Communication
1b. Satire is an influential form of art that has the power to highlight the insufficiencies and paucities in specific human behaviors as well as the social issues that are eventual outcomes of these in a manner in which they transform into ridiculous, often hysterical, which is thus humorous and engaging, and finally reach a wide range of audience. Satire also has the capacity to safeguard its creator from guilt and accountability for the criticism, as it is implicitly expressed instead of being overtly expressed; and eventually, it develops into a powerful tool for dissidents in challenging or domineering political and social times.
According to Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey P. Jones, and Ethan Thompson, the 2000s has seen a hegemony and superiority of political satire on the television, which has never been the case in the entire history of television in the United States. The essays in their book titled Satire TV use a number of abstract models, a few derived from the works of Bakhtin and Aristotle, for providing a definition for satire and explain the ways in which popular shows like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, South Park, and a few others were successful in functioning as a politically revolutionary entertainments in a medium like the television, for which the blandest, the innocuous, and the most ordinary fare had set the tone at all times.
The primary issue with Satire TV is that it has its primary focus on television devoid of adequate attention to the historic background of the 2000s. It describes the way in which satire works on the television in a household and personal manner; however, to the barring of investigation of the content of all such satires, i.e., the topics covered under satire. None of the essays in that book question as to what is concerning the political environment of those times that makes satire so famous, and not on television alone, even on the internet and all the movies made by filmmakers like Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock. With all this, satire transformed into a commonly used language of the largely comprehensive anti-Bush society. The work of Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey P. Jones, and Ethan Thompson regularly denote that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were the ones that contributed to the collapse of the GOP since the year 2006; but the issue of how Bush and company aided in the rise of Stewart, Colbert, and satire as a part of the political culture of the United States at large is equally significant.
Satire TV, the authors say, does not question the various aspects concerning Bush that transformed him so exceptionally satirizable, and eventually the sum of the offerings narrate just a partial story of the reputation of satire during those days. One of the best narrations is that of Jeffrey P. Jones titled “With All Due Respect: Satirizing Presidents from Saturday Night Live to Lil’ Bush”, which examines the ways in which the administration under the Presidency of Bush was “bookended” by the end of the sitcom titled “That’s My Bush!” in the year 2001 as well as the animated series “Lil’ Bush” in the year 2006.
The analysis of Jones is founded in a comprehensive yet succinct account of the various impersonations on television about the Presidency of Bush, right from Rich Little to Gerald Ford the minimalist version of Chevy Chase, and a variety of other programs. Jones goes on to claim that the sitcom titled That’s My Bush! and Lil’ Bush both created a revolution through their narration of a deskbound president as a horny, unreliable comedian and a ferocious, megalomaniacal, ignorant child. However, even the account of Jones ignores to inquire the issues regarding the Bush Administration itself that could have stimulated this callousness, and why satire was the proper category to encounter the various challenges that Bush faced during his Presidency.
The work of Gary et. al. contextualizes this type of telecasting on the basis of considerable technological and market revolutions in the media industry, especially the television, which have resulted in the emergence of a kind “post-network” period. “The expansion of a corporatized, multichannel television system has significant political consequences, including the blurring of the lines between news and entertainment.”
False newscast and parody reveal the emergence in this context, more often than not, interrogating the power of institutions, both political as well as media, and providing audiences unconventional and critical standpoints on both the social and political issues in the society. While such recalcitrant and autonomous potential of comedy is often illustrious and feted the authors in this book also investigate the time and manner in which television satire might aide in reinforcing typecasts and prevailing social standards.
2b) The dynamic forces of using ‘diasporic’ video, television, film, music as well as the Internet– where people are typically exiled from homes by relocation, expatriate status or commercial and economic imperative make use of media for negotiating new cultural identities – offer encounters for ways in which media and culture are implicit in the contemporary times. Day-to-day communication, which currently is happening more on the internet and online media, is closely linked with the methods in which people comprehend and recognize what happens in their lives. However, recent studies on the public sphere and its communicative fashion often continue to ignore these routine practices of making sense. The correspondence and similarity of conventional media formats, as evident in the TV programs, in union with latest media technologies like Facebook offers multifaceted information flows through which conventional human beings engage with significant cultural and political public incidents.
Cunningham says the ‘marketization’ of television primarily modified the relationship that exists between the content providers and the audience as digitalization and pay TV became popular in contrast to terrestrial channels. For most commercial broadcasters the reigning principle was to entertain its viewers.
It is not greatly out of proportion to say that television has made fairly negative deep impact on the social structure due to its ability to hook people to watch the tube more and more. Even if we blame this on the crass commercial inclination of the marketers as well as the producers in their ability to provide constantly increasing stimulus to the lazy human mind, in an effort to grab eye-balls, TRPs, thereby resultant increased advertisement revenue translating to higher profitability to the shareholders.
One of the important things that happened in the entrepreneurial environment and its obvious presence in the popular culture is that neo-entrepreneurs began to figure in all kinds of media content increasingly. The media presence of entrepreneurs has increased drastically and some have even become media celebrities, despite the fact that their initial effort was to get visibility for their businesses. A popular example is that of Anita Roddick of the Body Shop fame who used her public image in promoting her business which indirectly became a campaign mechanism.
Probably she was one of the most popular media personalities along with Richard Branson. Other examples of great media presence are that of Easy Jet’s Stelios, popular millionaire businessman Duncan Bannatyne, and Sir Allan Sugar among others.
Danny Cohen, head Factual Television (Channel 4), went on record saying “One of the challenges for program makers today is that you have to make everything entertaining because there is such choice out there. You have to make interesting subjects entertaining and dynamic otherwise people might go elsewhere”. What is a clear reflection here is that the television audience, if not hooked into a program rapidly would switch channels and go elsewhere seeking that novelty and entertainment value. This was one of the primary stimuli for the producers to create formats that allowed building and managing audience expectation that was far more complicated and sophisticated than documentaries. This was, probably, the single major reason for the formats that changed the presentation of entrepreneurs on the television.
A very popular example of this kind of an effort was the BBC 2 series ‘Trouble at the Top’ that ran for seven years from 1997 that showed businessmen and women in troubled ventures struggling with difficult organizational issues innovating to survive and so on.
Along with the most technological advancements that the modern electronics have brought in, they have also brought in good and bad things to social lives and the way people live and work. Some very relevant parts of social living as well as business environment have been examined earlier in this paper. Television has definitely been a catalyst in the change that has happened since the industrial revolution and the increase in leisure time. Actually, television has all encompassed the increased leisure time that is available.
As with every technological advancement, television has also promoted its share of social change in our life, it has both great and negative things and it is not out of place to say that television has actually catalysed social change both for the good, great, and also for the bad and worst. It is finally in our control to choose what we watch, how much we watch, and maintain healthy physical, social, and emotional well-being at all times. It may be wrong to just attribute it to the television alone. Television has created pseudo social structures and created an acute false sense of healthy socialization and promoted natural, voyeuristic tendencies in human beings.
3b) Toby Miller’s Citizenship forms
Toby Miller’s latest work ‘Cultural Citizenship’ is an ardent appeal for the ultimate f0rm of knowledgeable and cognizant citizenship in the form of practical as well as a theoretical perspective. Miller puts forth his viewpoint with a record of thorough detail, construed through the lens of cultural policy as well as political economy. Concentrating on the American television, he examines a fetishist system in which the belonging of the audience and cultural narrowcasting replace crucial information pertaining to “war, subsistence and the environment.” The benefits in terms of “cultural citizenship,” as Miller states, have developed on the lines of neoliberal policies and profound public unawareness.
Miller speaks of how television is serving as a means of popularizing the so called ‘sophisticated’ global cuisine. The American food industry, he says, is believed to generate roughly one trillion dollars per annum in sales. Although the industry exercises an extremely high level of macroeconomic power in the nation, it is at the same time enormously receptive to public opinion. The most important food industries have, for instance, profitably lobbied for decades against what they believe arduous dietary labeling requirements. Also, quite a few of the larger operators in the United States, at the same time are seeing a tremendous potential market with related to health-oriented foods and hence they have acquired or in many cases started up their own “natural” foods supplementary. Prospective marketers have been clever in transforming challenges into profitable opportunities.
Globalization is something which is inevitable and at the same time irreversible. Today, globalization which is defined to be a process of continuing integration of different countries of the world, has already taken its path in many parts of the world. Many national economies are being exposed to a higher cut throat competition than earlier. The sole reason for this being globalization supported by the accelerating pace of the advancements in technology, the liberalization of the prices and trade practices and also by the increasing importance to super national rules.
People are intrinsically conflicting and nowhere are it more apparent than on such an insightful and significant issue like their weight. It is thought that a progressively more deskbound lifestyle is a major contributing factor in increasing the obesity rates. Analysts feel that obesity, as it is serious to individuals, is also equally serious for nations also. “Eating and today’s Lifestyle, a study for the Nestlé Family Monitor conducted by MORI, reveals that Jamie Oliver tops the table of celebrity chefs who influence the way we cook.”
The above study also reveals startling facts about the role of food and cooking in the contemporary lifestyles. A few such facts are inclination towards convenience foods, lack of confidence in the kitchen, and a considerable amount of people who are too busy to have breakfast and also who do skip their lunch at workplace. With such kind of situation prevailing in the modern American homes and lives, Jamie Oliver has really revolutionized food and cooking.
Another poll conducted by BBC World and another market research firm named Synovate aimed at evaluating global outlook towards food. Alarmingly, the study reveals that the UK is ahead of the US as the world's leading ‘fast food nation’. The poll was conducted with 9,000 respondents across 13 countries, together with BBC discovered massive variations in outlook towards food and body weight. “The results show there's a world of people who cannot deny themselves that hamburger or extra piece of pizza, but probably make themselves feel better by washing it down with a diet cola.” According to nutritionists and doctors, contemporary society has lost the skills of cooking at home. Today’s contemporary youth do not how to cook for their families. Additionally, the low quality processed foods that is offered at many schools, he believes, is undermining both the health and also the education of the children today.
As the pressures of modern day life pushes towards finding instant gratification, it is people like Miller who remind us the importance of learning things from the fundamentals and that boxed solutions are not actually solutions but mere shortcuts to life. No matter how complicated a calculator we devise, we still need to learn the multiplication tables. This is what Miller says about food. The importance being not forgetting the very fundamental ingredients that go into various menus and most often than not each of these recipes have certain cultural value that is intrinsic to them. In affluent societies there is food everywhere, packed in appetizing forms and ready to be consumed. Simply speaking, it can be said that the body doesn’t know any better. Evolution has programmed it to store fat. This has eventually resulted in yet another problem and a growing concern to many, namely the obesity.
Toby Miller, apart from influencing the common public, also tries to impact and convey to the government of United States a few initiatives, if done by the government, can have a long-term impact on the health of tons of children.
Works Cited
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Callahan, Caroline. "Study Reveals Jamie Is Chef With Greatest Influence On How We Cook." Nestle Family Monitor - Ipsos MORI (2001).
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Gallagher, Patrick W. Satire TV by Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey Jones, Ethan Thompson. 14 May 2009. 30 November 2014. <http://www.popmatters.com/review/73808-satire-tv-by-jonathan-gray-jeffrey-jones-ethan-thompson/>.
Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey P. Jones, & Ethan Thompson. Satire TV - Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era. New York: New York University Press, n.d.
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Life in the USA. The American Food Processing Industry. 2010. 30 November 2014. <http://www.lifeintheusa.com/food/foodindustry.htm>.
Miller, Toby. Cultural Citizenship: Cosmopolitanism, Consumerism and Television in a Neoliberal Age. Temple University Press, 2006.
Ventili, Karen. UK leads US as "fast food nation". 07 January 2008. 30 November 2014. <http://scienceblogs.com/sciencetolife/2008/01/uk_leads_us_as_fast_food_natio.php>.
Wild, J.J.., Wild, K.L., & Han, J.C.Y. International business: The challenges of globalization. New Jersey: PEarson/Prentice Hall., 2008.
