Constructing the other - Portfolio Task 7

Compile an annotated photo essay that analyses the visual and linguistic construction of a specific other within a magazine, journal, periodical or newspaper of your choice. You could focus on gender, race, class, sexuality, fashion, etc but make sure that you comment on how the construction of such an 'other' secures and stabilises the identity, and sense of self, of the publication's core audience.

'New!' is aimed at women roughly age 18- 30. 'New!' is a celeb gossip magazine with fashion and bizarre true life stories. The magazine is set out in bright boxes The magazine is cheap and aimed at people earning a normal/average amount as there are pages that show what celebs wear and where you can get a similar thing on the high street cheap.

The magazine as I have said, is full of celebs and is extremely judgemental. It tells us what 'New!' thinks is and isn't right, for example this page above rates outfits of celebs at the brit awards. Also again all the celebs are really skinny making us feel that we could never be this glamourous unless we looked like them. The only time there are bigger celebs in the mag is when there showing how much weight they've lost (and they're congratulated) or they've been photographed looking big and then the magazine makes fun of them.

Articles like the one below are common as well these kind of articles make people feel like celebs have normal lives too with the same problems readers could have (identifies with the reader).

11/02/11

IDENTITY AND THE OTHER

-Creation of identities

-Concepts of otherness

-Analysis of visual example

-Who we are/ how others percieve us/ themselves

-What makes you, you? (identity creation)

-Brought up

-Where you grew up/ subjectivity (relationship to the world and other people)

-Culture- society/ religion

-Western subjectivities

-Subcultures

-Education (different education, different effect)

-Job

-How do you express this/ your identity?

-Fashion/ clothes- individual/ conformity

-Music

-Attitude (how you treat people)

-Profession

-Speech (way you speak-bbc english/ slang/ Queens english

-Identity not chosen by us or other people/ fight against world (Battleground)

-Circuit of culture- stuart hall- important theorist/ created cultural studies

-Culture = framework which we are trapped in

-Production= what you make

-Representation= sterotypes e.g. that students are drunken hooligans

-Consumption- food, clothes, ferrai

-Regulation- regulate yourself/ conform/ act/ talk to others/ what society allows you to be

-In some countries being gay is illegal

-Identity formation

-Jacques Lacan-process form pyschoanalysis

-Hommelette- person scrambled up

-Mirror stage- 6-18 months

-Sense of self (subjectivity)

Built on:

-an illusion of wholeness

-recieving views of others = own subjectivity to be fragile

-Sterotype others- Constructing the 'other'

-Policeman-bad, me good

-Subject- objectify others/ take away subjectivity/ humanity

-Identify with other group to secure our own identity

-Social constructionism

Sustainability & Capitalism- Portfolio Task 6

Read the text- Balser, E (2008) 'Capital Accumulation, Sustainability & Hamilton Ontario'. Write a 500 word critical summary of the text which explicitly adresses the following questions:

-How is sustainability defined in the text?

In Balser's article, sustainability is described as a response to our environmental crisis. It is defined as 'the inter- and intra- generational equity in the social, environmental, economic, moral and political spheres of society', which means the current and future generations ownership/responsibility of the world. It is supposed to be a communal concept, but due to cost and technology, this is not available to everyone, and poor places suffer because of this

-What are the main characteristics or tendencies of Capitalism?

-Capitalism is always looking to commodify things (a good for which there is demand).

-Constantly expanding

-Diverse web, traps thing creating crisis's.

-Define a 'crisis of Capitalism'. Offer an example.

A crisis of capitalism shows 'a passage which is a turning point in every systematic cycle of accumulation'. An example of a capitalism crisis is the BIOX plant in Ontario, which is a plant for bio-diesel 'clean' fuel which is a good thing the problem is its expensive, not only can't poorer people buy it but its afftecting the poor people that live in its area in a health and safety aspect aswell. Its built on a community green, opposite residential homes.

-What solutions have been offered to the sustainability question? Are these successful or realistic?-If not why are they flawed?

-reinvention of sustainability

-not about salvation of nature

-prolonging human life

Businesses need to:

-radically increase productivity of resource use

-biology inspired production

-no waste/ toxicity

-services rather than making and selling

-reinvest in natural + human capital

-Is the concept of sustainability compatible with capitalism?

I'm not sure if they could ever be completely compatible with each other. I think they will try but in the end both want different things (same things/ different outcomes). Capitalism wants money, sustainability wants to preserve the planet.

Lefebvre & Space - Portfolio Task 5

In 300-400 words, use Lefebvre's Spatial Triad (above) to conduct a critical reading of one social space in or around Leeds.

Leeds Train Station is the busiest social space I could think of in Leeds. Everyday thousands of people commute to or through Leeds. In 2008/9, Leeds was the busiest railway station in the North of England and the third busiest in the United Kingdom outside London, after Birmingham New Street and Glasgow Central. According to Network Rail, which manages the station, over 36.8 million people use the station annually.

In Lefebvre's Spatial Triad, he refers to 'Representations of Space' about basically how the place is set out. Like I have said the train station is very busy a lot of the time so there is a lot of space, with shops around the edge and cash machines on the walls. So people can easily get through the station but could stop at a shop to get lunch for work for example. There is also a pub and a Wetherspoons as the train station is a good place to meet people (especially if you have come in on different trains) also a good place to start a night out. There are 3 or 4 rows of benches in the main building with more on the different platforms, so that you don't have to stand to wait for your train. I'm guessing the plans for the train station were like they were for function and practicality. People get to Leeds and then get connecting trains, so the shops like WHSmiths are widely known and can get magazines and sweets/food for your journey. Also there are a few fast food shops which works with people coming and going so fast, or waiting around as well.

Lefebvre also mentions 'Practice' in relation to the space this is the places daily routine and urban reality. As I have said hundreds of people pass through the station everyday. Some of these people its an everyday routine where as some people just to visit Leeds. This also links to the 'Representational space' people meeting other people, friends + family on holiday or coming home from holiday. Some people it will be a place that sparks memories where as to others it will just be 'some place' they pass through everyday.

28/01/11

SIGHT/SITE (SOCIAL SPACE)

-Urban space/hidden power structures

-Anti-war protest-London

-In all urban spaces mechanisms of control/power

-Hausmanisation- to stop crime/ to segregate/control/power

-Power by state

-Adverts/billboards change how feel/act/

-Business control- spend/ consumption

-Dog whistle for chavs-shops

-Crossings/traffic lights

-John Berger- Single point perspective (way of representing space)

e.g. lighthouse-instead of light going in/coming out (appearances)

-Arrogance/god like power/world=stage for us/viewer as central object

-One way situation/panopticism= one all seeing eye

-Understanding is limited + inhibited by our own vision (flawed)

-UN=see themselves in charge of world

-Jemima Stehli-'strip'-giving critic choice of when to take photo

-Power/ illusion of power

-Forces to see person gazing back / awkward

-Critics control art

-Transgression as a result of space; response to limits- Vito Acconci (1969)

-Henri Lefebvre (1905-1991)

-Dirty Protest (1977-8)

-French intellectual, Marxist , sociologist

-Maze prison belfast

-Revolution via everyday life

-Influenced the situationist (challenged the hidden power structures) 1950's, 60's

-Guy Debord

-Theorist of radial movements

-Spatillisation- creative + function of space

-Conventions of space- act in the space how you would think to act in space

-Action/ presence/ discourse= controlled

-Creates opportunity for resistance/ possibility of rebellion

-Signs/illusions of control/ can ignore

-women- think they're meant to look a certain way/ don't have to

-View from above-doing solution

Lecture 6

THE MEDIA, GLOBALISATION AND SUSTAINABILITY

-Socialist- process of transformation of local/regional phenomena into global ones.

-Described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together.

-Process=combination of economic/technological/sociocultural and political forces.

-Capitalist- elimination of state-enforced restrictions on exchanges across borders

-McDonaldization - mc donalds dominating society

-Manfred B. Steger, Globalization: A very Short Introduction

-Marshall McLuchan

-Global village thesis

-Centripetal forces (good) vs. Centrifugal forces (bad)

-New cold war-loss of faith in the secular nationstate

Religious Nationalism

self-society- Communal

knowledge- Faith

religion- Church/state joined

politics- authoritarian, personal

economy- local capitalism/ socialism

Globalisation

self-society- Unit in global market

knowledge- Media

religion- Religion irrelevant

politics- Superpower (US) & transnational agencies e.g. WTO, UN

economy- Transnational corporate

-Problems of globalisation:

1)sovereignty

2)accountability

3)identity

-Cultural Imperialism

-Schiller

-Chomsky (key thinkers)

-owenership

-sourcing

-funding

-Flak

-Anti- ideologies

-An inconvenient truth (2006) Al Gore

-Flat earthers

-Sustainability \

- Greenwashing

-G20 Summit

Essay Ideas - Portfolio Task 4

Propose a topic and a working title for your Level 5 essays. Your proposal should include:

-5 bullet points explaining the main thrust of your argument

-Your chosen methodical approach

-At least 5 texts (referenced using Harvard) that you think will be useful for this essay, with a comment next to each explaining why

-A j.peg of an image that you may/could discuss in the essay, again, briefly stating why

For my essay I have chosen the topic of the gaze and psychoanalysis as it interest me the most and i want to find out more about it. I also wanted to link these to today and how this affects women. Therefore my question I have come up with I got by using a quote on the gaze and psychoanalysis handout from the lecture. My title is:

'Women exist as 'sexual' objects only to be looked at.' Does this statement apply to modern media?

In my essay i will look at how women were perceived in the past (through paintings/pinnups) how this changed and then how it has changed back again, now in modern media. Who is driving this change, male or female? I am also looking at quite a few theorists to back up what I am saying. My plan for the essay is to go through each of my theorists first, John Berger, Laura Mulvey and Rosalind Coward, then to apply this theory to examples (analysing in depth), then my conclusion.

Texts I am going to use:

-Berger, J (2008) Ways of Seeing, 2nd Edition, London: Penguin Books Ltd.

I'm using this book as one of the essays in it is very appropriate. It talks a lot about how women are represented in paintings. Berger believes that the western world objectifies the nude women and how these ideals have been carried on into todays society.

-Mulvey, L, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema: Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. New York: Oxford UP: p.833-44

This text carries on fluidly from Berger as Mulvey talks about these ideals in todays society, in modern media, with the male as the observer and the female as the object.

-Coward, R, (1985) Female Desire and Sexual Identity, In: Diaz-Diocartz, M & Zavala, Women Feminist Identity and Society in the 1980's. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co, pp.25-36

Coward talks here, about desire and how we as humans are driven by pleasure. Desire is driven by pleasure and the constant promise of perfection. Coward looks at how this affects women

-Walter, N (2010) Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, London: Virago press.

This is a book that I found in the library at college, the title dragged me to it at first and whilst I had the book out I couldn't put it down. Really interesting view on how men aren't driving this way of seeing women but women are. Contains some interviews with women that are looked at for a living, about how they got into what they do and why they do it.

-Miriam O'Reilly wins Countryfile ageism claim, BBC NEWS: Entertainment & Arts [online] Available at:

This article is really interesting as my essay question is 'Women exist as sexual object only to be looked at' Does this statement apply to modern media? and this pretty much proves it as O'Reilly was fired for being too old and as when the program went in to HD you'd be able to see her wrinkles apparently.

An image you could discuss:

As I am looking at the gaze as well, an image that I could talk about is Degas' painting Le Viol (The Rape) (1869). This painting shows the intra-diagetic gaze, which means another person in an image looking at another person in the image. In this painting the man looks across the room at the young girl the way she is facing and is stood shows that she hasn't noticed him stood there. The painting makes you feel bad as you know what is going to happen but you don't feel guilty, as you're not doing anything wrong as the viewer.