BiegieGo, 11/1

This week we discussed theorist Dick Hebdige and Adorno. Hebdige talks a lot of hegemony and taking something and making it completely normal to the mass population. For example, we looked at a few pictures and one was a drawling on the side of a train. Well the person who did this is probably making famous art works in our society somewhere today. At one point, it was seen a being deviant and different and the next think we know this person is making millions off of us for something that once was not acceptable in our culture but now is normal. Not one questions drawings on walls anymore because we have seen it so much that it is not AUTHENTIC anymore. We can relate this notion of be authentic back to the theorist Benjamin and how he talks a lot about when something is being reproduced then it loses its value for example the panting of Mona Lisa. This panting has been reproduced so many times that when people see it, it’s nothing special to them because they have seen it a thousand times before that. Other pictures we looked at were natives with tattoos and a guy with a lot of piercings. When our culture sees this, they want it. we all seem to want what we don’t have a I think that one thing that keeps our society running and also the corporate people because they just continue coming up with the new.
The second theorist we talked about was Adorno. We did not finish discussing Adorno but in class we each got a quote from Dr. Rog and we had to come up with something to say about it. The quote I received was “The standardized forms…were originally derived from the need of the consumers.” Well, we can look at this quote and say that everything is becoming the same because the consumers are making it that way or we can look at this quote and say the producers are making everything the same… every time our culture changes, noting really stays different, it all stays the same and we all follow this idea of changing as our society changes. For example, when our fashion comes into style then all the stores change in order to follow the trend…instead of staying with what is considered old style…we follow the fashion and become consumed in what is new to us. We can relate this to Hebdige and how he thinks that something is exotica and we make it normal. Without one you cannot have the other.

Elmo, 11/1

In our class discussion on Adorno I felt as if everyone had a lot of good ideas and had a good grasp on the material at hand. I personally felt that by hearing what everyone else had to say I got a better grasp on the concepts from the reading. It was neat to see how Adorno’s ideas related back to what we had previously learned with Benjamin. Adorno and Benjamin relate well with regards to Adorno’s quote, “Mechanically differentiated products are ultimately all the same” (43). This quote basically means that everything we consume or are shown in stores is ultimately the same, just displayed differently. This relates to Benjamin’s idea that the reproduction of goods makes them less authentic. This seems sort of funny to me because if we are so into having something that is “real” and authentic, why do we play into the ideas of the ruling class by consuming their unauthentic, mass produced goods and ideas? This then relates to how we are absent-minded observers and just consume things without even thinking twice about what we are doing. This is how things gain so much popularity. For example, say there is a really popular article of clothing one season and everyone “must” have it. This item is usually very expensive and can only be consumed by those who have the means of doing so, usually the ruling class. However, the ruling class also runs large companies and can make this item and sell it to stores such as Target or Wal-Mart for them to sell at a much lower price point. This enables everyone to have it, and the trend catches on. This happens all the time over and over again. But these replica goods have lost their authenticity and therefore there’s the question, are they real? I would say no, but a majority of society would probably disagree. Learning more and more about ideology has really made me start to question things more but also has helped me understand why things happen the way they do.

Graham, 10/27

This week’s discussion related to Benjamin, and the idea that reproduction eliminates authenticity. I think that these authors (Benjamin and Hebdige).
We used to look at people who had tattoos, and think that it was completely ridiculous and unorthodox, but more and more people have began to get them, making it more accepted by society. This is because the idea is not “new” anymore. People do not like things when they are not normal, which brings me into my discussion on “sameness”.
“Culture today is infecting everything with sameness” this means that if you are not a part of the hegemonic idea (clothing styles, groups, friends…) then you do not fit in with society. We also discussed when you are driving down the highway, and you see hotel signs for Mama’s Country Inn, and Holiday Inn, then you are typically going to choose the Holiday Inn, because you do not want to try something new. These small businesses are beginning to be put out of business by the chain businesses, which society has a huge part in. There is no longer originality in our society. We like commodities, even though they control us constantly. We want to be ‘normal’ and have things that are ‘normal’ but ideologies have created these ideas, and society goes along with it. Why is it so important to be just like everyone else?
We discussed “Amusement always means putting things out of mind forgetting suffering, even when it is on display. At its root is powerlessness.” This reminds me of the concept of Ecco and Disney. When we go to Disney, we forget all of our stresses and feel as if we are in a fantasy world. It gives us the feeling of escapism. We have so many things in society that take our minds off of everyday life, such as television, movies, theme parks…etc.

ESPN. 10/29

There were a few quotes from this week that I completely agree with and also have a better understand after learning about them in class. The notion that are culture is infected with sameness made a lot of sense to me and made me question of who culture subconsciously gets a hold on us to buy into such things. For example the way so may brands of clothes are the same but certain ones are just priced more for their name. One can see a support for this in the quote “Mechanically differentiated products are ultimately all the same.” On another note, Adorno states Amusement always means putting things out of mind, forgetting suffering, even when it is on display. At its root is powerlessness. This is something I agree with but it is a shame. Our culture today has gotten to a point that we get humor at the costs of others. It is saying that we must forget about other suffering in order to have our own entertainment; it is a selfish but true quote. There may not always be things we can do to help the suffrage we get entertained by, but we should not laugh at it. It is interesting concept that lets clear are mind for humor; we are immune to the suffering. On the same topic of immunity, we also do a similar thing in reference to the quote, “Mass culture gives tragedy permanent employment as routine.” The word tragedy is thrown around so much and so much is shown in the media that when w e actually do hear a tragedy it does not have as strong as an effect. Similar to Dr, Rog’s example in class with Hanna Montana, I had a similar experience this weekend. I went to the Fla/Ga football game this weekend and people were saying it would be such a tragedy if Fla lost. I later saw coverage about some Starvation and genocide in Africa, all I could think was that was a tragedy not if Fla had lost, however, people use the word in the same way.

Mongoose, 10/29

This week’s classes focused on the concept ideology and particularly the ways in which we see the media manipulating their viewers or listeners through ideological influences. The ideology and other ideas that we see through the media are no accident, it is a conscious effort to influence the viewers and in many ways turn them into passive viewers rather than allowing for active participation and rhetoric. Adorno and Horkmeier had an interesting quote on this behalf: “[The radio] democratically makes everyone equally into listeners. 42” by this they mean that there is no way for the listener to dispute anything that they may hear and disagree with on the radio; the audience is turned into passive listeners and spectators with no way to discuss their views with the show host. This allows the media to enforce ideological views on their spectators because they have no way to challenge the authority. The interesting part of this quote is the word ‘democratically’, which means that we subject ourselves to this one way communication street, no one is forcing us to listen or in today’s day in age, view, yet we continue to follow and be spectators of ideology perpetuated. I think this idea is not as big of a problem today because of our new technological capabilities; now when we listen to a radio show, and even some television talk show, we have the ability to call in or e-mail the show or host and discuss our take on whatever the situation may be. They did not have this capability in the day of this essay which made it impossible to get your view across to the show host or hosts. I also believe that we have advanced our critical thinking as time has gone on, the idea of challenging authority and being your own person seems to have increased with each generation and allowed individuals the opportunity and capability to express your own views and opinions without the fear of backlash by those who you are challenging.

Capri Sun, 10/29

Today in class we reviewed the Horkheimer and Adorno article and a few things came to mind that I did not think about when reading it the day before. For starters, I began to connect the idea of “sameness” to Jenkins. In Jenkins’ article he explains: “People who may not ever meet face to face and thus have few real-world connections with each other can tap into the shared framework of popular culture to facilitate communication.” (556). This means that you could randomly meet someone on the street and you will most likely share similar knowledge. In class that day, we talked about how people who follow sports could talk about it to anyone even if they had never met before. Jenkins, Horkheimer and Adorno, all share similar beliefs in the idea of “sameness.” Culture today is heavily influenced by the media and pop culture and because of this the majority of the people feel the same way. Even mindless pieces of media like YouTube have become sensations, however we all share an interest in it.

In class today I was suppose to define pseudo-individuality reigns and I decided to break up the term and define it. “Pseudo” meant pretending or trying to be followed by individuality, I took this as meaning a made up identity. “Reigns” is defined as the dominative force. So without even reading its context within the Horkheimer and Adorno article, I felt that this meant people create fake identities based off the dominant images seen within society. A famous musician has a sleeve full of tattoos so people take this image and base their own false identity from it. I feel like identities have become a commodities, even when people try to be different they actually just reproducing an already before seen image. Which further perpetuates the idea of sameness within the identities of the mass culture.

FloRida, 11/1

I really loved when we were in discussing the language of culture in class. It was so interesting to see some of these actions unintentionally play out. Language of culture includes raising your hand in class, being on time, going to class, not talking back or having attitude towards authority. Society has ingrained these actions in our minds so we will not have to be “punished.” Even though we are in college now, these cultural “expectations” are still in place. Hebdige states that, “Ideology saturates everyday in the form of common sense.” Ideas of Hebdige’s normalization really connect to Althusser’s ideas of ideology. Althusser states, “Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.” Even though ideology might not originally be normal, eventually it seems as if it is. We play mental games based on the systems we interact with. Ideologies are not real but somehow cause of to do real things. These ideologies and representations are what create definitions of our culture. Parts of culture are through our unconscious (althusser). We as a society never want to be considered deviant or freaks. Subcultures represent deviance or freaks. The problem with that is that when subcultural signs become mass produced and part of our ideology. Hebdige clarifies that, “as soon as the original innovations which signify ‘subculture’ are translated into commodities and made generally available, they become ‘frozen.’” The deviant behavior is now redefined!