ARTelevision

roachboy, how would you re-frame the discussion to include the distinctions I've made as regards governmental and 4th-Estate-type control paradigms? If you could suggest an overview of the re-framed discussion to at least include those, I'd be interested in where you'd go with it, in general.

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gibingus

so - beyond all the verbal flowers - it's just a question of what are the most effective means of mass manipulation between/among governments and/or media for what ever the 'greater good' happens to be? and you want that discussion to be pragmatic instead of ideological.

check me if i'm wrong on that. if i'm summing you up right, i think you may have some fatal flaws in your premise.

1. the mediascape is too vast and variated to fit anything resembling an authoritarian complex. just in the fourth estate there is programmed content, newshole, advertising, non-revenue-producing greyspace, advertorial, paid play, commentary, feedback, ombudsmen, sports, data, weather, stats... it is a cacophony. there is entertainment and art and everything in between. and then there is public relations and marketing and campaigning. beyond the messages, there are the mediums. the very nature of media defies definition because it is constantly redefining itself in its clamor to capture and retain attention. it is insanely competitive, and it certainly defies control.

2. just like a business servicing its clients, the government needs channels of distribution for its product - laws, rules, propaganda, but in essence, just information. government needs media to function. it owns its own channels, but just like any business, it also uses secondary and tertiary distribution chains to expand market reach. totalitarian paradigms seek to crush competiting media to complete their message monopoly, but underground press always exists and art again defies authority.

free expression and free will are not illusions, art. they are the entropic state of human social existence, and the power of entropy can not be denied. it is the fundamental law of all existence.

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ARTelevision

Very well, stated, gibingus. I'll wait to see how others respond and then I definitely will respond to these points. Thanks.

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roachboy

first foray...i think gingibus gives an interesting place to try to jump out from...since even olympic high jumpers get three tries to clear any given bar, i'll assume the game works that way here.

in general, i would think that an authoritarian form would rely on cultural domination---a hegemony shift--a shift in either the set of signifiers or logic for framing/rules of combination across which people would organize their sense of the world around them. it would seem to me that television would be the primary--but not exclusive--mechanism for providing elements of the shift and putting it in motion.

entropy is simply a feature that affects any process that unfolds in time. domination unfolds in time, and i see it as something that (in the present context) would come about partially as a function of state actions, but in the main as a function of people knitting themselves into a framework of consent using material that would be provided and reinforced by the elements of their interactions with the dominant media--those elements that shape their sense of being-in-the-world, being-in-community, being-in-a-polity.

i would think that this mode of transmission for the mental apparatus of domination would be necessary were such a regime to put itself in place in the states----this as a function of the main socio-geographic models that shape this place (e.g. the suburban model, the particular american mode of urbanization...) in my more paranoid moments, i think that the geography is about the abolition of the public in any traditional/capitalist sense, and its transfer to a kind of flickering virtual community---tv functions as a large-scale framing device and a complex set of cultural reference points and mediate experiences of collective involvement (both as such and by providing fodder for interpersonal activities within them)...

to reall think about how this might work requires (well, for me anyway) that you address the general problem of how you would refigure your conception of the world to accomidate the basic fact that any such conception unfolds in time--to actually do it would require an overthrowing of the conventional modes of staging the world, which still sit on observing subject--resolved/stable object--intentional relation models. when historians address questions of time, the do it by staying well within this world-as-picture framework, and add time as a dimension by attaching lists of particular frame-shifts that account for continuities/posit discontinuities....it would require that historians break with a commonsense mode of staging being-in-the-world---which would run directly against the vocational imperative to provide a nice yarn for readers...but i digress.

preliminary point: i think that when art and, in a related way, gingibus stage their understandings of the mediascape, they focus on elements of fragmentation--in the mass media thread, you, art, focus considerable attention on advertising, while in the above post, gingibus focusses on entropic features--i wonder if this explains the split that i am uncomfortable with here on its own--what i would propose is not a simple inversion (exclusive focus on medium as such as a way of unifying what would otherwise appear dispersed) but on questions of whether there exist hierarchies within this seeming field of scatter--and whether these hierarchies remain implicit during "normal" periods but snap into play during period of real or perceived crisis.

i am thinking about the development of the massive group-hate that was the "hostage crisis" in 1979 or so, and again of the months following 911---in both cases, you had news programming operating as a kind of reference-point that posed a question of injury to "the nation", framed the interpretation of that injury (tipping it in the direction of an injury done to this abstraction called nation and away from any alternative analytic possibility that might have called american actions into question)--in both cases, news programming operated as a kind of generator, the effects of which ramified across other genres of programming--comedians late night and otherwise, in their efforts to be topic, function as transmission belts---references turn up in very distant areas of infotainment thereafter---the most obvious to me was the superbowl that followed 911, in whcih the networks tried to turn the event into an enormous, tasteless telvised nuremberg rally, preceding the game with a potted videohistory video of the Nation that posited military values as central to it, a National Destiny, unity---the entire history of the states culminating in the military, who were in turn watching tv in tents in afghanistan....the same material became cental reference-points for other areas of experience as well--in classrooms, in churches, in conversations more generally---the ability of this (informal) system to generate high levels of consent no matter how goofy the narrative being consented to might be (bushwar, for example) is to me telling on this matter.

stopping for the moment, backing up to the start of the run area, waiting for the bar to be reset, thinking about jumping again at some point.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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ARTelevision

gibingus,

Your summation of my arguments is not weighted the way I weight the arguments. To restate and to include some reconsiderations after having experienced this thread so far, I'd say I posit that there is no option to authoritarianism in the postmodern age. (I've said this repeatedly in several different ways). Given that situation, we already live in the most advanced authoritarian systems ever devised by man. In the US, we inhabit a situation described well by roachboy. I agree with his sense of the framing of experience by media/television.

As for your assertion that media is too complex and varied to function as an effective control mechanism, I would posit the opposite. Its complexity and seeming variety, in terms of content and methods of delivery, are simply different tentacles of the octopus whose grip on us is - and will continue to be - absolute.

As for your second point, I have a long history and solid credentials as an "underground artist" (I’ll share those with you in a PM if you are interested). As you haven't buttressed your conviction that underground art, etc. is as you say, I think my own experience is worth referring to as a base for my opinion. My own personal conclusion regarding the effectiveness of this aspect of media is that its ultimate effect is to provide the necessary illusion of "free expression" in the midst of absolute control that I have referred to elsewhere here.

roachboy,
The only thing I'd amend at this time in your analysis is that I have not focused on advertising here. You may be referring to the "Mass Media Mind Control" thread in GD. I accept "media" as broadly defined by gibingus as a good overall description of the mediascape. I don't have a problem with your focusing on television as the main framing device today. I agree that it conditions our experience of all media to an extent that your premise has significant validity.

This post doesn't necessarily further the discussion. It's just intended as a clarification of my positions as we move things forward.

Thanks for the continuing effort. I do think we're getting somewhere - ableit slowly.

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gibingus

art, thanks for the reweighting... you know, the journalist in me makes me want to spin you around in the paraphrasing to incite controversy and keep the dials from turning.

and with the perfect segue way to roachboy in tv land...

do the dials even turn anymore? back when tense ted koppel was telling us all about "tonight's crisis" when we really should have been watching karnak, there were only three and half channels in most markets, four if you were lucky. (side note, what did the eye have in that slot, was it the late movie that wasn't really a movie but old episodes of 5-0 or something? anyway... back to our regularly scheduled program...)

television is currently in a major metamorphasis. it's still the king idiot box and mind numbing i.v. drip of info-narcotic, but today there are literally hundreds of choices of dumb and dumber. just like how oil painting went through a major change when technology put pigment in a tube and the impressionists took the show on the road to counter the rise of the camera, television now has to respond to another type of screen... and this one has a keyboard attached to it.

once you're online, you're not even playing with the nets or category channels, you have counter culturists (who may or may not resemble arttelevision) who are giving up every flavor of niche possible. you also have communities (which may or may not resemble the tfp) where people band together and they - gasp - talk back. they flock to sites where they can put their own opinions in, because people want to be heard. why else do all those kids who can't carry a tune in a bag try out for american idol? it's the attention.

this is where major (news)media are really failing themselves and also the government. they have held the microphone, and the camera, and the typesetter for so long, they fear what the public has to say. they have filtered their feedback into one liners at the end of the show like a dinner mint to cover up the bad taste of andy rooney; they reserve the right to edit letters to the editor; they script reality to make it more entertaining and ingest twice as many creepycrawlys.

it is amazing that we live in an age where information - the raw data, the straight dope, the actual documents - have never been easier to get, but audiences trust pundits to explain it all to them in a giant warped game of regurgatative telephone without ever going to the source. worse yet, they don't seek objective information, they seek only opinions that validate their own. the almighty 'polls' that tell us and our leaders what we are really thinking are absolutely whacked... the sampling is more skewed than the SATs. how else do white christians keep their iron grip on public opinion when they are a shrinking segment of the national populace? really, most journalists shouldn't be using statistics without a license. but it gives scientists and market researchers something to laugh about.

meanwhile, ebay spawned a billion dollar revolution by simply creating a space where people could come and do their thing. amazon whomps the brick-and-mortars' sites not because it is more convenient, but you can get the straight dope on the goods you're purchasing from people just like you (check their ratings first). people love to talk. to anyone who will listen. even if they aren't really listening. and now that i can see how many people are viewing these threads, they aren't listening, they're just looking at our tits.

cue segue way back to underground art...

maybe the illusion of freedom is actually the disillusionment of the artist never really knowing or trusting the impact of the art they create. you can make the statement with your art, but you can never know if anyone will really get the statement, identify with it, or even appreciate it. will it ever really change the world, and will it do it in the way you intend when you put brush to canvas, note to song, word to verse?

hard to say, really. when it makes me shudder and i'm about to lose hope, i think of mr. rogers. now before you tell me that finger painting isn't art... that is one guy who i can say without a doubt left this world a better place for his having been in it. he tought us by example to be nice, put on your playclothes, clean up your toys, and make believe. people tried to mock him, but by doing so just showed themselves to be petty and insecure. he may not have reached everyone, but in mr. rogers neighborhood people -big and small - did the right thing.

but hey, it was on pbs. never would have made it on the nets, even against snyder. this is gibingus reporting for wtfp. art, roach, loco... back to you in the studio.

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roachboy

very short version of what i think might be a longer response when i am less pixellated brain-wise: if tv is in the process ofrendering itself so utterly trivial, how do you explain its role in generating support for the farce that is the war in iraq? what i was saying is that i suspect folk have hierarchies (implicit perhaps) that they use in sorting through the sea of niche-marketed crap that is tv, and news--particularly news during moments of crisis--seems to be quite important as a source of infotainment relative to which other sources are weighed.
i am not so optimistic about interactivity, nor about the web, in freeing folk from the miasma of american tv infotainment--patterns of presenting information have not yet developed that make the web into an autonomous info source--it looks and read for the most part like cheap imitation of text with added problems brought about by the relative immobility of most computers (in relation to newspapers or books) which tends to push toward types of reading practices that make webinformation more ephemeral than printed.
obviously, there are dispositional and educational strata in the good ole us of a and not everyone uses these sources in the same way, but nonetheless....

back to pixel=land for now.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Charlatan

I just stumbled upon this thread while searching for something else... This was a very good thread.

Upon re-reading it in its entirety I have a question for ART...

What would happen in a situation where the Autoritarian side (Governement) of the equation begins to exert a subtle but clear influence on the Anarchic side (Media)? Where those who are involved in the Media begin to "tow the party line".

In my mind, and as I've stated above, the key is in the balance of these two elements. If one or the other becomes to strong or too influencial it is bad for everyone.

Taken to an extreme you have the classic example of Stalinist Russia and its media (best represented by Pravda). I am not suggesting this. Rather, I am suggesting a much more up to date situation where the combination of media regulation by the government and the willing participation in supporting that government or autoritatian system tips the balance in favour or the authoritarian side of the scale.

Art: Would you suggest this is a positive thing?

Another question occurs to me... Would we be, hypothetically speaking, better without *any* media? Your thread suggests it is a disruptive force, but is that neccessarilly a bad thing?

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pac-man

I'm not in favor of either of those two options - however, if I had to choose, I would choose this mediarchy. It seems this concept of mediarchy has been presented in a bad light by defining it as some sort of anti-socialization, with the converse, authoritarianism, being the supposed glue which saves "us" from undesirable chaos.

But I'm not buying it.

The mediarchy, if we are to agree that it is some form of powerful control, is vastly different than the authoritarianism inherent to control via the threat of violence exhibited by all forms of government. The mediarchy does not imprison an individual for failing to turn on the television, buy the newspaper or surf the web. The mediarchy contains choice - you have the choice to partake in any aspect of it. Authoritarianism eliminates choice - you cannot control your own fate.

Art, you have suggested or stated that authoritarianism is of benefit to society, perhaps even the underlying mechanism that allows society to exist. I don't believe you. Authoritarianism is the underlying mechanism to anti-change, the desire to maintain. I can see how this maintenance of existing society could be perceived as origin of society, or at the least, some form of fundamental requirement for the continued existence of society. This perception presumes that society, as we know it, is both better off unchangeable and presently beneficial. I have yet to see anything in this thread that validates those presumptions.

What's so good about society as we know it, anyway?

Incosian

Interesting points ART; you sound like you would enjoy reading Hobbes' Leviathan, as it discusses several similar issues about humanity and a chaotic state of nature.

However, I do disagree with your notions, because of the tendency of humanity to abuse authoritarian forms of governance, and the desire to control. All of these things inevitably lead to a corrupt government. Have you read Orwell's 1984? That work alone is quite a convincing argument against authoritarianism.

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EULA

ART: Here's a book I think you would enjoy. Freedom is often times painful, and when communitites collapse, the worst feeling in human existence (being all alone) can become so great that people will submerge their uniqueness and individuality into an authoritarian whole in order to seek comfort.

Supple Cow

But I imagine (based on your comments elsewhere) that you think these are comparable in their power to control people. I am having trouble getting into this discussion in a meaningful way because I think it ignores a very basic truth (truth to me, of course): that complex order can (and most often does) come from very simple rules.

I would agree with your assertions a lot more if I gave credit for the complexity of the current situation (society as we know it) to the people who created the simple rules that led to it. I'm almost positive that they would not deserve that credit. As I see it, this discussion is about changing the simple rules and watching what complex things happen as a result.

Nobody is capable of deliberately creating the kind of authoritarianism that exists and so I say that it hardly exists at all. The tools in charge just happened to pick the right rules to play with as deliberately as they chose to become part of the human species, which has so far been evolutionarily stable. It's the other side of the same coin, I think, Art. I don't think we have personal freedom... but I don't think other people are even capable of having made it that way. It's built into our nature as a society.

If I have managed to misread (or miss reading) something you have said that addresses this point, you have my apologies in advance.

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irateplatypus

i confess i haven't read this whole thread... so this is written in response to original post only.

i think when you speak about social operation being the holy grail for a societal system... you subtly steer the topic on a specific course where not all the premises are agreed upon (or even brought to the table).

what is the goal of civilization? when you make social order the primary key, it is easy to forget that social justice is by some (myself included) preferred over order.

it appears the discussion has been framed by "how much control produces the best social operation?" while i would begin it with "how much control is just?". the two are not necessarily identical.

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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill