberal discourse. It is also an example of a teleological understanding of history, through which the past few centuries are presented as part of a linear progression towards direct democracy. This teleology works well with the up-tempo talk of television as ‘democratainment’ in Hartley’s earlier work (Hartley, Uses of Television). Western history is essentially a triumphant progression, he implies, from the Dark Ages, to representative democracy, to the enlightened and direct ‘consumer democracy’ unfolding around us today (Hartley, “Reality” 47). Teleological assumptions are always suspect from an historical point of view. For a start, casting the modern period as one in which meaning resided overwhelmingly in the text fails to consider the culture of popular performance flourishing before the twentieth century. Popular theatrical forms were far more significant to ordinary people of the nineteenth century than the notions of empirical or textual analysis cultivated in elite circles. Burlesques, minstrel-shows, music hall and variety productions all took a playful approach to their texts, altering their tone and content in line with audience expectations (Chevalier 40). Before the commercialisation of popular theatre in the late-nineteenth century, many theatricals also worked in a relatively open-ended way. At concert saloons or ‘free-and-easies’ (pubs where musical performances were offered), amateur singers volunteered their services, stepping out from the audience to perform an act or two and then disappearing into it again (Joyce 206). As a precursor to TV talent contests and ‘open mic’ comedy sessions today, many theatrical managers held amateur nights in which would-be professionals tried their luck before a restless crowd, with a contract awarded to performers drawing the loudest applause (Watson 5). Each of these considerations challenge the view that open participatory networks are the expression of an historical process through which meaning has only recently come to reside with audiences and consumers. Another reason for suspecting teleological notions about democracy is that it proceeds as if Foucauldian analysis did not exist. Characterising history as a process of democratisation tends to equate democracy with openness and freedom in an uncritical way. It glosses over the fact that representative democracy involved the repression of directly participatory practices and unruly social groups. More pertinently, it ignores critiques of direct democracy. Even if there are positive aspects to the re-emergence of participatory practices among audiences today, there are still real problems with direct democracy as a political ideal. It would be fairly easy to make the case that rowdy Victorian audiences engaged in ‘direct democratic’ practices during the course of a variety show or burlesque. The ‘gods’ in Victorian galleries exulted in expressing their preferences: evicting lack-lustre comics and demanding more of other performers. It would also be easy to valorise these practices as examples of the kind of culture-jamming I referred to earlier – as forms of resistance to the tyranny of well-tempered citizenship gaining sway at the time. Given the often hysterical attacks directed at unruly audiences, there is an obvious satisfaction to be had from observing the reinstatement of Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay at Her Majesty’s Theatre, or in the pleasure that working-class audiences derived from ‘calling the tune’. The same kind of satisfaction is not to be had, however, when observing direct democracy in action on YouTube, or during a season of Dancing with the Stars, or some other kind of plebiscitary TV. The expression of audience preferences in this context hardly carries the subversive connotations of informal evictions during a late-Victorian music-hall show. Viewer-voting today is indeed dominated by a rhetoric of partnership which centres on audience participation, rather than a notion of opposition between producers and audiences (Jenkins). The terrain of plebiscitary entertainment is very different now from the terrain of popular culture described by Stuart Hall in the 1980s – let alone as it stood in the 1890s, during Alice Leamar’s tour. Most commentary on plebiscitary TV avoids talk of ‘cultural struggle’ (Hall 235) and instead adopts a language of collaboration and of people ‘having a ball’ (Neville; Hartley, “Reality” 3). The extent to which contemporary plebiscites are managed by what Hartley calls the ‘plebiscitary industries’ evokes one of the most powerful criticisms made against direct democracy. That is, it evokes the view that direct democracy allows commercial interests to set the terms of public participation in decision-making, and thus to influence its outcomes (Barber 36; Moore 55–56). There is obviously big money to be made from plebiscitary TV. The advertising blitz which takes place during viewer-voting programs, and the vote-rigging scandals so often surrounding them make this clear. These considerations highlight the fact that public involvement in a plebiscitary process is not something to make a song and dance about unless broad involvement first takes place in deciding the issues open for determination by plebiscite, and the way in which these issues are framed. In the absence of this kind of broad participation, engagement in plebiscitary forms serves a solely consolatory function, offering the pleasures of viewer-voting as a substitute for substantive involvement in cultural creation and political change. Another critique sometimes made against direct democracy is that it makes an easy vehicle for prejudice (Barber 36–7). This was certainly the case in Victorian theatres, where it was common for Anglo gallery-members to heckle female and non-white performers in an intimidatory way. A group of American vaudeville performers called the Cherry Sisters certainly experienced this phenomenon in the early 1900s. The Cherry Sisters were defiantly unglamorous middle-aged women in a period when female performers were increasingly expected to display scantily-clad youthful figures on stage. As a consequence, they were embroiled in a number of near-riots in which male audience members hurled abuse and heavy objects from the galleries, and in some cases chased them into the street to physically assault them there (Pittinger 76–77). Such incidents give us a glimpse of the dark face of direct democracy. In some cases, the direct expression of popular views becomes an attack on diversity, leading to the kind of violent mêlée experienced either by the Cherry Sisters or the Middle Eastern people attacked on Sydney’s Cronulla Beach at the end of 2005. ‘Democracy’ is always an obviously politically loaded term when used in debates about new media. It is frequently used to imply that particular cultural or technological forms are inherently liberatory and inclusive. As Graeme Turner points out, reality TV has been celebrated as ‘democratic’ in this way. Only rarely, however, is there an attempt to argue why this is the case – to show how viewer-voting formats actually serve a democratic agenda. It was for this reason that Turner argued that the inclusion of ordinary people on reality TV should be understood as demotic rather than democratic (Turner, Understanding Celebrity 82–5; Turner, “Mass Production”). Ultimately, however, it is immaterial whether one uses the term ‘demotic’ or ‘direct democratic’ to describe the growth of plebiscitary entertainment. What is important is that we avoid making inflated claims about the direct expression of audience views, using the term ‘democratic’ to give an unduly celebratory spin to the political complexities involved. People may indeed be having a ball as they take part in online polls or choose what they want to watch on YouTube or shout at the TV during an episode of Idol. The ‘participatory enthusiasm’ that fans feel watching a show like Big Brother may also have lessons for those interested in making parliamentary process more responsive to people’s interests and needs (Coleman 458). But the development of plebiscitary forms is not inherently democratic in the sense that Turner suggests the term should be used – that is, it does not of itself serve a liberatory or socially inclusive agenda. Nor does it lead to substantive participation in cultural and political processes. In the end, it seems to me that we need to move beyond the discussion of plebiscitary entertainment in terms of democracy. The whole concept of democracy as the yardstick against which new media should be measured is highly problematic. Not only is direct democracy a vexed political ideal to start off with – it also leads commentators to take predictable positions when debating its relationship to new technologies and cultural forms. Some turn to hype, others to critique, and the result often appears as a mere restatement of the commentators’ political inclinations rather than a useful investigation of the developments at hand. Some of the most intriguing aspects of plebiscitary entertainments are left unexplored if we remain preoccupied with democracy. One might well investigate the re-introduction of studio audiences and participatory audience practices, for example, as a nostalgia for the interactivity experienced in live theatres such as the Newtown Bridge in the early twentieth century. It certainly seems to me that a retro impulse informs some of the developments in televised stand-up comedy in recent years. This was obviously the case for Paul McDermott’s The Side Show on Australian television in 2007, with its nod to the late-Victorian or early twentieth-century fairground and its live-theatrical vibe. More relevantly here, it also seems to be the case for American viewer-voting programs such as Last Comic Standing and the Comedy Channel’s Open Mic Fight. Further, reviews of programs such as Idol sometimes emphasise the emotional engagement arising out of their combination of viewer-voting and live performance as a harking-back to the good old days when entertainment was about being real (Neville). One misses this nostalgia associated with plebiscitary entertainments if bound to a teleological assumption that they form part of an ineluctable progression towards the New and the Free. Perhaps, then, it is time to pay more attention to the historical roots of viewer-voting formats, to think about the way that new media is sometimes about a re-invention of the old, trying to escape the recurrent back-and-forthing of debate about their relationship to progress and democracy. References Allen, Robert C. Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture .Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Andrejevic, Mark. Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004. Bailey, Peter. Leisure and Class in Victorian England: Rational Recreation and the Contest for Control, 1830–1885. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978. Barber, Benjamin R. Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. ———. “Which Technology and Which Democracy?” Democracy and New Media. Eds. Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003. 33–48. Brantlinger, Patrick, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1988. Cheshire, D. F. Music Hall in Britain. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1974. Chevalier, Albert. Before I Forget: The Autobiography of a Chevalier d’Industrie. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1901. Coleman, Stephen. “How the Other Half Votes: Big Brother Viewers and the 2005 General Election”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 9.4 (2006): 457–79. Djubal, Clay. “From Minstrel Tenor to Vaudeville Showman: Harry Clay, ‘A Friend of the Australian Performer’”. Australasian Drama Studies 34 (April 1999): 10–24. Donnelly, Ignatius. Caesar’s Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century. London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1891. Grossman, Lawrence. The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in the Information Age. New York: Penguin, 1995. Hall, Stuart. “Notes on Deconstructing the ‘Popular’”. People’s History and Socialist Theory. Ed. Raphael Samuel. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. 227–49. Hartley, John, The Uses of Television. London: Routledge, 1999. ———. “‘Reality’ and the Plebiscite”. Politoctainment: Television’s Take on the Real. Ed. Kristina Riegert. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006. http://www.cci.edu.au/hartley/downloads/Plebiscite%20(Riegert%20chapter) %20revised%20FINAL%20%5BFeb%2014%5D.pdf. ———. “The ‘Value-Chain of Meaning’ and the New Economy”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 7.1 (2004): 129–41. Jenkins, Henry. “The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 7.1 (2004): 33–43. ———, and David Thornburn. “Introduction: The Digital Revolution, the Informed Citizen, and the Culture of Democracy”. Democracy and New Media. Eds. Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003. 1–20. Jones, Gareth Stedman. ‘Working-Class Culture and Working-Class Politics in London, 1870-1900: Notes on the Remaking of a Working Class’. Languages of Class: Studies in English Working-Class History, 1832–1982. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. 179–238. Joyce, Patrick. The Rule of Freedom: Liberalism and the Modern City. London: Verso, 2003. Lake, Marilyn. “White Man’s Country: The Trans-National History of a National Project”. Australian Historical Studies 122 ( 2003): 346–63. Meikle, Graham. Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet. London: Routledge, 2002. Miller, Toby. The Well-Tempered Self: Citizenship, Culture and the Postmodern Subject. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1993. Moore, Richard K. “Democracy and Cyberspace”. Digital Democracy: Discourse and Decision Making in the Information Age. Eds. Barry Hague and Brian D. Loader. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. 39–59. Neville, Richard. “Crass, Corny, But Still a Woodstock Moment for a New Generation”. Sydney Morning Herald, 23 November 2004. Pittinger, Peach R. “The Cherry Sisters in Early Vaudeville: Performing a Failed Femininity”. Theatre History Studies 24 (2004): 73–97. Turner, Graeme. Understanding Celebrity. London: Sage, 2004. ———. “The Mass Production of Celebrity: ‘Celetoids’, Reality TV and the ‘Demotic Turn’”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 9.2 (2006): 153–165. Waterhouse, Richard. From Minstrel Show to Vaudeville: The Australian Popular Stage, 1788–1914. Sydney: New South Wales University Press, 1990. Watson, Bobby. Fifty Years Behind the Scenes. Sydney: Slater, 1924. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Bellanta, Melissa. "Voting for Pleasure, Or a View from a Victorian Theatre Gallery." M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/02-bellanta.php>. APA Style Bellanta, M. (Apr. 2008) "Voting for Pleasure, Or a View from a Victorian Theatre Gallery," M/C Journal, 10(6)/11(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/02-bellanta.php>.
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34
Bellanta, Melissa. "Voting for Pleasure, Or a View from a Victorian Theatre Gallery." M/C Journal 11, no.1 (April1, 2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.22.
Full textAbstract:
Imagine this historical scene, if you will. It is 1892, and you are up in the gallery at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney, taking in an English burlesque. The people around you have just found out that Alice Leamar will not be performing her famed turn in Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay tonight, a high-kicking Can-Canesque number, very much the dance du jour. Your fellow audience members are none too pleased about this – they are shouting, and stamping the heels of their boots so loudly the whole theatre resounds with the noise. Most people in the expensive seats below look up in the direction of the gallery with a familiar blend of fear and loathing. The rough ‘gods’ up there are nearly always restless, more this time than usual. The uproar fulfils its purpose, though, because tomorrow night, Leamar’s act will be reinstated: the ‘gods’ will have their way (Bulletin, 1 October 1892). Another scene now, this time at the Newtown Bridge Theatre in Sydney, shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. A comedian is trying a new routine for the crowd, but no one seems much impressed so far. A few discontented rumbles begin at first – ‘I want to go home’, says one wag, and then another – and soon these gain momentum, so that almost everyone is caught up in an ecstasy of roisterous abuse. A burly ‘chucker out’ appears, trying to eject some of the loudest hecklers, and a fully-fledged punch-up ensues (Djubal 19, 23; Cheshire 86). Eventually, one or two men are made to leave – but so too is the hapless comedian, evicted by derisive howls from the stage. The scenes I have just described show that audience interaction was a key feature in late-nineteenth century popular theatre, and in some cases even persisted into the following century. Obviously, there was no formal voting mechanism used during these performances à la contemporary shows like Idol. But rowdy practises amounted to a kind of audience ‘vote’ nonetheless, through which people decided those entertainers they wanted to see and those they emphatically did not. In this paper, I intend to use these bald parallels between Victorian audience practices and new-millennium viewer-voting to investigate claims about the links between democracy and plebiscitary entertainment. The rise of voting for pleasure in televised contests and online polls is widely attended by debate about democracy (e.g. Andrejevic; Coleman; Hartley, “Reality”). The most hyped commentary on this count evokes a teleological assumption – that western history is inexorably moving towards direct democracy. This view becomes hard to sustain when we consider the extent to which the direct expression of audience views was a feature of Victorian popular entertainment, and that these participatory practices were largely suppressed by the turn of the twentieth century. Old audience practices also allow us to question some of the uses of the term ‘direct democracy’ in new media commentary. Descriptions of voting for pleasure as part of a growth towards direct democracy are often made to celebrate rather than investigate plebiscitary forms. They elide the fact that direct democracy is a vexed political ideal. And they limit our discussion of voting for leisure and fun. Ultimately, arguing back and forth about whether viewer-voting is democratic stops us from more interesting explorations of this emerging cultural phenomenon. ‘To a degree that would be unimaginable to theatregoers today’, says historian Robert Allen, ‘early nineteenth-century audiences controlled what went on at the theatre’. The so-called ‘shirt-sleeve’ crowd in the cheapest seats of theatrical venues were habitually given to hissing, shouting, and even throwing objects in order to evict performers during the course of a show. The control exerted by the peanut-chomping gallery was certainly apparent in the mid-century burlesques Allen writes about (55). It was also apparent in minstrel, variety and music hall productions until around the turn of the century. Audience members in the galleries of variety theatres and music halls regularly engaged in the pleasure of voicing their aesthetic preferences. Sometimes comic interjectors from among them even drew more laughs than the performers on stage. ‘We went there not as spectators but as performers’, as an English music-hall habitué put it (Bailey 154). In more downmarket venues such as Sydney’s Newtown Bridge Theatre, these participatory practices continued into the early 1900s. Boisterous audience practices came under sustained attack in the late-Victorian era. A series of measures were taken by authorities, theatre managers and social commentators to wrest the control of popular performances from those in theatre pits and galleries. These included restricting the sale of alcohol in theatre venues, employing brawn in the form of ‘chuckers out’, and darkening auditoriums, so that only the stage was illuminated and the audience thus de-emphasised (Allen 51–61; Bailey 157–68; Waterhouse 127, 138–43). They also included a relentless public critique of those engaging in heckling behaviours, thus displaying their ‘littleness of mind’ (Age, 6 Sep. 1876). The intensity of attacks on rowdy audience participation suggests that symbolic factors were at play in late-Victorian attempts to enforce decorous conduct at the theatre. The last half of the century was, after all, an era of intense debate about the qualities necessary for democratic citizenship. The suffrage was being dramatically expanded during this time, so that it encompassed the vast majority of white men – and by the early twentieth century, many white women as well. In Australia, the prelude to federation also involved debate about the type of democracy to be adopted. Should it be republican? Should it enfranchise all men and women; all people, or only white ones? At stake in these debates were the characteristics and subjectivities one needed to possess before being deemed capable of enfranchisement. To be worthy of the vote, as of other democratic privileges, one needed to be what Toby Miller has called a ‘well-tempered’ subject at the turn of the twentieth century (Miller; Joyce 4). One needed to be carefully deliberative and self-watching, to avoid being ‘savage’, ‘uncivilised’, emotive – all qualities which riotous audience members (like black people and women) were thought not to possess (Lake). This is why the growing respectability of popular theatre is so often considered a key feature of the modernisation of popular culture. Civil and respectful audience behaviours went hand in hand with liberal-democratic concepts of the well-tempered citizen. Working-class culture in late nineteenth-century England has famously (and notoriously) been described as a ‘culture of consolation’: an escapist desire for fun based on a fatalistic acceptance of under-privilege and social discrimination (Jones). This idea does not do justice to the range of hopes and efforts to create a better society among workingpeople at the time. But it still captures the motivation behind most unruly audience behaviours: a gleeful kind of resistance or ‘culture jamming’ which viewed disruption and uproar as ends in themselves, without the hope that they would be productive of improved social conditions. Whether or not theatrical rowdiness served a solely consolatory purpose for the shirt-sleeve crowd, it certainly evoked a sharp fear of disorderly exuberance in mainstream society. Anxieties about violent working-class uprisings leading to the institution of mob rule were a characteristic of the late-nineteenth century, often making their way into fiction (Brantlinger). Roisterous behaviours in popular theatres resonated with the concerns expressed in works such as Caesar’s Column (Donnelly), feeding on a long association between the theatre and misrule. These fears obviously stand in stark contrast to the ebullient commentary surrounding interactive entertainment today. Over-oxygenated rhetoric about the democratic potential of cyberspace was of course a feature of new media commentary at the beginning of the 1990s (for a critique of such rhetoric see Meikle 33–42; Grossman). Current helium-giddy claims about digital technologies as ‘democratising’ reprise this cyberhype (Andrejevic 12–15, 23–8; Jenkins and Thornburn). One recent example of upbeat talk about plebiscitary formats as direct democracy is John Hartley’s contribution to the edited collection, Politicotainment (Hartley, “Reality”). There are now a range of TV shows and online formats, he says, which offer audiences the opportunity to directly express their views. The development of these entertainment forms are part of a movement towards a ‘direct open network’ in global media culture (3). They are also part of a macro historical shift: a movement ‘down the value chain of meaning’ which has taken place over the past few centuries (Hartley, “Value Chain”). Hartley’s notion of a ‘value chain of meaning’ is an application of business analysis to media and cultural studies. In business, a value chain is what links the producer/originator, via commodity/distribution, to the consumer. In the same way, Hartley says, one might speak of a symbolic value chain moving from an author/producer, via the text, to the audience/consumer. Much of western history may indeed be understood as a movement along this chain. In pre-modern times, meaning resided in the author. The Divine Author, God, was regarded as the source of all meaning. In the modern period, ‘after Milton and Johnson’, meaning was located in texts. Experts observed the properties of a text or other object, and by this means discovered its meaning. In ‘the contemporary period’, however – the period roughly following the Second World War – meaning has overwhelming come to be located with audiences or consumers (Hartley, “Value Chain” 131–35). It is in this context, Hartley tells us, that the plebiscite is coming to the fore. As a means of allowing audiences to directly represent their own choices, the plebiscite is part of a new paradigm taking shape, as global culture moves away from the modern epoch and its text-dominated paradigm (Hartley, “Reality” 1–3). Talk of a symbolic value chain is a self-conscious example of the logic of business/cultural partnership currently circulating in neo-liberal discourse. It is also an example of a teleological understanding of history, through which the past few centuries are presented as part of a linear progression towards direct democracy. This teleology works well with the up-tempo talk of television as ‘democratainment’ in Hartley’s earlier work (Hartley, Uses of Television). Western history is essentially a triumphant progression, he implies, from the Dark Ages, to representative democracy, to the enlightened and direct ‘consumer democracy’ unfolding around us today (Hartley, “Reality” 47). Teleological assumptions are always suspect from an historical point of view. For a start, casting the modern period as one in which meaning resided overwhelmingly in the text fails to consider the culture of popular performance flourishing before the twentieth century. Popular theatrical forms were far more significant to ordinary people of the nineteenth century than the notions of empirical or textual analysis cultivated in elite circles. Burlesques, minstrel-shows, music hall and variety productions all took a playful approach to their texts, altering their tone and content in line with audience expectations (Chevalier 40). Before the commercialisation of popular theatre in the late-nineteenth century, many theatricals also worked in a relatively open-ended way. At concert saloons or ‘free-and-easies’ (pubs where musical performances were offered), amateur singers volunteered their services, stepping out from the audience to perform an act or two and then disappearing into it again (Joyce 206). As a precursor to TV talent contests and ‘open mic’ comedy sessions today, many theatrical managers held amateur nights in which would-be professionals tried their luck before a restless crowd, with a contract awarded to performers drawing the loudest applause (Watson 5). Each of these considerations challenge the view that open participatory networks are the expression of an historical process through which meaning has only recently come to reside with audiences and consumers. Another reason for suspecting teleological notions about democracy is that it proceeds as if Foucauldian analysis did not exist. Characterising history as a process of democratisation tends to equate democracy with openness and freedom in an uncritical way. It glosses over the fact that representative democracy involved the repression of directly participatory practices and unruly social groups. More pertinently, it ignores critiques of direct democracy. Even if there are positive aspects to the re-emergence of participatory practices among audiences today, there are still real problems with direct democracy as a political ideal. It would be fairly easy to make the case that rowdy Victorian audiences engaged in ‘direct democratic’ practices during the course of a variety show or burlesque. The ‘gods’ in Victorian galleries exulted in expressing their preferences: evicting lack-lustre comics and demanding more of other performers. It would also be easy to valorise these practices as examples of the kind of culture-jamming I referred to earlier – as forms of resistance to the tyranny of well-tempered citizenship gaining sway at the time. Given the often hysterical attacks directed at unruly audiences, there is an obvious satisfaction to be had from observing the reinstatement of Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay at Her Majesty’s Theatre, or in the pleasure that working-class audiences derived from ‘calling the tune’. The same kind of satisfaction is not to be had, however, when observing direct democracy in action on YouTube, or during a season of Dancing with the Stars, or some other kind of plebiscitary TV. The expression of audience preferences in this context hardly carries the subversive connotations of informal evictions during a late-Victorian music-hall show. Viewer-voting today is indeed dominated by a rhetoric of partnership which centres on audience participation, rather than a notion of opposition between producers and audiences (Jenkins). The terrain of plebiscitary entertainment is very different now from the terrain of popular culture described by Stuart Hall in the 1980s – let alone as it stood in the 1890s, during Alice Leamar’s tour. Most commentary on plebiscitary TV avoids talk of ‘cultural struggle’ (Hall 235) and instead adopts a language of collaboration and of people ‘having a ball’ (Neville; Hartley, “Reality” 3). The extent to which contemporary plebiscites are managed by what Hartley calls the ‘plebiscitary industries’ evokes one of the most powerful criticisms made against direct democracy. That is, it evokes the view that direct democracy allows commercial interests to set the terms of public participation in decision-making, and thus to influence its outcomes (Barber 36; Moore 55–56). There is obviously big money to be made from plebiscitary TV. The advertising blitz which takes place during viewer-voting programs, and the vote-rigging scandals so often surrounding them make this clear. These considerations highlight the fact that public involvement in a plebiscitary process is not something to make a song and dance about unless broad involvement first takes place in deciding the issues open for determination by plebiscite, and the way in which these issues are framed. In the absence of this kind of broad participation, engagement in plebiscitary forms serves a solely consolatory function, offering the pleasures of viewer-voting as a substitute for substantive involvement in cultural creation and political change. Another critique sometimes made against direct democracy is that it makes an easy vehicle for prejudice (Barber 36–7). This was certainly the case in Victorian theatres, where it was common for Anglo gallery-members to heckle female and non-white performers in an intimidatory way. A group of American vaudeville performers called the Cherry Sisters certainly experienced this phenomenon in the early 1900s. The Cherry Sisters were defiantly unglamorous middle-aged women in a period when female performers were increasingly expected to display scantily-clad youthful figures on stage. As a consequence, they were embroiled in a number of near-riots in which male audience members hurled abuse and heavy objects from the galleries, and in some cases chased them into the street to physically assault them there (Pittinger 76–77). Such incidents give us a glimpse of the dark face of direct democracy. In some cases, the direct expression of popular views becomes an attack on diversity, leading to the kind of violent mêlée experienced either by the Cherry Sisters or the Middle Eastern people attacked on Sydney’s Cronulla Beach at the end of 2005. ‘Democracy’ is always an obviously politically loaded term when used in debates about new media. It is frequently used to imply that particular cultural or technological forms are inherently liberatory and inclusive. As Graeme Turner points out, reality TV has been celebrated as ‘democratic’ in this way. Only rarely, however, is there an attempt to argue why this is the case – to show how viewer-voting formats actually serve a democratic agenda. It was for this reason that Turner argued that the inclusion of ordinary people on reality TV should be understood as demotic rather than democratic (Turner, Understanding Celebrity 82–5; Turner, “Mass Production”). Ultimately, however, it is immaterial whether one uses the term ‘demotic’ or ‘direct democratic’ to describe the growth of plebiscitary entertainment. What is important is that we avoid making inflated claims about the direct expression of audience views, using the term ‘democratic’ to give an unduly celebratory spin to the political complexities involved. People may indeed be having a ball as they take part in online polls or choose what they want to watch on YouTube or shout at the TV during an episode of Idol. The ‘participatory enthusiasm’ that fans feel watching a show like Big Brother may also have lessons for those interested in making parliamentary process more responsive to people’s interests and needs (Coleman 458). But the development of plebiscitary forms is not inherently democratic in the sense that Turner suggests the term should be used – that is, it does not of itself serve a liberatory or socially inclusive agenda. Nor does it lead to substantive participation in cultural and political processes. In the end, it seems to me that we need to move beyond the discussion of plebiscitary entertainment in terms of democracy. The whole concept of democracy as the yardstick against which new media should be measured is highly problematic. Not only is direct democracy a vexed political ideal to start off with – it also leads commentators to take predictable positions when debating its relationship to new technologies and cultural forms. Some turn to hype, others to critique, and the result often appears as a mere restatement of the commentators’ political inclinations rather than a useful investigation of the developments at hand. Some of the most intriguing aspects of plebiscitary entertainments are left unexplored if we remain preoccupied with democracy. One might well investigate the re-introduction of studio audiences and participatory audience practices, for example, as a nostalgia for the interactivity experienced in live theatres such as the Newtown Bridge in the early twentieth century. It certainly seems to me that a retro impulse informs some of the developments in televised stand-up comedy in recent years. This was obviously the case for Paul McDermott’s The Side Show on Australian television in 2007, with its nod to the late-Victorian or early twentieth-century fairground and its live-theatrical vibe. More relevantly here, it also seems to be the case for American viewer-voting programs such as Last Comic Standing and the Comedy Channel’s Open Mic Fight. Further, reviews of programs such as Idol sometimes emphasise the emotional engagement arising out of their combination of viewer-voting and live performance as a harking-back to the good old days when entertainment was about being real (Neville). One misses this nostalgia associated with plebiscitary entertainments if bound to a teleological assumption that they form part of an ineluctable progression towards the New and the Free. Perhaps, then, it is time to pay more attention to the historical roots of viewer-voting formats, to think about the way that new media is sometimes about a re-invention of the old, trying to escape the recurrent back-and-forthing of debate about their relationship to progress and democracy. References Allen, Robert C. Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture .Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Andrejevic, Mark. Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004. Bailey, Peter. Leisure and Class in Victorian England: Rational Recreation and the Contest for Control, 1830–1885. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978. Barber, Benjamin R. Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. ———. “Which Technology and Which Democracy?” Democracy and New Media. Eds. Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003. 33–48. Brantlinger, Patrick, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1988. Cheshire, D. F. Music Hall in Britain. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1974. Chevalier, Albert. Before I Forget: The Autobiography of a Chevalier d’Industrie. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1901. Coleman, Stephen. “How the Other Half Votes: Big Brother Viewers and the 2005 General Election”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 9.4 (2006): 457–79. Djubal, Clay. “From Minstrel Tenor to Vaudeville Showman: Harry Clay, ‘A Friend of the Australian Performer’”. Australasian Drama Studies 34 (April 1999): 10–24. Donnelly, Ignatius. Caesar’s Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century. London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1891. Grossman, Lawrence. The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in the Information Age. New York: Penguin, 1995. Hall, Stuart. “Notes on Deconstructing the ‘Popular’”. People’s History and Socialist Theory. Ed. Raphael Samuel. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. 227–49. Hartley, John, The Uses of Television. London: Routledge, 1999. ———. “‘Reality’ and the Plebiscite”. Politoctainment: Television’s Take on the Real. Ed. Kristina Riegert. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006. http://www.cci.edu.au/hartley/downloads/Plebiscite%20(Riegert%20chapter) %20revised%20FINAL%20%5BFeb%2014%5D.pdf. ———. “The ‘Value-Chain of Meaning’ and the New Economy”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 7.1 (2004): 129–41. Jenkins, Henry. “The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 7.1 (2004): 33–43. ———, and David Thornburn. “Introduction: The Digital Revolution, the Informed Citizen, and the Culture of Democracy”. Democracy and New Media. Eds. Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003. 1–20. Jones, Gareth Stedman. ‘Working-Class Culture and Working-Class Politics in London, 1870-1900: Notes on the Remaking of a Working Class’. Languages of Class: Studies in English Working-Class History, 1832–1982. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. 179–238. Joyce, Patrick. The Rule of Freedom: Liberalism and the Modern City. London: Verso, 2003. Lake, Marilyn. “White Man’s Country: The Trans-National History of a National Project”. Australian Historical Studies 122 ( 2003): 346–63. Meikle, Graham. Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet. London: Routledge, 2002. Miller, Toby. The Well-Tempered Self: Citizenship, Culture and the Postmodern Subject. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1993. Moore, Richard K. “Democracy and Cyberspace”. Digital Democracy: Discourse and Decision Making in the Information Age. Eds. Barry Hague and Brian D. Loader. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. 39–59. Neville, Richard. “Crass, Corny, But Still a Woodstock Moment for a New Generation”. Sydney Morning Herald, 23 November 2004. Pittinger, Peach R. “The Cherry Sisters in Early Vaudeville: Performing a Failed Femininity”. Theatre History Studies 24 (2004): 73–97. Turner, Graeme. Understanding Celebrity. London: Sage, 2004. ———. “The Mass Production of Celebrity: ‘Celetoids’, Reality TV and the ‘Demotic Turn’”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 9.2 (2006): 153–165. Waterhouse, Richard. From Minstrel Show to Vaudeville: The Australian Popular Stage, 1788–1914. Sydney: New South Wales University Press, 1990. Watson, Bobby. Fifty Years Behind the Scenes. Sydney: Slater, 1924.
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Crooks, Juliette. "Recreating Prometheus." M/C Journal 4, no.4 (August1, 2001). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1926.
Full textAbstract:
Prometheus, chained to a rock, having his liver pecked out by a great bird only for the organ to grow back again each night so that the torture may be repeated afresh the next day must be the quintessential image of masculinity in crisis. This paper will consider Promethean myth and the issues it raises regarding 'creation' including: the role of creator, the relationship between creator and created, the usurping of maternal (creative) power by patriarchy and, not least, the offering of an experimental model in which masculine identity can be recreated. I argue that Promethean myth raises significant issues relating to anxieties associated with notions of masculinity and gender, which are subsequently transposed in Shelley's modernist recasting of the myth, Frankenstein. I then consider 'Promethean' science fiction film, as an area particularly concerned with re-creation, in terms of construction of the self, gender and masculinity. Prometheus & Creation Prometheus (whose name means 'forethought') was able to foresee the future and is credited with creating man from mud/clay. As Man was inferior to other creations and unprotected, Prometheus allowed Man to walk upright [1] like the Gods. He also stole from them the gift of fire, to give to Man, and tricked the Gods into allowing Man to keep the best parts of sacrifices (giving the Gods offal, bones and fat). Thus Prometheus is regarded as the father and creator of Mankind, and as Man's benefactor and protector; whose love of Man (or love of trickery and his own cleverness) leads him to deceive the Gods. Prometheus's brother, Epimetheus (whose name means 'afterthought'), was commissioned to make all the other creations and Prometheus was to overlook his work when it was done. Due to Epimetheus's short-sightedness there were no gifts left (such as fur etc.) to bestow upon Man – the nobler animal which Prometheus was entrusted to make. Prometheus, a Titan, and illegitimate son of Iapetus and the water nymph Clymene (Kirkpatrick, 1991), helped fight against the Titans the side of Zeus, helping Zeus seize the throne. More than simple indication of a rebellious spirit, his illegitimate status (albeit as opposed to an incestuous one – Iapetus was married to his sister Themis) raises the important issues of both legitimacy and filial loyalty, so recurrent within accounts of creation (of man, and human artifice). Some hold that Prometheus is punished for his deceptions i.e. over fire and the sacrifices, thus he is punished as much for his brother's failings as much as for his own ingenuity and initiative. Others maintain he is punished for refusing to tell Zeus which of Zeus's sons would overthrow him, protecting Zeus' half mortal son and his mortal mother. Zeus's father and grandfather suffered castration and usurpment at the hands of their offspring – for both Zeus and Prometheus (pro)creation is perilous. Prometheus's punishment here is for withholding a secret which accords power. In possessing knowledge (power) which could have secured his release, Prometheus is often viewed as emblematic of endurance, suffering and resistance and parental martyrdom. Prometheus, as mentioned previously, was chained to a rock where a great bird came and tore at his liver [2], the liver growing back overnight for the torture to be repeated afresh the following day. Heracles, a half mortal son of Zeus, slays the bird and frees Prometheus, thus Man repays his debt by liberation of his benefactor, or, in other accounts, he is required to take Prometheus's place, and thus liberating his creator and resulting in his own enslavement. Both versions clearly show the strength of bond between Prometheus and his creation but the latter account goes further in suggesting that Man and Maker are interchangeable. Also linked to Promethean myth is the creation of the first woman, Pandora. Constructed (by Jupiter at Zeus's command) on one hand as Man's punishment for Prometheus's tricks, and on the other as a gift to Man from the Gods. Her opening of 'the box', either releasing all mans ills, plagues and woes, or letting all benevolent gifts but hope escape, is seen as disastrous from either perspective. However what is emphasised is that the creation of Woman is secondary to the creation of Man. Therefore Prometheus is not the creator of humankind but of mankind. The issue of gender is an important aspect of Promethean narrative, which I discuss in the next section. Gender Issues Promethean myths raise a number of pertinent issues relating to gender and sexuality. Firstly they suggest that both Man and Woman are constructed [3], and that they are constructed as distinct entities, regarding Woman as inferior to Man. Secondly creative power is posited firmly with the masculine (by virtue of the male sex of both Prometheus and Jupiter), negating maternal and asserting patriarchal power. Thirdly Nature, which is associated with the feminine, is surpassed in that whilst Man is made from the earth (mud/clay) it is Prometheus who creates him (Mother Earth providing only the most basic raw materials for production); and Nature is overcome as Man is made independent of climate through the gift of fire. Tensions arise in that Prometheus's fate is also linked to childbirth in so far as that which is internal is painfully rendered external (strongly raising connotations of the abject – which threatens identity boundaries). The intense connection between creation and childbirth indicates that the appropriation of power is of a power resting not with the gods, but with women. The ability to see the future is seen as both frightening and reassuring. Aeschylus uses this to explain Prometheus's tolerance of his fate: he knew he had to endure pain but he knew he would be released, and thus was resigned to his suffering. As the bearer of the bleeding wound Prometheus is feminised, his punishment represents a rite of passage through which he may earn the status 'Father of Man' and reassert and define his masculine identity, hence a masochistic desire to suffer is also suggested. Confrontations with the abject, the threat posed to identity, and Lacanian notions of desire in relation to the other, are subjects which problematise the myth's assertion of masculine power. I will now consider how the Promethean myth is recast in terms of modernity in the story of Frankenstein and the issues regarding male power this raises. Frankenstein - A Modern Prometheus Consistent with the Enlightenment spirit of renewal and reconstruction, the novel Frankenstein emerges in 1818, re-casting Promethean myth in terms of science, and placing the scientist (i.e. man) as creator. Frankenstein in both warning against assuming the power of God and placing man as creator, simultaneously expresses the hopes and fears of the transition from theocratic belief to rationality. One of the strategies Frankenstein gives us through its narrative use of science and technology is a social critique and interrogation of scientific discourse made explicit through its alignment with gender discourse. In appropriating reproductive power without women, it enacts an appropriation of maternity by patriarchy. In aligning the use of this power by patriarchy with the power of the gods, it attempts to deify and justify use of this power whilst rendering women powerless and indeed superfluous. Yet as it offers the patriarchal constructs of science and technology as devoid of social responsibility, resulting in monstrous productions, it also facilitates a critique of patriarchy (Cranny Francis, 1990, p220). The creature, often called 'Frankenstein' rather than 'Frankenstein's monster', is not the only 'abomination to God'. Victor Frankenstein is portrayed as a 'spoilt brat of a child', whose overindulgence results in his fantasy of omnipotent power over life itself, and leads to neglect of, and lack of care towards, his creation. Indeed he may be regarded as the true 'monster' of the piece, as he is all too clearly lacking Prometheus's vision and pastoral care [4]. "Neither evil nor inhuman, [the creature] comes to seem little more than morally uninformed, poorly 'put together' by a human creator who has ill served both his creation and his fellow humans." (Telotte, 1995, p. 76). However, the model of the natural – and naturally free – man emerges in the novel from an implied pattern of subjection which demonstrates that the power the man-made constructs of science and technology give us come at great cost: "[Power] is only made possible by what [Mary Shelley] saw as a pointedly modern devaluation of the self: by affirming that the human is, at base, just a put together thing, with no transcendent origin or purpose and bound to a half vital existence at best by material conditions of its begetting."(ibid.) Frankenstein's power expressed through his overcoming of Nature, harnessing of technology and desire to subject the human body to his will, exhibits the modern world's mastery over the self. However it also requires the devaluation of self so that the body is regarded as subject, thus leading to our own subjection. For Telotte (1995, p37), one reflection of our Promethean heritage is that as everything comes to seem machine-like and constructed, the human too finally emerges as a kind of marvellous fiction, or perhaps just another empty invention. Access to full creative potential permits entry "into a true 'no man's land'…. a wonderland...where any wonder we might conceive, or any wondrous way we might conceive of the self, might be fashioned". Certainly the modernist recasting of Promethean myth embodies that train of thought which is most consciously aiming to discover the nature of man through (re)creating him. It offers patriarchal power as a power over the self (independent of the gods); a critique of the father; and the fantasy of (re)construction of the self at the cost of deconstruction of the body which, finally, leads to the subjection of the self. The Promethean model, I maintain, serves to illuminate and further our understanding of the endurance, popularity and allure of fantasies of creation, which can be so readily found in cinematic history, and especially within the science fiction genre. This genre stands out as a medium both well suited to, and enamoured with, Promethean reworkings [5]. As religion (of which Greek mythology is a part) and science both attempt to explain the world and make it knowable they offer the reassurance, satisfaction and the illusion of security and control, whilst tantalising with notions of possible futures. Promethean science fiction film realises the visual nature of these possible futures providing us, in its future visions, with glimpses of alternative ways of seeing and being. Promethean Science Fiction Film Science fiction, can be seen as a 'body genre' delineated not by excess of sex, blood or emotion but by excess of control over the body as index of identity (Cook, 1999, p.193). Science fiction films can be seen to fall broadly into three categories: space flight, alien invaders and futuristic societies (Hayward, 1996, p.305). Within these, Telotte argues (Replications, 1995), most important are the images of "human artifice", which form a metaphor for our own human selves, and have come to dominate the contemporary science fiction film (1995, p11). The science fiction film contains a structural tension that constantly rephrases central issues about the self and constructedness. Paradoxically whilst the science fiction genre profits from visions of a technological future it also displays technophobia – the promises of these fictions represent dangerous illusions with radical and subversive potential, suggesting that nature and the self may be 'reconstructable' rather than stable and unchanging. Whilst some films return us safely to a comforting stable humanity, others embrace and affirm the subversive possibilities advocating an evolution or rebirth of the human. Regardless of their conservative (The Iron Giant, 1999, Planet of the Apes, 1968) or subversive tendencies (Metropolis 1926, Blade Runner 1982, Terminator 1984), they offer the opportunity to explore "a space of desire" (Telotte, p. 153, 1990) a place where the self can experience a kind of otherness and possibilities exceed the experience of our normal being (The Stepford Wives 1974, The Fly 1986, Gattaca 1997 [6]). What I would argue is central to the definition of a Promethean sub-genre of science fiction is the conscious depiction and understanding of the (hu)man subject or artifice as technological or scientific construction rather than natural. Often, as in Promethean myth, there is a mirroring between creator and creation, constructor and constructed, which serves to bind them despite their differences, and may often override them. Power in this genre is revealed as masculine power over the feminine, namely reproductive power; as such tensions in male identity arise and may be interrogated. Promethean (film) texts have at their centre issues of what it is to be human, and within this, what it is to be a man. There is a focus on hegemonic masculinity within these texts, which serves as a measure of masculinity. Furthermore these texts are most emphatically concerned with the construction of masculinity and with masculine power. The notion of creation raises questions of paternity, motherhood, parenting, and identification with the father, although the ways in which these issues are portrayed or explored may be quite diverse. As a creation of man, rather than of 'woman', the subjects created are almost invariably 'other' to their creators, whilst often embodying the fantasies, desires and repressed fears of their makers. That otherness and difference form central organising principles in these texts is undisputable, however there also can be seen to exist a bond between creator and created which is worthy of exploration, as the progeny of man retains a close likeness (though not always physically) to its maker [7]. Particularly in the Promethean strand of science fiction film we encounter the abject, posing a threat to fragile identity constructions (recalling the plight of Prometheus on his rock and his feminised position). I also maintained that 'lack' formed part of the Promethean heritage. Not only are the desires of the creators often lacking in Promethean care and vision, but their creations are revealed as in some way lacking, falling short of their creator's desire and indeed their own [8]. From the very beginnings of film we see the desire to realise (see) Promethean power accorded to man and to behold his creations. The mad scientists of film such as Frankenstein (1910), Homunculus (1916), Alraune (1918), Orlacs Hande (1925) and Metropolis (1926) and Frankenstein (1931) all point to the body as source of subjection and resistance. Whilst metal robots may be made servile, "the flesh by its very nature always rebels" (Telotte, 1995, p. 77). Thus whilst they form a metaphor for the way the modern self is subjugated, they also suggest resistance to that subjugation, pointing to "a tension between body and mind, humanity and its scientific attainments, the self and a cultural subjection" (ibid.). The films of the 1980's and 90's, such as Blade Runner (1982), Robocop (1987) Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1994), point towards "the human not as ever more artificial but the artificial as ever more human" (Telotte, 1995, p.22). However, these cyborg bodies are also gendered bodies providing metaphors for the contemporary anxieties about 'masculinities'. Just as the tale of Prometheus is problematic in that there exist many variations of the myth [9], with varying accounts capable of producing a range of readings, concepts of 'masculinity' are neither stable nor uniform, and are subject to recasting and reconstruction. Likewise in Promethean science fiction film masculine identities are multiple, fragmented and dynamic. These films do not simply recreate masculinities in the sense that they mirror extant anxieties but recreate in the sense that they 'play' with these anxieties, possibilities of otherness and permeate boundaries. We may see this 'play' as liberating, in that it offers possible ways of being and understanding difference, or conservative, reinstating hegemonic masculinity by asserting old hierarchies. As versions of the myth are reconstructed what new types of creator/creature will emerge? What will they say about our understanding and experiences of "masculinities"? What new possibilities and identities may we envision? Perhaps the most significant aspect of our Promethean heritage is that, as Prometheus is chained to his rock and tortured, through the perpetual regeneration of his liver, almost as if to counterweight or ballast the image of masculinity in crisis, comes the 'reassuring' notion that whatever the strains cracks or injuries the patriarchal image endures: 'we can rebuild him' [10]. We not only can but will, for in doing so we are also reconstructing ourselves. Footnote According to Bulfinch (web) he gave him an upright stature so he could look to the Heavens and gaze on the stars. Linking to Science Fiction narratives of space exploration etc. (Encyclopedia Mythica – [web]) -The liver was once regarded as the primary organ of our being (the heart being our contemporary equivalent) where passions and pain and were felt. Both physically constructed and sociologically, with woman as inferior lesser being and implying gender determinism. This is further articulated to effect in the James Whale film (Frankenstein, 1931), where 'Henry' Frankenstein's creation is regarded as his 'first born' and notions of lineage predominate, ultimately implying he will now pursue more natural methods of (pro)creation. Frankenstein is seen by some as the first cyborg novel in its linking of technology and creation and also often cited as the first science fiction film (although there were others). For example in Andrew Niccol's Gattaca (1997), the creation of man occurs through conscious construction of the self, acknowledging that we are all constructed and acknowledging that masculinity must be reconstructed if it is to be validated. Patriarchy has worked to mythologise our relationship to (mother) nature, so that the human becomes distinct from the manufactured. What is perhaps the most vital aspect of the character Vincent in Gattaca is his acknowledgement that the body must be altered, restructured, reshaped and defined in order to pass from insignificance to significance in terms of hegemonic masculine identity. It is therefore through a reappraisal of the external that the internal gains validity. See Foucault on resemblance and similitude (in The Gendered Cyborg, 2000). See Scott Bukatman on Blade Runner in Kuhn, 1990. The tale of Prometheus had long existed in oral traditions and folklore before Hesiod wrote of it in Theogeny and Works and Days, and Aeschylus, elaborated on Hesiod, when he wrote Prometheus Bound (460B.C). Catchphrase used in the 1970's popular TV series The Six Million Dollar Man in relation to Steve Austin the 'bionic' character of the title. References Bernink, M. & Cook, P. (eds.) The Cinema Book (2nd edition). London: British Film Institute Publishing, 1999. Clute, J. Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopaedia. London: Dorling Kindersley, 1995. Cohan, S. & Hark, I.R. (eds.) Screening the Male. London: Routledge, 1993. Hall, S., Held, D. & McLennan, G. (eds.) Modernity and its Futures. Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press in association with The Open University, 1993. Jancovich, M. Rational Fears: American horror in the 1950's. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1996. Jeffords, S. Can Masculinity be Terminated? In Cohan, S. & Hark, I.R. (eds.) Screening the Male. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. Kirkup, G., Janes, L., Woodward, K. & Hovenden, F. (eds.) The Gendered Cyborg: A Reader. London: Routledge, 2000. Kuhn, A. (ed.) Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema. London and New York: Verso, 1990. Sobchack, V. Screening Space. New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press 1999. Telotte, J.P. A Distant Technology: Science Fiction Film and the Machine Age, Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press, 2000. Telotte, J.P. Replications. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995 Bulfinch's Mythology, The Age of Fable – Chapter 2: Prometheus and Pandora: (accessed 21st March 2000) http://www.bulfinch.org/fables/bull2.html Bulfinch's Mythology: (accessed March 21st 2000) http://www.bulfinch.org.html Encyclopaedia Mythica: Greek Mythology: (accessed June 15th 2000) http://oingo.com/topic/20/20246.html Encyclopaedia Mythica: Articles (accessed 15th June 2000) http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/articles.html
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Parsemain, Ava Laure. "Crocodile Tears? Authenticity in Televisual Pedagogy." M/C Journal 18, no.1 (January19, 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.931.
Full textAbstract:
This article explores the role of authenticity in televisual teaching and learning based on a case study of Who Do You Think You Are?, a documentary series in which celebrities go on a journey to retrace their family tree. Originally broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation, this series has been adapted in eighteen countries, including Australia. The Australian version is produced locally and has been airing on the public channel Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) since 2008. According to its producers, Who Do You Think You Are? teaches history and promotes multiculturalism:We like making a broad range of programs about history and telling our own Australian stories and particularly the multicultural basis of our history […] A lot of people know the broad Australian stroke, English, British history but they don’t really know as much about the migratory history […] It’s a way of saying this is our country now, this is where it came from, here’s some stories, which you might not be aware of, and what’s happened to people along the way. (Producer 1) In this article, I examine Who Do You Think You Are? as an educational text and I investigate its pedagogy. Starting with the assumption that it aims to teach, my intention is to explain how it teaches. In particular, I want to demonstrate that authenticity is a key feature of its pedagogy. Applied to the televisual text, the term “authentic” refers to the quality of being true or based on facts. In this sense, authenticity implies actuality, accuracy and reliability. Applied to media personae, “authentic” must be understood in its more modern sense of “genuine”. From this perspective, to be “authentic” requires displaying “one’s inner truths” (McCarthy 242). Based on my textual analysis and reception study, I show that these two forms of authenticity play a crucial role in the pedagogy of Who Do You Think You Are? Signifying Authenticity One of the pedagogical techniques of Who Do You Think You Are? is to persuade viewers that it authentically represents actual events by using some of the codes and conventions of the documentary. According to Michael Renov, the persuasive modality is intrinsic to all documentary forms and it is linked to their truth claim: “the documentary ‘truth claim’ (which says, at the very least: ‘Believe me, I’m of the world’) is the baseline for persuasion for all of nonfiction, from propaganda to rock doc” (30). Who Do You Think You Are? signifies actuality by using some of the codes and conventions of the observational documentary. As Bill Nichols explains, observational documentaries give the impression that they spontaneously and faithfully record actual events as they happen. Nichols compares this mode of documentary to Italian Neorealism: “we look in on life as it is lived. Social actors engage with one another, ignoring the filmmakers” (111). In Who Do You Think You Are? the celebrities and other social actors often engage with one another without acknowledging the camera’s presence. In those observational scenes, various textual features signify actuality: natural sounds, natural light or shaky hand-held camera, for example, are often used to connote the unprepared recording of reality. This is usually reinforced by the congruence between the duration of the scene and the diegetic time (the duration of the action that is represented). Furthermore, Who Do You Think You Are? emphasises authenticity by showing famous Australians as ordinary people in ordinary settings or doing mundane activities. As one of the SBS programmers pointed out during our interview: “It shows personalities or stars that you can never get to as real people and it makes you realise that those people, actually, they’re the same as you and I!” (SBS programmer). Celebrities are “real” in the sense that they exist in the profilmic world; but in this context showing celebrities “as real people” means showing them as ordinary individuals whom the audience can relate to and identify with. Instead of representing “stars” through their usual manufactured public personae, the program offers glimpses into their real lives and authentic selves, thus giving “backstage access to the famous” (Marwick and boyd 144). In this regard, the series aligns with other media texts, including “celebreality” programs and social networking sites like Twitter, whose appeal lies in the construction of more authentic and intimate presentations of celebrities (Marwick and boyd; Ellcessor; Thomas). This rhetoric of authenticity is enhanced by the celebrity’s genealogical journey, which is depicted both as a quest for historical knowledge and for self-knowledge. Indeed, as its title suggests, the program links ancestry to personal identity. In every episode, the genealogical investigation reveals similarities between the celebrity and their ancestors, thus uncovering personality traits that seem to have been transmitted from generation to generation. Thus, the series does more than simply showing celebrities as ordinary people “stripped of PR artifice and management” (Marwick and boyd 149): by unveiling those transgenerational traits, it discloses innermost aspects of the celebrities’ authentic selves—a backstage beyond the backstage. Who Do You Think You Are? communicates authenticity in these different ways in order to invite viewers’ trust. As Louise Spence and Vinicius Navarro observe, this is characteristic of most documentaries: Whereas fiction films may allude to actual events, documentaries usually claim that those events did take place in such and such a way, and that the images and sounds on the screen are accurate and reliable […] Most documentaries—if not all of them—have something to say about the world and, in one way or another, they want to be trusted by their audience. (Spence and Navarro 13) Similarly, Nichols writes that as documentary viewers, “we uphold our belief in the authenticity of the historical world represented on screen […] we assume that documentary sounds and images have the authenticity of evidence” (36). This is supported by Thomas Austin’s reception study of documentary films in the United Kingdom, which shows that most viewers expect documentaries to give them “access to the real.” According to Austin, these generic expectations about authenticity contribute to the pedagogic authority of documentaries. Therefore, the implied audience (Barker and Austin) of Who Do You Think You Are? must trust that it authentically represents actual events and individuals and they must perceive it as an accurate and reliable source of knowledge about the historical world in order to “attain a meaningful encounter” (48) with it. The implied audience in no way predicts actual audiences’ responses (which I will examine in the remainder of this article) but it is an important aspect of the program’s pedagogy: for the text to be read as a “history lesson” (Nichols 39) viewers must be persuaded by the program’s rhetoric of authenticity. Perceiving Authenticity My reception study confirms that in order to learn, viewers must be persuaded by this rhetoric of authenticity, which promises “information and knowledge, insight and awareness” (Nichols 40). This is illustrated by the responses of five viewers who participated in a screening and focus group discussion. Arya, Marnie, Junior, Lec and Krista all say that they have learnt from Who Do You Think You Are? either at home or from the episode that was screened before our discussion. They all agree that the program teaches about history, multiculturalism and other aspects that were not predicted by the producers (such as human nature, relationships and social issues). More importantly, these viewers learn from the program because they trust that it authentically represents actual events and because they perceive the personae as “natural”, “relaxed” and “being themselves” and their emotions as “genuine”: Krista: It felt genuine to me.Lec: Me also […]Marnie: I felt like he seemed more natural, even with the interpreter there, talking with his aunty. He seemed more himself, he was more emotional […]Arya: I don’t think that they’re acting. To go outside of this session, I mean, I’ve seen the show before and I think it is really genuine. As Austin notes, what matters from the viewers’ perspective is not “the critically scrutinised indexical guarantee of documentary, but rather a less well defined and nebulous sense of qualities such as the 'humanity', 'honesty', 'sincerity'.” This does not mean that viewers naively believe that the text gives a transparent, unmediated access to the truth (Austin). Trust (or in Austin’s words “willing abandonment”) can be combined with scepticism (Buckingham; Ang; Liebes and Katz). Marnie, for example, oscillates between these two modalities of response: Marnie: If something seems quite artificial, it stands out, you start thinking about well, why did they do that? But while they’re just sitting down, having a conversation, there’s not anything really that you have to think about. Obviously all those transition shots, sitting on the rock, opening a letter in the square, they also have, you know, the violins playing and everything. Everything builds to feel a bit more contrived, whereas when they’re having the conversation, I wasn’t aware of the music. Maybe I was listening to what they were saying more. But I think you sort of engage a bit more in listening to what they’re saying when they’re having a conversation. Whereas the filling, you’re not really thinking about his emotions so much as…why is he wearing that shirt? Interestingly, the scenes that Marnie perceives as authentic and that she engages with are the “conversations” scenes, which use the codes and conventions of the observational documentary. The scenes that she views with scepticism are the more dramatised sequences, which do not use the codes and conventions of the observational documentary. Marnie is the only viewer in my focus groups who clearly oscillates between trust and scepticism. She is also the most ambivalent about what she has learnt and about the quality of the knowledge that she gains from Who Do You Think You Are? Authenticity and Emotional Responses Because they believe that the personae and emotions in the program are genuine, these viewers are emotionally engaged. As the producers explain, learning from Who Do You Think You Are? is not a purely cognitive process but is fundamentally an emotional and empathetic experience: There are lots of programs on television where you can learn about history. I think what’s so powerful about this show is because it has a very strong emotional arc […] You can learn a lot of dates, and you can pass a test, just on knowing the year that the Blue Mountains were first crossed or the Magna Carta was signed. But what Who Do You Think You Are? does is that it takes you on a journey where you get to really feel the experiences of those people who were fighting the battle or climbing the mast. (Producer 2) The producers invite viewer empathy in two ways: they design the program so that viewers are encouraged to share the emotions of people who lived in the past; and they design it so that viewers are encouraged to share the emotions of the celebrities who participate in the program. This is illustrated by the participants’ responses to one scene in which the actor Don Hany sees an old photograph of his pregnant mother: Lec: I was touched! I was like “aw!”Ms Goldblum: I didn’t buy it.Krista: You didn’t feel like that, Lec?Lec: Not at all! Like, yeah, I got a bit touched.Junior: Yeah. And those looked like genuine tears, they weren’t crocodile tears.Ms Goldblum: I didn’t think so. There was a [sniffing], pause, pose, camera moment.Junior: I had a little moment…Krista: Aw!Interviewer: You had a moment?Junior: Yeah, there was a little moment there.Ms Goldblum: Got a little teary?Junior: When he’s looking at the photos, yeah. Because I think everyone’s done that, gone back and looked through old photos, you know what that feeling is. As this discussion suggests, authenticity is a crucial aspect of the program’s pedagogy, not only because the viewers must trust it in order to learn from it, but also because it facilitates empathy and emotional engagement. Distrust and Cynicism In contrast, the viewers who do not learn from Who Do You Think You Are? perceive the program as contrived and the celebrity’s emotions as inauthentic: Wolfgang: I don’t think they taught me much that I didn’t already know in regards to history.Naomi: Yeah, me neither […] I kind of look at these shows and think it’s a bit contrived […]Wolfgang: I hate all that. They’re constructing a show purely for money, that’s all bullshit. That annoys me […]Ms Goldblum: But for me the show is just about, I don’t know, they try to find something to be sentimental and it’s not. Like, they try to force it […] I didn’t buy it […] Because they are aware of the constructed nature of the program and because they perceive it as contrived, these viewers do not engage emotionally with the content: Naomi: When I see someone on this show looking at photos, I find it really difficult to stop thinking he’s got a camera on his face.Wolfgang: Yeah.Naomi: He’s looking at photos, and that’s a beautiful moment, but there’s a camera right there, looking at him, and I can’t help but think that when I see those things […] There are other people in the room that we don’t see and there’s a camera that’s pointing at him […] This intellectual distance is sometimes expressed through mockery and laughter (Buckingham). Because they distrust the program and make fun of it, Wolfgang and Ms Goldblum (who were not in the same focus group) are both described as “cynics”: Ms Goldblum: He gets all teary and I think oh he’s an actor he’s just putting that shit on, trying to make it look interesting. Whereas if it were just a normal person, I’d find it more believable. But I think the whole premise of the show is they take famous people, like actors and all those people in the spotlight, I think because they put on good shows. I would be more interested in someone who wasn’t famous. I’d find it more genuine.Junior: You are such a cynic! […]Wolfgang: And look, maybe I’m a big cynic about this, and that’s why I haven’t watched it. But it’s this emotionally padded, scripted, prompted kind of thing, which makes it more palatable for people to watch. Unlike most participants, who identify the program as “educational” and “documentary”, Wolfgang classifies it as pure entertainment. His cynicism and scepticism can be linked to his generic labelling of the program as “reality TV”: Wolfgang: I don’t watch commercial TV, I can’t stand it. And it’s for that reason. It’s all contrived. It’s all based on selling something as opposed to looking into this guy’s family and history and perhaps learning something from it. Like, it’s entertainment, it’s not educational […] It’s a reality TV sort of thing, I just got no interest in it really. As Annette Hill shows in her reception study of the reality game program Big Brother, most viewers are cynical about the authenticity of reality television. Despite the generic label of “reality”, most interpret reality programs as inauthentic. Indeed, as John Corner points out, reality television is characterised by display and performance, even though it adopts some of the codes and conventions of the documentary. Hill’s research also reveals that viewers often look for moments of authenticity within the unreal context of reality television: “the ‘game’ is to find the ‘truth’ in the spectacle/performance environment” (337). Interestingly, this describes Naomi and Wolfgang’s attitude towards Who Do You Think You Are?: Naomi: The conversation with his mum seemed a bit more relaxed, maybe. Or a bit more...I don’t know, I kind of look at these shows and think it’s a bit contrived. Whereas that seemed a bit more natural […]Wolfgang: Often he’s just sitting there and I suppose those are filling shots. But I found that when he was chatting to his aunty and seeing the photos that he hadn’t seen before, when he was a child, he was tearing up […] That’s probably the one time I didn’t notice, like, didn’t think about the cameras because I found it quite powerful, when he was tearing up, that was a kind of an emotional moment. According to Austin, viewers’ discourses about authenticity in relation to documentaries and reality television serve as markers of cultural distinction: Often underpinning expressions of the appeal of 'the real', the use of a discourse of authenticity frequently revealed taste markers and a set of cultural distinctions deployed by these cinemagoers, notably between the veracity and 'honesty' of Etre et Avoir [a French documentary] and the contrasting 'fakery' and 'inauthenticity' of reality television. Describing documentaries as authentic and educational and reality television as fake entertainment can be a way for some (middle-class) viewers to assert their socio-cultural status. By performing as the sceptical and cynical viewer and criticising lower cultural forms, research participants distinguish themselves from the imagined mass of unsophisticated and uneducated (working class?) viewers (Buckingham; Austin). Conclusion Some scholars suggest that viewers learn when they compare what they watch on television to their own experiences or when they identify with television characters or personae (Noble and Noble; Tulloch and Lupton; Tulloch and Moran; Buckingham and Bragg). My study contributes to this field of inquiry by showing that viewers learn when they perceive televisual content as authentic and as a reliable source of knowledge. More importantly, the results reveal how some televisual texts signify authenticity to invite trust and learning. This study raises questions about the role of trust and authenticity in televisual learning and it would be fruitful to pursue further research to determine whether these findings apply to genres that are not factual. Examining the production, textual features and reception of fictional programs to understand how they convey authenticity and how this sense of truthfulness influences viewers’ learning would be useful to draw more general conclusions about televisual pedagogy, and perhaps more broadly about the role of trust and authenticity in education. References Ang, Ien. Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination. London: Methuen, 1985. Austin, Thomas. "Seeing, Feeling, Knowing: A Case Study of Audience Perspectives on Screen Documentary." Participations 2.1 (2005). 20 Nov. 2014 ‹http://www.participations.org/volume%202/issue%201/2_01_austin.htm›. Barker, Martin, and Thomas Austin. From Antz to Titanic: Reinventing Film Analysis. London: Pluto Press, 2000. Big Brother. Exec. Prod. John de Mol. Channel 4. 2000. Buckingham, David. Children Talking Television: The Making of Television Literacy. London: The Falmer Press, 1993. Buckingham, David, and Sara Bragg. Young People, Media and Personal Relationships. London: The Independent Television Commission, 2003. Corner, John. "Performing the Real: Documentary Diversions." Television & New Media 3.3 (2002): 255—69. "Don Hany." Who Do You Think You Are? Series 5, Episode 3. SBS. 16 Apr. 2013. Ellcessor, Elizabeth. "Tweeting @feliciaday: Online Social Media, Convergence, and Subcultural Stardom." Cinema Journal 51.2 (2012): 46-66. Hill, Annette. "Big Brother: The Real Audience." Television & New Media 3.3 (2002): 323-40. Liebes, Tamar, and Elihu Katz. The Export of Meaning: Cross-Cultural Readings of Dallas. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990. Marwick, Alice, and danah boyd. "To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter." Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17.2 (2011): 139-58. McCarthy, E. Doyle. “Emotional Performances as Dramas of Authenticity.” Authenticity in Culture, Self, and Society. Eds. Phillip Vannini & J. Patrick Williams. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2009. 241-55. Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary, Second Edition. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2001. Noble, Grant, and Elizabeth Noble. "A Study of Teenagers' Uses and Gratifications of the Happy Days Shows." Media Information Australia 11 (1979): 17-24. Producer 1. Personal Interview. 29 Sept. 2013. Producer 2. Personal Interview. 10 Oct. 2013. Renov, Michael. Theorizing Documentary. New York: Routledge, 1993. SBS Programmer. Personal Interview. 22 Nov. 2013. Spence, Louise, and Vinicius Navarro. Crafting Truth: Documentary Form and Meaning. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2011. Thomas, Sarah. "Celebrity in the ‘Twitterverse’: History, Authenticity and the Multiplicity of Stardom Situating the ‘Newness’ of Twitter." Celebrity Studies 5.3 (2014): 242-55. Tulloch, John, and Deborah Lupton. Television, Aids and Risk: A Cultural Studies Approach to Health Communication. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997. Tulloch, John, and Albert Moran. A Country Practice: "Quality Soap". Sydney: Currency Press, 1986. Who Do You Think You Are? Exec. Prod. Alex Graham. BBC. 2004. Who Do You Think You Are? Exec. Prod. Celia Tait. SBS. 2008.
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Peterson, Mark Allen. "Choosing the Wasteland." M/C Journal 5, no.5 (October1, 2002). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1985.
Full textAbstract:
To listen to them talk, you'd think most Americans hate television. Everyday discourse about television abounds with condemnation of television content. Television is a wasteland, a stream of idiotic material insulting to the intelligence of the viewer. When people deem a particular program worth watching, they often articulate it in contradistinction to the vast majority of awful stuff out there. This almost universal discourse of condemnation does not mean Americans do not watch television, of course. They do, and they watch a great deal of it. Thus we have a conundrum. If it is so awful, why do people watch television? When Americans construct stories about themselves, they construct themselves as choice--making individuals (Polanyi). Sane, mature Americans are expected to be able to make intelligent choices and to live with the consequences of their choices. How, then, can Americans articulate themselves as television viewers, as individuals who choose to view what is clearly awful stuff? In this paper, I want to discuss 'veging out' as an American category of media viewing that resolves this conundrum. In framing their discourse about watching television in terms of 'veging out,' Americans are able to construct themselves as sensible, choice--making persons, and yet explain why they watch large amounts of television. I want to use this example to explore ways that media scholars might supplement explorations of the self as mediated by texts with attention to the ways the viewing self is articulated in everyday discourses about television by viewers. An American Folk Category of Pleasure I said I'm sorry this is late. I just couldn't work on it over the weekend. I just veged out in front of the TV the whole weekend. I realise that's not much of an excuse…but…I had my Arabic test Thursday and I was too burned out afterward to do anything. I had to let my brain recharge. [text one] Let's just veg out tonight. We both had a big lunch, let's just make some popcorn and watch whatever stupid stuff is on TV. Unless you want to get a video. [text two] God, we didn't do anything this weekend. We just sat in front of the TV. (laughs) It was a total veg out weekend, we ordered out every night. John was on the rig for two weeks and then he's had to work late every night since he's been back, and I've had this activity and that activity with the kids, and girl scouts and soccer... We really needed the break. [text three] In the interest of brevity, I offer only three texts here.1 Anyone who has listened to Americans talk about television can probably multiply these examples many times; most Americans of my generation or later have almost certainly been producers of such discourse at one time or another. Each of these examples is drawn from a different context: a student's explanation for handing in a late paper [text one], a wife's suggestion for evening plans [text two], a friend sharing information about her family [text three]. And each is part of the language of experience – the language people use to describe emotions, sensations, and thoughts and, in so doing, articulate a self. 'Veging out' -- the 'veg--' prefix is borrowed from the word 'vegetable' and pronounced with a soft g -- is a nice example of a local taxonomic category of pleasure and the way it is embedded in more complex discursive formations, which it both replicates and refracts. In American society, where sitting in front of the television when there are other things to do is condemned as a waste of time that makes one a 'couch potato,' 'veging out' allows actors to reconstitute 'being a vegetable' as an empowering choice, an intentional and temporary vegetative state one escapes into as a means to relax, reduce stress and 'get away' from one's troubles. Veging out involves escape but specifies that one is escaping to nowhere, that an avoidance of critical mental activity is precisely what is sought. The claim to be veging out thus accepts the general American public discourse of television as a wasteland – the 'waste' in particular involving waste of time -- and simultaneously challenges it by claiming, in essence, that one has a right to do nothing if one has been working 'too hard'. There is nothing fanciful or even insightful in this analysis; discourses in which Americans talk about their television viewing activity tend to be both straightforward and redundant. Americans who say they spent an evening veging out are likely to follow the statement with an explanation of why they are entitled to veg out -- a litany of stresses or labours -- and sometimes also assertions to confirm that the world they escaped to was indeed a place that involved minimal mental activity. For example, the student in Text One quoted above followed it up with the comment, 'There was absolutely nothing on worth watching'. The woman who produced Text Three commented a few lines later, 'It was practically all commercials, nothing could hold my interest because it was always being interrupted. I hardly ever watch TV, I hadn't realised how many commercials there are'. This latter comment also positions the activity as a rare one for this person, emphasising the strategic nature of veging out as a life choice and hence acceptable within American understandings of choice.2 People's own modes of articulation may thus even deny their motivations involve pleasure.3 Choosing to enter the wasteland of television certainly can be, and often is, constructed as a bad choice. As Beeman demonstrates in his analysis of the language of choice in American advertising, making a choice is often constituted as not enough -- one must make the 'right' choice. Discourse about 'veging out' partly forecloses the possibility of the instance described being a bad choice by embedding the choice in the matrix of suffering. Yet as Carbaugh discovers in his sociolinguistic appraisal of TV talk shows, doing something 'wrong' can nonetheless be valorised in America by its formulation as a deliberate exercise of one's right to choose. The moral wrongness of the particular choice is redeemed by the articulation of a self exercising its right to make its own choices, and taking responsibility for those choices. The power of 'veging out' as a representation of social action thus lies in its ability to simultaneously embrace the widespread discourse that 'television is a wasteland' while at the same time subsuming it under the important American discourse of choice. In so doing, it allows Americans to construct themselves as hard--working individuals who choose to waste time as a strategy for resolving the stresses and discomforts of hard work. One articulates a viewing self, that is, which is consonant with the fundamental values of American culture. The Viewing Self The 'viewing self' is that self, or that aspect of the self, constructed through experiences of viewing events and activities in which the person is not a participant. In the contemporary world, such viewing has increased as an activity, accommodated and mediated by film, television, video and other technologies. These technologies offer, among other things, the opportunity for virtual experiences, events and activities that we do not experience with our bodies but which nonetheless offer us comparable fodder for our cognitive processes (Drummond). Studies of the self as viewer have long been dominated in media studies by attention to these virtual experiences as internal. From the early argument that the self is 'interpellated' by the culture industry (Adorno), to the argument that the self is socially and politically positioned in dominated, negotiating or resistant ways (Hall), to the idea of the self as simultaneously occupying multiple (and shifting) spectator positions (Modleski, Williams, Clover, Caton), emphasis has long been on how the viewer experiences structured sets of symbols, appropriates them at various levels of cohesion, cognitively and affectively orders them with regard to pre--existing understandings of and feelings about the world, and uses them in the ongoing construction of the self. I am suggesting here the utility of turning our attention from internal to external articulations of self as viewer. I want to argue that in addition to engaging with the content of the viewing experience, people usually engage with the meaning of the viewing experience as an activity. The viewing experience is never just about engagement with content about what one watches. It is also about the activities of 'watching TV,' 'renting a video,' and 'going to the movies.' Each of these is an experience that must be internally evaluated with regard to one's pre--existing sense of self, and which may have to be verbally articulated in interaction with others. In the latter case, it provides yet more fodder for the construction of the self, as we see versions of ourselves mirrored in the responses of the other to our own self--performance. Given the plethora of media, genres, places and events in which visual media are watched, speaking with others about one's television viewing maps one onto a complex terrain of distinctions about one's taste. One's 'taste' is never innocent, because it ties in to a complex social code that relates it to class, gender, ethnicity, education, and other social categories (Bourdieu). To represent ourselves to others as viewers of any particular kind of media is to position ourselves as particular kinds of persons in relation to others. One can use this code to articulate oneself as a particular kind of person vis--à--vis those with whom one is interacting: an equal who shares common tastes, a superior who enjoys more refined discernment, a populist who revels in his or her common tastes. To speak of our viewing allows us to generate social contact on grounds of shared experience. It allows us to confirm our tastes with regard to the social others who serve as mirrors to our selves. Of course, persons are never omnicompetent in their self--presentations, and efforts to present the self in particular ways can backfire, so that instead of appearing as a woman of discernment one appears pompous; and instead of appearing as a common Joe, one comes across as vulgar. Talking about viewing, in other words, always involves risk. In examining how people manage this risk in their social interactions, as through framing their experience as 'veging out,' we can learn much about how people construct themselves as viewers. Conclusion 'Veging out' is not the only verbal strategy by means of which Americans solve the conundrum of the viewing self. Nor is there anything unique in this American conundrum. Ethnographic accounts clearly demonstrate that many societies offer public condemnatory discourses about television that are at odds with actual viewing practices. The content of television in Belize is 'destroying a whole generation' (Wilk), in Egypt it's a flood of 'moral pollution' (Armbrust), in the Netherlands it's 'an embarrassment' (Alasuutaari). People's ways of speaking about themselves as viewers are clearly often a result of an ambivalence born of their pleasure, on the one hand, and their understanding that one should not be getting pleasure from such stuff, on the other. The result is often discourse that expresses guilt, or embarrassment, as summed up by Alasuutari's informant who said 'I'm ashamed to admit it, but I watch Dallas.' Alasuutari's reliance on interviewing, though, captures the conundrum but not the cultural solutions. An interview with a sociologist is a very different kind of speech act from the quotidian contexts in which people construct themselves as television viewers in interaction with friends, family, the person sitting next to you at the bar, and so forth (Briggs). My objective in this brief exercise is to draw our attention away from interviewing toward ethnography, and away from attention to internal subjectivities to the interactive contexts in which the self is constructed in everyday life. Notes 1 These three examples were all collected among American expatriates while I was teaching at the American University in Cairo. 2 Individual performances of this discourse are always strategic, of course; their articulation shaped by the speakers understanding of the speech event in which they take place. 3 The American discomfort with spending one's leisure pleasurably has been long chronicled. As early as the 1920s the Lynds found the people of Middletown uncomfortable with talking about reading for pleasure rather than instruction and profit. People did not want to articulate themselves as persons who wasted time (Lynd and Lynd 1929: 225) References Adorno, Theodor. 'The Culture Industry Reconsidered.' The Adorno Reader. Ed. Brian O'Connor. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. 230-38. Alasuutari, Pertti. ''I'm Ashamed to Admit it, but I have Watched Dallas:' The Moral Hierarchy of Television Programmes.' Media, Culture and Society 14 (1992): 561-582. Armbrust, Walter. Mass Culture and Modernisation in Egypt. Cambridge: University Press, 1996. Beeman, William O. 'Freedom to Choose: Symbolic Values in American Advertising.' The Symbolisation of America. Ed. Herve Varenne. Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, 1986 Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Trans. Richard Nice. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1984. Briggs, Charles. Learning How to Ask: A Sociolinguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social Science Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Carbaugh, Donal. Talking American: Cultural Discourses on Donahue. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1989. Caton, Steven C. Lawrence of Arabia: a Film's Anthropology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Clover, Carol. Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. Drummond, Lee. American Dreamtime: A Cultural Analysis of Popular Movies and Their Implications for a Science of Humanity. Lanham, MD: Littlefield Adams, 1995. Hall, Stuart. 'Culture, the Media and the 'Ideological Effect.' ' Mass Communication and Society. Ed. James Curran, Michael Gurevitch and Janet Woolacott. London: Edward Arnold, 1977. - - - . 'The Rediscovery of 'Ideology:' The Return of the Repressed in Media Studies. Culture, Society and the Media. Ed. Michael Gurevitch, T. Bennett, James Curran and Janet Woolacott. London: Methuen, 1982. Modleski, Tania. The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Analysis. New York: Routledge, 1988 Polanyi, Livia. Telling the American Story. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1989 Wilk, Richard. ''It's Destroying a Whole Generation:' Television and Moral Discourse in Belize.' Visual Anthropology 5 (1995): 229-44. Williams, Linda. Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the Frenzy of the Visible. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989. Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Peterson, Mark Allen. "Choosing the Wasteland" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.5 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Peterson.html >. Chicago Style Peterson, Mark Allen, "Choosing the Wasteland" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 5 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Peterson.html > ([your date of access]). APA Style Peterson, Mark Allen. (2002) Choosing the Wasteland. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(5). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Peterson.html > ([your date of access]).
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McGuire, Mark. "Ordered Communities." M/C Journal 7, no.6 (January1, 2005). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2474.
Full textAbstract:
A rhetoric of freedom characterises much of the literature dealing with online communities: freedom from fixed identity and appearance, from the confines of geographic space, and from control. The prevailing view, a combination of futurism and utopianism, is that the lack of order in cyberspace enables the creation of social spaces that will enhance personal freedom and advance the common good. Sherry Turkle argues that computer-mediated communication allows us to create a new form of community, in which identity is multiple and fluid (15-17). Marcos Novak celebrates the possibilities of a dematerialized, ethereal virtual architecture in which the relationships between abstract elements are in a constant state of flux (250). John Perry Barlow employs the frontier metaphor to frame cyberspace as an unmapped, ungoverned territory in which a romantic and a peculiarly American form of individualism can be enjoyed by rough and ready pioneers (“Crime” 460). In his 1993 account as an active participant in The WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link), one of the earliest efforts to construct a social space online, Howard Rheingold celebrates the freedom to create a “new kind of culture” and an “authentic community” in the “electronic frontier.” He worries, however, that the freedom enjoyed by early homesteaders may be short lived, because “big power and big money” might soon find ways to control the Internet, just as they have come to dominate and direct other communications media. “The Net,” he states, “is still out of control in fundamental ways, but it might not stay that way for long” (Virtual Community 2-5). The uses of order and disorder Some theorists have identified disorder as a necessary condition for the development of healthy communities. In The Uses of Disorder (1970), Richard Sennett argues that “the freedom to accept and to live with disorder” is integral to our search for community (xviii). In his 1989 study of social space, Ray Oldenburg maintains that public hangouts, which constitute the heart of vibrant communities, support sociability best when activities are unplanned, unorganized, and unrestricted (33). He claims that without the constraints of preplanned control we will be more in control of ourselves and more aware of one another (198). More recently, Charles Landry suggests that “structured instability” and “controlled disruption,” resulting from competition, conflict, crisis, and debate, make cities less comfortable but more exciting. Further, he argues that “endemic structural disorder” requiring ongoing adjustments can generate healthy creative activity and stimulate continual innovation (156-58). Kevin Robins, too, believes that any viable social system must be prepared to accept a level of uncertainty, disorder, and fear. He observes, however, that techno-communities are “driven by the compulsion to neutralize,” and they therefore exclude these possibilities in favour of order and security (90-91). Indeed, order and security are the dominant characteristics that less idealistic observers have identified with cyberspace. Alexander Galloway explains how, despite its potential as a liberating development, the Internet is based on technologies of control. This control is exercised at the code level through technical protocols, such as TCP/IP, DNS, and HTM, that determine disconnections as well as connections (Galloway). Lawrence Lessig suggests that in our examination of the ownership, regulation, and governance of the virtual commons, we must take into account three distinct layers. As well as the “logical” or “code” layer that Galloway foregrounds, we should also consider the “physical” layer, consisting of the computers and wires that carry Internet communications, and the “content” layer, which includes everything that we see and hear over the network. In principle, each of these layers could be free and unorganized, or privately owned and controlled (Lessig 23). Dan Schiller documents the increasing privatization of the Net and argues that corporate cyberspace extends the reach of the market, enabling it to penetrate into areas that have previously been considered to be part of the public domain. For Schiller, the Internet now serves as the main production and control mechanism of a global market system (xiv). Checking into Habbo Hotel Habbo Hotel is an example of a highly ordered and controlled online social space that uses community and game metaphors to suggest something much more open and playful. Designed to attract the teenage market, this graphically intensive cartoon-like hotel is like an interactive Legoland, in which participants assemble a toy-like “Habbo” character and chat, play games, and construct personal environments. The first Habbo Hotel opened its doors in the United Kingdom in 2000, and, by September 2004, localized sites were based in a dozen countries, including Canada, the Unites States, Finland, Japan, Switzerland and Spain, with further expansion planned. At that time, there were more than seventeen million registered Habbo characters worldwide with 2.3 million unique visitors each month (“Strong Growth”). The hotel contains thousands of private rooms and twenty-two public spaces, including a welcome lounge, three lobbies, cinema, game hall, café, pub, and an extensive hallway. Anyone can go to the Room-O-Matic and instantly create a free guest room. However, there are a limited number of layouts to choose from and the furnishings, which must be purchased, have be chosen from a catalog of fixed offerings. All rooms are located on one of five floors, which categorize them according to use (parties, games, models, mazes, and trading). Paradoxically, the so-called public spaces are more restricted and less public than the private guest quarters. The limited capacity of the rooms means that all of the public spaces are full most of the time. Priority is given to paying Habbo Club members and others are denied entry or are unceremoniously ejected from a room when it becomes full. Most visitors never make it into the front lobby. This rigid and restricted construction is far from Novak’s vision of a “liquid architecture” without barriers, that morphs in response to the constantly changing desires of individual inhabitants (Novak 250). Before entering the virtual hotel, individuals must first create a Lego-like avatar. Users choose a unique name for their Habbo (no foul language is allowed) and construct their online persona from a limited selection and colour of body parts. One of two different wardrobes is available, depending on whether “Boy” or “Girl” is chosen. The gender of every Habbo is easily recognizable and the restricted wardrobe results in remarkably similar looking young characters. The lack of differentiation encourages participants to treat other Habbos as generic “Boys” or “Girls” and it encourages limited and predictable conversations that fit the stereotype of male-female interactions in most chat sites. Contrary to Turkle’s contention that computer mediated communication technologies expose the fallacy of a single, fixed, identity, and free participants to experiment with alternative selves (15-17), Habbo characters are permitted just one unchangeable name, and are capable of only limited visual transformations. A fixed link between each Habbo character and its registered user (information that is not available to other participants) allows the hotel management to track members through the site and monitor their behavior. Habbo movements are limited to walking, waving, dancing and drinking virtual alcohol-free beverages. Movement between spaces is accomplished by entering a teleport booth, or by selecting a location by name from the hotel Navigator. Habbos cannot jump, fly or walk through objects or other Habbos. They have no special powers and only a limited ability to interact with objects in their environment. They cannot be hurt or otherwise affected by anything in their surroundings, including other Habbos. The emphasis is on safety and avoidance of conflict. Text chat in Habbo Hotel is limited to one sixty-one-character line, which appears above the Habbo, floats upward, and quickly disappears off the top of the screen. Text must be typed in real time while reading on-going conversations and it is not possible to archive a chat sessions or view past exchanges. There is no way of posting a message on a public board. Using the Habbo Console, shorter messages can also be exchanged between Habbos who may be occupying different rooms. The only other narratives available on the site are in the form of official news and promotions. Before checking into the hotel, Habbos can stop to read Habbo Today, which promotes current offers and activities, and HabboHood Happenings, which offers safety tips, information about membership benefits, jobs (paid in furniture), contest winners, and polls. According to Rheingold, a virtual community can form online when enough people participate in meaningful public discussions over an extended period of time and develop “webs of personal relationships” (Virtual Community 5). By restricting communication to short, fleeting messages between individual Habbos, the hotel frustrates efforts by members to engage in significant dialogue and create a viable social group. Although “community” is an important part of the Habbo Hotel brand, it is unlikely to be a substantial part of the actual experience. The virtual hotel is promoted as a safe, non-threatening environment suitable for the teenagers is designed to attract. Parents’ concerns about the dangers of an unregulated chat space provide the hotel management with a justification for creating a highly controlled social space. The hotel is patrolled twenty-four hours a day by professional moderators backed-up by a team of 180 volunteer “Hobbas,” or guides, who can issue warnings to misbehaving Habbos, or temporarily ban them from the site. All text keyed in by Habbos passes through an automated “Bobba Filter” that removes swearing, racist words, explicit sexual comments and “anything that goes against the “Habbo Way” (“Bad Language”). Stick to the rules and you’ll have fun, Habbos are told, “break them and you’ll get yourself banned” (“Habbo Way”). In Big Brother fashion, messages are displayed throughought the hotel advising members to “Stay safe, read the Habbohood Watch,” “Never give out your details!” and “Obey the Habbo way and you’ll be OK.” This miniature surveillance society contradicts Barlow’s observation that cyberspace serves as “a perfect breeding ground for both outlaws and new ideas about liberty” (“Crime” 460). In his manifesto declaring the independence of cyberspace from government control, he maintains that the state has no authority in the electronic “global social space,” where, he asserts, “[w]e are forming our own Social Contract” based on the Golden Rule (“Declaration”). However, Habbo Hotel shows how the rule of the marketplace, which values profits more than social practices, can limit the freedoms of online civil society just as effectively as the most draconian government regulation. Place your order Far from permitting the “controlled disruption” advocated by Landry, the hotel management ensures that nothing is allowed to disrupt their control over the participants. Without conflict and debate, there are few triggers for creative activity in the site, which is designed to encourage consumption, not community. Timo Soininen, the managing director of the company that designed the hotel, states that, because teenagers like to showcase their own personal style, “self-expression is the key to our whole concept.” However, since it isn’t possible to create a Habbo from scratch, or to import clothing or other objects from outside the site, the only way for members to effectively express themselves is by decorating and furnishing their room with items purchased from the Habbo Catalogue. “You see, this,” admits Soininen, “is where our revenue model kicks in” (Shalit). Real-world products and services are also marketed through ads and promotions that are integrated into chat, news, and games. The result, according to Habbo Ltd, is “the ideal vehicle for third party brands to reach this highly desired 12-18 year-old market in a cost-effective and creative manner” (“Habbo Company Profile”). Habbo Hotel is a good example of what Herbert Schiller describes as the corporate capture of sites of public expression. He notes that, when put at the service of growing corporate power, new technologies “provide the instrumentation for organizing and channeling expression” (5-6). In an afterword to a revised edition of The Virtual Community, published in 2000, Rheingold reports on the sale of the WELL to a privately owned corporation, and its decline as a lively social space when order was imposed from the top down. Although he believes that there is a place for commercial virtual communities on the Net, he acknowledges that as economic forces become more entrenched, “more controls will be instituted because there is more at stake.” While remaining hopeful that activists can leverage the power of many-to-many communications for the public good, he wonders what will happen when “the decentralized network infrastructure and freewheeling network economy collides with the continuing growth of mammoth, global, communication empires” (Virtual Community Rev. 375-7). Although the company that built Habbo Hotel is far from achieving global empire status, their project illustrates how the dominant ethos of privatization and the increasing emphasis on consumption results in gated virtual communities that are highly ordered, restricted, and controlled. The popularity of the hotel reflects the desire of millions of Habbos to express their identities and ideas in a playful environment that they are free to create and manipulate. However, they soon find that the rules are stacked against them. Restricted design options, severe communication limitations, and fixed architectural constraints mean that the only freedom left is the freedom to choose from a narrow range of provided options. In private cyberspaces like Habbo Hotel, the logic of the market rules out unrestrained many-to-many communications in favour of controlled commercial relationships. The liberating potential of the Internet that was recognized by Rheingold and others has been diminished as the forces of globalized commerce impose their order on the electronic frontier. References “Bad Language.” Habbo Hotel. 2004. Sulake UK Ltd. 15 Apr. 2004 http://www.habbohotel.co.uk/habbo/en/help/safety/badlanguage/>. Barlow, John Perry. “Crime and Puzzlement.” High Noon on the Electronic Frontier: Conceptual Issues in Cyberspace. Ed. Peter Ludlow. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1996. 459-86. ———. “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.” 8 Feb. 1996. 3 July 2004 http://www.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html>. Galloway, Alexander R. Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 2004. “Habbo Company Profile.” Habbo Hotel. 2002. Habbo Ltd. 20 Jan. 2003 http://www.habbogroup.com>. “The Habbo Way.” Habbo Hotel. 2004. Sulake UK Ltd. 15 Apr. 2004 http://www.habbohotel.co.uk/habbo/en/help/safety/habboway/>. Landry, Charles. The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators. London: Earthscan, 2000. Lessig, Lawrence. The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World. New York: Random, 2001. Novak, Marcos. “Liquid Architecture in Cyberspace.” Cyberspace: First Steps. Ed. Michael Benedikt. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1991. 225-54. Oldenburg, Ray. The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You through the Day. New York: Paragon, 1989. Rheingold, Howard. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. New York: Harper, 1993. ———. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 2000. Robins, Kevin. “Cyberspace and the World We Live In.” The Cybercultures Reader. Eds. David Bell and Barbara M. Kennedy. London: Routledge, 2000. 77-95. Schiller, Dan. Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1999. Schiller, Herbert I. Culture Inc.: The Corporate Takeover of Public Expression. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. Sennett, Richard. The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity & City Life. New York: Vintage, 1970. Shalit, Ruth. “Welcome to the Habbo Hotel.” mpulse Magazine. Mar. 2002. Hewlett-Packard. 1 Apr. 2004 http://www.cooltown.com/cooltown/mpulse/0302-habbo.asp>. “Strong Growth in Sulake’s Revenues and Profit – Habbo Hotel Online Game Will Launch in the US in September.” 3 Sept. 2004. Sulake. Sulake Corp. 9 Jan. 2005 http://www.sulake.com/>. Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon, 1997. Citation reference for this article MLA Style McGuire, Mark. "Ordered Communities." M/C Journal 7.6 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0501/06-mcguire.php>. APA Style McGuire, M. (Jan. 2005) "Ordered Communities," M/C Journal, 7(6). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0501/06-mcguire.php>.
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Provençal, Johanne. "Ghosts in Machines and a Snapshot of Scholarly Journal Publishing in Canada." M/C Journal 11, no.4 (July1, 2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.45.
Full textAbstract:
The ideas put forth here do not fit perfectly or entirely into the genre and form of what has established itself as the scholarly journal article. What is put forth, instead, is a juxtaposition of lines of thinking about the scholarly and popular in publishing, past, present and future. As such it may indeed be quite appropriate to the occasion and the questions raised in the call for papers for this special issue of M/C Journal. The ideas put forth here are intended as pieces of an ever-changing puzzle of the making public of scholarship, which, I hope, may in some way fit with both the work of others in this special issue and in the discourse more broadly. The first line of thinking presented takes the form of an historical overview of publishing as context to consider a second line of thinking about the current status and future of publishing. The historical context serves as reminder (and cause for celebration) that publishing has not yet perished, contrary to continued doomsday sooth-saying that has come with each new medium since the advent of print. Instead, publishing has continued to transform and it is precisely the transformation of print, print culture and reading publics that are the focus of this article, in particular, in relation to the question of the boundaries between the scholarly and the popular. What follows is a juxtaposition that is part of an investigation in progress. Presented first, therefore, is a mapping of shifts in print culture from the time of Gutenberg to the twentieth century; second, is a contemporary snapshot of the editorial mandates of more than one hundred member journals of the Canadian Association of Learned Journals (CALJ). What such juxtaposition is able to reveal is open to interpretation, of course. And indeed, as I proceed in my investigation of publishing past, present and future, my interpretations are many. The juxtaposition raises a number of issues: of communities of readers and the cultures of reading publics; of privileged and marginalised texts (as well as their authors and their readers); of access and reach (whether in terms of what is quantifiable or in a much more subtle but equally important sense). In Canada, at present, these issues are also intertwined with changes to research funding policies and some attention is given at the end of this article to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada and its recent/current shift in funding policy. Curiously, current shifts in funding policies, considered alongside an historical overview of publishing, would suggest that although publishing continues to transform, at the same time, as they say, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Republics of Letters and Ghosts in Machines Republics of Letters that formed after the advent of the printing press can be conjured up as distant and almost mythical communities of elite literates, ghosts almost lost in a Gutenberg galaxy that today encompasses (and is embodied in) schools, bookshelves, and digital archives in many places across the globe. Conjuring up ghosts of histories past seems always to reveal ironies, and indeed some of the most interesting ironies of the Gutenberg galaxy involve McLuhanesque reversals or, if not full reversals, then in the least some notably sharp turns. There is a need to define some boundaries (and terms) in the framing of the tracing that follows. Given that the time frame in question spans more than five hundred years (from the advent of Gutenberg’s printing press in the fifteenth century to the turn of the 21st century), the tracing must necessarily be done in broad strokes. With regard to what is meant by the “making public of scholarship” in this paper, by “making public” I refer to accounts historians have given in their attempts to reconstruct a history of what was published either in the periodical press or in books. With regard to scholarship (and the making public of it), as with many things in the history of publishing (or any history), this means different things in different times and in different places. The changing meanings of what can be termed “scholarship” and where and how it historically has been made public are the cornerstones on which this article (and a history of the making public of scholarship) turn. The structure of this paper is loosely chronological and is limited to the print cultures and reading publics in France, Britain, and what would eventually be called the US and Canada, and what follows here is an overview of changes in how scholarly and popular texts and publics are variously defined over the course of history. The Construction of Reading Publics and Print Culture In any consideration of “print culture” and reading publics, historical or contemporary, there are two guiding principles that historians suggest should be kept in mind, and, though these may seem self-evident, they are worth stating explicitly (perhaps precisely because they seem self-evident). The first is a reminder from Adrian Johns that “the very identity of print itself has had to be made” (2 italics in original). Just as the identity of print cultures are made, similarly, a history of reading publics and their identities are made, by looking to and interpreting such variables as numbers and genres of titles published and circulated, dates and locations of collections, and information on readers’ experiences of texts. Elizabeth Eisenstein offers a reminder of the “widely varying circumstances” (92) of the print revolution and an explicit acknowledgement of such circumstances provides the second, seemingly self-evident guiding principle: that the construction of reading publics and print culture must not only be understood as constructed, but also that such constructions ought not be understood as uniform. The purpose of the reconstructions of print cultures and reading publics presented here, therefore, is not to arrive at final conclusions, but rather to identify patterns that prove useful in better understanding the current status (and possible future) of publishing. The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries—Boom, then Busted by State and Church In search of what could be termed “scholarship” following the mid-fifteenth century boom of the early days of print, given the ecclesiastical and state censorship in Britain and France and the popularity of religious texts of the 15th and 16th centuries, arguably the closest to “scholarship” that we can come is through the influence of the Italian Renaissance and the revival and translation (into Latin, and to a far lesser extent, vernacular languages) of the classics and indeed the influence of the Italian Renaissance on the “print revolution” is widely recognised by historians. Historians also recognise, however, that it was not long until “the supply of unpublished texts dried up…[yet for authors] to sell the fruits of their intellect—was not yet common practice before the late 16th century” (Febvre and Martin 160). Although this reference is to the book trade in France, in Britain, and in the regions to become the US and Canada, reading of “pious texts” was similarly predominant in the early days of print. Yet, the humanist shift throughout the 16th century is evidenced by titles produced in Paris in the first century of print: in 1501, in a total of 88 works, 53 can be categorised as religious, with 25 categorised as Latin, Greek, or Humanist authors; as compared to titles produced in 1549, in a total of 332 titles, 56 can be categorised as religious with 204 categorised as Latin, Greek, or Humanist authors (Febvre and Martin 264). The Seventeenth Century—Changes in the Political and Print Landscape In the 17th century, printers discovered that their chances of profitability (and survival) could be improved by targeting and developing a popular readership through the periodical press (its very periodicity and relative low cost both contributed to its accessibility by popular publics) in Europe as well as in North America. It is worthwhile to note, however, that “to the end of the seventeenth century, both literacy and leisure were virtually confined to scholars and ‘gentlemen’” (Steinberg 119) particularly where books were concerned and although literacy rates were still low, through the “exceptionally literate villager” there formed “hearing publics” who would have printed texts read to them (Eisenstein 93). For the literate members of the public interested not only in improving their social positions through learning, but also with intellectual (or spiritual or existential) curiosity piqued by forbidden books, it is not surprising that Descartes “wrote in French to a ‘lay audience … open to new ideas’” (Jacob 41). The 17th century also saw the publication of the first scholarly journals. There is a tension that becomes evident in the seventeenth century that can be seen as a tension characteristic of print culture, past and present: on the one hand, the housing of scholarship in scholarly journals as a genre distinct from the genre of the popular periodicals can be interpreted as a continued pattern of (elitist) divide in publics (as seen earlier between the oral and the written word, between Latin and the vernacular, between classic texts and popular texts); while, on the other hand, some thinkers/scholars of the day had an interest in reaching a wider audience, as printers always had, which led to the construction and fragmentation of audiences (whether the printer’s market for his goods or the scholar’s marketplace of ideas). The Eighteenth Century—Republics of Letters Become Concrete and Visible The 18th century saw ever-increasing literacy rates, early copyright legislation (Statute of Anne in 1709), improved printing technology, and ironically (or perhaps on the contrary, quite predictably) severe censorship that in effect led to an increased demand for forbidden books and a vibrant and international underground book trade (Darnton and Roche 138). Alongside a growing book trade, “the pulpit was ultimately displaced by the periodical press” (Eisenstein 94), which had become an “established institution” (Steinberg 125). One history of the periodical press in France finds that the number of periodicals (to remain in publication for three or more years) available to the reading public in 1745 numbered 15, whereas in 1785 this increased to 82 (Censer 7). With regard to scholarly periodicals, another study shows that between 1790 and 1800 there were 640 scientific-technological periodicals being published in Europe (Kronick 1961). Across the Atlantic, earlier difficulties in cultivating intellectual life—such as haphazard transatlantic exchange and limited institutions for learning—began to give way to a “republic of letters” that was “visible and concrete” (Hall 417). The Nineteenth Century—A Second Boom and the Rise of the Periodical Press By the turn of the 19th century, visible and concrete republics of letters become evident on both sides of the Atlantic in the boom in book publishing and in the periodical press, scholarly and popular. State and church controls on printing/publishing had given way to the press as the “fourth estate” or a free press as powerful force. The legislation of public education brought increased literacy rates among members of successive generations. One study of literacy rates in Britain, for example, shows that in the period from 1840–1870 literacy rates increased by 35–70 per cent; then from 1870–1900, literacy increased by 78–261 per cent (Mitch 76). Further, with the growth and changes in universities, “history, languages and literature and, above all, the sciences, became an established part of higher education for the first time,” which translated into growing markets for book publishers (Feather 117). Similarly the periodical press reached ever-increasing and numerous reading publics: one estimate of the increase finds the publication of nine hundred journals in 1800 jumping to almost sixty thousand in 1901 (Brodman, cited in Kronick 127). Further, the important role of the periodical press in developing communities of readers was recognised by publishers, editors and authors of the time, something equally recognised by present-day historians describing the “generic mélange of the periodical … [that] particularly lent itself to the interpenetration of language and ideas…[and] the verbal and conceptual interconnectedness of science, politics, theology, and literature” (Dawson, Noakes and Topham 30). Scientists recognised popular periodicals as “important platforms for addressing a non-specialist but culturally powerful public … [they were seen as public] performances [that] fulfilled important functions in making the claims of science heard among the ruling élite” (Dawson et al. 11). By contrast, however, the scholarly journals of the time, while also increasing in number, were becoming increasingly specialised along the same disciplinary boundaries being established in the universities, fulfilling a very different function of forming scholarly and discipline-specific discourse communities through public (published) performances of a very different nature. The Twentieth Century—The Tension Between Niche Publics and Mass Publics The long-existing tension in print culture between the differentiation of reading publics on the one hand, and the reach to ever-expanding reading publics on the other, in the twentieth century becomes a tension between what have been termed “niche-marketing” and “mass marketing,” between niche publics and mass publics. What this meant for the making public of scholarship was that the divides between discipline-specific discourse communities (and their corresponding genres) became more firmly established and yet, within each discipline, there was further fragmentation and specialisation. The niche-mass tension also meant that although in earlier print culture, “the lines of demarcation between men of science, men of letters, and scientific popularizers were far from clear, and were constantly being renegotiated” (Dawson et al 28), with the increasing professionalisation of academic work (and careers), lines of demarcation became firmly drawn between scholarly and popular titles and authors, as well as readers, who were described as “men of science,” as “educated men,” or as “casual observers” (Klancher 90). The question remains, however, as one historian of science asks, “To whom did the reading public go in order to learn about the ultimate meaning of modern science, the professionals or the popularizers?” (Lightman 191). By whom and for whom, where and how scholarship has historically been made public, are questions worthy of consideration if contemporary scholars are to better understand the current status (and possible future) for the making public of scholarship. A Snapshot of Scholarly Journals in Canada and Current Changes in Funding Policies The here and now of scholarly journal publishing in Canada (a growing, but relatively modest scholarly journal community, compared to the number of scholarly journals published in Europe and the US) serves as an interesting microcosm through which to consider how scholarly journal publishing has evolved since the early days of print. What follows here is an overview of the membership of the Canadian Association of Learned Journals (CALJ), in particular: (1) their target readers as identifiable from their editorial mandates; (2) their print/online/open-access policies; and (3) their publishers (all information gathered from the CALJ website, http://www.calj-acrs.ca/). Analysis of the collected data for the 100 member journals of CALJ (English, French and bilingual journals) with available information on the CALJ website is presented in Table 1 (below). A few observations are noteworthy: (1) in terms of readers, although all 100 journals identify a scholarly audience as their target readership, more than 40% of the journal also identify practitioners, policy-makers, or general readers as members of their target audience; (2) more than 25% of the journals publish online as well as or instead of print editions; and (3) almost all journals are published either by a Canadian university or, in one case, a college (60%) or a scholarly or professional society (31%). Table 1: Target Readership, Publishing Model and Publishers, CALJ Members (N=100) Journals with identifiable scholarly target readership 100 Journals with other identifiable target readership: practitioner 35 Journals with other identifiable target readership: general readers 18 Journals with other identifiable target readership: policy-makers/government 10 Total journals with identifiable target readership other than scholarly 43 Journals publishing in print only 56 Journals publishing in print and online 24 Journals publishing in print, online and open access 16 Journals publishing online only and open access 4 Journals published through a Canadian university press, faculty or department 60 Journals published by a scholarly or professional society 31 Journals published by a research institute 5 Journals published by the private sector 4 In the context of the historical overview presented earlier, this data raises a number of questions. The number of journals with target audiences either within or beyond the academy raises issues akin to the situation in the early days of print, when published works were primarily in Latin, with only 22 per cent in vernacular languages (Febvre and Martin 256), thereby strongly limiting access and reach to diverse audiences until the 17th century when Latin declined as the international language (Febvre and Martin 275) and there is a parallel to scholarly journal publishing and their changing readership(s). Diversity in audiences gradually developed in the early days of print, as Febvre and Martin (263) show by comparing the number of churchmen and lawyers with library collections in Paris: from 1480–1500 one lawyer and 24 churchmen had library collections, compared to 1551–1600, when 71 lawyers and 21 churchmen had library collections. Although the distinctions between present-day target audiences of Canadian scholarly journals (shown in Table 1, above) and 16th-century churchmen or lawyers no doubt are considerable, again there is a parallel with regard to changes in reading audiences. Similarly, the 18th-century increase in literacy rates, education, and technological advances finds a parallel in contemporary questions of computer literacy and access to scholarship (see Willinsky, “How,” Access, “Altering,” and If Only). Print culture historians and historians of science, as noted above, recognise that historically, while scholarly periodicals have increasingly specialised and popular periodicals have served as “important platforms for addressing a non-specialist but culturally powerful public…[and] fulfill[ing] important functions in making the claims of science heard among the ruling élite” (Dawson 11), there is adrift in current policies changes (and in the CALJ data above) a blurring of boundaries that harkens back to earlier days of print culture. As Adrian John reminded us earlier, “the very identity of print itself has had to be made” (2, italics in original) and the same applies to identities or cultures of print and the members of that culture: namely, the readers, the audience. The identities of the readers of scholarship are being made and re-made, as editorial mandates extend the scope of journals beyond strict, academic disciplinary boundaries and as increasing numbers of journals publish online (and open access). In Canada, changes in scholarly journal funding by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada (as well as changes in SSHRC funding for research more generally) place increasing focus on impact factors (an international trend) as well as increased attention on the public benefits and value of social sciences and humanities research and scholarship (see SSHRC 2004, 2005, 2006). There is much debate in the scholarly community in Canada about the implications and possibilities of the direction of the changing funding policies, not least among members of the scholarly journal community. As noted in the table above, most scholarly journal publishers in Canada are independently published, which brings advantages of autonomy but also the disadvantage of very limited budgets and there is a great deal of concern about the future of the journals, about their survival amidst the current changes. Although the future is uncertain, it is perhaps worthwhile to be reminded once again that contrary to doomsday sooth-saying that has come time and time again, publishing has not perished, but rather it has continued to transform. I am inclined against making normative statements about what the future of publishing should be, but, looking at the accounts historians have given of the past and looking at the current publishing community I have come to know in my work in publishing, I am confident that the resourcefulness and commitment of the publishing community shall prevail and, indeed, there appears to be a good deal of promise in the transformation of scholarly journals in the ways they reach their audiences and in what reaches those audiences. Perhaps, as is suggested by the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing (CCSP), the future is one of “inventing publishing.” References Canadian Association of Learned Journals. Member Database. 10 June 2008 ‹http://www.calj-acrs.ca/>. Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing. 10 June 2008. ‹http://www.ccsp.sfu.ca/>. Censer, Jack. The French Press in the Age of Enlightenment. London: Routledge, 1994. Darnton, Robert, Estienne Roche. Revolution in Print: The Press in France, 1775–1800. Berkeley: U of California P, 1989. Dawson, Gowan, Richard Noakes, and Jonathan Topham. Introduction. Science in the Nineteenth-century Periodical: Reading the Magazine of Nature. Ed. Geoffrey Cantor, Gowan Dawson, Richard Noakes, and Jonathan Topham. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. 1–37. Eisenstein, Elizabeth. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983 Feather, John. A History of British Publishing. New York: Routledge, 2006. Febvre, Lucien, and Henri-Jean Martin. The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450–1800. London: N.L.B., 1979. Jacob, Margaret. Scientific Culture and the Making of the Industrial West. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Johns, Adrian. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1998. Hall, David, and Hugh Armory. The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Klancher, Jon. The Making of English Reading Audiences. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1987. Kronick, David. A History of Scientific and Technical Periodicals: The Origins and Development of the Scientific and Technological Press, 1665–1790. New York: Scarecrow Press, 1961. ---. "Devant le deluge" and Other Essays on Early Modern Scientific Communication. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2004. Lightman, Bernard. Victorian Science in Context. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1997. Mitch, David. The Rise of Popular Literacy in Victorian England: The Influence of Private choice and Public Policy. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1991. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Granting Council to Knowledge Council: Renewing the Social Sciences and Humanities in Canada, Volume 1, 2004. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Granting Council to Knowledge Council: Renewing the Social Sciences and Humanities in Canada, Volume 3, 2005. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Moving Forward As a Knowledge Council: Canada’s Place in a Competitive World. 2006. Steinberg, Sigfrid. Five Hundred Years of Printing. London: Oak Knoll Press, 1996. Willinsky, John. “How to be More of a Public Intellectual by Making your Intellectual Work More Public.” Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy 3.1 (2006): 92–95. ---. The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. ---. “Altering the Material Conditions of Access to the Humanities.” Ed. Peter Trifonas and Michael Peters. Deconstructing Derrida: Tasks for the New Humanities. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 118–36. ---. If Only We Knew: Increasing the Public Value of Social-Science Research. New York: Routledge, 2000.
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Foster, Kevin. "True North: Essential Identity and Cultural Camouflage in H.V. Morton’s In Search of England." M/C Journal 20, no.6 (December31, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1362.
Full textAbstract:
When the National Trust was established in 1895 its founders, Canon Rawnsley, Sir Robert Hunter and Octavia Hill, were, as Cannadine notes, “primarily concerned with preserving open spaces of outstanding natural beauty which were threatened with development or spoliation.” This was because, like Ruskin, Morris and “many of their contemporaries, they believed that the essence of Englishness was to be found in the fields and hedgerows, not in the suburbs and slums” (Cannadine 227). It was important to protect these sites of beauty and historical interest from development not only for what they were but for what they purportedly represented—an irreplaceable repository of the nation’s “spiritual values”, and thus a vital antidote to the “base materialism” of the day. G.M. Trevelyan, who I am quoting here, noted in two pieces written on behalf of the Trust in the 1920s and 30s, that the “inexorable rise of bricks and mortar” and the “full development of motor traffic” were laying waste to the English countryside. In the face of this assault on England’s heartland, the National Trust provided “an ark of refuge” safeguarding the nation’s cherished physical heritage and preserving its human cargo from the rising waters of materialism and despair (qtd. in Cannadine 231-2).Despite the extension of the road network and increasing private ownership of cars (up from 200,000 registrations in 1918 to “well over one million” in 1930), physical distance and economic hardship denied the majority of the urban population access to the countryside (Taylor 217). For the urban working classes recently or distantly displaced from the land, the dream of a return to rural roots was never more than a fantasy. Ford Madox Ford observed that “the poor and working classes of the towns never really go back” (Ford 58).Through the later nineteenth century the rural nostalgia once most prevalent among the working classes was increasingly noted as a feature of middle class sensibility. Better educated, with more leisure time and money at their disposal, these sentimental ruralists furnished a ready market for a new consumer phenomenon—the commodification of the English countryside and the packaging of the values it notionally embodied. As Valentine Cunningham observes, this was not always an edifying spectacle. By the late 1920s, “the terrible sounds of ‘Ye Olde England’ can already be heard, just off-stage, knocking together its thatched wayside stall where plastic pixies, reproduction beer-mugs, relics of Shakespeare and corn-dollies would soon be on sale” (Cunningham 229). Alongside the standard tourist tat, and the fiction and poetry that romanticised the rural world, a new kind of travel writing emerged around the turn of the century. Through an analysis of early-twentieth century notions of Englishness, this paper considers how the north struggled to find a place in H.V. Morton’s In Search of England (1927).In Haunts of Ancient Peace (1901), the Poet Laureate, Alfred Austin, described a journey through “Old England” as a cultural pilgrimage in quest of surviving vestiges of the nation’s essential identity, “or so much of it as is left” (Austin 18). Austin’s was an early example of what had, by the 1920s and 30s become a “boom market … in books about the national character, traditions and antiquities, usually to be found in the country” (Wiener 73). Longmans began its “English Heritage” series in 1929, introduced by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, with volumes on “English humour, folk song and dance, the public school, the parish church, [and] wild life”. A year later Batsford launched its series of books on “English Life” with volumes featuring “the countryside, Old English household life, inns, villages, and cottages” (Wiener 73). There was an outpouring of books with an overtly conservationist agenda celebrating journeys through or periods of residence in the countryside, many of them written by “soldiers like Henry Williamson and Edmund Blunden, who returned from the First War determined to preserve the rural England they’d known” (Cunningham 229; Blunden, Face, England; Roberts, Pilgrim, Gone ; Williamson). In turn, these books engendered an efflorescence of critical analyses of the construction of England (Hamilton; Haddow; Keith; Cavaliero; Gervais; Giles and Middleton; Westall and Gardiner).By the 1920s it was clear that a great many people thought they knew what England was, where it might be found, and if threatened, which parts of it needed to be rescued in order to safeguard the survival of its essential identity. By the same point, there were large numbers who felt, in Patrick Wright’s words, that “Some areas of the nation had been lost forever and in these no one should expect to find the traditional nation at all” (Wright 87).A key guide to the nation’s sacred sites in this period, an inventory of their relics, and an illustration of how its lost regions might be rescued for or erased from its cultural map, was provided in H.V. Morton’s In Search of England (1927). Initially published as a series of articles in the Daily Express in 1926, In Search of England went through nine editions in the two and a half years after its appearance in book form in 1927. With sales in excess of a million copies, as John Brannigan notes, the book went through a further twenty editions by 1943, and has remained continuously in print since (Brannigan).In his introduction Morton proposes In Search of England is simply “the record of a motor-car journey round England … written without deliberation by the roadside, on farmyard walls, in cathedrals, in little churchyards, on the washstands of country inns, and in many another inconvenient place” (Morton vii). As C.R. Perry notes, “This is a happy image, but also a misleading one” (Perry 434) for there was nothing arbitrary about Morton’s progress. Even a cursory glance at the map of his journey confirms, the England that Morton went in search of was overwhelmingly rural or coastal, and embodied in the historic villages and ancient towns of the Midlands or South.Morton’s biographer, Michael Bartholomew suggests that the “nodal points” of Morton’s journey are the “cathedral cities” (Bartholomew 105).Despite claims to the contrary, his book was written with deliberation and according to a specific cultural objective. Morton’s purpose was not to discover his homeland but to confirm a vision that he and millions of others cherished. He was not in search of England so much as reassuring himself and his readers that in spite of the depredations of the factory and the motor vehicle, it was still out there. These aims determined Morton’s journey; how long he spent in differing parts, what he recorded, and how he presented landscapes, buildings, people and material culture.Morton’s determination to celebrate England as rural and ancient needed to negotiate the journey north into an industrial landscape better known for its manufacturing cities, mining and mill towns, and the densely packed streets of the poor and working classes. Unable to either avoid or ignore this north, Morton needed to settle upon a strategy of passing through it without disturbing his vision of the rural idyll. Narratively, Morton’s touring through the south and west of the country is conducted at a gentle pace. In my 1930 edition of the text, it takes 185 of the book’s 280 pages to bring him from London via the South Coast, Cornwall, the Cotswolds and the Welsh marches, to Chester. The instant Morton crosses the Lancashire border, his bull-nosed Morris accelerates through the extensive northern counties in a mere thirty pages: Warrington to Carlisle (with a side trip to Gretna Green), Carlisle to Durham, and Durham to Lincoln. The final sixty-five pages return to the more leisurely pace of the south and west through Norfolk and the East Midlands, before the journey is completed in an unnamed village somewhere between Stratford upon Avon and Warwick. Morton spends 89 per cent of the text in the South and Midlands (66 per cent and 23 per cent respectively) with only 11 per cent given over to his time in the north.If, as Genette has pointed out, narrative deceleration results in the descriptive pause, it is no coincidence that this is the recurring set piece of Morton’s treatment of the south and west as opposed to the north. His explorations take dwelling moments on river banks and hill tops, in cathedral closes and castle ruins to honour the genius loci and imagine earlier times. On Plymouth Hoe he sees, in his mind’s eye, Sir Walter Raleigh’s fleet set sail to take on the Armada; at Tintagel it is Arthur, wild and Celtic, scaling the cliffs, spear in hand; at Buckler’s Hard amid the rotting slipways he imagines the “stout oak-built ships which helped to found the British Empire”, setting out on their journeys of conquest (Morton 39). At the other extreme, Genette observes, that narrative acceleration produces ellipsis, where details are omitted in order to render a more compact and striking expression. It is the principle of ellipsis, of selective omission, which compresses the geography of Morton’s journey through the north with the effect of shaping reader experiences. Morton hurries past the north’s industrial areas—shuddering at the sight of smoke or chimneys and averting his gaze from factory and slum.As he crosses the border from Cheshire into Lancashire, Morton reflects that “the traveller enters Industrial England”—not that you would know it from his account (Morton 185). Heading north towards the Lake District, he steers a determined path between “red smoke stacks” rising on one side and an “ominous grey haze” on the other, holding to a narrow corridor of rural land where, to his relief, he observes men “raking hay in a field within gunshot of factory chimneys” (Morton 185-6). These redolent, though isolated, farmhands are of greater cultural moment than the citadels of industry towering on either side of them. While the chimneys might symbolise the nation’s economic potency, the farmhands embody the survival of its essential cultural and moral qualities. In an allusion to the Israelites’ passage through the Red Sea from the Book of Exodus, the land that the workers tend holds back the polluted tide of industry, furnishing relief from the factory and the slum, granting Morton safe passage through the perils of modernity and into the Promised Land–or at least the Lake District. In Morton’s view this green belt is not only more essentially English than trade and industry, it is also expresses a nobler and more authentic Englishness.The “great industrial new-rich cities of northern England—vast and mighty as they are,” Morton observes, “fall into perspective as mere black specks against the mighty background of history and the great green expanse of fine country which is the real North of England” (Morton 208). Thus, the rural land between Manchester and Liverpool expands into a sea of green as the great cities shrink on the horizon, and the north is returned to its origins.What Morton cannot speed past or ignore, what he is compelled or chooses to confront, he transforms, through the agency of history, into something that he and England can bear to own. Tempted into Wigan by its reputation as a comic nowhere-land, a place whose name conjured a thousand music hall gags, Morton confesses that he had expected to find there another kind of cliché, “the apex of the world’s pyramid of gloom … dreary streets and stagnant canals and white-faced Wigonians dragging their weary steps along dull streets haunted by the horror of the place in which they are condemned to live” (Morton 187).In the process of naming what he dreads, Morton does not describe Wigan: he exorcises his deepest fears about what it might hold and offers an incantation intended to hold them at bay. He “discovers” Wigan is not the industrial slum but “a place which still bears all the signs of an old-fashioned country town” (Morton 188). Morton makes no effort to describe Wigan as it is, any more than he describes the north as a whole: he simply overlays them with a vision of them as they should be—he invents the Wigan and the north that he and England need.Having surveyed parks and gardens, historical monuments and the half-timbered mock-Tudor High Street, Morton returns to his car and the road where, with an audible sigh of relief, he finds: “Within five minutes of notorious Wigan we were in the depth of the country,” and that “on either side were fields in which men were making hay” (Morton 189).In little more than three pages he passes from one set of haymakers, south of town, to another on its north. The green world has all but smoothed over the industrial eyesore, and the reader, carefully chaperoned by Morton, can pass on to the Lake District having barely glimpsed the realities of industry and urbanism, reassured that if this is the worst that the north has to show then the rural heartland and the essential identity it sustains are safe. Paradoxically, instead of invalidating his account, Morton’s self-evident exclusions and omissions seem only to have fuelled its popularity.For readers of the Daily Express in the months leading up to and immediately after the General Strike of 1926, the myth of England that Morton proffered, of an unspoilt village where old values and traditional hierarchies still held true, was preferable to the violently polarised urban battlefields that the strike had revealed. As the century progressed and the nation suffered depression, war, and a steady decline in its international standing, as industry, suburban sprawl and the irresistible spread of motorways and traffic blighted the land, Morton’s England offered an imagined refuge, a real England that somehow, magically resisted the march of time.Yet if it was Morton’s triumph to provide England with a vision of its ideal spiritual home, it was his tragedy that this portrait of it hastened the devastation of the cultural survivals he celebrated and sought to preserve: “Even as the sense of idyll and peace was maintained, the forces pulling in another direction had to be acknowledged” (Taylor 74).In his introduction to the 1930 edition of In Search of England Morton approvingly acknowledged that a new enthusiasm for the nation’s history and heritage was abroad and that “never before have so many people been searching for England.” In the next sentence he goes on to laud the “remarkable system of motor-coach services which now penetrates every part of the country [and] has thrown open to ordinary people regions which even after the coming of the railways were remote and inaccessible” (Morton vii).Astonishingly, as the waiting charabancs roared their engines and the village greens of England enjoyed the last hours of their tranquillity, Morton somehow failed to make the obvious connection between these unique cultural and social phenomena or take any measure of their potential consequences. His “motoring pastoral” did more than alert the barbarians to the existence of the nation’s hidden treasures, as David Matless notes it provided them with a route map, itinerary and behavioural guide for their pillages (Matless 64; Peach; Batsford).Yet while cultural preservationists wrung their hands in horror at the advent of the day-tripper slouching towards Barnstaple, for Morton this was never a cause for concern. The nature of his journey and the form of its representation demonstrate that the England he worshipped was more an imaginary than a physical space, an ideal whose precise location no chart could fix and no touring party defile. ReferencesAustin, Alfred. Haunts of Ancient Peace. London: Macmillan, 1902.Bartholomew, Michael. In Search of H.V. Morton. London: Methuen, 2004.Batsford, Harry. How to See the Country. London: B.T. Batsford, 1940.Blunden, Edmund. The Face of England: In a Series of Occasional Sketches. London: Longmans, 1932.———. English Villages. London: Collins, 1942.Brannigan, John. “‘England Am I …’ Eugenics, Devolution and Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts.” The Palgrave Macmillan Literature of an Independent England: Revisions of England, Englishness and English Literature. Eds. Claire Westall and Michael Gardiner. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.Cannadine, David. In Churchill’s Shadow: Confronting the Past in Modern Britain. London: Penguin, 2002.Cavaliero, Glen. The Rural Tradition in the English Novel 1900-1939. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1977.Cunningham, Valentine. British Writers of the Thirties. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.Ford, Ford Madox. The Heart of the Country: A Survey of a Modern Land. London: Alston Rivers, 1906.Gervais, David. Literary Englands. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.Giles, J., and T. Middleton, eds. Writing Englishness. London: Routledge, 1995.Haddow, Elizabeth. “The Novel of English Country Life, 1900-1930.” Dissertation. London: University of London, 1957.Hamilton, Robert. W.H. Hudson: The Vision of Earth. New York: Kennikat Press, 1946.Keith, W.J. Richard Jefferies: A Critical Study. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1965.Lewis, Roy, and Angus Maude. The English Middle Classes. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1949.Matless, David. Landscape and Englishness. London: Reaktion Books, 1998.Morris, Margaret. The General Strike. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.Morton, H.V. In Search of England. London: Methuen, 1927.Peach, H. Let Us Tidy Up. Leicester: The Dryad Press, 1930.Perry, C.R. “In Search of H.V. Morton: Travel Writing and Cultural Values in the First Age of British Democracy.” Twentieth Century British History 10.4 (1999): 431-56.Roberts, Cecil. Pilgrim Cottage. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1933.———. Gone Rustic. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1934.Taylor, A.J.P. England 1914-1945. The Oxford History of England XV. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.Taylor, John. War Photography: Realism in the British Press. London: Routledge, 1991.Wiener, Martin. English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.Williamson, Henry. The Village Book. London: Jonathan Cape, 1930.Wright, Patrick. A Journey through Ruins: A Keyhole Portrait of British Postwar Life and Culture. London: Flamingo, 1992.
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Dwyer, Simon. "Highlighting the Build: Using Lighting to Showcase the Sydney Opera House." M/C Journal 20, no.2 (April26, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1184.
Full textAbstract:
IntroductionThe Sydney Opera House is Australia’s, if not the world’s, most recognisable building. It is universally recognised as an architectural icon and as a masterpiece of the built environment, which has captured the imagination of many (Commonwealth of Australia 4). The construction of the Sydney Opera House, between 1959 and 1973, utilised many ground-breaking methods and materials which, together, pushed the boundaries of technical possibilities to the limits of human knowledge at the time (Commonwealth of Australia 36, 45). Typical investigations into the Sydney Opera House focus on its architects, the materials, construction, or the events that occur on its stages. The role of the illumination, in the perception and understanding of Australia’s most famous performing arts centre, is an under-investigated aspect of its construction and its use today (Dwyer Backstage Biography 1; Dwyer “Utzon’s Use” 131).This article examines the illumination of the Sydney Opera House from the perspective of light as a construction material, another element that is used to ‘build’ the structure on Bennelong Point. This article examines the illumination from an historical view as Jørn Utzon’s (1918-2008) concepts for the building, including the lighting design intentions, were not all realised as he did not complete the project. The task of finishing this structure was allocated to the architectural cooperative of Hall, Todd & Littlemore who replaced Utzon in 1966. The Danish-born Utzon was appointed in January 1957 having won an international competition, from a field of over 230 entries, to design a national opera house for Sydney. He quickly began the task of resolving his design, transforming the roughly-sketched concepts presented in his competition entry, into detailed drawings that articulated how the opera house would be realised. The iteration of these concepts can be most succinctly identified in Utzon’s formal design reports to the Opera House Committee which are often referred to based on the colour of their cover design. The first report, the ‘red book’ was issued in 1958 with further developments of the architectural and services designs outlined in the ‘yellow book’ which followed in 1962. The last of the original architects’ publications was the Utzon Design Principles (2002) which was created as part of the reengagement process—between the Government of New South Wales and the Sydney Opera House with the original architect—that commenced in 1999.As with many modern buildings (such as Eero Saarinen’s TWA Flight Center, Richard Meier’s Jubilee Church or Adrian D. Smith’ Burj Khalifa), concrete was selected to form the basic structural element of the Sydney Opera House. Working with the, now internationally-renowned, engineering firm Ove Arup and Partners, Utzon designed some of the most significant shapes and finishes that have become synonymous with the site. The concrete elements range from basic blade walls with lustrous finishes to the complex, shape-changing beams that rise from under the monumental stairs and climb to terminate in the southern foyers. Thus, demonstrating the use of concrete as both a structural element and a high quality architectural finish. Another product used throughout the Sydney Opera House is granite. As a hardwearing stone, it is used in a crushed form as part of the precast panels that line the walls and internal flooring and as setts on the forecourt. As with the concrete the use of the same material inside and out blurs the distinction between interior and exterior. The forecourt forms a wide-open plaza before the building rises like a headland as it meets the harbour. The final, and most recognisable element is that of the shell (or roof) tiles. After many years of research Utzon settled on a simple mix of gloss and matt tiles of approximately 120mm square that, carefully arranged, produced a chevron shaped ‘lid’ and results in an effect likened to snow and ice (Commonwealth of Australia 51).These construction elements would all remain invisible if not illuminated by light, natural or artificial. This paper posits that the illumination reinforces the architecture of the structure and extends the architectural and experiential narratives of the Sydney Opera House across time and space. That, light is—like concrete, granite and tiles—a critical component of the Opera House’s build.Building a Narrative with LightIn creating the Sydney Opera House, Utzon set about harnessing natural and artificial illumination that are intrinsic parts of the human condition. Light shapes every facet of our lives from defining working and leisure hours to providing the mechanism for high speed communications and is, therefore, an obvious choice to reinforce the structure of the building and to link the built environment with the natural world that enveloped his creation. Light was to play a major role in the narrative of the Sydney Opera House starting from a patron’s approach to the site.Utzon’s staged approach to a performance at the Sydney Opera House is well documented, from the opening passages of the Descriptive Narrative (Utzon 1-2) to the Lighting Master Plan (Steensen Varming). The role of artificial light in the preparation of the audience extends beyond the simple visibility necessary to navigate the site. Light provides a linking element that guides an audience member along their ‘journey’ through several phases of transformation from the physicality of the city on the forecourt to “another world–a make believe atmosphere, which will exclude all outside impressions and allow the patrons to be absorbed into the theatre mood, which the actors and the producers wish to create” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 2) in the theatres. Utzon conceived of light as part of the storytelling process, expressing the building’s narrative in a way that allows illumination is to be so much more than signposts to points of activity such as cloaking areas, theatre entries and the like. The lighting was intended to delineate various stages on the ‘journey’ noted above, to reinforce the transition from one world to another such that the combination of light and architecture would provide a series of successive stimuli that would build until the crescendo of the performance itself. This supports the transition of the visitor from the world of the everyday into the narrative of the Sydney Opera House and a world of make believe. Yet, in providing a narrative between these two ‘worlds’ the lighting becomes an anchor—or an element held in suspension – a mediator in the tension between the city at the beginning of the ‘journey’ and the ‘other world’ of the performance at the end. There is a balance to be maintained between illuminating the Sydney Opera House so that it remains prominent in its harbour location, easily read as a distinct sculptural structure on the peninsular separate from, but still an essential part of, the city that lies beyond Circular Quay to the south. Utzon alludes to the challenges of crafting the illumination so that it meets these requirements, noting that the illumination of the broardwalks “must be compatible with the lighting on the approach roads” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 68) while maintaining that “the floodlit building will be the first and last impression for [… an audience] to receive” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 1). These lighting requirements are also tempered by the desire that the “night time [...] view will be all lights and reflections, [that] stretch all along the harbour for many miles” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 1) reinforcing the use of light as an anchor that provides both a point of reference and serves as a mediator of the Sydney Opera House’s place within the city.The narrative of the materials and elements that are combined to give the final, physical form its striking sensory presence is also told through light, in particular colour. Or, perhaps more precisely in an illumination sense, the accurate reproduction of colour and by extension accurate presentation of the construction materials used in the creation of the Sydney Opera House. Expression of the ‘truth’ in the materials he used was important for Utzon and the faithful representation of details such as the fine grains in timber and the smooth concrete finishes required careful lighting to enhance these features. When extended to the human occupants of the Sydney Opera House, there is a short, yet very descriptive instruction: the lighting is to give “life to the skin and hair on the human form in much the same way as the light from candles” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 67). Thus, the narrative of the materials and their quality was as important as the final structure and those who would occupy it. It is the role of light to build upon the story of the materials to contribute to the overall narrative of the Sydney Opera House.Building an Experience through IlluminationUtzon envisaged that light would do much more than provide illumination or tell the narrative of the materials he had selected – light was also to build a unique architectural experience for a patron. The experience of light was to be subtle; the architecture was to retain a position of centre stage, reinforced by, rather than ever replaced by, the illumination. In this way, concealed lighting was proposed which would be “designed in close collaboration with the acoustical engineers as they will become an integral part of overall acoustic design” and “installed in carefully selected places based on knowledge gleaned from experimental work” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 67). Through concealing the light source, the architecture did not become cluttered or over powered by a dazzling array of fixtures and fittings that detracted from the audience’s experiences. For instance, to illuminate the monumental steps, Utzon proposed that the fittings would be recessed into the handrails, while the bar and lounge areas would be lit from discreet fittings installed within the plywood ceiling panels (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 16) to create an experience of light that was unified across the site. In addition to the aesthetical improvements gained from the removal of the light sources from the field of view, unwanted glare is also reduced reinforcing the ‘whole’ of the architectural experience.During the time that Utzon was conceptualising the illumination of the Sydney Opera House, the Major Hall (what is now known as the Concert Hall) was envisaged as what might be considered as a modern multipurpose venue, one that could accommodate among other activities: symphonic concerts; opera; ballet and dance; choral concerts; pageants and mass meetings (NSW Department of Local Government 24). The Concert Hall was the terminus for the ‘journey’—where the actors and audience find themselves in the same space, the ‘other world’—“a make believe atmosphere, which will exclude all outside impressions and allow the patrons to be absorbed into the theatre mood, which the actors and the producers wish to create” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 2). This other world was to sumptuously explode with rich colours “which uplift you in that festive mood, away from daily life, that you expect when you go to the theatre, a play, an opera or a concert” (Utzon Utzon Design Principles 34). These highly decorated and colourful finishes contrast with the white shells further highlighting the ‘journey’ that has taken place. Utzon proposed to use the illumination to reinforce this distance and provide the link between the natural colours of the raw materials used outside the theatre and highly decorated colours of the performance spaces.The lighting treatment of the theatres extended into the foyers and their public amenities to ensure that the lighting design contributed to the overall enhancement of a patron’s visit and delivered the experience of the ‘journey’ that was envisaged by Utzon (Dwyer “Utzon’s Use” 130-32). This standardised approach was in concert with Utzon’s architectural philosophy where repetitive systems of construction elements were utilised, for instance, in the construction of the shells. Utzon clearly articulated this approach in The Descriptive Narrative, noting that “standard light fittings will be chosen […] to suit each location” (67), however the standardisation would not compromise other considerations of the space such as the acoustical performance, with Utzon noting that the “fittings for auditoria and rehearsal rooms must be of necessity, designed in close collaboration with the acoustical engineers as they will become an integral part of over acoustic design” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 67). Another parallel between the architectural development of the Sydney Opera House and Utzon’s approach to the lighting concepts was, uncommon at the time, his preference for prototyping and experimentation with lighting effects and various fittings (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 67). A sharp contrast to the usual practices of the day which relied upon more straightforward procurement processes with generic rather than tailored solutions. Peter Hall, of Hall, Todd & Littlemore, discussed the typical method of lighting design which was prevalent during the construction of the Sydney Opera House, as a method which “amounted to the electrical engineers laying out on a plan sufficient off-the-shelf light fittings to achieve the desired illumination levels […] the resulting effects were dull even if brightly lit” (Hall 180). Thus, Utzon’s careful approach to ensure that light and architecture were in harmony as “nothing is introduced into the scheme, before it has been carefully investigated and has proved to be the right solution to the problem” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 2) was highly innovative for its time.The use of light to provide an experience was not necessarily new, for example RSL Clubs, theme parks and department stores all used light to attract attention to their products and services, however the scale and proposed execution of these concepts was pioneering for Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. Utzon’s concepts provided a highly experiential unified design to provide the patron with a unique architectural experience built through the careful use of light.Building the Scenery with LightArchitecture might be considered set design on a grand scale (for example see Raban, Rasmuseen and Read). Both architects and set designers are concerned with the relationship between the creative designs and the viewers and both set up opportunities for interactions between people (as actors or users) and structure. However, without light, the scene remains literally, in the dark, isolated from its surroundings and unperceetable to an audience.Utzon was acutely aware of the relationship between the Sydney Opera House and the city in which it stands. The positioning of the structure on the site is no accident and the interplay between the ‘sails’ and the sun is perhaps the most recognised lighting feature of the Sydney Opera House. By varying the angle of the shells, the reflections and the effects of the sunlight are constantly varying depending on the viewer’s position and focus. More importantly, these subtle variations in the light enhance the sculptural effect of the direct illumination and help create the effect of “matt snow and shining ice” (Commonwealth of Australia 51): the ‘shimmer of life’ so desired by Utzon as the sunlight strikes the ceramic tiles. This ‘shimmer’ is not the only natural lighting effect. The use of the different angles ensures variation in the light, clouds and resulting shadows to heighten interest and create an ever-changing scene that plays out on the shells as the sun moves across the sky, as Utzon notes, “something new goes on all the time and it is so important–this interplay is so important that together with the sun, the light and the clouds, it makes it a living thing” (Utzon Sydney Opera House 49). This scene is enhanced by the changing quality of the sunlight; the shells appear to be deep amber at first light their shadows long and faint before becoming shorter and stronger as the sun moves towards its midday position with the colour changing slowly to ‘pure’ white before the shadows change sides, the process reverses and they again disappear under the cover of darkness. Although the scene replays daily, the relative location of the sun and changing weather patterns ensure infinite variation in the effect.This changing scene, on a grand scale, with light as the central character is just as important as the theatrical performances taking place indoors on the stages. With a mobile audience, the detailing of the visual scene that is the structure becomes more important. The Sydney Opera House competes for attention with shipping movements in the harbour, the adjacent bridge with the ant-like procession of climbers and the activities of the city to the south. Utzon foresaw this noting that the “position on a peninsular, which is overlooked from all angles makes it important to maintain an all-round elevation. There can be no backsides to the building and nothing can be hidden from the view” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 1). The use of natural light to enhance the sculptural form and reinforce isolation of the structure on the peninsular, centre stage on the harbour is therefore not a coincidence. Utzon has deliberately harnessed the natural light to ensure that the Sydney Opera House is just as vibrant a performer as its surroundings. In this way, Utzon has used light to anchor the Sydney Opera House both in the city it serves and for the performances it houses.It is not just the natural light that is used as such an anchor point. Utzon planned for artificial lighting of the sails and surrounding site to ensure that after dark the ‘shimmer’ of the white tiles would be maintained with an equivalent, if manufactured, effect. For Utzon, the sculptural qualities of structure were important and should be clearly ‘read’ at night, even against a dark harbour on one side and the brighter city on the other. Through the use of artificial lighting, Utzon set the scene on Bennelong Point with the structure clearly centred in the set that is the Sydney skyline. This reinforced the notion that a journey into the Sydney Opera House was something special, a transition from the everyday to the ‘other’ world.ConclusionFor Utzon light was just as essential as concrete and other building materials for the design of the Sydney Opera House. The traditional bright lights of the stage had no place in the architectural illumination, replaced instead by a much more subtle, understated use of light, and indeed its absence. Utzon planned for the lighting to envelope an audience but not to smother them. Unfortunately, he was unable to complete his project and in 1968 J.M. Waldram was eventually appointed to complete the lighting design. Waldram’s lighting solutions—many of which are still in place today—borrowed or significantly drew upon Utzon’s original illumination concepts, thus demonstrating their strength and timeless qualities. In this way light builds on the story of the structure, reinforcing the architecture of the building and extending the narratives of the construction elements used to build the Sydney Opera House.AcknowledgementsThe author acknowledges the assistance of Rachel Franks for her input on an early draft of this article and thanks the blind peer reviewers for their generous feedback and suggestions, of course any remain errors or omissions are my own. ReferencesCommonwealth of Australia. Sydney Opera House Nomination by the Government of Australia for Inscription on the World Heritage List. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2006.Cleaver, Jack. Surface and Textured Finishes for Concrete and Their Impact upon the Environment. Sydney: Steel Reinforcement Institute of Australia, 2005.Dwyer, Simon. A Backstage Biography of the Sydney Opera House. Proceedings of the 7th Annual Conference of the Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (PopCAANZ) 2016: 1-10.———. “Utzon’s Use of Light to Influence the Audience’s Perception of the Sydney Opera House”. Inhabiting the Meta Visual: Contemporary Performance Themes. Eds. Helene Gee Markstein and Arthur Maria Steijn. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary P, 2016.Hall, Peter. Sydney Opera House: The Design Approach to the Building with Recommendations on Its Conservation. Sydney: Sydney Opera House Trust, 1990.NSW Department of Local Government. An International Competition for a National Opera House at Bennelong Point Sydney, New South Wales, Australia: Conditions and Program (“The ‘Brown’ Book”). Sydney: NSW Government Printer, 1957.Raban, Jonathan. Soft City. London: Picador, 2008.Rasmuseen, Steen. Experiencing Architecture. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology P, 1964.Read, Gary. “Theater of Public Space: Architectural Experimentation in the Théâtre de l'Espace (Theater of Space), Paris 1937.” Journal of Architectural Education 58.4 (2005): 53-62.Steensen Varming. Lighting Master Plan. Sydney: Sydney Opera House Trust, 2007.Utzon, Jørn. Sydney Opera House: The Descriptive Narrative. Sydney: Sydney Opera House Trust, 1965.———. The Sydney Opera House. Zodiac, 1965. 48-93.———. Untitled. (The ‘Red’ Book). Unpublished, 1958.———. Untitled. (The ‘Yellow’ Book). Unpublished, 1962.———. Utzon Design Principles. Sydney: Sydney Opera House Trust, 2002.
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Ibrahim, Yasmin. "Weblogs as Personal Narratives." M/C Journal 9, no.6 (December1, 2006). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2690.
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Introduction In not dismissing the personal narratives of individuals, Frederic Jameson describes the ‘telling of the individual story and individual experience as ultimately involving the whole laborious process of telling of the collectivity itself’ (cf. Bhabha 292). The construction of a nation involves a process of selection and textual mediation which binds an imagined community to a constructed past. Homi Bhabha refers to the ‘cultural construction of nationness as a form of social and textual affiliation’ (292). He observes how narratives employ a host of complex strategies and cultural identification and discursive address which displace historicism. The focus on temporality, according to Bhabha, then resists the linearity of events and idea that historicism proposes. Personal narratives in this sense, provide a canvas for disjunctive forms of representations to re-represent cultures and nations. It is in this context, this paper considers the role of weblogs in society and seeks to analyse their potential agency to re-cast historicity and to re-negotiate the identity of a nation. Personal commentaries and narratives contained in weblogs firstly jam spaces in the Internet, and secondly, they jam both temporality and the linearity of historicity that is contained in official voices that claim to speak on behalf of the nation. Nations are conceived as ‘imagined’ (Anderson), as a ‘myth’ (Gellner) or ‘invented’ (Hobsbawm & Ranger) rather than real and consequentially require great effort to construct and maintain. As such people and their narratives can be conceived as ‘neither the end nor the beginning of the national narrative’ (Bhabha 297). They represent a binary dialogism between the ethnographic perspective of people’s individual psyche and the ideological forces of the nation. While weblogs are often viewed as having the potential to build social networks and virtual settlements (Nardi et al.; Blanchard), this paper analyses the agency of personal narratives in providing embedded ethnographic perspectives in the electronic terrain and its consequences for the trajectory of history. It seeks to understand how mediated texts in weblogs can be situated in society and how it can be assessed as a media genre through cultural and literary theories. New media spaces have created opportunities and novel ways of recording and archiving narratives of communities, cultures and societies. They represent sites of cultural production where cultural or collective memory can be articulated or re-ignited. The act of remembering can be ritualised and visualised in web spaces. The ability to personalise and publicise on the web presents new avenues for understanding and reviewing history. Undoubtedly, the internet as a repository of information and narratives accommodates a multitude of environments and genres which co-exist on the same platform. This co-presence can in many ways represent the dialectical struggles between competing forces in the offline society. The web spaces present a possibility for both the ephemeral and transient to manifest and equally narratives which can resist the linearity of historicity. This jamming or flooding of electronic spaces with competing narratives makes the electronic terrain a contested space between the authentic and inauthentic as well as the empowered and the marginalised. This incessant plurality on the Internet can reorder both the temporal and spatial dimensions of mediated consciousness hence disrupting the linear historicity of nation-states and modernity. Modernity as a form of cognitive consciousness in society is constructed by carefully selecting the narratives of its birth to celebrate rationality, to resist the primeval tendencies and to renounce any association with its ignominious past or traditions. New media to a degree resists the dominant power structures of mainstream media thus encouraging civic participation and plurality in the new spaces where audiences can appropriate the role of producers; where the pronoun ‘I’ can assume a counter-point to the dominant discourses in society. Invariably, the age of globalization is one characterised by competing mediations which give rise to a postmodern ‘new memory’ (Hoskins) which is diffused yet not entirely free from the processes of state power or the emergence of ‘Holocaust Industry’ (Finklestein). The Internet as a diverse platform for activities ranging from publishing to commerce forms part of the wider contemporary media landscape. Its lack of centrality and sheer expanse makes it a diffused medium catering to a plethora of niche interests and audiences. The personal blogs compete with a multitude of data and information that occur on the Internet and elsewhere in other media. The mass media inevitably has the power to construct national events and to sustain a mediated national memory through its image archives and narratives. Its ability to reach a wider audience and its pervasiveness in narrating the nation stands in contrast to niche and personalised media like blogs with their disparate audiences. Nevertheless, the occurrence of personal narratives in the alternative and niche spaces provides a counter-point to the dominant narratives of the mass media. Its occurrence, presence and sustained counter-commentary create a civilian electronic archive to represent people’s narratives and memory. While its ability to monopolise or dominate national narratives may be limited, its presence and utterance needs to be acknowledged and celebrated. With the proliferation of new media platforms in postmodern societies, the centre-periphery distinctions with regard to information, news and memory construction will become more problematic without completely diminishing the divisions between mass and niche media spaces. The Physical and Virtual as Entwined Just as physical spaces are a place of gathering for those who belong and those who are displaced, the Internet provides a convening space for disembodied presence. This is often viewed as a Manichean dualism between the occurrence of thought and material presence. Equally, this is seen as unleashing a virulent ‘avatarism’ (Donath) which seeks to re-invent this virtual disembodiment by assuming different identities or by embracing a non-identity of anonymity. This cognitive engagement with the virtual sphere and the attendant consequences with regard to identity construction and reinvention have been observed and studied by media theorists. Nevertheless the offline and online are not separate and compartmentalised entities. They are entwined in complex ways (Miller and Slater). Virtual articulations as sites of cultural production reinforce the links between the real society and the virtual world, for the virtual is mediated through the societal norms and values of offline communities. Vygotsky’s (cf. Wertsch, Vygotsky; “Narrative”) concept of ‘mediation’ particularly in the form of language provides a link between the individual and the socio-cultural setting in which an individual is located. Hence the media artefact and the forms of use provide a form of mediation which reinforces the link between the individual and the social context. The performative in the pronoun ‘I’ in a personal narrative can implicate the collective consciousness of a society linking the ‘I’ with an abstract ‘we’ and hence connecting individual narratives to the social frames and groups in society. In applying the Bakhtinian approach of self and authorship, for the ‘perceiver their own time is forever open and unfinished, their own space is always the centre of perception. In contrast the time within which we perceive others is always closed and finished’ (cf. Holquist 29). The cognitive time and space of an individual in a weblog interacts with the virtual spaces imposing a material world time on an illusive and imagined cyberspace. For Bakhtin, existence, like language is a shared event. Invariably, ‘self and authorship’ both conjoin and separate the immediate reality of ‘my own living particularity (a uniqueness that is present itself as only for me ) with the reality of the system that precedes me in existence (that is always-already-there) and which is intertwined with everyone and everything else.’ (Holquist 28). Unequivocally, ‘otherness’ is perceived from the vantage point of the self and in tandem, the utterance of ‘I’ provides the central point needed to calibrate all further time and space discriminations. Hence, ‘I’ is the invisible ground of all further time and space discriminations (Bakhtin). Individual Psyche and Collective Memory Maurice Halbwachs conceived the concept of collective memory in the 1920’s inspired by Durkeim’s notion of a ‘collective consciousness’ realized through the will of a crowd in a gathering. According to Halbwachs, it is the individuals (as group members) who remember with the aid of cultural tools (cf. Wertsch, “Narrative”). Hence the act of remembering is a diffused activity which is realised through the interface between individual agency and the utilization of cultural tools. Central to the notion of collective memory is textual mediation where active agents use symbolic means such as written texts, particularly narratives (Wertsch, “Narrative”). Web spaces with an abundance of individual and communal narratives embody a construct which is incomplete and prone to de-selection and decentring and where the identity of a nation can be re-imagined and re-conceived textually. Employing the recurrent metaphor of the palimpsest (sheets of vellum on which the original writing has been rubbed out and written over) to the narratives of the Internet, these personal narratives or weblogs both challenge and retain the national past hence disrupting the sense of temporality and history. They can be both a symbolic form of resistance and conformity. For the post-structuralists, the palimpsest is representative of an intertextuality between different fields (Cryderman). These contemporaneous narratives on the Internet viewed through the allegory of the palimpsest signify a dialogism between the nationally-endorsed narratives and individual perspectives. In citing Homi Bhaba in the context of the Internet, it is evident that ‘the nation reveals in its ambivalent and vacillating representations, the ethnography of its own historicity and opens up the possibility of other narratives of the people and their difference’ (Bhabha 300) Weblogs as Ethnographic Tools Weblogs have started to a play a bigger role in the breaking and shaping of news since the late 1990s. With millions being published, blogs offer a new way of mediating national and global events with personal narratives which can contradict and or complement news and events as they are told in traditional media spaces. Blogs are often more localized and may be useful in building communities (Herring et al.). The Internet was initially conceived as a borderless entity with fluid boundaries which threaten the physical demarcations of nation-states. Nevertheless, the moulding of the Internet through the context and culture of use has witnessed a rise in the role of nation-states in enacting artificial boundaries on the virtual environment through regulations and social norms which have mediated the patterns of usage and forms of local appropriation of this global platform. The localisation and the personalisation of this electronic terrain represent the embeddedness of the Internet in the offline society and culture. One of the most significant events in the trajectory of this electronic genre was the emergence of the post 9/11 weblogs which re-told the stories of ground-zero from the perspectives of the personal (Krishnamurthy). It showcased how individual narratives mediated global events tempering the landscape of news reporting. Likewise, the warblogs recorded the Iraq war from ethnographic perspectives providing intricate insights and in the process re-mediating the tone and coverage of mainstream media and public opinion. Weblogs or web-based diaries occupy a tenuous space between the private and public. While diaries are kept by individuals to relate private experiences; their sacredness is in many ways characterised by their inaccessibility by others; often representing a solitary space for private ruminations and reflection. A diary loses its aura if its engagement with the self and the tenets of privacy are broken or violated. Weblogs which are written by individuals and made available to a potentially global community celebrate the performative aspect of the ‘self.’ A weblog’s relevance as an e-genre is signified by both its ability to retain its individual voice and its access to a wider community of strangers. Weblogs are intrinsically hybrid formats which fuse private thoughts and commentary on a global plaftform facilitating communion with ‘imagined others’ while anchoring the self at the centre stage of articulation. In applying Bakhtin’s ‘law of placement’ in dialogism, everything is perceived from a unique position in existence, as such the meaning of whatever is observed is shaped by the place from which it is perceived (cf. Holquist 21). In this sense, we regard each other from different centres in cognitive space and thus the personal articulation has significance for the representation of the society and social frames. These spaces of private commemoration in part puncture the temporality of history and indeed the processes of history-making. Invariably, ‘the present of the people’s history then is a practice that destroys the constant principles of the national culture that attempt to hark back to true national past which is often represented in the reified forms of realism and stereotype’ (Bhabha 300). The present is not a static moment, but a mass of different combinations of past and present relations (Holquist 37). This is comparable to the format of a weblog where permalinks to other sites mediate the memory of blogs widening the potential ability to remember beyond the text that falls in the spaces of personal narrative. Conclusion The jamming of web spaces with personal narratives for the consumption of local and global audiences signifies new public spaces of private commentary, public commemoration and global communion. These private spaces then link the national events of the world with personal perceptions, hence incorporating historic time within the spaces of self expression. Here the chronotope of world events becomes embedded in the ‘personal.’ Web diaries written in war zones by citizens of their day-to-day encounters with the aggressor record both time and events from the vantage point of the oppressed; a private narrative which occupies its space in a global stage. Here the private narrative in a public space challenges the temporality of war as well as the linearity of historicity. National cultures, according to Bhabha are ‘signs of control or abandonment and as such counter-narratives continuously evoke and erase its totalising boundaries both actual and conceptual thus disturbing those ideological manoeuvres through which ‘imagined communities’ are given essentialist identities’ (Bhabha 300). Inevitably the emergence of ‘new memory’ (Hoskins) in the postmodern world is a contradictory one which needs to reconcile the durable visual images of our electronically mediated world as well as the competing mediations of diverse niche and personalised media artefacts which negate or recast the hegemony of this visual culture. References Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. Bakhtin, M. Translated by C. Emerson and M. Holquist. In The Dialogic Imagination. Ed. M. Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981. Bhabha, H.K. “Dissemination: Time, Narrative and the Margins of Modern Nation.” In Nation and Narration. Ed. H.K. Bhabha. London: Routledge, 1990. 291-322. Blanchard, A. “Blogs as Virtual Communities: Identifying a Sense of Community in the Julie/Julia Project.” In Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community and Culture. 2004. http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogsphere>. Cryderman, K. “Ghosts in the Palimpsest of Cultural Memory: An Archeology of Faizal Deen’s Poetic Memoir, Land without Chocolate.” 2000. 9 Sep. 2006. http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v61/cryder.htm>. Donath, J.S. “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community.” Communities in Cyberspace. Eds. M.A. Smith and P. Kollock. New York: Routledge, 1998. Finklestein, N. The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering. London: Verso, 2000. Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory. Translation of Les Cadres Sociaux de la Mémoire. Edited, translated and with an introduction by Lewis A. Coser. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Herring, S.C., et al. “Conversations in the Blogsphere: An Analysis from ‘Bottom Up.” Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Los Almitos, USA, 2005. 107-118. Hobswawm, E., and T. Ranger. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983. Gellner, E. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983. Holquist, M. Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World. London: Routledge, 1990 Hoskins, A. “New Memory: Mediating History.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 21.4 (2001): 333-346. Krishnamurthy, S. “The Multidimensionality of Blog Conversations: The Virtual Enactment of September 11.” Internet Research 3.0. Maastricht, The Netherlands, 2002. Miller, D., and D. Slater. Internet: An Ethnographic Approach. Oxford: Berg, 2000. Nardi, B.A., D.J. Schiano, M. Gumbrecht, and L. Swartz. “Why We Blog.” Communications of the ACM 47.12 (2004): 41–46. Wertsch, J.V. “Narrative as a Cultural Tool in Collective Memory.” Conference for Sociocultural Research III, 2000. 9 Sep. 2006 http://www.fae.unicamp.br/br2000/trabs/2045.doc>. ———. Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1985. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Ibrahim, Yasmin. "Weblogs as Personal Narratives: Displacing History and Temporality." M/C Journal 9.6 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0612/08-ibrahim.php>. APA Style Ibrahim, Y. (Dec. 2006) "Weblogs as Personal Narratives: Displacing History and Temporality," M/C Journal, 9(6). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0612/08-ibrahim.php>.
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43
Ali, Kawsar. "Zoom-ing in on White Supremacy." M/C Journal 24, no.3 (June21, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2786.
Full textAbstract:
The Alt Right Are Not Alright Academic explorations complicating both the Internet and whiteness have often focussed on the rise of the “alt-right” to examine the co-option of digital technologies to extend white supremacy (Daniels, “Cyber Racism”; Daniels, “Algorithmic Rise”; Nagle). The term “alt-right” refers to media organisations, personalities, and sarcastic Internet users who promote the “alternative right”, understood as extremely conservative, political views online. The alt-right, in all of their online variations and inter-grouping, are infamous for supporting white supremacy online, “characterized by heavy use of social media and online memes. Alt-righters eschew ‘establishment’ conservatism, skew young, and embrace white ethnonationalism as a fundamental value” (Southern Poverty Law Center). Theoretical studies of the alt-right have largely focussed on its growing presence across social media and websites such as Twitter, Reddit, and notoriously “chan” sites 4chan and 8chan, through the political discussions referred to as “threads” on the site (Nagle; Daniels, “Algorithmic Rise”; Hawley). As well, the ability of online users to surpass national boundaries and spread global white supremacy through the Internet has also been studied (Back et al.). The alt-right have found a home on the Internet, using its features to cunningly recruit members and to establish a growing community that mainstream politically extreme views (Daniels, “Cyber Racism”; Daniels, “Algorithmic Rise; Munn). This body of knowledge shows that academics have been able to produce critically relevant literature regarding the alt-right despite the online anonymity of the majority of its members. For example, Conway et al., in their analysis of the history and social media patterns of the alt-right, follow the unique nature of the Christchurch Massacre, encompassing the use and development of message boards, fringe websites, and social media sites to champion white supremacy online. Positioning my research in this literature, I am interested in contributing further knowledge regarding the alt-right, white supremacy, and the Internet by exploring the sinister conducting of Zoom-bombing anti-racist events. Here, I will investigate how white supremacy through the Internet can lead to violence, abuse, and fear that “transcends the virtual world to damage real, live humans beings” via Zoom-bombing, an act that is situated in a larger co-option of the Internet by the alt-right and white supremacists, but has been under theorised as a hate crime (Daniels; “Cyber Racism” 7). Shitposting I want to preface this chapter by acknowledging that while I understand the Internet, through my own external investigations of race, power and the Internet, as a series of entities that produce racial violence both online and offline, I am aware of the use of the Internet to frame, discuss, and share anti-racist activism. Here we can turn to the work of philosopher Michel de Certeau who conceived the idea of a “tactic” as a way to construct a space of agency in opposition to institutional power. This becomes a way that marginalised groups, such as racialised peoples, can utilise the Internet as a tactical material to assert themselves and their non-compliance with the state. Particularly, shitposting, a tactic often associated with the alt-right, has also been co-opted by those who fight for social justice and rally against oppression both online and offline. As Roderick Graham explores, the Internet, and for this exploration, shitposting, can be used to proliferate deviant and racist material but also as a “deviant” byway of oppositional and anti-racist material. Despite this, a lot can be said about the invisible yet present claims and support of whiteness through Internet and digital technologies, as well as the activity of users channelled through these screens, such as the alt-right and their digital tactics. As Vikki Fraser remarks, “the internet assumes whiteness as the norm – whiteness is made visible through what is left unsaid, through the assumption that white need not be said” (120). It is through the lens of white privilege and claims to white supremacy that online irony, by way of shitposting, is co-opted and understood as an inherently alt-right tool, through the deviance it entails. Their sinister co-option of shitposting bolsters audacious claims as to who has the right to exist, in their support of white identity, but also hides behind a veil of mischief that can hide their more insidious intention and political ideologies. The alt-right have used “shitposting”, an online style of posting and interacting with other users, to create a form of online communication for a translocal identity of white nationalist members. Sean McEwan defines shitposting as “a form of Internet interaction predicated upon thwarting established norms of discourse in favour of seemingly anarchic, poor quality contributions” (19). Far from being random, however, I argue that shitposting functions as a discourse that is employed by online communities to discuss, proliferate, and introduce white supremacist ideals among their communities as well as into the mainstream. In the course of this article, I will introduce racist Zoom-bombing as a tactic situated in shitposting which can be used as a means of white supremacist discourse and an attempt to block anti-racist efforts. By this line, the function of discourse as one “to preserve or to reproduce discourse (within) a closed community” is calculatingly met through shitposting, Zoom-bombing, and more overt forms of white supremacy online (Foucault 225-226). Using memes, dehumanisation, and sarcasm, online white supremacists have created a means of both organising and mainstreaming white supremacy through humour that allows insidious themes to be mocked and then spread online. Foucault writes that “in every society the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organised and redistributed according to a certain number of procedures, whose role is to avert its powers and danger, to cope with chance events, to evade ponderous, awesome materiality” (216). As Philippe-Joseph Salazar recontextualises to online white supremacists, “the first procedure of control is to define what is prohibited, in essence, to set aside that which cannot be spoken about, and thus to produce strategies to counter it” (137). By this line, the alt-right reorganises these procedures and allocates a checked speech that will allow their ideas to proliferate in like-minded and growing communities. As a result, online white supremacists becoming a “community of discourse” advantages them in two ways: first, ironic language permits the mainstreaming of hate that allows sinister content to enter the public as the severity of their intentions is doubted due to the sarcastic language employed. Second, shitposting is employed as an entry gate to more serious and dangerous participation with white supremacist action, engagement, and ideologies. It is important to note that white privilege is embodied in these discursive practices as despite this exploitation of emerging technologies to further white supremacy, there are approaches that theorise the alt-right as “crazed product(s) of an isolated, extremist milieu with no links to the mainstream” (Moses 201). In this way, it is useful to consider shitposting as an informal approach that mirrors legitimised white sovereignties and authorised white supremacy. The result is that white supremacist online users succeed in “not only in assembling a community of actors and a collective of authors, on the dual territory of digital communication and grass-roots activism”, but also shape an effective fellowship of discourse that audiences react well to online, encouraging its reception and mainstreaming (Salazar 142). Continuing, as McBain writes, “someone who would not dream of donning a white cap and attending a Ku Klux Klan meeting might find themselves laughing along to a video by the alt-right satirist RamZPaul”. This idea is echoed in a leaked stylistic guide by white supremacist website and message board the Daily Stormer that highlights irony as a cultivated mechanism used to draw new audiences to the far right, step by step (Wilson). As showcased in the screen capture below of the stylistic guide, “the reader is at first drawn in by curiosity or the naughty humor and is slowly awakened to reality by repeatedly reading the same points” (Feinburg). The result of this style of writing is used “to immerse recruits in an online movement culture built on memes, racial panic and the worst of Internet culture” (Wilson). Figure 1: A screenshot of the Daily Stormer’s playbook, expanding on the stylistic decisions of alt-right writers. Racist Zoom-Bombing In the timely text “Racist Zoombombing”, Lisa Nakamura et al. write the following: Zoombombing is more than just trolling; though it belongs to a broad category of online behavior meant to produce a negative reaction, it has an intimate connection with online conspiracy theorists and white supremacy … . Zoombombing should not be lumped into the larger category of trolling, both because the word “trolling” has become so broad it is nearly meaningless at times, and because zoombombing is designed to cause intimate harm and terrorize its target in distinct ways. (30) Notwithstanding the seriousness of Zoom-bombing, and to not minimise its insidiousness by understanding it as a form of shitposting, my article seeks to reiterate the seriousness of shitposting, which, in the age of COVID-19, Zoom-bombing has become an example of. I seek to purport the insidiousness of the tactical strategies of the alt-right online in a larger context of white violence online. Therefore, I am proposing a more critical look at the tactical use of the Internet by the alt-right, in theorising shitposting and Zoom-bombing as means of hate crimes wherein they impose upon anti-racist activism and organising. Newlands et al., receiving only limited exposure pre-pandemic, write that “Zoom has become a household name and an essential component for parties (Matyszczyk, 2020), weddings (Pajer, 2020), school and work” (1). However, through this came the strategic use of co-opting the application by the alt-right to digitise terror and ensure a “growing framework of memetic warfare” (Nakamura et al. 31). Kruglanski et al. label this co-opting of online tools to champion white supremacy operations via Zoom-bombing an example of shitposting: Not yet protesting the lockdown orders in front of statehouses, far-right extremists infiltrated Zoom calls and shared their screens, projecting violent and graphic imagery such as swastikas and pornography into the homes of unsuspecting attendees and making it impossible for schools to rely on Zoom for home-based lessons. Such actions, known as “Zoombombing,” were eventually curtailed by Zoom features requiring hosts to admit people into Zoom meetings as a default setting with an option to opt-out. (128) By this, we can draw on existing literature that has theorised white supremacists as innovation opportunists regarding their co-option of the Internet, as supported through Jessie Daniels’s work, “during the shift of the white supremacist movement from print to digital online users exploited emerging technologies to further their ideological goals” (“Algorithmic Rise” 63). Selfe and Selfe write in their description of the computer interface as a “political and ideological boundary land” that may serve larger cultural systems of domination in much the same way that geopolitical borders do (418). Considering these theorisations of white supremacists utilising tools that appear neutral for racialised aims and the political possibilities of whiteness online, we can consider racist Zoom-bombing as an assertion of a battle that seeks to disrupt racial justice online but also assert white supremacy as its own legitimate cause. My first encounter of local Zoom-bombing was during the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) Seminar titled “Intersecting Crises” by Western Sydney University. The event sought to explore the concatenation of deeply inextricable ecological, political, economic, racial, and social crises. An academic involved in the facilitation of the event, Alana Lentin, live tweeted during the Zoom-bombing of the event: Figure 2: Academic Alana Lentin on Twitter live tweeting the Zoom-bombing of the Intersecting Crises event. Upon reflecting on this instance, I wondered, could efforts have been organised to prevent white supremacy? In considering who may or may not be responsible for halting racist shit-posting, we can problematise the work of R David Lankes, who writes that “Zoom-bombing is when inadequate security on the part of the person organizing a video conference allows uninvited users to join and disrupt a meeting. It can be anything from a prankster logging on, yelling, and logging off to uninvited users” (217). However, this beckons two areas to consider in theorising racist Zoom-bombing as a means of isolated trolling. First, this approach to Zoom-bombing minimises the sinister intentions of Zoom-bombing when referring to people as pranksters. Albeit withholding the “mimic trickery and mischief that were already present in spaces such as real-life classrooms and town halls” it may be more useful to consider theorising Zoom-bombing as often racialised harassment and a counter aggression to anti-racist initiatives (Nakamura et al. 30). Due to the live nature of most Zoom meetings, it is increasingly difficult to halt the threat of the alt-right from Zoom-bombing meetings. In “A First Look at Zoom-bombings” a range of preventative strategies are encouraged for Zoom organisers including “unique meeting links for each participant, although we acknowledge that this has usability implications and might not always be feasible” (Ling et al. 1). The alt-right exploit gaps, akin to co-opting the mainstreaming of trolling and shitposting, to put forward their agenda on white supremacy and assert their presence when not welcome. Therefore, utilising the pandemic to instil new forms of terror, it can be said that Zoom-bombing becomes a new means to shitpost, where the alt-right “exploits Zoom’s uniquely liminal space, a space of intimacy generated by users via the relationship between the digital screen and what it can depict, the device’s audio tools and how they can transmit and receive sound, the software that we can see, and the software that we can’t” (Nakamura et al. 29). Second, this definition of Zoom-bombing begs the question, is this a fair assessment to write that reiterates the blame of organisers? Rather, we can consider other gaps that have resulted in the misuse of Zoom co-opted by the alt-right: “two conditions have paved the way for Zoom-bombing: a resurgent fascist movement that has found its legs and best megaphone on the Internet and an often-unwitting public who have been suddenly required to spend many hours a day on this platform” (Nakamura et al. 29). In this way, it is interesting to note that recommendations to halt Zoom-bombing revolve around the energy, resources, and attention of the organisers to practically address possible threats, rather than the onus being placed on those who maintain these systems and those who Zoom-bomb. As Jessie Daniels states, “we should hold the platform accountable for this type of damage that it's facilitated. It's the platform's fault and it shouldn't be left to individual users who are making Zoom millions, if not billions, of dollars right now” (Ruf 8). Brian Friedberg, Gabrielle Lim, and Joan Donovan explore the organised efforts by the alt-right to impose on Zoom events and disturb schedules: “coordinated raids of Zoom meetings have become a social activity traversing the networked terrain of multiple platforms and web spaces. Raiders coordinate by sharing links to Zoom meetings targets and other operational and logistical details regarding the execution of an attack” (14). By encouraging a mass coordination of racist Zoom-bombing, in turn, social justice organisers are made to feel overwhelmed and that their efforts will be counteracted inevitably by a large and organised group, albeit appearing prankster-like. Aligning with the idea that “Zoombombing conceals and contains the terror and psychological harm that targets of active harassment face because it doesn’t leave a trace unless an alert user records the meeting”, it is useful to consider to what extent racist Zoom-bombing becomes a new weapon of the alt-right to entertain and affirm current members, and engage and influence new members (Nakamura et al. 34). I propose that we consider Zoom-bombing through shitposting, which is within “the location of matrix of domination (white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, ableism, capitalism, and settler colonialism)” to challenge the role of interface design and Internet infrastructure in enabling racial violence online (Costanza-Chock). Conclusion As Nakamura et al. have argued, Zoom-bombing is indeed “part of the lineage or ecosystem of trollish behavior”, yet these new forms of alt-right shitposting “[need] to be critiqued and understood as more than simply trolling because this term emerged during an earlier, less media-rich and interpersonally live Internet” (32). I recommend theorising the alt-right in a way that highlights the larger structures of white power, privilege, and supremacy that maintain their online and offline legacies beyond Zoom, “to view white supremacy not as a static ideology or condition, but to instead focus on its geographic and temporal contingency” that allows acts of hate crime by individuals on politicised bodies (Inwood and Bonds 722). This corresponds with Claire Renzetti’s argument that “criminologists theorise that committing a hate crime is a means of accomplishing a particular type of power, hegemonic masculinity, which is described as white, Christian, able-bodied and heterosexual” – an approach that can be applied to theorisations of the alt-right and online violence (136). This violent white masculinity occupies a hegemonic hold in the formation, reproduction, and extension of white supremacy that is then shared, affirmed, and idolised through a racialised Internet (Donaldson et al.). Therefore, I recommend that we situate Zoom-bombing as a means of shitposting, by reiterating the severity of shitposting with the same intentions and sinister goals of hate crimes and racial violence. References Back, Les, et al. “Racism on the Internet: Mapping Neo-Fascist Subcultures in Cyber-Space.” Nation and Race: The Developing Euro-American Racist Subculture. Eds. Jeffrey Kaplan and Tore Bjørgo. Northeastern UP, 1993. 73-101. Bonds, Anne, and Joshua Inwood. “Beyond White Privilege: Geographies of White Supremacy and Settler Colonialism.” Progress in Human Geography 40 (2015): 715-733. Conway, Maura, et al. “Right-Wing Extremists’ Persistent Online Presence: History and Contemporary Trends.” The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague. Policy Brief, 2019. Costanza-Chock, Sasha. “Design Justice and User Interface Design, 2020.” Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. Daniels, Jessie. “The Algorithmic Rise of the ‘Alt-Right.’” Contexts 17 (2018): 60-65. ———. “Race and Racism in Internet Studies: A Review and Critique.” New Media & Society 15 (2013): 695-719. ———. Cyber Racism: White Supremacy Online and the New Attack on Civil Rights. Rowman and Littlefield, 2009. De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. First ed. U of California P, 1980. Donaldson, Mike. “What Is Hegemonic Masculinity?” Theory and Society 22 (1993): 643-657. Feinburg, Ashley. “This Is The Daily Stormer’s Playbook.” Huffington Post 13 Dec. 2017. <http://www.huffpost.com/entry/daily-stormer-nazi-style-guide_n_5a2ece19e4b0ce3b344492f2>. Foucault, Michel. “The Discourse on Language.” The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. Ed. A.M. Sheridan Smith. Pantheon, 1971. 215-237. Fraser, Vicki. “Online Bodies and Sexual Subjectivities: In Whose Image?” The Racial Politics of Bodies, Nations and Knowledges. Eds. Barbara Baird and Damien W. Riggs. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015. 116-132. Friedberg, Brian, Gabrielle Lim, and Joan Donovan. “Space Invaders: The Networked Terrain of Zoom Bombing.” Harvard Shorenstein Center, 2020. Graham, Roderick. “Race, Social Media and Deviance.” The Palgrave Handbook of International Cybercrime and Cyberdeviance. Eds. Thomas J. Holt and Adam M. Bossler, 2019. 67-90. Hawley, George. Making Sense of the Alt-Right. Columbia UP, 2017. Henry, Matthew G., and Lawrence D. Berg. “Geographers Performing Nationalism and Hetero-Masculinity.” Gender, Place & Culture 13 (2006): 629-645. Kruglanski, Arie W., et al. “Terrorism in Time of the Pandemic: Exploiting Mayhem.” Global Security: Health, Science and Policy 5 (2020): 121-132. Lankes, R. David. Forged in War: How a Century of War Created Today's Information Society. Rowman & Littlefield, 2021. Ling, Chen, et al. “A First Look at Zoombombing, 2021.” Proceedings of the 42nd IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. Oakland, 2021. McBain, Sophie. “The Alt-Right, and How the Paranoia of White Identity Politics Fuelled Trump’s Rise.” New Statesman 27 Nov. 2017. <http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2017/11/alt-right-and-how-paranoia-white-identity-politics-fuelled-trump-s-rise>. McEwan, Sean. “Nation of Shitposters: Ironic Engagement with the Facebook Posts of Shannon Noll as Reconfiguration of an Australian National Identity.” Journal of Media and Communication 8 (2017): 19-39. Morgensen, Scott Lauria. “Theorising Gender, Sexuality and Settler Colonialism: An Introduction.” Settler Colonial Studies 2 (2012): 2-22. Moses, A Dirk. “‘White Genocide’ and the Ethics of Public Analysis.” Journal of Genocide Research 21 (2019): 1-13. Munn, Luke. “Algorithmic Hate: Brenton Tarrant and the Dark Social Web.” VoxPol, 3 Apr. 2019. <http://www.voxpol.eu/algorithmic-hate-brenton-tarrant-and-the-dark-social-web>. Nagle, Angela. Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right. Zero Books, 2017. Nakamura, Lisa, et al. Racist Zoom-Bombing. Routledge, 2021. Newlands, Gemma, et al. “Innovation under Pressure: Implications for Data Privacy during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Big Data & Society July-December (2020): 1-14. Perry, Barbara, and Ryan Scrivens. “White Pride Worldwide: Constructing Global Identities Online.” The Globalisation of Hate: Internationalising Hate Crime. Eds. Jennifer Schweppe and Mark Austin Walters. Oxford UP, 2016. 65-78. Renzetti, Claire. Feminist Criminology. Routledge, 2013. Ruf, Jessica. “‘Spirit-Murdering' Comes to Zoom: Racist Attacks Plague Online Learning.” Issues in Higher Education 37 (2020): 8. Salazar, Philippe-Joseph. “The Alt-Right as a Community of Discourse.” Javnost – The Public 25 (2018): 135-143. Selfe, Cyntia L., and Richard J. Selfe, Jr. “The Politics of the Interface: Power and Its Exercise in Electronic Contact Zones.” College Composition and Communication 45 (1994): 480-504. Southern Poverty Law Center. “Alt-Right.” <http://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/alt-right>. Wilson, Jason. “Do the Christchurch Shootings Expose the Murderous Nature of ‘Ironic’ Online Fascism?” The Guardian, 16 Mar. 2019. <http://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2019/mar/15/do-the-christchurch-shootings-expose-the-murderous-nature-of-ironic-online-fascism>.
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Mayo, Sherry. "NXT Space for Visual Thinking." M/C Journal 1, no.4 (November1, 1998). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1722.
Full textAbstract:
"Space, the limitless area in which all things exist and move." -- Merriam-Webster Dictionary(658) Can we determine our point in time and space at this moment of pre-millennium anticipation? The evolution of our visualisation of space as a culture is shifting and entering the critical consciousness of our global village. The infinite expansion of space's parameters, definitions and visualisation remains the next frontier -- not only for NASA, but for visual culture. Benjamin's vision of loss of the aura of originality through reproduction has come to pass, so has the concept of McLuhan's global village, Baudrillard's simulacra, and Gibson's cyberpunk. Recent technologies such as digital imaging, video, 3-D modelling, virtual reality, and the Internet have brought us to the cusp of the millennium as pioneers of what I call this 'NXT space' for visual thinking, for artistic expression. The vision being constructed in pre-millennium culture takes place in an objectless fictionalised space. This virtual reality is a space that is expanding infinitely, as we speak. The vehicle through which access is gained into this layer takes the form of a machine that requires a mind/body split. The viewer probes through the intangible pixels and collects visual data. The data received on this or that layer have the potential to transport the viewer virtually and yield a visceral experience. The new tools for visualisation allow an expanded perception to an altered state of consciousness. The new works cross the boundaries between media, and are the result of virtual trips via the usage of digital imaging. Their aesthetic reflects our digital society in which people maintain extremely intimate relationships with their computers. This new era is populated by a new generation that is inside more than outside, emailing while faxing, speaking on the phone and surfing the Web with MTV on in the background. We have surpassed postmodernist ideas of pluralism and simultaneity and have produced people for whom the digital age is no revolution. Selected colours, forms and spaces refer to the pixelisation of our daily experience. We are really discussing pop for ahistorical youth, who consider virtual reality to be the norm of visualisation via digitally produced ads, movies, TV shows, music videos, video games and the computer. The term "new media" is already antiquated. We are participating in a realm that is fluent with technology, where the visualisation of space is more natural than an idea of objecthood. (At least as long as we're operating in the technology-rich Western world, that is.) The relationship of these virtual spaces with the mass audience is the cause of pre-millennium anxiety. The cool distance of remote control and the ability to remain in an altered state of consciousness are the residual effects of virtual reality. It is this alienated otherness that allows for the atomisation of the universe. We construct artifice for interface, and simulacra have become more familiar than the "real". NXT space, cyberspace, is the most vital space for visual thinking in the 21st century. The malleability and immateriality of the pixel sub-universe has exponential potential. The artists of this future, who will dedicate themselves successfully to dealing with the new parameters of this installation space, will not consider themselves "computer artists". They will be simply artists working with integrated electronic arts. Digital imaging has permeated our lives to such an extent that like Las Vegas "it's the sunsets that look fake as all hell" (Hickey). Venturi depicts the interior of Las Vegas's casinos as infinite dark spaces with lots of lights transmitting information. Cyberspace is a public/private space occupied by a global village, in that it is a public space through its accessibility to anyone with Internet access, and a social space due to the ability to exchange ideas and meet others through dialogue; however, it is also an intimate private space due to its intangibility and the distance between each loner at their terminal. NXT needs a common sign system that is seductive enough to persuade the visitor into entering the site and can act as a navigational tool. People like to return to places that feel familiar and stimulate reverie of past experiences. This requires the visitor to fantasise while navigating through a cybersite and believe that it is an actual place that exists and where they can dwell. Venturi's model of the sign system as paramount to the identification of the actual architecture is perfect for cyberspace, because you are selling the idea or the fiction of the site, not the desert that it really is. Although NXT can not utilise object cathexion to stimulate fantasy and attachment to site, it can breed familiarity through a consistent sign system and a dynamic and interactive social space which would entice frequent revisiting. NXT Space, a home for the other? "Suddenly it becomes possible that there are just others, that we ourselves are an 'other' among others", as Paul Ricoeur said in 1962. If one were to impose Heidegger's thinking in regards to building and dwelling, they would have to reconstruct NXT as a site that would promote dwelling. It would have to be built in a way in which people were not anonymous or random. A chat room or BBS would have to be attached, where people could actively participate with one another within NXT. Once these visitors had other people that they could identify with and repeatedly interact with, they would form a community within the NXT site. Mortals would roam not on earth, nor under the sky, possibly before divinities (who knows), but rather through pixel light and fiber optics without a physical interface between beings. If the goal of mortals is a Heideggerian notion of attachment to a site through building and building's goal is dwelling and dwelling's goal is identification and identification is accomplished through the cultivation of culture, then NXT could be a successful location. NXT could accommodate an interchange between beings that would be free of physiological constraints and identity separations. This is what could be exchanged and exposed in the NXT site without the interference and taint of socio-physio parameters that separate people from one another. A place where everyone without the convenience or burden of identity becomes simply another other. NXT could implement theory in an integral contextual way that could effect critical consciousness and a transformation of society. This site could serve as a theoretical laboratory where people could exchange and experiment within a dialogue. NXT as a test site could push the parameters of cyberspace and otherness in a real and tangible way. This "cyber-factory" would be interactive and analytical. The fictional simulated world is becoming our reality and cyberspace is becoming a more reasonable parallel to life. Travelling through time and space seems more attainable than ever before through the Internet. Net surfing is zipping through the Louvre, trifling through the Grand Canyon and then checking your horoscope. People are becoming used to this ability and the abstract is becoming more tangible to the masses. As techno-literacy and access increase, so should practical application of abstract theory. NXT would escape reification of theory through dynamic accessibility. The virtual factory could be a Voltaire's cafe of cyber-thinkers charting the critical consciousness and evolution of our Web-linked world. Although ultimately in the West we do exist within a capitalist system where every good thought leaks out to the masses and becomes popular, popularity creates fashion, fashion is fetishistic, thereby desirable, and accumulates monetary value. Market power depoliticises original content and enables an idea to become dogma; another trophy in the cultural hall of fame. Ideas do die, but in another time and place can be resurrected and utilised as a template for counter-reaction. This is analogous to genetic evolution -- DNA makes RNA which makes retro-DNA, etc. --, and the helix spirals on, making reification an organic process. However, will cyberspace ever be instrumental in transforming society in the next century? Access is the largest inhibitor. Privileged technophiles often forget that they are in the minority. How do we become more inclusive and expand the dialogue to encompass the infinite number of different voices on our planet? NXT space is limited to a relatively small number of individuals with the ability to afford and gain access to high-tech equipment. This will continue the existing socio-economic imbalance that restricts our critical consciousness. Without developing the Internet into the NXT space, we will be tremendously bothered by ISPs, with data transfer control and content police. My fear for the global village, surfing through our virtual landscape, is that we will all skid off this swiftly tilting planet. The addiction to the Net and to simulated experiences will subject us to remote control. The inundation of commercialism bombarding the spectator was inevitable, and subsequently there are fewer innovative sites pushing the boundaries of experimentation with this medium. Pre-millennium anxiety is abundant in technophobes, but as a technophile I too am afflicted. My fantasy of a NXT space is dwindling as the clock ticks towards the Y2K problem and a new niche for community and social construction has already been out-competed. If only we could imagine all the people living in the NXT space with its potential for tolerance, dialogue, and community. References Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space: The Classic Look at How We Experience Intimate Places. Boston, MA: Beacon, 1994. Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. New York: Schocken, 1978. Gibson, William. Neuromancer. San Francisco: Ace Books, 1984. Heidegger, Martin. The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays. Trans. William Lovitt. New York: Garland, 1977. Hickey, David. Air Guitar: Four Essays on Art and Democracy. Los Angeles: Art Issues, 1997. Koch, Stephen. Stargazer: Andy Warhol's World and His Films. London: Calder and Boyars, 1973. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Springfield, MA: G.&.C. Merriam, 1974. Venturi, Robert. Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectual Form. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Sherry Mayo. "NXT Space for Visual Thinking: An Experimental Cyberlab." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1.4 (1998). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9811/nxt.php>. Chicago style: Sherry Mayo, "NXT Space for Visual Thinking: An Experimental Cyberlab," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1, no. 4 (1998), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9811/nxt.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Sherry Mayo. (1998) NXT space for visual thinking: an experimental cyberlab. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1(4). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9811/nxt.php> ([your date of access]).
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Döring, Nicola. "Abortion Attitudes (Media Content, User Comments)." DOCA - Database of Variables for Content Analysis, November11, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.34778/5y.
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The concept of "abortion attitudes" refers to an individual's or group's beliefs, opinions, and feelings regarding the practice of abortion (Jelen & Wilcox, 2003). Abortion here addresses abortion care in the form of medical (i.e., drug-induced) or surgical termination of an unwanted pregnancy, usually before the fetus is considered viable (i.e., able to survive outside the womb). People's attitudes towards abortion care can vary widely and are influenced by factors such as cultural, religious, moral, and personal beliefs, societal norms and values, as well as personal experiences and media representations (Adamczyk, Kim & Dillon, 2020; Ferree, Gamson, Gerhards & Rucht, 2002). Abortion and abortion attitudes are widely represented in the media, this includes news media, fictional media, and social media (Conti & Cahill, 2017). Attitudes towards abortion as they are held in the population and represented in the media are polarized and can be categorized broadly as pro-choice versus pro-life (Krolzik-Matthei, 2019): The pro-choice or pro-abortion attitude focuses on the pregnant woman/person and acknowledges her human rights to life, health and self-determination. Hence, the pro-choice attitude demands access to legal and safe abortions as a reproductive right for all women/persons who seek abortion care as a reproductive health service. The pro-choice position morally accepts abortions and politically favors the legalization of abortions. The pro-life or anti-abortion attitude focuses on the embryo (weeks 0 to 9 of the pregnancy) or the fetus (from week 10) and acknowledges its right to life. Hence, the pro-life attitude demands complete prohibition or at least heavy restriction of abortions, regardless of the life, health, and self-determination of the pregnant woman/person. The pro-life position morally condemns abortions and politically favors the criminalization of abortions in most or all cases. These two attitudes often manifest as general principles (or absolutist positions). But they also manifest in various shades of grey (situational positions), with some individuals and media representations supporting abortion under specific circumstances (such as cases of rape, incest, or severe fetal abnormalities) while opposing it in others (Rye & Underhill, 2020). In the context of ongoing political debates surrounding the legalization or criminalization of abortion (e.g., the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the USA in 2022), measuring attitudes towards abortion in media content remains a relevant and timely research topic, especially when it comes to popular and growing social media platforms such as TikTok (Wu & Byler, 2022). Field of application/theoretical foundation One line of research investigates the various values underlying pro-life/pro-abortion and pro-choice/anti-abortion attitudes as represented in different media. This research approach employs theories from religion, moral philosophy, medical history, and/or feminism to extract the distinct arguments, frames, and metaphors used to defend and rationalize pro-choice versus pro-life attitudes (e.g., Brysk & Yang, 2023). Another line of research examines the associations between media representations of abortion attitudes on the one side and the audience’s attitudes about abortion on the other side (Döring, 2023; Döring & Kubitza, 2023; Pleasure et al., 2023), particularly in the context of pro- or anti-abortion campaigns (e.g., Reidy & Suiter, 2023) and online abortion education (Duggan, 2023). One relevant theory in this field is the social cognitive theory (Bandura 1986, 2009), which explains how media images of abortion can influence the audience’s perceptions of abortions. Additionally, theories of persuasion and education are applicable in this context. References/combination with other methods of data collection Manual and automated content analyses of news media, fictional media, social media content, and social media user comments are essential for monitoring the potentially changing prevalence of various abortion attitudes in the public media sphere. These media content analyses can be combined with population surveys to explore associations between published opinion and public opinion on abortion. Furthermore, experimental studies are useful for directly measuring how recipients perceive and evaluate different media representations of abortion attitudes, and whether and how these representations can affect their own attitudes toward abortion. Example Study for manual content analyses The example studies by Döring (2023) and Döring and Kubitza (2023) concentrate on the representation of abortion attitudes in German-language YouTube and TikTok videos, as well as the associated viewer comments (see Table 1). The measures presented were developed for YouTube and TikTok, but they are generic enough to be used across various social media platforms and even mass media channels. Depending on the research objective, more detailed measures can be developed and added. For examples, measures that cover the different circumstances under which people or media representations are willing to accept abortion as a moral and legal solution (such as in cases of rape, incest, or severe fetal abnormalities). This is relevant because abortion attitudes held by individuals and represented in the media are not always absolutist (i.e., categorical evaluations); sometimes, they are situationist, meaning that the specific conditions of the case play a significant role in the moral evaluation (Rye & Underhill, 2020). Coding Material Measure Operationalization (excerpt) Reliability N = 167 top ranked German-language abortion videos on YouTube (n = 75) and TikTok (n = 92) Type of Social Media Content Creator Polytomous variable “content creator type” (1: media professional, 2: health professional, 3: political/religious actor, 4: lay person) n = 117 pretest sample Cohen’s Kappa = .84 Gwet’s AC1 = .88 Abortion Attitude in Social Media Content Polytomous variable “abortion attitude represented in YouTube/TikTok video” (1: pro-choice or pro-abortion [video predominantly argues in favor of legalization of abortion and/or the rights of the pregnant person], 2: pro-life or anti-abortion [video predominantly argues in favor of criminalization of abortion and/or the rights of the embryo/fetus], 3: ambivalent [video partly argues in favor of both pro-choice and pro-life positions; e.g., video covers both the attitude of a pro-life and a pro-choice activist], 4: neutral [video neither argues for or against the legalization or criminalization of abortions; e.g., video explains the procedure of surgical termination of an unwanted pregnancy and does not address moral or political evaluations], 5: unclear [the abortion attitude represented in the video remains unclear]) n = 117 pretest sample Cohen’s Kappa = .66 Gwet’s AC1 = .82 N = 807 most liked on-topic public user comments related to the N = 167 top ranked German-language abortion videos on YouTube (n = 326) and TikTok (n = 481) Type of Commenting Social Media User Cannot be identified and coded due to practical and ethical considerations n.a. Abortion Attitude in Social Media User Comments Polytomous variable “abortion attitude represented in YouTube/TikTok user comments” (1: pro-choice / pro-abortion, 2: pro-life / anti-abortion, 3: ambivalent, 4: neutral, 5: unclear). Operationalization of the abortion attitudes in social media comments follows the same scheme used for social media videos (as described above). n = 300 pretest sample Cohen’s Kappa = .55 Gwet’s AC1 = .81 References Adamczyk, A., Kim, C., & Dillon (2020). Examining Public Opinion about Abortion: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review of Research over the Last 15 Years. Sociological Inquiry, 90 (4), 920–954. https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12351 Bandura, A., & National Inst. of Mental Health. (1986). Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Bandura, A. (2009). Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communication. In J. Bryant & M. B. Oliver (Eds.), Communication Series. Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research (3rd ed., 94–124). Routledge. Brysk, A., & Yang R. (2023). Abortion Rights Attitudes in Europe: Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, or Pro-Nation? Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society. https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxac047 Conti, J. A., & Cahill, E. (2017). Abortion in the Media. Current Opinion in Obstetrics & Gynecology, 29 (6), 427–430. https://doi.org/10.1097/GCO.0000000000000412 Döring, N., (2023). Online-Videos zum Schwangerschaftsabbruch: Anbieter, Botschaften und Publikumsreaktionen [Online Videos on Abortion: Creators, Messages, and Audience Reactions]. FORUM Sexualaufklärung und Familienplanung: Informationsdienst der Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung (BZgA) 1/2023, 41-47. https://doi.org/10.17623/BZgA_SRH:forum_2023-1_beitrag_onlinevideo_schwangerschaftsabbruch [Zugriff: 11.10.2023] Döring, N., & Kubitza, E. (2023). „Ich fühlte mich so alleine damit, aber dein Video hat mir geholfen – Der Schwangerschaftsabbruch auf YouTube und TikTok. ["I felt so alone with this, but your video helped me” – The Representation of Abortion on YouTube and TikTok]. merz – medien + erziehung. zeitschrift für medienpädagogik, Online Article. https://www.merz-zeitschrift.de/swipe-des-monats/details/ich-fuehlte-mich-so-alleine-damit-aber-dein-video-hat-mir-geholfen [Zugriff: 11.10.2023] Duggan, J. (2023). Using TikTok to Teach about Abortion: Combatting Stigma and Miseducation in the United States and Beyond. Sex Education 23(1), 81-95. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2022.2028614 Ferree, M.M., Gamson, W.A., Gerhards, J., & Rucht, D. (2002). Shaping Abortion Discourse: Democracy and the Public Sphere in Germany and the United States. Cambridge University Press. Jelen, T. G., & Wilcox, C. (2003). Causes and Consequences of Public Attitudes Toward Abortion: A Review and Research Agenda. Political Research Quarterly, 56 (4), 489–500. https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290305600410 Krolzik-Matthei, K. (2019). Abtreibungen in der Debatte in Deutschland und Europa [Abortions in the Debate in Germany and Europe]. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (Hrsg.), Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (APuZ). https://www.bpb.de/shop/zeitschriften/apuz/290793/abtreibungen-in-der-debatte-in-deutschland-und-europa/ [Zugriff: 11.10.2023] Pleasure, Z. H., Becker, A., Johnson, D., Broussard, K., & Lindberg, L. (2023). How TikTok is Being Used to Talk About Abortion Post-Roe. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/jy6vx [Zugriff: 11.10.2023] Reidy, T., & Suiter, J. (2023). Does Social Media Use Matter? A Case Study of the 2018 Irish Abortion Referendum. Media and Communication, 11 (1), 81–85. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v11i1.6653 Rye, B.J., & Underhill, A. (2020). Pro-choice and Pro-life Are Not Enough: An Investigation of Abortion Attitudes as a Function of Abortion Prototypes. Sexuality & Culture 24, 1829–1851. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-020-09723-7 Wu, Y. & Byler, D. (2022). What We Found When Analyzing 1,000 Viral TikToks on #Abortion. The Washington Post, 22th October 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2022/tiktok-abortion-debate-gen-z/ [Zugriff: 11.10.2023]
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Laba, Martin. "Picking through the Trash." M/C Journal 2, no.4 (June1, 1999). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1758.
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In a recent "Arts & Leisure" feature in a national Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail (5 June 1999), music critic Robert Everett-Green muses on the invention by the pop music industry of Andrea Bocelli as an opera singer: "call him an airborne virus or a gift from God ... . He is the voice you are most likely to hear while waiting for a double latte." The pop sentimentality industry fast-tracked Bocelli (a pop singer who "sounds" operatic) and created a global entertainment product. In a masterful stroke of high pop spectacle, the holy trinity of musical melodrama joined together -- Bocelli and Céline Dion gush out David Foster's "The Prayer", the theme for the movie Quest for Camelot -- to create an exquisite pop moment. The massive reach of the mainstream; the resonant power of vocal turgidity and excess; the pop diva who never met a song she couldn't oversing -- this is the pop often neglected in critical forays into the nature of the popular that search for the active and the participatory dimensions of popular culture. Yet pop both plunders and perpetuates popular culture; it contains and dramatises the social possibilities of popular culture, and at the same time, spreads out like a great theme park of trivia. Let's pick through the trash. If nothing else, the contemplation of the "question" of pop is an enterprise which often begins with the issue of redemption for popular culture. Even the cultural populist wrestles with the anxiety that much of what we understand as "pop" in culture constitutes the detritus, the ephemera, a repository of the trivialities of society in all of its contemporary moments. The best critical insights into the nature and substance of popular culture (studies in cultural geography and perspectives on history and collective memory, for examples), recognise that what they are considering, describing, and analysing in the spaces and experiences of the popular is at the very least deeply and irrevocably contradictory. The cool, renegade, and enormously creative cultural excursions and general messing about of turntablism and drum'n'bass, for examples, are democratic, active, even "heroic" by some critical discourses, where, say, the maudlin "pop diva" is forgettable at best, and unworthy of an analytical encounter at worst. There is a haziness to the concept of "pop", and more broadly, "popular", and the definitional defiance among the numerous and varied theorists of this energetic practice and/or genre of cultural form and production produces a rather decentred, if not indeterminate object of study. Bill Readings's critique of Cultural Studies offers the relevance of analogy here. Readings notes the "second moment" in the progress of Cultural Studies (around 1990), and the publication of a number of works at the time "that seem to mark the acquisition of professional disciplinarity of Cultural Studies". His excavation of these works reveals a characteristic theoretical element or two -- the suspicion of "the exclusionary force of certain boundaries: female/male, north/south, center/margin, high culture/low culture, western/other, heterosexual/homosexual" (97) -- and some of the authoritative antecedents of these theories against exclusion (Williams, Foucault, Gramsci, Hall, and others). Yet he notes that the striking characteristic of Cultural Studies is the thinness or even absence of theoretical definition or specificity -- "how little it needs to determine its object. Which does not mean that a lot of theorising doesn't go on in its name, only that such efforts are not undertaken in a way that secures the relation of an observer to a determinate set of phenomena or an autonomous object" (97). There is then, a frustration in providing an account of what it means to "do" Cultural Studies, or, more glaringly, what exactly the promised political interventions of Cultural Studies are in the context of hazy objects, floating themes, and sketchy "projects", all of which are products of the declared refusal by Cultural Studies to submit to definitional constraints. Pop suffers from a similar indeterminacy in its object of study, but interestingly because its tends to be over-defined rather than under-defined. Figuring out the object of study in pop is not unlike attempting to parse the object(s) of study in Cultural Studies -- a frustration ultimately, but for very different reasons. Pop is a universe of "anything and everything", and incomprehensible not because it is conceptually challenging (like a universe), but because its geography stretches across so much cultural space. In critiques, pop takes on the torque of the critic, a necessary strategy to somehow delimit its space, and make it graspable, if not meaningful. Encounters with pop (as in "pop art" and "PoMo pop") mine for signs of life among the trash, and have come up with a heartbeat or two on occasion. This geography of trash is in need of some attention. For conceptual guidance in this task, or at least for some respite from the arguments about the "projects" and "interventions" of pop and popular culture, I turn to Don DeLillo's seminal critique of media, consumerism, and the bizarre dislocations and bewildering drift of contemporary social life in his 1985 novel, White Noise (a book that should be required reading for undergraduate courses in media and communication). Murray Jay Suskind, an ex-sports writer and émigré from New York City has come to University-on-the-Hill in Blacksmith, somewhere in middle America, and has assumed his position as visiting lecturer in the Department of American Environments. He becomes a kind of participant-observer and quasi-family member in the household of Jack Gladney, the narrator of the novel and Chairman of the Department of Hitler Studies at the university -- a field he invented in 1968. Murray expresses his desire to establish an "Elvis Presley power base in the department of American Environments", to "do for Elvis" what Jack has "done for Hitler". Murray is engaged in a debate with his students on the true substance and significance of television, and the media-saturated Gladney household serves as a laboratory. Murray argues that the medium is a "primal force in the American home ... a myth being born right there in our living room". Murray elaborates in a conversation with Jack: You have to learn to look. You have to open yourself to the data. TV offers incredible amounts of psychic data. It opens up ancient memories of world birth, its welcomes us into the grid, the network of little buzzing dots that make up the picture pattern. There is light, there is sound. I ask my students, "What more do you want? Look at the wealth of data concealed in the grid, in the bright packaging, the jingles, the slice-of-life commercials, the products hurtling out of the darkness, the coded messages and endless repetitions, like chants, like mantras. 'Coke is it, Coke is it, Coke is it.' The medium practically overflows with sacred formulas if we can remember how to respond innocently and get past our irritation, weariness and disgust. (51) His students disagree -- television for them is "worse than junk mail", it is "the death throes of human consciousness". Murray, however, finds vindication in the Gladney home where the children live lives of total consumer/television immersion to the extent that they eat, think, speak, and dream according to all things televisual and all things commercial. Jack and his wife Babette are fearful of TV, its "narcotic undertow and eerie diseased brain-sucking power", and Babette has developed a strategy to "de-glamorise" television for the good of the family by instituting a family ritual of watching television en masse every Friday night. Mostly numbed or bored, the family occasionally engages in the strangely pleasurable and thoroughly grotesque activity of watching catastrophes: "we were otherwise silent, watching houses slide into the ocean, whole villages crackle and ignite in a mass of advance lava". The family found itself wishing for more with each disaster on the screen, something more sensational, "something bigger, grander, more sweeping" (64). The popular life as depicted by DeLillo is gripping in its familiarity. It is a life that unfolds around and within the television screen; a life that unfolds beside chemical dump sites and industrial waste zones, where toxic fallout produces glorious sunsets as well as fruit that is bright and burnished and always appears to be in season; a life that unfolds in supermarkets and malls where shopping is automatic, somnambulant, and strangely comforting; a life grounded in, structured by, and rationalised within consumerism, media, and omnipresent technological forces that produce everything from dark and insidious pharmaceuticals to an airborne toxic cloud; a life in which families are fragmented and destroyed by the very institutions and pastimes (Disney World and shopping) that declare and promote the support of families and their "values". There is a refrain that emerges like some unconscious ritual chant in the novel, a refrain that has no context or exposition, and that moves through and around the dialogue and the text like a persistent advertising jingle that refuses to quit one's head: Dacron, Orlon, Lycra, Spandex Mastercard, Visa, American Express Leaded, Unleaded, Superunleaded And when children dream, they dream in the consumer-unconscious. Jack hears his child mumbling something in her sleep, and leans closer to hear. She says, "Toyota Celica". The utterance transports Jack, an utterance that was "beautiful and mysterious, gold-shot with looming wonder. It was like the name of an ancient power in the sky, tablet-carved in cuneiform" (155). The brand name has come to have sacred resonance, supreme, transcendent, the stuff of dreams. This is a fiction about suffocating distractedly under the sheer weighty banality of popular trash. It offers a portrait of all of us deep in the commercial media swamp, flailing about in the flotsam and jetsam of all things commercial and popular. DeLillo's narrative moves towards its dark conclusion as the malevolent force of the toxic cloud brings the certainty of death in uncertain ways. The apocalyptic moment is evidenced by the sudden rearrangement of goods on the supermarket shelves. "Older shoppers" panic: "they walk in a fragmented trance, stop and go, clusters of well-dressed figures frozen in the aisles, trying to figure out the pattern, discern the underlying logic, trying to remember where they'd seen the Cream of Wheat" (325). DeLillo's version of life as we know offers some compelling signposts. Mainstream trash -- much of pop, if you will -- is toxic at many turns, and if not a great cloud, then infinitely more than a mere inflection. We desire that which we despise, and herein is the power of pop as a concept, a way of offering a critical trajectory. In a reflection on Pop Art, Roy Lichtenstein once remarked that "What characterises Pop is mainly its use of what is despised" (qtd. in Barthes 22). The pop impulse in art has always suggested a useful ambivalence for addressing the contradictions of life in the maelstrom -- the artist as interventionist/renegade and as commercial hack/celebrity; artful plundering and artless reproduction; the simultaneity of the provocation and the tedium of art in the pop mode; the knowable faux finish of the commercial good look of things and falseness as the raw material of cultural production; bad taste and cool cultural assaults. Pop in art has been accused of constituting a kind of slick cultural finish over cheap particle board. Still, there is a modicum of subversive power in the reversal of values in Pop Art (and in its precursors and its legacies) -- the common, the vulgar, the garish, the boring, the mass produced, the consumable, the pure commodity, all reworked to reveal their common, vulgar, garish, boring, massified, consumable, commodity nature. There have been impressive pop stylistic aggressions carried out against the constipation of high tastes, immutable standards, seriousness, and the ideologies of artistic and cultural legitimacy. Yet at times pop has been blunted by its very self-conscious edge as it engaged in self-congratulations for its irony, pith, and hipness. For some critics, pop in art suffers the malady of most style statements in the postmodern plague -- statements with no convictions since such statements are served up in quotation marks; and a life in quotation marks is no life at all. Pop declares that it is the progeny of commercial technique, marketplaces, advertising, and the commodity environments of junk; and if it didn't exactly spring from the mall, it has come to reside there now between the fountain and the food fair. At its worst, pop appears to be a vaporescent activity, but this perspective neglects some fine and very active pop moments. Pop excursions are important because they can open up creative and critical responses to popular culture. There is pop practice that rises well above empty irony and the business of oversinging (as in some current and brilliant cut-ups and constructed sounds in performance that not only have emotional substance, but are also danceable). Sometimes, out of the trash heap of pop, there are spaces in which popular culture is regenerated. And it is only in this relationship to popular culture that pop matters. References Barthes, Roland. "That Old Thing Called Art." Post-Pop Art. Ed. Paul Taylor. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989. DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Viking, 1985. Readings, Bill. The University in Ruins Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1996. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Martin Laba. "Picking through the Trash." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.4 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/trash.php>. Chicago style: Martin Laba, "Picking through the Trash," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 4 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/trash.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Martin Laba. (1999) Picking through the trash. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(4). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/trash.php> ([your date of access]).
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DeCook, Julia Rose. "Trust Me, I’m Trolling: Irony and the Alt-Right’s Political Aesthetic." M/C Journal 23, no.3 (July7, 2020). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1655.
Full textAbstract:
In August 2017, a white supremacist rally marketed as “Unite the Right” was held in Charlottesville, Virginia. In participation were members of the alt-right, including neo-nazis, white nationalists, neo-confederates, and other hate groups (Atkinson). The rally swiftly erupted in violence between white supremacists and counter protestors, culminating in the death of a counter-protester named Heather Heyer, who was struck by a car driven by white supremacist James Alex Fields, and leaving dozens injured. Terry McQuliffe, the Governor of Virginia, declared a state of emergency on August 12, and the world watched while white supremacists boldly marched in clothing emblazoned with symbols ranging from swastikas to a cartoon frog (Pepe), with flags featuring the nation of “Kekistan”, and carrying tiki torches chanting, “You Will Not Replace Us... Jews Will Not Replace Us”.The purpose of this essay is not, however, to examine the Internet symbols that circulated during the Unite the Right rally but rather to hone in on a specific moment that illustrates a key part of Internet culture that was often overlooked during analysis of the events that occurred during the riots: a documentary filmmaker, C. J. Hunt, was at the rally to record footage for a project on the removal of Confederate monuments. While there, he saw a rally-goer dressed in the white polo t-shirt and khaki pants uniform of the white nationalist group Vanguard America. The rally-goer, a young white man, was being chased by a counter-protester. He began to scream and beg for mercy, and even went as far as stripping off his clothing and denying that he really believed in any of the group’s ideology. In the recording by Hunt, who asks why he was there and why he was undressing, the young white man responded that shouting white power is “fun”, and that he was participating in the event because he, quote, “likes to be offensive” (Hunt).As Hunt notes in a piece for GQ reflecting on his experience at the rally, as soon as the man was cut off from his group and confronted, the runaway racist’s demeanor immediately changed when he had to face the consequences of his actions. Trolls often rely on the safety and anonymity of online forums and digital spaces where they are often free from having to face the consequences of their actions, and for the runaway racist, things became real very quickly when he was forced to own up to his hateful actions. In a way, many members of these movements seem to want politics without consequence for themselves, but with significant repercussions for others. Milo Yiannopoulos, a self-professed “master troll”, built an entire empire worth millions of dollars off of what the far-right defends as ironic hate speech and a form of politics without consequences reserved only for the privileged white men that gleefully engage in it. The runaway racist and Yiannopoulos are borne out of an Internet culture that is built on being offensive, on trolling, and “troll” itself being an aspirational label and identity, but also more importantly, a political aesthetic.In this essay, I argue that trolling itself has become a kind of political aesthetic and identity, and provide evidence via examples like hoaxes, harassment campaigns, and the use of memes to signal to certain online populations and extremist groups in violent attacks. First coined by Walter Benjamin in order to explain a fundamental component of using art to foster consent and compliance in fascist regimes, the term since then has evolved to encompass far more than just works of art. Benjamin’s original conception of the term is in regard to a creation of a spectacle that prevents the masses from recognizing their rights – in short, the aestheticization of politics is not just about the strategies of the fascist regimes themselves but says more about the subjects within them. In the time of Benjamin’s writing, the specific medium was mass propaganda through the newly emerging film industry and other forms of art (W. Benjamin). To Benjamin, these aesthetics served as tools of distracting to make fascism more palatable to the masses. Aesthetic tools of distraction serve an affective purpose, revealing the unhappy consciousness of neoreactionaries (Hui), and provide an outlet for their resentment.Since political aesthetics are concerned with how cultural products like art, film, and even clothing reflect political ideologies and beliefs (Sartwell; McManus; Miller-Idriss), the objects of analysis in this essay are part of the larger visual culture of the alt-right (Bogerts and Fielitz; Stanovsky). Indeed, aesthetic aspects of political systems shift their meaning over time, or are changed and redeployed with transformed effect (Sartwell). In this essay, I am applying the concept of the aestheticization of politics by analyzing how alt-right visual cultures deploy distraction and dissimulation to advance their political agenda through things like trolling campaigns and hoaxes. By analyzing these events, their use of memes, trolling techniques, and their influence on mainstream culture, what is revealed is the influence of trolling on political culture for the alt-right and how the alt-right then distracts the rest of the public (McManus).Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Troll?Large scale analyses of disinformation and extremist content online tends to examine how certain actors are connected, what topics emerge and how these are connected across platforms, and the ways that disinformation campaigns operate in digital environments (Marwick and Lewis; Starbird; Benkler et al.). Masculine and white-coded technology gave rise to male-dominated digital spaces (R. Benjamin), with trolling often being an issue faced by non-normative users of the Internet and their communities (Benjamin; Lumsden and Morgan; Nakamura; Phillips, Oxygen). Creating a kind of unreality where it is difficult to parse out truth from lies, fiction from non-fiction, the troll creates cultural products, and by hiding behind irony and humor confuses onlookers and is removed from any kind of reasonable blame for their actions. Irony has long been a rhetorical strategy used in politics, and the alt right has been no exception (Weatherby), but for our current sociopolitical landscape, trolling is a political strategy that infuses irony into politics and identity.In the digital era, political memes and internet culture are pervasive components of the spread of hate speech and extremist ideology on digital platforms. Trolling is not an issue that exists in a vacuum – rather, trolls are a product of greater mainstream culture that encourages and allows their behaviors (Phillips, This Is Why; Fichman and Sanfilippo; Marwick and Lewis). Trolls, and meme culture in general, have often been pointed to as being part of the reason for the rise of Trump and fascist politics across the world in recent years (Greene; Lamerichs et al.; Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir; Glitsos and Hall). Although criticism has been expressed about how impactful memes were in the election of Donald Trump, political memes have had an impact on the ways that trolling went from anonymous jerks on forums to figures like Yiannapoulos who built entire careers off of trolling, creating empires of hate (Lang). These memes that are often absurd and incomprehensible to those who are not a part of the community that they come from aim to cheapen, trivialize, and mock social justice movements like Black Lives Matter, feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and others.But the history of trolling online goes as far back as the Internet itself. “Trolling” is just a catch all term to describe online behaviors meant to antagonize, to disrupt online conversations, and to silence other users (Cole; Fichman and Sanfilippo). As more and more people started moving online and engaging in participatory culture, trolling continued to evolve from seemingly harmless jokes like the “Rick Roll” to targeted campaigns meant to harass women off of social media platforms (Lumsden and Morgan; Graham). Trolling behaviors are more than just an ugly part of the online experience, but are also a way for users to maintain the borders of their online community - it’s meant to drive away those who are perceived to be outsiders not just from the specific forum, but the Internet itself (Graham). With the rise of modern social media platforms, trolling itself is also a part of the political landscape, creating a “toxic counterpublic” that combines irony with a kind of earnestness to spread and inject their beliefs into mainstream political discourse (Greene). As a mode of information warfare, these subversive rhetorical strategies meant to contradict or reverse existing political and value systems have been used throughout history as a political tactic (Blackstock).The goal of trolling is not just to disrupt conversations, but to lead to chaos via confusion about the sincerity and meaning of messages and visuals, and rather than functioning as a politics of outrage (on the part of the adherents), it is a politics of being as outrageous as possible. As a part of larger meme culture, the aesthetics of trolls and their outrageous content manage to operate under the radar by being able to excuse their behaviors and rhetoric as just “trolling” or “joking”. This ambiguity points to trolling on the far right as a political strategy and identity to absolve them of blame or accusations of what their real intentions are. Calling them “trolls” hides the level of sophistication and vast levels of influence that they had on public opinion and discourse in the United States (Geltzer; Starks et al.; Marwick and Lewis). We no longer live in a world apart from the troll’s influence and immune from their toxic discourse – rather, we have long been under the bridge with them.Co-Opted SymbolsOne of the most well-known examples of trolling as a political aesthetic and tactic may be the OK hand sign used by the Christchurch shooter. The idea that the OK hand sign was a secretly white supremacist symbol started as a hoax on 4chan. The initial 2017 hoax purported that the hand sign was meant to stand for “White Power”, with the three fingers representing the W and the circle made with the index finger and thumb as the P (Anti-Defamation League, “Okay Hand Gesture”). The purpose of perpetuating the hoax was to demonstrate that (a) they were being watched and (b) that the mainstream media is stupid and gullible enough to believe this hoax. Meant to incite confusion and to act as a subversive strategy, the OK hand sign was then actually adopted by the alt-right as a sort of meme to not just perpetuate the hoax, but to signal belonging to the larger group (Allyn). Even though the Anti-Defamation League initially listed it as not being a hate symbol and pointed out the origins of the hoax (Anti-Defamation League, “No, the ‘OK’ Gesture Is Not a Hate Symbol”), they then switched their opinion when the OK hand sign was being flashed by white supremacists, showing up in photographs at political events, and other social media content. In fact, the OK hand sign is also a common element in pictures of Pepe the Frog, who is a sort of “alt right mascot” (Tait; Glitsos and Hall), but like the OK hand sign, Pepe the Frog did not start as an alt-right mascot and was co-opted by the alt-right as a mode of representation.The confusion around the actual meaning behind the hand symbol points to how the alt-right uses these modes of representation in ways that are simultaneously an inside joke and a real expression of their beliefs. For instance, the Christchurch shooter referenced a number of memes and other rhetoric typical of 4chan and 8chan communities in his video and manifesto (Quek). In the shooter’s manifesto and video, the vast amounts of content that point to the trolling and visual culture of the alt-right are striking – demonstrating how alt-right memes not only make this violent ideology accessible, but are cultural products meant to be disseminated and ultimately, result in some kind of action (DeCook).The creation and co-optation of symbols by the alt-right like the OK hand sign are not just memes, but a form of language created by extremists for extremists (Greene; Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir). The shooter’s choice of including this type of content in his manifesto as well as certain phrases in his live-streamed video indicate his level of knowledge of what needed to be done for his attack to get as much attention as possible – the 4chan troll is the modern-day bogeyman, and parts of the manifesto have been identified as intentional traps for the mainstream media (Lorenz).Thus, the Christchurch shooter and trolling culture are linked, but referring to the symbols in the manifesto as being a part of “trolling” culture misses the deeper purpose – chaos, through the outrage spectacle, is the intended goal, particularly by creating arguments about the nature and utility of online trolling behavior. The shooter encouraged other 8chan users to disseminate his posted manifesto as well as to share the video of the attack – and users responded by immortalizing the event in meme format. The memes created celebrated the shooter as a hero, and although Facebook did remove the initial livestream video, it was reuploaded to the platform 1.2 million times in the first 24 hours, attempting to saturate the online platform with so many uploads that it would cause confusion and be difficult to remove (Gramenz). Some users even created gifs or set the video to music from the Doom video game soundtrack – a video game where the player is a demon slayer in an apocalyptic world, further adding another layer of symbolism to the attack.These political aesthetics – spread through memes, gifs, and “fan videos” – are the perfect vehicles for disseminating extremist ideology because of what they allow the alt-right to do with them: hide behind them, covering up their intentions, all the while adopting them as signifiers for their movement. With the number of memes, symbols, and phrases posted in his manifesto and spoken aloud in his mainstream, perhaps the Christchurch shooter wanted the onus of the blame to fall on these message board communities and the video games and celebrities referenced – in effect, it was “designed to troll” (Lorenz). But, there is a kernel of truth in every meme, post, image, and comment – their memes are a part of their political aesthetic, thus implicit and explicit allusions to the inner workings of their ideology are present. Hiding behind hoaxes, irony, edginess, and trolling, members of the alt-right and other extremist Internet cultures then engage in a kind of subversion that allows them to avoid taking any responsibility for real and violent attacks that occur as a result of their discourse. Antagonizing the left, being offensive, and participating in this outrage spectacle to garner a response from news outlets, activists, and outsiders are all a part of the same package.Trolls and the Outrage SpectacleThe confusion and the chaos left behind by these kinds of trolling campaigns and hoaxes leave many to ask: How disingenuous is it? Is it meant for mere shock value or is it really reflective of the person’s beliefs? In terms of the theme of dissimulation for this special issue, what is the real intent, and under what pretenses should these kinds of trolling behaviors be understood? Returning to the protestor who claimed “I just like to be offensive”, the skepticism from onlookers still exists: why go so far as to join an alt-right rally, wearing the uniform of Identity Evropa (now the American Identity Movement), as a “joke”?Extremists hide behind humor and irony to cloud judgments from others, begging the question of can we have practice without belief? But, ultimately, practice and belief are intertwined – the regret of the Runaway Racist is not because he suddenly realized he did not “believe”, but rather was forced to face the consequences of his belief, something that he as a white man perhaps never really had to confront. The cultural reach of dissimulation, in particular hiding true intent behind the claim of “irony”, is vast - YouTuber Pewdiepie claimed his use of racial and anti-Semitic slurs and putting on an entire Ku Klux Klan uniform in the middle of a video were “accidental” only after considerable backlash (Picheta). It has to be noted, however, that Pewdiepie is referenced in the manifesto of the Christchurch shooter – specifically, the shooter yelled during his livestream “subscribe to Pewdiepie”, (Lorenz). Pewdiepie and many other trolls, once called out for their behavior, and regardless of their actual intent, double down on their claims of irony to distract from the reality of their behaviors and actions.The normalization of this kind of content in mainstream platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and even Instagram show how 4chan and alt-right Internet culture has seeped out of its borders and exists everywhere online. This “coded irony” is not only enabled rhetorically due to irony’s slippery definition, but also digitally via these online media (Weatherby). The aesthetics of the troll are present in every single platform and are disseminated everywhere – memes are small cultural units meant to be passed on (Shifman), and although one can argue it was not memes alone that resulted in the rise of the alt-right and the election of Donald Trump, memes are a part of the larger puzzle of the political radicalization process. The role of the Internet in radicalization is so powerful and insidious because of the presentation of content – it is funny, edgy, ironic, offensive, and outrageous. But these behaviors and attitudes are not just appealing to some kind of adolescent-like desire to push boundaries of what is and is not socially acceptable and/or politically incorrect (Marwick and Lewis), and calling it such clouds people’s perceptions of their level of sophistication in shaping political discourse.Memes and the alt-right are a noted phenomenon, and these visual cultures created by trolls on message boards have aided in the rise of the current political situation worldwide (Hodge and Hallgrimsdottir). We are well in the midst of a type of warfare based on not weapons and bodies, but information and data - in which memes and other elements of the far right’s political aesthetic play an important role (Molander et al.; Prier; Bogerts and Fielitz). The rise of the online troll as a political player and the alt-right are merely the logical outcomes of these systems.ConclusionThe alt-right’s spread was possible because of the trolling cultures and aesthetics of dissimulation created in message boards that predate 4chan (Kitada). The memes and inflammatory statements made by them serve multiple purposes, ranging from an intention to incite outrage among non-members of the group to signal group belonging and identity. In some odd way, if people do not understand the content, the content actually speaks louder and, in more volumes, that it would if its intent was more straightforward – in their confusion, people give these trolling techniques more attention and amplification in their attempt to make sense of them. Through creating confusion, distraction, and uncertainty around the legitimacy of messages, hand signs, and even memes, the alt-right has elevated the aestheticization of politics to a degree that Walter Benjamin could perhaps not have predicted in his initial lament about the distracted masses of fascist regimes (McManus). The political dimensions of trolling and the cognitive uncertainty that it creates is a part of its goal. Dismissing trolls is no longer an option, but also regarding them as sinister political operatives may be overblowing their significance. In the end, “ironic hate speech” is still hate speech, and by couching their extremist ideology in meme format they make their extremist beliefs more palatable -- and nobody is completely immune to their strategies.ReferencesAllyn, Bobby. “The ‘OK’ Hand Gesture Is Now Listed as a Symbol of Hate.” NPR 2019. <https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764728163/the-ok-hand-gesture-is-now-listed-as-a-symbol-of-hate>.Anti-Defamation League. “No, the ‘OK’ Gesture Is Not a Hate Symbol.” Anti-Defamation League. 10 Dec. 2017 <https://www.adl.org/blog/no-the-ok-gesture-is-not-a-hate-symbol>.———. “Okay Hand Gesture.” Anti-Defamation League. 28 Feb. 2020 <https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-hand-gesture>.Atkinson, David C. “Charlottesville and the Alt-Right: A Turning Point?” Politics, Groups, and Identities 6.2 (2018): 309-15.Benjamin, Ruha. Race after Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Polity, 2019.Benjamin, Walter. 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Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.Funke, Daniel. “When and How to Use 4chan to Cover Conspiracy Theories.” Poynter, 24 Sep. 2018. <https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2018/when-and-how-to-use-4chan-to-cover-conspiracy-theories/>.Geltzer, Joshua A. “Stop Calling Them ‘Russian Troll Farms’ - CNN.” CNN, 2018. <https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/17/opinions/stop-calling-russian-operatives-troll-farms-geltzer/index.html>.Glitsos, Laura, and James Hall. “The Pepe the Frog Meme: An Examination of Social, Political, and Cultural Implications through the Tradition of the Darwinian Absurd.” Journal for Cultural Research 23.4 (2019): 381-95.Graham, Elyse. “Boundary Maintenance and the Origins of Trolling.” New Media & Society (2019). doi:10.1177/1461444819837561.Gramenz, Jack. “Christchurch Mosque Attack Livestream: Why Facebook Continues to Fail.” New Zealand Herald 17 Feb. 2020. <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12309116>.Greene, Viveca S. “‘Deplorable’ Satire: Alt-Right Memes, White Genocide Tweets, and Redpilling Normies.” Studies in American Humor 5.1 (2019): 31–69.Hodge, Edwin, and Helga Hallgrimsdottir. “Networks of Hate: The Alt-Right, ‘Troll Culture’, and the Cultural Geography of Social Movement Spaces Online.” Journal of Borderlands Studies (2019): 1–18.Hui, Yuk. “On the Unhappy Consciousness of Neoreactionaries.” E-Flux 81 (2017). <https://www.e-flux.com/journal/81/125815/on-the-unhappy-consciousness-of-neoreactionaries/>.Hunt, C. J. “A Charlottesville White Supremacist Stripped Down to Escape Protesters and We Got It on Video.” GQ 2017. <https://www.gq.com/story/charlottesville-white-supremacist-strips-to-escape-protestors>.Kitada, Akihiro. “Japan’s Cynical Nationalism.” Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World. Eds. Mizuko Ito et al. Yale UP, 2012: 68–84.Lamerichs, Nicolle, et al. “Elite Male Bodies: The Circulation of Alt-Right Memes and the Framing of Politicians on Social Media.” Participations 15.1 (2018): 180–206.Lang, Nico. “Trolling in the Name of ‘Free Speech’: How Milo Yiannopoulos Built an Empire off Violent Harassment.” Salon, 2016. <http://www.salon.com/2016/12/19/trolling-in-the-name-of-free-speech-how-milo-yiannopoulos-built-an-empire-off-violent-harassment/>.Lorenz, Taylor. “The Shooter’s Manifesto Was Designed to Troll.” The Atlantic, 15 Mar. 2019. <https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/the-shooters-manifesto-was-designed-to-troll/585058/>.Lumsden, Karen, and Heather Morgan. “Media Framing of Trolling and Online Abuse: Silencing Strategies, Symbolic Violence, and Victim Blaming.” Feminist Media Studies 17.6 (2017): 926–40.Marwick, Alice E., and Rebecca Lewis. “Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online.” Data & Society, 2017. <http://centerformediajustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/DataAndSociety_MediaManipulationAndDisinformationOnline.pdf>.McManus, Matt. “Walter Benjamin and the Political Practices of the Alt-Right.” New Politics, 27 Dec. 2017. <https://newpol.org/walter-benjamin-and-political-practices-altright/>.Miller-Idriss, Cynthia. The Extreme Gone Mainstream: Commercialization and Far Right Youth Culture in Germany. Princeton UP, 2018.Molander, Roger C., et al. Strategic Information Warfare: A New Face of War. RAND Corporation, 1996. <https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR661.html>.Nakamura, Lisa. Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. Routledge, 2002.Nissenbaum, Asaf, and Limor Shifman. “Internet Memes as Contested Cultural Capital: The Case of 4chan’s /b/ Board.” New Media & Society 19.4 (2017): 483–501.Phillips, Whitney. The Oxygen of Amplification. Data & Society, 2018. <https://datasociety.net/output/oxygen-of-amplification>.———. This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2015.Picheta, Rob. “PewDiePie Will Take a Break from YouTube, Saying He’s ‘Very Tired.’” CNN, 2019. <https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/16/tech/pewdiepie-taking-break-youtube-scli-intl/index.html>.Prier, Jarred. “Commanding the Trend: Social Media as Information Warfare.” Strategic Studies Quarterly 11.4 (2017): 50–85.Quek, Natasha. Bloodbath in Christchurch: The Rise of Far-Right Terrorism. 2019.Sartwell, Crispin. Political Aesthetics. Cornell UP, 2010.Shifman, Limor. Memes in Digital Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2014.Stanovsky, Derek. “Remix Racism: The Visual Politics of the ‘Alt-Right’.” Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric 7 (2017).Starbird, Kate. “Examining the Alternative Media Ecosystem through the Production of Alternative Narratives of Mass Shooting Events on Twitter.” International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (2017): 230–239. <https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM17/paper/view/15603>.Starks, Tim, Laurens Cerulus, and Mark Scott. “Russia’s Manipulation of Twitter Was Far Vaster than Believed.” Politico, 5 Jun. 2019. <https://politi.co/2HXDVQ2>.Tait, Amelia. “First They Came for Pepe: How ‘Ironic’ Nazism Is Taking Over the Internet.” New Statesman 16 Feb. 2017. <http://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/internet/2017/02/first-they-came-pepe-how-ironic-nazism-taking-over-internet>.
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Ensminger, David Allen. "Populating the Ambient Space of Texts: The Intimate Graffiti of Doodles. Proposals Toward a Theory." M/C Journal 13, no.2 (March9, 2010). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.219.
Full textAbstract:
In a media saturated world, doodles have recently received the kind of attention usually reserved for coverage of racy extra marital affairs, corrupt governance, and product malfunction. Former British Prime Minister Blair’s private doodling at a World Economic Forum meeting in 2005 raised suspicions that he, according to one keen graphologist, struggled “to maintain control in a confusing world," which infers he was attempting to cohere a scattershot, fragmentary series of events (Spiegel). However, placid-faced Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, who sat nearby, actually scrawled the doodles. In this case, perhaps the scrawls mimicked the ambience in the room: Gates might have been ‘tuning’–registering the ‘white noise’ of the participants, letting his unconscious dictate doodles as a way to cope with the dissonance trekking in with the officialspeak. The doodles may have documented and registered the space between words, acting like deposits from his gestalt.Sometimes the most intriguing doodles co-exist with printed texts. This includes common vernacular graffiti that lines public and private books and magazines. Such graffiti exposes tensions in the role of readers as well as horror vacui: a fear of unused, empty space. Yet, school children fingering fresh pages and stiff book spines for the first few times often consider their book pages as sanctioned, discreet, and inviolable. The book is an object of financial and cultural investment, or imbued both with mystique and ideologies. Yet, in the e-book era, the old-fashioned, physical page is a relic of sorts, a holdover from coarse papyrus culled from wetland sage, linking us to the First Dynasty in Egypt. Some might consider the page as a vessel for typography, a mere framing device for text. The margins may reflect a perimeter of nothingness, an invisible borderland that doodles render visible by inhabiting them. Perhaps the margins are a bare landscape, like unmarred flat sand in a black and white panchromatic photo with unique tonal signature and distinct grain. Perhaps the margins are a mute locality, a space where words have evaporated, or a yet-to-be-explored environment, or an ambient field. Then comes the doodle, an icon of vernacular art.As a modern folklorist, I have studied and explored vernacular art at length, especially forms that may challenge and fissure aesthetic, cultural, and social mores, even within my own field. For instance, I contend that Grandma Prisbrey’s “Bottle Village,” featuring millions of artfully arranged pencils, bottles, and dolls culled from dumps in Southern California, is a syncretic culturescape with underlying feminist symbolism, not merely the product of trauma and hoarding (Ensminger). Recently, I flew to Oregon to deliver a paper on Mexican-American gravesite traditions. In a quest for increased multicultural tolerance, I argued that inexpensive dimestore objects left on Catholic immigrant graves do not represent a messy landscape of trinkets but unique spiritual environments with links to customs 3,000 years old. For me, doodles represent a variation on graffiti-style art with cultural antecedents stretching back throughout history, ranging from ancient scrawls on Greek ruins to contemporary park benches (with chiseled names, dates, and symbols), public bathroom latrinalia, and spray can aerosol art, including ‘bombing’ and ‘tagging’ hailed as “Spectacular Vernaculars” by Russell Potter (1995). Noted folklorist Alan Dundes mused on the meaning of latrinalia in Here I Sit – A Study of American Latrinalia (1966), which has inspired pop culture books and web pages for the preservation and discussion of such art (see for instance, www.itsallinthehead.com/gallery1.html). Older texts such as Classic American Graffiti by Allen Walker Read (1935), originally intended for “students of linguistics, folk-lore, abnormal psychology,” reveal the field’s longstanding interest in marginal, crude, and profane graffiti.Yet, to my knowledge, a monograph on doodles has yet to be published by a folklorist, perhaps because the art form is reconsidered too idiosyncratic, too private, the difference between jots and doodles too blurry for a taxonomy and not the domain of identifiable folk groups. In addition, the doodles in texts often remain hidden until single readers encounter them. No broad public interaction is likely, unless a library text circulates freely, which may not occur after doodles are discovered. In essence, the books become tainted, infected goods. Whereas latrinalia speaks openly and irreverently, doodles feature a different scale and audience.Doodles in texts may represent a kind of speaking from the ‘margin’s margins,’ revealing the reader-cum-writer’s idiosyncratic, self-meaningful, and stylised hieroglyphics from the ambient margins of one’s consciousness set forth in the ambient margins of the page. The original page itself is an ambient territory that allows the meaning of the text to take effect. When those liminal spaces (both between and betwixt, in which the rules of page format, design, style, and typography are abandoned) are altered by the presence of doodles, the formerly blank, surplus, and soft spaces of the page offer messages coterminous with the text, often allowing readers to speak, however haphazardly and unconsciously, with and against the triggering text. The bleached whiteness can become a crowded milieu in the hands of a reader re-scripting the ambient territory. If the book is borrowed, then the margins are also an intimate negotiation with shared or public space. The cryptic residue of the doodler now resides, waiting, for the city of eyes.Throughout history, both admired artists and Presidents regularly doodled. Famed Italian Renaissance painter Filippo Lippi avoided strenuous studying by doodling in his books (Van Cleave 44). Both sides of the American political spectrum have produced plentiful inky depictions as well: roughshod Democratic President Johnson drew flags and pagodas; former Hollywood fantasy fulfiller turned politician Republican President Reagan’s specialty was western themes, recalling tropes both from his actor period and his duration acting as President; meanwhile, former law student turned current President, Barack Obama, has sketched members of Congress and the Senate for charity auctions. These doodles are rich fodder for both psychologists and cross-discipline analysts that propose theories regarding the automatic writing and self-styled miniature pictures of civic leaders. Doodles allow graphologists to navigate and determine the internal, cognitive fabric of the maker. To critics, they exist as mere trifles and offer nothing more than an iota of insight; doodles are not uncanny offerings from the recesses of memory, like bite-sized Rorschach tests, but simply sloppy scrawls of the bored.Ambient music theory may shed some light. Timothy Morton argues that Brian Eno designed to make music that evoked “space whose quality had become minimally significant” and “deconstruct the opposition … between figure and ground.” In fact, doodles may yield the same attributes as well. After a doodle is inserted into texts, the typography loses its primacy. There is a merging of the horizons. The text of the author can conflate with the text of the reader in an uneasy dance of meaning: the page becomes an interface revealing a landscape of signs and symbols with multiple intelligences–one manufactured and condoned, the other vernacular and unsanctioned. A fixed end or beginning between the two no longer exists. The ambient space allows potential energies to hover at the edge, ready to illustrate a tension zone and occupy the page. The blank spaces keep inviting responses. An emergent discourse is always in waiting, always threatening to overspill the text’s intended meaning. In fact, the doodles may carry more weight than the intended text: the hierarchy between authorship and readership may topple.Resistant reading may take shape during these bouts. The doodle is an invasion and signals the geography of disruption, even when innocuous. It is a leveling tool. As doodlers place it alongside official discourse, they move away from positions of passivity, being mere consumers, and claim their own autonomy and agency. The space becomes co-determinant as boundaries are blurred. The destiny of the original text’s meaning is deferred. The habitus of the reader becomes embodied in the scrawl, and the next reader must negotiate and navigate the cultural capital of this new author. As such, the doodle constitutes an alternative authority and economy of meaning within the text.Recent studies indicate doodling, often regarded as behavior that announces a person’s boredom and withdrawal, is actually a very special tool to prevent memory loss. Jackie Andrade, an expert from the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth, maintains that doodling actually “offsets the effects of selective memory blockade,” which yields a surprising result (quoted in “Doodling Gets”). Doodlers exhibit 29% more memory recall than those who passively listen, frozen in an unequal bond with the speaker/lecturer. Students that doodle actually retain more information and are likely more productive due to their active listening. They adeptly absorb information while students who stare patiently or daydream falter.Furthermore, in a 2006 paper, Andrew Kear argues that “doodling is a way in which students, consciously or not, stake a claim of personal agency and challenge some the values inherent in the education system” (2). As a teacher concerned with the engagement of students, he asked for three classes to submit their doodles. Letting them submit any two-dimensional graphic or text made during a class (even if made from body fluid), he soon discovered examples of “acts of resistance” in “student-initiated effort[s] to carve out a sense of place within the educational institution” (6). Not simply an ennui-prone teenager or a proto-surrealist trying to render some automatic writing from the fringes of cognition, a student doodling may represent contested space both in terms of the page itself and the ambience of the environment. The doodle indicates tension, and according to Kear, reflects students reclaiming “their own self-recognized voice” (6).In a widely referenced 1966 article (known as the “doodle” article) intended to describe the paragraph organisational styles of different cultures, Robert Kaplan used five doodles to investigate a writer’s thought patterns, which are rooted in cultural values. Now considered rather problematic by some critics after being adopted by educators for teacher-training materials, Kaplan’s doodles-as-models suggest, “English speakers develop their ideas in a linear, hierarchal fashion and ‘Orientals’ in a non-liner, spiral fashion…” (Severino 45). In turn, when used as pedagogical tools, these graphics, intentionally or not, may lead an “ethnocentric, assimilationist stance” (45). In this case, doodles likely shape the discourse of English as Second Language instruction. Doodles also represent a unique kind of “finger trace,” not unlike prints from the tips of a person’s fingers and snowflakes. Such symbol systems might be used for “a means of lightweight authentication,” according to Christopher Varenhorst of MIT (1). Doodles, he posits, can be used as “passdoodles"–a means by which a program can “quickly identify users.” They are singular expressions that are quirky and hard to duplicate; thus, doodles could serve as substitute methods of verifying people who desire devices that can safeguard their privacy without users having to rely on an ever-increasing number of passwords. Doodles may represent one such key. For many years, psychologists and psychiatrists have used doodles as therapeutic tools in their treatment of children that have endured hardship, ailments, and assault. They may indicate conditions, explain various symptoms and pathologies, and reveal patterns that otherwise may go unnoticed. For instance, doodles may “reflect a specific physical illness and point to family stress, accidents, difficult sibling relationships, and trauma” (Lowe 307). Lowe reports that children who create a doodle featuring their own caricature on the far side of the page, distant from an image of parent figures on the same page, may be experiencing detachment, while the portrayal of a father figure with “jagged teeth” may indicate a menace. What may be difficult to investigate in a doctor’s office conversation or clinical overview may, in fact, be gleaned from “the evaluation of a child’s spontaneous doodle” (307). So, if children are suffering physically or psychologically and unable to express themselves in a fully conscious and articulate way, doodles may reveal their “self-concept” and how they feel about their bodies; therefore, such creative and descriptive inroads are important diagnostic tools (307). Austrian born researcher Erich Guttman and his cohort Walter MacLay both pioneered art therapy in England during the mid-twentieth century. They posited doodles might offer some insight into the condition of schizophrenics. Guttman was intrigued by both the paintings associated with the Surrealist movement and the pioneering, much-debated work of Sigmund Freud too. Although Guttman mostly studied professionally trained artists who suffered from delusions and other conditions, he also collected a variety of art from patients, including those undergoing mescaline therapy, which alters a person’s consciousness. In a stroke of luck, they were able to convince a newspaper editor at the Evening Standard to provide them over 9,000 doodles that were provided by readers for a contest, each coded with the person’s name, age, and occupation. This invaluable data let the academicians compare the work of those hospitalised with the larger population. Their results, released in 1938, contain several key declarations and remain significant contributions to the field. Subsequently, Francis Reitman recounted them in his own book Psychotic Art: Doodles “release the censor of the conscious mind,” allowing a person to “relax, which to creative people was indispensable to production.”No appropriate descriptive terminology could be agreed upon.“Doodles are not communications,” for the meaning is only apparent when analysed individually.Doodles are “self-meaningful.” (37) Doodles, the authors also established, could be divided into this taxonomy: “stereotypy, ornamental details, movements, figures, faces and animals” or those “depicting scenes, medley, and mixtures” (37). The authors also noted that practitioners from the Jungian school of psychology often used “spontaneously produced drawings” that were quite “doodle-like in nature” in their own discussions (37). As a modern folklorist, I venture that doodles offer rich potential for our discipline as well. At this stage, I am offering a series of dictums, especially in regards to doodles that are commonly found adjacent to text in books and magazines, notebooks and journals, that may be expanded upon and investigated further. Doodles allow the reader to repopulate the text with ideogram-like expressions that are highly personalised, even inscrutable, like ambient sounds.Doodles re-purpose the text. The text no longer is unidirectional. The text becomes a point of convergence between writer and reader. The doodling allows for such a conversation, bilateral flow, or “talking back” to the text.Doodles reveal a secret language–informal codes that hearken back to the “lively, spontaneous, and charged with feeling” works of child art or naïve art that Victor Sanua discusses as being replaced in a child’s later years by art that is “stilted, formal, and conforming” (62).Doodling animates blank margins, the dead space of the text adjacent to the script, making such places ripe for spontaneous, fertile, and exploratory markings.Doodling reveals a democratic, participatory ethos. No text is too sacred, no narrative too inviolable. Anything can be reworked by the intimate graffiti of the reader. The authority of the book is not fixed; readers negotiate and form a second intelligence imprinted over the top of the original text, blurring modes of power.Doodles reveal liminal moments. Since the reader in unmonitored, he or she can express thoughts that may be considered marginal or taboo by the next reader. The original subject of the book itself does not restrict the reader. Thus, within the margins of the page, a brief suspension of boundaries and borders, authority and power, occurs. The reader hides in anonymity, free to reroute the meaning of the book. Doodling may convey a reader’s infantalism. Every book can become a picture book. This art can be the route returning a reader to the ambience of childhood.Doodling may constitute Illuminated/Painted Texts in reverse, commemorating the significance of the object in hitherto unexpected forms and revealing the reader’s codex. William Blake adorned his own poems by illuminating the skin/page that held his living verse; common readers may do so too, in naïve, nomadic, and primitive forms. Doodling demarcates tension zones, yielding social-historical insights into eras while offering psychological glimpses and displaying aesthetic values of readers-cum-writers.Doodling reveals margins as inter-zones, replete with psychogeography. While the typography is sanctioned, legitimate, normalised, and official discourse (“chartered” and “manacled,” to hijack lines from William Blake), the margins are a vernacular depository, a terminus, allowing readers a sense of agency and autonomy. The doodled page becomes a visible reminder and signifier: all pages are potentially “contested” spaces. Whereas graffiti often allows a writer to hide anonymously in the light in a city besieged by multiple conflicting texts, doodles allow a reader-cum-writer’s imprint to live in the cocoon of a formerly fossilised text, waiting for the light. Upon being opened, the book, now a chimera, truly breathes. Further exploration and analysis should likely consider several issues. What truly constitutes and shapes the role of agent and reader? Is the reader an agent all the time, or only when offering resistant readings through doodles? How is a doodler’s agency mediated by the author or the format of texts in forms that I have to map? Lastly, if, as I have argued, the ambient space allows potential energies to hover at the edge, ready to illustrate a tension zone and occupy the page, what occurs in the age of digital or e-books? Will these platforms signal an age of acquiescence to manufactured products or signal era of vernacular responses, somehow hitched to html code and PDF file infiltration? Will bytes totally replace type soon in the future, shaping unforeseen actions by doodlers? Attached Figures Figure One presents the intimate graffiti of my grandfather, found in the 1907 edition of his McGuffey’s Eclectic Spelling Book. The depiction is simple, even crude, revealing a figure found on the adjacent page to Lesson 248, “Of Characters Used in Punctuation,” which lists the perfunctory functions of commas, semicolons, periods, and so forth. This doodle may offset the routine, rote, and rather humdrum memorisation of such grammatical tools. The smiling figure may embody and signify joy on an otherwise machine-made bare page, a space where my grandfather illustrated his desires (to lighten a mood, to ease dissatisfaction?). Historians Joe Austin and Michael Willard examine how youth have been historically left without legitimate spaces in which to live out their autonomy outside of adult surveillance. For instance, graffiti often found on walls and trains may reflect a sad reality: young people are pushed to appropriate “nomadic, temporary, abandoned, illegal, or otherwise unwatched spaces within the landscape” (14). Indeed, book graffiti, like the graffiti found on surfaces throughout cities, may offer youth a sense of appropriation, authorship, agency, and autonomy: they take the page of the book, commit their writing or illustration to the page, discover some freedom, and feel temporarily independent even while they are young and disempowered. Figure Two depicts the doodles of experimental filmmaker Jim Fetterley (Animal Charm productions) during his tenure as a student at the Art Institute of Chicago in the early 1990s. His two doodles flank the text of “Lady Lazarus” by Sylvia Plath, regarded by most readers as an autobiographical poem that addresses her own suicide attempts. The story of Lazarus is grounded in the Biblical story of John Lazarus of Bethany, who was resurrected from the dead. The poem also alludes to the Holocaust (“Nazi Lampshades”), the folklore surrounding cats (“And like the cat I have nine times to die”), and impending omens of death (“eye pits “ … “sour breath”). The lower doodle seems to signify a motorised tank-like machine, replete with a furnace or engine compartment on top that bellows smoke. Such ominous images, saturated with potential cartoon-like violence, may link to the World War II references in the poem. Meanwhile, the upper doodle seems to be curiously insect-like, and Fetterley’s name can be found within the illustration, just like Plath’s poem is self-reflexive and addresses her own plight. Most viewers might find the image a bit more lighthearted than the poem, a caricature of something biomorphic and surreal, but not very lethal. Again, perhaps this is a counter-message to the weight of the poem, a way to balance the mood and tone, or it may well represent the larval-like apparition that haunts the very thoughts of Plath in the poem: the impending disease of her mind, as understood by the wary reader. References Austin, Joe, and Michael Willard. “Introduction: Angels of History, Demons of Culture.” Eds. Joe Austion and Michael Willard. Generations of Youth: Youth Cultures and History in Twentieth-Century America. New York: NYU Press, 1998. “Doodling Gets Its Due: Those Tiny Artworks May Aid Memory.” World Science 2 March 2009. 15 Jan. 2009 ‹http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090302_doodle›. Dundes, Alan. “Here I Sit – A Study of American Latrinalia.” Papers of the Kroeber Anthropological Society 34: 91-105. Ensminger, David. “All Bottle Up: Reinterpreting the Culturescape of Grandma Prisbey.” Adironack Review 9.3 (Fall 2008). ‹http://adirondackreview.homestead.com/ensminger2.html›. Kear, Andrew. “Drawings in the Margins: Doodling in Class an Act of Reclamation.” Graduate Student Conference. University of Toronto, 2006. ‹http://gradstudentconference.oise.utoronto.ca/documents/185/Drawing%20in%20the%20Margins.doc›. Lowe, Sheila R. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Handwriting Analysis. New York: Alpha Books, 1999. Morton, Timothy. “‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ as an Ambient Poem; a Study of Dialectical Image; with Some Remarks on Coleridge and Wordsworth.” Romantic Circles Praxis Series (2001). 6 Jan. 2009 ‹http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/ecology/morton/morton.html›. Potter, Russell A. Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism. Albany: State University of New York, 1995. Read, Allen Walker. Classic American Graffiti: Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America. Waukesha, Wisconsin: Maledicta Press, 1997. Reitman, Francis. Psychotic Art. London: Routledge, 1999. Sanua, Victor. “The World of Mystery and Wonder of the Schizophrenic Patient.” International Journal of Social Psychiatry 8 (1961): 62-65. Severino, Carol. “The ‘Doodles’ in Context: Qualifying Claims about Contrastive Rhetoric.” The Writing Center Journal 14.1 (Fall 1993): 44-62. Van Cleave, Claire. Master Drawings of the Italian Rennaissance. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 2007. Varenhost, Christopher. Passdoodles: A Lightweight Authentication Method. Research Science Institute. Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004.
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Allatson, Paul. "The Virtualization of Elián González." M/C Journal 7, no.5 (November1, 2004). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2449.
Full textAbstract:
For seven months in 1999/2000, six-year old Cuban Elián González was embroiled in a family feud plotted along rival national and ideological lines, and relayed televisually as soap opera across the planet. In Miami, apparitions of the Virgin Mary were reported after Elián’s arrival; adherents of Afro-Cuban santería similarly regarded Elián as divinely touched. In Cuba, Elián’s “kidnapping” briefly reinvigorated a torpid revolutionary project. He was hailed by Fidel Castro as the symbolic descendant of José Martí and Che Guevara, and of the patriotic rigour they embodied. Cubans massed to demand his return. In the U.S.A., Elián’s case was arbitrated at every level of the juridical system. The “Save Elián” campaign generated widespread debate about godless versus godly family values, the contours of the American Dream, and consumerist excess. By the end of 2000 Elián had generated the second largest volume of TV news coverage to that date in U.S. history, surpassed only by the O. J. Simpson case (Fasulo). After Fidel Castro, and perhaps the geriatric music ensemble manufactured by Ry Cooder, the Buena Vista Social Club, Elián became the most famous Cuban of our era. Elián also emerged as the unlikeliest of popular-cultural icons, the focus and subject of cyber-sites, books, films, talk-back radio programs, art exhibits, murals, statues, documentaries, a South Park episode, poetry, songs, t-shirts, posters, newspaper editorials in dozens of languages, demonstrations, speeches, political cartoons, letters, legal writs, U.S. Congress records, opinion polls, prayers, and, on both sides of the Florida Strait, museums consecrated in his memory. Confronted by Elián’s extraordinary renown and historical impact, John Carlos Rowe suggests that the Elián story confirms the need for a post-national and transdisciplinary American Studies, one whose practitioners “will have to be attentive to the strange intersections of politics, law, mass media, popular folklore, literary rhetoric, history, and economics that allow such events to be understood.” (204). I share Rowe’s reading of Elián’s story and the clear challenges it presents to analysis of “America,” to which I would add “Cuba” as well. But Elián’s story is also significant for the ways it challenges critical understandings of fame and its construction. No longer, to paraphrase Leo Braudy (566), definable as an accidental hostage of the mass-mediated eye, Elián’s fame has no certain relation to the child at its discursive centre. Elián’s story is not about an individuated, conscious, performing, desiring, and ambivalently rewarded ego. Elián was never what P. David Marshall calls “part of the public sphere, essentially an actor or, … a player” in it (19). The living/breathing Elián is absent from what I call the virtualizing drives that famously reproduced him. As a result of this virtualization, while one Elián now attends school in Cuba, many other Eliáns continue to populate myriad popular-cultural texts and to proliferate away from the states that tried to contain him. According to Jerry Everard, “States are above all cultural artefacts” that emerge, virtually, “as information produced by and through practices of signification,” as bits, bites, networks, and flows (7). All of us, he claims, reside in “virtual states,” in “legal fictions” based on the elusive and contested capacity to generate national identities in an imaginary bounded space (152). Cuba, the origin of Elián, is a virtual case in point. To augment Nicole Stenger’s definition of cyberspace, Cuba, like “Cyberspace, is like Oz — it is, we get there, but it has no location” (53). As a no-place, Cuba emerges in signifying terms as an illusion with the potential to produce and host Cubanness, as well as rival ideals of nation that can be accessed intact, at will, and ready for ideological deployment. Crude dichotomies of antagonism — Cuba/U.S.A., home/exile, democracy/communism, freedom/tyranny, North/South, godlessness/blessedness, consumption/want — characterize the hegemonic struggle over the Cuban nowhere. Split and splintered, hypersensitive and labyrinthine, guarded and hysterical, and always active elsewhere, the Cuban cultural artefact — an “atmospheric depression in history” (Stenger 56) — very much conforms to the logics that guide the appeal, and danger, of cyberspace. Cuba occupies an inexhaustible “ontological time … that can be reintegrated at any time” (Stenger 55), but it is always haunted by the prospect of ontological stalling and proliferation. The cyber-like struggle over reintegration, of course, evokes the Elián González affair, which began on 25 November 1999, when five-year old Elián set foot on U.S. soil, and ended on 28 June 2000, when Elián, age six, returned to Cuba with his father. Elián left one Cuba and found himself in another Cuba, in the U.S.A., each national claimant asserting virtuously that its other was a no-place and therefore illegitimate. For many exiles, Elián’s arrival in Miami confirmed that Castro’s Cuba is on the point of collapse and hence on the virtual verge of reintegration into the democratic fold as determined by the true upholders of the nation, the exile community. It was also argued that Elián’s biological father could never be the boy’s true father because he was a mere emasculated puppet of Castro himself. The Cuban state, then, had forfeited its claims to generate and host Cubanness. Succoured by this logic, the “Save Elián” campaign began, with organizations like the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) bankrolling protests, leaflet and poster production, and official “Elián” websites, providing financial assistance to and arranging employment for some of Elián’s Miami relatives, lobbying the U.S. Congress and the Florida legislature, and contributing funds to the legal challenges on behalf of Elián at state and federal levels. (Founded in 1981, the CANF is the largest and most powerful Cuban exile organization, and one that regards itself as the virtual government-in-waiting. CANF emerged with the backing of the Reagan administration and the C.I.A. as a “private sector initiative” to support U.S. efforts against its long-time ideological adversary across the Florida Strait [Arboleya 224-5].) While the “Save Elián” campaign failed, the result of a Cuban American misreading of public opinion and overestimation of the community’s lobbying power with the Clinton administration, the struggle continues in cyberspace. CANF.net.org registers its central role in this intense period with silence; but many of the “Save Elián” websites constructed after November 1999 continue to function as sad memento moris of Elián’s shipwreck in U.S. virtual space. (The CANF website does provide links to articles and opinion pieces about Elián from the U.S. media, but its own editorializing on the Elián affair has disappeared. Two keys to this silence were the election of George W. Bush, and the events of 11 Sep. 2001, which have enabled a revision of the Elián saga as a mere temporary setback on the Cuban-exile historical horizon. Indeed, since 9/11, the CANF website has altered the terms of its campaign against Castro, posting photos of Castro with Arab leaders and implicating him in a world-wide web of terrorism. Elián’s return to Cuba may thus be viewed retrospectively as an act that galvanized Cuban-exile support for the Republican Party and their disdain for the Democratic rival, and this support became pivotal in the Republican electoral victory in Florida and in the U.S.A. as a whole.) For many months after Elián’s return to Cuba, the official Liberty for Elián site, established in April 2000, was urging visitors to make a donation, volunteer for the Save Elián taskforce, send email petitions, and “invite a friend to help Elián.” (Since I last accessed “Liberty for Elián” in March 2004 it has become a gambling site.) Another site, Elian’s Home Page, still implores visitors to pray for Elián. Some of the links no longer function, and imperatives to “Click here” lead to that dead zone called “URL not found on this server.” A similar stalling of the exile aspirations invested in Elián is evident on most remaining Elián websites, official and unofficial, the latter including The Sad Saga of Elian Gonzalez, which exhorts “Cuban Exiles! Now You Can Save Elián!” In these sites, a U.S. resident Elián lives on as an archival curiosity, a sign of pathos, and a reminder of what was, for a time, a Cuban-exile PR disaster. If such cybersites confirm the shipwrecked coordinates of Elián’s fame, the “Save Elián” campaign also provided a focus for unrestrained criticism of the Cuban exile community’s imbrication in U.S. foreign policy initiatives and its embrace of American Dream logics. Within weeks of Elián’s arrival in Florida, cyberspace was hosting myriad Eliáns on sites unbeholden to Cuban-U.S. antagonisms, thus consolidating Elián’s function as a disputed icon of virtualized celebrity and focus for parody. A sense of this carnivalesque proliferation can be gained from the many doctored versions of the now iconic photograph of Elián’s seizure by the INS. Still posted, the jpegs and flashes — Elián and Michael Jackson, Elián and Homer Simpson, Elián and Darth Vader, among others (these and other doctored versions are archived on Hypercenter.com) — confirm the extraordinary domestication of Elián in local pop-cultural terms that also resonate as parodies of U.S. consumerist and voyeuristic excess. Indeed, the parodic responses to Elián’s fame set the virtual tone in cyberspace where ostensibly serious sites can themselves be approached as send ups. One example is Lois Rodden’s Astrodatabank, which, since early 2000, has asked visitors to assist in interpreting Elián’s astrological chart in order to confirm whether or not he will remain in the U.S.A. To this end the site provides Elián’s astro-biography and birth chart — a Sagittarius with a Virgo moon, Elián’s planetary alignments form a bucket — and conveys such information as “To the people of Little Havana [Miami], Elian has achieved mystical status as a ‘miracle child.’” (An aside: Elián and I share the same birthday.) Elián’s virtual reputation for divinely sanctioned “blessedness” within a Cuban exile-meets-American Dream typology provided Tom Tomorrow with the target in his 31 January 2000, cartoon, This Modern World, on Salon.com. Here, six-year old Arkansas resident Allen Consalis loses his mother on the New York subway. His relatives decide to take care of him since “New York has much more to offer him than Arkansas! I mean get real!” A custody battle ensues in which Allan’s heavily Arkansas-accented father requires translation, and the case inspires heated debate: “can we really condemn him to a life in Arkansas?” The cartoon ends with the relatives tempting Allan with the delights offered by the Disney Store, a sign of Elián’s contested insertion into an American Dreamscape that not only promises an endless supply of consumer goods but provides a purportedly safe venue for the alternative Cuban nation. The illusory virtuality of that nation also animates a futuristic scenario, written in Spanish by Camilo Hernández, and circulated via email in May 2000. In this text, Elián sparks a corporate battle between Firestone and Goodyear to claim credit for his inner-tubed survival. Cuban Americans regard Elián as the Messiah come to lead them to the promised land. His ability to walk on water is scientifically tested: he sinks and has to be rescued again. In the ensuing custody battle, Cuban state-run demonstrations allow mothers of lesbians and of children who fail maths to have their say on Elián. Andrew Lloyd Weber wins awards for “Elián the Musical,” and for the film version, Madonna plays the role of the dolphin that saved Elián. Laws are enacted to punish people who mispronounce “Elián” but these do not help Elián’s family. All legal avenues exhausted, the entire exile community moves to Canada, and then to North Dakota where a full-scale replica of Cuba has been built. Visa problems spark another migration; the exiles are welcomed by Israel, thus inspiring a new Intifada that impels their return to the U.S.A. Things settle down by 2014, when Elián, his wife and daughter celebrate his 21st birthday as guests of the Kennedys. The text ends in 2062, when the great-great-grandson of Ry Cooder encounters an elderly Elián in Wyoming, thus providing Elián with his second fifteen minutes of fame. Hernández’s text confirms the impatience with which the Cuban-exile community was regarded by other U.S. Latino sectors, and exemplifies the loss of control over Elián experienced by both sides in the righteous Cuban “moral crusade” to save or repatriate Elián (Fernández xv). (Many Chicanos, for example, were angered at Cuban-exile arguments that Elián should remain in the U.S.A. when, in 1999 alone, 8,000 Mexican children were repatriated to Mexico (Ramos 126), statistical confirmation of the favored status that Cubans enjoy, and Mexicans do not, vis-à-vis U.S. immigration policy. Tom Tomorrow’s cartoon and Camilo Hernández’s email text are part of what I call the “What-if?” sub-genre of Elián representations. Another example is “If Elián Gonzalez was Jewish,” archived on Lori’s Mishmash Humor page, in which Eliat Ginsburg is rescued after floating on a giant matzoh in the Florida Strait, and his Florida relatives fight to prevent his return to Israel, where “he had no freedom, no rights, no tennis lessons”.) Nonetheless, that “moral crusade” has continued in the Cuban state. During the custody battle, Elián was virtualized into a hero of national sovereignty, an embodied fix for a revolutionary project in strain due to the U.S. embargo, the collapse of Soviet socialism, and the symbolic threat posed by the virtual Cuban nation-in-waiting in Florida. Indeed, for the Castro regime, the exile wing of the national family is virtual precisely because it conveniently overlooks two facts: the continued survival of the Cuban state itself; and the exile community’s forty-plus-year slide into permanent U.S. residency as one migrant sector among many. Such rhetoric has not faded since Elián’s return. On December 5, 2003, Castro visited Cárdenas for Elián’s tenth birthday celebration and a quick tour of the Museo a la batalla de ideas (Museum for the Battle of Ideas), the museum dedicated to Elián’s “victory” over U.S. imperialism and opened by Castro on July 14, 2001. At Elián’s school Castro gave a speech in which he recalled the struggle to save “that little boy, whose absence caused everyone, and the whole people of Cuba, so much sorrow and such determination to struggle.” The conflation of Cuban state rhetoric and an Elián mnemonic in Cárdenas is repeated in Havana’s “Plaza de Elián,” or more formally Tribuna Anti-imperialista José Martí, where a statue of José Martí, the nineteenth-century Cuban nationalist, holds Elián in his arms while pointing to Florida. Meanwhile, in Little Havana, Miami, a sun-faded set of photographs and hand-painted signs, which insist God will save Elián yet, hang along the front fence of the house — now also a museum and site of pilgrimage — where Elián once lived in a state of siege. While Elián’s centrality in a struggle between virtuality and virtue continues on both sides of the Florida Strait, the Cuban nowhere could not contain Elián. During his U.S. sojourn many commentators noted that his travails were relayed in serial fashion to an international audience that also claimed intimate knowledge of the boy. Coming after the O.J. Simpson saga and the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, the Elián story confirmed journalist Rick Kushman’s identification of a ceaseless, restless U.S. media attention shift from one story to the next, generating an “übercoverage” that engulfs the country “in mini-hysteria” (Calvert 107). But In Elián’s case, the voyeuristic media-machine attained unprecedented intensity because it met and worked with the virtualities of the Cuban nowhere, part of it in the U.S.A. Thus, a transnational surfeit of Elián-narrative options was guaranteed for participants, audiences and commentators alike, wherever they resided. In Cuba, Elián was hailed as the child-hero of the Revolution. In Miami he was a savior sent by God, the proof supplied by the dolphins that saved him from sharks, and the Virgins who appeared in Little Havana after his arrival (De La Torre 3-5). Along the U.S.A.-Mexico border in 2000, Elián’s name was given to hundreds of Mexican babies whose parents thought the gesture would guarantee their sons a U.S. future. Day by day, Elián’s story was propelled across the globe by melodramatic plot devices familiar to viewers of soap opera: doubtful paternities; familial crimes; identity secrets and their revelation; conflicts of good over evil; the reuniting of long-lost relatives; and the operations of chance and its attendant “hand of Destiny, arcane and vaguely supernatural, transcending probability of doubt” (Welsh 22). Those devices were also favored by the amateur author, whose narratives confirm that the delirious parameters of cyberspace are easily matched in the worldly text. In Michael John’s self-published “history,” Betrayal of Elian Gonzalez, Elián is cast as the victim of a conspiracy traceable back to the hydra-headed monster of Castro-Clinton and the world media: “Elian’s case was MANIPULATED to achieve THEIR OVER-ALL AGENDA. Only time will bear that out” (143). His book is now out of print, and the last time I looked (August 2004) one copy was being offered on Amazon.com for US$186.30 (original price, $9.95). Guyana-born, Canadian-resident Frank Senauth’s eccentric novel, A Cry for Help: The Fantastic Adventures of Elian Gonzalez, joins his other ventures into vanity publishing: To Save the Titanic from Disaster I and II; To Save Flight 608 From Disaster; A Wish to Die – A Will to Live; A Time to Live, A Time to Die; and A Day of Terror: The Sagas of 11th September, 2001. In A Cry for Help, Rachel, a white witch and student of writing, travels back in time in order to save Elián’s mother and her fellow travelers from drowning in the Florida Strait. As Senauth says, “I was only able to write this dramatic story because of my gift for seeing things as they really are and sharing my mystic imagination with you the public” (25). As such texts confirm, Elián González is an aberrant addition to the traditional U.S.-sponsored celebrity roll-call. He had no ontological capacity to take advantage of, intervene in, comment on, or be known outside, the parallel narrative universe into which he was cast and remade. He was cast adrift as a mere proper name that impelled numerous authors to supply the boy with the biography he purportedly lacked. Resident of an “atmospheric depression in history” (Stenger 56), Elián was battled over by virtualized national rivals, mass-mediated, and laid bare for endless signification. Even before his return to Cuba, one commentator noted that Elián had been consumed, denied corporeality, and condemned to “live out his life in hyper-space” (Buzachero). That space includes the infamous episode of South Park from May 2000, in which Kenny, simulating Elián, is killed off as per the show’s episodic protocols. Symptomatic of Elián’s narrative dispersal, the Kenny-Elián simulation keeps on living and dying whenever the episode is re-broadcast on TV sets across the world. Appropriated and relocated to strange and estranging narrative terrain, one Elián now lives out his multiple existences in the Cuban-U.S. “atmosphere in history,” and the Elián icon continues to proliferate virtually anywhere. References Arboleya, Jesús. The Cuban Counter-Revolution. Trans. Rafael Betancourt. Research in International Studies, Latin America Series no. 33. Athens, OH: Ohio Center for International Studies, 2000. Braudy, Leo. The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986. Buzachero, Chris. “Elian Gonzalez in Hyper-Space.” Ctheory.net 24 May 2000. 19 Aug. 2004: http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=222>. Calvert, Clay. Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering in Modern Culture. Boulder: Westview, 2000. Castro, Fidel. “Speech Given by Fidel Castro, at the Ceremony Marking the Birthday of Elian Gonzalez and the Fourth Anniversary of the Battle of Ideas, Held at ‘Marcello Salado’ Primary School in Cardenas, Matanzas on December 5, 2003.” 15 Aug. 2004 http://www.revolutionarycommunist.org.uk/fidel_castro3.htm>. Cuban American National Foundation. Official Website. 2004. 20 Aug. 2004 http://www.canf.org/2004/principal-ingles.htm>. De La Torre, Miguel A. La Lucha For Cuba: Religion and Politics on the Streets of Miami. Berkeley: U of California P, 2003. “Elian Jokes.” Hypercenter.com 2000. 19 Aug. 2004 http://www.hypercenter.com/jokes/elian/index.shtml>. “Elian’s Home Page.” 2000. 19 Aug. 2004 http://elian.8k.com>. Everard, Jerry. Virtual States: The Internet and the Boundaries of the Nation-State. London and New York, Routledge, 2000. Fernández, Damián J. Cuba and the Politics of Passion. Austin: U of Texas P, 2000. Hernández, Camilo. “Cronología de Elián.” E-mail. 2000. Received 6 May 2000. “If Elian Gonzalez Was Jewish.” Lori’s Mishmash Humor Page. 2000. 10 Aug. 2004 http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/6174/jokes/if-elian-was-jewish.htm>. John, Michael. Betrayal of Elian Gonzalez. MaxGo, 2000. “Liberty for Elián.” Official Save Elián Website 2000. June 2003 http://www.libertyforelian.org>. Marshall, P. David. Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture. Minneapolis and London: U of Minnesota P, 1997. Ramos, Jorge. La otra cara de América: Historias de los inmigrantes latinoamericanos que están cambiando a Estados Unidos. México, DF: Grijalbo, 2000. Rodden, Lois. “Elian Gonzalez.” Astrodatabank 2000. 20 Aug. 2004 http://www.astrodatabank.com/NM/GonzalezElian.htm>. Rowe, John Carlos. 2002. The New American Studies. Minneapolis and London: U of Minnesota P, 2002. “The Sad Saga of Elian Gonzalez.” July 2004. 19 Aug. 2004 http://www.revlu.com/Elian.html>. Senauth, Frank. A Cry for Help: The Fantastic Adventures of Elian Gonzalez. Victoria, Canada: Trafford, 2000. Stenger, Nicole. “Mind Is a Leaking Rainbow.” Cyberspace: First Steps. Ed. Michael Benedikt. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 1991. 49-58. Welsh, Alexander. George Eliot and Blackmail. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1985. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Allatson, Paul. "The Virtualization of Elián González." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/16-allatson.php>. APA Style Allatson, P. (Nov. 2004) "The Virtualization of Elián González," M/C Journal, 7(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/16-allatson.php>.
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Lee, Jin, Tommaso Barbetta, and Crystal Abidin. "Influencers, Brands, and Pivots in the Time of COVID-19." M/C Journal 23, no.6 (November28, 2020). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2729.
Full textAbstract:
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, where income has become precarious and Internet use has soared, the influencer industry has to strategise over new ways to sustain viewer attention, maintain income flows, and innovate around formats and messaging, to avoid being excluded from continued commercial possibilities. In this article, we review the press coverage of the influencer markets in Australia, Japan, and Korea, and consider how the industry has been attempting to navigate their way through the pandemic through deviations and detours. We consider the narratives and groups of influencers who have been included and excluded in shaping the discourse about influencer strategies in the time of COVID-19. The distinction between inclusion and exclusion has been a crucial mechanism to maintain the social normativity, constructed with gender, sexuality, wealth, able-ness, education, age, and so on (Stäheli and Stichweh, par. 3; Hall and Du Gay 5; Bourdieu 162). The influencer industry is the epitome of where the inclusion-exclusion binary is noticeable. It has been criticised for serving as a locus where social norms, such as femininity and middle-class identities, are crystallised and endorsed in the form of visibility and attention (Duffy 234; Abidin 122). Many are concerned about the global expansion of the influencer industry, in which young generations are led to clickbait and sensational content and normative ways of living, in order to be “included” by their peer groups and communities and to avoid being “excluded” (Cavanagh). However, COVID-19 has changed our understanding of the “normal”: people staying home, eschewing social communications, and turning more to the online where they can feel “virtually” connected (Lu et al. 15). The influencer industry also has been affected by COVID-19, since the images of normativity cannot be curated and presented as they used to be. In this situation, it is questionable how the influencer industry that pivots on the inclusion-exclusion binary is adjusting to the “new normal” brought by COVID-19, and how the binary is challenged or maintained, especially by exploring the continuities and discontinuities in industry. Methodology This cross-cultural study draws from a corpus of articles from Australia, Japan, and Korea published between January and May 2020, to investigate how local news outlets portrayed the contingencies undergone by the influencer industry, and what narratives or groups of influencers were excluded in the process. An extended discussion of our methodology has been published in an earlier article (Abidin et al. 5-7). Using the top ranked search engine of each country (Google for Australia and Japan, Naver for Korea), we compiled search results of news articles from the first ten pages (ten results per page) of each search, prioritising reputable news sites over infotainment sites, and by using targeted keyword searches: for Australia: ‘influencer’ and ‘Australia’ and ‘COVID-19’, ‘coronavirus’, ‘pandemic’; for Japan: ‘インフルエンサー’ (influensā) and ‘コロナ’ (korona), ‘新型コロ ナ’ (shin-gata korona), ‘コロナ禍’ (korona-ka); for Korea: ‘인플루언서’ (Influencer) and ‘코로나’ (corona) and ‘팬데믹’ (pandemic). 111 articles were collected (42 for Australia, 31 for Japan, 38 for Korea). In this article, we focus on a subset of 60 articles and adopt a grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss 5) to manually conduct open, axial, and close coding of their headline and body text. Each headline was translated by the authors and coded for a primary and secondary ‘open code’ across seven categories: Income loss, Backlash, COVID-19 campaign, Misinformation, Influencer strategy, Industry shifts, and Brand leverage. The body text was coded in a similar manner to indicate all the relevant open codes covered in the article. In this article, we focus on the last two open codes that illustrate how brands have been working with influencers to tide through COVID-19, and what the overall industry shifts were on the three Asia-Pacific country markets. Table 1 (see Appendix) indicates a full list of our coding schema. Inclusion of the Normal in Shifting Brand Preferences In this section, we consider two main shifts in brand preferences: an increased demand for influencers, and a reliance on influencers to boost viewer/consumer traffic. We found that by expanding digital marketing through Influencers, companies attempted to secure a so-called “new normal” during the pandemic. However, their marketing strategies tended to reiterate the existing inclusion-exclusion binary and exacerbated the lack of diversity and inequality in the industry. Increased Demand for Influencers Across the three country markets, brokers and clients in the influencer industry increased their demand for influencers’ services and expertise to sustain businesses via advertising in the “aftermath of COVID-19”, as they were deemed to be more cost-efficient “viral marketing on social media” (Yoo). By outsourcing content production to influencers who could still produce content independently from their homes (Cheik-Hussein) and who engage with audiences with their “interactive communication ability” (S. Kim and Cho), many companies attempted to continue their business and maintain their relationships with prospective consumers (Forlani). As the newly enforced social distancing measures have also interrupted face-to-face contact opportunities, the mass pivot towards influencers for digital marketing is perceived to further professionalise the industry via competition and quality control in all three countries (Wilkinson; S. Kim and Cho; Yadorigi). By integrating these online personae of influencers into their marketing, the business side of each country is moving towards the new normal in different manners. In Australia, businesses launched campaigns showcasing athlete influencers engaging in meaningful activities at home (e.g. yoga, cooking), and brands and companies reorganised their marketing strategies to highlight social responsibilities (Moore). On the other hand, for some companies in the Japanese market, the disruption from the pandemic was a rare opportunity to build connections and work with “famous” and “prominent” influencers (Yadorigi), otherwise unavailable and unwilling to work for smaller campaigns during regular periods of an intensely competitive market. In Korea, by emphasising their creative ability, influencers progressed from being “mere PR tools” to becoming “active economic subjects of production” who now can play a key role in product planning for clients, mediating companies and consumers (S. Kim and Cho). The underpinning premise here is that influencers are tech-savvy and therefore competent in creating media content, forging relationships with people, and communicating with them “virtually” through social media. Reliance on Influencers to Boost Viewer/Consumer Traffic Across several industry verticals, brands relied on influencers to boost viewership and consumer traffic on their digital estates and portals, on the premise that influencers work in line with the attention economy (Duffy 234). The fashion industry’s expansion of influencer marketing was noticeable in this manner. For instance, Korean department store chains (e.g. Lotte) invited influencers to “no-audience live fashion shows” to attract viewership and advertise fashion goods through the influencers’ social media (Y. Kim), and Australian swimwear brand Vitamin A partnered with influencers to launch online contests to invite engagement and purchases on their online stores (Moore). Like most industries where aspirational middle-class lifestyles are emphasised, the travel industry also extended partnerships with their current repertoire of influencers or international influencers in order to plan for the post-COVID-19 market recovery and post-border reopening tourism boom (Moore; Yamatogokoro; J. Lee). By extension, brands without any prior relationships with influencers, whcih did not have such histories to draw on, were likely to have struggled to produce new influencer content. Such brands could thus only rely on hiring influencers specifically to leverage their follower base. The increasing demand for influencers in industries like fashion, food, and travel is especially notable. In the attention economy where (media) visibility can be obtained and maintained (Duffy 121), media users practice “visibility labor” to curate their media personas and portray branding themselves as arbiters of good taste (Abidin 122). As such, influencers in genres where personal taste can be visibly presented—e.g. fashion, travel, F&B—seem to have emerged from the economic slump with a head start, especially given their dominance on the highly visual platform of Instagram. Our analysis shows that media coverage during COVID-19 repeated the discursive correlation between influencers and such hyper-visible or visually-oriented industries. However, this dominant discourse about hyper-visible influencers and the gendered genres of their work has ultimately reinforced norms of self-presentation in the industry—e.g. being feminine, young, beautiful, luxurious—while those who deviate from such norms seem to be marginalised and excluded in media coverage and economic opportunities during the pandemic cycle. Including Newness by Shifting Format Preferences We observed the inclusion of newness in the influencer scenes in all three countries. By shifting to new formats, the previously excluded and lesser seen aspects of our lives—such as home-based content—began to be integrated into the “new normal”. There were four main shifts in format preferences, wherein influencers pivoted to home-made content, where livestreaming is the new dominant format of content, and where followers preferred more casual influencer content. Influencers Have Pivoted to Home-Made Content In all three country markets, influencers have pivoted to generating content based on life at home and ideas of domesticity. These public displays of homely life corresponded with the sudden occurrence of being wired to the Internet all day—also known as “LAN cable life” (랜선라이프, lan-seon life) in the Korean media—which influencers were chiefly responsible for pioneering (B. Kim). While some genres like gaming and esports were less impacted upon by the pivot, given that the nature and production of the content has always been confined to a desktop at home (Cheik-Hussein), pivots occurred for the likes of outdoor brands (Moore), the culinary industry (Dean), and fitness and workout brands (Perelli and Whateley). In Korea, new trends such as “home cafes” (B. Kim) and DIY coffees—like the infamous “Dalgona-Coffee” that was first introduced by a Korean YouTuber 뚤기 (ddulgi)—went viral on social media across the globe (Makalintal). In Japan, the spike in influencers showcasing at-home activities (Hayama) also encouraged mainstream TV celebrities to open social media accounts explicitly to do the same (Kamada). In light of these trends, the largest Multi-Channel Network (MCN) in Japan, UUUM, partnered with one of the country’s largest entertainment industries, Yoshimoto Kogyo, to assist the latter’s comedian talents to establish a digital video presence—a trend that was also observed in Korea (Koo), further underscoring the ubiquity of influencer practices in the time of COVID-19. Along with those creators who were already producing content in a domestic environment before COVID-19, it was the influencers with the time and resources to quickly pivot to home-made content who profited the most from the spike in Internet traffic during the pandemic (Noshita). The benefits of this boost in traffic were far from equal. For instance, many others who had to turn to makeshift work for income, and those who did not have conducive living situations to produce content at home, were likely to be disadvantaged. Livestreaming Is the New Dominant Format Amidst the many new content formats to be popularised during COVID-19, livestreaming was unanimously the most prolific. In Korea, influencers were credited for the mainstreaming and demotising (Y. Kim) of livestreaming for “live commerce” through real-time advertorials and online purchases. Livestreaming influencers were solicited specifically to keep international markets continuously interested in Korean products and cultures (Oh), and livestreaming was underscored as a main economic driver for shaping a “post-COVID-19” society (Y. Kim). In Australia, livestreaming was noted among art (Dean) and fitness influencers (Dean), and in Japan it began to be adopted among major fashion brands like Prada and Chloe (Saito). While the Australian coverage included livestreaming on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and Douyin (Cheik-Hussein; Perelli and Whateley; Webb), the Japanese coverage highlighted the potential for Instagram Live to target young audiences, increase feelings of “trustworthiness”, and increase sales via word-of-mouth advertising (Saito). In light of reduced client campaigns, influencers in Australia had also used livestreaming to provide online consulting, teaching, and coaching (Perelli and Whateley), and to partner with brands to provide masterclasses and webinars (Sanders). In this era, influencers in genres and verticals that had already adopted streaming as a normative practice—e.g. gaming and lifestyle performances—were likely to have had an edge over others, while other genres were excluded from this economic silver lining. Followers Prefer More Casual Influencer Content In general, all country markets report followers preferring more casual influencer content. In Japan, this was offered via the potential of livestreaming to deliver more “raw” feelings (Saito), while in Australia this was conveyed through specific content genres like “mental or physical health battles” (Moore); specific aesthetic choices like appearing “messier”, less “curated”, and “more unfiltered” (Wilkinson); and the growing use of specific emergent platforms like TikTok (Dean, Forlani, Perelli, and Whateley). In Korea, influencers in the photography, travel, and book genres were celebrated for their new provision of pseudo-experiences during COVID-19-imposed social distancing (Kang). Influencers on Instagram also spearheaded new social media trends, like the “#wheredoyouwannago_challenge” where Instagram users photoshopped themselves into images of famous tourist spots around the world (Kang). Conclusion In our study of news articles on the impact of COVID-19 on the Australian, Japanese, and Korean influencer industries during the first wave of the pandemic, influencer marketing was primed to be the dominant and default mode of advertising and communication in the post-COVID-19 era (Tate). In general, specific industry verticals that relied more on visual portrayals of lifestyles and consumption—e.g. fashion, F&B, travel—to continue partaking in economic recovery efforts. However, given the gendered genre norms in the industry, this meant that influencers who were predominantly feminine, young, beautiful, and luxurious experienced more opportunity over others. Further, influencers who did not have the resources or skills to pivot to the “new normals” of creating content from home, engaging in livestreaming, and performing their personae more casually were excluded from these new economic opportunities. Across the countries, there were minor differences in the overall perception of influencers. There was an increasingly positive perception of influencers in Japan and Korea, due to new norms and pandemic-related opportunities in the media ecology: in Korea, influencers were considered to be the “vanguard of growing media commerce in the post-pandemonium era” (S. Kim and Cho), and in Japan, influencers were identified as critical vehicles during a more general consumer shift from traditional media to social media, as TV watching time is reduced and home-based e-commerce purchases are increasingly popular (Yadogiri). However, in Australia, in light of the sudden influx of influencer marketing strategies during COVID-19, the market seemed to be saturated more quickly: brands were beginning to question the efficiency of influencers, cautioned that their impact has not been completely proven for all industry verticals (Stephens), and have also begun to reduce commissions for influencer affiliate programmes as a cost-cutting measure (Perelli and Whateley). While news reports on these three markets indicate that there is some level of growth and expansion for various influencers and brands, such opportunities were not experienced equally, with some genres and demographics of influencers and businesses being excluded from pandemic-related pivots and silver linings. Further, in light of the increasing commercial opportunities, pressure for more regulations also emerged; for example, the Korean government announced new investigations into tax avoidance (Han). Not backed up by talent agencies or MCNs, independent influencers are likely to be more exposed to the disciplinary power of shifting regulatory practices, a condition which might have hindered their attempt at diversifying their income streams during the pandemic. Thus, while it is tempting to focus on the privileged and novel influencers who have managed to cling on to some measure of success during the pandemic, scholarly attention should also remember those who are being excluded and left behind, lest generations, cohorts, genres, or subcultures of the once-vibrant influencer industry fade into oblivion. References Abidin, Crystal. “#In$tagLam: Instagram as a repository of taste, a burgeoning marketplace, a war of eyeballs.” Mobile Media Making in an Age of Smartphones. Eds. Marsha Berry and Max Schleser. New York: Palgrave Pivot, 2014. 119-128. <https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137469816_11>. 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"코트라, 중국·대만 6곳에 중소기업 온라인마케팅 전용 'K스튜디오' 오픈 [KOTRA Launches 6 ‘K-Studios’ in China and Taiwan for Online Marketing for SME].” Global Economics 16 May 2020. <https://news.g-enews.com/ko-kr/news/article/news_all/2020050611155064653b88961c8c_1/article.html?md=20200506141610_R>. Perelli, Amanda, and Dan Whateley. “How the Coronavirus Is Changing the Influencer Business, According to Marketers and Top Instagram and YouTube Stars.” Business Insider Australia 22 Mar. 2020. <https://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-coronavirus-is-changing-influencer-marketing-creator-industry-2020-3?r=US&IR=T>. Reid, Elise. “COVID-19 Could See Advertisers Move from Influencers to Streaming Sites.” Channel News 27 Apr. 2020. <https://www.channelnews.com.au/covid-19-could-see-advertisers-move-from-influencers-to-streaming-sites/>. Rowell, Andrew. “Coronavirus: Big Tobacco Sees an Opportunity in the Pandemic.” The Conversation 14 May 2020. <https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-big-tobacco-sees-an-opportunity-in-the-pandemic-138188>. Saito, Yurika. “コロナ禍で急増の「インスタライブ」。誰でも簡単に出来る視聴・配信方法 [The Boom of Instagram Live during the Pandemic: Anyone Can Easily Watch and Stream Content].” Forbes Japan 19 May 2020. <https://forbesjapan.com/articles/detail/34475>. Sanders, Krystal. “Perth Influencer Brooke Vulinovich Says Instagram Has Become ‘Lifeline’ for Small Businesses.” Perth Now 29 Apr. 2020. <https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/coronavirus/perth-influencer-brooke-vulinovich-says-instagram-has-become-lifeline-for-small-businesses-ng-b881533823z>. Stäheli, Urs, and Rudolf Stichweh. "Introduction: Inclusion/Exclusion–Systems Theoretical and Poststructuralist Perspectives." Inclusion/Exclusion and Socio-Cultural Identities, 2002. 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Yadorigi, Yuki. “【第7回】コロナ禍のなかで生まれた光明、新たなアプローチによるコミュニケーション [Episode 7: A Light Emerged during the Corona Crisis, a Communication Based on a New Approach].” C-Station 28 Apr. 2020. <https://c.kodansha.net/news/detail/36286/>. Yamatogokoro. “アフターコロナの観光・インバウンドを考えるVol.4世界の観光業の取り組みから学ぶ、自治体・DMOが今まさにすべきこと [After Corona Tourism and Inbound Tourism Vol. 4: What Municipalities and DMOs Should Do Right Now to Learn from Global Tourism Initiatives].” Yamatogokoro 19 May 2020. Yoo, Hwan-In. "코로나 여파, 연예인·인플루언서 마케팅 활발 [COVID-19, Star-Influencer Marketing Becomes Active].” SkyDaily 19 May 2020. <http://www.skyedaily.com/news/news_view.html?ID=104772>. Appendix Open codes Axial codes 1) Brand leverage Targeting investors Targeting influencers Targeting new digital media formats Targeting consumers/customers/viewers Types of brands/clients 2) Industry shifts Brand preferences Content production Content format Follower preferences Type of Influencers Table 1: Full list of codes from our analysis
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