This was it: the last lecture of the quarter.  As such, things were a little different.  We did instructor evaluations, we received the final essay assignment, and Professor Bennett went through some connected themes.

Yet that wasn’t the highlight of the lecture, and everyone knew it.  That was the big reveal for the winners of the video contest – and the prizes!  There turned out to be three categories: a marketing win, for the most hits; a people’s choice, based on a vote of the class; and a judges’ choice, which was the selection of the TAs and Bennett.  The surprise was the prizes: each individual on each winning team got a UW bookstore certificate for $20.  Sweet!

The reveal of each winner was nifty, even if most of the contests weren’t in much doubt.  As the video played, the members of that group would come down to the stage to claim their prizes.  The winner of the most hits was the one anti-Obama video.  We don’t know his marketing strategy, having gotten many conflicting reports, but he certainly blew everyone else out of the water with it: almost 30k hits compared to the 19k of the runner-up (and most videos being lucky to break 1-2k).  The peoples’ choice was, according to Bennett, near-unanimous: The Market.  I, for one, am ecstatic – though this wasn’t much of a surprise either considering our rudimentary exit-polling yesterday.  I'm also happy about the judges’ choice award: A Doorknob is Forever, which is a very creative, unsettling, and generally thought-provoking video about the lengths that advertising goes to.  This was the video that I thought was at least near ours in quality and creativity (I wrote them in as an honorable mention on my ballot yesterday).  I'm glad that they got a nod.  Finally, Andre, who goes by pabunko on YouTube, won an honorable mention for producing three videos.  Though none managed to win most hits, he got 2nd with one of them (and all generated more hits than most of the class).  A smaller prize, but it's something for the effort.

Here are links to the winners:

Most Hits: UNPATRIOTIC Barack Hussein Obama (yes, in the interest of fairness, I'm including this link)
People's Choice: The Market
Judges' Choice: A Doorknob is Forever
Honorable Mention: Message to the World (the video that Andre preferred from his multiple entires, though not his top one in terms of hits)

I think that I’m going to go spend my certificate on one of the clip-art compilations for use on my empire-building political game, for which I had an epiphany last night (around 3 AM, while finishing the textbook reading).  More on that later.  Like, after the final project is done.

We’re closing in on the end of the quarter, fast, and the image of the final project is coming into focus.  There’s only one more lecture after this, at which the assignment will officially be handed out.  It’s clear that it will involve designing a media campaign to address some sort of political issues (our individual choice, I’d think).

This morning was all about the tactics for distributing messages into the branded mass media environment.  The primary tactic discussed was culture jamming, which is specifically about re-spinning brand images to get at the politics behind the brand.  The overall idea is to piggyback your message onto recognizable images in order to quickly connect with viewers.  The tricky part is getting into the media in the first place, which seems to be best accomplished by generating a massive movement and distribution through micro- and middle-media (like blogs, web news, etc).  If a story is big enough, some mass media will take a look at it.  If your message is integrated tightly then they’ll have no choice but to bring up the real issue as part of their story (which will be inevitably spun by the media biases).

I’m a bit worried about the legal consequences of culture jamming.  Corporations get rabid about defending their brand image, and they have far more money to throw to legal teams than individual artists or activists.  Worse, Washington D.C. has been the ally of big business on these speech issues since the Regan presidency – which means that the laws are often on the corporations’ side.  The one bright side is that a major legal battle would expose the issue, but I don’t find that very reassuring when facing a pack of rabid lawyers.  Activism has to be accompanied by very sober, very precise research and calculation.

This’ll probably be a short post, because, once again, my laptop battery wants to croak.

The lecture today was all about the impact of globalization on political issues and communication.  Only one element really stuck in my memory though, particularly when Professor Bennett showed our video to the whole class at the end of lecture (awesome!).

One key theme paralleled Jared Diamond’s complaints in Collapse: corporations can freely shift their production and market between nations.  Their economic power means that countries compete for both – with the result that regulations and controls tend to be dismantled.  It’s a similar situation to a workplace with no unions or government regulations – those capable of doing the job must compete for the lowest wages or be fired in favor of those who do.  That’s the free market.  The problem is that lack of regulation leads to massive exploitation of both people and the environment.

The solution proposed by both Bennett and Diamond is to get consumers to draw the links between the modes of production, and their moral costs, and the final products that they’re buying.  It’s been proven to work – in some instances.  While people often do tend to avoid buying products from corporations that have been proven publicly to be exploitative, some products are hard to link that way.  Mining is Diamond’s favorite example – how on earth do you know where everything in your car, cell phone, or laptop originated?  There are steps upon steps to the refining and manufacturing process.

While there’s hope, and certainly empirical proof that progress can be made, we may need many different techniques to address these issues as global citizens.

Our class video project is now available online here on YouTube.  Watch it, enjoy it, and by all means spread the word!  We rely on your support in this venture.

Additionally, our Facebook group for the video has a number of photos taken during filming.

The lecture was short today, since most of the class time was spent watching a Frontline documentary called The Merchants of Cool.

The Merchants of Cool looks at how marketing experts reach the teenage market, which is huge and has correspondingly huge amounts of disposable money.  The problem is that teenagers tend not to respond to most typical advertising that older markets do.  The only thing that they consistently respond to is, in a word, “cool.”  Figuring out what’s cool is incredibly profitable.  The problem is that a feedback loop has been created that emphasizes the most extreme part of teenage culture and counter-culture: sex and violence, distilled.

Interestingly enough, I couldn’t identify with any part of the themes that have been proven to work in the market (and yes, I know, I’m not actually a teenager anymore – bear with me anyway).  These trends occasionally poke their nose into the media that I consume, most often in games, but I try to avoid them as much as I can because I find them offensive and ultimately without the depth to keep interest.  That’s the same basic reason why I know that the movie 300 is an unmitigated piece of crap (the more that I think about it, and the more that anyone argues about it, the more I discover new reasons to hate that movie).

The question, for me, is how did I get this way?  Why do I, and most of my circles of friends, not conform to those tastes (not completely, but that’s the trend).  It has to come from some combination of avoiding the culture of organized schools and my tendency to hang out with older friends.  I don’t really want to believe that socialization is that powerful, even though I know it intellectually.  I also don’t want to claim that I’m better though.  That would be an erroneous argument considering that everyone is different in their own ways.  There is some sort of difference though.  I'm just not sure what it means.

And now I have to run, because my laptop battery is about to croak.

Today felt like a summary of the last couple of weeks.  There was more detail than that, but after reading most of the required pre-exam reading in the current textbook there didn’t seem to be much truly new in the lecture.

There were a lot of statistics and examples to support the already introduced themes.  Generally, due to lack of time and budgets for investigative reporting, the news media focuses on mayhem and prepackaged information to create the nightly news.  One striking statistic was how the number of murder stories in the news skyrocketed 700% in the ‘90s, while the actual murder rate dropped 20% in that same period.

The concept of a conflict between democracy and market-driven demography was also reintroduced.  This came up earlier in the quarter when discussing how advertising focuses on targeting precise slices of the population for maximum efficiency.  That influences how media outlets construct their programming.  Well, money talks.  The news media is no exception – focusing on attracting a specific market demographic desirable to advertisers means more ad revenue.  The downside being that the people as a whole have fewer shared experiences, fewer shared ideals, and more tailored information that usually doesn’t reflect the full reality of an issue.  The pessimistic conclusion is that demography trumps democracy in an unregulated free market of information.

The question posed at the end of lecture was, “what solutions might be out there?”

This morning Professor Bennett lectured about the interaction between the media and the government.  Because of several long-term trends, the media tends to report only viewpoints that are backed by people in positions of power (media indexing).  This means that when there is consensus in government, for whatever reasons, the media is no longer capable of fulfilling their traditional role of watchdog.

A combination of factors led to this situation.  The media has had, for at least half a century or so, a norm of objective reporting (as opposed to the “muckrakers” of the preceding era).  That generally means showing both side of an issue, which isn’t inherently a problem.  However, the increasingly consolidated media owners discovered that the best way to increase their profit margins was to cut down on the expense of investigative journalism.  Since news organizations can’t muster as much independent research to back up their stories, most mainstream media outlets are reliant on government sources (or other news agencies that rely on government sources) for their credible information.

The current state of affairs isn’t that bad when there is debate within the halls of power – the various sides get reported – but it’s a huge problem when the political establishment is silent or arguments have disproportional representation in power compared to the real situation.  From the initial invasion of Iraq to the global warming debate, the media has been dependent on the political strength of each argument.  There was almost no debate on the invasion of Iraq, and almost no question about it in the mainstream media.  There was far more debate in congress and the media on whether global warming was a real problem than there was in the scientific community.  In each case, the mainstream media failed to offer anything enlightening.  The media was a mirror for the politicians, no more.

The question that remains is where the watchdog comes from now.  My mind has not been changed: I’ve already articulated my opinion that the future must lie with a citizen-media rather than a professional private media.  The public must learn to create what it wants and needs rather than waiting in vain for corporate enlightenment.  The former may well bring about the latter if profits follow, but I won’t hold my breath.

This update is a bit late because of technical difficulties (read: apparent death of laptop - but only temporary, thank goodness).

There was a lecture today, as usual.  The new theme that Professor Bennett introduced today, and which will be the focus of the next portion of the course, is the question of media independence.

Today, we just got the synopsis.  The overall theme isn’t new: media consolidation and privatization leads to demands for more profits which leads to less original journalism, replacing it with parroting of press releases and other news organizations’ stories.  It’s no surprise to the observant reader; if you read a number of papers online, you’ll quickly discover that a large portion of the text is the same, with fifty “different” articles coming straight from a single newswire source.  The question posed is whether this sort of free media can be an effective information source.

My personal opinion is fairly simple: we need more public media, including news.  Fund real journalism – because the free market isn’t.  Doing so wouldn’t serve those in power of course, since they tend to be the ones that can manipulate the current system.  Which brings me to my best actual hope: the citizen media.  If real people simply take the time to articulate their reality, and more people take the time to look instead of consuming the same stale mass media lines, then a new public media can function through the Internet.  Of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The main message that I took from today’s lecture was a caution about the use of hard power.  The application of hard power in Iraq combined with some of our response and messages have significantly damaged our soft power capabilities worldwide.

The invasion of Iraq was a clear application of hard power, implemented against much of the world’s opinion.  That’s a basic fact.  We had/have some allies, but most of the major world powers, and their populations, viewed the invasion negatively.  Following through with said invasion clearly has an impact on our popularity as a nation, though good work and public relations could have mitigated it.

The Bush administration's response to international criticism has been the worst blow to our image.  The fundamental assumptions of American foreign relations have been insulting to foreign populations.  The first assumption is that America is right, and criticism is born of either corruption or ignorance.  The second assumption comes through in the unspoken communication strategy used by the Bush administration: only American public opinion matters.  In combination, this view is disturbingly similar to those of colonial powers of old.  Not only that, but it flies in the face of many parts of America’s brand image.  Recall the slogans of “no taxation without representation” in the revolutionary war?  Colonial arrogance in policy and message led inevitably to anger and, finally, rebellion (in far more cases than the American colonies).  People won’t listen to you favorably when you insult and demean them.  It’s no surprise that we can’t project soft power as effectively as we once could.

Of course, the Bush administration doesn’t publicly acknowledge the existence of soft power (part of the image of arrogance problem).  It’s no surprise that they’ve been uninterested in maintaining soft power.  They’ve cut themselves off from a powerful tool.  In short, we have an administration of scrubs (go google Sirlin if this term isn’t familiar in this context).

It’s fairly clear that we need a change of administration before the world is willing to listen to anything we say.  Leadership change is not enough, but it’s a necessary first step.  It was essential in 2004, too, but we failed that test and have an even deeper hole to climb out of as a result.

Today’s lecture set up and then asked two questions: when should soft power or hard power be utilized, and how much does world opinion actually matter?  There was more in the lecture, about consumerism and how it’s interwoven with America’s identity now, but the ending questions seemed to possess more ultimate importance.

Soft power and hard power are political science concepts that I’ve run into before.  Soft power is using various techniques to make other nations (or their leadership) want to follow your desired course of action.  Hard power is forcing them to do so, often by direct military force.

In my view of politics, soft power should always, always be exploited to the absolute maximum before invoking hard power.  Even leaving aside the moral issues, the Machiavellian advantage from getting other nations to spend their resources instead of having to waste our own is clear.  More resources saved means more investment in infrastructure (at least it should), which means more future power.  Combined with good cost-benefit analysis, this approach would produce effective foreign policy.

Personally, I believe that failure to exploit soft power is the reason that we’re mired in Iraq and are bleeding away the economic and military might that has given us superpower status.  The roots go back far further than the Bush administration.  A century of corporate economic colonialism has turned many peoples against the consumer culture that America embodies, which goes back to the issue of America’s brand identity.

I don’t have a solution, though I suspect that it’s possible to produce a change in the long term.  There isn’t any quick solution, certainly.  Changing images built up over decades is hard, particularly when these issues aren’t yet significant to the American public mind.  I’m not sure of specific plans for repair – at least not yet – but it can be done.  The issue is that the time will be measured in generations.

Today, in class, the professor lectured for a bit before showing a short film.  It’s a good thing that I have notes, because I hardly recall anything that he said after the impact of the film.

The video was titled Killing Us Softly 3.  Made in 1999, the program was about images of women in advertising.  It is an effective film.

This is one of those topics that I tend to avoid simply due to lack of perspective.  I’m a guy, so I think that I’m automatically not qualified to talk about the problems caused by the media portrayal of women.  That’s obviously a complete oversimplification surrounded by the scent of bullcrap, but it’s ambrosia compared to the advertising shown in today’s film.

I want to write an insightful commentary on the issue, but I can’t. I’m honestly at a loss for words.  It makes me want to pull the headdesk of all headdesks on behalf of our society.  It reminds me why I avoid anything even remotely close to “mainstream” media (not that advertising can really be avoided in today’s world).  This sort of media benefits no one, except, of course, for the corporations selling crap to a consumer culture enmeshed in stereotypes.

Note: more in the first comment.

Today’s lecture was all about how the government can use, and has used, media to sell wars to the public.  The main example was World War I, since it’s generally considered by the course’s sources to be the birth of modern public relations.  The most effective single tactic seems to be secretly organizing respected “independent” leaders (local leaders in WWI, more diverse types of opinion leaders as media technology has improved) to pass on the government’s propaganda strategy to the people.  The parallel was drawn with the current Iraq war and the participation of military analysts employed in the defense industry and coached by the administration.

What occurred to me is that there is a fundamental break between the administration’s media policy and war policy.  If a public must be led and brainwashed into compliance in a democratic society, and is not capable of rational creation of policy, then why would the Iraqi people be capable of creating a democracy without the same methods of persuasion applied from above?  From my research about early events in the Iraq war, very little attention was paid to winning the Iraqi people (including not just lack of propaganda, but lack of action to prevent mass material failures in Iraqi civilian, governmental, and cultural systems).  All administration attention was focused on the American public.

That implies one of three situations in the minds of the Bush administration.  Either an honest stumble, a systematic ignorance, or entirely different motives altogether.

It’s possible that the administration simply failed to discover the flaw in their ideology.  That’s possible, since people have been known to neglect critically analyzing their own ideologies.  On the other hand, the neoconservatives have been around for a long time and have had a great many intellectuals in the movement who should know better than to make such an elementary mistake.

Another possibility is that the administration was ignorant of the ideas and philosophy behind the marketing tools that they put to use.  If the impetus behind the practical ideas of people like Le Bon, Lippman, and Bernays is unknown to the administration, there would be no internal ideological conflict inherent the administration’s handling of the American and Iraqi populations.  While the US might be reluctant and need to be “sold” the idea of war, the Iraqis, in the administration’s view, wouldn’t need to be sold the idea of democracy at all.  Again however, the presence of academic intellectuals in the neoconservative movement and the administration itself throws this interpretation into some doubt.

The most likely and sinister reason behind the Iraqi situation is that the Bush administration has wholly different goals that the national interest of either country.  It’s been pointed out by many that defense contractors and private military contractors (mercenaries in reality – that’s another word play ala Frank Luntz) that are profiting massively from the war also have close links to many the individuals in the administration.  It’s not uncommon for members of the government to wind up with their own slice of the corporate pie after their stint in office is over, often through highly placed positions with significant salaries and stock options.  In this interpretation of the administration’s mentality leading up to war, it’s corporate America in general and the military industrial complex in specific that actually controlled events – the government is simply another pawn in the media chain.

The situation boils down to another recurring question in this course: where does the power really reside?  Is it with public desires, with commercial advertising, or with government propaganda?

It’s interesting when a lecturer is really on the ball.  This class keeps me thinking, generating ideas.  When I come up with an interesting idea that I want to talk about more, the professor talks about it in class.  No communication necessary – the course structure is simply that good at anticipating the flow of the class.  I never saw that anticipation to this degree at NSCC, probably because the good instructors were always terribly overworked.

Moving on to the course content and inspired thought, beware: there is a long semi-coherent rant coming.

One thing that I have been thinking about, in large part because of the latest readings (P.R., by Ewen), is the strong possibility that I’m an elitist at heart.  Not an elitist based on class or race – I hate elitism on both counts – but an elitist about knowledge.  Like Bernays (godfather of public relations) and many political intellectuals of the past, I don’t believe that the majority can govern.  Unlike the worst of those intellectuals, I don’t believe that most people are incapable of governing; I believe that most people are simply not interested in or do not possess the knowledge to govern successfully.  I believe in the ideal of the ordinary but active and informed citizen, yet I don’t think that those people are common anymore (and probably never were common, really – I certainly can’t name an era where they were).  I believe that acting on any serious situation without competency – expertise if possible – is usually disastrous and morally wrong (*cough*Iraq*cough*).  So the people who can’t govern or don’t care about governing should not govern.  If you don’t know the issues, don’t vote and don’t agitate.  Educate first.

Education is my essential problem with the systems of this country.  I believe that everyone should choose, consciously, whether to be a citizen or a consumer (neither choice is wrong, since people and their individual life goals are different – for myself, I’m still uncertain what balance of the two that I want in my life).  The problem with our system is that many people are either unaware of the tools available to the citizen, or unaware that the choice exists at all.  Good education is expensive, which is a moral and practical wrong.  Information technology allows for the dissemination of messages produced by anyone from massive corporations to individual citizens.  Yet individuals will never use that technology responsibly and effectively if they never see the possibilities that it grants.  That leaves power in the hands of massive corporations and the government (assuming that they are really separate entities at that point).

I believe in an intellectual elite as part of the public – not really separate at all.  There is (or should be, in my vision of the future) no barrier preventing a consumer from becoming a citizen (or visa versa).  The difference is merely a matter of the commitment of time and energy towards policy and activism, a commitment that may fluctuate over a person’s life.  But the cornerstone of that system, the near-universal ability to make that choice, is not yet laid.

I decided that I'd grit my teeth and write down some thoughts after each lecture, both for entertainment and to aid in organizing my thoughts (which is going to be important when those in-class essay questions roll around).  Starting now.

Today’s lecture and the recent readings have been all about the change in advertising.  Marketers don’t sell products anymore.  They sell lifestyles and experiences, with products simply being manifestations of the brand’s culture.  The trick is to isolate the most likely subjects and then make them want to be part of your brand.  I specifically avoid the word “convince” because the most successful marketers don’t appeal to reason, but instead focus on tapping into and manipulating the subconscious desires of consumers.

The construction of culture around brand loyalty is a rather disturbing idea, certainly one towards which I am immediate hostile.  I hate being manipulated; free thought is a core part of my values system.  Emotional manipulation, overriding rational thought, is probably the thing that I hate most in life.   Yet there’s also a valid question about whether the consumers are actually in charge without knowing it, since it’s their subconscious that the market must respond to.  In that case, consumer culture can be seen in a good light – it’s merely a convenience.  I disagree on principle, but I can’t deny that I have found some brands convenient.

Take Legend of the Five Rings.  It’s not just a collectible card game.  It’s a universe with its own communities, local gaming groups and international clan connections, and multiple offshoot games (including the RPG).

The Clans all have their own philosophies, which players use to find their own personal place in the Clan structure and many players further adopt, to varying degrees, in their own lives.  I don’t remember rationally why I chose to play Crane, but their emphasis on art and striving for perfection struck some chord in me – and my continued participation in L5R has further emphasized those aspects of my personality.

The L5R team encourage the players to take active part in the center of the brand’s development: the Legend of the Five Rings’ storyline.  This is most apparent in the Race for the Throne meta game, where you earn points for your clan for anything from winning tournaments to winning costume or story writing contests (and much more besides).  There are storyline prizes for the clans that do well, and one clan will lose their status as a great clan as punishment for failing their duty.  And the players respond emotionally: they care.  They care because their Clans are, on some level, a part of their own personal identities.

L5R is a great CCG, but that’s not what makes it unique.  It’s the experience of being part of the world of L5R.  That’s what they’re really selling.  That’s what people are really buying.  On some level that does disturb me, yet I can’t deny that I enjoy being a consumer in this instance.  Is this loyalty beyond reason, or am I still making my own choices?

I think that I retain my rationality, but I don’t know for certain.  I doubt that certainty is possible in this age of deeply targeted marketing.