Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Post 1

Power can be described in many ways! It can be held by social class, expertise, persuasion, knowledge, and force. It can gained by two ways aggresively by force or persuasion like manipulation. We tend to manipulate a lot without even thinking by rewarding and threatening each other.


Hegemony is when a dominant ideology that usually justifies the social, political and economic status quo. We see it everyday when a dominant group influences everyone socially and culturally. When we watch the news during political campaigns some channels are more left than other and try to tell you what is bad because of their perspective instead of talking bad about both sides. In "The Era of Crowds" we read that "the progressive growth of the power of the masses took place at first by the propagation of certain ideas, which have slowly implanted themselves in men's minds, and after-wards by gradual association of individuals bent on bringing about the realisation of theoretical conceptions." 
Sexism in extreme conditions is sexual harassment and rape or other forms of sexual violence. It's when we foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex. In movies they show that it is acceptable to have violence against women and in Bell Hooks Cultural Criticism and Transformation she discusses how movies make woman want to go back into patriarchal way where men are controlling everything.


Ways of looking is when we give attention to what one is seeing. But there is different ways of looking! The Gaze is the concept used for "analysing visual culture that deals with how an audience views people they're presented." What are we actually gazing at or looking at? It is objects that we are shown! Object is a person or thing in which thoughts or action is directed. An object makes us have an impression or feeling as the observer. 

Spectacle is something that can be seen or viewed. in The Society of the Spectacle we read, "the spectacle is not a collection of images but it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images." We also see that is says it is "capital accumulated to the point that it becomes images."


Pedagogy is the profession art or science of teaching. We are taught by companies that produce media! In Remote Control we read that, "In a world bloated with images, we are finally learning that photographs do indeed lie...words have power, but usually when they don't mean anything."

Pedagogy ties in with Popular Culture in general. Popular Culture is basically mass media in our daily lives. We have ideas, perspectives and images thrown at us everyday and we have to learn from it because they have the power to do so. In Bell Hooks, "she states that everyone understands pop culture, we learn race gender class and social status."

Representation is when we are represented an image or an argument. Bell Hooks goes into the Power of Representation, she touches on every subject where male violence against women are acceptable and shown in the movies. In movies such as "Kids" or "Smoke" shown are black kids that get beat up by white guys or shown as theives to make the movie, "more compelling" when it is just representing more racial stereotypes.

What I find interesting is all the subliminal messages that go on that a lot of people don't even notice! Even in cartoons they teach our kids things and we are so surprised at how much they know!
 

Consumer/Consumption is a "person or group that are final users of products and or services with a social system." We live in a free market but ads show us what to buy and delegate what we need to survive. In John Bergers, Ways of Seeing, it states, "publicity is the culture of the consumer society, It propogates through images that society's belief in itself." 


 

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