'Free' or 'Pirate' Media?

Below is Hans Magnus Enzensberger's "Constituents of a Theory of the Media" where he discusses the concepts of 'emancipatory vs. repressive uses' of the media while offering a radical critique of traditional progressive conceptions of public/state media in favor of the 'new media' potentials of 'free' media. Hesmondalgh's article is a general reflection on the concept of alternative media, it's organization and the specific textual production.

Roger Chapman's article is a comparative analysis of the two main British 'pirate' radio stations, Radio London and Radio Caroline and how they differentiated themselves on the basis of their attitude toward commercialism and their mission.

Finally, John Downing writes on 'radical media' in Italy covering a number of activist situations and their use of new communication technologies by political movements during the late '60s and early '70s. This last article will be the clearest contextualization of Marco Tullio Giordana's I Cento Passi and will also be important as an introduction to the Luciana Castellina/Daniele Segre event on June 17 (Castellina was one of the founders of the daily newspaper il manifesto).

Something to think about in relation to I Cento Passi is how Peppino Impastato's attempts at carving out a space for communication and direct political action (a public sphere within the confines of a small community dominated by organized crime and their ties to the political realm) is dramatized in the film --from traditional political rallies to 'free radio' after navigating dadaist street theater, pamphleteering, film screenings and be-ins. Think specifically of the characteristics of RadioAut --programming, control, voice, 'mission', etc.

Hesmondalgh, "Alternative Media, Alternative Texts?"
Enzensberger, "Constituents of a Theory of the Media"
Chapman, "The 1960s Pirates: A Comparative Analysis of Radio Caroline and Radio London"

Downing, "Radical Media in Italy" from Radical Media

Public Service Broadcasting: Ises and Oughts

Here are the final readings for this week. Concentrate your reflections on the concept of PSB (public service broadcasting), it's features, criteria and justifications.

from Humphreys, Mass Media and Media Policy in Western Europe
Chapter 3: Press Concentration in Western Europe
Chapter 4: European Public-Service Broadcasting System

Richard Collins, "'Ises' and 'Oughts': Public Service Broadcasting in Europe"
from Allen & Hill (eds), The Television Studies Reader (Routledge, 2004)

European Societies and Media Cultures

from Humphreys, Mass Media and Media Policy in Western Europe
Intro + Chapter 1: Press Freedom: The Free Market and the Development of the Modern Press
Chapter 2: Press Freedom and its Limits: The State, the Law and the Private Individual
from Williams, European Media Studies
Chapter 1: The European Media Landscape
Chapter 2: The Press in Europe

Welcome to Summer I 2013

Welcome to Summer I: for this session the blog is exclusively dedicated to the CMS 315 European Mass Media class. Please check back often to find readings, bits of information from across the network together with breaking news and current issues that we can use for class discussion.

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?"