341 c Lecture: Introduction and Popular Culture

 

Use the PPT. Answer the following questions using the information from the lecture. (jUST SHORT ANSWER)

1.  What is the late policy for this class. 

2.  The Caribbean is the home of many, many different genres of music. However, this class will focus particularly on two forms of music. Which two genres of music will we focus on? 

3.  The Caribbean is home to many different religions. However, in this class we will focus on how two particular Caribbean religions have been interpreted and represented in the media. Which two religions will we focus on? 

4.  why should we study the Caribbean? 

5.  What is one of the major objectives of communication scholarship stated in the lecture? 

6.  In what ways is protest music an example of hegemony? 

7.  Prof Harewood suggested two reasons why audience members might ignore the dominant hegemonic messages in popular culture. What were those two reasons? 

8.  

In your own words describe 

• Popular culture as folk culture
• Popular culture as deliberately made to be well-liked
• Popular culture as a zone of political struggle. 

BIS341 Caribbean Media & Popular Culture

Agenda
Welcome & Introduction
Course Overview
Media and Popular Culture

Welcome & Introduction
Prof Susan Harewood
PhD Communications, UIUC
Research = Caribbean popular culture
Primarily music and film
Barbados & England

Class Overview: Course Objectives
Exploration of the cultural politics of representations of the Caribbean
Made by people from outside of the Caribbean
Made by the people of the Caribbean
At the end of this course students will have engaged with material that would allow them to:
Theorize the roles that popular culture plays in social and political processes
Describe the common tropes used in non-Caribbean representations of the region
Compare and contrast external representations to the ways Caribbean filmmakers, television producers, musicians, authors, and festival artists represent Caribbean culture and its multicultural population

Class Overview: Progress of the Course
Weeks 2 & 3 Locating the Caribbean in Space and Time and the Imagination
What do the different narratives of Caribbean history tell us about the Caribbean and about history?
Where are the borders of the Caribbean?
Popular culture & meaning making – how do persistent historical representations of the Caribbean make meaning about the Caribbean today?

Class Overview: Progress of the Course
Week 4 & 5 The Cultural Politics of Food, Food TV and Food Writing
Food as a cultural practice
The roles of food television in our recognition of ‘the other’
Cynthia Nelson, food writer, journalist

Class Overview: Progress of the Course
Weeks 6 & 7 The Cultural Politics of Music
The Caribbean as a musical region
Focus on calypso
Meanings of calypso in the Caribbean
Meanings of calypso in the UK
Meanings of calypso in the USA
Forms of soca

Class Overview: Progress of the Course
Weeks 8 & 9 The Cultural Politics of Religion
Syncretic religions of the Caribbean
Media & Caribbean faith
Voudou vs Voodoo
Focus on Rastafari
Rastafari and Reggae

Forms of Evaluation
Reading and Lecture Assignments……….20%
Assigned Media Assignments………………35%
Analytical Assignments…………………….….40%
Late Policy
Complete ALL assignments on time. I am aware that life can get hectic – especially these days – and that you have a number of competing responsibilities. However, please recognize that this class is one of those responsibilities. PLEASE try and communicate with me as early as possible if you are having difficulties.
Collaborative assignments will not be accepted as late because your classmates rely on you to complete your work in a timely fashion so that they can complete their own work. This includes discussion posts and peer review assignments.
Individual assignments have a window – there is the deadline posted on Canvas and then there is three days grace. Submitting your assignments on time will help you keep on track. Nevertheless, if you have to take the extra three days you will not be penalized.

Popular Culture and Media

Defining ‘popular culture’
Defining ‘culture’
Culture is how we make the world meaningful
We use symbols/codes/languages to name the world and its concepts
Our cultural practices emerge from our cultural contexts and they reinforce those cultural contexts

Defining ‘popular culture’
Set of symbolic/aesthetic practices
Term used three ways
Of the people
Well-liked & deliberately made to be well-liked
Zone of political struggle

Popular culture – of the people
‘Popularis’
Folk
Express the values and interests of a people

Popular culture – well-liked
Industrial production
Mediated content
Deliberately made to be well-liked

Popular culture – zone of political struggle
Hegemony
Political theory
Traditional Marxist hegemony
Coercion only
Gramscian Marxist hegemony
Combination of coercion and consent

Antonio Gramsci

Gramscian hegemony
Political legitimacy
“The dominant class achieves hegemony when it is able to win over the minds and hearts of the oppressed. When we speak in the language of the dominant class and see through their eyes, that’s when hegemony is achieved.”
The non-dominant class also seeks to achieve hegemony by seeking to win minds and hearts of the oppressed.

Struggle over meaning

Gramscian hegemony & the work of culture
Importance of cultural production
Those who wish to lead will borrow from the meanings of the ‘other side’ in order to craft their message
Popular culture becomes the site at which people fight over meaning because meaning is power
It is a complex, subtle process

I Like it Like that: Thinking about popular culture

I Like it Like That – Popular culture
The beginnings of “I like it Like That”
Boogaloo craze 1966-1968
New York African Americans and Puerto Ricans living side by side, sharing musical styles
Recorded 1966
Pete Rodriguez
West Indian promoters needed a recording

Puerto Rican creative production/resistance
The sound of “I Like it Like That”
“I like it like that has all the trappings of Latin Boogaloo: the opening piano lick, the handclapping and ever-present chorus throughout, the raucous laugher and shouting, the adlibbed conversation and goofy comments, the ecstatic buildups and restarts, the inter twining of montunos and mambo rhythms with R&B-style backbeats, and vocals with lyrics in English. Juan Flores

Corporate use of the people’s culture
Burger King 1996

Cardi B, Bad Bunny, J Blavin
Cardi B
Cardi B: When I finally got their verses, I was so excited out I was showing my family and my cousins. They’re big fans of them; like, “Look at their verse, I can’t believe it!”
J Balvin: Making the song was amazing. The fact that we’re all Latinos in the song, Cardi B, Bad Bunny and myself showing our culture in the right way, which was in a cool way. Latinos (definitely have a) cool and beautiful culture.
Bad Bunny: Making this song was like making music with my family. Latinos are very united, and music runs in our blood so when it came time to do this track it was all about keeping it fun and energetic

I like it like that – first verses what do we learn?
Pete Rodriguez
Wow, am I feeling good, man?
Let me say this now
Here and now let’s get this straight
Boogaloo, baby, I made it great
Because I gave it the Latin beat
Just commence your feet to skate
Pick up your arms and make em shake
Baby if you think you’re shy
Do me a favor, honey, go some place and hide
Cardi B
Now I like dollars, I like diamonds
I like stuntin’, I like shinin’
I like million dollar deals
Where’s my pen? Bitch I’m signin’
I like those Balenciagas
The ones that look like socks
I like going to the jeweler
I put rocks all in my watch