Browsing by Subject "Mass media"

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“Altamente teatral” : subject, nation, and media in the works of Virgilio Piñera
(2010-05) Cabrera Fonte, Pilar; Salgado, César Augusto; Lindstrom, Naomi; Richmond-Garza, Elizabeth M.; Rossman, Charles; Wilkinson, Lynn; Dominguez-Ruvalcaba, Hector
This study analyzes Virgilio Piñera’s concept of performance in relation to his representation of mass media products and technologies. The central argument is that Piñera’s notion of theatrical representation connects fiction with politics in subversive ways, challenging assumptions of naturalness at different levels, from that of the gendered self, to the family and the nation. To support this argument, the study focuses on Piñera’s representation of a variety of mass media genres as these inspire everyday life performances, mainly in Cuba but also in Argentina. While fictional models and sentimental narratives from the mass media most often convey oppressive conceptions of gender, family, and nation, the author’s representation of the media’s pervasive influence questions and denaturalizes those conceptions. Piñera stresses the disruptive potential of individual performance against the repetitive character of both the mass media industry and the social reenactments of its sentimental myths. His references to mass culture thus destabilize structures of power, including stereotypes of both sexuality and gender. The analysis shows that Piñera’s fictions exhibit important characteristics of queer aesthetics. The study comprises a time span of almost three decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1960s, and focuses on a selection of Piñera’s criticism, drama, poetry, and narrative. Within those texts, special attention is given to references to photography, radio programs, romance novels, movies, and popular music. The organization of Piñera’s texts in this study answers to both thematic and chronological considerations. Chapter 1 outlines the study’s objectives and methodology, also providing a background on critical studies about Piñera. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with plays and short-stories written before the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Chapter 2 examines texts that represent both family and nation in relation to a variety of mass media genres, from Cuban “radionovelas” to Hollywood gangster films. Chapter 3 focuses on two narratives, written in Buenos Aires, that address posing and self-representation in relation to issues of sexuality, masculinity, and power. Chapter 4 deals with a selection of poems written, for the most part, after 1959. In these poems, the literary use of photography stresses theatrical self-representation, often in direct resistance to revolutionary reformulations of masculinity in the figure of the “New Man.”
Imagined reality : black womanhood, telenovela representation, and racial discourse in Brazil
(2016-08) Ribeiro, Monique H.; Vargas, João Helion Costa; Sawyer, Mark; Straubhaar, Joseph; Franklin, Maria; Gordon, Edmund
Although Brazil is composed of an overwhelmingly large population of African descendants, they are usually underrepresented in the mainstream media, particularly in telenovelas (soap operas). The genre has been widely popular in South American countries for the past three decades but Brazil is the largest producer of this kind of programming, Afro descendant actors are generally seen in very small numbers and often portrayed in subaltern roles. Whenever a new soap opera is aired, its author makes his or her rounds in different television shows, magazines, and newspapers in order to publicize the new production. Watching these interviews, it becomes clear that that Brazil does not have any Black scriptwriters, which further complicates the situation, leaving white men and women to construct Black womanhood according to whatever way they see fit. This dissertation builds on research conducted during fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It focuses specifically on the relevance to black Brazilian women’s roles on Brazilian soap operas and how the messages contained in such television shows may or may not impact the process of black female identity formation. This ethnographic dissertation employs participant observation as well interviews with black women to demonstrate how their self-identity and quotidian experiences challenge the interpellation produced by telenovelas.
News as entertainment : seduction or distraction?
(2009-12) Seago, Kris S.; Luskin, Robert C.; Hart, Roderick P.; Shaw, Daron R.; Gosling, Samuel D.; Philpot, Tasha S.
Mass media presentation of news stories more closely resembles entertainment than enlightenment. What effect does this have on: 1) the general public’s ability to recall political information; 2) their attitudes towards political actors and issues; and, 3) their ability to think critically about politics? Psychological research on the effect of “seductive details” has indicated that presenting interesting, but ultimately unimportant details in hopes of stimulating attention may serve to reduce individuals’ ability to remember and use information. To test for similar effects in print and television news, an experimental research design is employed to manipulate news presentation. One set of subjects is presented with serious news stories, while another is exposed to serious stories accompanied by frivolous stories. A number of techniques are employed to measure the effects of news as entertainment on recall, critical thinking, and political attitudes. Given that political information is acquired almost exclusively from the mass media, this dissertation raises important empirical and normative issues about the contribution of mass media to the general public’s information level and level of political sophistication.
Small town, incredible hell : visual arts, advertising, and mass media in the early democratic transition in Chile (1988-1994)
(2016-01-22) Vidal Valenzuela, Sebastian Andre; Flaherty, George F., 1978-; Giunta, Andrea; Shiff, Richard; Julia Guernsey; Carcamo-Huechante, Luis
Images and strategies from the world of advertising and the mass media had been deployed to critique the country’s socio-economic situation in the art of the 1960s and during the dictatorship (1973-1990). During the transition, however, those images and strategies began to acquire more complex and hybrid forms, and their respective boundaries became increasingly blurred. The cross-pollination between the artistic and mass media realms partly originated in the political and economic transformation from a socialist model to the neoliberal one consolidated by the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. In this scenario, a significant number of artists, particularly those linked to neo-avant-garde practices, found in the alliance between art and advertising a central motif to criticize the dictatorial regime’s economic policies (privatization, reduction of trade barriers, deregulation, etc.). I argue that, when democracy returned, that group of artists continued performing art actions that connected these areas, but they now did so in order to criticize the continuation and solidification of neoliberal policies in the transition. “Small Town, Incredible Hell” sets out to make visible the mechanisms through which commercial systems and languages are revisited, re-imagined and critically appropriated by the visual arts in the democratic transition. With this objective, I analyze three paradigmatic cases that enable me to reflect on the complex dynamics between art, advertising and the mass media at this crucial moment in the cultural history of Chile: "La Franja del NO / The NO TV Campaign" (1988), the Chilean Pavilion at the Universal Exposition in Seville in 1992, and “La Escuela de Santiago / The School of Santiago.” I propose that these three cases point towards a chronology of events that suggests three initial stages of the early transition, each of which operates on the basis of the proliferation of commercial images in society. The first moment (La Franja de NO) focused its visual and publicity strategies on the affective notions of "enthusiasm" and "happiness," giving way to a period in which technological experiments of video art were harmoniously combined with the political desires of democratic and cultural restoration. The second moment (Chile Expo 92) centered on the notions of "appearance" and "spectacle" of the newly democratic country’s international image. In this period, the political ambition to insert Chile into the global market was paramount. Finally, I identify a third moment of the early transition (La Escuela de Santiago) that can be defined through the concepts of "revelation" and "denunciation." At that time, the conservatism and authoritarianism prevalent during the transition were questioned by a mail art project that revealed the fractures and incoherencies of political and cultural institutions still subordinated to the dictatorship’s legacy.
Stories in between : narratives and mediums @ play
(2001-08) Davidson, Drew, 1970-; Greene, Ronald Walter; Stone, Allucquère Rosanne
This is an academic study and a narrative about stories and their mediums. It seems that we stitch the fabric of our lives together with and through narrative; it's how we make sense of our world(s). And there are so many different ways that we can tell stories; through various media with different audiences we strive to communicate and narrate our stories to each other. Given that each medium adds to the experience of a narrative in a different way, can we not complementarily combine media together to relate and experience a new type of story? I believe that such a combination of multiple media would create a unique form of narrative in which the story is linked among mediums through the echoing of words, images, characters and environment. To get the story, the reader has to play within and among the various mediums. Using multiple mediums to relate a story would give us varied structure and process; the sender(s) and receiver(s) would be immersed within each medium in different ways. The computational revolution is coming, we have the chance to make an informed choice about how we use this new medium by seeing how it relates to preceding media. This dissertation does just that: it is a hypertextual study that can be found at http://www.waxebb.com/diz/.
Televising architecture : media, public engagement, and design in America
(2014-05) Dodd, Samuel Tommy; Cleary, Richard Louis
Starting in the 1940s, the cultural revolution associated with the popularity of television placed new demands on how and where designers communicated the value of their work with the American public. "Televising Architecture" explains how architects, planners, and other design professionals used television as a communication technology and as a cultural platform for shaping public opinion on the built environment. Each of the six chapters describes a specific purpose and context for the application of television to architectural practice. I consider public affairs programs produced by the American Institute of Architects; the use of closed-circuit television for space simulations; public service announcements meant to offset negative coverage on urbanism; interactive television projects that elicited community participation in planning; and PBS mini-series on the history of American architecture. I conclude by discussing Home and Garden Television (HGTV) as a lesson in media convergence for design professionals in the twenty-first century. "Televising Architecture" provides a new way to understand architecture not as a text, image, or built object, but as a complex system of communication models — including representation, negotiation, mediation, and participation — that occur between design experts and the public at large. I draw from the work of media and technology scholars who treat media as sites of negotiation and convergence. One of my primary methods is to analyze the largely untapped archive of architectural images, texts, and sound-bites found in television programming. I do so by examining programs themselves, including frame-by-frame analysis to identify what the programs communicated through visual tropes and camera and editing techniques, and a textual analysis, drawing on transcripts, program summaries, and press coverage. As a result, Televising Architecture provides historical perspectives— and a series of media lessons— for understanding the practice of architecture in our current digital culture, wherein architects must navigate a new media environment in the pursuit of social relevance.