300-450words essay

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EVERYDAY CULTURE

FINDING AND MAKING MEANING

IN A CHANGING WORLD

DAVID TREND

Paradigm Publishers

Boulder • London

52 CHAPTER .Two

out artists for their abilities to "think outside the box" and work in quicldy

formed teams and collaborative groups. Artworks portray historical eras,

events, and values. Art records the accomplishments of groups as well as

the fates that have befallen them. Art keeps alive the specificity of human

difference and past tradition.

45. Paul W illis, Common Culture: Symbolic Work at Play in the Ev­

eryday Cultures of the Young (Boulder and San Francisco: Westview Press,

1992), 1.

46. Ibid., 18.

47. Ibid., 1.

48. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life.

49. Ibid., xii.

50. Juliet B. Schor, Born To Buy (New York: Scribner, 2004).

51. Ibid., 9.

52. Ibid.

53. Juliet B. Schor, "Towards a New Politics of Consumption," in

The Consumer Society Reader, eds. Juliet B. Schor and Douglas B. Holt

(New York: The New Press, 2000), 459.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid.

56. Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,"

in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New York: Monthly Review

Press, 1971).

57. Hans Magnus Enzenberger, Critical Essays (New York: Con­

tinuum, 1982).

58. David Gauntlett, Media, Gender, and Identity: An Introduction

(New York: Routledge, 2002), 195.

59. Ibid., 39.

60. Juliet B. Schor, "The New Politics of Consumption: Why

Americans Want So Much More Than They Need," in The Boston Review

(Summer 1999).

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid., 15.

CHAPTER THREE

READING

LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION, AND NEW MEDIA

Reading takes place everywhere in all kinds of unexpected ways. Any discussion of everyday culture requires a discussion of the ways that ordinary people interpret the movies and TV they watch, the

radio and music they listen to, the toys and games they play. In the

broadest sense it can be said that people "read" the media in quite diverse ways, bringing to the interpretative encounter their various

educational histories, cultural backgrounds, and levels of literacy,

as well as their tastes, biases, and opinions. Forms of culture play out differently in different cultural activities-shopping, going to

school, traveling, work, and leisure-as well as in different media.

To a certain extent everyone possesses a degree of critical skill. It's often said that the TV generation has a level of media literacy

superior to the print generations that preceded it. Today's digital, generation is more media literate than its predecessors who grew up without computers or the Internet.

No one needs reminding that media-photography, video, film, the Internet, and interactive computer games-plays an enormous

role in our lives. The U.S. Department ofLabor estimates that the average adult spends four hours every day watching TV, two hours

53

54 CHAPTER THREE

listening to the radio, thirty minutes online, and thirty minutes

reading.1 Regardless of one's viewing habits or the time one spends

at any one media activity, it's hard to deny the importance of me­

dia culture in shaping our understandings of who we are and how

we got here. So accustomed have we become to using media for

learning about those around us, our communities, national, and

international events, that most of us, long ago, came to rely on

the media and generally trust its ability to inform.

This section begins with an essay called, "Literacies and Media

Literacy," examining the role of language and the functions of

speaking, reading, and writing in communication. The concept

of literacy is expanded in discussions about the variety of ways

messages are sent and received in an era of media and computer

communications. The next essay, "Violence in the Media," applies

principles of media literacy to the topic of representational violence.

It outlines several ways to think about this highly contested public

issue. The final essay, "Technology and the Everyday," reviews both

utopian and dy stopian perspectives on new media technologies.

Literacies and Media Literacy

When most people hear the term "literacy," the first idea that

comes to mind is written proficiency. A literate person is one who

knows how to read and write . In the contemporary world, literacy

is considered to be a prerequisite for success in school, careers, and

everyday life. Students who do not learn to read and write prop­

erly are compr�mised in their ability to function fully in society.

If a person cannot read, it is difficult to fill out a job application,

get a driver's license, or access important news and information

that may only be available in printed materials. Literacy also plays

READING 55

a crucial role in the maintenance of a healthy democracy. To par­ ticipate in collective decisionmaking, citizens need to be able to access information, "read" the world around them, and respond in appropriate ways. Contrary to what many people think, literacy is a pertinent issue throughout the world and is not just a chal­ lenge faced in underdeveloped countries or inner cities. Literacy challenges exist in every neighborhood, every church group, every school, and every work environment. It's important to recognize that definitions of literacy vary. Also, literacy is relative to the nation or place in which it is measured. When the National Institute for Literacy speaks of literacy in the United States, it specifies "literacy" in English because it recognizes that non-English speakers may be perfectly functioning members of society. There is no single definition of literacy. In fact, the term "literacy" now extends far beyond mere spoken or written language. As Elizabeth Thoman and Tessa Jolls explain:

Today, information about the world around us comes to us not only by words on a piece of paper but more and more through the powerful images and sounds of our multimedia culture. From the clock radio that wakes us up in the morning until we fall asleep watching the late night talk show, we are exposed to hundreds-·even thousands--of images and ideas not only from television but also from websites, movies, talk radio; magazine covers, e-mail, video games, music, cell phone messages, bill­ boards-and more. Media no longer just shape our culture ... they are our culture.2

Although most people take for granted their abilities to decipher the meanings of photographs, television programs, movies, and other media, numerous complex audio/visual "languages" are used, each having specific rules and grammar. Thoman and Jolls assert,

56 CHAPTER THREE

"If our children are to be able to navigate their lives through this

multimedia culture, they need to be fluent in 'reading' and 'writing'

the language of images and sounds" just as they have learned to

"read" and "write" the language of printed communications. 3

In discussing media literacy, psychologist Howard Gardner

explains that people possess not just one form of intelligence but

what he terms "multiple intelligences." Gardner contends that

"literacies, skills, and disciplines ought to be pursued as tools that

allow us to enhance our understanding of important questions,

topics, and themes."4 Today's readers become literate by learning

to read the words and symbols in today's world. Readers analyze,

compare, evaluate, and interpret multiple representations from a

variety of media formats, including spoken language; texts, pho­

tographs, moving pictures, and interactive media.

On a basic level, media literacy has evolved to help people

understand the different ways that information is organized and

presented in these audio/visual formats. Although everyone pos­

sesses a fundamental ability to understand a lecture, a photograph,

or a television commercial-clearly we are in an era in which further

education can help one grapple with the sensory overload that the

more complicated forms of media utilize. Consider the ways these

different forms of media deliver content.

Speaking is a linear, time-based form of expression. Words and sen­

tences are uttered in a sequence that accumulates meaning as

the speaker continues to tall<:. In classical Western philosophy,

spoken language was said to operate through the principles of

rhetoric and grammar. In ancient and medieval times, rhetoric

( from the Greek word rhetor for orator or teacher) was the art

or technique of persuasion through the use of oral language. 5

As such, rhetoric was said to flourish in open and democratic

societies with rights of free speech, free assembly, and political

READING 57

enfranchisement for some portion of the population. In con­ junction with rhetoric, grammar concerned itself with correct, accurate, pleasing, and effective language use through the study and criticism of literary models. Keeping track of rhetoric and grammar requires considerable concentration, since what is being said typically is not repeated. Listeners must follow the spoken sequence of ideas and construct the story or argument in their own minds. One advantage of conventional face-to­ face spoken communication lies in its ability to convey added nuance and meaning through the intonation, facial expressions, pacing, and body language of the speaker (ethos). Also, listen­ ing makes demands on one's time. A person can read a book anywhere and anytime. But conversations or lectures are often fixed in time and space.

In today's digital world, much communication takes place by electronic means. People don't spend as much time as they once did sharing the same physical space for an exchange of ideas. In the 1800s, audiences would sit for prolonged periods to hear oratorical exchanges. Neil Postman writes that the famous presidential debate between Stephen A. Douglas and AbrahamLincoln onAugust21, 1858,lasted seven hours, with each spealcer debating and then responding for ninety minutes at a time.6 Listeners can exert control over the speed of the communication only ifin conversation with the speaker-or in a situation like a class or meeting, which would permit feedback during the discussion. Such instances afford participants in a dialogue to make observations, pose questions, or otherwise interact to change the course of the spoken narrative. Listen­ ers must maintain attention to the spealcer and make efforts to screen out extraneous sounds or goings on. The telephone facilitates this process in common usage by limiting commu­ nication to two conversants. Anyone who has ever joined a

58 CHAPTER THREE

conference call will attest to the complexities of keeping track

of the multiple voices, which have been stripped of their visual

and spatial referents. People on conference calls need to tell

others when they arrive or arc leaving and continually need to

remind each other who they are.

Written language also works in a linear sequence, but not with the

same spontaneity of speaking: Because the narrative is printed

on a page, readers have the ability to determine the pace of

reading. At the same time, readers need to remain relatively

immobile, concentrated on the text, and undistracted by extra­

neous design elements, typographic flourishes, or illustrations.

In this sense, readers can exert a degree of control over the

sequence of ideas they are given. Readers can pause, reread,

skip ahead, or talce breaks in their reading. But because the

narrative is silently appearing on a page, readers have little

opportunity to interact or respond to the writer or to gain

the type of additional cues that speaking can express. Also

unlike spealcing, written texts can be shared with others or

reengaged at other times. Indeed, the physicality of a printed

text is one of its great advantages over spoken language. But

this same physicality also tethers messages to the materiality

of printed matter.

It took the introduction of the telegraph in the mid-1800s

to mobilize the world of print by changing the speed by which

information traveled. Prior to the telegraph, information could

only move as fast as a ship or train could travel. With the

telegraph, the huge time lapses that could fall between news

and its reception at a distant location were eliminated. But the

context from which news emerged was often lost in the process.

As the speed of messages increasingly surpassed the ability of

people to travel with them, telegraphed information began to

READING 59 I

take on a life of its own. Some historians of communication assert that this dematerialization of information ushered in a new age of deception and confusion-while at the same time allowing disembodied information to become commodified in new ways. Messages disconnected from any physical trace of their origin could be decontextualized and manipulated as never before.7 A person on the West Coast could com­ municate via telegraph with a person on the East Coast, but not necessarily with any depth or background knowledge. As Postman writes, "The telegraph may have made the country into 'one neighborhood,' but it was a peculiar one, populated by strangers who knew nothing but the most superficial facts about each other. "8

Sound recordings offer many of the benefits of written texts in the ways they allow readers/listeners options for reviewing or altering the pace of listening. Recorded information offers obvious benefits to the unsighted or to those without reading ability. Recorded texts also convey additional levels of meaning that come from inflection, intonation, multiple voices, and added elements like music or sound effects. But recordings require equipment that written texts do not. The benefit of sound equipment lies in its ability both to play and record information-and by extension makes the recordings avail­ able by duplication, amplification, or transmission to multiple listeners or remote audiences in much the same way printing functions for written texts. Recorded music is consumed by individuals, broadcast via radio or the Internet, compiled into collections, and in the digital age is shared among users, sampled, manipulated, and reused in new, creative contexts. Sound recordings do this in part by isolating a moment and then removing it from what falls outside the recording. This

60 CHAPTER THREE

erases the surrounding information from which the recording

was derived. Context disappears. At the same time, recordings

exploit the viewer's trust in mechanically produced realism.

Even though people know that sound recordings can distort

reality or create alternative realities via analog or digital en­

hancement, people retain a belief in their verisimilitude even

if it is a tentative belief. There is no other choice.

Photography delivers meaning in a nonsequential fashion, with the

entire image available at once. With a photograph, a viewer

has the ability to navigate the image, choosing where to look

and what elements to scrutinize. For this reason, the meanings

that photographs convey are less stable than sound recordings

or written texts. What a photograph "says" to a viewer is in

part dependent on how the viewer chooses to "read" the im­

age. Photographic meaning also emerges from such elements

of visual language as composition, shape, tone, color, point

of view, image size, and crnpping-all of which are operating

simultaneously. These formal elements are but the beginning

of the story, however. The content of the image, juxtaposition

of subject matter, and the various interpretations that pictorial

elements evoke work together to make photography an ex­

tremely dynamic medium. Complicating matters further are the

accumulated meanings that come when several photographs

are seen together on a page, or in sequence, or when captions

or other texts accompany the images. The multiplicity of these

factors explains why people often derive different meanings

from photographs or at times can't explain why a photograph

is saying what it is saying. Some communications' experts as­

sert that the complexities of photographic language enable it

to manipulate viewers, as happens in advertising, propaganda,

and entertainment contexts.

READING 61

Motion pictures combine the elements of movement sequence' ' sound, and special effects with the delivery of photographic meaning. Individual shots are animated by action taking place within them, but further motion can be added with camera zooms, pans, and tracking techniques. These cinematic forms of movement geometrically extend the complexity of meaning beyond that of a still photograph. The sequencing of shots into a filmic montage adds another dimension. Dialogue, voiceovers, music, and sound effects contribute added layers of meaning. Conventional special effects and the plethora of contemporary digital enhancements, animation footage, and computer-generated imagery complicate interpretation still further. But like photographs, moving pictures construct a world of decontextualized fragments. Film and video clips exist without a connection to the world from which they were taken. They can be used for any purpose to say anything. As such, pieces of moving imagery have no certain history, veracity, or ethics. They are simply fragments of material.

Interactive media use computers or networks to enable the user to initiate communication or respond to it. It is often argued that interactive technologies are more potent than "passively" received media such as television and radio because users must actively participate in the experience of searching a text, playing a game, or writing an e-mail message. The nature of this interaction becomes exceedingly complex if audio/visual information and text are negotiated simultaneously with hand controls and steering mechanisms, and accompanied by the perception of rapid movement through space. The interac­ tive character of computer networks has enabled the creation of online communities and new "spaces" of engagement for purposes ranging from game playing to academic research.

62 CHAPTER THREE

The two-directional information flow of interactive multimedia also has enabled industry and government to monitor online activity and collect information about users.

As even this brief review of media forms and technologies suggests, the various "languages" embedded in everyday com­ munication, entertainment, and news media are considerably more complicated than many people perceive. Yet most of us take our fundamental "literacy" in these technologies for granted. Should we be concerned about media with such powerful abilities to ma­ nipulate information or influence opinion? Postman has argued that as we have evolved from a society based on the spoken or printed word to one based on photography, sound recordings, and moving pictures, we have gradually lost the ability to discern the veracity of what we are interpreting. Postman states, "Since intelligence is primarily defined as one's capacity to grasp the truth of things, it follows that what a culture means by intelligence is derived from the character ofits important forms of communication. "9 Postman goes on to explain, "As a culture moves from orality to writing to printing to television, its ideas of truth move with it."10

With spoken and typographic media, many people feel more confident about their abilities to discern the truth of statements because they can examine messages in a controlled, word-by-word manner. Clear rules of syntax in oral and written communication have the effect of stabilizing meaning. But a photograph "lacks a syntax," according to Postman, "which deprived it of a capac­ ity to argue with the world."11 He claims that "As an 'objective' slice of space-time, the photograph testified that someone was there or something happened. Its testimony is powerful but of­ fers no opinions-no 'should-have-beens' or 'might-have-beens.' Photography is preeminently a world of fact, not of dispute about facts or of conclusions to be drawn from them. "12 Making matters

READING 63

worse, photographs dislocate meaning in both time and space. Susan Sontag wrote about this ability of a photographic image to alter the interpretation of a scene, stating that the borders of a photograph "seem arbitrary. Anything can be separate, made discontinuous, from anything else: All that is necessary is to frame the subject differently."13

Cautionary voices like Postman's and Sontag's urge consider­ ation of media and digital education in public policy de bates, school curriculum discussions, and the programming of public service media. These advocates assert that in today's world a media/digital literate citizenry is a necessity for a healthy democracy. This type of literacy education begins with an analysis of how images on TV or on the Web are built in formal terms. It then moves to discussion of the producers, intentions, contexts, and economic issues behind visual material. These powerful concepts of electronic literacy can be used to enhance people's critical thinking skills about the mass media to help them look at television and interactive media in new ways, and to clarify the role that consumers play in the economics of media.

The Evolution of the Media Literacy Field

Television became a part of education in the United States during the decade following the Second World War, but critical viewing was the last thing from the minds ofits early proponents. As the first wave of the baby boom hit the classroom in the 1950s, video was recognized as a means ofincreasing teacher productivity. By simply eliminating the need for duplicate presentations, video was credited with reductions in teaching labor of up to seventy percent. 14 Video was also recognized as a powerful tool for observation and evalua­ tion.15 Concurrent advances in computer and telecommunications

88 CHAPTER THREE

Technologies and the Everyday

Any discussion of everyday life needs to contain a consideration of"digital culture" and the technological values it promotes. Pick up any newspaper or magazine, or turn on a television, and you will see endless advertisements and news items· suggesting that the latest digital phone, palm computer, minidisk player, or chip­ implanted credit card will yield increased productivity, enlivened leisure time, and enhanced communication-not to mention social harmony, economic stability, and democracy. 51 U nlil<.e prior utopias brought about by philosophical reflection, social amelioration, or proletarian revolt, this version of the future emerges as a product of a different sort. With the purchase of the appropriate products and services, a perfected existence will come from a multinational corporation.

This vision isn't so new, really. Throughout history, business interests have cloaked their agendas in a rhetoric of social better­ ment. General Electric's familiar "better living through technol­ ogy" mantra of the 1950s was really just another way of focusing consumer attention on the added convenience of electric frying pans, blenders, and dishwashers-and away from the specters of industrial pollution, nuclear annihilation, and the forces of a preda­ tory market capitalism. Indeed the purpose of advertising has always been to sell the idealized images that lie behind commodities, rather than merely the products themselves. In our hypersaturated media environment, the relationship of representations to their referents becomes reversed. Commercial images do not represent products as much as products represent images. 52

So what is new about the utopia offered by cyberculture, i f anything? In part, the answer lies i n the extent that this utopia end­ lessly is hyped and promoted. But in another sense, digital media present novel and not entirely understood modes of experience

READING 89

that extend subjectivity, social relations, and political power into increasingly ephemeral and elusive dimensions. As people spend more and more time with their telephones, televisions, and com­ puters, the physicality of experience diminishes. This has specific consequences for the world of commerce, where the production and sale of goods and services increasingly moves from the mate­ rial to the immaterial. Concepts and images-termed "intellectual capital"-now dominate a marketplace previously devoted to the exchange of objects. In this environment, new currencies emerge relating to speed, access, and privacy. How fast a connection can one afford? How much hardware is needed? Where, when, and at what price can one access information? At how many points are one's movements and choices observed, recorded, analyzed, and sold?

Current controversies over the role of digital media in con­ temporary life have their roots in unresolved contradictions in the history of technology itself. As an area of study, technology largely was ignored through much of Western history. In the aristocratic culture of ancient Greece, the most revered forms of thinking addressed social, political, and theoretical concerns rather than what were considered the everyday banalities o.f technology. 53. Not unlike contemporary attitudes toward "technical schools" and

"technicians," the idea of technology carried a crudely instrumental connotation. The conceptualization of "technology" in today's inclusive and comprehensive understanding of the term did not gain popular currency until after World War I. As the Western enlightenment was unfolding in the l 700s, technical ideas were considered endeavors in what were termed the "mechanical arts" (material, practical, industrial), as opposed to the "fine arts" (ideal, creative, intellectual). As Leo Marx writes, "The habit of separating the practical and the fine arts served to ratify a set of overlapping invidious distinctions between things and ideas, the physical and the mental, the mundane and the ideal female and male, mal<.ing

90 CHAPTER THREE

and thinking, the work of enslaved and free men. " 54 This is not

to suggest a negative view of technology-simply a resolutely

practical one. With the development of the biological and social sciences in

the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, technology came to be

viewed as a natural manifestation of the human will to grow and

prosper. This idea of technology a:s an organic and unremittingly

positive "extension of man" provided the basis for what has been

termed "technological instrumentalism." Within this commonsense

framework, technology is viewed as a neutral tool that serves as an

agent of social progress. Technological instrumentalism flourished

in the nineteenth century with the development of such devices as

the steam engine, locomotive, water mill, cotton gin, power loom,

telegraph, and numerous other inventions that enhanced human

capacity and industrial productivity. Ruminating over these inno­

vations in his famous "Sign of the Times" essay of 1829, Thomas

Carlisle termed the coming era the "Age of Machinery. " 55 But the

technological revolution had other consequences as well. With the

broad-based mechanization of the workplace, the character of labor

began to change, as goods once made by hand were produced on

the assembly line. Over time, the culture of the everyday became

controlled. As shoemakers, blacksmiths, and similar craftspeople

were displaced by workers who operated machinery and punched

a time clock, trades of many types became drained of their "artis­

tic" elements. Attitudes toward work and leisure began to shift as

a result. To a large extent, creative activity ceased to be a part of

one's workplace activity, but instead was redefined as something

experienced off the clock. Paralleling this mechanization of everyday experience of work

was the development of large-scale integrated "technological

systems" to make such mechanization possible. Between 1870

and 1920 in the United States, enormous growth occurred in the

READING 91

development of electric power and light companies, telegraph and telephone systems, the chemical industry, transportation systems, and large-scale manufacturing. The mass production and distri­ bution of a commodity like an automobile called into existence a complex constellation of variously skilled workers, suppliers, subcontractors, managers, supervisors, clerks, transporters, deal­ ers, and service people. Railroad systems developed networks of tracks, equipment, conductors, communication networks, and ticket agents. Power grids were called into being as highways and housing developments sprang up across the nation.

Complimenting this thoroughly modern evolution in material goods were similarly scientific methods of everyday management. In this era the doctrines ofTaylorsim and Fordism emerged to enhance worker efficiency and workplace productivity, as employees came to be seen more as components of the larger technological system than as individuals. As labor became fragmented and systemized, new regimes of rationality, efficiency, and order emerged in the edifice of impersonal bureaucracies and hierarchical administrative structures. In an atmosphere of economic growth driven by the imperatives of the modern corporation, the ethos of the day was continual accel­ eration and accumulation. Over time, technology became invested with "a host of metaphysical properties and potencies, thus making it seem a determinate entity, a disembodied, autonomous, causal agent of social change-of history. "56 The legacy of these early technological systems and their ideological underpinnings of the everyday are still with us today, manifest in the burgeoning biosci­ ence and information technology sectors that the popular media tell us are fueling the nation's economic recovery.

It is important to acknowledge the range of counterarguments that have arisen to the systemization of everyday experience-and especially during the post-World War II years-to question, con­ tradict, and negate the unproblematized premises of such utopian

92 CHAPTER THREE

visions of technological progress. Historian Andrew Feenberg has used the term "technological substantivism" to describe various strains of opposition to the overriding discourse of technological instrumentalism.57 Substantive analyses do not see technology as neutral, but instead view it as the embodiment of so,cial values. An early skeptic of instrumentalism, Martin Heidegger wrote that technology invariably creates relationships of control from which people struggle in vain to free themselves. As a substance existing throughout human history, the hidden secret of technology as a controlling force became manifest in the modern era. "It is impos­ sible," Heidegger wrote, "for man to imagine a position outside of technology. "58

Jacques Ellul, among other substantive critics, further elabo­ rated on the distinct relationship of technology to daily life. To Ellul, "technology has become autonomous" in its ability to structure human actions and relationships. Ellul was responding specifically to the way technological systems of the early twentieth century became transformed into "technocracies"-or technologi­ cal bureaucracies-in which technology evolves into a branch of politics.59 Within the autonomous logic of the technocracy, the original scientific impetus to develop systems for the Enlightenment goal of a better and more egalitarian society became subverted by the solipsistic imperatives of technology itself. Ellul' s technocracies are self-replicating systems in which every action is rationalized as a contribution to technological improvement and expansion. As such, they constitute one of the primary means by which the Weberian iron cage of bureaucracy becomes actualized.

These generalized notions of technological substantivism as­ sumed a degree of heightened potency and specificity in the years following World War II. With Hiroshima, the nuclear arms race, and the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, public anxieties began to erode the unquestioned role of technology as an instrument of

READING 93

social good. As a myriad of technologically based domestic prod­ ucts, like television, were introduced into the home, other voices were beginning to point out the environmental devastation cre­ ated by unchecked industrial expansion. By the end of the 1960s, the student movements of the New Left had given technocracy a name-the "military-industrial complex"-and were blaming it for a plethora of social ills ranging from ecological devastation to the corporate transformation of the university into the "multiversity." Activists sought a structural reorganization of technocracy to bet­ ter serve the interests of democracy. Such sentin1ents deepened in the 1980s with the 1984 leakage of poisonous gas from a Union Carbide Plant in Bhopal, India; the 1986 explosion of the Cher­ nobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Russia; the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the shores of southeast Alaska; growing recognition of the phenomena of acid rain, ozone depletion, and global w�rming; and the social devastation of rust-belt communities brought on by the collapse of heavy industry.

Slowly the topic of technology in everyday life began to emerge as an issue of intellectual concern in a variety of disciplines. In addi­ tion to critiques from the antiwar and environmental movements, important analyses of technology emerged from Marxist, feminist, and poststructuralist circles. The Marxist arguments addressed the overarching linkage of technology to markets. As discussed by Andrew Ross, early on, technology was "dealt a hand in the power structure of capitalism (which is increasingly dependent on science-based industry), while its efficiency logic came to prevail over scientific management of everyday life. "60 The systematic effects of such social engineering have been widespread, from the reorganization of labor to the industrialization of culture and entertainment. This materialist critique differs from the substantive view of technology as a menace in its own right. Although lend­ ing itself easily to market exploitation, technology in this view was

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more a means than an end. As Ross concludes, "Capitalist reason,

not technical reason, is still the order of the day. "61

Feminist views of everyday technologies grew, at first, from

critiques of science as a patriarchal system practiced by men and

for men. Writers like Sandra Harding considered technology in

epistemological terms, asking: Whose interests are served by a

rationalist philosophy of science that posits the world in universal

terms? According to whose logic are "objective" certainties of

lmowledge established? This feminist interrogation of objectivism

soon gained currency in the social sciences, where the ethnocentric

underpinnings of Western rationalism were further revealed. The

answer to Harding's rhetorical question "Is science multicultural?"

came back a resounding "no. "62 An important parallel to the femi­

nist critique of objectivism emerged in analyses of language and

representation. From such fundamental feminist issues as the cri­

tique of everyday speech emerged a more fi.tll-fledged inquiry into

the role of linguistics in the development of thought and identity.

Like objectivism, structuralist views of language offered a universal

grammar in which rules and characteristics remain consistent from

culture to culture. Also like objectivism, the structuralist view was

too broad as a way of understanding how meaning functions. The

feminist critique of t his singular world view was soon adapted by

visual theorists like Laura Mulvey and Teresa De Lauretis, who

d th d. fi: · " h I . f d "63 analyze ways at me 1a mct1on as tee no og1es o gen er.

In the poststructuralist strain of this thinking, theorists ques­

tioned singular definitions of progress and rationality.64 Michel

Foucault, in particular, gained prominence in describing the

"technologies of power" embedded in social institutions or such

metaphorical constructs as the panopticon.65 Although celebrated

for their novelty, Foucault's views on technology can be seen as

extensions of prior critiques of technocratic systems . For Fou­

cault, such systems create environments within which people are

READING 95

controlled, often unwittingly. Yet Foucault departs from earlier analyses in his acknowledgement of the partial or contingent role played by technology in the context of other influences. Perhaps the most significant element in Foucault's formulation lies in the allowances he makes for human agency to resist or subvert "regimes of domination" in productive terms.

The post-structuralist critique of science and technology also is significant in its eschewal of essentialism. Many early determinist and substantive views, as well as their critiques by Marxists and feminists, constructed technology as an unchanging phenomenon that carried the same characteristics across time and space. In view­ ing technology as a contingent entity that functions differently in various contexts, post-structuralism suggests that technology is not necessarily a linear and unstoppable force. This leaves open the possibility for a view of technology as progressive, hence yielding a critical space in which to engage its problems and potentials.

To Feenberg , this dialectical view holds importance in its critical tolerance for rationality. Lilce it or not, rationalist objectivism holds a solid lock on the real-life discourses of science, jurisprudence,

· and education, to name a few. As Feenberg writes,

Whatever the ultimate status of scientific-technical knowledge, it is what we use for truth in making policy. We need fur more specific arguments against technocracy that can play at that level. Furthermore, it is implausible to dismiss rationality as merely a Western myth and to flatten all distinctions which so obviously differentiate modern from premodern society. There is something special captured in notions such as modernization, rationaliza­ tion, and reification .66

As we recognize the problems with universal claims of "truth," the need persists for provisional or local truths that can be used in

96 CHAPTER THREE

communication. This is where everyday culture comes in. The task

of making meaning in each and every encounter is more complex

and labor intensive, but it also promises that differences will not

be elided as a matter of course. All of these issues have assumed

a greater complexity in recent years, with the introduction of ac­

cessible technology in the form of home computers and network

interfaces. Formerly abstract ideas about the role of technology in

everyday life have become a part of daily existence.

Notes

1. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "American Time Use Summary,'' in

News (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor, 2005).

2. 'Elizabeth Thoman and Tessa Jolls, Media Literacy: A National

Priority far a Changing World. http://wwmmedialit.01;g/reading_room/ ar­ ticle663.html. Accessed May 10, 2005.

3. Ibid.

4. Howard Gardner, Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences.

for the 21st Century (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 10. 5. "Trivium," in Wikipedia, Jan. 22, 2007. http://en.wikipedia.

01:g/wiki/Trivium. Accessed Jan. 22, 2007.

6. Neil Postman, Amusing Otn-selves to Death: Public Discourse in

the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), 44. 7. Ibid., 67.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid., 25.

10. Ibid., 24-25.

11. Ibid., 72.

12. Ibid., 72-73.

13. Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Farrar, Straus, Gir­ oux, 1977), 20.

READING 97

14. Robert M. Diamond, "Single Room Television," in A Guide to

Instructional Media, ed. Robert M. Diamond (New York: McGraw- Hill,

1964), 3.

15. John M. Hofstrand, "Television and Classroom Observation,"

in A Guide to Instructional Media, 149. 16. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: Extensions of Man

(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 23.

17. The terms "visual literacy" and "media literacy" have been

employed in a variety of differing contexts during the past two decades.

The formalist media literacy of the 1970s should not be confused ·with

the critical media literacy movement of the 1980s and 1990s.

18. Linda R. Burnett and Frederick Goldman, Need Johnny Read?

Practical Methods to Enrich Humanities Courses Using Films and Film

Studies (Dayton: Pflaum, 1971 ), xv.

19. Cary Bazalgette, as quoted in Ben Moore, "Media Education,"

in The Media Studies Book (New York: Routledge, 1991), 172.

20. Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in this Class? The Authority of In­ terpretin Communities (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980).

21. Seymour Feshbach and Robert B. Singer, Television and Ag­

gression (New York: Jossey-Bass, 1971), 12.

22. Concerns over the degrading effects of gritty printed material

can be dated to the early decades of the nineteenth century. The intro­

duction of plate lithography in 1801 made possible the mass production

of books, pamphlets, and broadsides. In the United States, The National Police Gazette, first published in 1833, arose to satisfy the public hunger

for stories of violent crime. History has demonstrated that periodic "moral

panics" over media seem to parallel the development of new communi­

cation technologies and the social changes they enable. The Guttenberg

press and the lithography process made pqssible dramatic leaps in the dis­

semination of written works. Both technologies allowed ordinary people

access to what had formerly been available only to the privileged. And it

made the elites nervous. This was certainly true in the mid-1800s, when

commentators began to link social problems of the industrial era to emerg­

ing forms of popular media, often evoking images of an idealized past free

I 04 CHAPTER THREE

com/html/opinion/2002228040_simdaygoodman03.html. Accessed Aug.

2, 2005.

51. Richard Coyne, Technoromanticism: Digital Narrative, Holism,

and the Romance of the Real ( Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999) . Citing Martin

Platte! and others, Coyne presents a detailed discussion of the way utopian

narratives reflect social anxieties.

52. Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access: The Ne1P Culture of Hyper­

capitalism, Where All of Life Is a Paid for Experience (New York: Putnam,

2000), 173.

53. Martin Heidegger, The Q;iestion of Technology, trans. W illiam

Lovitt (New York: Harper and Row, 1977).

54. Leo Marx, "The Idea of Technology and Postmodern Pessi­

mism," in Technology, Pessimism, and Postmodernism, eds. Yaron Ezrahi,

Everett Mendleson, and Howard P. Segal (Amherst: University of Mas­

sachusetts Press, 1995), 14.

55. Ibid.

56. Marx in Technology, Pessimism, and Postmodetnism, 19.

57. Andrew Feenberg, Critical Theory of Technology (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1991 ); Andrew Feenberg and Alastair Hannay,

eds., Technology and the Politics of Knmvledge (Bloomington and India­

napolis: Indiana University Press, 1995); Andrew Feenberg, Questioning

Technology (New York and London: Routledge, 1998).

58. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and

Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 41.

59. Jacques Bllul, The Technological System, trans. Joachim Neugro­

schel (New York: Continuum, 1980).

60. Andrew Ross, Strange Weather: Ciilture, Science, and Technology

in the Age of Limits (London: Verso, 1991 ), 10.

61. Ibid.

62. Sandra Harding, Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms,

Feminisms, Epistemologies (Bloomington and Indianapolis: University of

Indiana, 1998).

63. Laura Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures (Bloomington:

Indiana University Press, 1989); Teresa De Lauretis, Technologies of Gender:

READING 105

Essays on T heory, Film, and Fiction (Bloomington: Indiana University

Press, 1987).

64. See Bzrahi, Mendelsohn, and Segal, eds., Technology, Pessimism,

and Postmodernism.

65. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment, trans. Asheridan

(New York: Pantheon, 1977).

66. Arthur Kroker and Michael A. Weinstein, Data Trash: The Theory

of the VirtualClass(NewYork: Plagrave, 1994),4.