CDAE 2240 Unit 2: Democracy, Community, & Media

Media

• Plural of medium

• Outlets to store and / or deliver content

• Means of communication

• Material or form used by an artist

Media (technology)

Material devices that enable and extend peoples’ ability to communicate and share meaning

Media (uses)

Communication activities and practices that people engage in

Media (society)

Larger social arrangements and organizational forms built around the devices and practices

When old media was new: 1990s / 2000s

• Smaller, more portable video cameras

• Internet available to share content, including capability to compress files

“New media” technology

• Hybrid (combined new innovations with older media)

• Interactivity which lends itself to participation

• Networked architecture rather than broadcasting

  • More like telegraph / telephone, less than TV and radio

  • Move from few producers (with many consumers) to many producers

  • Shift in dynamics of production and consumption

Reconfiguration

Users modify and adapt media technologies and systems to suit their purposes or interests

Remediation

Users borrow, adapt or remix existing materials, expressions and interactions

Participatory journalism examples

• Blogs

• Open-source journalism projects

Participatory journalism

• Heir to the alternative, underground and radical press

• Alternative or oppositional perspective: critique and deconstruction of mainstream media and news coverage

• Blur the lines that distinguish information providers, editors and readers

Public sphere

• Metaphorical space where informed citizens gather to discuss ideas

• Mediates between private sphere and public authority

What is the public sphere a model for?

Public communication

Public sphere example

Coffeehouse

Public opinion

• Discussion within this metaphorical space produces public opinion

• Mediates between private sphere and public authority

What does public opinion influence?

Governing institutions

Characteristics of the “Public Sphere”

• Open access

• Bracketing of social inequalities

• Rational discussion

• Dialogue

• Embodiment

• Ability to reach consensus

Critique against “Public Sphere”

• Is it really open access?

• Are people simply going to be heard without bias?

• If someone doesn’t “look” or “speak” the right way (using the right vernacular), will they be heard?

• Can you really just bracket inequality?

Democratic ideal

The Public Sphere

(Un)Democratic reality

The Public Screen

Public Sphere vs. Public Screen - Public Sphere characteristics

• Dialogue

• Open access

• Bracketing of social inequalities

• Rational discussion – focus

• Embodiment

• Ability to reach consensus

Public Sphere vs. Public Screen - Public Screen characteristics

1. Dissemination (spreading of messages)

2. Access not guaranteed

3. Inequalities not bracketed

4. Spectacle – distraction

5. Mediated

6. Lack of consensus

Democratizing the media

Creating democratic media

Democracy through the media

Tactics for navigating the public screen

How did telegraphy change the society?

Until the 1840s, information could only move as fast as a human being could carry it, meaning as fast as a train could travel (35 mph)

Broadcasting

Message is transmitted from one point to many receivers

What is the broadcasting model?

One-to-many model

What is the broadcasting audience?

“General” audience

Narrowcasting

Targets a specific audience (e.g. ESPN, Food Network, etc.)

Public-Access Television

• Cable companies were required to carry local content and provide facilities for local production

• Non-commercial television, social potential of TV

• A media “commons?”

Tactics for navigating the Public Screen

• The media not only transmits messages, it is a site of struggle over public opinion

• Activists operate on an uneven “playing field”

• Tactics for operating on “enemy territory”

• Can have “popular culture” sensibility

Symbolic violence

• Directed towards property, not people

• Increases media coverage of events

Example of something that is NOT symbolic violence

The Luigi Mangione case

Litigious event

A staged lawsuit designed for a mass media dissemination and viral public participation

• Lost cause in terms of a legal victory

• Possible success in the court of “public opinion”

Outing

• Reporters have routinely outed people when it has upheld heteronormativity

• Applied to public figures and celebrities

• When it is pertinent to the story

• Should not be used as punishment

What is an image event?

An event that exists solely for media consumption

Challenges

1. Corporate ownership of the public screen

2. Infotainment conventions shape what counts as news

3. Need to communicate in images

Opportunities

1. Media companies compete for audiences, allowing for messages outside the narrow ideologies of ruling elites

2. Emphasis on conflict and drama opens up the public screen

3. Media amplifies voices so that one person or a small group can reach millions

Public screen

• A supplement to the public sphere

• Accepts mediation as part of political communication

• Site of struggle between unequal forces on an uneven “playing field

• Tactical rather than strategic

What was the WTO Ministerial
Conference of 1999?

• Image event designed to promote globalization – free trade, international corporations, etc.

• It proved to be an opportunity for activists to get their anti-globalization message out.

• There were violent confrontations between police and demonstrators.

What role did violence play in the media coverage of the WTO?

• Many denounced the violence as drowning out the message of the peaceful protesters.

• However, the violence resulted in increased media coverage, and by extension media outlets had to articulate the protestors’ message.

• Images were “mind bombs” that expanded the universe of the thinkable.

Tactical use of public screen

• Filing suit over what seems to be a lost cause in terms of a legal victory

• However, there could be success found in the court of “public opinion”

• “Informal judgments” often driven by sensationalism, speculation, and hearsay

End result

• To make a public argument using the court as a platform

• To challenge hegemony through spectacle

• Meaning of personhood and rights

• Animals have rights and are not defined by their utility to human beings