Week 9: Like moths to a flame
I agree with Jamie when she points out that McLuhan dismisses too nonchalantly Sarnoff?s 'guns don?t kill people, people with guns kill people' argument. In his dismissal of Sarnoff, however, I do not think McLuhan would argue that guns are inherently evil; rather, I think McLuhan might say that a gun as a medium determines how we might use it. A gun as a medium, as a material object allows people to kill other people more easily. As such, guns change how people act.
TV, regardless of the content, interpellates users into specific subject positions, i.e., viewers, spectators, observers. We are drawn to the glowing screen like moths to a flame, and like moths, we are going up in flames. Briggs and Burke, in regard to TV and radio, state, "Whatever the country, whatever the regime, whatever the agency, whatever the period, the raison d?etre of all broadcasting was the offer of programmes to a large unseen audience" (p. 181). What seems to matter here is not the content, but rather what the media allowed broadcasters to do?broadcast. Put another way, if a phone rings, it must be answered. Email, too (as Matt made us aware in 702), is a medium that requires a response regardless of the message. Do we constantly check our email because that is how we want to use or, because that is how the medium has allowed, or made, us use it. The answer, probably, is somewhere in between.
As Jordan notes at the end of his diatribe, McLuhan also reminds me of Hayles from Jordan's presentation, specifically her medium-specific analysis. How is this different from "the medium is the message?" Perhaps, her methodology is more even-handed in that does not insist the medium is the message. But, she certainly seems to be arguing for something similar. If they are similar enough, I wonder if academics are more willing to accept "medium-specific analysis" than "the medium is the message" due to how it is presented. The former sounds like something we would find in academia, while the latter sounds like something we would hear from an overexcited reality TV host--it is a sound bite. Is one high culture and the other low? Which brings me to Horkheimer and Adorno.
Here, I agree with Jacob when he writes, "H&A claim that different levels of our intellectual formation 'do not so much reflect real differences' as provide something for everyone 'so that no one can escape.' That includes elitists (sorry, Jordan)". I wonder if Jordan, as a self-identified elitist, is not so much a cure to the culture industry, but rather just another symptom (sorry Jordan). Put another way, Jordan and others have noted that indie films, in general, are more artistic than popular movies (notice the change in terms). But such films are still part of the cultural industry; as Jacob notes, indie filmmakers never turn down the money when their films become movies.
If there is no escaping the cultural industry, what can we do? Develop taste. Kati states that what might be important is "obscure taste" and access to this obscure taste. Here, I would like to add that we can distinguish between two kinds of taste: to taste and to have taste. When we taste, we experience, we perceive. We learn that we might like sushi (which has become very popular). In the process of tasting, we begin to develop taste. To have taste is to have discernment about what we think is good or bad. We develop preferences, or "obscure tastes." We like a certain kind of sushi. To taste is pure experience, while to have taste requires cultivation--such as Jordan scouring the web for his next favorite band. But he can only do this because the culture industry has created a market space for such bands while also allowing him to have access to those bands. However, having a taste for a certain band, indie or otherwise, does not necessarily give Jordan an especially discerning palate. That is, people are allowed to like what they like without being ridiculed.
H&A write, ?[The ruler] says: ?You are free not to think as I do; your life, your property--all that you shall keep. But from this day on you will be a stranger among us.? Anyone who does not conform is condemned to an economic impotence which is prolonged in the intellectual powerlessness of the eccentric loner? (p. 49-50). Here, I was reminded of Baudrillard and Enzensberger?s ?lone tinkerer.? What good is it to be a lone tinkerer, an intellectual elitist in the cultural industry? If we are elitist, what should we do?
Briggs and Burke show that from the beginning American broadcasting mediums were founded upon commoditization and advertising, ?which involved rating of sponsored programmes and the taking off the air of such programmes if they did not attract sufficient listeners. During the 1950s segmented advertising (with targets) was establishing itself, helped by psychological research? (p. 180). A TV show that does not give us what we want does not last for long because it is not profitable. At the same time, I do think that shows, innovative/edgy, can create audiences. Did we really want a show like Lost before we had Lost? Did Lost scratch where we already itched, or did Lost create an entirely new itch? What about internet surveillance for advertising purposes? Psychological research has been replaced by algorithms which we are accepting without much fuss while also helping website make profits.
B&B also argue that from the 1960s onward, ?all messages, public and private, verbal and visual, began to be considered as ?data,? information that could be transmitted, collected and recorded, whatever their point of origin, most effectively through electronic technology? (p. 211). Similarly, McLuhan states that IBM and General Electric eventually realized that they were not in the computer or electric business, but rather the information moving business (as we all are now).
When all messages become viewed as data, as information to be reproduced and moved, the cult value of a message or artwork is replaced by its exchange value, as Benjamin wrote in 1936. In the process, artwork loses its aura because the original is no longer needed. But, could the reproduction of an artwork add to the original?s aura? Jordan and I were talking that perhaps in the cases of the Mona Lisa and the Sistine Chapel, reproductions create a desire for seeing the original, thus reconstituting its aura. You have not seen the Mona Lisa until you crowd around it with 200 other people. As Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting says,
"So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that."