Stuart Hall, The Whites of Their Eyes: racist ideologies and the media. (Roz Bocker)

Rosalyn Bocker
9/10/2007
WGS 220-05
Stuart Hall, The Whites of Their Eyes: racist ideologies and the media.
(89-93).

Description:
• Media uses racist ideologies (images/concepts that are used to
interpreted/understand the "other") (89)
Analysis:
• Ideologies are not separate ideas, but "chains" of meanings (89)
• We work within pre-existing ideologies to explain social relationships
and our place in them (90)
• Ideologies "work" b/c they give "knowledge/basis for identification" to
use as truths (90)
• Media portrays events/situations involving race, unquestionably assumed
as true (91)
• Uses symbols (thinly veiled) such as the slave, the native, the clown (91)
Vision: Not Stated

Strategy: Not Stated

Class Meeting 4/16/07 Techno-Pop Culture

Techno-Pop Culture
How has technology become a part of mainstream pop culture?

Jessie's timeline of arbitrarily selected technologies:

Sony's Betamax ($1300 player) Video (1975) & Pong @ home (1975)
VHS Video (1977) Apple II personal computer (1977)
Sony Walkman (1980)
Music CDs for sale in retail stores (1983)
Nintendo (NES) (1985)
Compuserve - retail stores sell "box" for service (mid 1980s)
Prodigy - regional introduction (1988)
Prodigy - US-nationwide (1990) LCD Displays (1990)
Super Nintendo (1991)
WWW gains interest (1994)
CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy as ISPs (1995)
Nintendo 64 (1996)
MP3s online via Winamp (1997) AOL Instant Messenger (1997)
4 years after 1994 over 30 million people online (1998)
Napster (1999) Tivo (1999)
Google - resembling its current incarnation (2000)
iPod (2001) Nintendo Game Cube (2001)
Friendster (2002) Blog - as distinct online format (2002)
MySpace (2003)* Second Life (2003)
Blog - increase in blog titles - political content (2004)
YouTube (2005) Facebook.com (2005) Webkinz (2005) Blog - use by mainstream media for commentary & for primary source reporting of major world events - Madrid Train, London Tube, Hurricaine Katrina, Tsunamis (2005)
Nintendo Wii (2006) Unless you're me, then it's still not on the the timeline b/c they're always out of stock!

Myspace:
The service has gradually gained more popularity than similar websites to achieve nearly 80% of visits to online social networking websites. It has become an increasingly influential part of contemporary popular culture, especially in English speaking countries (Wikipedia)

What is Second Life?

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 5,583,649 people from around the globe.

• From the moment you enter the World you'll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you've explored a bit, perhaps you'll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business.
  
  
• You'll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow residents. Because residents retain the rights to their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other residents.
  
  
• The Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world unit-of-trade, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden Dollar exchanges.
  
  

Welcome to Second Life. We look forward to seeing you in-world.

Webkinz
Ganz stuffed animals with a secret code for kids to use online in Webkinz World

What are Webkinz pets?

Webkinz pets are lovable plush pets that each come with a unique Secret Code that lets you enter Webkinz World and play with a virtual version of your pet.

What are all the cool things I can do in Webkinz World?

Where do we start? First, you adopt your pet and name it. Then you can custom design a room for it. You can play games in the Arcade, or compete against other players in tournaments. You can answer quizzes in Quizzy's Question Corner and enter contests, too. All of these things earn you KinzCash, which you can use to go shopping for your pet in our W Shop, where you can buy toys, furniture and clothes. There are stories to read and fun daily activities. The best part is that we add things to Webkinz World frequently, so it's always getting bigger and better.

Discussion Questions:
Does virtual representation (re)create the gender norms and appearance of difference between the sexes?
Has technology altered gender norms? Does technology have the capacity to alter our understanding of what it means to be a man or a woman in a less-concrete, virtual world?

Class Notes 4/2/07 Group work (Ragonese, "Riot Grrrls Castrate 'Cock Rock' in New York")

(Marissa Ragonese, "Riot Grrrls Castrate "Cock Rock" in New York from Off Our Backs, May/June 2002 issue)

Argument:

• "Feminist punk-rock dyke activist/aspiring academic separatist riot grrrls" want to see more female rock artists being played on the air (92.3 K Rock in particular)
• On one popular rock station in NYC (K Rock), 99.12% of music played is by male artists.
• Feminist protesters argued that in addition to females being discriminated against on the air, wmoen were also being degraded on the rock stations talk shows( ie: Howard Stern Morning Show)

Audience Targeted:

• Protesters are targeting women who are not equally represented on the popular rock stations.
  
• Also targeting all groups who experience inequality in the music industry.

Structure/Discourse:

• All aspects of radio station (music playlists, DJ's talk shows) were sending misogynist, anti-feminist/anti-women messages to listeners.
• DJ's were all males with exception of one.
• DJ's mocked feminist protesters; calling them names, etc.
• Howard Stern Show- show's content is degrading to women.

-Miss Nooch

Blog Post #5 for Friday 4/6/07 Updated

Blogging in College: The Gender & Pop Culture Blog Experiment: "April 3, 2007

Posted by Jessie at 10:03 AM 0 comments

Friday (4/6/07) Blog Post #5 Now with more options to choose from!

- How has your blog-topic made news? When it has been the subject of the news, how has it been depicted? Specifically, when your topic is the subject of the news/media, how do you see the news/media depict gender, race, class, etc in your topic in relation to the reason that it made the news? In other words, does race, class, gender, etc factor into the reason that the topic became 'newsworthy?'

Use at least one class reading and read/watch at least one source of news/media that relates to your topic (when it made news) to analyze this portrayal of your topic by the news/media. Find an example of 'mainstream' news for this assignment. Make sure you link to the news/media source if it can be found online or cite it w/ your citation of the course reading you used at the end of the blog post.

Another issue that at least one person brought up on the index cards* was the topics for the blog posts. I want to keep the topics linked to the course readings and class discussions; however, I also want you to pursue areas that are of interest to you (which, hopefully your topic is one already)"