Questions and thoughts

We had a lot to read so lets get started. The “Passing it on” article was very comprehensive, very quantitatively driven. The results did not surprise me at all but there was something that wasn’t discussed that I missed: interest. I understand that textbooks should me more balanced and that instructors should make a point of pointing out that sports journalism is as good a career to pursue as any other if you’re a woman, but my experience tells me they ignored or chose not to discuss interest, which can be a very important factor.
I have been a TA for three broadcast radio classes. All three classes have been more than female-dominated in terms of both numbers and talent (14-2, 12-4, and 15-1). Of a total of 48 students, only three had an interest in pursuing a career as sports journalists. All three were men. Could it be that we should start the process earlier? Maybe by introducing sports in cartoons or books we could bring kids up with an understanding of sex equality when it comes to sports. I also believe, in a line that relates to our other readings, that the culture industry, when it comes to sports, has a sense that the big money comes from sports that are related to men. The NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, FIFA, etc. are all male-dominated. On the other hand, magazines, television and movies tell girls what a woman should look like: 36-24-36 and feminine. Angelina Jolie is a sex symbol. Lisa Leslie is 6 ft 5in. and 170 pounds. Who shows up more times in magazines and television? We have to fight a long, uphill battle with the way we raise our kids before we can hope to have an equal participation of both sexes in sports journalism.
Moving on. The “Revisiting the Classics” article sort of rubbed me the wrong way. On page 2 we read: “The postmodern notion of the “end of history” advanced by Baudrillard (1987) and U.S. State… Francis Fukuyama (1992) seems odd in an era marked by such momentous historical events as the collapse of communism, the end of the Cold War…” The rest of the article is divided between a passionate call for the development of new social theories and the “glorification” of past theories.
I have worked with both Baudrillard and Fukuyama. I’m still working with both of them in my research and their ideas will be used for a long time to come. First: past theories, even when still applicable, were created to explain past problems and cannot be used without some adaptation and evolution. Second: postmodernism arrived as the result of the failed project known as modernity. Explaining postmodern society requires a new frame of mind that, in my opinion, Baudrillard and Fukuyama clearly provide. Postmodernism quickly became an umbrella under which we stuck everything starting with literature (where it truly began), movies, art, etc. Now we are finally realizing that, as with all eras, postmodernism in coming to an end. Fukuyama calls it the end of history, the end of man, etc., but what he points at is an undeniable truth: postmodernism is coming to an end. How ironic is doing research, criticizing theory and finally publishing articles about the need to develop theory? How can we develop theory when the process gets so held-up in academic practices (the same discussed in Shugart article)? Why is the end of postmodernism not discussed more openly?
Next, I want to discuss the Mouffe interview. On page 967 she says: “…hegemony is positive in the sense that, if we accept that there is no order, if we did not have any kind of hegemony, we would be living in complete schizophrenia” Maybe I’m reading this and interpreting it wrong: is she implying that oppressive government and tricky propaganda have a “positive” aspect? This kind of thinking is what makes people believe that anarchy is impossible, so they start erroneously using it as a synonym of chaos. She does go on to say that “there is no social without power relations”, but do these relations have to be between hegemonic powers and their victims? Is she ultimately saying that there is no “social” without conflict and war?
On the George F. Will article I have little to say. The US has a penchant for giving stupid white men important positions and then complaining about it. One look at George W. Bush (with Alberto Gonzales and Dick Cheney attached) or Don Imus can attest to that.
In the same vein, the NYPD article was really funny. The hypocritical way in which we blame TV for all our problems is something that really makes me laugh. The imaginary line between religion and government also strikes me as an odd myth perpetuated precisely by those that act as if there is no border between the two. How can we work on research that proves once and for all that even if “viewing violent programming will lead to violent behavior” (p.9), we are still violent when you take the programming out of the equation? Why is the research done in other countries in which they have the same programming but are less violent kind of ignored?
Finally, the readings about the Frankfurt School and Horkheimer and Adorno were some of the most interesting ones so far, particularly the on in the book. For my thesis I worked with the concept of molds as they are applied to the construction of cultural products (music in my case). The Horkheimer and Adorno readings made me go back and take a second look at the way things are done and consumed by the “mass”. It also forced me to rethink a question that had been left unanswered then: given the fact that even counterculture produces using the same molds and processes, are the culture industries escapable at all? Can we avoid participating without having to live naked in a cave?
What I enjoyed the most about these readings was the fact that both the “reproduction of sameness” (p. 50) and the fact that these entertainment products are “sought by those who want to escape the mechanized labor process…” (p.52) are things that could’ve been written yesterday. Even if the mechanized labor sounds a tad wrong, we have to realize that even art has been turned into a mechanized process so that the line fits like a glove.
How many repetitions of plastic shorts do we see daily? Aren’t our academic papers a part of the problem in the sense that they have to follow a pattern of production? Scary.