ALC215: Week 9: *Asian Gong sound effect*

In regards to Klein's assertions that Hollywood is becoming asianized and asian cinema is becoming Hollywoodized (2004, p.361), I feel as though the last decade or so has really seen the the 'Hollywood' genre and the Asian cinema scene become more and more indistinguishable, (could even add in elements of European and Bollywood cinema as well), with each borrowing tropes, narratives and sequences from each other. 

The posterboy for this cultural mash-up for me is Jackie Chan. 
In the last 10 years Chan has starred in almost as many western films as he has films made in his native Hong Kong and China. Films such as Kung Fu Panda 3 and a crappy remake of the Karate Kid with the Fresh Prince's son may not be very good in my eyes, however they represent the ways in which the Asian influence on Hollywood cinema has grown in that timeframe. 

Wax on? via martialartsmoviejunkie.com

Chan's cross over from martial arts tyro in such earlier films like Enter the Dragon, Fist of Fury and Drunken Master to prominent figure in American cinema has also in turn had an influence on asian cinema through Chan's role as a director, producer and stunt director in numerous movies. This is an example of asian cinema being influenced by Chan's experience in Hollywood, and may even be subconscious in the way that it manifests itself.

Bruce vs Jackie via Last.fm

The Rush hour franchise for me represents this culture mash of eastern and western cinema in that Chan and Chris Tucker are juxtaposed as the uptight, quiet detective with martial arts skill and the smooth talking LA cop respectively. The script of the movie even plays on this idea with Chan and Tucker both learning off each other throughout the movie, as Tucker teaches Chan American street slang and Chan introduces Tucker to Asian food.

via www.theteenopionon.wordpress.com

Back to Klein, his assertion that eastern and western cinema are borrowing from each other is very much correct, but I think you can take it further and say that advances in technology and actors, producers and writers traversing the world have meant that all genres and types of cinema are borrowing from each other, all the time.

References

Klein, C 2004, 'Martial arts and the globalization of US and Asian film industries', An International Journal, SAGE publications, New Delhi, p. 361.

 

ALC215: Week 8: Steve McQueen vs Aaron Paul...

The main differences between the representational and the presentational modes of media are really significant in the way that public identity is presented in the modern world. Representational modes of media include film and television, while presentational modes include Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. This, for me represents the two categories represent the distinction between the old and new media, and possibly even the difference between the public and the private to an extent. Marshall's assertion that 'there is an expansion of celebrity culture outward' (2010, p.498) reenforces this in my eyes, as the advent of new forms of social media have completely altered how we view the 'celebrity'.

The king of cool

An example i'm going to point out is Steve McQueen, although for the purposes of this exercise you could look at any number of moviestars, musicians or sportsmen and women.
A quick google search of McQueen's name doesn't return a single image not taken either from a movie or a professional photo-shoot, in fact the closest thing to it is the mugshot above. Admittedly Mcqueen did die in 1980, but the search results his name throw up all follow a very similar theme, he's almost the actual embodiment of James Bond, with guns, women and cars featuring prominently in many images. This is a key point, because McQueen's public image has not been at all altered or influenced by candid paparazzi shots or photos from any other source.

Aaron Paul and a fan...Bitch!

Contrast this with actor Aaron Paul for example (again, you could really use anyone active from say 2010 onwards) and you see a stark contrast with the way he is represented through images. His search results are dominated by Paul in more candid settings, rather than his representations through orchestrated photoshoots and screenshots of his work. The fan selfie featured above is just one readily available example.

In short, the most significant two differences between representational and presentational media (or the new and the old, as I have phrased it) is the consistency of image representational media provides for people such as McQueen, as opposed to the the array of images taken of Paul by fans, on red carpets, and even by himself and distributed through his twitter account. The other related difference is the sheer amount of images available, as advanced in technology have essentially put a camera in anyone and everyone's hands.

References

Marshall, PP 2010, 'The Specular Economy', Society, 47, 6, p. 498, MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 21 September 2013.

ALC215 Week 7: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is, in my humble opinion one of the greatest games of all time, however upon critical reflection, I start to realise the intriguing ways that race is represented in the gameplay and storyline. Using Hall's work on encoding and decoding messages and the construction of meaning I'll attempt to analyse these representations, and responses to them.

Shoot 'em up! www.g-unleashed.com

Big Smoke, Sweet and Ryder. Eerily similar to rappers Notorious BIG and Eazy-E. Via www.gtax.webz.cz

The game's storyline revolves around Carl 'CJ' Johnson, a young, African American male who returns to his home neighborhood in Los Santos (modeled on Los Angeles) after the death of his mother, the game follows his journey to find his mother's killer, but also encompasses Los Santos' extensive problems with gang violence, police corruption and even a riot which mirrors the real life events of 1992's race riots in Los Angeles. Within the game Asians are represented as Triad members who drive fast cars and wear clean cut black suits, Latin Americans are represented as 'gangbangers' who drive low rider cars, have tattoos and wear baggy 'gangster' clothing. There is limited interraction with Caucasian characters, however the ones we do see are represented as typical country 'rednecks'.


 

 

 The representation of not only CJ and his African American counterparts, but also the East Asia,Mexican and Caucasian characters was (and still is) a massive talking point when discussing this game, even though the creators didn't necessarily encode the narrative of the game to portray these stereotypes in a negative light. Hall's concept of encoding and decoding delves into the ways in which the producers of content encode their stories with meaning, and then the ways in which the consumers then deduct and decode meaning from that encoded narrative (Hall, 1980, pp.55-58). However it is important to note that the encoded meaning is not necessarily the decoded meaning. 

The racial representations can be decoded and read in 3 ways:

- Dominant/Preferred reading - The audience agrees with the text, in this context, players of the game would accept the racial representations of the characters, as they find them true to life and 'agree' with them.

- Negotiated reading - The audience agrees with aspects of the text, in this context, players of the game would accept the racial representations of the characters, however would disagree or reject certain aspects. For example if the audience was of Asian descent, they may reject the portrayal of Asians, but accept all other meaning.

 

- Oppositional reading - The audience disagrees with the text, in this context, audiences of the game would reject all racial representations contained in the game.

References

Hall, S 1980, ‘Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse’, Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, England, pp. 55-58, accessed 12 Sept 2013, >http://visualstudies.buffalo.edu/coursenotes/art250/250A/_assets/_readings/encoding_decoding_hall.pdf<

 

 

 

 

ALC215, Week 6: Political Tweeting: Ruddy Hell!

The use of Twitter in the two most recent Australian federal elections point to a dramatic shift in how Australians form, discuss and disseminate their political thoughts. As Bruns and Burgess discuss 'while the 2007 Australian federal election was notable for the use of social media by the Australian Labor Party in campaigning, the 2010 election took place in a media landscape in which social media (especially Twitter) had become much more embedded in both political journalism and independent political commentary' (2011, p.1).
This shift from online campaigning in 2007 to online discussion and interaction in 2010 and especially 2013 through tools such as Twitter represent the future in political campaigning, political journalism and political commentary, as the 2013 Australian Federal election has shown.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his predecessor Kevin Rudd presented very public fronts throughout their campaign through their Twitter profiles. This is a stark comparison to the political landscape we have come to know all too well, where every single little move or word is stage managed and run through publicists and media managers as to avoid gaffes and mistakes. 
 

KRudd selfie. Via Kevin Rudd Twitter @KRuddMP

Although this is a massive step into the future and something that will no doubt be a part of modern politics for years to come, the real advancement in regards to twitter is what it gives to the everyday political punter.

My take on the election

Media coverage of the election and it's lead up was heavily saturated with user generated content through twitter, particularly on channel 9, who used it as a large part of their election night coverage, constantly scrolling tweets along the bottoms of the screen and occasionally giving closer attention to ones from prominent journalists, sportspeople, politicians during their broadcast. This is a significant change from traditional news-casting because it incorporates the views of the viewer, rather than just the views of the broadcaster, which obviously offers a massive opportunity for people (whoever they may be) to voice their opinions, whatever they may be.

References

Bruns, A & Burgess, J 2011 'Ausvotes : how Twitter covered the 2010 Australian federal election'. Communication, Politics and Culture, 44 (2), p 1.

ALC215 Week 5. Blogosphere/Public Sphere?

Can the blogosphere act as independent and impartial public sphere?

The concept of the public sphere was first popularized by German social theorist Jürgen Habermas. It has been described as 'a discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment' (Hauser, 1998, p.86). This has traditionally been limited to public spaces such as coffee houses, markets and town squares, where people would gather to debate and discuss pertinent issues of the day, however advances in technology have meant that the coffee house or the town square can now be mimicked in an online setting. With this in mind, does the modern blogosphere now offer a new form of this public sphere?

In a word, yes. Some of the trappings of Habermas' public sphere are the disregarding of status and complete inclusiveness, and this is what the internet offers. Co-founder of social news site Reddit Alexis Ohanian discusses the equalising power of the internet below, commenting that 'my link is as good as your link', in that everyone with access to the internet is capable of having their say in equal measure, with little or no technological expertise.

     

This democratizing power can manifest itself in many ways, and is not just strictly limited to content of blogs and newsposts. Twitter can also act as a new public sphere in that it has the power to give everyone with access to the internet has equal ability to have their say on any issues, in 140 characters or less. However this model does have it's limitations, as not all opinions are not created equal. Even though the technology does afford everyone the ability to voice their opinions, comparing something I tweet to my less than 100 followers to something that goes out to the 36 million followers of US president Barack Obama doesn't exactly paint a picture of equality, does it?

References

Hauser, G 1998, "Vernacular Dialogue and the Rhetoricality of Public Opinion", Communication Monographs 65 (2): 83–107 Page. 86,