COMM 257 - Bajan - Final - Rels

What is the world made up of according to Baudrillard?

Empty and meaningless signs

Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Author

Walter Benjamin

What is the Frankfurt School known for?

Developing critical theory

What is Critical Theory?

A social theory meant to confront social structures that confine us as individuals

What theological idea was a key element in the formation of critical theory?

Marxism

What are Marxist ideas of social structure?

Ruling class controls the mean of production

What did the development of superstructure taking longer than development of base lead to?

Concentration of Ownership

Why is the power of the ruling class felt through all aspects of society and feel distinct change in manners of production?

Concentration of Ownership

Who owns the majority of stuff?

A few people and companies

What is the economy built of according to Walter Benjamin?

Rapid creation and distribution of goods

What shows that we internalized the power of the superstructure according to Walter Benjamin?

Alienation of labor (we don't know who makes our products)

What does reproducing art do to the original according to Walter Benjamin?

Devalues the original art

What are the social impacts of reproduction according to Walter Benjamin?

Destroys the aura
Takes art out of hands of wealthy elite and give it to the masses

What changes when criteria of authenticity stops artistic expression from being about ritual
Who said this?

The way we evaluate art
Walter Benjamin

What of the object is tied to ritual or cult functions?

Aura

How does Marx define objects?

Only for what it's used for

What was the original form of reproductions?

Lithography

What does reproducing do to the value of art?

Lowers it

What era shows the ritual base for art being replaced?

Renaissance

What is the ritual base for art replaced with?

Shallow meaningless form (people are not involved in participating in form)

Where does the ritual base for art become replaced with shallow meaningless form?

The West

What is the value of art after reproduction?

Exchange value

What changes when criteria of authenticity stops artistic expression from being about ritual

The way we evaluate art

What does Berger believe the reproduction of art gives to the art?

False religiosity

When did the value of art become the exchange value?

During the invention of photography

What was the last gasp of modern art?

Photography

What does the viewer of a motion picture identify with?

The camera

Plays are more \________ than a motion picture because they are live and organic

personal

Film doesn't have the same \____ as a stage play

aura

Any aura is lost with \____________

reproduction

What does stage plays do that motion picture does not?

Maintain a natural distance to reality

What comparison can be used when comparing films to plays?

Magician vs Surgeon

Films \______________ the reaction in the audience

predetermine

What are the 2 reasons films are distraction for the masses with no aura?

1. They are a key attribute of reproduction
2. People look at film differently than art

Why do people look at art differently than film?

It is easier to watch a movie than see art (see Mona Lisa once but watch a movie hundreds of times)

Why does Walter Benjamin think that film is easier to analysis than art

Film behavior lends itself to talk

According to Benjamin, is is easier to analysis film or other types of artistic expression

Film

Why is it easier to analyze film than other types of artistic expression?

Every part of film can be analyzed

How does film give a different viewing experience than paintings?

Film gives no time to process what you're seeing

What must happen for an art form to become esthetic enough to satisfy the public?

Technology must catch up to it

According to Walter, what has happened due to the change in mode of art?

Quantity \== Quality

Who came up with anesthetization of politics?

Walter Benjamin

Aestheticization of politics is a key component in what political group?

Fascist regimes

How are ads similar to fascist regimes

Allows individuals to feels as though they're not enough to they buy what the ad is selling

According to Walter, who relies heavily on aesthetic ritual?

Fascist regimes

What do rituals give but change?

Chance to channel emotion; nothing

What causes the lost of aura and general apathy of masses to popular entrainment according to Walter?

Aestheticization of politics

Who said that the strong use of art to stage public spectacles that has artificial aura gives individual the feeling that they have agency in playing an important role when in reality you have no agency and no control and machine is going to try and control you?

Walter Benjamin

What does mass entertainment distract us from?

The truth

Who wrote Medium is the message?

Marshall McLuhan

Who is the father of medium theory?

Marshall McLuhan

What does Medium theory examine?

The interrelationship and effects on human development

What mediated the experiences with pop culture people had with pop culture?

New forms of technology

What caused a growth in mass communication and mass communication culture?

WWII

What are the main Eras needed to understand McLuhan?

Tribal Era
Literacy Era
Print Era
Electronic Era

What era did not have a fixed sense of time, reality, or truth due to being primarily oral?

Tribal Era

What era first used logical and linear thinking?

Literacy Era

Who said linear categories stems from the literacy era and invention of writing?

Marshall McLuhan

What did the Print Era see the growth of?

Machines and large city centers

What era saw mechanization/mass industrialization?

Print Era

What era saw the world become smaller again because there's instantaneous communication?

Electronic Era

Who coined the term global village?

Marshall McLuhan

Media is a fundamental part of the human ecosystem - Walter

Media Ecology

Who believed that if we studied how human media and interactions occur, we will gain deeper understanding of ourselves (Media ecology)

Marshall McLuhan

How does McLuhan understand history?

Through the dominate communication mode of that time

What was the first book with an academic study over advertisement and pop culture seriously?

Mechanical Bride - Marshall McLuhan

Where is the phrase 'We shape our tools and then our tools shape us' from?

Gutenberg Galaxy - Marshall McLuhan

Term used to describe electronic visual media shrinks the world and makes communication instant

Global Village

Who looked at Mass media and communication and its affect on people?

Marshall McLuhan

What do we need to pay attention to instead of content to understand media and how it affects us according to McLuhan?

Media

Why do we psychologically auto amputate bodily senses according to McLuhan?

Mass media has numb our consciousness

What did McLuhan tell the public?

They're passive, easily manipulated dupes and needed to wake up from deep sleep

Who predicted the rise of the internet?

Marshall McLuhan

What is media ecology?

Study of human media interaction in the natural environment

As we change media, ...

The media changes us

Define figure and ground

Figure: Media/technology
Ground: Natural Environment

Change in one part of the ecosystem is met by...

a reactive change in another part of the ecosystem

What has happened as a result of technology giving us more time to produce more?

We consume more

What was created due to the retribalization of the world?

Global Village

What happened to cause the formation of the Global Village?

The world has been interconnected and interdependent

Who said 'The new electronic interdependence re-creates the world in the image of a global village'

Marshall McLuhan

According to McLuhan, what was the biggest danger to restructuring society due to how it affect the family dynamic?

Television

Is form or content more important to McLuhan?

Form

What is the different between hot and cool media?

Hot media: affects one sense at a high temperature
Cool media: affects multiple senses simultaneously to a lesser degree

Examples of Hot media

Radio, photography, print, propaganda, realistic paintings

Examples of Cool media

Telephone, comics, speech, television, abstract oil painting

Does hot or cool media take mental effort to understand?

Cool media

Who came up with hot and cool media?

Marshall McLuhan

How does media manipulate the sense ratio?

Extends the senses

What happens when we extended our senses to the point they become numb?

We amputate it (stop using the sense due to over stimulation)

What are the four laws of Media?

Enhances, Reverses Into, Retrieves, Obsolescences

Describe Enhances in the Four Laws of Media

Extends, Amplifies, or Enhances some human capacity

Describe Reverses Into in the Four Laws of Media

When something is pushed to extreme, it reverses into opposite invention

Describe Retrieves in the Four Laws of Media

Retrieves experience or medium from the past

Describe Obsolescences in the Four Laws of Media

Makes an older medium obsolete

How has electronic and digital media affect art?

Created global village/allows us to view art anywhere in the world at a touch of the button

How has modern media caused the democratizing art and communication and the retribalization of it?

Art has been taken out of rigid print
Creative Process given back to artists
Easier to view art

What does digital art blur the lines of?

Authenticity and reproduction

What has allowed 'art is anything you can get away with' - McLuhan to occure?

Communication Media

What class of thinking did Baudrillard help to create?

Postmodernism