PHIL106 Media, Art and Censorship

Transcription

1 Llse Bing, Self Portrait in Mirrors, 1931 PHIL106 Media, Art and Censorship Week 2 Fact and fiction, truth and narrative

2 Self as media/text, narrative All media/communication has a structure. Signifiers (words, images, etc) convey a message that is encoded, decoded, interpreted. Self-presentation is similarly a form of media. Media mediates (relates, encodes and decodes). For example, a phone allows you to talk as much as it allows you to ignore a call or a message, to choose the time and place of your response. Media mediates social relationships across time and space. Media requires a material medium through which communication is transmitted, be it a biological body or an artificial technology.

3 All theories of the self are models. The narrative view of the self incorporates literary theory/semiotics more so than scientific models (cognitive science of the brain, evolution of consciousness, psychology). These different models, though, are not opposed, but rather, compliment one another. Our critical analysis will focus on the strengths and weaknesses of different models, their reasoning, evidence, and how well they explain the self. What is semiotics? The analysis of the coding and decoding of signs and meaning. Here s a guide: Best not to use websites for your essay. There are thousands of scholarly texts on semiotics in the library. The narrative model examines how self-identity and self-presentation operate both individually and socially. How we see ourselves is as much an outcome of personal agency as it is socially shaped by the groups we belong to (family, culture, community, peer-group). In fact, we adjust our self-presentation to either oppose or fit into a group.

4 Individual or collective identity/narrative? Conformity or belonging (why not both)? What is signified/communicated?

5 Reflect on the possible narratives of self in these images. Think carefully of these aspects: 1) What do the people in the images try to say? 2) What might they actually communicate? 3) Relate to fictionalising tendencies. 4) Consider your own decoding. Is it accurate? Consider alternatives.

6 Narrative, Truth, Life and Fiction, Peter Goldie Four fictionalising tendencies Plot our lives Attribution of agency Narrative closure Genre and Character Avoid the false choice of either fact or fiction. Objectivity is not an immediate given, but is the outcome of a critical process, subject to revision. Objectivity is also a social process consider scholarly debate, scientific method (independent testing), investigative journalism, legal argument in a trial. Absolute truth commits the fallacy of an impossible standard. Relative truth denies any shared standard.

7 Matthews and Kennet, Truth, Lies and the Narrative Self Case studies on Jean-Claude Romand and Rex Crane. The story quickly snowballs, and at a certain point the false narrative becomes socially embedded, generating its own momentum. (p. 303) The case shows quite starkly that a person s narrative is not a single-authored work. My narrative does not belong to me alone, and this is an important source of the normative demand for truth. (p. 311) Cases of oppression: It is a pervasive feature of all societies we know that certain identities are unavailable and certain identities are socially imposed. So, for instance, homosexuals in the immediate postwar period in Western societies were forced underground; housewife identities in the 1950s and early 1960s were moulded under the same political-economic conditions, and women in highly socially conservative theocracies were and are excluded from social life The effect of these social conditions is that certain narratives are forced upon oppressed individuals that cannot be made true so long as the oppressed continue to conceal aspects of who they are or their commitments. In such circumstances, the oppressed are forced to live a lie. (p. 308)

8 The Medium is the Message, Marshall McCluhan A very famous and influential text, and often misunderstood. The slogan the medium is the message is not immediately clear, but given the pervasiveness of mass media and social networking, it shouldn t be that difficult to understand. The form of a medium the vehicle by which a message is communicated and so mediates social interaction embeds itself in the message. The mass-media medium of television, it is often argued, encouraged conformity. We all received the same message at the same time. The internet, in contrast, is both more individuated and more social (we can discuss Game of Thrones on social networks while watching it the technological medium of the internet shifts our self from that of an isolated private individual in a private space to a participatory self). The general claim is that the kind of technology we use to present a message influences how we understand that message (and in turn, ourselves). Reading a novel is more or less a solitary activity, and the novel as a artistic form emerged in modernity just as the concept of the private individual came to prominence. This private individual bore a responsibility to cultivate and educate themselves to not rely on authority, tradition and culture and so the newspaper and the mass media also appeared on the scene, offering information that could be critically analysed and democratically discussed in the public sphere.

9 In contrast, public performance (concert, sport, theatre, religious ritual) is still more of a collective activity, reinforcing shared experience and collective identity. Has social networking changed our concept of privacy, and in turn, our conception of individuality? We readily share information that may or may not be true (we can very easily invent a public persona). Social networks encourage a participatory self that is both more individuated and more social. Two things emerge here we may have a more direct sense of how the self is a construction (we can create identity) and we may realise that we are not necessarily the isolated, private individuals that we say we are. We become more acutely aware of our own fictionalising tendencies; our capacity for self-reflection and self-construction is amplified.

10 Self-presentation is complex. There can be significant variation between what we say and what we communicate. Self-reportage is not always accurate. Sense of self, personal identity, commitments, etc, are dynamic (they change over time). Self-reflection is often subject to cognitive bias. Here s a big list of cognitive biases: Bias is pervasive, but easily corrected. Here are some common biases relevant to narratives of the self: Bandwagon effect the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. If it s popular, it s right and true! Positivity bias I m a good and honest person with the best intentions and therefore everything I say is obviously correct and what I do is innocent and right. A form of special pleading. Negativity bias I don t like it; therefore, you are bad and everything you say is wrong. Confirmation bias the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one s preconceptions, to resort to selective evidence rather than rationally consider a range of possible alternatives. Ultimate attribution error negative behaviour in one's own group is explained away as circumstantial, but negative behaviour among outsiders is believed to be evidence of flaws in character/culture. This is popular with racists, who cast themselves as victims fighting against a take-over by evil outsiders. Ingroup bias the tendency for people to give preferential treatment to be members of their own group. Outgroup homogeneity bias where you see members of your own group as unique individuals, but members of other groups are all the same. Just-world phenomenon the tendency for people to believe that the world is just and therefore people get what they deserve.