Fluid Fiction UNDERSTANDING MEDIA: Relationship of Culture & Technology Session 1 | McLuhan’s Four Laws of Media Session 2 | Meaning and Cultural Change
Understanding Media | Meaning and Cultural Change
What is Culture? How is Meaning Produced? How is Culture Reproduced? The Role of Media Technologies?
The Professional Grotesques of Nicolas de Larmessin II ( ) 17 th century Parisian illustrator
2014
A state of refinement associated with the arts, philosophy and learning The particular and distinctive way of life of a specific social group or period Culture is the process of human development
High CultureLow Culture
Mainstream Culture
National cultures Regional cultures Historical cultures Taste cultures Sub-cultures Identity cultures Counter Culture Skater culture Hair culture Street culture Book culture Chicano culture What is Culture? | By Category?
What is Culture, then? A whole WAY of life when people engage in the PRODUCTION of MEANING over time and over place “Culture is ordinary; that is where we must start.” Raymond Williams
Stuart Hall | How is Cultural Meaning Produced? Encoding / Decoding Meaning Making is an ACTIVE process: ENCODING a message DISSEMINATION of a message DECODING a message
Consumption: negotiated, resistant, oppositional Reproduction: identity, taste, beliefs, values, ideologies Production: language, symbols, conventions, vernaculars Circulation: medium specificity, rituals, habits How is CULTURAL Meaning Produced?
“The Circuit of Communication,” Richard Johnson
representation identity consumption production regulation Modes of expression genres rhetorical modes conventions embodiment performance taste habits rituals waste human labor creative work expression raw materials engineering built form affordances technical standards policies laws
Raymond Williams | Media and the Reproduction of Culture Emergent Dominant Residual
Emergent Dominant Residual
Emergent Dominant Residual
A given cultural moment is not static and unified, but rather that there are always tensions among dominant, residual, and emergent media forms. Raymond Williams | Media and the Reproduction of Culture
A philosophical inquiry Onotological Question: What is the nature of reality? Epistemological Question: What is the nature of knowledge? Human Nature Question: Determined or Free Will? Methodology: How do we obtain knowledge?
What is your philosophy of cultural change? Culture is What Persists Focus on Stability Sees Integration Consensus is the Rule Culture is What Emerges Focus on Change Sees Conflict Coercion is the Rule
Culture is always breaking down Reality is entropic Cultural meaning must be reproduced every day By everyone, everywhere To maintain relationships To maintain structures To maintain life Making Media offers the possibility of doing things differently Cultural hegemony is the domination of a diverse society by a ruling class, who propagate their worldview through the manipulation of cultural meaning (beliefs, symbols, perceptions, values, customs) such that their world view is accepted as the cultural norm Here’s what I believe:
Making Media, Making Meaning offers the possibility of doing things differently It is a counter-hegemonic action Cultural hegemony is the domination of a diverse society by a ruling class, who propagate their worldview through the manipulation of cultural meaning (beliefs, symbols, perceptions, values, customs) such that their world view is accepted as the cultural norm. Here’s what I believe:
What is literacy? What is technological literacy? How to think about technology? How to do things differently? Cultural Studies | The Uses of Literacy