Task 3

I have 3 ideas on what to write my critical essay on.

1. Exploring the views of hierarchy and snobbery in use of typography. 

This could be done through a similar way Adorno talks about popular music. Main focus will be the Culture lecture and seminar, but also Marxism might be an interesting view to debate the class struggle and how this affects the base and superstructure.

2. Graphic Design vs. Fine Art. 

This would be pretty interesting... but do think I may give a one sided view. Again, the culture lecture and seminar would be useful when exploring this topic. Also I think Foucaults writings on Panopticism would be useful as I can look at how we act in certain situations and how this makes the gap between Graphic Design and Fine Art bigger.

Books I could use...

• Adorno, T. (1991) The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture. London, Routledge. (306 ADO) 
• Arato, A. and Gephardt, E. (eds.) (1998) The Essential Frankfurt School Reader. London, Continuum. (306.22) 
• Debord, G. (1994) The Society of the Spectacle. London, Rebel Press. (306 DEB) 
• Marcuse, H. (1991) One-Dimensional Man. London, Routledge. (306 MAR) 
• Strinati, D. (2nd edition, 2004) An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. London, Routledge, pp. 45-76. (306.2)
• D'Amato, P. (2006) The Meaning of Marxism. Chicago, Haymarket Books. (335.4) 
• McClellan, D. (ed.) (2000) Karl Marx: Selected Writings. Oxford, Oxford University Press. (335.4) 
• Strinati, D. (2nd edition, 2004) An Introduction To Theories Of Popular Culture. London, Routledge, pp. 115-153. (306.2)
• Foucault, M. (1975) ‘Panopticism’ in Hall, S. and Evans, J. (1999) Visual Culture: the Reader. London, Sage Publications. (306.23)

3. Analysing and evaluating the effectiveness of suture in charity campaigns. 

I could explore the Gaze theory for this topic.

Books I could use...

• Betterton, R. (ed.) (1987) Looking On: Images of Femininity in the Visual Arts and Media. London, Pandora Press. (704.072) 
• Coward, R. (2000) ‘The Look’ in Thomas, J. ed. (2000) Reading Images. Basingstoke, Palgrave, pp.33- 39. (306.23) 
• Lutz, C. and Collins, J. (1993) ‘The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes: the Example of National Geographic’ in Taylor, L. (1994) Visualizing Theory: Selected Essays from V.A.R. 1990-1994. New York, Routledge, pp.363-384. (306.23) 
• Mulvey, L. (1975) ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ in Hall, S. and Evans, J. (1999) Visual Culture: the Reader London, Sage, pp.381-389. (306.23) 
• Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2nd edition, 2009) Practices of Looking: an Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford, Oxford University Press. (306.23)

The Gaze seminar

Jean Baudrillard and Hyperreality lecture

Brand are overpowering and can even change history. Coca-cola invented the Father Christmas we know and picture today. Since the late 1920's advertisements boomed by the use of magazines and graphic illustrations. The use of the hand-drawn allowed artists to be more expressive and bend the truth. We are still doing this today by Photoshop and 3D visualiser tools. Advertisers can create unrealistic realities which can be difficult to distinguish.

Illustration from Charles Dickens a Christmas Carol

Coca-cola Santa

Task 2

Quickly read Adorno's (1941) article 'On Popular Music' (links below). In no more than a few paragraphs, summarise his ideas on pop music, concentrating on key points such as 'standardisation', 'psuedo-individualisation' etc.

Post a link to a YouTube pop video that, in your opinion, epitomises Adorno's sentiments. Explain why, trying to emphasise the links to the wider 'culture industry' in general.

‘A fully concentrated and conscious experience of art is possible only to those whose lives do not put such a strain on them that in their spare time they want relief from both boredom and effort simultaneously.’ (Adorno, On Popular Music, p.80). Popular music and serious music have different audiences, and this is based on culture. Popular music attracts a popular culture audience for its simple ‘pre-digested’ rhythm, whereas in serious music ‘every detail derives its musical sense from the concrete totality of the piece’ (p.74).
     Standardisation is the fundamental characteristic of popular music ‘structural standardization aims at standard reactions’ (p.73). This in itself has two parts, stylisation and pseudo-individualisation. Stylisation is the repetitive structure of popular music and if an aspect of any musical piece can be defined, it is deemed as ‘stylised’ to Adorno’s ears. The second aspect of standardisation, pseudo-individualisation, comes into play alongside this. As an audience, we yearn to be individuals and if we believe that we are just one sheep in a mass flock, it makes the object of our desired less reputable. ‘Concentration and control in our culture hide themselves in their very manifestation. Unhidden they would provoke resistance,’ (p.78) Pseudo-individualisation makes the audience believe they are being an individual and want to engage with popular music. Pseudo-individualisation works in popular music by ‘making them forget that what they listen to is already listened to for them, or ‘pre-digested’.’ (p.79).
     The popular culture audience wishes to escape the dejected custom of their everyday lives, they have a mechanised labour lifestyle and fears of unemployement, war and redundancies create personal stress. This brings me back to my first point, where only individuals who are not stressed and need to release from the pressures of life can ‘understand’ serious music. The popular culture masses need this ‘pre-digested’ music to distract them. ‘They crave a stimulant. Popular music comes to offer it.’ (p.81).

Popular Culture seminar

Communication Theory

 Yeah, I hated this lecture.

















Lasswell's maxim
'who says what to whom in what channel with what effect.'

Two models apply to 7 theories

1. Transmission - (informational) examines the process of sending and recieving messages. The limitations of this model is that communication signs can be perceived differently by different people.
2. Constitutive - process of production and reproduction of shared meaning.

1. Cybernetic (transmission)

Useful for researching effective communication, however it is a linear model. There are 3 potential communication problems...

1. Technical - accuracy, compatibility of systems.
2. Semantic - precision of language
3. Effectiveness - does the message affect the behaviour how we want

Systems therory and BARB (Broadcasters Audience Research Board)... I have no idea what these are or how they apply to this to cybernetic as I don't even know what cybernetic is.

2. Semiotics (constitutive)

There are 3 basic concepts of semiotics

1. Semantics - what a sign stands for
2. Syntactics - the relationship between signs
3. pragmatics - the practical use and effects of signs

Syntactics shown clearly through road signs.

3. Phenomenological Tradition (constitutive)

The process of knowing through direct experience. Communication seen as an extension of the nervous system. It starts with an awareness of the body. Unlike the semiotic tradition, where interpretation is separate from reality, in the phenomenological tradition we are interested in what is real for the person. Apparently the reason we use A4 and how the layout works is down to the similarities with our face.

Facial expressions.

4. Rhetoric

Often used in propoganda, but also bypublic speakers to communicate more effectively. A more theatrical and performative approach to communcation is adopted. Rhetoric lacks good empirical evidence that its persuasive techniques actually work as intended.

RMS Lusitania was sunk and 1,200 people dies, 100 being American. America took this loss of life and used one part of this disater to create recritment posters using rhetoric.

'Enlist' poster created from the Lusitania disaster by Fred Spears.

5. Sociopsychological Tradition

The study of the individual as a social being. 3 main areas are...

1. Behavioural
2. Cognitive
3. Biological

Psychological communication - Communication as the act of sending a message to a receiver, and assessing the feelings and thoughts of the receiver upon interpreting the message and how these will effect an understanding of the message.

Gestalt psychology - the structure, configuration or layout can have a profound effect on the meaning of information. For example...

PSYCHOTHERAPIST

PSYCHO THE RAPIST

Colenso BBDO advertising campaign for 'Prison Break'

6. Sociocultural Tradition

Cultural identity through putting yourself in groups... catholic, student, yorkshire etc.

Social constructionism - investigates how human knowledge is constructed through social interaction and argues that the nature of the world is less important than the language used to name and discuss it.

Sociolinguistics - the study of language and culture.

Sociocultural groups.

7. Critical Communication
Useful to use when examining the ways the media produce encoded messages, the ways audiences decode those messages, and the power base apparent in these processes.
Feminist studies - examines, critiques and challenges the assumptions about experiences of gender that pervade all.
Postcolonial theory - the study of all cultures affected by the imperial process.

The Gaze

Psychoanalysis
Is the analysis of the options and controls we choose in life, such as why do we choose one thing over another.

Laura Mulvey
Writer informed by both feminism and psycholanalysis. She wrote 'Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema'. She believes that Hollywood film is sexist as it represents 'the gaze' as powerful and male. She also states that heroes are typically male and drive the plot and women exist in films as sexual objects to be looked at.

Freudian Theories of Psychoanalysis

1. Scopophilia - Is the pleasure of looking at others bodies as objects. An instinctual desire to look emerges in childhood.
2. Narcisstic identification - Spectators identify with the male hero in narrative film. 
3. The Mirror Stage (Jacques Lacan) - The projected image of the 'ideal ego' is freflected, where in reality our own body is less perfect than the one we see reflected. 

The Mirror Stage.

Cinema thrives on contradiction

• Scopohilia - I want to HAVE her.
• Narcissistic identification - I want to BE him.

The pleasere in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. ‘By means of identification with him, [male actor] through participation in his power, the spectator can indirectly possess her too.'

Cinematic contradiction of scopophilia and narcissistic identification.












Suture
Spectators look through the eyes of actors and we are able to follow their gaze without feeling guilty. This suture can be broken when the audience is aware of their own surroundings and are bought into the action, such as in Peep Show when the audience is constantly playing many roles. With this suture broken, the audience can feel guilt.

Suture is broken in Peep Show.


















Forms of gaze

• Spectators gaze - you looking at me.
• Intra-diegetic gaze - you loking at me, and you looking at others.
• Extra-diegetic gaze - direct address to the viewer. Avoided in cinema, but common in advertising and TV newsreaders.

I found this advertisement where scopophilia and narcissistic identifiication are used to sell the perfume. The audience want to have her, and want to be him.