Seminar Notes - Communication Theory

-Rhetoric
-Semiotics
-Critical Communication
-Cybernetic
-Phenomenological

The Shannon-Weaver Mathematical Model, 1949
-based on telephone and radio communication
-doesn't work perfeectly for GD as it focuses on message to audience, but does not have a feedback loop to the client to ensure the message recieved is correct
-linear communication (A to B)
-it is only successful is B responds in the way A wants it to.

Communication problems
-level A - technical problems - accuracy of message
-level B - semantic problems - how precisely conveyed
-level C - effectiveness problems - how effectively does the recieved message affect behaviour.

Noise
-static - technical
-what work is amongst/up against
-not intended - but then can become the message

Redundancy Vs Entropy
-Entropy - strengths of message fades - seaps out
-Redundancy - nothing is lost - message is not changed in any way
-aim to maximise redundancy in erms of audience, audience decoding, message encoding of ideas
-simplify message increases redundancy
-makes message more predictable/conventional

LOW INFORMATION - HIGH PREDICTABILITY

Phatic Communication
-communication at a base level - without knowing its happening
-e.g. a handshake with someone saying hello, you already know how to respond, by shaking there hand and saying hello.
-if a person shook your hand with an electric buzzer you wouldn't know what they are tying to communicate.

Redundancy relies on convention
Entropy is radical/shocking

Tracy Emin
-some would understand and get alot from it
-some others wouldn't class her work as art

Hawaii
- sterotype - grass skirts - cocktails - cocunut bra's

Book - 'Introduction to Communication Studies - John Fisk

Portfolio Task 3 - Essay Ideas

I have chosen to focus my essay on the idea of the passive female, and how the idea of this has been constructed throught he use of female orientated advertising/marketing.

I will focus on:
-The Gaze, specifically the male gaze and how men percieve women - and the power it gives them
-Active male/Passive female
-Objectification of women - sex objects
-Consumerism - 'you are what you have' (Berger)

The advertisements that I will discuss:

Lynx TV Ad:
-the man is shown to have power over women
-it invites the spectator to want to be like him
-the way in which the girls are percieve, at first they are shown as sexy, aggressive in competition with eachother, but when it is shown that they are running towards a man it makes them look needy and dependent.

Tom Ford Fragrance Ad:
-woman is objectified and dehumanised
-spectator has the power and can envisage himself were the perfume bottle has been placed
-'lf you do not measure up, you won't be loved',
-the beauty myth
-women allow themselves to be passive, because when they make themselves look beautiful they are allowing/wanting, others to look at them and be attracted to them.

Key text:

Books -

Berger, J (1972) Ways of Seeing, London, British Broadcasting Corporation
Coward, R (1984) The Look, London, Patadin
Lupton, E (1993) Mechanical Brides, New York, Cooper-Hewitt
Wolf, N (1991) The Beauty Myth, London, Vintage
Loeb, L.A (1994) Consuming Angels, New York, Oxford University Press
Tillotson, K (2004) retro Housewife, Singapore, Collectors Press

Internet -

Chandler, D (2000) Notes on 'The Gaze',
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/gaze/gaze01.html

Seminar Notes - Jean Baudrillard and Hyperreality

What we kow Santa as was determined by an ad company at a certain moment in time - becomes the reality.

Plato's allegory of the cave
-prisoners in the cave - shadows on wall is all they know of reality
-more comfortable with a naive ignorance rather than facing the truth
-what people tell us about life are pale imitations of what life can be

Pepsi Challenge
-unconcious brain signals telling if you you have a preference to Pepsi or Coke
-brands have a physical/memorable effect on you
-when you cannot tell the difference between the two brands, when you don't know what they are

Guy Debord - ''Society of the Spectacle'' 1967

Baudrillard
- the systems of objects
-buying into the sign value of a product
-positive/negative symbolic value
-e.g. Ferrari/Larda

Simulacra
-copy of reality
-e.g. The Holy Sacrament - reflection of profound reality
-Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland Park - imitation of Bhoemian architecture - not a functioning castle, just the idea
-approaching reality through a representation of reality - describing a castle as a 'Fairytale Castle' becomes the reality

Reality TV -construction
Documentaries and news - specific persons take on the world - editorial decisions

'The Gulf War did not take place'

Love - are you in love, having feelings or love, or are you just feeling what you think you should, through watching love movies and child programmes

Sex - hyperreal
-need images of fantasy

Lecture 5 - Reality, Virtuality, Hyperreality (Jean Baudrillard)

Jean Baudrillard - french philosopher, critic, social and cultural theorist, photographer, pionering theorist: semiotics, politcal economy, post modernism, post strucuralism

Coca Cola - illusion, tast the brand, tastes better in your mind

Post Structuralism:
-Gilles Deleuze
-Roland Barthes
-Jean B
-Jacques Dernda
-Helene Cixous
-Michael Foucalt
(Meanings of Signs)

Structuralism:
-Claude Levi-Strauss
-Roland Barthes
-Jacques lacan
-Louis Althusser
-Andre Leroi-Gourham
-Julia Kristeva

Guy Debord - ''Society of the Spectacle'' 1967

Karl Marx - pionering philosopher and political and economical theorist
-developed the 'critique of political economy'
-'labour theory of value'
-argues - capitalism constitutes one kind of 'mode of production' and that it would eventually be replaced by another one

Ferdinand de Saussure
-signified-signifier
-signifier-signified

Marcel Mauss - anthropologist - renowned for his analysis of the 'economy of the gif' in different societies

Georges Batille - renowned for his writings or transgression, death and general economy (gift economies, economies based on 'expenditure without return, e.g. the 'Potlatch')

Jean baudrillard
-Simulacra and Simulation 1981
-theory of simulacra - he developed since the 1970's
-according to him, simulacra are copies either of the thing they are intended to represent and stand in for or in recent history - are merely copies of other copies
-for a long time a controversial concept, the simulacrum as described by Baudrillard has become key

The Matrix - 'the desert of the real itself'

Simulacra:
-reflection of a profound reality
-religion - Catholic Church - body and blood of Christ - not actually as it is bread and wine
-masks and denatures a profound reality
-masks the absence of a profound reality
-sourcery - witchcraft, mythos, evil
-has no relation to any reality whatsoever, it is its own pure imulacrum
-Sleeping Beauty's castle (Disneyland Park, California) - exists and can be visited but is a recreation of the film

Coca Cola
-post modern image of Father Christmas
-neither Coke nor Santa are real

Another representation of Simulation
-Christmas markets (German)
-Father Christmas - used to wear green clothing
-1970's - The Loud Family - first reality TV show in America
-1990's - The Real World - reality TV
Charlie Brooker
-highlight bits that they want - to create meanings
Hence TV is not really real because it is hyperreal

Symbolic Exchange and Death (1976)
-Baudrillard - articulated the '3 orders of the Simulacra'
1. The Counterfeit - dominant schema of the classical period
2. Production - dominant schema of the industrial era
3. Simulation - dominant schema in the current code - governed phase

Kool Killer or the Insurrection of Signs
-spring 1972 New York - graffiti
-content neither political nor pornographic

Jean Baudrillard - 'The Gulf War did not take place'
-In the aftermath of the first conflict in the Persian Gulf between America and Iraq in the early 1990's, Baudrillard controversially claimed 'it did not take place'
-not intended to suggest it didn't happen...

Seminar Notes - The Gaze

-Manifestations
-Power of looking
-Gender

John Berger
-men look at women
-women look at themselves being looked at
-glance - judgement - reminding them of how they should look
-the nudes
  -naked - yourself
  -nude - object, fugure, someboday else's idea
  -(the distinction between the two)

Hans Memling 'Vanity' 1485

-mans idea of woman
-painting for a man by a man
-the dog represents fidelity - loyalty towards woman
-title - 'vanity' - she likes to look at herself - objectifying her - attaack
-allows you to laugh at her for being vain - aggressive
-religion - harder on women than men

Page 3
-designed for men to look at
-'News in brief' - women quotes and their opinions on what is going on in the world - allows men to oggle women but laugh as well as she can't be sexy and intellectual at the same time - sexist joke

Alexandre Cabanel 'Birth of Venus' 1863

-inviting gaze

-passive female

Ingres 'Le Grand Odalisque' 1814

-2 gazes - power and objectification

-men gazing at woman

-West gazing at East

-oriental, sexual fantasy

-less sophisticated - more available

-patronising

Manet 'Bar at the Folies Bergenes' 1882

-put into the position of a man looking at a woman

-close proximity

-woman not meeting/challenging gaze

Jeff Wall 'Picture for Women' 1979

-still male dominated

-photograph (paintings are lies)

Portfolio Task 2 - On Popular Music

Quickly read Adorno's (1941) article 'On Popular Music'. In no more than a few paragraphs, summarise his ideas on pop music, concentrating on key points such as 'standardisation', 'psuedo-individualisation' etc.
Post a link to a YouTube pop video that, in your opinion, epitomises Adorno's sentiments. Explain why, trying to emphasise the links to the wider 'culture industry' in general.


Adorno claimed that the fundamental characteristic of popular music is 'standardization'. He also compares pop music in an inferior way to 'serious music'. He believes that pop music is predictable and pre-digestive, that if you like the style of a song then you will like other songs with that same style. This means the consumers decision has already been for them. Adorno says that ''Structural Standardization Aims at Standard Reactions'' (Adorno, p76), which therefore reduces the effort on the part of those working in the music industry, as they know how people will react. He explains that the whole structure of pop music standardized, even when an artist tries to be different, because they are still conforming to a set of rules, for example; the breakdown of a song consists of a chorus and verse pattern, and therefore the consumer has ''the same familiar experience''(Adorno, p74).

Adorno goes on speaking about the correlation between muscial standardization and 'pseudo-individualization', he states that ''Concentration and control in our culture hide themselves in their manifestation. Unhidden they would provoke resitance.''(Adorno, p78), meaning that if people knew they were being controlled they would resist against it, so therefore they are under the illusion of individualism, even though what they listen to is 'pre-digested'.

Adorno also believes that people who listen to popular music do so as a distraction from their everyday lives. It does not demand their attention, however it produces passivity through rhythmic repetitiveness, and emotional adjustment, that music is an escape from reality. The listeners don't realise this repetitiveness, as their thinking has been done for them.

[Adorno, T., (1941), 'On Popular Music' In 'Studies in Philosophy and Social Science', New York: Institute of Social Research]

Westlife's cover of 'Uptown Girl', epitomises Adorno's beliefs about popular music. The fact that it is cover of an original is an obvious reason for this choice, with Billy Joel first releasing the song in 1983 it reached number one in the UK charts, proving it's inital popularity. Westlife knew this in 2001 when they released their cover, which also reached number one in the UK chart, and became the band's biggest selling single in the UK. Adorno's idea of music being 'pre-digestive' is apparent here, with the band working deliberately to set out to win favour with the people, knwoing the reactio nthe first time around. The doo-wop beat and close harmonies, makes the song catchy and memorable, which is common within popular music.

Billy Joel's 'Uptown Girl' -


Westlife's cover -

Seminar Notes - Popular Culture

Lecture 2:
important ------ unimportant
culture ------ popular cultures
upperclass ------ working class
classical ------ pop
Shakespear ------ Harry potter
poetry ------ advertising jingles
language ------ slang
art ------ design
power ------ politics
taste v class

Alot of people don't care for art and they don't understand, however, most people engage with graphic design in some way, yet graphic design is labelled insignificant.

Marxism:

Base-
-forces of production - worker, tools, skills, technologies, materials
-relations of productions
   -employer/employees
   -master/slave
   -ruling/exploited
   -upper class/ lower class

Superstructure-
-methods of control
-religion
-politics
-law
-police
-army
-education

Ideologies
-forms of consciousness
culture -art

The Base determines the Superstructure
The Superstructure re-inforces the Base, ligitimises it and makes it stronger

Materialism
-surround yourself with commodities
-let be judged by possessions rather than who you are as a person

Ideology
-system of beliefs/ideas that unite people
-selective system of ideas reinforces power relations
-presents the interests of a few disguised as the interests of all - false consciousness
E.g. - X Factor - Simon Cowell - contestants image is what he wants them to look like - to please the masses - gain publicity

Capitalism - pyramid of capitalist system

When you get the rise of the working class (1800's particularly) Matthew Arnold writes - 'Culture & Anarchy' - when says the 'diseased spirit' - means challenging the authority, threat to power
culture - serves the interest of few
          -civilise yourself to become like the few
          -behave like ruling class

F.R. Leavis - Leavism
-judgements directly from the base
-loosing authority

Popular

Frankfurt School - consumption of popular culture stops you from resisting against the upper class
the culture industry - homogeneity and predictability

Reference - popular music text
-standardisation - reduces effort of designers and consumers
-pre-digested
-shortcut - no effort
-summarises for you

Psuedo-individualism
e.g. Goths - think they are individual - yet they are the same as eachother - participate in standardised culture
appears new/individual - but is a sequel

Song covers - song that is already proved popular - appears new if it is done by another artist - bring their own style to it but is psuedo-individual

The more people watch X Factor, the more producers will keep making these programmes (mindless programmes)
The less you interact with the world, the more you retract from it

Punk - anti-capitalist merged from poverty
-London - 70's - Anarchy in the UK
-black/white/reggae/punk

''youth cultural styles begin by issuing symbolic challenges, but they must end by establishing new conventions, by creating new commodities, new industries,, or rejuvenating old ones'' - Hebidige, D 1979
-subculture
-not about rebelling anymore- as it becomes neutralised

50 cent looks dangerous and edgy - but his music is not - sales - popular