Media, Advertising and Culture

Increasingly, the media and the advertising industry is the primary memetic distribution source in Western culture and, especially in American culture. What does this mean? It means the media is defining and/or shaping the culture in which we live.

Douglas Kellner:
"Radio, television, film, and the other products of media culture provide materials out of which we forge our very identities; our sense of selfhood; our notion of what it means to be male or female; our sense of class, of ethnicity and race, of nationality, of sexuality; and of "us" and "them." Media images help shape our view of the world and our deepest values: what we consider good or bad, positive or negative, moral or evil."
--from "Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture"

Douglas Kellner is George Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education at UCLA. He has written many books and papers on social theory, culture and politics. He has a couple of websites where many of the essays he's written on these topics are available. His Illuminations site has many essays in html format. A newer, larger site here, has even more essays, including most of those on the Illuminations site, all in PDF format. Additionally, this site also has some Quicktime sound and video files.

A lot of good analysis, and although academic in tone, I find it very readable.
Read more...

Sweet Billy Pilgrim

This isn't a music blog, but I've got to mention this band. Sweet Billy Pilgrim, out of the UK. I don't remember where I ran across a download for their song Ain't No Jesus In Here, but I had downloaded it and just left it sitting on my desktop for several days. As I was cleaning junk off the desktop, I decided I better give it a listen before I trashed it. Wow! Smart lyrics, and a haunting, ethereal sound, it stuck with me all day.

I googled the band and found their website. It appears the band is unsigned? right now, and are self-producing? limited-run (like 500) CDs with 2 or 3 songs on them. After the CDs are sold out, they put the songs on their website in mp3 format. Right now, they have 4 songs available for download. Their current CD has three songs (one of which is available for download), and is priced at £3 plus £2 shipping outside the UK. At current exchange rates it'd come to almost $10 US. Note to the band: when you get the song count on a CD to 5 or 6, I'll buy one.

I just can't say enough about them! Go to their website and check them out.
Read more...

Sneak Peek

A Ben Mack video. Joseph Matheny, Howard Bloom, Mike Caro, advertising, persuasion, poker, memes and more!
Read more...

1984

Is the U.S. creeping toward the totalitarian nightmares envisioned by George Orwell in his novel 1984? This may seem like hyperbole, but the current administration and an all-too-willing Congress have used the excuse of the "terrorist threat" since the events of 9-11 to extend the government's powers to watch over out lives and actions. All for the alleged purpose of making us "safer".

A national ID card bill was introduced in Congress last year, but was easily defeated. Both the right and left sides of the political spectrum in the U.S. have generally regarded such a thing as virtually "unAmerican". Americans don't expect the government to keep tabs on them. This year, the national ID card was slipped into the appropriations bill for the continuing war in Iraq. It managed to make it through Congress pretty much unmentioned by the national media (see previous post "Manufacturing Consent"), and didn't even get much mention on the internet until passage was already virtually guaranteed.

I remember when the Republican's great hero of the late 20th century, Ronald Reagan campaigned and won the presidency, he said he wanted to "get the government out of people's lives". Like virtually all politicians, the Republicans are very good at talking out of both sides of their mouths. They want U.S. citizens to think they're helping to keep the government out of our lives, but they are steadily increasing its reach into our lives. The media helps keep the citizens distracted with bullshit like the Michael Jackson trial and other assorted "news" that has no effect on the average citizen's life while news that impacts everyone is ignored or downplayed.

Ars Technica has a good analysis of the "Real ID Act", and its implications to our country and our Constitution. Who needs a stinking system of checks and balances. They just get in the way of idealogues trying to implement their version of reality for the rest of us.
Read more...

Manufacturing Consent

A 700MB AVI file of the documentary on Noam Chomsky, "Manufacturing Consent". Chomsky's insights into how the media helps further the agenda of those in power.

Scroll down the page to find it. There is also some other interesting content on this page.
Read more...

Politics and Religion

I think this speaks for itself:

"The minister of a Haywood County Baptist church is telling members of his congregation that if they're Democrats, they either need to find another place of worship or support President Bush."

Besides apparently being unable to grasp the difference between Christianity and extremist right-wing ideology, the good reverend also apparently doesn't have a grasp of language either as he said his actions weren't politically motivated.
Read more...

Fair and Balanced?

It seems to me that all the mainstream national news organizations have pretty much given up balanced news coverage for advertising dollars. Newscasts are full of fluff pieces and, when it comes to real news, they appear to slant their coverage to appeal to the majority according to the latest opinion polls so they won't piss anyone off. Unlike the other major U.S. networks, Fox News doesn't even try to appear objective. Their "news" comes across more like a right-wing radio talk show than an objective newscast.

Ben Mack wrote an article that analyzes their practices, comparing them to magic stage shows:

"If Fox News can compel an audience to set aside their disbelief and flow with the experience for as long as it lasts, it is an act of magic. Clay Ramsay, research director at the Program on International Policy (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, conducted a survey among viewers of television news. The survey found that "regular viewers of Fox News held more misperceptions about the invasion of Iraq than regular viewers of any other networks." The survey goes on to find that regular viewers of Fox News were more confident of their knowledge than regular viewers of any other network. Fox News audiences are enchanted."
Read more...

Unitarian Jihad

SF Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll said he received a communique from a group calling itself the Unitarian Jihad.
Excerpts:

"Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States! Too long has your attention been waylaid by the bright baubles of extremist thought. Too long have fundamentalist yahoos of all religions (except Buddhism -- 14-5 vote, no abstentions, fundamentalism subcommittee) made your head hurt. Too long have you been buffeted by angry people who think that God talks to them..."

"People of the United States, why is everyone yelling at you??? Whatever happened to ... you know, everything? Why is the news dominated by nutballs saying that the Ten Commandments have to be tattooed inside the eyelids of every American, or that Allah has told them to kill Americans in order to rid the world of Satan, or that Yahweh has instructed them to go live wherever they feel like, or that Shiva thinks bombing mosques is a great idea?"
Read more...

Fort Culture

I'm afraid they're fighting an uphill battle, but the optimistically named organization Downhill Battle has started a new website to help in the battle between the purveyors of American Consumer Culture and the proponents of individual freedom. They want to build a library of de.lici.ous-linked articles related to the issues of the erosion of Fair Use rights, the increasing consolidation of media companies, and legislative pandering to corporate copyright-law wishes to the detriment of "ordinary" citizens.
Read more...