mtc l3 Lecture d - julianhopkinsjulianhopkins.net/distribution/F50FC8_Lecture03.pdf05/03/2012 4 RE-PRESENTATION Media gives “re-presentationsor constructionsof the world” (O&S:

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HIGH AND LOW CULTURES: MASS

MEDIA AND THE CULTURE

INDUSTRYMedia & Texts (Culture) – F50FC8

Arts Foundation Programme

Nottingham University Malaysia

Julian Hopkins

March 2012

OVERVIEW

� High & low culture

�Media effects

� The Culture Industry

HIGH & LOW CULTURE

“High culture […] art that is morally uplifting, complex, and serious.”

(O&S: 17)

“Low culture […] what the masses consume […] morally degrading

and simplistic” (O&S: 17)

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HIGH & LOW CULTURE

� History, industrialisation and class

� 19th century: growth of literacy, mass production

of media

� Fear of the ‘lower classes’

� Matthew Arnold (19th century): “culture as ‘the best

that been known and thought’” (Sinclair 2002: 26)

� Media studies (20th century): “‘inoculation’ approach”

(O&S: 17)

33

MEDIA EFFECTS

Does the media control what we think?

How?

Does the media influence what we think?

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EFFECT & AFFECT

� ‘Effect’: suggests a “precise response triggered by

the media”(O&S: 46)

� ‘Influence’ more useful, more flexible

� ‘Affect’: “can refer to change in a general sense, or

can be used specifically to indicate the

physiological dimensions of emotional responses”

(O&S: 46)

� O&S argue that “the media can and do influence

us in many ways” – therefore use ‘affect’

� ‘effects’ used “to indicate the direct or measurable

‘results’ of media consumption”(O&S: 46)

Resource:

Common errors in English Usage

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/affect.html

Resource:

Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising

http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_web/index.php

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EFFECT & AFFECT

� Perceptions of crime

� ‘CSI effect’: “the

phenomenon in which

jurors hold unrealistic

expectations of forensic

evidence and investigation

techniques, and have an

increased interest in the

discipline of forensic

science.” (Robbers, quoted

in The Economist 2010)

� “tests that take minutes

on television may take

weeks to process in real

life” (The Economist 2010)

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RE-PRESENTATION

� Media gives “re-presentations or constructions of the world” (O&S: 35; original emphasis)

� The media “make sense of the world for us” (O&S: p34)

� Representation

� e.g. Most never been to the Himalayas, but we have seen them. Learn about the world through media representations

� Interpretation

� The media “take on an interpretative role” (O&S: p34)

� Tells us how we should understand events

� Evaluation� “consistently privilege some issues and identities while devaluing others” (O&S: p34)

THE CULTURE INDUSTRY

� “Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art. The

truth that they are just business is made into an ideology

in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce.”

(p32)

� Is ‘Low culture’ simple because people want that, or because

it suits the producers?

� Technology suits mass production and standardisation –

need a product that lots of people want to see

� But “the basis on which technology acquires power over

society is the power of those whose economic hold over

society is greatest” (p33)

� Technology doesn’t control the media content, profit does

(Adorno & Horkheimer 1999 [1944])


� “Market differentiations such as those of A and B films […] depend not so much on subject matter as on classifying, organizing, and labelling consumers” (p34)

� Consumers are labelled and grouped, and content is provided for them –e.g. movies for teens, for adults

� “How formalized the procedure is can be seen when the mechanically differentiated products prove to be all alike in the end” (p34)

� The product is only slightly different, and the main measure is the money put into it – e.g. big budget movies


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� “The more intensely and flawlessly [the producer’s] techniques duplicate empirical objects, the easier it is today for the illusion to prevail that the outside world is the straightforward continuation of that presented on the screen” (p35)� Cinema is able to ‘reproduce life’ on the screens, and thus lead viewers to then think that it really reflects life – e.g. that criminals are all evil people, or that rich people deserve their position because they work hard

� “the film forces its victims to equate it directly with reality” (p35)� Is black and white realistic?

� Social relations reproduced in the films and associations with world outside the cinema are directed, induced


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� “All the other films and

products of the entertainment

industry which they have

seen have taught them what

to expect; they react

automatically” (p35)

� “The culture industry as a

whole has moulded men as a

type unfailingly reproduced

in every product” (p35)


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� “The explicit and implicit,

exoteric and esoteric

catalogue of the forbidden

and tolerated is so extensive

that it not only defines the

area of freedom but is all-

powerful inside it” (p36)

� Careful controls on what is

said/represented or not

� The music, the dialogues, etc.

are produced as “nature”

(p36) – i.e. they seem natural


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PRODUCT PLACEMENT

� Transformers video

�Why do writers put brands into the script?

Resource:

Product placement on TV

http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/2011/02/product-placement-on-tv/

PRODUCT PLACEMENT

�Why do writers put brands into the scripts?

� Realism

� Money

� “Aesthetic and narrative codes” (O&S:53)

� Consumption is ‘naturalised’ – you are what you

buy

� “The media are a central arena in which consent

is won and maintained by representation, agenda

setting, and other mechanisms that position

certain values, issues, and attributes as being

important, desirable, natural, or normal” (O&S:

34)


� “In front of the appetite stimulated by all those brilliant names and images there is finally set no more than a commendation of the depressing everyday world it sought to escape” (p38)

� Hegemony: “Power and leadership maintained through processes of struggle and negotiation, especially through winning the consent of the majority of people to accept the ideas or ideologies of the dominant group as ‘common sense’” (O&S: 209)


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� “Biographies and other

simple stories patch the

fragments of nonsense into

an idiotic plot” (p40)

� “Every kiss in the revue film

has to contribute to the

career of the boxer, or some

hit song expert or other

whose rise to fame is being

glorified” (p40)

� Individualism


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� The ‘culture industry’ (aka mass media) is built around profit, not around serving the masses

� It is subservient to other more powerful industrial sectors (e.g. banking)

� It produces many different types of content, but the differences are only superficial and based on reinforcing class divisions

� Content is standardised and simplified

� As opposed to previous authentic high and low art which served different purposes

� Its effect is to make people see the world through the media, which shows the world of capitalism as the only possible normal and natural world


� During (1999: 32):

� Adorno & Horkheimer wrote in 1944, during World

War 2

� They were Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany

� The Nazis used the mass media for propaganda, as did he

Allies

� Hollywood still very “vertically integrated”

� “Adorno and Horkheimer neglect what was to become

central to cultural studies: the ways in which the cultural

industry, while in the service of organized capital, also

provides the opportunities for all kinds of individual and

collective creativity and decoding.”

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OWNERSHIP& CONTROL

�Media producers “own, control, and create the

media” (O&S: 36)

� Owners, business managers – mainly about profit

� Creative personnel – produce content, various

motivations

� Technicians – make everything work

� Producers “predominantly white, middle-class,

and male”

� Though not all white in Nollywood, Bollywood, or

Hong Kong – for example

WOMEN IN FILMS – THE BECHDEL TEST

1. It has to have at least two [named]

women in it

2. Who talk to each other

3. About something besides a man

(Anon 2012)

•Sex

•Gender and sexual orientation: males and heterosexuals predominateS•Environment

•Providing a broader context: environmental crisis. Although animals and nature seen as positive, media also promotes unsustainable lifestyle

E

•Age

•AgeismA•Race and religion

•Some ethnicities have dominated a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious world. Many representations and stereotypes

R•“usually framed in terms of the power (and wealth) and/or the cultural values of a person” (p38)

•Lower, middle, upper; underclass C

•Handicap: disabled, differently abled

•“differently abled” (p39) people are disadvantaged in various ways – lack of visibility, stereotypes, etc.

H(O&S: 38-9)

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MEDIA

WORLD

media texts

popular common sense

audiencesmedia producers

reflecting /

influencing

affecting /

influencing

reflecting /

influencing

affecting /

influencing

(O&S: 59)

CONCLUSIONS

� ‘High culture’ is believed to require education, intellectual skills and sophistication

� ‘Low culture’ requires no effort and appeals to the lowest common denominator

� ‘High’ and ‘Low’ culture are categories no longer in favour� But they remind us of the need to consider different genres, and the importance of class-related tastes

� Adorno & Horkheimer’s vision of the culture industry is influential, but has many critics too

� Individuals can make choices

� Media has more variety than when they wrote about it

OTHER RESOURCES

� A podcast on ‘The Frankfurt School’ – this is the

group of people including Adorno and

Horkheimer who developed a Marxist analysis of

the media in the 1930s and 40s.

� Bragg, M. (2010). ‘The Frankfurt School’. In our Time

[podcast]. Available at:

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pr54s> [5

March 2012].

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REFERENCES

� Adorno, T. (2000 [1963]) ‘Culture Industry Reconsidered’. In: P. Marris & S. Thornham eds. Media studies: A Reader. New York, New York University Press, p.31–7.

� Adorno, T. & Horkheimer, M. (1999 [1944]) ‘The culture industry: enlightenment as mass deception’. In: S. During ed. The cultural studies reader. London & New York, Routledge, pp.31–41.

� Anon (2012) Bechdel Test Movie List. Available at: <http://bechdeltest.com/> [27 February 2012].

� During, S. ed. (1999) The Cultural Studies Reader. 2nd ed. London & New York, Routledge.

� McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding media: the extensions of man. n/a, Routledge and Kegan Paul.

� O’Shaughnessy, M. & Stadler, J. (2008) Media & Society. 4th ed. South Melbourne, Vic., Oxford University Press.

� Sinclair, J. (2010) ‘Media and Communications: Theoretical Traditions’. In: S. Cunningham & G. Turner eds. The Media and Communications in Australia. Sydney, Allen & Unwin, pp.22–34.

� The Economist (2010) Forensic science: The ‘CSI effect’. The Economist. Available at: <http://www.economist.com/node/15949089> [27 February 2012].

� tvclassics (2009) Hamlet ‘To be or not to be’ - Richard Burton (1964). Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsrOXAY1arg&feature=youtube_gdata_player> [5 March 2012].

� vdrinker08 (2009) #1 - ‘Transformers’ - Product Placement Top 100. Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LFQIoc49ZM&feature=related> [1 March 2012].

� Yes Man. Directed by: Peyton Reed. Los Angeles, USA. [35 mm film]. LA, Warner Bros. Pictures.

IMAGES

1. Royal Opera House. [screenshot]. Available at: http://www.roh.org.uk/ [accessed 2 March 2012]

2. World Wrestling Entertainment. [screenshot] Available at: http://www.wwe.com/ [accessed 2 March 2012].

3. The Sun. [screenshot]. Available at: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ [accessed 2 March 2012].

4. The Guardian. [screenshot]. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/ [accessed 2 March 2012].

5. CigaretteZoom.com (2011). Ben Affleck Smokin’ Aces [photograph]. Available at: http://cigarettezoom.com/10-actors-smoke-movies/ [accessed 3 March 2012].

6. Fathelrahman, A.I., Omar, M., Awang, R., Cummings, K.M., Borland, R. & Samin, A.S.B.M. (2010) [scan]. In: Impact of the New Malaysian Cigarette Pack Warnings on Smokers’ Awareness of Health Risks and Interest in Quitting Smoking. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 7 (11), pp.4089–4099.

7. Cruz, M. (2011). Dna3 [photograph]. Available at: http://igen.eetimes.com/dna-at-csi-the-experience/ [accessed 2 March 2012].

8. Feininger, A (1940). Times Square Movie Marquee [photograph]. Available at: http://inkhornterm.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html [accessed 3 March 2012].

9. Soares, A. (2010). Clifton Webb, Gene Tierney, Laura [photograph]. Available at: hhttp://www.altfg.com/Stars/photo-actors-g/gene-tierney-clifton-webb-laura-otto-preminger.jpg [accessed 3 March 2012].

10. C (2008). [Popular delusions and the madness of crowds] [photograph]. Available at: http://inkhornterm.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html [accessed 3 March 2012].

11. C (2008). [Al Jolson premiere 1927] [photograph]. Locust St.. Available at: http://inkhornterm.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html [accessed 3 March 2012].

12. Tomorrow, T (nd). [Terrifying inexplicable events]. http://www.politicalforum.com/humor-satire/198360-political-forum-explained-4.html [accessed 21 February 2012].

13. CBS (2012). [CSI scene with Justin Bieber] [photograph]. Available at: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/csi/photos/Season_11_Episode_15/0/0/ [accessed 3 March 2012]

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mtc l3 Lecture d - julianhopkinsjulianhopkins.net/distribution/F50FC8_Lecture03.pdf05/03/2012 4 RE-PRESENTATION Media gives “re-presentationsor constructionsof the world” (O&S: