Popular Representation: Recasting Realism

This is the poster for the US release of L'onorevole Angelina. Note how the film is characterized as a 'lusty topical comedy-drama of life in present day Italy'. When two different understandings of the cinema inevitably meet in the market.

As we move away from neo-realism proper: the Abercrombie, Lash & Longhurst article below can get us thinking about how 'realism' can be recast as something that opens itself up to further scrutiny rather than a closed proposition predicated on particular historical and social contexts. This article is important both for how it allows us to think and talk of a film like Luigi Zampa's L'onorevole Angelina (or Giuseppe De Santis' Riso amaro (Bitter Rice) as well as Roberto Rossellini's Viaggio in Italia (Voyage in Italy). Next screening will be Federico Fellini'sIl Bidone.

Abercrombie, Lash & Longhurst, "Popular Representation: Recasting Realism"

Chomsky & Herman: The Propaganda Model

Please find, following our discussion in class of media bias and the political economy of the mass media an excerpt from the first chapter of Herman and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent - The Political Economy of the Mass Media (NY: Pantheon Books, 1988). This is where Herman develops and explains the 'five filters' that distill what is presentable in the media.

Construction and Performance

Jean Kilbourne, “The More You Subtract, the More You Add: Cutting Girls Down to Size”
Diana Crane, “Gender and Hegemony in Fashion Magazines: Women’s Interpretations of Fashion"
Deborah D. Rogers, “Daze of Our Lives: The Soap Opera as Feminine Text”
Gloria Steinem, “Sex, Lies and Advertising”

Daphne A. Brooks, "Suga Mama, Politicized (on Beyoncé)"
Susan McClary, "Living to Tell: Madonna's Resurrection of the Fleshly"

Blackwashing on The Colbert Report

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Blackwashing
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Protests

'New' Media: Impact of Digital Technology on Film and Television

These are the readings for the first weeks of class and discussion. Remember that we are still in the process of investigating the concept of 'new' media and trying to go beyond a mere chronology of now technologies in favor of a more nuanced and specific understanding of the truly 'new' aspects of digital converged media and the social potential/consequences from a politically progressive perspective --the 'what's new for society' question.

The articles here will introduce you to some of the more practical transformations that the appearance of digital technologies have produced in 'old' media like film and television. Please note that as we discussed in class, even in this case, the transformations are both smaller and larger than those one could imagine: on the one hand, the film and televisual experience is for the most part unchanged; on the other, however, the film medium and the specificity of the photo/cinematographic image has been dramatically transformed as it loses its indexicality and the medium goes from a synthetic to an analytic one while television's horizon ceases to be that of a regulated/national context to an open/transnational one.

David Croteau & William Hoynes, "The New Media Giants: Changing Industry Structure"

Sean Cubitt, "Digital Filming and Special Effects"
P. David Marshall, "Rejuvenation: Film in the Digital World"
Anne Friedberg, "CD and DVD"
Janet Wasko, "The Future of Film Distribution and Exhibition"

Michele Hilmes, "Cable, Satellite and Digital Technologies"
P. David Marshall, "Rejuvenation: Television"

Text and Context: Political Economy and Reception

Janice Radway, "Women Read The Romance: The Interaction of Text and Context"
Jan Nederveen Pitersem, "White Negroes"
David Croteau & William Hoynes, "The New Media Giants: Changing Industry Structure"
Sut Jhally, "Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture"

Textuality: Semiotics

To complement the other readings here are three different discussions of 'semiotics' and semiotic analysis and their use for cultural studies and media representation. There are not required readings but those of you who are encountering 'semiotics' for the first time would certainly benefit from grappling with the concepts presented here.

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

European Mass Media Text

Please note that due to the non-arrival of the textbooks readings for the class are going to be available at the copy place in Via Fratelli Bonnet and on-line right here. Refer to syllabus for reading assignments.

(Neo) Realism I

still from Roberto Rossellini's Germany Year Zero (Italy, 1948)

Overbey, Introduction to Springtime in Italy
(This includes a number of short articles by Zavattini, Antonioni, De Sica & Rossellini)
Bazin's collection of articles on neo-realism from What Is Cinema?; Vol. II
Merleau-Ponty, Preface to Phenomenology of Perception
Kracauer, The Found Story and the Episode from Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality

Cultural Studies and Representation: Race and Gender I

Power Privilege and Discrimination

Douglas Kellner, "Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism and Media Culture"
Sanjukta Gosh, "'Con-Fusing' Exotica: Producing India in US Advertising"

Ideology and Hegemony

Stuart Hall, "The Whites of Their Eyes: Racing Ideologies and the Media"
James Lull, "Hegemony"

all readings are from Dines and Humez (eds), Gender, Race and Class in Media: A Text-Reader; 2nd Edition (Sage, 2003)



Clip from The Tyra Banks Show on "eyelid surgery": relate to general introduction to Cultural Studies in Kellner essay.

Welcome to the 2009-2010 Academic Year

Welcome back to those returning and to those here for the first time. You will find readings, clips, discussion material and more. Check back regularly. Friday is also 'Weekend Tunes' day.

Returning September 1st

Hello all. Returning September 1st. In the meantime here's a summer song for all.

The Boat That Rocked

Something for you to do on what is looking to be a rainy weekend.

The Boat That Rocked, Richard Curtis' film about the British Pirate Radio Stations is playing at the Metropolitan, the movie theater in Via del Corso, near the Piazza del Popolo. The film is in English (with Italian subtitles). Of course the film is directed by the guy that did Four Weddings and a Funeral so like Xan Brooks says in The Guardian, it's more 'born to be mild' than anything else, but it's nonetheless a good example of how pirates, with hindsight, can be cuddly and cute.

A light hearted take on some of the issues we discussed at the beginning of the session and like I said it's something to do --it keeps you out of the rain if it rains or it gives you some air conditioned respite from the heat if the sun's out.



Review in The Guardian here. Video review here.

The Democratic Right To Know

McKenzie Wark, A Hacker Manifesto (Ver. 4.0)

James Boyle from The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind
Link above is for the whole book which Boyle made available through the Creative Commons License. You should read Chapter 6: I Got A Mashup.
If you don't want to download the whole book you can find a link to the annotatable online version of the chapter here.

Matt Mason - We Invented The Remix

Henry Jenkins - Interactive Audiences? The 'Collective Intelligence' of Media Fans

Aoki, Boyle and Jenkins - Bound By Law?
This is a comic book on copyright. Don't be fooled by it's form: it's a great read and I strongly encourage you to read at least the first 15 pages.
You can also find it free on-line from its publisher --crazy, huh?-- Duke University and The Center for the Study of the Public Domain in a variety of formats. You can also 'remix' it and you're encouraged to translate it. It's all here.

From The Cultural Resistance Reader: please have the articles in Section Seven read. The following articles from Section 8 are also required: Jordan on 'Reclaim the Streets'; Jason Grote on 'Revered Billy' and Ricardo Dominguez's 'Electronic Disturbance'

Bonus:

This is an old post from the blog where you can find a link to download Girl Talk's latest work, Feed The Animals.

Bonus reading for those interested in reading more on Jamaican music:
Dick Hebdige - from Cut'N'Mix: Culture, Identity and Caribbean Music

True Norwegian Black Metal

From VBS.TV - True Norwegian Black Metal - a portrait of Gorgoroth's Gaahl.