MS112 exam 2 short answer

How can we distinguish Barthes’s mythology from Saussure’ semiology?

Barthes's mythology analyzes cultural signs and their meanings, while Saussure's semiology focuses on the structure of language and the relationship between signifiers and signifieds. Barthes's work emphasizes how myths shape social values and beliefs, going beyond mere structures.

What happens when a sign become a signifier for something else?

At the layer of myth, powerful new tools for abstraction and manipulation become available. When a sign becomes a signifier for something else, it enters into the realm of myth, which serves to reinforce ideology while appearing natural or neutral. It transforms cultural meaning into “truth,” stripping it of its historical or political roots.

How are myths used by the ruling class?

The ruling class uses myths to convince everyone that their values and authority are natural and just. Myths do not simply exist but must be performed and enacted consistently to ensure their meaning is not forgotten or diluted. If the signification between sign 1 and sign 2 comes across as artificial, weak, or otherwise inauthentic, then the mythological aspect of an act will become obvious, making it seem unnatural. The battleground for mythmaking and myth enactment is the media. By analyzing the meanings and performances of myths in media, we can learn how the ruling class establishes its values as our own.

What did Barthes argue wrestling was all about?

Argued that it was not a sport but a theatrical spectacle that already has a predetermined result at the end. It portrays an image of passion, but not passion itself. It is a theater that provides a clear image of moral situations which are usually private, made to be intelligible by the audience. Wrestlers entertain specific archetypes of characters and is about the theatrics of passion and fight. That modern spectacle of excess is a system of mythical signs conveying to a rapturous public the eternal interplay of good and evil, with its inevitable moral outcome. Wrestling allows us to witness grossly exaggerated stereotypes of human weakness, ritualistically punished for their transgressiveness. Justice as an exhibition of suffering.

What myths does bourgeois society assign to detergent, toys, ornamental cookery, and plastic?

detergent - as opposed to chlorinated fluids which “kill” dirt and bacteria (indicating a blind and volatile fire) detergents “force out” the dirt. detergents push out the dirt and drive it away. Unlike chlorinated fluids, detergent advertisements do not kill, but push out, creating public order instead of starting a war. Additionally, advertisements always involve the consumer having a direct experience with it, making them a part of the cleaning solution. Advertisements that discuss deep cleaning provide depth to the objects people are trying to clean, creating a sense of gratification and worthiness to their objects and actions.

toys - practical objects that portray the routine and myths of adult life, offering a microcosm of the adult world, the more wealth you have the more toys you can buy, and the more you can imagine yourself as an adult. Toys are no longer made out of wood but plastic. plastic is infinitely malleable, carries the message that modern chemistry can remake any aspect of our world: everything is substitutable and replaceable (including you)

Ornamental cookery – Cookery is based on coatings and alibis, such as glazing foods and drenching them in shiny sauces. Coatings prepare and support ornamentation, enforce the idea that food is meant to be looked at as well. These images of ornamental cookery are shown from above, as objects now far away. Food becomes a fiction. It is dream-like, you are only able to consume by looking, not by actual eating.

What mythical features appear in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)?

The film incorporates themes of good versus evil, heroic quests, and the battle for power. Characters embody archetypal roles such as the reluctant hero and wise mentor, while the One Ring symbolizes temptation and corruption, reflecting societal struggles.

the film presents a clear moral binary: good characters (Aragorn, Frodo, Gandalf) vs evil forces (Saruman, orcs, Sauron) - this simplicity reflects Barthes idea that myth reduces complex realities into emotionally clear, readable sings

characters like Aragorn and Frodo embody courage, self-sacrifice, and righteousness, their physical appearance (handsome, noble) helps communicate their moral status—Barthes would say they are signifiers of virtue

orcs and uruk-hai are coded as evil through ugliness, animalistic traits, and deformity, echoing Barthes analysis of wrestling villains. evil is externalized and visible, not internal or ambiguous

the film uses large-scale battles, emotional music, and dramatic speeches to create spectacle that reinforces mythic stakes (freedom vs domination)

Example: How might Barthes help us to understand the release and reception of Democratic lawmakers’ “choose your fighter” videos?

Barthes would argue the videos are mythic performances. Each lawmaker is stylized as an archetype (the nerd, the rebel, the warrior), transforming real political figures into signifiers of heroic traits. The video simplifies political engagement into fantasy combat, reinforcing the myth of democratic choice as empowering, fun, and moral. Reception depends on decoding—some audiences see empowerment, others see spectacle masking real issues. Either way, it reinforces the idea that politics is a stage for moral performance.

How did Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci explain the rise of fascism in Europe?

Gramsci argued that Benito Mussolini’s fascist movement was successful because hegemonic forces constantly improvise and revise discursive strategies to adapt to changing social and cultural conditions, a process called “articulation.” Culture in other words, was not independent of politics, but very much a battleground of ideology.

How does Althusser define ideology?

Althusser explained that dominant ideologies serve to retain and extend the power of the ruling class

Althusser argued that power is maintained in two primary ways:

1. Repressive State Apparatuses: these include the army, police, the courts, and prison systems. They use force and repression to ensure compliance

2. Ideological State Apparatuses: these include religious, educational, family, political, labor, communications, and cultural institutions. They use ideology and discipline to ensure compliance.

In this way, he argued that culture was not independent from politics, but a battleground of ideology.

How do Ideological State Apparatuses facilitate the reproduction of the conditions of production and especially the reproduction of labour-power?

Ideological State Apparatuses facilitate the reproduction of the conditions of production by instilling dominant ideologies through institutions like schools and media, which educate and shape individuals' beliefs. This process ensures that the working class accepts their role and complies with the social order, thereby reproducing the labor power necessary for capitalism.

ISAs are relatively autonomous, which allows them to occasionally alter or oppose hegemonic ideologies. While this may seem like a form of resistance, Althusser argues that the relative autonomy of ISAs is necessary to ensure that the hegemonic ideology can retain its overall legitimacy and adjust to changing conditions when needed. ISAs are only relatively autonomous, which means that wayward ISAs can be reined in by the state or political or communications ISAs.

Communications, cultural, and educational and cultural ISAs are often targeted for such disciplinary action. This is because these ISAs are primarily responsible for reproducing the conditions of production. These ISAs produce the conditions of workers, we learn the conditions of being a worker from the family. These ISAs produce the workers whose labor power is necessary for the ruling class to retain power, authority, and legitimacy. The traits, values, behaviors, desires, and self-image of workers are inculcated from an early age by a whole range of ISAs beginning with the family ISA.

Where does our “common sense” come from, according to Gramsci and Gitlin?

Frames allow hegemonic ideologies to be disseminated, directing people to percieve reality in a certain way. Gitlin used framing theory to explore how mass media produces and articulates hegemonic ideology. “Media frames are persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation, and presentation, of selection, emphasis, and exclusion, by which symbol handlers routinely organize discourse, whether verbal or visual” = elements the press utilize to have relative autonomy

these ideological constraints are internalized as “natural” by the consumer, creaing “common sense.” Common sense is not an instinctual understanding but is actually socially constructed through the mainstream media that aligns beliefs and interests of those in power, thinking it is “natural.” Hegemonic ideology enters into everything people do and think is natural.

How much independence (aka relative autonomy) does the press enjoy and when is that independence typically reigned in, according to Gitlin?

• Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) are “relatively autonomous,” which allows to occasionally alter or even oppose hegemonic ideologies 

  • Operate independently to direct control from poltiical and economic elites to a certain extent 

• While it might seem as though this constitutes a form of resistance, Althusser argues that the relative autonomy of ISAs is necessary to ensure that the hegemonic ideology can retain its overall legitimacy and adjust to changing conditions, when needed 

  • This independence is important for legitimizing the news and the broader institutional order

• ISAs are only relatively autonomous, of course, which means that “wayward” ISAs can be and sometimes are reined in by the State or other ISAs, such as political or communication ISAs during critical moments (when elites feel threatened by challenges to power) 

Because alternative and oppositional voices constantly challenge the dominant ideology, hegemony survives by remaining flexible (ways ruling class respond to threats to ideological landscape): 

• Even rebellion can be part of the ruling class to maintain power and legitimacy 

  • Allowing room for challenge/rebellion to neutralize the opposition 

• The cultural apparatus maintains its own momentum (standards and procedures) granting a certain independence from top political and economic elites

How do articulation, self-contradiction, and relative autonomy allow for the ruling class to maintain hegemony?

Because alternative and oppositional voices constantly challenge the dominant ideology, hegemony survives by remaining flexible

Articulation: the practices by which disparate elements and voices are brought together and presented as a unity, note that mass media plays a defining role here: it brings incommensurate voices into conversation making them comparable and discussable

self-contradiction: the dominant ideology enfolds contradictory values: liberty versus equality, democracy versus hierarchy, public rights vs property rights, rational claims to truth versus the arrogations and mystifications of power

relative autonomy: the cultural apparatus normally maintains its own momentum, its own standards and procedures, which grant it a certain independence from top political and economic elites

See also D’Acci 434-439 for additional explanations of hegemony and articulation

Example: How would Althusser and Gitlin seek to explain criticisms of grade inflation such as this L.A. Times opinion piece?

Althusser: he would argue that education seeks to reproduce capitalism through the reproduction of class inequality and education ISAs instilling ideologies that largely uphold the status quo. With schools focusing more and more on good grades and credentials rather than learning and education, the capitalist need for a qualified workforce (reproduction of conditions of labor) is met while restricting true critical thinking. Inflated grades create a false meritocracy where students from affluent backgrounds are funneled into highest-ranking schools, perpetuating class divides

Gitlin: he would argue that grade inflation is a consumerism-based shift in education and abandonment of rigor. Institutions prioritize retention and student (consumer) satisfaction instead of academic difficulty. Due to eroded standards of excellence due to postmodern theory, schools inflate grades to avoid conflicts even at the cost of true objective evaluation

common ground: both Althusser and Gitlin would argue that grade inflation is not a contained issue, but a symptom of deeper, systemic issues. They would agree changes need to be made within educational systems.

example of an ISA critiquing another ISA for failing to meet its need, the article is a communications ISA critiquing the educational ISA for failing to meet the standards of properly training the next workforce by inflating grades and not reproducing the conditions of labor for the next generation, which will in turn harm the dominant hegemonic capitalist system all ISAs are dependent on

What was Stuart Hall’s encoding-decoding framework originally devised to explain?

Halls encoding decoding model takes into account the institutional structures responsible for producing messages.

What concepts and terms does Hall draw from Marxist structural theory and what does he draw from semiotic theory? Why is it significant that media representations and symbols are polysemic?

Hall draws concepts from Marxist structural theory such as ideology, power dynamics, and class struggle, while from semiotic theory, he incorporates the idea of signs and meanings. The significance of media representations being polysemic is that it allows multiple interpretations, which can reflect diverse social contexts and power relations, thus challenging dominant ideologies.

For Hall, messages are never neutral. They must always take the form of sign-vehicles organized through the operation of codes. Raw events cannot simply be transmitted through media. Instead, they must be encoded as symbols “within the aural visual forms of the televisual language.”

Once encoded, a message becomes part of “meaningful discourse.” In other words, the message will mean something both to the sender and to the receiver, though that meaning may or may not be symmetrical

Polysemy: different receivers may impute different meanings to the same message

What exactly a message means to a given receiver depends on the process of decoding

What characterizes and differentiates Hall’s four codes? What determines which codes are available to a specific audience?

To Hall, four types of codes are possible:

1. The dominant or hegemonic code

audience members wholly accept the meanings encoded in the discourse and develop a relationship with it that accepts and endorses the discourse

2. The professional code

comes from an individual professional or technical understanding of a message

3. The negotiated code

in decoding a message, the receiver accepts the dominant ideology in general but engages in some selective interpretation to better fit their view of the world

4. The oppositional code

Recognizing preferred reading, but rejecting in favor of a different code -- a viewer can understand the literal and connotative inflection given to an event, but to determine to decode the message in a contrary way

What codes are present in the Western genre, according to Hall?

• Learning to read and understand code means learning the language through which that codes are organized 

  • A clear-cut good/bad moral universe 

  • Well-defined narrative structure 

  • Progression toward a violent and morally defining climax 

  • Particular defining elements (saloons, stagecoaches, railroads, pistols, hats, dynamite, horses, cowboys, indians, Mexicans, and duels) 

  • Stories of masculine prowess and inner-centered morality of men in the open air, driven to their destinies by inner compulsion and by external necessity 

• Hall notes that the western, like all media genres and products, remains polysemic and available for different encoding and decoding operations. Note that while all media content is polysemic, this does not mean any reading is possible, or likely. Processes of encoding and decoding are always performed in relation to existing meaning structures, frameworks of knowledge, structures of production, and technical infrastructures.

How does Hall’s encoding/decoding model line up with the Circuit of Culture model (which stages in the Circuit of Culture model correspond with encoding and decoding)?

The circuit of culture identified five “cultural processes:” representation, identity, production, consumption, and regulation. A full study of a cultural text or artifact required to transit through each of the five processes, though the analysis could begin from any point and end at any point; each process was linked to the others by relationships of mutual influence

What do critics of cultural studies claim s the problem with too strong a focus on consumption?

Critics of Bourdieu point out that his analysis subordinates personal agency to class structure. For Bourdieu, habitus, cultural capital, and modes of consumption are entirely functions of class. However, some theorists argue that consumption can be a form of production itself, by consuming people can produce a variety of new meanings and identities.

when all consumption is embraced as creative and productive critics suggest that too much agency is accorded to consumers and not enough to producers and advertisers

Why did Paul Du Gay and Stuart Hall select the Walkman as an example for demonstrating the utility of Richard Johnson’s Circuit of Culture model?

Production: How its marketed

Representation: how its portrayed

Identity: who uses it and how it effects self-expression

Consumption: how people use it in daily life

Regulation: rules and norms affecting it

How can signifying practices (such as those produced in advertising) make particular behaviors culturally meaningful?

Ads show people jogging with a walkman, creating the idea that personal music is tied to health, independence, or coolness

this turns a private act (listening to music) into a public identity performance

signifying practices naturalize behaviors — they make it feel normal or desirable to act in a certain way

What does the Walkman represent, according to Sony’s advertisements? Why do Sony’s Walkman advertisements focus on the depiction of lifestyles, as opposed to the qualities and features of the product?

• a symbol of freedom, youth, and mobility, you can have music anytime, anywhere, revolutionary

• a personal space in public

• a way to express identity through music choices

• wish fulfillment - you can have this life, you can be this happy, look this cool, be this young, have this much fun, if you buy a walkman, relying on ethos of consumption

What was the production of consumption thesis and why was it problematic?

the Production of Consumption thesis suggests that needs can be differentiated into “real” and “false", the Frankfurt school theorist Herbert Marcuse opposed “natural” human needs from those he claimed were “manipulated or induced by producers

Critics of the Production of Consumption Thesis point out that needs are cultural

• needs are both defined by and produced by systems of meaning through which we make sense of the world and are thus open to being re-worked and transformed

• recognizing the cultural basis for needs allows us to appreciate a much broader range of reasons for and modes of consumption

This relates to the Walkman and the different modes of consumption that it connects to as an escape, enhancement, social connection, and personal identity

consumption is a way for an individual to signal what class they identify with

It can be problematic because it subordinates personal agency to class structure

How can we contrast it (the Production of Consumption Thesis) with both theories of conspicuous consumption (Veblen and Bourdieu) and Michel de Certeau’s argument that consumption is production (i.e. bricolage)?

Cultural studies theorist Michel de Certeau argues that consumption can be a form of production itself and that by consuming people can produce a variety of meanings and identities. 

• the production of consumption thesis suggests that needs can be differentiated into “real” and “false” and opposed natural needs from ones manipulated by producers

critics point out that needs are cultural: theories of conspicuous consumption, Thorsten Veblen proposed that conspicuous consumption served as an index for social status, served as a way for people to signal to others what class they identified with,

• consumption as socio-cultural differentiation, by consuming people can produce a variety of meanings and identities (bricolage)

• Bourdieu developed that further showing that consumption was bound with judgment and taste which are defined by our cultural capital and habitus

What degree of agency do each of these approaches grant to consumers? Why do critics of Michel de Certeau label his approach the “pleasures of consumption” thesis?

Critics of Bourdieu point out that his analysis subordinates personal agency to class structure.

• For Bourdieu, habitus, cultural capital, and modes of consumption are entirely functions of class.

Cultural studies theories Michel de Certau argues instead, consumption can be a form of production itself. By consuming people can produce a variety of meanings and identities.

• His critics say that when all consumption is embraced as creative and productive too much agency is accorded to consumers and not enough to producers and advertisers

• the idea of the Walkman as an empowering and liberatory technology is precisely what Sony was promoting

• If the theory reflects corporate discourse then it cant call itself critical

Example: How can we use the concepts tools and theoretical frameworks provided by cultural studies theorists to evaluate the meanings produced by this advertising campaign for Apple Airpods?

What are the defining features of Jurgen Habermas’s “classic” bourgeois public sphere?

The public sphere is an arena that exists between a government and private citizens wherein issues of public interest can be rationally debated and critically discussed. In this arena, private citizens come together to discuss matters of public concern. The arena serves as a counterweight to state power and fosters the inclusion of larger portions of civil society and the emergence of critical attitudes toward authority and received wisdom.

Realm of social life where public opinion is formed through conversations — media plays an important role (today: newspapers, magazines, radio, tv, social media)

When, where, and why does Habermas argue this public sphere took shape?

The classic bourgeois public sphere took shape in the liberal bourgeois republics of the 18th century (Britain and its American colonies, France, the Netherlands). Habermas saw media as part of a system composed of mutually reinforcing elements: newspapers, coffee houses, salons, and taverns where debates could range from matters of political or moral concern to critical matters.

At first, the public sphere was linked to feudal authorities (church, prince, and nobility) but then disintegrated due to a long process of polarization. Bourgeois society separated the public and private spheres by the end of the 18th century,

What crucial oversights does Nancy Fraser identify in Habermas’s theory?

Nancy Fraser points out that Habermas’ idea of a public sphere was a highly exclusive arena only accessible to, and primarily concerned with the interests of well-to-do white bourgeoise men. Women, non-white individuals, and lower classes were prevented from participating in the public sphere, often based on the justifications that they “lacked reason”

the public sphere required people to put aside differences and interact with each other as if they were social and economic peers, assuming that social equality is not a necessary condition for political democracy. Instead, the social inequalities just placed people into brackets instead of eliminating the inequalities.

How does Nancy Fraser define a subaltern counterpublic and what relationship does she argue pertained between the “classic” bourgeois public sphere and various subaltern counterpublics?

The bourgeois public sphere is precisely where the hegemonic discourses of the bourgeois ruling class were initially constructed. We can see this as a historical process (king + aristocracy + church vs emerging bourgeoisie vs subaltern counter publics)

subaltern counter publics (elite bourgeois women’s organizations, working-class movements, peasant movements, nationalist and ethnic movements, relations between the emerging hegemonic bourgeois public sphere and competing counter publics were always conflictual and sometimes violent

How do Habermas and Fraser compare when it comes to the use of media technologies and styles of discourse?

subaltern (of lower status) counter publics did not and do not enjoy equal access to arenas of public discourse, according to Fraser, and by pretending “as if” everyone does enjoy equal access, the privileged elite can more easily enforce their hegemonic discourse under a “mask of domination”

The genteel styles, sense of decorum, orderly protocols, and goal of “rational consensus” upheld as ideal aspects of public sphere discourse very often serve to marginalize the viewpoints, contributions, and needs of subaltern counter-publics

rather than discursive consensus, then, subaltern counter-publics are best able to assert their needs and identities through discursive contestation

bracketing of social inequality - public sphere forced to put aside peoples differences, inequality not necessarily a requirement for democracy, people were placed into these brackets, didn’t really eliminate these inequalities - Fraser tries to have a public sphere where there are multiple publics (subaltern), media use is similar in a lot of ways but Habermas believes having lots of different spheres is fracturing where Fraser sees them as necessary for democratic inclusion

What, according to DeLuca and Peeples, is the public screen and how does it differ from the public sphere?

If the public sphere is a place of rational discussion, embodied conversations, consensus, and civility, then the public screen is defined by dissension, conflict, disembodied voices, images, remediation, hypermediacy, and distraction

the public screen is largely a corporate realm, given the predominance of corporate media ownership. that being the case how can anti-corporate counterpublics be heard?

• they must achieve visibility by leveraging the very features of the public screen that privilege dissemination, remediation, hypermediacy, and imagistic discourse

Why do the key features of the public screen (dissemination, remediation, and hypermediacy) lead to imagistic discourse, tele-spectacles, and symbolic violence?

Dissemination: the principle of the mass media by which images and information proliferate endlessly, scattering emissions “without the guarantee of productive exchanges” (just get it out there)

Remediation: “the representation of one medium in another.” This can happen in any direction and contributes to dissemination

• Ekphrasis: “the literary description of works of visual art”

• Both immediacy and hypermediacy are this)

• Marshall McLuhan: “The content of any medium is always another medium.”

Hypermediacy: a “style of visual representation whose goal is to remind the viewer of the medium.” These three make up imagistic discourse

Immediacy: A style of visual representation whose goal is to cause the viewer to ignore or forget the medium

• Virtual reality - putting you into a diff space and trying to get you to forget you are wearing a headset

TV places a premium on images over words, emotions over rationality, speed over reflection, distraction over deliberation, slogans over arguments, the glance over the gaze, appearance over truth, the present over the past

This follows Walter Benjamin's notion of distraction as the mode of perception most appropriate to modernity

To get people’s attention under such conditions, you need to create spectacular image events. Image events are dense surfaces meant to provoke in an instant the shock of the familiar made strange (D&L 144)

What might Jurgen Habermas and Nancy Fraser have to say about DeLuca and Peeples’s justification of symbolic violence on the public screen?

Example: How would Habermas, Fraser, and DeLuca, and Peeples each set out to explain the events of January 6th, 2021 in terms of the public sphere, subaltern counter-publics, or the public screen?

How do technological determinist theories differ from those that presume the social construction of technology? How do each set of theories approach space and time? What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of TD theories?

Technological determinism (TD) posits that technology affects the way we act, think, interact with one another, and perceive the world. VS.

Advocates of the social construction of technology (SCOT), by contrast, argue that human needs, choices, and structures primarily determine technological development, which technologies are used, and how

TDs approach to space and time is that time is linear. Technological progress is often viewed as linear and progressive (from the wheel to the car) it assumes that technology has the same effects everywhere, often ignoring cultural and geographic differences (ex. the spread of smartphones will universally modernize societies)

SCOT's approach to space and time is not linear and depends on specific historical and social conditions. It emphasizes that technologies function differently depending on the place and context (the clock has a different meaning to the factory owner and the factory owner, bitcoin functions differently for a billionaire in Silicon Valley, and someone living in a remote region of the world who does not have a phone)

The relative advantage of TD theories is that they offer a straightforward narrative that is easy to communicate and understand. It also sometimes anticipates broad social changes, like digital media shaping journalism. It also helps decision-makers see technology as an important driver of change

TDs’ disadvantages are that they ignore human agency/choice and cultural differences. it also misses who benefits or suffers from technological changes

If “the medium is the message,” then what is the message? What is the message of: the printed word? the photograph? the typewriter? the phonograph?

The content of any medium is always another medium; the content of a medium blinds us to the characteristics of that medium. McLuhan argues that we must not be tempted to analyze content. Instead, we must consider the ways different media change the very ways we perceive and understand the world and ourselves

The ‘message’ of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace, or pattern that it introduces into human affairs. The form of a medium has more influence on society than the specific content it delivers. For example, tv changes how people process information.

The message of the printed word is linear, logical, individualistic thinking. It encourages analysis and private, silent reading. It reinforces nationalism (shared language), rationality, and the rise of the modern individual. Print standardizes and replicates ideas and gives permanence to thoughts.

The message of the photograph is that it is a fragmentation of time, its emotional immediacy emphasizes appearance. It also changes memory, the perception of reality, and ideas of what the truth is. It shifts storytelling from a narrative to a moment, unlike text, which unfolds over time.

The message of the typewriter is that it separates hand and thought, standardizes personal expression, and is the mechanization of writing. It makes writing more uniform and faster. It mediates between hand and text, reinforcing industrial values like efficiency and impersonality.

The phonograph’s message is time storage, the commodification of sound and music, and the idea that memory is externalized. It changed how music was consumed (privately, repeatedly, and out of context) sound could not be captured, replayed, and commodified, separating it from its performance

How and why does McLuhan distinguish between hot and cool media?

Hot media: provides a lot of information and requires less participation. It engages one sense intensely. It is called hot because it has a lot of detail and leaves little to no room for interpretation. So a movie fills your senses with sound and images, and you sit back and take it in.

• single sense, high definition, specialized, intense, exclusionary, low in participation

• Radio, film, photography, books

Cool media: offers less data and requires more active participation and interpretation. It engages multiple senses. It is considered cool media because the audience must fill in gaps, actively participating in meaning-making. SO a conversation requires you to interpret tone, body-language, and intent constantly

• multi-sensory, low definition, totalizing

• Phone, TV, speech

What drives Marshall McLuhan’s dialectical conception of history?

• McLuhan's dialectics apply Hegelian dialectics to media forms 

  • Using the technique of comparing and contrasting two positions 

• Hegelian dialectics-thesis calls up its anti-thesis, they battle until they form a synthesis, the synthesis then calls up its anti-thesis 

• Marx dialectical materialism

  • Applies Hegelian dialectics to social classes throughout history 

• McLuhan applies Hegelian dialectics to media forms

  • “break boundaries,” and reversal points 

  • In any medium or structure, there is a “break boundary at which the system suddenly changes into another or passes some point of no return in its dynamic process.” 

What three stages of media culture does McLuhan identify and how does he characterize each?

• Oral culture – defined by depth, intensity, unified by limited fields, primitive (non-western) cultures, Africa, India, the East (China)

• Typography – uniformity, continuity, lineality, fragmentation, explosion – America (de Tocqueville), mechanization (Hume), specialization/detribalization 

• Electric media – total unified field, instantaneousness, configurations, automation, implosion – the movie, cubism, multimedia

Why does typographical culture lead to fragmentation and individualism whereas electric culture leads to nterdependence, implosion, and a total unified field?

Typography — uniformity, continuity, lineality, fragmentation, explosion

• Focusing on the ability of the printed page to be disseminated, this creates standardization and conditions for the fragmentation of knowledge. When you have a printing press, people can begin to specialize in different things – no longer limited like oral culture was limited (can’t just talk to people within earshot

• More people are going to have the same books/printed material, which changes how people communicate with each other, leads to mechanization, this defines America, America is a typographical culture, so thoroughly defined by its uniformity, continuity, fragmentation, nothing oral about the country

Electric media — total unified field, instantaneousness, configurations, automation, implosion, the movie, cubism, multimedia

• Brings things to you, brings things together, typographical culture blows outwards, it disseminates –instantaneous

• This is what he says when he says our skin expands with electric media - everything is now integrated and connected, with no specialization

Why does McLuhan compare electric media to a Trojan Horse?

McLuhan says that the threats of electric media enter silently into our lives and reshape the way we think as a whole.

“The threat of Stalin or Hitler was external. The electric technology is within the gates, and we are numb, deaf, blind, and mute about its encounter with the Gutenburg technology, on and through which the American way of life was formed”

Much like the idea of the Trojan Horse, electric media appears harmless but has the ability to drastically alter our way of thinking. Electric media possesses the power to break through and change our conscious way of thinking without us noticing.

(The "Trojan horse" metaphor, rooted in Greek mythology, describes a deceptive strategy where an enemy is invited into a seemingly safe place, only to be attacked from within. It can also refer to something that appears harmless but is actually malicious or dangerous.)

Why is electric media leading to the formation of a global village?

“Our specialist and fragmented civilization of center-margin structure is suddenly experiencing an instantaneous reassembling of all its mechanized bits into an organic whole. This is the new world of the global village. Our speedup today is not a slow explosion outward from center to margins but an instant implosion and an interfusion of space and functions.

In statements later seen as anticipating the internet, McLuhan wrote of ‘the technological brain for the world’ and ‘the cosmic membrane that has been snapped round the globe by the electric dilation of our various senses

McLuhan's catholic faith bore a marked influence on his scholarship, which strongly suggested that electric communications technologies were slowly but surely pulling the human race toward a new form of ‘tribal unity.’

What will the formation of the global village mean for modes of communication, discourse, and representation?

It was clear to McLuhan that electric technologies such as the internet are connecting us to each other, but not in any rational way.

An implosion that allows us only to react but not to think

The sequential ordering and classificatory arrangements of typographical culture would give was to the hypersensitive globalized tribalism produced by technologies that interconnect our nervous systems with those of every person on earth

How do Bolter and Grusin expand on and apply McLuhan’s concept of remediation? What medial features and qualities are associated with hypermediacy? What about immediacy? How and why do the logics of both hypermediacy and immediacy lead to remediation? Why is remediation a “defining characteristic of digital media” specifically?

Bolter and Grusin expand on and apply Mcluhan’s concept of remediation and infamous phrase “the medium is the message” by applying his concepts to the digital age through the introduction of two new opposing logics: immediacy and hypermediacy.

While mediacy aims to suppress or erase the medium, hypermediacy amplifies awareness of a medium. Some of the medial features and qualities associated with immediacy include an attempt to erase the medium completely through art styles such as hyperrealistic art which present art as shots of real life. In essence, immediacy is all about complete immersion in a specific medium and the illusion of the absence of the medium, similar to VR headsets.

In opposition, one of the main medial features of hypermediacy is a constant reminder that they are using/viewing media through a certain medium. While this can take the form of many different things, some relevant contemporary examples include scrolling on social media and media that is fragmented such as an interactive website.

The logics of both hypermediacy and immediacy lead to remediation through their complex relationship, emphasizing a dual desire to erase the medium and to highlight it. Remediation is specifically a defining characteristic of digital media because its entire premise is the innovation and refashioning of old media. In the digital age, media forms and processes are constantly evolving – emphasizing a need for remediation.

What features characterize each of Friedrich Kittler’s three discourse networks?

The Republic of Scholars: includes Foucault’s Renaissance episteme and the classical episteme: printing, authority, and erudition, but based on class, not state institutions

• Based on those scholars with time available, or the ability to make a name with themselves with the printing press

Discourse Network of 1800: Shift with the Modern Episteme: Bureaucracies, the alphabet, the eternal feminine, mother as oral source of discourse, romantic ideal of artistic autonomy, handwriting as the representation of the body and self (but specifically coded as male)

• Mother, as a figure who communicates language, who teaches the children how to read and write, the mother is oral, and the child takes on the guidance of the mother in the written form

Discourse Network of 1900: The Postmodern Episteme: New international communication technologies, mechanization of discourse, the eternal feminine gives way to female labor,

• Shift away from typewriting towards typescript

How do Kittler’s discourse networks line up with Michel Foucault’s epistemes and Marshall McLuhan’s dialectical stages of media history?

Kittler’s The Republic of Scholars:

1. Foucault The Renaissance episteme (16th-17th century) - use of analogies, search for resemblances and similarities (application of astrological knowledge in politics, use of analogies to tie together different disciplines)

2. Foucault The classical episteme (18th c) - taxonomy, categorization, and grammar

• Expression of thought by means of signs or words

• Words start to stand in for reality

• Books start to become repositories of knowledge

McLuhans Oral culture – defined by depth, intensity, unified by limited fields, primitive (non-western) cultures, Africa, India, the East (China)

Kittlers Discourse Network of 1800

3. Foucault The modern episteme (19th c) - the human sciences, empiricism, and the objectification of the self and the world

• With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution

• era of the commodity, where things are bought and sold and advertised

McLuhans Typography – uniformity, continuity, lineality, fragmentation, explosion – America (de Tocqueville), mechanization (Hume), specialization/detribalization

Kittlers Discourse Network of 1900

4. Foucault The postmodern episteme (20th c) - the end of man as a focal point of inquiry - discourses of technology and technique

McLuhans Electric media - total unified field, instantaneousness, configurations, automation, implosion – the movie, cubism, multimedia

What media devices does Kittler associate with the three components of Jacques Lacan’s neo-Freudian triad (the Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real) and why?

The symbolic: representing culture, the existing order, ideology, family, and the superego

• The typewriter as a machine tool for producing discrete symbols

• A machine that produces culture and expectations, a machine that makes everybody look the same, reduces individuality of typewriting, produces a world that looks inhuman

The imaginary, the internalized image of the ideal self, the mirror self, the illusion of wholeness, the ego

• Film as a machine for producing a continuous imaginary totality equivalent to the mirror stage

• Imaginary self, imaginary society, the ideal utopia, a vision we know is an illusion, but brought to the desire that it become real, film is our way of negotiating between rules and reality

The real: what cannot be represented or symbolized, and is therefore unknowable, something that can be approached but never grasped

• Phonography as a machine for capturing and storing the residue of the real

• Captures that which cannot be explained or known, whispers specters in the machine, that which we cannot explain and that we find utterly terrifying

Which of them best approximates Lacan’s mirror stage? Which of them aligns most closely with digital media and algorithmic governmentality?

The imaginary comes about as the mirror image of a body that appears to be, in terms of motor control, more perfect than the infant's own body, for in the real everything begins with coldness, dizziness, and shortness of breath. Thus, the imaginary (cinema) implements precisely those optical illusions that were being researched in the early days of cinema.

• It gives us an escape from the real/the pain of existing (cinema) without a dream

• Similar to wish fulfillment or catharsis (Adorno)

In standardized texts, papers and body, writing and soul fall apart, typewriters do not store individuals, and their letters do not communicate beyond what perfectly alphabetized readers can subsequently hallucinate as meaning

• Delivered a symbolic world of norms and expectations

Everything has been taken over by technological media since Edison innovation’s innovations disappeared from typescript, the dream of a real, visible, or audible world arising from words has come to an end

• Typewriter as the death of dreams in working on our thoughts kills them, kills our imagination

• Using chat GPT

• The mechanics of it (and what is to follow the computer) will absorb everything, the space of the imaginary and the real

In the symbolic world produced by the typewriter, bureaucracy reigns, in this world, people are reduced to words, then to numbers. The typewriter represents a world of things, data flows, and numbers

If McLuhan calls media technologies “extensions of man,” what might Kittler call them? What would Kittler say about McLuhan’s optimistic vision of the global village?

Restrictions of man limits on man's imagination and creativity

McLuhan's extensions Kittler's replacement - technology is replacing us - replacing human imagination, writing, thoughtfulness - not an extension of man

Once the technological differentiation of optics, acoustics, and writing exploded, Gutenberg's writing monopoly around 1880, the fabrication of so-called Man became possible. His essence escapes into apparatuses.”

• Machines take over functions of the central nervous system…the physiology of eyes, ears, and brains has to become objects of scientific research. So-called man is split up into physiology and information technology

What would Kittler say about McLuhan’s optimistic vision of the global villag

Like McLuhan, Kittler argues that computing will implode all media into a single digital form. For Kittler, however, this is not bringing about a utopian global village. Rather, this means that the symbolic world will slowly but surely absorb both the symbolic and the real

• Inside the computers themselves, everything becomes a number, or quantity without image, sound, or voice

• And once optical fiber networks turn formerly distinct data flows into a standardized series of digitized numbers, any medium can be translated into any other medium

• Modulation, transformation, synchronization, delay, storage, transposition, scrambling, scanning, and mapping a total media link on a digital base will erase the very concept of medium

Example: how would McLuhan, Bolter and Grusin, and Kittler each seek to explain, interpret, and critique this AI-designed literature course now being taught at UCLA?

What place, according to Susan Bordo, does the body occupy in Western philosophy and scientific theory? In what ways is the body gendered?

“men eat, women prepare”

• men exert themselves in public, women cocoon themselves inside

body is created to be a teachable lesson — skinny is good, taught very early on to girls

• cultural containment of female appetite: notion that women are most gratified by feeding and nourishing others not themselves

• plump women as mascots and advertisements, aunt jemima etc

• activities are gendered bc of the body, men build becasue they have male bodies

• men serving females is “unusual”

gendered division of labor

How does Bordo theorize the place of hunger? What is it materially speaking? What is it ideologically speaking? How does the rhetoric of bodily mastery and control manifest in advertising? How are desire, indulgence, and transgression used in food advertising as signifying practices?

the place of hunger relates to physical realities as well as a symbol of desire

• materially this functions as something that requires controlling/taming which we can see through commercial diet products

• ideologically this is a reinforcement of traditional gender roles where women are restricted to dietary/controlling attitudes and men are unrestricted

• in regards to rhetoric, ads, where women are shown messages that celebrate control and restraint as virtuous, are highly present. This contrasts with ads targeted toward men, emphasizing domination over others. With women this focus is on mastering oneself, not the other, especially concerning the body

• food ads that target women foster a language of guilt and secrecy. These ads often feature women eating alone or in private. Food ads for men include eating as a joyous activity where men can enjoy good while remaining desirable and in control.

What does Bordo mean by “men eat and women prepare”? Why are women rarely shown enjoying food, yet men are frequently shown enjoying food?

Gendered division of labor and representation in popular culture. Despite increasing representation of women in public sphere—suggest idealized scenario where men are active in the public realm where women are confined to the domestic area.

men are allowed to enjoy the pleasures of eating, women are only allowed to enjoy in moderation, women are rarely depicted enjoying food freely becasue of negative cultural representation for women with unrestrained appetite. mens lack of control for eating is seen as appropriate or adorable.

How do such signifying practices manifest in culture as specific ideals of motherhood?

product icons like aunt jemima highlight the womans role in preparing for and being nurterers

• women often represented as finding gratification through nourishing others

• food is equated with maternal and wifely love throughout our culture - bordo

What do advertisements presume about love and sexual desire when it comes to food? In what ways are products suggested to substitute for human relationships?

food from women is a central mode of recieving love

features women only in the ads that are finding satisfaction within products rather than human connection

• Example: How would Bordo evaluate this Diet Coke advertisement?

The “regret nothing” campaign hides the message of restraint for women through a language of empowerment. Although it encourages women to welcome impulse the acceptable indulgence is a calorie free drink. This reinforces the idea of control over the body while falsely representing indulgence.