Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea from Jean-Claude O’Donnell on Vimeo.

What does a bill like PIPA/SOPA mean to our shareable world? At the TED offices, Clay Shirky delivers a proper manifesto — a call to defend our freedom to create, discuss, link and share, rather than passively consume.

By © TED CONFERENCES, LLC

Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law

Although some of you might find the title slightly disturbing i had to take some time off to probe into myself and my ideas of culture and the politics of social interaction (i know the idea of self-probing is disturbing). Anyway, after the probing I’ve come up with the conclusion that “i am awesome!” Just kidding. There are a lot of things I’ve come to consider in more detail and within empirical reasoning… for example the notion of difference and how we still apply cultural power to reinforce our bias and cultural positioning. As well as the impact of cultural power and how this provides social stability, while creating a structure that permits one party to have dominance or advantage over another. Like

-An impatient pregnant woman who fakes labour pains to boycott a necessary queue.

-An uncle who uses his social positioning as an elder to lure a little girl away…

Or in the case of my own personal experience:

-A friend who uses spending time with his family as an excuse to escape his responsibilities, while waiting for an equal share of the benefits of that responsibility.

The annoying thing about cultural power is that if you exist within that culture, you are robbed of the ability to respond adequately to abuse. This is the reason the advancement of civilisation seems to annul the concept of communality or what would originally be called cultural tradition. This is because modernisation brings clarity and logical reasoning; a questioning of norms, thereby removing the possibility of individual repression through culture. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that civilization or modernisation is all good. The truth is that it seems to have even brought more bad than good, but it does do the job of shaking away the pillars of presumed norms upon which cultural power stands.

My first memorable encounter with this abuse of cultural power was in 2001, then still undergraduates, we (my close friend Uzo and I) had just gotten a large computer networking contract, equivalent in value (now 2010) to about £4000 to £5000. The contract was with a fairly large establishment. The owner (Mr X) was well known within his community because he had held certain prestigious position within politics and The Media.  After we had fulfilled our mandate within the specified contract and it was time to get paid, and Mr X comes up with some hard luck stories about how things where difficult for him and he was struggling to make ends meet because he was waiting for the new IT centre we just worked on to bring in some profit. Now, Uzo had grown up in the same community as Mr X and therefore was powerless to respond to the situation. He didn’t want to argue with someone who was elderly and also well respected in the community, even though he was robbing us.

Although I was coming from another community and wouldn’t have to suffer any consequences of breaching this community’s norms (such as calling Mr X a cheat), I didn’t want to steer up trouble and leave my friend to stew in it, so we left without any pay, and went back to work (running manual checks on the PCs and network). That afternoon Mr X’s son walks into the office and demands that his dad pay for a vacation he was about to undertake (this vacation cost more than our contract fee) and Mr X goes into his office and brings out the money in cash and pays right in front of us. So naturally i blow my top, Uzo was also too angry to stop me. I approach Mr X and demanded he pay us as stated in the contract, he tried to bring up his hard-luck stories again and i told him it was none of our business. We had a contract; we had fulfilled our end of the said contract and he needed to pay us. He grudgingly went into his office and brought out our money in cash. Of course after that we got lots of trouble from the community but that’s another story.

If we ask ourselves on what basis Mr X was attempting to breach the contract, the answer would be on the basis of cultural power, because he understood that within that society the culture was that no young individual could challenge an ‘elder’ (older individual) without incurring the wrath of the community even if the elder was wrong. So Mr X tried bringing in this cultural rule into a business relationship and transaction, forgetting that cultural power is only effective within its culture of origin.

To Be Continued…

Dan Wilson

DATE:                         2008/2009

I confirm that this work is entirely my own; no part of it is copied from previous write ups, nor does it include material from any published source without proper acknowledgment.

CONSUMING GENDER: HOW GENDER AFFECTS THE PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION OF MEDIA AND CULTURAL GOODS.

INTRODUCTION

The present post-modern global circumstances have birthed a dominating class of capitalists who, in a bid to sell the next consumer item, have indulged in the artificial association of most consumer products (goods) with subcultural connotations in an attempt at creating customer-self-conceptual connections with consumer products, product associative identities, or what Professor Reed calls ‘identity salience’ between consumer and product (Reed 2002, Scherer 2003:18-20). This culturally liminal association of goods with cultural ideals has greatly attempted to establish and redefine the general notions of gender, mostly within patriarchal conjectures, but has also gone ahead to attempt some reframing of traditional gender representations in a bid to sooth its itinerant economic anticipation. The purpose of this essay is to examine how gender affects the production, distribution and consumption of media and cultural goods. This essay will hold to the theory that gender is performed rather than preformed (Ekstrom 2004: 156).

TO BE FEMININE OR MASCULINE, THAT IS THE QUESTION.

Professor Reed described the term ‘identity salience’ as the process through which an advertisement, product, brand or any marketing stimulus specifically brings to mind strong and positive thoughts of the consumer’s identity, rooted in personal situations or group memberships (Reed 2002). Although, specifically in  gender terms this then focuses on bringing to mind positive thoughts and notions of the consumer’s gender, thereby making the product appeal to the specific gender it is targeted at .

When people think about gender, they often think about a continuum with masculinity on one extreme and femininity on the other (Martindale 2009). In reality it’s a bit more complicated than that; on a shallow level gender roles are the set of expectations a society has about males and females. These include expectations about appearance, personality traits, emotions, interests, abilities, occupation and even sexuality. Originally these expectations are built around patriarchal notions of right and wrong. The erroneous view that gender stems from ones biological makeup has been shaken at the least, some might argue even disproved. The fact is that gender is increasingly conceptualized as a performance, and not fixed in advance of social interaction, but is constructed within and during interaction (Ekstrom 2004: 156). Even the language used in the gender discourse articulate with patriarchal notions, being that

Every culture has different norms for women and men, which vary from one culture to another. Originally, in traditional Western societies, men are generally expected to be strong (physically and emotionally), stoic, more aggressive, competent, rational, independent, sexually driven, and ultimately financially responsible for their families, whereas women are expected to be more nurturing and endearing, emotionally driven, and generally, homemakers who care for the children. Sexually, they are both expected to be attracted to their opposites (Martindale 2009, Dolan 2003:60). These beliefs define what behaviours are socially considered to be appropriate or inappropriate for each gender. It’s obvious that gender roles do more than describe the way things are; they describe how society thinks things should be (Craighead 2004). A person who conforms to the appropriate gender role is likely to be evaluated positively, whereas deviation from that role may result in avoidance, disapproval, or even hostility. Gender roles help people to define themselves as individuals and to guide their behaviour within society’s constructed (constricted) perspective. In other words it provides a pre-existing structure of expectations around which individuals develop their personalities (Martindale 2009, Ekstrom 2004: 156).

Research shows that everyone has masculine and feminine characteristics (Martindale 2009). Women, in particular, have challenged the norms expected of them. In the United States, gender expectations for boys are much more severe than for girls. This means that boys are more severely criticized for violating gender norms than are girls. This may be evidence that there is a higher social value placed on masculine characteristics than on feminine ones. It remains acceptable for women to be like men, but unacceptable for men to be like women (Martindale 2009). It is necessary to ask- why is there a differentiation of the sexes at all, especially to the point of cultural (re)presentation

PATRIARCHY

As said earlier, these traditional notions of gender are rooted in patriarchy, which is the traditional gender setup. Patriarchy is the organization and division of all practices and signification in culture in terms of gender and the privileging of one gender over the other, giving males control over female sexuality, fertility, and labour (Ebert 1988: 19).

The traditional notions of gender or patriarchy date back at least five thousand years, and have penetrated and structured ‘all’ great civilizations and cultures in the globe (Mies 1998). These notions are usually centred on the male (the man) as the centre in all social contexts, which in turn subjugate women as being existent for man’s pleasure. Slavoj Zizek (1949) sees this as man ignoring woman’s personality and being, and instead projecting on her his own ideas, thereby relegating her to the position of object.

“man’s love is cowardly and treacherous not only to man himself but also, and above all, in relation to its subject- it utterly disregards the object (woman’s) true nature, and uses her (it) only as a kind of empty projection screen (Zizek 2006).”

“There are the millions of cleaning supply ads featuring women scrubbing, spraying, sweeping, dusting and laundering; the baby ads featuring women changing diapers, feeding and bathing babies; the ads for food products, featuring women cooking, baking, icing cakes and pouring juice; the diet ads, featuring women who are newly thin prancing in bikinis and miniskirts; the cosmetic ads featuring perfect skin and eyelashes and plump lips. Even the ads hoping to sell products to men tell women how they should be – and consequently, how men should want and expect women to be. The message here for women is, if you aren’t this way, men won’t like you (Thinking Girl 2006).” This neurotic demographic that daytime television advertises is disturbingly also root in patriarchal gender ideas (Haskins 2008).

POST-PATRIARCHY

It is important to note that people do vary in the extent to which they identify with their given gender roles. This deviation from traditional reflections of patriarchy is frequent in more recent times. Dr. Steven Mizrach chooses to call this continuous deviation the era of post-patriarchy (Mizrach 2000). This does not necessary refer to an annihilation of past gender biases of patriarchy, but rather an evolution of the gender discourse. “The previous state of affairs has neither been overthrown nor dissolved. Rather, it has been co-opted, supplanted, reformulated, enantiodromized (made into its opposite), or transcended (Mizrach 2000).”

Although Postmodernism has been called “the cultural capital of (late) patriarchy” (Felski 2000: 195), traditional notions of patriarchy are being rebelled against more frequently. Presently not all men view themselves in traditionally masculine terms, nor do all women identify with a traditionally feminine image. Even the societal expectations are slowly but continually evolving. Originally, the gender ideal is “taught” at an early age, but more recently gender role expectations have continually lost its grip on society’s perceptions of how this should be (Martindale 2009, Marriage and Family encyclopaedia 2009).

Most psychologists who study gender agree that biology and socialization likely work together to shape these perceptions of gender representation (Martindale 2009). Gender roles vary and transform over time, as they are constantly created and recreated through changes in institutions, such as work, economy, politics, family, and culture. These changes have both social and commercial impacts. Historically, gender representation has continually evolved as has society’s expectations of gender roles.  A man can dare to carry a purse, braid his hair, wear male bras and girdles, etc. These conducts would have been seen as huge taboos socially in previous years. Forty years ago, it would have been a dreadful embarrassment to have one’s hair parted on the wrong side of the head, although today men’s and women’s clothing is still buttoned on opposite sides of the garment (Burr 1998).

REFLECTING GENDERED GOODS

“Social identification with avocation, family, religious groups or gender appear to factor heavily into the buying patterns of consumers, and consequently also in the marketing efforts of advertisers (Reed 2002).”

Manufacturers of consumer goods recognise the changes in social perception s of gender, and do their best to take advantage of these itinerant ideas. Women and men differ in their ‘body language’. They carry themselves differently, adopt different postures when seated, and use gestures and expressions differently when talking (Burr 1998).

“Women’s and men’s body language and the pattern of their interactions together are not simply about arbitrary stylistic differences. There are important messages here about how we feel we are able to occupy space (both physical space and linguistic space), and about how conversation between women and men is suffused with power relations. These things are all implicated in the larger picture, where we can observe the more obvious differences and inequalities between women and men (Burr 1998).”

These differences are not totally biological; many of them are rooted on their mental gender positioning. The antics of the drag queen are funny precisely because he (she) is exploiting these differences. Understanding these differences help manufacturers of consumer goods to target their products at particular sexes, presuming that a dominant majority of the groups will conform to the societies gender expectations of them.

In countless ways, individuals mark their gender in their choice of personal possessions when, on the face of it, there are no practical reasons for this gendering (Burr 1998). The considerable differences in size and styling between ladies’ and men’s wrist-watches, socks, slippers, handkerchiefs, fragrances, jewellery, electric razors and so on cannot be justified by physical differences between the sexes, instead it clearly reflects the social perception of gendered choices, usually enforced by commercial influences and intentions.

These products aimed at reflecting gender naturally take in to account cultural and social notions of gender representations in objects, colours, shapes, texture, size, and even smell. The man is imagined as being reflected in solid and boxier (less curvy) objects, dull colours, rugged textures, bigger sizes, more subtle designs, and bolder smells. The woman is in turn imagined as being represented in loud curvy designs, bright colours (primarily pink), very tender textures, smaller sizes, and more flowery subtle smells.

“Through symbolic preference formation, that is getting consumers to like a product offering because it appeals to the lifestyle they have or want to have, companies can create more effective and persuasive advertising (Reed 2002).”

PRESENTING GENDERED GOODS

At the level of the distribution of already manufactured consumer products, the manufacturers don’t stop at the creation of the product, but go ahead to present the product to the public within the language of the targeted gender. Hence, male products are advertised and publicised in ways and means that conform to the expected characteristics of the male gender. Typically the use of sex appeal, male dominance, and all the other traits mentioned earlier are applied for the man’s attention and self attribution of the said consumer product. Wharton marketing professor Americus Reed notes that:

“A successful identity-oriented marketing strategy like Nike’s consists of three critical links, including the consumer, the identity and the brand. “If these links are forged, then they create self-conceptual connections that can lead to advantageous marketing outcomes for companies that are savvy enough to incorporate identity into their marketing strategy (Reed 2002).”

When this sort of advertising is targeted at the male, it plays on the patriarchal notions of what it is to be male. The idea that for a man to appear weak, emotional, or sexually inefficient is a major threat to his self-esteem and societal expectations, therefore to be content, these men must feel that they are decisive, self-assured, and rational by buying whatever product is on offer (Martindale 2009). Given the increasing role that personal possessions increasingly play in providing individuals with their sense of identity, the meanings carried by such things as fluffy slippers or Kleenex for Men provide important information about what it currently means to be appropriately masculine or feminine in the western world (Burr 1998).

The strong effect of gender roles in the lives of individual causes a displacement of the ‘true’ self, in a bid to be socially accepted. This is why the shoppers are less and less confident about making a clear choice of what to buy. Men might want to buy something strong and bright, but they just can’t bring themselves to do it.

“What we do is pretend that choosing shades of grey is more subtle and sophisticated – an intelligent choice. We say to each other we are all very cool and sophisticated. But of course this is nonsense. We would much rather be making bold choices, but (speaking now as a man) we just don’t have the balls actually to do so, because of the burden of freedom; because we are defensive about being held responsible for the sartorial statement we have thereby made. We can only hope for social or institutional support, or otherwise rely upon conventionality itself. (Ekstrom 2004: 156).”

CONCLUSION

Democratic liberty and equality cannot exist without a concomitant sense of anxiety that is the precise result of that experience of freedom. It is within the same liberty that these manufacturers attempt to manipulate consumers via gender differences, in a hope to achieve mindless consumption of their products. If the alternative is a return to those older forms of authority; the older forms of dictatorship, then the present exasperating, slightly irritating state of things is a welcome change but hopefully not a stagnant one.

At least in a positive not the ACR Gender Conference has continued to explore consumption as it is shaped and reflected by the biocultural forces of masculinity, femininity and its hybrids. Both the ACR International Conferences (Europe and Asia-Pacific) and the Marketing and Development Conference have pushed for the adoption of a cross-cultural perspective of consumer behaviour, and have encouraged the critique of dominant views of consumption dynamics (Ekstrom 2004: 156).

REFERENCES

Burr, V. (1998) Gender and Social Psychology. London, GBR: Routledge [online] available from <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/coventry/Doc?id=10055991&ppg=15> [15 May 2009]

Craighead, W. E. and Nemeroff, C. B.  (2004) 3rd edn. The Concise Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science. New York: John Wiley and Sons

Cameron, D. (2000) ‘Styling the worker: Gender and the commodification of language in the globalized service economy.’ Communication & Mass Media Complete. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4, (3) 323-347 [online] available from <http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119013047/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0> [15 May 2009]

Dolan, K. (2003) Voting for women: how the public evaluates women candidates. Boulder, CO: Westview Press

Ebert, T. (1988) ‘The Romance of Patriarchy: Ideology, Subjectivity, and Postmodern Feminist Cultural Theory.’ Cultural Critique: Popular Narrative, Popular Images 10, 19-57 [online] available from <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1354105 Accessed: 07/06/2009 20:42> [15 May 2009]

Ekström, K. M. (2004) Elusive Consumption. Oxford, GBR: Berg Publishers [online] available from <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/coventry/Doc?id=10231674&ppg=9> [15 May 2009]

Felski, R. (2000) Doing Time: Feminist Theory and Postmodern Culture. New York: New York University Press [online] available from <http://family.jrank.org/pages/1436/Rural-Families-Changes-in-Gender-Roles.html> [15 May 2009]

Fischer, E. and Arnold, S.  (1990) ‘More than a Labor of Love: Gender Roles and Christmas Gift Shopping.’ Journal of Consumer Culture 17, (1) 333-345

Haskins, S. (2008) Target Women: Cleaning [online] available from <http://www.feministing.com/archives/011154.html> [15 May 2009]

Marriage and family encyclopaedia (2009) Rural Families – Changes In Gender Roles [online] available from <http://family.jrank.org/pages/1436/Rural-Families-Changes-in-Gender-Roles.html> [15 May 2009]

Mies, M. (1998) 2nd edn. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour. London: Zed Books

Mizrach, S. (2000) Talking pomo: An analysis of the postmodern movement [online] available from <http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/pomo.html> [15 May 2009]

Reed, W. (2002) Exploring the Links between Brand Name and Consumer Identity. London: Knowledge Waton [online] available from <http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/articlepdf/659.pdf > [15 May 2009]

Scherer, K. (2003) ‘The Influence Of Social Identity Salience on Appraisal and Emotion.’ Geneviv Univeristy [online] available from <http://www.unige.ch/cyberdocuments/theses2004/garcia-prietop/these.pdf> [15 May 2009]

Thinking Girl (2006) Selling Patriarchy [online] available from <http://thinkinggirl.wordpress.com/2006/08/30/selling-patriarchy/> [15 May 2009]

Žižek, S. (2005) The metastases of enjoyment: six essays on women and causality. New York: Verso Publications

Date:                           2008/2009

THE COMMODIFICATION OF BLACKNESS

(I confirm that this  is entirely my own work; no part of it is copied from previous papers, nor does it include material from any published source without proper acknowledgement.)

THE COMMODIFICATION OF BLACKNESS

INTRODUCTION

The marketing of blackness, the commodification of race and the introduction of racialised commodities have not erased the colour line so much as they have replaced it with lines of colour, an array of products intended for minority consumers (Chin 2001). This contemporary commodification of blackness has become a dynamic part of the system of cultural repression, which strips away and undermines the component of cultural genealogy that links historic meaning and effects with the present state of events and existence (Petry 2004). This essay seeks to explore the commodification of black culture and idealism, especially in the context of the ‘global Negro community. ‘

For the purpose of this essay, in a bid to attain simplicity, the word “black” will refer to every individual with any form of Negro heritage irrespective of location or cultural differences. Also this essay will fully comply to and reflect the notion by Stuart Hall that race should be seen as a discursive category rather than a biologically constitutive category (Hall 2006, 2006b).

WHAT IS BLACKNESS?

In cultural terms the idea of ‘blackness’ carries with it a lot of power and socio-cultural significance. It has been used to reflect the black cultural heritage in multiple ways, yet one might find that there is no quick, all-encompassing definition for the meaning of the words ‘black’ or ‘blackness’. What does it mean to be black? Looking into this question it becomes rapidly clear that stereotypical norms and ideas of being black do not comprehensively reflect the realities existent in the lives of all people with black cultural heritage. Considering the argument on the authentic basis for measuring blackness, correspondent Latoya Peterson said:

“Later, as I let go of society’s collective opinion about what it means to be black, I began to think being black only meant having a solid grasp of history and collective responsibility to the community. While I like that answer the most, it is not entirely true – there are many blacks who are wilfully ignorant of their history, or devoid of a sense of collective responsibility. In the eyes of society, that does not make them any less black. So scratch that theory (Peterson 2007).”

What makes blackness so elusive to define is that, it implies that there is a specific black existential experience that can be used as a reference. The ethnic societies that constitute the global black community vary in socio-cultural habits and experiences to the extent of incongruity. The individual form Haiti encountering the Zulu descendant from Africa, with a black British citizen in Diaspora thrown into their midst will only reflect the true extent of difference that exists in the cultural heritage of varying societies that make up the global black community.

At certain instances, in an attempt to give this abstract notion of blackness form, it is presented with certain hints of rigidity: In order to be black, you must be X, say Y, and look like Z. Other times, the concept becomes so abstract that we lose focus, unsure of what to call the “global negro community”(The Coup Magazine 2007), because there is the lack of a standard measuring rod for authenticity. How should blackness be measured? Will the standard be appearance, history, a shared past of oppression, or a bond geared towards a better future? Is it tight curls and locks or a style of dress? “Or do we just Make sure our Melanin Quotient (MQ) stays in the high 90s (The Coup Magazine 2007).”

Black culture (blackness) has been distorted and misrepresented as part of a commodification process (Randall 2008). The target to strive towards for true authenticity continually morphs from one idea to another, making it some worth liminal.  The fact is, ‘black’ has never been just there either. It has always been an unstable identity, physically, culturally and politically. It too, is a narrative, story and a history. Something constructed, told spoken not simply found. Black is an identity which had to be learnt and could only be learnt in a certain moment (Hall 1993: 136), the moment of cross-racial encounter.

“Identity is not as transparent or unproblematic as we think. Perhaps, instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished historical fact…we should think, instead of identity as a ‘production,’ which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within (not outside) representation (Hall 1996: 210).”

This ideal of blackness hence remains unattainable, because every time someone gets to the essence of it, ‘it’ changes. This change goes from the idea of being and staying ‘cool’, to ‘being down’, ‘hip’, ‘hot’, etc. These notions of black attainment are reflected in the clothes worn by “free-thinking” young black males in downtown Houston. It is the music of 50 Cent and the pioneering sounds of the Sugar Hill Gang and Grandmaster Flash. It is Afrika Bambaataa and the legacy of street-surviving kids in the Bronx in the early 1970s. It is spoken word and New York City subway graffiti, and films like ‘Menace II Society’ and ‘Boyz N’ the Hood’ that shine an unsparing light on the collision of urban ghetto life and black youth (Randall 2008). It is black activists, artists and business moguls like Russell Simmons who want to mobilize the hip hop generation into a political force to be reckoned with; an active viable market to trade black urban cultural commodities with.

It’s a walk, attitude, and youthful (often rebellious) voice that resonate with high school students in Kansas as well as club-goers in Tokyo. It’s an avenue for cultural expression that didn’t exist before and a feeling that cannot be verbalized in anything near conventional terms (Randall 2008).

Contemporary black culture is radically complex and diverse, marked by an intriguing variety of intellectual reflections, artistic creations, and social practices. Its vibrant diversity cautions against portraying the constitutive cultural experiences of the individual with black African descent in monolithic terms. And yet, there exists an unfailing precedent to cast black culture in a distorted light and to view it through the prisms of racist stereotype or racial essentialism. The former is the attempt to apply inferior science to undisciplined social observation, fuelled by the effort to foist overdrawn generalizations about individual character onto entire racial groups. The latter often occurs as black intellectuals oppose the strangling of black culture by caricature, offering instead cultural standards to help define racial authenticity (Goldberg 1994: 218).

Globalisation drives multiculturalism which causes the loss of culture and identity. This loss of identity, culture and tradition, stirs up urgency in the individual to claim back his uniqueness, hence a new search for identity.  The natural business response to this is the re-coding of goods into forms of identity representation. So the capitalist organisation tries to sell the idea of blackness, in the form of whatever product is on sale at that moment, back to the black individual, in a bid at providing him with a feeling of authenticity and validation of his “true” blackness. Race is not skin colour, that is just the signifier that deceives us, rather it is a relation of difference and political power play.

“I, then, went through the long, important, political education of discovering that I am ‘black’. Constituting oneself as ‘black’ is another recognition of self through difference: certain clear polarities and extremities against which one tries to define one’s self. We constantly underestimate the importance of certain crucial political things that have happened in the world, of this ability of people to constitute themselves physically in the black identity. It has long been thought that this is really a simple process: a recognition- a resolution of resolutions, a coming to rest in someplace which was always there waiting for one. The real “me” at last (Hall 1993: 136)!”

To achieve a state of commodification the notions of culture, in this case black culture, must first be transformed into fantasy; a romanticising of the idea of the subculture in a bit to give it unattainability, hence the need to go buy it (whatever it is). The fantasising of the black skin, the transformation of the signifier through some “unexplainable alchemy” into an idea (an ideal) that is almost reachable but unattainable without the added boost from the product being offered. The idea of blackness has always stood as the opposing polarity of whiteness. Originally, a black man has no sense of colour difference in his original black society, but at the instance of white cross-racial encounter, the realities of difference are almost suddenly awakened in him. As Stuart Hall put it “without relation of difference no representation (of blackness) could occur” at all (hall 1996: 215).

The socially, morally, and economically repugnant uses of black African embodiment, rooted in the commodification of the black body, began under slavocracy in American culture (Dyson 1993). The black body was articulated as the primal other, the form of difference par excellence. Black sport activity often acquired a heroic dimension, as viewed in the careers of figures such as Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Althea Gibson, Wilma Rudolph, Muhammad Ali, and Arthur Ashe (Dyson 1993). This is reflected in  Black sports heroes transcending the narrow boundaries of specific sports activities and garnered importance as icons of cultural excellence, symbolic figures who embodied social possibilities of success denied to the none and unauthentic ‘black’. But they also captured and catalyzed the black cultural fetishization of sport as a means of expressing black cultural style, as a means of valorising craft as a marker of racial and self-expression (Dyson 1993).

Fig. 1: Michael Jordan going for a dunk (Jordan 1989)

From the very beginning of Michael Jordan’s professional career he was consciously marketed by his agency (Pro-Serve) as a commodity figure representing capital accumulation and material consumption (Dyson 1993: 74). Presenting him as the symbol of the black athletic body for the commodified black cultural imagination, they managed to is make him an object of white desire to domesticate and dilute its more ominous and subversive uses, even symbolically reducing Jordan’s body to dead meat (McDonald’s Mcjordan hamburger), which can be consumed and expelled as waste (Dyson 1993: 74). Jordan’s game reflects the stylization of the performed self; the creation and presentation of an icon as a signifier for the creative enterprises and possibilities of blackness.

“This moment in black cultural practice is the ability to flout widely understood boundaries through mesmerisation and alchemy, a subversion of common perceptions of the culturally or physically possible through the creative and deceptive manipulation of appearance (Dyson 1993)”

The image of Michael Jordan presented is that of mystical (and mythical), heroic, aspiring standard for blackness, and to achieve it you need to use Nike shoes or eat at McDonald like Jordan. It seems the advertisers are saying “You as an individual are not enough; you need the paraphernalia to attain”. Jordan eats Wheaties, drives Chevrolets, wears Hanes, drinks Coca-Cola, consumes McDonald’s, guzzles Gatorade, and, of course, wears Nikes. He and his shrewd handlers have successfully produced, packaged, marketed, and distributed his image and commodified his symbolic worth, transforming cultural capital into cash, influence, prestige, status, and wealth (Dyson 1993: 74). This cultural capital is the point at which identity is used as an exploitative tool on blacks and black culture. Even his highly publicized troubles with gambling, his refusal to visit the White House after the Bulls’ championship season, and a book that purports to expose the underside of his heroic myth have all played key roles in making him more popular, hence more marketable (Dyson 1993: 74).

In Jordan’s game, the stylization of a performed self has allowed him to create a distinct sports persona that has athletic as well as economic consequences (Dyson 1993). There is also the subversion of perceived limits through the use of edifying deception, which in Jordan’s case centres around “the space-time continuum,”  or popularly called Jordan’s “hang time.” the uncanny ability to remain suspended in midair longer than other basketball players while executing his stunning array of improvised moves. But Jordan’s “hang time” is technically a misnomer and can be more accurately attributed to Jordan’s skilful athletic deception, his acrobatic leaping ability, and his intellectual toughness in projecting an aura of uniqueness around his craft than to his defiance of gravity and the laws of physics.

No human being, including Michael Jordan, can successfully defy the law of gravity and achieve relatively sustained altitude without the benefit of machines. As Douglas Kirkpatrick points out, the equation for altitude is l/2g x t2 = VO x t (“How Does Michael Fly?”) (Dyson 1993: 74).

This use of myth, misrepresentation, the exaggeration of Jordan’s abilities to the point of mystery, is the point in which he is commodified, and the point in which fantasy mediates fascism. To attain this level of “black awesomeness” you need to buy Jordan’s shoes, eat what he eats, etc. “As the popular saying goes: everybody wants to be like Mike”

This act of driving cultural representation to the point of fantasy has not only existed within the capitalist movement of cultural commodification, it actually originated from traditional cultural societies. The use of folklore and later on urban legends has existed long before the advent of globalisation. Although, these cultural stories and fantasies are now being manipulated to meet commercial desires. The commodification of race, culture and ethnicity also exists outside of the world of sports. It exists within the world of toy production, such as the ethnic minority versions of The Barbie doll, especially the unpopular Shani doll made by Mattel.

Fig. 2: Two Shani dolls, part of the Barbie line of multicultural dolls (Barbie Dolls 2009).

The images above shows two Barbie dark-skinned collector’s items, underneath the pictures are the inscription “More Pop Culture Dolls”. To create black and brown skinned dolls and categorise them into a pop cultural group is making a statement of white dominance, and the idea that every other race and ethnic group is just a flavour of the original, the authentic, the white race. These images exemplify the notions that Multiculturalism is a cloak for modern day racism.

“In the twenty-first century, to assert the superiority of Western civilisation over any other culture elicits accusations of eurocentricism, arrogance or even racism (The Institute for the Study of Civil Society 2006).”

Conversely, multiculturalism’s critics have argued that it has been a malevolent force, that its promotion has been divisive. They maintain that state-sponsored multiculturalism patronises ethnic minorities, that it has pitted ethnic groups against each other, that it has unfairly denigrated the culture of the indigenous population, and, ironically, actually served to exacerbate racism (The Institute for the Study of Civil Society 2006). What these dolls suggest is that blackness is a flavour not (the) authentic; a distraction from the real, a trivial play thing. It presents black culture as an unserious avenue to escape truth and reality for a while. “White culture is not edgy enough; so black people are presented (not represented) as the exotic and primitive alternative. “

The Shani line of dolls introduced by Mattel in 1991 illustrates the way in which ethnically correct dolls solidify racial categories in problematic ways. Shani dolls come in three shades of skin: light, medium, and dark. Ironically, in launching the Shani line, Mattel made racial difference concrete in a way it had not before: while all of its previous black dolls were part of the Barbie line (even Nigerian and Jamaican Barbie), the Shani dolls are not technically Barbies (Chin 2001:155). Mattel has designed, produced, and marketed these ethnically correct dolls as a separate line, in effect creating market segregation between Shani and Barbie dolls, formalizing through commodification the dividing line between black and white. To emphasize the difference between the Barbie and Shani lines, the Shani boxes announce “From the makers of BARBIE!” This statement seems to suggest at least a sort of corporate kinship between the dolls but subtly underlines their basic difference as well; driving the point home that Shani is not Barbie (Chin 2001:155).

Fig. 3: A Shani doll in its original pack (Barbie Dolls 2009).

With their three different skin tones Shani dolls are meant to signify different kinds of blackness. The progressive notion that black does not look just one way is not as progressive as it might appear when one looks closely at the Shani dolls, whose facial features seem to get more stereotypically black the darker the doll’s skin color: Asha, the light-skinned doll, has the smallest nose and thinnest lips; meanwhile Nichelle, the darkest doll, has lips that are much wider than the outlines of her stamped-on pink lipstick, and her nose is the largest and widest of the Shani dolls (Chin 2001).

According to an interview with Shani designers, the dolls are designed to give the illusion of a higher, rounder butt than Barbie’s. This has been accomplished, they told her, by pitching Shani’s back at a different angle than Barbie’s, and changing some of the proportions of her hips. One rightly wonders why a bigger butt is necessarily an attribute of blackness, tying this obsession to turn-of-the century attempts to scientifically justify racial categories, Which in actuality holds no ground (Hall 2006b). What does it mean that Mattel would attempt to use the illusion of an enlarged backside to indicate an ethnically correct doll, while maintaining the doll’s ability to wear the same clothes as Barbie (Chin 2001)?

The makers of Barbie herself have, in effect, recognized the unbearable whiteness of Barbie as they have begun to manufacture ethnically correct dolls. Observing Mattel’s toys, one wonders how there are no voices speaking against a Eurocentric toy industry that continually stifles children’s dreams and mindset by providing racial unbalanced informal education through the means of toys.

CONCLUSION

The Media and corporate organisations have perverted the idea of blackness to make it more marketable. The need for individual internal cultural dissatisfaction, dissociatedness, even discord, is required to bring the individual, better yet the society, to a point of need. A need for something it wants but cannot get on its own; the feeling of imperfection, the requirement for something outside of oneself to bring completion. Even if it first must be created by the producers through targeted advertising, aimed at bring the society to the point of blind consumerism. In this way ‘black’ people are told how to be black, at least in a way the sells consumer products.

“No one is issued a ‘how to be black’ handbook at birth – and I am sure if we were, half of us would spend our time rebelling against the guidelines in the book. In the meantime, I’ll just continue being unapologetically myself. Maybe I can reshape the idea of blackness into something that is reflective of my own experience. Just maybe… (Peterson 2007).”

REFERENCES

Barbie dolls (2009) Two Shani dolls, part of the Barbie line of multicultural dolls [online] available from <http://www.barbiecollector.com/shop/product.aspx?sku=N5503> [16 April 2009]

Chin, E. M.  (2001: 154) Purchasing Power: Black Kids and American Consumer Culture. Minneapolis, MN, USA: University of Minnesota Press

Dyson, M. E.  (1993: 74) Reflecting Black: African-American Cultural Criticism. Minneapolis, MN, USA: University of Minnesota Press

Goldberg, D. T. (1994) 2nd edn. Multiculturalism: a critical reader. United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell

Hall, S. (2006a) Race: the floating signifier [online] available from <http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=118B70E19050CD04> [16 April 2009]

(2006b) Race: the floating signifier [online] available from <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMo2uiRAf30> [16 April 2009]

(1996) ‘Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation.’ In Black British cultural studies: a reader. Ed. by Houston A. B., Diawara M., Lindeborg Ruth, H,. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 215

(1993) ‘Minimal Selves.’ In Studying Culture: an Introduction. ed. by Ann Gray Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 134-138

Jordan, M. (2009) Michael Jordan’s dunk [online] available from < http://images.google.com> [16 April 20099]

Peterson, L. (2007) Racialicious: A Quick Reflection on Being “Black” [online] available from <http://www.racialicious.com/2007/07/13/a-quick-reflection-on-being-black/> [16 Apirl 2009]

Petry, A. (2004: 45) Ann Petry’s short fiction: critical essays By Hazel Arnett Ervin, Hilary Holladay. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group

Randall, K.  (2008) studying a hip hop nation [online] available from <http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2003/hiphop.html> [16 April 2009]

The Coup Magazine (2007) What is Blackness [online] available from <http://thecoupmagazine.blogspot.com/2007/07/what-is-blackness_09.html> [16 April 2009]

The Institute for the Study of Civil Society (2006) Don’t Respect Difference: Ignore Difference [online] available from <http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/cs46-1.pdf> [16 April 2009]

Name:                        Frank Okwedadi

Date:                           2008/2009

I confirm that this is entirely my own work; no part of it is copied from previous papers, nor does it include material from any published source without proper acknowledgement.

THE EFFECT OF AUDIENCE ON SPOKEN-WORD POETRY: AN EXPOSE’

Poetry slam or spoken-word poetry is the competitive art of performance poetry. Established in the mid-80’s as a means to heighten public interest in poetry readings. Although, initially seen as an evolutionary form of black poetry, spoken-word has evolved into an international art form emphasizing audience involvement and poetic excellence (Smith 2009). This infusion of performance on poetry has greatly increased its audience and the poetic experience, but has also provided an avenue for greater audience influence and expression. This essay seeks to explore audience influence on spoken word poetry as a media object.

UNDERSTANDING SPOKEN WORD

Spoken word poetry refers to performance poetry; poetry to be heard not read. This is a unique form of cultural and ethnic expression is a new rise of a cultural phenomenon with intense influence on its audience. In cafes and bars around the U.S., people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, ages and vocations are expressing themselves through spoken poetry (Fass 2003: 1-3).

Originally all poetry originates from oral tradition, in an oral format. The Iliad and the Odyssey were recited by professional strolling bards in ancient Greece and were put into writing only long afterward (Fass 2003). The Greeks also had poetry competitions as recently as the 19th century. Only relatively recently did poetry become a dead thing on a page, to be read privately, in silence. Yet traditionalists have been slow to award spoken-word any accolades. “I think the emphasis is probably on performance rather than poetry, says Joseph Parisi, former editor of Poetry Magazine (Fass 2003).” This statement reflects the rigid perceptions of mentally limited scholars trapped in between the hard covers of books with rhyme meters and outdated measuring rods for the poetry of modern times. Once asked to judge a poetry slam, Parisi replied:

“I’m really flattered and I wouldn’t mind having the free beer, but I don’t think you’ll need a judge–I think you’ll need a referee (Fass 2003).”

Here Parisi is refereeing to the spoken-word poetry slam competitions, and not spoken word directly, but this statement still reflects his views about this new poetic movement. It is true that post-modernity does present a seemingly chaotic cultural situation, but an open mind is required to live and be relevant in this new postmodern reality. Hence to reject new transformations of culture, art and life and cling to the old, is to stop walking with society and stand in a socially stagnant position to the point of the antisocial. Lack McCarthy, 64, a semi-retired computer systems analyst, doesn’t share Parisi’s disdain for spoken-word. He says, spoken-word has helped reawaken his own joy of the poetic experience, and he now has published several books of his own verse. McCarthy prefers slam’s democratic vitality to erudite, academic verses and experience. McCarthy Say’s:

“If Walt Whitman showed up today, you wouldn’t find him in a Master of Fine Arts   program (Fass 2003: 1-3).”

One of the key uses for which Spoken-Word is applied is the cultural declaration of Identity through poetry. Using Spoken-Word as a tool, poets are able to say “see me; this is who I am; and this is what I am”, and more importantly “this is what I believe”, even in the rear case where these views just echo what they believe to be the popular opinions audience.

“It nice that you can claim your class of pure pedigree descendancy… but I’ll never deny the complicated, amalgamated afro-bariqua ancestry in me… The Marvin Gay in me… The hip-hop queen of soul in me… the darker shades of black in me (Calderon 2006).”

Spoken-word is a unique form of media object that must be digested and analyzed by the audience using completely different standards and tool from traditional forms of poetry because it brings the poetic discourse to the level of the audience.

POETRY SLAM COMPETITIONS

It’s not just the doggerel that draws audiences. It’s the performance, which goes by the name slam. Each poet striving to outdo the other, take turns performing before a live audience that responds by cheering, booing and stamping its feet. Judges picked at random from the audience rate each performer on a scale of zero to ten. Poets who exceed a three-minute time limit are penalized. The highest scorer wins (Fass 2003: 3). This is the slam not spoken word itself. The difference between spoken word and poetry slam events, such as Russell Simons Def Poetry Jam, is that spoken word is the art form that is used in poetry slam competitions events.

In a typical competition, all poets read one poem in the first round. Based on the scores they receive, the top-scoring poets go on to the second round, and from that pool, a smaller number of the highest-scoring poets in the second round go on to the third and final round. While the specifics vary from slam to slam, certified slams adhere to this basic structure, insuring that poets must seek to make immediate connections with the audience in order to continue on. Cash prizes or other prizes are offered to the winner as further impetus for performing well. In most cities, the slam series culminates with a final slam at the end of the season to determine which poets will represent the city at the National Poetry Slam. In the majority of slam series, organizers stage weekly or monthly events in a public space, such as a bar or cafe. Poets wishing to compete sign up with a host, and the host finds five audience members who wish to serve as judges (Fass 2003).

Poets must follow a series of rules: the poems must be of each poet’s own construction, the poet may not use props, costumes, or musical instruments, and if the poet goes over the time limit (three minutes plus a 10-second grace period), points are deducted from his or her score. Judges, who are encouraged to factor both content and performance into their evaluations, judge each poet on a 0.0 to 10.0 scale. The high score and low score are dropped, and the middle three scores become the score for that particular poet. To insure that the entire audience is involved, the host encourages the audience to respond to the poet in any way they see fit, be it impassioned cheering or lusty booing. The judges, in turn, are encouraged to remain consistent with ‘themselves’ and not let the audience influence them (Fass 2003: 1-3).

By adhering to a structure that factors in the audience at such a basic and integral level, slams have emerged as the most vital and best-attended of many cities’ regular poetry events. Whereas many ‘open mic’ events tend to serve either the poets who participate or a particular target community, slam’s emphasis on addressing the audience has garnered slam a more inclusive, more diverse audience than the typical poetry reading. By marrying poetry with competition, slam has allowed non-traditional audiences a tangible and intriguing avenue for experiencing poetry in a live prime-time setting (Fass 2003). Key point to note is the fact that success in the competition, the value of the poem, and the poet’s worth are all based on the audience’s opinion. Even in the case where judges are used, they are usually picked out from the audience. Hence, this form of audience empowerment, puts more pressure on the poet to please the audience usually by imbibing their views into his/her poems, in an attempt at drawing out positive responses from the audience that would stir the judges in his/her favor.

This system of organizing the slams has been effective but is not without flaws. The judges are member of the audience already; with friends in the crown and a community with idea’s, beliefs, and philosophies of life they interact with everyday. In this tangling of interest, popular opinion usually holds sway. For instance in if a poet comes up and speaks about white supremacy being wrong, the crowd will cheer, but if he did the same thing on the issue of black supremacy, he would probably be booed of stage for his guts. Although, both of these issues are existent in society today only popular opinion will win approval from the audience.

“I have gone home to Jamaica to read and been booed by the audience for my “nasty, illegal, homosexual performance.” I am getting another chance to see the not so glamorous side of the revolution. Here, there are no Lincoln Town cars, no “bling-bling.” It is just my poem–whatever I want to read that night–a mic and a bunch of people who may or may not look like me. Sometimes they are listening and sometimes I have to make them listen (Chin 2004).”

AUDIENCE EFFECT

The connection that the poets build with their audience through their performance is fundamental. It is important to understand the audience as co-performers, because artists and audience influence each other, and in the process a reflective and reflexive relationship is established among them (Pagliai 2003). This relationship helps artists receive some feedback from the audience, including evaluations, interpretations, laughing and applause. The fact that the poets often seek audience participation or at least acknowledgment is enlightening. The performance is created in the interaction between speakers and listeners, and through this interaction, a certain social reality is upheld; a certain representation of identity can be legitimated or delegitimized. According to John Heritage an objective reality exists so far as people agree on it (Heritage 1984: 228-229).”

The poet usually makes it his responsibility in the performance to obtain the agreement of the audience on the identities they would want him to portray of themselves or about themselves, that makes the poets part of their public. This identification can be contested if it varies too far from the audiences’ views. The point is that it is the moment that the people accept the poet as part of them that the poet becomes able to express the audience’s voice (Pagliai 2003). The people recognize the poet thus recognizing the poet’s ability to express their voice. They recognize the poets by accepting the performance and co-constructing it.

“everything human beings say and do when they assume the contrastive, but complementary, communicative roles of narrator and listener is an integral part of the event generated by their interacting; and this includes what they say or do in terms of such identities as those rooted topics such as in sex, age, religious affiliation, ethnicity, occupations, etc. thus the social ethic identities and communities to which they refer are imagined in the dialogue between the poets and their public (Pagliai 2003).”

The audience effect is the impact that a passive audience has on a subject performing a task. It was first formally noted in various psychology studies in the early 20th century. During some studies the presence of a passive audience facilitated the better performance of a task; while in other studies the presence of a passive audience inhibited the performance of a task. The effect has been observed in subjects ranging from cockroaches to humans (Icon Group International 2008: 220).

Looking at the effect of poetry on audiences from the view of the theoretical four models of effect; paying attention to both content and audience profile, it is obvious that the reaction model of most Spoken-Word audiences is mostly a combination of the conditional and cognitive-transaction effects model. This is saying that the way Spoken-Word affects audiences and the responses the poets will get from their reading is partly influenced by the audiences’ predispositions, personal attributes and belief systems, and partly by the consequence of individual audience’s cognitive responses towards media content in general (Ross 2003: 88).

In exploring Spoken-Word (black) poetry more than analysis is necessary. There is the need to recognize the cultural envelope of the poem, especially the audience being addressed needs to be established. The extent to which audiences control the form of the message in the poem must be established, by concentrating on the specific details of the audience, a fuller apprehension of the poem will be gotten (Reeves 1975).
There are various reasons why the poetic presentation and the content of the messages are tailored to reflect the audiences’ view. First thing to note is that the judges are still a part of the audience. Some might argue that they are the most important part of the audience. Since the judges have the final word on the results of each slam, poets keep their (the judges) political and philosophical views and perspectives in mind when they write and present. However, this notion is not all-inclusive; other perspectives are also taken into account in the artists’ creative process. Ultimately, the financial benefits come into play, and because pleasing the audience is the only way of guarantying a financially successful poetic career, their views come to the top of the priority list in content and presentation. Some performers view slamming as a ticket to fame, maybe fortune (Fass 2003).
“Taylor Mali, a four-time team winner of the grand slam, was part of the HBO Def Poetry show. He now earns about $2,500 per performance at venues such as college campuses. Last year he earned $60,000 in spoken-word income, including sales of his own book of verse, What Learning Leaves. ‘I made more money than I did as a teacher with ten years’ experience,’ he says (Fass 2003).”

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory (1943), illustrated in the figure below, just beneath the creative lays the need for self esteem and respect from others. This is the need for acceptance, but with a bit of narcissism involved. It can be argued that some of the poet’s reasons for adapting audience views are the approval they receive from the audience on and off the stage.

Source: A diagram of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow 1943)

For some poets, the drive is a superiority complex, a statement of literary supremacy; an elitist dominance of a subculture through the sub-cultural artifact. These believe that the glory of poetry should be for a select few; an elitist group of poets.  Poetry, preformed and performed in an attempt at validation by the poets own personal sub-cultural elitist group. The use of personal idioms and anecdotes aimed not at the public, but the subgroup in the public that the speaker really cares about. In all of these examples of the driving force for poets adaptation of audiences’ views, there constantly exists the poets who write, present and live poetry with no ulterior motives at all, they just love it.

WHY FOCUS ON SPOKEN-WORD AUDIENCES?

We are all audiences to poetry, even as poets we are still audiences to our own poetry. There’s nothing about the poetic experience that is not linked to, sustained by and enhanced through culture. As culture and society evolve so does poetry. Media texts such as poetry need audiences in order to realise their potential for meaning. So a text (poem) does not have a single meaning but rather a range of possibilities which are defined by both the text and by its audiences. The meaning is not in the text, but in the reading; in the presentation (hart 1991, 60).

A focus on audience is important in media studies. There have been many different theories on how audiences respond to and interact with the media. This shows clearly the complexities of focusing on the audience and the ways in which audiences can be visualised (Hanes 2000). No audience member will interpret the media message in the same way. This alerts uses of the various media to the ambiguity of meaning and the richness inherent in the medium, aspects that poets need to be aware of in the creation of their poems (Hanes 2000). The limitations of a focus on spoken-word audiences are derived from the impossibility of investigating and measuring audiences and their responses. Existing methods of audience research are inappropriate, as they do not consider how the spoken-word is being used and what the various responses are of audiences to the specific texts (Hanes 2000).

“In a golden age of poetry the audience will not be just the workshop, where poets write for other poets, or the classroom—both of which have provided crucial sanctuary to poetry during the past half century. Its audience will lie also in that world of non-poetry readers who come to discover its deep sustenance. “To have great poets, there must be great audiences too (Barr 2006).”

REFERENCE

BARR, J. (2006) American Poetry in the New Century [online] available from <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=178560> [16 April 2009]

Calderon, A. (2006) Rhyme & Reason: BBC’s Spoken Word Poetry Documentary [online]. London: British Broadcasting Corporation.  Available from <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqovPXRK2sQ> [16 April 2009]

Chin, S. (2004) ‘Almost famous: an original Broadway Def Poetry Jam cast member learns that the trick is to survive after the stage lights go down.’ Black Issues Book Review [online] available from <http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-20554669_ITM> [16 April 2009]

Fass, A. (2003) ‘No Velvet Hats.’ Forbes [online] 172, (6) 123-124.  Available from <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/delivery?vid=6&hid=3&sid=b78b52df-159d-4b8c-978f-9> [16 April 2009]

Hanes P. J. (2000) The Advantages and Limitations of a Focus on Audience in Media Studies [online] available from <http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/pph9701.html> [16 April 2009]

Hart, A. (1991) Understanding the Media: A Practical Guide. London: Routledge

Heritage, J. (1984) Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell

Icon Group International (2008) Psychologists: Webster’s Quotations, Facts and Phrases. San Diego: ICON Group International Inc

Maslow,  A. H. (1943) ‘A Theory of Human Motivation.’ Psychological Review [online] 50, 370-396. Available from <http://www.advancedhiring.com/docs/theory_of_human_motivation.pdf> [16 April 2009]

Pagliai, v. (2003) Sociolinguistics: the essential readings. United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell

Reeves W. J. (1975) ‘The Significance of Audience in Black Poetry.’ Negro American Literature Forum [online] 9, (1) 30-32. Available from <http://www.jstor.org/pss/3041232> [16 April 2009]

Ross, K. (2003: 77) Media and Audiences. [online]  Berkshire: McGrawHill Education. Available from <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/coventry/Doc?id=10175272&ppg=88> [16 April 2009]

Smith M. K (2009) What is poetry slam [online] available from <http://www.slampapi.com/new_site/background/what_is_poetry_slam.ht> [16 April 2009]

Date: 2008/2009

I confirm that this is entirely my own work; no part of it is copied from previous papers, nor does it include material from any published source without proper acknowledgement.

THE ROLE OF THE NATION STATE WILL CHANGE DRAMATICALLY AND THERE WILL BE NO MORE ROOM FOR NATIONALISM THAN THERE IS FOR SMALLPOX (Negroponte 1996).

The proliferation of Information and the technology that support it presently provides the electorate with a wealth of literacy, global awareness, and information about the elect, that the concept of nationalism is continuously being replaced by internationalism, and that a more global expectation of political rule is slowly replacing the notion of nationalism. This essay explores the statement made by Nicholas Negroponte that the role of the nation state will change dramatically and there will be no more room for nationalism than there is for smallpox (Negroponte 1996).

Nationalism is a term that is usually confused with patriotism. This confusion arises from the fact that the difference between both words seems trivial in literary terms, but has grave consequences in practical political reality.  United States journalist Sydney J. Harris, states “the difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does. The first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war” (Exeter News 2002).

Hence, a patriot loves his/her country but recognizes its deficits, while a nationalist sees no wrong with its country despite any short comings. The idea of patriotism is commonly used for acts of terrorism. In these situations, patriotism is sited in a bid to hide the realities of nationalism. Although, terrorism and nationalism are seen from different viewpoints, which are usually so distantly opposing that they end up equalling themselves (Mike 2001). Guy De Maupassant sees nationalism, or what can be called blind patriotism, as “a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched (Guy De Maupassant 1903).” The concept of a nation state focuses not on the government but implies that the citizens share a common language, culture and values, and that this geographically coincides with the state as a sovereign territorial unit. Nationalism is key because there will always be “demands for political loyalty to suppress dissent or views that differ from these culture and values (Leehey 2009).”

NATIONALISM IN THE INFORMATION AGE

At the end of the twentieth century, nationalism remains at least as powerful a force in our lives as it was a century ago (Goldmann 2000). On one hand the claim that the fundamental cultural patterns have not changed during the course of a century may arouse some resistance and the evidence of such continuity, however obvious, may seem surprising. While on the other hand society has become accustomed to rapid technological change and to the idea that changes in general is a normal and predictable part of social life. It no longer threatens our image of order, but represents an integral element of it (Goldmann 2000).

In the 1996 US Presidential elections, new information and communication technologies (ICTs), particularly the Internet and World Wide Web (Web), began to play a visible role in US campaigns and elections, and its role has expanded to shape the political process more generally (Dutton 2001). Case studies have shown how the Web, for example, can facilitate the rapid exchange of information that is essential to coordinating political activity. By virtue of reducing the costs of communication, it has become accessible to grassroots organisations without the resources to mount more traditional media campaigns (Dutton 2001). More important than the electorate’s new found ease of communication with the elect, is the electorate’s new exposure to varying views on issues and socio-political concerns that exist within their particular political regions. An example is the B29 radio station in Serbia that stood as a voice of dissent in political issues, and was always being shot down by the government when ever serious political issues arose. They in turn, out of necessity, made changes to adapt to the governments tools of limitation, by switching their broadcasts to the internet, and hence existing outside the government ability to limit or shot down their broadcasts.

“It is the third time in its ten-year history that B92 radio station has been banned. But [sic] the station switches to the net and its broadcasts are bounced back over Eastern Europe by satellite, bringing its message to much wider attention than if they’d been left alone. The Serbian authorities, says Veran Matic, simply didn’t understand the possibilities of the internet (Meikle 2002: 59).”

1. Nationalism, or what can be equated to blind patriotism, is fostered by ideologies which themselves spread through information. This various ideologies or voices are primarily aimed at creating mindsets which when sufficiently resounded tend toward norms. Anyone who opposes these norms or bear opinions that shift from the ethos risk social isolation, exile or even graver acts of reproach.   The question then must be that do we want to live in a monochromatic world of monotonous world views, or do we want to embrace a polychromatic world of diversity, where differences in political and socio-economic opinions are reflected, and a greater wealth of knowledge and views are available options of thought. Anthropologist Margaret Mead, before she died, said that her greatest fear was that as we drifted towards this blandly amorphous generic world view not only would we see the entire range of the human imagination reduced to a more narrow modality of thought, but that we would wake from a dream one day having forgotten there were even other possibilities (Wade 2003).

INTERNATIONALISM RATHER THAN NATIONALISM

The “global village” phenomena; the globalization of cultures, races, images, capital, products and the “information age” redefinition of nation-state identities, which were the foundation of the modern era, has brought about a dissemination of images and information across national boundaries, a sense of erosion or breakdown of national, linguistic, ethnic, and cultural identities, as well as a sense of a global mixing of cultures on a scale that has never been experienced before (Irvine 2009). This diminishing of difference, identity and culture might be said to be the cause for the struggle for identity present in the society today.  The sense of the individual with a unified centred self and identity has been replaced by the sense of the fragmented, decentred individual with multiple conflicting identities. On the broader scale, media systems with the centralized one-to-many communications paradigm (broadcast networks and TV), are being replaced by the more recent digital, interactive, distributed, client to server (client ‘is’ server), user-motivated, individualized, many-to-many media systems paradigm (Napster and the Web) (Irvine 2009).

The effect of this is that as media systems move from the earlier one-source-multiple-channels model to the fragmented-sources-and-channels model, the ability of governments to influence its citizens’ views and ideologies breaks down, and the citizenry build their own political knowledgebase and ideology from combinations of much more diverse voices, hence the notion of global political awareness at national and local levels. This is why the internet is the key focus of the E-government movement, because no one spoon feeds you what to browse or consume and you can consume ideologies from communist states while resident in a capitalist one and vice versa.

Indeed, the future of the convergence of communication technologies is often described in comfortingly familiar ways. It apparently offers interactive communication (like talking), information (like books), ‘uncensorable’, unlimited access of everyone to everything (like libraries, but better). In addition, it is said to offer interactive ‘responsible’ democracy, at a time when the rewards of being a citizen are increasingly restricted and there is the emergence of an excluded underclass, particularly in the very wealthiest societies (Curran 1997: 240).

REFERENCES

Curran, J. (1997) Power without Responsibility: The Press and Broadcasting in Britain. Florence, KY, USA: Routledge

Dutton, W. and Wan-Ying, L. (2001) ‘Using the Web in the democratic process.’ European Review 9, (2) 185-199 [online] available from <http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=CF38E7B280BE590BF5A89D8C67A3AE09.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=77711> [19 April 2009]

Exerter News (2002) The difference between patriotism and nationalism [online] available from <http://archive.seacoastonline.com/2002news/exeter/e3_19_e1.htm> [16 April 2009]

Goldmann, K. (2000) Nationalism and Internationalism in the Post-Cold War Era. London: Routledge [online] available from <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/coventry/Doc?id=10062925&ppg=2> [19 April 2009]

Guy de Maupassant and Caesar de Sumichrast F. (1917) The complete works of Guy de Maupassant: Translations and critical and interpretative essays. France: Brunswick Subscription

Irvine, M.  (2009) Approaches to the Post-Modern, Post-modernism, and Post-Modernity [online] available from <http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/pomo.html> [19 April 2009]

Leehey, C. (2009) Nationalism: Blind Patriotism [online] available from <http://imagesofiowa.blogspot.com/2009/03/nationalism-blind-patriotism.html> [19 April 2009]

Meikle,G. (2002) Future active: media activism and the internet. Austrailier: Pluto Publisher [online] available from <http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RYXkBKpLwWgC> [19 April 2009]

Mike, Z. (2009) Blind Patriotism [online] available from <http://www.amazines.com/article_detail.cfm/806979?articleid=806979> [19 April 2009]

Negroponte, N.  (1996) Being Digital. London: Hodder & Stoughton

Wade, D. (2003) Ted Talks: Cultures at the far edge of the world [online] available from <http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/69> [19 April 2009]

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