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Surveillance and Celebrities

As discussed in the lecture this week, we are now living in what Marshall (2010, p. 499) is referring to as, a specular economy. 

Without using overly contrived language, the specular economy is a concept of how we as a collective society seem to be far more aware of our outward appearance and how others perceive us.

There is a commonly held assumption that everyone is being watched or monitored on how they’re dressing when in reality, nobody cares. Even if somebody does care, you have to ask yourself does it really make any difference in the slightest? Yes, it does.

We are all constantly trying to portray ourselves in the way that we want to be seen. At the risk of generalising; we all do this. Even people who say the do not care about how they are perceived are guilty. 

If these people that supposedly don’t care about how they are presented actually don’t care then they wouldn’t even bother telling people. By making it known to people that they don’t care how they are perceived, they are essentially telling people that they do care. In saying so, they are presenting themselves in the way the obviously want to be seen, as a slovenly, possibly rebellious and most likely unemployed lay-about.

Brits doesn't look to comfortable here

Marshall discuses a comfortability with surveillance as being one of the major players in the growth of the specular economy. There is no way that any celebrity likes to have a camera in their face when they leave a restaurant, a gym or simply go for a walk with their dog, would you like it if I did it to you Mr Marshall? Comfortable are you?

I understand he is referring to the concept of social media and whatnot acting as a surveillance tool but even that is rubbish. People can actively manage what goes on their sites and who can view them etc. If you don’t like what people are saying, leave. Listen carefully, Charlotte Dawson.

That being said, without surveillance we wouldn't have found Kim Kardashian. She is the prime example of this. If someone can please enlighten me as to why we should care about her that would be great. As far as i can work out, the media tells us to care, so we do.

Lets not forget what made her famous though.....

References:

Marshall, D 2010, ‘The Specular Economy’, Society, vol. 47, no. 6, p. 498-502, retrieved 28 August, Ebsco database.

ALC215 Week 8 Lecture 2012, iLecture, Deakin University, 28 August, retrieved 5 September 2012, <https://d2l.deakin.edu.au/d2l/lms/content/viewer/main_frame.d2l?ou=31220&tId=1637655>

Culture and things of that nature

The loss of traditions and culture is often considered one of the major negative affects of globalisation and the integration of diasporic populations. While I understand and accept this argument as valid, I always like to try and remove some of the negative stigma attached to globalisation.

When we travel internationally, we are creating culture, which then in turn gets discussed in our public sphere. Based on the definition provided by McKee, the public sphere is not a physical place but more of a permeable metaphorical membrane between which members of society can exchange ideas, opinions or beliefs (2005, p. 4). In this increasingly modernised world, the public sphere has worked its way online in the form of social media, blogging etc.

As discussed in this week’s study guide chapter, we are creating culture when we consume or purchase pieces of art/sculptures/general knick-knacks that we believe represent the culture of the place we are visiting. These same pieces of art act as a pathway for the spread of culture as we will naturally return home and undoubtedly discuss these items at great length, much to the boredom and frustration of our friends. In addition to this, people travelling will often post pictures to their social media sites, further sharing that piece of ‘culture’ with others. The picture of the booze vending machine and the overly specific sign are prime examples of this. Through this blog, i am again sharing them with you.

Along with these cultural artefacts, the everyday actions of a society are also considered every bit as ‘cultural’ but often go overlooked as we tend to bring with us our home environment and apply that to everything we see and do (culturaltravel.net). 

I believe that travel and spread of culture is ultimately positive as the resulting cultural acceptance is driving factor for battling racism and creating a more harmonious (not homogenised) world.

Pictures are from my mates Instagram. I asked her so it's okay.

References:

McKee, A 2005, Extract from, The public sphere: An introduction, Cambrigde University Press, p. 4-19

http://www.culturaltravel.net/ (Super official website)

Al Jazeera

As defeatist as this may sound, I believe there is always going to be an unavoidable level of bias in every news producing organisation. Whether it be Fox News, The Times or CNN, the notion of being truly objective is an elusive one. A study on news bias in America found that 35 per cent of the American public perceives the Fox News Company (FNC) as being in favour of the conservative agenda (Turner, 2007, p. 2). In Great Britain, newspaper bias is no secret. Papers such as the conservative Times and the left-leaning Guardian consistently and blatantly deliver their viewpoints on a massive scale (Ackerman, 2001).

Like any news media company, Al-Jazeera is not immune to an occasional bout of bias.

As Walid Al-Omary (cited in Nawawy 2003, p. 53), correspondent for Al-Jazeera explains: 

"To be objective in this area is not easy because we live here. We are part of the 

people here. And this situation belongs to us also, and we have our opinions."

Is this not the case with every Western journalist, reporter or news organisation? Do they not have opinions? To be objective anywhere is not easy. Poor excuse Mr Al-Omary.

The word ‘bias’ tends to conjure up some fairly negative connotations. However, I believe that some positives can be seen when it comes to news bias. Certainly, the blurring of truths and the disregarding of certain information is highly questionable and potentially devastating but presenting information to your audience in a way they can relate and engage with the content is relatively harmless. 

The way Al-Jazeera presents their information may not match the tone of western broadcast media but it resonates with Arab viewers as it more accurately depicts the dominant ideologies of the middle east (Nawawy 2003, p. 53). If Western nations can have their awful bias news networks, why can’t the middle east?

"Agenda setting, biased reporting..." News piece about journalistic bias in Al Jazeera.

References

Ackerman, S 2001, ‘The most biased name in news’, retrieved 15 August, <http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067/>

El-Nawawy, M. 2003, ‘The battle for the Arab mind’, Al-Jazeera, the story of the network that is rattling governments and redefining modern journalism 2003, Westview Press, Boulder CO, pp. 45-69, 217-218

Turner, J 2007, ‘The Messenger overwhelming the message: Ideological Cues and Perceptions of Bias in Television News’, Political Behavior, vol. 29, no. 4, p. 441-464, retrieved 15 August, Academic Search Complete

The Olympics: A Global Event

At it’s very basis, the Olympics are wholly and unequivocally a global event. As cliché as it sounds, it is a coming together of cultures for a positive reason. People often criticise that because of the way the games are broadcast and the way in which only ‘rich’ nations play host to the games, that it is entirely favouring these powerful nations. According to the critics, it is for this reason that the games are not a truly global event.

I would like to highlight several points:

There are only three nations who will not be competing in the 2012 Olympics; Vatican City (they never compete as citizens of Vatican City often come from neighbouring nations and tend to compete under that flag), South Sudan (the country was only established in 2011 and does not have an Olympic committee yet) and Kosovo (currently not recognised by the UN as a separate nation).

There are over 200 nations competing. Even the tiny nation of Buthan has a team. The team may only be made up of 2 people (who didn't even qualify for the games) but under IOC guidelines; all nations with an Olympic committee can take part, regardless of team size or ability. Simply having the addition of this IOC regulation (chapter 5, part 2,) shows that the games are striving to be a global event by including as many nations as they possibly can. I mean, even North Korea has a team…c’mon.

I understand that nations can only host the games if they have the economic means but isn't this just common sense? If a nation can't afford to build stadiums, an athletes village and other infrastructure upgrades then why have it there? If a nation goes bankrupt after building stadiums eg Greece. The Greek government spent $11 billion on stadium developments and $1.6 billion on a brand new airport capable of handling the traffic for the games (Malfas, Theodoraki & Houlihan, 2004, p. 215). For most small nations the consequences for having the games are much worse than not having them..

References:

Malfas, M, Theodoraki, E & Houlihan, B 2004, ‘Impacts of the Olympic Games as mega-events’, Municipal Engineer, vol. 157, no. 3, p. 209-220, retrieved 10 August, <http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/handle/2100/993/muen.157.3.209.49461.pdf?sequence=1>

<http://www.olympic.org/national-olympic-committees>

<http://www.smh.com.au/sport/olympics-2012/debt-and-regret-20120515-1yp12.html>

Small Vs Big Business

The impact that huge multinational retailers have had on small and medium businesses is a regular topic of discussion when it comes to the consequences of globalisation as it is seen in a growing number of places all over the world. The main reason for such a high focus is because small businesses make significant contributions to the economy of developed nations as well as helping with the reduction of poverty in developing nations (Asiedu & Freeman 2006, p. 2).

Australia has its fair share of large retail franchises (Harvey Norman, David Jones, Bunnings, JB Hi-Fi, Kmart etc) but it is really nothing compared to America. The US has 48 different department and discount store franchises (so many that the US required a separate link on Wiki). <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_department_stores_of_the_United_States>

In The States, Walmart is often blamed for being the major source of the problems faced by small businesses (as South Park so brilliantly parody). Like any major retailer, they receive criticism for dominating over small business and creating unfair competition, exploiting their workers, marking up prices and utilizing child labour in sweat shops.

I completely disagree with all the criticism these major businesses receive as I believe they are a positive thing in our community. We as consumers get more variety when it comes to products, big retailers provide jobs to the otherwise unemployed both in the retail sector but the distribution and logistics industries. Sweat shop’s are also providing employment and majority of the time pay more than the average income of that nation. Yes it is bad but compared to what?

References.

Asiedu, E & Freeman, J 2006, ‘The Effect of Globalisation on the performance of small and medium enterprises in the US’, vol. 5, no. 23, p. 1-22, retrieved 1 August, <http://www.aeaweb.org/annual_mtg_papers/2007/0106_1015_2101.pdf>

Americanisation.

Globalisation is seen as having many negative consequences but very few positives. It has taken the blame for farmers’ debts, workplace unemployment, outsourcing of jobs and industrial decline. Globalisation has also resulted in the rise of Americanisation and what could be called the homogenisation of world cultures to a more American set of norms, products or discourses.

These American products and discourse are seen as being severely detrimental towards the maintenance of other cultures, their economic longevity (Meunier 2010, p. 214). It may be true that America is an incredibly powerful media producer and although they dominate most markets, we as consumers make the choice to buy their products, watch their films and TV shows and listen to their music. We can just as easily choose not to do the aforementioned and seek our entertainment and products from elsewhere. Americanisation is a result of the dominant hegemonic position presented by American media and political organisations. We as audiences agree with this position or oppose it and as a result we will decide if we are going to consume this product, TV show, film, etc.

When an audience interprets a message as it was intended by the producers they are adhering to this dominant hegemonic position. However, this assumes that all audiences are passive sponges for information, soaking up everything we hear. Quite the opposite in fact. As suggested by Stuart Hall and his audience reception theory, each different audiences will actively interpret media messages in their own individual way and decide whether they agree or disagree. Americanisation is a result of this dominant hegemonic discourse being accepted by the masses. If something is being so readily accepted by millions of people, it can’t be all bad.

References.

Meunier, S 2010, ‘Globalization, Americanization and Sakozy’s France’. European Poltical Science, Vol. 9, Issue. 2, p. 213-222, retrieved 26 July, <http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=ea00bc49-07fd-439c-98b7-7b77e67dfd52%40sessionmgr112&vid=2&hid=120>