Chomsky and Castro

             Since our schedule got mixed up, I was not sure, which reading we would do tomorrow so I decided to write my blog on the reading that I most enjoyed. Herman and Chomsky’s “ A Propaganda Model” was written in the 80s and yet it is still relevant as ever. Their theory explores propaganda in mass media and how it functions to “amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society.”

According to Chomsky and Herman, there are five filters in which all content from mass media must go through: (1) Size, Ownership and Profit Orientation, (2) Funding, (3) Source, (4) Flaks, and (5) Anticommunism.

The last filter was one that came up over the weekend due to recent events.  As I am sure most of you have heard, Cuba’s revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro died a couple of days ago. As expected there were undertones of celebration and satisfaction in the media when announcing his death. They would discuss all the ways in which Castro failed to provide liberty and freedom for the people of his country, and that now that he is dead, Cubans will have the opportunity live freely as we do in the United States. As I went on other forms of media, such as Facebook and blogs, I found contrasting opinions in which people argued that in some ways Castro had been a true revolutionary. Cuba has the highest literacy rate in the western hemisphere (higher than the US) and an excellent healthcare system, yet rarely do we hear about these accomplishments. As stated by our authors, “It should be noted that when anti-Communist fervor is aroused, the demand for serious evidence in support of claims of "communist" abuses is suspended, and charlatans can thrive as evidential sources.”

We do not need concrete evidence of someone who has been labeled a communist as to why their actions fall in with communism. One they have received that label, anything that they do is automatically defined as communist and thus inherently evil and a threat to our nation. Now, I am not saying that we should not condemn some of Castro’s actions, but it is important to realize that not everything is as black and white as our media makes it seem. The media loves to put its own country on a pedestal and point fingers at everyone without realizing its own hypocrisy.  For example, we call ourselves champions of freedom, yet our country has one of the highest incarceration rates, which predominantly incarcerates people of color. Not a single nation is perfect, and it is essential that we recognize both the good and bad. We need to challenge our views on other countries as well as our own because what we hear from the media does not involve the stories from all sides.

(Late Pre-Class 11/22/16) A.O.: Foucault: Panopticons and the Ideologic Enforcement Machine

When I read Foucault’s piece on the Panopticon, my mind jumped to the way Ideology works in our society. While ideology does work in the way the Panopticon was proposed (The observer being the ruling class as Marx would put it and we the prisoners), the metaphor can be extended and become something else where we wouldn’t even have to be within the panoptic building but we would still impose rules on ourselves.

On page 98 Foucault says “Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power…in short, the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers.” In even shorter, the prisoner becomes their own guard. Going back to the ideology metaphor, we then inforce the ideologies of the ruling class in ourselves becoming our own keepers. Furthermore, because we inhabit the same society, it is safe to assume other people become their own guards and enforce the ruling class ideologies themselves. That being said, while ideology is Panopticon-esque we aren’t actually in the building, we are free to interact and converse with one another. This is where the self-appointed guard aspect comes into play.  

Since we live outside of the wall of a Panopticon but carry our ideology with us, and as such are our own guards, we live in this ‘ideological’ society that even if we don’t want to follow it there are those who will chastise us for doing so. It’s kind of like an inverted Panopticon, instead of one person observing many, it is the many observing the one and enforcing the ideals acting as the guard for any individual who steps out of line at any given moment. I first heard of this idea in a reading by Eric Dunning where he cites John Fiske who says:

 Sport…is an ‘inverted panopticon’ where fans whose behaviour is ‘monitored and totally known’ at work become monitors of the players who, through their ‘total visibility’, become ‘epistemological bobo doll(s) upon which the fans can punch away their frustration’ (Dunning 2001)

I don’t know the greater implications of this all yet, but I just think there’s an interesting connection between the two theories, even though Foucault says that this theory shouldn't be applied to anything in particular.

(Dunning: http://samples.sainsburysebooks.co.uk/9781134870141_sample_899095.pdf)

The Panopticon: My Subconscious Always Tells Me to be Skinny

In my CMC100 class, I actually wrote something about Bentham's Panopticon and how it is related to our daily lives. I wanted to share it with y’all because we are all in a CMC course and I thought it would give a different perspective to Bentham’s Panopticon. I put some more recent information from Foucault’s piece Discipline and Punish, so that way it was more up to date on what we are reading. I hope you enjoy my different outlook on Bentham’s Panopticon. 

Today in society, young girls and women around the globe, especially in America are being ridiculed for being over weight, when in reality they are not. Back in the 1980’s,  female models were applauded and encouraged to have thicker legs and a stomach, but models in today’s age reinforce a different norm (Croteau and Hoynes, 2014). If one were to flip through 2015 November Instyle issue, he or she would notice many of the female models bodies look very similar in that they are all very skinny. The new obsession about being thin and tall goes through the minds of many women across America because of how women are portrayed in media. Kilbourne makes it clear that no human can avoid advertisements. Kilbourne says, “To not be influenced by advertising would be to live outside of culture. No human being lives outside of culture” (Kilbourne, 2006). Every second of the day women are reminded to look a certain way due to how ads persuade and influence them to change their bodies and overall image. Young girls and women face the ultimate penalty of unconsciously being reminded to “be on a diet” because we are being compared to female models whether we like it or not. Kilbourne explains how the “self-esteem of girls plummets as they reach adolescence partly because they cannot possibly escape the message that their bodies are objects, and imperfect objects at that” (Kilbourne, 2006).

For example, take a look at the female model above. What do you notice about her? The woman in the AGJeans ad appears to have a very thin face that shows her prominent bone structure. Also, her neck seems oddly long thus creating an illusion that she is thinner than she appears. According to livestrong.com, on October 27th the update count of the average female American weighs 166.2 pounds and stands at 5 feet 4 inches (Cloe, 2015). The woman shown above does not appropriately represent the average american woman. No wonder women feel the pressure to become something they are not. Since I am a woman myself, I believe that I have the right to say that many women, including myself, have a little voice in their head that is continuously telling us to be skinny,  go on a diet, eat healthy and or workout. This concept of being thin or skinny has become so invasive to the average female american brain that one could almost compare it to Bentham’s Panopticon, where the inmates become their own guard due to the principles of power at play. 

In this analogy, the guard will represent the norm for being thin and the prisoners will represent all american females. The reinforced beauty ideal of being thin is constantly on our minds whether we like it or not because it is frequently in the grasp of our hands (i.e. a magazine), on television, on buildings, on buses and practically everywhere. Look at the model above. Yes, she is quite beautiful with her natural makeup look; her tall, thin body and her well-conditioned hair, but does she represent women of America? The answer to that question is no she does not! The blonde model not only represents AGJeans but she is reinforcing the underlying message of being thin. Women get caught up in the power of media of which we are all bearers. As Foucault says, “the inmates [i.e. the reader of media] should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers” (98). Media is so invasive because it is the enforcer of power, yet it is doing so silently. “Visibility is a trap” (97). We are unaware when media is being invasive on our brains. Media is visible yet its subliminal messages are unverifiable. 

As Foucault discusses Bentham’s concept of the Panopticon, she says, “[the Panopticon’s major effect is] to induce in the inmate [the reader] state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power” (98). 

As Foucault says, “ [We become] the principle of [our] own subjection” (Foucault, 1977. 3). The power at play is that media is visible to everyone yet unverifiable too. This not only creates issues within women, but false expectations with men and women. Bentham’s Panopticon principle may seem harsh but it is true. Whether women, and men, want to accept it or not, we are all blind to the fact that we all rely on and are shaped by media. The desire to be thin in society creates immense problems across many different media platforms of today’s world. As Foucault says, “A real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation” (99). 

Side note: I also want to acknowledge that men are also stereotyped and are misrepresented in media too. For this blog entry, I wanted to focus on women because I myself am women. Sadly, we live in a world where misrepresentation lies around every corner. 

URL for picture: 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwi66LzJ7rrQAhUFWCYKHapFCFoQjxwIAw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmalendyer.com%2Fag-jeans-springsummer-2016-with-daria-werbowy%2F&psig=AFQjCNF58uemxki_alBkDESLpbMiIDwlyQ&ust=1479852560160970

Everything Becomes Commodity (Lyotard)

Since I am currently studying for exam two, I decided that I want to focus my blog post on Jean-Francois Lyotard’s piece “Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?” I also want mention that I am still grappling with Lyotard’s critique and ideas, so stick with me through this post. 

Lyotard’s main argument is on how there should be an end to grand narratives and metanarratives. Our society should focus on more micronarratives, in order to to have more representative society. Sadly, metanarratives (i.e. the Enlightenment) diminish the existence of diversity in order to legitimize power structures. 

Lyotard says, “This is a period of slackening. . . “ (38). What he means by this is that our society today has been encouraged and urged to top experimenting due to these metanarratives. Lyotard wants us to wage war on totality (46) in order to restore triumph over identity. 

Unfortunately, since people are still following metanarratives, we now deal with the fantasies of realism. Realism can be problematic because it is subjective, thus meaning that it is too broad to be communicated.  Lyotard says, “Belief in the stability of the referent (as in photography and film) lead to ‘the fantasies of realism’”. Many people believe that art is perceived as stable, yet it really isnt. Media distorts our perception of reality and we see this in many films today (Matrix, Avatar, Truman Show, etc.)

Realism, “stands somewhere between academicism and kitsch” (41). As stated before, realism can be subjective. Realism proves a type of comfort for many people because realism conforms to metanarratives, appealing to the masses. Reality can be very upsetting sometimes, so realism in media can provide imagery that allows people to feel comforted. Lyotard describes how realism provides correct images, narratives and forms designed as the appropriate remedy for the anxiety and depression the public experiences (41). 

No one ever wants to go against metanarratives or the norm because everyone is content with realism’s rationality. Realism always pushes over experimental avant gardes. People demand unity, simplicity and don’t like to be different. When capital comes into the situation, then anything really goes because its focus is solely on money.  “Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture” (42).

Since people don’t want to step outside of metanarratives, capital or anything, then this means that modernity has failed to show us the truth. Modernity has succeeded to show us the portrayal of the real is impossible. As Zizek would say, the image replaces reality. “So-called realistic representations can no longer evoke reality except as nostalgia of mockery” (40). 

As Benjamin would say, there has been a lost of authenticity. . . of aura due to capital (mechanical reproduction). Lyotard says, “Classicism seems to be ruled outing a world in which reality is so destabilized that it offers no occasion for experience but one for ratings and experimentation” (40).  Capital creates this feeling within a society that we have lost something, a type of aura. Capitalism takes away a sense of reality due to the mass production of photographic/cinematographic systems that whipped out the narrative/pictorial realism. Everything becomes commodification. At the end of the day, it is all about the big, fat green buckaroos. 

American Culture: An Industry

“The whole world is passed through the filter of the culture industry…the more completely its (films) techniques duplicate empirical objects, the more easily it creates the illusion that the world outside is a seamless extension of the one which has been reveled in the cinema”(45) - Adorno and Horkhemier

Culture can be defined as the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement, human tradition, and in biological terms, the cultivation of bacteria, tissue cells, etc., in an artificial medium containing nutrients. There are specific formations within every culture. This year we have discussed  how these different forms of culture and media shape identify and heavily effect us as human beings. 

What is American culture and how does it affect us? 

Adorno and Horkheimer are concerned about the deception involved within a culture industry. The most frightening part about this is that their work foreshadowed what we have today: an American Culture Industry. What we watch, read, and hear today change how we view the world and alters the way in which we live. 

We all know how heavily the Kardashians influence social media and reality television. In 2015 the youngest, Kylie, was ambushed by the media over her shockingly excessive augmentation surgeries. I mean, her lips are just HUGE. A year and a half later she created a "Lip Kit Empire". She earned 28 million dollars on lip merchandise and broke Google when she released her first kits. How? Everyone knows the severity of how fake her lips are? The constant photos shedding light on her "amazing" lips via social media, and being told that "you too could have lips like these" caused millions of young girls and women to fight online in the hopes of purchasing a kit and getting those lips. The truth is that you too would have to get surgery to make your lips appear the same way. Yet our consumer driven culture led people around the globe to pay Kylie $28 million dollars merely because she had multiple lip surgeries and convinced the world that they didn't have to get surgery to look like her....just buy her kit! How could that possibly happen? Well.....“The defrauded masses today cling to the myth of success still more ardently than the successful”(50) 

In a Constant Limbo with Habermas: (late sunday post)

I just realized that I didn't post last night! I'm sorry for the lateness of this blog post! :/


Since I started studying for the second exam, I wanted to go back to Jurgen Habermas' notion of modernity not being truly fulfilled. Habermas' critique is on capitalism, materialism and how we are still in the here and now of modernity.

Habermas says, "the idea of being 'modern' . . . changed with the belief, inspired by modern science, in the infinite progress of knowledge . . ." (99). 

I find this quote to be rather interesting to Habermas' argument because he is saying that because of modernity we have progressed in knowledge and our society has truly changed. But have we really changed all that much? We are under the impression that our society has been "enlightened" in so many areas, but sadly we have not changed that much. For example, America is still dealing with the issue of social and racial inequality. Yes, we do no approve of slavery anymore, but the amount of racial inequality that is embedded within American citizens is still present. Even though we don't have segregation or slaves anymore, doesn't mean we've changed that much as a society. We just have created new ways of dealing or getting away with things such as: police brutality and our incarceration system.

Habermas also discusses the loss of a historical reference and how we are paying for it now. Habermas says, "The relation between 'modern' and 'classical' has definitely lost a fixed historical reference" (99). Sadly, there is a loss of the past due to capitalism and materialism. This sounds very similar to Benjamin's argument in the rise of mechanical reproduction. Benjamin discusses how there is a lost of authenticity because of mechanical reproduction. We lose a type of aura to society because our society is so obsessed with this notion of the new.

If we can't touch back to our roots of history and from modernity, how will we ever know if modernity is complete? Habermas is uncomfortable with how things are being run because everyone now is so hypersensitive to everything. Our capitalistic culture is ruining our everyday virtues and conventions because there are all of these new obsessions. According to Habermas, we have a nostalgia for the past. If we don't go back and revisit the past, we may never know if modernity is truly complete. ~ So I guess for now we are all stuck in the limbo ~

All-out warfare

Reading what Herman and Chomsky wrote in 1988, yet again, I see extreme relevance with what’s happening in our system now.

After reading the first sentence of this piece, the first thing I thought of was the film Wag the Dog, a fictional story about the US government colluding with Hollywood producers to fabricate a war in Bosnia. Herman and Chomsky’s “propaganda model” is at the heart of this film – the message that the government, corporations and others with power are controlling what we see, and subsequently, the way we think about things.

But media has been rebuked time and time again since Chomsky and Herman wrote this controversial theory in 1988. The Internet and social media have changed the way media is consumed and produced. Nowadays, people can publish their own news stories, opinions and experiences, and consume those of others – directly from others. Herman and Chomsky’s idea as media equating to integration is now a theory widely acknowledged by all kinds of Americans.

As mentioned in my therapeutic blog reflection for last week’s classes, Donald Trump’s election is the epitome of America’s media rejection. Trump and his supporters continually bashed the media for inaccuracy and bias. So, on election day, while most networks gave 90-99.9% chances of winning the White House to Hillary Clinton, the base of people known for media-loathing proved them wrong by electing Donald Trump.

It’s the latest evolution of another communication barrier in our country: between the elite and the rest. They are seemingly at war with one another – not the ‘divorced parent’ kind of war I discussed yesterday – but all-out warfare.

Chomsky and Herman discuss in their theory a media trend that’s been present since before 1988: consolidation. Today, most major media organizations are part of a conglomerate of many companies – all tied into one – seemingly with the express purpose of consolidating power between outlets and firming up their side of the battleground. Totally non-media-oriented companies also desire to quite literally own the media – like General Electric, which owned NBC until a few years ago. Companies also have the goal of becoming classified as media. Google, for example, considers itself a media and technology company. By doing so, they desire to declare their technology has power.

The final of the five “filters” cited by Chomsky and Herman is “anticommunism” in the media. I think this term being located in communism is simply a remnant of the time period in which this theory was written. The significance I see in this phrase, however, is that the media consistently seems to take the moral “high-ground” outwardly. As I discussed in my blog post yesterday, this superiority only adds fuel to the flames of media hatred and division in our country.

I see this as the most unfortunate thing in our media landscape - that warfare with the media clouds trusting them when it comes to the journalistic checks and balances they were meant have on our society. As a result, we're left with "reality" shows as our pulse on society and their stars as our leaders.

Peace,

-UA191