Media Jamming and Spectacleaccording to Kellner and Debord

Douglas Kellner

• 1943

• Columbia University

• Abroad In Germany

• Frankfurt School

• UCLA

Media Culture and the Triumph of the Spectacle

Media Culture and the Triumph of the Spectacle

Media Culture and the Triumph of the Spectacle

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“During the past decades, the culture industries have multiplied media spectacles in novel spaces and sites, and spectacle itself is becoming one of the organizing principles of the economy, polity,

society, and everyday life”.

Media Culture and the Triumph of the Spectacle

The Internet-based economy deploys spectacle as a means of promotion, reproduction, and the circulation and selling of commodities. Media culture itself proliferates ever more technologically sophisticated spectacles to seize audiences and increase their power and profit. The forms of entertainment permeate news and information, and a tablodized infotainment culture is increasingly popular. New multimedia that synthesize forms of radio, film, TV news and entertainment, and the mushrooming domain of cyberspace, become spectacles of technoculture, generating expanding sites of information and entertainment, while intensifying the spectacle-form of media culture.”

Media Culture and the Triumph of the Spectacle

The Internet-based economy deploys spectacle as a means of promotion, reproduction, and the circulation and selling of commodities. Media culture itself proliferates ever more technologically sophisticated spectacles to seize audiences and increase their power and profit. The forms of entertainment permeate news and information, and a tablodized infotainment culture is increasingly popular. New multimedia that synthesize forms of radio, film, TV news and entertainment, and the mushrooming domain of cyberspace, become spectacles of technoculture, generating expanding sites of information and entertainment, while intensifying the spectacle-form of media culture.”

Media Culture and the Triumph of the Spectacle

WTF?!

SPECTACLE

Let’s focus on it!

1.anything presented to the sight or view, especially something of a striking or impressive kind: “The stars make a fine spectacle tonight.”

2. a public show or display, especially on a large scale: “The coronation was a lavish spectacle.”

“OF COURSE, THERE HAVE BEEN SPECTACLES SINCE PREMODERN TIMES”

“SOCIAL CONTROL”, “RITUALS OF GOVERNANCE AND POWER”Spectacles, according to Machiavelli:

SPECTACLE: TOOL OF PACIFICATION AND DEPOLITICIZATIONSpectacles, according to Debord:

media spectacles

a whole new approach

Thesis: The Triumph

• Economy • Politics• Society• Culture • Everyday life }SPECTACLE!

} = Media

technospectacles

Well... He doesn’t really talk about that.

Thesis: The Triumph

• Economy • Politics• Society• Culture • Everyday life }SPECTACLE!

} = Media

Back to the...

EXAMPLES & CONCEPTS

Here we go!

ENTERTAINMENT ECONOMYProducts are brands, images, ideas... spectacles!

Beer & Frogs ?

Soda & Star Wars ?

Taco & Dog ?

CELEBRITIESManufactured, managed, personalized media spectacles

It matters to 129k people

Extremely important!

Celebrity Status

He goes on with examples...

Sports

Comic Books

Reality TV

Fashion

Food

Music

----SRSLY?

“These games are highly competitive, violent, and provide allegories for life under corporate

capitalism and Terror War militarism. In the game Pacman, as in the corporate jungle, its eat or be eaten, just as in air and ground war games,

its kill or be killed.”

That was too much!

So let’s go back to Guy...

According to Guy

• Indeed, spectacles are bad

• Ruling-class

• We have immediate tasks

• Detournement

THROUGH COMMERCIAL MECHANISMS, EVEN AVANT-GARDE IS MANIPULATED... paraphrasing Deborde

Detournement vs. Spectacles

What about the web?

vs

/gobbueno