When Theodor Adorno first coined the term 'cultural industries', he meant it as a pejorative for capitalist industries that he saw as stifling the creativity of artistic individuals (Adorno, 1941). Concerned both as a musician and as a Jewish man who had lived in the Nazi propaganda bubble, he claimed that popular music is standardised 'even when an attempt is made to circumvent standardization' and that, due to the stranglehold of the music industries, mainstream pop music has little to no value as an item of culture (Adorno, 1941).
A potential antidote to Adorno's problem has come in the form of Web 2.0. Websites such as Bandcamp have made it easier than ever for independent artists to gain fame and get their music out there and these sites act in tandem with free custom site builders like Wordpress. A good example of this in action is Kunt and the Gang, the persona of a singer from Basildon, Essex whose real name I have not been able to source. Before the rise of the internet, a stage name of such vulgarity- let alone song titles like "I'm Wanking Over a Pornographic Polaroid of an Ex-Girlfriend who Died"- wouldn't have even courted an independent record deal. But in the early 2000's Kunt opened his website (Kunt and the Gang, n.d. a) and began selling records, booking dates in pubs around the country and promoting music on his YouTube channel (Kunt and the Gang, 2017). His ethic of self-reliance, which he carried up until his retirement in 2016, makes it poignant that he opens his first album with "Use My Arsehole as a Cunt", about struggling to achieve a record deal and needing to make certain 'compromises' to get ahead in the music business.
Kunt's concept of rebelling against the music establishment can also be seen in the song "#dirtyprotest", in which he urges the listener to send Simon Cowell pictures of their feces on account of the supposed fakeness of the artists in his talent shows . In this respect, it could be argued that Kunt is a champion of Adorno's ideals, or at least a parody of those things Adorno would call false. This begs the question- would Kunt and the Gang be classed as a pop act by Adorno? We can of course never answer that, but his 4/4 time and catchy hooks might point to an affirmative answer. Therein perhaps lies the fault in Adorno's argument. If we treat pop as not simply a musical mode, but an aesthetic with semiotic codes beyond the way it sounds, then I do not believe Kunt to be your typical pop prince at all. After all, would Justin Timberlake have a great hit with "Jesus Died of a Stranglewank"?
SOURCES:
Adorno, Theodor W. "On Popular Music". Studies in Philosophy and Social Science 9 (1941): 17-48. Print.
Kunt and the Gang, (n.d.). Home. [online] Kuntandthegang.co.uk. Available at: http://www.kuntandthegang.co.uk/ [Accessed 8 Feb. 2017].
Kunt and the Gang, (2017). clubtuppence. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/user/clubtuppence [Accessed 8 Feb. 2017].
Thursday, 23 February 2017
"Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" and the Cultural Impact of TV Formats
I defined internationalisation in my post on the cultural flow of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, but I will sum it up here again as a refresher. Hesmondhalgh uses the term 'internationalisation' to mean the increase in cultural flow and deregulation of global trade that takes place in the era of late capitalism (Hesmondhalgh, 2013). Part and parcel of internationalisation is the trade not only of fully fledged cultural products- as was the form Yu-Gi-Oh! travelled to the West in- but also the trade in ideas for products. Any Hollywood remake of a so-called foreign film that makes sweeping changes to appeal to a western audience will suffice as an example, but to illustrate this I'll use The Magnificent Seven (Sturges, 1960). This picture was a remake of the Japanese film The Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954), using roughly the same plot and character archetypes, but the location was transferred to the Old West to appeal more to American viewers, who may not have empathised as much with a band of historical Japanese warriors.
One of the powerful examples of internationalisation in action is the transfer of television formats between territories. Oren and Shahaf believed that TV formats can create a level playing field between countries with powerful cultural industries, like the United States, and countries whose industries are not as well developed (Oren & Shahaf, 2012).
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a TV format first broadcast in the United Kingdom on ITV in 1998. Despite this version being cancelled in 2014, it enjoys a large following in other parts of the world thanks to its adaptable format. Over 100 different versions of the show have been produced worldwide and in India, eight different versions exist to represent different linguistic and cultural groups.
While formatted shows have remained popular around the world, there have been some criticisms of the packaged television format. Whilst analysing format shows in South Africa, Nkosi Ndlela observed that content tended to be very Western in nature (Oren & Shahaf, 2012: 242-259). In South African Idol for example, he found that almost all of the songs were by American and British artists singing in English and cited viewer complaints that the show did not do enough to represent African music and culture (Oren & Shahaf, 2012: 242-259).
There is also the problem of the show's content conflicting with views held by a state or its people. Many packaged format shows created in the West, including Millionaire, espouse ideals synonymous with capitalist ideology. Contestants compete for a material prize, which is awarded based on skill in a particular field- in Millionaire, this skill is knowledge. Shows laid out in this way can be problematic in countries where the dominant ideology is not capitalism, such as in China, where a version of the show exists in the form of celebrities competing for charity money, rather than the traditional prize format (Bǎi Wàn Zhì Duō Xīng, 2007-08).
Weighing out the pros and the cons, one has a mind to disagree with Nkosi Ndlela and conclude that there are enough differences in format shows across the world for them to be viable cultural products. Format shows in the global east-south will never shake off their Western roots, but I believe that, due to the historic dominance of Western countries in the cultural marketplace, this is a trend across media and not one exclusive to the format show template. In fact, one could say that the malleable formats free up the amount of indigenous culture that can thrive in said shows and I would cite the use of the Millionaire format in officially communist China for charity over personal profit as a key example.
SOURCES:
Bǎi Wàn Zhì Duō Xīng, 2007-08 [TV]. GuiZhou TV.
Hesmondhalgh, D., 2013. The Cultural Industries, Available at: http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Industries-Prof-David-Hesmondhalgh/dp/1412908086.
Oren, T. & Shahaf, S., 2012. Global television formats : understanding television across borders, Routledge.
The Magnificent Seven. (1960). [DVD] United States: John Sturges.
The Seven Samurai. (1954). [film] Japan: Akira Kurosawa.
One of the powerful examples of internationalisation in action is the transfer of television formats between territories. Oren and Shahaf believed that TV formats can create a level playing field between countries with powerful cultural industries, like the United States, and countries whose industries are not as well developed (Oren & Shahaf, 2012).
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a TV format first broadcast in the United Kingdom on ITV in 1998. Despite this version being cancelled in 2014, it enjoys a large following in other parts of the world thanks to its adaptable format. Over 100 different versions of the show have been produced worldwide and in India, eight different versions exist to represent different linguistic and cultural groups.
While formatted shows have remained popular around the world, there have been some criticisms of the packaged television format. Whilst analysing format shows in South Africa, Nkosi Ndlela observed that content tended to be very Western in nature (Oren & Shahaf, 2012: 242-259). In South African Idol for example, he found that almost all of the songs were by American and British artists singing in English and cited viewer complaints that the show did not do enough to represent African music and culture (Oren & Shahaf, 2012: 242-259).
There is also the problem of the show's content conflicting with views held by a state or its people. Many packaged format shows created in the West, including Millionaire, espouse ideals synonymous with capitalist ideology. Contestants compete for a material prize, which is awarded based on skill in a particular field- in Millionaire, this skill is knowledge. Shows laid out in this way can be problematic in countries where the dominant ideology is not capitalism, such as in China, where a version of the show exists in the form of celebrities competing for charity money, rather than the traditional prize format (Bǎi Wàn Zhì Duō Xīng, 2007-08).
Weighing out the pros and the cons, one has a mind to disagree with Nkosi Ndlela and conclude that there are enough differences in format shows across the world for them to be viable cultural products. Format shows in the global east-south will never shake off their Western roots, but I believe that, due to the historic dominance of Western countries in the cultural marketplace, this is a trend across media and not one exclusive to the format show template. In fact, one could say that the malleable formats free up the amount of indigenous culture that can thrive in said shows and I would cite the use of the Millionaire format in officially communist China for charity over personal profit as a key example.
SOURCES:
Bǎi Wàn Zhì Duō Xīng, 2007-08 [TV]. GuiZhou TV.
Hesmondhalgh, D., 2013. The Cultural Industries, Available at: http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Industries-Prof-David-Hesmondhalgh/dp/1412908086.
Oren, T. & Shahaf, S., 2012. Global television formats : understanding television across borders, Routledge.
The Magnificent Seven. (1960). [DVD] United States: John Sturges.
The Seven Samurai. (1954). [film] Japan: Akira Kurosawa.
Tuesday, 21 February 2017
Chekhov's Invisible Gun: The Censorship of Yu-Gi-Oh! Season 1 as a Cultural Flow
In order to understand a cultural flow, we must first define the process of internationalisation. This is a term that Hesmondhalgh uses as a neutral determiner between the optimistic globalisation and the pessimistic cultural imperialism (Hesmondhalgh, 2013). In The Cultural Industries, he agreed with the optimists that late capitalism brought about an increase in cultural flows and an abundance of free trade agreements, but remained two-sided about whether these facets are harbingers of evil or bringers of prosperity (Hesmondhalgh, 2013). It is at this point that I should define what I mean by a so-called cultural flow. I will be working with Rodenthi Tzanelli's definition of the 'multidirectional movements and reallocations of human beings, artifacts, and ideas within the ill-defined sphere of “culture” in its global, national, and regional dimensions' (Tzanelli, 2011). In layman's language, a cultural flow is the transfer of culture from one place to another.
Before I go on applying this to Yu-Gi-Oh!, it is important to clarify that when I refer to Yu-Gi-Oh! Season 1 in the title of this essay, I am referring to what in Japan is considered to be Yu-Gi-Oh! Season 2. When English dubbing and distribution rights were given to 4kids Entertainment, it was decided to gloss over Season 1 of the original anime as it was considered too violent and adult to possibly edit; this series has since been referred to as 'Season Zero' by English-speaking fans of the franchise. To avoid further ambiguity, I will refer to the season I am applying this theory to by a name more commonly used by fans: the Duelist Kingdom arc.
Yu-Gi-Oh! started out as a manga series in the Japanese magazine Shonen Jump in 1996, written and drawn by Kazuki Takahashi. In short, it follows the story of a group of high school students who play a card game called Duel Monsters. The original series was adapted to anime between 1998 and 2006 and produced several spin-offs as well as a supplementary card game. The series I am analysing takes place on the Duelist Kingdom estate owned by game creator Maximillian Pegasus, who traps the protagonist's grandfather in a card and forces him to participate in a tournament in exchange for his freedom.
Yu-Gi-Oh! started out as a manga series in the Japanese magazine Shonen Jump in 1996, written and drawn by Kazuki Takahashi. In short, it follows the story of a group of high school students who play a card game called Duel Monsters. The original series was adapted to anime between 1998 and 2006 and produced several spin-offs as well as a supplementary card game. The series I am analysing takes place on the Duelist Kingdom estate owned by game creator Maximillian Pegasus, who traps the protagonist's grandfather in a card and forces him to participate in a tournament in exchange for his freedom.
One of the most obvious changes from the original source is that all references to firearms have been removed. An infamous example is in the episode Everything's Relative, in which Pegasus' henchmen break into the character Seto Kaiba's office and threaten him at gunpoint. In the 4kids dub, they are simply pointing at him, an art edit for where guns were supposed to be (4Kids TV, 2001). In the parody series Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series, this joke is played up with the line 'don't move a muscle or we'll shoot you with our invisible guns' (Billany, 2009).
 |
| (4kids TV, 2001) |
The censorship arguably becomes confusing when the American character Bandit Keith later loses a duel and, in his anger, puts his finger against Pegasus' temple (4Kids TV, 2002c).
 |
| (NAS, 2000b) and (4kids TV, 2002c) |
Another example of 4kids censorship can be found in the Panik Attack storyline, which lasts for two episodes (4kids Entertainment, 2002a and 2002b). The arc begins when a large man named Panik is introduced and kidnaps the female character Mai Valentine. In the 4kids dub, this is portrayed as a simple theft of star chips, a far cry from the original in which Panik implies that he is going to sexually assault her (NAS, 2000a). The protagonist Yugi Motou, possessed by Yami Yugi, challenges him to a duel. Upon winning, Yami banishes Panik to the Shadow Realm, which is used throughout the 4kids dub as a euphemism for killing someone using magical powers. In this case, censorship makes Panik's banishment/death make less sense since his only crime was theft of a few gold trinkets.
Why was it felt that the series needed to be so heavily censored? Because at the time in which Yu-Gi-Oh! came to the West, anime had only been marketed in Western countries to children. The appeal of Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z with children in previous years (the latter of which was originally a much more adult series), combined with a Western ideal that cartoons- unless they were explicitly marketed otherwise- could only be for children, led 4kids to make sweeping changes when they received dubbing rights. Parini believes that this situation is gradually changing. As anime becomes a more accepted and well understood as a medium to Western audiences, series are now marketed towards teenagers and adults and are being broadcast in their original form in adult slots (Parini, 2012). Thus, it could be said that anime is more effective as a cultural flow than ever.
Why was it felt that the series needed to be so heavily censored? Because at the time in which Yu-Gi-Oh! came to the West, anime had only been marketed in Western countries to children. The appeal of Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z with children in previous years (the latter of which was originally a much more adult series), combined with a Western ideal that cartoons- unless they were explicitly marketed otherwise- could only be for children, led 4kids to make sweeping changes when they received dubbing rights. Parini believes that this situation is gradually changing. As anime becomes a more accepted and well understood as a medium to Western audiences, series are now marketed towards teenagers and adults and are being broadcast in their original form in adult slots (Parini, 2012). Thus, it could be said that anime is more effective as a cultural flow than ever.
SOURCES:
Billany, M. (2009). YGOTAS Episode 6 - Everybody Hates Mako - LittleKuriboh. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSt1J_usLzQ [Accessed 21 Feb. 2017].
Hesmondhalgh, D. (2013). The Cultural Industries. Available at: http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Industries-Prof-David-Hesmondhalgh/dp/1412908086.
NAS (2000a) 'Pitch-Black Duel! The Castle Hidden in the Darkness' Yu-Gi-Oh!, Series 2, episode 14, TV Tokyo, 25 July.
NAS (2000b) 'Travel Through Time! Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon' Yu-Gi-Oh!, Series 2, episode 32, 28 November.
Parini, I. (2012). Censorship of Anime in Italian Distribution. Meta: Journal des traducteurs, 57(2), pp.325–337. Available at: http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1013948ar.
Tzanelli, R. (2011). 'Cultural flows', in Southerton, D (ed.), Encyclopedia of consumer culture, SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 385-386, 21 February 2017, doi: 10.4135/9781412994248.n145.
4Kids TV (2001) 'Everything's Relative' Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Monsters, Series 1, episode 8, Kids WB, 17 November.
4Kids TV (2002a) 'The Light at the End of the Tunnel' Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Monsters, Series 1, episode 14, Kids WB, 2 February.
4Kids TV (2002b) 'Winning Through Intimidation' Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Monsters, Series 1, episode 15, Kids WB, 2 February.
4Kids TV (2002c) 'Keith's Machination (Part 2 of 2)' Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Monsters, Series 1, episode 32, 7 September.
Billany, M. (2009). YGOTAS Episode 6 - Everybody Hates Mako - LittleKuriboh. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSt1J_usLzQ [Accessed 21 Feb. 2017].
Hesmondhalgh, D. (2013). The Cultural Industries. Available at: http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Industries-Prof-David-Hesmondhalgh/dp/1412908086.
NAS (2000a) 'Pitch-Black Duel! The Castle Hidden in the Darkness' Yu-Gi-Oh!, Series 2, episode 14, TV Tokyo, 25 July.
NAS (2000b) 'Travel Through Time! Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon' Yu-Gi-Oh!, Series 2, episode 32, 28 November.
Parini, I. (2012). Censorship of Anime in Italian Distribution. Meta: Journal des traducteurs, 57(2), pp.325–337. Available at: http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1013948ar.
Tzanelli, R. (2011). 'Cultural flows', in Southerton, D (ed.), Encyclopedia of consumer culture, SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 385-386, 21 February 2017, doi: 10.4135/9781412994248.n145.
4Kids TV (2001) 'Everything's Relative' Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Monsters, Series 1, episode 8, Kids WB, 17 November.
4Kids TV (2002a) 'The Light at the End of the Tunnel' Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Monsters, Series 1, episode 14, Kids WB, 2 February.
4Kids TV (2002b) 'Winning Through Intimidation' Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Monsters, Series 1, episode 15, Kids WB, 2 February.
4Kids TV (2002c) 'Keith's Machination (Part 2 of 2)' Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Monsters, Series 1, episode 32, 7 September.
GLOSSARY:
Duel: In the manga and anime, a 'duel' is a game of Duel Monsters, the card game that drives the plot. In the real world, this term is used for matches in the series' accompanying card game.
Duel: In the manga and anime, a 'duel' is a game of Duel Monsters, the card game that drives the plot. In the real world, this term is used for matches in the series' accompanying card game.
Shadow Realm: An otherworldy dimension invented by 4kids to replace all references to Hell and, more generally, death in the anime. In the 4kids dub, Yami Yugi has the ability to banish evil people to this realm using his mind. In the original, he kills them.
Star Chips: In the Duelist Kingdom arc, star chips are earned by beating another person in a duel. If someone loses, the winner takes all of their star chips. The first four people to earn ten star chips gain a semi-final place in the Duelist Kingdom tournament.
Yami Yugi: Yugi Motou is occasionally possessed by the spirit of an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh named Atem. This personality is often known as Yami Yugi (lit. 'Dark Yugi').
Yami Yugi: Yugi Motou is occasionally possessed by the spirit of an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh named Atem. This personality is often known as Yami Yugi (lit. 'Dark Yugi').
Monday, 7 March 2016
Encoding & decoding: a beginner's guide
The encoding and decoding model as we know it was proposed by Stuart Hall in 1973. He was a member of the Birmingham School that, like their precursors in Frankfurt, hoped to use media studies to tackle social issues
Hall wrote that there are three ways an individual spectator can decode a piece of media, which we'll call the "text":
Hall wrote that there are three ways an individual spectator can decode a piece of media, which we'll call the "text":
- The Dominant Reading: This means that the spectator agrees with the ideology around which the text has been encoded. For example, if a the reader agrees with this article from The Sun; which proposes that migration and refugee intake as a burden on the country; they're taking a dominant reading (The Sun Says: PM says he wants to cut immigration ... yet he is banking on it to prop up the UK’s economy, 2016).
- The Negotiated Reading: This means that the reader considers the ideology of the text to be valid, but takes it with a pinch of salt based on their own beliefs and makes a balanced judgement. If the reader of the newspaper acknowledges that there are valid problems with the current level of migration but believes that the country should be housing people fleeing from wars, they're taking a negotiated reading.
- The Oppositional Reading: This means that the reader completely disagrees with and discredits the text based on their own ideology. If the reader of the newspaper believes there is no problem with the current level of migration and that more refugees should be allowed into the country, they're taking an oppositional reading (Hall, 1973).
Hall believed that an individual's socio-economic background was a good indicator of how they would react to certain media and this point was proved in the Nationwide Project. In 1980 David Morley and Charlotte Brunsden, two other Birmingham School members, conducted a study in which they showed certain distinct socio-economic groups an episode of the ITV magazine show Nationwide. Produced for a mainstream audience, the episode concerned the impact on early Thatcherite policies upon British industry. (Brunsden and Morley, 1999).
Brunsden and Morley found that people from upper-middle class backgrounds, such as bank managers and public school students, responded positively to the messages of the program. Groups like students took more negotiated readings, believing that the show wasn't thought provoking enough, well as people such as trade unionists and shop assistants were oppositional towards the portrayal of working class men (Brunsden and Morley, 1999).
We can analyse how a text has been encoded and some possible readings through the text "Extreme Makeover". Produced by ABC, it follows individuals who get cosmetic makeovers to "fix" an aspect of their character. In the episode I analysed, a woman named Micah gets an entirely cosmetic makeover as her looks made her bullied for years, well as a man named Chris requests something to make him employable and productive again after he lost both legs in a motorcycle accident. A dominant respondent may agree with the programme's ethic that surgery can fix problems pre-concieved by society. A negotiated reader may believe that some surgery is necessary, but not to the extent the programme is offering (Chris gets a cosmetic makeover as well as new prosthetics) well as an outright oppositional reading may not accept the text's construct of beauty or usefulness within society (Extreme Makeover, 2007).
The encoding and decoding model isn't without its flaws, however. In the Nationwide Study, one of the control groups was made up of African British students. This group did not respond oppositionally to the text because they were against its values but because, as first generation immigrants who had been brought up in a different culture, they did not understand them (Brunsden and Morley, 1999). If you don't understand something, how can you be defiant towards it? Also, Hall designed the model to be exclusively applicable to television, so its applications in other forms of media may be limited.
SOURCES:
Brunsdon, C. and Morley, D. (1999). The Nationwide television studies. London: Routledge.
Extreme Makeover, (2007). [TV programme] ABC.
Hall, S. (1973). Encoding and decoding in the television discourse. Birmingham [England]: Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham.
The Sun Says: PM says he wants to cut immigration ... yet he is banking on it to prop up the UK’s economy. (2016). [online] The Sun. Available at: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/6958425/PM-tells-us-he-wants-to-cut-immigration-yet-is-banking-on-it-to-prop-up-economy.html [Accessed 7 Mar. 2016].
Brunsden and Morley found that people from upper-middle class backgrounds, such as bank managers and public school students, responded positively to the messages of the program. Groups like students took more negotiated readings, believing that the show wasn't thought provoking enough, well as people such as trade unionists and shop assistants were oppositional towards the portrayal of working class men (Brunsden and Morley, 1999).
We can analyse how a text has been encoded and some possible readings through the text "Extreme Makeover". Produced by ABC, it follows individuals who get cosmetic makeovers to "fix" an aspect of their character. In the episode I analysed, a woman named Micah gets an entirely cosmetic makeover as her looks made her bullied for years, well as a man named Chris requests something to make him employable and productive again after he lost both legs in a motorcycle accident. A dominant respondent may agree with the programme's ethic that surgery can fix problems pre-concieved by society. A negotiated reader may believe that some surgery is necessary, but not to the extent the programme is offering (Chris gets a cosmetic makeover as well as new prosthetics) well as an outright oppositional reading may not accept the text's construct of beauty or usefulness within society (Extreme Makeover, 2007).
The encoding and decoding model isn't without its flaws, however. In the Nationwide Study, one of the control groups was made up of African British students. This group did not respond oppositionally to the text because they were against its values but because, as first generation immigrants who had been brought up in a different culture, they did not understand them (Brunsden and Morley, 1999). If you don't understand something, how can you be defiant towards it? Also, Hall designed the model to be exclusively applicable to television, so its applications in other forms of media may be limited.
SOURCES:
Brunsdon, C. and Morley, D. (1999). The Nationwide television studies. London: Routledge.
Extreme Makeover, (2007). [TV programme] ABC.
Hall, S. (1973). Encoding and decoding in the television discourse. Birmingham [England]: Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham.
The Sun Says: PM says he wants to cut immigration ... yet he is banking on it to prop up the UK’s economy. (2016). [online] The Sun. Available at: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/6958425/PM-tells-us-he-wants-to-cut-immigration-yet-is-banking-on-it-to-prop-up-economy.html [Accessed 7 Mar. 2016].
Sunday, 6 March 2016
The effects model: the good, the bad and the ugly.
The effects model has been a bastion of media studies for many years. Many people refer to it every day without even realising; the "nanny state" lives and dies by one of the oldest media theories.
The effects model was first thought up by the Frankfurt School, who were the first group to take the study of media seriously, as they were concerned with how it was being used as a propaganda tool.
Two of the main theorists were Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer. They argued that culture had become mass produced, churned out again and again as one would produce a car. (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1947). Adorno said that the repetition and routine of these new media made them useful as tools of control to reinforce the capitalist order (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1947). This idea is often called the "hypodermic needle" model as media "injects" an audience with information.
Their worldview was not shared by Walter Benjamin. He believed that the shift from art as a singular spectacle to art as a mass produced commodity represented a victory over bourgeois traditions; or as he puts it, it "emancipates art from its parasitic dependency on ritual" (Benjamin, 1968, pp.6).
Benjamin said that pre-industrial art possesses an 'aura', or a set of rituals governing its consumption; you walk into the Louvre, you ogle at the Mona Lisa from an aesthetic perspective, you leave. In an era where art can be mass-produced, you are able to appreciate the work from a whole host of social and industrial contexts (Benjamin, 1968). If the film you're watching is made in Hollywood, how does that impact the codes, conventions and values it carries?
The effects model has come under a lot of criticism in recent years. The work of Stuart Hall on audience theory proposed that there was more to the human experience of media than being a puppet. We all have individual tastes influenced by our socio-economic backgrounds, Hall says. In short, the media does not inject us with information, but instead provides us with information to make our own judgments based on our beliefs (Hall, 1973).
We can see this by watching Gogglebox, a show in which members of the British public react to television broadcasts. When the participants watched the John Lewis "Bear and the Hare" advert, opinion was diverse and appreciated the text both critically (A man remarks that the animation is "incredible, on a par with Disney" and a bewildered twenty-something yells "What the fuck is this about?") and commercially (two housemates attempt to guess which shop produced the advert and a working class mother protests its £7 million budget by stating "they're obviously making far too much money") (Gogglebox, 2014).
Another criticism of the effects model is how it treats the children as incapable of drawing their own conclusions from the media. We can see how this is disputed in The Fine Bros.' "Kids React" videos on Youtube, where children are able to form cognitive opinions about challenging topics like Caitlyn Jenner and Islamic terrorism having been given minimal information (Fine and Fine, 2016).
In conclusion, while the effects model has a lot of applications in the modern day, it's become discredited in the years since and is no longer a staple of media theory.
SOURCES:
Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1947). Dialect of Enlightenment. 2nd ed. Amsterdam: Querido Verlag.
Benjamin, W. (1968). Illuminations. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Fine, B. and Fine, R. (2016). Fine Brothers Entertainment. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheFineBros [Accessed 29 Feb. 2016].
Gogglebox, (2014). [TV programme] Channel 4.
Hall, S. (1973). Encoding and decoding in the television discourse. Birmingham [England]: Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham.
The effects model was first thought up by the Frankfurt School, who were the first group to take the study of media seriously, as they were concerned with how it was being used as a propaganda tool.
Two of the main theorists were Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer. They argued that culture had become mass produced, churned out again and again as one would produce a car. (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1947). Adorno said that the repetition and routine of these new media made them useful as tools of control to reinforce the capitalist order (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1947). This idea is often called the "hypodermic needle" model as media "injects" an audience with information.
Their worldview was not shared by Walter Benjamin. He believed that the shift from art as a singular spectacle to art as a mass produced commodity represented a victory over bourgeois traditions; or as he puts it, it "emancipates art from its parasitic dependency on ritual" (Benjamin, 1968, pp.6).
Benjamin said that pre-industrial art possesses an 'aura', or a set of rituals governing its consumption; you walk into the Louvre, you ogle at the Mona Lisa from an aesthetic perspective, you leave. In an era where art can be mass-produced, you are able to appreciate the work from a whole host of social and industrial contexts (Benjamin, 1968). If the film you're watching is made in Hollywood, how does that impact the codes, conventions and values it carries?
The effects model has come under a lot of criticism in recent years. The work of Stuart Hall on audience theory proposed that there was more to the human experience of media than being a puppet. We all have individual tastes influenced by our socio-economic backgrounds, Hall says. In short, the media does not inject us with information, but instead provides us with information to make our own judgments based on our beliefs (Hall, 1973).
We can see this by watching Gogglebox, a show in which members of the British public react to television broadcasts. When the participants watched the John Lewis "Bear and the Hare" advert, opinion was diverse and appreciated the text both critically (A man remarks that the animation is "incredible, on a par with Disney" and a bewildered twenty-something yells "What the fuck is this about?") and commercially (two housemates attempt to guess which shop produced the advert and a working class mother protests its £7 million budget by stating "they're obviously making far too much money") (Gogglebox, 2014).
Another criticism of the effects model is how it treats the children as incapable of drawing their own conclusions from the media. We can see how this is disputed in The Fine Bros.' "Kids React" videos on Youtube, where children are able to form cognitive opinions about challenging topics like Caitlyn Jenner and Islamic terrorism having been given minimal information (Fine and Fine, 2016).
In conclusion, while the effects model has a lot of applications in the modern day, it's become discredited in the years since and is no longer a staple of media theory.
SOURCES:
Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1947). Dialect of Enlightenment. 2nd ed. Amsterdam: Querido Verlag.
Benjamin, W. (1968). Illuminations. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Fine, B. and Fine, R. (2016). Fine Brothers Entertainment. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheFineBros [Accessed 29 Feb. 2016].
Gogglebox, (2014). [TV programme] Channel 4.
Hall, S. (1973). Encoding and decoding in the television discourse. Birmingham [England]: Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham.
Applying Herman & Chomsky's propaganda model to WWE.
Herman and Chomsky came up with the propaganda model to explain the behaviour of the media in the United States. They believed that the free market press was not a free press; as they say in Manufacturing Consent, "the global balance of
power has shifted decisively toward commercial systems" (Herman and Chomsky, 1988). Herman Chomsky believed that there were five distinct filters through which corporate-owned media passed through before it was deemed suitable for the consumers, the shareholders and most importantly the owners (Herman and Chomsky, 1988). In this blog post, I will be applying their five filters to the WWE and exploring how the filters have impacted some of the decisions the company and its owners have made.
Ownership
While WWE is not itself owned by a larger conglomerate, the channel on which it broadcasts its television shows, USA Network, is a subsidiary of NBC Universal. In mid-2015, Sheamus, who had been booked as a midcard wrestler, recieved the Money in the Bank briefcase, giving him a match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at any time (WWE Money in the Bank, 2015). There was speculation among fans that this angle was booked to tie-in with Sheamus' role in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, a Universal Studios project (Sheamus WWE champion for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 release?, 2015). Sure enough, at Survivor Series, Sheamus, won the title from Roman Reigns (WWE Survivor Series, 2015) and, two weeks later, the trailer for TMNT2 was uploaded to YouTube.
Advertising
In 2008, WWE changed their programming, which for ten years had been violent and mature in nature, back to the family-friendly style of the 1980's to appeal to advertisers. From 2010 to 2013, merchandise revenue from Mattel licensed action figures rose from $110 million to $160 million (Graser, 2013). In fact, one of WWE's biggest controversies of the PG Era led to a sponsorship deal. During his feud with The Rock in 2011, John Cena compared his rival to Fruity Pebbles cereal and used homophobic slurs in a dis-rap against him. LGBT charity GLAAD took umbrage to this and WWE was forced to make an apology, but Post Cereals saw the publicity the line had gotten and began using Cena in their advertising campaigns and putting his likeness on boxes of Fruity Pebbles (Schultz, 2013).
Sourcing
WWE produces its own news media on WWE.com and formerly in WWE Magazine. In the modern age, its reporting tends to switch around between articles which treat wrestling as a legitimate sport and those which lay bare its status as a form of entertainment. An example of the former, in which WWE followed up on Roman Reigns being injured at the hands of Triple H when some speculated that he was given a blood capsule (Carrier, 2016), can be found here (Wortman, 2016).
Flak
The term "flak" refers to political or corporate backlash from certain actions. In 2009 the company's CEO, Linda McMahon, announced that she would begin running for the United States Senate (Whittell, 2010). Because McMahon was a conservative Republican, she didn't want the flak from a product that had come under fire from censors in the past for being unsuitable for families and resigned from the company when her bid began (Fightmaster, 2009).
Anti-Communism
Professional wrestling has been very much guilty of this in the past. The first real communist heel was a "bear-man" named Ivan Koloff, played the Quebecois Oreal Perras. In 1971, Koloff was booked to end the seven-year WWWF Championship reign of the company's top good guy, Bruno Sammartino. Due to a combination of anti-communist fears, the portrayal of his character and many audience members still believing wrestling to be a legitimate sport, his win was met with silence; Sammartino himself feared he had gone deaf (Henry, 2015). WWE has also been guilty of driving other fear-based media ideologies with characters like Muhammad Hassan, a Muslim who once "prayed" for men in ski masks to kidnap The Undertaker (WWE Smackdown, 2005) and the Putin-supporting Lana, who brought up the MH-17 plane crash- accused of being perpetrated by pro-Russian rebels- in one of her talking segments (WWE Battleground, 2014).
SOURCES
Carrier, S. (2016). Roman Reigns Blades on Monday's RAW?. [online] All Wrestling News. Available at: http://www.allwrestlingnews.com/wwe-news/roman-reigns-blades-mondays-raw/ [Accessed 6 Mar. 2016].
Fightmaster, M. (2009). WWE CEO Linda McMahon resigns to lay a smackdown on the U.S. Senate - DailyFinance. [online] DailyFinance.com. Available at: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/09/16/wwe-ceo-linda-mcmahon-resigns-to-lay-the-smackdown-on-the-u-s-s/ [Accessed 6 Mar. 2016].
Graser, M. (2013). WWE’s Promo Mania. [online] Variety. Available at: http://variety.com/2013/biz/news/wwe-promotion-mania-john-cena-mcmahon-1200343356/ [Accessed 6 Mar. 2016].
Henry, J. (2015). 25 Memorable WWE Moments At Madison Square Garden. [online] Camel Clutch Blog. Available at: http://camelclutchblog.com/25-memorable-wwe-moments-at-madison-square-garden/ [Accessed 6 Mar. 2016].
Herman, E. and Chomsky, N. (1988). Manufacturing consent. New York: Pantheon Books.
Schultz, E. (2013). Fruity Pebbles Raw: WWE Star Finishes Fred Flintstone. [online] Adage.com. Available at: http://adage.com/article/news/wwe-s-cena-boots-fred-flintstone-fruity-pebbles-box/239009/ [Accessed 6 Mar. 2016].
Sheamus WWE champion for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 release?. (2016). [online] Wrestlingforum.com. Available at: http://www.wrestlingforum.com/general-wwe/1762953-sheamus-wwe-champion-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-2-release.html [Accessed 6 Mar. 2016].
Whittell, G. (2010). WWE boss Linda McMahon takes ten-point lead in Republican race for the Senate | The Times. [online] The Times. Available at: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/americas/article2465775.ece [Accessed 6 Mar. 2016].
Wortman, J. (2016). Update: Roman Reigns provides exclusive post-surgery day 2 photo following Triple H attack. [online] www.wwe.com. Available at: http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2016-02-22/article/reigns-surgery [Accessed 6 Mar. 2016].
WWE Battleground. (2014). [DVD] Tampa: WWE.
WWE Smackdown, (2005). [TV programme] UPN.
WWE Survivor Series. (2015). [DVD] Atlanta: WWE.
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