Economic Hangover

I woke up this past Saturday morning with a hangover. I wasn't drunk when I drove home so I couldn't figure out where the headache came from that woke me at 5am. My wife and I had gone out to dinner with another couple that was celebrating their 16th anniversary. I had met Frank at a bar for a couple of beers after work and then we went home to pick up our wives for dinner. We spent three hours laughing through a Fondue dinner. We shared two bottles of wine along with cheese, lobster, fillet mignon, chicken, shrimp, and eight varieties of dipping sauces. At the end of dinner we decided to have one last night cap at a new bar in town.

After being carded (as a courtesy, I think since we're all in our late thirties to fifties) we walked in to a loud, super sheik looking bar with lots of really young people and waitresses wearing go go boots. We surprised the bartender by paying cash and not opening a tab and then we proceeded to a dark corner to casually observe young law students in argyle sweaters on the prowl. More laughter.

We walked back to our cars, headed home, feeling tired but a little bit younger. My wife and I were in bed by 11pm on a Friday night. Whew Hoo!

So why the headache? I had drank a lot of water, paced myself by starting at 4pm, ate food with every drink, and yet I still felt awful. I decided to get up and take some Tylenol and get the coffee going. I brought in the newspaper and saw the morning headline about a 700 Billion bail out agreement in capital hill. It all made sense. It wasn't that I had gotten drunk, but I had consumed for too long. Too much of a good thing will tank you regardless.

Our economic melt down is the result of a long slow drink at the financial troff. It wasn't just a sudden recession, it was the slow greed associated with flipping houses, and trading pieces of paper as a diversion to the war that has no end in sight. We were so happy to see our stock market recover from 9/11 we didn't really notice the phony mechanisms the investment bankers were using to pull off the illusion of economic health.

So now we're left with a 700 billion dose of Tylenol for a national hangover. I don't think I'll be getting drunk again anytime soon, but I'm sure our credit industry will get the party rolling just as soon as it can. After all, isn't a little "hair of the dog" in order?

Will User Generated Content Lead to Independence from Hegemony?

This is an excerpt from an online discussion in the Media Studies Ideas course that was posted 9/25/08.

In response to Grey's comment about the "rapid and recent individualization of media (blogs, youtubes, podcasts,etc.)" and whether or not this will server as a counterforce to hegemony culture production, I would like to offer my opinion that the user generated content is nothing more than a further extension of existing culture with the people who are generating the content representing their cultural status. It is the people of a certain class that are the producers of the dominant ideology.

Afterall, as Richard Sennet points out the divisions between labor, work, and action, we see that it is highly unlikely that the labor class is able to actively produce enough content to make a dent in the dominant culture.

During the early 20th century Modernism was about class struggle and was pursued by members of the Bourgeoisie who participated in “class association” in order to represent the needs of the people. Early Social Documentary photography by Tina Modotti is an example of this. Eventually the art world abandoned the ideology of class struggle and Modernism turned into purity of form and process (with its series of art movements) and was known as the “age of manifestos”. The ruling class swooped in and brought modern art into alignment with capitalist ideals with the growth of the Museum and Gallery economy and the rise of superstar artist status. The establishment made superstars out of artist who turned away from political ideology and retreated to the dogma of craft and aesthetics. I don’t think Jackson Pollock’s work wouldn't have helped the Polish people become liberated from Russia.

A “collision” occurred when Hans Haacke attempted to exhibit photographs of slum apartments and their public records of ownership at the Guggenheim Museum. The show was cancelled out of deference to Museum Trustees who were linked to many of the tenements. It seems that Modernism’s hope for mankind gave way to Postmodernism’s cynicism.

I think a further example of how user generated content reflects dominant culture is the manner in which even large-scale media efforts like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Borat are largely unsuccessful in garnering any real debate or comment outside of the subculture that is already sympathetic with these viewpoints. I know too many conservatives who have simply refused to watch the films. In fact I remember being so moved by Schindlers List (which I had to go to alone because my ex-wife refused to watch it) but I couldn't convince my friends or family to attend the film. I’ve gone astray with that one I know, but the point I’m making is that these films appeal to people who already are of a humanitarian ilk, and are rather ineffective by themselves (I do have optimism for their contributions to overall discourse).

The other aspect I see about the emerging user generated content sphere is that we are not owning or controlling access to the media. Corporate America still owns the real estate. My Space is owned by Rupert Murdoch, Hotmail by Microsoft. Are we anything more than technology serfs working on the corporate cyber estate as a means of driving traffic towards advertising? Yesterday I listened to a report on NPR about how Google wanted to give away their new phone because their business model is about giving the tools to as many people as a means of getting advertisements in the hands of consumer just as television and radio has done for decades. Who cares about the programming as long as the underlying ideology remains the same, sell, sell, sell…

Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

An Annotation of “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses“ by Louis Althusser as published in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New York: Monthly Review Press 2001)

Louis Althusser was a French-Marxist Philosopher whose essay Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses expanded upon Marxist theory by considering the role of ideology as the means of explaining why citizens of the State are obedient and why there hasn’t been a revolution against Capitalism.

In terms of structural and post-structualism, Althusser explains why ideology is a structure while ideologies are socially and historically specific and can co-exist under a dominant Capitalist ideology. There are religious ideologies, political ideologies and social ideologies such as Christianity, conservatism, and feminism.

Althussers essay sets up the foundation for his descriptive theories by first defining Marxist theories of infrastructure and superstructure and then concentrates on the superstructure, which consist of the political-legal structures of government that he labels Repressive State Apparatuses, and ideology, which he describes in terms of Ideological State Apparatuses. The RSA’s enforce compliance directly through violence. RSA agents include the police and criminal justice system. The ISA’s on the other hand are institutions that generate ideologies and produce culture and the formation of cultural practices designed to preserve the state. Examples include Schools, churches, families, arts, sports, and political parties. Of these examples, Althusser sees schools as exerting the greatest cultural influence towards the maintenance of the existing bourgeoisie power structure because it is the system most responsible for the reproduction of labor and the ideology of career fulfillment.

“Ideology is a representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real condition of existence.” Our inability to accept the unacceptable, which is the reality of our existence, leads us to fabricate our reality. It is like the captive falling in love with our captive. Ideology doesn’t reflect the truth of our situation, but instead reflects our relationship to our existence as an exploited proletariat. Another way of describing ideology is to say it doesn’t describe the relationship of production to us, but rather it describes our relation to production. It helps us invent a feeling of self-importance when we are really expendable commodities with the global labor market.

Althusser describes the system of ideology and how we have come to become subjects within it. First we are born into it. Secondly, we always inhabit an ideology by distinguishing our beliefs from the beliefs of others. It functions similarly to the linguistic theory of the conceptual image map. We have to organize ourselves with a belief system that is defined by distinguishing “the others” illusions from ouir “truths” which is our own place within an ideological structure. The third concept of ideology is that it interpellates. It identifies you and calls out to you. It is the call to action within an advertisement. It is the initial response to a greeting by a friend or the sense of guilt when confronted by a police officer. Interpellation is the action of asking you to join the belief system. Ideology is like the poster of Uncle Sam that simply says “I want you!”

Althusser further diagrams ideology as comprising of the subject with a small s and Subject with a capital S. the small s subject is a member of the capital S Subject. Christians are the small s subjects to the capital S Subject of God. The Subject God provides the justification and rules for the ideology and it interpellates subjects to recognizing the validity of its ideology.

Althusser goes on to describe the evolution of Marxism and class struggle as being:

1. The State is a Repressive State Apparatus
2. State power and state apparatuses are distinct
3. Class struggle is over state power and the control of state apparatuses
4. The proletariat must seize state power and create a proletariat state
5. The proletariat must dismantle the State to liberate it from the commoditization of resources.

Ideological State Apparatuses play a very important role within the class struggle. Unlike Repressive State Apparatus, which are uniform and centralized, ISA’s have a plurality that includes didactic discourse. While ISA’s function within the hegemony of Capitalism, debate can occur here, and can ultimately lead to change. It is critical to recognize the plurality of ideology and the room for debate.

Theories of ideology are relevant to artist and media producers because the process of signification through the translation of experience into any medium is in itself an act of interpellation to our audience. Content producers, art or any mass media cannot consider themselves separate from ideology. All communication participates within the an ISA. Artist that produce and exhibit work are participating within an Art ISA. Even if we remove our own voice from our work, ideology will remain because what we express as being significant is defined by our personal beliefs.

Journalistic Mediation

I just happened to be home on a Saturday night flipping channels when I caught the beginning of a political debate between Washington State Gubernatorial candidates Christine Gregoire and Dino Rossi. If I hadn't watched the debate for myself I don't think I would have received very useful information from the front page newspaper story above. What occurred over the course of an hour was distilled into five minutes of reading.

I have often noted that when I view an event in person, the story told in the newspaper is often a very different experience from my own. The media mediates, it selects what to present, serving as a gatekeeper of information. What happened in a day is often whittled down on television broadcasts as the top 10 stories in 10 minutes! I guess today I was particularly surprised in the way the newspaper transmitted a story about this debate.

First of all I was taken back by the photograph that accompanied the text. Photos are so realistic and yet can be manipulated so cunningly. In this case the effect is subtle in that the incumbent, Governor Christine Gregoire is presented in profile and slightly out of focus while the challenger, Dino Rossi is presented in sharp focus with both eyes visible. The tone of the debate I watched was very agonistic and yet the candidates are frozen in time with a smile.

The image, as it turns out, is identical in message as the text. Dino Rossi is brought into sharp focus, while Gregoire is presented vaguely. Statistically I think you can see from the text presented on the front page that almost two-thirds of the text are quotes by Rossi. The article reads like the description of a prize fight with the challenger Rossi being the aggressor and Gregoire up against the ropes trying to cover. In this case the quotes are limited to mostly Rossi's promises of "I will balance the budget and not raise taxes." This is such a great quote because it gives the audience exactly what it wants to hear! It's very inclusive and yet divorced from the reality of our entire country's economic condition which appears to have a lot in common with the great depression.

In effect the newspaper is publishing campaign rhetoric for Rossi while choosing to leave out significant statements I heard during the debate which included Governor Gregoire citing her recent record of investing in early childhood education as a long term strategy for economic growth within the state. Through my wife's work as a researcher I have learned that statistically, for every dollar spent on early child care and education, a community receives $20 in economic benefit including savings through a reduction in subscription to social services programs and the criminal justice system. Gregoire had stressed a prioritization system for budget based upon values and principles but that didn't make it into the article. What made it instead was sound bytes about business climate and entrepreneurship which is the ideology of heritage and patriotism that resonates with the conservative American West values of my home town.

Ted Koppel justifies the editorializing of news information by saying, "All too often, we delude ourselves into believing that by simply focusing a live camera on an event, and dropping in the occasional ad lib, we are committing journalism. We're not. Journalism requires context and prioritizing. It entails separating the wheat from the chaff. What is deliberately left out of a news story is every bit as important as what is left in. Events don't happen in a vacuum. That's why we provide context."

I can accept the idea of mediation of raw information for purposes of telling the story, but I find myself concerned that the mainstream press is doing a disservice by not doing more investigative reporting and fact checking. The paper could have filled its column with information that could substantiate or refute the claims made by the candidates during the debate. The photograph selected could have limited the bias a little through selection of a symmetrical composition with greater depth of field. Another option would have been to publish two separate head shots, cropped tight in a manner that would stress the candidates intelligence rather than beauty. I'm reminded of how much wrangling goes into negotiated the terms for a political debate, right down to fighting over which side of the stage a candidate stands or sits on.

In terms of the text, if the newspaper wanted to offer a balanced approach they could have separated this article into two separate columns that analyzed what each candidate said during the debate issue by issue. This would have visually and literally given the appearance of impartial reporting. After all, aren't editorial columns supposed to be found on the Op-Ed page instead of the front?

What is omitted in this article is more important that what we was left for us to read, which is the same sound bytes that we are bombarded with daily in one of the most expensive and controversial Governor races in the country.

As consumers, we only see what we are looking for, and we only hear what we are open to. We filter out unnecessary data or anything that might cause cognitive dissonance. It is a biological survival instinct. Reporters are no different it seems. Media literacy is so important in order to even be aware of the bias in every message we are exposed to.

Media Studies and My Ontology

I just finished spending over two hours reviewing Shannon Mattern's lecture about the origins of Media Studies. I could relate to her description of Media Studies in the Social Sciences in terms of the "effects studies "of mass communication. My undergrad work was primarily from this school of thought and I still have quite a bit of interests in the ongoing research into the effects of media consumption on executive function within children.

But when she got to the division between Social Science and Humanities and proceeded to cross over and describe the New School's emphasis on the Humanities, I felt a beam of light so to speak open up in my mind. I've spent the past two weeks upon entrance into classes becoming a little frazzled and confused about where I fit in. I new I was interested in Media Studies through my broad interests and personal background with photography, video, and film. But when asked to express myself as to where I'm going to contribute in this vast field of intellectual and artistic talent, the interior began to fill with doubts. Until tonight.

From my earliest interests in photography I have always been subconsciously in pursuit of an understanding of the human condition. I've often thought of making a business card that I could hand out to everyone that stops me when I'm walking through a neighborhood with my camera that reads, Ira Gardner - "Photographing the human condition with empathy and respect".

This image I made of a run down hotel (with an art deco past) in downtown Spokane Washington reminded me of a conversation I had with a book club where one of the members noted a recent fire that destroyed a similar motel. She said, "Good, it was probably filled with drug dealers and prostitutes anyway!" I was bothered by this immensely. I didn't say anything in response, but I was thinking to myself, "Drug dealers are people who need shelter, prostitutes too." My own wayward brother probably crashed into flop houses like this every few weeks somewhere in California when he was younger during the 20 years we lost track of one another. Today these hotels are being closed up and gentrified. What's happening in the Bowery District in New York is happening in Spokane Washington. Real people with basic human needs are being displaced.

I see the world through Maslow's hierarchy of human need and try to find the ways in which we meet those needs, even the ones borne purely out of desire for social status.

The woman's comments about the burned out hotel eventually prompted me to photograph several remaining hotels and motels on the west end of downtown Spokane with ironic names like "The Shangri-La". I don't think paradise was ever envisioned this way.

Walker Evans was probably the first photographer that captivated me with his ability to capture the narrative of a place without the people present.

This is another image of another hotel next door. The Coach Light room used to be filled with "colorful" characters. I used to wander in and buy a cup of coffee and a plate of french fries on a Friday or Saturday night when I was 16 and just watch and listen to the crowd. I learned to get along with anyone and was happy to listen to a good story, whether it was true or not didn't matter, there was an exchange of something real and valuable at that moment.

It can be dangerous to walk the streets with a camera. A film entitled "Stranger with a Camera" by Elizabeth Barrett tells the story of a documentary filmmaker from Canada who was murdered while documenting coal miner families in Kentucky. It's a powerful film that asks the question "Who has the right to tell the story" and "when is representation exploitation instead of advocation?". I think the film comes to the conclusion that the only stories we ought to be making are our own, the intimate stories we know, and the best way to go about advocating for a community is by empowering people to tell their own stories. In a way I have done this through my teaching. Each year my students develop a short personal narrative and build a multimedia piece. Last year I had a Spokane Tribal member do a short documentary about the Midnight Uranium Mine that has poisoned the tribal reservation along with our water drainage. I think it might be the first documentary on the subject that actually has the people affected producing and telling their own story. Another elderly gentleman put together a piece about a Christmas dinner his church and community put together. Real people telling real stories.

I love New York, but I don't think it needs me to tell its story. I have always been fascinated with New York's story and I think New York might need a story about a dusty town East of Seattle with 70 trains a day passing through it with grain, timber, and Boeing plane parts and a history of strategic civil defense during the cold war. I think Sherman Alexie is doing a good job of telling Spokane's story from the contemporary native perspective and that I might add to the patchwork quilt of perspectives. Building identity through multiple impressions. I think the best representations are a collage of stories, not just the single masterpiece.

Regardless of the structures and ideologies at work within any narrative, ultimately it comes down to the human experience and critical thinking that gives us the free will to determine what, how, and why we act in the manner we do, and in this case what we allow media to do for us instead of to us. I think I'm starting to find a path, the one right under my feet...

Marshall McLuhan - "The Medium is the Matrix!"

Reading Marshall McLuhan is a little like being introduced to Morpheus in the movie "The Matrix". Somehow the world comes into a little better focus.

The key points for me were that all literacy and technology is an extension of man, the content of the media is not the specific message but the change in human behavior, and the electronic age is causing a cultural implosion.

Simply put, McLuahan points out that every form of technology, a hammer, a light, or an automobile are an extension of man. The mechanical age enabled us to expand our distance and reduce time’s effect on our range. “During the mechanical ages we had extended our bodies in space.”

However, during the mechanical age McLuhan and others assert the literacy necessary for operating the technology caused a fragmentation of society and created social stratification. Our earlier reading of Schmandt-Besserat pointed out the implications of literacy being used to assert control and power through the development of economic record keeping. I think we must always keep in mind that technology is created by man for the extension of man, and as such is a further revelation of our true nature. McLuhan writes, “Any extension, whether of skin, hand, or foot, affects the whole psychic and social complex.” He describes the mechanical age as a tearing apart of homeostatic culture because the change brought on by new technology was relatively slow to bring about a reaction as the result, “western man acquired from the technology of literacy te power to act without reacting.” He went on to describe “we acquired the art of carrying out the most dangerous social aperation with complete detachment.”

McLuhan looks to history to see the future. The impact of technology that we miss at it’s introduction reveals its self as an unanticipated consequence. The development of the automobile changed society by introducing the concept of the suburbs. A particular model of car is un important, it is the function of the media that matters. This is when I start to feel Morpheus’s presence in McLuhan’s words. “For the message of any medium or technology is the change of scale, or pace, or pattern that it introduces to human affairs.” The term “The Media is the Message” simply states that the change brought on by the medium is the hidden message. Reading the newspaper or watching television news delivers information, but the real message is the change in attitude or behavior that is the result of consuming the information. It is easier to see this in advertising. We consume advertising and readily understand that any buying behavior is the result of the Ad media. Television is the perfect medium for delivery advertising messages. Reality television like “America’s Got Talent” has mastered the art of getting consumers to glue themselves to the couch by showing one performance and then delivery three or more advertisements. They have recently added the feature of having the audience text message their votes to affect the outcome, but in reality they have convinced people to spend 5 cents per message. The message of the media is not its individual content, but its outcome in terms of changing human behavior.

McLuhan wrote this article during the rise of television, not the internet. As such, he seems to have a bit of a utopian view of the possibilities for electronic media. He asserts that the development of electronic mass communication is the “final phase of the extension of man – the technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society, much as we have already extended our senses and our nerves by the various medium.” While the telephone and radio extends our sense of hearing and photography the sense of sight, television on the other hand brought more senses together and has “extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned.

McLuhan seems to think that television and its immediacy would “… involve us in the whole of mankind and to incorporate the whole of mankind in us, we necessarily participate in depth, in the consequences of our very actions. It is no longer possible to adopt the aloof and dissociated role of the literate Westerner” He also states, “Electric speed in bringing all social and political functions together in a sudden implosion has heightened human awareness of responsibility to an intense degree.”

Perhaps initially he was justified in his beliefs that there would be a cultural implosion that would establish a more homeostatic world where the subordinated would be set free through technology.



The civil rights marches would seem to offer evidence of this. However, over time the medium machine has produced more discourse through advertising and news broadcasts that highlight the importance of corporate profit and “everyday low prices” that there seems to me to be apathy as evidence by the limited coverage of any domestic protest, and even further limitations on world coverage of alternative viewpoints. The media even caught the ambivalence of our leaders during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina where concern over outfit what to wear on camera was greater than the desire to help. Where is the outrage over genecide in Rawanda or more recently in Sudan?



I recall an instance several years ago where I heard a BBC radio broadcast about a group of Nigerian mothers who took control of a international conglomerate oil field and held the management hostage, demanding schools to be built in their villages. When I looked for the story a month after the event, all archives from major news sources were virtually empty. The only archive I could find was on an international labor union website. While it seems the media does have the power to bring us together in the electrical age, the “message” of the electronic media is that history can disappear in a flash and be rewritten so quickly as to no cause us the heard of consumer wildebeest to even raise their head from their dollar menu item.

It would seem to me that the message of any "extension of man" is the further revealing of our human nature. Technology doesn't change us; it shows us who we are.

Oral Cultures - A link to the physical world

I came across this 1875 photograph French mountain guides by Joseph Tairrez while shopping for a keepsake in Chamonix, France. It's part of a calendar I bought and is on the month of September. It reminded me of reading Walter Ong's article about orality and literacy. Ong says that literacy led to abstract thinking which has ultimately expressed itself in our cyber existence, whereas primarily oral cultures are more connected to the here and now and share in traditional knowledge that is passed from generation to generation. This change towards literacy removed the parent as the primary tutor for the child and placed children in schools instead of on the farm or in the fields.

To look at this image of the mountain guides I can imagine the conversation being about the knowledge they have about glaciers, weather, irritable clients, and the happenings around the village. It is a slower pace of life, one I am drawn to each time I leave the city for an extended camping trip.

Color Response

While reading Lidwell's Universal Principles of Design I came across a passage about color where the authors claim that there is no "substantive evidence supporting general effects of color on emotion or mood. Similarly, there is no universal symbolism for different colors - different cultures attach different meanings to colors. "

I received this newspaper ad at home soon after and I think everyone can agree that color evokes mood and is used in combination with every functional item to create an identity or brand. Lidwell goes on to say that designers should "verify the meaning of colors and color combinations for a particular target audience prior to use."

I don't think the designer of this add was talking to me...

The Impact of Literacy

This is a photograph from my window during a recent
trip to Seattle with my family. There are 10 publications vying for attention.

We live in the information age. It is an age of shifting, destabilized mass media, political apathy, and high unemployment in the United States. We have entered into a period where the number of sources of information has grown dramatically while the ability to validate and verify has become obscured. CNN and Fox broadcast headlines 24/7 and yet there seems to be little new knowledge acquired. The average political ad contains just seven seconds of actual political speech and yet we have elected through a political majority to support a “war on terror” for the past seven years.

Media is everywhere, data is plentiful, and yet many would argue that American Culture is on a great decline. High Definition subscription television, portable mpeg players, internet enhanced cell phones, MySpace, EBay, and YouTube have enabled Western Consumerism to reach an apex that has left us staring down a deep pit of potential economic and cultural bankruptcy. Can the bling-bling continue?

In order to sort out the current climate of the world it is helpful to look back further than the last century and review the origins of language and literacy and its impact on economics and culture.

In Walter Ong’s article, Orality, Literacy, and Modern Media we go to the foundations of language and culture and look at the origins of literacy. He starts out by pointing out the distinction between Sound and Sight and how these senses are emphasized when communicating in either an oral or literate culture, and more importantly, how these senses affect the structure of our thinking. Ong asks us to mentally step away from the world of written language and consider the spoken word alone. Spoken word contains a power that text does not. Sound puts us at the center of the world while sight isolates. Sound waves go through us and are absorbed in a way that prompts us to respond internally in an outward manner. We have all found us tapping a finger or toe involuntarily. Sound based communication is dependent upon rhythm.

Oral cultures have very strong cultural structures and are dependent upon mnemonic memory systems. Complex thoughts have to follow strict rules or formulas because there is no record system available. Lessons are passed down through formulas such as nursery rhymes or proverbs that the community all shares an instant recall of. Whether it’s a saying like “red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky in the morning, sailor take warning!” or “ I before E except after C”.

Spoken word is an assertion of power. Even a simple greeting among strangers is a face threatening act that demands a response to maintain harmony. Sound seeks harmony and we are all enjoined to help achieve it. A Baptist preacher can recite chapter and verse with a fervor, and the audience joins in with shouts of “Amen!” Religious beliefs are shaped by an oral culture that obliges faith over fact to maintain the harmony of those gathered. One could argue that oral cultures provide the individual with a clear set of tools necessary to be successful. Knowledge is passed down completely, a farmers almanac of instant recall, and the rules are easy to remember and obey.

When you combine Walter Ong’s theories with Jack Goody and Ian Watts arguments about the Consequences of Literacy you find yourself experiencing a clearer picture of the contemporary socio-political landscape. Goody and Watts describe how the alphabet and the development of literacy led to the rise of Western Culture and its fragmentation. At its roots, reading is a solitary activity and is sight dependent. Literacy enables the development of abstract reasoning, and ultimately leads to the development of advanced technology that displaces physical workers and creates a social stratification due to gradations of literacy. Literacy also promotes individuality which breaks up homogeneous culture.

Secondary Orality through technology devices such as television, telephones, and the internet have had an interesting phenomena of maintaining some Oral cultural traits of harmony and shared meaning while promoting the literary traits of individuality and the vast expanse of authorship of every variety. The internet has normalized virtually every fetish that in a oral culture would be deemed deviant. While subcultures can flourish and find shared meaning, infinite fragmentation is also occurring as there are few bonds to hold individuals accountable to social conformity.

As literacy exist, the number of “truths” propagated through authorship expands. Unlike the spoken word event that may pass quickly, the shelf life of a text-based message is far longer and its redundancy effect serves to establish new social norms absent any formal logic as Aristotle might expect. What is seen or heard repetitively is likely to become the culture “truism” for the time being.

I found these two issues sitting like this in the breakfast room at my hotel in Seattle. The redundancy of the two issues makes for a new whole image of Obama. Maybe next month I'll have an opportunity to fill in the other half of McCain's face.

Contemporary culture appears to be a paradox of oral and literate cultures. While scientist and engineers work within the text based abstract reasoning, our political leaders continue to operate within a oral culture that lacks enough redundant coverage of the debates to spawn democratic participation of any significance. The weight of the spoken word of enabled a president to garner support for a war to suppress weapons of mass destruction. The orations in the House and Senate pass energy plans that are often at odds with scientific reasoning and the secondary orality of television media consumption leaves the masses ambivalent to it all. While consumption of media has expanded in light of fewer physical demands in our lifestyle, our overall literacy has declined which has led us to accept our fate. Social stratification based upon literacy has widened and we are consuming media in a manner that is imploding traditional outlets such as Newspapers in favor of YouTube and reality television episodes.

It would seem that we were preprogrammed to evolve into literate and illiterate consumers. Denise Schmandt-Besserat presents evidence that the Token system was the necessary precursor to writing. Tokens evolved from concrete counting devices to abstract number and category systems for keeping records. She points out that the very nature of record keeping is an assertion of dominance. In a communal or bartering system, tokens would not be necessary because all exchanges and communication would be done equitably and in person. Tokens form the basis of accounting and hence the need for administration and complex governance, and the need for literacy that is every bit as relevant in this age of information.
Literacy, like all sensory, is based upon time. Literacy moves culture from the now to the past and the future. In American Consumerism, it is the future where we spend all of our idle thought. Advertisements form a desire for future gratification that could not exist in an oral culture. Advertisers have refined the design and delivery of messages to be as efficient as a cigarette in delivering its narcissistic doses of envy.

Early advertisements were mostly text based. Gradually the image replaced the text and now we are compelled to dole out $200 for a pair of shoes based upon an image and the slogan “Just Do It.” Again I point to political campaigns that are image based rather than argument based. As we head to November, what are the factors that will decide the election?

While one could surmise that all of this is the work of clandestine capitalist, Andre Leroi-Gourhan reminds us that our mystical attraction to image is as ancient as we are. Graphism and human reflection predates literacy. The earliest representations are not phonetic language but are mythologies that connect us beyond words. Leroi-Gourhan explores the mysticism of the image and explains how alphabetic language is devoid of the emotional connections and multi-dimensionality that is contained within more graphical languages like Chinese that blend sound signs with graphics that portray a deeper cultural meaning that remains consistent even if the word sounds change.

When analyzing the image precursors to written language we see the foundations for photography’s linguistic qualities and its deep impact on culture. We can also see the origins for consumer responses to brand identities and modernist abstract logos such as the Nike swoosh. Abstract and emotional visual content, when added to words form strong cultural beliefs. The visual of John F. Kennedy, combined with the oral words of his speeches create a collective impression of the early sixties that may or may not reflect the facts or data of what was occurring in the world, but they form a strong sensory dream like memory of events long past. Crude graphics and text are easily seen as propaganda, but sophisticated branding and advertising such as the “margeting” style of situational advertising or product placement are less likely to be detected.

We are generally happy to buy Toby’s Kieth’s and Lee Greenwoods patriotic popular songs without recognizing our allegiance to its political consequences.

In short, the writings of Ong, Goody and Watt, Leroi-Gourhan, and Schmandt-Besserat help to clarify the present through a thorough review of the ancient. In the oral tradition it can all be summarized in the expression, “the more things change, the more they remain the same!” What Anthropologist and Sociologist have historically looked at in isolation are found to coexist in a zen like manner. We are literate and illiterate. We are primitive and scientific. We are new and ancient. Simultaneously. BF Skinner was right and so were the poets.

While I remain cynical about contemporary American Culture to a great degree, I do have new-found enthusiasm for developing literacy in New Media because of its potential to blend text, image, and oral traditions in a manner that is balanced and harmonious, not through the individual expression, but through the discursive formations of cultural values and meaning. If that should fall short, I’ll take up organic farming…