Reading 4

Castelells Manuel, “Communication, Power and Counter power in the Network Society”, International Journal of Communication 1 (2007), pp238-266.

Manuel Castelells is a sociologist especially associated with information society and communications research.

I am interested in the premise of interplays between communications and power relationships that Manuel Castelells explores in this piece. He argues that the media has become the social space where power is decided. Is this still the case in 2010? Or has this power been fragmented or further expanded?

I need to own up here to having a political interest; I work in a voluntary capacity on the Marketing Committee for the Green Party with a specific overview on brand and design.
The Green Party, like all parties are continuously researching means to establish the best ways to communicate with both members and potential voters.

The Obama campaign which occurred after this piece was written, is often mentioned as a turning point in election campaigns as it exemplified how best to harness social networks and digital communications to political gain. This is a change from Castelells noting TV as the number one political communication channel (p240). One of clever parts of the Obama campaign was how the Scott Thomas as design director clearly understood the divergent abilities inherent in the many new channels, identifying four main areas of image approach as 1. Campaign 2. Instant / Vintage 3. Timeless 4. Supporters. Using these as different storytelling motifs of the brand. This u-tube clip explains: http://the99percent.com/videos/5821/scott-thomas-designing-the-obama-campaign

This does confirm Castelells surmation that the value of the media is image based ‘The language of the media has its rules. It is largely built around images, not necessarily visual, but images’ (p242). The Obama campaign pitched the image in many ways reinforced with a visual component.

So we have got cleverer at selling a particular political brand to many audiences, in the way that audience wants to perceive it. This does confirm an active fragmentation or multiple ways of selling the same message over a broader type of media, which may now also deliberately include the low-tech (e.g oversize supporters buttons) and much as twitter feeds and digital sign-up mediums.

The English 2010 election, also strongly media driven, with a televised political debate being seen as the unexpected driver to change voter behaviour. The debate after much media discussion had 321,000 u-tube views.

The media also used the election to reinforce their own brands. The Independent newspaper produced a u-tube clip, which said in their own words: ‘Too much news is not news – it is spin and PR. Under an unapologetic, liberal banner, we will bring you the facts that many would rather you simply did not read’. This covered proportional representation, financial contributions and media involvement in the election. See the clip at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/the-independent-truth-matters-1949116.html

I would suggest that media power has been fragmented by the use of public zones such as u-tube, which for the moment at least are outside direct media control, even if they are being used by the media in increasingly clever ways.

Reading 3

Craig, David. “Taranaki Gothic and the Political Economy of New Zealand Narrative and Sensibility”
New Zealand Sociology Volume 20 Number 2 2005

David Craig is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Auckland University.

The article written for the New Zealand Sociology publication compares the notion of Taranaki Gothic to influences upon the social and political economy of New Zealand.

I am interested in the question of what IS Taranaki Gothic, and is the provincial still influencing New Zealand’s wider view.

The term Taranaki Gothic was coined in reference to Ronald Morrieson, a Taranaki local and novelist of Came a Hot Friday, Predicament and Pallet on the Floor which “using Hawera as a backdrop for scandalous literary characters, usually shallow, casual bizarre sexual adventures and crime” [1] relate to the modern interpretations of Gothic writing. This genre has also been called Taranaki Gothic Horror. [2]

Gothicness has been applied to much of New Zealand’s creative spheres, fashion, filmmaking and architecture being common examples. Craig has also written on gothic contemporary photography. [3]

Craig has also used this term before, referring to Taranaki Gothic in an exhibition catalogue piece for artist Michael Stevenson in The Seppelt Contemporary Art Award, 1997. He refers to the definition provided by Nick Parry in The Dominion of Signs, 1994 “a slapstick style progressively undercut by a growing sense of desperation and heightened sense of threat.” Stevenson is himself from Taranaki. Craig explores in this piece the relationship of provincial to the wider world, using Michael Stevenson’s work to illustrate the ‘stalker’ mentality of the provincial artist when creating art derivative of offshore art they have seen only in reproduced form. “ . . . . so much provincial art is that a choked access to the living springs of metropolitan aesthetic authority produces a grotesque provincial reading of what the provincial artist believes is currently the case in New York”.[4]

In Craig’s 2005 piece he mentions exporting and how NZ has responded to global pressures. I think it is worthwhile to examine how NZ represents itself to the world in this context and to ponder if we are still as a country in 2010 in a very similar position to the provincial artist. The desire to reinterpret ourselves as a knowledge economy over and above an agricultural producer has meant a shift in visual language and symbols, but how much of this is catch-up with world views rather than inventing our own? The offshore questioning of our use of the 100% Pure branding is only beginning to resonate in NZ. Whereas Europe has been sustainability savvy for some years, business and tourism operators have been slow in recognizing this.

In 2002 NZ decided to promote itself as “technologically advanced, savvy, and a good place to work” – images that are important to the projected economic development of identified key enabling sectors in the economy of biotechnology, ICT and creative. [5] This dichotomy of trying to appear as a green, clean, adventurous tourist destination while also selling ourselves as a place of product innovation and economic development is possibly our downfall. Like the provincial artist we see the reproductions from offshore (countries booming like Ireland) and desire to be them and copy them. Of course Ireland has recently busted, but we still believe we can be an economic banking hub. Our growing sense of desperation and heightened sense of threat to economic pressure have made us schizophrenic to our future, a real life gothic horror.

[1] Bartle Rhonda. “A Bulky Man of Large Enthusiasms – Ronald H Morrieson”. www.pekeariki.com/research/TaranakiStories
[2] Bartle, Rhonda. “Taranaki Gothic Horror”. www.pekeariki.com/research/TaranakiStories
[3] Craig, David. “Gothic Inversions and Displacements: Ruins, Madness and Domesticated Modernism”. Gothic New Zealand. ed Kavka, M. Lawn, J. Paul, M. Otago University Press 2006.
[4] Craig, David. “Taranaki Gothic: stalking the grotesque in provincial art”. The Seppelt Contemporary Art Award 1997
[5] Guy, Natalie. "Brand segmentation and imagery in New Zealand’s national branding". 2006