The Kaiser Family Foundation, which has for a long time been studying the media habits of the younger generation, this past week released their latest study that indicates that children 8-18 are spending 7.5 hours a day using media; that figure is compounded when you consider that teens are using multiple media at the same time. Multitasking with multiple media is a theme that will resonate throughout this course as we consider media centered rituals, that from a critical perspective lead to greater alienation. Think about your texting behavior – that’s a ritual. You’d rather text someone than actually converse with them. It gives you control. But the more control you gain, the ability to actually communicate is lost.
We simply fall out of practice directly communicating with one another. Moreover, we have to learn a new set of media centric rituals regarding civility, among other social issues that confront our society. In other words, in a "texting society" what is the appropriate tone, or language to use? So, I don’t think the problem is merely the amount of time we spend with technology; it’s what we give up in order to do so - each other. Does what I described above fit with your own experience?
During the heyday of radio—I know this is hard to imagine—the typical middle class family would gather around the “box” to listen to a drama or variety show. Everyone would be staring at the radio as if they could see who was performing. It was as if the radio was the hearth in the home where members of a family would gather to seek their warmth as they basked in its glow. This common experience transferred to television, as families, neighbors and friends again gathered together to watch their favorite drama, sitcom, or variety program. Members of the family would talk about the programs and perhaps the next day at work or school talk about the programs with others. In this way media consumption became a “cultural forum.” I think this process of groups of people gathering in front of a TV screen discussing what they are watching and carrying that discussion forward into their next day is on the wane. You may still invite friends over to watch Project Runway, The Jersey Shore, or Grey’s Anatomy, but the idea of a forum is giving way to a more private experience, I think. For example, when you gather together in the manner described above, my guess is some of your friends will bring their laptops to either surf the Net or perhaps watch other programming. Yes, you may be sitting together, but you are likely to be doing other things. Or your friends may come over to your place or you to theirs, but instead of gathering in front of the proverbial hearth, people peel off and go into other rooms in order to watch something else, play a video game, etc.
The TV screen is no longer the only screen or the central screen, as we carry “screens” with us so we can do other things while the main group has gathered with the intention of doing one thing. This is the new forum, but its hardly a forum, is it? And, so the idea of a cultural forum in which we create a shared experience becomes a kind of individual experience where we are left alone in the company of others in order to process what is before our eyes. This is an interesting form of alienation that sociologists refer to as anomie. But I think the idea of being together and being alone at the same time puts a new twist on this old concept.
I was reading an article in The Wall Street Journal by TV critic Nancy de Wolf Smith about the late-night TV problems at NBC. The article took a different tack than I have read in the past, because it developed a critique of masculinity that referred to the “Animal House” effect of late night TV where “boys can make a girl feel like she’s been anointed in some way” because of some of the sophomoric references on these programs, which include Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, along with Letterman, Conan O’Brian, Jimmy Kimmel, George Lopez and Leno. All of them, according to deWolf Smith are juvenile, which is code for “overwhelmingly masculine.” What deWolf doesn’t bring up is the Wanda Sykes Show on Fox or Mo Nique’s show on BET, not to mention the day-time talk shows hosted by women. What deWolf Smith is doing is called in psychoanalytic circles splitting: defining masculinity as that which is not feminine. Splitting refers to the either/or construct and it is a simplistic way of organizing gender identity. But it’s not accurate. In other words, splitting doesn’t reflect the nature of gender identity in contemporary American society where identity can be multifarious and quite fluid. I think this is an important discussion for those interested in popular culture as we receive our gender cues from the media. In other words, we learn what it means to be male or female or something else through viewing portrayals in the media. I am not suggesting there is a cause and effect relationship. So, to make the late-night TV issue at NBC a gender issue gives us opportunity to pause and reflect not just on TV ratings or juvenile “guy” jokes, but on the way gender is presented in the media. After all, is Leno a macho-man? Or does he sometimes express emotion through his softer side. Personally, I can’t imagine Conan (even though he’s named after a barbarian – just joking) in a cage fight. He’s too thoughtful and way too intelligent. So, what it means to be a man in contemporary society doesn’t equate with the masculinity of yore e.g. the Marlboro Man. And, the same goes for women. Women today have more agency (another term for power) in our society than perhaps any other time in history. While American society remains patriarchal, it is less so. Even within its patriarchy, gender roles and gender identity have greatly shifted: stay at home dads and female CEOs present two extremes.
What do you think Stefani Germanotta would say if she met Kesha Rose Sebert? What would they talk about? What do they have in common? What values, if any, do they share? I’m sure you immediately figured out that Stefani is really Lady Gaga and Kesha is really, well, Ke$ha. While Lady Gaga’s visual antics represent a homage to pop singers from the past, Madonna in particular, Ke$ha has been described as “garbage chic” whatever that is. I bring both of them up in the same blog post, because I think they express interesting and similar ideologies in their music and in their public manner. Ann Powers of the LA Times wrote about both of these pop singers, and I take my cue from her articles. What these pop stars have in common, I think, is the curious way they express post-feminist ideals. For example, Ke$ha has been quoted regarding her “frustration at the double standard for the objectification of women in songs.” That’s a pretty sophisticated philosophical stance for someone who sings about using a bottle of Jack as mouthwash. Similarly, Lady Gaga has been quoted as saying, “I find that men get away with saying a lot in this business, and that women get away with saying very little.” So, both women stake a claim to ideological territory that is somewhat obscured in their videos and the songs they write and sing. This obfuscation is important to those of us who study popular culture, because all pop culture is imbued with ideology; however, most casual consumers don’t notice. That’s the way culture works – we generally take it for granted.
But there is something in their excessiveness—a hallmark of contemporary popular culture—that draws attention to Lady Gaga and Ke$ha: they are representatives of a youthful generation of pop artists who take their gender identity seriously, sometimes turning it on its head in order to make a point. Oh, I know they are not the first; Madonna was a master of shape shifting identity as she toyed with masculine and feminine portrayals of herself throughout her career. But to suggest that both Lady Gaga and Ke$ha are merely reacting to issues of objectification is too simplistic a read of these artists. Lady Gaga, in particular, is quite complex in the ways in which she presents herself (herselves?). She is multiple and multifarious. Ke$sha, at least in the Tic Tok video, takes a skankier route by using herself to demonstrate what she ideologically opposes. Such a contradiction is an inherent part of pop culture. Both "Just Dance" and "Tic Tok" in some ways are similar on the surface, but I think what lurks below the surface is a read on feminist ideology that reflects, through their excessiveness, a particular understanding of women’s roles in a society that increasingly approaches gender identity through vagueness and ambiguity.
For my first blog post of the new semester I was thinking about whether or not to wade into the shallow water and write about Lady Gaga as post feminist icon, or dive into the deep end of the pool and write about "net neutrality," a topic that you may not know much about and one that I recognize isn’t nearly as interesting. But here goes…There is something a foot in world of content delivery that I think warrants greater awareness and understanding, and because it relates to a term like “net neutrality” that may be difficult to understand, consumers tend to avoid issues related to online gatekeepers - those companies that get to control what you see or hear. I think what peaked my interest in the subject was when Comcast, which has a vested interest in non-neutrality, purchased a 51% share of the NBC television network. This is an important development, because Comcast is pretty much a utility; a delivery system in which signals are sent from originating systems to your home or mobile device. NBC, in addition to its role in “over-the-airwaves” broadcasting, is a content developer. The current issue regards the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to impose “net neutrality” on Comcast, the nation’s largest cable TV and Internet operator. Who are the other players on the other side of the field? They include Google and Skype to name just two. If net neutrality is imposed on Comcast, then Google will have the ability to deliver content across what has been referred to as the “last mile,” which is the euphemistic term for the cable that pumps content through your town and the trunk that goes to your home. Without “net neutrality” Comcast and similar providers become the sole gatekeeper of what you get to see and hear in your home, including over the Internet. This issue isn’t going to go away too soon, as it will be tied up in the courts for a long time. What strikes me as interesting, however, in the reasons I think Comcast purchased NBC. Personally, I don’t think they care about the broadcast channel; they’re concerned about the content that NBC can provide their ever growing control over cable TV and the Internet. I don’t think broadcast TV is going to go away anytime soon, as it is still a great venue for “cultural” events like the Super Bowl. But the future is clear and it isn’t over the airwaves. The question remains, however, regarding who gets to control over the pipeline that delivers content to our homes and the content itself.
I am a Professor of Communication and Director of the MA in Emerging Media program at Loyola University Maryland with a keen interest in popular culture and advertising. I am the author of the book, Advertising in Everyday Life. My current research interests center around masculine gender identity; specifically, the ways in which men are depicted in television commercials as wolves, cavemen and sometimes caught with their pants down.
