Worcester

My shopping experience has lead me to the small historical city of Worcester. Famous for the cathedral gracing the back of the British twenty pound note for years, and the birthplace of the composer Edward Elgar – to which there are many memorial statues. The city remains dominated by its array of Victorian building and shops. It does have a fairly modern shopping precinct called Crowngate, which is home to a few modern shops, coffee places and travel agents. It is also occupied by nationwide department stores such as House of Fraser and Debenhams. Similar to those that were first introduced in the 19^th century in France.

Marks and Spencer have two stores here in Worcester, one for women, children and their food hall, and another for men and homeware. A Next, TOPSHOP, and TKMaxx are also present down the high street, along with an array of other well known stores. Phone shops are also in plentiful supply, as well as coffee houses and cafe’s.

It is not a bad place to visit for shopping, and it’s layout is easy on the eye too, in a traditional way. The shops however are widely dispersed so sensible shoes are advisable as there is a fair amount of walking to be done if you want to see it all!

I imagine Worcester was not ahead of it’s time when it was first developed, but it is more on an average par with other similar towns and cities, don’t get me wrong it has everything you need, but if you want a wider choice of the same objects you might be best advised to travel further afield.

Photographs to follow.

Holmes and Redmond - Understanding celebrity culture

Adulation, identification and emulation are all key motifs of understanding the study celebrity culture, as explained in this reading. As well as the desire for fame, as highlighted in the case study of Leif Memphis.
Non famous people are around to form groups of fans around famous people, and circulate in the popular media.
'I' and 'me, me, me' are the narrative strand of post modern celebrity in a commodity driven nature. 'To be famous is to be famous and that is all that matters' this is descibed as everyone is psychologically damaged whether it is the anomic fan or the lonley famous person.
According to Elliot (1999) the relationship between fan/ star/ celebrity may acutally be the most intimate and far reaching forms of sociability in modern times. From the dedicated websites to in institutions and creative enterprises.
New and old media technologies have allowed celebrities to be timeless, replayed and circulated in an endless fashion which has become extremely important in todays celebrity culture - in this game of finding authenticity.
Apparently the body of the star is the key to finding their 'real' persona - as fans we are comforted when we see them stripped of their fancy clothing, jewellry and make up, exposing their flaws enables us to identify with them in their natural form rather than their representation.
Celebrities are divided into categories from A-list to Z-list, but their appeal can still be far reaching no matter where they originate. In Z-list will usually be the reality star - holding onto their 15 minutes of fame.
In relation to discourses of cultural value, two key points are made: Firstly it is impossible to discuss contemporary celebrity without addressing such judgements; as they form an integral part of how the celebrity circulates in the public sphere. Secondly issues of cultural value simultaneously structure the varying perspectives our contributors offer on celebrity; some are keen to defend whilst others are more critical.
The term celebrity in itself is ambiguous in it's meaning and the study of which contributors explore how the internet, magazine, tabloid newspaper, photograph and gallery film determine how celebrity culture travel across the media landscape.

Joshua Gamson: The name and the product, late twentieth century celebrity

It is written that celebrities have now become the powerful ones in the world of cinema. And that they are the 'propreitors of their own product' where once the job would have been left to personal management and agents, yet these are no longer the powerful players.
Advertisement and lifestyle has changed dramatically since World War II which has reflected in the celebrity world too, which has been described as becoming more of a 'scientific' formula.
Entertainment PR of the film and TV industry has adapted to cope with the change and demand of the modern audience. 'Star Quality' has a certain magical feel to it, almost like an enigma - which has turned out to be a profitable commodity to sell. Fame is a sales device with celebrities making a lot of money through endorsements since the 1950's.
The concept of 'quality' has been dismissed as irrelevant and old fashioned and has been replaced with the notion of image.
The role of the publicist has now altered into now coaching the celebrity into "how to look cool in talk show hot seats" and such which can lead to demanding the cover on a magazine.
One clear question that I feel is important is 'If celebrities are artificial creations, why should an audience remain attached and lavish attention on their fabricated lives?'
The hype and irony seems to do no damage to the stars image, and even if it did, it could be sold in a different way using alternative characteristics.
Irony plays a huge part in the maufacturing of films and programmes, but it only makes the audience more intreagued.

Consumer Culture and the Manufacturing of Desire by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright

This chapter explores the role of visual images, and the different ways in which the audience consumes them. it is stated that advertising is a central component of consumer studies and capitalism, where our society is dependent on society consuming goods beyond our needs.

They also discuss commodity culture and commodity fetishism, which, in short means we 'construct' our identities through what we consume, and what we surround ourselves with. There are differences between exchange value and use value, the example used to explain the variation is rice would be an exchange value because it's worth is equal to it's use value, with regards to price. Whereas perfume does not really have a value in society as we could function without it - so therefore has a very high exchange value.

Images are always designed with the consumer in mind, with implications that the product being sold will make us unique and special, and different to others, even if more than one person buys the same product. The Frankfurt School call this concept 'pseudoindividuality' (a false idea of individuality!).

Text aswell as image is designed to have a powerful effect and meaning - some advertisement campaigns are known simply by the text used, and in some cases remain more memorable.

In the envy and desire section, it claims all adverts speak the language of transformation, which actively speaks to the consumer about their identity. Furthermore, products that are sold to us, with all their shiny promises, can never fully deliver their fulfillment offer, even though all consumers have the potential to reconfigure the meanings of the commodities that they purchase and own.

Anti-ads also subject themselves into our advertisment service, an example used is the smoking advert where the text protests 'I'm really sick, I only smoke facts'. Which allows us to get the idea of an anti-ad.

The chapter concludes that in late capitalism, the boundary between the mainstream and the margins is always in the process of being renegotiated.

Matt Hills: Fan Culture

The Focus on this reading is the ethnographies of fandom, the difference between knowledge and justification boom in fan studies.

Fan Ethnography: emphasising the knowledgeable fan
The ethnographic process of ‘asking the audience’ – although useful can also be a ‘reductive’ approach. Analysing fandom in terms of language and discourse to produce discursive justification. Fans knowledge is relied upon heavily, and their own media consumption. Further problems are that fan communities use narrative conventions from popular fiction.


Autoethnogrpahy: Narratives of the fan, narratives of the self
After reading an insightful quote from Gramsci in this section, if fan ethnography has been limited by its view of ‘the real’ or its one sided accounts of fandom either as a social coping mechanism. Autoethnography does not simply indicate that the personal is political, instead the personal indemnity as one performs is always borrowed or alien.
Narcissistic is a word freely used in this section, which he implies that my wiritng validate my own past.


Self-imaginings: Autoethnogrpahy as an escape from singular fan culture

All of which sets up the ground which my own autoethnography must traverse. Through the preceding discussions I have established four key principles for
autoethnography:
1 Autoethnography must constantly seek to unsettle the moral dualisms which are thrown up by the narcissism of ‘common sense’ and its narrative closures. This
requires the constant use of self-reflexive questioning.
2 Autoethnography must constantly seek to unsettle the use of theory as a disguise for personal attachments and investments; good autoethnography does not simply
validate the self and its fandoms by twisting theory to fit the preferences of the self. Again, this requires the constant use of self-reflexive questioning.
3 Self-reflexivity cannot legitimate autoethnography as an exercise. The concepts of ‘intellectual rigour’ and heroic reflexivity act as another form of academic ‘common
sense’ which sustains the critical ‘us’ versus the duped ‘them’. When self-reflexivity is subjected to ‘self-reflexive’ critique then it becomes apparent that this term
supports a fantasy of academic power and a fantasy of the idealist transformation of society. At this point, self-reflexivity acts as part of academia’s ‘critical
industry’.
4 Autoethnography should treat self and other identically, using the same theoretical terms and attributions of agency to describe both.

Summary
• Fan-ethnographies have been limited by a number of recurring problems such as the narrative structures that they have used, and the moral dualisms

So, What is Hypermodernity?

Hypermodernity (Academic Definition)
There can be a profound lack of integration between the past and the present since:
1. What happened necessarily took place under "lesser" circumstances than now, which generates a fundamentally separate context.
2. Artefacts from the past superabundantly clutter the cultural landscape and are seamlessly reused to generate an even greater superabundance from which individuals are unable to discern original intent or meaning.
Hypermodernity (also called "Super modernity") differs from Modernity in that it has even more commitment to reason and to an ability to improve individual choice and freedom. Modernity merely held out the hope of reasonable change while continuing to deal with a historical set of issues and concerns; hypermodernity posits that things are changing so quickly that history is not a reliable guide. The positive changes of hypermodernity are supposedly witnessed through rapidly expanding wealth, better living standards, medical advances, and so forth. Individuals and cultures that benefit directly from these things can feel that they are pulling away from natural limits that have always constrained life on Earth. But the negative effects also can be seen as leading to a soulless homogeneity as well as to accelerated discrepancies between different classes and groups.
Post modernity differs here in that it rejects the idea of "reasonable change" while at the same time accepting that the past and its artefacts have as much value as the present. The value is primarily expressed through provisional constructs that have no lasting meaning; we cannot discern truth but we can play with the nonsense. Post modernity is meant to describe a condition of total emergence from Modernity and its faith in progress and improvement in empowering the individual.
Key Features:
Key features include the belief that every aspect of the human experience, can be controlled and manipulated by humanity’s ability to understand through science, knowledge, technology and biology.
It is the step beyond post - post modernism.
Key Theorists:
Gilles Lipovestsky and Sebastian Charles appear to be the main theorists developing the idea.
How could you use these in ideas?
It could easily be used in analysis of texts from a scholarly approach. As post modernism is such a broad subject, exploring other categories could be of valuable insight.
Reading list:
Works by Gilles Lipovestsky and Sebastian Charles

‘The Mistakes of the Past’? Visual Narratives of Urban Decline and Regeneration By David Parker and Paul Long

The reading uses historiography to discuss the changes in Birmingham’s architecture. Analysing in detail the alterations made in post war Britain, the piece reflects on buildings as ways of symbolisations and planned developments.

Not knowing Birmingham that well, I found the reading really insightful, because as an outsider when I think of Birmingham city centre, I visualise concrete jungle style office blocks, bypasses and flyovers – spaghetti junction – and the bubbly Selfridges building! (How uncultured of me?!)

A main focus is the discussion of the Rotunda building as an iconic image of Birmingham’s skyline.

The architecture of England’s second city is criticised rather than praised, and there is an underlying bitter impression of the lost bid for the ‘Capital of Culture’ title.

The future of the city is that of a personal preference – you love it or hate it by either ‘promoting it – or resisting the change’ even for its inhabitants. The city centre is bustling with modern buildings, Brindley Place and the developments around the canal side featuring popular shops and restaurants that accommodate the hoard of yuppies and tourists whom frequent the area.

Advert campaigns have been designed specifically for its target audience­­ - The Bull Ring endorsements are described as follows – “By way of contrast, the officially endorsed imagery of the coming, reinvigorated Bull Ring is presented in a gloriously vibrant colour. One series of images – readily available on the websites, around the city and on printed promotional literature – features a stylishly dressed and choreographed model. A key banner presents an extreme close-up of the model’s mini-skirted thighs as she purposefully strides past the photographer’s lens (see Figure 4).She is, no doubt, on her way to shop. The emphasis here is upon youth and beauty and – as befits the stereotypical associations of retail and consumption– on femininity”.

A useful piece of writing which provides insightful information, which could also be adapted to talk about the architecture of every city.

Postmodernism and 'The other side' By Dick Hebdige

Well, after reading this, I think I'm even more confused than I was before to what postmodernism actually is. Hebdige discusses how postmordernism is a term that is used nowadays frequently and widely in our society. Why then is there no exact determination for what is and what is not postmodern, because to me, it seems it is down to the own individual interpretation, which defines it's true meaning.

Hebdige argues too that postmodernism is referred to as the 'buzzword', because it has so many distinctions. One point he does make is that there are three negotiations, which are as follows -

1. Against Totalisation
2. Against Teleology
3. Against Utopia

His point being that postmodernism applies to several different cultural aspects. Marxism still plays a valid role, in what Hebdige describes as 'explicit renunciation of marxism. Power and structure, and a hierarchical command are present in postmodernism, the guidelines are there, and there are certain rules to follow, yet there is still a sense of ambiguity and inconclusivenss. Which can be slightly unhelpful/ confusing when analysing media texts, yet, bearing that in mind, aren't all media theories just that, theories? Left wide open for discussion and arguement?

"Within this model, there is no 'science' to be opposed to the monolith of ideology, only prescience: an alertness to possibility and emergence - that and the always imperfect, risky, undecidable 'science' of strategy".


"To say 'post' is to say 'past', hence questions of periodisation are inevitably raised. There is, however, little agreement as to what it is we are alleged to have surpassed, when that passage is supposed to have ocurred and what effects it is supposed to have had".

'Distinction and the Aristocracy of Culture' Pierre Bourdieu

What is the Topic and Issue of the chapter?
This was a very in depth piece of writing, and I found it quite difficult to stay focused as Bourdieu was quite repetitive in this chapter. However the main issue here is that our own culture can be determined by many factors, like our family, our education and what we are exposed to, like longer schooling - visiting theatres and museums for a few examples.
What is the autor arguing? what is his point?
As a consumer, we must possess cultural competancy - that is to say if the working class audience refuses any sort of formal experimentation, will distance them as a spectator, which will prevent them from getting involoved and fully identifying the characters and the situation.
What method does the author use to make his case?
I would of thought guessing from his findings Bourdieu would have conducted visual ethnography along with interviews and historiography to accumulate his findings.
What suggestions/ conclusions does the author make?
He concludes with his theory of 'The Aesthetic Disposition' where who judges art and where the only socially accepted 'right' way of approaching the object. He continues to discuss whether it is refusal or privatisation which distances us, that through
deciphering and decoding even the 'ordinary people' adopt the negative conception of ordinary vision which is the basis of every 'high' aesthetic.
Do you agree/disagree with the author?
I strongly agree that what we surround ourselves with, in turn opitimises what our own culture is, however why do we have to understand something to appreciate its cultural value. Who is to say that Museum visits and Ballet trips enrich us as human beings, and why is this categorized as high culture?

"Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by thier classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar, in which their position in the objective classifications is expressed or portrayed."

"The denial of lower, coarse, vulgar, venal, servile - in a word, natural - enjoyment which constitutes the sacred sphere of culture, implies an affirmation of the superiority of those who can be satisfied with the subliminated, refined, disintersted, gratuitous distinguished pleasures forever closed to the profane. That is why art and cultural consumption are predisposed, consciously and deliberately or not, to fulfil a social function and legitmating social differences."

"There is an economy of cultural goods, but it has specific logic. Sociology endeavours to establish the conditions in which the consumers of cultural goods, and their taste for them, are produced, at the same time to describe different ways pf appropriating such of these subjects as are regarded at a particular moment as works of art, and the social conditions of the consitution of the mode of appropriation that is considered legitimate."

Notes on deconstructing 'The Popular' Stuart Hall

What is the topic and issue of the chapter?
Hall discusses popular culture, what he believes it to be, and how it has developed and altered over the years. He has pinpointed precise periods in our history, paying attention in detail to the late 19th centuary (more specifically the 1880-1920's) and the 1930's. The issues he addresses are that of change and restricition, dilemmas and struggle.
what is the author arguing?
A main arguement I sense when reading Hall's work is the issue of class combined with culture, and such a place where socialism might be constructed. Tradition is a vital element in culture is also a key point made by Hall.
What method does the author use to make his case?
Histroriography - it has clear he has researched the past in order to assess culture in today's society.
What suggestions/conclusions does the author make?
That capital is the driving force behind culture, and that the terrain of national-popular culture and tradition is a battlefield. Also that 'popular' can have a number of different meanings.
Do you agree or disagree with the author and why?
When reading this, I felt like Hall is one of the first theorists to actually give the power to the people, I think it's not such a bad thing to be part of the masses like other theorists believe, the minority isn't necessarily the elite either, why can't you be apart of the masses yet still be individual. Most annoyingly - why is there this continuous war between 'class against class'? I like his concept and beliefs in the people, however, in reality - i'm not sure this is really the case.

"I have as many problems with 'popular' as i do with 'culture'. When you put the two terms together the difficulties can be pretty horrendous"

"Culture struggle, of course, takes may forms: incorporation, distortion, resistance, negotiation. Raymond Williams has done us a great deal of service by outlining some of these processes, with his distinction between emergent, residual and incorporated moments. We need to expand and develop rudimentary schema. The important thing is to look at it dynamically: as an historical process."

"The term 'popular' has very complex relations to the term 'class'. We know this but are often at pains to forget it. We speak ot particular forms of working class culture, but we use the more inculsive term 'popular culture' to refer to the general field of enquiry."

Dance: Standard

When I think of The Frankfurt School, I imagine stuffy professors with tweed jackets and a pessimistic view of the rest of the world. I shall attempt to critique in the style of my object of study this week, The Frankfurt School, with my chosen cultural industry of the arts – Dance.
When I think of Dance, I think of highly skilled human beings who can make their bodies move in beautiful, miraculous ways. They condition and train their bodies to be strong and precise, and it is a craft which takes years to develop, grow and nurture – and only the elite few make it to a professional level.
Years ago, being a dancer was only a dream for a few people, not your average family could afford to send their sons and daughters to dance school, or pay for weekly tuition, nowadays it’s readily accessible, with an array of new wacky and wonderful genres, and with a different reality dance show popping up on channels almost as fast as you can blink.
To me this once enchanting art form has been standardized without recognition. It isn’t even as individual as it thinks it is, hybrid genres of dance have evolved over the years. For example, dance used to mean performing Swan Lake in front of The Queen, now you can run across the room, move your head to the left and turn on a light switch and it’s classed as ‘contemporary dance’. (No, it really is!)
Dance has been integrated and standardised into our society, and there is no going back, if I wasn’t discussing this in a Frankfurt school perspective, I would say times have changed for the better and that dance should be accessible and enjoyed by everyone, but a part of me agrees that the skill and commitment that once was given to this art, has not gone just yet – but it is certainly beginning to diminish.

Keeping up with whom?

Tacky, dull, and brainless. These are the first words which spring to mind when I was forced to watch episodes of a so-called hit reality show ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’. However I am glad to note that this show is not from our soil. Oh no, of course it has been imported from moral-avoiding America.
What is apparent is that the girls featured in the show, are from a privileged barbarian background, yet show no desire to educate themselves in the ways of the world; it’s all about fast cars and false lashes – and the capability to MOAN.
Appealing to the base emotions of the viewer, the shows half hearted attempt to showcase the values and importance of family goes by the wayside and is instead taken over by materialistic self obsessed, scantily clad females with screechy voices who ‘try’ to run a clothes store by means of a career. Or pose nude for playboy – whatever floats your boat.
Suffice to say the show provides no educational purpose, no cultural diversity, and no moral virtues. If shows like this are continually granted permission to be broadcast, than I foresee little hope for the future. The masses indeed will surely find trash such as this appealing and therefore the machine will undoubtedly triumph.

A Pure Woman

‘Culture improves us – it gives us sweetness and light – it makes us better people’. What contemporary media text, then, can provide us with this thing known as culture?
A little while ago I began watching the BBC’s newest adaptation of Tess and the D’Urbervilles. Now knowing that Hardy was on the Leavis’ approved list, will a contemporary version still provide us with the same meanings as it once did?
The heroin of the story, Tess, is from a rural, working class family, who struggle to make ends meet financially. Pretty Tess finds herself in a tragic tale of love, missed opportunities, and of course, loss.
I believe this text to still offer us a sense of culture in the way that Tess still makes mistakes, she isn’t portrayed as being totally innocent, naive, yes, and that something we can all relate to, and importantly, learn from.
It is the best that is thought or said because it tells a story and keeps the audience gripped from start to end. Morals and integrity play a huge part in this story, and these are attributes that we should aspire to have as human beings.
What is also interesting about our heroin is that even though she is from a working class background, she seeks to better herself, although feeling uncomfortable and slightly awkward at being catapulted into a higher class by the love of her life, she handles herself with dignity.
Being set in Somerset, the scenery in the programme is breathtaking. With spectacular views such as these it makes us value who we are, and where we are from, and what higher pastures we can concur with hard-work and nobility.

Mass Civilisation and Minority Culture (F.R. Leavis)

Mass Civilisation and Minority Culture
(F.R. Leavis)

Here we read Leavis trying to explain what is meant by culture. It is clear there seems to be a continuing battle between the minority and the masses – to an extent which is described in the reading as a crisis. Culture has always been in minority keeping. Culture has changed and adapted over the years, and indeed, it seems will continue to change in the years to come.

Standardisation and mass-production are looked down upon, including films which are considered to have a much more potent influence, as it is believed that the adult public who can think critically are few and far between.

It is argued in Leavis’ piece that mass culture may be better than the culture we are losing, but there is hope that recovery will come – and has a warning to keep open communications with the future.

Odrinary but Individual

Thinking of a media text that shows what I believe to be my culture, I have chosen BBC1's Drama 'The Street' written by Jimmy McGovern.

Coming from a fairly dysfunctional family myself, I feel like I can relate to the problems encountered by some of the characters on a weekly basis. If culture is referred to as the masses, then I suppose I'd be a product of the average working class, single-parented assortment.

The show, although it includes characters from an entire street, each week it focuses on one particular household. Problems have included a solider returning from war and struggling to settle back into family life, to parents sparking up affairs and cheating on their significant others, to bullying at school, and some characters just feeling trapped in their mundane everyday life. Now not to confuse this with myself, I'm not at all suggesting I feel anything like what is portrayed every week, but certainly some instances, I feel I can empathize with.

The main value I would use to identify my culture, is that no matter what my, albeit rather small family, is what is most important to me. I love living in a multi-cultural society, and always want to learn more about my community, my country - the world! My brain is a sponge as they say, wanting to absorb more knowledge!

Coming from a proud Liverpudlian family too, the fact that 'The Street' is set in the North-West, this has definitely added to why it reflects my cultural from a geographical perspective. Ethnicity and religion are all blended, sometimes with struggles and arguments, but the outcome is always the need to rely on others and the importance of strong family/friend bonds.

Which I think is quite a lovely, philosophical concept!