In last week's lecture presentations we focused on the effects of corporate control of the media ('media monopoly' and the 'propaganda model'). In addition, we examined the effects of advertising on our society and the way in which advertising promotes immense commodity accumulation. Both of these presentations, and the critics whose ideas the presentations were based upon, were highly critical of the state of the media today. If one just focused on these criticisms, one would come away feeling as the media situation we are now in is bleak and very one-sided. In this week's presentations we will focus on more positive and different aspects of the media. These aspects are the ways in which individuals, smaller companies, and non-profits are utilizing both the mass media structures and mass media imagery to promote democratic values at the level of the general public. At the same time we need to keep in mind that these other outlets have their own problems.

The presentation below is a companion piece to the one about Personal Impact Assessment (PIA). This presentation is about what others are doing to take back the mass media and the visual images produced by it, and the PIA lecture is about what you can do to take it back at a personal level.

It is my hope that you are intrigued by the materials presented in this week's lectures, and I hope you will share your thoughts and other examples in our discussion this week.

"The airwaves do not belong to the broadcasters. They do not belong to the advertisers. The owners, by law, are the people of the United States" (Bagdikian, (2000). The media monopoly. (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Beacon Press. p. 252).

APPROPRIATION = CRITICAL ANALYSIS of the MEDIA

  • Appropriation is often thought of in a negative light. But by utilizing elements of the mass media to allow for independent voices to be heard (on whatever political or ideological platform), appropriation takes back what was ours to start with - the public airwaves.

  • Appropriation, according to the The American Heritage Dictionary's definition, is neutral, in that appropriation means to "to set apart for a specific use" or "take possession of." Individuals who appropriate the mass media models and images are very mass media and visually literate. Due to this high level of literacy they take the corporate models and images and are able to create new forms of media and visual communication.

  • Below are some examples of images that either directly appropriate images from the media, such as Adbusters which uses the exact look of advertisements to create anti-consumer messages. Another example is the Guerrilla Girls who started in the 1980s using the look of graphic advertisements to critique sexism found in the art world, later they branched out to critique the general role of women in society.

 

Adbusters

 

Guerrilla Girls

 

Misc. (some more examples of graphic design, and appropriation of cultural imagery, being used to show a certain message (this time at the other end of the political spectrum))

 

 

INDEPENDENT (or at least non-network) MEDIA OUTLETS

In the presentation on the 'media monopoly' and 'propaganda model', we examined the ways in which six large media corporations control much of the media we are exposed to. This is a very important and serious issue to address when discussing media literacy because of the effects of media produced images and narratives on individuals and society.

But there are media outlets that are not controlled by this 'media monopoly' structure. Many of the more balanced news agencies are international, but there are some in the United States. Indeed many of the alternative media sources in the Untied States are organizations created to offer both alternatives to and criticisms of the media model now in place.

The general public in the United States has received little information either from political debates over broadcasting or from their major media about differing broadcast models in Canada, Britain, the Scandinavian countries, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, and other developed democracies. None of those foreign systems is exactly the same, but they all provide public access to civic groups with large memberships, and they are usually operated by quasi-trusteeships, supported by financing from fixed taxes.

In Belgium and the Netherlands, for example, civic and other organizations, including "listener associations," have guaranteed access to broadcast time based on the size of their memberships.

Within the United States, major foundations, consumer advocates like Ralph Nader, and others have suggested alternatives to the two-model illusion of choice. They have demonstrated, often with carefully evolved plans, that there are tax-supported alternatives appropriate to the United States. (The "two-model illusion of choice" is when the debate revolves around only two arguments: 1) government controlled media becomes undiluted propaganda when tax dollars are used, and 2) the only and best alternative becomes a total commercial model of media control. This then leaves out of the debate the public who wants a balanced approach because the corporate model does not give us the amount of choice it pretends to offer.)

The struggling alternative stations (and the illegal pirate ones) remain lonely voices against the national silence on the many ways broadcasting could develop if we do not have to limit ourselves to choosing between broadcasting the is governmental propaganda and broadcasting as a product designed for maximized corporate profit making. (Bagdikian, pp. 250 - 251.)

Some examples (click on the logos to see the web pages, and they can be found in this week's 'External Links'):




 

DIY CULTURE (Do It Yourself)

"DIY stands for: Do It Yourself and it describes an ethic and a community. The ethic is one of not needing the assistance of a large company of producing a service or a product. The ethic is about being able to stand on your own two feet, its about developing your own ideas and carrying them out, without the backing of a corporation. The community is built up of those who believe in DIY. Those people who would rather produce their own "thing" without going and getting help from big business. The whole idea is, that once big business is involved, that the original creator of the "thing" is cut out of the creative process, and thus the "thing" is tarnished. The DIY community is composed of independent publishers, Artists, musicians, writers, artisans and thinkers." (Diysearch. (2002). http://www.diysearch.com/)

  • Examples of DIY culture include self made clothing from the basic materials bought in a fabric store, to self sufficient agriculture where one grows gardens and raises livestock to eat without purchasing from a supermarket, radio broadcasters called Free Radio (Pirate Radio) who build their own studios and broadcast in certain local areas (this was made famous by the movie starring Christian Slater, Pump Up the Volume (1990)), and self publishers called zinesters who create their own magazines called zines (see below).


  • zines

  • Zines are self published magazines that largely grew out of the 1970s punk rock scene. (Although there is a longer history of zines in various forms starting with The Comet published in 1930 by the Science Correspondence Club and is believed to be the first fanzine. The roots of zines can also be attributed to pamphlets in late 17th century England and during the times of the American Revolution (1760-1791); the most famous was Thomas Paine's Common Sense, published in 1776.) The zine movement expanded in the 1980s and 1990s to include a wide range of topics and issues. There is high level of appropriation in the creation of zines, some of it critical and some of it in praise of various mass media.


  • TYPES of zines

    • · Fanzines (science fiction, music, sports, TV and film, etc.)

    · Political zines (Politics (capital 'P') = Anarchist, Socialist, Libertarian, Fascist, and "identity" categories such as Feminist and Queer) (politics (lowercase 'p') = no identification with the specific categories but explore issues in general)

    · Personal zines or perzines (zines that tell stories about the zinester, such as a diary or a zine dedicated to a friend who has died)

    · Scene zines (zines that cover and/or review scenes such as live music)

    · Network zines (zines that focus on collecting information about other zines, could be reviews and/or classifies for ordering zines)

    · Fringe Culture zines (UFOs, conspiracy theories, serial killers, etc.)

    · Religious zines (covering a wide range from witches, born-again Christians, or joke religions such as the Church of the SubGenius)

    · Vocational zines (zines that tell stories about the workplace, usually as satire)

    · Health zines (alternative medicine or information about health issues such as AIDS)

    · Sex zines (straight, homosexual, bondage, etc.)

    · Travel zines (as in a travel log on a cross-country Greyhound bus trip or focusing on travel locations)

    · Comix (zines that are formatted as comics with panels of illustrations instead of an emphasis on the written word)

    · Literary zines (original short stories or poetry)

    · Art zines (non-narrative illustration zines)

    · THE REST!

    (Duncombe, S. (1997). Notes from underground: zines and the politics of alternative culture. New York, NY: Verso. pp. 9 - 13.)

  • ISSUES/TOPICS

    • · Identity = Giving voice to the voiceless. Zinesters are seen, by others and themselves, as a group of individuals who cannot afford to publish professionally through large publishing houses. Since it is cheap and easy to produce the zines, many diverse voices can be heard that normally would not otherwise be heard.

    · History = As mentioned above, zines, as we know them currently, originated with the punk rock movement of the 1970s. Zines were used to review bands and to get the word out about the underground movement (to other underground movements). But in addition, zines have roots in late 17th century England and during the times of the American Revolution.

    · Community = Zinesters usually are seen as individuals creating unique works of art, but there are aspects of collective zines and Distros (distribution centers) that create more tight knit communities of zinesters. Recently, since the late 1990s, there have been zine conferences and symposiums held throughout the United States.

    · Consumption and Participatory Culture = Zines both critique and idealize consumer culture. Most zinesters have grown up with the mass media and many of their works focus on elements of the mass media. Even when the criticism is negative, zines could not exist without consumer culture because of the need to appropriate this rich area of material. Indeed, since the mid-1990s, the mass media has picked up on zines and appropriated zine formats for corporate magazines and art catalogs.

    · DIY = Zines and zinesters, for the most part, live squarely in a Do It Yourself publishing culture. Zinesters create their works by appropriation, personal computers, staplers, sheets of typing paper, Kinkos copy centers, and distribute their works on racks at locally owned record and book stores.

    · Distribution = Everyone who creates a work of art and publication wants it to be seen, whether it is by friends and family or the general public. Zinesters utilize many forms of distribution to get their word out. Examples include locally owned record stores, in college unions, in commercial magazine racks, through Distros (zine distribution centers), and/or trade.

    · Purity and Danger - Keeping it Real or Selling Out = One huge problem for zinesters is the aspect of selling out. Since many zines ride a fine line between mass media criticism and worship many creators end up wanting to have their work be seen by a large number of people. In the mid-1990s there was a fair amount of mainstream coverage about zines and zinesters. During this time many in the zinester community complained that others were selling out by letting the mass media exploit them for commercial gain. Hence the underground became the above ground, and became a fad.

    · Mass Media (Aboveground) vs. the (Alternative) Underground = As mentioned above zines are constantly fighting to keep their identity pure in the sense as being the underground, and this underground is seen as the purest way in which to give as many voices the opportunity to speak to the public.