My name is Erika Nyborg-Burch and I am a senior, concentrating in International Relations and Hispanic Studies. I read print media to learn the daily and weekly news reports, and experience most video footage in the form of documentaries. I watch documentary film learn more about places that I have never been, or issues about which I know little. I use the images from documentaries to construct my own visual representation, but I would like to learn how to be more critical of the ways that media sources present these images. Buena Vista Social Club informed the way I thought about Cuba before spending a semester there, but upon touching down in Havana, I realized how I had read into the movie a Cuba that didn't seem to exist. Moreover, I learned over the course of four months, how the movie changed the music culture in Cuba. Tourism is a major industry, and the mariachi bands that played near the local hotels now specialized in ballads that Wim Wenders and Ry Cooder, not the habaneros, popularized (a survey found that few Cubans went to see the movie when it played in theatres in Havana, as compared to the glowing reception it got among audiences in Europe and parts of the United States).
Through this course, I hope to learn more about how visual media effects perceptions, including perceptions of government policy. As part of a thesis in International Relations, I am researching and analyzing the political discourse surrounding immigration, as it both creates and responds to policy reforms. In reading newspapers and government hearings, I have come to believe that the choices media and politicians make in representing migrants affects state policy towards these subjects. I am interested in learning more about media's role in shaping social perceptions, and how the advance of technology has affected the way we interact with the global news.
Barthes addresses a tension between representations that manipulate reality, such as political speech, and representational mechanisms like writing that allow for creative interpretation (309). He argues that speech stages a transmission of the 'Law' that draws upon the illusion of an absolute truth to reproduce strengthen the dominance of the hegemony over representations of 'reality (310). Barthes draws upon Marxist and structuralist tradition to argue that language itself is a form of power through the hegemony makes social subjects into docile and productive objects. Barthes challenges his readers, to re-asses what how the roles we assign to authority reinforce the repressive illusion of a singular truth. His critique opens a space in which to analyze our relationship to the information that we receive and the 'authorities' who present this information.
Sources of media often utilize dominant representational schema to reinforce the powerful party's interpretation of 'truth.' However, the more visual images and the more voices the viewer can access, the more likely that he or she can interpret the events that unfold with a degree of creativity that will destabilize the dominant discourse. Media makers may also act outside the assigned roles of the hegemonic schema (in much the way that writers produce an open discourse) allowing viewers to interpret meaning from images. Barthes argues that, by stepping outside of assigned roles, speakers can disorient the Law and strip speech of its violence. In this "certain expropriation of speech (from then on, close to writing)," co-speakers (as opposed to teacher and audience member), together find the meaning to fill the floating signifiers themselves, thereby realizing the "imperatives of knowledge, prestige of method, ideological criticism," that authoritative speech misinterprets as pre-determined signifiers (330-331).

My name is Daniel Wiener, and I am a class of 2011 IR (Global Security Track) concentrator. While my academic pursuits and interests have focused in this area, lately I cannot help but feel some regret at seeing the courses I have had to pass up every semester to fulfill requirements. For the past few years a number of my passions (like those for film, art, and music) have been forced into an unfortunate back seat in my academic career, overshadowed by security dilemmas, mutually assured destruction, and democratic peace theory. While theory and policy analysis are certainly essential to a foundation in IR, I have noticed their instruction in a conventional class setting can sometimes neglect contextualization beyond the tailored case study or traditional research paper. This has left me hungry to develop and hone an ability to put the concepts I have learned to practical use. In order to truly grasp the implications of international relations and the theory behind it, lessons in this discipline must be contextualized and applied in a world apart from academia.
Graduating in a few semesters, I have thought at length about my education and future. How can I use my studies to serve some social purpose? Where can I acquire the tools I need to reach and benefit an audience in the “real world” with the knowledge I gain at Brown? After shopping Global Media this past week, I am very excited as this seminar seems to offer potential answers to these questions. It is no secret that modern media has altered the way we perceive the world: eliciting emotional worldwide responses to events from the crisis in Haiti to the death of Michael Jackson (which, in my opinion, undeservedly received a similar magnitude of media attention), there is no denying the power and influence of mass media. During Global Media’s introductory session, I was intrigued by the unconventional approach and unique curriculum it presents. Taking this seminar, I hope to develop an ability to analyze and produce media carefully and constructively. Also, it offers an opportunity for me to incorporate my love of film, art, and youtube into my education in a practical way (something I have rarely been capable of doing inside the IR classroom thus far).
In his essay “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” Barthes discusses discourse and the relationship between speaker and audience (teacher and student). Contrasting mediums of discourse (writings versus speeches), Barthes claims they are fashioned differently by producers and received differently by consumers. While writing, to Barthes, is a polished work in its final and irreducible state, speech is much more dynamic. Although governed by “the Law” of what can be expressed intelligibly, speech can be summarized, added to, or retracted. When they engage in a dialogue, the speaker (teacher) and audience (student) enter a contractual relationship. This relationship confers power to the owner, producer, and presenter of information (the teacher) who can use this position to influence his audience (the student). However, by publicly displaying himself as an authority he subjects himself to the scrutiny of his audience that, in its sheer presence, “is always there puncturing his discourse” (313). This relationship creates a unique space in which learning can occur as a back-and-forth process where the media (speech, in this case) becomes a living, breathing organism that can change in scope and interpretation. Barthes states “teaching can…be evaluated in terms of a paradox, provided it is based on this conviction: that a system which calls for corrections, translations, openings, and denials is more useful than an unformulated absence of a system.” (318) This quote that describes an ideal space of discourse is reflective of my feelings about modern media and how I plan to approach the Global Media classroom. We should treat media (be it a printed newspaper, film, blog, etc.) as an interactive dialogue between the producer and consumer. In a world where open access to endless information can be literally kept in our pockets, we cannot afford to take that access for granted or at face value. Welcoming a variety of uncensored interpretations, thorough analyses, extensive comparisons, and rigorous questioning is essential to revealing and understanding the value of any media creation.

In a word, I’m a traveller. I was born in Austria to Croatian parents and since childhood have tried hard to a strike a balance between two. After kindergarten my parents placed me in an international school, adding yet another layer of density to my life and identity. So I grew up speaking combinations of Croatian, German and English, that sometimes only my sister and I could fully understand. This early exposure to distinct languages shaped the way I think and see the world. Living in, not just knowing, more than one language changes the way you make connections and see the roots of words and discourse. My experience gave me a rare appreciation for language, because every tongue has its unique take on the world through its collected memory.

I’m also a student. I want to take this class, because of the way it combines media with international relations. I like fusing disciplines, because each allows you to see the other more distinctly. They can clash or they can mingle. I also believe that new media has fundamentally changed the way we perceive events and the way we respond to them, and this is significant for international relations. Thanks to the ever increasing availably of new media that allows us to see the human side of events; I believe we are at the verge of global awareness and solidarity.

Speech and language are important tools in this change, as are teachers and students. Barthes’ text is significant, because it deals with our approaches to our environment, which is largely defined through language, namely through speech and writing. Speech and language are how we convey meaning and the clearer we express and understand each other the smaller are the chances for conflict. So it is vital that we explore the idiosyncrasies of language and especially of writing. Writing is also the preferred medium for academia. It is a bar by which professors are measured (how many books they’ve written and how much they’ve published in peer review journals). “Writing begins where speech becomes impossible” (309) is a good framework for thinking about how we should approach the written word, because of its inherent “banishment of polysemy” (310). Writing needs to be dynamic and disavow rigid clarity lest we forget its original purpose. Rigid language cannot tell us the “truth about reality” (320) and by contrasting it to a “reality without language” (320), we can more clearly see language for what it is, a means not an end. Dynamic language gives us the ability to connect to others, to breach our own internal barriers, and in media, more so than in other aspects of society, language should be the means by which we empathize, curtail differences and realize that we all have a joint stake in this flat and crowded planet.

I am Gan Uyeda, a junior concentrator in International Relations and Art History from Honolulu, HI. I want to take this course for a number of reasons. On the practical side, I’ve taken a previous course with Professor Der Derian, and although I found his teaching methods a little different at times, I really appreciated the course and felt that I learned a lot. I also find the subject of this course fascinating. I am interested in better understanding the incredibly pervasive power of global media. More specifically, I am interested in the mechanisms by which media, in seeking (among other objectives) to represent reality, gives birth to its own version of reality separate from the lived experience of the subject. This amount of power disturbs me, and I feel that I need to know more.

I want to gain from this course a better understanding of the functions of global media today. Regarding the theoretical portion of the class, I want to acquire a critical framework through which I can better perceive the effects of media, the networks of power behind media, and the implications of media in ever-accelerating systems of information and communication. Looking towards the production side, this class seems to be an excellent opportunity to learn how to use the tools of the media. I’d love to learn how to use programs like Final Cut Pro to develop and produce video materials.

Turning to Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers, Barthes examines the difficulties of using language to convey an idea or a notion. For the teacher, the act of conveying an idea involves filtering it through the “true violence of language,” then passing the result through what Barthes calls the “game” of academia (325, 319). For the writer, typographical errors, puns, spoonerisms, and other phenomenon of the written word underscore the medium’s inherent vulnerability to misinterpretation, to missignification, to the pluralization of meaning in the reader (324). Barthes looks at how the positions of the speaker (writer, thinker, etc) and listener (reader), influences how meaning is attached to his speech.

The question of how meaning is established is central to Barthes’s essay, and it carries significance for this course. One of the media’s functions is to represent reality, to grow meaning within a specifically constructed version of the real. Thus it holds the powerful capacities to create meaning, to bend the interpretation of discourse for its own objectives, and to diffuse its own interests. The assignment of meaning, particularly of meaning useful to the activation of the proletariat, has moved from being assigned “by the proletariat itself” to the “representatives” of the proletariat in the media, which, regardless of their representative status, still function from a class position outside the proletariat (326-7). These thoughts, the question of who establishes meaning, who gets the power to interpret the facts, and how these interpretations can come to constitute the realities of media’s consumers, are all valuable as one comes into this global media course.

I found this quotation particularly illustrative of the class division of meaning: “…[T]he division of classes has its inevitable counterpart in the division of meanings and that the class struggle corresponds no less inevitably to a war of meanings” (326). It highlights the plurality of meanings that can be unearthed from a single fact and role of interpretation in the activation or sedation of the media consumer.

My name is Isabel Parkes and I am a junior concentrating in German/ MCM and Hispanic Studies. Having been born in London, lived in Bonn and Frankfurt and finally ending up in Los Angeles, I have been pleasantly stretched across the Western Hemisphere and remain cautious to avoid the comfortably compressed lifestyle that our society so often nurtures

My academic interests range from art and languages to environmental science and politics. I am drawn to studying and traveling to newly (re)invigorated cities like Berlin and Mexico City, because of their tangled histories and explosive cultural centres. Having worked on my high school paper and Brown's Indy, as well as serving as a Writing Fellow, I offer a strong background in writing and a love for the frenetic pace and organization of media. Early on at Brown, I thought that I would pursue this more writing-intensive lifestyle, but after work experience within the BBC and FT, I find my mother's career as an artist to be far more stimulating. I hope that this course will blend visual cultures familiar to me and inherent to the study of media, with more tangible case studies & research-based analysis than I find in my other courses.

Barthes' piece strikes readers first in its capturing of the paradoxical familiarity/complexity of language: with speech, "to cancel is to add" (309). His critique drives us to question the authority and law that we so easily attribute to the one who articulates. Even organizationally - e.g. by including familiar headings such as "Method" - Barthes relaxes readers' eyes, only to betray our academic arrogance and reveal the complexity of his scheme. In this sense, writing compromises his own thought, as does our own.

Barthes suggests that whether it be from the teacher (who speaks) to the student (who takes notes) or vice versa, much is lost in translation. He reiterates this change of form multiple times, illuminating the limits of language. What is so striking about Barthes in relation to our course is that global media both acknowledges his hypothesis and refutes it: surely something (agency perhaps?) is lost on Youtube re-runs of street violence in Gaza, yet much is gained from the BBC's twitter account, through the uncontrollable collapse of national borders via the Interweb, through the ubiquity of cell phones (flash mobs!). This changing of the guard of authority of news is both exciting and frightening.

He writes "What do I represent? ... An institution? A service? ... I speak only in the name of language...", further investigating even personal and anonymous compromise when he adds "For writing can tell the truth about language, but not the truth about reality..." (320). So my question for this course (and to connect course and this text) might be, does global media today still speak "only in the name of language" or even "only in the name of" a single thing? Has the proliferation (and repetition) of images we find on CNN and Fox News programmes changed what is being spoken for? New media platforms - something I look forward to tackling this semester -- put the "truth about reality" at even greater risk, blurring the lines of writer, intellectual, and teacher.

My name is Natasha Somji and I am a senior concentrating in Development Studies and Economics. My intellectual interests can best be expressed through my senior thesis, which is also one of the reasons why I want to take this class: examining the ways in which alternative and mainstream media within India represent political conflict in Kashmir. Across the world, people learn about contemporary issues by reading, watching or listening to the news, yet, few question the power of the media as a tool through which to influence public perception by framing events. As I write my thesis, I have become increasingly critical of global media, evaluating the ways in which issues are represented thereby analysing the content of the media coverage itself.

In addition to challenging how I think about my thesis, I want to take this class to understand how to produce media. In a world that is becoming increasingly reliant on media as a platform through which to connect people from various backgrounds and cultures, it is essential to learn not only about the theories of media, but also develop the ability to produce media effectively, as it becomes more relevant in our day-to-day lives.

Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers serves to challenge the hegemony that is present in traditional learning styles by examining the effect of language in speech and writing and evaluating the teacher-student relationship. Barthes claims that “language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power” (311). In a traditional classroom, the teacher teaches a lesson, thereby exercising his power through speech; meanwhile the students, as subjects, passively listen and a system of hierarchy is created. Barthes denies this system in favour of a more fluid relationship between teacher and student, where both have an equal right to power.

This concept is important to INTL1800N because it encourages learning in a unique way: we will get the opportunity to acquire knowledge not solely through lectures and readings, but also through production, taking our education into our own hands. For me, the sentence that is most relevant to this class is, “we need to substitute the old ‘magistral’ space, which was actually a religious space (speech from the pulpit, up above; down below, the flock), a less Euclidian space where no one, neither the teacher nor students, would ever be in his final place” (322). This quote not only highlights the changing roles that are attributed to the ‘student’ and the ‘teacher’ that we will more fully explore in this class by learning collectively and through student participation, but in addition, it also questions the agenda of the news as an ‘informer’ or, in a sense, a ‘teacher’ of events, and the audience as accepting ‘students’. Through this class, I would hope to become more cognizant of the ways in which media shapes our world views, and, in doing so, challenge the media authorities who define for us what to view, thereby blurring the traditional student and teacher roles.

My name is Isabella Morton, and I am a senior concentrating in International Relations in the Political Economy of Development track. I am particularly interested in global health, and am planning on going to medical school after I graduate. I spent a summer in Ghana working in a hospital and living with a Ghanaian family; the way in which the media has been brought to developing countries and the effect it can have for development is of particular interest to me. In that summer, it was amazing to see how many poor families had televisions and how much time they spent watching, or the way in which people would crowd around the television in the hospital to watch the latest news. I don’t think I ever personally saw a newspaper while I was there.

I am interested in gaining a greater understanding of how certain events and issues become dominant in the media, versus other issues, which get shoved out of the way. Particular events become highlights of media coverage for various reasons, often political, yet at the same time, this coverage in turn affects the event’s outcome. Especially in video media (CNN, Fox, etc) it seems that there is a smaller scope of issues available to the viewing audience than there is for the viewer of print media/newspapers, and thus the live footage, which is often more viscerally powerful to the senses, structures the dominant discourse of current events. In a world increasingly dominated by technology, I hope to understand how the world came to be the way it is today. I also hope to learn about the ways in which documentaries versus films can portray history or current events, and the lines between portraying something critically and unbiased, having an opinion, and manipulating truth.

In Roland Barthes essay, he contrasts speaking with writing; once speech is formed it cannot be erased or edited, it is a form of the unconscious, and thus more natural. The writer, on the other hand, has the power to edit and rewrite. Film/documentary could be described as some sort of union of the two mediums, in the sense that it uses sound and speech to relay a meaning and may be viewed by the unconscious, but it has been edited and reworked until a purposeful end is given to the viewer. The creator of the film allows the viewer to interpret what he sees so that he may feel he is making his own opinion and not having one forced on him, by being shown “reality” and being allowed to make of it what he wishes; the truth is that he is seeing intentionally selected images which create a specific “reality” which therefore can only be interpreted to a certain extent, creating this conjunction between writing and speech. Barthes says “Once the speech is spoken, a thousand adventures happen to it, its origin becomes confused, all its effects are not in its cause.” (311) This line is important in the way that it highlights the power of speech, and media, in that it has the power to mutate and affect its audience in a way that is often uncontrollable and may have extended and unforeseeable effects that surpass its original goal.

I am Hannah Schafer, a concentrator in the Comparative Literature department. I also spent a semester “abroad” as a visiting student at RISD in order to pursue my interests in filmmaking and computer animation. Despite the skills garnered, I found myself surrounded by a film culture based primarily on aesthetics, which lent itself to a kind of narrow artistry and did not to pertain to greater issues at large. I must inform you that I am a Brown alum, having graduated this past fall; however, I am staying on at Brown to do video editing work for a professor this semester; having attended the first class and read the synopsis, I hope to still vie for a coveted seat in your course, as I believe the I can both give and take much from participating in this experiment.

As a comparative literature concentrator the discussion of language as power has haunted me through my analysis of language in its basic forms from studying the relationship of the signifier to the signified in Saussure to the way in which discourse functions as power as explicated by writers such as Michel Foucault, Gayatri Spivak, and Edward Said. The latter two theorists in particular have directed my opinions and research; however, at least for me, theory alone is not enough, nor (as I learned at RISD) is film production without conscious interplay with history and theory. This is why I view this course on Global Media as a culmination, a meeting point, of all my studies both in production and in theory that I have pursued over the past four and a half years.

As for his work “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers”, Barthes sets up concrete oppositional relationships such as those between writing and speech and between teacher and student, and then goes on discuss the way in which these binaries are destabilized. He promotes the idea of disorientation, of detaching the signifier from the signified, which is a linguistic relationship too often taken for granted. For example, the emotion surrounding the word “terrorist” may very well be different from the feelings conjured by the term “freedom fighter” when in fact they can both refer to the same signified, thus destabilizing any concrete and direct relationship between a singular signifier and a signified. The idea that one can find a hard and fast truth through concrete language is falsified when this relationship between the signifier and signified breaks down.

Barthes ultimately refers here to the problem of communication, of a pure communication that does not include bias, but such kind of communication would negate the possibility of using language, since after all, language is power. Barthes writes, “No help for it: language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety” (Barthes 311). As it is the teacher who speaks in the traditional classroom, the teacher normally holds the position of dominance, putting forth a view, a line of reasoning or defined scope of discussion which the students tacitly accept. As Edward Said would write, this is a form of “soft power”, as there is no definite truth, there is just a dominant line of discourse. Since Professor Der Derian defined this course on global media as more of an ever-evolving experimental space rather than a traditional program, I hope that new kinds of discourse, new ways of representation and communication can emerge from such a setting.

Beatrice Igne-Bianchi
Banner ID: B00263511

My name is Beatrice Igne-Bianchi and I am a senior International Relations and Portuguese and Brazilian Studies concentrator. As someone who has used (and continues to) photography as a means of creating awareness (particularly in regard to social injustices), and who considers herself somewhat of a journalist (The Indy), I believe that this course really resonates with me. During my time at Brown, I have learned to write critical and analytical papers, but I feel as though in a time where technology and different media outlets are rapidly emerging I have not learned to decipher and analyze information that is transmitted beyond what may be regarded as “conventional” form (that is to say, text). Information can and should be transmitted through a variety of different mediums, and I think that there is far less emphasis placed on, for one example, the documentary film (at least through my experiences in academia thus far). I want to take this class because I feel as though I have not been exposed to the intricacies of various means of media. Not only that, I want to leave my comfort zone, and I believe that this class will enable me to dive into unknown waters—which, to me, is often times when I find myself learning and absorbing the most information.

The main point, albeit complex, of Roland Barthes’s essay Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers is the way in which the author explains the significances and different weights of the signs and codes that our society and human beings have assigned to certain types of expressions of language—whether that is audible speech or the written word. Barthes makes clear distinctions as to how humans interpret what is being said and what they are reading, and how we have constructed the types of meanings that are attached to these forms of expression and how context (say, how a speech is delivered, or the fact that you can delete or move around text, but when you are talking, all there is to do is add on. There is no backspace, so to speak).

From what I interpreted, Barthes believes that we underutilize speech; we underutilize and undermine and to a certain degree fear the symbols and codes our physical voices may and can project. And instead, we rely on relaying information and our opinions through writing; this feels particularly valid when he discusses the role of research, “Such is the historical role of research: to teach the scholar he speaks [but if he knew this he would write—and the whole idea of science, scientificity itself, would be changed thereby]”. In this case, I feel as though the aim of the course is to look at these cultural and societal definitions of codes and symbols in both speech and writing, and attempt to demystify them.

Lastly, the quotation that most spoke to me (no pun intended) while reading this text, which I think is a summary of the weight language carries and furthermore how I wish to step out of my comfort zone in this course is the following:
“Language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power; in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety” (311). I see this as the main point and argument that Barthes tries to make, and not only that, it is the summation of the strength of speech but also how we fear it due to the types of codes and symbols we have attached to it.

My name is Meha Verghese, I am a senior from Bangalore, India and an Economics and International Relations (Political Economy of Development) concentrator here at Brown. I am interested in the phenomenon and role of 'global media' having lived in India, the UK and the United States and having studied abroad in Lima, Peru. While I have not taken a media studies class before, I have always been interested in the intersection between media, culture and politics around the world. The popularity of different media in different places intrigues me. Furthermore, the dual relationship between the media and the public, in that the media focuses on the issues they think will be of the greatest interest to the public but at the same time, the issues they choose shape the public psyche, is also a theme I would like to explore in greater detail within this class.

This class appeals to me because it seems to focus on both the study of media as well as the content of the media, here from a political, international relations standpoint. The structure of the class and the assignments follow what I believe to be a very logical progression: we look first to the history of the media’s role in international politics, then to theory and finally we aim to produce original work. Indeed, to produce a meaningful piece of work, I believe that it is important, if not vital, to first understand and debate the historical, political and theoretical in order to situate oneself in the current discourse (or create a new one, as the case may be). I hope that while being introduced to new concepts and techniques of media production, I will contribute to the class and produce an original and meaningful piece of work.

While reading the article “Writers,Intellectuals, Teachers”, one phrase struck me as particularly relevant: “language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in a space of speech, no innocence, no safety.” (311). The link between speech and power has a double significance when discussing this seminar. For one, as the article goes on to explain, the conventional relationship between teacher and student is based on power, although the balance of power is not always in the teacher’s favor. In speaking, revealing one’s passion and knowledge, others have the opportunity to judge you and gain insight into your personality. Given that this class is a seminar and we will all be producing and presenting work, we shall learn not only about global media but also each other as the semester progresses. Secondly, this phrase addresses the issue of power in the media – which stories are reported, why and how – that has long interested me (as I explained above) and many of these questions can be answered by looking at power dynamics. In many respects, power determines who ‘speaks’ in global media, i.e. whose story and whose voice is heard and who is silenced.

Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers, and Students of Global Media

My name is Jenny Molyneaux, and I am a junior double concentrating in International Relations and Economics. I would like to take this class because it is out of my comfort zone. I typically take classes that are straightforward and lacking a critical perspective which seeks to advance a certain argument. By analyzing methods of delivery and going beyond simple content, I believe Global Media has the potential to change the way I think. Rather than accepting the notion that media responds to reality, I would like to explore the idea that the media creates our reality. To reiterate: I want to take this class because I have never taken a class where it was appropriate to write a sentence like the preceding sentence.

The article “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers” looks at the three title roles in order to discuss the difference between spoken and written language. The main difference seems to be that speech is connected to a speaker. This connection means that the speech is more than just content; it is influenced by the theater and law of speech, by the relation between the speaker and the listener (the teacher and the student), by the tone of the speech, and even by the postures of all parties involved. Barthes believes these influences detract from the language, typically making the speaker uncomfortable and the listener hostile. In contrast, writing is disembodied: “writing has no smell” (Barthes 321). Writing travels independently from the writer and exists in its own time and place, or rather writing exists in no time and without place. Accordingly, Barthes argues that speech should strive to mirror writing, to float.

The defining sentence in this article comes from Barthes discussion of interpreting mass media: “But then begins for the procurators of proletarian meaning, a real headache, for their class situation is not that of the proletariat: they are not producers – a negative situation they share with (student) youth, an equally unproductive class” (Barthes 327). Barthes explains that media must be interpreted because “certain objects of discourse do not directly interest the proletariat” and yet the proletariat cannot simply ignore the discourse (Barthes 326). I believe the above sentence is relevant to the class because one of media’s main struggles is to deliver necessary information to the disinterested masses. Some news shows address this problem by trying to imitate what they believe proletarian culture to be, using sensational hosts and simplified ideas. While I believe this approach is unproductive I find it equally unproductive for news shows to be inaccessible. I hope this class will unveil the benefits and drawbacks of the different methods of information delivery.

The above sentence also reflects what I hope to get from this class when it describes students as in the negative situation of being unproductive. As students, our job is to ingest and interpret knowledge but rarely is our job to produce anything new. I would like this class to show me how deep thoughts and dense theory can go beyond academia and can constructively influence something as indispensable as global media.

Nicole Carty
Brown ‘10
Sociology Major

From the time I was old enough to understand how much ignorance, prejudice, and corruption there was in the world, I knew my purpose in life was to work against these unnecessary evils. It was never a choice, I do not think I would even be able to elect to do anything else. When I came across sociology, a concentration, I felt which uniquely humanized both capitalist CEOs and welfare recipients alike, I was sold. It is a strongly held belief of mine that in order to attempt to fix society, one must have a comprehensive understanding of both how society works, and how the functioning of society affects the people who are socialized within it and as a graduating Sociology major, I finally feel that my level of understanding is at a point that I can positively affect societal change.
Since my coming to Brown the role of new media has proven itself to be important in ways that are both unexpected and unprecedented. During the same time period, my media skills have also increased exponentially as Brown has provided me with forums to both test my media skills and exercise my media personality, both of which I do through the production and development of my television show ‘Love Lockdown’. As I approach my graduation date, I realize that I want my life’s work to combine issues of social justice and economic sustainability with the media in ways which they have never been combined before . I feel that the combination of these issues with the media is capable of raising awareness in the local and global population alike. In taking ‘Global Media’ I hope to learn more about all the ways in which media can influence a population to action or to idleness and how new media gives many who feel as if they are disempowered, a voice. Additionally I want to learn how to combine sometimes overwhelming social issues with entertainment to insure that audiences want to maintain interest in the subject matter.
This article has a great deal to do with all aspects of media. It tells of both the seduction of speech and its inseverable connection with the speaker, and the importance of text for its ability to escape from this bind. The article speaks of the intractability of dialogue and the learned craft of tautological speech, and the specific perfection of writing which can craft its own laws. As a whole, however, the article speaks about the confines, understandings, and limitations of 1970’s credible media. The basic properties of speech and writing, are fixed as are the accreditations for validity. Yet, the article argues, every thesis is merely a counter-thesis to something which came before and thus, there is no universal truth. Because this is so , at the end of the reading the reader is encouraged to search for something beyond. To float. To gather information from multiple sources and reject the established law in their own speech an writing, to find and share their own truth.
This, I feel is, exactly the change that has occurred in the forty intervening years since this article was written. Though a sense of ‘credible media’ still exists, people are increasingly rejecting those measured accreditations and orienting themselves based upon what is valid to them. There is no longer one correct orientation of speech and writing, in fact, through new media, even the rules that formerly bound speech and text are transformed. One can edit speech to change the meaning entirely, after it has been spoken. Blogs allow for writing to be completely informal and imperfect, and people still consider it valid. The boundaries which were formerly so smothering are now completely elective. The most exciting development is the fulfillment of something that is alluded to in the article. On page 329 it states: “…(T)hough the proletariat is separated, it is still bourgeois language in its degraded, petit-bourgeois for, which unconsciously speaks in the proletariat’s cultural discourse; and on the other side, though the proletariat is mute, it speaks in the discourse of the intellectual….” Though historically muted by the media, through new media the proletariat are not only finding their voice but sharing it with other proletariat and bourgeoisie alike. The proletariat is finally speaking the discourse of the intellectual to the masses. This is what is so exciting about the current era of media and what interests me in ‘Global Media’, to see the many ways this transformation is happening and to see what I can do to aid and facilitate this long anticipated empowerment.

In the years I have spent at Brown I have taken full advantage of this liberal arts education by exploring many interests. As a Senior concentrating in COE and the Art History I have been able to focus these interests into an investigation of the commercialization of culture characterized by courses in Economics and Art History. While my attention has primarily been in exploring the role visuals have in shaping the norms and values of a society, I believe that media plays a vital function in this process. Global media represents the dissemination of cultural ideas to a wide audience. In an introductory film course I studied "Man With a Movie Camera" by Dziga Vertov and was particularly intrigued by the interplay between his documentary footage of Soviet cities with the abstracted images created by his shooting techniques. This brings up the issue of the camera as the extension of the artist’s eye and the role of technology in portraying the political and cultural climate of a society. This is a topic that is still extremely relevant today in the digital information age with the advent of social networking, blogging, and a host of new media. Whether it is a photojournalist recording the devastation of war for a magazine or a 19th century painter reimagining the Orient for a local newspaper, media has the power to both convey truth and conjure alternate realities. For me, this class provides the opportunity to compare and contrast media as an art form, underscoring its ability to balance authenticity while inciting imaginative narratives.

In “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers” Roland Barthes lays out the ideas behind creating an environment that is conducive to learning. A key relationship is that between the teacher and student, and the importance of creating a non-hierarchical relationship, instead one based on a contract between both parties to fulfill certain transitive obligations. Among these needs is the requirement for the student to acknowledge the role of the teacher while acting as an extension of his teaching styles and ideas; and for the teacher to guide the intellectual development of the student as he bestows his academic knowledge. The second important concept behind sustaining an effective educational dynamic is understanding the different means of communication. Although speech and writing both have their individual strengths and weakness, Barthes highlights the power of the spoken word over text. In an environment of intellectual discourse speech is an indelible force subject to a multitude of interpretations by the listeners and the speaker himself. The result is a classroom where the goal isn’t to reach a fixed conclusion, but rather an emphasis on the exploration of ideas constantly in flux.

Barthes states, “in order to ‘interpret’ all these cultural relays, the proletariat requires representatives: those whom Brecht call the ‘artists’ or the ‘workers of the intellect’…those who have at their command the language of the indirect, the indirect as language; in short, oblates, who dedicate themselves to the proletarian interpretation of cultural phenomena.” I believe that this sentiment provides a succinct summary of Barthes argument and my personal desire to take this class. Global Media represents the opportunity for me to further understand the political underpinnings of cultural phenomena and the chance to engage with a diverse group of students similarly interested in creating a nuanced discourse on the nature of mass communication.

My name is Marc Gilbert, and I am a senior concentrating in International Relations, focusing in Global Security. My coursework mostly centers around theoretical or institutionalized systems, economic and political. In my own time, I read a lot of media, new and old, but almost exclusively over the Internet. It is under this media lens that I then analyze and think about international events: how debates are formed, positions constructed and identities molded over time. This quickly has become an activity of its own: noticing how media shapes a narrative of its own creation.
While this class teaches us about the media as a “source of information” and as “a medium of war and diplomacy,” I also want to take this class to learn more about how media constructs and influences how we as students and, more importantly, how we as people, consume breaking news and global events. This seems increasingly important for me because of the all-too-clichéd references to a 24-hour news cycle and sound-bite media culture. With movies to documentaries to YouTube videos, or from newspaper articles to news blogs to breaking news emails (Laura Rozen has written a new post!), I hope to acquire my own media filter, a perspective on what I’m reading, and, also, tools for my own life: new ways to think about branding US foreign policy in digestible, useful, and intelligent ways.
Roland Barthes’ article seemed to me to be addressing the relative permanence of speech versus text, and examining where various modes of analysis fit into that spectrum. For this class, and to me, the most important passages concerned speech, as modern media seems to be moving more and more in the direction of “a fabric that frays out as it knits itself together, a chain of argumentative corrections” (300). No more is the op-ed page of the New York Times a text that is authoritative and permanent, but rather news and journalism exist within a context of speech and news cycles. Newspapers correct, or upon visiting the Huffington Post a second time in one day, one might encounter an update (i.e. 3:30pm – the Senator has confirmed that he was quoted correctly). One twitter account responds to another.
The most important quote to me was about how speech “smells:” “The time of speech exceeds the act of speech” (321-22). This past summer, I interned at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and the experience taught me about how much news can reek. When stories broke or when we were transcribing days of footage from a correspondent who had been sent to Iran before the summer elections, I was consistently confronted with the context of news. A politician or news anchor could never undo their history of quotes, speech. A quote or an image would stink to a producer or writer, and then the day would be spent finding the source of the smell, the history of the rotting, and the absurd image of the media holding its nose.

My name is Jake Friedman. I’m a third-year International Relations (Global Security) concentrator. My focus is on the Middle East; I study Arabic, did an UTRA with Melani Cammett, and am trying to decide on an IR honors thesis.

I spent this past summer in Lebanon. What one discovers there is that almost every major Lebanese television station or newspaper is openly aligned with a political party. There is barely any pretense to objectivity. What results is confusion between news and news making. This confusion- whether media is commenting on events or affecting and creating them- permeates modern global media and is an issue I hope to study. Furthermore, the ability to not only understand but also create meaningful images and ideas is an essential one, and something I hope to gain from this course. I know how to research a topic and present it as such; but to be able to compellingly translate such research into an effective message, and understand where such a message intersects with traditional international relations is something I hope to learn from this seminar.

The essay “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers” is instructive in its treatment of the process and aftermath of speaking and writing. Roland Barthe’s theory that all speaking and writing-even in a summarized or incorrect form- must engage with the Other is informative with regards to global media. Media, like speech, is inevitably staged; its very goal is to interact with the audience, and to make them agree with or be involved with the specific message being proposed. Yet while in Barthe’s essay the Other and the audience is an unseen, disconcerting figure, modern global media not only measures and woos its audience, but the audience is in a position to question and engage with more traditional forms of media.

Issues that Barthe writes about with regards to teachers- such as questioning, summary, and familiarity- are easily applicable to modern global media, and as such, material for this class. Barthe and this class both deal with issues of interaction in language and in the world; it is evident that Barthe’s essay on interaction of language is pertinent to a study of an interaction between media and politics. Thus, one can see twitter in Barthe’s description of summary, punditry and documentaries in Barthe’s questions and doxas.

In his essay, Barthe argues that “to speak is to exercise a will to power.” Later on, he terms a writer “any sender whose “message”… cannot be summarized.” These two statements both speak volumes to modern global media: the former for its resonance with current technologies, the latter for its invalidity. Thus, while the youtube video of Neda’s death has a will to power in the same field as Ahmadinejad, the very concept of Twitterature proves that no message- written or otherwise- is beyond summary. It is my hope that this class will teach me how to understand media with a political lens, while creating an image that can survive and remain meaningful even in a summarized form.

My name is Gabriela Camargo and I am a junior concentrating in International Relations focusing on the Politics, Culture and Identity track. I am also double-majoring with Portuguese and Brazilian Studies.

As a second semester junior I have been recently contemplating what exactly it is I am going to do with my Brown education once my time is up. I am captured by the world of academia, and a career that would include constantly building and rearranging ideas to try to make sense of it all would be a dream to me. Yet on the other side is the part of me that feels like I should take my privileges and turn it into a more direct form of social change, this part believes that I should continue working/interning for non-profits and community organizing groups and get off my pedestal by analyzing things from afar and start effecting change. I know this dilemma is not at all unique to a Brown student, but it nonetheless has been occupying my mind. This leads me to why I am taking this class. I took a class called Violence and the Media with Kay Warren that truly introduced me to the power of media and the force behind documentary film-making. I love the ability that new media has in democratizing information. Especially with documentaries , I feel media has the ability to bridge the gap between what academics are saying and who they are saying it about. I feel this form of media is more accessible and will consequently be able to affect more people in comparison to books published for and read by only academics. This is why I am taking this class, because I believe in the potential of media as a medium for change. Since the class with Kay Warren I have always been wanting to learn more about production but never had the time in my schedule to work through all the MCM pre-requisites to get to the classes that truly interested me. Overall, I hope to become media production literate when I leave this course, an opportunity that I have been seeking for some time.

The article, Writers, Intellectuals and Teachers, delves into the implications that the differences in medium produces in the messages they attempt to deliver. Essentially, Barthes focuses on how the speaker, whether it be a writer, intellectual or teacher, and the person on the receiving end influences the meaning that was initially attached to the speech. He spends the majority of the article contrasting speech and writing. The form of speech being irreversible, and in that sense perceived as more natural, also has its perfomative aspect where timing and clarity are essential to the delivery of the message. Writing on the other hand has more room for editing yet also has its vulnerabilities to misinterpretation. Film, could have the potential of both appearing natural yet maintain the advantage of being edited and carefully crafted making the listener susceptible to the message while also being able to fine tune it.

The particular line that stood out to me the most was when Barthes was pointing out how writing has the inability to describe a real authentic experience, “For writing can tell the truth about language, but not the truth about reality” (320). Is the message clouded to such an extent that no truth about the real world can come from writing? This leads me to the question of whether the medium can ever tell the truth about anything other than itself. Is this true for all forms of media, including New Media?

My name is Meara Sharma; I am a senior comparative literature concentrator with a strong interest in film, art, creative writing, and international studies. My academic work involves engaging critically with works of writing - discovering meaning, constructing understanding, and illuminating ideas through synthesis and creativity. Though writing is my frequent medium, this process translates to film, art, music, or photography. My time at Brown has been replete with compelling ideas and conversation, and my goal post-college is to bring these experiences to wider audiences, beyond academia. Accessible and far-reaching media, particularly film and television, strikes me as a potent means to tell important stories, promote conversation, educate, and incite change. In this class, I hope to explore the ways in which media shapes and represents humanity: how we conceive of others, ourselves, and the world around us. I would like to become a more critical, thoughtful consumer of media, as well as develop the skills to creatively use media in constructing and communicating stories.

In his essay, “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” Barthes points to the societal systems through which information (perhaps knowledge, perhaps “truth”) flows. Institutions, such as academia and the law, seek to define the mediums of writing and speech and thus establish control over their value. “Legitimate” speech and writing must adhere to institutionally defined rules and processes; they are meaningless unless promulgated through the law, through academia, through politics. These mediums, then, become instruments of power as well as reproducers of power. Institutions strive to possess and direct “truth” as a thing in itself. Barthes argues, however, that a singular “truth” does not exist – that speech and writing cannot be fully bound. “The origin of speech does not exhaust it; once the speech is spoken, a thousand adventures happen to it; its origin becomes confused, all its effects are not in its cause...” (323). Language is polysemous; the signifier does not always connect to the signified via one straight line. Though conventions of writing and speech exist, meaning is constructed – reliant on perspective, experience, and intention. The proletariat and bourgeois work with the same raw materials, yet assemble them in ways particular to their needs: “...each fact possesses several meanings (a plurality of “interpretations”), and among these meanings there is one which is proletarian (or at least serves the proletariat in its action)...” (326). In constructing meaning, active media users upset the singularity of “truth,” and shift the locations from which meaning emerges.

In the 21st century, media includes video footage, blogs, social networks, and beyond. Barthes' argument still resonates: media is an instrument of power, wielded by institutions, movements, political campaigns, and individuals to produce and proclaim a conception of “truth.” We understand (tremendously well) that meaning is constructed, and we endlessly capitalize upon this manipulability in order to distort, highlight, or erase parts of humanity. The “truth” comes at us from all angles; no one institution or individual can posses it. The location of media's power is shifting and spreading: anyone can produce and disseminate media, and participate in the construction of meaning. Previously sacred media producers are undermined by media that is instant and user-generated. Media today is volatile and powerful; it demands critical consideration. In this course, I hope to examine the strategic ways in which media is produced in order to construct knowledge, imply meaning, and wield power. The barrage of media output calls for incisive consumers and producers who construct their own truths through creative interpretation and analysis. Barthes calls this “floating.” “The need is to attempt, quite patiently, to trace out a pure form, that of a floating; such floating destroys nothing, it is content to disorient the Law...” (331). How can media exercise itself in responsible, empowering, productive ways, and how can individuals derive unique understanding from its multilayered meanings? This is a vital challenge, one with which I hope to engage in Global Media.

After a smorgasbord of classes that do Brown’s open-curriculum justice, I embark on the second semester of my senior year as an International Relations concentrator in the Politics, Culture and Identity track. I was drawn by the multi-disciplinary approach and freedom to shape the track to my various interests. Last semester, I was particularly interested by Keith Brown’s course, “Ethnographies of Global Connection,” especially a section focused on film as ethnography. We screened many films, including a few by Thomas Balmès, who spoke to our class. After meeting individually with the director, I was interested in trying my hand at film in this capacity: documenting, clarifying and problematizing international connections. This is why I am excited about Global Media, which I hope will provide practical experience as well as theoretical insight.

Barthes’s essay is an introduction to this theoretical and critical approach to media. He argues the shortcomings of language as spoken and written. Speech’s inherent requirements of clarity, articulation, context and certainty yield a reductive nature. There is an irreversible commitment to what has been said, and by speaking authority roles are appropriated and assumed Writing, on the other hand, may subvert the message due to the language employed; yet its allowance for complexity is valuable. Barthes highlights the violence of language in stereotypes, terrorist discourse, divisions of meaning, and radical criticism that negates meaning. But he also suggests that when speech draws nearer to writing in execution, peaceable speech and good will are possible.

The essay is important to the study and practice of global media for many reasons. Firstly, his deconstructive approach to language provides an example of how one can consider global media: Who is speaking (disseminating information)? What is the message and how is it communicated? What are the power roles? What stereotypes are used? How are various interpretations building contentious viewpoints? Second, Barthes’s argument that language is always intertwined with power should inform one’s interpretation of consumed and produced media. Global media’s role as a medium of war and diplomacy spurs from the violent and bourgeois nature of language that Barthes discusses. Reduction of meanings veils the complexity of international political discourse and should be avoided.

“Law is produced, not in what he says, but in the fact that he speaks at all.”
“…language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety.” -311
This quote is important to Global Media because this media is communication using language (like writing or speaking). What’s more, it is mass communication, available to a diverse audience. Therefore, the “life” of the message after communicated and circulated will be extensive and amorphous. I would like to take from this class an understanding of how this characteristic of global media is utilized today, what the future of a more peaceable global media might look like, and how my addition to the realm of global media should be informed.

My name is Francesca Barber and I am a junior concentrating in International Relations in the Global Security track. I am from London, but have been educated in both Europe and the States, and spent six months in Africa on my gap year. I have just come back from a semester abroad in Argentina studying human rights and social movements, where I had the opportunity to enhance my field experiences and work on the ground. However, thus far my academic experience has been extremely intellectual and theory-based. This is why the class Global Media is so appealing.

I am looking for a challenge to my usual way of thinking, an expansion of creativity and knowledge in an area I am unfamiliar with but enjoy. Writing, languages and politics have always been interests of mine and I have continued to pursue them throughout my time at Brown. Print media is a core part of International Relations, but with newspapers dying, and new forms of news and information arising – I feel as though I need to keep up. Now that I only have a year left I am intrigued to try something new within my discipline.

Barthes’ essay, “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers”, underlines the dynamic between speech and writing, and teacher and student. When discussing the two forms of discourse, the author presents the difficulties of language facing writers and speakers. Although writing can be detached, language is carefully chosen, edited and reshaped in order to create a perfect final version. Speech, on the other hand, is dynamic, live and ‘irreversible’ (309). One is therefore ‘liberated by writing’ (322).

But as Barthe argues, speech has a much more striking effect and although defined by Laws, it is free flowing, engaging and a piece theater. A speaker, through his/her proposed discourse can dictate the listener’s train of thought and perception of what they are engaging in. A speaker can create reduced versions of text and ideas in order to portray ones message, which continues to be rewritten throughout the discourse. The defining sentence in my opinion captures this argument: “…the origin of a speech does not exhaust it; once the speech is spoken, a thousand adventures happen to its origin becomes confused, all its effects are not in its cause; it is this redundancy which we are exploring” (323)

I am a writer and not a speaker, but news is rapidly changing. In my opinion, documentaries, Youtube and other instant forms of news, explore the power of combining the two forms of discourse, highlighting both the power of image, representation, speech and writing. I want to adapt to this new challenge.

Rahel Dette

I am a freshman, and I am from Germany. But I don’t want to be seen as ‘young’ as a freshmen, and I don’t feel very German. At 16, I left home for an international boarding school. Since then, I care about this world in a way I had never expected. Everything means something, everything is connected, and everything matters (in various senses). Before coming to Brown, I took a year off. I went to Africa, worked in Portugal, stayed in Berlin, and volunteered in the West Bank. There are so many things happening in this world that I cannot grasp, get frustrated about, and want to change. Once I realized, however, that I was probably not going to be the one to “save this world,” I discovered journalism and the media. If I cannot change everything, I can attempt to make people more aware of things. For the time being, I could see myself in that field (at Brown, concentrating in either IR or PS). Further, video as a tool has always fascinated me, and while I have made some (failing?) attempts at it on my own, I am eager to learn how to use it in a technical sense, and as a means of communication.

“Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers” also is about communication. In a way the text claims that its argument cannot simply be restated (since the virtue of writing is said to be that it cannot be summarized), but of course it conveys certain ideas. With the class “Global Media” in mind, I could not help but relate these to where media has arrived at today: video. The author explores the relation and contradiction of speech and writing, and while the latter seems to be shown as the more confined way of communication, it is speech which is oftentimes more powerful. Seeing that this text was published in 1971, I find that many of its queries may actually have been answered by video, a combination of both: image and sound give a producer better means than pure writing, but the final work can represent a piece of perfection. In that sense, by understanding video production, Global Media could be a continuation to the author’s attempt of making sense of the relation of speech and writing.

In the text, Tel Quel further sets up a contract between students and the teacher, which is referred to in the last sentence: “In short, within the very limits of the teaching space as given, the need is to attempt, quite patiently, to trace out a pure form, that of a floating…” This adds on to what was said in the introductory class to Global Media: the class always changes with the people involved and the topics discussed. This concept is something I like about the course: teaching and learning should be more than just lecturing and listening. It is the relationships that evolve in a class and the readiness to take in new thoughts and ideas, that eventually lead to best results and outcomes.

I am aware that I am only in my first year, but I would still like to join this class now. In a way I hope that this class could set me off in the right direction (or it could also end an illusion of a career in media), but finally, I would simply like to become a part of this project, learn about the theory behind media and also learn how to do it.

I am Liling Soh, a senior concentrating in international relations and economics, with a very keen interest in the media. I enjoy storytelling with a human element, economic development issues, and am especially interested in the East and South-East Asian regions (being from there). Apart from having taken courses such as Journalism, Mass Media, Radio Non-Fiction, I work in the news department at 95.5FM WBRU, writing and producing news features. I have also been an intern at the Channel News Asia headquarters in Singapore, producing a segment on human organ trafficking in Asia. As such, I am extremely excited to take this class and to further explore the different mediums.
The role of media in shaping thoughts and influencing world events has never been greater. I feel like this class will offer me a multi-disciplinary approach to help develop a critical eye to analyze and evaluate the work and place of media in our modern society. Furthermore, coming from a country with strict media censorship laws, I am eager to look at the development and effects of media in a different setting. Practically, I would also like to learn how to artfully combine theory with creativity and integrity in delivering a story/ message to an audience.
Barthes looks at language and talks about the nuances and differences between writing and speech. He posits that in relying on language/text, the writer is caught in abstract conventions and discursive orders. However, speech is less concerned with pre-existing rules and more concerned with the individual use of language. It involves greater inclusion of personal experiences, interpretations and additions.
I think the relevance of Barthes’ essay to our class is encapsulated in the line: “For writing can tell the truth about language, but not the truth about reality.” He seems to imply that speech (new media) is more powerful than writing (print journalism and its predecessors) because of its odor/its association to elements beyond the Law. Thus, the theatre of Speech leaves a deeper psychological and emotional mark on the audience, allowing it to be a more effective communication tool.
This is important to the class as the media (in written and spoken forms) is what informs us and involves us in global affairs. With advances in technology and an increasing number of outlets offering us different interpretations of the “truth”, it appears like we are in the best position ever to destabilize the dominant discourse and achieve greater dynamism.
Thus, in forming our own perceptions and beliefs (on international politics in this case), it is imperative that we give ourselves space and opportunity to feed our brain with multiple perspectives, to layer upon different sources, to dare to disorient the Law, and ultimately, to “trace out a pure form” and seek the truth about reality.

My name is Sabrina Skau and I am a sophomore anthropology concentrator. This course is everything I have dreamed of for my future in anthropology, which is why I absolutely must take it. I was initially drawn to anthropology because I saw that at its core, anthropology (and its hallmark, ethnography) is about telling stories, which harkened back to my earlier dreams of being a screenwriter. The narratives that we uncover as anthropologists are deeply compelling and it is my strong conviction that the work of anthropologists should be easily accessible and widely disseminated throughout the public forum. Last semester I took Keith Brown’s course on ANTH1233 course on Ethnographies of Global Connection, which introduced me to writings on globalization, transnationality, global ethnography, and also spurred me to think about ethnographic film as a way to rethink ethnography both as a research method and as a result or product of research. I believe that film should be a significant part of the future of anthropology, and though I have written and read extensively about ethnographic film, I don’t yet have the production skills to actually carry out my vision. I took an MCM course on the filmed interview last semester that introduced me to some of the theory of documentary filmmaking, but the production training was cursory.

This semester I plan to immerse myself in the study of media in order to better understand how to both study and create it. I am taking MCM0230: Digital Media, as well as an MCM seminar on media and/as ethnography. As someone who engages with and enjoys media from a variety of sources every day, I have begun to ask myself how to think critically about something that has inundated my life. Also, how should/can I approach media both as an anthropologist doing research and as someone who hopes to use documentary media to present that research?

In his essay, Roland Barthes uses the roles of the writer, intellectual, and teacher to discuss language and power through the differences between speech and writing. Speech is tied to a body; it has an odor, it smells (Barthes 321). Speech hangs in the immediate aftermath of the speech act. In the teaching relationship, the teacher stands physically before his students and is a subject to psychoanalysis (312). In the silence of the “exemplary Other” (students), she finds that her words “speak all the louder [in her]” as she becomes self-conscious (314). Writing, on the other hand, “has no smell” and in fact “travels” through time and space far from the body, without need of the writer as a vessel (321). When I think about Barthes’ discussion in terms of the media, I ask myself about the place of media in terms of speech and writing. Is media irreversible like speech? Can we cancel or do we merely add? Barthes includes on interesting discussion on two types of mistakes made in typing: one that signifies nothing but spurs association and interpretation, and another that has significance but alters or removes meaning (323-324). What are the possible “mistakes” in media (in the news on the television, in print, on a blog) and what emerges from them?

One phrase in the essay that particularly caught my attention was this: “Applied to culture, critical discourse can only be a cross-hatching of tactics, a tissue of elements now past, now circumstantial…and now frankly utopia: to the tactical necessities of the war of meanings is added the strategic conceptions of the new conditions which will be applied to the signifier when this war is over…” (328). What I admired most about Barthes’ essay was what I saw as a sort of “cross-hatching of tactics” that he used to break down language and expose the “war of meanings.” Similarly, I hope that from this class I will gain the necessary skills to untangle the war of meanings that is global media. I am ready to buckle down and engage with theory. I would love for nothing more than to learn to interpret, produce, and use various forms of media, and to be able to continue to bring critical discourse on the media to anthropology.

My name is Susanna Evarts and I am a junior concentrating in Development Studies. Until this past term, I was also a visual arts concentrator but have since dropped it, in part because I was frustrated by how isolated visual art (or, more precisely, art that is created in classrooms) is from the rest of the world. This is where media and film come in for me. At the same time that I was peeling away from studio art (asking why am I here and to what end?) I have thought and read more on the role that media in all of its forms affects and shapes how people perceive events happening within their country and around the world, and the extent to which it shapes how groups see themselves with regard to the rest of the world.

Broadly speaking, my academic interests are currently focused on urbanization and the social/political/cultural changes associated with such transformations. Many of the new forms and ways to communicate (sms/facebook/twitter) have transformed the way that politics and social movements function. The use of twitter and sms messaging in Moldova, Iran, Honduras and Nairobi, to name a few, have challenged the existing authority in their countries and even if they were not able to completely change the system, the new method of “voicing” discontent set an important precedent.

Barthes’ essay, “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers”, separates speech and writing (teacher and writer), defining them as inherently different. The teacher does not have the writer’s ability to erase or pause in order to retrace their train of thought, the only way to erase speech is to speak over it and add more words to contradict the previous statement. In this, the teacher and student each comply with an unwritten contract that shapes their roles in respect to one another. Ultimately, after detailing the varied aspects of the teacher-student relationship, Barthe proposes a “peaceable speech” in which speech should strive to resemble writing.

While Barthes’ quote that “…language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power” (311) refers to the relationship between teacher and student, it is also quite relevant to global media and the “will to power” that is acted upon by those who speak. To speak at all is to be on the side of power because what would be needed to subvert the power of speech would make it no longer speech. In media, language is a lens through which events are shaped and interpreted – words become a way to sculpt our conclusions. In this way, language may most strongly be on the side of power in part because we do not recognize the depth to which it penetrates our entire outlook and perception of the world around us.

My name is Sue Ding and I’m a senior concentrating in International Relations (Global Security) and Visual Arts. As a student of international relations, I think it is essential to examine how media coverage influences how people perceive and respond to important events – and furthermore, how the media itself is an actor in these events. I am also interested in the broader implications of global media: how it disseminates diverse ideals and ideas and impacts the way we see our society and ourselves. As a visual artist, I wonder about the differences in media imagery around the world and in how different groups use and interpret it. As a traveler, I would love to learn more about how peoples’ experiences of media differ in other countries – for example, the environment created by censorship in China.

I am an avid consumer of media and completely dependent on it for both day-to-day activities and academic work (as well as pop-culture needs). Global media brings a new immediacy to world events like the Iranian protests, which can manifest in both superficial and profound phenomena; it also continually re-shapes and perhaps shrinks our world, while building vast new networks. I studied the evolution of media in a Mass Media course and in a Watson Institute study group with Christopher Lydon, and while the rapid transformation of media can be daunting (How can we keep up? How can we catch up?), it is also dynamic and full of possibilities for new voices, ideas, and ways of living. Global Media appeals to me because of its interdisciplinary nature and because we must learn more about the media in order to use it to its fullest potential in bettering our world.

In “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” Barthes discusses the differences between speech and writing, and the pitfalls of taking either route. Chief among the difficulties mentioned by Barthes are those inherent in the power dynamics of language. The relationship between power and communication is central to a study of global media, since those who speak have the power, and those who have power have the upper hand in the “war of meanings” (326). Barthes posits that when people use “good” language, they are often using it to acquire or maintain power; however, they are implicating themselves in “the Law,” and they must follow its constraints – the teacher is an example of a figure caught up in this paradox.

While a teacher is ostensibly a figure of power – by the very act of speaking he manifests the Law in the classroom – Barthes argues that in fact the teacher is vulnerable. The teacher presents ideas without receiving any affirmation, and furthermore cannot control what happens to their speech after it is spoken. Though there is an acknowledged contract between teacher and students, the pluralities evident in their relationship and communication create a fraught environment. Thankfully, in his last paragraph Barthes proposes a happy alternative: “floating,” an environment of good will where we focus less on method and more on the “art of life” (331), where we seek not to destroy but to disorient in pursuit of new places and modes of communication.

Barthes’ assertion that “all speech is on the side of the Law” (310) was one line that stuck out to me, as I wondered where all the varied types of new media fit on this spectrum (or dichotomy, or spiral). New media outlets may combine elements of both speech and writing – for example, the permanence of speech is reflected in the existence of texts online that can be continuously commented upon – and in doing so, shake up the power structures and limitations discussed by Barthes.

My name is Joseph Bendaña. Who I am, I doubt I could ever truly detail, certainly not in such a small space as 500 words. As, Barthes (or Derrida) have gestured at, summaries such as this, insofar as they are clear or perhaps rigid designators (Kripke aside) of identity are destructive and illusory things far from writing, while insofar as they (I/we) are text they “cannot be summarized” (312).

What I have done and am doing however seems a bit easier to get at and more fitting for the purposes at hand. I am a junior concentrating in international relations and philosophy. I have been involved with video production since I was 15, when I worked on a mini documentary about the efforts of Mercy-Works (an international disaster relief organization) in Sri Lanka. I filmed on site while helping distribute food, medicine and rebuilding houses. I have done similar production and relief work in Guatemala, Mexico. I have also worked, in a solely editorial capacity, on mini documentaries about Sudan, India, and Liberia and lived in and done research on a few other countries in the Middle East and Asia. Currently, I am researching the metaphysics of universals and particulars with an eye towards its implications for the culture and politics of nationalism as an undergraduate fellow at the Cogut Center. I also produce videos and articles for the Watson institute. Additionally I run the recently resurrected BTV programming department, which is in the process of developing a large number of productions for the station and am generally involved with a wide variety of campus organizations related to media.

My past travels and production experiences developed in me a deep desire to study as fully as possible the full range of the global effects of media so that I could expand my own uses of it, theoretically and practically. Since being at Brown I have had scant opportunities to do so. I have taken various political science and MCM classes that deal with film, media and text analyses, which while interesting seemed to brush to the side social and political chemistry of media in favor of its more abstract theoretical implications. These classes tended to have, to slightly misappropriate Barthes, very “fixed place[s]” (322), the significance of which can be elucidated through an examination of “Writers, Teachers, Intellectuals”.

In this essay, Barthes does such a tremendous variety of things that a book would be insufficient to enumerate them, yet; generally he is opposing various forms of discourse to one another in order to conceptualize an ideal form of communication, from which teaching writing and learning can freely flow(t?). The forms of discourse that get postulated as symbols of a broader conceptual web are speech and writing. These signifiers are used to designate opposite ends of the spectrum of communication. Speech is always “on the side of law” always “on the side of power” (310-11). It is rigid and irreversible and nothing more than the “transference it institutes” (312). Writing or the text, however, is a message that “cannot be summarized” (ibid). It is the creation and explication of connotation and the possibility of diversity (324). It provides the possibility of explosion (ibid). This value of plurality, of the disorientation of traditional power structures, of writing, is what seems to guide Barthes’s imagination of the possibility of the ideal space of peaceable speech (329-30). Where speech can be writing there can be that “suspension” which allows some connection to the “art of living” (331).

The statement, “in the teaching space no one should anywhere be in his place,” condenses connection between writing and the ideal space and the form of teaching even further (323), while providing an insight into Barthe’s connection with Global media. It is through constant motion through various forms of presentation that we can protect the “instability” (ibid) that generates the possibility of mapping the value of writing onto speech. The media is obviously a form of mass communication, thus determining whether it is speech or writing or more likely something in-between becomes, at least it seems Barthes’s would think so, a necessary for life. I may be idealistic. However, I am hoping that this class by refusing to be locked into one mode of analysis or presentation, by attempting to approach the irreducible, has the capacity to “adjust the regions of speech” thereby providing the potential to move judge modes of communication and opening up unparalleled opportunities for global “fulfillment” (331).

My name is Samira Thomas and I am a senior concentrator in Urban Studies and Political Science. At the moment what I am most curious about is the way in which space can be created to foster dialogue and enable development. To this end, I am currently writing a thesis for Political Science which looks at madrassas (religious education schools) in Bangladesh and Pakistan as a means of reducing the gender gap and achieving Education For All. Currently, these schools are often viewed as a space of extremism and violence, as they do not follow western norms of teaching and learning, something that the essay touches upon. I am also writing a thesis in Urban Studies on a park in Kabul, Afghanistan, which was initially built as a representation of paradise on earth by the founder of the Moghal Empire, Babur, and which, over years of war, was destroyed. Over the last several years, the park, as well as Babur’s mausoleum, have been restored, and now offer a kind of green paradise and social space in the midst of a city that is in flux and being rebuilt.
I have been intrigued by the way that people and communities are represented to each other, particularly between the East and West. Western audiences are often inundated with images of Afghans (for example) either as menacing people with a penchant for destruction and a mysterious code of honour, or as a people with limited agency in need of saving. Both are caricatures of people who are, naturally, as varied as those in America. This class, I hope, will help me understand this phenomenon as well as provide me with tools to address the situation and allow people to come closer to understanding the ‘other’.
Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers presents speech as a means of conveying meaning that is linked not only to the definition of the words used, but also to the connotation each word holds. It is not only through the words themselves, but through the connections the speaker and the listener create and link to those words that meaning is derived. Even with questions, which should not hold an ulterior meaning beyond an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of a subject, the questioner often uses language that indicates an opinion to the respondent. Barthes almost laments that “our intellectual discussions are as encoded as the old scholastic disputes... our intellectual “intercourse” always gives itself “natural” airs: it claims to exchange only signifieds, not signifiers.” (320)
This point is particularly salient in today’s media, and is perhaps then relevant to this class. Images have historically been viewed to capture reality as it is – a photograph or a film of an event is often understood to be the ‘natural’ event. However, rarely in our media today is wider context given. The exchange of signifiers is still today not acknowledged as often as it should be, and we are often left with a belief that somehow reality has been found.

*Dear fellow hopefuls of INTL1800N: I am very sorry that I am late in turning in my submission to this blog! Please forgive me, as I had a make-up exam this morning for a course I received an incomplete in last semester, and I was unable to study for anything else but that exam. Thankfully, I passed the exam and course (by 2 points!) so I know that every moment I spent studying for that course – and not getting a head start on this essay – was very much essential! I hope you can understand…

Hello,

My name is Danya, and like most of my fellow postees, I too am an International Relations concentrator focusing in Global Security. Growing up in a multinational household and having been raised across three different continents and in three languages, “international relations” were perhaps the first interpersonal relations I ever knew. To me the concept of relations, regardless of under which guise they originally present themselves, are almost certainly reducible to the interpersonal stage. My experiences across this board of nations, and the ways in which I found myself capable of internalizing the assumptions and roles of each society, left me determined to contribute to the understanding of the puzzle-pattern of worlds that makes up our globe.

From a different perspective, Barthes addressed my concept of the interpersonal relationship as the common denominator by quoting Brecht’s saying, “Once two humans enter into a reciprocal relation, their…contract comes into force. It controls the forms of their relations, etc.” (314). What Barthes extrapolates upon with this quote and in his essay, Writers, Intellectuals, and Teachers is the natures of the relationship between the disseminator of information and the recipient. The contract between teacher and student, in which one entity assumes or inherits the role of authority or “guru” (315), is an affiliation that can be paralleled in throughout innumerable varieties of relations.

In terms of international relations, we see the contract between entities (or individuals as states) as applying the pressures that bend and mold the international engagements as we see them from day to day. We are taught that when problems arise between entities, that communication is key; the importance of empathy is a lesson to be learned from repeated aversions of international (interpersonal) disasters.

But what is communication, per say? According to Barthes, the stammering speaker who cannot articulate himself clearly begs us “to believe with him that language is not reduced to communication.” Yet he who cannot clearly articulate his views risks being judged as weak by his receiving partner (311). Barthes’ speaker either implicitly or explicitly has agreed to take on the burden of expressing his or her own unquestioned reality, and to do this well is the test of his or her own validity. For, after all, “language is on the side of power; to speak is to exercise power (310-311). In line with Barthes’ understanding of the spoken discourse and the most honest portrayal of reality, it is up upmost importance to weigh carefully what we say and how we say it – clearly, confidently – when communicating with another.

In the current globalizing world, when international relations are ever increasing and at an ever-faster pace, the role of the media is unquestionably paramount. The rapidity and sheer volume of content disseminated through the media has the power, like speech, to declare, shape, and guide a reality. Just like speech conveys the subjective reality of the orator, so can the media serve as a spokesperson for the reality of a foreign entity.

Media, with its rapidly increasing ubiquity, and especially visual media, increases the proximity an audience feels to the subject matter discussed. I am personally very interested in studying how new media and visual media are altering our concepts of reality. An easy example is the Arab-Israeli conflict. Over the last decade, the ways in which each side in this protracted battle share and disseminate their views within their own camps and to the outside world have increasingly become dependent on new media techniques. What is intriguing to note is that among the flood of images, breaking news stories and testimonies distributed, two parallel realities are being created. With each new submission, the clashing sides are contributing to their own reality, which populations across the world take for granted fact. These new realities influence first, second, and third party behavior, and in a way, the media’s construct of reality becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy. That has a whole new, very modern implication for International Relations, one that neither the realists nor the liberals (but maybe the constructivists) have accounted for. This is the type of power I hope to understand as a student of INTL1800N.

My name is Cara Mones and I am a junior Development Studies Concentrator, focusing on women’s rights. In many of my classes at Brown, we have repeatedly encountered issues of skewed representations of other societies and global issues, leading me to become interested in, as well as frustrated with, the kind of information the American public receives about the rest of the world. Through my travels, I have been fascinated by the perceptions people in other countries have had about Americans and how new forms of media have affected these ideas. I also have trouble not encountering at least one instance of gender stereotyping in the media each day. Since coming to Brown, I’ve been searching for ways to successfully combine my interests in human rights and the arts. I’m interested in the use of art as a tool for educating the public about seemingly far away issues as well as providing marginalized groups with an outlet to tell their stories. I’m hoping that this class will help me to decide whether documentary work is something I’d like to pursue. I recently returned from a semester abroad in India, studying development and more specifically, sex trafficking. Before I went to India, I watched the documentary “Born into Brothels” which ultimately inspired me to want to study prostitution in Kolkata. But while there I also heard the complaints of the community about the film, complicating my ideas about media work like documentaries and photojournalism.

Barthes addresses the relationship between teacher and student and contrasts the permanence of speech with the impermanence of writing. Speech cannot be revised in the way the written word can be repeatedly edited. He discusses the way those who speak enter into a position of authority, something that I have grappled with before. Who should be able to claim to be an authority? With the onslaught on new forms of media, how can we effectively decide which authority to trust? What about those who are actually experiencing the issues being discussed but do not have the power or means to speak? Who decides what issues are “important enough” to tell?

Barthes also writes that “there is an exercise in our schools called text reduction.” We summarize the message presented by the teacher. I was struck by this idea of reduction and summary. Whether or not it is comparable to what he is discussing, I cannot help but think about the way global issues, events, and projects are reduced to sound bites, ready to be neatly packaged and presented to the audience. Similar to how the teacher has no control over the notes taken of his class, we have no control over the “notes” presented to us. We need to seek out the details and opposing views that are missing from the sparknotes we are provided with in the media. In India, I watched as the NGOs I met with created documentaries and pamphlets about their work. The films were beautifully made presenting their successes and challenges, hoping to educate the viewer and more importantly, convince donors to offer more funding. But ultimately, these documentaries and pamphlets were reductions. Survivors of violence are suddenly reduced to a one minute interview carefully edited to achieve a clear purpose and I am still not sure how to react to these kinds of reductions.

As new outlets and forms of media arise, this class seems increasingly relevant and necessary. It would provide me with an opportunity to gain a much needed understanding of media and its power, influence, and shortcomings. I look forward to exploring the implications of global media in today’s society.

My name is Melissa Shube and I am a junior and history concentrator focusing on modern North America and Latin America.

I am interested in being a journalist, but my experience in the field thus far has been only on a practical and local level. I’ve interned for a daily newspaper and I write for the Brown Daily Herald, but I rarely approach journalism from an academic perspective, much less a theoretical or global one. This seems like a large, problematic gap in my education.

Through this class, I am looking to achieve a greater understanding of the implications and the influence of modern media. I believe this is especially important today, as blogs, user generated sites, and social media such as Twitter are rising in importance and influence, especially in countries facing political and social crises. It seems hard to gage the impact of new media without a better understanding of the historical and contemporary global media environment.

To start, Barthe’s text is a deconstruction of the basic spoken word and a message of caution. His ideas about the cumulative property of speech brings to mind miles and miles of spoken words lined up and buzzing around (almost uselessly) to try to portray an event or a sentiment. Speech is not you think it is, he seems to say, differentiating the spoken from the written, but complicating the ideas of communication in general. He sets up a clear dichotomy between the teacher and the class, the speaker and the audience. In Barthe’s analysis, the teacher faces an usual struggle—should the teacher command Authority with his or her language, a word mockingly capitalized to show a lack of true authority, or should the teacher (humbly) come off as incapable of teaching, and lose his audience in the complexity of language?

Though I tend to think more optimistically about the possibility for communication through speech, his doubts bring up the problem of perspective and influence. I believed the media can be thought of as an imperfect teacher of sorts, and the students as the readers/viewers. Fortunately for us, his doubts on speech and teaching can transfer to ideas about global media. Are media outlets claiming to be or presented as an authority, intentionally or otherwise? Are they capable of communicating and how do they chose what to communicate? What is their intent? Is it to pursue an agenda or political message or to maintain the status quo or perhaps to simply make money, to ensure revenue from advertisements? Which brings us to one of the class’s questions, how should the media be interpreted, given these considerations, and what is the role of new media in this puzzle? I hope to have more answers at the end of this class, but in all likelihood I’ll just have more questions.

Oops a bit late. Please take my silence in writing and speech as the “obstinacy of [my] mutism” (314) not carelessness. Or at least previous “mutism” when posting on blogs, which I’ve never done. An embarrassing fact, I know. But this is my summary. I’m only 22 and I already feel out of touch with technology. I already have a clear image in my head of grandchildren scoffing at me while I stare at a screen unsure how to compose my video message. At 22. For shame…

This is a reason I’m interested in taking this class. 4 years of a liberal education with an IR focus at Brown, I know how to formulate coherent thoughts. I can dissect prose and construct 12 page papers from scratch in 5 hours. I know how to fashion certain packages of knowledge, even to tie off an added bow for sparkle. What I’m not used to is how to convey my thoughts through youtube or blogs or any kind of video. I am at times the ‘writer’ and at times the ‘speaker’ but perhaps it’s this “floating” that I need to try. I’m actually not absolute in what this “floating” means. I hear it as an unfixed, constantly negotiated truth that will hopefully arise in our non-standard academic space as the result of a conversation, not a profession.

I get the sense that this class is more a project or research team than a standard class. Though it may be hard for Prof Santos to do anything but profess with the Wizard of Oz imagery, I take it that we’ll be endeavoring to create and there will be little monologuing at the expense of disengagement. I take it that you don’t want your diary entry to sound like most of Barthes’ in “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers.” This is how I’d imagine a professor’s diary entry to sound. A little more intellectualized than little Suzy’s with a huge push to universalize the experience You, in your own body, will hopefully not become the single referent to which we look to signify knowledge, or I guess one of two referents, and perhaps the less commanding because who can doubt the awesome prowess of a giant head.

Greetings all:

I have with Phil and Lindsay read all the entry exams: we laughed, we cried....we decided.
As suspected, the ‘exam’ scared off all but the most fearless and dedicated – which got us down to 32.
The differences between the good, the bad and the ugly were well below the margin of error that operates in such things.
So we have seized on an arbitrary, ageist, but comparatively fair decision-devise: we request that the first-years who applied postpone for a year (or two) to get tested and seasoned by life and other courses; in return, you will get first preference the next time the course is offered (either next or the following Spring).
The rest of you are in.
See you 6ish at the Mall for our psycho-geographic, intertextual investigation of Avatar and Human Terrain (email Phil pronto if you cannot make it - and be there by 6.15, because there will be others who want a crack at 30 reserved tickets). Come prepared to learn by doing (everyone will have a chance to film), with some provocative questions (and answers), and ready to get into the avatar of the Other.

VTY
JDD

My name is Shruti Parekh and I am a senior MCM Track II concentrator. My passion for creative expression and aesthetics coupled with a strong concern for social issues led me directly to the most accessible and powerful forms of expression I could find. Where creative expression through fine art didn’t completely satisfy me, distributable media -- such as film, video, television, and print -- did. Here, I found an incredibly powerful and accessible space of expression. Media is only becoming increasingly influential in this age, and as its venues grow exponentially, so too do the opportunities for different voices to be heard.

Global Media taps directly into the issue of a world that is growing in numbers but shrinking in size through ever-expanding media sources. My interest in the way media can be used to address international issues stems from the knowledge that media is effective -- perhaps the most effective way to relay an idea. I have grown up with an international consciousness; as a child of immigrants, “home” has always meant much more to me than one nation or culture. I could say that global media is the future, but it is in fact the “now” -- it is changing international relations every day. Through screens we now experience the Other in the familiarity of our own home. The possibilities this creates in terms of social change is incredible; we live at a sort of turning point in terms of how we as individuals or states or cultures interact with the rest of the world.

In “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” Barthes brings up many significant issues relating to the functioning of discourse and the transference of language. He addresses two very important forms of media, speech and writing, and the way that they interact with content, issuer, and receiver. The relationship between the entities involved in a discourse, be it teacher and student or media and public, is dynamic and flows both ways; it is contractual in a sense. Speech as an entity functions through Law and power, exposing the speaker and holding him/her accountable, and writing functions in a more distanced way, has no past in the way that speech does; both work in different and important ways in a discursive relationship.

Barthes’ discussion of the axiomatic field is very interesting in relation to this course. The reception of information, the division of its meaning, and the nature of accessibility, are fundamental questions in the dissemination of media, especially in the global sphere. The nature of culture, which Barthes posits must be interpreted for the proletariat by “representatives,” is changing (327). Avenues are opening up for culture, mass culture, to reside in the hands of the proletariat in many ways. Barthes’ gesture towards the dynamism of critical discourse and the axiomatic field reflects much of where we are now in terms of media, culture, and interpretation: “...to the tactical necessities of the war of meanings is added the strategic conception of the new conditions which will be applied to the signifier when this war is over: cultural criticism, as a matter of fact, must be impatient...” (328). Meaning is constantly reworked as the new is held in light of the old, and at this moment, I believe culture and its interpretation is moving out of the hands of the bourgeois and the representatives and towards the hands of the proletariat. Film, internet, open-source culture -- these are the globalizing forces of media that are greatly affecting Barthes’ axiomatic field, these are the powerful ways meaning is created and transformed in an international community that I hope to understand and take part in through this course.

My name is Weiyue Feng and I am a junior concentrating in IR & Economics. Originally born in Beijing, China, I immigrated with my family at the age of ten to Los Angeles and relocated nine years later to the Bay Area. I renamed myself “Helen” a few months before the trans-Pacific move: I scanned through a Chinese list of English names and picked the first one that didn’t end with the letter “a”—my tomboy-self veered clear of such obvious indications of “girly-ness”. My twin identities—one given, the other self-selected, and the vastly different cultures which they represent has contributed to the formation of my current interests. I am fascinated by people, and their societies and viewpoints; and by history, and its impact into the present. I enjoy art literature and theatre, particularly as expressions of the complexity of the human experience. I dabble, with both curiosity and caution, in philosophy and political theory, intrigued by our mental capacities and wary of its apparent lack of emotion.
Reading through Barthes’ text, a particular line struck me as clear and true, in the midst of much vague confusion (I must admit that I found the text quite challenging to understand). It appeared in the section titled “Familiarity”, and it goes: “when a sign displeases me, when the signification bothers me, I shift toward the operational: the operational becomes a censorship of the symbolic, and thus a symbol of asymbolism…” (Barthes, 321) Having just arrived home from my study abroad in China a week and a half ago, I saw within the line a clear portrayal of the current state of expression within Chinese, not just politically, but individually, as well. The individual level of self-limitation within bounds of “practicality”, even among college students, surprised me; discussions on theory or philosophy were deemed much less interesting than discussion on the GRE preparation or ways to improve one’s English. In talking about the Taiwan issue, most students do not question the concept of a “nation-state”, but delved, very practically, into the history as source of legitimacy for the “One China” argument. My question then has evolved into a “why?” and a “how?”. The simple answer is, of course, Chinese censorship and the Cultural Revolution, but I would like to be able to see the actual mechanisms currently at work within the Chinese society. This is where I hope Global Media will fit in—to give me additional tools with which to analyze the propagation of idea within a culture, and to increase my critical awareness of the usage and influence of media for said purpose. I admit that I have had little training in both the theoretical and the technical aspect of the course, but I appreciate the emphasis on hands-on learning and am looking forward to the challenge.

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Lindsay Lohan Moves to Rehabilitation Today,. it happens to be just a ploy to cut back the incarceration so as the judge may be easygoing with her. Cushy rehab is sooo superior to prison, it could be the judge will never give her any jail time seeing that he will be so pleased!

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Rick Sanchez went down sort of a sucka vs . Jon Stewart - I question that is the last we're going to see of that person, dude is like a character from Anchorman.

Lindsay Lohan Goes to Rehab Today,. Translation, she's calling many of the shots but will continue to help make a mockery within the judicial program. She's going to do the rehabilitation thing unless she won’t have to drugs test any more then take a a several day binge.

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It seems you get dismissed from your job if you say offending things all about Jews (Helen Thomas and then Sanchez).

It appears to be you get fired in case you say hateful stuff over Jews (Helen Thomas and here Sanchez).

Lohan Goes to Rehab Today,. this is simply a ploy to cut back the incarceration so that the judge might be lax with her. Cushy rehabilitation is sooo much better than prison, its possible the judge wouldn't give her any jail time on account that he will probably be so happy!

Sen. Graham refers to Glen Beck a "positive force". Seriously is not that a tad bit like naming Rick Sanchez for an specialist on Judaism?

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This reveals you should only get fired in case you say hurtful stuff all about Jews (Helen Thomas now Sanchez).

Exceptional! Ahmadinejad did us a favor! While we desperately delude ourselves into imagining this guy (and those who applaud him) are fit to get thought of as decent individuals, he spits in our face to point out to us that individuals are (again) fooling our self.

It's possible Sanchez was only just green with envy about the War Criminals in the administration didn't call him "indispensible". That sort of rejection can sometimes impact.

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This reveals you get terminated when you say improper stuff in regards to Jews (Helen Thomas now Sanchez).

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Who'll possess the daring to tell Sanchez by no means add mayo for that corned beef on rye? He is from Miami. You'd probably trust he'd realize that.

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Stupid is often as stupid does...this whole thing is definitely a joke. Lindsay Lohan is going to do substances just because the lady fails to "get it"...The whole court system is a faiytale. You should put her in some jail in Cincinnati or elsewhere in Ohio where there's no overcrowding and there is no moronic system that often let's these folks get away with ****. At any rate if the lady is going to keep going to do illegal drugs she has to be "brainy" about it and don't get busted...or else, continue on with what you are doing Lindsay and we'll get rid of you into Afghanistan with the really daring troops who sadly are losing their lives day-to-day to give you your stupid so-called "liberty".

Lohan Will Go to Treatment Today. Sharp decision perhaps being in rehabilitation means she may not defy her bail conditions and be thrown in prison till the hearing. If with the hearing her solitary violation ended up being determined being the one bad dope test the sentence must be 1 month in jail that's it.

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I return learning that Rick Sanchez was fired from CNN. Hmm. Really, I seen that coming.

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Lindsay Lohan Is going to Rehab Today. Wise solution at the very least being in rehab means that she is not going to violate her bail conditions and be thrown in gaol before the case. If during the hearing her solitary violation was in fact determined being the 1 failed narcotic test the sentence should be 30 days in prison that's it.

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Seems you get let go any time you say offending stuff all about Jews Helen Thomas as well as Sanchez).

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Lindsay Lohan “In the event that I were the alcoholic everyone says I'm, then getting a [scram[]|] bracelet on would've ended me up in clean out, in the emergency room, because I would also have to come down from all the things that people say I sure am taking plus my father tells people I am taking – so that says something, simply because I seemed to be fine.”

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Lindsay Lohan isn't just going to any place that may prevent her from her film, so once more, I call Bull crap on this major extensive inpatient rehabilitation junk. There isn't any way the girl or her mummy will pass-up this chance to make dollar. And plainly she won't loathe that scram bracelet a sufficient amount of to stop the jack and coke and give up stuffing sh*t up her awful nose.

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Lindsay Lohan blames a portion of her complications on the tabloids idealizing hard partying actresses, saying “I would idolize those girls … the Britneys and whatever. And I could be like, I want to resemble that.” Lohan followed to suggest, “I see where that has gotten me now,” she says, “and I don't want it.”

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Which one get the bravery to inform Sanchez by no means add more mayonnaise to their corned beef on rye? He is from Miami. You would really feel he would understand.

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Truly is Shameful that any of us have Extremist Foreign Political Characters on our soil soon after many years of hatred towards our nation. The usa should get out of the UN and educate each one of these extremists our opinion of there idiotic philosophy. Qaddafi, Ahmadinejad, Chavez, and many other have far to long been welcomed to the Sacred and Lovely land. I say Enough is enough, Shut down our doors to those Hateful Bastards and Say Never again to the U.N. Get out, your NOT nor have never been made welcome.

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Lindsay Lohan “I have by no means abused prescriptions. I never have – never in my life. I have no need. And that is not who I am,” Lindsay Lohan says. “I’ve admitted to what I have done – to, you are aware of, dabbling in some things and seeking things ’cause I felt younger and questioning and considered it's like, ok, ’cause many used to do it and folks use it on me. And I see what occured in my life because of it.”

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