Imaginary Worlds

Gone Fishin'

2010-06-10T10:15:00.000-04:00

I'm off to Europe to present my latest research on masculinity and advertising, and I won't be blogging during the summer months. The blog will resume in September.

Living, playing, learning and working in virtual worlds

2010-04-15T08:27:00.001-04:00

So you think that adults who participate in virtual worlds are silly, geeky, and more than a little weird. And those avatars…they look like cartoon characters. Who would want to do that, you ask? A Second Life is not something you seek – right? Well, think again. Your world is becoming more virtual by the day, and just because you don’t notice it or feel it, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. It is in this way that culture sneaks up on us. To put it another way: culture is something we take for granted. And, you need to recognize there is a generation coming up behind you that is already participating in immersive environments in play and in school. If you don’t get with the program, you’ll be left behind (out of this cultural shift), and you will become part of a generational rift. You know how your parents take issue with you regarding your media consumption? Well, this is potentially where you become the critic of the children of the next generation. Join them or be left out in the proverbial cold. Just to emphasize the point of the growing use of virtual reality in realms beyond play, The Wall Street Journal reported this week on the use of virtual reality in training nurses to deal with disasters. The article describes a scenario that might be too costly to simulate in authentic reality, but one that can in a more cost effective manner be created in virtual reality. I’m talking about medical training in Second Life.

What about the hi-tech company where half the employees who may live in different parts of the world don’t come to work, but meet in a virtual environment, or administrative meetings among the deans from nine campuses at a southern university that take place in a virtual world, because of the cost savings derived from not having to travel long distances. While virtual worlds may look like something that should be relegated to the world of play, play in fact is one of the ways in which we learn. So whether it is training for a potential disaster or collaborating with colleagues, virtual worlds have potential beyond the world of entertainment, although there’s nothing wrong with that. When you think about the future of virtual worlds, think 3-D or perhaps holography, as this will bring new meaning to the word “immersive” which characterizes the experiences we have in virtual worlds. Instead of thinking about how cartoonish those avatars look, think about a realistic replication of your self. And, think about not having to create an avatar for each virtual world you inhabit, but a single avatar that travels through several if not many virtual worlds. Think about whether this is silly, geeky, and more than a little weird, or whether we are in the early stages of experiencing a major cultural and technological shift.

Behavior Placement: TV tells us what to do and what to buy

2010-04-08T08:24:00.000-04:00

We’ve recently been discussing the power of celebrity, in particular the imaginary relationships we form and maintain with media figures. Sometimes those relationships provide the motivation to use a particular product or cut your hair in a way that emulates the celebrity, among many other possibilities. NBC television appears to understand the potential influence of television characters and the stars that portray them as they enter into a Faustian bargain with marketers by including politically and socially correct messages in programming, something they call “behavior placement.” Behavior placement, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal, is not unlike something we’ve talked about – product placement. The idea is that by including politically or socially correct ideas, like going green, within storylines the network wants to kill two proverbial birds with one stone: they want to influence behavior, and they want to use these ideological positions to sell advertising. The article describes one scenario where a hybrid vehicle is featured in a particular dramatic context. Including something that subtle may be appealing to hybrid automakers that may, on that very basis, choose to buy advertising time during the program. The network has announced they will include within regularly scheduled programs features on healthy eating and exercise. Again, scenarios are being written into scripts in order to create a symbiotic relationship between what the viewer should do (exercise regularly) and what the advertiser wants the consumer to do (purchase Healthy Choice meals). This sounds a lot like propaganda to me. NBC, I guess, can feel good that they are touting ideas about health and the environment, but their motives simply are not pure. I’m curious to see if I can pick up any of these idea “placements.” But I guess that means I’ll have to actually pay close attention to what’s on the scene; something I really don’t like to do.

Living in a post-television world

2010-03-18T08:52:00.001-04:00

I was pondering what a post-television world would look like with video delivered over broadband on various big and small screens, when I came upon a Time magazine article that pointed out that much of the world is still pre-television. That's something that I never thought about. Surely everyone must have TV? The article states that only 60% of people from the developing world have access to television. Contrast that to the fact that there are more TVs than people in the United States. The implications for the growth of television in the developing world are significant, as research in India "found that when cable TV reached villages, women were more likely to go to the market without their husbands' permission and less likely to want a boy rather than a girl. They were more likely to make decisions over child health care and less likely to think that men had the right to beat their wives." In a post-television society, like ours, it might be interesting to consider how the medium has transformed our lives, and whether or not new media will have similar impact in the future. The Time article provides a link to the most popular television shows overseas. Enjoy.

Who wants to be famous?

2010-02-17T10:03:00.000-05:00

There’s a business in Great Britain that sells interesting experiences via the web, like driving a Ferrari for a day. I read an article about a study conducted by the company after they noticed that teens were buying their Superstar Singer experience and dance lessons. The study, which included over 1000 sixteen year olds, found that “more than half want to be famous when they are older.” I don’t know if that’s a startling finding or not as at the age of 16, most youngsters are still dreaming of their future, and of course dreaming would likely include fantasies of stardom. For those teens surveyed celebrity is not about talent, but about fame for fame’s sake (and the riches they think go along with it). In other words, the route to fame might as well be an appearance on a reality show. The survey indicated that among the top five celebs teens aspire to be like are: Kate Moss, Wayne Rooney, Lady Gaga, Nicola T and Richard Branson. Do you think teens eventually grow out of the "I want to be a star" mode, or do you think it has become a permanent part of the culture? So, who do you aspire to be like?

Co-producing Meaning With Pop Culture

2010-02-11T10:44:00.000-05:00

There have been many research studies I have co-authored, and I have co-edited book chapters for colleagues, but I’ve not until recently co-produced, at least not in the post-modern sense of the term. Oh, I know most if not many theatrical movies you see are co-produced, but the producers are professionals; producing movies is their trade. But there is another kind of co-production that we see more and more of that involves amateurs who either mimic or mash up what professionals are producing. All one has to do is look at the parodies of popular songs on YouTube to exemplify what I mean. The example I’ve provided below is for a song by Lily Allen in which consumer generated video is mixed in with her own video of the song Fear.

The idea of co-production is important because this is one of the ways in which we make (produce) meaning through our own interactions with popular culture. We used to talk about the songs that singers give us; now that’s only the first stop in the production stream. What’s also important is what we do with those songs or movies or whatever. What we do is make, unmake, or remake meaning through our own production; hence, we become co-producers in the popular culture process. I’m sure you can think of other examples of co-production to add.

The Grammys and Participatory Culture: It's Exhausting!

2010-02-01T11:03:00.000-05:00

I watched the Grammys last night, and while I really liked most of the performances, I am not writing a review of the program. I am, however, interested in highlighting the participatory nature of this program – the producers took engagement further than I have ever seen. Engagement is the buzzword in media circles these days and it refers to the ways in which consumers engage deeply and in a sustained manner with products, media included. Simple examples include fan groups on Facebook and Twitter sites. This year’s Grammys had these and much more. For example, you could vote right up to the time Jennifer Nettles announced live the winning song that Bon Jovi would sing. Viewers were also able to submit videos of themselves as they danced to a Black Eyed Peas song; those selected were viewed on a wall behind the actual performance. You could also download a pdf file with all the nominees and their categories in order to fill out your ballot and measure your ability to guess the winners against the actual selections. Then there was the dedicated Grammys.com website that, among other features, had a live feed of the Grammy awards given prior to the evening’s program. The producers pulled out every trick in the book on this one. On the one hand, I think engagement is a good thing, especially when it allows--that is empowers--consumers to co-produce content. But I wonder if at some point we won’t tire of this process. After all, entertainment was about relaxation – whatever happened to good old vegging out? If it becomes a requirement of viewing that I participate in the event through consumer generated content, voting, uploading videos of myself, Tweeting, Facebooking, and on and on and on…It’s exhausting. Makes me yearn to be a couch potato. All I want to do is watch and enjoy. Media producers, pundits and scholars will be using all of these ancillary activities in order to create sophisticated measures of engagement, and to use those measures to determine the success or failure of a program. The need to measure physical behavior, whether it is the way consumers click-through websites we visit or physically connect by voting or generating content or by some other means, engagement is the rule of the day. I think engagement can take place deep inside us as we veg-out in front of the TV, getting lost in our thoughts and daydreams. It’s certainly more difficult to measure our internal musings, but the kind of engagement that takes place inside us is a valuable part of our meaning making system. As we process media content, I believe we are making sense of the world in which we live. All the other means of measuring engagement are based on what’s out there and measurable, like click-through rates or Twitter posts and the like. These are experiences, but they may not be meaningful. And, that leads me to think that media consumption is becoming a series of experiences without much meaning. From a critical view point that suggests we are living in an increasingly shallow world that beckons us to have more and more experiences, when what we yearn for is meaning in our lives.

Gemeration M(2): Multitasking with Multiple Media

2010-01-28T08:10:00.000-05:00

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?

Watching TV Together Alone: A Postmodern Paradox

2010-01-26T08:05:00.000-05:00

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.

Gender and Late Night Jokes

2010-01-19T09:14:00.000-05:00

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.

The Gaganator meets Ke$hing

2010-01-13T14:42:00.000-05:00

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.

Who controls what you get to see and hear?

2010-01-12T11:53:00.000-05:00

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.

Closing Remarks...

2009-07-01T07:46:00.000-04:00

So, it’s been quite the five weeks since our pop culture course began. So much has happened between the break up of Jon and Kate and the death of so many media figures in such a short span of time. When I teach this course, because I rely so much on what is going on in the world of pop culture, I never know where things will lead us. It’s been quite the adventure during this short summer semester. With the death of four media figures in the course of five days, it has given me pause to consider my own mortality. That’s one of the ways in which pop culture works: we use what the culture gives us in order to make determinations about our own thinking and perhaps beliefs. I have argued that pop culture comes at us with such frequency that we don’t have time to savoir any one instant and therefore the effects are not long lasting. In a sense that’s a shame, because pop culture could work toward the public good, especially given the amount of time we spend with pop culture each day. I have also argued that one of the stresses we feel in contemporary American society is derived from the competing ideas that are thrust at us through pop culture. Simply put: pop culture overwhelms us. It has been my hope that during this shortened summer version of the course that you have become more conscious of the role that pop culture plays in your life, as it has been one of the goals of the course to raise your awareness about pop culture, something we take for granted. And, although we have had only a short time to process a lot of material, I hope that as you move forward in your life that there will be instances that will remind you of some of the ideas, issues and theories you have learned in this course.

The Thriller is gone

2009-06-29T07:53:00.000-04:00

I guess you can’t write a blog titled Imaginary Worlds without considering the untimely death of pop legend Michael Jackson and the many many people who had an imaginary social relationship with him. Imaginary social relations are relationships with media figures we don’t actually know, but with whom we feel an emotional closeness or perhaps toward whom we feel an emotional repulsion. Moreover, these media figures play important roles in our lives: mentors, friends, lovers, father or mother figures, among others. The degree and nature of one’s imaginary social relationship with Michael Jackson probably depends on your age. Students in this class do not remember a time when there was no MTV. And for those who are younger than twenty, you cannot remember a time when Michael Jackson was not embroiled in some controversy. If you are older, let’s say in your thirties, then you might remember Michael Jackson and his brothers at the beginning of their careers. The video above represents a seminal moment when Michael Jackson introduced the "moonwalk" during a performance of Billy Jean at the Motown 25th Anniversary Show. There is no question that his career has been a long one and that he impacted people in different ways. How did he impact you?

The King of Pop Culture is dead and I don't mean Michael Jackson

2009-06-28T17:18:00.000-04:00

It’s been quite the weekend in Pop Cultureland. First it was Farah Fawcett who died of a dreaded illness, then the shock of Michael Jackson’s untimely passing, and now the unexpected death of Billy Mays. Billy Mays you ask? Oh come now. You may not recognize the name, but you know Billy Mays. At least you know his work. Billy Mays did infomercials for OxiClean and OrangeGlo among other products. He died Sunday of unknown causes. What is going to happen to the world of infomercials now? Will the Shamwow guy, Vince Shlomi, become the pre-eminent pitchman in America? Or, is Billy Mays, like Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett simply irreplaceable?

Reality TV Teaches Nothing

2009-06-24T07:34:00.001-04:00

Along with the story about protesters of the Iran election, the other big news this week was the announcement Monday that the Goslins have filed for divorce. I don’t watch the program, but on Monday I felt I had to be part of this “history.” And, TBS the cable station on which the program Jon and Kate Plus Eight airs milked it for all it’s worth. But this is not the first time a reality TV couple decided to divorce in the midst or as a result of their TV experience. What some people refer to as the very first reality program, The American Family, aired on PBS in 1973. The Louds, who were the featured family on this program that was based on 300 hours of filming, met the same fate. Yes, reality TV of this sub-genre has been around for quite a long time. I guess there are some lessons that we never learn: the Louds should have served as a warning to Jon and Kate – excessive exposure on TV leads to divorce. Or, would they have gotten a divorce anyway? Frankly, it doesn’t matter, because this played out before viewers—and there were 10 million of them (a huge audience by cable standards)—who once again witnessed the demise of an American family. The program has gone on hiatus until August, but you better believe the culture will be churning this story for quite a while. Which leads me to the point of this blog: I don’t think we ever learn life lessons from watching TV. I think that TV sends us a lot of signals about what is right or wrong, moral or immoral. But I don’t think those messages stick. Like a greased pick, they’re hard to hold on to. Perhaps this is because there are so many competing messages out there. Perhaps this is because we watch TV with half our attention. Regardless, the Louds had very little long-term impact on the culture, and the Goslins will do the same. It’s a shame. There’s a lot at stake, not only for this family, which God help them, have eight kids to raise (the point of appearing on the program, I think, was to help pay for their college educations), but watching this program made me feel bad, not just for the Goslins, but for all of us. You would think that more than 30 years since the first reality program destroyed a family that someone would have learned a lesson, but I guess not. We are still going around the same circle; churning the same story with, of course, variations. One point of note: the Louds’ son Lance “came out” on the program, which didn’t play well with his father. Remember, this was 1973. So, this time it’s eight children whose lives are being affected. This is serious stuff. I just hope, this time, someone learns something from the experience. Otherwise, all of this will have been for naught, just to keep the entertainment wheel spinning.

Politics, Twitter and Pop Culture

2009-06-17T07:40:00.000-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

For a while now I’ve been trying to understand the purpose of Twitter, the social networking tool that limits communication to 140 characters. In an earlier blog post I confessed to following Lance Armstrong the cancer survivor and elite bicycle racer on Twitter. And, I’ve recently learned that the Dell computer corporation has been able to “monetize” their presence on Twitter by offering coupons for their products. But I never imagined that Twitter, along with Facebook and blog sites would become a major factor in international politics. Case in point: the recent elections in Iran whose outcome, as I write this, is being protested, not just in the streets, but—you guessed it—on Twitter and Facebook. As the government of Iran began to crack down on conventional journalists wielding their video cameras, those journalists took to their cell phones to send video messages to TV networks. As communication is tightened, ordinary citizens are taking to social networking software to communicate with each other—to plan protest tactics—and to communicate with the rest of the world. This may not be the second Iranian revolution, but it certainly represents a revolution in the use of social networking technology via the Web. This is significant, I think, because this particular use of Twitter and Facebook lend much credibility to these social networking sites that they did not previously have. We kind of took Twitter and Facebook for granted. And, in the case of Twitter, I really couldn’t figure out its purpose. I want to say that this is a totally cool development. But to use the term “cool” diminishes the importance of this moment. Now matter what the outcome—and I think we know what it’s going to be—things will never be the same. Social networking tools will become elevated in stature and will gain an important footing on the world stage in politics, entertainment and beyond.

How your Facebook is Linked In to your Twitter

2009-06-09T16:22:00.000-04:00

At the urging of one of my colleagues, I set up an account on LinkedIn, which if you don’t know is a social networking site for professionals. Unlike Facebook, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, it’s not about friends, but rather it’s about business relationships or friends or both, maybe. It's confusing. By the way, I don’t have a Facebook account out of respect for students. I’m old school in that I still think, despite the recent trends among older individuals establishing Facebook accounts, that Facebook is the domain of college students, and I don’t want to inhabit that world or inhibit anyone's behavior. In other words, I don’t want to be your "friend," to put it bluntly. Hey, I’m operating out of respect for our social differences. And, that’s really the point of this blog post. It seems to me that the hierarchical lines that separated us—despite my desire to hang on to them--no longer seem to exist, at least not on the Internet. You know what they say: so goes the Internet, goes the rest of the world. When a couple of students recently tried to “link” with me on LinkedIn, I didn’t quite know what to do. After all, they are neither my friends, nor are they my professional colleagues. At the same time, I didn’t want to offend them, so I simply didn’t respond the requests. To this day, their invitations sit waiting for me to respond. I feel guilty; well, a little guilty. But I’m confused. Where do we draw the lines? Who is a friend? Who is a colleague? Who is superior? Who is inferior? Who is laterally related, socially speaking? These questions are compounded by my guilty pleasure of following the bicycle racer and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong on Twitter. I can’t believe I do that, but I have to admit to having an “imaginary social relationship” with LA. So, I check out what he’s saying regularly; not everyday or every hour. Although when the Tour de France begins in a few weeks, I’ll certainly be doing just that, getting his take on the Tour. I’m not a “follower” which is a formal category on Twitter. I’m merely a lurker. What does that make me? I’m curious to learn what you think about this phenomenon. Do you follow Ashton Kutcher on Twitter? Have you attempted to “friend” a celeb on Facebook? And, what about those other hierarchical relationships between family, and teachers, among others? Are we all equal in the world of the Internet?

Life Lessons From Jon and Kate Plus Eight

2009-06-03T08:59:00.000-04:00

Popular culture is one of the means by which we negotiate our way through everyday life. By negotiate, I mean we come to understand the world and our place in it by processing the content of pop culture. Take for example Jon and Kate Plus 8, the reality TV program. It’s not just a simple short-lived television program as it has taken on a life of its own through the extended coverage the family has received in newspapers, magazines, Blogsites, websites, and other media that has become part of the public discourse regarding marriage, child-rearing, economics of the family, among other topics. We can also see this show as the site of a cultural and now a legal struggle; the latter refers to the question as to whether or not the appearance of the eight kids on the program is against Pennsylvania’s child employment laws. Beyond this legal issue are the cultural issues regarding what is right and wrong, what is moral or immoral in the context of contemporary family relationships. First, there are the “signals” that the family sends us. In the case of Jon, he was spotted leaving a bar at 2 a.m. with a woman other than his wife. That’s a clear signal of infidelity. But what are we, the consumers of this pop culture pablum, to do with that? In other words, how do we process this information both internally, through the thoughts we have, and through the social interaction we have with others in which we talk about the program and share our thoughts in order to reach or not reach consensus. It is in this way that Jon and Kate Plus Eight helps us make sense of the world in which we live. Yes, popular culture is a sense making mechanism that has replaced other means by which we would have in the past made sense of our lives. But because we live disparate lives that have fewer institutional connections, and because we consumer an awful lot of media, pop culture has become a replacement for traditional venues of public discourse. I’m not suggesting this is either a good or bad phenomenon; I merely want to point out a role that pop culture plays in our lives about which you may not have been fully aware – pop culture is a way that we make sense of the world.

A Reunion of sorts

2009-04-06T15:42:00.000-04:00

I attended a reunion this past Thursday. No, it wasn’t my high school or college reunion; I would never go to one of those. It was a reunion with the characters from ER, which aired its last episode after fifteen years of being on the air. That’s a long run for any television program, and it is evidence of the continuity that media can provide in a culture that is somewhat volatile. I may not be able to count on my job, government, or relationships, but I could—for the past fifteen years—count on ER being there for me. The continuity of programs such as this provide opportunities to establish imaginary social relationships with the program’s characters. I cannot express how good it felt to see Dr. Carter after all these years (I wondered what had happened to him), and all the other characters from ER I grew over a period of years to know (or at least I thought I did). I haven’t seen the program in quite some time, as I lost interest after the story lines became over-exaggerated (a sign of weak writing in my opinion – hint Grey’s Anatomy). But when I heard that NBC was airing the last episode on Thursday, I just had to watch. I even watched the pre-show in which characters and the producers spoke about the meaning of the program. I think this kind of event provides an opportunity for collective mourning – it is experienced as a loss by fans. I have characterized the loss elsewhere as being more like the loss of a pet then the loss of a close relative. Nevertheless, it is experienced as a loss. Going forward, there will be fewer opportunities to mourn our long held imaginary relationships as not many programs currently being aired provide the opportunity for deep engagement. I mean, are you really going to miss the characters on Survivor when it no long is aired? You can name any reality program you choose and apply the same logic. Okay, The Real World which has been on for a very long time, might be an exception. However, except for a couple of iconic characters, as the cast changed with every season, there was little opportunity to develop the kind of deep engagement that makes for an imaginary social relationship. The dramatic program Lost will not have the longevity of an ER. So, if you bond with one of the characters, the level of engagement will not be deep. Television content has become fleeting as ratings, not quality of writing, drive the medium. And, it’s a losing battle in a highly fragmented media landscape. Jay Leno, who will be moving from his late night slot, will fill ER’s time slot this fall. Yes, Jay Leno is an iconic figure for which many people have developed a para-social relationship. My point, however, is the 10 p.m. time slot is being filled not by a drama that over time develops characters whose dimensions we learn to admire, perhaps love. The media world, to me, is becoming volatile just like other institutions in our society. I yearn for long-running series in which I can find characters to identify with, characters I can admire, and characters I can learn from. It’s ironic, perhaps, how a superficial medium like television can provide a forum in which we can develop deep and abiding relationships. As television transforms into something else, we will have the opportunity to mourn, not just its content, but the loss of the medium itself.

Who loves ya baby? Celebrities, that who.

2009-03-31T08:39:00.001-04:00

My sister-in-law is a professor at a medical school, and during a conversation she lamented that medical students were dressing like they were on television programs: men wearing scrubs instead of traditional lab coats; and women wearing more provocative clothing than they had in the past. She spoke to me about it, because she thought there might be a connection to popular culture. Indeed there does seem to be some modeling going on between characters on television and young doctors. So I wasn’t surprised when I read the abc12.com celebrity blog about this very phenomenon. The blog post confirmed what my sister-in-law and I had been speaking about: medical schools are concerned about where doctors in training learn about their profession. Some informal learning comes from Grey’s Anatomy, ER and other medically oriented programs. But it goes beyond those likely culprits as other programs, like Law and Order often feature medical situations. Oh, and the problem isn’t isolated to breaking dress codes, medical students also learn about intubation and CPR from medical programs. On the one hand it makes sense that medical students would enjoy medically oriented entertainment. And, modeling behavior is nothing new when it comes to popular culture, as much of the academic literature has focused on the transference of violent behavior from the screen to actual life situations. The kind of modeling these young doctors are performing relates, I think, to the concept of imaginary social relationships. In this case the young doctors see idealized images of media figures that over-time they learn to be like. It is a form of admiration that makes sense for students who do not yet know how to behave and how to look like a physician. What makes it interesting is that formerly medical students would have obtained this information from medical professors and others in the field with which they would have contact. The fact that the influence is from television makes this phenomenon all the more interesting. This is not the first time this has happened. I can remember what was called the Kojak effect, so named for a nattily dressed police detective named Kojak. As a result of his popularity among police detectives many began to dress in suits and ties, like Kojak, instead of the normal police uniform. Media figures model behavior and we sometimes adopt it. I guess you could count the popularity of former Friends star Jennifer Aniston’s hairstyle that swept the nation after she appeared on many magazine covers. Or, the “Be like Mike” advertising campaign where youngsters were beckoned to become like their favorite basketball player. To be like a media figure or to dress like a media figure suggests a greater role for celebrities than they perhaps had in the past. In the past it would have been parents or other relatives, teachers, civic leaders, among others who would have been our role models and major influences. Today, in our media saturated world, it is celebrities and the characters they play on television and in movies that provide such modeling. I have to tell you though, the next time one of my doctors starts acting like the ones on Scrubs, I outta there!

Pop culture brings stability to our otherwise unstable world

2009-03-22T18:01:00.000-04:00

I’ve been thinking about the construct of stability and instability, as this comes up at a time when I usually ask students whether or not they perceive their world to be stable or not. But given the current economic situation and the elusive job market they will be chasing, I think I know the answer. But beyond the instability of the economy, what about the physical world itself? Fires in California. Volcanoes erupting. Glacial melting. Rising sea levels. The list goes on. And what about the stability of society? Relationships seem like a temporary thing, or virtual (if you count your seven hundred friends on Facebook). Oh well, you get the picture. The world is not a very stable place. But we (humans) need stability in our lives; we seek stability in our lives. This is where pop culture enters into the picture. You know the world may not be a particularly stable place but on Tuesday and Wednesday evening, for sure, American Idol will be on television. I may not be able to trust the world around me, but I can trust that pop culture will be there routinely – I can count on it. And so, we develop media rituals around pop culture and technology that lend stability to our lives: you wake up to your cell phone or music on your Ipod; you immediately check out PerezHilton.com or Facebook to see what’s going on in the world (your world) of gossip; you turn on The Today Show (as I do) or one of the other morning programs; read the newspaper (I know you don’t do this, but I read two every morning); listen to music on your Ipod on the way to campus. You see where I’m going with this – we use pop culture in order to develop routines in our everyday lives that ultimately provide a sense of stability in an otherwise unstable world. Did you ever think that pop culture could play such a vital role in our lives? Furthermore, we utilize what pop culture provides to make sense of our world. The tragic loss of actress Natasha Richardson reminded us that life could be extinguished in a moment. Pop culture. We don’t think much of it, but it’s really important in a post-modern world such as ours.

Why can't we advertise our way out of the recession?

2009-03-13T17:50:00.000-04:00

If advertising worked the way many people seem to think it works, then why can’t we advertise our way out of this recession? Over the years, advertising has been given such a bad name for being manipulative and highly persuasive. If there is any basis for such claims, then surely it has the power to manipulate and persuade people to consume, even under these present circumstances. But instead of going after us consumers, according to a March 11 article in The Wall Street Journal, advertisers are going after each other. The article refers to a style of advertising called “comparative advertising” in which one advertiser utilizes some piece of data in order to claim superiority for their product or brand. The Pepsi Challenge is a good example of comparative advertising. The article refers to the ways in which advertisers utilize misleading or incomplete information to make a claim, like when Campbells attacks Progresso or when Dominos attacks Subway or Pepsi attacks Coke. I guess you could call this attack advertising as one marketer attempts to claim a superior position for the product by directly diminishing an attribute of another. Well, it’s not atypical to attack a competitor’s product, but in many cases it’s done implicitly. In this latest round of comparative advertising, marketers explicitly depict the competitive product along with their own in order to make their point. This type of advertising began around 1978 when the FTC actually began to encourage use of such comparative data. The FTC thought that comparing one product to another would actually clarify differences between products with the net result being that consumers could make more informed decisions. It’s a shame it never turned out that way. I guess when the going gets tough….well, you know the rest. But is this kind of backbiting going to help us out of this recession? Seems to me like a waste of resources based on the serious economic situation at hand. A comparative advertisement may sell one more hamburger, one more bottle of soda and one more can of soup, but brand advertising is usually atmospheric in nature, and as such I think there is greater opportunity to provide an upbeat atmosphere for consumers to encourage them to buy more. I like the ads, for example, from that insurance company that sponsors the “aha moment.” Those commercials feature average individuals who have had an epiphany that changed their lives. Very uplifting. I hope others join this bandwagon. Because if advertising works the way many people think it works, it could be of great public assistance to brighten our lives and affect our attitudes toward a more positive outlook. Do I think it works this way? Not a chance. But under the circumstances, even I think it’s worth a try.

Tattoos and the Commodification of Self

2009-02-18T11:18:00.000-05:00

It is perhaps ironic that we just finished a class discussion on tattoos as a means to “mark” one’s identity both physically and metaphorically. This discussion took place in the broader discussion regarding fashion and identity. Tattooing is an art form. Tattooing is a fashion statement. Getting a tattoo is a significant act imbued with all sorts of meaning. It’s not cheap either. I brought up a point that I think was difficult at that time to digest: the idea that young people mark their bodies because they do not feel they are likely to leave a mark on this world. The tattoo is permanently yours, no one can take it away from you, and it is something you’ll likely die with (although we acknowledge the possibility of laser removal). When I said that young people feel they will not likely make a mark on this world, one student was able to clarify better than I what this might mean: she referred to a friend at a large university who was known only by his student number. Yes, we live with growing anonymity in this postmodern world where identity is shape shifting on what seems a constant basis: who I am in class is not who I am at my internship, etc. etc.

Tattooing is a way of temporarily fixing identity, of grounding it in something that is physical – you can look at it, although often times we hide tattoos from others, and it is meaningful; quite meaningful we learned as people get tattoos to mark moments in time (travel abroad), as a statement of belief, in memory of someone lost, among other reasons. Of course, once you have one tattoo, you have to get another one, because that is the only way one can create “difference” and in that individuality. The more anonymity grips us, the more we grope for difference. The New York Times (2/18/09) reports on the phenomenon of renting one’s body as a commercial billboard, in this case with a temporary henna tattoo advertising Air New Zealand. This strikes me as interesting, first because I’ve read about this in the past. Indeed a few years ago I read of a woman who offered to rent her bulging pregnant belly to an advertiser. And another young man offered to rent his forehead for a commercial message.

This commodification of the body seems to me to represent the final blow to the tattoo trend, LA Ink notwithstanding. Here I mean to reflect another point that came out of our discussion: that tattooing isn’t as popular with Gen Y as it was with members of Gen X. Trends are like that, eventually they all get flushed through the system. But that doesn’t mean that this current generation of teens and young adults has found an antidote for social instability, of which I think the recent tattoo trend is emblematic. Rather, there may be greater significance to renting out one’s body to an advertiser: it may mean that the commodified body is one that is totally devoid of personal meaning. It may be the ultimate statement of anonymity. To give one’s self up to a corporation renders the body meaningless (George Orwell, where are you when we need you!). When I think of this state of affairs it saddens me until I realize that culture is dynamic, and another trend will ultimately replace this one. What the next generation of youngsters will move on to is anybody’s guess. But how they will deal with a society that increasingly treats them as a number and not a person is another matter entirely.

Celebrity apologia: Springsteen, A-Rod, Phelps say I’m sorry

2009-02-11T10:41:00.000-05:00

Blender Burner: Springsteen: Hard to Be a Saint in the Rock & Roll City @ Yahoo! Video

The fan-celebrity relationship is a complex one, especially so in an age of instant communication: A celebrity driving drunk on Santa Monica Blvd. crashes into another vehicle and the video is quickly available on TMZ.com. The information about celebrities’ comings and goings is the stock and trade of Perez Hilton, whose website for many of my students is the first one they go to upon waking each morning. Celebrity gossip fuels our very being, it would seem. At the same time, such relationships—imaginary as they are—are dynamic; subject to negotiation. That is why marketers are so fearful of celebrity spokespeople to the point that several marketers have opted in recent years to employ the images of dead celebrities, including Steve McQueen, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Audrey Hepburn, among others, in their advertising campaigns.

This has been a banner week or two for celebrity gossip mongers: Chris Brown allegedly beats up Rihanna, Phelps' photo appears in a British tabloid with lips pressed to a bong, and A-Rod admits using banned substances. And, I don’t want to leave out Bruce Springsteen, champion of the working-class union worker, who apologies for two things: first, for the exclusive deal he made with Wal-Mart to sell a greatest hits CD (Wal-Mart is not known for its union friendly policies); and, many fans who wanted to obtain tickets to his upcoming concert tour were, upon learning that a concert was sold out, were re-directed to a ticket re-seller (use to be called scalper) who offered tickets at a much higher price.

All of this not only gives us pause to think, it requires that we invest a lot of energy in making up our own mind regarding the behavior of these media figures - good or bad, right or wrong. One could suggest that it is time wasted, but I am suggesting that it is through the processing of these kinds of instances they we make sense of our world, where we find common ground with others, and in the process seek terra firma – solid ground upon which to stand our values. That is the way pop culture works and the work we do with it. It requires a lot for us to stay engaged in this system. I guess that’s why my students upon waking go directly to the Perez Hilton web site.

The dictionary defines the word fanatic as someone “marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion.”

The question remains: will Chris Brown’s fans abandon him, or will people shun Michael Phelps because of his substance abuse, or will fans stop attending Yankee games because they think A-Rod is a fake? We’ll have to pay attention as fans negotiate their relationship with each of these media figures. As for Springsteen, if you’re a devoted fan, are you really not going to go into a Wal-Mart to purchase the CD if you really want it? John Fiske, the cultural theorist, said that pop culture is contradictory to its core. As the fan-celebrity relationship is part of that complex system, so are we.

Kellogg’s to Michael Phelps: We’re just not that into you!

2009-02-09T15:06:00.001-05:00

Michael Phelps brought this on himself; that’s what the blogosphere seems to be suggesting. As one blogger bluntly put it – “he’s an idiot.” It is through such public and private expressions that we make sense of our world, and since we learn about such events through popular culture, this is an opportunity to discuss the role that pop culture—not Michael Phelps—plays in our lives. The public criticism of Michael Phelps centers on his alleged use of an illegal substance while being a role model for young people all over the world. Some defenders of his actions assign them to mere immaturity and they offer forgiveness. Then there are those, like the blogger quoted above, who publicly want to chastise him. There are middle positions that condemn his actions, but want to forgive him because of his youth. That’s the way pop culture works – it gives us one or perhaps several versions of a story and then we measure them against our own beliefs. Of course there has to be salience and above all else relevance in order for this process to ensue. It is through that “measuring” process that we do the work of culture – producing meaning in order to make sense of the world in which we live. In that way pop culture is a sense making mechanism. We sometimes discuss situations like this one with people we actually know through what I would call authentic relationships, and sometimes our conversations extend to social networks, primarily over the Internet, which I would call virtual relationships. But there are internal musings as well – we talk to ourselves about Michael Phelps – a kind of running commentary inside our head; I call this the imaginary social world. It is the combination of the three that extends the nature of what we call reality. There is authentic reality, inauthentic reality, and an imaginary world that mimics both the authentic and inauthentic worlds. We readily acknowledge the former, and we reluctantly admit to the inauthentic, which might be represented by the hundreds of pseudo-friends you have on Facebook. But we rarely admit to the third. It is from the label imaginary social world that this blog gets its title, and it is that world in which I’m most interested, if for no other reason than the fact that action-oriented Western culture holds the imaginary world in disdain. Westerners don’t like to recognize this inner world because it encompasses thought in the form of self-talk, daydreams, and nocturnal dreams. These are aspects of everyday American life in which we are engaged, but go against the grain of being a productive citizen. Nevertheless, we spend an inordinate amount of time in the imaginary social world making sense of our authentic reality.

Digital Media Rights: Who Owns What?

2009-02-05T08:16:00.000-05:00

Copyright infringement and pop culture is something we don’t think much about in this day and age of forgery and fakery. The latest issue comes from the use by street artist Shepard Fairey(I first learned about Fairey when he appeared on a recent Colbert Report.) who designed a poster with an image of President Barak Obama “owned” by an Associated Press photographer. The Associated Press says in news articles that it wants to be compensated for the use of the photograph, and it wants to be credited with taking the original photograph on which this Fairey’s artwork is based. In other words, AP is charging copyright infringement. The stylized image of Obama has been described as Warholesque, referring to the late pop artist Andy Warhol. Which made me think of Warhol’s use of those Campbell soup cans in a series of art works he created. Weren’t those soup can images owned by Campbell. Turns out, the answer is yes. Campbell’s did sue Warhol for copyright infringement. However, they garnered so much free publicity from the artistic rendering of the soup can, they eventually dropped the lawsuit.

In this present age of “cut and paste,” it’s becoming more difficult to know where the lines are drawn. In other words, when it comes to intellectual property, we are no longer certain what is legal to reproduce and what is not. Perhaps if Fairey didn’t sell the images he created, there wouldn’t be much ado about this, but because commerce is involved, and I don’t want to underestimate the rights issue here, AP seems to have a legitimate gripe. Whether they will go the Campbell’s route—feasting on the publicity—I don’t know. With digital images so readily available over the Internet, law professors with an interest in copyright are very busy these days. The legal concept of fair use does not grant absolute right to the originator of the intellectual property. The extent of those rights depends on how the original work is utilized, among other things. In the case of the Fairey work, use extends beyond the Obama campaign poster to a book cover, art exhibit, and to a permanent display at the National Portrait Gallery in D.C.

From my initial readings on the issue, I don’t think AP is going to go after Fairey in court; street artists rarely are worth suing. But the point AP is making has to be taken seriously, and should remind us that what seems “free” over the Internet may actually be someone’s property.

I'm Good. You're Good. We're all Good

2009-02-02T17:40:00.000-05:00

Okay, so comedic violence is nothing new. Think about the merging of Greek tragedy and Greek comedy. In contemporary society, there is no shortage of it. Although the late communication scholar George Gerbner spent much of his life researching media violence by counting the number of violent acts in television programs, as early as the 1970s he gave into the demand of CBS to eliminate the category of comedic violence from his studies. The network's position was that to include acts of comedic violence with, well, regular violence would drive the number of violent acts exorbitantly high.

Now for the pause that refreshes…an assessment of this year's Super Bowl commercials. In particular, I’m interested in the commercial for Pepsi Max. (I know I take this stuff way too seriously, but some one has to. And, I know my analysis of commercials sucks all the fun out of watching them, but so be it - that's my role in life.) So, what's up with the Pepsi Max spot, titled "I'm Good," that joins the long list of advertisements -- Super Bowl and otherwise -- that attack masculinity?

As you can see for yourself, the spot goes through a series of vignettes: the first one features a guy being hit in the back with a length of wood that is spit out of a planner, in reaction to which he declares "I'm good," meaning he's okay, even though a two-by-four just hit him in the lower back at twenty mph. This is followed by a golfer who in the process of teeing off swings and hits his golfing buddy both with the back and forward stroke of his driver. Then a bowler drops a ball on the head of his bowling buddy, and a passenger stands up through the sunroof of a limousine, declaring "I'm the man..." while being struck by the low abutment of a parking garage the limo is entering. After each of these sequences the object of the "comedic violence" declares to his buds, "I'm good." The last scene depicts several guys doing electric work on a house. One fellow sticks his hand into an outdoor light socket as another switches on the electricity. The guy with his hand in the socket goes flying through the air for about 30 feet until he hits a trailer parked on the property, and upon landing also declares, "I'm good." The voice over at this point boldly states: "Men can take anything, except the taste of diet cola...until now." Of course Pepsi Max is offered as a solution to this problem. The announcer then says that Pepsi Max is the first diet cola for men. Isn't that nice? A diet cola just for men; men who can take anything, that is, except the taste of diet cola. All in good fun, until you focus on the comedic violence.

Researchers have found that social conditions, like the economic recession we are presently experiencing, encourage people to gravitate toward more violent comedy. Why? According to one study:

“because violence makes comedy harder and angrier, although also satisfying viewers’ authoritarian desire to see those in power discipline transgressors.”

This means people enjoy seeing good guys punish bad guys. In the ad for Pepsi, the guys aren’t necessary good or bad, they’re, well, just guys. So where is the pleasure? The ad, in my opinion, is merely an attack on middle-class values, and part of a continuing attack on masculinity that started in the mid-1990s. I’ve been tracking this trend for several years now, having studied commercials in which guys are caught in public with their pants down, guys depicted as werewolves, and guys depicted as cavemen. In my opinion, the sum total of these advertisements suggests advertisers seek to discipline this target audience in a way that nudges them in the direction of the brand, product or service. I don’t think this trend is connected only to our current economic problems, although I think it is rooted in the economic problems men experienced in the early nineties when many lost their jobs and never were able to regain their status as “breadwinners.” So, rather than blaming this current trend on what I hope will be a relatively short-lived economic downturn, I suggest it is part of a longer term effort by advertisers to contain and control masculinity.

Muti-tasking with multiple media: A way of life

2009-01-30T09:06:00.000-05:00

The concept of multi-tasking isn't new. Just ask any homemaker and you'll learn a lot about juggling many tasks at once. And, multi-tasking with media, that is watching TV while eating, for example, isn't terribly new either. That's why in the 50s they called it the TV dinner! What is relatively new, however, is multi-tasking with multiple media. I did a study that you can access here on this topic in 2005 that concluded:

"..eating is the most common activity followed by socializing, doing chores and dressing. Although it is speculative, this may indicate a shift toward more individualized or private consumption of media. One can imagine, for example, an individual alone in their bedroom where the television and computer are likely to be located eating while engaged in multiple media-centered activities. This study found that males are significantly more likely than females to use multiple media and to play video or computer games. However, females are likely to engage in physical activities or write while the television is on. Although there are gender differences regarding particular activities, it may be that both males and females are moving toward more solitary uses of multiple media."

The kind of isolation we experience that I describe in the study was echoed during our class discussion in which several students noted they sit around their dorms with their roommates, each with a laptop and the TV going in the background (sometimes the foreground - my study also delves into the issue of shifting attention back and forth between media). More important, they described a lack of direct communication that takes place between them. In class we expressed a kind of sadness regarding this shift away from the social toward the solitary. Interesting, I think, is that while males and females may engage in different sorts of multi-tasking with multiple media, there is little difference when it comes to the solitary nature of their experience.

What has all this wrought? A review in The Wall Street Journal (1/30/09, p. A11) of a new book, Snark, by David Denby, defines snark as "low, mean, annoying, philistine, dreadful, coarse, lazy, second-rate and slightly unclean language." Remember the snarky dialogue in the movie Juno? Snark is, in my opinion, a kind of short-hand utilized by those within an increasing smaller circle who "get it." From a cultural perspective, you are either "in" or you are "out" of the culture. I raise the specter of possibility that it could become a circle of one. Do I really want to blame the coarseness of our language on multi-tasking with multiple media? Perhaps that's going too far. But does it play a role? Perhaps.

The implications of the social isolation we are experiencing are great. As we lose our ability to speak to one another, social convention and etiquette with regard to social interaction goes by the way-side. What happens to a society that no longer knows how to communicate with one another in a direct manner? As one student in the class noted, there has been a significant increase in multi-tasking with multiple media since she came to college three years ago. It's difficult to imagine where the trend will take us and at what point the system begins to break down, causing some to participate in a backlash in which people begin to actually talk directly to one another, with civility.

image courtesy of: http://www.wordle.net/.

Pre-gaming the Super Bowl Ads

2009-01-28T15:36:00.001-05:00

You know what the term pre-gaming refers to, but that's not how I'm using it in this blog post, well, not exactly. I'm using the term pre-gaming in the sense that I believe advertisers are metaphorically trying to make you "drunk" with their ads before the ads air during the upcoming Super Bowl. How are they doing this? In recent years, advertisers have learned to become more efficient with their advertising expenditures. After all, does anyone really think $3 million for a 30 second ad is worth it? Perhaps if you calculate the value based on CPM it may constitute an effective "reach" if the audience is large enough. But exposure does not equal effectiveness, as consumers don't necessarily pay close attention to television advertising, even the Super Bowl ads. My favorite example of this phenomenon relates to the results of the day-after recall surveys that oftentimes indicate that consumers mistake a brand like Tostitos for Doritos, even though it is the latter that is paying the big bucks for the Super Bowl ad. So, how do advertisers defend against this? Extending the relationship beyond exposure to the 30 second TV commercial is one way of engaging the consumer in an experience that I'm calling pre-gaming. The pre-gaming to which I refer to involves multiple opportunities for consumers to deepen their experience with a brand, product or service. Doritos stands out for its consumer generated advertising (CGA) effort. But other corporations, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, are engaging in this tactic: Pedigree dog food, E*Trade, Cars.com, Pepsi's SoBe, and CareerBuilder.com, among others. Opportunities abound this year to engage with the brand on perhaps a deeper level and in a more sustained way.

I attempt to do similar things in my courses: provide experiences that extend our learning community beyond the classroom. Think about the numerous ways we "engage" this semester on Netvibes the course aggregator, the Wetpaint Wiki, and the blog sites. I know students are often distracted during class, this is particularly so when we convene in a computer lab where, instead of focusing on the work at hand, students send email, text-message, and of course, check out their Facebook page. Did I mention day-dreaming? For me, utilizing social software is an attempt--my experiment--to engage students beyond the classroom (the classroom is s-o-o-o 20th Century). Learning through contextual experiences, and participating in simulations are alternative ways to create and maintain a learning community. You'll let me know how well this works in our class by the end of the semester.

The Super Bowl extravaganza takes place in a much shorter time frame, so the intensity and forcefulness of the engagement must be up to the task. I've got a little more time. Advertisers want you to engage with their brand, knowing that 30 seconds isn't enough time to do so. Water-cooler talk that takes place the day after the game (post-gaming) helpful in extending the experience of the brand, but interactive websites, games, contests and other on-line activities are more immersive. In this way education and advertising have something in common: we both want you to pay attention, engage deeply with our content, and learn something as a result of the experience. I hope what I'm doing appeals to a higher cause; marketers just want you to buy a six-pack.

Pre-gaming is a way for consumers to deeply engage with brands, products and services through their interactions on web sites and through social media. For those of you who are considering imbibing alcohol prior to the Super Bowl, I offer this alternative. Pre-game with the brands and all the engaging activities marketers have to offer. Fat chance.

The Intersection of Pop Culture and Economics: Lil' Wayne & AT&T

2009-01-27T10:18:00.000-05:00

Often times we look at the economic function of pop culture, but fail to look at the cultural economy, which refers to the ways in which we circulate meanings. The latter is more of a symbolic function. It’s often difficult to separate the cultural from the economic as they have become increasingly intertwined in our postmodern society. For example, we tend to judge the success of a movie based on the revenue it garnered during a particular week or several week period. As such we avoid discussing aesthetics (associated meanings); rather, it’s all about the money. In a capitalist economy, we shouldn’t be surprised by such a close connection between the two: culture and finance. Having said that, aesthetics seems to take a back seat to the economics of pop culture. Perhaps in our contemporary culture it’s too difficult to judge something as good or bad; such concepts seem to have lost their meaning, especially when audiences are so fractured - good for whom and bad for whom? And so when it comes to pop music the connections between culture and commerce run deep. Last week I wrote about Bruce Springsteen’s massive effort to promote his new album. Tonight AT&T and Lil’ Wayne are teaming up to stream live material from his new album. Traditional means of promotion no longer exist (spectacle is the only way to get noticed), and when one company so dominates the radio airwaves, it’s difficult unless approved by the programming committee, for artists to break through the barriers. So pop music becomes integrated into other forms; what we might refer to in pop culture studies as “intertextuality”: a pop song becomes the "bed" in a product commercial.

At first, I thought AT&T and Lil’ Wayne made strange bedfellows, until I remembered that until 2001, AT&T was one of the largest distributors of pornography in the country (In 2001, under pressure, they sold that business to Comcast). Lil’ Wayne is incredibly popular: he’s everywhere it seems. But Lil’ Wayne’s music is coarse by any standards, and he continues a legacy of misogyny. I admit this is my two-generation removed assessment, and so I recognize it doesn’t hold much meaning or significance. I know that many listeners don’t pay attention to the lyrics, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t available for those who want to take a closer look. The song Lillipop, is a good example: rife with language that debases women. If most people don’t listen to the lyrics, does that mean there is no meaning? Perhaps not. I have argued for a while that meaning has given way to something else – experience. And, experience can be meaningful or not. So the question isn’t: is Lil’ Wayne’s music good or bad, but how do you experience that music? We’ve also learned that it isn’t the lyrics themselves that convey meaning, in the case of AT&T, a certain validation comes along with the live webcast of Lil’ Wayne’s new work (what we call "text in context"). One could argue that AT&T’s target audience is one that purchases a lot of wireless service, and so the connection is fitting. But in sponsoring the live streaming performance, the corporation is, again, displaying a certain hegemony over a culture that is rife with contradiction.

Where politics and pop culture meet

2009-01-21T17:51:00.000-05:00

Perhaps you saw Bruce Springsteen’s performance on the Mall in D.C. this weekend as the spectacle unfolded surrounding the inauguration of Barak Obama, the 44th president of the United States. The pre-inaugural concert represented a continuing and growing phenomenon: Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, and Beyonce, among others joined an ever-growing interconnection between pop culture and politics (check out the song America's Song by Wil.I.am and David Foster available from Oprah as a free download). For the political part, Springsteen’s presence was a demonstration of his support for working class values. Indeed, such values are consistent with the populist values of our new president. The intersection between President Obama’s political values and Springsteen’s working class values is an easy one to consume. Together their ideas create a hegemonic force that we might expect to filter through the culture. However, culture doesn’t do its work so simply. Once a big idea is put forth, it tends to take on a life of its own. In the process, it is up to individual consumers (the words consumer and citizen have in this postmodern era become somewhat synonymous) to twist and turn such ideas in ways that work within an individual's identity management. What I’m suggesting here is that ideas--political and otherwise--cannot be imposed from above. We participate in the dynamic production of culture. Not to get too romantic about it, but it is empowering to think about the role we as individuals play in the making and remaking culture.

The political presence of Bruce Springsteen is easy to understand, but his role in the pop culture industries is a little more complicated. To the point: in this day of downloading, how does an artist sell CDs? Springsteen has a new album that is going to be released next week. Several pop stars (including Springsteen) have “sold out” to Wal-Mart offering exclusive distribution rights to the retailer. Others have “sold out” to advertisers; in one instance the pop singer Sting appeared in an automobile commercial in order to hawk a new album. Yet others have decided, like Radio Head, to give their music away in hope that, in the long run, they will attract more paying customers.

Springsteen’s appearance at the pre-inauguration ceremonies was part of a managed mega-spectacle in which he will next appear during the half-time show at the Super Bowl, and he will appear on one of the upcoming awards shows, given that one of his songs is featured in the movie, The Wrestler (which, by the way, I enjoyed immensely). In addition, starting in March, he will embark on a tour with his band. It has been reported that his last tour earned over $200 million. B-r-u-c-e is big. And when a pop star is that big, she or he must do something really big in order to command our attention. In this age of inattention, perhaps the only way to “break through the clutter,” as they say in advertising, is to create spectacles or participate in spectacles that are so large, we cannot turn away. In this way, at least as pop music goes, Springsteen is a hegemonic force. Personally, I don’t buy working-class ideologies from a guy worth millions of dollars. I guess that makes me a counter-hegemonic force, although that may be a bit grandiose on my part. This blog post did, however, give me the opportunity to work in some terms we’ve been discussing in class.

High Culture/Pop Culture: Who cares about the difference?

2009-01-19T11:29:00.000-05:00

I’ve been humming the tune to Samuel Barber’s symphonic piece Adagio for strings, which features a haunting melody. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra performs the version I have on my IPod, and if I wanted to see the piece performed, I would likely attend a concert at a symphony hall. Symphony halls, historically, are not exactly what we might think of as a pop culture venue. Indeed, one would likely assign Samuel Barber’s symphonic piece to the level of high culture. But wait a minute, as I imagine the music, I could overlay the images of the Baltimore Ravens losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC division playoffs. But really, if you are a fan of Vietnam War era movies, you might recognize the piece from Oliver Stone's movie, Platoon. I will never forget the images of William Defoe’s bullet riddled body collapsing to the haunting melody of Adagio. Well, movies aren't high culture, they’re pop culture. So what happens when high culture becomes pop culture? I’m reminded of Aaron Copeland’s modern symphonic piece Rodeo that I also have on my IPod. But you might recognize part of that piece of classical music, Hoedown, from the “What’s for Dinner: Beef” commercial. Again, the use of classical music in a television commercial represents the melding of high culture and pop culture. Have you ever seen paintings by Andy Warhol? You know, the ones with the Campbell soup cans. Historically, fine art would have been associated with high art and therefore high culture. So, what happens when fine art is mixed with pop culture, as is the case with an Andy Warhol painting? The mixing of high and pop is a function of our post-modern existence where the lines of difference are blurred, in this case, rendering the difference between high and pop meaningless. The cultural studies approach we take in this course is less concerned with “High” (literary, elitist) and “low” (trashy, banal) culture distinctions. Rather the approach we take does not prejudice one “text” as better (high) or worse (low) than another. Lack of concern for such differences allows us to focus on other things: the social production and reproduction of media content (what we as consumers do with media content and how we reintegrate it into our everyday lives). Furthermore, we are concerned with power and the struggle against that power (resistance) evident in media content and expressed by users of media content. That’s why race, gender, class, ethnicity and national strata are important to the study of pop culture.

If I were a boy...

2009-01-13T14:37:00.000-05:00

I haven’t blogged on this site for quite some time, however, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been blogging. I just went underground, or more to the point, I confined my blogging to the Blackboard website we utilize in my pop culture course. I’ve decided to hand over that blog to students in the pop culture class, and I will return to blogging on this site. So, I’ve been thinking about what I want to write about as I reintroduce this blog. Because of my interest in gender studies—in particular my research on masculine gender identity—I could not help being struck by the gender issues addressed in Beyonce’s new song “If I were a boy.” Indeed the title is quite telling as it is based on a contradiction: Beyonce physically cannot be a boy (well, that’s not wholly true, I know). But for all intent and purpose what she demonstrates by declaring, “If I were a boy,” is empathy for the “other.” This reminds me of a totally unrelated song by Shania Twain – “Man, I feel like a Woman.” Empathy is traditionally a feminine trait, and so the song sets up the listener (or reader of the lyrics) to see what deconstructionists refer to as a binary opposition: women are empathic/men are stoic. It is the space between these two variables—empathy and stoicism—that culture does it work. You can check out the full set of lyrics on any number of web sites. Below, I go over them and provide my considered opinion of what I think they mean. I fully recognize that meanings are variable, and so I expect that you (the reader) may interpret the lyrics differently. That difference, hopefully, will become the point of discussion:

When Beyonce begins the song she declares, “If I were a boy…Even just for a day,” she is pointing out that her voyage into gender switching is temporary. She can, however, walk—metaphorically speaking—in a boy’s shoes. In this way she demonstrate her ability to empathize—if only for a short period of time—with the “other.” By raising the point about being a boy or acting like a boy, if only for a day, opens up the question: what does it mean to be a boy? Implicit in that question is a further one: What does it mean to be a man? The difference between the two is where the cultural play begins. What’s the listener—at least the one that’s paying attention to the lyrics (and I readily admit few people do)--to do?

So, when Beyonce continues to sing, “I’d roll outta bed in the morning…And throw on what I wanted then go” she is suggesting that boys don’t have to take responsibility: they can wear what they want; and, they don’t have to please anyone else. She continues this line of thinking when she sings, “Drink beer with the guys,” which is a hallmark of masculinity – (not just the beer drinking, I’m referring to camaraderie). Take away camaraderie from men and they are like isolated animals.

Boys are socially powerful, as Beyonce sings: “And chase after girls…I’d kick it with who I wanted…” This suggests that boys can be the aggressor. Implied in this binary is that girls are passive participants as it is boys who get to “kick it.” Furthermore, the line, “And I’d never get confronted for it. Cause they’d stick up for me” indicates that boys can “hook up” without responsibility and boys are unimpeded due to the protection and camaraderie of other guys.

So, in the chorus, when Beyonce sings, “If I were a boy…I think I could understand…How it feels to love a girl…I swear I’d be a better man,” she is positioning herself as one who understands relationships – a characteristic that is traditionally feminine. Also, to “be a better man” also means, not to be a boy. We, again, see that binary: boys (irresponsible) vs. men (responsible). This is echoed in the next refrain: “I’d listen to her…Cause I know how it hurts…When you lose the one you wanted…Cause he’s taken you for granted…And everything you had got destroyed.” Simply put, what it means to be a man, in Beyonce’s view, is to be empathic. In other words, men have to operate within traditional feminine boundaries; otherwise they are acting like boys.

The song continues….”If I were a boy, I could turn off my phone. Tell everyone it’s broken, So they’d think that I was sleepin’ alone. I’d put myself first. And make the rules as I go. Cause I know that she’d be faithful. Waitin’ for me to come home (to come home).” In this verse Beyonce describes how the “boy” may seek the camaraderie and protection of others, but a man will jettison himself from the pack. In isolation, the man can act responsibly, in this case offering empathy and staying faithful.

In this verse the boy has crossed her: “It’s a little too late for you to come back. Say it’s just a mistake. Think I’d forgive you like that. If you thought I would wait for you. You thought wrong. And, Beyonce is not in a forgiving mood. Perhaps there’s too much social and psychological pressure for the boy to act like a man. So, Beyonce then laments in the chorus: “But you’re just a boy. You don’t understand.” This confirms her belief that boys will be boys. And, this position is amplified when she declares, “Yeah you don’t understand…How it feels to love a girl someday,” that as she stated at the beginning of the song, boys lack the ability to be empathic.

We’re not sure when Beyonce sings, “You wish you were a better man” whether she believes the “boy” can indeed be a man or whether she concedes that, as I said before, boys will be boys. We also might raise the question what does it mean to be a better mean? What does it mean to be a lesser man? Is a lesser man a boy?

Beyonce is confirming her original position when she declares: “You don’t listen to her. You don’t care how it hurts. Until you lose the one you wanted. Cause you’ve taken her for granted. And everything you have got destroyed. The ending of the song suggests that it is only through personal loss that the boy will learn to be a man. Perhaps it is only through the trauma of loss that change is forged. In the end, she sings, “But you’re just a boy.” Conclusion: you’re not a man.

One of the things I like about Beyonce’s “If I were a boy” is the larger shape shifting in which she is engaged. Not only is Beyonce transformational in this song, the album from which it comes is titled, I am Sasha Fierce, her alter ego. In this way Beyonce is signaling that she is not one thing. This ability to shape-shift oneself is a hallmark of postmodern existence. Madonna is the master at this pop culture game. So there you have it…my first post on this blog in quite a while and a short interpretation of Beyonce’s song, “If I were a Boy.” It’s a place to begin a discussion about the work that pop culture does and the work we do with it.

Why called it Imaginary Social Worlds

2009-01-10T10:18:00.000-05:00

Perhaps I should start by explaining the title of this blog – Imaginary Social Worlds. It’s a term that I borrowed from John Caughey who coined the term in the early 1980s. The basic idea behind an imaginary social relationship is that we engage with media figures in ways that parallel actual social relationships. We also engage with media content as we build out the cultural context of our imaginary world. Critics do not like to think about the amount of time we spend “inside,” as we live in an action-oriented Western culture – no time for daydreaming. Caughey wrote his book at a time when the personal computer was just emerging; there was no Internet. It seems to me that we spend an inordinate amount of time interacting with media and with people that we don’t know or don’t know well (consider the “friends” you have on Facebook). Social networking through social media is all the rage today, and so Caughey’s idea is amplified in ways we could not have imagined. I write about imaginary social relationships in my book, Advertising in Everyday Life. And, as a scholar I continue to look not only at what the mainstream pundits refers to as social networking through social media, but I also consider the social “world” that is inside our head. It is a world populated by places, things and people that to some extent are out of the media – movies, TV (news and entertainment), the Internet, among others. I think it is worthwhile, as others look at the exterior world, they this blog spend some time and effort focusing on the interior world of the individual and how we utilize the content of media in order to make sense of our place in society.

Don Imus: Trial by Pop Culture

2007-04-12T08:30:00.000-04:00

Cultural theorists have written about two economies, one financial and one cultural. But I wonder as with the current controversy surrounding shlock jock Don Imus whether or not we can really separate the two. Within the financial economy at least three advertisers have announced intentions to withdraw their advertising support from the Imus program: Procter & Gamble, Bigelow Tea, and Staples office supply chain. As MSNBC decided to suspend airing of the program we could also say that General Electric owner of MSNBC also has for the time being withdrawn its economic support. The economics of syndicated radio are more complicated than this simple scenario for advertiser withdrawal suggests; there are plenty of advertisers, for example, including General Motors that have not as yet withdrawn their advertising from the program. Sometimes pop culture transcends the financial economy as controversies like the one Imus finds himself involved in enter the cultural economy. Think Calvin Klein Kiddie Porn, Heroin Chic. Think Benneton. One could suggest, perhaps, that within a capitalist economy there is a self-correcting mechanism: if demand for Don Imus remains strong then he will probably survive either over the airwaves or on satellite radio. However, if his listenership wanes or if the intensity of his current fan base lessens continuing interest on the part of advertisers may also become depleted. When it comes to culture we can see the cultural economy play out like a marketplace, although instead of trading shares on the New York Stock Exchange, trading in the “cultural shares” of Don Imus take place in the Blogosphere, talk television like The Today Show, among others as well as traditional media like magazines and newspapers. Day after day we can see in these various venues trial by pop culture. However, I do not think the financial economy operates separately from the cultural economy. Rather, I think they work together, not necessarily in tandem, but they reflect the complex nature of the players in this game of culture both corporate and political.

Goodbye Old Pals

2007-02-23T08:41:00.000-05:00

The ultimate power that fans have is the ability to change the channel. And, as you know from my previous post, I was so angered by what I thought was a cheap trick by the writers of Grey’s Anatomy that I swore off the program. I love some of the comments have tempered my anger over the week, but for now I’m sticking to my guns. I love the empowerment, but that doesn't mean I'm not sentimental. Thursday at nine, then, gave me the opportunity to catch up with my old pals at The OC. As you know this was the final episode, and I was a big fan from the very beginning. If you refer to my previous post, you know how I like my pop culture - neatly sewn up in the end. Yes, the ending was sapping. Ryan becomes an architect, and as he is leaving a construction site he eyes a boy in trouble. We know that Ryan will take the young lad under his wing the same way Sandy came to his rescue. And as for Sandy and Kiki, they had a baby girl, and moved to Berkeley so that Sandy could teach law. The program flashes forward to Summer and Seth’s wedding. Julie marries Ryan’s father and we see her sweet happy family wearing “team Julie” tee-shirts at her graduation ceremony. What a neat little package: Easy to watch; Easy to digest; I can rest easy knowing that all is well in the world of The OC. I can’t say that I always like this sort of pablum. But sometime--every once in a while--it’s nice to know that things work out - no complications, no cliff hangers, no death and destruction. Yeah, happily ever after. That’s the way I like my pop culture.

Meredith: dead or alive? Either way, I’m appalled!

2007-02-16T11:09:00.000-05:00

I usually write this blog as an academic, not a fan. But I am a fan of Grey’s Anatomy, and could not help--like many many fans I’ve read about--get emotionally involved in last night’s episode. For now, I've lost my academic perspective.

Shonda’s blog reads as follows: “You all have some pretty strong feelings about this. I’ve been reading your comments. STRONG feelings. Which I respect. Grey’s is in its third season and we’re doing something a little…different. It’s about time we did. Because, just as I said when you all shouted your horror about the Meredith/George sex, I remind you that we writers like to follow the characters here and we try very hard not to make story just to make story. We like to have a point. Meredith being dead is about…well, you will see what it is about next week. She was in pain, this girl. And…
…okay, I don’t want to talk about that. Meredith being dead at the end of this episode. I can’t. Not yet.”

I have a personally policy that I usually apply to films. It goes like this: I don’t mind if a film takes me to a lower emotional point from which I came into the theater as long as the film delivers me back to that same emotional point or a higher one at the end. Films are a one-shot deal. Episodic television is another. For Grey’s to deliver its fans, like myself, to such a low point and leave us hanging for what may be three more weeks is emotionally upsetting. The little girl who was at the scene of the disaster who witnessed Meredith fall into the water, but who was so traumatized she couldn’t speak, was a stand-in for us viewers. We saw Meredith fall in the water too, but we couldn’t speak. We, like the little girl, were left helpless. If it turns out that Meredith is dead (more on that in a minute), then why drag it out? Denny was sick. He died over a long period of time; Meredith is either dead or she isn’t.

The little girl I mentioned above eventually turns up at Seattle Grace and is reunited with her mother. I think this serves as a metaphor for us. As a stand in for the viewer I believe we too will be reunited with Meredith. I don’t think Meredith is dead for reasons I’ll describe below. First, of all, remember at the beginning of the series it was McDreamy that described Meredith as saving him from metaphorically drowning because of his tortured love life. So, this becomes his turn to save her. He will realize how deeply he loves her and how much he needs her and the important role she plays in his life. This epiphany will change the nature of their relationship going forward. At the end of last night’s episode, McDreamy has been forced out of the ER to sit in the hallway helpless as others attempt to save Meredith. My guess is that next week, we’ll see him jump back in the game. She saved him. He must save her. Also, if you recall in last week’s episode, Meredith symbolically drowned herself in the bathtub; McDreamy walked in and again metaphorically saved her from her own tortured existence. So, I think this serves as a model for how this scenario will turn out. The docs at Seattle Grace won’t give up on Meredith, because fans won’t give up on her. Now we’re all in this together. Brilliant!

But I’m hurt either way. If Meredith is dead, then like when Marissa died on The OC, the show is dead. Can you imagine after three seasons Grey’s will end? No! So, I feel like, as a fan, I have been taken advantage of. I don’t like pop culture that manipulates me in such a way, as I said before to deliver me to an emotional place that is lower than where I entered. Because this is episodic television, perhaps I have to be patient. But this is TV--I can change the channel--and there’s always the Food Network where everything is predictable and the emotional range is much narrower. Speaking personally, I think what Shonda and the other writers have done is a recipe for disaster. It’s the next morning as I write this and my emotions are still raw. I can recall few TV experiences that have left me with this residual feeling. Perhaps in the next few days my emotional state will change for the better; after all, this is television I’m talking about here. But for now, I’m appalled!

If you want to read what others have to say about this read the Pop Candy blog the link to which is to the right of this post.

Anna Nicole Smith: A moral tale

2007-02-13T08:37:00.000-05:00

It has been almost a week since Anna Nicole Smith passed away and yet media of various sorts continue to give the story prominence. Mainstream media are still churning the story as the issue of paternity of Smith’s six-month old daughter gets tied up with the complexity of her estate. Web sites like TMZ.com cover the story incessantly as do other pop culture oriented web sites. Bloggers churn the story providing readers with insights, news, information, but mostly commentary. We as a culture seem to feed on this stuff: Access Hollywood; Entertainment Tonight. Need I say more? Why are we drawn to stories like this? Tragedies like this one generate public discourse through which a shared culture is created and furthered; it’s how we make sense of our world. Not only do such tragedies fill our imaginations, but also provide us with moral grounding. That I think is an unaccounted for effect of pop culture. As we read, hear or view such stories, talk to others about them, process them both in our thoughts and imaginings, we draw conclusions. Such conclusions provide terra firma upon which ordinary people walk. We have an innate need to be grounded, and such tragedies, among other topics, provide the fodder that allows us to make our way through daily life. As the question over who fathered Smith’s child evolves—and it will continue for a long time as this situation makes its way through the courts and the media—so too will the moral lesson evolve. Culture is not a free-for-all. Culture imposes limits. We learn those limits through the processing of events such as this. What did we do before there was a popular culture? Other institutions held more sway: family, church, and government to name three. But these institutions have weakened giving space for media to step in and fill the void. It may not be that media are so strong that they have displaced traditional institutions; it may be that those other institutions are merely weak. Nevertheless, tragedies such as Anna Nicole Smith’s death provide a shared cultural reference point. The story provides many opportunities for ordinary people to engage with others directly or through social networking on the Web. Such are the opportunities to understand ourselves and the world around us.

NBC’s “Heroes” has all the hallmarks of participatory culture

2007-01-22T14:18:00.000-05:00

The NBC series Heroes which was renewed recently re-launched its Web site going full bore with interactive features that include an on-line novel that extends the characters and story lines, games, downloads, message boards, a Wiki, and a message board. The idea behind the Web site is to deepen fan experience which will extend beyond the airing of the program to the Internet and potentially onto mobile phone applications. In my last post I wrote about American Idol as an example of participatory culture. It seems to me, Heroes takes the notion of participatory culture a step further in this multi-platform approach. The Web site has something for just about any level of fan engagement: casual fans to those fans engaged in deep imaginary relationships with the characters. This is a new model of how traditional television networks attempt to extend their reach into the everyday lives of consumers of TV programming and to develop webs that link programs and characters to other aspects of everyday life. Technology provides the means to maintain a connection throughout the day, and technology provides the means to connect wherever the consumer may be. The potential here for interactivity and enriched viewer/fan experience is great, and the approach accommodates different kinds of fans and varying levels of fandom. It will be interesting to see how the program itself attempts to drive viewers to the Web and beyond.

American Idol: The great American transformation from humiliation to stardom

2007-01-17T10:06:00.000-05:00

American Idol began its sixth season last night and based on last year's average of 30 million viewers per episode, it is again bound to be a big hit. Jennifer Hudson, an American Idol “also-ran” Monday evening won a Gold Globe for her role in the movie version of “Dreamgirls.” This can only help boost ratings. This year’s program will have additional features, like a songwriting contest to ensure viewer interest as the contest makes its way from the initial humiliation of contestants to longer-term humiliation as those with “talent” make their way to the finals. Humiliation has been a major part of this program and it has been an important aspect of pop culture in general for at least ten years. I have written elsewhere about the ways in which advertisers humiliate men when they depict them as cavemen, wolves, and caught in public without their pants. Americans, it appears, have not lost their taste for seeing bad things happen to other people; referred to as schadenfreude. But more to the theme of our course: American Idol is a great example of media convergence, primarily because of its interactive qualities. In other words, viewers participate--20 million or more votes are cast by viewers--in order to determine those that will move on to the next round and ultimately who will win the contest. Advertisers are integrally involved in this process as Cingular utilized the opportunity to encourage text messaging of viewers’ votes in order to increase the use of this service in America. Obviously, there is interconnectedness between the program itself and the other media properties it spawns that range from touring shows, individual CDs from winners and losers, movies, and books, among others. It is the interconnectedness of all these media that compels individual viewers to become fans and to find in various media modalities ways in which to satisfy their emotional cravings to be close to this viewer created phenomenon.

A way to enter the study of popular culture in America

2007-01-04T10:20:00.000-05:00

Convergence culture is a term I learned from Henry Jenkins' book by that name. By convergence Jenkins means “the flow of content across multiple media platforms, among other things. He goes on to say that “convergence represents a cultural shift as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content. Jenkins also uses the term participatory culture to refer to the interaction between producers and consumers of popular culture who are more likely within the culture of convergence to interact with one another. Voting for your favorite contestant on American Idol, participating in a fan-oriented web site for a popular TV program, producing your own commercials to appear on YouTube.com, and the social networking that takes place on Facebook.com and Myspace.com might qualify as examples. Finally, Jenkins refers to collective intelligence, a term he gleaned from French cybertheorist Pierre Levy, as the pooling of resources and combined skills of consumers as an alternative to a powerful centralized media. Blogging might serve as an example. These terms will be our guiding light this semester as we begin our exploration of popular culture in America.