Chapters 3 & 6 PART I

Globalizing the Body Politics &

Jamming Media and Popular Culture

CHAPTER 3 SUMMARY• To understand how our bodies are sites where categories of social difference

(race, gender, etc.) are marked and negotiated

• To understand that “race” is a social construct that was “invented” historically to serve economic and political ends

• To introduce a process of “reading” body politics to reveal the social, economic and political implications of the meanings we attach to “difference”

• To learn how we, as intercultural communicators, can resist and transform socially constructed categories that maintain hierarchies of difference

CHAPTER 6 SUMMARY• To understand the impact of media

and popular culture on intercultural communication in the context of globalization

• To examine how global and regional flows of media and popular culture influence intercultural communication and cultural identities

• To understand the role of power and hegemony in mediated intercultural communication and the representation of non-dominant groups

• To gain skills and strategies to critically consume, resist and produce media messages in the global context

People communicate meaning and perform identities through their bodies– i.e. clothing, hair style, tattoos.

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IS AN EMBODIED EXPERIENCE

Our Communication With Others Is Mediated Through Our Bodies

People make meaning about each other through our physical bodies and appearances

• i.e. skin color, facial features, facial expressions, gesture

BODY POLITIC

S

How is power written and performed symbolically and

materially on and through the body?

Refers to the practices and

policies through which power is

marked, regulated and negotiated on

and through the body.

Our bodies are sites where categories of social difference are

constructed

(i.e. gender, race, religion, class, sexual orientation, etc.)

TYPES OF CULTURE

FOLK CULTURE

Cultural practices that are enacted for the sole purpose of people within a particular place.**Traditional & nonmainstream cultural activities that are NOT

financially driven. **

• Storytelling • Traditional Dance• Graffitti• Spoken Word

HIGH CULTURE

Cultural activities that are often the domain of the elite or the

rich.

– Ballet – Theatre– Opera – Fine art – Symphony

WHAT IS POPULAR CULTURE?

Systems and artifacts that the general populous or broad

masses within a society share or about which most people have some understanding.

Popular Culture

Generates profit.

Produces social norms.

Creates social identities or sense of who we are.

Maintains social boundaries.

Produces a sense of belonging and membership.

Enables social change and resistance.

POP CULTURE IS PRODUCED BY CULTURAL INDUSTRIES.

CULTURAL INDUSTRIES ARE DEFINED AS:

Industries that mass produce standardized cultural goods

– Normalize dominant capitalist ideologies– Create social practices that are uniform and

homogeneous among people– Easily manipulate the masses into docile and

passive consumers

Institutions that generate Social, Cultural and Political thought through ideas and images.

POP CULTURE FULFILLS A SOCIAL

FUNCTION.

Economic Growth– Culture as

Product– Marketing of

Ideas & Images

Representations of Self & Others

– Generate Knowledge of Others

– Reaffirm Aspects of Self/Cultural Identities

GLOBALIZATION

is shaped by the advances in

communication technologies,

global media, and the spread of

popular culture.

MEDIA & POPULAR CULTURE:

• Facilitates communication across cultures

• Frame global issues and normalizing particular cultural ideologies

• Fragment and disrupt national and cultural identities

• Forge hybrid transnational cultural identities

Media, Popular Culture & Globalization

Media:

The modes, means or channels

through which messages are

communicated.

Network Media

Three elements of the media:TechnologyInstitution

Cultural form

Popular Culture, ICC and Globalization

Cultural corruption:

The perceived and experienced alteration of a

culture in negative or detrimental ways through

the influence of other cultures.

Cultural homogenization:

The convergence towards common cultural values and practices as a result of global

integration

Cultural Imperialism:

The domination of one culture over others

through cultural forms such as popular culture,

media, and cultural products.

Fragmegration:

Describes the dual and simultaneous dynamic of

integration and fragmentation that has

emerged in the context of globalization.

Popular Culture, ICC and Globalization

QUESTIONPOP CULTURE, REPRESENTATION,

& IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION

Cultural texts may or may not “represent” the identities they

target.

A. TrueB. False

S T E R E O T Y P I N G Pop culture represents

stereotypes that are connected to social judgments of others

People tend to remember negative portrayals of other groups

These reinforce negative stereotypes

Many people perceive other cultural groups to be as they are portrayed on popular television shows.

People often learn about other cultures through the lens of popular culture.

Popular culture plays a powerful role in how we think about and understand other groups as well as one’s own group’s representation.

UNIQUE ASPECT OF POPULAR CULTURE

Audiences may experience the private lives of people they do not know, in ways that they never could as tourists.

CONSUMING POPULAR CULTURE

Faced with so

many pop

cultural

messages or

“cultural texts,”

people

negotiate their

way through

popular culture

in different

ways.

Encoding cultural texts

ENCODING: the process of creating a message.DECODING: the process of interpreting a message.

Various industries prepare reader profiles, portrayals of readership demographics, and respond to the cultural and political needs of cultural identities in a variety of ways.

Encoded Message

Sender

Decoded Message

Receiver

Mean ing i s never F IXED , but i s a lways be ing CONSTRUCTED w i th in var ious contex ts th rough encod ing and decod ing .

SOCIAL CONSTRUC

TION Social constructs exist because people agree to follow certain

conventions and rules associated with the construct.

Examples: Language

Money GenderRace

An idea or phenomenon that has been “created,”

“invented” or “constructed” by people in a particular society or

culture through communication

Our knowledge about ourselves, the world, and everyday reality is created through communication

Human beings

participate in the

creation of our own realities

SEMIOTIC APPROACH TO DIFFERENCE

Signifier

The Body Things Actions Images Words

Signified

The Idea or

Concept

Example: “Go,” “Slow,” “Stop”

SEMIOTICS: The study of the use of SIGNS in cultures

SIGNS CONSIST OF SIGNIFIER AND SIGNIFIED

Developed in the late 1800s by Swiss linguist

FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE

There Is An Arbitrary Relationship Between the SIGNIFIER and SIGNIFIED

1. There is NO natural or essential

relationship between SIGNIFIER and

SIGNIFIED

2. SIGNS belong to SYSTEMS and their

meaning comes from their relationship

to other SIGNS within the SYSTEM

3. The meaning of SIGNS is created

through the marking of DIFFERENCE

EXAMPLE: The colors red, yellow or green in a stop sign

The Power of Texts

HIERARCHY OF DIFFERENCE:

System of classification of people predicated on the

socially constructed idea of superior and inferior races

(can also apply to gender, ethnicity, culture, religion, sexual orientation, etc.)

THE POWER OF TEXTS:

Texts construct, maintain, and legitimize systems of inequity and domination by creating authorized

and preferred versions of history and leaving out other perspectives,

experiences and stories.

Silenced Histories: The hidden or absent accounts of history that are suppressed or omitted from

official or mainstream versions of history

QUESTIONPOP CULTURE, REPRESENTATION,

& IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION

Cultural texts may or may not “represent” the identities they

target.

A. TRUEB. False

BUT…People also use popular culture

to reaffirm their own cultural identities.

GENDER DIFFERENCEPhysical differences in human bodies are

used to construct two mutually

exclusive gender categories:

WOMEN & MEN.

Gender differences are constructed in binary opposites:

MASCULINE: strong, rational, significantFEMININE: weak, emotional, and insignificant

How is gender marked through communication?What purpose does this binary system serve?

IS GENDER A NECESSARILY BINARY?

Alternatives To The Gender Binary

THIRD GENDER: People who live across, between or

outside of the socially constructed two-gender system of categorization.

TRANSGENDER: People whose gender identities differ

from the social norms and expectations associated with their biological sex.

THE TWO-GENDER SYSTEM REFLECTS & MAINTAINS RELATIONSHIPS OF POWER Gender difference shapes and impacts intercultural communication in the global context

EXAMPLE: Assumptions about feminine passivity, submissiveness and subservience leads to the global exploitation of women

Who benefits from the gendered construction and performance of unequal power relations?

POP CULTURE & CULTURAL SPACES

People construct their relationships with their

cultural identities through popular culture

Some forms of popular culture (e.g., magazines, newspapers, internet sites) may function like cultural spaces.

Cultural texts are presented in products such as TV shows, movies, magazines, music, toys, and video games

RESISTING POPULAR CULTURE

Sometimes due to a conflict in culture values and cultural identities, people actively resist certain popular culture texts.

Much of the resistance stems

from concerns about the

representation of various social

groups.