thinking is the new black

I took some time out from writing last week to run a research workshop with the Brighton team at iCrossing UK and then attended and presented at Transforming Audiences 2.

It is great to see the commercial world taking their research standards so seriously and the experience for me was having the best, most engaged seminar group ever, who responded to questions and discussion really thoughtfully. It’s very refreshing and to their credit that the team want to take the time to get beyond the surface of notions such as culture, community, tribe etc. that get used in quite a casual way in the industry sometimes, but not with these guys. It gives me heart that they’re are genuinely interested in the intellectual origins of such ideas and to use the terms in an appropriate way. As a result we spent a bit of time discussing culture as something we do, material culture and the idea and limitations of subculture. Also taking time to consider the value of the work of people like Foucault and Bourdieu, discourse, taste, agency online and power with a big P. Kudos guys!

so, Transforming Audiences 2

The pre-conference day at Transforming Audiences 2 on the presentation of the self in digital life was perhaps the most stimulating bit for me. I left at the end of the day having met some lovely new peeps engaged in research from all over the world: China, Canada, Australia and with pages of notes plus my brain on overdrive full of thoughts and ideas, which is the sure sign of a good conference.

There’s an excellent over view of the conf here from Britta ( also fyi Mark, David, Caro & co there are nice clean definitions of ontology epistemology etc..in a earlier post.)

There were some cracking presentations and it is clear there is great research being done by Ranjana Das and Sonia Livingstone on facebook at L.S.E. In particular I really liked Mia Lovenhein’s from the University of Oslo talk on blogs self representation and gender.

I asked a question during the discussion on what it means to be ’social’ e.g is logging on and looking at a news feed the same as blogging? Well obviously not..and this troubles me that a lot of what is talked about as social media and participation is not what I would call social. The idea of needing to define ‘participation’ was also raised during the closing session and final panel by others.
For me the technology and the institutional dimension of digital needs to be addressed more explicitly by research. Not to go all techno-determinsim but in my view there needs to be more consideration of how the technology both enables and limits – one might say curates even? Also there was no mention of the spectre of Google and the idea that users only to varying degrees understand their networks, how search engine optimization and digital traces.

In the days when we all used film we knew to a certain extent who and where we presented representations of ourselves, in a picture frame in the home, in a photo album, in a corporate brochure, in a gallery etc So to a certain extent we knew who our audience was and if we were not in total control of the representation we had some comprehension of the institution that was and the power relations that involved. I could go on and on here, so many thoughts…

I’ve meaning to discuss “The Rise of the Aldirati” for some time.

Alas, alak, been super busy at uni with the 3rd year dissertations, marking, and an in-house post-grad conference so no time for blogging recently. I’ve had a paper accepted for The Transforming Audiences conference in September, at Westminster, and although I was accepted into The Emerging Scholars programme at the IAMCR in July in Mexico City, (and totally stoked about it), after a long, hard think I decided enough is enough, and I’m not going to do anything this summer which deviates from sitting my viva. Even more good news, although I must remain schtum, I think an external examiner has been identified. So watch this space…

A topic which I meant to write something on about 6 weeks ago is an article which appeared in The Sunday Times Style supplement back in April called “The rise of the Aldirati”.

They’re affluent, middle class — and shop in discount stores. Meet the new breed of savvy consumers who are turning belt-tightening into a fine art

I love the word Aldirati and ’The Italian’ told me the other day to update my blog because American Apparel is no longer his favourite shop. Apparently his favourite shop is now Aldi, followed closely by the pound shop.

So taken was I with this word, that I decided to use the article in a discourse analysis workshop I ran the following Tuesday.  My own analysis is that the article is full of brand names and marketing lingo that construct a lifestyle than is quite the opposite to belt tightening and the term actually plays out through the cultural codes of fashion. I’m also fascinated by  how legitimacy is given to the notion of no frills affluence by consistent reference to marketing institutions and consumer experts.Not quite an echo chamber, more a small voice shouting into a bucket. So are the Aldirati just exercising common sense, or is there something more along the lines of ‘ironic consumption’ going on? It is something to do with what Bourdieu calls the ideology of natural taste. Why are the middle classes obtaining gratification in low end consumption habits? Ironic distance allows the Aldirati to buy cheap parma ham whilst avoiding  dirtying themselves with the cheap food = obesity = lazy citizen , helpless poor person who can only be saved by Jamie Oliver or a reality TV program that convinces them towards their better selves, whilst not killing their children sort of thing. 

In 2009 Vogue started up the more dash than cash  feature  again after a break of many years and what with the net-a-porter.com team  launching theoutnet.com (love love love!!!) there is something very interesting going on  with clothing and economics, and  I hope to be examining the relationship between the fashion industry and the more cultural manifestations of the recession soon.

My favourite reality TV show of all time is still C4’s Chaos at the Châteaux, about the couple who went to Slovakia to open a boutique hotel. When the producers discovered the living legends that are Ann & David, they struck reality TV gold. I’ll never forget the episode when the little sausage dogs were murdered Don Corlone stylee by a vengeful local and, the butler who was not unlike Fronk from Father of the Bride wept into a silk hankie when he found one of the dogs had been strung up.

Never the less, coming in an extremely close second has to be The Apprentice. I realise it is probably deeply unfashionable to say so, but I love Alan Sugar. I think he is brill, and I absolutely worship this new series. Plus, The Apprentice is fantastic material for anybody studying ideological theory. I’ve used clips from previous series in discourse analysis workshops that I’ve run and, witnessed the thrill of the proletariat turn on the bourgeoisie in a minor revolt during last weeks episode. (All the while annoying my two poor tenants what a fab example it was of classic Marxism sorry ladies ).

I didn’t think it would be possible for BBC2 to find contestants as annoying and despicable as last years, but good ole beeb, they’ve only gone and done it. Not only that, but the boys team this year look like a Take That tribute band. I am fully expecting the launch of a group named “Back for Good”, on the wedding and working mans club circuit when the show finishes. You heard it here first.
10 minutes or so into the 1st episode I was already shouting “I HATE YOU” at entrepreneur Raef.

I’m always suspicious of such job titles anyway and I think entrepreneur in these sorts of circumstances hides a career of imprecision and under achievement. Also Raef is posh and moronic, I mean really so. He looks like a 1980s Ralph Lauren model, with the most incredibly, annoying, thick, eye-brows, which I wish to climb inside my tellybox and pluck. He says stupid things that have no meaning such as “Yah chaps lets rarely sturr it up yah, and rahse our game.” I was in rapture when it looked as if he might get the heave ho at the end of episode one for being utterly rubbish, and delivering the line “I am friend to prince and pauper Sire Alon”, during a class war boardroom debate, but alas no, he made it through. The you’re fired sequence that week, was sooooo not about the boys team and their inability to do the task but, actually a real life enactment of Bourdieu’s theory of habitus and cultural capital. It became quite apparent during the task that there was a serious class division within the team as the ruling classes began to close ranks on the proletariat, despite hideous Raef being amongst the posh posse who f’up the pricing on the fresh lobsters. Ha! My favourite at the moment is no-nonsense ex-army working class Simon. God did he graft during the laundry task.