Cultural Industry and Cultural Populism,

or productionism vs. consumptionism

Provider: Kate Liu / 劉紀雯

 

Theodore Adorno  1. General Introd; 2. "Culture Industry" outline; 3. Adorno on Modernism

    --Adorno 為首的文化工業批評者認為,大眾文化即是愚眾文化;它使消費者成為劃一、無自主性、批判性的群眾(mass)。 
    --Adorno's concept of modernism as a form of negation.  According to Adorno, "art is the negative knowldge of the actual world"; it "expresses the idea of harmony negatively by embodying the contradictions, pure and uncompromised, in its innermost structure."  For Adorno, modern avant-garde art is de-aestheticized and its aura eroded from within (through its form and structure) and this immanent negativity distances the reality it alludes to.


Michel de Certeau  1. The Practice of Everyday Life General Introduction outline 

-- de Certeau認為消費本身即是主動的再創造 ("active re-creation"  Poster 102);  它是機動性、零碎的、不明顯的改寫或竊取 , 利用「加於她身上的力量」在一個不屬於自己的地方「再創造」。換言之,消費者就是移民,離開了傳統的團結社會,在工業科技社會四處流浪,並把自己的otherness帶入社會(de Certeau 40; Poster 103)
--正因為消費者沒有力量,所以他們必須要用「伎倆」(tactic)來竊取、利用不屬於他們的力量,或改變不屬於他們的空間
-- Walking in the City: de Certeau而言,日常生活就是介入、挪用權力的方式﹔改寫都市版圖的方式就是個人在都市中的行走。de Certeau指出,行走之於地圖就如同語言行為(parole)之於語言系統(langue)行走(或謂「行人的語言行動」或寫作)說/寫出了城市的多重空間。「行走肯定、懷疑、試驗、僭越、尊敬它所『說出』的軌道」(97-99)如果都市地圖上有工整的街道,行人的腳蹤是不規律的(東歪西拐走捷徑)﹔如果都市地圖是完整的,行人的「空間」故事則是以偏代全(de Certeau用的是修辭語synecdoche提喻),省略連接詞(asyndeton﹔100-10)於是,移民在都市行走,一方面可能是遵循既有的軌道或被困於其中,一方面可能是寫出它的空間故事,是他/她們突破物質困境,挪用都市空間的方式之一。


John Fiske--

--大眾文化是個鬥爭的場所("a site of struggle" Fiske 1989: 20)有控制,也有抗爭
--
大眾文化中有兩種權力及兩個團體--體制的控制及大眾在消費上的抵制
--
大眾文化屬於弱勢族群("the weak" de Certeau 37; "the subordinated and the disempowered"  Fiske 1989 4-5) ; 抵抗龐大笨拙、沒想像力、太有組織("cumbersome"、"unimaginative"、"over-organized")的權力 (Fiske 1989 32)
--
消費者抵制的方式可以是規避("evasion")也可以是抗拒("resistance")Power Plays, Power Works Fiske 更進一步將消費者的伎倆分為較被動的轉換(inversion)規避(evasion)及較主動的反抗(opposition)及顛覆(disruption)
--
Fiske 的例子:Madonna fans, blue jeans wearers, homeless people.

John MacGuigan -- 

--Fiske . . . represents a dramatic narrowing of vision: the gap between 'popular' and 'mass' culture is finally closed with no residual tension; the relation between interpretative cultural studies and the political economy of culture is obliterated from the surface of the argument.  (p. 550)
-- [following Nowell-Smith] an exclusive attention to the popular may distract critical analysis from focusing on how cultural field works in general. . . 
    * Modern culture is capitalist culture. . 
    * Modern culture also takes the form of a single intertexual field, whose signifying elements are perpetually being recombined and played off against each other.