Surveillance, Reality TV and Celebrity Culture

Here are the readings for this week's discussion. Tie the readings to our initial discussion on Errol Morris' Standard Operating Procedure.

Vincent Pecora, The Culture of Surveillance
Nick Couldry (from Media Rituals), Live Reality and the Future of Surveillance
David Samuels, Shooting Britney
(also find this in html format here directly from The Atlantic Monthly website. nb. includes slide show on 'The Celebrity Hunters' not in the pdf file)

A couple of extra readings for those who are thinking of working on these issues for their final papers:

Nick Couldry (from Media Rituals), Mediated Self-Disclosure Before and After the Internet
Mark Andrejevic, The Webcam Subculture and the Digital Enclosure

Paper Assignments: Pop Music and Film

Here are the final paper assignments for the Pop Music and Intro to Cinema classes. Server problems seem to have been resolved so check back for readings in the next couple of hours.

Second POP MUSIC paper assignment.
Second FILM paper assignment.

Gender, Documentary and 'The Problem of Speaking for Others' I

Michelle Citron, Fleeing from Documentary: Autobiographical Film/Video and the "Ethics of Responsibility"
Jane Feuer, Daughter Rite: Living Our Pain, and Love
Linda Alcoff, The Problem of Speaking for Others

Signs and Meaning

Mieke Bal, Semiotics for Beginners
Scott McCloud, from Understading Comics: Chapter 2, Semiotics
Jonathan Bignell, Media Semiotics: Introduction + The Cinema

Social Sorting and Premediation

These are the readings relating to our section on 'social sorting' and 'premediation'. Required readings are the first group of articles. Second group are highly recommended for further research. Also, everyone please read this recent article from The New York Times for class discussion --find it here.

Lyon, Everyday Surveillance: Personal Data and Social Classifications
Gandy, Race, Ethnicity and the Segmentation of Media Markets
Grusin, Premediation
Turow, Cracking the Consumer Code:Advertisers,Anxiety and Surveillance in the Digital Age

Tinic, (En)Visioning the Televisual Audience: Revisting Questions of Power in the Age of Interactive Television
Gandy, Data Mining, Surveillance and Discrimination in the Post 9/11 Environment
De Goede, Beyond Risk: Premediation and the Post 9/11 Security Immagination

Bordwell on Art Film

Chapter from David Bordwell's Poetics of Cinema on the "art film" here.

Also, to accompany the screening of Agnes Varda's Vagabond:
Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"
You can also find it in html format here.

Roger & Me

Two articles to accompany your reflections on the formal and ethical aspects of Michael Moore's Roger & Me (1989).

Miles Orvell, Documentary Film and the Power of Interrogation
Matthew Bernstein, Documentaphobia and Mixed Modes: Michael Moore's Roger & Me

Rock Readings

Frank Zappa & Captain Beefheart

Here are a couple of articles to integrate Keightley's Reconsidering Rock article. The first Frith article is required; the second article is a highly recommended read. Enjoy the Lester Bangs reviews from Creem and Garofalo's article on Soul.

Simon Frith - Rock and Popular Culture
Simon Frith - "The Magic The Can Set You Free": The Ideology of Folk and the Myth of the Rock Community
Lester Bangs - Various Record Reviews from Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung
Reebee Garofalo - Popular Music and the Civil Rights Movement


The Count Five, Psychotic Reaction

Watchdog

Jon Stewart takes on CNBC's Jim Kramer about the social responsibility of the financial media. This is the 'uncensored' version. Watch the whole thing and have a comedian show you what it means to be the 'fourth estate'.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Intro - Brawl Street: Get Read to Buy Low! And Sell Die

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Interview Outtake Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Interview Outtake Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Interview Outtake Pt. 3

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

How To Be A Clever Film Critic

Pop Music Readings III -- Repost

in Cambridge Companion:

-Straw, "Consumption"
-Star Profiles I (Elvis, The Beatles, Dylan, Hendrix, The Stones, JB, Marvin Gaye)
-Keightley, "Reconsidering Rock"

-Middleton, "Pop, Rock and Interpretation"
-Street, "Rock, Pop and Politics"
n.b. The Middleton and Street are highly recommended readings but you will not be responsible for them for the midterm. We will discuss the issues and concepts raised in them after the exam. I do however urge you to read them as they offer a lot of points for review of material that will actually be on the midterm.

In Garofalo you should read up to and including Chapter 6.

Mass Comm Study Guide

Study Guide for the Mass Comm and Society class. Here it is. Enjoy

Popular Music Study Guide

This is really a bare-bones study guide for those of you who need some kind of safety net. Enjoy.

Documentary List

Kathleen Neal Cleaver, National Secretary of Communications for the Black Panther Party, 1969, during the national campaign to free BPP Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton.

Here is the complete list of the documentary films screened in class which you are responsible for. I have also included the title of those films which we only saw excerpts of but which are nonetheless important. Find it here.

Also, here is Chapter 6 from Nichols' Intro to Documentary.