Practices Looking

7/25/2019 Practices Looking

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by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright


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1. Practices of Looking: Images, Power,and Politics

2. Viewers Make Meaning

3. Spectatorship, Power and Knowledge

4. Reproduction and VisualTechnologies

5.

The Mass Media and the PublicSquare

6. Consumer Culture and theManufacturing of Desire


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! Everyday we are in the

practice of looking tomake sense of the worldaround us.

! To see is a process of

observing andrecognizing.

! To look is to actively

make meaning of thatworld.

Chapter 1


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Practices of Looking

! To look is an act of choice.

! Looking is a practice much like speaking or writing.

! Looking involves relationships of power.

! Looking can be easy or difficult, fun or unpleasant,harmless or dangerous.

! Looking can be conscious or unconscious.

! Looking is used to communicate, to influence and tobe influenced.


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! A single image can servea multitude of purposes,appear in a range ofsettings, and meandifferent things todifferent people.

! This image, of schoolchildren in the early1940s who see a murderscene in the street, wastaken by Weegee.


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Representation

! Representationrefers tothe use of language andimages to create meaningabout the world around us.

! These systems have rules

and conventions about howto express and interpretmeaning.


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Representation

! Do systems of representation reflect the world

as it is, as a form of mimesisor imitation, ordo we construct the world around us throughour use of the systems of representation?

!

Social constructionistsargue that systems ofrepresentation do not reflect an alreadyexisting reality so much as they organize,construct, and mediate our understanding ofreality, emotion, and imagination.


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Is this image simply a reflection of this particular scene or does it

produce meanings about these objects?


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Representation

! We learn the rules andconventions of thesystems of representationwithin a given culture.

! Many artists have

attempted to defy thoserules and conventions andto push at the definitionsof representation.

! Images such as this show

the complexity of howwords and imagesproduce meaning in ourworld. Rene Magritte, The Treachery of Images,1928-29


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The Myth of Photographic Truth

! The creation of an image through a camera lens alwaysinvolves some degree of subjective choicethroughselection, framing, and personalization.

! Despite this, photography has historically been regarded

as more objectivethan painting or drawing.

! The combination of the subjective and objective is a

central argument about photographic images.


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The Myth of Photographic TruthAll images have two levels of meaning:

The denotative meaning of the image refers to its literaldescriptive meaning.

The connotative meaningsrely on the cultural and historiccontext of the image and its viewers.

Denotes a placewhere one resides

HOME

Connotes family,safety, love


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The Myth of Photographic Truth

! The term myth, as used by Roland Barthes, refers to thecultural values and beliefs that are expressed throughconnotations parading as denotations.

! Mythis the hidden set of rules and conventions through

which meanings, which are in reality specific to certaingroups, are made to seem universal.


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Images and Ideology

! All images are produced within dynamicsof social power and ideology.

!

Ideology is the shared set of values andbeliefs through which individuals live outtheir complex relations to a range ofsocial structures.

! Ideologies often appear to be natural orgiven aspects of everyday life.


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Images and Ideology

! Ideologies are produced and affirmed through the social institutionsin a given society, such as the family, education, medicine, the law,the government, and the entertainment industry, among others.

! Images are also used for regulation, categorization, identification,

and evidence.

! Images often move across social arenas from documentary imagesto advertisements to amateur video to news images to art works.

! Each change in context produces a change in meaning.


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How We Negotiate the Meaning ofImages

! We decode, or read, complex images almost instantly, giving littlethought to our process of decoding.

! We decode images by interpreting clues to intended, unintended,and even suggested meanings.

!

These clues may be formal elements of the image, such as color,shade, and contrast, or the socio-historical context in which it ispresented.


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What does this image mean? When and where was it taken? Whatkind of event does it depict?


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IV. How We Negotiate the Meaningof Images

! The process of interpretation is derived from semiotics,a theory of signs which is concerned with the waysthings (words, images, and objects) are vehicles formeaning.

! We live in a world of signs, and it is the labor of ourinterpretation that makes meaning of those signs.

! The sign is composed of the signifier (a sound, writtenword, or image) and the signified (which is the concept

evoked by that word or image).


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! What is thesignifier, signified,and sign in thisadvertisement?


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The Value of Images

! What gives an image social value?

! Images do not have value in and of themselves, they areawarded different kinds of value monetary, social, and

political in particular social contexts.

! For example, in the art market, a painting gains itseconomic value through cultural determination

concerning what society judges to be important inassessing works of art.


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Vincent VanGoghs Irisessoldfor $53.8 million in1991.Why is thispainting worth somuch?

A Bold Bluff, 1903,by C.M. Coolidgesold with anotherdogs playingpokerpainting in

2005 for over$590,000.


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Raphael, The Small Cowper Madonna, c. 1505 Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936

How do each of these images represent different icons of motherhood?


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Viewers Make Meaning

Chapter 2


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Viewers Make Meaning

! Meanings are produced through acomplex social relationship that involves atleast two elements besides the image

itself and its producer: (1) how the viewersinterpret or experience the image and (2)the context in which an image is seen.

! Works or art and media rarely speaktoeveryone universally.

! Just as viewers create meaning fromimages, images also construct audiences.


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I. ProducersIntended Meanings

!Artists, graphic designers, filmmakers, andother image producers createadvertisements and many other images

with the intent that we read them in acertain way.

! However, people often see an image

differently from how it was intended to beseen.


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The visual clutter of the context alone may affect howviewers interpret these images, in addition to juxtapositions

with other images.


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I. ProducersIntended Meanings

! This does not mean that viewers wronglyinterpret images, or that images fail topersuade viewers.

! Rather meanings are created in part when,where, and by whom images areconsumed and produced.

!

An artist or producer may make an imageor media text, but he or she is not in fullcontrol of the meanings that aresubsequently seen in their work.


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II. Aesthetics and Taste

! The criteria used to interpret and give value toimages depend upon shared concepts of whatmakes an image pleasing or unpleasant,shocking or banal, interesting or boring.

!All viewers interpret two fundamental conceptsof value aestheticsand taste.

!Aestheticsrefers to philosophical notions about

the perception of beauty and ugliness.! Tasteis something that can be learned through

contact with cultural institutions that instruct us inwhat is in good taste and what is not.


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How do museums and other cultural institutions influence

our interpretations of taste?


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! The notion of connoisseurshiprefers toone who is considered to be an authorityon beauty and aesthetics and is more

capable than others to pass judgment onthe quality of cultural objects.

! Thus, taste is not inherent in particularpeople, but rather is learned throughexposure to social and cultural institutionsthat promote certain class-basedassumptions about correct taste.


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! The distinctions between different kinds ofculture have traditionally been understoodas the difference between high and low

culture.

! Traditionally, high culture has meant fineart, classical music, opera, and ballet.

! Low culture was a term used for comicstrips, television, and initially for cinema.


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How have divisions of high and low culture been criticized inrecent years?


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III. Reading Images as IdeologicalSubjects

! When taste is naturalized, it embodies theideologiesof its context and time.

!

In the 1960s, French Marxist Louis

Althusser argued that ideologyrepresents the imaginary relationship ofindividuals to their real conditions ofexistence.

! In other words, ideology is the necessaryrepresentational means through which wecome to experience and make sense of

reality.


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! The process ofinterpellationrefers tohow we areconstructed by theideologies that speak tous everyday throughlanguage and images.

!According to Althusser,we are not so muchindividuals but ratherwe are always

alreadysubjects.


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!Althussersconcepts ofideology have been

influential, but canbe seen asdisempowering.

! How much agencydo we have in ourlives?


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! In the 1920s and 1930s, Italian Marxist AntonioGramsci introduced the concept of hegemonytounderstand the plurality of ideology.

! Hegemonyemphasizes that power is not wieldedby one class over another; rather, power isconstantly negotiated and changing among allclasses of people, who struggle with and againstone another in the economic, social, political, andideological arenas in which they live and work.

! Counter-hegemonicforces are political movementsor subversive cultural elements which emerge andquestion the status quo in ways that may not favorthe interests of the marketplace.


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Barbara Krugers work functions as a counter-hegemonic statement.

Who is the youof this image?


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IV. Encoding and Decoding

!All images are both encodedanddecoded.

!

An image or object is encodedwith

meaning with meaning in its creation orproduction and when it is placed in a givensetting or context.

!

It is then decoded by viewers when it isconsumed by them.

! These processes work in tandem.


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How does encoding and decoding work in a television show?


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Three positions viewers can take as decoders:

! Dominant-hegemonic reading identify with thehegemonic position and receive the dominant

message of an image or text in an unquestioningmanner.

! Negotiated reading negotiate an interpretationfrom the image and its dominant meaning.

! Oppositional reading completely disagree withthe ideological position embodied in an image orreject it altogether.


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! The dominant-hegemonicpositioncan be said to

decode images in arelatively passivemanner.

! It can be argued

that few viewersactually consumeimages in thismanner.


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! In negotiated readingviewers activelystruggle with dominant meanings, allowingculturally and personally significant

meanings to transform and even overridethe meanings imposed by producers andbroader social forces.

! Image decoders are active meaningmakers and not merely passive recipients.


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How would a dominant hegemonic reading of the show Who

Want to Be a Millionairebe different from a negotiated reading?


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V. Appropriation and OppositionalReadings

!Appropriationcan be a form ofoppositional production and reading.

!

To appropriate is to take something foroneself without consent, to steal.

! Cultural appropriation is the process ofborrowingand changing the meaning of

cultural products, slogans, images, orelements of fashion.


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Andy Warhol appropriatedDa Vincis The Last

Supper.

How does Warhol changethe meaning of thedominant ideology of Da

Vincis work?


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! As viewers, we can alsoappropriate images andtext by strategicallyaltering their meanings to

suit our purposes.! For example, Great

Garbo has a cult followingamong lesbian viewers

appropriating hersometimes gender-bending performances.

! This is one method of

oppositional reading.


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! Bricolageis a tactic ofappropriationmeaning literally tomake do

or piecingtogether ones

culture with whateveris at hand.

! How is the owner ofthis low-riderchanging the meaningof an automobile?

C


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VI. Re-appropriations and Cultural-bricolage

! Appropriation, however, is notalways an oppositional practice.

! For example, vintage thrift store

clothing fashions originallyassociated with oppositionalyouth were re-appropriated bythe mainstream fashion industry.

!

When hegemonic forces re-appropriate tactics ofmarginalized cultures into themainstream, it is a form ofcounter-bricolage.


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How is themainstreaming of rapmusic an example ofcounter-bricolage?

How does themainstream cultureconstantly mine the

margins of culture formeaning?


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Spectatorship, Power, and

KnowledgeChapter 3

S t t hi P d


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Spectatorship, Power, andKnowledge

! We invest images with the power to inciteemotions within us, and images are alsoelements within the power relations between

human subjects, and between individuals andinstitutions.

! This chapter focuses away from reception toconcepts of address.

!Address refers to the way that an imageconstructs certain responses form an idealizedviewer, whereas reception is about the ways inwhich actual viewers respond.

I P h l i d th I


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I. Psychoanalysis and the ImageSpectator

! Psychoanalytic theoryhas addressed mostdirectly the pleasure we derive from images, andthe relationship between our desires and our

visual world.! Spectatorship theory emphasizes the role of the

psyche particularly the unconscious, desire,and fantasy in the practice of looking.

! When psychoanalytic theory talks of thespectator, it treats it as an ideal subject.


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It can be said that particular films, targeted toward specific categories ofviewers during particular periods create and offer to their views and idealsubject position.

Who is the ideal spectatorfor Star Trek films? How can the ideal spectator

be constructed


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II. The Gaze

! The concept of the gaze has been the focus ofinquiry in both art history and film studies.

! In common parlance, to gaze is to look or stare,

often with eagerness or desire.! In psychoanalytic film criticism, the gaze is not

the act of looking itself, but the viewingrelationship characteristic of a particular set of

social circumstances.

! The concept of the gaze is fundamentally aboutthe relationship of pleasure and images.


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II. The Gaze! In 1975, filmmaker and

writer Laura Mulveypublished an essay aboutwomen in classicalHollywood cinema.

! She argued that conventionsof popular cinema arestructured by a patriarchalunconscious, positioningwomen represented in film

as objects of amale gaze

! Her theory stated that thecamera is used as a tool ofvoyeurism and sadism,disempowering those before

its gaze.


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II. The Gaze

! In the history of art, most ofthe collectors and primaryviewers were men.

! In a typical female nude, awoman is posed so that herbody is on display for theviewer, who is implied to bemale.

! John Berger wrote that in hishistory of images, men act,

women appear.! This way of viewing women

thus defined them by theirappearance, in essencetheir ability to be pleasing to

look at.

Jean-Desire-Gustave Courbet,Woman with a Parrot, 1866


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III. Changing Concepts of the Gaze

! Today, we are surroundedon a daily basis by imagesof fashion models whoselooks conform to a rigid

set of normative codesabout beauty.

! The traditional roles of

men and women are inupheaval and thetheoretical concept of themale gaze has been

rethought.


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III. Changing Concepts of the Gaze

! The concept of regressive cinematicviewers, who are encouraged to represstheir identities and to identify with the

screen has been replaced by a broaderset of models about the multiplicity ofgazes and looks that mediate power

between viewers and objects of the gaze.

IV Disco rse the Ga e and the


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IV. Discourse, the Gaze, and theOther

! Images can both exert

power and act asinstruments of power.

! French philosopher MichelFoucault uses the term

discourse to describe agroup of statements whichprovides a means fortalking about a particulartopic at a particular

historical moment.! For Foucault, discourse is a

body of knowledge thatboth defines and limitswhat can be said aboutsomething.

IV Discourse the Gaze and the


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IV. Discourse, the Gaze, and theOther

! Photography has beencentral in the functioningof discourses since the

19th

century.! Photographs have been

deployed as a means ofcategorization in order to

distinguish the normal andthe abnormal according tothe discourses of aparticular time.

V Power/Knowledge and


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V. Power/Knowledge andPanopticism

! Foucault believed modern societies arestructured on a basic relationship of power/knowledge.

! Modern societies power relations are structuredto produce citizens who will actively participate inself-regulating behavior, such as obeying laws,participating in social norms, and adhering todominant social values.

! Certain kinds of knowledgesare validated inour society through social institutions such asthe press, the medical profession, and educationwhile other knowledges are discredited.


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Who in these images are you most likely to believe?



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! For Faucault, modernpower is not something thatnegates and represses somuch as it is a force that

produces knowledge andparticular kinds of citizensand subjects.

! In order to function, themodern state needs

citizens who are willing towork, to fight in wars, andto reproduce, and to havehealthy and capable bodiesto do so.



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! Photographic imagesare instrumental inthe production of what

Foucault called thedocile bodyof themodern state citizens who

participate in theideologies of thesociety through adesire to fit in andconform



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!According to Foucault, weinternalize a managerialgaze that watches over

us, and this imaginedgaze makes us behaveand conform. This iscalled panopticon.

! It idea is that the structureof surveillance, whetheractive or not, producesconforming behavior.


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How prevalent is the idea of photographicidentification? To what extent is the photographintegrated into institutional life? How are these

photographs tied to questions of power?


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VI. The Gaze and the Exotic

! The photographic gaze helps to establishrelationships of power, to represent codesof dominance and subjugation, difference

and other.! Images operate within binary oppositions

such as civilization/nature, white/other,and male/female.

!

Binary oppositions designate the firstcategory as unmarked (the norm) and thesecond as marked (the other.


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How is meaning established through difference?


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VI. The Gaze and the Exotic

! Images are central in theproduction of Orientalism, theways in which Western

cultures attribute to Easternand Middle-Eastern culturesqualities of exoticism andbarbarism.

! The consumer is interpellatedin this ad as a white personwho can buy an authenticexotic experience.


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Reproduction and Visual

TechnologiesChapter 4

Reproduction and Visual


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Reproduction and VisualTechnologies

! Both the conventions of imaging and theconcepts of the visual have changedthroughout history, through the evolution

of art, photography, and electronicimaging.

!A viewer may make assumptions about

the historical status of an image from itsstyle, medium, and formal qualities.

I Realism and the History of


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I. Realism and the History ofPerspective

! Examining the role of realism in artthroughout history helps us to see howimages indicate changing ways of seeing

the world.!

The concept of what makes an imagerealistic has changed throughout history

and varies between cultures.



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! The development ofperspectiveas aconvention of Europeanart during the 15thcenturyRenaissance marks afundamental shift in thedepiction of reality.

! Linear perspectiverequires objects to recedein size toward at least onevanishing point.



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! The European Renaissance has been definedas a time of intellectual and artistic resurgencethat was fueled by a renewed interest inClassical art and literature.

! Perspective emphasizes a scientific andmechanical view toward ordering and depictingnature, and focuses a work of art toward aperceived viewer.

! Thus, through the development of perspective,the relationship of science/technology and visionis firmly established in Western philosophy.


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Raphael, School of Athens, 1510-1511

II Realism and Visual


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II. Realism and VisualTechnologies

The history of image production in Western culturecan be viewed in four periods:

! (1) ancient art produced prior to thedevelopment of perspective in 1425

! (2) the age of perspective until the era of themechanical, including the Renaissance,Baroque, Rococo, and Romantic periods

!

(3) the modern era of technical developmentswith the rise of mechanization and the IndustrialRevolution

! (4)the postmodern era of electronic technology



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! It can be said that

photography emerged as avisual technology becauseit fit certain emerging socialconcepts and needs of thetime.

! In combining scientifictechnique with art, like thetechnique of perspective,

yet also employing amechanical device,photography is in manyways the visual technologythat helped to usher in the

age of modernity.



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! Many styles of modernart that followed theinvention ofphotography defied thetradition ofperspective.

! For instance, the style

of impressionismshifted its focus to lightand color and aimedfor visual spontaneity.

Claude Monet, Section of the Seine NearGiverny



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! Cubism was a style inwhich painted objects asif they were being viewedfrom several different

angles simultaneously,and focused on the visualrelationship betweenobjects.

!According to Cubists, it is

a means of depicting therestlessness andcomplicated process ofhuman vision and a newway of looking at the real.

Georges Braque, The Portuguese, 1911



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! Modernist styles declared vision to beinfinitely more subjective and complex.

!

The idea that a perspective-based realistic

view is actually no more than one of themany ways of representing human visionhas been taken further by many

contemporary artists.


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What is the realimage here? At what momentwas this

image taken? Where is the spectator of this image positioned?

III Th R d i f I


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III. The Reproduction of Images

! Mechanical reproduction changes the meaningand value of an image and, ultimately, the roleimages play in society.

!

For instance, the invention of photographycoincided with a cult of originality.

! Thus the value of the one-of-a-kind art work isderived from its uniqueness and its role in ritual.

! This aura of the image is a quality that makes itseem authentic because of its unique presencein time and space.

III Th R d ti f I


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! The concept ofauthenticity refers tosomething that isthought to be genuineor original.

! Paradoxically, we live ina world in which the

concept of authenticityis routinely reproduced,packaged, bought, andsold.

III Th R d ti f I


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! Many copies can exist of a photographic image,of which their value lies not in their uniquenessbut in their aesthetic, cultural, and social worth.

! The original, however, is more valuable, in both

financial and social terms, than the copies.! Some argue that the higher value comes not

from the uniqueness of the image as one of akind, but rather from it being the original of manycopies.

! Through reproduction, an image can now beseen in many different contexts.


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How is the meaning of Edvard Munchs, The Scream(1893),changed in each new context? How does the reproductions change

the meaning of the original?

IV R d d I P liti


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IV. Reproduced Images as Politics

!

Propagandacan refer toany attempt to use wordsand images to promoteparticular ideas andpersuade people tobelieve certain concepts.

! This definition could also

fit advertising images.! This is what is meant by

the use of images aspolitics. John Heartfield,Adolf as Superman: He

Swallows Gold and Spits out Tin-Plate,1932

IV R d d I P liti


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IV. Reproduced Images as Politics

! Text can dramaticallychange tosignification of theimage and can ask usto look at an imagedifferently.

! This appropriation,however, depends onthe viewer beingfamiliar with theoriginal meaning.

V. Visual Technologies and


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V. Visual Technologies andPhenomenology

!

Phenomenologyis the belief that all knowledgeand truth derives from subjective humanexperience and not solely from thingsthemselves.

! This is a criticism of the rational age of scientificinquiry.! Perception, memory, and imagination are key

concerns of phenomenology.!

Phenomenology offers a means to examine thedistinct materialities of how various media suchas photography, film, and television affect theviewers experience of it, and its impact on thelived body of the viewer.

VI Th Di it l I


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VI. The Digital Image! Since the 1980s, the development of digital images

began to radically transform the meaning ofimages.

!Analogimages bear a physical correspondencewith their material referents and are defined by

properties that express value along a continuousscale, such as gradation of tone.

! Digitalimages are encoded with bits of informationand can be easily stored, manipulated, and

reproduced.!A copyof a digital image is exactly like theoriginal.

! The digital image gains its value from its

accessibility, malleability, and information status.

VI Th Di it l I


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VI. The Digital Image

! Most digital imagesand simulationscannot be said tohave been in the

presence of the realworld that they depict.

! How does this effectthe idea of

photographic truth?! What impact does this

have on news andhistorical images?

VI Th Di it l I


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VI. The Digital Image

! The discovery that anews organization hasaltered an image oftensparks controversy and

debate.! These organizations

reputations were basedon modern notions of

photographic truth thatclashed with the digitalpossibilities for imagemanipulation.

VII. Virtual Space and Interactive


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pImages

!

Virtualimages are simulations that representideal or constructed rather than actualconditions, and can be both analog and digital.



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pImages

! Virtual reality (VR) describe

the way that usersexperience the computerworlds in science andcomputer games.

! Virtual reality systemsattempt to create an

experience in which the userfeels as if he or she isphysically incorporated intothe world represented on allsensory levels.

! These include pacemakers,hearing aids, flightsimulators, and gamesystems.



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pImages

! Virtual space exits inopposition to the rules oftraditional physical space.

!

Users can navigate thespace to create their ownindividual pathway.

! How can traditional cultural

notions of authorshipremain in place with theintroduction of digitalimages and virtual space?


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The Mass Media and thePublic Sphere

Chapter 5

The Mass Media and the Public


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Sphere!

Those of us in Western industrialized cultureslive in a multimedia environment in whichmechanical and electronic images, text, andsound are an almost constant presence.

! The term mass mediahas been used to definethose media designed to reach large audiencesperceived to have shared interests.

! The mass media refers to forms and texts that

work in unison to generate specific dominant orpopular representations of events, people, andplaces.



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Sphere

! Some critics of themedia have arguedthat radio andtelevision largelycontrol the exchangeof information byrestricting authorship

of information tothose with access tothe means of mediaproduction.



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Sphere

! There arephenomenologicaldifferences in the waythat we experiencemedia that areparticular to theirmaterial qualities.



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Sphere

! It can be argued that theterm mass mediais nolonger entirely applicable.

!

As more diverse mediaforms emerge, such ascable television andinternet, more fragmented

audiences form to replacethe undifferentiated mass,and the mass media areless pervasive.

I Critiques of the Mass Media


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I. Critiques of the Mass Media

! The historical critiquestates that TV and radio

provided a centralizedmeans for mobilizing thenew mass culture or mass

society around a unified setof issues and ideas.! Current critics of the mass

media argue that the newelectronic technologies arepowerful new tools forpropaganda or masspersuasion.

! These critiques seeviewers as passive if notgullible recipients of media

messages.

Leni Reifenstahl, Triumph of the Will, 1935



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! The concept of a narcoticeffect refers to the waythat time spent with themedia replaces actualparticipation in organizedaction.

! The mass media, in thisconcept, is understood asconvincing people that

being informed about asocial issue by seeing itcovered in the media isthe same as doingsomething about it.



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!A group of cultural critics known as the FrankfurtSchooldescribes the culture industry as anentity that both creates and caters to a masspublic that, tragically, can no longer see thedifference between the real world and theillusory world that these popular media formscollectively generate.

! In their view, the culture industry generates falseconsciousnessamong its consumers,

encouraging the masses to buy mindlessly intothe ideologies that allow industrial capitalism tothrive.

! They hold a traditional Marxist view of ideology.

II. The Mass Media and Democratic


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Potential!

Another view of the mass mediais that it is a promising tool fordemocratic ideals which willpromote an open flow of

information and exchange ofideas.

! This view challenges the veryidea of a mass media or mass

society.! It stresses the potential of

individual media forms for thedevelopment of community and

identity on a much smaller scale.

Goddess ofDemocracy,

Tiananmen Square,

1989

II. The Mass Media and Democratic


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Potential!

A technologically deterministwayof viewing media implies thatcontent is not as important as themedium through which you receiveit.

!

Canadian communication theoristMarshall McLuhan argued in the1950s-1970s that mediatechnologies give greater potentialfor power to our individual bodiesby extending our senses andthereby extending our power in theworld.

! To put the means of mediaproduction in the hands of ordinarycitizens they would be empowered

rather than being molded.

III. Television and the Question of


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Sponsorship!

Consumers watch televisionprograms primarily to seeprograms, but what keepstelevision afloat is theviewers not-so-incidental

exposure to advertisementsfor products.

! In U.S. televisions earlyyears, productendorsements wereenmeshed withprogramming itself, makingit difficult to separate theproduct from the program.

III. Television and the Question of


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Sponsorship

! Some Western countries, such asCanada, England, France, and Germany,have opted for state-controlled television,in which the government plays a moreactive role in the industry andprogramming.

! Meanwhile, U.S. television is shaped by

free market forces which relies oncorporate sponsorship and advertising.

IV Media and the Public Sphere


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IV. Media and the Public Sphere

! A public sphere is ideally a

space where citizen cometogether to debate anddiscuss the pressingissues of their society.

! In events such as the

assassination of John F.Kennedy, the funeral ofPrincess Diana, and theattacks of Sept. 11th, 2001,the media serve to createa sense of community atlocal, national, and globallevels. Princess Dianas Funeral



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! The television talkshows creates aforum forcontemporary issuesand thus promotesthe formation of publicspheres.

! Who is the audienceof this genre?



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! Some critics have faulted the media forsensationalizing events involving stars andnotorious individuals over important globalnews, such as wars, famine, and internationalpolitics.

Scott Peterson on trial for killing his wife Laci and their unborn son.

V New Media Cultures


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V. New Media Cultures

! The status of media incontemporary cultureis contradictory andmixed.

! It is diverse at boththe level of the mediathemselves and at the

level of national andcultural boundaries.

! What constitutes amedium?


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Consumer Culture and theManufacturing of Desire

Chapter 6

Consumer Culture and the


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Manufacturing of Desire

! Visual images play a primary role in thecommerce of contemporary societies.

! Commodityculture and consumer

societies are dependent upon the constantproduction and consumption of goods inorder to function.

!Advertising images are central to the

construction of cultural ideas aboutlifestyle, self-image, self-improvement, andglamour

Consumer Culture and the


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Manufacturing of Desire

! The advertising worldworks by abstraction, apotential place or state ofbeing situated not in thepresent but in animagined future with thepromise to the consumerof things youwill have,a lifestyle you can take

part in.! Images can be presented

as art, science,documentary evidence,or personal memories.

I Consumer Society


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I. Consumer Society

! Fundamental changes in the experience ofcommunity in the rise of the consumer societycame through an increased complexity anddiversity of the urban population, increasedimmigration, and a loosening of the hold of smalland stable communities and families on socialvalues.

! It has been argued that people derive theirsense of their place in the world and their self-

image at least in part through their purchase anduse of commodities which seem to give meaningto their lives in the absence of the meaningderived from closer-knit community.

I Consumer Society


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I. Consumer Society

! The late 19thcentury rise of

the department storesrepresented the merge ofcommerce and leisure.

! Window shopping is thusrelated to a more mobilevision of modernity.

! French poet CharlesBaudelaire wrote about the

flaneur, a man who strolledthe streets as an observer,never engaging withsurroundings but taking aninterest in them.

I Consumer Society


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I. Consumer Society

! Today, consumption is thought of as aform of leisure, pleasure, and as a form oftherapy.

! Commodities can fulfill emotional needsbut those needs are never truly fulfilled asthe forces of the market lure us into

wanting more or different commodities.

II. Commodity Culture and


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Commodity Fetishism

! The term commodity selfisthe idea that our selves areconstructed in part throughour consumption and use of

commodities.!Advertising encourages

consumers to think of

commodities as central meansthrough which to convey theirpersonalities.

! What precisely is it that ads

sell?

II. Commodity Culture andC


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Commodity Fetishism

! Marxist theory critiquesthe emphasis incapitalism on exchangeover use value, in which

things are valued not forwhat they really do butfor what theyre worth in

abstract, monetary terms.! Why are diamonds more

expensive than anecessity such as water?

II. Commodity Culture andC dit F ti hi


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Commodity Fetishism

! Commodity fetishism refersto the process by whichmass-produced goods areemptied of the meaning of

their production and thenfilled with new meanings inways that both mystify theproduct and turn it into afetish product.

! The experience of the labor

process is devalued andmakes it harder for workersto take pride in what theyhave produced.

II. Commodity Culture andC dit F ti hi


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Commodity Fetishism

!

Pop Artin the late 1950s and 1960s engagedwith mass culture in a way that did not condemn itbut demonstrated their love of and pleasure inpopular culture.

Andy Warhol, Two HundredCampbells Soup Cans,1962

III. Addressing the Consumer


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! Like other images, advertising imagesinterpellate their viewers in particular ways,hailing them as ideological subjects.

! The youthat advertising addresses is always

implied to be an individual.!Ads perform the very contradictory work ofconvincing many different consumers that amass-produced product will make them uniqueand different from others.

! This concept is known aspsuedoindividuality, afalse idea of identity.

! Thus, it can be said that advertising asks us notto consume commodities but to consume signs.



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! The advertisingstrategy of repeatinga motif can be used toestablish familiarity

with a product and tokeep viewersattention.



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! Ads operate with apresumption of relevancethat allows them to makeinflated statements aboutthe necessity of their

products.! Ads also create a

relationship ofequivalencebetweenelements within theframe and between theproduct and its signifier.

! Companies alsodifferentiateproducts

from their competition

IV. Images and Text


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IV. Images and Text

! It is through complexcompositions ofphotographs, text,and graphics that ads

speak to consumers.

! Text can often have apowerful effect in

establishing orchanging the meaningof the photograph orimage presented.

V. Envy, Desire, and Glamour


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!All advertisements tellconsumers that theirproducts will change theirlives for the better.

! They often do this bypresenting figures ofglamour that consumerscan envy and wish toemulate.

!Advertisements makereferences to art to givetheir products aconnotation of prestige,tradition, and authenticity.



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V. Envy, Desire, and Glamour! The world of advertising

speaks the language ofself-management, self-control, and conformity.

!Ads use anxiety bysuggesting to consumersthe ways in which theymay be not only

inadequate but potentiallyendangered or weakenedwithout a particularproduct.

VI. Belonging and Difference


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VI. Belonging and Difference

! Sometimes when advertisements ask us toconsume commodity signs, they attach to theirproducts concepts of the nation, family,community, and democracy.

VII. Bricolage and Counter-b i l


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bricolage

! Bricolage is a mode ofadaptation where things areput to uses for which theywere not intended and in

ways that dislocate themfrom their normal orexpected context.

!

Counter-bricolage refers tothe repackaging ofbircolage commodities to beresold to mainstream

consumers

Counter-bricolage: Pablo

Picasso and Apple Computers

VIII. The Brand


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! The circulation of brandnames, trademarks, andlogos are a meansthrough which identities

are constructed not onlyfor goods andcorporations, but forpeople who appropriatesignifiers of products fora style of themselves ortheir culture.

IX. Anti-ad Practices


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!Advertisements can be the subject of artisticparody and the site of on-site politicalmessages.

Documents

Practices Looking