Assignments Assignment 1 The formal requirements for Paper 1 are simple: 1200 words But beyond these formal requirements things do get more complicated. I would like you to base your paper in some way shape or form upon the materials discussed, viewed, and read during these first three weeks of class. This though is not a memory class. Do not view your paper as a review of the material or a way of showing me what you have read. I am impressed when people have read well and closely, but reading well and closely requires also that one do some thinking about what one has read. That's the hard part...the thinking part. This will require some engagement on your part, some desire to express a view for example, or to analyze something not quite clear, or to explain something that needs explaining, or to reflect on how the materials may have changed however slightly your view of things. Mostly I want to hear YOUR response to the topic under discussion as you understand that topic and as you think, reflect, and feel upon it. Because I want YOUR response, I can tell you exactly what to write because I do not know what YOUR response. Hell, I don't even know at this moment what MY response is. I have covered the materials we have covered in class a couple of times now and each time I find myself thinking about what I have seen, read, and discussed in a slightly different way. The way I try to find out what I might be thinking is to write and see what comes out. So, that I guess is what I am asking you to do. For example, this time I find myself thinking more about the "expressive self." This is mentioned in the video and the readings. What is that exactly. I am not sure, I would have to think about it. But for the time being I will not try to define it, but just say that the video and the readings suggest this "expressive self" was created and produced by social forces, by what I call the consumer society. People like Bernay and Lehman and Herbert Hoover quite consciously saw advertising--the executive arm of the hidden govenment--as an attempt to create something called, not the worker, or laborer, or thinker, or artist, but the consumer. I find this a little freaky because it means that the very way I experience my self as a self is not my self precisely but a socially created self-view. At other times, people apparently did not experience themselves as consumers; this is hard to get to or understand because we tend to project on the whole history of the world the view of the world that we know, the one we have grown up with. That's sort of what I am thinking about at this point. If I were to write a four page paper, it would be devoted to saying more clearly by analysis, example, quotations, personal examples what I mean by these foggy thoughts and what they might mean for my understand of myself and the world in which I live. Something like that. More on paper 1... As indicated paper 1 is not a report but a response (that might include analysis, argument, narrative, etc) to the topic. Along those lines I was thinking about the idea of expressive individual, and it came to me that I had seen a commerical back in the sixties, or early seventies that clearly illustrates this idea (in the commercial!). I forget the product. But this was during the cold war and feature Russia. The Russians didn't have the thing being advertised (who knows what) and as a consequence of that they were the dullest looking people in the world. In the ad, all the women wore drab green smocks and all the men look like idiots. These people were a dull uniform horde because they lacked the product. We americans however were lively and colorful and expressive because we had the product. As Berney would say this advertisement was pure propaganda. A product was associated with the expressive individualism of capitalist consumer society, and those Russians, who were socialists, were consequently projected as dull and idiotic. So in this ad, the product was associated with patriotism, capitalism, consumerism and all were projected as superior to the dull idiocy of the the Russians. I don't know if I would use this example in my paper or not. Maybe I would use it in the first paragraph as a way to get things going. Also to show how this theme of expressive individualism is still being used in ads I might write about those Mac/PC ads.
Quotations from Bernay: "We are governed...largely by men we have never heard of." Edward Bernay, reader page 9 "Small groups of persons can, and do, make the rest of us think what they please about a given subject." -Edward Bernay, reader page 20 "But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought." "Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country" "Whatever of social importance is done today, whether in politics, finance, manufacture, agriculture, charity, education, or ohter fields, must be done with the help of propaganda" Charity, as well as business, and politics and literature, for that matter, have had to adopt propaganda, [...] all the rest, have to work on public opinion just as though they had tubes of tooth paste to sell" (Bernay, 26). The practice of creating circumstances and creating pictures in the minds of millions of persons is very common. Virtually no important undertaking is now carried out without it," "We have voluntarily agreed to let an invisible government sift the data and high-spot the outstanding issues so that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical proportions"(p.10) "From our leaders and the media they use to reach the public, we accept the evidence and the demarcation of issues bearing upon public questions; from some ethical teacher, be it a minister, a favorite essayist, or merely prevailing opinion, we accept a standardized code of social conduct to which we conform most of the time." (Bernay, 11) "It has been found possible so to mold the mind of the masses that they will throw their newly gained strength in the desired direction...propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government." (Bernay, 19-20) Edward Bernay: "In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind." In practice, if every one went around pricing, and chemically testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would become hopelessly jammed. To avoid such confusion, society consents to have its choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to its attention through propaganda of all kinds" (Bernay, reader pg. 10). Propaganda does exist on all sides of us, and it does change our mental pictures of the world.” (Bernay p.18) It might be better to have, instead of propoganda and special pleading, committees of wise men who would choose our rulers, dictate our conduct, private and public, and decide upon the best types of clothes for us to wear and the best kinds of food for us to eat" (Bernay, 11-12). "I am aware that the word "propaganda" carries to many minds an unpleasant connotation. Yet whether, in any instance, propaganda is good or bad depends upon the merit of the cause urged, and the correctness of the information published." (Bernay, 20). To avoid such confusion, society consents to have its choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to its attention through propaganda of all kinds. There is consequently a vast and continuous effort going on to capture our minds in the interest of some policy or commodity or idea." (Bernay, 11) Propaganda does exist on all sides of us, and it does change our mental pictures of the world. Even if this be unduly pessimistic- and that remains to be proved- the opinion reflects a tendency that is undoubtedly real" "Charity, as well as business and politics and literature, for that matter, have had to adopt propoganda...The Near East Relief, the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor of New York, and all of the rest have to work on public opinion just as though they had tubes of toothpaste to sell"- Bernay (26) "In theory, every citizen makes up his mind on public questions and matters of private conduct. In practice, if all men had to study for themselves the abstruse economic, political, and ethical data involved in every question, they would find it impossible to come to a conclusion about anything."-Bernay Propoganda is the executive arm of the invisible government" (Bernay, 20)
Assignment 2 Assignment 2 will be a research proposal. You will tell me what exactly you intend to research. The proposal will have three basic parts. Introduction: what do you intend to research and why is this research important for an understanding of consumer society. Assignment 3: your final research paper will be about 12 pages long, with a works cited page containing a minimum of 8 citations. Assignment 4: An oral report on your research to be delivered some time during the last three weeks or so of class. Assignment 5: brief blog entries on selected subjects as assigned. Assignment 7: please do not text message or communicate via any electronic means to persons not in the classroom. Details concerning each of these assignments will be filled in as the course goes along. |