Stella Ella

THIRD & FINAL YEAR!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:15:00 +0000

bring on the stress!

MSVC 206 - Media In Practice - Blog

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:58:00 +0000

Media In Practice - MSVC 206 – Blog.

This document is going to present my self-evaluation throughout my last academic year, highlighting my strengths and weaknesses and in conclusion ways to improve. Also explored in this document is my chosen field of employment the reasons behind wishing to pursue it and stated are the skills and qualifications I will need to gain before achieving my dream career. Included also is a interview with a current lecturer which helped gain a real understanding on my chosen future career. Finally this document ends with the insight into the media industry we have had the experience to witness through our media in practice module.

This section will self-evaluate my academic last year. Throughout the time studying Media studies and visual cultures I have especially enjoyed learning the theories, feminism in general, as I have enjoyed learning the history of the suffragettes and being educated on the fight women have had in order to try and gain equality to men, especially post-feminism where women are seen as equal. I have enjoyed experiencing myself improve academically. Learning to plan my essays from introduction to conclusion has been a massive help and made the word counts as well as content less daunting. Learning to write academically has also been a positive and enjoyable experience, which has reflected in my grades. Another positive matter throughout the course is the career I aim to achieve, before starting the course I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I am now aiming to become a teacher or a lecturer. It has given me an insight into the media industry and helped me decide on a career in which I want to pursue. There are many ways in which I’ve changed and improved during the last year. The most beneficial factor in how I’ve changed is welcoming and enjoying being more responsible and for the first time in my life, becoming organised which I now fully rely on in order to go about my day. Another big factor in how I’ve changed is my effort I have applied to my degree, the want to do well and taking pride in every task I complete academically, I really care about my grades and I want to do as well as possible, so throughout the last year I have gained so much ambition and am now very proud of myself and the work I am doing. A big way in which I’ve also changed is my attendance. This year and last term I hardly missed any lecturers, which reflects in my work, as well as my knowledge, which I think is a very big improvement. I think my strengths lie in organisation in regards to organising myself appropriately for lectures, for example having read the notes needed for the days lecture as well as having a general background knowledge on the topic being taught that day. This has been beneficial as it gives me a greater understanding on the subject. Another strength in relation to the course is in assignments that we innovate a title for. For example, in the Gender and Sexuality content analysis essay, I seem to have more strengths than in an essay with a specific question. I also have good strength in researching information, whether it is on theories or gaining information in preparation for my assignments. The core strength I have is the effort I give to any task, from constructing essays to researching relevant information, organising myself or the tasks we’re given in class. I always try the best to my ability. The ways in which I feel I have been restricted in achieving is due to with my lack of confidence, which is slowly beginning to improve. I feel it has hampered my learning due to being really shy when it comes to the classroom, which has effected my interaction in class topics. My lack of confidence in my ability has also been a negative aspect, due to spending time worrying on failure and my lack of ability instead of concentrating on my strengths. Another issue I feel has hampered my learning is the failure to answer the question properly. Instead of answering what the assignment title is asking me, I tend to write all I know on the subject instead of answering any question. A definite disadvantage I have, through no fault but my own, is the attendance at the start of the course, due to personal reasons, which has left me without the basic knowledge on approaching media studies and cultural studies. I have seen the error of my ways and completely changed yet I am still effected by the lack of attendance, especially in relation to analysing text, which I have always had a weakness in. There are many ways in which I can improve for next year, which would start with my self-belief. Hopefully the hard work I put into the last assignments will give me confidence academically so I continue to strive to be better and continue to work hard. I also think building my confidence will help me in every aspect of my life, especially academically. I think this could be achieved by interacting in class more, which will make presentations less daunting, also by reading further in academic books will help with my confidence, improve my vocabulary and improve my work as a whole. Spending more time in the library will hopefully reflect better grades and give a greater understanding. Practicing will be a big way in which I am going to improve. Practicing presentations will be beneficial in order to gain better grades as my work will be more coherent and hopefully my confidence will increase as I will have gone over my work and practiced it to an audience before presenting it in class. Also practicing analysing text will be very beneficial to me as it is a weakness I have and through practice I will gradually become better at it. I have had two jobs since starting my degree as well as voluntary work at a youth club. I did volunteer work at the Woodville youth club which gave me a good insight into working with youth and expanding my interest further as I learned what it involves, as well as expanding my interest in it, it made me feel good about myself and gave my life more substance, it is something I wish to do in the future and benefits me as it looks good on my CV.The first job I had since I moved to Cardiff was in the café in Roath Park, it helped build my CV, confidence and gave me an income, it also was a key factor in structuring my life. Last October I was employed by Soho coffee, I learned to use a coffee machine which will be very useful if I need to find another job, as it is a good skill to have living in a city which has various coffee houses, it was also another job on my CV and helped confidence building as well as being a regular income. It was a very strong base in structuring my life, despite finding it quite difficult to hold down a job as well as writing essays it was very useful to have a job over the Christmas holidays, not only as a sense of an income but also giving me something to do. This next section addresses my chosen future career. The area of media employment that I aim to have a career in is teaching. I am aiming to be lecturer in a college; either media or culture and once I have gained the appropriate qualifications I hope to teach in University. I am aiming to do a full time PGCE over one year after graduating, which stands for Postgraduate Certificate in Education which would develop my teaching skills, the qualifications needed for this are GCSE’s in maths and english language as well as a degree or qualifications to a similar standard. There are various reason why this area of employment interests me. The fact that I would then have a job which would allow me to travel which is a dominant theme in why I wish to pursue this career path. Despite the hard work, it seems like a fun job, I think the prospect of teaching would be enjoyable as I would be closely working with people so it would never be dull or boring. I would also be a factor in watching a young person realise their potential and achieve success, everyday I would be helping somebody conduct their own future which I think would be a really rewarding prospect as well as a fun experience to witness and have a helping hand in. I would also have the freedom and independence in regards to how I teach my students and give them the relevant information they need. In researching becoming a teacher or a lecture I have noticed the creativity in regards to lesson planning. I would have job security, in relation to other media jobs, teachers and lecturers are always needed. This gives me confidence in the career, as I don’t want to train for a job that I have no security in. After gaining some experience, I hope to travel and teach. I have researched the need for teacher’s abroad, especially Australia, under the age of 30 and worked as a teacher for 3 years would more than likely qualify and are in need. Yet before teaching the subject I have studied in I plan to travel the world teaching English as a second language. There are various skills needed within teaching. Planning would be significant within the job description, making sure the lectures have the right valid information the students need, also the information needs to be taught in the most beneficial way for them in order to learn. Housekeeping and recording tasks, for example keeping track of student’s attendance and recording students grades, good house keeping will reflect a good organised class room which will be beneficial in every aspect. Managing student conduct, so students are aware of the rules and disciplines. The consequences for not submitting work and for poor attendance would have to be very clear for the students. Presenting subject material, method of delivery is very important so the students are engaged and not only understand the subject but the subject is as enjoyable as possible in order for people to want to learn. Assessing student learning, whilst the subject is being taught the students would need to be aware in how it relates to their examination, the instruction would be built around assessments and finally meeting professional obligations, for example being at lecture and teacher meetings.

I decided to interview a lecturer in UWIC who’s currently lecturing Media studies and visual cultures, Catherine Davies. She is also a part-time graduate student at UWIC, researching Stardom and Iconic status. Her career did not stem from wanting to become a lecturer, she was interested in film and was working as a film critic, and her choice to go into the direction that she headed in was a choice so that she could nurture her interest in film into other people. Due to there being no direct media studies or film studies courses at that particular time, she opted for teaching so she had the opportunity to combine her love of film and the aspect of teaching a passion to other people in which she found rewarding. Her main link to her career was her love of film and found the one way she could pursue this was to teach. She started with a degree in English and Drama and throughout her degree became heavily interested in the academic prospects of the film and media subjects combined within her degree. After finishing her degree she studied evening classes in a-level media and film and then went on to do her PGCE in further and higher education as she knew the age range she wanted to be teaching, it took her two years to complete this as she was doing it part time whilst still being a film critique. She had work placement in Glan Hafren College, Cardiff, which was unpaid until she was given a paid job teaching a-level students. After teaching at Glan Hafren she then went on to do a post-grad diploma in media and education whilst continuing to teach at Glan Hafren, she taught there for ten years before coming to UWIC to become a lecturer, whilst teaching at UWIC she is also working on her PHD. She has taught for a total of 14 years. Despite her claim that it is not a 9 to 5 job and that your work does continue after hours, and due to popular culture always changing she is always having to update her case studies, she also stressed the hard work that goes into it, the dedication needed and the passion in order to pursue a good state of mind. She also noted it is not a career which brings in that much money. Her positive feedback on being a lecturer was her passion of her subject which still remains with her to this very day, she claimed her passion has been evident within her teaching encouraging students and hoping it will rub off, she has never lost belief in that what she is doing is worthwhile and throughout her career has managed to deepen her understanding on her subjects and feels that she is alive when she’s standing in front of her class teaching. The interview was very positive and beneficial, it deepened my ambition to become a lecturer. After interviewing Cath it made me think deeper into my chosen field, it embedded the hard work and the demanding hours, yet the positive points outweighed the negative and I still wish to continue with this career path. Interviewing Cath was a very positive factor; it gave me a real insight into teaching. This next section will state and explore in an objective manner, jobs within the media industry. Throughout media in practice we have had the opportunity to see into the media industry as we have had various guest lecturers giving us a talk on their career.
In the introductory lecturer the assessment was presented, as well as a briefing on how to produce a bibliography correctly and how to reference appropriately, this was very beneficial as referencing at times can be confusing. In the second lecture we were presented with how to conduct a CV in the correct manner, this was extremely beneficial as I had not included a ‘skills’ section which is vital in order for an employer to see my skills outside of my qualifications. As a class we also looked into the stereotypes that are related to certain jobs. Firstly was Tom Evans, who was from Leeds and managed to get a job in advertising, he presented to us working in advertising and brand communications. He works at the company ‘Ogilvy’ in advertising department. Throughout the talk Tom showcased many advertisements in which his team had made, including Levis and Dove. He also presented the importance of slogans in order to affirm brand loyalty. Hellmann’s and Ford are also clients of Ogilvy. He described his job as dynamic and creative. He had to do team working exercises in his job interview, which included being given a brief and him and his team had to come up with an appropriate advertisement which suited the brief, many people tried out yet he was lucky enough to get the job. Before he managed to get a place at Ogilvy he had taught in Japan as well as doing a degree in film and media.The skills he mentioned for the job would be creativity as well as imagination in order to attempt to create an original advertisement, he also mentioned people would have to be quite thick skinned in the sense of working really hard on an advertisement yet it does not necessarily mean that you would get the slot in order to showcase your advertisement for their product. We were also given the opportunity to see around Media Wales which is a media company belonging to Trinity Mirror. It is based in Cardiff and produces up to 15 newspapers including Wales on Sunday, South Wales Echo and the Western Mail. It also produces magazines including N.W, the women’s magazine. They also have an interactive website which is constantly bringing breaking news. Despite the shift in technology and there now being a website for people to read the news, newspapers still bring in most of the money. We got the opportunity to see throughout the building, from the conference rooms to the open plan rooms which where the different departments were working, from advertising to the editors.

To conclude, I feel I have improved dramatically throughout my degree not only academically but also personally, I feel I have a long way to go and improving my confidence is crucial to every aspect of my life that I intend to work on. I feel like my independence has grown dramatically and I thoroughly enjoy my course. Despite my weaknesses, I am very proud of everything I have achieved, focusing on my strengths and how much I have improved throughout my time studying Media and Culture. I am very happy and positive about the chosen career in which I hope to pursue, I am quietly confident that providing I put a lot of hard work into it I can become a very successful teacher, and I hope one day to go back to education and complete a PHD or definitely involve myself in more education as it has been a pleasant experience. Finally, seeing an insight into different jobs has been useful as I have been able to see into jobs I had never considered yet it only reinforced my existing ideas about the media industry being very competitive, something I am not comfortable with. Seeing other media jobs has also strengthened my ambition to be a teacher as I figure it will be a very suitable and rewarding job for me.

Bibliography

Employment and job opportunities for teachers: Australian migration associates Ltd, Available from: http://www.australiamigrate.co.uk/teachers.htm [accessed: 20/04/09]
Hesmondhalgh, D (2007) The Cultural Industries, London: Sage.
Postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) – postgraduate teacher training – TDA, Available from: http://www.tda.gov.uk/Recruit/thetrainingprocess/typesofcourse/postgraduate/pgce.aspx [accessed: 20/04/09]
‘Your career’ – module on blackboard.

AMSTERDAM 26th-29th march 09 (George's 21st Birthday)

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:36:00 +0000

Presentation: Resarch methods: Dissertation!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:57:00 +0000

‘WITHOUT FEMINISM WE WOULDN’T HAVE VOGUE’
Intro
For the next ten minutes I am going to present my chosen topic for my dissertation, the reason why I’ve chosen it, the existing literature that relates to my question and the methodology I will use.
I will be applying the post-feminist theory to a range of female orientated magazines, the magazines I have chosen are Vogue and Heat.
The research will attempt to provide a definition of the post-feminist theory and apply it to two constrasting magazines focusing on the binary oppositional between high and low culture, in my research I will be notifying the differences and similarities between the two magazines.

Existing Literature
Sarah Gamble - Companion to feminism & post-feminism
Anthea Taylor - Popular culture & post-feminism
Budgeon S. & Currie D.H - From feminism to post-feminism - women’s liberation in fashion magazines
John Storey - Cultural theory & popular culture - an intro.
Anna gough-Yates - Understanding women’s magazines: publishing, markets & readerships.
Janet Helen Legge - Post-feminism in cosmo: a critical analysis.
Kate helburn - Media representations of women: conflicting definitions of femininity in cosmo/reveal.

Angela McRobbie - The aftermath of feminism - gender, culture and social change.
‘Which is that post-feminism positively draws on and invokes feminism as that which can be taken into account, to suggest that equality is achieved, in order to install a whole repertoire of new meanings which emphasise that it is no longer needed, it is a spend force,’ (McRobbie, 2009: 12)
Throughout her book Angela talks about:
- Post-feminism in popular culture/Britain
- Post-feminism in cultural-politics
- Post-feminism in education
- Post-feminism in everyday life

‘The media has become the key side for defining codes of sexual conduct. It casts judgement and establishes the rules of play across these many channels of communication feminism is routinely disparaged,’ (McRobbie, 2009: 15-16)
Why?
My particular expertise lies in Visual Culture, especially gender and sexuality. Gender and sexuality is where my interest lies, it is the favourite subject I’ve studied throughout my degree, the reason behind this is due to my interest in the way in which women are represented in the media, also the post-feminist theory is my favourite theory, simply because I’m a girl myself.
My reflection on the importance in carrying out this research is to see how women are represented, in a positive equal way as the post-feminist theory suggests.

Methodology
I will be conducting a theoretic dissertation, which means it will be library based involving analysing and engaging with existing literature. As it will also contain me analysing the texts myself, so it will be empirical research, which will also be qualitative.
Firstly I will be reviewing the existing literature around my subject, then I will be textually analysing my texts (Vogue & Heat) and finally applying the post-feminist theory to them.

diss

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:25:00 +0000

It's buy, buy to women. Now the girlies rule
9 March 2007
Becky Munford
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=208159&sectioncode=26

If Wags and conspicuous consumption are the epitome of post-feminist womanhood, we've not come a long way, baby, argues Becky Munford
According to self-identified "sexist" Mike Newell, the manager of Luton Football Club, women have no place in the world of football. The appointment of female officials was, he claimed, tantamount to "tokenism for politically correct idiots". In response to the media commotion surrounding his chauvinist invective against assistant referee Amy Rayner's decision over a penalty in a match last November, Newell later modified his position on "political correctness gone mad" to one of safeguarding "traditional values" - values such as "holding a door open for a woman, helping a mother with a pushchair off a train or up an escalator, worrying what time my daughter will be home and whether she is escorted, buying flowers and paying for dinner".
However, it would seem that today's women have a very definite place in the world of British football - one that is not inconsistent with Newell's recapitulation of "traditional" gender roles and stereotypes. If 2006 was the year that the England team went out of the World Cup on penalties, it was also the year of the Wags (wives and girlfriends of famous footballers) - a now established acronym in media parlance.
Alongside details of the England team's activities on the pitch, media coverage of the World Cup provided a gripping narrative about the Wags' off-pitch exploits in Baden-Baden. The regular manicures, tan treatments, girls' nights out, bitchy spats and, of course, scandalously extravagant shopping excursions were chronicled in painstaking detail. Journalists doggedly belaboured the stereotype, scrutinising the Wags' various expenditures and public conduct and pathologising their hyper-consumerism.
Through their display of conspicuous consumption, the Wags reaffirmed that women's agency in the commodified world of football was firmly located in their spending power, rather than their earning power.
Notwithstanding questions over the nature of this economic agency, the institutionalisation of Wag culture registers a shift in the popular status of shopping. No longer a domestic or a leisure activity, shopping has been relocated as a professional one. In the same week that Rayner spoke out about Newell's verbal attack, condemning the acceptability of sexism in football and advocating more professional opportunities for women in the Football League, ITV2 launched a new reality television series: WAGs Boutique . The show, a kind of Dragons' Den meets The Simple Life , follows two teams of Wags as they compete to set up and manage fashion boutiques in central London. (The A-list Wags - Victoria Beckham, Cheryl Cole and Coleen McLoughlin - are noticeably absent from the show's line-up).
On its website, WAGs Boutique promises that "Babes mean business!" as "two teams of Wags compete to turn their passion for fashion into a hot profit". Structuring its competitive rationale through a footballing analogy, the reality show invites the two teams of Wags to transform their "skills" in consumption into useful labour. This is, however, a form of labour safely situated in their babe status - one that does not militate too forcibly against the traditional value system of the gendered world of football.
Moreover, the constant referencing of the Wags' "proper" spousal identities - for example, "Nicola T (Miss Bobby Zamora, West Ham)" - points up the fragility of their professional status as businesswomen. Babes may well mean business, but it is a traditional version of heterosexual femininity (a love of handbags, shoes, bitching and rich boyfriends) and its consumer power that WAGs Boutique professionalises.
In The Feminine Mystique , her landmark investigation of the cultural construction of feminitypublished in 1963, Betty Friedan outlined an image of the "thing-buying" dehumanised housewife turning away from an individual identity to become an "anonymous biological robot in a docile mass". This has since been displaced by the figure of the shrewd individual shopper fashioning her public identity through various consumer choices. From Sex and the City 's newspaper columnist Carrie Bradshaw blowing an estimated $40,000 on designer shoes to Buffy the Vampire Slayer kicking ass in her "stylishly unaffordable boots", shopping is cast as a "fashionable" version of independence and public agency. Rather than a frivolous diversion to be mocked or denigrated, it is positioned as a lifestyle choice to be performed with pride.
It is as a lifestyle choice that shopping - and the pursuit of traditional femininity it legitimises - becomes the raison d'être of the post-feminist woman. A long-standing staple of glossy magazines, articles on shopping, fashion and beauty culture are increasingly filling the features sections and supplements of both tabloid and quality newspapers. The January issue of Observer Woman , for example, ran a cover story on "The truth about female stereotypes", which provided brief accounts of the diverse professional and personal circumstances of various women, including the fund manager Nicola Horlick. The same issue also ran a piece that tackled the differences between serum and moisturiser and designer versus high-street lip glosses, as well as a short article on the return of the scrunchie ("Everybody's talking about hair accessories").
In mainstream popular culture, the compatibility of professional mobility and traditional femininity is being sold to women as a new mode of "post-feminist" empowerment - that is, a mode of empowerment derived from a notion that the achievements of feminism have so permeated our social, economic and political structures that to continue to speak of "feminist" endeavour is extraneous to the concerns of modern women, not to mention rather old-fashioned and tiresome.
Moreover, this is a mode of empowerment that does not compromise the stranglehold of traditional gender stereotypes. If, for many second-wave feminists, the trappings of traditional femininity (such as bras, high heels and glossy magazines) were viewed as being at odds with women's liberation, then for the post-feminist woman they are repositioned as the bedrock of female agency. In its mainstream and highly commercialised media usage, post-feminism (like its various offshoots "raunch feminism", "babe feminism" and "do-me feminism") empties feminism of its political import and activity and repackages its vocabulary of freedom as a new, more fashionable brand of female autonomy.
The figurehead of this so-called post-feminist era is the sassy, sexy and stylish "girlie girl". From Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan to Coleen McLoughlin and Chantelle Houghton, the girlie girl embraces her lipsticked, high-heeled and G-stringed "girliness" as the very enactment of her empowerment. The girlie might offer an exaggerated display of femininity that represents a playful disruption of conventional gender identities and behaviours, but she also looks misleadingly like a lads' mag centrefold. Is this postmodern mockery or the reification of gender stereotypes? Either way, it is an individualist understanding of empowerment grounded in the rhetoric of choice and the realisation of traditional femininity through consumerism.
This hijacking of feminist values as a consumer strategy also drives the aggressive commodification of girl cultures. If, in the 1990s, "girl power" functioned in some way to raise the public profile of girls' and young women's activities and ambitions, in today's cultural climate it works predominantly as a synonym for consumer power. With teen magazines such as Cosmo Girl! and Sugar running numerous features on fashion "must-haves" and "miracle makeovers", the alarming rise of teenage cosmetic surgery (a 2004 survey by Bliss magazine revealed that a third of teenage girls wanted it), and the marketing of manicures and other "mini" beauty treatments, it would seem that girls are being trained in consumer competencies - and the pursuit of traditional femininity - from an increasingly early age.
The preponderance of pink imagery and artefacts in girl-powered popular culture further emphasises that gender stereotypes remain as firmly embedded as ever, even if the colour itself might have been reclaimed as the accepted hue of post-feminist agency in both its popular and academic varieties (an academic conference on "post-feminism" in 2004 publicised itself using a pink silhouette of a busty action heroine holding a gun in one hand and a handbag in the other).
This is not to suggest that girls and women are being routinely duped by the mainstream media. Rather, it is to recognise that the versions of agency enabled by the redeployment of traditional femininity are ambiguous, and that the marketing of traditional gender stereotypes as reinvigorated forms of consumer-driven empowerment risks disenfranchising women. Wags, girlies and babes, stand aside. Feminists have some unfinished business.
Rebecca Munford is lecturer in English literature at Cardiff University

dissertation!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:13:00 +0000

walking a thin line; As the average runway sample dropped from a size 6 to a size 2 over the past decade, models were expected to shrink to fit.
Publication: Vogue
Publication Date: 01-APR-07Author: Johnson, Rebecca
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walking a thin line; As the average runway sample dropped from a size 6 to a size 2 over the past decade, models were expected to shrink to fit. -->
COPYRIGHT 2007 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Byline: Rebecca Johnson

As job interviews go, the model casting call has to be the world's quickest. "Can I see you walk?" James Scully, a 20-year industry veteran, asked the tall, thin brunette standing in the foyer of designer Derek Lam's showroom. It was the week before the New York fall shows, and Scully needed to cast 26 models. The girl took a deep breath, dropped her shoulders, jutted her hips forward, and took off. After ten feet, she stopped, pivoted, and returned, eyes focused vacantly on the middle distance. "If you could stand against the wall." Scully pointed to a pink slash of tape six feet from the floor. He didn't say so, but if her head hit too far below that mark, she probably wouldn't get the job. This one cleared it by a good two inches. There was no scale, but you hardly needed it. Like the 20 or 30 girls who had come before her, she hadn't an inch of visible fat on her body. As the flash of the Polaroid went off, she looked into the camera's eye, struggling for an expression that would convey something. Anything. "How old are you?" Scully asked. "Sixteen," she answered in a thick Eastern European accent. After she left, Scully waved a developing Polaroid and shook his head (time elapsed: one minute, 57 seconds). "It's their ages," he said in response to the question of the day: Have runway models gotten too thin? "We're seeing girls as young as thirteen on the runway. When you're that age and that tall, you can be that thin naturally, but in two years, that girl's body is going to start changing. She's going to get hips, and then she's going to start hearing she's too big." It would be impossible for one person to change the vast and complex machine that is fashion but, in his own small way, Scully is trying. "This is the first year I am asking their ages," he said. "Both aesthetically and philosophically, I'd rather cast older girls. There have been times in the last year when I have felt like a high school math teacher. I don't even think girls begin to blossom until they're at least nineteen. You ask one of these girls to 'look sexy' and they don't know what that means. A lot of them have never had a boyfriend." More troubling for him is the thought of what will happen to that girl when the industry is done with her. "The turnover has gotten so quick. Girls are gone in one or two seasons. How do you tell a sixteen-year-old girl her career is over?" he asked. "They've spent the last two years living the lifestyle of a 35-year-old. It's hard for them to go back to where they came from." In the foyer outside, three new girls, all of whom looked more or less identical, had arrived. While Scully zoomed through the casting, I went outside to ask the girls what they thought about the weight issue, especially the health regulations issued by Spanish authorities requiring minimum BMIs (body-mass index) for models, and the Italian requirement for a medical certificate. The sameness of their replies was striking. "It's crazy," they all answered. "I eat!" On the table next to them were plates heaped with food-raspberries, chunks of pineapple, kiwis, croissants, bagels, brioche. Nothing had been touched. Later that day I sent an E-mail to Cynthia Bulik, Ph.D., past president of the Academy for Eating Disorders and currently director of the University of North Carolina eating-disorders program. When the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) issued its own guidelines last January to protect the health of the models, Bulik had applauded some measures-such as limiting the use of girls under sixteen-but in general she had been critical of the initiative, calling it "an anemic response" to a serious occupational concern. Dear Dr. Bulik, Today I attended a casting for a designer in which about 50 models came in and got quickly photographed. The agent doing the casting told me he believes he can tell in a second if a girl is sick. It's in "the skin, the eyes, the hands," he said. The girls who came in seemed very young, very tall, and very skinny, but they didn't seem sick. When I interviewed them, they all insisted they eat. They seemed so earnest, I can't believe they were lying. Was I missing something? I got a response within hours. You can't always tell just by looking! I am sure that agent had no data to actually check his/her observations with. . . . And there's not ONE question you can ask-especially if someone is afraid they might lose their job! Plus, they might indeed eat, but then vomit or use laxatives or other methods to try to get rid of the food. I took her point. An eating disorder is a complex, multifaceted disease mediated by both genetic and psychosocial factors. But the irony couldn't help escaping me: If you can't tell whether a person has an eating disorder by looking at her, why are lawmakers from Spain to Milan and, more recently, New York trying to mandate models' health based on the way they look? Some history. It's a fact: Clothes look better on a thin person. Models are therefore, by definition, thinner than the average person. Always have been. Always will be. Even the so-called Amazon supermodels of the eighties, curvy women recognizable by only one name, were a lot thinner than the average woman. Then, suddenly, around the early nineties, the models got thinner still. Nian Fish, the creative director of KCD, the company that produces fashion shows for designers such as Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren, and Zac Posen, and one of the people most concerned about the trend, thinks she can pinpoint the precise moment it happened. "It was at a Calvin Klein go-see where I was working as a stylist," she remembers. "The big girls were there-Cindy, Nadja. And then Kate Moss walked in. She must have been fifteen or sixteen at the time. She put on this beige chiffon slip dress, and it just fell on her body. We put her in flat shoes, and when she walked, the fabric was like liquid flowing around her body. I got goose bumps. We all knew we were witnessing one of those fashion moments." (A former dancer who herself once struggled with an eating disorder, Fish was one of the guiding forces behind the CFDA's push to address the issue.) In the years that followed, as clothes became less structured and less formfitting, the "glamazons" suddenly found themselves out of work. Or, more precisely, out of high fashion. Because they had recognizable personae-"Those girls used to skip down the runway," says Fish-they were able to parlay their careers into even more lucrative perfume or makeup campaigns, options that don't exist nearly as much for the blank-faced girls walking today's runway. If you can name a runway model today, you probably work in the industry. "After Kate," says Tonne Goodman, fashion director of Vogue, "there have been schools of girls who have swum through like fish, but none of them have really stuck. Good models have to have sex appeal, but to feel sexy, you have to feel good about your body. At the magazine, we're looking for that. A few of the models are so thin I worry about them. I'm a mother; you feel for them." So does photographer Arthur Elgort. "When I see those skinny girls, I just hope they don't put a bathing suit on them," he says. Then, about two or three years ago, the average size of the models seemed to slip again, from a size 2 to a size 0. Until the local government in Madrid kicked up a fuss, nobody seemed to notice. But among the agents who represent the models and the models themselves, the shift has been devastating. "I went to a fitting the other day," says a top model who asked that her name not be used for fear of retribution, "and the stylist kept talking about how the show was supposed to be so 'sexy.' Then she handed me a pair of size 0 jeans, which did not fit. I said to her, 'What's sexy about a size 0?' The designers say models are naturally thin, but these are extreme sizes. I think half the girls walking the runway today have some kind of eating disorder." When the models themselves were famous, designers would gladly alter a dress to fit the girl. But when the models are generically interchangeable, it's easier to find a girl who fits the dress. Speaking out on the issue is what you might call a no-win situation for people in such a highly competitive business. In the days preceding New York Fashion Week, one very powerful agent sounded pretty sanguine on the topic once I finally got him on the phone. "These girls are naturally thin," he said dismissively. "They were the Olive Oyls in high school, the ones who got teased for being a beanpole. If there's a problem, we'll talk to the girl. Everyone wants her to be healthy. We work with trainers and nutritionists. Maybe it's just a matter of cutting down on carbohydrates." But a few days into Fashion Week, his tone changed. "I just got a call from a designer about a top girl they cut because the clothes don't fit," he said angrily one evening from his cell phone. "I asked them, 'Is she too large?' and all they said was 'The clothes don't fit.' I'm not talking about 25 pounds here, I'm talking about two or three pounds! This is the new era? I really thought things were going to change." Still, he did not want his name used. "This is a very competitive business," he explained. "I want my clients to have long and prosperous careers. Managed correctly, these women can continue to make good money into their 30s. If she has a problem, the last thing we would ever do is talk about it publicly." "It's the paradox of the model," said Natalia Vodianova, one of the few models who have been outspoken on the issue. "You're supposed to be projecting this image of fun and health. If you talk about having a problem, you know it's going to affect your career, so you don't say anything. The girls talk about dieting all the time, but they never talk about problems." If people don't talk, it's hard to know the true extent of the issue or where it begins and ends. "Why are the agents even sending these girls?" Donna Karan asked at the CFDA forum on the topic this past February. Answer: because those are the girls who are getting booked. "I know one of my girls has a problem," one anguished agent asked, "but every designer in town wants that girl in their show, so what am I supposed to tell her? If I tell her she can't work, she'll just go to someone else." It's not as if the fashion industry wants to create eating disorders in young women. "Contrary to what people believe, this industry does have a heart," said Robin Givhan, fashion editor of The Washington Post. "Look at all the work it has done on AIDS. I think what happened was our eyes changed slowly over time. It's like the frog in the water: If you slowly turn up the heat, it doesn't know it's being boiled to death. After a while, a size 0 starts to seem normal, not cadaverous." But eventually, said Givhan, the zombie-like quality of some superskinny models began to detract from the aesthetic appreciation of the clothes themselves. "Fashion is about fantasy and aspiration," she said. "Women look to it for inspiration. But somewhere along the way the industry went from long and lean to something you wouldn't want to aspire to. It became unattractive." The controversy might never have become the international story it did, had it not been for the deaths of two South American models due to complications from anorexia nervosa. Neither Luisel Ramos nor Ana Carolina Reston got anywhere close to the runways in New York or Paris. At five feet eight inches-and friends says that was stretching it-Reston's head would have hit far below Scully's pink slash on the wall, but fashion is a global business, and for several years she was able to support her middle-class family by modeling for catalogs and fashion shows in Brazil. Her dream, however, was to travel abroad, living the glamorous life of an international model. When she went to China, she was told she was too fat. To get work, she thought she only needed to get thinner. By 2006, when she entered the Brazilian hospital where she died at 88 pounds, she was allegedly living on a diet of apples and tomatoes. Reston's agents stopped booking her when she got seriously sick. In the weeks before her death, she was supporting herself by handing out fliers for nightclubs, but her death seemed to touch off a simmering anger against the fashion industry, as evidenced by this post on Live Journal, one of the most popular fashion blogs. I CANNOT *BELIEVE!!!* THE 'FASHION INDUSTRY' *STILL* DOESN'T THINK THERE IS A "PROBLEM." What the #$#??! I feel bad for the girl, but hopefully, this will help show (or even FORCE) this industry to see how badly they need to DO SOMETHING!!! [And this is coming from a model herself. If I had a penny for every time I heard my agent telling me or other models at the agency to "lose some inches in the hips," I could quit modeling and just be a millionaire. . . . ] Fellow Brazilian Gisele Bundchen made international headlines after Reston's death when she said parents are responsible for anorexia, not the fashion industry, but others were more empathetic. "I didn't know her personally," said Vodianova, "but when I read about her story, I could understand. At home, girls are the little princesses, but then you get this opportunity and you think, OK, this is my job now. This is what I am supposed to do. Nobody is nurturing them, and suddenly, everything becomes about the weight. If you do allow yourself to eat something, you become nervous because you think the clothes won't fit. It's not that people even say things to your face; it's more like a tension in the air during a fitting. Or you overhear something. In your off-time, you start to overeat because you are so hungry, so now your normal relationship with food is gone." It's no coincidence that many of the youngest, thinnest girls on the runway come from countries where economic opportunities for them are limited. Reston's family was initially middle class, but after her family's savings were stolen, she felt an added pressure to be a breadwinner. "My parents saw an opportunity for me to have a better life," Vodianova said, explaining why her parents let her leave home alone at seventeen. To make money in Russia, she used to sell fruit on the street next to engineers and professors, people with advanced degrees who needed cash to feed their families. The money she made from her first fashion show-$50-was equal to a month's salary for a teacher. "If I had stayed, finished school, and become a doctor, so what?" She shrugged. "I still would have been selling fruit on the street." After Reston's death, the CFDA decided to address the issue. But if models are hired for their tall and skinny genetic phenotype, fashion designers succeed through an equally rigorous process of Darwinian selection. Creative people with robust egos don't like being told what to do. Some were sympathetic to the idea of regulation, especially women with children. "We have a big responsibility with this disease," said Carolina Herrera. Another prominent designer called the idea "revolting." Some were simply flummoxed by the practicalities-how do you regulate a worldwide industry composed of freelance workers who steadfastly maintain, "It's crazy! I eat!" In Spain, they tried instituting minimum weights calculated by BMI. The measurement, which takes into consideration height and weight, was invented by a nineteenth-century Belgian scientist who believed that the human condition could be better understood through the use of statistics-he was among the first to quantify a correlation between age and gender in crime-but while BMI may be a useful tool for tracking the growing obesity epidemic in the developed world, it's not so useful for screening models. The Spanish chose a BMI of eighteen as the cutoff for a working model, which, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) growth charts, would mean that 17 percent of all sixteen-year-olds would be considered too thin to model. Not surprisingly, the regulation had little effect. England, Australia, and France all rejected mandatory minimums as discriminatory or inappropriate-as UK culture secretary Tessa Jowell said, "Government legislation is a very blunt instrument to address an issue this complex." Realistically, today's working models have BMIs closer to sixteen. When she was nineteen and weighed 117 pounds, five-foot-ten-inch Vodianova had a BMI of 16.8. (That was when several fashion houses complained about her weight.) When she weighed 106 pounds and her hair was beginning to fall out, she had a BMI of 15.2, which would put her off the CDC charts (they stop at the bottom 5 percent). Still, you can't definitively say someone with a low BMI has anorexia. "I would assume these models have a subclinical eating disorder," said Johannes Hebebrand, M.D., of the University of Essen, Germany, one of the world's leading experts on BMI, "but I wouldn't bet on it. There are a lot of very skinny people who can't gain weight. Nobody really knows why-maybe they have a higher body temperature, a faster metabolism; maybe they fidget more, or maybe they just don't eat." Some critics pushed for a mandatory annual doctor's examination, but anorexia is both a psychological and physical disease. The fact that Uruguyan model Luisel Ramos had a sister who died less than a year after her-allegedly from complications of anorexia-confirms what twins studies have shown: Anorexia has a strong genetic component. Hebebrand could one day imagine a blood test-he has found that anorexics have lowered levels of leptin, a hormone produced by fat that is instrumental in regulating the hypothalamus and pituitary glands-but that's a long way off. Eating-disorder experts like Bulik say the best way to screen is an exam, including a face-to-face interview with a clinician trained at cutting through the denial of "It's crazy! I eat!" "I usually start with a weight history," said Bulik. "Then I might ask, 'How would you feel if you gained five pounds?' At that point, you look in their face, and you can usually tell from the expression of horror." In the end, the best you can do is plant a seed and hope it grows. The eye may adjust, but the eye also grows restless and ready for change. "I've been thinking about it," Derek Lam said after his casting was over. "I travel the country for trunk shows and meet these successful women who have the means to really take care of themselves. They're working out, they look great. As designers, I think, we sometimes wait for technology to tell us what to do, but maybe the technology is there, in their bodies. Already I am giving my clothes more structure this year and making it less about something limp hanging on a rail."

dissertation!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:13:00 +0000

dissertation!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:13:00 +0000

Manufcaturing Post-Feminism. Susan J Douglas.

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:24:00 +0000

Manufacturing Postfeminism
By Susan J. Douglas - http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1466/

I’m sitting here, in one hand Vogue’s April edition called “The Shape Issue,” featuring Angelina Jolie (“Rebel with a Cause,” we’re told) on the cover, and in the other Time’s April 15 issue devoted to the question of “Babies vs. Career.” (Time promises to offer women “The harsh facts about fertility.”) Thirty years after the height of the women’s movement, here we are: Vogue tells us “How to Change Your Shape from Head to Toe” and Time warns us that if we get settled in a career first and then try to have kids, we are doomed to childlessness. And I’m sitting here thinking: This is it. This is post-feminism in action.
In October 1982, when the New York Times Magazine featured an article titled “Voices From the Post-Feminist Generation,” a term was coined, and ever since the women of America have heard, ceaselessly, that we are, and forevermore will be, in a post-feminist age.What the hell is postfeminism, anyway? I would think it would refer to a time when complete gender equality has been achieved. That hasn’t happened, of course, but we (especially young women) are supposed to think it has. Post-feminism, as a term, suggests that women have made plenty of progress because of feminism, but that feminism is now irrelevant and even undesirable because it has made millions of women unhappy, unfeminine, childless, lonely, and bitter, prompting them to fill their closets with combat boots and really bad India print skirts.But to perpetuate this “common sense” about feminism and post-feminism requires the weekly and monthly manufacturing of consent. Post-feminism is, in fact, an ongoing engineering process promoted most vigorously by the right, but aided and abetted all along the way by the corporate media. Post-feminism is crucial to the corporate media because they rely on advertising.If millions of women stopped and said, “Hey, I don’t think I need lipstick, Lestoil, Oil of Olay, Victoria’s Secret boulder holders, Diet Coke, L’Oreal or Ultra Slim-Fast anymore,” that would lead to a serious advertising revenue shortfall. So the media must continue to manufacture post-feminism as the common sense way to understand women’s current place in American society. This April we got an excellent snapshot of how this process works.Vogue’s first-ever “Shape Issue celebrates the female form in all its glorious variety.” These varieties include tall, short, curvy, pregnant and thin. Except that they are all size two (the “curvy” model, a socialite, is a size eight to 10). Even the pregnant model, who is nineteen, and would rather “flaunt my belly than hide it,” is a size two.The letter from the editor acknowledges that “we receive countless letters attacking the models for the way they look. ‘Too skinny’ is the usual complaint.” But then she huffs about a “simple truth”: “To be slim and fit is healthier than to be seriously overweight and out of shape.” Well, that settles that. Our choices as women are anorexic versus blimp.It is Vogue’s job (and the job of countless other women’s magazines) to remind women that their most important task is to police the boundaries of their bodies. This regulation, we are reminded, requires considerable time, mental energy and attention. Crucial to Vogue’s strategy is to acknowledge women’s quite legitimate charges that the magazine promotes an unattainable and, in fact, unhealthy body image. Vogue then asserts that such charges are false and wrong, and that the true progressive position for women (because it’s healthy—don’t you love it?) is to embrace hyper-thinness as a body ideal. Post-feminism in action: reconfigure anti-feminism as feminism.In “Making Time for a Baby,” Time’s point is clear: women who pursue a career first and postpone having children too long will end up barren and miserable. In the past 20 years, the print screams, there has been a “100% rise in childless women ages 40-44.” (No detailed interviews here with women who are happily kid-free.) Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of the book Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children, on which the article is based, argues for structural changes in the workplace to make family life and work more compatible. But the emphasis in Time—and this is also absolutely central to post-feminism—is the notion that whatever challenges women face in juggling work and family are their individual struggles, to be conquered through good planning, smart choices, and an upbeat outlook.We hear about the deep, “private sorrow” of childlessness for some professional women. But there is no comparative data here about how countries like Denmark or the Netherlands, just to pick two, through admittedly high taxes, provide all kinds of support services to mothers and, in fact, make it not just possible but customary for women to work and have kids. (How does one year’s paid maternity leave sound, girls?)But post-feminism also rests on the notion that neither the government nor corporate America can or should offer any support to parents for the common good of raising the next generation. So the next time you see yet another media text telling women to shut up, look pretty, go on a diet, abandon your career and other aspirations, have more babies and have them young, remember that you are witnessing just the latest assembly-line products of that huge and highly successful industry, Post-feminism Inc.

CoNTeNT aNaLYSiS oF GeNDeR aND SeXuaLiTY!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:17:00 +0000

The following document is going to examine the representation of youth sexuality. I am going to be content analysing the first series of ‘Skins,’ a popular TV show about teenagers in Bristol.
Content analysis is a qualitative method of carrying out research. It intends to be precise, reliable and objective. Content analysis is methodologically overt, so throughout the process every thing done needs to be noted. There are four main processes to content analysis. First of all finding the number of images which are going to be counted. Secondly, the categories for coding need to be worked out. The coding consists of applying a set of labels that are descriptive to what they mean to the images. The coding categories need to be recorded in a table or graph which is step three, and finally the results need to be analysed, so after the images have had codes attached to them, the results need to be collected and counted. Once the results have been counted, it is important to go back and apply it to your hypothesis or question in order to find out whether it proved right or wrong.
I am going to be downloading the episodes from 40D and analysing the first series, which includes 9 episodes that will make 9 hours of viewing. There are many visual images that I will be looking for and noting, for example, the act of kissing. Here I will be looking for kissing between characters with a romantic connection but not the kissing of friends or relatives. Instigation of sex. Clothing that is sexually suggestive, for example, short skirts, low tops, high heels and fish net tights. Body Language; physically suggestive displays of body parts, for example shots of legs or cleavage but not when displayed in sport. The discussion of sex. Innuendos; valid references to sexual behaviour or organs. Sexually suggestive behaviour, sexual suggestiveness, flirtatious behaviour intended to arouse sexual interest in others and finally sexualised presentation of the body, for example a character intentionally lying on their back in a provocative way but not whilst sleeping.
My hypothesis will be that heterosexuality will be represented as the ‘norm’ and I intend to look into how sexuality is represented and explore the issues around sexuality. The existing literature on youth sexuality that I will reviewing will be S.A. Batchelor et al. This was carried out on, ‘representing, young people’s sexuality in the youth media’ which addresses the gender differences towards sexuality. Jeffrey Weeks studies sexuality and he addresses heterosexual relationships as being natural. Another issue will be heterosexuality being a dominant factor in the formation of masculinity, an area which Jeffery Weeks has already studied. Sexuality is a dominant feature in identity and the construction of identity, David Gauntlett has written existing literature on this which I will review.
I have chosen to research this as the sexuality of youth is constantly saturated in mainstream media. It is always being debated within popular culture as there is much interest in the sexuality of today’s youth and in wider issues whether it follows patriarchal hegemony, and explores whether in such a post-modern world, are all sexualities represented in popular texts.

535 words!

Resarch methods: critical analysis. Black & Sharma.

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:03:00 +0000

Research methods: MSVC 207
Assignment 1: critical analysis.
Black, P. and Sharma, U. (2001) ‘Men are real, Women are ‘made-up’: beauty therapy and the construction of femininity,’ Sociological review.

In this critical analysis I’m going to analyse the research done by Black and Sharma’s in their sociological review, ‘Men are real, women are ‘made-up’: beauty therapy and the construction of femininity.’ Throughout this critical analysis I aim to identify what the authors are trying to through their research, list and explain the ways in which this research is limited and list and explore the ways in which the authors have justified undertaking this research and what they relate the research to.
They explore three main things. They outline the work of beauty salons and investigate in depth the truth in terms of what goes on in a beauty salon. In the research it is noted how salons have their own ambience, the décor of the beauty salon reflects the ideology of that specific beauty salon. The beauty salon also has a particular layout, with its own smell of products which form the environment in which body maintenance is preformed, complete with uniformed staff. The relationship between femininity and the beauty industry is examined throughout this research; women go to beauty salons in order to hold onto their femininity. They’re not necessarily striving for beauty, but just to look normal, to look like a woman. Hair removal is a big issue in regards to holding onto femininity and at the salon waxing takes place.
They also discuss, how the body is now seen as a commodity, how the body needs maintenance, the expansion of the beauty industry and the emotional side between a therapist and their client.
The professional claims of the beauty therapist is that there’s emotional labour within their trade. The therapists interviewed stress, how as well as physical beauty treatments are carried out, they are also closely related with the emotional relationships clients have with their beauty therapist. Relationships are developed and beauty salons are a place where females can go to escape their domestic and work related stress, so they benefit by sharing burdens.
Noted, is the expansion of the leisure industry, thus an expansion in the beauty industry. Acknowledged by the beauty therapists interviewed, is the shift in women’s independence which has elevated the number of women using beauty salons. It’s apparent that women’s bodies are becoming more important due to the increase of such a consumer society. There is a growing pressure for women to conform to the idealised view of women within society. In magazines women are constantly confronted with beautiful women starring back at them which puts them under pressure to appear like the models they see. Like the culturally specific beauty ideals which they are presented with, women are targeted as consumers. It has evolved into a sophisticated, business industry. It comments on how the leisure industry has helped push forward the beauty industry. There are now gym’s in hotels as well as beauty salons, so people can work out and then reward themselves with a facial.
With the rise of feminism, women are earning their own money and are in control of their finances along with the freedom to chose what they do with it. Also the shift in who women are looking good for, in the past it was in order to gain a husband but now they’re wanting to look good for themselves. It states that a beauty therapist suggested a client gets a facial because her husband would be spending the same amount of their income on football tickets.
There are two ways in which Sharma and Black state that their research is limited. This is down to the fact that the research was secondary, not primary. The research gathered was carried out by therapists, not actual clients, giving a secondary source of empirical research which is based on experience rather than fact. Very limited observation was actually carried out in an actual beauty salon, it was left to the beauty therapists to describe the environment as well as explain the reasons in why women use beauty salons.
Another limitation they noted was the issue that they did not address men or ethnic women. It is commented on how it was dominantly white, young, middle class women who were interviewed which would lead to quite a narrow answer as not all classes, ages and ethnicities were explored.
There is also another limitation to this research which Black and Sharma did not notify, which is the lack of variety in which they interviewed in regards to location. All interviewees were based either in one large midlands town or a northern city and all the beauty therapy teachers all attended the same northern city college. These sources would equal similar answers due to the people interviewed coming from the same place.
Black and Sharma justified undergoing this research, as it is a topic that has not received much academic study before hand. It is stated that the beauty industry has been subject to a lot of criticism, yet with very little empirical study to support this critique. There is also a lack of research into women’s feelings towards their bodies or their views on ‘beauty.’ They also don’t mention women’s day to day experiences. Another reasoning behind their research was to explore an environment that women go to in order to seek femininity. Such investigations into the feminine environment have been overlooked in the past in urban sociological research.
To conclude, the three things identified in this research are the relationship between femininity and beauty salons, how the body is seen as a commodity and the expansion of the beauty industry and the increase of feminism in regards to who women are looking good for and the increase of independent women. There are also comments on how the research is limited in regards to interviewing therapists instead of clients and the lack of variety in people they interviewed. They also didn’t touch on women’s attitudes towards beauty.

Bibliography
Paula, B & Sharma, U. (2001). ‘Men are real, Women are ‘made-up’: beauty therapy and the construction of femininity,’ Sociological review, Oxford: Blackwell publishers

glossary: race & ethnicity.

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:02:00 +0000

Postcolonialism (postcolonial theory, post-colonial theory) - is an intellectual discourse that holds together a set of theories found among the texts and sub-texts of philosophy, film, political science and literature. These theories are reactions to the cultural legacy of colonialism. Can also be seen as a search for liberation for the peoples of colonized areas.
‘post-colonialism theory borrows from the psychoanalytic and post-structuralist theory to explain the sense of these people being something than other what the culture deems as normal, powerful or the standard’ (Lewis 2002: 339)Colonial discourse - A system of control over what can be shown, revealed and portrayed in terms of a colony or empire.Quote - ‘Colonial discourse theory is identified as a subset of postcolonialism, while in other cases they are separate but mutually dependent on each other to mobilize postcolonial politics… This second sense sees postcolonialism as a form of consciousness articulated by the colonized, the exiled, and the displaced as a counter discourse against that created through empire. Colonial discourse is (through Michel Foucault's understanding of "discourse") a linguistic regime that enforces, conditions, and regulates what can be said with respect to empire. For example, "scientific" disciplines like 19th century anthropology was an instance of colonial discourse because it sought to represent the "native" as barbaric, primitive, and uncivilized, consequently justifying the legitimacy of colonialism’ (http://www.postcolonialweb.org/poldiscourse/theorists_note.html)((Leong Yew))Ethnicity - refers to social groups with a shared history, sense of identity, geography and cultural roots which may occur despite racial differenceRace - notion of racial classifications based on geneticsSameness - Within identity, it’s what makes it recognizable and makes it easy to identify a set of characteristics or qualities that distinguish it from another. Difference - difference is used within identity to establish what it is not, also to use as comparison and also to categorise different characteristics or qualities to differentiate it from another.Symbolic marking - how we live out symbolic marking, we organise Social marking – how we live out symbolic marking, how we organise society ie class.Material conditions
Mediated culture – your own indentity ie. chosing your own religion, politics and music. (how you form your ethnicity)
Situated culture – culture your born into, grown up into, ie geography, what school you went to. – what you get from your parents.
Identity and difference – we define ourselfs with who we are not (the other)
Essentialism - suggests a fixed and fundamental identity, looks to support fixed notions of identity. Ie I’m welsh.
‘Essentialism, in its most stripped down meaning refers to the belief that people and/or phenomenon have an underlying and unchanging 'essence'. I like to work with a definition that refers to any statement that seeks to close off the possibility of changeable human behaviour.’ (http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/twine/ecofem/essentialism.html)Non-essentialism - acknowledges differences and sameness, also acknowledges that identities change.‘non-essentialism is the belief that, any given entity or subject, can not be propositionally defined in terms of specified values or characteristics which that entity must have in order to be defined as that entity.’(http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/Non-essentialism)
Primary identity – the way you were born, which can’t be changed.
Embodiment - the experience of having and using a body.
‘the body emerges as a principle focus and theme for contemporary cultural analysis. The body has been theorized in various ways throughout the period of modernity: for or example, privileges the mind over the body; Marx theorizes the body as an economic condition; humanism presents the body in terms of hapiness and economic utility; science conceives of the body as a biological system; Michl Foucault presents the body in terms of ‘discourse’ - as a set of inscribed and negotiable meanings.’ (lewis 2002: 294)Whiteness - is the representation of people identified as white and the social status and conventions of whiteness as an ideology within social status. Whiteness is an ideological fiction, political fiction and a legal fiction.
‘post-colonized people’s of colour are defined as ‘the other’ or as ‘different’ in relation to the normative condition of ‘whiteness,’ especially male whiteness. (Lewis 2002; 340)
Pluralism – opposite to hegemony, everybodies ideologies not just the dominant.
‘Hegemony - is the dominance of a group over another, eg politics. Dominant Ideology - is the values and common beliefs shared by most people in society, what the majority think, it reflects the interests of the dominant class in society.
‘Different social interests or forces might conduct an ideological struggle to disarticulate a signifier from one prefferd or dominant meaning system and rearticulate it with in another, different chain of connotations’ (Hallin Barratt, 1995: 360)
The other – what is described as the other from the hegemonic/dominant.
Ethnography – is a genre of writing that uses fieldwork to provide a descriptive study of human societies.
Ethnographic film -
Ethnographic presence – representing what is happening, ie looking into a camera suggests its happening now, unseen presence of the ethnographer.
Ehtnographic memory – enscription of peoples/cultures on how it used to be, something in the past being represented using past to look like presence.
Ethnographic taxidermy
Ethnographic intantiasation
Infantilisation – treated like an infant.
Reductionalism – reducing somebody to their lowest value.
Representation - the idea that media re –presents the world and by doing so constructs meanings about it.
“Systems of representation construct places from which individuals can position themselves and from which they can speak.”
Textual Analysis - Processes of accessing meaning
Modes of Cultural Production - Media = ‘sign systems ’or’ meaning systems contribute to culture and ideology
Binarism- means composed of two parts or two pieces
Ideology- set of beliefs , aims and ideas, especially in politics.
Residual ideology –
Emerging ideology
Post modernism- after the modernist movement
Fanonism
Authenticity - the truthfulness of origins, attributions, commitments, sincerity, devotion, and intentions.
Transcoding- is the direct digital-to-digital conversion of one encoding to another
Racial stereotypes – stereotyped by the colour of ones skin.
Stereotypes and Social types - a generalized perception of first impressions: behaviors presumed by a group of people judging with the eyes/criticizing ones outer appearance (or a population in general) to be associated with another specific group.
Exoticism - exoticism in the decorative arts and interior decoration was associated with fantasies of opulence.
Hybridity - A hybrid is something that is mixed, and hybridity is simply mixture
Diaspora - refers any population sharing common ethnic identity who were either forced to leave or voluntarily left their setteld territory, and became residents in areas often far removed from the former
Globalisation- blending or homogenization by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together.
Mimicry-
Intertextuality - the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can refer to an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another.
Icon - There is a close physical similarity between the sign and real life.
Index - Evidence of or a symptom of a sign.
Symbol - Used in relation to visual signs and are linked by conventions.
Associational juxtaposition – context due to binary, two things joined together to bring meaning, for example a shot of a person praying with his back to the camera and then a shot of a knife = the person is going to get knifed.

Marilyn Monroe: Image for previous post.

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Race & ethnicity! Whiteness (Image in next post)

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:59:00 +0000

‘in western media, white takes up the position of ordinariness, not a particular race, just a human race’ (Dyer, 1997)
Explore the issues relating to whiteness as an ethnic category.
How does the construction of whiteness assert the idea of a ‘normative in natural state of existence?’
Support your essay with textual analysis.

In this essay I am going to be addressing whiteness as an ethnic category and how the construction of whiteness asserts the idea of a normative and natural state of existence, the text I am going to use will be a picture of Marilyn Monroe.
Whiteness is considered natural, it is classified as normal thus classifying it outside of race. The term ‘whiteness’ is a construction. Even though a western ideology whiteness is outside of race and it is given special status and due to this whiteness becomes invisible.
The history of whiteness links back to Greek origins, the whiteness of the Greek statues is where the term whiteness comes from, even within Greek statues the women would be paler signifying a more angelic figure. ‘in classical Greek art, female figures are paler than male, as benefits those whose proper place is in the home, a notion taken to angelic extremes in Victorial domestic ideology and imagery’ (1993:151) this is evidence that the gender is then marked by the whiteness.
In the construction of whiteness, Geek history was looked upon to form a primordial essential whiteness. In the construction of whiteness, whiteness has three fictions; an ideological, a political and a legal fiction. An ideological fiction on whiteness was the essentialist links to biology that carried a construction of history and held the original identity. The political fiction was a system of control over what can be shown, revealed and portrayed in terms of a colony, which is known as colonial discourse, and the political fiction established a binary between colonised and coloniser, which in this sense was the slave and the slave owner. Whiteness is a hierarchical racial identity and whiteness is a socially constructed race. Whiteness is also seen as a legal fiction, whiteness was used as a social tool which gained advantage in regards to the distribution of health and power.
Whiteness cannot be explained without the relation to what is known as ‘the other’, the other is what is described as the other to the dominant. Whiteness needs the binary opposition of the other as it has not yet been defined in cinema. Woodward argues that ‘identities are forged through the marking of difference. This marking of differences takes place both through the symbolic systems of representation and through forms of social exclusion. Identity, then is not the opposite of, but depends on difference,’ (1997:29) this supplements the notion of needing the binary opposition in order to create a classification, identity relies on the other to bring meaning and form a category.
There are two ways in which to look at whiteness, ideologically and technically. Dyer argues ‘en-lightment and post-en-lightment philosophy stressed the intrinsic transcendence superiority of the colour white, notions that were grasped onto nineteenth centaury biological accounts of racial difference. The celebration of women in paintings during the same period etherealized the body drawing upon the translucent imagery of Madonna’s, angels, nyphs and spirits’ (1993:151) This is symbolically how whiteness is seen, whiteness is seen as something outside of the body, whiteness and light have a strong connection as dyer agrees ‘such treatment is the cumilation of a history of light that has many strands. The association of whiteness and light - of whiteness - with moral goes far back,’ (1993:151) this is made evident in the text, Marilyn Monroe was the epitome of femininity, she was known as ‘the body’ and also granted a Goddess. ‘white women are constructed as the apotheosis of desirability, all that a man could want, yet nothing can be had, nor anything that a woman can be. But as I have argued, white representation in general has thus everything-and-nothing quality’ (Dyer; 1993: 164)
This is evident in the image of Marilyn Monroe as she is physically desirable. There is white light coming from behind her which symbolises heaven, an angelic woman with the lights of heaven behind her, the white light is like a radiance and a glow that signifies a halo thus making her an angel, beyond attainment as being beyond the living, this cements the idea that whiteness is seen as beyond living, whiteness has conventions with the dead. Dyer stated ‘three point lighting, soft light gauzes and focus could all be employed to create the haloes and glows of feminine portiere,’ (1993:152) and this is evident in the image as the white light behind her is making her look like an angel. Her white skin is translucent signifying a non-living create, beyond life. With the white light behind her making appear like a Goddess, God-like. It is similar to the representations of God and Angels within Christianity, ‘in relation to white women, to endow them with a glow and radiance that has correspondences with the transcended rhetoric of popular Christianity,’ (Dyer; 1993:145) this is evident in the text that it is adapting the Christian imagery, Dyer stated ‘Christian art has a long emphasised the radiance of the pure white codes of Christ, the virgin, the saints and angels,’ (1993: 151) which supplements the ideological significance of the text, as she appears as an angel. Dyer studied the link between whiteness and death, as white racial identity symbolically suggests no colour, thus no body which suggests an ideological and symbolical link between death and whiteness, as through the ideology of western the idea of death is the transcendence of spirit to beyond life.
To conclude, there is many issues within signifying white as an ethnic category due to white not been seen as a colour and there for having no content which would then make whiteness invisible. Whiteness is what’s constructed of normal as it is the dominant neutral state of existence, and thus whiteness is what is considered ordinary.

Bibliography
Dyer R (1993), the matter of images, London: Routledge.
Woodward K (1997), identity and difference, London: Sage publications.
Image - www.google.com

progess! September 2008-December 2008

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:02:00 +0000

Consumerism (D -) I'm not suprised by this mark, if at the least I learned how not to write an essay. I just wrote everything I knew on advertising rather than answering the question! I passed though, THANK GOD!!!

Race & Ethnicity (B-) I'm so proud of this, I was seriously not grasping this subject and worked so hard in order to undertstand it and not only did I pass but I got a really good mark I'm so proud of! I can't believe how far I came with this subject and it has given me so much confidence!

Sub-culture - Fandom (B-) I am also very proud of this work, I found it quite tedious and 'messy' to do, yet I think my strenghs lie in resarch rather than actually answering straight forward questions. I enjoyed doing this peice of work and hope it is reflected in my grade.

Gender & Sexuality!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:40:00 +0000

Content anaylsis

The visual representation of youth sexuality within skins

viewed on 40D - 9 episodes - roughly 9 hours.

I will be looking for:
Kissing - (kissing between characters with romantic interest - not friends/relatives)
Sex - (kissing between characters with romantic interest - not friends/relatives)
Instigating sex - (When two characters go onto have sex, when the audience are believed they are about to have sex/just had sex)
Clothes - (sexually suggestive - short skirts, low tops, high heels, fish nets, etc)
Physical - (physically suggestive of body part, eg shots of legs/cleveage - but not in sport)
Disscussion of sex - (any disscussion of sex, talking about sex)
Innuendos - (valid references to sexual behaviour/organs)
Sexually suggestive behaviour - (sexual suggestiveness, flirtatious behaviour intended to arouse sexual interest in others)
Sexualised presentation of body - (sexualised presentatyion of the body - lying on back - but not whilst sleeping)

Existing litrature:
The Journal of popular culture
David gauntlett - Gender & indentity.
Representing, young people's sexuality in the youths media - SA batchelor.

Media In Practice: CV! 6th feb 09!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:55:00 +0000

Name: Sarah-Ella Louise Jones. Age: 20
Address: 11 Bangor street,
Roath,
Cardiff.
CF24 3LQ D.O.B: 27/05/88
Contact: 07837949614
E-mail: S.L.Jones23@uwic.ac.uk
Personal Profile:
I believe myself to be a confident, punctual, reliable individual who is very eager to learn. I am hardworking and excel in both working in a team and also by myself. I can speak both English and Welsh adding to my good communicational skills.
Education & Qualifications:
Sept. 2007 Cardiff School Of Art And Design, University Of Wales Institute Cardiff.
Currently studying a BA (hons) in Media Studies and Visual Cultures.
2006 - 2007 Pembrokeshire College - AS level in Media/psychology/law.
2004 - 2006 Pembrokeshire College - ND Media Studies.
1999 - 2004 Ysgol Dewi Sant, St David’s, Pembrokeshire. - 10 GCSEs.

Employment:
2008-2009 Soho Coffee.
Dealing with food, customers and money. Using a till and a coffee machine. Cleaning and re-stocking.
2008 The Bishops, St Davids.
Working with food, customers and money.

2008 The Cwtch, St Davids.
Waiting tables, dealing with customers, food and money.

2008 Terra Nova Café - Roath Park.
kitchen assistant, using a coffee machine, waiting tables, dealing with customers and money.
2007 Golley Slater Group LTD - Cardiff.
Call centre operative/charity fundraiser.
2007 The Shed, Porthgain.
kitchen assistant, waiting tables, food preparation, washing up, dealing with customers and money.
2005 The Atroment Arms public house, Croesgoch.
waiting tables, food preparation, washing up, dealing with customers and money.
2004 The Sloop, Porthgain.
Washing up.
2002 Fishguard Bay Hotel, Fishguard.
Preparing and cleaning rooms for next customers.
Work experience:
2004 County sports, Haverfordwest.
Day to day running of a sports shop.
2004 Green Ginger:
Voice over for an animation
2005 S4C:
Volunteer at a charity event
2006 BBC:
Workshop
2007 Woodville Youth & Community Centre:
Taster session as a youth volunteer
Skills:
IT: good basic use of a computer, very fast typist.
Organisational: Organised and produced a band showcase.
Communication: Carried out numerous presentations through my academic life & welsh speaking.
Creativity: Creating & maintaining an academic and personal profile in the form of a blog.
Hobbies & interests:
In my spare time I enjoy going to live music events, gigs and festivals. I spend a lot of my summer by the coast, at the beach, fishing and going out on the boat as I take pleasure in most outdoor activities. I am very keen on walking, reading and dancing. I’m interested in popular culture, current affairs, media and fashion. I also gain enjoyment from doing work experience which tributes to my career.
Academic blog: http://stellaella.blogspot.com/
Referees:Chris - Terra Nova Café - Former employer
Terra Nova Café, Roath Park, Cardiff.
02920764370
Ashley Morgan - UWIC university - Lecturer
Llandaff, Cardiff.
02920 416337

Cover Letter:

To the Manager

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am a Media studies and popular culture student seeking employment to coincide with my degree I have attached my CV, and would be grateful if you would be able to consider me for any job vacancies that you may have at present.
I am honest and have excellent customer and communicational skills through my experience of work gained throughout my past employment doing various different jobs.
I am able to work evenings and weekends and despite being a full time student I am flexible to work patterns, and desperate for employment.
Detailed in the attached CV is a previous employer, who would be able to give me a reliable reference on request.
I am enthusiastic and able to start work immediately.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Yours Faithfully,

Sarah-Ella Louise Jones.

Plans, Goals & Dreams.

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:57:00 +0000

Lecturer in higher education:

Higher education (HE) lecturers facilitate learning and carry out research activities in universities and some colleges of further education (FE). They teach academic or vocational subjects to undergraduate and postgraduate students aged 18 upwards, using methods including lectures, seminars, tutorials, practical laboratory demonstrations, and field work.
Most HE lecturers pursue their own areas of research and develop these in order to contribute to the wider research activities of their department and/or institution.
Administrative tasks take up a significant part of the working day. Many lecturers also take on a pastoral role with their students.
» Typical work activities
Work activities vary according to individual areas of responsibility and research. Progression to managerial posts will also have an impact on work responsibilities.
Tasks typically involve:
developing and implementing new methods of teaching to reflect changes in research;
designing, preparing and developing teaching materials;
delivering lectures, seminars and tutorials;
assessing students' coursework;
setting and marking examinations;
supporting students through a pastoral/advisory role;
undertaking personal research projects and actively contributing to the institution's research profile;
writing up research and preparing it for publication;
supervising students' research activities;
undertaking continuous professional development (CPD) and participating in staff training activities;
undertaking administrative tasks related to the department, such as student admissions, induction programmes and involvement in committees and boards;
managing and supervising staff - at a senior level this may include the role of head of department;
representing the institution at professional conferences and seminars, and contributing to these as necessary;
establishing collaborative links outside the university with industrial, commercial and public organisations.

plans: to gain qualifications
goals: to become a lecturer
dreams: ............

the future's bright...

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:54:00 +0000

future plans:

amsterdam - 26th-29th march 2009
the prodigy - 5th april 2009
my 21st - 27th may 2009
oasis - june 12 2009
20 glenroy street - 1st july 2009

Representation: Reality!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:30:00 +0000

Poetic Mode:
Poetic documentary is seen as a modernist art.
Using poetic mode sacrifices the conventions of continunity editing in documentary.
Scenes are rhythamic and fits the music.
Raw materials that filmmakers select and arrange into associations and patterns of their choosing.
No relations between audience and actors e.g. Rain by Joris Ivens (1929).
Ivens creation is now seen as a work of art.
Another example is Jean Mitry's Pacific 231 (1944) music and the sound of the engine.
Poetic mode is used in historical and knowledgable documentary. Nichols, B. (2001) introduction to documentary, Bloomington: Indiana university press. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvg2HH4PEDE

Representation: REALITY!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:23:00 +0000

Documentary modes : Participatory

The engagement between film maker and the subject is recorded with the film maker having being actively engaged with the subject. The film maker asking questions of their subjects, sharing an experience, so the information is coming directly from the subject and is heavily reliant on the honesty of the witness.

‘participatory documentary gives us a sense of what it is like for the film maker to be given situation and how the situation alters as a result. The types and degrees of alteration help define variations within the participatory mode of documentary’ (2001: 116)

This is evident in Kurt & Courtney by Nicholas Broomfield, where he interviews people who know Kurt and Courtney (even interviewing Courtney’s dad) yet from the start of this documentary you get a sense of Broomfield’s opinion on Kurt & Courtney due to the way he asks questions and his interaction with the people he’s interviewing.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ewyVuYfp_yo

‘Another is the work of Nicholas Broomfield, who adopts a brasher, more confrontational - if not arrogant - style in his Kurt & Courtney (1998) : his exasperation with Courtney loves exclusiveness despite unsubstantiated suspicions of her complicity in Kurt Cobain’s death compels Broomfield to film his own, apparently spontaneous denunciation of her at a ceremonial dinner sponsored by the American civil liberties union’ (2001: 119)

Nichols, B. (2001) introduction to documentary, Bloomington: Indiana university press.

I'M GOIN' TO AMSTERDAM!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 15:31:00 +0000

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

cv. 17th jan 09!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 15:30:00 +0000

consumerism essay!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:45:00 +0000

Sarah-Ella Louise Jones
Representation: Consumerism
MSVC 203
Word count: 3,251
Consider the role of advertising in the media. Critically analyse the kinds of techniques that might be employed to sell a product.
In this essay I am going to consider the role of advertising in the media, how the media manages to advertise to us products we need, products we desire and even products that damage our health. Advertising which is also known as promotion, public relations and marketing is a way of communication that aims to gain potential customers, by persuading consumers to purchase an object, and not only buying a product but buying into the whole ideology which would be the sellers brand, the sellers services’ and other products. It is a non-personal, mass mediated message.Advertising has a role in consumption, within getting the message through to the consumer on the product the advertisement goes through a series of decisions and thoughts within the consumer as to whether they should actually buy the product. There are different stages within consuming a product that advertisement has an important role in. First of all the advertisement has to create a basic awareness level about their product and their services, when the consumer starts to consider the product the consumer then looks passed the actual object and begins to consider the ideology and the message the advertisement is portraying, if the ideology and the message is taken on board there is a connection established between the product and the consumer. Reaffirmation needs to take place so the consumer is aware and agreed on that the connection does exist and that the consumer can see a desire or need for the product within their lives. Even though this process is similar to considering the product and the service in the first place the consumer also has the additional competition of other products with them advertising to the consumer, the consumer also needs to evaluate each advertisement and chose a preference to which product they are going to chose, if they stick to the original product there is confirmation where the product is decided on and then viewed in a positive light as it has beaten all of the competition. Action is then taken where the consumer will buy the product and there is also reinforcement from the advertisement and the company as the consumer still has to maintain a positive association with the product and in doing so the consumer will then have a connection established between themselves and the brand, advertising is reinforced here so that the consumer will now use the brand again and the brand will become part of that consumers life.
‘Advertising is a series of appeals, symbols and statements deliberately designed to influence the receiver of the message toward the point of view desired by the communicator and to act in some specific way as a result of receiving the message, whether it be to purchase, vote, hold positive or negative views, or merely maintain a memory. Also, advertising is not always in the best interest of the receiver of the message,’ (Jowett & O’Donnell 1999: 149)
Advertising is so powerful that even products that harm our health can still be sold to us, advertisements are constructed so we over look the damage it does to our health and we concentrate and focus on the social benefits we gain from them, for example cigarettes.
‘we seek to understand and analyze propaganda by identifying its characteristics and to place it within communication studies to examine the qualities of context, sender, intent, message, channel, audience and response. Furthermore, we want to clarify, as much as possible, the distinction between propaganda and persuasion by examining propaganda as a subcategory of persuasion, as well as information. Our definition of propaganda focuses on the communication process-most specifically, on the purpose of the process: propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.’ (Jowett & O’Donnell 1999: 5)
Throughout history, cigarette companies have employed various techniques in which to sell us tobacco. On targeting men the advertisement would showcase a handsome, wealthy looking man smoking cigarettes thus tapping into the emotions of men and the desire to appear attractive to the opposite sex. The man in the advert would be wearing a suit which would have the connotations of a wealthy lifestyle. In looking at the advertisement men would want to be the same as the man in the advert with the benefit in buying that commodity would then buy them the lifestyle the man in the advert has, a wealthy lifestyle, wearing suits and thus attract the opposite sex. Sponsorship is used to advertise cigarettes, it was used throughout the formula 1 racing which would already have a big male audience and there for the advertisement would be going out to the audience who it was aimed for.
After having male custom, tobacco companies then went on to target females as their new consumers, Along came the term public relations which is seen as a middle person between the public and a product, it was invented by Edward Burnay’s who was Sigmund Freud’s nephew. Edward explored crowd psychology with the help of his uncle’s work of psychoanalytical; he managed to manipulate the public’s opinions using his uncle’s knowledge and work of the psychology of the subconscious. Cigarettes where once only smoked by men and deemed socially unacceptable for women to smoke, due to the actual cigarette unconsciously symbolising the phallus, so Edward Burnay had to create a way and a new direction in to which cigarettes were seen and advertised so they would be consumed by females. The way he went about this was reconstructing the actual subconscious way people viewed the cigarette, he suggested the cigarette was now like the statue of liberty, ‘torches of freedom’ and managed to convince the suffragettes to smoke them whilst doing a protest, the lighting up of a cigarette was to symbolise their liberation, this was filmed which was then televised to mass audience which then changed the shift in smoking being a male dominated activity, and there for gaining a female consumer audience.
Tobacco companies have also targeted women and young girls advertising that smoking makes you slimmer, thus tapping into the need we have to be attractive to the opposite sex.
Children in the past have also been targeted by advertisement to buy cigarettes, despite being younger than the legal age. This was advertised through cartoon advertisements.
Through advertising we are encouraged to consume, Shopping fits into the capitalist system and is encouraged by the capitalist system via advertising, as it creates desire, as we already have our needs.As a society we define ourselves by what we do, we also gain a sense of identity through products. Even though shopping is a mundane activity it is important to us as it is a visual culture, we are constantly consuming visually. Shopping also is vital for the economy, and it showcases social organisation. There is a big significance of shopping within culture. Not only has it changed the way that we consume but the social and physical landscapes have evolved. We are now a society living in a culture which expects a twenty-four hour, seven days a week shopping availability, even when the shops are shut consumers can still consume online.There is also a major shift in desires verses needs, with many tag lines going with our desires which is what advertisement creates, for example a consumer thinking that having a certain suit is going to make them more eligible for a job due to it being advertised in a shop window on a manikin so consumers are able to view it on a physical form. Advertising encourages us to consume, the media is a big way of communicating to us what is trendy at a particular time, and the media also starts trends and is able to showcase these to us as a mass audience. Shopping is represented in the media as not only an individual benefit but also shopping will help the economy bloom and therefore supporting the capitalist ideology. For example, currently people are being encouraged to spend to try and make the economy bloom and over throw the credit crunch. Glamorising shopping is also another way of tapping into people’s desires, for example sex and the city is about four women who love shopping, and in sex and the city the girls are nearly always consuming whether it is having lunch, or actually buying shoes. This is glamorising such a mundane activity bringing a whole new enjoyment through it and also using shopping as a considered hobby. different techniques are employed to sell different products, Public relations are employed to help advertise certain products, there is a cycle between product and consumption. It beings with the product which is then taken on by the P.R who are hired by the people making the product, P.R use the media to make the public aware of their product which then leads to the consumption.Public relations can do many things to sell products, for example by having a celebrity endorse the particular product is going to get the product in the media. For example if a trendy celebrity was to be seen using a certain I-pod and the images of the celebrity were all across the media it gives consumers a way of trying to aspire to be like a certain celebrity. In a sense its using the celebrity as a human billboard, catapulting the object into people’s lives. It also relates to the lifestyle of the celebrity, for example people aspiring for the celebrity lifestyle can have a piece of it if they were to have that I-pod. Across the media, different mediums are used to sell products, The media has several different mediums to broadcast to us products in order for us to consume. Television, which not only has adverts in between programmes, but also showcases celebrities talking about and wearing certain stuff, which is always constructed by P.R and managers.
Product placement is a form of advertising, which use texts already in the media using actual products in texts for promotional advertisement. For example, in ‘fight club’ the film starts with the character talking about his apartment in regards to ‘Ikea’, it is part of the story but not only is it advertising the products that ‘Ikea’ has to offer but also the ideology of ‘Ikea’, and what ‘Ikea’ symbolises within our society. Consumers and audiences are already aware of the connotations of the brand ‘Ikea’ due to its saturation in the media.Adverts are broadcasted on television, most channels have adverts before, in between and after programmes. These can range from advertising other programmes to advertising consumer objects. Particular objects are advertised at particular times so they are reaching the correct audience. For example, toys are advertised in the morning whilst kids are watching their morning cartoons before school in the ploy that then they will then nag their parents to buy the particular toy, this is what is known as ‘pester power’ the adverts would also be televised when the kids come home from school to gain the same potential customer. Kids are an easy target, as they are easier to influence.Shopping fits into the capitalist system.
Different techniques are used to sell different products, advertising attempts to influence consumers buying behaviour by providing a good selling message.Different techniques are employed to sell different products as each product needs a different message, as they are aimed at different audiences so the right message needs to be sent. Audiences belong to pre-existing groups and categorise which define the consumer. Gender, age, family, class, nation and ethnicity are all ways of defining an individual and therefore representing information on them as consumer, for example a middle aged mixed race male is not going to consume in the same way as a young white female, there for there is different ways that advertising would target consumers on their background information there is also additional factors such as education, religion, political allegiance, region and urban versus rural background. On a mass scale, the advertisement has to be sent to audiences’ of all ages and levels of intellect and as audiences become so used to being spoken to in a particular way, a particular mode of address is used which is considered to be ‘dumbing down’ when the media is trying to get across a message which is quite difficult to take on board, the message is dumb downed so it can be understood by everybody.Audiences need to be targeted in specific ways. an audience can be defined by a particular product for example buying a C.D comes with a genre, which is helping define the type of person due to what music they consume. There is also particular specific audiences for types of products, for example having a niche audience for specific computer game magazines, which would not apply to a dominant audience.
Desire is created by the media and shown to us through advertising, it is a medium which tells and shows us what we desire. Advertising is how something we desire is sold to us, it is supplemented by capitalism. After we have our basic needs met, advertising comes into practise when we are then sold commodities which we do not really need, yet we are shown through advertising how better off we would be with that product. Advertising showcases to us what we could have, what we could look like providing we consume the desirable commodity their advertising. The commodities which bring with it idealised lifestyle, promising us a better life if we buy that commodity, that if we have that commodity it will bring us closer to our goal of perfection as consuming is all about striving to be better, better looking to the opposite sex, deeper and greater emotional fulfilment and social acceptance. Advertising taps into our emotional state and tells us we are not good enough, that the products that we have are no longer the latest of that product available hence why we consume. Advertisement tells us that we aren’t good and in striving to be better we consume.
Desire is sold to us through sex, advertising is not advertising sex but the guarantee that we will gain it from consuming, that we will become more attractive to the opposite sex thus consuming. Freud studied the psychological approaches to consumerism and studied how everything we do is to be attractive to the opposite sex and this is promoted to us through advertising of desires.
Problems occur from always striving for our desires, desires that are forever changing. Oliver James coined the term ‘affluenza’ which is the effects of us always striving to be better, to be perfect due to what capitalism is telling us to buy in order to be perfect. It is the illness that is caused through us always striving to be better and in doing so buying certain products which leads the consumer to be happy and content for a period of time before another better product comes out and then making consumers unhappy once again, it causes poor mental health as consumers are always striving for something that is forever changing. It is representing to us our desires but advertising them to us as needs. Society then have the pressure of trying to consume more in order to fulfil the promise of a better life and the benefits with that advertisement and thus creating identity, yet to consume more people need more money and in doing so need to work harder for a dream they can never catch for a long period of time. Depression due to trying to achieve something that is unachievable is also commoditised, capitalism is the reason behind this depression and un-fulfilment and to better our emotion consumers consume drugs in order to cure their depression thus the drug companies making more money which overall is supplementing capitalism, this is evidence of a consumerism circle.
‘Advertising usually involves the cost of production and distribution. The advertiser (communicator), in turn, hopes this cost will be returned eventually in the form of some benefit, such as the purchase of a product, the casting of a vote, or positive or negative feelings. In fact, advertising is the most ubiquitous form of propaganda in our society. It is found everywhere we look and almost everywhere we listen, and its pressure is felt in every commercial we make. The use of advertising as a means of information the public about the choices and availability of goods and services is an integral part of the free enterprise capitalist system’ (Jowett & O’Donnell 1999: 149)
Advertising not only creates and advertises us desires but it also advertises our needs, Despite us needing it and already having our basic needs met, companies can still sell us more of our basic needs, despite us already having it. They exploit our basic human emotions and needs with advertisement on the product that they make us believe we cannot live without. Bottled water is a prime example of this, despite us already having our basic needs through tap water; bottled water is sold to us with tag lines such as health benefits that we need to be hydrated in order to function. Tapping into our emotional needs and exploiting the fact that water is vital in order to stay alive. Such mundane products are easy to advertise due to them being basic commodities within our lives.
‘we must also not overlook the increasing importance of advertising as an integral part of economic development and the emergence of consumerism, for many techniques developed to persuade customers to purchase products were later adopted by other propagandists. One significant aspect of the 20th century propaganda is the symbiotic relationship between advertising and other forms of propaganda, particularly as techniques for reading audiences become more sophisticated and reliable’ (Jowett & O’Donnell 1999: 96)
The media is a visual medium thus being able to visually show consumers and audiences its commodities, and sell its ideology. Without the media advertising would be impossible. Without advertising we would not know what we desire, advertising plays such a vital part within our consumer culture. The media and advertising supplement and work together with the aim of producing a consumer society.

I chose the question I was most interested in and then formed on a plan in how I was going to go about tackling the question. I went to the library and got a book that was relevant and very useful, I managed to read this book enough to know that it would have been perfect in helping me with the essay but came to a hurdle when somebody else had reserved the book so even though I was able to write the information I remembered I was unable to quote it. Overall I think the essay went okay, I struggled with the consistency of the essay despite having a plan to follow and think the essay was weak in some places. I think I put the right amount of time and effort into it but think I needed to read more academic books to support my work and work closely with my plan rather than using it as a rough guide.

Bibliography
O’Donnell V & Jowett G propaganda and persuasion 1999 sage publications

subculture essay!

noreply@blogger.com (StellaElla) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:42:00 +0000

Investigate a specific case study relating to fandom or a subculture of your choice. Critically appraise the case study in relation to a range of theoretical perspectives studied within the module.
Your study should address how your chosen example offers insights into theories on fandom/subculture and audience perspectives generally. You are expected to relate the study to work undertaken on this module (e.g comparing and contrasting examples from those given in lectures and seminars)
Word count: 5,921
Subculture is a group of people despite belonging to a larger culture have another culture as well. Fandom is a form of subculture, as even though the fans within the fan group have a larger culture in which they belong to, they also have their subculture that they belong to which is their fandom. Subcultures subvert hegemonic ideologies, and their beliefs are always showcased via their image and behaviour. Moral panic when there is a threat to society usually follows a sub-culture, as the sub-culture identity is accompanied with hysteria.
Grunge is a genre of music, and with it comes a sub-culture due to its fans. Sub-culture is an alternative culture to the dominant culture within society, ‘During the 1950s, Albert Cohen and Walter Miller sought to supply the missing theoretical perspectives by tracing the continuities and breaks between dominant and subordinate value systems. Cohen stressed the compensatory function of the juvenile gang: working class adolescents who under-achieved at school joined gangs in their leisure time in order to develop alternative sources of self-esteem. In the gang, the core values of the straight world - sobriety, ambition, conformity, etc. - were replaced by their opposites: hedonism, defiance of authority and the quest for ‘kicks’ (Cohen, 1995)’. (Hebdige, 1987: 76)
Just like a sub-culture, grunge is an alternative culture, an alternative from the normal and ordinary. Grunge helped give belonging to teenagers in society that felt isolated, it gave comfort to teenagers who felt economic alienation supplemented with social alienation.
Grunge was an authentic genre which cared for the bands and the musicians, the ideologies and the belonging rather than money.
The ideology of grunge is going against the dominant hegemonic values of society. This is different to Muggelton’s research on post-subculture and identity as he found that post-subculture is not fixed, instead of resisting and apposing against the system they are using it to their advantage and choosing their own attitude and fashion where as grunge had its set ideology, rules and rituals.
In this essay I am going to research the fandom of Nirvana, focusing especially on the front man Kurt Cobain. Despite Kurt Cobain no longer even being alive and thus the band splitting up, the band still holds such a big fan group. I am going to look closely at the reason behind fandom and the substance gained from being a fan, before addressing other people’s fandom I decided to look into my own.
In my teenage years I was struggling with my own economic alienation and trying to piece together my own identity, I found music as such a comforting device to hold on to, from finding a way to express myself as well as gaining a sense of belonging. I used it as a well of rebelling against my parental as well as a way of helping me dealing with my own teenage angst.
I was able to identify myself through the music I liked, as well as helping me figure out who I was and forms opinions on the world. Fandom also started my social life, as the first time I went out was to a gig.
In researching fandom, I already had background knowledge of Nirvana fans as I had been one back in school and so were my friends so I had past experience on Nirvana fans and fans in general, as well as being one myself. I looked on the internet, not only on forums but also on official and non-official fan sites. There were a numerous websites that fans had constructed themselves with information and pictures they had gathered for the website.
I studied old press cuttings on interviews from Kurt and the band himself, as well as looking at old alternative music magazines.
Forums were the dominant medium in which I found my research, posting questions about their fandom as well as reading posts already there.
For primary research I carried out interviews with fans, as well as going on official Nirvana sites. I visited the official Nirvana fan club website and posted questions there as well as getting Nirvana fans to fill out questionnaires on their fandom.
The secondary research I used were existing case studies on fandom as well as unofficial websites, as well as websites constructed by fans.
The only problems I had during the research was fans not complying, acting too cool to answer my questions and wondering why they should even bother helping me.
This is actually a similar answer in which Kurt Cobain may have replied with, thus the fans have adopted the Kurt Cobain and Nirvana attitude. In interviews Kurt would reply to questions asking how it is anyone’s business but his own or simply being sarcastic and acting in a incompetent, foolish manner.
The internet is a forum which illustrates fan behaviour as the internet is a post-modern medium which makes finding out information more accessible, it is also used as a form of communicating with one another. It creates a place where people are able to network as it is an interactive medium. Trimer coined the term the ‘air port lounge’ which the internet is, it is an environment that is not cemented, it can also hold a place for fans whom have little commitment as well as fans who show the up most commitment in regards to their fandom. It is not only an advantage for the fans but also the bands themselves who can reach such a mass audience in such a simple easy manner.
On a fan site or a bands website you are able to access information from lyrics, to band reviews adding to your cultural capital, making you a level higher in your hierarchy and there for being a positive factor in your personal needs.
Personal connection is elevated via the internet, it gives such a sense of closeness to other fans, creating a community, Maffesoli studied the term ’neo-tribalism’ where a basic term is formed throughout fandom, where they gain personal needs that comes with being part of something, the advantages they get from belonging to a group, yet instead of having set rules and rituals, they are bought together through their similar lifestyles, interests and hobbies rather than their fundamental ideologies.
The internet is also a device in which fans can feel closer to the band.
Within forums the internet is also a medium which showcases distinction and discrimination, throughout my research it has come apparent that competition is very high between fans. There are clear cut boundaries within fandom that consists whether you’re a real fan, or who’s a better fan who would then gain praise and distinction and then gain self esteem from knowing lyrics to the songs, this would give them hierarchy and this would give them social status, despite it only being a shadow of cultural economy (fiske) yet it is not actually knowing anything about high culture, for example knowing who has just won the political election which would be classified as cultural economy, but within their group of fandom where the knowledge is self-acquired it would give them hierarchy.
Throughout my own fandom and researching Nirvana fans I saw how fans use their fandom and their knowledge gained through this to close the gap between them and society, this is what is known as an audiocat. This gave the fans self-esteem as their knowledge which is bringing them closer to society was self taught thus gaining the self-esteem through doing something yourself.
Authenticity is also made apparent via the internet. Boundaries are set within fandom, for example picking and chosing of whether you are a fan of something within your chosen fandom, for example ‘Smells like teen spirit’ being your favourite fan would make you less authentic as if you only know the more commercial songs, thus being hailed not a real fan. It would also lead to hierarchy, discrimination and distinction on when you became a Nirvana fan, the more authentic fans would have been with Nirvana at the start and after their most successful album ‘Nevermind’, rather than just liking their mainstream commercial album and work.
On asking fans what would consist a real nirvana fan, I had a various set of answers. Elen suggested ‘my boyfriend is a real fan, he was around when they first came out and he’s collected nirvana memorabilia ever since rather than getting into them years later although you could do that and still be a real fan’ (web 3) insinuating that it takes memorabilia and for to have been there when Nirvana had come out to be a real fan where as Louis thought ‘having one album’ (web 4) would consist of being a real fan.
‘fans discriminate fiercely: the boundaries between what falls within their fandom and what does not are sharply drawn. This is discrimination in the cultural sphere is mapped into distinctions in the social - the boundaries between the community of fans and the rest of the world are just as strongly marked and patrolled. Both sides of the boundary invest in the difference; mundane viewers wish to avoid what they see as a taint of fandom - ’I’m not really a fan, of course, but..’ on the other side of the line, fans may argue about what characteristics allow someone to cross it and become a true fan, but they are clearly agreed on existence of the line. Textual and social discrimination are part and parcel of the same cultural activity’ (fisk 1992: 35)
The internet gives fans a way of choosing their level of fandom in post-subculture the internet can host fans which then can fall into a category of being a tourist or a traveller within what has been coined as the supermarket of style by Polhermos.
The tourist and traveller terms were researched and given the name by Muggleton, and the tourist means they can play around with the conventions and boundaries of being a fan, whom claim you do not have to have every C.D to b a real fan where as the traveller would gain social status and thus esteem for having every C.D and knowing every lyric.
The difference between a tourist and a traveller is the tourist is more authentic, tourists seek authenticity which would then lead to distinction and discrimination, yet the tourist is aware of the post-modern take on fandom and embraced it.
It is down to the internet that it is hard to pigeon hole a sub-culture, despite it pushing and blurring boundaries it is such a vital medium in strengthening subcultures and fandom.
The internet is also a place to talk about your specific band, a social place where you can express your interest with like-minded people and in doing so feel a sense of belonging and gain social and self-esteem.
Identity is also very important within using the internet as a medium, it allows people to create many different identities, the supermarket of style is the accessibility you have from the internet it thus creates and supplements identity changes.
It is fundamental for niche audiences, and people searching online type in specific searches so they usually stay within their chosen net-work this is evident in Hodkinson’s research on the internet communication and sub-cultural boundaries, where it looks into the post-modernity of the internet. It also became apparent that the Goth subculture that he studied was similar to the grunge subculture in how they now use the internet.
Through my findings on asking questions regarding the internet, fans commented that whilst they were on Nirvana websites and fan websites they would use hyperlinks to go to band merchandise, web spaces that hold Nirvana’s lyrics and other texts within Nirvana fandom.
The main use for them using the internet was for social networking, not only was it a way of making friends through their passion of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana but friendships were also constructed outside of cyber space ‘me and my best friend bounded over Nirvana. He introduced me to AIC, I introduced him to Nirvana and Nirvana became both of our favourite band. We had the same bleak outlook on life. of course then he got into a different scene, we drifted apart’ (web 9) yet it was a vital factor in communicating in regards to arranging to meet up for gigs.
In Thornton’s studies he says the media is vital distribution medium in which fans can showcase their knowledge on their fandom.
The internet helps to supplement subculture as well as it does supplant it due to the blurring of boundaries, it also challenges Hebdige’s theory of his ideology of fandom being about going against the system as sub-culture which the internet is an important medium within is not going against the system, it actually supplements it.
There are various other mediums used by fans, magazines are used to gain knowledge which would then be talked about socially, which would lead to distinction and discrimination and in doing so creating hierarchy. Gigs are also advertised within magazines which would build on the social side of fandom.
Interviews pushed by the magazine interviewing Nirvana would add to cultural capital, it would also give information on the band adding to your social status.
Gigs would be a major part in fandom, adding to authenticity of your fandom, throughout my research I did not actually come across anybody who had actually seen Nirvana yet many of the fans like myself have seen the Foo Fighters and thought of Nirvana whilst watching Dave Grohl. Some fans stressed how they would not of actually liked to of met Kurt Cobain himself due to fear of disappointment, as a star as a constructed persona which could then lead to meeting the star when he is not playing out his persona which would ruin your illusion on your fandom.
There have been many books published on Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, Autobiographies and biographies on the band. Entitled ‘Kurt Cobain: the journals’ which was written by Kurt himself which was filled with drawings and thoughts on fame, he talks about rock history and his drug abuse. On reading reviews it was sparked that only a ‘real’ Nirvana fan should read this the reader would need background information about Nirvana for his thoughts to make sense, this would spark hierarchy and also self-esteem gained if on reading his journals you would understand what was happening at that date with the band because it is not written within his journals.
This would add authenticity within fandom, as reading his journals would be primary information; it would give the fans a sense of closeness.
Merchandise is a way of capitalising on existing money making medium. Nirvana and Kurt has a vast variety of merchandise, from books to t-shirts.
Textual productivity was also valid in the sense of how it made a lot of the fans themselves want to pick up a guitar and start their own band.
Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain identity was not stereotypical of his gender, he challenged hegemonic ideologies through in the way that he would dress, instead of looking and acting like a stereotypical male he was quite feminine, this is evident in television appearances and also what he would wear to do his gigs. Kurt often wore eye liner and dresses, going against the dominant masculine men that he was not a fan of in the music industry, in the rock industry it was dominated by masculine men who would slate and disrespect women, he felt from a young age that women were repressed, disrespected and not counted for, he did not want to be another rock star who was going to treat women in such a way.
For a male to be wearing eye liner and a dress would have caused moral panic within society, as it would challenge hegemonic ideology through gender, this is also visual in David Bowie’s fragmented persona, Frith and Hebdige studied Bowie, the ideologies that came out of these studies were that due to them going against the dominant ideology that there is actually narcissism within the ways boys looked and played around with the way that they were excepted to look by society.
On being asked whether Kurt’s gender and non-stereotypical masculinity played a large factor in your fandom, he replied with ‘uhhh… without you mentioning it, I never would of thought it. But actually, yeah. It wasn’t like the reason I liked them or anything, but that aspect was one of the things I respected about him. As a result, when I played in this band for a school play (big rock at candy’s mountain) I wore a dress. At the time I truly didn’t relate to traditional masculinity at all and I saw Kurt’s stance as both a rebellion and a superior form of masculinity. To me it was the difference between the “toughen up, derp!” kind of brainless, soulless, heartless masculinity and a lifestyle that involves having emotions’ (web 8)
He did not want to be a sexist icon like the other males within the music industry. In asking John what first attracted him to Kurt Cobain, he replied with ‘as an adolescent I was confused about who I was meant to be in the sense of gender and sexuality and I found this band with a front singer with such sadness whilst wearing a dress and I latched on to it, I was not like everybody else but never had the confidence to be myself’ (web 1) personal needs is a big reason throughout the research in how people first sought out Nirvana, John also stated that Kurt’s non-stereotypical view of masculinity was a key aspect in his fandom ‘I believe it is why Nirvana became my favourite band and why Kurt was my idol, I saw myself him in so much and his music became the background music to my life at that time when I was very confused’ (web 2)
By wearing a dress and eye liner it represented that he could be as feminism as he wanted, he was often abused mentally and physically at school for not being the stereotypical boy, and through his music he had a new found freedom on expressing himself due to him being so isolated and repressed for being himself through his childhood, that now he could be whatever he wanted to be, he could represent difference and challenge the hegemonic values of society that had haunted him for being different from his school years. By a male wearing male up which is a feminine ritual he was rebelling against the system, it was a gesture of defiance and a signature ritual in the issue that he is not going to conform, or be how society thinks he should be. Kurt was very androgynous, he did not want to be seen as male or as a female but he wanted to be counted as a person, he thought that gender played a small part within his ideology.
Kurt went on to help other people create their own identity, ‘I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t want to look like Kurt Cobain, maybe that’s why I grew my hair long, maybe not. Either way I don’t go out of my way to look like him, yet they affected me in some decisions I wouldn’t of done otherwise’ (web 10)
Kurt was also an enigma in regards to his sexuality; he was forever changing his answer to whether he was gay, straight or bisexual. Another issue that would spark questions on his sexuality would be him wearing a dress, which is seen as feminine action. His lyrics would be pro-gay which would spark questioning into his sexuality, but the reason behind this was not to spark questions towards his own sexuality but to publicise the fact that there is nothing wrong with being gay. Through Kurt’s childhood he found it difficult to interact with his male peers, as being so different from them apart from one boy who was gay, Kurt disagreed with the way that his friend was treated just for being gay and his mother even stopped him hanging round with this boy. He then found himself making friends with girls and there for got the experience and was able to witness how females were treated unequally, repressed and with no respect this went on to be a core factor in him constructing his own identity in later years.
What becomes apparent in his childhood is the depth of alienation he felt, for not being stereotypical, for having different views and beliefs, for being slightly feminine, he was even targeted against for liking art and for wanting to do something with his life instead of wanting to go into the same trade as his father like most of his peers at school.
Kurt Cobain’s parents also broke up when he was ten, adding to another level of his alienation, he strived and wanted so badly a normal family with a mum and dad like all of his peers, another dominant ideology that had been forced on him, that to be a family it does consist of a married mother and father. He found this lack another wedge between him and his peers and when his parents finally divorced he became very much isolated further than he was before and more than anything became anti-social. In Nirvana’s song ‘serve the servants’ the effect of the divorce becomes apparent in his lyrics ‘that legendary divorce is such a bore’ another lyric from the same song is ‘I tried hard to have a father but instead I had a dad’ and this links back to the lack of relationship him and his father had, due to his dad being a stereotypical masculine man that was unable to showcase any love or affection to his son, Kurt never really established a relationship between his dad.
In discovering music, semiotic productivity came about in the way that he reacted towards hearing the music, the music was relevant to him and he was able to make the music mean something to him; Kurt found belonging, despite his alienation, isolation, sadness and negativity he found music as such a positive comfort throughout his adolescence. He started listening to punk music with all the rebellious ideology; he found this genre fit in with how he felt socially and politically. The sensibility of punk was gaining respect for yourself despite your class, gender or sexuality stance. Punk created equality for women and it was rebelling against the system, views in which Kurt believed in and found a place within the punk genre through listening to bands such as the sex pistols. Just as Kurt was not stereotypically masculine the punk music he was listening to was challenging hegemonic sensibility.
This is similar to Louis’ reason on why he liked Nirvana in the first place ‘I saw a live video of Nirvana when I was 14 and he (Kurt) jumped into the crowd and started hitting a security guard with his guitar, I thought that was pretty cool’ (web 6)
The aggression that was seen throughout punk, even as far as the way the audience would act at gigs, as it was the punk movement who started the mosh pit was an out let for all of Kurt’s angst. Punk celebrated different and ugliness something Kurt had dealt with his whole life.
He found such reassurance through punk that there were other people battling with the dominant ideologies.
This is made apparent in the case study that Hebdige and Fiske did on punk, with the key force and ideologies of punk fans being a punk fan was due to finding a place for alternative identity, punk was an alternative identity from social dominance, a way of belonging for people who did not fit into the hegemonic values of society and this is apparent in Kurt’s fandom of punk.
Even through Kurt’s own fandom, came textual productivity when he then created his own band and wrote his own lyrics due to being inspired by other peoples lyrics and music.
All of Kurt’s feelings that are stated within books and interviews are apparent through his lyrics, they reflect his feelings and experiences.
The song ‘come as you are’ denotes trying to fit in, pretending to be something you are not and doing something else because somebody else is doing it, this reflects him not fitting in and being judged for being different. Lyrics in the song such as ‘no, I don’t have a gun’ denotes that he has nothing to hide and he is not going to judge you so do not be something you are not.
Nirvana’s song ‘dumb’ starts with the lyrics ‘I’m not like them but I can pretend’ which is another reference to trying to act like something he is not, to pretend to be something just so he can fit in with society, his alienation from his peers and society is evident throughout all his music, in lyrics such as the one’s in the song ‘Lithium’ where he sings ‘I’m so happy ‘cause today I found my friends, they’re in my head’ which connotes the lack of friends he had as a child due to being so anti-social.
‘Smells like teen spirit’ was the biggest rock anthem in the 90s, it reflected the society in which surrounded Kurt, even the title connotes an essence of ‘generation X’ it sings about his generation which was fuelled by anger, boredom and cynicism.
From finding punk as a way of Kurt belonging he then tunnelled his thoughts and feelings into his own lyrics which would of given everything Kurt got from punk to his own fans.
There are various links to other texts, after the death of Kurt Cobain the members went on to form other bands, Dave Grohl the drummer of Nirvana went on to form the very successful band the ‘Foo Fighters’, throughout the research on Nirvana fandom it became clear that most Nirvana fans had come to be a ‘Foo Fighters’ fan, the ideology between the two bands is consistent which would give fans authenticity from going on to be a ‘Foo fighters’ fan and therefore remaining a Dave Grohl fan. Elen’s fandom of Nirvana came secondary to that of her fandom for the foo fighters ‘I first heard Nirvana on the ‘Kerrang!’ channel… think it was ‘smells like teen spirit.’ I was into rock music so it was exactly the stuff I was already into, plus Kurt was pretty nice and I liked that Dave Grohl was in the band as I was a fan of the ‘Foo Fighters’ anyway’ (web 5)
It is clear that fans are productive; Throughout the research it became apparent that Nirvana and Kurt influenced his fans to different music genres ‘it got me into punk rock’ (web 7) create music themselves, as well as even giving them influence on other creative subjects ‘I did an a-level art project on Kurt’s artwork’ (web 8) on being asked whether he has influenced your life in anyway.
‘they influence my music writing style, they don’t influence my lyrics so much. They influence what music I listen to. They’ve influenced things outside my music tastes and writing as well. I’m not of a liberal person now due to reading about Kurt’s pro-choice stance on almost everything. I look at drugs in a different way too, I understand the attraction and the addiction better without having to take them myself. They play a role in my life, a small one yes, but I look at a lot of things different because of it. People, the world, music.’ (web 11)
Grunge like every other subculture has iconography, just like the research Hebdige and Fiske did on punk, grunge had an ironic attitude with self-awareness and a strong ‘do it yourself’ ethnic, clothing advocated its own construction. The uniform of grunge gave the specific genre a visual gesture, not only through the laid back attitude, but ideology was apparent through clothes, make-up and hair styles; ‘these choices contain a whole range of messages which are transmitted through the finely graded distinctions of a number of interlocking sets - class and status, self-image and attractiveness, etc’ (Hebdige 1987: 101)
Ripped jeans were a vital part in there grunge look, this signifies anti-establishment and anti-commodity and therefore connoting anti-capitalism through anarchy through destroying a pair of jeans. The tearing of jeans also signifies the ripping up of the establishment, this is very similar to the uniform of the punk, the ‘do it yourself’ attitude and tearing of the clothes to create new meanings.
It was also very important not to drip your jeans too much in the fear of looking like you are trying too hard, trying to look to constructed in a genre where the ideology was about not caring about the way that you looked. The whole grunge look as well as the music was meant to be authentic, inexpensive and carefree which reflected the ideology.
Band t-shirts were part of the grunge uniform, as well as plain simple t-shirts and clothing, the whole look was inexpensive and it meant to reflect this, no designer or labelled clothes were to be worn. Drawing on t-shirts and also flannel t-shirts were vital in creating the grunge look. The grunge uniform for girls was very similar, very little make up which would make them more androgynous which would connote not trying to be a male or a woman but more wanting to be counted as a person, despite gender. Girls would also wear ripped jeans, band t-shirts and aim for inexpensive look, it was all constructed in thus to look grunge, the inexpensive thrown together look was fabricated ‘it stands apart - a visible construction, a loaded choice. It directs attention to itself; it gives itself to be read’ (Hebodige 1987: 101)
Grunge was a sub-culture was a sub-culture that welcomed girls, O’Brien studied how girls were involved within the punk genre, despite at the time in the 70s girls were still being ridiculed and treated unfairly, punk like grunge were something they could be apart of away from the dominant culture.
Throughout O’Briens findings it concludes that there are many benefits for a female within a sub-culture, it gave them a way in which they could create an identity, it was used as a vice in which to not only be different and accepted but to visually showcase difference. It also sent a strong message that women do mattered in music, and therefore mattered in society.
Grunge gave women a way in which to rebel, as they rebelled against the way society thinks they should dress and behave. Instead of dressing like stereotypically how society expects girls to, grunge gave them an alternative identity, thus giving them a chance to feel and be more liberal.
It was not possible to broadly categorise the profile of the fan base as the fan base as a whole was made up from the ages of thirteen to thirty, from fans who had been around when Nirvana were actually around at their time to fans who had heard them a few years ago, yet the fandom started in their early teens, where rebellion and not fitting in was already evident. The same also applied to gender, there was a mix of boys and girls of whom were fans of Nirvana. The fans I questioned were white and straight and from working class families which is also evident in the studies on punk fandom and thus the creation of sub-culture itself.
On reflecting on individuals within the overall profiles the conclusion that became apparent was the reason for fandom throughout the study was not only their fandom of nirvana, but what they got from being part of a community who shared an interest. It helped fans create identity ‘at the age of 15, I didn’t really fit in at school, I don’t know why so I isolated myself and music became my friend, on finding nirvana I bought a nirvana t-shirt and to my amazement a boy came up to me in school and started talking about Nirvana, this was the first time I had socially been interactive and we became good friends after that, without the nirvana t-shirt, I would have been sitting on my own at lunch’ (web 12) this is also visible in the case study Stevenson did on Bowie fans, on how relationships were started due to being fans of Bowies, it gave them a start in which to form friendships due to their common liking of their star.
To summarise the research in addressing fandom, it became apparent that fans were the most identifiable and visual audiences. Fans are an active audience, thus the uses and gratification theory, fans use the media and use fandom to their advantage, forming something that has meaning to the individual and there for gained and benefited from their fandom.
‘the literature on fandom is haunted by images of deviance. The fan is consistently characterized (referencing the terms origins) as a potential fanatic. This means that fandom is seen as excessive, bordering on deranged, behaviour’ (Jenson 1992: 9)
Despite being stereotyped as being unhealthy, fandom has given comfort to so many people. Fandom not only comes from the liking of the text but also from a problematic social existence.
Rebellion was also a key factor, fandom gave fans something in which to use to rebel. Fans used their fandom to form their identity in regards to dress, attitude and ideology.
‘I suggest here that these two images of fans are based in an implicit critique of modern life. Fandom is seen as a psychological symptom of a presumed social dysfunction; the two fan types are based in an unacknowledged critique of modernity. Once fans are characterised as deviant, they can be treated as disreputable, even dangerous ‘others’ (Jenson 1992: 9)

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Web 12 - yawn - http://www.nirvana2.com/system/display.php?thread=5766&forum=1&perpage=30&page=1&order=asc - 7th December 12.02am
www.facebook.com
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Jenson J (1992) fandom as pathology: the concequence of characterizations, in Lewis A L (ed) 1992 adoring audience - fan culture and popular media. London, routledge.
Fiske J (1992) the cultural economy of fandom in Lewis A L (ed) 1992 adoring audience - fan culture and popular media. London, routledge.

Hebdige D subculture - the meaning of style 1987 London, Routledge.