Advanced Topics in Political Economy and Ecology:

Advanced Topics in Political Economy and Ecology:
Seeing Green—The Cultural Politics of Consuming Nature
GEOG 273
Spring 2010
Kalkin 300
Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM
Instructor Information:
Pablo S. Bose
Office:
Office Hours:
Email:
Phone:
209 Old Mill Building
Wednesdays 12:00 PM-3:00 PM or by appointment
[email protected]
802-656-5717
The commercial mass media plays a major role in shaping our attitudes towards both
our living and built environments. Every day our senses are assaulted by an overload of
stimuli, from websites to shock jocks, 24-hr news channels to cooking shows,
blockbuster movies to billboards. How is our experience of the physical world and
material reality shaped, distorted and redefined by the work of imagination? Why do
certain films, songs and books find worldwide audiences while others remain obscured?
How does marketing and cultural imperialism relate to popular culture? How do we
process it all? How can we make sense of any of it? More importantly, how—as
educators and activists, students and citizens, artists and critics, and everything
besides—do we respond to our media environment? How do we raise issues, how do
we disseminate information? What avenues are open to us? What forms will our
messages take and how effective will they be?
Drawing on multiple forms of critique and analysis, this course examines how a variety of
media texts within this popular culture help to shape, redefine, and reconstruct our
understanding of nature, the environment, and environmentalism. Through lectures and
readings as well as film, audio and video clips, explorations of websites, and public art,
students will be introduced to the world of popular culture and its representation of a
range of human and physical environments, including urban and rural landscapes as
well as ‘non-natural’ spaces. This course will examine such questions by focusing on
the representation of nature in contemporary popular culture, and the structure and
organization of mass communication as well as alternative media strategies and forms.
The purpose of this course is two-fold: 1) to introduce students to the structure and
formation of mass communication in contemporary society, and 2) to explore a range of
alternative forms of cultural practice and framing that accommodate, challenge, resist or
subvert these models. The focus for these explorations into media and representation
will be broadly defined as contemporary struggles for social and ecological justice. In
essence, this course seeks to help students encounter and engage with dominant
hegemonic discourse by critically analyzing, utilizing and ultimately transforming their
own definitions of “the media”. To this end, this course has three primary goals: 1) the
development of critical skills regarding the mass media; 2) the analysis of the
relationships between environment, media, culture, and communication; and 3) to serve
as an introduction to alternative media production.
1 Organization of the Course
The course is divided into two halves, one of “critique”, the other of “possibility.” The first
half opens with an introduction to the idea of environmental cultural studies and to the
connections between democracy, media, and ecological politics. Students will then
begin an exploration of the political economy of contemporary mass communication.
Particular emphasis will be given to news production and dissemination, communicating
in popular culture, the relationship between advertising and the media, and various
practices of the public relations industry. Issues raised will include media ownership,
access, voice, representation, cultural imperialism and appropriation. Students will also
be introduced to several models of communication and media, with particular emphasis
on the manipulation model.
The second half of the course seeks to expand our understanding of “alternative media”
by examining a range of different cultural practices including culture jamming, street
newspapers, web logs, video activism, and performance. Through readings, screenings
and guest lectures, these various forms of alternative media will be explored with a
particular focus on key issues of agency, perspective, contradictions, and the
connections between social movements and new media. This course will primarily
utilize methods from political economy and cultural studies in its examination of mass
and alternative media. It will, however, also draw upon other theoretical approaches
including cultural geography, postmodernism and postcolonialism, critical pedagogy, and
subaltern studies.
Texts:
All readings will be made available from the course Blackboard site that can be
accessed at the following address https://bb.uvm.edu
Format:
Classes will be run as a small seminar lasting 1.15 hours twice a week. Each class will
be divided between thematic presentations made by the instructor, presentations made
by students focusing on the assigned readings, debate and discussion, as well as audiovisual supplements including films, music, websites and various other forms of media.
We will also engage some of the issues raised by students in their reading blogs within
the class. ALL STUDENTS ARE REQUIRED TO HAVE THE ASSIGNED READINGS
COMPLETED PRIOR TO CLASS AND WILL BE EVALUATED ON THEIR
KNOWLEDGE OF THE MATERIAL.
Evaluation:
1. Reading Blog
2. Media Mapping
3. Participation
4. Project Proposal
5. Final Project
30%
10%
20%
10%
30%
Assignments
1. Reading Blog (30%)
Each student must maintain a weekly blog within their assigned space on the
Blackboard site based on all of the assigned readings. These blogs are not meant to be
summaries of the assigned readings but rather an engagement with specific issues and
arguments considered in them. Blogs must respond to ALL of the assigned readings for
2 a given week – please comment on common threads and themes that connect the
readings or on issues that are treated differently by the various authors. As well,
students must post at least THREE (3) questions relating to each reading from that day
at the end of their blog. The blogs will be graded for completeness, style and grammar.
Blogs must be posted by 9AM on the day of class (a total of 15 blog postings are
required). Any blogs posted after 9AM will not be graded and cannot be made up at a
later time. Postings must be a minimum of 500 words.
2. Media Mapping Assignment (10%)
Students must prepare a short history of their life experience with different forms of
media. This history should begin by constructing a list of at least two hundred and fifty
(250) media forms they have encountered over the course of their lives. These can
include books, movies, songs, advertisements, newspapers, magazines, artwork,
performances, radio shows, television programs, and more. As part of this assignment,
students must then write a short 500-word paper describing their life history with media.
This paper can be written either as non-fiction or as a piece of creative writing. The list
of media forms must be submitted with the assignment. DUE 1PM February 2, 2010.
3. Participation (10%)
All students are required to attend all classes and will be penalized for both lateness and
absences. Official documentation must be provided for any excusable absence or
lateness. Participation will be evaluated on the basis of students’ knowledge of course
readings and lecture material, as well as on engagement with small group discussions
and contributions to the learning experience of their peers. Please note that attendance
in class is not enough – ALL students need to be prepared to speak regularly in class
and clearly demonstrate their familiarity with the material.
4. Outline for Research Project (10%)
Students will be organized into small project groups of no more than four (4) members
by the third week of class and develop a media project as part of the final mark in the
course. Groups will have three weeks (including the Thanksgiving break) to develop a
formal project proposal which they must submit for the instructor’s approval. Proposals
must effectively convey a brief overview of the topic or issue, its relation to the course,
give some sense of how the group plans to approach the issue, and demonstrate the
feasibility of the project within the constraints of the course. Due February 18, 2010.
5. Research Project (30%)
The final project is designed to allow the students working together in small groups to
explore specific themes and issues raised in the course, through whatever media is most
appropriate. Detailed assignment guidelines will be handed out on the first day of
classes and final projects are due on the last day of classes, May 4, 2010. The final
projects must also be presented to the entire class at this time. Possible options include:
•
•
•
Media campaign—students may choose a particular environmental issue and
construct a campaign (e.g. pamphlets, posters, videos, etc.) to alter attitudes and
behaviours of a target audience.
Multimedia project—students may focus on a particular environmental issue,
problem, or conflict, develop a multimedia project which informs the class about
the particular aspects of environmental communication that are implicated
Creative work (including but not limited to film, artwork, music, installations,
performance pieces, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, websites)
3 Late Policy
There are no extensions granted for the outline or reading blogs. All other assignments
handed in late will be penalized at a rate of 5% per day; late assignments will NOT be
accepted after 1 week.
Grades will be distributed according to the following scale:
A
AB+
B
B-
93.0 – 100+
90.0 – 92.9
87.0 – 89.9
83.0 – 86.9
80.0 – 82.9
C+
C
CD
F
77.0 – 79.9
73.0 – 76.9
70.0 – 72.9
60.0 – 69.9
<60.0
Academic dishonesty
Academic dishonesty includes plagiarism (submitting someone else’s work as your
own), cheating, and fabrication of information or citations. It will result in a grade of “F”
for this course. Plagiarism is a serious offence and carries consequences varying from
course failure to debarment from the university. Please consult the POLICY ON
PLAGIARISM in your calendar. If you have any questions or uncertainty regarding this
policy discuss them with me.
SCHEDULE OF TOPICS AND READINGS
Jan 19
Introduction to the Course
Jan 21
Culture and the Environment
Required Readings: (to be read after class)
Mark Meister and Phyllis M. Japp, “Introduction: A Rationale for Studying Environmental
Rhetoric and Popular Culture” in Mark Meister and Phyllis M. Japp (eds.)
Enviropop: Studies in Environmental Rhetoric and Popular Culture (London:
Praeger, 2002) 1-12.
Jan 26
The Masses and the Media: Theorizing Communication
Required Readings:
Lawrence Grossberg, Ellen Wartella, and D. Charles Whitney, “The Media in Context” in
MediaMaking: Mass Media in a Popular Culture (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1998) 332.
Stuart Hall, “Encoding/Decoding” in Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in
Cultural Studies, 1972-79 (London: Hutchinson and the Centre for Contemporary
Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, 1980) 128-138.
Jan 28
Communication and Geography
Required Readings:
dian marino, “Landscape for an Easily Influenced Mind: Reflections on My Experience as
an Artist and an Educator” in Wild Garden: Art, Education, and the Culture of
Resistance (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1997) 19-42.
4 Paul C. Adams, “Introduction” and “Place and Power of Communication” in Geographies
of Media and Communication (Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 2009), 1-12 and
167-179.
Feb 2
Voice, Agency, and the Crisis of Representation
Required Readings:
Dionne Brand, “Whose Gaze, and Who speaks for Whom” in Bread out of Stone:
Recollections, Sex, Recognitions, Race, Dreaming, Politics (Toronto: Coach
House Press, 1994) 145-168.
dian marino, “Re:framing: Hegemony and Adult Education Practices” and “Revealing
Assumptions: Teaching Participatory Researchers” in Wild Garden: Art,
Education, and the Culture of Resistance (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1997)
103-118, 119-144.
MEDIA MAPPING ASSIGNMENT DUE AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS
Feb 4
Arts-Informed Research and Cultural Production
Required Readings:
dian marino, “Drawing from Action for Action: Drawing and Discussion as a Popular
Research Tool” in Wild Garden: Art, Education, and the Culture of Resistance
(Toronto: Between the Lines, 1997), 61-88.
Leah Burns, “Lingering, Linking and Layering” in Ardra Cole, Laurie Nielsen, J. Gary
Knowles and Theresa Luciana (eds.) Provoked by Art: Theorizing Arts-Informed
Research (Halifax: Backalong Books, 2004), 214-220.
Feb 9
Is Wilderness Worth Watching?
Required Readings:
Alexander Wilson, “Looking at the Non-Human: Nature Movies and TV” in The Culture of
Nature: North American Lanscape from Disney to the Exxon Valdez (Toronto:
Between the Lines, 1995): 118-155.
Geoff Pevere and Greig Dymond, “The Great Outdoors: A Wilderness Worth Watching”
in Mondo Canuck: A Canadian Pop Culture Odyssey (Scarborough, ON: Prentice
Hall, 1996): 154-156.
Feb 11
Extra! Extra!: Making and Breaking the News
Required Readings:
Donnalyn Pompper, “From Loch Ness Monsters to Global Warming: Framing
Environmental Risk in a Supermarket Tabloid” in Mark Meister and Phyllis M.
Japp (eds.) Enviropop: Studies in Environmental Rhetoric and Popular Culture
(London: Praeger, 2002) 111-140.
Pamela Shoemaker and Stephen Reese “Influence of Media Routines” in Mediating the
Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media Content (New York and
London: Longman, 1991).
Andréa Schmidt, “Independent reporting: a tool for international solidarity building” in
Andrea Langlois and Frédéric Dubois, Autonomous Media: Activating Resistance
and Dissent (Montréal: Cumulus Press, 2005), 75-88. Feb 16
It’s Not Easy Being Green: Popular Culture and the Environment
Required Readings:
Theodor W. Adorno, “Culture Industry Reconsidered”, New German Critique, 6, Fall
1975, 12-19 (translated by Anson G. Rabinbach).
5 Anne Marie Todd, “Prime Time Subversion: The Environmental Rhetoric of the
Simpsons” in Mark Meister and Phyllis M. Japp (eds.) Enviropop: Studies in
Environmental Rhetoric and Popular Culture (London: Praeger, 2002), 63-80.
Andy Opel, “Monopoly™ the National Parks Edition: Reading Neo-Liberal Simulacra” in
Mark Meister and Phyllis M. Japp (eds.) Enviropop: Studies in Environmental
Rhetoric and Popular Culture (London: Praeger, 2002), 31-44.
Feb 18
Sporting Culture and Sculpting the Perfect Landscape
Required Readings:
Bruce Ryan, “Tennis” in Karl Raitz (ed.) The Theater of Sport (Baltimore: John Hopkins
University Press, 1995): 141-167.
Bradley Klein, “Cultural Links: An International Political Economy of Golf Course
Landscapes” in Randy Martin and Toby Miller (eds.) Sportcult (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press): 211-226.
OUTLINE FOR FINAL RESEARCH PROJECT DUE
Feb 23
Selling Green: Advertising and the End of the World
Required Readings:
Naomi Klein, “A Tale of Three Logos: The Swoosh, the Shell, and the Arches” in No
Space, No Choice, No Jobs, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (Toronto:
Vintage, 2000): 364-396.
Julia B. Corbett, “A Faint Green Sell: Advertising and the Natural World” in Mark Meister
and Phyllis M. Japp (eds.) Enviropop: Studies in Environmental Rhetoric and
Popular Culture (London: Praeger, 2002), 141-160.
Feb 25
The Political Ecology of Advertising Culture
Required Readings:
Sut Jhally, “Advertising as Religion: The Dialectic of Technology and Magic”, in Ian
Angus and Sut Jhally (eds.) Cultural Politics in Contemporary America (New
York: Routledge, 1989) 217-229.
Richard K. Olsen, Jr., “Living Above it All: The Liminal Fantasy of Sport Utility Vehicle
Advertisements” in Mark Meister and Phyllis M. Japp (eds.) Enviropop: Studies in
Environmental Rhetoric and Popular Culture (London: Praeger, 2002), 175-196.
Mar 2
The Day After Tomorrow: Environment as Menace
Required Readings:
Catherine Roach, “Nature as Bad Mother: ‘She Will Try to Drown You’” in Mother/Nature:
Popular Culture and Environmental Ethics (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2002): 75-101.
Mar 4
Poisoned Air, Poisoned Streams: A Conspiracy of Green
Required Readings:
David Bell and Lee Jane Bennion-Nixon, “The Popular Culture of Conspiracy/The
Conspiracy of Popular Culture” in Jane Parish and Martin Parker (eds.) The Age
of Anxiety: Conspiracy Theory and the Human Sciences (Oxford: Blackwell,
2001): 133-151.
Mar 8-12
SPRING RECESS: NO CLASSES
6 Mar 16
Simulacra and Dream: Capturing and Creating Nature
Required Readings:
Alexander Wilson, “Technological Utopias: World’s Fairs and Theme Parks” in The
Culture of Nature: North American Lanscape from Disney to the Exxon Valdez
(Toronto: Between the Lines, 1995): 156-190.
Mar 18
Living the Fantasy: Video Games and Dreaming of Virtue
Required Readings
Stephen Klein, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Greig de Peuter, “Origins of an Industry: Cold
Warriors, Hackers, and Suits: 1960-1984” in Digital Play: The Interaction of
Technology, Culture, and Marketing” (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press,
2003): 84-108.
Mar 23
Militarism, Media, and Ecological Crisis
Required Readings:
Andrew Ross, “The Ecology of Images” in The Chicago Gangster Theory of Life:
Nature’s Debt to Society (Verso: London, 1994): 159-201.
Mar 25
Green Backlash and the Public Relations Industry
Required Readings:
Jacqueline Vaughn Switzer, “The PR Campaigns” in Green Backlash: The History and
Politics of Environmental Opposition in the U.S. (Boulder: Lynne Rienner
Publishers, 1997) 129-150.
John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, “Silencing Spring” in Toxic Sludge is Good for You!
Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (Monroe, Maine: Common
Courage Press, 1995) 123-142.
Mar 30
Media Advocacy
Required Readings:
Stephen Dale, “Quest for Coverage: In Technology We Trust” in McLuhan’s Children:
The Greenpeace Message and the Media (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1996)
107-130.
Sean Cassidy, “The Environment and the Media: Two Strategies for Challenging
Hegemony” in Janet Wasco and Vincent Mosco (eds.) Democratic
Communication in the Information Age (Toronto: Garamond Press, 1992) 159174.
Apr 1
Culture Jamming
Required Readings:
Kalle Lasn, “Media Virus” in Culture Jam: How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer
Binge—and why we must (New York: Quill, 1999) 29-36.
Tom Liacas, “101 tricks to play with the mainstream: culture jamming as subversive
recreation” in Andrea Langlois and Frédéric Dubois, Autonomous Media:
Activating Resistance and Dissent (Montréal: Cumulus Press, 2005), 61-74.
Apr 6
Social Movements and Autonomous/Alternative Media
Raul Quintanilla, “A Suspended Dialogue: The Revolution and the Visual Arts in
Nicaragua,” in David Kunzle, The Murals of Revolutionary Nicaragua, 1979-1992
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) xiii-xvii
Andrea Langlois and Frédéric Dubois, “Introduction” in Autonomous Media: Activating
Resistance and Dissent (Montréal: Cumulus Press, 2005), 9-15.
7 Scott Uzelman, “Hard at Work in the Bamboo Garden: Media Activists and Social
Movements” in Andrea Langlois and Frédéric Dubois, Autonomous Media:
Activating Resistance and Dissent (Montréal: Cumulus Press, 2005), 17-30.
Apr 8
New Forms of Publishing
Required Readings:
Andrea Langlois, “How Open is Open: The Politics of Open Publishing” in Andrea
Langlois and Frédéric Dubois, Autonomous Media: Activating Resistance and
Dissent (Montréal: Cumulus Press, 2005), 47-60.
Isabelle Mailloux- béïque, “Street Newspapers and Empowerment” in Andrea Langlois
and Frédéric Dubois, Autonomous Media: Activating Resistance and Dissent
(Montréal: Cumulus Press, 2005), 89-102. Apr 13
Blogging to the Future
Required Readings:
Dawn Paley, “Re/writing Media”: Weblogs as Autonomous Spaces” in in Andrea Langlois
and Frédéric Dubois, Autonomous Media: Activating Resistance and Dissent
(Montréal: Cumulus Press, 2005), 123-134. Apr 15
No Class
Apr 20
Theatre and Social Change
Required Readings:
Augusto Boal, “The Fable of Xua-Xua, the Pre-human Woman Who Discovered Theatre”
and “The Pedagogy of Fear: Theatre and the Twin Towers”, in Games for Actors
and Non-Actors 2nd Edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 11-17 and
298-300.
Apr 22
Performance and Performativity
Required Readings:
Diana Taylor, “Making a Spectacle: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo” in Jan CohenCruz (ed.) Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology (London:
Routledge, 1999) 74-85.
Apr 27
The Mediation of Spectacle
Required Readings:
Guy Debord, “The Culmination of Separation” and “The Commodity as Spectacle” in
Society of the Spectacle
Apr 29
Conclusions
Required Readings:
Dorothy Kidd, “Afterword: Linking Back, Looking Forward” in Andrea Langlois and
Frédéric Dubois, Autonomous Media: Activating Resistance and Dissent
(Montréal: Cumulus Press, 2005), 141-161.
May 4
Final Presentations
***PLEASE NOTE: TIME AND LOCATION TBA***
8