Hypernormalisation – hegemony in action – spectacle, confusion, simulation in action.

HyperNormalisation wades through the culmination of forces that have driven this culture into mass uncertainty, confusion, spectacle and simulation. Where events keep happening that seem crazy, inexplicable and out of control—from Donald Trump to Brexit, to the War in Syria, mass immigration, extreme disparity in wealth, and increasing bomb attacks in the West—this film shows a basis to not only why these chaotic events are happening, but also why we, as well as those in power, may not understand them. We have retreated into a simplified, and often completely fake version of the world. And because it is reflected all around us, ubiquitous, we accept it as normal.
This epic narrative of how we got here spans over 40 years, with an extraordinary cast of characters—the Assad dynasty, Donald Trump, Henry Kissinger, Patti Smith, early performance artists in New York, President Putin, Japanese gangsters, suicide bombers, Colonel Gaddafi and the Internet. HyperNormalisation weaves these historical narratives back together to show how today’s fake and hollow world was created and is sustained.
This shows that a new kind of resistance must be imagined and actioned, as well as an unprecedented reawakening in a time where it matters like never before.

 

Lyotard & Grand Narratives

Jean-François Lyotard is our third theorist. He had some pretty radical things to say about post modern society.

He made the remarkable assertion that: All ideas of ‘the truth’ are just competing claims (or discourses) and what we believe to be ‘the truth’ at any point is merely the ‘winning’ discourse.

So essentially, he is saying there is no such thing as any absolute universal truth (or meta narratives) on any subject .

To Lyotard a ‘meta-narrative’ means, a view of the world and what is considered natural, right or inherently true.

Illustrations from Films

Here is a great image which looks at the recurring ideas underpinning of Hollywood films, which have seem to suggest a simplified / mythical view of life and how things should resolve and which perhaps also communicate ideas which are widely held as being ‘true’, or in other words ‘meta-narratives’.

Lyotard on Narratives

Now, watch this video with Russel Brand talking to Jeremy Paxman about the phone call scandal which got him fired from the BBC & now the story was exaggerated by The Daily Mail, edited by Paul Dacre.

  • Also what does Brand suggest about the meta narrative of celebrity?
  • Just think about the tragic news of the Love Island celebrity last year – the grand narrative of celebrity – tragically exploded.
  • What does Brand mean by the idea of ‘cultural narrative’?

To develop Lyotard’s ideas. He said these meta narratives (sometimes called ‘grand narratives’) are large-scale theories and philosophies of the world, such as the progress of history, the knowability of everything by science, and the possibility of absolute freedom. Lyotard argues that we (society) have ceased to believe that ‘narratives’ of this kind are adequate and are true for all of us.

The result of this rejection of single universal ideas being true for all of us is reflected by and explored in media texts that are rebellious and subversive towards widely held views and ideas, as well to figures in positions of authority and a distrust of what they claim is right or true.

Think also about the various different shows that feature different types of families, groups or individuals.

The Allegory of the Cave – Plato

The philosopher Plato wrote a famous work called ‘The Republic’.

He wrote The Republic as a series of conversations, which often featured Plato’s famous teacher Socrates. Here is the translated text of the ‘Allegory of the Cave’:

An allegory is a story in which characters and events stand for real life situations.

‘Socrates begins by asking Glaucon (Plato’s brother) to imagine a cave inhabited by prisoners who have been imprisoned since childhood. These prisoners have been imprisoned in such a way that their legs and necks are fixed, forcing them to gaze at a wall in front of them, unable to move their heads. Behind the prisoners is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway. Along this walkway is a low wall, behind which people walk carrying objects “…including figures of men and animals made of wood, stone and other materials.”. In this way, the walking people are compared to puppeteers and the low wall to the screen over which puppeteers display their puppets. Since these walking people are behind the wall on the walkway, their bodies do not cast shadows on the wall faced by the prisoners, but the objects they carry do. The prisoners cannot see any of this behind them, being only able to view the shadows cast upon the wall in front of them. There are also echoes off the shadowed wall of sounds the people walking on the road sometimes make, which the prisoners falsely believe are caused by the shadows.’

Socrates suggests that, for the prisoners, the shadows of artifacts would constitute reality. They would not realize that what they see are shadows of the artifacts, which are themselves inspired by real humans and animals outside of the cave. 

Here is a video version of the allegory:

This allegory can be usefully applied to postmodern ideas about the media:

  • We are the prisoners – the ‘sheeple’
  • The media is the fire and the puppeteers who cast shadows
  • We think of the media as ‘reality’
  • We will be free if we can see beyond and behind the illusion.

Or as Russell Brand suggests: Look for the light source itself, don’t follow the shadows on the wall.‘ – in other words, look beyond the images and try and find the truth, whatever that is.

Re-read the Rizzlekicks lyrics – any links to Plato’s cave?

Baudrillard – Reality TV – morphine for the masses!

Consumer Culture / Hyperreality / Simulacra / Hegemony – but also self-reflexivity/pastiche/parody/loss of historical reality.

TOWIE (THE ONLY WAY IS ESSEX)

You either love reality TV or you hate it. Mr Gregson loathes it – Mrs Cobb loves it! But why?

Mrs Cobb would argue she is a pluralist viewer, who watches it with a critical academic mind whilst Mr Gregson doesn’t even afford it the time, saying it is vacuous, boring, skin thinned and pointless.

Whether you love it though or hate it, reality TV is part of our media landscape and a great example for postmodern media.

So take some time to consider Reality TV in all its varying forms as it could give you some really good, up to date and pertinent examples to mention in your exam.


MADE IN CHELSEA

 

https://musingsbymaria.wordpress.com/tag/hyperreality/

In case TOWIE turns your stomach….you could choose to talk about MiC instead. Just a posher version of TOWIE – that’s all.

Above is a really good blog post on hypereality and Made in Chelsea.

Made in Chelsea paints a very vivid picture of the rich and elite in London. From an outsider looking in, it suggests to a large extent that all ‘English’ people live this way. I have friends from different countries who have said to me ‘Is that what England is like?’ (referring to the show) …well quite simply no. London is very diverse and has many different cultures, yet Made in Chelsea does not have one ethnic person in the show. Whilst it is true that Chelsea is very elite, not everyone who lives there is white (believe it or not). Yet the programme tells another story.

This show definitely blurs the distinction between fiction and documentary and soap opera. The cast are exposed by producers in a certain way to show them off as distinct characters that the audience can relate to for entertainment purposes. Spencer is shown as the ‘villain’ of the show, Jamie, Proudlock and Francis are shown as the ‘laddish’ bachelors and the girls Lucy, Rosie and Louise etc. are the upper class women, who are obsessed with material possessions and their taste in fashion is nothing less than a six figure digit. The whole aesthetic of the programme is to exude wealth, high society members and their lavish lifestyles, which is somewhat a fantasy for many of the viewers.

Consumer Culture – features all the right brands: Harrods, Dorchester Hotel, Sloane Square etc. The programme is even sponsored by Rimmel – Get the London Look. You too could be this gorgeous!

Hegemony – capitalist, bourgeois, conservative view on life. Work hard and you too could be like this. The fact that most of the characters are wealthy by inheritance and none of them seem to do a day’s work between them is irrelevant. Capitalism pays off and MiC is evidence of this (the fact that it is completely constructed and contrived should not deter you from aspiring to this lifestyle). This is quite a good powerpoint on examples of ‘hegemony’ in action – it is very USA based but you will get the idea of how the messages of what is right, expected and wrong are constantly reinforced from ‘up above’ or ‘elsewhere’ although there are some steps to counteract this mindset, as you will see at the end of the presentation.

Hyperreality – the blurring between the real people and their on screen characters is blurred. This is endorsed by them tweeting when it is unclear as to whether they are ‘in character’ or as themselves.  We talk about them as though they are real.

Simulacra – the original becomes irrelevant.  We believe the simulated world. This is how it is. We value the simulated world more than we do the ‘real’ world.

Watch any of the other ‘scripted reality’ TV shows – The Real (really? come on!) Housewives series, Teen Mom etc and you will see exactly the same elements that indicate they are part of this type of postmodern phenomena.


GOGGLEBOX

Gogglebox is a ‘reality’ TV show (although in my opinion no reality TV is actually proper reality, but that’s another blog post altogether!) in which participants sit at home and watch TV, commenting on it all the while for our entertainment. Gogglebox celebrates the world of television and invites us to critically watch what’s on TV through the eyes of other people, so in a sense we are analysing TV through a TV show.

We are being invited to watch a TV show about TV shows, it’s a TV show about its own medium that invites people, both participants and the viewers at home, to mock, laugh at and celebrate everything that comes to our screens at home. Gogglebox sounds like a bizarre TV show, watching people watch TV, but is actually strangely entertaining!

And what is perhaps most ironic is that the armchair critics that participate in the show have gone on to become minor celebrities and the show itself is winning Television awards.  Totally, self-referential – self-reflexivity at its very best!

Link to article in Media Magazine

Notes from the article

Postmodern TV Shows


CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER

Competitive – social experiment games created a ‘preferred reality’ as it has more drama, tension and clashes. When Big Brother started out, they made the fatal mistake of not choosing characters that were interesting enough to sustain an audience. Now, they deliberately choose participants who will create drama and increase viewing figures.

But what is it about our voyeuristic tendencies?  Even in Roman times we loved seeing people fight to the death in the arena, Have we really not come that far from that kind of barbarity? Think of all the ‘pranked’ videos you watch online – enjoying laughing at people’s misfortune.

Perhaps we have not evolved as far as we had hoped in terms of being civilised.  It makes an uncomfortable thought.

Scopophilia – voyeurism.  We are all guilty of this. Looking but not looking. Enjoying the downfall of others? The tragic story of Jade Goody who rose to fame in Big Brother to become the first ‘reality TV celebrity’ on the back of the show, is a brilliant example of how we, the postmodern audience enjoy watching what shouldn’t be aired.

This is the interview when she was evicted in the Celebrity Big Brother she appeared in. She had been evicted on the back of ‘racist’ behaviour towards an Indian bollywood star in the house.

The ‘tragic reality’ of the story is one that ended where it began. On and through Reality TV. Jade then went on to appear in the Indian version of the show and whilst there was diagnosed with Cervical Cancer – live on air. She returned to the UK and from then on her journey to ‘recovery’ was followed in graphic detail on TV. The real tragedy is that she died from the disease.  And We Watched This!  We built her up and then shot her down.  This is when the lines of the constructed reality cross catastrophically with what is actually real.

Jean Baudrillard – our next postmodern theorist – he doesn’t enjoy it either!

BAUDRILLARD IS THE NEXT THEORIST WE ARE GOING TO EXPLORE IN THE UNIT ON POSTMODERN MEDIA.

He takes Jameson’s ideas about media and starts exploring what impact these will have on the audience. He suggested a number of key ideas:

Consumer Culture: We are living in a world in which we define ourselves through the product we buy and the brands we support. Consumption is not just about need, it’s also about personal identity.

Hegemony: That we are controlled / conditioned by the media, which encourages us to buy into a culturally dominant set of ideas, as Russell Brand said, ‘..to keep us spell bound and stupid, it’s bread and circuses.’ Or as Matty Healy says – we are just ‘sheeple‘!

Simulacra: As Jameson says we have lost contact with the original idea (or referent) through the continued recycling of ideas and images. Baudrillard takes this one step further and suggests that we now believe that the copy of the copy of the copy is reality. We are like the prisoners in the Allegory of Plato’s Cave.

Hyper-Reality: By living in a world of recycled images and ideas that have lost the connection to the original idea/image we are the boundaries between reality and media reality are becoming blurred and confused. In other words, we are all residents in the media reality, which are merely shadows on the wall.

Here is a PowerPoint on these ideas and which gives two thought provoking examples:

 

Jameson – our first postmodern theorist

Three Theorists

We will be using the ideas of three main theorists: Jameson, Lyotard and Baudrillard.

Frederic Jameson is our first:

Jameson hand out.

This teacher, in a hat, explains it very well!  Mr G – you need to get a hat!

In order to try and understand and locate and recognise how his ideas are apparent in today’s postmodern media, a really easy place to witness pastiche, parody etc are in advertising.

All of these adverts are examples of how the postmodern impulse manifests itself in advertising and marketing – pastiche, parody, intertextuality, Easter eggs and self-reflexivity abound.

You have to be culturally competent.

Postmodern Examples in Advertising

Parody of Apple Inc.
Pastiche of He-Man (Master of the Universe)
Homage to Game of Thrones.
Parody of the celebrity endorsement.
A self-reflexive advert.

 

A Famous Fawlty Tower Scene
Pastiche of Fawlty Towers

Extension

A Question of Music Sampling & Originality.

Postmodern Media – in a nutshell

Don’t be frightened about the term ‘postmodern’.  If the context confuses you i.e. what went before that is not overly important. In fact why not just approach the topic as this is us looking at the media that surrounds us at the moment and we are looking at various criteria that can be used to analyse, critique and review it.

Postmodern is a term used to describe much of contemporary media that surrounds us today! SIMPLES – and is can be analysed, critiqued in reference to various ideas, theories, terms etc.  Various ideas, theories exist that try to describe, explain its form and purpose and the main theorists we will be looking at, all have different ideas about what makes a text postmodern.

However, some of the texts we will look at will be postmodern in their construction/contents and some will also critique the postmodern condition.

Here are the key ideas that encapsulate what postmodernism is all about:-

Postmodernism:

  • is a movement from the late 20th century
  • represents a departure from modernism
  • challenges authority
  • rejects the idea of status/ value
  • makes fun of existing texts – parody/satire
  • is a critique of what we assume to be real
  • copies ideas/styles from existing texts
  • suggests there is no absolute ‘truth’ – merely socially constructed truths
  • gives a skeptical interpretation
  • is a reinterpretation of classical ideas, forms and practices
  • questions our perception of art & culture
  • distrusts dominant ideologies
  • mixes styles
  • plays with reality
  • challenges ‘fixed’ ideologies
  • is playful
  • blurs reality and representation
  • is retro
  • is really hard to define

Some key terms that we will consider over the coming weeks – pastiche, parody, quotation, intertextuality, loss of historical reality, cultural competence, hyper reality, simulacra, consumer culture, hegemony, grand narratives.

Introduction to Postmodern Media – what is it?

WHAT IS POSTMODERNISM?

postm

The coursework is over. ‘The Blog is dead. Long live the Blog!‘ (this, by the way, is an intertextual reference with a hint of parody, so could be classed as an example of postmodern literacy BUT OF COURSE you have to be culturally competent to get it!!)

Heads down…..brains engage.

Off we goooo….

A postmodern joke – get it? No…?

postmodernism

Still stuck? Here are some video explanations:

It is all pretty tricky at the start – but DON’T PANIC!  All you need to know at this stage is that it is a way of ….well, a way of….a manner of….a view about…a style of…..well you know even, we find this hard to define. So…..

TASK – POSTMODERN TERMS

In pairs, or small groups, how would you define Postmodernism in 1 – 20 words? If you can do it, you are a super scholar!  Even university professors seem to struggle to agree, but it would be good to have a go. Refer to the videos and the slideshare.  Be prepared to share it with the class.

Exam Preparation & Essay Tracking

Assessment

Set up Your Folders

Your Revision Folders

Your Essays

By the time the exams come around, you will have been set and submitted an essay for every type of question that ‘could’ come up in the exam.

Whilst, the actual questions in the exam,  might be worded slightly differently, the aim is that you should have a complete set of essay responses for the exams which will act as an essential revision resource.

However, if you do not have a complete set, then you will not have given yourself the best chance to practise writing a response to one of the questions that could come up.  To maximise your chances therefore, you should make every effort to have at least one draft for all of the essays set and those who are determined to do well, will redraft them in response to the feedback from your teacher.

Once redrafted, you can then resubmit them so that your teacher can give you some final feedback/improved grade.

Many of the essays will be handwritten in class in timed conditions, so typing them up and submitting them online for electronic copies mean you can store them in your Media folders for easy and quick retrieval.

It makes every sense to keep on top of these essays and take the chance to improve on them.  Just see the examples below.  Just from looking at the colours it is easy to see which student gave themselves the best chance of success. The A Grade student redrafted and resubmitted until the page was ‘GREEN’. The C Grade student did not redraft and did not resubmit and often did not complete the essays at all. They were really disadvantaged in the centre assessed grades (exam).

  • RED – MISSING, GRADE D OR BELOW
  • ORANGE – GRADE C SO SHOULD REDRAFT AND RESUBMIT
  • GREEN – GRADE B OR ABOVE – CAN BE REDRAFTED BUT NO NEED TO RESUBMIT
  • WHITE – STILL TO DO OR PENDING

Good luck. Only you can make this happen.

It’s all happening in Classroom!

The assignment will be set in classroom and you will have an individual copy made for you by your teacher. You should fill this in during discussion with your teacher over the next few week. They will also have your candidate numbers.

Describe Your Audience

Audience Ideology (Values, Attitudes & Beliefs)

In order to understand audience you should understand what makes them tick, especially what reasons they have for consuming any media at all.

Remember Blumler & Katz, who suggested that there were four Uses and Gratifications that an audience seek from their media. Their theory describes an active audience:

USES AND GRATIFICATION

Information Self education to suit personal needs; advice on practical matters; information on events or issues of personal interest; curiosity or general interest. News to help them decide how to vote.
Personal Identity Media reinforces or challenges personal ideologies; models of behaviour explored to challenge, adjust or affirm personal values, attitudes and beliefs
Social Interaction Identify with others to gain a sense of belonging (identity); find basis for real life interactions; a substitute for real life relationships
Entertainment Escape; diversion; emotional release; filling time; aesthetic enjoyment

 

Stuart Hall Reception Theory

He argues that an audience decodes what the producer encodes in a text. However, how they read the text will depend on their

  • Demographics – age, gender
  • Psychographics – beliefs, politics, religion
  • Cultural competence – their knowledge of ‘stuff’
  • Circumstances in which they are consuming the media   

So whatever you decide to include in your music video and associated products must use signs, symbols, cultural references and codes that your target audience will be able to read, interpret, recognise and decode so that they will enjoy it and have a preferred reading of your text(s)

This theory will be extremely helpful for the Critical Reflection. It will also be useful theory to understand for both Postmodernism and Media Ecology; sections of the last paper (Critical Perspectives).

Below is a handout on Hall and a slideshow on reception theory.

RECEPTION THEORY

Click for handout on Hall.

TASK

So…what am I supposed to actually do?

Answer… Design your perfect audience member.

Consider these questions when doing your research:

  • What platform is your production to be accessed on?
  • What is the product’s function? (What is it trying to do or achieve?)
  • What genre(s) does your artist typically work in?
  • Who are the target audience?
    • What do they find appealing?
    • What do they like to do?
    • What are their interests/concerns?
    • What do they expect from this type of media product?

As a pair/group agree the following features of your audience:

  • Which other bands/artists your audience would be into?
  • What other media they would consume, fashion tastes, musical genre preferences…
  • What are their values, attitudes and beliefs they hold about what’s important in their lives and the world around them.
  • What broad demographic groups do your audience fall into (gender, age, education, occupation, marital status, cultural background)?
  • What ‘communities’ do they belong to?
    • Where do they live, work and play?

Then as a group you should all contribute to designing your target audience profile in the form of a moodboard.

HELP

Here is a handout we gave you earlier this year which describes different audience groups / communities which is helpful in reaching some conclusions about their values, attitudes and beliefs, and how to describe their communities and social groups.

Use Google slides to design a profile for your target audience to include photos and call outs for key facts.

Give your ideal audience an image, name, gender, relationship status, groups, status, likes, dislikes…all of this should be through the filter of music and should help describe your audience profile. Make it as detailed as possible – why not consider someone you know (do not actually use them) who likes the music, is a fan of that music/band and use them as inspiration.

Note: This is a group task so share the document or moodboard.

You should try and outline the ‘typical fan’ on someone you know – this always helps to guide your design decisions – would he or she like it, respond to it, notice it, enjoy it?

YOU MUST ALSO USE THIS WEBSITE: yougov.co.uk.  Go to ratings/entertainment and then  search for your artist or a similar one. Then scroll around and down and see what other artists they might like, what else interests them, their age, beliefs, politics etc. and mention it in your introduction or even better, take a snipping tool screen shot of the profile target audience for your performer.  For example this link gives information about fans of Adele.

REMEMBER TO USE TERMINOLOGY IN YOUR BLOG POSTS INTRODUCTIONS and REFLECTIONS! –preferred reading, encode, decode, oppositional reading, demographics, psychographics, cultural experience, uses and gratification, target audience, producer, target audience, entertainment, education, social interaction and personal identity, communities, tribes, tribewired, individualists etc from the audience segmentation sheet.