Radical Media in Relation to Hegemony, Ideology, and Resistance
This post is a collaboration of the class in our group note-taking. Thanks to Julia for facilitating. Below are the main ideas from our class on Monday 9/26/11. The raw text from our notes can be found here.
Information about the authors of this week’s readings:
Franz Fanon
• Was a well known anti-colonial theorist/trained psychiatrist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frantz_Fanon). Goes back and forth between France and Algeria during his career.
• During Algerian revolution observes psychology on individual level as well as on Algerians as a whole. Studies morale in relation to oppression and hegemony by the French.
• He’s drawing not just from Algerian life, but also from his patients.
• Fanon also treats French soldiers who themselves tortured Algerians– this also creates problems for French.
• Spent time with resistance fighters after the revolution to analyze morale and psychology.
• Perspective that is often left out of new media
• Hegemony- huge concept. Fanon discusses how hegemony affects daily life of Algerians
John Downing
• Academic, originally from Britain.
• Worked and taught in US
• University of Texas.
• “Radical Media” pub. 2001. Written in 1990s.
• He participated in anti-authoritarian left. Isn’t an apologist for the capitalist media system. Does not hide that he is on the side of liberation
• Even main professional communications associates were polarized from 70s, 80s, into 90s
• International Communications Association- scholars in the US mostly. Media research driven by advertising and military propoganda research
• http://www.icahdq.org/
• IAMCR- public intellectuals affiliated with anti-colonial liberation movements from developing countries. Develop scholarship of liberation communication and radical media
• http://iamcr.org/
• Downing pushes back against these two groups. Not capitalist media vs. Soviet media. Media that comes from social movements (retroactive and constructive), small media.
• No objective tone in language usage, but sometimes thinks it’s good to have balanced ideas in media. He’s putting his ideology out front, not pretending to be objective.
• Downing integrates ideas, talks about affect.
• Downing, if analyzing his own work, would say injecting his own opinion is good because dialogue and exchange of opinions is necessary in democracy.
Key ideas from Downing:
1) Gramsci and Scott: Hegemony and everyday practices of resistance
• Hegemony- class of dominance (inevitable status quo-cultural domination) and how it shapes society’s ideas. Defines norms. (Gender, race, age, etc.)
• Sub-conscious norms
• Hegemony implies consent. Implies that one group of people allows another group to control them. Threat of physical violence is there, but can’t rule unless there’s some consent.
• Gramsci- institutions can manufacture hegemony and cultural domination. Media, art, schools, cultural ministries, family structure
• Scott-cultural domination and resistance practiced everyday, it’s always there. Two transcripts: “Hidden transcript (internal dialogue)” vs “public transcript” (what’s shown on the outside). Tiny acts of resistance. Always a negotiation happening between power and resistance, but it’s not always visible or measurable.
• Marxists call this “false consciousness” or mind controlling by ideals of ruling class.
• Are people aware of being oppressed? Not always.
• Social movements are not immune from hierarchies. They have their own internal hierarchies.
2) How do radical media influence democracy?
• Vertical and lateral. Radical media used for networking and communicating with superiors in society as well as using existing social structures to disseminate information.
• Democracy requires strong talk, dialogue.
• Media can help people develop, have conversations, etc. This is part of the democratic process
• Democracy is about participation and conversation. Radical media institutions are participatory spaces.
• More voices can be heard in radical media spaces because more people are producing.
• Mutual relationship between radical media and social movements influence democracy
3) The relationship between mass media and radical media
• Textual poaching– people take texts from mass media and re-work them.
• Mass media can re-appropriate radical media.
• Advertising- mainstream society. radical artistic cultural practice and reinterpretation by large media institutions
• Media, regardless of mainstream or radical status, has influence over social movements.
• Radical media doesn’t have to be openly revolutionary, can also co-opt mainstream spaces.
• Textual poaching and detournement. Mass media texts can be used as fodder for more radical approaches.
• Radical media can be incorporated into non-profits, etc. People can use radical media as tools to move conversations forward. Constructive rather than retroactive movements.
4) The length of media impact in social movements
• Must take into account time frames and measuring multiple generations
• Should avoid squashing radical alternative media into social movement media
• Real social change takes a long time. Generations of people develop ideas. These ideas sometimes take a long time to come into fruition.
• To really understand how small media plays in revolutions, uprisings, social movements, we have to look at media impact over time. Might be helpful to look through a Historian’s lens for how visible ideas are over time.
• Every social movement produces numerous types of media. If there isn’t a lot of media production, maybe the movement isn’t very strong. Criticism of how Twitter didn’t cause the Arab spring, etc. This is a criticism of the media-centric view.
• People should avoid squashing radical alternative media into social media
5) The right to be understood and the right to communicate
• Husband- public sphere must be multiethnic. Incorporate diverse voices.
• The right to be understood
• Affect and emotion as a key aspect of radical media.
• The right to communicate- making sure dialogue doesn’t just mean talk back and forth. Honesty is important.
6) Ways to Analyze Social Movements
Downing describes three ways of analyzing three social movements
1) Mob
2) Resource Mobilization Theory- Rational Actors. Economistic Framework
3) NSMs
He’s not saying these are the three types of social movements, he’s saying that these are the ways historically scholars have analyzed social movements.
Key Ideas from Fanon
• Repurposing existing language, French. People didn’t want to use language, but French was something universal they could use to communicate with oppressors. Using French language said to the French that Algerians could use the tools that had been imposed upon them and repurpose them to their advantages.
• Similar to textual poaching idea discussed in Downing.
Other topics discussed in relation to the readings
1) Objectivity
• The very act of deciding or not deciding to cover a story is in itself not objective.
• Everyone has to make choices, choices are always biased.
• Should objectivity be a goal? Downing argues no.
• Do all journalists believe in objectivity? Some people say they like thinking they believe in objectivity because it gives them power over the message they’re going to give to people.
2) Feminism’s standpoint theory
• The ability to talk about things without getting lost in the abstractions of linguistic theory, at the same time recognizing that issues are complicated
• Being aware of a lack of objectivity is also important
• Journalists should start articles by stating their political beliefs, financial interests, etc
3) Civil Society
• Gramsci is primary theorist about hegemony also studied civil society.
• Civil society- place for people who are not state actors (Non Governmental Organizations, Social Movements) can counteract the state or fulfill needs not provided by the state
• “The Revolution will not be funded” study by Insight Women of Color against Violence. Traces evolution of different social movements in the US and how they are funded.
• Non-profit industrial complex- NPIC
4) Tools to analyze emergence of ideas:
• Google Trends
• Digitizing archives of radical media– ideas exchanged in literature, policy. How do ideas emerge? Are they done by radical media or books?
• Social historians- (EG see EP Thompson on the long rise of print literacy) How to find ideas in big texts and “official narratives”, popular culture artifacts
Links to Photos of our collaborate diagram:
https://twitter.com/#!/mkenefake13/status/119480105985785856/photo/1
https://twitter.com/#!/mkenefake13/status/119480542793170944/photo/1
https://twitter.com/#!/mkenefake13/status/119480874696847360/photo/1
https://twitter.com/#!/mkenefake13/status/119481161515937793/photo/1