(Art), the Mass Media & Society

1. Characteristics of new digital media
2. Definition of, and critical look at, mass media
3. Relationship between art and mass media

‘Late Age of Print’- Media Theorist Marshall McLuhon

He believes that the age of print begins in 1450 with the invention of the printing press by Gutenburg. The press brings a new society. Knowledge becomes more freely available and more people can get it as it is wider circulated, not just to those few.

Computer Literacy

We can now consumer knowledge but also distribute it. Press has changed the way we read and engage with the world.

Ebook

• Are ebooks democratic?
• Will they replace books?

The digitisation of literature changes the way we think & read. Ebooks allow the reader to subvert the dogmatic authority of the authority. This is because the reader can ‘control’ the way they read. The reader can take on the role of the author.

Computer Media

Hypertext: ‘Surf through knowledge’. Hypermedia problems:

Hypertext can allow you to ‘skip’ knowledge and skip through it. It gives you the sense you have read up on an issue well, but you have only touched upon it and some aspects of it. Schools support this because the learner constructs the learning.

Definition of Mass Media

Modern systems of communication and distribution supplied by relatively small groups of cultural producers, but directed towards large groups of consumers. I.e. A few people have control of most knowledge creation. The internet doesn’t fit with this however.

Critical Analysis of Mass Media

1. Superficial, uncritical, trivial. Little content, not much to learn. Re-iterated entertainment.
2. Viewing figures measure success. Nothing changes because of this.
3. Audience is dispersed.
4. Audience is disempowered. Makes the feeling that viewers have power such as the XFactor
5. Encourages the status quo- conservative. It encourages the popular consensus and doesn’t challenge.
6. Apathy. Can’t do anything to change the world- only watch.
7. Power held by a few motivated profit driven people- propaganda.
8. Bland, escapist and standardised.

Positives
1. Not all media is low quality
2. Social problems and injustice are discussed by the media
3. Creativity can be a feature of mass media
4. Transmission of high art reaches broader audience
5. Democratic potential

John A. Walker- Art in the Age of Mass Media

What happens to art when it is being filtered through the mass media and the ignorant can engage with it and criticise it.

Leeds 13- pretended to go on holiday. United Colours of Benetton; art into adverts.

Can art be autonomous? Can it exist on its own within a vacuum? Should art be autonomous?

Jackson Pollock- elitist art that is ‘above society’. Thomas Gow says art vs. media is untrue and art has always been linked to mass media. Pop art- art revelling its own relationship with mass media. Lichtenstein takes the piss out of high art- but it is still high art.

Warhol Green Coca-Cola bottles says something about the ‘same-ness’ of modern society- of how boring media is today. ‘Mask’ on Marilyn Monroe. Celebrity glamour is repeated and given to us consistently with all its imperfections.

‘Campaign Fatigue’

Images fed to us so much that we are insensitive to it. Art becomes a subject of mass media. The meaning of art is shifted. Art is claimed by society e.g Jackson Pollock- Stone Roses and L’Oreal – Piet Mondrian.

Always has been a relationship between mass media and art. Symbolic- media is better artists reciprocate.

Myra Hindley – Marcus Harvey 1995. 1997 in Sensation in London. Handprints make up Hindleys face. Our relationship with Myria is 100% concerned with the media. Attacked the press. Iconic connotation with evil. Meditation with media not subject.