MT2 jeopardy

Vocab

100

What is conditions of production? 

Louis Althusser, ISAs are primarily responsible for reproducing the conditions of production. 

• The relative autonomy of ISAs is necessary to ensure that the hegemonic ideology can retain its overall legitimacy and adjust to changing conditions, when needed, ISAs are primarily responsible for reproducing the conditions for production 

200

wha is conspicuous consumption? 

• In The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) proposed that conspicuous consumption served as an index for social status 

• Consumption, in other words, served as a way for an individual to signal to others what class they identified with and fit into

300

what is bricolage

• the activity of self-consciously mixing and matching any disparate elements that may be to hand. 
• The finding your own identity within the various modes of consuming. 

400

what is discursive consensus vs. contestation 

• Rather than discursive consensus, then, subaltern counter-publics are best able to assert their needs and identities through discursive contestations 
• rather than discursing through topics and reaching a consensus in the classic public sphere, subaltern counterpublics utilizes contestations to voice their needs 

500

what is the global village

the connection of all things by electric media into one unity. 

vocab +1

100

what is episteme 

• (Foucault) The Renaissance Episteme （16-17th C.): use of analogies, search for resemblances and similarities
• (Foucault) The classical Episteme (18th C.): taxonomy, categorization, and grammar (the expression of thought by means of signs/words 
• (Foucault) The modern Episteme (19th C.): the human sciences, empiricism, and the objectification of self and world 
• (Foucault) The postmodern Episteme (20th C.): the “end of man” as a focal point of inquiry, discourses of technology and technique

200

what is the discourse network of 1800 / 1900

• Discourse networks of 1800: Bureaucracies, the alphabet, the eternal feminine/mother as oral source of discourse, romantic ideal of artistic autonomy, handwriting as the representation of body and self 
• In the 1800 section, Kittler discussed how language was learned, the emergence of the modern university, the associated beginning of the interpretation of contemporary literature, and the canonization of literature.
• Discourse networks of 1900: New International communications technologies, mechanization of discourse, the eternal feminine gives way to female labor 
• The 1900 section argues that the new discourse network in which literature is situated in the modern period is characterized by new technological media - film, the photograph, and the typewritten page - and the crisis that these caused for literary production.

300

what is the phonography

• Phonography as a machine for capturing and storing the residue of the real
  • A reproduction authenticated by the object itself is one of physical precision. It refers to the bodily real, which of necessity escaped all symbolic grids. Media always already provide the appearance of specters. For, according to Lacan, even the word “corpse” is a euphemism in reference to the real.

400

what is the typewriter

• The typewriter as a machine/tool for producing discrete symbols 
  • In standardized texts, paper and body, writing and soul fall apart. Typewriter do not store individuals, their letters do not communicate a beyond that perfectly alphabetized readers can subsequently hallucinate meaning 
  • Everything that has been taken over by technological media since Edison’s inventions disappears from typescripts. The dreams of a real visible or audible world arising from words has come to an end. 

500

what is the film 

• Film as a machine for producing a continuous imaginary totality, equivalent to the mirror stage
  • The imaginary, however, comes about as the mirror image of a body that appears to be, in terms of motor control, more perfect than the infant’s own body, for in the real earthing begins with coldness, dizziness, and shortness of breadth. Thus, the imaginary implements precisely those optical illusions that were being research in the early days of cinema

cultural studies

100

What was the production of consumption thesis and why was it problematic? How can we contrast it with both theories of conspicuous consumption and Michel de Certeau’s argument that consumption is production? What degree of agency do each of these approaches grant to consumers?

• The production of consumption thesis suggest that needs can be differentiated into “real” and “false” 
• Critics of the production of consumption thesis point out that Needs are cultural: “needs are both defined and produced by systems of meaning through which we make sense of the world and thus are open to being re-worked and transformed” 
• Recognizing the cultural basis for needs allows us to appreciate a much broader range of reasons for modes of consumption. 
• Thorsten Veblen (1857-1929) proposed that conspicuous consumption served as an index for social status. Consumption, in other words, served as a way for an individual to signal to others what class they identified with and fit into. 
• Cultural studies theorist Michel de Certeau argues instead consumption can be a form of production itself 
  • Consumption as production: By consuming, people can produce a variety of meaning and identities.
  • By selecting, appropriating, and giving meaning to Polysemic commodities, consumers can create new cultural and personal identities through the process of Bricolage: “the activity of self-consciously mixing and matching any disparate elements that may be to hand” (DCS, 104) 

200

Why did Paul Du Gay and Stuart Hall select the Walkman as an example for demonstrating the utility of Richard Johnson’s Circuit of Culture model?

What does the Walkman represent, according to Sony’s advertisements? Why do Sony’s Walkman advertisements focus on the depiction of lifestyles, as opposed to the qualities and features of the product? 

What role does advertising play in facilitating an identification between a product and its potential consumers?

In part (that is one of the chapters).  It is in larger terms about the cultural meaning of the Walkman as a product, as determined both by modes of consumption and notably by Sony’s advertising.

Sony wanted (and many consumers believed) the Walkman to represent mobility, individual choice, cultural identity, and social connection.

The Walkman is also simultaneously a product and a medium, which makes it ideal as a subject of theoretical analysis.

300

How did Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci explain the rise of fascism in Europe? What is the purpose of Ideological State Apparatuses, according to Louis Althusser? How does articulation allow for the ruling class to maintain its hegemony? What role does the relative autonomy enjoyed by ISAs play in articulation?

• Gramsci argued that Benito Mussolini’s fascist movement was successful because hegemonic forces constantly improvise and revise discursive strategies to adapt  to changing social and cultural conditions, a process called “articulation” 
• relative autonomy of ISAs is necessary to ensure that the hegemonic ideology can retain its overall legitimacy and adjust to changing conditions, when needed. ISA are responsible for reproducing the conditions of production 

400

What might Jurgen Habermas and Nancy Fraser have to say about DeLuca and Peeples’s justification of symbolic violence on the public screen?

Habermas: "eww no"

Fraser would be conflicted.  There isn’t much in her work that legitimates violence, though she does stress the need for discursive contestation.  The real key there is “discursive” - Fraser still anticipates that there will a dialogue.  DeLuca and Peeples argue that on the public screen no meaningful dialogue is possible.  Imagistic discourse and symbolic violence are necessary to garner attention.

technological determinism

100

What features characterize each of Friedrich Kittler’s three discourse networks? How do these line up with Michel Foucault’s epistemes and Marshall McLuhan’s dialectical stages of media history? What media devices does Kittler associate with the three components of Jacques Lacan’s neo- Freudian triad (the Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real) and why? Which of them best approximates Lacan’s mirror stage? Which of them aligns most closely with digital media and algorithmic governmentality? If McLuhan calls media technologies “extensions of man,” what might Kittler call them?

• The republic of scholars: printing, authority and erudition, but based on class, not state institutions 
  • (Foucault) The Renaissance Episteme （16-17th C.): use of analogies, search for resemblances and similarities 
  • (Foucault) The classical Episteme (18th C.): taxonomy, categorization, and grammar (the expression of thought by means of signs/word
• Discourse networks of 1800: Bureaucracies, the alphabet, the eternal feminine/mother as oral source of discourse, romantic ideal of artistic autonomy, handwriting as the representation of body and self 
  • (Foucault) The modern Episteme (19th C.): the human sciences, empiricism, and the objectification of self and world
• Discourse networks of 1900: New International communications technologies, mechanization of discourse, the eternal feminine gives way to female labor 
  • (Foucault) The postmodern Episteme (20th C.): the “end of man” as a focal point of inquiry, discourses of technology and technique
• Stiegler argues that as we are disindividuated through the disruptive processes automation, reticulation, and algorithmic governmentality, our retentions are appropriated and datafied. 

200

What drives Marshall McLuhan’s dialectical conception of history? What three stages does he identify and how does he characterize each? If “the medium is the message,” then what is the message? What is the message of: the printed word? the photograph? the typewriter? the phonograph? How and why does McLuhan distinguish between hot and cool media? Why does McLuhan compare electric media to a Trojan Horse? Why is electric media leading to the formation of a global village? What will the formation of the global village mean for modes of communication, discourse, and representation?

- McLuhan applied the Hegelian dialectics to media forms. which a thesis battles with its antithesis until a synthesis is formed, and the process continues 

- three stages: oral, typography, electric media

- content doesn't matter, the form matterrs. the real message is what is extended, how does that extension operates, and what is erased.

- hot and cool media is differentiated by the amount of participation required of its audience