Lecture 2

11/11/10

CRITICAL POSITIONS ON THE MEDIA AND POPULAR CULTURE

-What is culture? complicated

word in our language to define

-Definition- general process of spiritual and aesthetic development of a particular society at a particular time.

-Particular way of life

-Works of intellectual and especially artistic significance

- Marx's concept of Base / Superstructure (communist manifesto)

-Base -Determine content + form of- Superstructure

-Superstructure -Reflects form of + legitimizes- Base

-Ideology - 1) system of ideas/b

eliefs, 2) distortion/selection of ideas (propaganda)

-Pyramid of Capitalist system

Bourgeoisie/Bourgois - working class

-Marx 'ruling class controls/ dominates culture'

-Definitions - 'popular'

-Well liked by many

-Inferior kinds of work (mass not kitch)

-Work deliberately setting out to win favour with the people

-Culture actually made for people for themselves: made by people for people

-High culture- famous painting, popular culture-making copies, paint by numbers

-High culture-Banksy piece, Popular culture-Graffitti

-Industrialisation brought separation of class.

-Traditional vs. Popular culture

-Culture and anarchy, Matthew Arnold (1867)

-Culture-study of perfection

-"best that has been thought and said in the world"

-pursuit of culture

-seeks "to minister the diseased spirit of our time"

-Culture polices 'the raw and uncultivated masses'

-Uncultured should strive to be like cultured not create their own culture

-Arnoldism

-F.R. Leavis + Q.D. Leavis = Leavisism

-20th Century sees cultural deadline

-Collapse of traditional authority comes at the same time as mass democracy

-Popular culture-books, films, advertising

-Frankfurt school- Critical Theory, institute social research, uni of frankfurt, 1923-33

-Rise of national socialism

-New York 1933-47

-Adorno, Horkheimer, reinterpreted Marx for 20th C (late capitalism)

-All mass culture is identical

-Homogeneity + Predictability

-Conformity not anarchy

-Herbert Marcuse, Depoliticises working class

-Che Guevar t shirt

- X Factor/Big Brother= way to success is join in gameshow instead of education

-Authentic (real, european) culture vs. mass culture

-Multidimensional

-Imagination, Autonomous

-Adorno 'On popular music'

-Walter Benjamin-Work of art of mechanical reproduction (1936)

-Concept of 'aura'

-Mona Lisa - dont know what it means socially but we know its important

-Challenges high culture, when appears on t shirts books plates

-Birmingham school

Contextual & Theoretical Studies Year 2 - Lecture 1

4/11/2010

PANOPTICISM - SURVEILLANCE AND SOCIETY

- The Panopticon- Jere

my Benthams 1791

- Michael Foucault (1926-198

4)

Madness & Civilisation (book by Foucault)

- Village idiot's used to be laughed/with not outcasts, late 1600's this changed..

- 'Houses of correction' - to curb unemployment + idleness, criminals

This didn't work and the criminals affected the non criminals and so on

- Birth of the Asylum - patients split up so cant influence one another

- The emergance of knowledge/ Doctors + Physciatrists seen as 'gods'

- End of the pillory/ guillotine/ hung drawn and quartered, not physical punishment anymore, now modern discipline, keep u

s under

survallience, improve ourselves

- Millbank prison (modern prison) opposite of dungens where the person is shut away/hidden/forgotten

- Panopticon - always being watched/reforms them/ self regulation through fear of being watched

- No panoptic prisons any more as see

n as torture

- Modern panopticism = open plan offices / The office

- Factories with balconys

- Security cameras

- Google streets/ strange things on here car on fire

- Pentonville prison

- Brotherton Library

- CCTV panoptic gaze

- Archive of looked at websites, emails on computers

- Guy arrested for terrorist activity from his list of website history

- Docile bodies - easy to control/ controllable to surveyor/ self monitoring

- Gym is panoptic

- TV - very panoptic

- "Where there is power, there is resistance" Foucault

- Resistance vs. submission

- Men watch women, women watch themselves being looked at.

- Facebook - EXTREMELY panoptic

- Bruce Nauman (1960's) video corridor pieces

- Art gallery = Institution

- Chris Burden - Samson (1985)

Contextual & Theoretical Studies Portfolio (Vis Com Year 2 Task 1)

Choose an example of one aspect of contemporary culture that is, in your opinion, panoptic. Write an explanation of this, in approximately 100-200 words, employing key Foucauldian language, such as 'Docile Bodies' or 'self-regulation, and using not less than 5 quotes from the text'Panopticism' in Thomas, J. (2000) 'Reading Images', NY, Palgrave McMillan.

Mobile Phones

Mobile phones are a modern day example of Bentham’s Panopticon. The Panopticon was a circular prison where the prisoners in cells around the building were constantly observed by guards in the central tower, which is a complete opposite of the dungeons, which were “to enclose, to deprive of light and to hide” (Foucault in Thomas, 2000, p64). The prison was based on the theory of Panopticism founded by Michael Foucault.

Mobile phones are a perfect example of this, as we know that they can be tracked by the battery and sim card also that certain words that we say or type can be flagged up and recorded. The trackers e.g. satellites are “visible and unverifiable” (Foucault in Thomas, 2000, p65), meaning that we can see the satellites in spaces in photos or the Internet, yet you never know for sure if your being looked at or not.

Because we never know if we are being watched or not, we, ourselves, monitor what we say, and what words we use and therefore the person becomes “the principle of his own subjection” (Foucault in Thomas, 2000, p66). Instead of, for example people being punished for committing terrorism acts, the acts can be prevented as the satellite or the police can “..act even before the offences, mistakes or crimes have been committed.” (Foucault in Thomas, 2000, p68)

“Visibility is a trap” (Foucault in Thomas, 2000, p64), which creates a fear of being watched, this produces docile bodies, making people easy to control.

Bibliography

-'Panopticism' in Thomas, J. (2000) 'Reading Images', NY, Palgrave McMillan.