Mediated Representations
Rage Against the Machine: A Performative Theory of the Historical Farce in the Age of Globalism
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mattius Rischard
Rage Against the Machine’s lyrics, videography, and album art highlight a superstructure that produces a conflict-ridden American ideology leading to uncritical definitions of criminality within globalized capitalism and cultural justifications for the police order. Their anarchic performativity synthesizes rap, hip-hop, funk, punk, and heavy metal political aesthetics to formulate a critical response to circulation of hegemonic cultural commodities, ideologies, and identities. It has been more than two decades since the release of Rage Against the Machine’s self-titled debut album, and their return to popularity reflects the reiteration of historical contradictions within the political economy as their anarchic, revolutionary aesthetic begins to politically resonate with a public affect of rage caught up in the rise of Trumpism. Rage’s long-time commodification and circulation as a sound product invites the consumption of the regressive listeners: the populist, inverted anger of the American reactionary Right has succeeded in no small part because it made itself, like Rage, directly legible. Hillary Clinton promised to repair and refine the globalized neoliberal machinery; Trump ran on a platform of raging against that machine and won. By turning to sound and performance studies of the Rage scene, we might better understand the affects characterizing new political subjectivizations that resist and also reproduce the police order via aesthetics that echo the dislocations and displacements endemic to global cities in the transnational era; however, Rage also reflects the emergence of new forms of resistance that find oppositional and appositional possibilities through immanent critiques and re-workings of already existing social relations.
Projecting Internationalism: Woodrow Wilson and the Film Campaign for the League of Nations
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alex Holowicki
The formation of the League of Nations marked one of the greatest efforts to institutionalize an agenda for world peace in the immediate years after World War I. Its chief architect, American President Woodrow Wilson, believed that the League would allow the United States to steer the course of globalization though open markets and diplomacy. However, the decision to ratify the United States’ membership in the League proved controversial and divided the Senate dramatically. To break the deadlock, Wilson knew that he had to muster tremendous support from the public. Consequently, he and his advisers worked closely with figures in the American and European film industries to release the seven-reel epic Whom the Gods Would Destroy (1919). Designed to rally support for Wilson’s peace crusade, the film promised audiences a powerful romance and a “vivid account of a League of Nations.” Though the film is now considered lost, it is still possible to explore its content and influence through surviving print materials. Due to the film’s unique blend of entertainment and political activism, dozens of transatlantic peace organizations endorsed it and incorporated it into their outreach activities. It helped popularize Wilson’s internationalist message and create a market for peace propaganda films in the United States and Europe. Examining the production, release, and reception of the film provides a unique window into the divisive politics of the League’s formation and the heated debate over the United States’ role as an arbiter in global affairs.
Cultural Transformative Learning: Uncovering Fake News using Information and Communication Technology
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Patty Goodman, Claudine Brunnquell, Chiranjoy Chattopadhyay, Mayurakshi Chaudhuri
The digital revolution of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has created new knowledge and space for the human brain to observe and act. Not surprisingly, humankind has evolved culturally with the construction of techniques and technologies. It is now increasingly difficult to imagine a historical timespan when globalization has had a greater cultural, economic, and political impact through the use of digital tools and technology. With this in context, we explore a critical social institution which has been significantly influenced and inflected by globalization and technology: education and learning. Specifically, we examine the process of transformational learning within the context of a online fake news app-based game to understand metacognitive processing associated to cross-cultural, inter-generational perceptions of cultural rituals, beliefs, and values. The fundamental premise of transformative learning is based on Jack Mezirow’s (1991) model which emphasizes on expansion of consciousness through transformation of basic worldview in adult learning. Through the digital platform of the game, we will study the users’ sensory perceptions related to cultural awareness and evaluate the process of cultural transformative learning. Cultural transformative learning cognitively shifts awareness from seeing with their worldview to seeing their worldview. The game will measure qualitatively and quantitatively how people are impacted through visual, text, and audio distortions, to comprehend culture. The study will engage in understanding how global stereotypes influence cultural comprehension following the encoding-decoding framework of cultural theorist Stuart Hall, and will bring into conversation three significant theoretical frameworks into a single one: transformative learning, globalization, and discourse production.
Global Narratives on the Future of Competition and Conflict: A Media Ecology and Strategic Assessment
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Skye Cooley, Asya Cooley, Ethan Sample, Sara Kitsch, Robert Hinck
This research project conceptualizes media as ‘soft power,’ capable of defining a nation’s strategic interests to audiences through the construction of strategic media narratives. These narratives provide the public with the visions for world order, expectations regarding the future of global competition and conflict, and the expected role of nations as responsible actors towards their domestic populations. Through narrative storytelling of events and issues, economic realities and aspirations, political and military alliances, and the world order as a whole, media can persuade and/or inhibit populations toward engaging, or disengaging, with defined actors; and in so doing, challenge global powers in their respective spheres of influence. The primary goal of this research is to determine how media in two countries, Russia and China, present these strategic media narratives. The elements of ‘soft power’ are often presented as diplomatic, information, military and economic (DIME). Researchers quantitatively examine media coverage of DIME elements, as it relates to the future of global competition and conflict. In addition, researchers model Russian and Chinese regional media influence by identifying their key strategic narratives, the penetration of these narratives into surrounding regional media, and the messaging strategies employed.
