DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca Digital Culture and Sociology The Circuit of Culture

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca Doing Cultural Studies, by Stuart Hall et.al. Research Practice for Cultural Studies, by Ann Gray about today break part 1 part 2

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca Du Gay, Paul, Stuart Hall, Linda James, Hugh Mackay and Keith Smith Doing Cultural Studies: The story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage. the circuit of culture

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca main points Walkman as object doesn’t have meaning per se but we can find it in the way it is represented: - link to identity - typical (modern) cultural artifact - studying representation we see all the other themes in operation Media are important because through them culture is “produced, circulated, use or appropriated” (23) Advertisement is not only about reflecting cultural identities but mostly about constructing identities through representation. We don’t buy things totally unconsciously, we identify to some small degree. representation

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca birth of the walkman Original idea? Akio Morita / young engineer Heroic individual: personification, from rag to riches?, the US connection Sony as Japanese (to West) as West (to Japan) Chance production vs careful planning + investment production

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca birth of the walkman II How to sell it? Marx: Production and consumption necessary connected, articulation (Hall) To target the ideal young costumers: –prizes had to be low (efforts, assembly) –name had to be cool (walkie taken, walkman too “japanized”: soundabout (US), stowaway (UK), freestlye (Sve) Marketing: give sets to musicians, couples in public places, invitations to press on audio Lots of market research as consumption feeds back into production from 2people to 1 production

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca design Designers have to embody culture in things so that they can sell them. Explores design processes at Sony (i.e. how it became smaller, model differences, etc.) “Lifestyling” through market research Open the original target: mobile, young, music. As research showed more ages, not only urban. “My First Sony” campaign How Japanese is it? Centered on Western aesthetics Articulating production and consumption

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca sony as global firm Analyze the company’s economical progress (ups & downs) Globalization also in production: i.e. factories to Taiwan. Sony expanding in more markets within electronic: music, entertainment, etc. Define Sony in relationship to the theory of “culture industry” by Horkheimer/Adorno: combining hardware/software, the idea of media synergy production

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca uses/attitudes Consumption concept: consumed> passive> rebellion Did people “need” the walkman? Baudrillard: needs are not natural but cultural Against the walkman: articles criticizing atomization, loss of values, isolation In favour of walkman: active users, own space, reclaiming terrain Bourdieu: different social groups consume goods differently + statistics Commodification allows for appropriation and resistance. consumption

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca uses/attitudes Public vs private sphere People fined in public transportation Media discussions about attitude, politeness... Regulation in public places regulation

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca

a question of research Ann Gray Research: rigorous exploration of phenomena to reach knowledge Ideal model: literature review, topic, data gathering, analysis, writing up. Research as questions (p ) The question of subjectivity Working in a group The case study, the example, we center on representation today Evaluative criteria: how valid are our results?

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca looking at texts Text: all representational forms in this approach Starting point: linguistic and literary Semiotics: how texts produce meaning, texts in context Encoding / Decoding model (Hall) Meaning production and active reading, TV Importance of power and ideology as encoded into media products Examples: female romance novels (Radway), children and television (Buckingham), brazilian soap opera (Tufte), the Internet (Turkle), fandom(Jenkins)... in relation to cultural studies... Ann Gray

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca steps: CASE: walkman 1.Description: relation/difference with other objects 2.Semantic analysis: what does it mean? the name, what is it, what does it evoke, associations of the words related to the object: modern, Japanese... 3.Advertisement analysis: what kind of people are represented (social role, status, race, gender), what slogans, what other objects appear 4.Signifying practise: how is it used? what do we do with it? 5.Themes: Mobility, Privacy, Soundscapes...

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 2 – Susana Tosca complementary bibliography  ADORNO, T.W The Culture Industry. London, Verso.  ARNOLD, M Culture and Anarchy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.  BARTHES, R Mythologies. London: Jonathan Cape.  BAUDRILLARD, J Selected Writings, Cambridge, Polity Press.  BOURDIEU, P “Social Space and symbolic power”. Sociological Theory. Vol. 7, n.1.  WILLIAMS, R The Long Revolution. Harmondsworth, Penguin.  WILLIAMS, R Keywords. London, Fontana.  WILLIAMS, R Towards London, The Hogarth Press.