978-1319102852 Chapter 1 Part 4

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Audiences were a loud and boisterous mix of every class, much like audiences at

contemporary sporting events. Shakespearean performances were often part of an

entertaining spectacle that included dancers, jugglers, singers, and acrobats. But in the late

nineteenth century, Shakespearean drama began to become a symbol of cultural hierarchy in

the United States. By the twentieth century, Shakespeare was considered high culture for

“polite” society. Performances of Shakespeare required audiences to embrace a more formal

churchgoing demeanor.

• Consider the various high-culture arguments of E. D. Hirsch (Cultural Literacy, 1987) and

Allan Bloom (The Closing of the American Mind, 1987). Hirsch calls for a back-to–basics

approach to education and culture, and he lists five thousand “essential names, phrases, dates

and concepts” that every American “needs to know” to contribute effectively to American

society. Bloom, a translator of Plato and Rousseau, calls for a return to “the great tradition of

philosophy and literature that made students aware of the order of nature and of man’s place

in it.” Both are nostalgic for “the good old days” of American culture when the cultural

canon was much simpler, much whiter, and much more male.

• An antidote to Hirsch and Bloom is Lawrence Levine’s The Opening of the American Mind

(1996), which describes the canon of high culture as “a living thing—shifting with the

politics and society of the times.” Levine views culture, in other words, as a map that is open

to interpretation and demands new critical criteria.

• Consider this seeming “contradiction”: Jerry Springer: The Opera was a hit musical that

opened in London in 2003. The production won numerous awards, including Best Musical

and Best Actor in a Musical. Opera is clearly high culture, as is musical theater. The Jerry

Springer Show, which began its twenty-fifth season in 2015, is anything but high culture.

• Describe the classic tensions between high culture and low culture and ways that the

determination of high and low can easily shift.

• Explain the notion of “culture as a map.” Ask students to design their own cultural map. You

can also have students debate advantages/disadvantages of considering culture as a map vs.

culture as a skyscraper.

• Illustrate “Shifting Values in Postmodern Culture” by comparing these modem and

postmodern symbols:

Modern: The Willis Tower (formerly called the Sears Tower) in Chicago, because it is

sleek, unembellished, and “wholly practical”

Postmodern: Philip Johnson’s AT&T Building in New York, a sleek skyscraper topped

with an eighteenth-century Chippendale pediment, and Michael Graves’s Portland Building in

Oregon and his Humana Building in Louisville (KY), each of which features a wild pastiche of

decorative elements

Modern: John Travolta in Grease

Postmodern: John Travolta playing Edna Turnblad in Hairspray

Modern: An advertisement for a can of Campbell’s soup

Postmodern: An Andy Warhol painting of a Campbell’s soup can

Modern: A tuxedo

Postmodern: A tuxedo T-shirt

Modern: NBC Nightly News

Postmodern: The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

IV. Critiquing Media and Culture

• Discuss the implications for society when serious political issues are as likely to be debated

on talk shows like The View or satirical news shows like The Daily Show as they are in the

editorial section of the New York Times or on NBC Nightly News.

• Outline the sequential steps of a critical process and explain why an open, critical perspective

on culture can often be more satisfying and democratic than a cynical perspective that skips

the critical process and goes straight to evaluation.

V. Examining Ethics: Covering War and Displaying Images

• News coverage of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and other ongoing Middle East conflicts has

dropped dramatically in recent years. The decline in war reporting is a result of many factors,

including the overall decrease in the number of traditional reporting jobs at daily newspapers.

Instead of sending reporters to war zones, most news organizations now depend on wire

services and a few major news organizations. Consequently, fewer journalistic voices are

available to the public and the impact of photos and videos has expanded. Meanwhile, the

ongoing ethical issues that reporters must face when covering war remain unchanged.

Show students the results of Internet searches for news and images of “Afghanistan.” Note

the presence or absence of American as well as international coverage of a war that has

already continued for 17 years, making it the longest war in U.S. history. Compare

Afghanistan coverage to news and images of “more timely” fighting, such as the 2018

conflicts in Gaza where the U.S. has no direct involvement or troop activity.

What are the main news sources offered by your Google search? Consider what news

coverage American citizens depend on for information and how many (or few) on-site

reporters provide it. Does freedom of the press exist in Middle Eastern countries? How might

Qatar’s Al Jazeera’s news coverage differ from that of the BBC, the Guardian, the New York

Times, or the Jerusalem Post?

MEDIA LITERACY DISCUSSIONS AND EXERCISES

HOW TIME SHIFTS CULTURAL ICONS AND MEANINGS

Pre–Exercise Question: Who are some media figures whose images have shifted up and down

and back and forth during their public careers?

One example could be John Travolta, who has gone from popular young sitcom actor and

teenage sex symbol (Welcome Back, Kotter, 1975–1979); to TV actor (The Boy in the Plastic

Bubble, 1976); to major Hollywood star (Saturday Night Fever, 1977; Urban Cowboy, 1980) and

recording artist (Top 10 hit “Let Her In” in 1976 and two hits with Olivia Newton-John from

Grease, 1978); to washed-up Hollywood star (the mid-1980s); to comeback star (Look Who’s

Talking, 1989), cult star (Pulp Fiction, 1994), romantic leading man (Phenomenon, 1996), and

top box-office action star (Broken Arrow, 1996; Face/Off, 1997); to yet another film star led

astray by his own hubris (Battlefield Earth, 2000); and to risk-taking throwback in Hairspray

(2007), where Travolta plays a woman in a genre he is most known for, the musical.

More recent examples include Miley Cyrus, Miranda Cosgrove, Selena Gomez, and Justin

Bieber, all youth stars who, with varying personal or professional success, tried to shift their

public image to be viewed as adult celebrities.

Consider the different ways we think about people who garner the most media attention,

from the conventional, recognizable, stable, and comforting to the innovative, unfamiliar,

unstable, and challenging:

• How have people with mass-mediated careers changed to improve their public image? When

did they change, and what was the change in response to?

• Are there other public figures who make a successful career out of maintaining the same

image or meaning for long periods of their public life?

• How important is it for public figures to change or maintain their image to succeed in

different public arenas (e.g., the movies, television, sports, politics)? Is there a recipe for

success?

• Is it easier to think of these public figures and their meanings in terms of a high–low cultural

hierarchy or as part of a cultural map of varying dimensions?

DEVELOPING A CRITICAL APPROACH

[Taught as a means to introduce the critical process in Chapter 1]

Your textbook suggests that developing a critical view is a process involving five overlapping

stages:

1. Description: Observing the phenomenon and making notes of those observations

2. Analysis: Mapping patterns that play out in the phenomenon

3. Interpretation: Answering “So what?” or “What does that mean?”

4. Evaluation: Arriving at a judgment based on previous steps, not just taste

5. Engagement: Taking some kind of action

Let’s start with a nonmedia example. Imagine that you’ve never seen a deck of cards before.

As I flip over the cards, describe what messages are present. Are there patterns appearing? What

do they mean? [Here I use a document camera to help students see the cards.]

Because you know the nature of a deck of cards, it’s easy to recognize patterns and

meanings. You may not know the totality of a medium, but making it more challenging may help

students figure out the context of the messages presented.

Any questions? The process guides one to build a case rather than default to individual tastes.

Let’s turn to a media example while also taking advantage of having a peer’s guidance

through the process.

Match a student with a peer. One student stands with his or her back to the screen while the

other student describes the image. Then the student with his or her back to the screen turns

around to see how good a description was offered.

Repeat the process by changing roles. Introduce a second image. Have students turn around

to see how good a description was offered.

Collectively discuss the patterns of meaning here. What do they mean? How would you

evaluate that?

—Developed by Matthew Smith, Wittenberg University

TELEVISION—QUALITY OR TRASH?

This Critical Process exercise analyzes the quality of television programming and what

characteristics determine that quality. In small groups or as a class, write the headings Quality

and Trash on the board or on a sheet of paper. As a group, agree on several television shows that

serve as examples of quality programs and trashy programs. In another column, if necessary,

place any programs that are in dispute (i.e., those that may divide group opinion). (Films, books,

magazines, and advertisements can be used here as well.) Your column headings should look like

this:

Quality Trash In Dispute

1. Description. For each set of programs, gather information and evidence. On a separate piece

of paper, describe the programs by listing their narrative features, such as basic plots, central

conflicts or tensions, typical subject matter, major themes, main characters, and how tensions

are resolved.

2. Analysis. Now return to your listing of programs. Under each category, name and analyze the

attributes that led your group to classify the programs as you did. Identify as many

characteristics as you can, and then summarize which virtues are essential to a quality show,

which vices make a show trashy, and which elements make a particular show hard to

classify.

3. Interpretation. Examine the patterns among the characteristics you have chosen, and interpret

what they mean. Why did you pick the characteristics you did for each category? Why did

you associate particular features with quality or with trash? What made your disputed

programs a problem for different members of your group?

Why do some viewers (or readers) gravitate toward trashy shows (or books)? What might

the programs mean to those audiences? For the programs you could not easily categorize,

what led to their disputed standing?

4. Evaluation. Evaluate the programs on your lists. Assess whether these shows are good

(quality) or bad (trash). Should restrictions be placed on some programs even if it means

testing the First Amendment protections of the press and free speech?

Discuss the differences that were evident in your group between individual tastes and the

critical standards used to make judgments. Are more categories needed to evaluate programs

adequately? If so, what categories should be added?

What standards did your group use to judge merit? Is there such a thing as a “good”

trashy program? Give an example. Why is it important to make critical judgments of this

kind?

5. Engagement. Pick a program from the “trash” category, and organize a group to write a letter

or make a call to the producers of that program. Report your findings, and offer your critical

suggestions to them, engaging them in a discussion of the program and its contributions to

consumer culture and to democracy.

CLASSROOM MEDIA RESOURCES

LAUNCHPAD FOR MEDIA & CULTURE:

launchpadworks.com

Agenda Setting and Gatekeeping (2009, 4:22 minutes). Featuring Richard Campbell, Jamal

Dajani, Amy Goodman, Mickey Huff, Harvey Nagler, and Robin Sloan, this video discusses how

the media exert influence over what’s considered important in public discourse.

The Media and Democracy (2010, 4:42 minutes). Featuring Richard Campbell, Robin Sloan,

Jonathan Adelstein, and Jamal Dajani, this video discusses the role of media in democracy,

focusing in particular on television and the Internet.

VIDEOS/DVDS/CDS

Bowling for Columbine (2002, 120 minutes). Following the massacre at Columbine High School

in Littleton, Colorado, documentary director Michael Moore explores some of the possible

causes of the tragedy and looks at the roots of America’s fascination with guns and its deadly

consequences. Winner of the Academy Award for best documentary in 2003.

Democracy, Civic Engagement and the Role of the Free Press (2017, 124 minutes). Knight

Foundation President Alberto Ibargüen discusses the importance of a free press in democracy

during a keynote for the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving Latino Endowment Fund on May

18, 2017.

Generation Like: Teens, Social Media & Marketing (2014, 53:41 minutes, PBS). Author and

Frontline correspondent Douglas Rushkoff (The Merchants of Cool, The Persuaders) explores

how teens seek connection and identity through social media, while brands employ social media

to market teens in subtle ways.

WEB SITES

The Action Coalition for Media Education: http://smartmediaeducation.net

Center for Media Literacy: http://www.medialiteracy.com

Media Channel: http.//www.mediachannel.org

National Association for Media Literacy Education: http.//namle.net

Pew Research Center-Journalism and Media: www.journalism.org