DMCT - Week 6

Feminist social theory has had an indelible impact on media theory since Laura Mulvey published her seminal essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" in 1975. Drawing on psychoanalysis, Mulvey argues that narrative film perpetually establishes the "male gaze," constructing women as always "bearer of meaning" rather than creator. This problematic means that viewers of film are perpetually assaulting the female by watching her on screen and females in film rarely achieve agency or importance. However, Mulvey's argument has come under critique by third-wave feminists because it disregards the homosexual gaze and the oppositional reading by the audience. Nevertheless, it stands as important intervention by feminists in the realm of media analysis.

Mulvey's insights into film proved influential for a multitude of scholars, but other feminist interventions may prove to be still more important for insights in digital media. Toffoletti provides a nice little breakdown of the history of feminist discussions of technology. She specifically looks at the role of Heidegger's concept of gestell (enframing) in how we understand our relationship with technology. Specifically, gestell destroys notions that humans are differnet from nature and their surroundings, including technology. Thus, almost everybody is in some sense engaged with technology at all times. We are all cyborgs; combinations of human and technology. This destruction of traditional binaries such as human/nature and human/technology is a feminist move because it exposes the constructed nature of these distinctions; distinctions constructed by patriarchy.

DMCT Week 5

Ah, cyborgs. Haraway's influential essay "The Cyborg Manifesto" offers a unique perspective on the changing conditions in late modernity. As civilization progresses, it has become clear that machines and humans are interacting in ways as never before and as such, we are all cyborgs at this point. We all interact with technology and media on a daily basis. Haraway argues that cyborgs operate through irony, and that irony is "a rhetorical strategy and a political method" (272). It is through the cyborg that we understand the world. The cyborg is our ontology.

Haraway's argument rests on the deconstruction of traditional binaries. She points to the erosion between human/animal, organism/machine, and physical/non-physical binaries as signals of a shift from patriarchal and gender norms. I want to specifically mention a separate binary that has also been eroded during the dawn of postmodernity; the binary of information and entertainment. Standing at the center of this deconstruction of a traditional binary are the two TV programs The Daily Show (TDS) and The Colbert Report (TCR).

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert run their fake news operations out of Comedy Central. Their two programs critique media, politics, and religion (among numerous other things) through ironic, parodic and satiric humor. I argue that Stewart and Colbert are the epitome of the cyborg political movement, seeing the political struggle from both sides of the aisle at the same time because "each reveals both dominations and possibilities unimaginable from the other vantage point" (Haraway, 276). Colbert spot-on parody of conservative commentators has led some to believe that he is promoting a conservative agenda, while others maintain he is a liberal. Although more outspokenly liberal, Stewart often takes stabs at President Obama, the liberals in the Senate or ridiculous liberal policies set in place at a state level, while also taking the conservatives to task on a regular basis.

This is then the working thesis of my paper for the semester. I want to examine TDS and TCR as cyborgs (including the critiques of the cyborg manifesto). I want to look specifically at the rhetorical and technological techniques engaged by the show (redacted video, interviewing, cross-editing, mock journalism, satire, parody, irony) and show how they are engaging the audience in a cyborg's view of contemporary media and politics and how both programs promote the cyborg agenda.

Long live the new flesh!

DMCT Week 4

It seems as though human kind has always tried to craft new, virtual worlds. From the cave paintings in Lascaux, France to the hyper-realism of Chuck Close, art represents ways through which humans can craft alternate realities and attempt to immerse themselves within them. Since the rise of digital media, virtual realities (VR) present opportunities not only for immersion, but also for interactivity. However, the ideal of full interactivity still presents a variety of problems that I wish to briefly discuss here.

Ryan (1994) offers definitions of immersion and interactivity. In analyzing VR as a semiotic phenomenon, Ryan (1994) argues that Steuer's notion of "telepresence" offers us a way to look at the interactions between immersion and interactivity. However, in order to truly become immersive the computer itself must become transparent so the user can fully present in the mediated environment. This transparency is problematic for interactivity.

To be fully interactive would mean that the user could enter the code and reprogram how the system of the virtual reality functions. Ryan (1994) discusses a virtual golf game and says 'if the user ... hits a golf ball he wants it to land on the ground, and not to turn into a bird and disappear in the sky" (26). However, in a fully interactive game, the user could turn the golf ball into a bird or even a dinosaur. Full interactivity is in some ways the opposite of the Platonic cave. Plato talks about those chained to the wall, escaping and moving to the world outside the cave. A fully interactive game would have the user move from outside the cave to inside and manipulate the shadows on the wall. The user would become the force creating the shadows on the wall, while also totally immersed in what was being created.

So full interactivity presents an opportunity to become completely in control of the VR process. It also presents problems because to be in control of the VR, means that one cannot be totally immersed in the process. It also means that a serious knowledge of computers is required for the manipulation of the code. If the interface becomes invisible, only those who have a superior knowledge of how computers function could continue to manipulate it while those who have now knowledge would continue to be manipulated by the VR spectacle. The power relations between video game producer and high knowledge user would change, but those without specialized knowledge could not use the full interactivity. Instead they would become fully immersed in the VR spectacle without any authorial controls. They would continue to be manipulated without recognition of said manipulation. Knowledge (of computer processing) would become power.

The concept of a video game that is fully interactive has yet to come to fruition. However, if one were designed and the user were able to fully manipulate the code and structures of the game, the concept of fully interactivity may be presented and used. However, full interactivity does not just mean that the game is successful. Instead, it presents a whole new set of power relations that still derive from the commodity spectacle of the video game itself.

DMCT Assignment 3

While adventuring in cyberspace in Neuromancer, Case find himself talking to a young Brazillian boy on a beach who turns out to be the title character of the book. Neuromancer has created a virtual world for Case to convince him to stop his quest to merge Neuromancer and Wintermute, and live the rest of his (potentially immortal life) with his lady love on this beach. Case refuses, and returns to the real world to complete his quest. Neuromancer creates (in Baudrillard's terms) a simulacrum of the real world for Case. However, Case refuses Neuromancer's offer and returns to the real world to finish his mission.

Nevertheless, the image of a virtual world that is a simulacrum of our world has continued through other creative works (The Matrix, Tron, ExistenZ) and the role of virtuality in culture is a hotly debated topic. Grau (1999) argues that virtual reality has existed for thousands of years through artistic representations of reality. Berger (1990) argues that mythological oil paintings were expensive and desired by aristocrats, but were empty of true meaning. Instead the were references to idealized behavior—a mere simulacrum of the morals, emotions and heroics depicted. Although the drive of painting to represent reality changed with the development of the camera, virtual reality in our current sense began to take place.

However, Baudrillard's vision of the simulacrum is not the only conception of contemporary virtual reality. Baudrillard sees the virtual as a fake—a simulacrum of reality. There is no referent for cultural productions leaving the consumer as a passive agent. On the other hand, Pierre Lèvy argues that virtuality provides an argument for the benefits of virtuality. He does not see the competition of reality and virtuality that Baudrillard sees, and instead sees humanity as learning "to live, work, and play with the fluid, the open, the potential. In contrast to Buadrillard, Lèvy does not seem alarmed by this exponentiation of the virtual because he sees it as a productive acceleration of the feedback loop between the virtual and the actual rather than as a loss of territory for the real" (Ryan, 37). The virtual and the real are not a binary. When one gains ground, the other down not necessarily lose ground.

DMCT Week 2

            The rise of the cyberpunk aesthetic in the 1980’s often is seen as foreshadowing the development of digital media in the age of the Internet. Specifically, William Gibson’s Neuromancer describes in vivid detail a world in which people can jack into cyberspace and access mountains of information at the click of a button. Cavallaro argues “in cyberculture, we encounter an eminently postmodern culturescape wherein tecnoscience challenges the western tendency to conceive of the real as fixed and of scene as the means of quantifying and representing it” (Cavallaro, p. 36). The cyberpunk aesthetic focuses on the hyper-reality and constant reproductions of simulacra that is often described as part of the postmodern world-view. Furthermore, Cavallaro relates the movement to both Lacan’s psychoanalytic parable of the mirror stage. He also brings in Althusser’s concept of interpellation through which ideologies hail subjects into existence and requires us to adopt mythological and archetypal identities. The cyberpunk aesthetic and virtuality interpellate their subjects through fiction and fantasies. Thus, we see Neuromancer as a point where the postmodern ideology engaging with modern society through fictive and fantastic storytelling to provide a larger view of the rise of the digital age.

Digital Media and Critical Theory

This class is of upmost importance for my studies. Currently, I am working on a graduate certificate in Critical Theory and my dissertation will focus on new media and the role of information distribution in the digital age. I was a little worried that the readings in the class would not be strenuous because it is a hybrid with an undergraduate element, but as Dr. Winokur stressed, the readings will be difficult. Looking through the syllabus I already see some authors I am familiar with (Adorno, Barthes, Bakhtin) and some who I have been meaning to get better acquainted with (Foucault, Lacan, Zizek). I am also planning on taking the Linguistics class, Language and New Media with Dr. Kira Hall (assuming I get off the waitlist). I think that these two classes will mesh quite well and create a beneficial pairing. Overall, having seen the syllabus, I am very excited for this class and how it will inform my dissertation work.

14: South Park and Muhammad

During the last two weeks, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have been pushing some boundaries and provoking outrage among the Muslim community. Known for their willingness to make fun of and and all sacred cows, Stone and Parker's two most recent episode continues this trend by bringing back some story lines from earlier episodes (such as Mecha Streisand, Tom Cruise, and Scott Tenorman). They also attempted to depict the prophet Muhammad, but due to the Islamic communities problem with the image of Muhammad, were forced to censor his image or hide him in a bear suit. After the first episode in the two part series, the website revolutionmuslim.com posted this thinly veiled threat on its website:

"We have to warn Matt and Trey that what is they are doing is stupid and they will probably end up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but the warning of a reality of what will likely happen to them."

This has created a wellspring of internet talk regarding the limits and importance of the freedom of speech. The creator of revolutionmuslim.com claims that Stone and Parker may end up with a fate similar to that of Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch film maker who was killed after doing a documentary about Islam. Parker and Stone were not deterred and turned the second episode in the series in, complete with images of Muhammad, which were then censored by Comedy Central as a response to the above statement.

So the question is whether Comedy Central acted responsibly by editing the show? Or should they have let the show air as Stone and Parker intended it to? What does this censorship say about the state of the freedome of speech in our country at the moment?