chapter 7
Describe Capitalism
an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.
What is commodity culture?
Images are commodities
Images are bought, sold, and traded
They are “signs” of value; we consume the meaning or status an image conveys
Brands sell dreams, lifestyles, and emotions through visual codes.
what term is, Separation from one’s labour, product, and creativity
Alienation
describe the medium is the message
broadcast, narrowcast and webcast media
what is Metacommunication?
the implicit or explicit messages about the communication itself conveyed through visual elements
what term is, Using luxuries and wealth on a lavish scale to enhance and insinuate the prestige and class of oneself
Conspicuous consumption
describe commodity fetishism and what concept is it?
A Marxist concept
Social relationships behind production are obscured
Objects seem to have intrinsic value
Focus on brand, market value, and social meaning instead of human labour that went into making it
describe the digital divide
the gulf between those who have ready access to computers and the internet, and those who do not.
what is cultural industry?
the ways that mass ideology was being promulgated globally through media and popular forms of entertainment and culture.
describe
economic, social, symbolic & cultural capital
Economic: Images generate and sustain markets; sell products, lifestyles, and identities.
Cultural: Our ways of seeing are shaped by commercial logics; Capitalism trains us to desire certain things.
Psychological: Images create (unattainable) ideals of beauty, success, and happiness
Social: They reinforce hierarchies — gender, race, class — by normalizing who gets seen and how
what is therapeutic ethos
In the industrial era social values and success shifted from a more protestant influenced ethos with emotional connection and thriftiness at the center of it to a more consumer mindset.
The social value that was the strongest at the time which favoured self sacrifice, commitment to work and civic responsibility and was very community based shifted to a more personal and individualistic mindset. Suddenly the social value changed to embrace self pleasure, self fulfillment and “consumption as signifiers of personal success”
what is culture jamming and what image does it invoke?
Subverting corporate logos or slogans to expose manipulation
(image is either cowboys or bad shoes)
what is critical theory?
Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are fundamentally shaped by power dynamics between dominant and oppressed groups.[1] Beyond just understanding and critiquing these dynamics, it explicitly aims to transform society through praxis and collective action with an explicit sociopolitical purpose
what term is, New mode of alienation, alienation from our data, the image economy replaces production with attention
Digital capitalism
what term is, “The term spectacle refers to an event or image that is particularly striking in its visual display to the point of inspiring awe”
Spectacle
flâneur vs flâneuse
Flaneur- a man who strolls the streets of a city anomalously. Distracted by his sights, his goal is the leisure activity of looking.
Respectable women were not allowed to stroll alone in modern streets
Flaneuse- the female window shopper
This is about the link between gender and mobility and how the gender can change the safety of mobility
Détournement, what does it mean?
French word for “diversion,” “rerouting,” or ”hijacking”
Taking existing images, messages, or cultural symbols and reworking them to subvert their original meaning.
Technique developed by Guy Debord (Society of the Spectacle) and the Situationist International in 1960s
what are “The Masses”
The working class "proletariat" who do not own the means of production and must sell their labour for wages
what is the, hypodermic effect
the "Hypodermic Needle Model" uses the same idea of the "shooting" paradigm. It suggests that the media injects its messages straight into the passive audience.[3] This passive audience is immediately affected by these messages. The public essentially cannot escape from the media's influence, and is therefore considered a "sitting duck"
what is media activism
Media activism is a broad category of activism that utilizes media and communication technologies for social and political movements. Methods of media activism include publishing news on websites, creating video and audio investigations, spreading information about protests, or organizing campaigns relating to media and communications policies.
what is an, anti-ad?
anti-ads were created by commercial companies to sell products, they did so by being critical of traditional advertising techniques: targeting savvy consumers using gritty visuals, no-nonsense voiceovers, or by deconstructing other advertising styles through parody. See also culture jamming; subvertising.
what term is, It is the deliberate shortening of the lifespan of a product to force people to purchase functional replacements
Pseudo-individuality
describe Frankfurt School
a group of jewish sociologists and philosophers working together in a school of social research in Frankfurt, who write criticisms of emergent mass psychology and media culture around national socialism.
describe the term, Public sphere
it is defined ideally as a space- a physical place, social setting or media area, in which citizens come together to debate and discuss the pressing issues of there society.
what are, Psychological consequences?
• Images construct desire
• They promote individual aspiration over collective well-being.
• They produce self- comparison which leads to a sense of lack
• Our subjectivity is shaped by consumption