dr. helen quan 2/12/08 - conversation regarding hip-hop
focuses on community and social justice: spend lots of time on the cultural context of identity.
-- example: examine the cultural context of misogyny and violence
-- examine the context of belonging
-- necessity of counterfeit identity
-- ask "why is it necessary to pretend to be?"
talking about identity can be a very uncomfortable thing
-- when most people broach the subject, it's often highly critical and confrontational. why are you listening to this? you are supporting bad people doing bad things therefore you are bad
-- consider that music is a very personal thing
-- music is more than entertainment. we are, to certain extents, defined by our choices
-- we wake up to it, hang out with it, sleep with it, go on dates with it, it comforts us, it's tied to our memories, etc.
-- judgments about industry therefore need to be made distinct from judgments about us.
-- if you want an audience to develop a sensitivity towards these topics, you must first develop a sensitivity toward your audience
students tend to be genuinely curious about culture particular culture that they saturate themselves in. discussion requires the ability to consider critically without alienating.
understanding this requires the recognition that hip-hop does not exist in a vacuum
hip-hop is an industry; it is big business; it is a commodity -- deliberately, consciously produced and marketed BUT consider that in some cases gangster rap had continue to be over-produced despite not being profitable. (other agendas) 1999 statistics indicate that roughly 66% of the market for gangster rap was suburban white kids.
-- consider what is being taught about race relations and "the Other"
-- consider that the music industry is extremely exploitive of young talent
-- targeting of responsibility? artists? industry? consumers?
black noise by tricia rose (one of the first "hip-hop scholars")
hip-hop america by nelson george*
politics and poetics in hip-hop
effective advertisement is that which results in something being implicit and intuitive. that you walk into a "foot locker" and just know that nike is better is the result of a multi-billion dollar campaign.
dr. lee: conversation regarding sex workers
conversation began as a discussion about byron hurt's movie "hip-hop: beyond beats and rhymes" and meandered toward dr. lee's research on sex work.
examine the intersectionality between issues of race, class and gender in regards to sex work and prostitution
examples: differences between human trafficking / gender violence and women's rights? how do you define feminism and women's rights? do women have the right to choose sex work?
-- possible to distinguish between "legitimate occupation" and "exploitation of women's bodies?"
-- black women used prostitution as a tool of anti-colonialism (used to leverage rights)
note the hierarchy of how we discuss sex work from escorts to call girls to brothels to streetwalkers (in terms of danger and exploitation)
critiques on radical feminism:
1/ only focuses on gender oppression to the exclusion of other issues (race and class) note that in the sex work industry, there are those who enter in from the middle class. reasoning is generally "sexual exploration" from the lower class, reasoning is generally more economic (includes undocumented immigrant women.)
-- important to note that in most cases not "completely" forced (knife / gun / etc.)
-- results from informed decision against other choices
2/ radical feminism neglects these choices and categorizes any decision toward prostitution or sex work as "forced" or made under "false consciousness" (you can't see or understand that you are forced to do something because you are under the veil of oppression and simply believe what hegemonic forces "want" you to believe)
-- "false consciousness" is a highly elitist concept (just as oppressive) and unprovable. implicit in "you don't know what you're doing" is "I know better than you."
the term "false consciousness" arose from marxism regarding some of the actions of the lower classes. the prison notebooks provide a basis for incorporating other aspects (such as oppression) into notions of classism
considerations of policy? how do we react to sweatshops vs. how do we react to prostitution? what sort of negotiations occur in a neo-liberal economy?
sweatshops arise in third world countries, why? IMF lends money to the country in exchange for deregulation.
rise of "sex tourism"-- purchasing of sex in less privileged countries
-- third world countries use tourism to attract foreign currencies (bolster economies)
-- sex tourism is part of this both explicitly and implicitly
enjoying music but still being critical
-- this doesn't mean male domination doesn't exist, but we need to better and more clearly understand the *variety* of narratives
destigmatising and giving rights:
-- streetworkers and illegal immigrants are more likely to acquiesce to risky demands (economic necessity)
-- lack of benefits, sick days, vacations
jus 588 - 01/15/2008
metaphor for media and society: escher's hands drawing hands
-- product alters process alters product
-- reflexivity
-- heisenberg's uncertainty principle
study not just the content of media, but the production of the content as well.
-- what values, technology, skills are incorporated into the content? what ideology?
-- there is information not in just the content, but in how the content is organized, produced, and put together.
process to media:
old metaphor--> stimulus / response
-- messages are like bullets, they hit you and you react to them. (ex. media causes violence)
newer metaphor: two-step flow of communication
-- stimulus is mediated through a group before you interpret it. your group identity helps process messages
present theory: symbolic interactionism
-- message reaches you and you interpret the symbolic elements and meanings and then there will be results dependent on what meanings you ascribe to the symbols.
"messages w/ moral meaning have influence on behavior"
change as opposed to reinforcing effects-- messages with moral meanings are very difficult to change. they're embedded (to a certain extent) in our environments / cultures.
naomi klein -- illegal to market directly to kids?? (in canada)
examples of interpretation battles in media:
was this "torture" or "strenuous communication"?
rush limbaugh, in reference to guantanamo, "this was a fraternity prank."
norman lear -- producer of "all in the family"
-- meant to change society
-- characters have symbolic meaning
-- lear intended to illustrate the point "bigotry is bad" however research demonstrates that in some small canadian towns it had the opposite effect of reinforcing bigotry.
culturally created SCRIPTS (situations) that get combined into NARRATIVES (with beginning, middle and end.)
ray surette -- social ecology of crime in entertainment media
-- three layers: "criminal wolves" which were fought by "crime fighting sheep dogs" who shielded "public citizen sheep"
-- interesting note: how you interpret these three layers is somewhat dependent on your experiences with law enforcements (i.e. race.)
people like to be reinforced-- "identifying things you already believe"
tony schwartz -- "the responsive chord"
-- "the best advertising is one where the viewer fills in the details."
-- this "chord" is a chord of meaning
sidebar: "this version of government is diluted fascism."
crack / cocaine and heroin: programming and government manipulation of networks and the media system.
-- robert blake -- "beretta"
-- epstein -- "agency of fear": this results in shifting language and meanings in order to talk about the subject
-- len bias -- boston celtics player died from an overdose of cocaine
---- tip o'neill: powerful congressmen (from boston)
Immediately upon returning from the July 4 recess, Tip O'Neill called an emergency meeting of the crime-related committee chairmen. Write me some goddamn legislation, he thundered. All anybody up in Boston is talking about is Len Bias. The papers are screaming for blood. We need to get out front on this now. This week. Today. The Republicans beat us to it in 1984 and I don't want that to happen again. I want dramatic new initiatives for dealing with crack and other drugs. If we can do this fast enough, he said to the Democratic leadership arrayed around him, we can take the issue away from the White House.
In life, Len Bias was a terrific basketball player. In death, he became the Archuke Ferdinand of the Total War on Drugs. What came before had been only skirmishing; the real Drug War had yet to begin. Within weeks, the country would be marching, bayonets fixed.
( from http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2006/06/18/lenBiasTheDeathThatUsh...)
"media logic is the ghost in the machine." what's running it? what shapes and frames what we see?
iconography
-- religious studies that look at what's been added and taken away from an icon over time. in particular, the associated meanings.
-- the ability to establish an icon and meaning is an act of power. (power is the ability to define a situation.)
-- "there is no meaning independent of human agency."
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from the standpoint of those attacking the towers, the people in the towers were "little eichmanns"
-- rationality of brutality
-- "television creates its own memory"
-- giovanni beckoloni: what is the source of our memories?
media, popular culture and blending of wars
top gun --> "highway to the danger zone" --> now, pilots play that song during bombing runs
lighthouses and frenl lens -- fear builds upon itself, narratives about the other, group membership, etc.
-- howard becker: sociologist focuses on "insiders and outsiders"
-- "the other" becomes a source of fear.
-- through multiple self-reflections and magnifications, the fear becomes more powerful.
"the discourse of evil is ecclesiastical"
