TELEVISION AS CULTURE,

COMMUNICATION AND

INQUIRY

C O M N 33 9 3 , J

A N 20 , 2

0 1 2

AGENDALecture: Cultural ReproductionPaper Assignment: Final (in lecture)

discussion

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONProduction: the way something is madeReproduction: the way something is

remade

Agricultural ModelBiological/Sexual Model Industrial ModelMythic Model

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONAgricultural Model: Metaphors/Motifs:

Cultivation: Preparing soil, Tilling, Planting seed, Watering, HarvestResources: Elements –water, air, ground, sun, Sabbath (rest)Roles: Gardener, Harvester, Supplicant, Protector, ParentVulnerability and dependence on nature translated intosymbolic systems: designed to support these

Earliest cultural reproduction systems around these would analyze culture in relationship to such motifs:

Ancient culture might think: We are experiencing cultural upset because we failed to garden our

culture properly: care for the poor as an example

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION

Ancient culture might think: We are experiencing cultural upset because we failed to garden our

culture properly: care for the poor as an example

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONBiological/Sexual Model: The way in which an

organism reproduces a species, keeps the species going

Genetic codesGenes replicateGenes pass on codesGenes pass on reliable codesGenes pass on unreliable codes

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONBiological/Sexual Model: The way in which an

organism reproduces a species, keeps the species going

Genetic codesGenes replicateGenes pass on codesGenes pass on reliable codesGenes pass on unreliable codes

Culture (like cells) is reproduced by codes that can create agile/vital/flourish structures

or brittle/defective/dysfunctional/viral/cancer structures

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONIndustrial Model:Mechanisms of culture can be analyzed like machinesThere are assembly lines – patterns of construction

that we all participate in that “assemble culture” over and over, and reassemble its patterns

Designs might change, technologies improve designsbut certain basic assembly lines and their rituals remain in order to reproduce: example “economics”

Human culture is penultimate ordered around such key mechanisms (scarcity, money, financial flows, capital)

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONIndustrial Model:

Culture is reproduced by mechanisms of capital, and distribution based on geographies of scarcity:

capital tends to reproduce its self through assembly lines in which capital is embedded mechanistically

in role, hierarchy and thus power

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONMythic Model:Story is a key structure for reproductionStory is a complex structure of meaning that is multi-modal and

amenable to human sensory configurations and human communal configurations; as both natural and as augmented through characters, pictures, images, poems, songs, dances, objects, actions- it mines aesthetic structures, rituals, performances, identities, and semiotic codes

Story is at once received/and performed Story is at once situated in its immediate meanings/but also its

larger complicated ‘universe or multiverse of meanings”Mythic model is ultimately modeled on a cosmology

Cultural reproduction is the result of labyrinth of stories which situate the found world against the possible world; these are situated in containers which outline boundaries of that which will keep the world the same/stabilize/but

also in this sameness collapse it – against the boundaries of that which as the new will either de-stabilize world/ or be that which will fulfill/ transform/and renew the world.

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION

Agricultural Model: VariousBiological Model: Sut Jhally (using Irving

Goffman) in Codes of Gender Industrial Model: Marx + others…Mythic Model: Gebner (The Electronic

Storyteller, and the Killing Screens)

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONIndustrial Model: Marx

Marx comes to maturity as a thinker writer across the 1800s.

He receives the optimism that is part of rationalism, the infectious idea that we as humans can think our way forward, and are making the world better with each generation…

In particular he receives the influence of Hegelian optimism; Hegel being a thinker influential in western culture whose rationalism whose writing seemed to argue that positive human evolution was inevitable

RATIONALISM/SURROUNDED BY BEAUTIFUL PICTURES

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONIndustrial Model: Marx

For various reasons, Marx one of many key thinkers who in the 1800s are beginning to find cracks in the optimism of rationalism.

By this time the effects of industrialism are very evident in the suffering, sewage, pollution and poverty that are created as industrialism gathers urban capital and pulls agrarian orders in to its orbit.

The honeymoon of the machine is over – its capacity to run-over human society is visible

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONIndustrial Model: MarxThe honeymoon of the machine is over – its

capacity to run-over human society is visible

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONIndustrial Model: MarxThe honeymoon of the machine is over – its

capacity to run-over human society is visible

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONIndustrial Model: MarxThe honeymoon of the machine is over – its

capacity to run-over human society is visible

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONIndustrial Model: MarxThe honeymoon of the machine is over – its

capacity to run-over human society is visible

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONIndustrial Model: MarxThe honeymoon of the machine is over – its capacity to run-

over human society is visibleMany thinkers begin to critique rationalism through philosophyMarx however is located in a world where the cultural suffering

produced by industrialism is unable to be relegated to the margins

He starts with the machine: the machine of capitalHe uses metaphors of production to critique this machineHis argument is basically that capital (and its systems) are

basically a technology; like a train moving forward will run over the human standing on the tracks, this technology like any technology – is affected by humans but in the end is not keyed to creating best for them – it will simply do its technological job, and if humans are run over in the process –capitalism does not care –it is a technology (a complicated social technology, for sure) - is interested in one thing and one thing alone – capital –it is about reproducing capital – it is an assembly line for capital – it is a factory for capital.

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONIndustrial Model: MarxAs culture and capitalism entangle: Capital as that which is identified as penultimate

through its congruence with ValueBecomes that which culture calibrates itself to.

Human suffering and other phenomenon can only be recognized as they are reappear as VALUE

Human suffering is only on the assembly line for capital if it can be found to be valuable, as such it is useful…

As labor, or as product (medical good) or as watched as entertainment…

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONIndustrial Model: MarxMedia as a category not full recognized by Marx due to

historical location…he does however speak of opiates and religion

Religion is that which keeps pictures going such that the physical conditions of suffering caused by capital do not have to be faced and dealt with

It is the structure that through various mechanisms appears to be calibrated to something other than capital

But under further inspection proves in fact to be strangely useful to capital, serving as a means to divert and redirect social orders from dealing with actuality and the suffering that the system of capital creates.

Instead of becoming a means of remembering, acknowledging, changing and addressing human cost of industrial era – it instead curiously becomes a means of forgetting and accepting this cost…

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONIndustrial Model: MarxMedia as a category not full recognized by Marx due to

historical location…he does however speak of opiates and religion

Religion is that which keeps pictures going such that the physical conditions of suffering caused by capital do not have to be faced and dealt with

It is the structure that through various mechanisms appears to be calibrated to something other than capital

But under further inspection proves in fact to be strangely useful to capital, serving as a means to divert and redirect social orders from dealing with actuality and the suffering that the system of capital creates.

Instead of becoming a means of remembering, acknowledging, changing and addressing human cost of industrial era – it instead curiously becomes a means of forgetting and accepting this cost…

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION: MARX & duGayIndustrial Model: Marx + Dufay

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION: MARX & duGayIndustrial Model: Marx + Dufay

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION: MARX & duGayIndustrial Model: Marx + Dufay

How does one interrupt these mechanisms of production and reproduction

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION: MARX & DufayIndustrial Model: Marx + Dufay

How does one interrupt these mechanisms of production and reproduction

CULTURAL REPRODUCTIONIndustrial model:Questions you might ask:

How does television reproduce masculinity?

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION: PAPERIndustrial model:Questions you might ask:

How does television reproduce masculinity?

Narrow it down: How does Canadian television reproduce masculinity?

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION: PAPERIndustrial model:Questions you might ask:

How does television reproduce masculinity?

Narrow it down: How does Canadian television reproduce masculinity?

How does the show “So you think you can dance Canada produce and reproduce masculinity

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION: PAPERIndustrial model:Questions you might ask:

How does television reproduce masculinity?

Narrow it down: How does Canadian television reproduce masculinity?

How does the show “So you think you can dance Canada produce and reproduce masculinity

1st Lens: Cultural Reproduction

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION: PAPER GUIDELINESQuestions you might ask:

How does television reproduce masculinity?

Narrow it down: How does Canadian television reproduce masculinity?

How does the show “So you think you can dance Canada” produce and reproduce heterosexual masculinity?

2nd Lens: Looking at dominating cultural motif from stand point of non-

dominant concern or interest

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION: PAPER GUIDELINESQuestions you might ask:

How does television reproduce masculinity?

Narrow it down: How does Canadian television reproduce masculinity?

How does the show Does “So you think you can dance Canada” reproduce an over sexualized femininity ?

2nd Lens: Looking at dominating cultural motif from stand point of non-

dominant concern or interest

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION: PAPER GUIDELINESQuestions you might ask:

How does television reproduce masculinity?

Narrow it down: How does Canadian television reproduce feminine power?

How does the show How does “So you think you can dance Canada” reinforce femininity as empowered only when it is hyper -sexualized

2nd Lens: Looking at dominating cultural motif from stand point of non-

dominant concern or interest

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION: PAPER GUIDELINESQuestions you might ask:

How does television reproduce masculinity?

Narrow it down: How does Canadian television reproduce feminine power?

How does the show How does “So you think you can dance Canada” interrupt normative race configuration in reality television.

2nd Lens: Looking at dominating cultural motif from stand point of non-

dominant concern or interest

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION: PAPER GUIDELINES1st critical lens: cultural reproduction

2nd critical lens: : Looking at dominating cultural motif from stand point of non-dominant concern or interest

CULTURAL REPRODUCTION: PAPER GUIDELINES1st critical lens: cultural reproduction

2nd critical lens: : Looking at dominating cultural motif from stand point of non-dominant concern or interest

CSI: How does this series use crime violence as a motif?

Narrow: CSI How does this series use crime violence as a motif for racial empowerment and disempowerment

Narrower: Is stereotyped identity an issue for CSI NY versus CSI Miami: Or is a non white female only a victim, can she also be the boss?