- keywords (sign/signifier/signified, conventions, social construction, subject/object, position, subject-position, rhetoric, and many more);
- the text/author/audience triangle;
- Stuart Hall's Circuit of Culture (production <-> consumption <-> regulation <-> presentation/representation <-> identity); and
- the six aspects of culture (culture is structured, rhetorical, historical, economic, psychological, political).
Your assignment, in this first blog post, is to:
- find a cultural object we haven't looked at in class -- anything is fair game (a space, a website, an ad, a word, a thing, a video, etc.), but you'll want to find something you think you can "read" effectively;
- post it -- or a link to it, or an image of it, or a description of it -- to the blog; and
- write and post, in the same post just below the object, a 200-300 word reading of the object, in which you describe the position that the object "argues" you into taking and explain how it does it. Use at least THREE keywords from our work in your explanation. You are also encouraged to use some of our other tools, such as the Circuit of Culture and the attached list of questions, to help structure your reading.
Finally -- and this will be the same for every posting assignment -- don't forget to come back sometime on Monday, read your colleagues' posts, and make a thoughtful comment on at least one of them.
Primary imperative for all blog posts: don't bore your friends! The more fun you have writing these posts, the more fun we'll all have reading them. And a quick note on style: blog posts are short, informal pieces of writing, meant for the other people in your Blog Community -- no need for introductions, conclusions, citations, any of that "formal" or "academic" silliness. Just jump right in -- show us an interesting object, and tell us how it works.
http://ubethecritic.com/2010/09/jersey-shore-soundtrack-2010-review/
ReplyDeleteRecently the show Jersey Shore has brought peoples attention back to MTV. As many of you already know, these people are quite ridiculous but also very entertaining. Most of the "actors" in this show are subjects but two that I think stand out most and influence more people are Snooki and the Situation. Snooki has gotten girls to pick of some of her catch phrases such as "Wahh!" or "I'm in the Jersey Shore bitch". She has also influenced some fashion for girls like teasing the hair to a much higher height than usual, tight dresses that barely cover anything up, and her bejewled sunglasses she can't even see out of. As for Mike or the Situation, the main thing he does is lift up his shirt whenever the chance to be in public arises to show off his abs. Many guys I think don't necessarily do this as well, but may come up with dumb nicknames for themselves as he has. Objects that have come from this phenomenon starts with fist pumping. You are supposed to fist pump when in a club sort of atmosphere and this is known as dancing somehow. Also the term GTL was given to us by them, and it stands for gym,tan,laundry since this is supposedly what they do every single day. Last but certainly not least, the boys on the show gave men everywhere a term to describe girls that they do not find attractive at all; grenades. It is a very degrading term and there have been many moments where they throw this term out in front of the so called grenades. It depends on the person to see what kind of position you stand, but I think you either love it, or hate it. I personally love it because it's fun to watch what kind of shenanigans they get into.