This week in comm we talked about Cultural Studies and Cultural Hegemony. It's mostly about the dominant groups in society and how they influence those in the lower part of the sociopolitical heirarchy.

I like the part about Counter-Hegemony, how those in the lower part of the social pyramid challenge those in the upper half. It reminds me of this band I listen to, Rage Against the Machine. For those who don't know about them, they're a rap-metal/grunge band. They are of Hispanic/South American descent. Since they're South American, they know a lot about oppression and abuse by Caucasians, specifically, Americans. And they trace back their anger to the colonial era when Americans abused their race. With their passion for their people and to fight for them, they became activists and stood ground with their music. Most of their lyrics are straight to the point and hyper-expressive of anger and rage. You can infer it from their name, rage against the machine/ the man. Most of their music videos include content and tell stories of past protests like the "Shining Path" or Che Guevara, anything or anyone that stood up against oppression. Also, they criticize political figures with bad names like the Bushes. One of the things they were so mad about was capitalism, corporate America.

So in one of their music videos, they staged one of the most epic live performances ever. They played in front of Wall Street, the forefront of business and economics in America and the World. The thing is, it was unauthorized and live. So they just played and people went crazy and the authorities went haywire.

There was also this other concert where it was almost war. It was also unauthorized so the police came to arrest the band. But the audience fought back and went on a rampage. So fire hoses, hornets' nests and tear gas started to come out.

Of course in most of their shows, the band ended up getting up arrested but it didn't matter. The thing was, even if they got arrested, they got the message through the people, so in the end, everybody one, except those in power.

One of the most interesting observations I could come up with is the influence they had and how it didn't matter what race you were. The band spoke of the "chosen whites" and hated white people. But even white people felt for them and fought for their cause. What the band said made sense to all kinds of people. I'd say Rage Against the Machine is one example of Cultural Hegemony you can't discount. People of all status and color started to follow them. And they inflicted that much damage that the "chosen whites" couldn't overlook them.

Even I was convinced. Right now I have this thing with capitalism and discrimination. We ain't tight. And I got it all from listening to RATM. "Some of those that run forces are the same that burn crosses. Some of those that burn crosses are the same that run office... So f*** you I won't do what you tell me."
I'll never forget those words. You could say I'm a victim of Cultural Hegemony. RATM appealed to their people, the enemies and even those who weren't part of the "war".

Whatever that meant, I know that was Cultural Hegemony. Using media against those that run it, and in RATM's case, the "chosen whites". Except this one was a little extreme, far from the Cosby Show or Walt Disney and its princesses. This was like a XM-109 sniper rifle with a laser pointer if it was automatic shot at point-blank range at 500 rounds per minute.

Okay, so maybe I was wrong about the media being that powerful. I forgot to be humanistic about everything. So basically things are still a bit blurry now about who the stronger entity is; media or the audience. First off, the audience fights with ‘opinion leaders’, second degree expert mediation with goals not to capitalize but to criticize. And these opinion leaders come in many forms from complex advertising/marketing to everyday people around you that know a little bit more about what television is trying to sell.

Then you have economics psychologically innate in every person. By psychological economics I mean that tendency of people to conduct a cost-benefit analysis about their every decision. A larger picture would be peoples’ need for psychosocial subsistence and goal-orientation. Really, people aren't as dumb as media infers. We are dealing with individuals who are different from opinions and preferences down to fingerprint and DNA structure.

Then again maybe it is because of that diversity that media is given power. I mean, not everyone is as smart or as critical as, let's say, the Atenean (hehehehehe). So those people are still subject to whatever the media feeds them. Yes we have opinion leaders like endorsers who are so called 'experts'. Aren't they part of advertising and selling beliefs in commodities to make a quick buck? And who's to say that the opinion leaders at home aren't swayed by the media themselves.

I think that's what the Political Economy of the Media is trying to get at. You basically have elites who have a whole world unique to themselves. And those on the bottom half of the pyramid, of course, kick and scream to try to get to that status. I think that's part of why media is influential; even socio-economically it feeds on mere mortals. Media relays to people what they are and what they should be.

Concrete example is, I would say Lady Gaga. She is insane completely unorthodox. And her ideas are not mainstream at all. But because she is marketed so well, her radicalism makes millions. Our Sociologist teacher would call it Marketed Radicalism. Who did that? Media did. It takes anything pure and individual and markets it and makes it mainstream and makes it wanted by everyone; telling us what to be.

I'm sorry I'm ranting about who controls who and why media is so capitalistic. I think it's high-time I find out. It's really hard to say. Even the diversity of human thought is at question. Maybe that's why it's so hard to say because media changes so fast and people are very complex and varied. Or maybe no one is the enemy. Maybe media is just as important to culture and society as language. Maybe the real enemy here is capitalism? Maybe, i mean that is where people get high about inequality, injustice and everyone goes on a rampage and protests. Then the media broadcasts about it and labels it as deviant. Then everyone watching gets the same idea and the deviance becomes mainstream. Then doesn't that make media the more powerful player? Then again that deviance was concocted in the minds of human beings themselves. Okay, I'm seriously confused. I wonder if we'll ever get to theory that would answer my question: who says what?

As of now, I'm still siding with the humans in the whole humans vs TV thing. Because after all, media is only a gateway. it doesn't formulate ideas and conepts; it relays it. Humans create the ideas. Humans receive it. Media only stands in between to disseminate. Is that a theory?

I love these old pin-up girls doing commercials for everything from Coca-Cola to the U.S. Army.
http://www.nogw.com/images/press_obey.jpg

This week in Comm, we talked about two theories; The Cultivation Analysis Theory and Agenda Setting. After a brief overview of the two theories in my notebook, I realized that the two are actually interrelated in a way but before that, let's look at the two concepts individually.

Cultivation Analysis is basically about how the media, television in particular, cultivates concepts of social reality. It creates and magnifies certain realities that were never real in the first place. The source of the artificial reality is unknown, it could be from the media itself or a mere mirror of the viewer's and their tastes (what I talked about in my last blog). The point is television brings about a whole new reality. It's most probably because television is so visual and auditory that people could almost relate to what's happening. You know what they say about seeing is believing? That's very true. From the very prime of our lives when we were on Thomas the Train, Blues Clues and all that kindergarten stuff when we thought Santa Clause was real to the peak of our perceptive ability where when we see certain stuff happening on the news,we instantly become prejudiced about the social context that news was involved in. We see the war on terror and we think all Muslims are bad. And just recently, we see incompetent policemen fail to save the lives of a dozen Chinese tourists and the Chinese instantly socially stigmatize us as a people. Let's face it, we can all be judgmental and prejudiced especially when we gaze upon something so picturesque, emotionally unstable and critical.

The other theory, the Agenda-Setting Theory, is about how the media imposes itself upon the viewers. It selects topics and material, inserts arguments and opinions whether unknowingly or intently and allows that biased look on certain topics to spread and circulate among its viewers. How it's a three step cycle is very appalling. Who knew that the media, which reflects current events, changed the public and public sectors whose motions it reports to the people. It's confusing, but basically, blame it on the Media. How it effects change is because of the injection of opinions, points and arguments that shift the public perception of the material in one way or the other. And 'people' is a very powerful thing. When I heard about the politics in the media in class, I instantly though of Jambi Madrigal. In the presidential race, everyone counted on Noynoy, ERAP, Manny or Gibo. Why? Because they had the most publicity. Everyone was advocating them. I know it isn't clear, but their advocacy actually strengthened the bias. Let's not look at it as a 'candidate vs candidate' thing but as a 'well-publicized candidate vs the nobody candidates' thing. All the other presidential candidates were thought of as jokes. Even for me and my friends who were in fact Ateneans. When someone would ask who we would vote for and someone let out a 'Jamby', we'd all laugh. It's bad, I know. But that's all thanks to media exposure. Or lack of it on Jamby's part. Moreover, you ever see the presidential candidates' commercials? Let's face it, the top four contenders had the best commercials. They were very clean cut, inspiring and cutting edge. I think this theory still holds true up to today even with the user-generated content of media. Why? There was no change in the effects of the media or what it did to the viewers. Only a change in the 'who'. I mean, users may not be big media corporations, but they are still made of minds set to kill. So there is not much change in effect. Only the partition of who controls content and arguments. After all, media corporations and small time users are all people made of body and a super massive, capable mind.

How the two theories come together is very simple. The media controls content and inserts opinions and instantly, the people perceive these as 'real' or worse, their own. Take for example the presidential race. The media controlled who had the most air time and who had the prettiest infomercials and best interviews and the people perceived the character on screen as the 'real' presidential candidates. It's pretty simple really. MEDIA IS A POWERFUL THING; maybe even more powerful than the people. Or just as with the continually growing user-generated media culture. Or the media and the people could be becoming one. Media or people or both, whoever puts the stuff on the newspapers, on the radios and on the internet are very powerful people that change minds, policies, societies, governments, international relations and so on and so forth. (Allow me to swear, because I love this line from the movie, 'Fight Club') The people we're after are the people we depend on. So do not f*** with them.

The merchants of cool made a lot of interesting questions pop up out of my head. One very important question I'd like to raise was that one when it asked, "does the media really shape the youth or does it only act as a mirror."

About this question, I'd like to talk about our own youth here in the Philippines; more specifically, those in the mainstream cluster.

I mean we Filipinos are so used to colonization be it direct or latent. I mean, our teenagers aren't really influenced by their own ideas and creativity. They are shaped by whatever the superpowers (America, England, etc.) inject into the media. We are but copies of copies of copies. Then again, we here in the Philippines are so good at emulating that even our media takes Western contexts in everything and tries to sell it to our youth. I'd say here in the Philippines, media shapes us. In the West where the superpowers are richer and, in turn, more free to create and are not bound by socio-economic or cultural factors, their media are mirrors. Their youth reinvent and the media only mirrors it back to them. With that, their teenagers get even crazier ideas and the media still mirrors it back to them. It's a never ending cycle of reinventing and redistribution.

I think that socio-economic-cultural factor says a lot about what the teenagers do. Let's face it, the Philippines is not the best place around. Most of us aspire to live the American Dream. That is why our youth, so ambitious and easy to corrupt, are easy sell outs to foreigners. I can say that even for myself. We laugh at 'jejemons' but fail to see that they are of our own flesh and blood. And we praise the Brad Pitts and Lady Gagas that the American media so greatly endorses.

With this entry I can only say that the influence of media depends on the context that it is put in. To our Filipino teenagers, all things American are good and amazing and spectacular and 'cool'. To our American brethren in the West, it's just another day in the great U.S. of A.

I guess this is pretty much a take on Sociology and Comm. Media sells sells sells what is cool. But that 'cool' is still subject to numerous factors like culture and context. Because I thought about it and realized that you really can't see our youth in one perspective only. There's so much social conflict and difference that restrain us.

'Cool' is different in so many contexts. And to the media, that's only their next paycheck. That's why it's so complicated.

The Organizational Culture Theory is so down right real that when i heard about it, everywhere i felt the presence of the efforts of different organizations to be known. And it makes sense actually. When an a group conditions itself to trying to accomplish a particular goal/goals, the group has to compose itself, organize, set ground rules, set standards of performance and make everything more structured and systematic; ergo, an organization.

Here in the dorm, we have this certain particularity with freshmen about, apart from introducing them to the roller coaster we call college, instilling that sense of respect in them; that they should respect authority and upperclassmen. So we have rituals like the baptism where we engage them in a water balloon fight where it's freshmen vs the rest of the dorm. We all had to go through it. WE have our own OrSem too to imprint in their heads our core values.

With the formation of these ground rules and standards, in effect, a culture is formed. What i love about this theory is its accuracy and almost infallibility; all because it's so tangible that one cannot deny the concepts in this theory.

Moreover, with this culture and the desire to be prominent and famous, or maybe even infamous, organizations invent and reinvent certain strategies to reach out to the viewing public to get them more involved. And since this organizational culture is made real so well among its members, one cannot help but look at the world through the eyes of the organization that they are in.

This culture can come in the form of material to verbal to ritual that organizations could create their own people. I think that this theory goes over the bounds of just organizations. Even little groups of people cannot avoid creating their own sub-culture with the concepts of Group Think. It's intriguing really what people can do in a group. Whoever these people may be. And now I'm reminded of one of the greatest quotes of all time; "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in a large group." One person can only do so much.

Whoever, whenever, wherever; all you need is man power. So it is true that two heads are better than one. Or even better, three, or four, or five and on and on and on.

The Social Exchange Theory; to me, it pretty much works like economics. It’s about making the most out of the choices we have. It’s about Cost-Benefit Analysis.

Personally though, I think the theory has a problem. As logical as it sounds, assessing relationships according to the benefits and costs they incur, that ‘logical’ way of seeing relationships could be its flaw. When I said that the Social Exchange Theory was like economics, I also meant that it makes it seem like people and relationships are different commodities in a grocery store. While I was in class, I couldn’t help but notice how the discussion went in a direction that neglected the very crucial fact that we are dealing with people here. And there are many more factors that govern the choices we make, factors that are inherent like emotions.

The Social Exchange Theory puts on a “thinker’s” shoes rather than a “feeler’s”. If it were up to me, I’d assess my relationships according to the way I feel because if I had one motto in life it would be “kung ayaw mo, eh di ‘wag”, but that’s just me. All my personality tests say I’m a feeler and more humanistic. Maybe that’s why I look at The Social Exchange Theory that way. Again, I’m not trying to dis the theory. I’m just saying that from my point of you, it’s flawed in that way. Still, I have to say was wowed when I heard about the theory and Cost-Benefit analysis in relationships.

The past few weeks, we talked about non-verbal communication, cognitive dissonance and uncertainty reduction. One thing about non-verbal communication, our culture is so good at that; from our nods of “yes” or “no”, our “I don’t know” shoulder shrugs, our eyebrow greeting to our using lips as Global Positioning Systems. But sometimes, non-verbal communication fails us because we are so constrained by society, our roles, our positions and the ‘agents of socialization’.
In my Sociology and Anthropology class, our teacher told us this story about meeting a Muslim speaker at a convention or something. After the event, he wanted to congratulate her, so he did. As he was reaching for a handshake, the Muslim speaker withdrew her hand as to deny him the pleasure of successful non-verbal communication. After that, the speaker thanked my teacher for the gesture of coming over and congratulating her. My teacher was like, “WHAT THE FUDGE?” Her hands displayed an insult but her mouth said otherwise. My teacher then inferred that she refrained herself from physical contact because Muslim culture sees that as a taboo.
After taking the two points of view in non-verbal communication, I then thought that because we live in a society where we are constrained and sometimes coerced by the social constructs that surround us, non-verbal communication, even communication in general could fail as a means of message exchange. Hey, that could be a new theory.
In my SA class, I also got a societal view point about the Uncertainty Reduction Theory. The social structures and constructs also direct the way we act in order to reduce stress and uncertainty. These “agents of socialization”, from birth, tell us our place and how we should act in society. They force us to take up multiple ideal selves, acting gigs and alter egos to fit in. This is explained by the Dramaturgy Theory. Like William Shakespeare once said, “All the world’s a stage.” We are but actors in a play called life. We may have the freedom of choice, but our choices are limited in order to agree with where society has placed us. Then again, we are constrained by our roles and statuses by social constructs, the agents of socialization and the “voice of judgment.”
I’m not dissing the comm theories here. I’m just amazed at how society affects the way these theories work.