Princeton in Berlin

Walter Benjamin

Technology like film and photography removes art's "aura," making it easier to spread but also easier to manipulate, as seen in how film can train people's perception. (Example: Film trains people to watch passively instead of thinking deeply.)

Horkheimer & Adorno

Mass media standardizes entertainment to keep people passive and obedient, turning culture into a tool for social control. (Example: Hollywood movies and pop music seem different but all follow similar formulas.)

Fredric Jameson

Even mainstream media can accidentally create utopian moments, but it mostly hides class conflict by packaging everything for mass appeal. (Example: Star Wars may feel critical, but it reinforces familiar power structures.)

Stuart Hall

Media sends messages that people can accept, negotiate, or oppose; not everyone interprets media the same way. (Example: A news story meant to support the police might be decoded as racist by some viewers.)

Horkheimer & Adorno (Anti-Semitism)

Enlightenment thinking failed to prevent fascism and antisemitism because it focused too much on reason and ignored deeper social fears. (Example: People project hatred onto Jews to explain a broken system.)

Frantz Fanon

Black people are trapped in how others see them, especially through white stereotypes, which they must perform before they can be heard. (Example: Fanon describes being stared at and called "dirty" on the street.)

Hannah Arendt

True political action only happens in shared public spaces, but modern life privatizes everything and weakens democracy. (Example: Ancient Greece encouraged speech in public forums, unlike today's isolated individuals.)

Jürgen Habermas

The public sphere once enabled rational debate, but has now been taken over by media and advertising. (Example: Coffee houses once encouraged debate; now TV dominates public discourse.)

Judith Butler

Living ethically is hard under unjust systems, and performing norms of identity becomes a survival strategy. (Example: Gender roles are performed based on what society allows us to be.)

Nancy Fraser

Not everyone has equal access to public debate; marginalized groups need their own spaces—"subaltern counterpublics." (Example: Feminist and queer communities creating their own forums.)

Michael Warner

The public we imagine is shaped by media and excludes many people, creating a false sense of unity. (Example: Publics are "self-organizing" and often reinforce dominant norms without realizing it.)

Michel Foucault

Modern power works by making people monitor themselves through surveillance and discipline instead of violence. (Example: The Panopticon prison model makes prisoners behave as if they're always being watched.)

Jean Baudrillard

We live in a world of simulations—images and signs that no longer refer to anything real but ************* reality. (Example: Disneyland pretends to be fake but actually reflects society's need for fantasy.)

Jean Louis Baudry

Cinema tricks the viewer into feeling like a powerful subject while hiding how ideology shapes what they see. (Example: The dark theater, the fixed screen, and camera angles all make the viewer feel central and in control.)

Brian Massumi

Power works through feelings that happen before we even think—these feelings shape decisions and beliefs. (Example: Ronald Reagan's bodily "jerks" and tone made people feel trust before they processed his actual words.)

Walter Benjamin (Support)

Benjamin warns that reproducible art (like photography or film) loses its "aura" and becomes a distraction—mock trial similarly loses the aura of justice, turning it into a rehearsed performance.

Benjamin

Sees a revolutionary possibility in reproducibility for disrupting tradition.

Horkheimer and Adorno

Argue that mass-produced culture creates fake individuality through formula.

Adorno and Horkheimer

Offer no space for resistance.

Fanon

Concept of the racialized subject performing before being allowed to speak.

Arendt

Distinguishes between private performance and public action.

Habermas

Imagines a rational, inclusive public sphere.

Foucault

Applies panopticism—constant surveillance and normalization train participants.

Baudrillard

Idea of simulation aligns with the claim that mock trial is a simulation of justice.

Baudry

Cinema theory explains how the structure of viewing creates ideological subjects.

Massumi

'Autonomy of affect' shows how bodies respond before cognition.

Mock Trial

Reinforces norms instead of using reproducibility for political awakening.

Scripted Spontaneity

Illusions of choice in performances during mock trial.

Contradiction of Critique

Jameson sees it as inevitable but potentially revealing.

Racial Trauma

Fanon centers this concept, while the focus is broader in the analysis.

Public Legal Action

Mock trial simulates this space without real consequences.

Scoring-Based Performance

Replaces deliberation in mock trial, limiting accepted speech.

Dominant Performance Styles

Mock trial rewards only these styles according to Fraser.

Illusion of Legitimacy

Created by the structure of mock trial performances.

Emotion Performs Authority

Massumi helps explain how intense feelings precede rational truth.

Aura

The unique presence and authenticity of an artwork that disappears when it's mass-produced.

Distraction

The modern viewer engages with art in a distracted way, passively absorbing it like watching a movie instead of deeply reflecting.

Mechanical Reproduction

Technology allows art to be copied easily, which breaks its connection to tradition and authority.

Politics of Art

He believes that mechanical art like film can be used politically, either to reinforce systems or fight them.

Culture Industry

Mass media and entertainment turn art into a business, where everything feels standardized and predictable (like factory products).

Pseudo-Individuality

Even 'unique' shows or characters follow the same patterns.

False Needs

Capitalism makes people think they need products/media that are designed to control them.

Entertainment as Control

Pop culture (like movies or music) makes people passive, accepting the world instead of changing it.

Reification

Real human relationships and struggles are turned into things or surfaces in media.

Utopian Impulse

Even mainstream movies (like Jaws or The Godfather) might reveal real social tensions or people's deep wishes for change.

Double Meaning

Media can support the system and critique it at the same time—like movies showing injustice but resolving it in a way that keeps the system safe.

Encoding

Media creators embed a preferred message or meaning into content.

Decoding

Audiences can interpret that message differently depending on their background.

Negotiated Reading

When a viewer partly accepts the message but also questions or tweaks it.

Oppositional Reading

When a viewer completely rejects the intended meaning and sees something new.

Racial Gaze

Black people are forced to see themselves through the eyes of a racist society.

Colonial Subjectivity

Racism turns people into objects, making them play roles society assigns.

Performance of Identity

Black identity becomes something forced and watched—always under pressure to explain or justify itself.

Public Realm

A space where people come together to act, speak, and appear to others.

Private Realm

The space of necessity and survival, where freedom is limited.

Appearance and Power

True political power comes from being seen and heard in public.

Labor vs Action

Labor is repetitive and private; action is public and creates new beginnings.

Public Sphere

A space where people discuss issues freely and equally, shaping public opinion.

Ideal Speech Situation

Where everyone has equal chance to speak, listen, and persuade.

Colonization of the Lifeworld

Modern institutions and markets start to take over personal and community spaces, reducing true dialogue.

Precarity

Some lives are more exposed to harm than others due to social norms.

Ethics in a Bad System

Doing good in a bad system often requires accepting harmful rules.

Subject Formation

People are formed by the rules they have to follow—especially around gender, race, and power.

Performative Identity

Identity (like gender or authority) isn't fixed—it's created through repeated performance.

Subaltern Counterpublics

Marginalized groups create their own spaces to speak when excluded from mainstream public life.

Legitimacy Crisis

When people no longer trust the government or public discussions.

Participatory Parity

True democracy needs everyone to participate as equals, not just access.

Mass Subject

People are shaped by the way mass media addresses them—as a passive audience.

Circulation

Publics form through shared texts, images, and speech that circulate widely.

Visibility Trap

Being constantly watched in media might create a false sense of freedom or participation.

Panopticon

A system of constant surveillance where people behave properly because they think they're being watched.

Disciplinary Power

Power works by training and normalizing behavior, not just punishing.

Normalization

Setting standards for 'normal' behavior and punishing difference without force.

Visibility as Trap

Being visible seems empowering, but it also makes control easier.

Simulation

When signs/images no longer refer to anything real, but only to other signs.

Simulacrum

A copy with no original—fake realities that feel more real than the truth.

Map vs Territory

When the map (the symbol or media) becomes more real than the land it represents.

Hyperreality

A condition where fake reality (like in Disneyland or reality TV) feels more real than everyday life.

Apparatus Theory

The camera and editing work like an ideological machine, shaping how we see and think.

Spectator Position

The viewer is made to feel like an all-knowing subject, but only by accepting the illusion.

Plato's Cave

Cinema keeps us in the dark, watching shadows and thinking they're reality.

Transcendental Subject

The spectator thinks they are neutral and objective, but they're really constructed by the film's point of view.

Affect

Raw, intense feelings that happen before we put words or meaning to them.

Missing Half-Second

A real delay between sensation and recognition that lets affect operate on its own.

Transduction

Power spreads through feelings, like how Reagan's or Clinton's body language had more impact than their actual words.

Autonomy of Feeling

Feelings can shape decisions, beliefs, and systems without being rational or conscious.

Utopian Reification

Jameson's idea where dissent is absorbed by the system, flattening differences.

Main Use of Jaws

Jameson argues that Jaws channels class and social fears into a monster story so they can be 'safely' resolved.

Connection to Main Idea

Mass culture contains 'utopian' elements but ultimately gets reabsorbed into systems of control.

Distraction in Benjamin

Describes the way modern audiences absorb art passively, especially in film.

Map in Baudrillard

Baudrillard uses the image of a map that covers the entire territory as a metaphor for simulation.

Visibility as a Trap in Foucault

Constant visibility leads people to self-regulate, relying on normalization.