CTS 2 Critical Position on the media and popular culture

What is culture?

One of the two or three most complex words. A particular way of life. Intellectual and especially artistic significance. "Raymond Williams"


Marks concept of base

Base. Forces of production - materials / workers skills is the central base of modern culture.

The substructure is the idea of social institution - legal / politics.

If you change the base you change the way people think about the world.

Ideology
System of ideas if beliefs - beliefs and politics. Masking, distortion or selection of ideas to reinforce power relations, through creation of false consciousness.

Idea of popular is based on the inferior. Popular press bs quality press etc


Frankfurt School - critical theory
Institute of social research 1923-33
Closed with rise of hitlarrrr

Moved to new York 33-47 then 49 there on.

Reinterpretation of Marx for the 20th century - era of late capitalism.

Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art. It's just business.


Qualities of authentic culture

Real
European
Multidimensional
Active consumption
Individual creation
Imagination
Negation
Autonomous


Conclusions
Tradition emerges from the mass culture which is seen as a threat to culture. Birmingham school starts to look at popular culture as a way forward to the working class.


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CTS1 Panopticism

Panopticon is a building. Could be thought if as a metaphor for contemptory society.

Michael Foucault
26-84

Looked at the idea of madness and the idea of the prison.

Finds that madness was an acceptable part of society. Not excluded almost looked on fondly. From 17th cen onwards new ideas change. Combatting the idea of idleness, that everyone should work etc. People that didn't work were locked away, criminals, tramps, women or just people considered to be lazy.

Late 1600s. House of correction and idleness. Forced to work an that.

Discipline is now seen as a way of an keeping an eye on us.

1791 The panopticon
Prison with cells on the outside an a central tower in the middle. Round building. Makes then feel like they're always being watched. So you then don't step out of line. Self regulates there behaviour.

Because of the fact that we know where being watches or surveyed in some form makes us change our behaviour.

Someone only has power over you because you summit to that power.

Cts Lesson
Fucauldian Termonology

Surveillance studies - David Lyon

Docile Bodies
Easily controlled obedient. Key condition for the subject under our contemporary society. Takes instruction and is easily controlled. The body is productive for the purposes you use it for.

Power
People submit to it, it's not automatically there. Power is a relationship and there's a possibility to challenge.

Panoptacism as a metaphor
The gaze of one onto another.

Discipline
Not physically exercised but something mote subtle and mental.

Check the CTS blog page..

Task --------
Choose an example of contemporary society or institution of what you think is panoptic. 3oO words, least 5 quotes from text on sheets. Use terminology.

Key points from text

Extremely controlled leaving people powerless to the person in control.

Very regimented and documented

No one can treat people but one person alone, and at his right or will alongside the higher ache.

Discipline becomes a sense of power.

You can change your identity. At festivals you can share your experiences.

The idea if getting rid of anyone that we don't see to be pure or like us. Much like the nazi theorem.

Seen but does not see. Cannot communicate with others. In prison they are completely shut off, a form of control.

Idea that they're constantly being monitored automatically conforms the subject up to the point where it would be unmanned and still retain the same effect.

All panoptic powers need to enforce the idea that they 'could' be observed at any time but they would not be sure when.


TASK

Tracking cookies is probably the best example of internet watching. They track the information that we look at online, most commonly on shopping websites. Products we look at on the internet are remembered so when we look at other web pages; items we previously viewed will then reappear in an advertising window. This modern form of advertising is there to play an influential role of the user. This then takes us from the watcher as an authority to the watcher as a persuader. The most important factor behind this and the reason it still exists, is because it actually works and shopping websites will pay for this string of code acting as the watcher as it generates income for the store, and income for the in between, the coded watcher.

Internet security however can always be broken. As a user we place a lot of trust in the holder of our information. The PlayStation Network was recently broken into releasing millions of users information into the open. This was a huge embarrassment for Sony Corporation and also a huge breach in security and a loss of trust with its users. The point to be made here is that we feel we can always trust an authority, trust them so much that we feel ‘safe’ giving personal information such as banking and addresses. However what we can easily forget is that authorities can always be broken and influenced. In terms of prisons systems, a guard could be bribed, a police officer could be persuaded and the whole system we believe and trust in falls down. The idea of the watcher being secure is then maybe false. There is perhaps a chance to take control and influence the watcher if we wish, because the watcher is always human, either in person or behind a computer, and therefore open to the idea of misusing his or hers position as the governing body.




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