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Course
Module 3: Cultural Patterns and Media (August 5-11)
American beliefs
and tangible American economic activities form an important backdrop for
American culture. Popular culture— from films to music to junk food—is,
of course, a vital American export to the rest of the world. Some decry
the creation of “McWorld”; others, perhaps not incompatibly,
term those exports a form of power, albeit “soft” power. You,
then, need to understand the historical context of American culture (high
and low), and to get a sense of how it evolves, is transmitted, and sustained.
Given the ubiquitous reach of American sounds and images via satellite
TV, the film industry, and the internet, knowledge of the structures,
practices, benefits, and drawbacks of the “media society” is
especially crucial in interpreting United States society. Indeed, that
much of American culture as consumed on foreign shores is some form of
media is no coincidence given the media's crucial intertwining with American
state and society. Not only is culture transmitted and shaped by the mass
media, the sheer size of the United States and its population makes communication
and information flow within that population an important topic in its
own right. You will thus learn about American cultural production—both “elite” art
and literature and popular culture—and about the role of the mass
media in shaping and reflecting public opinion. Because of its focus on
the present day and the relatively recent rise of contemporary mass media,
this module does not present itself as clearly as the others in overall
chronological fashion, though a historical context is clearly presented
within each subtopic.
Since the founding,
American culture has woven together elements from many different national
traditions. It is appropriate, then, to begin a discussion of American
cultural patterns with a sense of the “American” side of the
phrase. What kind of culture is produced by the diverse immigrant society
of the United States, and how is that diversity represented by an increasingly
global media industry both domestically and internationally? We will have
examined immigration as an economic phenomenon; but how have various identities
shaped American culture? Various course sessions address this point; but
beyond discussion, you will immerse yourselves in it when we visit New
York City. We will visit Ellis Island and take a tour of the immigration
museum there, and hold a discussion on various aspects of immigration.
New York itself, of course, is a tangible expression of the American cultural
mélange and its effects on everyday patterns of consumption and
entertainment.
You will trace
the development of the media industries and their evolution in the decades
after World War II. You will encounter the various forms and scale of
media outlets, from print to electronic, from corporate giants to local
newspapers. New York, as the nation's media capital, will play a key role
in reinforcing this section of the module. The cumulative intent is to
address both the “what” and “how” of American
media—but also the “so what”, with ramifications for
the United States' relations with other nations. That this is not too
hyperbolic is evidenced by the Bush Administration's focus on international
public relations strategies, embodied in the new White House Office of
Global Communications.
Having reviewed
the history and variety of America's media industries, you will then explore
the ways that state and society interact through the media: how political
constraints shape media expression, and how media influence politics.
This perspective on media will show the significance of cultural patterns
examined in the first two modules. Beliefs about free speech and expression,
for example as embodied in the First Amendment, are part of American culture
and also frame the activities of the media. But that freedom has never
been absolute, especially in wartime; building on the campus discussion
of these points will be a meeting in New York with a representative of
the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who will discuss the role of
civil liberties in American culture and society. One focus will be the
recent war in Iraq: how did American media reflect, but also shape, the
political decision-making process? How did “embedding” journalists
matter for the perception of the war at home, and abroad? Yet another
aspect of the relationship between media and politics is evident in the
media's role in creating and sustaining such social movements as feminism
and the counterculture of the 1960s.
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