MS112 Final - Big Ideas

Kittler Big Idea

Media technologies determine human consciousness and increasingly replace human agency

Kittler Key Concepts

- Discourse Networks (1800 vs 1900)

- Typewriter = Symbolic

- Film = Imaginary

- Gramophone = Real

- Replacement of the human

Bordo Big Idea

Western culture, influenced by men, disciplines women’s bodies through ideology, advertising, and media

Bordo Key Concepts

- Mind/body dualism

- Hunger as ideology

- Self-control and bodily discipline

- “Men eat, women prepare”

Jhally Big Idea

Advertising teaches people to seek meaning through commodities

Jhally Key Concepts

- Commodity fetishism

- Advertising as religion/magic

- Consumerism replaces authentic social relations

Ewen Big Idea

Advertising manufactures emotional needs and manipulates insecurity to drive consumer capitalism

Ewen Key Concepts

- Symbolic empathy

- Consumer alienation

- Emotional manipulation

Williams Big Idea

Advertising is a historical system that gives commodities emotional and even magical meaning

Williams Key Concepts

- Industrial capitalism

Stiegler Big Idea

Computational capitalism destroys attention, memory, and independent thought, and machines begin to increasingly think for us

Stiegler Key Concepts

- Algorithmic control

- Attention economy

- Proletarianization of thought

Manovich Big Idea

Digital media, and culture in general, follow the logic of computation and software

Manovich Key Concepts

5 Principles of New Media:

• 1. Numerical Representation

• 2. Modularity

• 3. Automation

• 4. Variability

• 5. Transcoding

Chun Big Idea

Software and networks create invisible systems of control, overall acting as a metaphor for ideology and invisible power

Chun Key Concepts

- “Code is law”

- Surveillance + empowerment

- “Unified causal field”

- “Sourcery”

- Users become data subjects

Castells Big Idea

The internet has helped create a networked global society

Castells Key Concepts

- 'The network is the message'

- Many-to-many communication

- Decentralized networks (vs hierarchy)

Orgad Big Idea

Media representations shape the global imagination (global identity+understanding)

Orgad Key Concepts

- Representation produces meaning

- Global imagination

- Media shape how we imagine others and ourselves