Week 5: Andy McStay

Andy McStay is an academic writer and researcher who specialises in the area of advertising. He also works as a university lecturer.

McStay discusses how advertising works in the modern era. This involves convincing people that they want things that they do not need in order the keep the wheels of consumerism turning. The role of advertising increases in importance during austere times, when people need to be more careful with their money. One way of doing this, which is currently being adopted, is personalised advertising. This means that advertising and search results are tailored to be more appropriate to the user. One one hand, this is convenient, as you will be shown pages that might interest you, as well as there being the possibility of discovering something previously unheard of, such as a new video game or TV series, example. On the other hand, this does have the potential to be unwelcome and frightening. Imagine, if you will, a scenario where a computer is shared between several people. Someone has used the computer to access inappropriate or pornographic material. One day, someone else types lawnmower in to a search engine and... they do not come up with the garden implement. I'll leave you to imagine the consequences. Such a situation has the potential to be quite embarrassing, or so I've heard.

On a more serious note, the idea that advertising can adapt in such a way does scare me, because a time may come when we won't be able to keep secrets from anyone. Big Brother will always be watching us from the search engines.

Source 

McStay, A. (2009) “Consumer Society and Advertising,” in Long, P.; Wall, T; Bakir, V. & McStay, A. (2009). Media Studies: Texts, Production and Context. London: Pearson Education.

Week 4: John Harris and Benedict Anderson

John Harris writes regularly on the subject of late 80's/early 90's britpop, and appears regularly as a speaker on Newsnight Review. Benedict Anderson is a prominent writer who came up with the idea of the imagined community, which is when people feel a nationalistic bond with their fellow countrymen, despite never meeting 99.999% of them.

These two readings' views have an interesting connection to each other. Harris writes about the image a country has, using the Cool Cymru movement as an example. This tried to make it cool to be Welsh, with prominent people of Welsh nationality in the worlds of music and sport to show that there was more to Wales than sheep, leeks, daffodils, rugby and period dress.

Anderson speaks in terms of how a country is defined, by itself and others. Some countries might have a strong sense of pride in themselves and their people. Others might view other countries or nationalities as a threat. While poking good natured fun at the French or Americans, for example, may be enjoyable, a larger threat would be to big up your own country, alienating your enemies and possibly some of your less patriotic citizens. Patriotism can easily turn into xenophobia, after all.

One element that is not touched upon in these arguments is where citizenship fits into the equation. Being a citizen of a country brings you closer to your fellow countrymen. To put it in another way, the imagined community has a basis in reality, and is now a little less imagined. An immigrant will not be a citizen of a country as soon as they move there, thus they feel alienated as if they were an outsider. This goes double if there are prejudices or negative stereotypes to deal with as well, such as a Muslim moving to America from Iraq for example, and people being uncomfortable around them at first, or wondering if they are a terrorist. Delanty argues that citizenship has become a political matter, so there is the potential of legal issues getting in the way of the formation of a fully integrated, real community. Should such a thing happen, perhaps the concept of an imagined community would die. After all, how can someone imagine themselves as being like others in the country if the law has separated them from others?

Bonus Material:
Good natured fun at the expense of the French.     

Everything the terrorists hate about America summed up in song. All together now... USA! USA! USA! [Warning: Not Safe For Work- Strong language.]     

Sources

• Harris, J. (2007) Cool Cymru, Rugby Union and an Imagined Community, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy,
• Anderson, B. (2006) Imagined Communities (London: Verso). 
• Delanty, G. (2009) Community (London: Routledge)

Week 3: Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer

Week 3: Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer

These two critics are members of the Frankfurt School of thinkers, who moved to America in the 1930s from Germany. Since they had Jewish and Marxist sympathies, it would have been dangerous for them to stay in Germany, because Hitler was gaining power.

The media of America was vastly different to how it was in Germany, where it was controlled to ensure that it conformed with Nazi ideals. In America, anyone could do whatever they wanted in the media, in theory at least, because there was more freedom. It is possible that the duo were unable to adapt to the American way, as they found popular culture of the time, such as the cinemas or flapper girls to be abhorrent. (If they saw what was going on nowadays, they'd be spinning in their graves!) They had rather elitist views, and preferred dignified things such as classical music and operas. Unlike the even more extreme F.R. Leavis, who must have lost all faith in humanity several times by the time he died, Adorno and Horkmeier seemed to show concern for people, and wanted them to be more highbrow. However, the reading gives an implication of selfish hypocrisy, as part of them may want highbrow art to reach a wider audience, a more selfish part doesn't want them to be tainted by the simpleton masses, if quotations such as "...a movement from a Beethoven symphony is crudely “adapted” for a film sound-track in the same way as a Tolstoy novel is garbled in a film script..." are anything to go by.

Source

• Adorno, T.W. and Horkheimer, M. (1979) The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. London: Verso, pp. 120-124.