Fast track media degree 2011

Media Theory: The One-Day Crash Course

…. in just 200 slides

Today we will cover

• Still image and moving image – structuralism • Genre, narrative, representation• Audience, reception, identity• Theories about media and power and politics• Feminism and Poststructuralism• Media 2.0 / Theories of Change • Postmodernism

Using …

• Lots of slides• Lots of images and moving images and sounds• Extracts from books• Lots of Charlie Brooker

Texts and Meaning

Reception

Genre, Narrative, Representation

Democracy

Effects

Regulation v Responsibilities

Futures and utopia / dystopia

Funding, access and citizenship

Global Culture

Identities

Critical Media Literacy .…

• Read all the different ideas• Pick your examples• Apply the reading to the examples• Weigh up the debate • Develop an informed, academic view• Create / intervene in the culture.

Plato and Mill

• 2 philosophers from different times and places, but interesting to compare.

• Very different views on society.

• Very different views on keeping order.

• Very different views on education.

Semiotics

• From Saussure and Barthes.• Signs. • Symbols.• Myth. • Micro to macro.• Polysemy and fluidity at level of connotation

Signs

• Signifier and Signified• Iconic• Arbitrary / Symbolic• Indexical • More or less motivated• Anchorage

Problems

• Assumes meaning is singular?

• Doesn’t pay enough attention to individual identities?

• Pseudo-science (Gauntlett, 2008)?

Moving Image Analysis

Camera Helps to Deliver Meaning

• Shot Types - what’s meanings do a long shot and a Point of View (POV) shot help deliver?

- Long shot – establishing shot, shows the viewer where they are in the scene. POV –feel as though you are part of the scene

Shot Types Helps to Situate the Viewer

• Angle – (high angle POV shot = superiority, low angle POV shot = weakness)

• Movement - Zoom can highlight emotion on a character, Jerky hand held POV shot can provide tension and involvement in action sequences (e.g. Cloverfield)

• Focus / Detail – Used to highlight important elements to the narrative / storyline

Editing Helps to Deliver Meaning

• Manipulation of Time / Space – flashbacks, Jump Cuts, Cross Cuts, etc

• Rhythm and Pace – Fast paced / frequent cuts = action, slow paced / infrequent cuts = drama/ romance

• Persuasion – Edit tries to influence your view of the events

• Ellipsis – When parts of the story (narrative) are edited out (can be explicit and implicit)

• Dialectical montage (Eisenstein) – 2 different shots put together to construct meaning

Sound and Image • Provides Anchorage (Romantic music + 2 people staring into each

others eyes tells you that you are watching a romantic scene)

• Contrast or Flow (can provide an indication as to whether the direction of a movie is changing or staying the same)

• Diegetic Sound (sound that originates from within the movie narrative – e.g. the sound of a CD playing when an actor presses play.)

• Non-diegetic sound (sound that is not part of the narrative – e.g. background music)

Contributes to Mise en Scene

Mise en scene •Refers to the overall Atmosphere / Ambience of a scene

•What contributes to mise en scene?

- Costume- Lighting- Props- Sound- Actors

•Moving image = still images moving (Semiotics can be applied to help explain meaning)

•Versisimilitude?

- Where the scene provides a sense of realism (2 types:- Generic = realistic for the type of genre, Cultural = relaistic because it mimics real life)

Micro to Macro• What are Micro elements? – individual elements (such as camera angles, editing, sound,

elements of mise en scene) Elements can be diegetic and non-diegetic.

• What is Macro?- What meaning the individual elements amount to

• But always remember THE ACTIVE AUDIENCE MAKES THE MEANING (based on cultural experiences and literacy). There may be many ways a film can be interpreted (Polsyemy)

Genre

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpVTUdfcEMg&feature=fvw

Football for Film Theory

Auteur Theory

Alex Ferguson vs Arsene Wenger

• Ferguson = dour, hard Scot, fierce, intimidates referees, excellent ‘man management,’ his teams never give up, big spender, sometimes bends rules, win at all costs.

• Wenger – intellectual, thinker, continental, master tactician + focus on diet, doesn’t spend lots of money, develops young players, ‘the beautiful game’ but teams often lack strength

Star Theory

Rooney v Fabregas

• Rooney – fast, hard, combative but not stylish and often lacks discipline, works incredibly hard for the team. Best player in England team but not glamorous.

• Fabregas – stylish, slight, continental, skilful, sometimes devious, sometimes lacks maturity and sometimes plays as individual.

Genre

• Man Utd v Arsenal matches – often very dramatic, twists and turns, lots of hype, often combative and sometimes managers feud. Played very fast and furious.

• Sub genre – Man Utd matches

• Sub genre – Arsenal matches

Marxist Analysis• Sporting competition as expression of capitalism.

• Premiership football as ultimate expression of capitalism – transfer fees, wages, sponsorship, TV money, crass commercialism re shirts etc.

• Ferguson v Wenger in context of amount of spending.

• Domination of foreign players in context of international economics, impact on rest of football league.

• Degree to which each team / player conforms to dominant ideology – hegemonic function

Feminist Analysis

• Exclusion of females / tokenistic or sexist representations + references

• Patriarchy / capitalism / competition

• Gender traits – combat, high-octane drama

• Psychoanalysis – football as ‘phallic’ (goal as ‘climax’)

• Additional contexts – female spectatorship, female participation, ‘reading against the grain’

Gender Theory

Feminism

• Fighting gender inequality• Fighting objectification• Fighting a phallocentric ‘common sense’• Creating alternative ways of seeing the

world (through a ‘female gaze’)• Demonised and misunderstood (often

by women … ‘I’m not a feminist but …’• Not the same as lesbianism (although

lesbians can be feminists)

A brief history of Feminism…

It’s sometimes difficult to distinguish feminism from other ideas related to women, or to define feminism. Toril Moi suggests that we distinguish between ‘feminism’ as a political position, ‘femaleness’ as a matter of biology and ‘femininity’ as a set of culturally defined characteristics.

For Moi, Feminist criticism [or theory], then, is a specific kind of political discourse: a critical and theoretical practice committed to the struggle against patriarchy and sexism.

Feminisms

Feminism isn’t a straightforward, unified political position, though.

• ‘A Room of One’s Own’ • Votes for Women• Abortion

CixousCixous is probably best known for her deconstruction of binary

oppositions, claiming that they represent women negatively in the patriarchal value system.

Cixous’s binaries:• Activity/passivity• Sun/moon• Culture/nature• Day/night• Father/mother• Head/heart• Intelligible/sensitive• Logos/pathos

Women in Film• Kaplan / Mulvey – the ‘male gaze’:

Men look at women (as objects)The viewer is forced to identify with this gazeSo the camera is from a male POV

• Representation – cultivation over time• Character types

• Roles in narratives (eg love interest)

• Complex examples – eg Lara Croft

• Sociology and Semiology – public / private, roles, images, meaning systems

Mulvey and the Male Gaze

• 1975 – Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

• Male characters are ‘bearers of the look’

• Schopophilia (Freud) - pleasure in looking

• ‘The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure’. (1989: 19)

• Cinema screen acts as distorting mirror (Lacan) for spectators who then (mis)recognise themselves

Gender Trouble

Gender is not natural, it is learned and PERFORMED

Playful renegotiation of gender = gender trouble (a subversive act)

Madonna seen as icon of gender trouble (or Lady Gaga more currently?)

Gauntlett – Media, Gender, Identity

Kendall and McDougall ‘Just Gaming’

Media, Community, Audience

Media Audiences and The Sociological Imagination

Although we might think of media habits as mundane and idiosyncratic, the fact that we all have them shows structural forces afoot. (Ruddock: 77)

Defining Media Audiences

• Targeting of media products• Mode of address• Distribution and circulation• People using media• People attributing meaning to media • Media pleasures

all determined by socio-cultural factors

Audience Research

• Producing data from research • Providing empirical evidence of audience

behaviour or discursive evidence of audience responses.

• Done commercially by media producers and distributors – ratings, market research

• Done critically by media academics

The Imagined Reader

Breakfast cerealCar

Holiday destinationFast food FurnitureTV show

Music Pet

Audience Theories• Creating new ideas / new ways of thinking about

media audiences. • Audience research used to test out audience

theories. • Effects.• Uses and gratifications.• Reception theory.• Ethnography.• Postmodern theory.• Media 2.0

Models of Mass Media

‘Classic’ (outdated or timeless?) models:

• Shannon and Weaver, 1949• Galtung and Ruge, 1965• Blumer and Katz,1974

Shannon and Weaver, 1949

Hypodermic Model

• ‘Effects’ theory is / was often limited to the idea that the media ‘inject’ messages into audiences who are seen as passive.

• The constant attempt to ‘prove’ that media violence creates violent citizens (eg horror films, video nasties in the 1980s, videogames now) is based on this false premise.

• Effects and ‘moral panics’.

Galtung and Ruge, 1965

• Gatekeeping the flow of information

• Agents in gatekeeping are owners, editors, journalists etc who create agendas (eg news agendas) and then select and construct media information to fit the agenda.

Two Step Flow Model

McQuail and Windahl, 1986

The stars are ‘opinion leaders’

The circles are everyone else

Uses and Gratifications

Blumer and Katz, 1974We USE media (active, not passive)

for:

• Diversion• Personal Relationships• Personal Identity• Surveillance

Ideology and Interpellation

Key example = gender based magazines

Nuts does four things:

1. Represents men to men.2. Represents men to women.3. Represents women to men. 4. Represents women to women.

Men’s magazine covers = womenWomen’s magazine covers = women

Why?

Complicity

• Althusser: interpellation • misrecognition)

• Winship: complicity and (false) belonging

• Gauntlett – irony / play

The active audience• Marxist ideology theory presents the media as a controlling

force. • Effects theories tend to assume a passive audience. • Reception theory sees audiences as active makers of

meaning.• Audiences may read the media as the producers intended

(preferred reading - hegemonic).• They may partly share the preferred response (negotiated

reading)• They may interpret the text in an alternative way

(oppositional, counter-hegemonic reading).

Ownership and Media Power • A Marxist view of media will focus on the relationship

between the providers of media, broader power structures and the messages in media products circulated by these power-holding institutions. This is media hegemony / ideology theory.

• Outfoxed is a key example.

Outfoxed What does Outfoxed reveal?

Is this a shock?

Power and influence

Democracy and representation

Who owns your media?

How are you influenced?

Identity and Locality • Local Media• National Media• Public Service Media• Commercial Media • Deregulated Media• Global Media • Cultural Imperialism – eg Hollywood film • Diaspora – eg Bollywood • Postmodernity • What happens to our identities?

Global Shifts

Communication across borders

Distribution technologies

Capitalist context (free trade)

Potential erosion of national identities

Leads to cultural

hybridity

America and cultural imperialism

(but UK is not typical)

No longer

defines origin of content

Geography Power Diaspora

Key questions:

• How do local media networks and audiences accommodate competing and overlapping narratives of global, local and national identities?

• Where is power located?

• How is identity constructed?

• Is your identity postmodern?

Examples

Hollywood and Bollywood

Coca Cola and McDonalds

9/11 footage

Talent / Reality TV formats / The Office US

Reception

David Buckingham on global audiences and children and Julian on local / global : view Media

Mag site clip (but ignore the twitch!)

Identity: British Film

Films do not present a neutral, transparent view of reality, but offer instead a mediated re-presentation of it.

Types of RealismDiscourses

Ideology Plural readings

Identity: TV Drama

Social Document?

Why is Skins controversial?

Wiring the Audience

Doing Videogames

Filmic / Bookish Games and less so

QuickTime™ and aYUV420 codec decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JzcqALklRs

Games and Media Concepts

1.0• Genre• Narrative• Representation• Audience• Effects

2.0 • Ludology • Play • Flow • Immersion • Identity

Activity: Media Literacy

• ‘Meat and drink’ textual analysis of Medal of Honor.

• Personal response to GTA?

• Concepts for Rock Band?

Textual analysis?

Cultural ImperialismLocal Resistance

McMillan (2007)• Deregulation erodes national boundaries

• Market imperatives vs public service • Star TV – “multidomestic’ strategy

• CNN Gulf War coverage

• China and Korea – state control

• BBC and CNN now global media networks

• Governments – economy v control

• Result = hybridity

Hybridity • Space between local and global

• Hybrid programming – lucrative

• Formats

• Cloning, developing, collaging

• The Dictionary of Happiness

• Wise Men Survive

• Joy Luck Street

• Survivor

Questions about media and identity

• Local identity caricatured – eg Indian

The painful awareness of local inadequacies in terms of etiquette, vocabulary and accent compared to Western counterparts is particularly acute in societies that have been colonized and that have been subjected to reminders of their backwardness through centuries of media and cultural propoganda (McMillan, 2007: 132)

• Local media producers economically complicit

Franz Fanon and postcolonial power

Laughing at oneself is an extension of the subjective positioning of the colonized that – internalization of inferiority.

But other examples of resistance – women on screen in hybrid game shows.

Fan Cultures

Fandom (Hills)

Everybody knows what a ‘fan’ is. It’s somebody who is obsessed with a particular star, celebrity, film, TV programme, band; somebody who can produce realms of information on their object of fandom, and can quote their favoured line or lyrics, chapter and verse. Fans are often highly articulate. Fans interpret media texts in a variety of interesting and perhaps unexpected ways. And fans participate in communal activities – they are not ‘socially atomised’ or isolated viewers / readers.

(Hills, 2007: ix)

Theories of fandom (Hills) • Imagined communities (X-philes)

• Constructing physical space for textual meaning (Granada Studios)

• Fan, cultist, enthusiast, petty producer.

• Performance as aspect of consumption.

• Fandom as networking of intersecting tastes.

• Fandom and political expression.

Fandom and Identities

Unexpected / unintended responses

Alternative readings of texts

http://www.participations.org/Volume%204/Issue%202/4_02_huffer.htm

Talent TV

Benn, Boyle and Baudrillard, Cowell, Clegg and Culture

“Twitches”

Baudrillard’s hyper-real?

neither dream nor reality but simulacrum – fetishised reality

Interactive / Democratic?

Or Demotic? Turner - there is no clear connection between the exposure given to ‘everyday people’ by reality TV and any kind of progressive or emancipatory shifts.

Thus the ‘demotic turn’ equates merely to the increase in exposure of / to the public with no necessary democratic outcomes.

Rather, the rise of celebrity culture – and with it the clamour for us to seek the prize of commodifying ourselves as celebrities - has had the effect of charging the contemporary media with the power to ‘translate’ cultural identity.

Interaction, partly facilitated by technological convergence

More ‘interactive’ – yes

But also more democratic?

Stuff to Read

• David Gauntlett• Sonia Livingstone• David Buckingham• Annette Hill• Michael Wesch• Dan Gillmor• Henry Jenkins• Graeme Turner

Media 2.0

Lots of DIFFERENT IDEAS on this. Very much a CONTESTED view.

Convergence

• “We’re really talking about a converged interactive media industry. There’s an increasing interplay between gaming, online, TV and films – it’s all coming together.”

Jon Kingsbury, NESTA, 2010

What is media 2.0?

• Temporal?• Sense of watershed?• If so, is this– Mid 1980s? (rise of the PC)– 2003/4? (rise of web 2.0)

• Rise of cyberculture

Meanings

• Huge shifts– analogue to digital media– artefact to broadcast/download

• Has media changed or has the audience?• Is this anything new?“The new media determine a segmented, differentiated audience that, although massive in terms of numbers, is no longer a mass audience in terms of simultaneity and uniformity of the message it receives. The new media are no longer mass media…sending a limited number of messages to a homogeneous audience. Because of the multiplicity of messages and sources, the audience itself becomes more selective. The targeted audience tends to choose its messages, so deepening its segmentation.”

Sabbah 1985

Meanings

• Now live in an age of trans-mediality– Migration of content across media forms– Sense of fragmentation

• New forms– Computer games, simulations, SX cinema

• New representations– Virtual worlds, interactive multimedia

• New relationships between users and technology• New patterns of organisation and production

Meanings

• Is New Media transforming culture?• Could infer from above that changes are

technological, textural, conventional, and therefore cultural

• Rise of interaction and networking• Production = less centralised and more fluid• Shift from production to produsage, or

consumer to prosumer• Audience shift from passive to active

Meanings

• Generation Y, Digital Immigrants, Google Generation, Screenagers…

• Rise of Generation C (Bruns)– Content, Control, Creativity, Celebrity

• Intercreativity (Time Berners-Lee)• Pro-ams

– Amateurs working to professional standards

• End of the artefact?• End of the artefact as a finished construct?

– Mash-ups, etc

David GauntlettMedia 1.0• Fetishises 'experts', whose readings of culture are seen as more significant than

those of other audience members

• Celebrates key texts produced by media moguls and celebrated by well-known critics

• Otional extra of giving attention to famous 'avant garde' works produced by artists recognised in the traditional sense, and which are seen as especially 'challenging'

• A belief that students should be taught how to 'read' the media in an appropriate 'critical' style

• A focus on Western mainstream traditional media

• Vague recognition of internet and new digital media, as an 'add on' to the traditional media

• A preference for conventional research methods where most people are treated as non-expert audience 'receivers', or, if they are part of the formal media industries, as expert 'producers'.

David GauntlettMedia 2.0

• Focus on everyday meanings produced by the diverse array of audience members

• Interest in the massive 'long tail' of independent media projects such as those found on YouTube and many other websites, mobile devices, and other forms of DIY media

• Attempt to embrace the truly international dimensions of Media Studies – including a recognition not only of the processes of globalization, but also of the diverse perspectives on media and society being worked on around the world

• recognition that internet and digital media have fundamentally changed the ways in which we engage with all media

• media audiences seen as extremely capable interpreters of media content, with a critical eye and an understanding of contemporary media techniques, thanks in large part to the large amount of coverage of this in popular media itself

The shift

Media 1.0 was about FIND. Media 2.0 is about FILTER

Tapscott – “Grown up Digital”• “The print media company and the TV

network are hierarchical organisations that reflect the values of their owners. New media, on the other hand, give control to all users. The distinction between bottom-up and top-down organisational structure is at the heart of the new generation. For the first time ever, young people have taken control of critical elements of a communications revolution.” (p21)

Some more thoughts (1)• Could postmodernism, in retrospect, now be seen as

an attempt to get to grips with changes from materially rooted technological change?

• Views on social media tend to be polarised:

Pessimistic Utopian

Banal and trivial, replacing “real” human contact

We’re living in a golden age – we can do almost anything

Shaping people in narcissistic and inarticulate ways

Increased communication – the global village

Erosion between the traditionally private and public

Potential for political, charitable, arts and protest collaborative action

Computer games to blame for violence and cruelty

Some more thoughts (2)• Many scholars (eg Barabazon) very much against the

media 2.0 hypothesis• It is very cynical about theory, but does draw heavily

from theorists such as Bourdieu and McLuhan• Celebrates the “power of active users” , ignoring the

commercial structures that help to shape those powers

• Ignores real material and cultural constraints?– Gender inequality?– Poverty?– Who’s online?

Some more thoughts (3)• Revolution or augmentation?• “Even what we might with some justification want to

call revolutions in technology turn out to have been long in the making” (MacKenzie, 1999)

• Convergence as key?– Not just common tools and access, but nature of the data

(ie all digital, all binary)

• But is convergence new?– Telephone always been used for both communication and

broadcasting– Newspapers experimenting with radio in 1930s

A media ecology?• Castilles – we are living in an age of “informed

bewilderment”• Can we look at media as a living system? An

ecological view?• We can thus embrace diversity, complexity

and adaptation• Unit of cultural exchange getting smaller and

smaller – ie, BIODIVERSITY• Many established media species need to

adapt or become extinct

Moral Panics

Cohen, S, 1972.

Deviance / Threat • media plays a part in defining and shaping social problems and

perceptions of threat.

• This media representation and subsequent societal reaction may INCREASE the deviance and threat.

“An initial act of deviance, or normative diversity (for example, in dress) is defined as being worthy of attention and is responded to punitively. The deviant or group of deviants is segregated or isolated and this operates to alienate them from conventional society. They perceive themselves as more deviant, group themselves with others in a similar position, and this leads to more deviance.”(Cohen, 1972: 18)

Classic structure• Concern: that the behaviour of the group or category in question is likely to have a

negative impact on society.

• Hostility: towards the group in question increases, and they become "folk devils". A clear division forms between "them" and "us".

• Consensus: a widespread acceptance that the group in question poses a very real threat to society.

Disproportionality: The action taken is disproportionate to the actual threat posed by the accused group.

• Volatility: Moral panics are highly volatile and tend to disappear as quickly as they appeared due to a wane in public interest or news reports changing to another topic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iVAZKreer8

A Haunt of Fears

• 18th Century theatre• 19th century ‘penny dreadfuls’• Music Halls 1890s• Silent movie crime films• Horror Comics 1950s• Rock and Roll• Video Nasties 1980s• Video games 2000s

Sound familiar?

• They wore peaked caps, neck scarves, bell-bottom trousers, and a hairstyle cropped close to the scalp, with a "donkey fringe" over the forehead.

• There were pitched battles between rival gangs, armed with iron bars, knives, powerful catapults, and even guns. They patrolled their neighbourhoods shouting obscenities and pushing people down.

Sound familiar?

• They wore peaked caps, neck scarves, bell-bottom trousers, and a hairstyle cropped close to the scalp, with a "donkey fringe" over the forehead.

• There were pitched battles between rival gangs, armed with iron bars, knives, powerful catapults, and even guns. They patrolled their neighbourhoods shouting obscenities and pushing people down.

The first ‘hooligans’ riots in Aug 1898

Report: ‘The Needs of Youth’

• "Relaxation of parental control, decline of religious influence, and the movement of masses of young people to housing estates where there is little scope for recreation and plenty for trouble ... The problem is a serious challenge, the difficulty of which is intensified by the extension of freedom which, for better or worse, has been given to youth in the last generation."

Report: ‘The Needs of Youth’

• "Relaxation of parental control, decline of religious influence, and the movement of masses of young people to housing estates where there is little scope for recreation and plenty for trouble ... The problem is a serious challenge, the difficulty of which is intensified by the extension of freedom which, for better or worse, has been given to youth in the last generation."

1939

EPHEBIPHOBIA

‘We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self-

control.’

Inscribed on Egyptian tomb, 4000 BC

‘I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words...

When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of

restraint’

Hesiod, 8th Century BC

‘What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents.

They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are

decaying. What is to become of them?’

Plato, 4th Century BC

Common themes

• Popular culture is damaging• New cultural forms and technologies are

dangerous/ ‘bad objects’• Working class people cannot be trusted• Young people are most at risk• Innocence of childhood must be protected• Young people are dangerous

How does a moral panic emerge?

• Apparent rise in criminal or anti-social acts• Often a specific shocking incident• Search for explanation in public discourse• Scapegoat ‘found’ in popular culture• Blame attributed in news coverage• ‘experts’ consulted e.g. teachers, social workers, police

officers• Demands for action- e.g.change in law• Research disregarded or ridiculed

The case of Childs Play 3

Murder of James Bulger by two boys

Shocked public reaction

Trial: search for blame

Father’s videoshop membership info

CP3 picked on by press

Spurious links with narrative offered

The case of Childs Play 3

Violent media and ‘effects’

The Newson Report and ‘Video Nasties’

Late Show debate / survey

Martin Barker on screen violence

Martin Barker on Moral Panics

Recent panicsVideogames

Online activity

Campus killings / knife and gun crime / gangs and Youtube

Texting, internet and literacy

Electronic media and obesity

Screen / web addiction

Social skills in decline due to internet

Children and TV: Key Research

• David Buckingham – loads • Dafna Lemish• Sonia Livingstone• OFCOM

Research Traditions

American – dominated by developmental psychology

European – dominated by Sociology / Cultural Studies

Lemish (2007)

• Critical analysis of 50 years of literature / research on children and television from a global perspective.

• Tv as ‘shared and homogenizing’ force in global child culture.• Tv still dominant medium (maybe not the same for youth /

young adults)• Childhood as market for corporations• Complex relationship between children, childhood and TV

TV and Child Development• ‘Reading’ TV (from Cultural Studies) sees making meaning from TV as active,

in relation to socio-cultural contexts. (See Buckingham (2003, add page numbers ) – in library - and BFI Look Again – on moodle - for models of children’s ability to decode television meanings at different ages).

• Fantasy – Reality distinction (average age 8)• By 12, awareness of complexity of ‘reality’• Development of genre distinction – becomes more developed• Development of moral judgment (average age 7, linked to intention before

action age 10)• Para-social interaction (identification) – class and gender are important (eg

girls identify with boys’ TV but not vice versa)• Imagination – different research approaches get different results (TV reducing

imaginative capacity or TV as stimulus for imagination)• Note that research on TV and development views the child as an ‘apprentice

adult’ and thus works by comparing children’s perceptions of TV meaning to adults’, rather than treating

TV and Behaviour• Violence (see Martin Barker)• Immediate, copy cat, long-term cultivation• Effects model (see Gauntlett) vs Cultural Studies• Psychology v Sociology • Catharsis – different ‘version’ of effects, but still assumes straightforward

influence on behaviour.• Intervening variables – pre-disposition, family context, demographics

(see Morrison on Bulger)• Pro-social behaviour – educational (broadly), empathy, modifying of

extreme behaviours, reflection (on own life), citizenship (see Buckingham).

• Advertising – ‘pester power’, artificial ‘needs’, sense of self (in economic and lifeworld context)

• Sexual Behaviour – see Buckingham (English and Media Centre research) – exposure to explicit and implicit sexual content and ‘cultivation’ effects. Western focus – very different in other cultures.

• Leisure and Health – see Kline, Stewart and Fraser.

Politics 2.0?

Outline

• Definitions• The Ideals • The Realities• The Nay-sayers• What Governments

are doing - The Good,The Bad and the Ugly

• New forms of Activism?• Wikileaks - a paradigm shift or a big fuss?

What do we mean by politics?• Sociologist Anthony Giddens links notions of politics to those of

identity• Emancipatory politics is seen as releasing people from the constraints

of traditional social positions (class, gender, age, race, etc) by breaking down hierarchies. Takes form of protests, campaigns, strikes, rallies, voting, etc.

• Life politics is more reflexive, of taking control of the shape of one’s own life through the negotiation of self-identity, of “how shall I live?”, through the form of how to behave, what to wear, what to eat, where to buy, etc

• Giddens argues that modern society is seeing a shift from the former to the latter. – Is he right?– If so, can you see how web 2.0/media 2.0 facilitates this?

What do we mean by media?• In understanding digital media and power, Manuel Castells is key –

sees the media as consisting of three parts:– The information infrastructure and tools used to produce and distribute

content– The content that takes the form of personal messages, news, ideas and

cultural products– The people, organisations and industries that produce and consume content

• Using a network perspective entails looking at the linkages and relationships between tools, content, producers and consumers

• This has allowed him to expose how digital media technologies serve power, whether for the benefit of social elites or ordinary members of the public

New technologies, new fears…

• “Every new medium with the potential to reach a mass audience has been a source of concern over its potential impact, and this has usually been conceptualised in negative terms. New media are seen as disrupting existing relations of communication between powerful and powerless, and so threatening existing hierarchies of power and control.”

Green, N. & Haddon, L. (2009: p2) Mobile Communications,

Oxford: Berg

New technologies, new fears…

• Much of this linked to binary views on new technologies (ie utopian/dystopian):

• “Most technology has little to do with the condition of democracy. Yet technologies that afford expressive capabilities, like the radio, the television, the internet, and related media, tend to trigger narratives of emancipation, autonomy, and freedom in the public imagination. All too often, then, we wonder, at the appearance of a newer communication medium, how it will affect our conventions of democratic governance.”

Papcharissi, Z. (2010: p3) A Private sphere: Democracy in a Digital Age,

Cambridge: Polity

Politics 2.0

• Open source political campaigns, Open source politics, or Politics 2.0, is the idea that social networking and e-participation technologies will revolutionize our ability to follow, support, and influence political campaigns. Netroots evangelists and web consultants predict a wave of popular democracy as fundraisers meet on MySpace, YouTubers crank out attack ads, bloggers do opposition research, and cell-phone-activated flash mobs hold miniconventions in Second Life.

Wikipedia, 2011

Web Politics• Often seen in terms of ideals – eg JP Barlow’s Declaration of

Independence of Cyberspace (1996) had 3 central characteristics:

– Information democracy – unfettered information construction and dissemination, free from the stranglehold of MSM

– Democratization of decision making power – e-democracy, direct participation

– More engaged citizens

• Has any of this really happened?• Many suggest that the rise of neo-liberalism and globalisation has

marginalised the western liberal democratic tradition. In UK, certainly seeing decline in both voter turnout and membership of political parties.

Web Politics• It’s a story we’re hearing a lot…

“complaints about apathy and depoliticisation are as old as politics itself. They are the stock-in-trade of activists who celebrate the golden age of political culture in some earlier moment – 1945, 1968, or whenever. But the past decade has witnessed a massive loss of confidence in what many held to be the bedrock of formal democracy. Faith in government, in the credibility of politicians, in the power of governments to do anything, has hit an all time low … is there really nowhere to go but the shops?”

Lury (2011: p.205)

A new public sphere?

• Does the internet allow for this? – DirectGov, political blogs, public opinion fora, chat rooms, etc.

• Yet if this is the new medium, then the web itself becomes the medium for political action and activism:– Website defacement– Distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks– E-mail bombing– Malicious code attacks– Redirects (often fun – Rick-rolling)– Cyber warfare– Google bombs

The Realities?• However, use of the web can be used by specific groups

for:– Visibility and publicity– Organisation and mobilisation– Coordination and collaboration

(Rheingold – smart mobs)

• Can often be short term issues• Or is online activism merely “slacktivism”? (Morozov)• Lievrouw shows how Global Justice Movement use the

internet for:– Co-ordination– Platform– Engagement (limited)

Facebook• “Facebook is… an ideal medium for a certain kind of

politics and activism. It allows an almost instant commentary on the world, whether this is to poke fun at Trinidanian politicians or more seriously note some exposure or corruption. It could be to lament the devastation of Haiti, or to go beneath the adulation for a more considered examination of Obama, to expose some corporate greed, to despair at some act of patriarchy, to declare a street protest or simply to express a forceful opinion.”

• Miller, D. 2001:p70

The New Reality?

Or was it ever thus?

The Nay-Sayers• Some campaign groups create online tools which enable users to

send readymade messages to politicians, etc – would these not be seen as spam by their recipients?

• Could social media be used to fulfil the government’s Big Society agenda?

• Lanier sees web 2.0 as actually erasing individuality and identity –

“Something like missionary reductionism has happened to the internet with the rise of Web 2.0. The strangeness is being leached away by the mush-making process. Individual web pages as they first appeared in the early 1990s had a flavour of personhood. MySpace preserved some of that flavour, though a process of regularized formatting had begun. Facebook went further, organising people into multiple-choice identities, while Wikipedia seeks to erase point of view entirely.”

The Nay-Sayers• “All that happens in online discussion of social and political

matters is that college-educated professional, established journalists, commentators, politicians, organisation and think-tanks get a boost to their visibility” (see Hindman – The Myth of Digital Democracy)

• Think back to some MC404 questions:– Is the media 2.0 argument being encouraged by a media elite?– Does it have an element of wishful thinking?– Is blogging truly democratic, or is it just an “aristocracy of opinion”? – Is there an element of truth to what Keen calls the “tyranny of the

ignorant” and “the cult of the amateur”?• Even in 2006, Matthew Taylor, Tony Blair’s Chief

Strategy Advisor, claimed that the web was too often used to encourage the "shrill discourse of demands" that dominated modern politics

Eugeny Morozov• View that the web is emancipatory is a “mis-reading of

history”• Part of the technologically deterministic, cyber-utopian

“Google Doctrine” or “Twitter Agenda”, ie a mirror image of a moral panic…

• Governments are actually using the web for propaganda, control, surveillance, censorship and suppression

• This needs to be recognised and understood

Eugeny Morozov• MYTH of Twitter Revolution in Iran• The Iranian Government is still in power!• Majority of messages emanating from US• US Govt (believing the hype) actually asks Twitter to re-schedule

upgrade• Hence Iran, China and Russia all see

this as US driven…• What are people REALLY using the

web for?– Uses research in Eastern Europe and

Middle East– Sex, shopping and entertainment– This is the REAL American Dream– Authoritarian Governments happy for this

to continue

Another moral panic?• “The internet is good at reassuring people that they are not alone,

and not much good at creating a political community out of the fragmented people we have become.”

Alan Ryan, Oxford University, 1997• Echoes of Kierkegaard on the Industrial Revolution and rise of the

Enlightenment?• Rise of the “chattering classes”, decline in

social cohesion, feast of endless and disinterested reflection, and triumph of infinite but shallow intellectual curiosity - sound familiar?

• “Not a single one of those who belong to the public has an essential engagement in anything”

The UK landscape…

• Rise of internet based market research - You Gov

• Online advice and information – Direct Gov

E-petitions on 10, Downing Street site

The US - Obama 2.0?

• Obama very good at utilising web 2.0 tools in his 2008 presidential campaign – diluted what is termed the “incumbent effect”, where MSM gives more coverage to those already in power. Raised a great deal of funding online.

• Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign actually begins with Twitter – http://ofa.bo/bWjHd7 - (links to video asking “are you in?”) and #Obama2012

• Taking a network view (Castells), the campaign would be just as much about connections between supporters, as between supporters and campaign management

Propaganda 2.0

• US Central Command paying for multiple fake online identities for propaganda and “counter-terrorism”

• There is now an actual term for this – creating “sock puppets”

• Can be likened to China’s attempts to control access and free speech? (what Wolfsfeld (2011)calls “The Great Firewall of China”)

Control 2.0• Social software can be used both for and against

governments, what Shirky (2010) calls “the Dictator’s Dilemma”. Eg Sudanese government set up a Facebook group calling for a protest against the Sudanese government, naming a time and place, and simply arrested all those who showed up.

• Think of what police could do with all info on Facebook…• Facebook itself not averse to closing down “political”

groups (eg Pro-Tibet, Hong Kong demonstrations) whilst conveniently turning a blind eye to others

• Tom-Tom sells data to governments – Dutch police bought this and sued thousands of speeding drivers

• I-Phone tracking software…

Control 2.0• I-Phone Photo GPS system…• Geotime – software used by US military and bought by

London Met Police in April 2011. Shows an individual’s movements and communications with other people on a three-dimensional graphic. Used to collate information gathered from social networking sites, satellite navigation equipment, mobile phones, financial transactions and IP network logs.

• However, we are not allowed to know who is using this and how…

Shopping 2.0?

• Think of the wealth of information held about you online…• Is this not an exercise in power?• Amazon will recommend on past purchases• Companies now share transactional data• Brands encourage consumers to blog, tweet, etc, and

comments are analysed (Web Analytics, Harvest Report Sever 2.0) for sentiment, etc

• Michael Dell (of Dell Computers): “Our best customers are those that are…– the largest?– those that require the least help?– those that buy the most?– those we can learn the most from?

New Social Movements?• Are we seeing rise of NSM? Tend to be focussed on:

– Changes in lifestyle, culture or identity (eg gay rights, ethnic separatist movements)

– Issue oriented rather than ideological (eg environment, third world debt, university fees)

– Networked and decentralised (hence anti-coalition demonstrations)– Trans-national in focus (eg anti-globalisation movement)

New forms of activism?• Much of this related to Castell’s theories:

– Rising sense of individualism gives rise to identity politics– Politics becoming more like marketing– IT led information flow gives rise to uncontrollable scandals, negative

press and misinformation, devaluing the political process

• Related to this, Ling and Donner (2009) show how use of mobile devices can often lead to reallocation of political power– Anti-Estrada protests in Philippines,

WTO protests– Citizen empowerment

(anti-speeding camera apps), citizen journalism

– State power and surveillance (Bush administration particularly guilty here)

Back to Castells again…• Society cannot be understood without studying media technologies• In terms of recent technological change, it is not just the information

that is important, but the very structure and organisation of that information

• Hence, argues that a great deal of economic, political and cultural power has moved from the state to the media system, depending on how much authority they (the state) have over the terms and conditions of communication

• Thus, media networks do not fragment politics, but offer new opportunities for coordination and control– “The relationship between citizens and politics, between the represented and the

representative, depends essentially on what happens in the media-centred communication space.”

– Political actors can quickly and directly distribute messages– Can focus subtly different messages that appeal to different groups

Ownership• Castells’ argument on media authority and power look a little

disturbing when looking at ideas of media industry convergence

• Brings us back to Jenkins’ idea that convergence is a 2-sided coin – both a concentration of media power, whilst at the same time a democratisation of media use.

• Certainly networked campaigns not without risk:– Ease of research into a candidate’s history, statements and activity– Possible loss of control– Ease of publishing embarrassing YouTube videos (see Gordon Brown)– Ease of publishing false or malicious counter-campaigns (see Steve Jobs)

Or even….

Leah Lieverouw• Sees many NSMs and online political activity as small-scale:

– Culture Jamming - cultural terrorism, subversion through pop culture - hence slips into mainstream - memes?

– Hacking - “Hacktivism”, alternative computing, rise of P2P?– Mediated mobilisation, through re-orientation/re-programming of existing

structures. Collective concerns lead to collective actions, and hence mobilisation– Participatory journalism– Commons Knowledge - Open Source,

collaboration, crowd-sourcing, etc, show a shift in society’s attitudes and relationships to power and knowledge - Wikipedia!

– However, key difference is technology becomes both the means of expression, and the expression itself

– Hence you need to understand modern communication and behaviour

– Back to Castells - sees the articulation of a social movement on the internet as “both its organisational form and its mode of action”

Who said this?• Middle East 2011 – Facebook and Twitter played minor role

compared to Al-Jazeera• Web could allow for greater Government transparency and

better co-operation between activists, but also be used to catch dissidents, but…

• “The web is not a technology that favours freedom of speech. It is not a technology that favours human rights. It is not a technology that favours civil life. Rather, it is a technology that can be used to set up a totalitarian spying regime, the like of which we have never seen.”

• Julian Assange, Cambridge University, March 2011

What’s this?

Wikileaks• Firstly, it’s not a wiki!• An international non-profit organisation that publishes submissions of

private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers

• October 2010 - published Iraq War Logs (400, 000 documents), in coordination with major commercial media organisations (including The Guardian)

• November 2010 – US State Diplomatic Cables

• April 2011 – Guantanamo Bay files

• A huge shift in power and freedom of information?

• Or an underwhelming publication of the bleeding obvious?• See Wikipedia for various state-sponsored backlashes…

Some thoughts to conclude…

• Wolfsfeld (2011) claims that although new technology has made a difference, NSMs still need to achieve 4 old fashioned goals to succeed:– Should help to mobilize– Messages and stories should graduate to the

mainstream media (MSM) to gain a wider audience– This then needs to influence public opinion– Ultimately, impact on politics

• Even if he is right or not, are these already happening?

Some thoughts to conclude…• Has the digital medium affected a change in political dynamics, or

is it merely affording new forms of communication?• Has it had any real impact on political sophistication?• Has social medium eroded the gatekeeping model of political

information flow?• What we can definitely say is happening:

– Rise of Social Media Politicians – use of Twitter and Facebook, and social network activity, blogs and online conversations to measure public opinion

– Facebook Ads being used – not just Facebook profiles– Twitter is the new texting tool– Rise of the Political App….– Video Ads (eg YouTube) now commonplace for political use– This “freedom” is a double-edged sword, as opportunities for surveillance,

control, censorship, suppression and propaganda become increasingly and easily available

Bibliography

• Barlow, J. (1996) A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (available at: https://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html )

• Green, N. & Haddon, L. (2009) Mobile Communications, Oxford: Berg• Howard, P. (2011) Castells and the Media, Cambridge: Polity• Hindman, M. (2006) The Myth of Digital Democracy, Princeton: Princeton University Press• Lanier, J (2011) You are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, London: Penguin• Ling, R. & Donner, J. (2009) Mobile Communication, Cambridge: Polity• Lieverouw, L. (2011) Alternative and Activist New Media, Cambridge: Polity• Lury C. (2011) Consumer Culture, Cambridge: Polity• Miller, D. (2011) Tales from Facebook, Cambridge: Polity• Miller, V. (2011) Understanding Digital Culture, London: Sage• Morozov, E. (2011) The Net Delusion, London: Allen Lane• Papcharissi, Z. (2010) A Private Sphere: Democracy in a Digital Age, Cambridge: Polity• Wheeler, B. (2006) Web Fuelling Crisis in Politics

(available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6155932.stm )• Wikipedia (2011) Open Source Political Campaign

(available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_2.0 )• Wolfsfeld, G. (2011) Making Sense of Media and Politics: Five principles in political communication,

New York: Routledge

Postmodernism

TheoryLyotard - Postmodern ConditionBaudrillard - simulation Hyper-realityRelativismBricolageIronyPick and mixRemix culture

Prosumers

Baudrillard’s hyper-real?

neither dream nor reality but simulacrum – fetishised reality

The ‘Standards’

• Using effective strategies to develop pupils’ ICT skills.

• Extensive repertoire of teaching and learning strategies, including use of ICT.

• Discussing with pupils the use of ICT and how it could enhance their learning.

PIRATE BAY – A POSTMODERN POLITICAL ACT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osow49R0eAA

DJ Shadow

Second Life

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA&feature=related

ZizekVirtual reality = product

deprived of its substance.“Just as decaffeinated coffee smells

and tastes like real coffee without being real coffee, Virtual reality is experienced as reality without being so. What happens at the end of this process of virtualization, however, is that we begin to experience ‘real reality’ itself as a virtual entity”.(2002:231)