Gem Cheat Shit!!
Transcript of Gem Cheat Shit!!
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In this essay, I will be analysing on _________, specifically ______, using various theories
such as hegemony, denotation and connotation, feminism and comparison between
celebrities with talents and celebrities without talents. I aim to show that even though there is
a change in the prerequisites for people to become celebrities, not all modern celebrities are
perceived as talentless. Culture, clearly, is not just made up of objects and activities, but it
has symbolic significance as well; it involves thought processes, all kinds of significance,which helps to construct a sense of self and a common-sense reality that we supposedly
share with others. The study of culture should be able to show how something that has
been constructed has beeen naturalized, made to feel as if that is just ―the way things are.‖
1. Culture 2. Myths and Signs 3. Ideology 4. Hegemony
Power of repetition, simulation, the copy (anticipates Baudrillard):
Hall posits three positions that the audience can take in relation to media message: 1)
replicating the dominant or preferred code of the message (acceptance)
2) negotiating and modifying the message (synthesis)
3) a global negation of the preferred code (rejection)
Thus we have two different takes on media and power, ones that are not necessarily
antithetical and not necessarily complementary, but both of which have proven useful and
productive for the analysis of culture and cultural objects
Postmodernism
Postmodernism: A rejection of the sovereign autonomous individual with an emphasis upon
anarchic collective, anonymous experience. Collage, diversity, the mystically un-
representable. Most importantly we see the dissolution of distinctions, the merging of subject
and object, self and other. This is a sarcastic playful parody of western modernity and the
―John Wayne‖ individual and a radical, anarchist rejection of all attempts to define, reify or
re-present the human subject.
Postmodernism is a philosophy that says absolute truth does not exist. Postmodernism
supporters deny long-held beliefs and conventions and maintain that all viewpoints are
equally valid.In today's society, postmodernism has led to relativism, the idea that all truth is
relative. That means what is right for one group is not necessarily right or true for everyone.
The most obvious example is sexual morality. Christianity teaches that sex outsidemarriage is wrong. Postmodernism would claim that such a view might pertain to Christians
but not to those who don't follow Jesus Christ; therefore, sexual morality has become much
more permissive in our society in recent decades. Taken to extremes, postmodernism
argues that what society says is illegal, such as drug use or stealing, is not necessarily
wrong for the individual.
Cities and Space
Ways of thinking about space:
Sites (buildings, design concerns, significant spaces, functional spaces, public and private
spaces) Singapore Mutations (Europe vs. Shopping). everyday spaces: inside and outside;
work, leisure, dwelling, traveling, shopping, exercise; world and community i.e., the
specificity of local spaces; Subversion of classical notions of space; postmodern buildings
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2. Everyday Life
Michel de Certeau Practice of Everyday Life (activities like reading, walking, talking,
dwelling, or cooking)
4 Principles:
1. Usage or Consumption
2. The Procedures of Everyday Creativity (the network of an anti-discipline)
3. The Formal Structure of Practice (and the ―element of chance‖)
4. The Marginality of a Majority (but not a homogeneous mass)
Tactics and Strategies
Strategies: Proprietors, enterprises, cities, scientific institutions (Universities) have their
―proper‖ place for generating relations with competitors, adversaries, clienteles, targets, or
objects of research. This proper place de Certeau calls ―strategy.‖
Tactics: a tactic ―depends on time—it is always on the watch for opportunities that must be
seized ‗on the wing.‘ Whatever it wins it does not keep. It must constantly manipulate
events to turn them into ‗opportunities.‘ The weak must continually turn to their own ends
forces alien to them.‖
―In our societies, as local stabilities break down, it is as if, no longer fixed by a circumscribed
community, tactics wander out of orbit, making consumers into immigrants in a system too
vast to be their own, too tightly woven for them to escape from it.‖
Virtual
Virtual: existing in essence or effect though not in actual fact; Something which is a
representation rather than the real thing. In advertising, the word ―virtually‖ means ―almost.‖
now the Web means everything we can access online or in cyberspace – a space that
appropriates and changes extant communications technologies such as broadcasting,telephony, mail, and publishing while adding some new ones, such as audio and video
download, linking/hypertexting, info tracking, gaming, blogging etc.
the emergent, evanescent nature of the Web and technoculture means that engagement
with and study of the various phenomena related to it will always become quickly outmoded
During argues that blogs radically alter the private-public sphere as well as that of web
publishing because they are free and relatively easy to use -- blogs are both ―lost in‖ and
―enabled‖ by the endless chatter: neither secret nor public, ―statements to and for the world‖
one trend that seems consistent over the past few decades is the increasing control ofcommercial interests and traditional media on the Web -- the old gatekeepers that
early cyberactivists and cyberartists sought to bypass or overturn have largely reasserted
their control
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Virtual reality, the reality that might be said to be perfectly homogenized, digitized, and
‗operationalized‘, substitutes for the other because it is more ‗complete‘, it is more real than
what we have established as simulacrum.‖ (39)
―The fact remains that this expression, ‗virtual reality‘, is positively an oxymoron. We no
longer have the good philosophical sense of the term, where the virtual was destined tobecome actual, or where a dialectic was established between these two notions. The virtual
now is what takes the place of the real; it is the final solution of the real in so far as it both
accomplishes the world in its definitive reality and marks its dissolution.‖
A virtual simulation of the world, of the real ―Second Life‖
The mee card: ―a snippet of youness‖
Web 2.0 map mashups
Twitters/microblogging
Google Sightseeing ―Why bother seeing the world for real?‖
Simulacra and Simulation (Jean Baudrillard)
Using Baudrillard‘s ‗The Precession of Simulacra‘ (1994), we can view ____ as a sign that is
a ‗perversion of reality‘ and which does not faithfully show us reality. This is the second
stage of the sign-order.
If we were to look beneath this second layer (perversion of reality), it would reveal a third
layer where the unreal is more real than the real, thus we enter into the world of the
hyperreal. So is ____ just a_____ that is a mere caricature of stereotypes or will it transcend
the boundaries of the show to become more real than reality itself?
Three orders of appearance, parallel to the mutations of the law of value, have followed one
another since the Renaissance:—Counterfeit is the dominant scheme of the ―classical‖
period, from the Renaissance to the industrial revolution; —Production is the dominant
scheme of the industrial era;—Simulation is the reigning scheme of the current phase that
is controlled by the code.
The first order of simulacrum is based on the natural law of value, that of the second order
on the commercial law of value, that of the third order on the structural law of value.
From ―what does it do?‖ to ―does it work?‖ and then ―does it work better than the lastmodel?‖
Gadgets, gizmos, thingamajigs, go-faster stickers, and other devices (consider also the
range of domestic and cosmetic devices and ―scientific‖ or ―technological‖ lotions, potions
and procedures, including Prozac, Xanax and Viagra—the ―Spam-Cures‖). The
word gizmo perfectly exemplifies for Baudrillard the superfluous, ―empty‖ meaning of all
those gadgets that are, when it comes right down to it, of no real use.
Denotation & Connotation: First and Second Level of Meaning (Roland
Barthes)
In Barthes‘ ―The Rhetoric of The Image‖ (1977), images and texts consist the signified and
the signifier. The signified has two levels of meaning which are denotations and
connotations.
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However, this particular scene has different connotative meanings for different audiences.
According to Barthes, having a similar cultural background leads to receiving similar
decoding of a signified. Hence, it is natural that Asians receive different connotations from
the same scene. From the Asian viewpoint, the connotation is that it seems that the Glee
producers have some misconceptions about Asians only caring to ace in their studies
instead of everything else. This, however, is not always the case in an Asian society.
Hence, from understanding and applying Barthes‘ theory to images, we can analyze the
particular ____ and see the different connoted messages within it. This is useful for
examining and understanding the significance in different types of shared meanings of a sign
across various different cultures such as the Asian and Western cultures.
Each media message has a meaning encoded in it; the message has political, social, and
ideological dimensions to it, whether intentional or not.
An audience engages with the message and must decode it in order to understand what is
being conveyed at the level of content (what is says) and ideology (why the content is beingcommunicated)
- Denotation and connotation (examples): ―The terms ‗denotation‘ and ‗connotation‘,
then, are merely useful analytic tools for distinguishing, in particular contexts,
between not the presence or absence of ideology in language but the different levels at
which ideologies and discourses intersect.‖
Myths (Roland Barthes)
According to Barthes, myths are the ―dominant ideologies of our time‖ and bothdenotation and connotation form ideologies. Myths serve the ideological functionof naturalization and naturalise the cultural. Dominant cultural and historical values,attitudes and beliefs are made to seem entirely 'natural', 'normal', 'common-sense'and are 'true' reflections of 'the way things are' (Chandler, n.d.). Myths takesmeaning, are accepted and subsequently acted out, which would serve to reinforcedominant values onto others.
Roland Barthes: Myth and Semiotics. The notion of myth connects to the notions of ideology
and hegemony: each is doing similar service and trying to get at the same thing: how culture
makes its political and historical constructedness apparent.
Ideology and culture, as kinds of propaganda, work best when they are not recognized as
such because they contribute the construction of what people think of as ―common sense‖
Three Messages:
1. Linguistic
Pure Iconic Message:
2. Symbolic: a series of discontinuous signs "imbued with euphoric values" (associated with
feelings of well being):
A. A return from the market - i freshness - ii domestic preparation
B. (Yellow) - White - Green - Red (Tricolour) – Italianicity
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. Literal or "non-coded" (the relationship between the signifier and signified is "quasi-
tautological")
Hegemony (Antonio Gramsci)
Antonio Gramsci posits that hegemony is the process of ideological domination, in which the
dominant group gains consent from the dominated through ―the thought, the common sense,
the life-ways and everyday assumptions‖ (Gitlin, 1973). Hegemony can hence be
perpetuated through mythologies, by working on the routine level of thought and life.
Hegemony: A provisional alliance of certain social groups can exert social and cultural
authority over subordinate groups by ―winning and shaping consent so that the power of the
dominant classes appears both legitimate and natural.‖
Conclusion
With our theoretical analyses, we can critically discern that stereotypical treatment of the
Asian characters are decoded differently among the Asian and Western audience. Despite
Glee's general plot of social outcasts challenging social norms and finding acceptance in
their individuality, we see an ideological perpetuation of stereotypes in the case of the
Asians. This is especially apparent due to us viewing through Asian cultural lens, while it has
been naturalized as a hegemonic ideology in the American society.
In this model there are, firstly, basic assumptions in the culture (or sub-culture). These form the
bedrock of the culture and are unconscious for the most part.[2] These assumptions concern such
things as:
1. The relationship of humanity to the wider environment. For instance, in our culture there
is a assumption that, to a certain extent, nature can be subjugated and controlled; whereas
many older cultures see nature as the controlling force, even needing to be \'appeased\'.
Hitchcock\'s allegorical film \'The Birds\' depicts a conflict between these two points of view,
with some of the characters in the film seeing the attacks of the birds as retaliation against
humans for their maltreatment of the natural world.
2. The nature of \'truth\' and what is \'real\'. For instance in our culture we mostly accept as
true and real what is scientifically verifiable; whereas in other cultures the \'spirit world\' is
considered as just as real. But in many parts of rural Ireland people would consider itfoolhardy to dig up a \'rath\' or \'fairy ring\'; whereas in urban culture it would be a matter of
indifference.
3. The nature of human relationships. For instance, in some cultures there is an
assumption that humans are inherently aggressive, in others that they are inherently
cooperative. Golding\'s novel, \'The Lord of the Flies\', in which a group of boys marooned on
an island turn on one another savagely, is a vivid portrayal of one point of view.
The relative importance of the individual vs. the group. In modern Israel, the kibbutzim are
running into difficulties as a culture gap opens between the young people, who are more
interested in pursuing individual careers outside the kibbutz, and their parents, who have
spent their lives in the communal living of the kibbutz. In Ireland the family meal is almost a
thing of the past.
· The nature of human nature itself . For instance in some cultures people are thought of as
basically good, in others as basically evil, in others again as neutral. There are also basic
assumptions about whether people are \'perfectible\' or whether they are intrinsically flawed
and fallible. Consider the assumptions in Carole King\'s song, \'You\'ve Got a Friend\':
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· The nature of human activity. Some cultures display an orientation towards \'doing\', other towards
\'being\'. It used to be said that German people live to work, while Irish people work to live. But there is
some evidence that in this respect the two cultures are coming closer together.
Values describe what \'ought\' to be done, in the light of the basic assumptions. For instance, whether
or not people believe that ghosts are \'real\' may affect their attitudes towards ploughing up
graveyards. Or, if there is an assumption that life is competitive rather than co-operative, there
is seen to be a value in fighting rather than talking . Although values arise out of basic
assumptions, these values also play a major role in creating the basic assumptions in the first
place. For instance suppose a new headmaster coming into an unruly school believes in the value of
strict discipline, and introduces suspensions and other penalties for even minor misdemeanors. If this
policy works, the value may gradually start a process of what is called cognitive
transformation among the school staff. It gradually becomes a belief among the staff, and
ultimately an assumption, which is not even consciously adverted to, about the correct way to
run a school.
Artifact is a technical expression, and while it does include technology and art, in
anthropology it also includes visible patterns of behaviour. The artifacts are derived from, or built
on, basic assumptions and values. Schein explains:
The most visible level of the culture is its artifacts and creations - its constructed physical and social
environment. At this level one can look at physical space, the technological output of the group, its
written and spoken language, artistic productions, and the overt behaviour of its members. [3]
Some artifacts become highly symbolic for the culture, for instance Orange marches for the Protestant
sub-culture in Northern Ireland. In general, a symbol is any act or thing which represents something
else or carries a deeper meaning or significance Some artifacts of our culture in the Republic of
Ireland which have high symbolic content would be the tricolour and the national anthem, the Angeluson TV, Croke Park and Lansdowne Road, Christmas and so on.
McDonald’s grew to become a meeting point and gathering area of the visitors of ECP, serving as its
de facto nucleus.
how a singular offshoot of a global fast food empire became a very unlikely site of cultural memory
and what the generated nostalgia represents in light of Singapore’s on-going redevelopment plan
The demolishment of one store seems harmless and insignificant when substitutes can easily be found.
However, the overwhelming response against the closure of this outlet suggests something more
They no longer have a connection with the place where memories of childhood and play are anchored.
The resulting loss of meaning is signified by a sudden, unassailable sense of placelessness
Emotional resonance is both consciously created and felt amongst Singaporeans when stories and
experiences in ECP McDonald’s are shared over social media1 and online forums.
Femininity has evolved over time and Victoria’s Secret is an agent of this change as VS produces a
new form of femininity. Through our analysis we have explained how something traditionally seen as
natural is actually produced and how a new confident, sexy, female-empowering form of femininity is
produced by this brand through the various marketing strategies. A cultural analysis of such a