Interactive Audiences

still from Robbie Cooper, Immersion

Marshall, "Forms of Interactivity: The Disappearance of the Audience"

Jenkins, "Interactive Audiences? The Collective Intelligence of Media Fans"

The Implosion of Meaning: Slackers

Every single commodity you produce is a piece of your own death.

Jean Baudrillard, "The Masses: The Implosion of the Social in the Media"

Additional Recommended Baudrillard Readings:

Jean Baudrillard, Requiem for the Media
Jean Baudrillard, The Implosion of Meaning in the Media from Simulacra and Simulation



"A video image is much more powerful and useful than an actual event..."

The Sonic Worlds of Afrofuturism

Lecture + Q&A with Beatrice Ferrara on The Sonic Worlds of Afrofuturism
Tuesday April, 9 @ 4.30pm in the Aula Magna, JCU Guarini Campus
Be there.

from John Coney's Space is the Place (1974) featuring Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Arkestra

Burial, "Untrue", images from Peter Tscherkassky's "Outer Space" & "Dreamwork"

(Final) Pop Music Readings

Assuming that at this point you should be (basically) all done with the Garofalo textbook, here are the reading assignments up to the end of the session:

On 'co-optation':
Thomas Frank's "Commodify Your Dissent" here.


On Jamaican Music:
from Dick Hebdige, Cut'n'Mix here.



On Gender:
Simon Frith and Angela McRobbie, "Rock and Sexuality"
Simon Frith, "Afterthoughts"
"Richard Dyer, "In Defense of Disco"
Find these articles here as a single PDF file.



On 'sub-cultures':
Here are the Dick Hebdige chapters from Subculture: The Meaning of Style. Refer back to the Punk: Attitude film screening.

The Ramones, "Do You Remember Rock'n'Roll Radio?" Live in Rome, 1980



On sampling, mash-ups and the 'postmodern turn':
Andrew Goodwin, "Sample and Hold"
E Ann Kaplan, "A Postmodern Play of the Signifier?"
Negativland, "from Wired: Negativland Interviews U2's The Edge"

Also, to clarify (or further obscure) 'postmodernism' please help yourself --in case you have not encountered it in your other studies-- to Fredric Jameson's "Postmodernism and Consumer Society"

Subcultures and More Audience Activity

Dick Hebdige from Subculture: The Meaning of Style

Chapter 6 : Subculture: The Unnatural Break
Chapter 7 : Style as Intentional Communication
Chapter 8 : Style as Homology

Alexander Doty - There's Something Queer Here
Richard Dyer - In Defense of Disco

Media Specificity and Representation

Mufasa and Scar Face Swap

Keith Negus, "Popular Music: Between Celebration and Despair" 
Van Zoonen, "Gender, Representation and the Media"
Corea, "Racism and the American Way of Media"

Desjardins, "Cinema and Communication"
Thomas, "Myths in and About TV"
*Articles are from Downing et al (eds), Questioning The Media: A Critical Introduction (Sage, 1996)

Signs, Meaning and Power

Articles related to our discussion on signs, meaning and culture and their intersections with the construction of identity, desire and power. The final paper assignment is linked to at the bottom of the post. Enjoy.

Kellner, "Advertising and Consumer Culture"

Sut Jhally, "Image Based Culture"

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

°°°Final Paper Assignment°°°

The Pathology of Fandom

Joli Jenson - Fandom as Pathology
John Fiske - The Cultural Economy of Fandom

Jeffrey A. Brown - Ethnography: Wearing One's Fandom

The Audience Strikes Back

Williams - The Audience Strikes Back: New Audience and Reception Theory

Hall - Encoding/Decoding
Morley - The Nationwide Audience

Fiske - Undertanding Popular Culture
De Certeau - The Practice of Everyday Life

For Those About To Rock: Return of the Aura

Frank Zappa & Captain Beefheart

"I mean, man, whither goest thou? Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?"

-Jack Kerouac

-Keightley, "Reconsidering Rock"

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. Reebee Garofalo's article on Soul ("Popular Music and the Civil Rights Movement") is required.

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
Paul Clarke - "'A Magic Science': Rock Music as a Recording Art"
Lester Bangs - Various Record Reviews from Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung
Reebee Garofalo - Popular Music and the Civil Rights Movement

Also, here is Andrew Chester's "For A Rock Aesthetic", Richard Merton's response, "Comments" and Chester's response to the response, "Second Thoughts on a Rock Aesthetic: The Band". It's all here at this link --the whole epochal exchange in one handy location.

Please read in 'Rocking Out' up to and including Chapter 8.

AC/DC, Let There Be Rock (1977) 

Reverend Bon tells you all about it. As you can see the 'aura' is back around Angus' head.

Psychoanalysis and Film

Still from Kathryn Bigelow's Zero-Dark Thirty (USA, 2012). Jessica Chastain as subject and image.

In addition to the Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" in the Audience Studies Reader please read this overview of psychoanalytic film theory from Robert Stam's Film Theory: An Introduction.
Stam, "From Linguistics to Psychoanalysis": Part 1 and Part 2

While I have your attention take a look at this chapter by Kevin Williams where he provides a summary of the different normative approaches to audiences in media studies. This is a good overview of the material we have covered in class and it should help you with your review for the midterm. Enjoy.

Williams, "Effects? What Effects?"

The In-Between Years

The Folk Revival:

The Kingston Trio - Tom Dooley
Pete Seeger - Turn Turn Turn!
Joan Baez - Silver Dagger
Bob Dylan - Masters of War
Lyrics here.

Surf & Hot Rod Combos:

The Beach Boys - Surfin USA
Dick Dale & The Del-Tones - Miserlou
Link Wray & His Ray Men - Rumble (Outtake)
The Stingers (Jack Cole) - Mustang

Uptown R&B from Motown/All songs by Holland-Dozier-Holland:

Martha & The Vandellas - Nowhere To Run
The Four Tops - Reach Out I'll Be There
The Supremes - You Can't Hurry Love
Marvin Gaye - How Sweet It Is

Girl Groups/Phil Spector Wall of Sound/Songs by Weill & Mann:

The Ronettes - Be My Baby
The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me
The Crystals - Da Doo Ron Ron

Cynthia Weill & Barry Mann songs NOT produced by Phil Spector:

Lesley Gore - It's My Party

The Wall of Sound in full-effect:

Ike & Tina Turner - River Deep, Mountain High

The Righteous Brothers - You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling

Readings:
Keightley, "Reconsidering Rock"

nb. You will not be responsible for this reading for the midterm. We will discuss the issues and concepts raised in it after the exam. I do however urge you to read it as it offers a lot of points that would help your review of material that will actually be covered on the midterm.

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

R'n'R or Trasubstantiated R'n'B?

Elvis Presley - That's All Right, Mama + Blue Moon of Kentucky
Bill Haley & The Comets - Crazy Man Crazy
Fats Domino - Ain't That A Shame + Blueberry Hill
Little Richard - Tutti Frutti
Chuck Berry - Almost Grown + Little Queenie
Bo Diddley - Pretty Thing
The Chords - Sh-Boom
Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers - Why Do Fools Fall In Love

Audiences (*now improved with midterm study guide)

Ang, "The Nature of the Audience"
Gandy, "Tracking the Audience"

Nussbaum, "What Would Tina Fey Do For A SoyJoy?"


COM 220 Study Guide here.

Whitey's Lindy Hoppers: Something Wild

This is the Lindy Hop, the Jitterbug, the Suzie-Q. The clip is an excerpt from H.C. Potter's Helzapoppin' (1941). The Lindy Hoppers doing "The Big Apple" in 1939 are here. Enjoy.
In this clip the dancing starts at the 2:15 mark.



from Jonathan Demme's Something Wild; The Feelies play David Bowies's "Fame" and Jeff Daniels dances with his eye on the 'Other' for cues.