Blog Assignment #8

The variety of perspectives that I have been exposed to in my Anthropology of Media course through readings and discussions has left me wondering about the different ways my peers have understood and related to them. I feel that it is important to understand that different views will always exist, but they should not be seen as contradictory. Instead, we should use our own ways of understanding to highlight the complexity and depth of specific mediums as they present themselves to us. Laura Tourigny and Caitlin Mullen both touch upon graffiti by describing their own views towards it while also portraying perceptions of it within popular culture and academic discourse, reflecting its complexity as a multi-faceted symbol of constant identification and re-identification.

Laura Tourigny’s blog entry on graffiti touches upon the misguided use of graffiti and its inability to characterize meaningful and expressive characterizations of local representations of reality. When graffiti is not understood or approached as a continual reproduction of a recognizable form that re-identifies and originates content, it loses its significance. She addresses the presence of graffiti on public transit vehicles as sending messages of ignorance and thoughtlessness. It is characterized as such because of the context in which it is created. Its drive towards creating social significance is blurred by its intent. Laura’s blog entry resonates the ideas proposed by Ley and Cybriwsky that the placement of graffiti is not random. It is an act of performance for a particular audience and it is placed in a certain area for a certain group to see. When effectively utilized it can be understood as an outlet for deeply felt but often rarely articulated sentiments and attitudes (Ley and Cybriwsky 1974). I believe that when considering a form that has such strong opposition in its characterization as both art and vandalism, its presentation as something culturally acceptable and unchallenged becomes important. It becomes necessary then to understand graffiti as something not to be adopted for the sake of adoption, but rather something to be used with the intent of re-identifying its use as something symbolic, meaningful, and in a way that embodies a certain level of aesthetic value.

Caitlin Mullen’s blog entry on graffiti is an interesting contrast to Laura Tourigny’s blog entry because it perceives graffiti on transit as something that provides positive contrast to the norms of everyday existence despite its form. She quotes the artist Claes Oldenburg on trains, "You're standing there in the station, everything is gray and gloomy and all of a sudden one of those graffiti trains slides in and brightens the place like a big bouquet from Latin America” (Kan 2001). For me this highlights the variety of perspectives on graffiti as a form that has certain associations tied to it. Those tied to the subjectivity of mood, emotion, and their representation through a visual medium. Perspectives require an audience to provide them, and Caitlin’s insights closely resemble Bowen’s views of a proposed audience that graffiti serves to reach. The audience for graffiti is a random sampling of the general public who happen to see it in passing. Often, the participants considered other graffiti artists to be their primary audience and viewed the public as a secondary audience (Bowen 1999). While Laura views tagging as ignorant and mindless, it holds validity in that it recognizes graffiti as being a form presented to the passive viewer as the main audience. Caitlin’s use of Bowen’s idea serves to strengthen the importance of perspective on graffiti and highlight the complexities of relation it presents. It is powerful in its own way, yet its power is limited by its interpretation by an audience that chooses itself in passing.

Mullen, C. Artists and Vandals. 2011. http://radiodiffuser.blogspot.com/

Tourigny, L. Blog Assignment #4: Graffiti. 2011. http://anth378lt.blogspot.com/2011/02/blog-assignment-4-graffiti.html

Blog Assignment #7

Gordon Gray, in his article Cinema: A Visual Anthropology, understands feminist theory as being directly related to the politics of representation, concerning itself with developing understandings of how different groups of people are represented in cinema, how people make sense of these representations, and how this intersects with the viewing pleasure of the audience within the context of viewing films for entertainment purposes (Gray). While representations of women can help us understand their perception within the culture of media, they also further our understandings of the cinema and its mechanical implements (Gray). Representations of women can be characterized by the power relationship apparent in gender relations; through depictions of women as being either passive or active, in the amount of screen time given, and their portrayal in film in relation to their broader historical context (Gray). I hope to use my recent viewing of Pan’s Labyrinth as an example that reveals content subject to feminist theory. This is not to say that such elements lessen the quality of this film. I mention this because its visual presentation of material subject to feminist theoretical analysis is not overtly emphasized in the film and is not a focus, but an accompanying reproduction of content that serves to deepen the significance of the film. To varying degrees, it presents ideas and characterizations that viewers find ways to connect with, and Pan’s Labyrinth most-effectively characterizes the power relationships between males and females.

The main character in Pan’s Labyrinth is Ofelia, a 12-year old girl who travels with her pregnant mother to the country headquarters of her new stepfather, a captain of an army that is seeking to uncover and destroy a group of guerilla fighters that are hiding in the hills surrounding the headquarters. Much like the orders he gives to his army, the ones he has given to Ofelia and her mother to come to live with him set the stage for the entire film. The move isn’t easy for Ofelia and her pregnant mother, and their willingness to move to the army headquarters is indicative of their subservience to men holding official power despite reluctance and struggle in accepting their reasoning. Ofelia immediately refuses to call the captain her father. While this annoys her mother and indicates a mother-daughter struggle, it is also an indicator of a larger struggle that characterizes the female as unwilling to be disciplined and obedient towards the male. It indicates the active woman as opposed to the passive woman that Gray discusses in his article, and this is also somewhat tied to the broader historical context that Pan’s Labyrinth characterizes. It allows for the empowering of women while simultaneously alluding to the unfair realities of historical situations. It does this fluidly and without interruption. This balance is achieved through the proposed symbolic characterization of women as nurturing, motherly, and morally superior to the men they are subservient to. This different manifestation of power is reflected in the screen time given to Ofelia and her mother, as well as the ending that portrays their victory over the captain and his army. Redemption, however, comes at a price.

Gray, Gordon. Cinema: A Visual Anthropology. 2010.

Pan’s Labyrinth. Dir. Guillermo del Toro. Picturehouse. 2006.

Blog Assignment #6

Radio programming is something that has always spoken about the audience it reaches out to. Content that is broadcast on the radio is targeted towards a particular audience and it displays certain connective properties while highlighting a certain level of symbolic significance in its selection and presentation of content. In mass media, radio programming and content serve to link listeners together at the global level by presenting news from around the world, insights into popular culture, and influential ideas that embody a certain level of symbolic importance when considering transnational culture and its flows. In essence, it characterizes a global identity. However, the content of mass radio is somewhat detached from the actual lives of its listeners, as it serves to identify with an idealized audience, consequently failing to engage at a realistic or personal level. Its utility and impact in the daily lives of its listeners, all separate due to physical location, is limited by its power to influence those receptive to its agenda that assumes commonalities and a connection between its listeners, diminishing its value at the local level.

It is with community radio stations where a more direct reflection of the immediate needs of the community can be expressed in a less directed and controlled manner than the programming of mass radio stations and their networks. Community radio stations can offer a less idealized characterization of real local existence and its identifying features that serve to strengthen the link between community members. By relaying local events, music, ideas, and politics that are passed over by mass media and its contributors, community radio stations create and reflect an accurate identity of a cultural community that enables transmission and movement of information and ideas without being limited by the inefficiencies of face-level interaction.

The connective and culturally reflective properties of radio are effectively characterized in Dennis Allen’s documentary CBQM, focusing on the citizen-run station that serves the people of Fort McPherson. The community radio station depicts the strengthening of a local community that goes beyond face-level interaction by relaying local events, music, ideas, and politics over the air, targeting its local audience consisting of truckers heading north on the Dempster Highway, trappers confined to their cabins, and Gwich’in ladies doing beadwork. By recognizing the separateness within such a small community, while understanding the human need for relating to something symbolic, something connected to locality, and something that establishes a certain level of identity, it becomes entirely possible to see the benefit of community radio in being an important aspect of local existence.

In considering text, Daniel Fischer’s Mediating Kinship: Country, Family, and Radio in Northern Australia does a good job of expressing the inherent symbolism of localized content and its ability to display connective properties and create a sense of community and identity in its presentation. It stresses content that serves to realize the history of Aboriginal incarceration and the geographic dispersal of kin networks with music by focusing on the interweaving of speech and country song in request programs that highlight the connective properties of local radio with its local listeners. By understanding content and presentation in localities such as Northern Australia, it becomes clear of the direction and assumptions of transnational flows of globalized media and its audiences.

Allen, Dennis. CBQM. National Film Board of Canada. 2010.

Fisher, Daniel. Mediating Kinship: Country, Family, and Radio in Northern Australia. Cultural Anthropology. 2009.