1. Information Society Consumer Culture Reaganomics The Cold War
White Noise and the 1980s
Information Society
Consumer Culture
Reaganomics
The Cold War

2. Information Society Remember deindustrialization lecture
Military-industrial complex, corporationland
1955: white-collar workers outnumber blue-collar for the first time.
Late 19th C to WWII: middle class (men) primarily owned and operated small businesses
After WWII: middle class (men) are managers of larger businesses

3. “Work” to “knowledge work”
From 1960s to 1980s:
The average US worker added a month of work per year and lost 40% of leisure time
Information technology:
1975: Microsoft forms, Bill Gates and Paul Allen develop the first microprocessor computer
1981: the first personal computer, the IBM PC, released commercially
1984: 35% of the workforce uses PCs for business technology

4. Applications to White Noise
Information and/vs. materiality Gender, class, and embodiment (e.g. Babette and J.A.K./Jack’s bodies)
“White noise” 1: the sensory presence of technology in their house
“White noise” 2: the dominance of “information” and “noise” (info theory)

5. Consumer Culture
Deindustrialization: other countries producing means US must import its goods
Trade deficit: the negative difference between imports and exports in US
Trade surplus WWII-1970
1977 $27,246 million deficit
1981 $16,172 million deficit
1988 $114,566 million deficit
Effects on culture: massive consumption and its apparatus (advertising). We buy more than we sell.

6. Applications to White Noise
How does consumer culture show up in the novel?
Does the novel criticize it? Glorify it? Describe without judgment?

7. Reaganomics
Policy: to reduce government spending (esp. on social services), tax rates (esp. in high income brackets), regulation of economy, and inflation Many factors indicating growth and increased personal wealth, BUT
1981: world’s leading creditor
Federal budget deficit $74 billion
Total national debt $1 trillion
1991: world’s leading debtor (1988)
Federal budget deficit $300 billion
Total national debt $4 trillion
Where’d all that money go?

8. The Cold War: Ideology + Economics = ???
Reagan increased defense spending
1982 $185.3 billion
1987 over $330 billion
Continued intervention in (potentially) communist countries (Middle East, Central & South America), Iran hostage crisis (444 days), “The Evil Empire” (USSR)
Space Race ( ) & Nuclear Arms Race (“Star Wars”: Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, 1983)

9. Applications to White Noise
Power, death, & technology tied together in Cold War culture
What are some examples of this in the novel?
How does the novel treat this three-part phenomemon?

10. Pastiche and Simulacra: How do these ideas work in the novel?
Department of Hitler Studies
World’s Most Photographed Barn
Airborne Toxic Event
Babette on TV
What other examples?