Popular Culture: A Reader 1443849774, 9781443849777

Table of contents :
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF FIGURES
PREFACE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Citation preview

Popular Culture

Popular Culture: A Reader

Edited by

Dr. Otto F. von Feigenblatt and Dr. Beatriz Peña Acuña

Popular Culture: A Reader Edited by Dr. Otto F. von Feigenblatt and Dr. Beatriz Peña Acuña This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2013 by Dr. Otto F. von Feigenblatt, Dr. Beatriz Peña Acuña and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4977-4, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4977-7

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Figures ........................................................................................ vii Preface ..................................................................................................... viii Chapter One ................................................................................................ 1 Online Music Listening and Consumption, and the Re-definition of Personal Identities in our Radical Modernity Marco Bracci Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 13 The Paradoxical “Status Quo” of Contemporary Women Beatriz Peña Acuña Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 26 The “Inglorious Basterds” of Graffiti: Pollution, Urban Space, Cultural Hegemony and the Popular David Walton Chapter Four ............................................................................................. 46 Popular Culture, Social Change and News Technologies: The New Way of Socialization Due to Social Nets Beatriz Peña Acuña Ph.D. Chapter Five ............................................................................................. 69 The Cinematographic Italian Miracle: Producers Among Colossal Ambitions, Authorial Disasters and Flights from the Genres Edoardo Tabasso Chapter Six ............................................................................................... 82 Hinamatsuri and the Japanese Female: A Critical Interpretation of the Japanese Doll Festival Salvador Jimenez Murguia

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Chapter Seven........................................................................................... 96 Japanese Animation as a Global Product: The Lingering Traces of Nijonjinron and the Rise of Globalism and Hybridity Otto F. Von Feigenblatt Chapter Eight .......................................................................................... 121 Entertain Us! Eliasian Sociology, Game Shows and Reality Shows Silvia Pezzoli Chapter Nine........................................................................................... 136 Cross Cultural Challenges Faced by the USGA and the R&A in Modern Golf Manuel E. Gil U. About the Authors .................................................................................. 161

TABLE OF FIGURES Fig. 3.1. Mother Teresa mural opposite the Merced Campus, University of Murcia. Photo by David Walton ..................................................... 31 Fig. 3.2. Detail—Mother Teresa and the street answers back. ................. 32 Photo by David Walton ............................................................................ 32 Fig. 3.3. The street answers back. Kofi Annan mural opposite the Merced Campus, University of Murcia. Photo by David Walton .................... 34 Fig. 3.4. Graffiti as marking territory (Cieza, Murcia). ............................ 37 Photo by Margarita Navarro Pérez ........................................................... 37 Fig. 3.5. Squat and double appropriation in Madrid. Photo by Ana Rull . 38

PREFACE The present volume deals with popular culture from an interdisciplinary perspective. Popular culture, as an important part of the public sphere, has attracted the interest of social scientists for many decades, however most studies tend to rely on the anthropological perspective or less commonly on the sociological perspective. This edited volume aims to break down disciplinary barriers to bring together a plethora of methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of popular culture. Moreover, the volume aims to foster dialogue between international scholars conducting research on the topic. As a result of the previously stated goals and aims, the present volume includes chapters written by scholars from several countries including, but not limited to, Spain, Costa Rica, the United States, Portugal, Italy and Japan. Diversity is not only achieved through the participation of international scholars but also through the varied disciplinary backgrounds of the contributors. Anthropologists, political scientists and sociologists have contributed to the volume and attempt to shed light on some of the most visible yet ignored phenomena in contemporary society. Popular culture includes a vast array of phenomena and material culture such as music, film, cartoons, architecture, modern art inter alia. The present volume reflects the diversity of the subject matter in terms of the topics covered in its chapters. One chapter deals with a popular festival in Japan, another with music in Italy, while other chapters cover topics such as online chatting inter alia. This volume can be used as a course companion in the fields of cultural anthropology, sociology and the humanities. It can also be integrated into courses in applied fields such as human resource management and negotiation. Readers are encouraged to begin the text in the order they consider interesting and useful for their particular needs, and the chapters can be used as standalone case studies or grouped according to subject matter and methodology. Both editors hope that you will find this text both useful and enjoyable. Dr. Otto F. von Feigenblatt and Dr. Beatriz Peña Acuña, Everwise Hall, Florida and Murcia, Spain November 27, 2012

CHAPTER ONE ONLINE MUSIC LISTENING AND CONSUMPTION, AND THE RE-DEFINITION OF PERSONAL IDENTITIES IN OUR RADICAL MODERNITY1 MARCO BRACCI UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE (ITALY)

Music belongs to everyone. Only publishers think it belongs to them John Lennon, 1940–1980

Through the analysis of the uses of the new devices for listening to music it is possible to reflect on their function of redefining personal and collective identities to better understand the relevant role played by music in young people’s lives. Above all, we are able to comprehend a piece of the “puzzle” they have been progressively building using a metaphor of identity proposed by the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. Their final picture (who they will be, what they will do …) is unknown, but, by putting the pieces together, young people learn how to deal with the complexity and uncertainty of their lives, and are able to see the shape of their identity more clearly. In this chapter the main findings of a qualitative methodology-based research will be presented. This research was carried out on 29 young people whose main characteristics will be illustrated in the following pages. Here, it is important to say that I will not talk about what these young people listen to (music genres and/or specific artists), but how they listen and consume music via the internet, through relevant devices and what they do with downloaded music in their everyday (real) lives.

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This chapter was originally presented at the Nemla Annual Conference 2011 held in Brunswick, NJ, USA.

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Before going into detail, it is necessary to briefly underline the main peculiarities of the present social and cultural context, and the main communication problems caused by the change of media environment. These preliminary considerations will help to better define the framework these young people try to live in.

Radical Modernity and Relations and Effects with/on Individuals Our modernity is extremely dynamic and complex. The modern world we live in is a “running world,” characterized by rapidity much more than pre-modern times. This speediness has a deep impact on social practices and human beings’ behaviours; we, as humans, in everyday life are more and more obliged to make choices that affect the social and cultural dimensions of our identities. According to Anthony Giddens (1994; 1999, 20–36), we can argue that there are three main features that describe the so-called “radical” or “radicalized” modernity, in the sense that all the elements shown by the modernity are now radicalized, i.e. dramatically changed in comparison with recent times. These are: separation of time and space, disembedding of the social systems, and reflexivity. About the separation of time and space, we can see that the media has a crucial role in this sense, since its deeper presence in our lives asks us to re-think the concepts of time and space. Time and space are often less connected than in the past (think about the internet and new media—we are able to communicate via Skype from a room in Florence, exchange information and have a mediated experience with a friend or a relative located overseas). This first aspect of radical modernity involves most of us who have learned the use of new media and who are socialized to the use of new technologies, but it also involves people who have a lower level of new media knowledge and lower levels of cultural background (TV audiences, for example, who watch news about a war happening in a distant place). Disembedding of the social systems means that social relations— primarily based on face-to-face communication—are often rooted in local contexts and re-articulated into indefinite spans of time and space. This change affects our modernity because it may prevent human beings from being fully aware of what is happening far away from them. We are therefore obliged to build a kind of “faith or trust system,” and keep our trust in the so-called “expert systems” (Giddens 1999). Regarding the topic of this chapter, these expert systems can be, for instance, the media

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and the media system. Lack of time and space leads us to believe in the media and the opinions or information it spreads, and we tend to think that we don’t need to check it, taking for granted that media can help us to live better, saving time and even money. Reflexivity is the most important aspect I would like to underline, since it is connected to the formation of self identities and the re-definition of the latter. Being reflexive means, for us as human beings, the capability of not accepting everything as natural and predetermined, but on the contrary being able to pose questions to ourselves about our lives, our social relations, our relatives’ and friends’ lives and the world we are living in; in other words, being reflexive means being human, being able to understand that we can and must learn. Moreover, we have to be more and more reflexive in the use and consumption of the media, especially new media. We have to monitor and observe ourselves in an active way. Content spread by the media can help us to find our way in our lives, to comprehend our role in our society, and to show ourselves to others.

Beside these Relevant Changes, the Media System has also changed The development of media creates new types of action and interaction and new forms of social relations, and these types and forms are very different from those previously known. For this reason it is very hard to understand these new types and forms and it is difficult to understand whether a real sharing actually exists and if individuals communicate themselves when they upload and download music on the internet. It can be said that individuals communicate their identities when they listen to music, in solitude or with others, since in all those moments of careful or distracted listening they are working on themselves and their identities, investing in themselves; and so they change, very often “just” because they are listening to music. We can say that the offline and online dimension of music listening and consumption are strictly connected and interpenetrated. Thompson (1998, 121–127) presents three types of interaction: (a) Face to face interaction (or communication): individuals who interact in the same place at the same time; interaction is characterized by dialogue and specific recipients can easily be identified in this “alive” communication, an unmediated process.

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(b) Mediated interaction (or communication): interaction via letters and telephone, in which people are distant in time or space or both. Also, in this case interaction is characterised by dialogue. (c) Mediated quasi-interaction (or communication): all kind of social relations set up by the mass media (books, newspapers, radio, TV, cinema). People are distant in time or space or both, and interaction is based on monologues; here, we have one sender to an indefinite series of potential recipients. Content producers and content receivers are separated, and the latter have no possibility to give immediate feedback to the former. Besides these three types of interaction, I propose a fourth that can better explain the new kind of communication processes activated via the internet and through new media, and the new types of actions referring to music file sharing—I call it “Beyond mediated quasi-interaction.” Information and content producers, and information and content receivers, are often on the same level, have the same power of influence and, above all, their positions are often not clear and distinct. Since information production (music content uploading on the web) is done by non-professional producers (we could say self-made producers), the role of producers and receivers is played out in a social context based on the potential absence of hierarchy. Receivers are active and not passive, and so they can even become info producers. Information, in the digital music space, is based on music file management. These files are uploaded and exchanged on the internet, and from this point of view we can see a sharing community of producers/users. But, the first and main question I would like to pose is does this type of interaction create a real type of shared experience? Or, is it only a way to exchange information? Through music (above all popular music), belongings are set up, and for this reason it can be argued that music unifies or unites. But we also can say that music divides and distinguishes us from others (Bourdieu 1983). Music choices, tastes and practices connected to music listening and consumption have a deep sociological meaning for the comprehension of cultural practices tout court, of life choices, and of complex pathways regarding the construction and re-definition of youth identities. Today, this is more evident than ever in life contexts characterized by strong and deep processes of mediatization of reality, which incorporate the music field and make it one of the leading characters. Inclusion and exclusion, distinction and imitation, self-recognition and hetero-recognition … these processes involve groups of young people who, through music tastes,

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choices and practices, are able to go into and out from the social dimension of their existence.

Re-Mediation Process New media has not “broken” with the past, but it continuously redefines and converts the methods of media production, distribution and consumption, entering an existing media system in such a way to create a re-mediation network (Bolter & Grusin 1999; Sibilla 2008). We can easily see that music is part of this re-mediation network. Therefore, remediation means to create a new communication channel, renovating material practices and social conventions of an existent communicative network. In the music field,2 material practices (technologies of production, diffusion, consumption) and their social conventions (the ways music is “used” individually and collectively) have been deeply renovated.

Digital Music in Italy Some figures on the situation of digital music in Italy in 2010 are presented below to better contextualize the kind of work I have tried to do.3 Legal digital music is 16% of the whole Italian music market (15% in 2009, 9% in 2008); illegal digital music is 27% of the whole Italian music market (the average percentage in the EU is 23%); besides these figures, purchasing on online music stores and video streaming practice have increased and are now part of the regular music consumption in Italy. YouTube is becoming more important than iTunes (music consumption is not only music purchasing, but also music viewing and listening via YouTube). Online (Facebook and YouTube) and offline media environments (the iPod and other Mp3 devices, the iPad, CDs) are more and more connected, causing a media-convergence process.

My Research on Young People As stated above, 29 young people were interviewed, comprising 9 males and 20 females, with an average age of 25 years, living in Tuscany 2

The word “field” is used here according the meaning proposed by Bourdieu. Digital Music Report, 2011, IFPI. It presents the situation in 2010 since the research was carried in that year. 3

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(Italy). All of them were studying for (at the time this research was carried out in April 2010) an M.A. in communication.4 So, this group is characterized by high cultural and education levels, good theoretical skills and knowledge in communication and media fields, with potential vocation to reflexive and intellectual work on themselves. I used a qualitative method, sending them (via email) a questionnaire mainly with open questions so they could report and describe their relations with music, their ways of listening and consumption, and other relevant and useful elements for my aims. I proposed the following topics that they were invited to think about and to comment on: ‡'R\RXSXUFKDVHPXVLFLQVWRUHV":KHQGR\RXOLVWHQ to music? How long do you listen to music for? Where do you listen to music? With whom do you listen to music? ‡ 7U\ WR OLVW GHYLFHV DQG WHFKQRORJLHV \RX PDLQO\ XVH IRU PXVLF listening. ‡&RXOG\RXsay how your online music consumption happens? ‡ ,I \RX XVXDOO\ GRZQORDG PXVLF RII WKH internet, could you describe what you use to do that? ‡ :KDW GR \RX WKLQN DERXW PXVLF ILOH VKDULQJ DQG GRZQORDGLQJ activities? ‡Can you identify with the following statement? “Music is something extremely intimate and personal that makes the construction of social relations possible, and makes the redefinition of personal and group identities possible” The average time of music listening per day is 116 minutes (almost 2 hours) and there is no substantial divergence, on the quantitative side, between males and females in music listening and consumption; most of them prefer recorded music, while very few go to live music concerts.

What was I looking for, and what are the main findings? I was trying to understand the way or the ways these young people consume and listen to digital music, their point of view on the usefulness of websites dedicated to music downloading, the relations between online music and offline music listening and consumption, and what role music 4

Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Comunicazione Strategica, Facoltà di Scienze Politiche “C. Alfieri,” Università degli Studi di Firenze. I teach in this Corso di Laurea.

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plays in their lives regarding the narration of their identities as individuals and as young people living in a complex society. I have tried to analyze the answers using the five thematic areas introduced below followed by synthetic findings.

Is File Sharing a Real Type of Shared Experience, or a “Simple” Way to Exchange Information (Music)? I discovered three kinds of sharing activity: Direct sharing, Indirect sharing, and Symbolic sharing. Direct sharing means files exchanged by uploading and downloading actions. Indirect sharing is given by the fact that we know that other people are listening to the same kind of music or (more importantly in my analysis) are listening to music using the same technologies. Symbolic sharing means that the listening and consumption methods are not equal to music content sharing; in this case study, it means the sharing of a belonging to a world—the mobility world. These young people are mobile identities who say something about themselves through the actuation of a listening practice linked to mobility, because it refers to the use of an iPod or any other kind of new device that makes music listening possible. This type of listening, a cultural practice, already existed (with the walkman, for example), but something is changing. This kind of mobile practice in music listening denotes a distinctive sign, and young people have this element in common, even if they don’t listen to the same kind of music.

1. Is legal downloading a substitute for the “old” ways of music buying (for instance, going into record stores)? The answer is almost certainly yes. The main reason is economic, since people prefer or are obliged to save money. They are not interested in searching for music in offline stores, and so music finds them, we could say. In this way, they discover music through the internet. The traditional experience of going into music stores, before the crescent role of new media in music listening and consumption took hold, now seems to belong to a distant past, and younger consumers and listeners prefer to stay at home or to listen to and buy online music via their new devices, saving time and money. Does this new practice mean a lack of “making experience”? No, it does not, as it is a different kind of experience. The old experience was qualitative and not individual, and people used to go into stores with peers and share their music tastes and their points of view

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regarding artists and genres. Now it is a more quantitative experience and even more individual at the moment of the music choice; furthermore, through online practices they acquire more files and more music, and this is done through legal websites (iTunes) but also through illegal means (eMule and ȝTorrent, for example). The choice to enter an “old style” record store was made by very few of my interviewees (usually they are both music listeners and performers). Downloading music can be a choice, but it can also be read as a routine activity—you can download a lot of music files for free even when you are not present (downloading works by itself after being given a command) and you can decide to maintain that music or to discard it with a simple click of the mouse.

2. How is this kind of downloaded music listened to by these individuals? A hypothetical ranking of the most preferred devices and/or media used by these young people to listen to music is given below: 1. CDs (at home and in the car): CDs are sometimes purchased from online stores, but most frequently they are created from single tracks previously downloaded by legal means and, often, through illegal “torrent” websites. The CD is often a self-made compilation, created according to personal tastes and momentary feelings. 2. Radio (in the car): new car radios have a USB device, so downloaded music is copied onto a USB pen and listened to while driving. Radio stations are listened to, and Virgin Radio and Radio Deejay (flow communication) are the most preferred. 3. YouTube: listening to and watching music by streaming and/or by video downloading. YouTube videos are shared on Facebook (the most popular social network in Italy at present), and in this sense we can talk about media convergence. 4. iTunes, E-mule and ȝ7RUUHQW: in Italy, YouTube has overtaken iTunes in music listening and consumption, being three times more popular. This is also confirmed by the young people I have interviewed, meaning that free music is preferred to music which is paid for. This tendency has also affected the CD market. 5. The iPod (and other Mp3 players): the iPod is the “king” of music listening and consumption, and its multiple functions are celebrated by my interviewees. This device is used during sport activities, while walking, running, on the bus, the train, driving the car etc. It represents a mobile way of “using” music.

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3. About the symbolic use of downloaded music by individuals There is an ambivalence in music listening, as it is immaterial (as computer files) but also material (as CDs or vinyl). Music is seen as a source of inspiration, but it is always inserted into a set of cultural and social practices. From the interviews, it is clear that activities connected to music are many and different, most of them made during so-called leisure time (or “cultural time,” as a colleague of mine, Edoardo Tabasso, proposes). I won’t go deeply into this topic, but I wish to underline that leisure time is a typical category of modern societies (leisure time vs. work time) and that individuals “use” their leisure time to “do things.” They often try to run, avoiding “thinking” or reflecting, and so try to make their leisure time full to take care of themselves and their identities; they are not used to explaining things, especially about themselves. Music practices— online and offline—help these young people to take care of their identities mostly during their leisure time, during which time they live in specific social and cultural contexts, absorbed in their worlds of feelings and thoughts, and they transform music practices into special kinds of “narratives.” They operate many choices (to choose is a typical activity of our radical modernity and we all are “condemned” to it) when they decide to upload and/or download music, to record or to discard music, to share music or not, to take online music and put it on physical devices (iPod, a CD etc.). They work on their identities, they say something about themselves and this “storytelling” activity is crucial for their present time as well as their future. Therefore, we can say that these “simple” ways of music listening and consumption, originated by online practices, give a sense of continuity and coherence to them. Online activities have indirect effects on offline activities. However, we now have to re-think the relations between the online and offline worlds. Mediated lives are real lives, since the media (and new media is not excluded within this framework) is part of the real world—they are not outsiders, they are insiders, part of the “game.” For this reason it is necessary to rethink music listening and consumption activities, especially if they concern people who have high levels of cultural tools to move from online to offline and back, and are fully aware that the online and offline worlds are very connected. It is true that a sort of ideology of sharing emerges from the interviewees. Some of them think that sharing activities are sufficient to connect people, to create real sharing environments; others are aware of the lack of these file sharing activities, and in fact these activities are not really considered as communication processes, but only as information transmission characterized by continuity and circularity.

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But what they declare to be different is what they do with music— indeed, it can be discovered that through music listening and consumption (online and offline), they communicate their tastes, statuses and belongings (Bourdieu 1983). Music is often listened to alone, in a constructive loneliness; in fact, music is listened to and consumed in their bedrooms (where a PC and/or a portable computer, plus several tech devices, such as a radio or CD reader, are available). The bedroom, the typical teenager’s private place, is characteristic of these young adults, and it is the favorite place to freely express themselves, since no one can see them, and it therefore gives them intimacy and the time to dedicate to themselves.

4. Re-thinking youth identities in relation to new media presence in the world Most young people use an iPod for mobility listening. Our society is faster than ever and more and more mobile, and we can easily move from one place to another. Therefore, individuals are mobile and use “selfentertainment strategies” to move from one place to another by using music (iPod for example); this is a metaphor for travel—the travel made by identities during their lives. From this point of view, mobile music is used as a tool of formation of identity. Young people need to find their place in the world. Meyrowitz talks about social and cultural landscapes changed by Media, and he uses the following expression for the title of one of his more important books: No sense of place.5 This phrase is strictly connected to Giddens’ and Thompson’s perspectives on modernity, personal identities and media change. I think that new media, in combination with a particular kind of cultural product to communicate (music), has not produced “no sense of place,” as the young people I interviewed seem to give a relevant meaning to mobile music downloaded from the internet and shared with their peers. This relevant meaning is not a sign of emptiness of time and space, even if it can appear as a mechanical way of living their lives, without any engagement as individuals and socialized young people. On the contrary, young people recognize all the places they find from the mouse click of downloaded music in the morning until the last thought before falling asleep. These places are both physical and virtual, even if the word “virtual” is not so appropriated since the so-called “virtual” is real (as it 5

J. Meyrowitz, (1986), No Sense of Place. The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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produces effects on real lives). Bedrooms, classrooms, squares, living rooms, canteens, cars, buses, trains, computers, the internet, iPods, iPads, smart phones, radios … young people move, from one place to another, and sometimes they are symbolically in two places at the same time (physically they are in their bedrooms, and in their imagination they are outside). Through music downloading, listening, purchasing and sharing they cross different contexts and situations, and carry their experiences, feelings, thoughts, fears, love, anger, hopes, joy, solitude—all they have been constructing—with them to comprehend themselves and their role in this new, very chaotic and continuously changing world of our radical modernity. Therefore, young people think that music is one of the most powerful tools for defining their identities and building social relations. By being more and more mobile they learn to understand their place in the world by crossing “social and cultural crossroads.” They learn how to do this through the prolonged use of new media and the new devices created for music listening. A short conclusion Only who observe, who thinks, who tell his life, is living: others are lived by their lives Nicolas Gomez Davila (Colombian writer and philosopher, 1913–1994)

Young people use online music to connect the virtual world of the internet to the “real” world of physical elements, and they understand that music is one of the most powerful cultural tools to help them communicate their identities. They observe (reflexivity), they think, and they explain their lives by using music in their usual social and cultural life contexts. They feel alive and active rather than passive, more closely connected to other young people and to the “outside” world. They have learned how to use music to show themselves and recognize that music gives pleasure but also reinforce their identities as individuals and as part of specific groups.

References AA.VV. (2011). Digital music report 2010 (www.fimi.it). Bauman Z. (2003). Intervista sull’identità. Bari: Editori Laterza. Bolter J. D. & R. Grusin. (1999). Remediation. Understanding New Media, MIT Press, Cambridge Bourdieu, P. (1983). La distinzione. Critica sociale del gusto. Bologna: Il Mulino,

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Giddens, A. (1994). Le conseguenza della modernità. Bologna: Il Mulino, —. (1999), Identità e società moderna. Napoli: Ipermedium libri. Hennion A. (2000). Passioni, gusti, pratiche. Dalla storia della musica alla sociologia dell’ascolto musicale. In Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, a. XLI, n. 2, aprile-giugno 2000, Bologna: Il Mulino. Meyrowitz J. (1986). No Sense of Place. The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. Oxford University Press; Italian translation: Meyrowitz J. (1993). Oltre il senso del luogo. Bologna: Baskerville. Santoro, M. (2002). La musica, la sociologia e 40 milioni di italiani. In “Il Mulino,” II, 5, Bologna: Il Mulino. Sibilla, G. (2008). Musica e media digitali. Milano: Bompiani. Tabasso, E. & M. Bracci. (2010). Da Modugno a X Factor. Musica e società italiana dal dopoguerra a oggi. Roma: Carocci. Thompson, J. B. (1998). Mezzi di comunicazione e modernità. Una teoria sociale dei media. Bologna: Il Mulino.

CHAPTER TWO THE PARADOXICAL “STATUS QUO” OF CONTEMPORARY WOMEN BEATRIZ PEÑA ACUÑA UNIVERSITY OF SAINT ANTHONY (MURCIA, SPAIN)

“My ambition in life is to be emotionally calm; I’m succeeding little by little, although sometimes I feel sadness in my heart.” Laura Ponte, model

Introduction The claim that women deserve equal treatment with respect to men seems to have conquered the general public in Western society. Founded on the late premise, it also supports the need to have women’s rights recognized and implemented along with the improvement of their statuses in the democratic countries of Western societies. The context of Spanish women, for example, has in a few decades changed at a rapid pace, considering that for many centuries they remained anonymous at many professional and social levels. However, much still remains to be done. A recent study called “the Society at a Glance” from the Economic Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD) concludes that Spanish males spend 187 minutes less than Spanish women doing unpaid work at home, exceeded only by Italy, Portugal, Turkey and Mexico with 223 minutes (publico.es 2011). If we also take into account the international context, although the social conscience is clear and it is not disputed that women deserve an equal role to men in areas of legal rights, both socially and professionally the practice shows that we are still progressing. At this point we can say that this study supports the thesis that patterns and customs are still maintained by men and admitted by women in countries considered to be civilized, and acknowledges that in the

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countries of Latin America, Africa or Asia the disadvantages of women under machismo are even worse. Also, we maintain the hypothesis that social change for women is improving but still needs to progress in the legal and social approaches, because suddenly the weight of housework and children in terms of professional competitiveness has become apparent. The consequences of this unhappy state of female oppression are also suffered by men in family life who must adapt to their roles and spend more time with their children and in household responsibilities. Of all countries, perhaps the U.S. is the one where women seem to have a more recognized professional role today. In other European countries like Britain, for example, there have been changes from the 1950s onwards. In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir enunciated the following: “One is not born a woman, but becomes a woman.” Her reflection opened up a whole new field of intellectual inquiry into the interpretation of equality and sexual difference, with the suspicion that women’s psychology was the product of subjugation and male dominance. In this chapter we start from a position that favours the woman, rather than a radical feminism which opposes men and produces an unproductive conflict. We start more from a moderate feminist standpoint; a humanism that defends the dignity of men in full, i.e. one which includes both genders. In this regard we note that a paradigm shift on what women should aspire to also affects the roles of men. Thus, this study is concerned with how the theories and models of women have implications in practice where men and women coexist, and with what is most suitable for both. We are concerned that women gain equal rights in a fair way and encourage their social participation positively for them to contribute to society, and for these good features to be of benefit to the social fabric.

Methodology The aim of this chapter is to identify the major issues of female authors on the desirable state of women today when trying to reconcile work and family, the resultant lifestyle, and what emotional states women experience. We will also research the main studies in sociology and other disciplines regarding the scientific concerns of contemporary women. The methodology aims to provide a theoretical framework for performing a critical review of contemporary international authors recently published, without claiming to be exhaustive on the subject of the

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excellent condition of women in relation to lifestyle, in particular their satisfaction regarding work and motherhood, through the colourful approaches of the sociology and philosophy of Maria Benvenuti, Nicla Vasallo, Catherine Hakim, Lea Melandri, Cristina Morini etc. It also concerns an examination of scientific journals to discuss what issues are under consideration in this regard. Thus, we review the literature that women can read from the source of another woman.

Critical Examination of Authors on the Issue of Contemporary Women Anneke van Doorne-Huiskes and Ingrid Doorten (Beets et al. 2011) think that institutional arrangements do matter when it comes to the question of how complicated it is to combine parenthood with paid work. Therefore, institutional support for parenthood is badly needed, as children are the promise and material for the future of society. The authors give us a European vision of family policies classifying five welfare state regimes: a) The Nordic countries represent the social democratic type, wherein an elaborate system of public work and family policies maintain gender equality and the wellbeing of children as an important goal. b) Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands form the conservative corporatist type where the family is important, traditional gender roles are persistent, and social policy is less individualized. c) Southern European countries form the Mediterranean type, which have very few public provisions, gender roles are traditional and family problems are solved privately. d) The liberal type (UK and Ireland) views servicing as a market activity. Government involvement is limited, and work/family arrangements are seen as individual responsibilities to be left to free market forces. e) The post-communist type used to have a broad range of public policies to support families but provisions have declined since the transition to democracy. Maria Benvenuti (2008) puts the main issues that concern women today very clearly, which are relevant for this dissertation. She is part of the “library of the women of Milan,” an outreach initiative on the issues affecting women. This author says that while women have equal access to work, differences have emerged in the way that these posts are filled and,

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at the same time, in male-dominated professions men are revalued and priced. Benvenuti explains that they call women who do not want to give up motherhood and work “twice yes” women (in Italian doppio sí). In this situation, women are involved in this dual activity without wanting to establish a priority, as required by the laws of the market. Benvenuti gives the example of the Lombardy region where, on the one hand, women’s occupancy rate at a critical age in respect to children aged 35 to 44 is recorded as higher than the Lisbon objectives that provide at least one female employment rate at 60%, while on the other there has been a growth in resignations following motherhood. In addition, Benvenuti noted the added difficulty facing women today in getting a part-time job. This author collected testimonies from women who worked part-time in Italy because she thought they could create a critical mass and make some positive changes in several directions. She is concerned with political support for the right to work part-time that exists in some European countries like Germany and Holland. In this regard, we must add that in the U.S. there are current trends in companies with women managers that are becoming popular with the time-intensive or part-time work of women at home by highlighting the advantage of getting the best value. However, this has not always been the case, and Martha Chamalla (1986) has even said that part-time jobs in the American landscape in the late 1980s were not idyllic but a solution to the issue of motherhood, and second-class jobs were concentrated on a second-class service sector. Returning to the ideas of Maria Benvenuti, a reconsideration of the terms of the actual work in itself for people as they live today is needed because it affects their lifestyles, and she argues that a formulation of the possibility of motherhood as a subject of feminine freedom is necessary. To top it off, she says that the conflict is not between the division of productive and reproductive work, but in the complex organization of work for the market. We, on this issue, would go further still, saying that the base at stake is the right of women to be mothers in this society, to be able to be with their children when they are young and to make this compatible with decent work and be paid enough which, along with the husband’s salary, allows the family to succeed. In many ways motherhood should be honoured, protected and encouraged for the good of society, and the same is true of the family. We personally know of a case of a German father with four daughters who, in competing with a woman without children for a job, found that the latter was favoured for the fact of being female.

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The emotional stability and satisfaction of the woman in motherhood and job status is essential for a family to live. We note that the Spanish woman, in this sense, is under a lot of emotional pressure for wanting to combine work and home. We are convinced that this contributes to contracting cancer for women, and creates a negative impact on the lives of couples, causing marital breakdown and the loss of values in society. While superstructures have no clear concept of family and the ideal of the person they want to promote, it should focus on excellence (and perhaps Plato was right and philosophers ought to govern), because if the priority should be economic benefits, society is doomed to failure by ignoring the real social wealth of people, contemplating them as worthy, deserving a happy, full life, and not seen, from a materialistic point of view, as being only productive. It is a sorry thing to say, but we are in a society that still has the same basic concept as the ancient slave societies, in the sense that, despite many technological advances, we can’t boast of having made much progress. We found that Cristina Morini complains about some of the socialeconomic aspects in her recent book Due to Love or Force (2010): Total overlap between work and life time, lack of distinction between production and reproduction, more established centrality of care work, precariousness and flexibility of paid work, integration into the paid employment of forms of production and unpaid in excess of the time work hard to maintain areas of self-determination, subjectivity and sharing of experiences, almost total inability to maintain a sense of perspective, open your lifetime and so on, now seem to characterize the lives of everyone in the background of the new bio-political regime of accumulation. (Morini 2010).

Another interesting issue is that in Spain we are now approaching the use of social networks in the classroom as a positive way for teachers to involve more parents in the education of their children (Hita 2011). What worries us is that this tool would ideally be established as a complementary mode of education and not ending in a virtual and comfortable way of raising children, where parents are so busy at work they avoid spending time educating and sharing interests with their children. Another approach is that of Nicla Vasallo (2011), who organized the Italian National Centre for Women’s Health to promote a culture of female health in denouncing all the cultural stereotypes that women would like to put off. She suggests thinking in terms of a feminine pluralism, referring to unique personalities for a new coexistence among individuals—men and women who mingle and interact. The philosopher thinks that humans

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are enrolled in a specific historical situation and there are several ways they can be combined, including sexual orientation, personal history, culture, age, etc. We agree with the idea of thinking about the person as unique, however both genders are defined as heterosexuals, and therefore we believe that men and women are concepts that reflect a kind of nature. Nicla Vasallo wants to give a sense of extreme freedom to all decisions of women in the sexual sphere—abortion, conception, freedom of behaviour and so on—and in this sense Sheree Cartwright (2008) also defends maternity as a personal choice. The criticism that we can make is that her sense of freedom is extreme and we should also consider the woman as a member in society, as she has to respect others, and consider the opinion of her partner at the time of motherhood and the common good due to the society from which she also receives some benefits. Lea Melandri (2011), from a militant feminist stance, does not conform to what women have achieved in society and says that more is needed to be done: But we must also have the courage to ask awkward and embarrassing questions about what now seems strikingly like a contradiction: a movement that gave women a movement and citizenship in the world so far unknown, but that inexplicably found suitable, reluctant to open conflicts, acrobats and stretches to reconcile the two realities made it impossible to remain separate, the home and the polis, the body and mind, the feminine and masculine hardness, the affection and the complexity of social life. (Melandri 2011, 8)

Research Studies on Contemporary Women The pursuit of English literature has shown us articles and studies on the lifestyle of women in the fields of sociology, psychology, medical psychology and medicine in the last ten years. We will deal with sociological literature and briefly mention the studies of other disciplines to discuss the direction in which the scientific interest in women is progressing. Rainwater & Coleman (1959) carried out the first study on women as the wives of working men. Ester Mathews & David V. Tiedeman (1964) made a study on the relationship of eighteen attitudes towards career and marriage and the lifestyles of girls and young women. The effect of attitude towards career and marriage differs in three developmental stages:

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a) A pseudo-career drive seems to appear in some women during early adolescence. b) Major attitudinal themes affecting lifestyles during early maturation are, in order of importance: b.1. the woman’s impression of the male reaction to her intelligence b.2. struggle over the possible position of the dominance of men at work and the place of women at home b.3. conflict between family and work demands on the time of a wife and mother b.4. dilemmas of timing in dating and marriage b.5. issues in acceptance of the general outline of the feminine role. In another study of the 1970s, Judith Birnbaum (1971) researched patterns of life, personality and female self-esteem. In sociology, Catherine Hakim (2011) explains that recent social and economic changes have focused attention first on promoting women’s employment, and more recently on reversing declining fertility. Hakim’s theory sets out five socio-economic conditions which create a new scenario for women: a) The contraceptive revolution gives women reliable control over their own fertility for the first time in history. b) The equal opportunities revolution gives women genuine access to all positions and occupations for the first time in history c) The expansion of white-collar occupations, which are more attractive to women. d) The creation of jobs for secondary earners, such as part-time jobs, working at home, tele-working and annual hours contracts. e) The increasing importance of attitudes and values in affluent modern societies, which gives everyone the freedom to choose their lifestyle. The theory posits that women fall into three main groups: a) Women who prefer a “work-centred lifestyle” and often remain childless by choice (about 20%) b) Women who prefer a “home-centred lifestyle” often have many children and little paid work (about 20%) c) The remaining majority of women can be labelled “adaptive” and are those who seek to combine paid work with family life and raising children. Catherine Hakim carried out two national surveys in Britain and Spain to test the theory and showed that questions eliciting personal preferences

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can strongly predict women’s employment decisions and fertility. In contrast, women’s behaviour did not predict their attitudes, showing that lifestyle preferences are not post hoc rationalizations. This study also showed that other sex-role attitudes do not have the same impact on women’s behaviour; notably, the patriarchal values measured by most social surveys, including the European Social Survey, have virtually no impact on women’s personal choices and behaviour. Hakim’s Preference theory tries to understand women’s choices regarding paid jobs and family work, and provides an empirical basis for social and family policy. The theory tries to predict continuing gender differences in lifestyle and life goals, and increasing diversity in life patterns for men and women. In contrast, feminism insists that all gender differences can and should be eliminated so that diversity will vanish. Hakim thinks that social scientists are now giving more attention and weight to (unpaid) reproductive and household work, bringing them into the policy limelight. She also says that policy-makers are confirming the economic and social importance of population growth, and hence the necessity for active population policies. For the British, judging by the results, the two policies that appear to have the greatest potential for encouraging women to achieve their ideal family size are raising family allowances to reduce the cost of children, and the homecare allowance which pays one parent a salary for full-time childcare. Hakim estimates that both have proved successful and effective in Europe. Overall, the sociologist argues that social policy must recognize female diversity and support it with diversified policies that support all groups of women. To date, she thinks that careerist women have been given greater support than family-centred women, who tend to have the largest families. The main criticisms of “preference theory” are that it does not demonstrate causality, that the observed preferences cause changes in fertility patterns, and that fertility may change values and preferences. It has also been suggested that the observed effect of lifestyle preferences on achieved fertility may absorb other factors when controlled for. A follow up study from Rabusic & Manea (2008) found that Hakim’s typology does not work well in the Czech Republic, and that there were no important differences in fertility between the three groups in that country. A second follow up study from Vitali et al. (2009), surveying eleven European countries, found support for the theory in only two countries (Britain and Denmark). Egbert R. te Velde (Beets et al. 2011) estimates that true equality must entail the notion that both sexes are equivalent in the sense of having the

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same value, which is different from being the same. Unique female features and abilities such as the deep-rooted wish to have a child to care for, to be able to become pregnant, deliver a child, breastfeed, look after babies and better empathic qualities should not only be accepted and taken into account but highly appreciated. The associations become the place where women develop their natural solidarity and become stronger. From sociology, Carolin Hagelskamp et al. (2011) study the work-family experiences of low-income and ethnic minority women in New York City from a role identity theory and the concept of gendered moral rationalities, proposing a five-fold typology of mother-worker role identity associations: dissociated, equivalent, compartmentalized, integrated and facilitative. This typology facilitates the understanding of low-income mothers’ work-family decisions and experiences. Identity theory is a micro sociological theory linking self attitudes, or identities, to the role relationships and role-related behaviour of individuals. Identity theorists argue that the self consists of a collection of identities, each of which is based on occupying a particular role (Stryker 1968). For example, familial identities might include those of a spouse or parent and occupational identities might include those of an accountant or salesperson. In turn, these role identities are said to influence behaviour in that each has a set of associated meanings and expectations for the self (Burke & Reitzes 1981). “Gendered moral rationalities” is a term presented by Simon Duncan and Rosalind Edwards in 1997 that tries to understand the social processes by which lone mothers take up, or do not take up, paid work. In 2003 Simon Duncan and Rosalind Edwards, with other researchers, presented another study concluding that the adult worker model is severely limited: The male breadwinner model, which dominated both policy assumptions and social ideals in the post-war welfare state, is increasingly being supplanted by an adult worker family model. In this new model, both men and women are assumed to be primarily workers in the labor market, who as fathers and mothers pool their earned income in supporting children … We conclude that both the empirical and theoretical assumptions of the adult worker model are severely limited. (Duncan 2003, 309).

Studies on women’s health today are varied and provide an overview of the phenomenology that women face due to the job and family context they seek to reconcile. We will refer below to four studies we found interesting.

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There are numerous studies that focus on biology, especially in recent years, with the neuro-anatomical and neuro trying to find sexual differences, such as the one by Natalia Lopez Moratalla (2007) that compares female and male brains. A study by Maria Melchior et al. in 1997 took a sample in Dunedin (New Zealand) and concluded that work stress appears to precipitate diagnosable depression and anxiety in previously healthy young workers. Helping workers to cope with work stress or reducing work stress levels could prevent the occurrence of clinically significant depression and anxiety. Soares et al.’s (2007) study in Sweden took the theme of “burnt out at work” (burnout) in a sample of 3,591 women. This research concludes that about 21% of the women had high burnout, and compared to those with low burnout they were more often younger, divorced, blue-collar workers, with lower education, foreigners, on unemployment/retirement/sick-leave, financially strained, used more medication and smoked more cigarettes, reported higher work demands and lower control/social support at work, and had more instances of somatic problems and depression. Van der Berg et al. (2008) studied the influence of psychosocial factors in work and lifestyle on the health and work ability among professional workers in the Netherlands. These researchers conclude that among whitecollar workers mental and physical health were of equal importance to work ability, but only mental health and work ability shared the same determinants. The strong association between psychosocial factors at work and mental health and work ability suggest that, in this study, population health promotion should address working conditions rather than individual lifestyle factors. Another study focuses on the relationship between lifestyle relating to health (eating habits, alcohol and tobacco) and fertility (Revonta et al. 2010). Their study in Finland concluded that 10–15% of couples are infertile.

Conclusions Although the social conscience is clear and it is not disputed that women deserve an equal role with men in areas of legal rights, both professionally and socially, studies and practical life show that we are still in a process of improvement. Some studies also confirm that for women it has been difficult to continue with the weight of the household chores plus children along with

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professional competitiveness. The consequences of this unhappy state are also suffered by the partners and children. We propose a model inspired by humanism to defend the dignity of both genders, because the model in practice affects both. There are authors like Catherine Hakim who argue that social policy upholds the diversity of women. Egbert R. te Velde also indicated unique female features and abilities in this regard. While we are enthusiastic about the participation of women in contributing to society, those good features are for the social benefit. Several studies agree that parenting should be protected by state institutions so that parents can work away from home. Among the various groups of European countries (given by Doorne-Huisken and Doorten), as we suspected the south (Italy, Spain and Portugal) provides the worst cases through the failure to protect women in social institutions. Concerns are expressed by women’s associations regarding women’s acquisition of the right to work part-time, such as in Germany and Holland, also observing the executive trend in the U.S.A. In fact, what these voices raised, bottom line, is that governments should rethink the terms of employment, seeing as how it negatively affects a desirable lifestyle, and look for the possibility of motherhood taking place. Institutions should raise methods that have proved successful in financing such schemes as paternity, flexible working hours for two adult parents, and part-time jobs paying a corporate culture that provides maternity grants for family children etc. This practice will not take place unless the social policies of democratic countries turn around and really promote real social wealth and the conception that people have dignity and importance per se, with the right to happiness and a healthy emotional stability. Another important role is the associations of women in promoting their rights and practical care for their emotional stability in the places they live. There is a need for a social culture that promotes the presence of parents’ time and dedication and a careful education of values to children without relying on other agents or institutions. This research has found that authors such as Maria Benvenuti, Nicla Vasallo and Catherine Cartwright see maternity as a realm of personal choice, but we uphold the right on both the social and the political points of view. The critique of this individualistic position is that it does not take into account other parameters such as the promotion of fertility as the main wealth of a country, or the voice of the father at the time of motherhood as something suitable in this case, an issue that affects two adults in parenting

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and supporting children. Authors such as Lea Melandri maintain a very militant feminist attitude. From the earliest sociological studies of the 1960s we have found a concern for the issues of women and the compatibility between professional work and a dedicated home and lifestyle experience. These studies reflect the difficulties and suffering in the battle of positions at work and home, and the conflict caused by lack of time both at home and in social relationships. The current situation of women can be understood through the study of Catherine Hakim (2011) in Britain and Spain which demonstrates that 60% of women are trying to adapt to combining work and family, whereas 20% focus on work and 20% on home, where they can have more time with children. This researcher believes that institutions are fostering more professional women compared to home-centred women. Recent research and social policies are concerned with the lifestyle of modern women and the phenomenon of infertility, which in the Finnish case affects 10–15% of couples. Other health issues of women deal with the differences from the point of view of neuroscience, stress, the syndrome of “burnout” and health habits (diet, alcohol and tobacco) affecting fertility.

References Beets G. et al. (eds.). (2011). The Future Motherhood in Western Societies: Late Fertility and its Consequences. New York: Springer. Berg, van den, T. et al. (2008). “The Influence of Psychosocial Factors at Work and Life Style on Health and Work Ability among Professional Workers.” Occupational Environment Health 81: 1029–1036. Birnbaum, J. L. (1971). Life Patterns, Personality Style and Self Esteem in Gifted Family Oriented and Career Committed Women. Dissertation Abstracts International, September, 1834. Benvenuti, M. et al. (2008). Twice yes (Il doppio yes. Esperienza e innovazioni). Milan: Quaderni di ViaDogana, Libreria delle done. Burke, P. J. & D. C. Reitz (1981). “The Link Between Identity and Role Performance.” Social Psychology Quarterly 44: 83–92. Cartwright, S. (2008). “The Shifting Work-Life Experiences and Cultural Habitus of Motherhood: an Australian Perspective.” The International Journal of the Humanities 5 (12): 139–150. Cartwright, S. et al. (2008). “Decisions, Choices and Trade-Offs: Women’s Paid Work and Care Arrangements after Childbirth.” In

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Porter, M. and Kelso, J. (eds.), Theorising and Representing Maternal Realities, 136–149. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Chamalla, M. (1986). “Women and Part-Time Work, the Case for Pay Equity and Equal Access.” North Carolina Law Review 709, April. Public Journal, according to an OECD study, Women work more at home than men. http://publico.es/españa/370884/segun-un-estudio-de-laocde-las-mujeres-trabajan-mas-en-casa-que-los men (accessed April 12, 2011). Duncan, S. et al. (2003). “Motherhood, Paid Work and Partering: Values and Theories.” Work Employment & Society 17: 309–330. Hagelskamp, C. et al. (2011). Community, Work and Family. New York: Routledge. Hita Egea, S. (2011). “Parents Entangled, Involved Parents. Social Networks in the Classroom to Involve Parents in Education.” Teaching innovation plan, Murcia: University of Saint Anthony, April, unpublished. Lopez Moratalla, N. (2007). Women´s Brain and Male´s Brain (Cerebro de mujer y cerebro de hombre). Madrid: Institute of Family Sciences. Mathews, E. & D. V. Tiedeman (1964). “Attitudes Toward Career and Marriage and the Development of Young Women in Life Style.” Journal of Counseling Psychology 11 (4): 375–384. Melandri, L. (2011). Love and Violence (Amore e violenza. Il fattore molesto della Civiltà). Turin: Bollati Boringueri. Melchior, M. et al. (2007). “Work Stress Precipitate Depression and Anxiety in Young, Working Women and Men.” Psychological Medicine 37: 1119–1129. Morini, C. (2010). Due to Love or Force (Per amore o per forza. Femminilisazione del lavoro e biopolitiche). Verona: Ombre Corte. Rainwater, L. & P. R. Coleman (1959). Working Man’s Wife: her Personality, and Lifestyle World. Oceana Publications. Revonta et al. (2010). “Health and Life Style among infertile men and Women.” Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare 1 (3): 91–98. Soares, J. F. et al. (2007). “Burnout Among women: Associations with demographic / socio-economic, work, health and life-style factors.” Women Mental Health 10: 61–71. Striker, S. (1968). “Identity Salience and Role Performance: The Importance of Symbolic Interaction Theory for Family Research.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 30: 558–564. Vasallo, Nicla. (2011). As it is heard (Per sentito dire). Milan: Feltrinelli.

CHAPTER THREE THE “INGLORIOUS BASTERDS” OF GRAFFITI: POLLUTION, URBAN SPACE, CULTURAL HEGEMONY AND THE POPULAR DAVID WALTON UNIVERSITY OF MURCIA (SPAIN)

Introduction I want to begin by discussing two incidents which I shall use as starting-points to interpret various kinds of graffiti, the term restricted to uninvited (and mainly illegal) manifestations like tags, throwups, posters, plaques, stencils, scratching and sculpture, and anything done with a marker or a spray can, from around the 1970s to the present day. The first is associated with my first experience of graffiti and the second with what I see as its growth within youth subculture. I should state here at the beginning that I shall be painting, as it were, with a broad brush by discussing graffiti as a general phenomenon across different cultures, rather than limit my discussion to a particular location, although I shall be referring to some very specific examples to illustrate the points I make and the arguments I put forward.1

1

While, as Joe Austin suggests, contemporary graffiti styles “have become a selfconsciously globalized practice” (2011, 35) it is necessary to take into account local particularities. For example, practitioners like the Brazilian Stephan Doitschinoff (Calma) use very particular local iconography well outside the more globalized symbols associated with what might be termed “mainstream” graffiti styles. See Nguyen and Mackenzie 2010, 80). This chapter has been written with the support of a Séneca grant (number 15397/PHCS/10).

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Grafiti and the “Inglorious Basterds” By the time I had started secondary education (in Britain) in the late 1960s the most common form of graffiti was exemplified by an event that interrupted an otherwise ordinary day at school. On this particular day all classes were suspended by the news that someone had scratched an “obscene” word on a classroom wall. Everyone was required to write one’s name on a scrap of paper and write the word “bastard” on it. This exercise in surveillance was to reveal the perpetrator of the inscription. However, when the scraps of paper were handed in and analyzed, no culprit was found, something which tended to undermine both educational standards and the surveillance system itself. It was later revealed that the strategy used to trap the culprit was based on checking to see who would misspell the offensive word and match it up to the handwriting: the “bastard” on the wall had been rendered “basterd.” The problem of detection was exposed when it was revealed that a large number of students (long before Quentin Tarantino would immortalize the spelling in the title of his 2009 film Inglourious Basterds) had written the word as it sounded, rather than how it should be written. Thus, a failure in orthography, the general ignorance, or innocence, of how to spell a term deemed “obscene” allowed the culprit to go free (at this time no one had read Shakespeare’s Sonnet CXXVII nor would we ever be directed to references to the word in the King James’ version of the Bible). The corollary to this event was what was going on in the background. That is to say, confined to the school toilets were all manner of inscriptions from comic-book faces, insults against teachers and other students to ribald phrases and jokes and “obscene terms” with an assortment of correct and alternative traditions of orthography. Of course, toilet graffiti was frowned upon but it was grudgingly accepted as long as it remained “in the closet” (the desk functioned as a kind of half-way house, as it were, between the two). However, later I shall return to this idea and its (semi) official “coming out.” Using this anecdote, I want to suggest that one effective way of theorizing graffiti within cultural studies is to draw on and adapt theories associated with the idea of popular culture, and particularly the notion of cultural hegemony linked to subcultures, providing a more innovative strategy by linking these to a number of ideas developed by the French philosopher Michel Serres in his book Malfeasance (2008).

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Graffiti, Hegemony and the Discourses of Popular Culture My argument is not that graffiti is popular culture as such—indeed, I agree with Stuart Hall’s point that “there is no whole, authentic, autonomous ‘popular culture’ that lies outside the field of force of the relations of cultural power and domination” (Hall 1981, 512). What is understood as “high” and “low” is culturally constructed and a product of hegemonic struggles. As I have stated elsewhere (Walton 2012, 110f.), there is no intrinsic high or low culture that is not the product of “institutionally grounded value judgments.” My strategy, then, is not to construct “high” and “popular” cultural domains as fixed entities but to see them as part of hegemonic struggles over the meaning and value of cultural forms (this will be important when I begin to discuss the official adoption or appropriation of graffiti styles as “Art”). While my strategy depends on seeing “the popular” in hegemonic terms it does not insist on graffiti being easily assimilated into what prominent critics of the popular like Fiske (1998) and Storey (2009) regard as one of the principal characteristics of culture stratified in this way. What I do here is draw on various ways of understanding the popular in order to reflect on unofficial and uninvited inscriptions that I refer to as graffiti, and which eventually become assimilated in such a way that this opens up all kinds of ambiguities in terms of notions of “high,” “low” or “popular” culture, and “official” versus “unofficial” cultural forms. This will involve some exploration of what du Gay et al. (1997, 3f.) have termed the “circuits” of culture. One of the principal reasons why graffiti, whether understood as delinquent or sanctioned by art institutions or the state, is not easily assimilated into discourses on popular culture is that it is not manufactured by the cultural industries as popular entertainment. Of course, this definition is not sufficient because Fiske defines popular culture as not only the product of an industrial system primarily interested in profits but also as “of the people,” which must appeal to their particular tastes and interests. Thus, popular culture is not just consumption but “culture”—“an active process of generating and circulating meanings and pleasures” (Fiske 1998, 23). Illegal forms of graffiti resemble folk culture insofar as they come from the people and are for the people (but do not resemble folk culture as traditional manifestations of an older order). This is not to say that the cultural industries have not appropriated its styles (in ads, music videos, video games and film etc.), but that if it is to be defined as popular this would fit into a very broad definition of the term. That is to say, it can be seen as popular insofar as its production in many countries (for the last

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twenty years or so) has been enormously widespread, so as to be virtually ubiquitous. Its consumption is assured because it can hardly be ignored although, having stated this, it would not necessarily fit with one of Raymond Williams’ definitions of popular culture as that which is “wellliked by many people” (1976/1983, 237) (although any affirmation or contradiction of this would have to depend on a huge sociological project). This brings me to my second anecdote.

Cultural ambiguities: graffiti, street “Art” and the kudos of the marginal and delinquent When I first visited New York in the early part of the 1980s one thing that struck me (and surprised me) was the sheer amount of “wild style” graffiti sprayed onto the sides of the subway trains. This gave me insight into its relations with, and differences from, advertising—both impinge on the public’s experience of space and both are produced by agencies which largely ignore the general wishes of the “viewing public.” One is officially sanctioned and serves the ends of commerce, the other delinquent and the product of individual or collective (subcultural) responses and interests. This, at least, is how it may seem. The reality today is that since the 1980s graffiti has become more intensified (it is now possible to talk of “sign wars” [Goldman & Papson 1996]) and ambiguous because it has been claimed as, or elevated into, “Street Art” while maintaining its chaotic, unofficial, “antisocial” character.2 I will argue, in a broadly deconstructive move, that the unofficial, illegal, marginalized character is both socially condemned and necessary to the maintenance of graffiti as officially sanctioned Street Art. The un-commissioned graffiti styles inspired by the 1970s and 1980s New York graffiti collectives and which operate on the margins of legality can be theorized with relation to John Fiske’s general approach to popular culture (even though, as stated above, it does not dovetail neatly into his general theory). This is because his tactic when describing the popular is to oppose the mass culture critics (like the Frankfurt School and particularly Theodor Adorno) since he generally focuses on those moments where dominant hegemonic forces fail and where “ideology is weaker than resistance” and “where social control is met by indiscipline” (1998, 177). So, while the examples of uninvited inscriptions I have 2

For limitations of space I do not go into detail on the history of graffiti styles and how they relate to the graffiti styles that built up from the 1960s to the 1980s in the US. For a brief account see Joe Austin (2010).

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discussed so far (school walls, toilets, New York subways) do not easily fit into the way cultural studies habitually theorizes the popular, they all tend to challenge, in their distinct ways, dominant hegemonic forces and exhibit resistance through acts of indiscipline (whether perpetrated by pen, pencil, poster, compass point, stencil, sculpture or spray can). It might be noticed here that I use the term “graffiti collectives.” This is because I am trying, for reasons that will be explained, to avoid the term “artist,” and this links to another reason why graffiti might be theorized and interpreted within theories of the popular. This is because, with its gradual containment within the official art establishment and its partial restraint in terms of the way city and town councils have tried to open official spaces for its expression, it both illustrates, challenges and counters the idea of “high,” officially sanctioned forms of culture. In fact, it is this dynamic which also relates it to the concept of hegemony which has become so important to discussions of the popular (see Strinati 1995, 165f.). What can be summed up by the commonly used term “the Banksy phenomenon”—the gradual assimilation of illegal street interventions into the art establishment—resembles the same dynamic of the Brillo Pad box cum Campbell’s Soup tin aesthetic of the Pop Art movement (or Marcel Duchamp’s earlier anti-art of bicycle wheels and urinals). This is where what was once deemed outside the art establishment, and may even have been produced to attack, discredit or reject it, simply gets absorbed by it (see Baudrillard 1970/1998, 115). However, whereas capitalism successfully commodifies everything from the avant garde and the Typhoo tea packet into its all-absorbing one-dimensionality (Marcuse discusses the case of avant garde literature [1984/1986, 61f.]), the case of graffiti helps to bring out a whole series of ambiguities because, while legitimated, commodified graffiti “Art” (assimilated by markets and galleries alike) draws on the kudos of the marginal and delinquent (and has no problems with banality and endless repetition) it can never fully absorb its more unruly, antisocial and politically questionable aspects into itself. Yet, at the same time, the practitioner of graffiti (while improvising distinctive styles from lettering to images drawn from comics, video games, advertising etc.) may draw on the vast resources of canonical art traditions. This can be illustrated by a simple example taken from the city in which I live. Opposite the Merced Campus of the University of Murcia there are a number of graffiti murals, sanctioned by the city council. These, in line with the politics that seek to contain what is widely seen as a contemporary “plague” (see the film Style Wars [1983]), allow those

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interested in wall painting to give expression to their “art” (see Fig. 3.1 below) very much inspired by graffiti styles, with sprayed lines across the faces (reminiscent of graffiti muralists like Conor Harrington), and also by the painterly traditions commonly found in art galleries and collections all over the world.

Fig. 3.1. Mother Teresa mural opposite the Merced Campus, University of Murcia. Photo by David Walton

This (ever more popular) urban phenomenon, that sanctions those who may be called the “Michaelangelos of graffiti” (I adapt a question posed by Richard Dorment [2008] of Banksy), itself has been answered by what might be called “its excluded other.” The mural of Mother Teresa (Fig. 3.1) became the site where the illegal, disqualified, unofficial street inscribers answered back with a red goatee beard and also in the most politically incorrect way (see Fig. 3.2) by inscribing the word puta (“whore”) on the original mural. This is where two worlds collide, where the appropriated graffiti style as “street art” meets (or is returned to) its chaotic, unlawful, uncontrolled other. As the title of a Mexican documentary on graffiti announced, the street does not shut up (La calle no calla [2007]).

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Fig. 3.2. Detail—Mother Teresa and the street answers back. Photo by David Walton

This, in one image, demonstrates the symbiotic and often ambiguous relations between the official/legal and the unofficial/delinquent. The transference of urban graffiti styles from the street to the official spaces of gallery and designated public walls is paralleled by unofficial street practices which emulate the high seriousness, playfulness and ambition of works fully legitimated by the organs of official culture. Here, the pseudoillicit “street cred” of the fully sanctioned mural is over-inscribed and returned to the chaotic unpredictability of the unofficial by the simple addition of the graffiti that, in my school at least, was largely confined to the toilet (and the desk). Here the underground and the “overground” converge. I want to suggest that this phenomenon can be usefully discussed with relation to notions of popular culture. Once graffiti styles are contained by local town or city councils through social projects which allow and encourage practitioners to use officially designated walls for their murals one can see the effects as deeply contradictory. This is because the graffitistyle murals are liminal and send out ambiguous messages, as they are the legal expression of that which was, and is, also illegal and thus are open to multiple readings and strategies. Many people who have contributed to legal town and city projects combine the legal with the illegal, thus the seemingly “contained” mural is a fully sanctioned opportunity to practice that which is habitually condemned, a mere legal extension of subversive

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projects, a kind of subversive knock at both the state and the art establishment (reminiscent of the mentality of Banksy’s “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit” canvas). Other practitioners see these opportunities as springboards to propel them towards public acceptance and appreciation of their work as “Art” (which is sometimes reciprocated at the level of galleries and the general public who publically acknowledge the attractiveness of both legal and illegal graffiti), or, as Kramer (2010) has indicated, practice graffiti while espousing entirely conventional values. These forms of reception and pleasure are complicated by the official institutional contexts in which they appear and this is where a reference to a theorist of popular culture can help to clarify this particular cultural dynamic. For John Fiske, if the pleasures that “are offered and taken by the public” are “organized around the interests of the power-bloc,” they are “safe, controlled pleasures that power tries to substitute for the dangerous, unpredictable ones of the people “ (1998, 169). In this sense they are (at least for some) “anti-popular” and this may explain why official graffiti is often defaced because of the recognition of the containment strategies that tend to re-present the graffiti in terms which resemble the “anti-popular” where not only the pleasures but “the processes of production” are safe and controlled “substitutions” for the more risky practices and pleasures of uninvited graffiti (a number of Banksy’s pieces have been subject to acts of vandalism, a telling irony when it is considered that they were, initially, considered acts of vandalism themselves). Aesthetically, the graffiti may look exactly the same in formal and aesthetic terms (drawing on the images and styles which have become icons of delinquency and/or popular resistance) but the legalization and containment strategies shift the focus towards that associated with the interests, values and (safe) pleasures of the dominant hegemonic forces which govern official cultural production (Fiske 169f.). This is not to idealize uninvited inscriptions, as these are as likely to be offensive as they are provocative and politically motivated (as seen above). One obvious part of the transformation into official culture is not to filter out politically radical messages (graffiti “Art” is often highly critical of the establishment) but to de-emphasize the political incorrectness of racism, sexism and homophobia of the unruly street message. This can also be seen in Fig. 3.3 (taken in the same place as Fig. 3.2) where the word “nigger” has been scratched onto the face of Kofi Annan.

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Fig. 3.3. The street answers back. Kofi Annan mural opposite the Merced Campus, University of Murcia. Photo by David Walton

Of course, it has to be recognized that the reception of graffiti, whether official or unofficial, is subject to multiple readings, many of which have not been considered here.

Subcultures and “fashionable” society: graffiti, cultural value and “coming out of the closet” Drawing on Raymond Williams’ approach to cultural analysis, which insists on seeing cultural phenomena in relation to the multiple contexts and meaning-producing institutions (1961/1992, 46f.), I recognize the importance of the subcultural groups that have grown up around graffiti, its connections with other forms of culture like music, dance and skateboarding, and its representation and construction in institutions like the mass media and the law. In this short chapter I cannot hope to do justice to such a wide-ranging approach but I shall touch on some of these contexts to argue that the cultural phenomenon summed up by the “tag” graffiti might be effectively described in relation to a kind of “coming out of the closet.” By this term I do not wish to suggest that it was entirely hidden away and then made visible, but that the “coming out” is surreally akin to a debutante’s coming out—where something already “out,” as it

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were, makes a greater public impact by being officially recognized (as crime and “Art”). Of course, this image is limited insofar as graffiti as “debutante” would be a subversive, much maligned, marginal, lower-class being, not a young upper-class woman formally coming out in fashionable society. Of course, different cultures have distinct histories of graffiti, whether this be counter-culture slogans pasted up in Paris in May 1968 or tagging the sides of trains in New York from around the end of the 1970s. What concerns me here is how this intensified “coming out” of graffiti was gradually met with legislation which would condemn and criminalize it, even if, at the same time, other forces would partially legitimate it.3 It is this coming out, where tagging and bombing were associated with not only individuals but highly organized crews, that would provoke the authorities to counter a phenomenon that can be usefully defined in terms of subcultural cachet. To summarize this, and draw on the work of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (and particularly on Resistance Through Rituals [1976]), the individuals and graffiti crews of the late 1970s and early 1980s tended to conform to the typical characteristics of post-war, working-class subcultures (although the class basis was not entirely restricted to this class). That is to say, they had strong links to mass culture, were associated with key locations (the street, the station etc.), carved out their own cultural spaces (on walls and trains etc.) and were characterized by the key rituals of spraying, stencilling, carving, painting images, words and phrases in illegal places. Like all subcultures they generated their own styles (not only in terms of lettering and images but in terms of dress, skateboarding and musical styles), were sometimes in conflict with each other (according to styles, territories and locations) and, apart from a privileged few, tended to solve what Phil Cohen regarded as imaginary solutions through symbolic means by winning kudos from their peers (1972, 23f.).4 Of course, a few would escape the limitations of this symbolic subcultural resistance to develop what would become recognizable “outsider aesthetics of rebellion” (a useful term borrowed from Sarah Schulman’s blurb of Benjamin Shepard [2009]) which I shall return to later.

3

This has a longer history than meets the eye. Significant traditions of graffiti on subways and boxcars in the United States go back to at least the 1920s. See Bill Daniel’s film Who is Bozo Texino (2005). For subway and train graffiti in New York, see Castleman (1984) and Austin (2001). For the criminalization of graffiti see Ferrell (1996). 4 For graffiti and subculture see Macdonald (2003).

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Graffiti, urination, defecation and other territorial appropriations: Michel Serres One way of theorizing this “coming out,” this graffiti as subcultural “plague” (see above), would be to adapt Michel Serres’ reading of the way living beings inhabit, recognise and appropriate their habitats through sound (howling, twittering etc.) or through marking territory through urinating, defecating, spitting and, in the case of brands, logos. The latter links to one important aspect of marking out ownership and claiming property, which is through the sign (the personal signature). From these observations, Serres writes the history of how humans have appropriated land from the simple plot, the town and the city to the appropriation of land in the name of the nation (Serres 2011, 1–12). While these ideas have been developed within philosophy they can also be seen to be of considerable value to cultural studies insofar as they can help to theorize (outside the immediate Deleuzean tradition) how territorialization is made possible.5 My argument is that graffiti can easily be read within this general (cultural) history of appropriation—Fig. 3.4 brings together the Serresian marking strategies of two different species which appropriate and mark territory in related ways. In this sense, graffiti can be read as a kind of subcultural “piss,” but by this I do not wish to suggest that other forms of human appropriation are more necessarily, more worthy or have more value. Serres’ point is that all appropriation, including marking rituals, are ultimately a form of pollution—the environment is constantly “dirtied” by all living forms—and humans are regarded as the polluter par excellence. Adapting these ideas from Serres, I want to suggest that graffiti can be used as a kind meta-commentary on all marking rituals. This means that everything from the cave painting and the signed Leonardo di Vinci to the graffiti tag and the corporate logo are part of ubiquitous rituals of marking and appropriation. If all cultural marking and appropriation is pollution of one kind or another, this opens up the question of the ultimate value and meaning of these practices.6 In a perhaps surprising theoretical turn, I want to suggest that the very different work of Serres and Foucault might be

5

I am, of course, referring to the tradition of theorizing space that has been inspired by Deleuze & Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus (1987). 6 The deputy mayor in charge of cleanliness in Paris recently called graffiti “aggressive pollution.” See 12ozProphet: http://www.12ozprophet.com/index.php/ news/the-mayors-office-declares-war_on_graffiti-in-paris.

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seen as complementary, insofar as they, in exceptionally different ways, help us to theorize the relations between culture and power.7

Fig. 3.4. Graffiti as marking territory (Cieza, Murcia). Photo by Margarita Navarro Pérez

Serres links the physical action of squatting (to urinate, defecate, give birth) to its modern meaning of to invade and possess (4f.), and we might remember that graffiti is also one of the main ways that the modern squatter stakes a claim to invaded, appropriated domestic spaces (see Fig. 3.5 below). Drawing on Serres’ reading of the appropriation of space, the squat stands as a potent symbol not so much of delinquency but of the way life in general, including the whole of “civilization,” is built on practices of annexation and marking (which is pollution). So, when squatters appropriate an uninhabited building to make it their own they are, applying Serres’ way of understanding the behaviour of all species, involved in a fundamental and necessary activity for survival which, significantly for Serres, does not necessarily have to be linked to property rights. Yet the activities of squatters can be seen as the radical questioning of ownership and property rights combined with these Serresian survival tactics. As mentioned earlier, this radical questioning of property rights is also typically combined with the use of graffiti (see Fig. 3.5 below) which (in a double appropriation) also challenges the rights of ownership, in this case of visible space. However, I shall continue to explore questions of

7

Of course, almost any study by Foucault could be cited to back up this claim but a good starting point would be Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings (1980).

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“coming out” but return to these themes when I discuss questions of graffiti and hegemony.

Fig. 3.5. Squat and double appropriation in Madrid. Photo by Ana Rull

Graffiti, “Art” and crime: legitimacy, containment and counter-hegemonic practices After the generalized subcultural “coming out” mentioned earlier there was another “coming out” linked to a gradual “coming, or welcoming in.” This was when there were tentative efforts to “recognize” graffiti as a legitimate cultural phenomenon but where it was still largely considered a subversive, underground set of practices. The subcultural kudos given to graffiti practices and styles were helped by the phenomena of rap, skateboarding, break dancing, and early films and music videos (for example, Jean-Michel Basquiat appeared in Blondie’s “Rapture” video in 1981, and the fiction and documentary films Wild Style and Style Wars, released in 1983, also helped to make graffiti more visible). So, while these styles of graffiti are not strictly popular culture in terms of the way the term is typically understood within cultural studies, their gradual

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diffusion and popularity were facilitated and channelled by cultural forms commonly defined as the popular. The burgeoning cultural tensions and contradictions of this partial “welcoming in” are evident in two parallel phenomena. One can be summarized by the detective Bernie Jacobs who, in the documentary Style Wars mentioned above, stated that by the early 1980s tagging and bombing practices (in New York) were clearly not “Art” but “crime” (reflecting a process of criminalization which would spread through the US and other countries in the coming years). The other is exemplified by the fact that as early as 1979 gallery opportunities were beginning to open up to practitioners of graffiti (in that year Fab 5 Freddy and Lee Quinones were invited to exhibit their work in Rome). Yet the processes of legitimacy and containment have been very slow. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the “vandal” was still only hesitantly invited into the exclusive and sacred cultural spaces reserved for art connoisseurs and dealers (I use the term “sacred” as a nod to Walter Benjamin’s notion of art [1936/1992: 211f.]). This transition has often been seen in relation to what has been termed “the Banksy effect,”8 where graffiti styles get exhibited in galleries yet, to limit the references to Banksy himself, his first, and largely unnoticed, exhibition at the Severnshed restaurant in Bristol was not until February 2000, and his first (unofficial) London exhibition took place in 2001; it was not until 2002 that he officially exhibited in Los Angeles (See Joseph [2008] for a useful summary), the same year that a group of international graffiti practitioners were exhibited alongside Dubuffet in Brescia, Italy.9 The huge debate about the cultural legitimacy of graffiti reflects, as suggested above, similar debates about Pop Art (with figures like Basquiat and Keith Haring providing nexus points between the two worlds) and opens up interesting questions based in and around cultural hegemony, which is a theme very much in tune with considerations of popular culture within cultural studies.10 The reluctant adoption of graffiti works (or anything that contradicts the status quo) by the galleries and dealers is not, of course, atypical of the 8

A phrase used by Max Frasier in December 2006 on CNN and then repeated thereafter in the media. See Frasier (2006). 9 The “Dubuffet e l’arte dei graffiti” exhibition was shown at the Palazzo Martinengo between May and September in 2002, helping to show the connections between Dubuffet’s aesthetic and those practising graffiti styles. See http://www.domusweb.it/en/art/dubuffet-and-the-art-of-graffiti/. 10 Although not all critics see Haring and Basquiat as proper representatives of “graffiti art.” See Austin (2010, 40).

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institutions; in fact, it is the agonic norm, as all major movements have challenged the previous orthodoxies. What is different is akin to what I mentioned above with relation to Pop Art. That is to say, whereas Pop Art injected the everyday (and often commercial) into “high Art” circles (creating what Fredric Jameson would call “postmodern” forms which challenged the “high/low” distinctions [1991]), graffiti would bring the everyday delinquent tag, throwup, icon, plaque, symbol, stencil, scratching, sculpture etc. from the street into the gallery and manifest itself both inside and outside its walls (for example, in 2008 The Tate Modern organized its “Street Art” exhibition on its external walls). In this context, what I want to emphasize is not the agonic struggle within the academy (including the in-fighting of the art connoisseur etc.) about the status and value of graffiti styles and practitioners,11 but the way those defined as delinquents make claims to producing street “Art.” This aligns my particular analysis with the politics of the popular within cultural studies, where hegemonic battles are fought over the value and meaning of cultural forms; that is to say, what is defined as cultural hegemony (Hall 1981). Trawling publications, blogs and websites dedicated to illegal graffiti, there are many claims by graffiti “vandals” and their supporters claiming that unlawful graffiti (whether in the street and on the sides of trains etc.) is “Art.” This amounts to a critique of official art institutions and mounts a counter-hegemonic challenge to the authorities of the art world and the institutions that criminalize spontaneous acts of graffiti, which brings me back to the idea of “outsider aesthetics of rebellion.” One of the most eloquent statements of this counter-hegemonic position can be found in the book Art Inconsequence: Advanced Vandalism which, as its title announces, fully accepts that these interventions are forms of defacement but which (according to Robert Kaltenhäuser) cross the “boundaries between art and criminality” (2007, 17). This position exploits the contradictions where interventions which were once demonized (like Banksy’s stencils), after the official recognition of the perpetuator as “artist,” are then reread in a positive way and sanctioned (21). I would 11

This debate is ubiquitous in the media and on blog pages and can be summed up by the earlier reference to “Banksy: the Michelangelo of graffiti?” (dormant 2008). Another online article that sums up the dilemma is (“Banksyyy [sic]—Best of British now an American Arts Hero?’ See Art Knowledge News (no date) where it is regarded as “fine” to like Banksy “so long as you don’t kid yourself that this is ‘art’.” Bansky is regarded as “a background artist” and, like all graffiti, is “an accompaniment to other activities … The reason to admire Damien Hirst is that he makes art as if art mattered. In Banksy, the philistines are getting their revenge.”

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emphasize here that graffiti practitioners, against the laws that condemn them, stake their own claim to be practicing “Art,” thus posing a challenge to the authority of the official institutions. Furthermore, the uncertainty and shifting of official discourses (including the laws that govern the legal) open up ambiguous spaces where “advanced vandalism” can be considered by its practitioners as counter-hegemonic “Art” which is interpreted and legitimated within the avant-garde discourses of modernism. That is to say, “advanced vandalism” situates itself as an “interventionist strategy” (whether that be understood as painting up slogans, putting up posters or a question of situationist street action). This includes seeing any unlawful street intervention as “a concerted effort to break away from the moneyed and politically corrupt museum establishment” (25). Part of this counterhegemonic position embraces the idea that graffiti “vandalism” (or the David Thoreau-like duty of “civil disobedience”) not only challenges but has lasting effects on legal and social structures, as well as on the art world itself. It also challenges, in its locations, fundamental values associated with capitalism as it refuses to acknowledge in its very existence the values surrounding property rights and reclaims the “visual landscape” (25–33). This fits in with sympathetic accounts of what is considered as “Art” (which tends to distance itself from its even more politically incorrect but non-artistic, excluded other). In this sense, according to Joe Austin, it “defaces the commonsensical, recognized, expected authority lodged in the property ownerships of classical (and neo-) liberalism, public or private, effecting a detraction of pleasure and security in some viewers” (2011, 44). Austin’s view of graffiti art as a “site of aesthetic pedagogy” (which is convincing in terms of the kinds of examples he implies) conveniently separates some aspects of illegal urban interventions from others, whereas my argument is that the privileged examples are dependent on the marginalized and excluded (the “inglorious basterds” of graffiti). This links into Serres’ reading of rebellious taggers where tags tend to operate as a form of counter hegemony (although he does not put it in these terms). Serres notes that the rebellious tagger is “sometimes dragged into the courtroom against the advertising executive, who is honored, legal, dominant, and a payer” (2011, 56). Serres asks by what right the advertising executives can contaminate with their “dirt” and asserts that taggers criticize this “dirt” by imitating it. Of course, Serres’ sympathy for the rebel tagger restricts the uninvited inscription to radical critique yet this suggestive reading opens up the possibilities of reading graffiti in a

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manner akin to de Certeau’s method in The Practice of Everyday Life (1988). In this sense, all graffiti interventions (from the disgraceful racist insult and the declaration of love to the progressively political inscription) can be seen as knocks against the establishment. Serres’ position actually opens up a more ambiguous way of understanding graffiti that may question even the politically motivated or artistically aware practitioner. I ought to stress that he does not contemplate the racist, misogynist, homophobic insult (which would surely offend his sensibility, being very sensitive to the rights of others) and his reading of billboards and the proliferation of signs as “messaging abuse” (55), suggests that graffiti is part of general “refuse.” Here, I deliberately pun on the double meaning of this word—graffiti often refuses the orthodox view of property rights and ownership but it is, at the same time, “dirt,” a marginal part of the greater whole of appropriation and the pollution of all kinds (whether gas, chemical, radiation or signs) that he sees as the real problem for the environment. If graffiti is considered in terms of popular culture this would fit with Fiske’s argument that popular culture “always has progressive potential” but that the politics of popular culture are “full of contradictions” and may even be reactionary, although rarely wholly reactionary (1998, 177).

Conclusion: transgression, appropriation and (de)territorialization To conclude, I have not read graffiti as popular culture as such but interpreted it within the discourses of the popular, and this strategy helps account for its complexity not so much in terms of its material and aesthetic forms but in terms of the way it operates within the “circuits” of culture. In this context, I have understood graffiti in terms of Hall’s point that there is no intrinsic high or low/popular culture, but that what counts as popular is a product of hegemonic struggles over the meaning and value of different kinds of culture. This has thrown the emphasis more on the circumstances in which graffiti can be criminalized and, at the same time, be brought into official discourses and practices which legitimate and contain it as “Art.” It has also required some recognition of the subcultures in which these transgressive/artistic practices have their existence. Drawing on the work of John Fiske, I have claimed that the effects of assimilation are similar to those found when popular culture is organized according to the interests of the power-bloc, hence my emphasis on the “street” answering back. This strategy has also enabled some analysis of the way counter-hegemonic strategies further complicate and exploit the

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cultural ambiguities arising from the cultural processes (what I have called “coming out” and “welcoming in”) in which the meanings and values of graffiti are fought over and lost or won. To push the debate further I have linked these ideas to a number of notions found in the work of Michel Serres which help to situate graffiti within a larger theory concerning the history of human (and non-human) territorial appropriation, survival, pollution12 and the establishment of property rights. Here, the use of some of Serres’ ideas has helped me to theorize graffiti as an example of (and a form of meta commentary on) the ubiquitous territorial appropriations which have been, and are, increasingly damaging to the environment. In this context I have suggested that Serres’ ideas may be complementary to those found in the work of Foucault because they can help us to meditate on the relations between culture and power (in this case hegemonic), and parallel to those of Deleuze & Guattari`s because they can help to think through questions of (de)territorialization. Yet, as I have tried to show, graffiti itself as a cultural phenomenon is “(de)territorialized” in various ways according to the hegemonic struggles over its value and meaning, whether that entails seeing it as transgressive “aesthetic pedagogy,” appropriating “piss,” or as the criminal “plague” of the “inglorious basterd.”

References Art Knowledge News (no date). “Banksyyy—Best of British now an American Arts Hero?” http://www.artknowledgenews.com/banksy americanartsherohtml.html Austin, Joe. (2001). Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City, 1970–1990. New York: Columbia University Press. —. (2010). “More to see than a Canvas in a White Cube. For an Art in the Streets.” City 14: 1–2. Baudrillard, Jean. (1970/1998). The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. London: Sage. Benjamin, Walter. (1936/1992). “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Repreoduction.” In Benjamin, Walter. (1992). Illuminations. London: Fontana. Castleman, Craig. (1984). Getting Up: Subway Graffiti in New York. Boston: MIT Press. 12

As a coda it might be noted that some graffiti is actually involved in cleaning up pollution (Moorstedt 2011, 48–9).

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Cohen, Phil. (1972). “Sub-cultural conflict and Working-Class Community.” Working Papers in Cultural Studies 2. CCCS. University of Birmigham. de Certeau, Michel. (1988). The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Deleuze, Gilles & Félix Guattarri. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Dorment, Richard. (2008). “Banksy: the Michelangelo of graffiti?” The Telegraph, May 8. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3673172/ Banksy-the-Michelangelo-of-graffiti.html Du Gay, Paul, Stuart Hall, Linda Janes, Hugh Mackay & Keith Negus. (1997). Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage. Ferrell, Jeff. (1996). Crimes of Style: Urban Graffiti and the Politics of Criminality. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Fiske, John. (1998). Understanding Popular Culture. London: Routledge. Foucault, Michel. (1980). Michel Foucault. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977 (ed. Colin Gordon). London: Harvester. Frasier, Max. (2006). “White House Plays Host to Powerful Shiite Leader; British Police Head to Moscow to Look for Leads in Former Russian Spy’s Death; Disaster in the Philippines.” CNN.com, December 4. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0612/04/ywt.01.html Goldman, Robert & Stephen Papson. (1996). Sign Wars: The Cluttered Landscape of Advertising. New York: Guilford Press. Hall, Stuart & Tony Jefferson (eds.). (1976). Resistance through Rituals. London: Hutchinson. Hall, Stuart. (1981). “Notes on Deconstructing ‘The Popular‘,” In John Storey (ed.), (2009b), Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader. Essex: Pearson. Jameson, Fredric. (1991). Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. London: Verso. Joseph, Claudia. (2008). “Graffiti artist Banksy unmasked … as a former public schoolboy from middle-class suburbia.” Mail Online, July 12. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1034538/Graffiti-artistBanksy-unmasked---public-schoolboy-middle-class-suburbia.html Kaltenhäuser, Robert. (2007). Art Inconsequence: Advanced Vandalism. Mainaschaff: Publikat. Kramer, Ronald. (2010). “Painting with Permission: Legal Graffiti in New York City.” Ethnography 11 (2).

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Macdonald, Nancy. (2003). The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculinity and Identity in London and New York. New York: Palgrave. Marcuse, Herbert. (1964/1986). One-dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. London: Ark. Moorstedt, Tobias. (2011). “graffiti inverso: convertir lo viejo en nuevo.” The Mini International 34. Nguyen, Patrick & Stuart Mackenzie (eds.). (2010). Beyond the Street: The 100 Leading Figures in Urban Art. Berlin: Gestalten. Serres, Michel. (2008). Malfeasance: Appropriation Through Pollution? Stanford: Stanford University Press. Shepard, Benjamin. (2010). Queer Political Performance: Play, Pleasure and Social Movement. London: Routledge. Storey, John. (2009, 5th ed.). Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: In Introduction. London: Pearson. John Storey (ed.) (2009b, 3rd ed.) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader. Essex: Pearson. Strinati, Dominic. (1995). An Introduction to Popular Culture. London: Routledge. Walton, David. (2012). Doing Cultural Theory. London: Sage. Williams, Raymond. (1961/1992). The Long Revolution. London: Hogarth. —. (1976/1983). Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. London: Fontana.

CHAPTER FOUR POPULAR CULTURE, SOCIAL CHANGE AND NEWS TECHNOLOGIES: THE NEW WAY OF SOCIALIZATION DUE TO SOCIAL NETS BEATRIZ PEÑA ACUÑA PH.D. The Web is more a social than technical. I designed it for a social effect— to help people work together—and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our existence as a network in the world. We are in families, associations, and businesses. Tim Berners-Lee

The Network Concept when adapted to the Internet Phenomenon The concept of “net” is now understood and contextualized within the framework of developing the technological phenomenon of the internet. This arises from the interaction between science, university research and military research programs and is favoured by the libertarian and philanthropic mindset of their creators. The original idea for its construction was inspired by a soldier, and it was conceived as a nodal network of information that, in case one node was damaged, information could be provided to other connected nodes and they could continue doing their jobs. As discussed in another dissertation: I liked that Tim Berners-Lee has explained in the article “Weaving the Web” in 2000, a decade ago, the genesis of the Web has taken into account the parameter psychosocial human interconnection and universal communication through personal experiences. I appreciate that this operator has designed the network from a tolerant philosophy, universal and democratic, though not explicit, which seeks to create superstructures

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in transnational initiatives that can provide alternatives to managing nations, or large groups of nations such as the UN or NATO, to seek solutions to common problems or to direct the evolution of world history. But I still see that this possibility is very idealistic. (Peña 2011)

In this way, the internet is understood as a grid network of autonomous nodes which are related, as is human nature and its relational dimension. The individual and the social make up the units or social groups, as we shall discuss below. Cyberspace has been accepted by developed countries that have invested in research in new technologies and educational projects for decades. Manuel Castells explains the importance of this new technological resource that is now part of our cultural context: The internet is the fabric of our lives at this time … It is a network of computers capable of communication … However, this technology is much more than technology. It is a means of communication, interaction and social organization … the internet is now and will be even more media and essential relationship that is based on a new form of society that we live in, which is what I call the network society. (Castells 2000,1)

Javier Celaya makes a typological classification of social networks that introduces us to the question to address (Celaya 2008, 96–97). This expert on communication identifies three types of social networks: a) Professional networking (LinkedIn, Xing, Viadeo, etc.). Most members use these platforms to enhance and manage networks for business purposes. Regardless of the sector to which they belong, any user can establish new business contacts with people from different academic or professional activities, contract specialist advice and job searches, participate in events, meet other professional viewpoints, etc. Xing, Linkedin and Viadeo are social networks of professional contacts with many users in Spain. These networks encourage employment through the interaction between professionals and companies interested in detecting talent. b) General networks (MySpace, Facebook, Tuenti, Hi5, etc.) have a large number of users with totally different profiles and behaviours. However, for members to have a sense of belonging to a community, these platforms typically allow users to create subgroups of common interests to meet specific needs of a particular group.

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c) Specialized networks (editing, eBuga, Cinemavip, 11870, etc.). These platforms are dedicated to a particular social or economic activity, for example Flixster, a network of film lovers, SkiSpace which specializes in snow sports, etc. Included in personal networks are those with the most traffic in Spain such as Meetic, Match.com, Badoo and Gaydar. We recognize the business use of social networks as being classified as general networks, for example in the case of the Spanish restoration sector (such as hotels, being 30% of the gross domestic Spanish product) which are used in marketing actions (82%), followed by contact and information to the clients (82%), according to ePyme10. The main social network for restoration enterprises in Spain is Facebook, because 82.7% that usually dispose in their commercial strategy social networks are present thanks to that platform.

One of the new professions of networking is the “community manager” in the business world. This role is dedicated to building, evaluating and feeding the community of users of the enterprise by listening to what is being said, making an evaluation, comparing with competitors, analyzing the words that consumers express regarding products and services and deciding when to meet the virtual conversation. The profile of this role requires knowledge of the enterprise and industry and skills in news technologies as tools, but also communication and social skills, and social and emotional intelligence.

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Ontology of Social Networks in Respect of Virtual and Real Users It is well known that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle laid the foundations of anthropological discourse in Western culture when considering the human being with a specific ontological status. Stemming from Socrates is the Greek philosophy of nature, which is basically left to deal with the human. If we have to shuffle a philosophical, anthropological foundation to support our discussion, we opt for the classic formulation of Aristotle as a starting point. Aristotle conceives the nature of the person as being composed of a single character and a social aspect. Both make up the person, so each contains as much the first factor as the second (Aristotle 2004). Secondly, we consider it appropriate to consider the process of communication between individuals from a psychosocial prism, namely the interpretive theory of “symbolic interactionism,” because we believe that it is the one most suited to the perspective of value transmission. This is a development that emerged in the 1930s, most notably as the conception of George H. Mead and Herbert Blumer. Blumer’s interaction theory conceives of the sender and the receiver as individuals, active and free through social interaction with other participants who interpret meanings from the social reality. Another advantage of the micro sociological interaction theory is that it takes into account the level of education or background of the actor (or agent), and thirdly it gives importance to the cultural context that affects the agent in which progressive trends include the use of new technologies, even by the government. We also consider Erving Goffman, who appears in the intellectual landscape of the 1970s and whose dramatic and interesting analysis on the social learning formulation developed in line with the theory of interaction. His contribution suggests that social learning is facilitated by the same dramatic situation that plays out in movies (Goffman 1997, 27). Goffman inspired, in turn, Edmund Burke and the dramaturgical approach to social behaviour, based on classical antiquity, believing that the sense of Greek tragedy played a culturally important role in how to behave according to the ideal of the citizen of the civis (this Greek concept refers to a main city, the economic and politic centre where citizens decide). Goffman has discovered how much behaviour is due to the other, regulated by the social roles and what others expect of us, because if something has a common acceptance, then everyone agrees to it in

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principle. Furthermore, this theory of interpretation is akin to the Aristotelian anthropological stance, interpenetrating the theoretical basis we establish for speculation in this chapter in order to provide more strength and unity. This concept states that the person has strong individual and social freedom, for example when it affects relationships with friends or fellow web surfers, as we shall see. The affinity between Aristotle and the interpretative point of view is discovered because this second theory defends individual freedom as the basis and primary source of choice and interpretation, influenced by social interaction, especially for the people keeping a close link or those with educational instruction. Second, thanks to this theory, we can understand the influence of the audience in a social context. Erving Goffman explains in his book The Presentation of Everyday Life the articulation of two factors: individual assimilation and absorption from social interaction: The individual appears and presents their work to others in the current work situations, guides and controls the impression that others form of him and what kind of things they can and cannot do while performing before them. (Goffman 1997, 11)

According to the environment in which the actor plays, the lines of action to be followed exist, and their behaviour depends, on the frame they make of the situation. Goffman sets an example that illustrates its definition—one person is a parent at home, a school director in their work and a student of English. The role they play in all three situations is different and their behaviour must correspond to each of the three situations—in the first place so that parenthood means authority and understanding with their children, in the second so that they direct and have authority over parents, teachers and students, and in the third that they, as a student, learn and are directed by another authority. Deepening the basic assessments on transmission and communication, Erving Goffman also shares with Giuseppe Tanzella Niti (1997) the claim that confrontation interacts with personalized experience. We can name two events to defend the physical communication between people: the need perceived by the senses of the other, as otherwise primary and natural knowledge, and the shared emotional experience and empathy that provides the emotional support necessary between people to create or strengthen affective-emotional ties.

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As defined in the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (2011), empathy is “the mental and emotional identification of a subject with the mood of another.” The psychologist Rogers defined empathy as the accurate perception of the emotion of others as if you were that person, but without losing the status of observer. However, other psychologists who followed him began to confuse the state of empathy with demonstration (Ortony 1996, 330). By thus synthesizing the above with interaction, the actor is influenced individually by the value that is transmitted through the networks, but the assimilation process is more complex than that value, which is not covered in this article. In addition, the actor is exposed to a dynamic of choice and positions regarding values, models, stereotypes, lifestyles, fashion, etc. For the same interaction in the usual social environment, it demands a response. In addition, it requires the constant learning expectations of the other participants on the role they hope to represent. From the above, we can deduce several important formulations. First, communication between two individuals as desirable, authentic and real is present, face to face, with physical closeness, with the possibility of speech perception and the reading of body language. Second, the real emotional bond with a person allows for the virtual state, as an extension of that prior knowledge, that can foster mutual contact. Third, the virtual relationship can foster a real relationship, but if kept per se it is no longer a relationship ontologically, but a pseudorelationship. We found that the fact that a person has many contacts in a network does not assure that they are free from emotional loneliness, especially if someone lacks a real connection to their contacts and provides only a superficial relationship. Furthermore, communication through a screen has a certain anonymity, and may mask the reactions and emotions that face-to-face body language would reveal. Fourth, the fact that an individual will only promote social relationships in networks and not the real is a symptom of denial, and it does not accept the advantages and disadvantages of social relations. There may be some cases where if a person only uses social networks for socializing, for instance, they temporarily avoid the risks of normal socialization due to trauma (loss or a recent traumatic separation or divorce), or otherwise show any handicap or social maladjustment such as having a difficult character, presenting themselves as egocentric, histrionic, obsessive-compulsive, unstable, etc., or having problems due to a physical or mental defect, or an anomaly when facing normal socialising (a phobia, an antisocial-brawling style, a schizoid-hermit style, etc.).

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This evasion and escape from social reality, which we recognize is complicated to diagnose, through networks is, we hold, neither desirable nor healthy for the individual. Indeed, it is desirable that the links that people establish on the internet are complemented by actual contact. A study by the Association of Research Media in Spain (AIMC) provides the following data in 2010 on the establishment of new relations of the Spanish on the internet: 14.5% establish and maintain the network, 22% state relationships both within and outside the network and not forged, 61.4% through social networking. The first item, in maintaining relationships in the network, just seems quiet, while the second seems more encouraging since the internet thus becomes a useful tool to meet new people and establish real links. The third reveals that in Spain the use of social network communication is not as developed as in the U.S. Therefore, it is always better in person, face to face. Goffman (1997) states that the influence of interpersonal interaction is stronger than elsewhere in the media because it provides face to face contact.

Psychological and social effects of the internet and social networking In this sense, personal experience has been observed over a few years in promoting socialization through popular networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Tuenti. The creation of networks has emerged at a time when the pace of life is so fast that it prevents us from keeping in touch as we would with friends and acquaintances, and so in a few minutes a day one can keep in touch and stay up to date. Javier Celaya states that the motivations for participating in social networks are different, such as looking for work, flirting, getting in touch with former colleagues from work or college, using it as a channel of communication, and entertainment. However, many people look for a certain social recognition, and these users will complement their image in real life with a virtual reputation (Celaya 2008, 150). On Facebook you can create a profile with information about your age, marital status, tastes, work and study without cost. Then you can add friends using the email account you hold or find friends or others who are already on Facebook. Therefore, having a group of about two hundred friends is normal, although this tends to predominately be acquaintances rather than friends. You can post photo albums of trips or experiences, write about your emotional state or something you want to share (thoughts, news, etc.), or write on the “wall” of another sharing a comment, video, music and more so it can be visible to all internet users or

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only to your friends. This method is a way to find and return to the other, and to keep in touch and strengthen the link when they are several hundred kilometres away. You may also be invited to parties or events where you can confirm your attendance. The disadvantages found in the use of this network are the lack of privacy, and the fact of being susceptible to gossip if you do not limit who has access to your profile. Twitter is mostly used by adults in order to disclose an activity, or simply a thought, wherein you can write a message that does not exceed a certain number of characters. It is also a means to keep in touch with friends and acquaintances. Another network is Tuenti, used more by young people with opportunities to share information and training forums, recording leisure interests etc. The following are some data to understand the scope of these networks today. Trusov et al. have said that according to a comScore Media Metrix study in 2006, each second a user in the U.S. subscribes to at least fifteen social networks. Approximately fifty social networks have more than one million people registered, and there are dozens of other, smaller sites, for example Wikipedia (2008) and Compete.com (2008). A company web traffic analysis announced that the largest social network, MySpace, had fifty-six million visitors per month, followed by Facebook, with forty-nine million visitors (Trusov 2009, 92). A few years later, according to comScore, Facebook surpassed the 52 million visitors in June 2007 to 132 million in June 2008, which translates into a growth rate of 153% (Celaya 2008, 96). The Spanish study by the Association for Research of Media (AIMC) in 2010 claims that 61.7% of Spanish users visited Facebook, followed by 20.8% Tuenti, 13% Windows Live Spaces, 10.1% MySpace, 8.7% Twitter, 7.7% Hi5, 7.1% Linkedin, 5.4% Badoo, 5% Fotolog, 4.5% Xing, 2.9% Sonic, 2.2% Netlog, 1.3% Orkut, 0.7% Metroflog, 0.3% Bebo, 2% other, and 28.4% of respondents did not use any (AIMC 2010, 73). In a Spanish national research on media, on the question of why they use social networks, users answered friendly relations at 79.3%, hobbies 27%, relations 23.6%, matchmaking 3.2%, other 10.8%, and no use 9% (AIMC 2010, 75). Of the most visited websites, because it was most frequently mentioned first, is the search engine Google, second the national newspaper El País, and third the social networking site Facebook (AIMC 2010, 89). Regarding the psychological effects of the use of social networks, there are different opinions. Ferran Ramon-Cortes (2008), a communication consultant, believes that the loss of personal contact is a serious threat to

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young people’s ability to interact with others. The psychologist Martine Delfos states that cultivating friendships in cyberspace does not encourage young people to learn through interaction. For example, when a friend says something nasty they can, with a mouse click, remove it. That way, they learn to deal with difficult situations and that negative feedback is not the result of proper conduct (Feenstra 2010, 70). This leads to relationships becoming superficial. However, Albert Benschop, a Dutch sociologist, believes that: There are positive consequences as 25% of people between 50 and 70 years create new contacts through the internet, through which some of them get to know each other personally. In addition, communication is in writing, and this obliges us to put into words how we feel. Reading and writing is best to remember what is said, and this raises friendship to a higher level. (Feenstra 2010, 71).

Manuel Castells conducted an observational study of British Telecom entitled “Here, Nothing Happens.” This study took place over a year in a number of households using the internet to observe who had friends on the internet and who did not . The sociologist uses other studies in Canada and the USA to show that individuals usually had, on average, no more than six intimate relationships outside the family, and at the same time hundreds of weak ties (Castells 2000, 7–8). According to Castells, the internet is suitable for developing weak ties, but is not capable of creating strong bonds, on average, but is a great method to continue and reinforce the strong ties that exist after the physical relationship (Castells 2000, 11). Castells discusses another very interesting study on the contribution of virtual communities by Barry Wellman, who argues that virtual communities are also communities, i.e. they generate sociability, create relationships and networks of relationships, but are the same physical communities. Both communities are guided by different logics and types of relationships. Virtual communities are based on individual interests and affinities and values among internet users (Castells 2000, 24). Castells describes another study by Marcia Lipman that provides valuable information on how virtual communities are more successful the more they are linked to tasks or pursue common interests together (Castells 2000, 9). Castells also goes into further reflection: What is happening is that sociability is being transformed by what some call the privatization of sociability, which is the sociability of people who

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build ties electives, that are not working or living in one place, which coincide physically but people who are looking for. (Castells 2000, 8)

This factor is important in considering changes to the lifestyles of sociability, and in not having to file your real social relationships you can choose with whom you want to interact more comfortably and easily, even when physically distant, but this is a pseudo relationship. The disadvantage of this factor is that it encourages individualism in real relationships because the person becomes more comfortable with being indifferent in social relations. There are also negative aspects of the phenomenon, unfortunately, in the compulsive or excessive use of the internet, as seen from the growth of people with addictions to new technologies such as internet use, video games or attachment to mobile phones (Romero 2010, 54–58). Also interesting is what this provides in the field of emotions. Miquel Rodrigo Alsina says that the study of the “sociology of communication” regarding emotional impact is one of the least explored areas, and investigations are scarce (Rodrigo 1995, 139). We do not develop this issue further in this chapter, but we can outline some approaches that are found to be interesting. In this section we introduce the topic of emotion in brief from four perspectives to suggest the scope of the interactional effect through this medium. The first deals with emotional experience or emotional fun using a network, the second as the cognitive half and the third in relation to effects on behaviour. The development of the first aspect, the emotional experience, and the second half of emotion as cognitive, explain why we give importance to something—the emotion makes the transmission of a value both attractive and possible. First, in communicating through the internet, an “emotional experience” takes place which is a form of emotional fun, and second is a “means cognitive,” because value judgments may be issued through the emotion suggesting what the other has transmitted or shared, which can also have a decisive influence on judgments. This process is part of the individual assimilation of value to which we alluded earlier. The third aspect that has an impact on the internet user is the relation of emotion as behavioural, attitudinal and cognitive. Antonio Lucas Marin explains that through the study of the effects three main types can be observed: the behavioural, attitudinal and cognitive inter-related communication seen on television. In this chapter, we extend this to the exchange surfer in a network.

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Antonio Lucas Marin develops these three factors as follows: a) The study of the behavioural effects is a change in the behaviour of subjects receiving both individually and socially. This has been established in advertisements, violence or voting decisions. b) Regarding attitudinal effects it has been asserted that there is a change or reinforcement, but this does not always lead to action. The attitudes of members are both rational and emotional components, and the latter are predominant on many occasions. Sometimes it happens that the intellectual and emotional components can be inconsistent. c) As to the cognitive effects a change or reinforcement is seen in the way we think or perceive certain situations, which can be learning new information or changing the way we think as a result of this new information (Lucas 1999, 225). Armon-Jones points to this in “The Social Construction of Emotions” (1988), explaining the transmission of patterns of behaviour in emotional situations from a constructivist point of view. The author formulates that: The Media provide us with models of emotional behavior, values, norms and expectations … It seems indisputable that the media establish patterns of behavior in emotional situations. (Rodrigo Alsina 1995, 139)

Another diverse but important factor is that the free movement that allows for cyberspace and social networks can promote socialization; that is, it introduces change, social activism or incorporates elements of society. We venture, in this sense, that the social capability of using the media to facilitate the internet (such as chat rooms or forums), and in particular social networks when sharing a story involving a political or moral action, being universal and in multiplying the contents, creates stereotypes and is even capable of homogenizing a heterogeneous public that in any other way would be more complicated. However, despite this, the public is bound by the same experience and their reaction to the social, cultural event.

Maximizing effect due to social networks on social and cultural events The intuition about what power the internet gives to citizens led me to write this chapter, but it is lower when compared to the surprise when

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checking how my predictions based on deepening social fundaments and the internet assisting as witness to the international and national socialcultural-political events stand up. In this section we look at how the use of social networks can maximize the extent of social events and cultural events as they build new horizons for expansion locally, nationally and globally to generate awareness in transnational civilization. Addressing this issue with macro effects, it is interesting to identify the particular mode of human knowledge. Cognitive-affective psychology emphasizes the importance of cognition in all human experience, and in the case of emotion, for example, it shows how cultural patterns and values influence and, in part, determine the emotional response. There are works in the field of psychology about empathy and emotion reporting differences in responses due to gender or culture (Einsenberg & Strayer 1987; Averill 1982; Crawford 1992; Markus & Kitayama 1994). Regarding the perception of innate and cultural emotion, the success of Vigoski is perceived in the cognitive process to unite and combine them and in this connection contribute to the appropriate affection of the person. He distinguished the innate ability to become excited as being learned through culture in the process of personal evolution, and that acts as a stimulus for higher functions. Vicente Arregui and Choza exposed an anthropological formulation that penetrates Vigoski’s previous one, and which we consider to be successful. They consider the double aspect of the person as an individual and a social being, and establish that the psychological construct of the self is necessary to understand the socio-cultural interactive factor. In addition, the dynamics of the self and the affective are conditioned by a factor of natural biases to which we can add the socio-cultural experience. At the bottom there is a nature which is due to love and is manifested in social relations. In other fields of research, such as business, some studies explore social networks to maximize the dissemination of products that come to be used to understand the distribution of content, especially in marketing. There have been many studies that examine the best strategies on how to interact in a group and the best algorithms for this. David Kempe et al. (2003) found that members of a group are affected by the decisions of their friends and colleagues and that this was very effective to disseminate new products via “word of mouth.” The premise for the “marketing of infection [viral English]” is set at certain influential members of the group who are given a few samples of the product. Through these few members there is a cascade of influence because they

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recommended the product to other individuals, and finally many consumers are tested (Kempe et al. 2003). The method, according to Trusov et al. (2009), is being investigated because, among several attractive features, it prevents consumer resistance with low costs and rapid deployment. This study is aimed particularly at new technologies like the internet. This media allows for many resources for consumers to share their views, preferences and experiences with others as well as opportunities for firms to benefit from the “word of mouth” method [also called WOM]. Celaya and Herrera maintained that when developing a strategy to promote advertising tools, marketing or public relations, communication managers are always trying to identify the opinion leaders who influence the company’s target audiences. In this internal process we evaluate the influence and weight of certain journalists and media in the creation of a particular opinion or image. Also commonly studied is the level of advantage of including celebrities in the campaign and if it is necessary to establish a panel of experts to generate a particular debate in the media, etc. According to Herrera Celaya, most of these new opinion makers have the following characteristics (Celaya 2007, 97): - They are active consumers with a high degree of influence over certain communities because of their knowledge of specific subjects. - They are respected by their readers for their contribution in their comments. - They feel comfortable with new technologies without having to be computer literate. - These opinion leaders manage one or more blogs. - Due to their vocation to share experiences about a product or service, these people have the ability to influence the state of opinion in the community they interact with regularly. - Some of these individuals are journalists or media consultants, so their degree of influence in the traditional media is very important. We notice in TV advertisements since 2011 that they announce their representation in social networks in order to attract loyalty to consumers. In this sense the study by AIMC (2010) reveals that they consulted Spanish people as to their opinion or comments about a product or service, the results showing high confidence (43%), little confidence (25.7%), and no response (29.6%) (AIMC 2010, 115). Regarding the question of whether the user has published opinions or comments about products or services, 8.4% gave positive feedback, 1.8% negative opinions, 22.2% positive or negative views, and 65.8% gave no opinion (AIMC 2010, 116).

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From these studies, it appears that the amount of Spanish people consulted on products or services is often 68.7%, while participation in giving their opinion is lower (32.4%).

Promoter participation effect of citizens through social networks on social and cultural movements Once we understand, know and maximize the effect due to the nature of the internet, it is important to know from where the content can lead a movement of citizen mobilization around social and cultural currents. Manuel Castells says: There is a much higher concentration of industry Internet content provider and Internet technology, that any industry is mainly concentrated in major metropolitan areas of the world’s major countries. (Castells 2000, 5).

Following on from the last question, in the major cities there are social and cultural movements promoting the same content available to the citizen’s own initiative against the state on certain issues, and can take shape around values, as has happened with the phenomenon of climate change awareness and the need for more “green” minded people (ecologists). If we look at the social and political movements, Castells says that in fact most of these movements in the world of all stripes use the internet as a privileged form of action and organization. This professor set out three factors on the phenomenon: first, that there is a crisis of traditionally structured organizations, i.e. there has been a shift from traditional organizations to networked organizations; second, social movements in our society are increasingly developing around cultural codes and values; third, power operates in global networks and people have built their experiences and their values in local companies through global connections that the internet enables and may result in a widespread protest in somewhere like Seattle, for example (Castells 2000, 13). However, this sociologist shows that another effect of internet use by political parties is merely information and publicity, and they have not yet made use of an interactive daily practice with citizens that it is enriching. However, a sociologist may think one thing where the actual reality is very different. In one of the most important daily journals El Mundo, Rosalia Sanchez, a journalist from Berlin, wrote about “Social nets: the situation out of control,” referring to parties promoted through Facebook in Germany (elmundo.es 2011) over a bank holiday weekend in June. It

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was necessary for mounted police to control some of the more crowded parties. The mayor of Düsseldorf has since forbidden massive parties and barbecues organized through Facebook, threatening people with a ten thousand euro penalty. The alarm was raised when a fifteen year old invited her friends to her birthday party through Facebook, forgetting to set it as a private event. One thousand six hundred people turned up causing damage to gardens and injuring policemen with stones, bottles and fireworks. The party ended with ten people being arrested. This was a trending topic and many decided to emulate it in other German cities such as Zwiesel and Hamburg. We think that among politicians there is also a practice of interactive personal blogs, as in the case of MEP Alejo Vidal-Cuadras, which allow comments from citizens, although if some comments are not appropriate, they can veto them.

Public awareness of the power of political participation In this section we consider how this form of citizen expression though social networks affects awareness about the power of citizen participation with an immediate response to daily events, and other predictable effects on long-term citizens. Also, returning to the statements of Aristotle, in Politics he discusses the city and its relationship with the republic, through which we can help to lay the groundwork for this item. These are ideas that will be taken up by Italian civic Humanism and reach contemporary authors. Aristotle says: Nature drags, then, all men instinctively to political association. The first thing he instituted a great service, because man, that when it has reached all possible perfection is the first animal, the last when he lives without law and without justice.

We are also interested to know the anthropological proposal of Pico della Mirandola. His famous “Speech on the dignity of man” was surprising at the time, in holding that the human is admirable because it has the ability to forge itself and its existence: Defined nature of other beings is constrained by precise laws prescribed for me. You, however, not constrained by the narrow one, will be determined by the whim of whose power I have entered. Who, then, does not admire the man? A man who mistakenly that the sacred texts and Christian mosaics is designated as the name of every meat, and that of all creatures, precisely because it is shaped, shapes and transforms itself

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according to the aspect of all being and ingenuity to the nature of every creature … But, why does all this stress happen? To understand, from the moment we are born into the condition of being what we want, our duty is to take care of it: it not being said of us, being so high level, we have not noticed we have become like dumb brutes and beasts of labor. (Arias 2008, 2–4)

On the conception of Pico della Mirandola, Belen Hernández thinks that what initially distinguishes the individual is the capacity for language and morals, i.e. cognitive responsibility. The ideal will of the scholar is active to improve the private and public life (Hernandez 2011). Free will allows humans a natural happiness because they accept the natural order. Juan Luis Vives would emphasize human dignity and ingenuity, demonstrated as superhuman, while formulating the correspondence between inner and social peace (Hernandez 2011). Today, Anscombe and MacIntyre still opt for a faithful interpretation of Aristotle and make virtues necessary for the progress of any kind of society in any historical period (Gonzalez 2007, 91–100). So, in fact, it is inscribed in human nature to associate politically, and the internet is a contemporary resource that can promote human alliances. As in the assertion of Castells: “The Internet allows horizontal communication from citizen to citizen” where the citizen can create their own communication system and say whatever they want, because it is a massive communication network, unmediated by the media (Castells 2000, 17). This introduces a factor which we think is a new experience in the city, and to an extent provides it with a new political mindset—the user can influence freely and uncensored, passing their opinion onto other citizens to form a representative group that has to be taken into account by the authorities. The issue has recently been studied by Dutta in his book Communicating Social Change: Structure, Culture and Agency. In the text he describes the social challenges that exist in current globalization politics and examines the communicative processes, strategies and tactics through which social change interventions are constituted in response to the challenges. In addition, Jenifer Earl and Katrina Kimport published Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age in 2012, researching how specific web technologies can change the dynamics of organizing and participating in political and social protest. In addition, in this context the “Citizen Initiative” in the European Union emerged, demonstrating the possibility of citizen participation adopted by European legislation in December 2010. Through this, member

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states decided that several members of the EU—at least seven individuals from different European countries—can change a European law if they collect a million signatures per year. Castells also claims the internet is instrumental in developing personal and political tasks, or specific interests, which generate stronger levels of interaction. Examples referred to in the U.S. Seniornet demonstrate that it is one of the most popular networks for information, support, solidarity, strengthening of shared experience and sharing religious values, or networks of social mobilization (Castells 2000, 17). As explained earlier, when we were preparing this chapter, movements of rebellion started, first with political events in Egypt, and then, thrillingly, we witnessed how the phenomenon spread to other Arab countries such as Tunisia and Libya during the first months of 2011. The citizen consciousness stimulated by the knowledge of democracies and other political behaviours, with more freedom of expression, created the vision that they can achieve a democratic state and caused these citizens to fight in the streets the tyranny they had lived under for so many years . Eventually, the rebellion movement arrived in my democratic Western country—Spain. The citizen movement organized through the internet, called “the upset,” was an initiative calling for reform, a real democratic state, and started on May 15, ten days before local elections, due to lack of trust in politicians that had led the country to an economic crisis. Among other questions, they claimed the law of party modification to promote the vote with an open list. In June they met in the main Spanish cities, such as Madrid and Barcelona, recollecting initiatives of reform through questions involving, for example, education. In other European cities, some young people met in central places echoing the Spanish movement, also called “15 M (May 15). Concluding the exposition, the internet , because of its nodal nature, is shaped to be the most efficient social tool of transmission of values and for the free participation of citizens and their interaction and spontaneous reactions, but is also something which can be manipulated for good or bad. To finish, if we believe in mathematical “chaos theory,” the social power of the internet and citizen participation is non-limited, and we expect more surprises in the international political panorama and more consciousness of the citizen’s political power, as well as further change. Proof of that power is the censure and restriction of the internet in both Cuba and China.

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Conclusions The network is a complex phenomenon with many facets—it is a means of communication, a platform for interaction and social organization, and is therefore perfectly suited to the social nature of the human and their way of relating. Thus, we can guess that it will move towards a way of understanding the community, or as Manuel Castells called it, the “network society.” Studies show that current generalist networks dominate more than professional or specialist, among them the predominant Facebook. In Spain (2010), users use social networks predominantly for friendly relations, recorded at 79.3%. Another factor to consider is the presence of internet networks in social recognition. If we accept the Aristotelian premise that the nature of the person is composed of a single character and a social aspect, with a necessary opening to the other because of the affection aspect, and the interpretive theory of symbolic interactionism which conceives of the sender and the receiver as active and free through social interaction with other participants, interpreting the meanings of that social reality, we understand social networking on the relational dynamics that facilitate and play a larger role in the construction of social and cultural meanings as they have been welcomed by the educational plans and the cultural contexts in developed countries. Besides social networks there are platforms which provide a suitable social learning, as set out by Erving Goffman, in a fast-changing society, raising new ethical behavioural crossroads. Certainly, the surfer is exposed to a dynamic of choice and positions about the values, models, stereotypes, lifestyles, etc. for the same interaction in the usual social environment, which calls for a position. At the same time, it requires a constant learning expectation of the other participants on the role that internet users expect. In fact, we are in a society where curiosity of other cultures can be satisfied at the virtual or real, in which its people travel more and the global approach is possible. This is a society that has adopted a democratic mentality in which one lives in a colourful fabric of positions, as everyone respects the same rules, but in which it is also possible to adopt alien cultural trends, novel conventions, new approaches to spiritual knowledge of other political systems as well as the release of political positions, or questions concerning the rules or traditions by individuals or groups. At this point of reasoning, it is important that the actor is influenced individually by the value that is transmitted through networks, as stated,

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and that these platforms, since they reproduce the real-social context, show they are suited to this process of transmission and social assimilation. Due to various factors of human nature for effective communication, such as the need to read body language, perception or the need for physical contact with each other, and shared emotional experience or the development of empathy, the interpersonal interaction with actual physical contact is stronger than in the virtual environment for establishing affective emotional ties. The networks are listed as a resource for the city to maintain or enhance sociability. The virtual connection, if it remains per se, is no longer an ontologically pseudo-real relationship where the surfer says they are not vaccinated against emotional loneliness, because this relationship provides a superficial version only. When an individual interacts with the network and does not promote the real, it is a sign that something is wrong, perhaps a temporary attitude due to a traumatic event or a more serious issue, in need of psychological or psychiatric therapy. According to the study of AIMC, the use of social networks in Spain still has a discrete dimension with 36.8% of consumers who use them, against that recorded in the USA. Regarding the healthy psychological effects of the use of social networks, there are different opinions. The arguments against the use of virtual platforms state the loss of personal contact as a serious threat to the ability of young people to relate to others, and that it does not encourage them to learn from interaction and can lead to superficial relationships. Some psychologists warn about abuse or addiction to the internet. The case for using social networks through the internet states that contacts are established that allow for actual knowledge and that the act of writing and reading develops memory and raises the level of friendship. Another formulation states that the internet does not change the ability of the individual. It appears that another reason for the push is that virtual communities are based on clustering, or are otherwise based on individual interests and affinities and values among internet users. Thus, the more successful they are the more they are linked to tasks or pursue common interests together. The disadvantage of this factor is that it encourages individualism in real relationships. The free movement that allows for social networks has the effect of social activism or promoting the incorporation of new standards in society. When from the platform a story, a politic or a moral is also shared, it can

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establish a universal action and multiplier effect of content, including the homogenization of the public. The use of social networks can maximize the extent of social events and cultural events locally, nationally and globally to generate a new awareness of transnational and even global civilization. If the apprehension of social and cultural events is performed with a uniform emotional focus through cyberspace, both socially and culturally, the global and transnational civilization may change behaviour. In other fields of business research, social networks maximize publicity for products, such as the discovery that members of a group are affected by the decisions of their friends and colleagues, and a very effective method is through “word of mouth” among friends. It is worth insisting that we return, in another field, to detect the importance of individual friends. Another fact about this area is that the Spanish query about products or services is often rated by AIMC to be 68.7% in 2010. The promoting effect of citizen participation through social networks on social and cultural movements is understood from the big cities where there are social and cultural movements through which they promote content available to the citizen’s own initiative against the state on certain issues. These can take the form of values, as has occurred with the phenomenon of climate change awareness. Also, most world movements of all stripes also use the internet as a privileged mode of management platform. Internet companies build their local values in which, thanks to the global connection that enables cyberspace, they can become a widespread social and political initiative. According to Aristotle, the nature of man is registered to associate politically, and the internet is a resource that promotes this human aspect, allowing for horizontal communication from citizen to citizen. This new possibility gives a new political mentality to civilian rule, because the surfer can influence opinion freely with other citizens, partnering with the authorities. This is being encouraged by the EU authorities through the “Citizen Initiative.” The organizational political trend spreading through the internet and networks is a social fact. The political power that drives the internet makes it unpredictable and out of government control. Citizen behaviour, in this sense, multiplies the possibilities, and it has also given individuals higher levels of critical abilities.

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References Aristotle, Nicomachean. (2004). Ethics, Madrid: Losada. —. Politics. First Book. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/ SirveObras/13561630989134941976613/p0000001.htm#I_2 (accessed December 10, 2011). Arias, Jaime & Pico della Mirandola. “A Vision for the Philosophy of Law.” Rei, Revista de Filosofía 59 (2008): 2–4. http://serbal.pntic. mec.es/~cmunoz11/arias59.pdf (accesed December 10, 2011). Association for research on Media (AIMC). Navigators on the Web, February 2010, Madrid. in http://www.aimc.es (accessed December 12, 2011). Averill, James R. (1982). Anger and Emotion: an Essay on Emotion. New York: Springer-Verlag. Castells, Manuel. “Internet and Network Society.” Conference of presentation of the PhD Program on Information Society and Knowledge, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, July 10, 2000. http://tecnologiaedu.us.es/bibliovir/pdf/106.pdf. (accessed December 11, 2011). Celaya, Javier & Herrera, Pau. (2007). Business Communication 2.0. The Role of Social Technologies in Business Communication Strategy, Barcelona: MBO Group. Celaya, Javier. (2008). The Company in Web 2.0, Management 2000, 3rd edition. Crawford, June, et al. (1992). Emotion and Gender. Sage Publications, London. Della Mirandola, Pico. Speech on the Dignity of Man, http://www. ciudadseva.com/textos/otros/pico.htm (accessed December 10, 2011). Dutta, M. J. (2011). Communicating Social Change: Structure, Culture, and Agency. New York: Routledge. Earl, J. & Kimport, K. (2011). Digitally Enabled Social Change: activism in the Internet Age. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Eisenberg, Nancy & Strayer, Janet. (1987). Empathy and Its Development, New York: Cambridge University Press. Feenstra, Colts. (2010). “Relationships in the Internet, Real or virtual?” Psychology 72. Esteban Gonzalez, Elsa. (2007). “In View of these Aristotelic ethics. The Look of Martha Nussbaum.” Quaderns of philosophy and science 37: 91–100. http://www.uv.es/sfpv/quadern_textos/v37p91-100.pdf (accessed December 11, 2011).

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Goffman, Erving, (1997). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Buenos Aires: Amorrutu publishers. Hernandez, Bethlehem. “The Defense of Human Philosophy in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.” In P. Aullon de Haro (ed.) (2011), Theory of Humanism, Vol IV, Madrid: Verbum. Kempe, David et al. (2003). “Maximizing Spread of Influence-Through the Social Network.” http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/kdd03inf.pdf (accessed December 12, 2011). Lucas Marin, Antonio et el. (1999). Sociology of Communication. Madrid: Trotta, Madrid. Martín Algarra, Manuel. (2003). Theory of Communication: a Proposal. Madrid: Tecnos. Markus, Hazel Rose & Shinobu Kitayama. (1994). Emotion and Culture. Washington DC: American Psychological Association. Ortony, Andrew et al. (1996). The Cognitive Structure of Emotions. Madrid: Siglo XXI. Peña Acuña, Beatriz. Humanism and cinema: the treatment of human dignity in the work of Steven Spielberg, (2010) Alicante: University of Alicante, (unpublished thesis). —. Understanding the Origin and Nature of the Internet, Revista Vivat Academia, March 2010. http://www.ucm.es/info/vivataca/numeros/ n110/ensayos.htm (accessed December 11, 2011). Ramon-Cortes, Ferran. (2008). The Island of the Five Lighthouses. The five keys of the communication, Barcelona: RBA. Rodrigo Alsina, M. (1995). Models of Communication, 2nd ed. Madrid: Tecnos. —. (2001). Communication Theories: Fields, Methods and Perspectives. Barcelona, Bellaterra: Servei de Publicacions UniversitatAutonoma of Barcelona. Romero, Juan Manuel. (2010). “He is Addicted to the Internet?” Practical Psychology 140. Sanchez, Rosalia. “Redes sociales: la situación fuera de control.” El Mundo, June 14, 2011 http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2011/06/14/ internacional/1308042063.html Tanzella Nitti, Giuseppe. (1997). “The theological dimension of communication.” September 20, Centro Internazionale di Studi (Rome), unpublished lecture. Trusov, Michael et al. (2009). “Effects of Word-of mouth versus traditional marketing: Findings from an Internet social network.” Journal of Marketing 73: 90–102.

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VV. AA. Dictionary of the Royal Academy of Spanish Language. http:// buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=empatía (accessed December 12, 2011). Vidal-Cuadras, Alejo, Weblog “Stepping flowers forbidden.” http://translate.google.es/translate?hl=es&langpair=en|es&u=http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejo_Vidal-Quadras_Roca (accessed December 12, 2011).

CHAPTER FIVE THE CINEMATOGRAPHIC ITALIAN MIRACLE: PRODUCERS AMONG COLOSSAL AMBITIONS, AUTHORIAL DISASTERS AND FLIGHTS FROM THE GENRES EDOARDO TABASSO UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE (ITALY)

Past is included in present Present is included, even if in part, in future. T.S. Eliot

Introduction The most recent developments of the Italian production of TV fictions have allowed for the rise of the production phenomena (low cost genre products and long seriality) and of audience successes (in contention with high-standard American movies) that have been considered in a positive way. In this, perhaps a passage from an infant industry to a consecutive, out-and-out audio-visual industry stage is being created. A stage that the Italian film industry, in all its long history, has never been able to achieve, even though three times it has come close—at the beginning of the twentieth century, at the end of the 1930s and during the 1970s—is the starting-point between craft and industry. In this article I will sum up the results with reference to the third phase, that of the 1970s, when Italian movie production was, for a short period, the best in the world. Trying to understand the reasons that stopped the birth of a real audio-visual industry could be useful in avoiding the same mistakes, whether in the production strategies field or in the public policies one.

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The Production Recovery Between the end of the 1940s and the second half of 1970s the Italian film industry experienced a period similar to the current rising and developing stage of the national audio-visual industry. The Italian audience rewarded the domestic product and started to understand what seriality meant for developing faithful clients, creating popular products and bettering production costs. During that period, Italian film was very close to becoming a real industry. At the beginning of the century, Italian cinema took off, even if it was within the limits of a craft system, producing the first colossuses of cinema history such as L’Inferno (1911) by Francesco Bertolini and Adolfo Padovan, or Cabiria (1914) by Luigi Patrone, showing itself to be competitive with the other European and American film industries. After the First World War a crisis stopped its developments up to the second half of the 1930s, when Cinecittà (1937) was born. Since 1945 the Italian film industry has begun to acquire prestige all around the world, especially thanks to neo-realist masterpieces such as Paisà, Roma citta aperta and Ladri di biciclette. Any way a film industry can exist, regenerate and stay competitive, first of all through a “genre average product” where genre for the Italian film industry is a word with an honourable past, produces a valueless present and a future full of promises, especially thanks to TV fiction. At the end of the 1940s, after the neo-realist experience, and thanks to the production of genre movies chosen by certain producers, the Italian film industry gradually developed and obtained more approval than its American rival. The American movie, the most important contender for the national film industry, would enter a period of crisis during the 1960s, while in Italy after the end of the Second World War the movies that the fascist law had banned were again screened.1 During the recovery period there was a rising interest towards cinema from the public.2 The Italian 1

From 600 movies in 1946 they arrived at 222 in 1953 and 209 in 1954, and in 1958 imports rose to 267 movies, since in 1960 American movies were at 200. Even American takings decreased from 67.3% in 1950 to 50.7% in 1959, during which time Italy reached 36% (12 points more than 1950, and a constant rise up to 1970). 2 See, Schermi e ombre . Gli italiani e il cinema del dopoguerra by M. Livolsi, La Nuova Italia, Firenza 1988. In 1948 the number of cinemas was 6,500 and over the next ten years rose to 10,000. There were also more than 5,000 parish cinemas with almost one million seats. Italy tried to put a cinema in each Italian centre with 4,000 inhabitants and to develop, where possible, competition between non-clerical and parish cinemas.

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revenge on its American competitor started on the suburban and countryside screens with second and third showings, and from these suburban cinemas the economic and production recovery of the post-war Italian film industry also started. The 1950s and 1960s genres (popular melodrama, comic movies, revue and popular song movies, and the popular comedy adventure genre with its low/high cost) out-performed movies from the historical-mythological and cloak and dagger traditions thanks to the audience approval, and conformed themselves to fashion according to the interests and mentality of the Italian population. The Italian film industry was able to keep its cultural identity, creating an economically profitable dialogue with the domestic audience thanks to a production linked to a genre film industry that developed in parallel with the high cost author’s cinema production. An important result was the creation of a relatively homogeneous film audience, prepared to identify itself with a succession of movies that were commercially strong and externally prestigious. The recovery and strengthening belonged to the recovery of the national market thanks to the rise in cinema turnouts, from 417 million in 1946 to 778 million in 1953, up to 520 million in 1955, during which time the national production exceeded the foreign one. The early years of the second half of the post-war period, after an uncertain stage, were characterized by an irregular entrepreneurial resource barely connected to the systematic relationships of a real cultural industry. The divided industrial view showed a lack of real attraction centres in the production, distribution and management areas and an absence of production companies able to fix general strategies and supremacies in restricted markets, except for Titanus, the main Italian film production company. Titanus decided to revitalise the melodramatic genre that after the war had been reborn as comics in magazines such as Grand Hotel and Bolero Film,3 directed by Raffaello Matarazzo. The company had Yvonee Sanson under contract, who was the feminine protagonist of the movie Catene, and next to Amedeo Nazzari was the most popular Italian actor during those years. The success of Catene was huge, earning 750 million lira and achieving first place in the commercial classification of 1949–1950, with a gap of 220 million lira between it and Totò cerca casa by Steno and Monicelli, in second place. Matarazzo followed this with other successful productions of the melodramatic genre such as Tormento, I figli di nessuno and its continuation L’angelo bianco, Torna!, Malinconico Autunno, Chi è 3

A. Aprà C. Carabba, Neorealismo d’appendice. Per un dibattito sul cinema polare: il caso Matarazzo,” Guaraldi Rimini Firenze 1976.

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senza peccato all produced by Titanus and performed by Nazzari and Sanson. During those years, Titanus created a new genre—the pink neorealism of Italian comedy. Following this, 1953 saw the release of Pane amore e fantasia by Luigi Comencini, an example that made more than one billion lira, thanks to actors such as Vittorio De Sica and Gina Lollobrigida, while in 1955 Comencini gave a chance to Dino Risi with Pane amore e gelosia. In 1957, Risi began a successful new series with Poveri ma belli (the second biggest film of 1956–57 with 1 billion lira takings) that used the low cost of young actors like Marisa Allasio, Renato Salvadori, Maurizio Arena, Alessandra Panaro and Lorella de Luca, who also performed during the following years in Belle ma povere (the second biggest picture in 1957–58 with 800 million lira takings, beaten by another Italian movie Le fatiche di Ercole), the last part being less successful than the others with just over 400 million lira takings.

Hollywood on the Tevere In 1948 the company Universalia, run by Salvo D’Angelo, produced the movie Fabiola directed by Alessandro Blasetti, that for those times cost a great deal at 700 million lira, justified by the fact that sponsors gave the movie a political role to elevate the domestic production system not only in Italy but also in the world. The movie was the biggest during the season and made the American majors understand that Italian cinema had readjusted and was a real production centre thanks to the low cost of buildings and the high manpower. Money for financing the movie was available in Italy from American distribution, rentals and from funds that had been frozen in the country by the currency export law. Fabiola (by Alessandro Blasetti) and then Quo vadis? (by MGM), under the direction of Mervin Le Roy, again took to the historical or pseudo-historical and mythological genre. Among the most important in this respect are Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (1950) by Univeralia, directed by Marcel L’Hebier, and Teodora imperatrice di Bisanzio (1952) by Lux of Renato Gualino, directed by Riccardo Freda. However, productions of this kind were too expensive without the help of the American majors. Cinecittà became a “Hollywood on the Tevere,” a landmark for American international productions. The arrival of Hollywood production companies allowed for the rise of new technicians, directors and producers. The American capital inflow in a proto-industrial context, as the cinema production system in that period could be called, determined an Americanization and the success of some important characters in the

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production world as major players, even if their main task was as producers for the American majors that moved in Rome. In this system, two young producers, Carlo Ponti and Dino De Laurentis (from the Renato Gualino and Lux teams), decided to create a society from which started adventures and collaborations with American producers with impressive ambitions. 1954 saw the release of Attila by Pietro Francisci and Ulisse by Mario Camerini, and 1955 the great American production by Paramount of Guerra e Pace. The production of this movie finished with the couple, both tired of working as simple executive producers on other’s projects, aiming to become real producers. Between the second half of the 1950s and the first years of the 1960s, using their own funds, they started working as producers and compared favourably with Hollywood. These movies, called “super-colossal” pictures, helped to increase the Italian production system. The movies mentioned earlier, produced by Italian companies for the Hollywood majors, had the same intention—that of high cost entertainment. This actually only happened for a short period because this kind of movie, without American funds, had higher costs than the Italian industry could maintain. The so-called “peplum” and “cloak and dagger” movies (“b” movies that required medium costs but had high popular and commercial results), linked to the historical and mythological genre, had more importance. These successes left a positive mark and led to a bettering of the sub-genre of b-movies (such as western, horror and other fields) that increased in Italy during the second half of the 1960s. The industry development was also a consequence of the colossal production done by Cinecittà through subcontracting that, by the end of each movie, left a complete infrastructure in place. The production system was composed not only of the development of some co-productions, but also of dozens of small Italian production houses.4 Some were a forerunner for this current, such as Il cane di Amalfi (1950), La Regina di Saba (1952) and Orlando e I paladini di Francia (1955)—cloak and dagger movies directed by Francesco Francisci that soon became the most notable in this genre. The real change came in 1957 with Le fatiche di Ercole, directed by Pietro Francisci, featuring the character Maciste, the protagonist in Cabiria, as a new mythic hero starting a new genre. The movie collected 4

Such as Galatea Film, Panda Film (called Athena Film by Donati and Carpentieri), Romana Film by Misiano, Oscar Film, SPA Cinematografica by Achille Piazzi, Italgamma, Majestic, and Diamante. Many created Peplum movies and then tried new genres.

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900 million lira and was ranked first in the official commercial classification of 1957–1958. Francisci, a modest artisan, together with the production company Galatea Films that made the movie, discovered the low cost key which had commercial success both in the domestic and foreign markets5 and also in the USA.6 With the movie Ercole e la regina Linda (1958), produced by Lux-Galatea, they had the same result as the first film (842 million lira, ranked fifth for 1958–1959). The team, directed by Francisci, comprised Francesco De Concini as screenwriter, Mario Bava (an up and coming producer of Italian horror cult-movies) as director of photography and Falvio Mogherini as the creator of low cost sceneries. The Peplum movie producers realized that audiences could renounce international and national high-cost film stars and created a brand new genre characterized by a double narrative register—the historicmythological and the comic. Francisci decided to use a body-building champion, as in the first mythological mute movies, and called in Steve Reeves—Mr America in 1947 and Mr Universe in 1948. From 1960 to 1964, with various ups and downs, the Italian production used the trend that had now become a genre. In 1961 the summit was reached with thirty-one movies, and Ercole was followed by an old hero of Italian cinema—Maciste. The “new-Maciste” trend (19 movies between 1960 and 1964) was restored by Campogalliani, another expert of the genre, with the movie Maciste nella valle dei re produced by Donati and Carpentieri of Panda, collecting 813 million lira. The historic-mythological genre was successful especially in the second and third showing market and in the suburbs. An important part of the popular audience was made up of Italians that had migrated and become rich, and who found pleasure in these movies.7 The production 5

The Peplum age was characterized by the possibility of exporting. For this reason, many companies specialized in popular products and in the low cost imitation of examples from overseas. S. Della Casa, Una postilla sul cinema mitologico, in E. Magrelli (ed), Sull’industria cinematografica, Marsilio, Venezia 1986 6 After Italian success, the producer Joseph E. Levine, later producer of TitanusFox for the high cost Peplum Sodoma e Gomorra, charged Galatea 120,000 dollars for the American market launch of Francisci’s movie. Although all the majors didn’t agree, he did a launch campaign that cost one million dollars (250,000 for the radio, 350,000 for magazines and 40,000 for a party at the Waldorf Astoria) and carried out a simultaneous screening in 600 cinemas. He subsequently earned 18 million dollars in one year. 7 Some movies from Autumn 1961 are the following: La Guerra di Troia by Ferroni, Romolo e Remo by Corbucci, Il colosso di Rodi by Leone, Ercole alla conquista di Atlantide by Cottafavi, and Maciste contro il vampiro by Gentiluomo.

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pattern of the historic-mythological movie was similar, even if the level of the companies was different, with a high one at Titanus, medium at Galatea or Panda, or smaller production companies that were born and died after only a single movie. Titanus, even though it aimed for higher levels,8 did not avoid opportunities in the low cost adventure genre, with low budgets and high profits that were safe and profitable both in the national and foreign markets. The Peplum genre had a homogeneous production system of costumes, sceneries, actors, and sets with which to shoot a movie,9 but also had a co-production system with foreign societies, especially French and Spanish, that assured an international market for the low cost, popular movies. In the following years this genre continued to be produced, generating high profits. Then, at the beginning of 1964–65, came the release of Per un pugno di dollari (making 2,441,000,000 lira in less than eighteen months) by Bob Robertson, the American nickname of Sergio Leone. Instead of the invincible and victorious Peplum heroes, Italian producers created a new genre—the Italian Western. The historic-mythological genre, the result of a welfare and finance period, thanks to the influence of other narrative trends was a favourite genre for producers of noble and low language due to its formalization and its easy interchange of means, structures, brains and unskilled workers. It was a cinema project that, even if it often used handmade and improvised means, tried to establish a production standard and serial rationale.

During the first showings the takings were 76,102,000 lira, 46,765,000 lira, 31,836,000 lira, 35,328,000 lira and 31,426,000 lira respectively. Four years later (on September 30, 1965) they were 802,442,000 lira, 710,820,000 lira, 659,823,000 lira, 559,523,000 lira and 527,099,000 lira respectively. 8 With reference to Rocco e i suoi fratelli (1960) and Il Gattopardo (1962), both directed by L. Visconti, and Sodoma e Gomorra (1963) by R. Aldrich and S. Leone. 9 Maybe the natural outdoors for low cost scenes represented the example of this production model that became a must for the Italian cinema. Tor Caldara, f.i., near Rome with its sandy hills, Mediterranean scrub and its river was the set for many Mythological and Spaghetti-Western movies. See S. Della Casa, Una postilla sul cinema mitológico.

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The Lost Opportunity: The Incomplete Serialization of Italian Cinema The failure of Italian producers to renew and fortify historicmythological production through high cost movies showed the characteristic and similar nature of all Italian genre productions. The melodramatic movies by Matarazzo, the pink neo-realism of Pane amore e fantasia, with its sequel, the “Poveri ma belli” trend, (without forgetting Don Camillo) signed during 1950s the most important moments spent attempting to create a real serialization movie policy. However, the production models used for sequels and to create a potential production trend were often too extemporaneous and experimental to start a real system and production serialization policy. In fact, the success of some titles “forced” the companies to produce continuations that seldom got past the third part.10 For this reason, continuations happened for movies that could be used in other potential serial devices such as serialized stories, graphic novels, costume stories and the cinematographic genre traditions. In the long term, the standardization levels could not create discernment and marketing strategies. In the national cinematography of 1950–1960, and especially during the following decades, a lack of homogeneity re-emerged that took place in various involvements and roles that did not demonstrate entrepreneurial planning. Originality allowed Italian cinema to be linked to epochal changes in society and to express social eradication. Cinematography was close to being a business, able to reach a large audience through popular and strong genre production and art films, with two big successes being La dolce vita by Federico Fellini and Rocco e i suoi fratelli by Luchino Visconti. On the other hand, a casualness remained in the production

10

The director Dino Risi, linked to the sequels Pane e amore and Poveri ma belli gives an example of his experience: “The Italian production way is very adventurous. We didn’t think about a sequel but the success of a movie made the producer create a continuation. Usually the scriptwriters were the same. Ettore Margadonna wrote Festa Campanile and Franciosa controlled the sequel Pane e amore, and together they wrote Poveri ma belli. I didn’t want to do the second one, but I accepted even the third. Then I went away, because there was risk of producing the fourth and the fifth. I almost slammed the door. I felt too dependent, convicted of doing simple movies. I needed a change. But it’s ok; what I learnt during those years helped me a lot in producing more serious movies.” From, AA. VV., Modi di produzione del cinema italiano. La Titanus, Di Giacomo, Roma, 1986.

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models through the short-term energies used, leading to genres and trends that came and went without creating traditions and continuations. Inside this tradition, that showed both hyper-maturity and backwardness, the production system lacked synergic resource planning and movie standardization. The single production policy made use of fashions, fluctuating between tradition and modernization, without a reference point that could help them during rises and falls. The cinematographic production conformed to creating instruments according to the new trends, a mimetic way to operate, and for this reason the production directions couldn’t refuse long-term choices able to manage and address the huge and unexpected Italian audience towards the national product. In this context it is easy to see the ability of production companies in creating new trends respected by audiences. Unfortunately, almost all the trends and genres that alternated, after big or small exploits, showed a low stability in a period not bigger than a three to five years.11 Italian cinematography faced a series of events during 1960–1965 that caused a rapid acceleration of all the system elements. The new trends of the Italian cinema applied to the colossal or the art film following the French and American Nouvelle Vague [New Wave] and the low-cost opera films of young Italian directors. The art colossal policy, that took place with the production of some movies such as La grande Guerra or Barabba produced by De Laurentiis and Il Gattopardo or Sodoma e Gomorra by Titanus, could, thanks to its exceptional nature, be an evocative model, but it wasn’t able to avoid a fast deterioration because it ignored the high-cost dangers of these movies, important in an industry with an artisanal structure. The low-cost art film, subordinate to the art colossal, deserved positive attention in its intent to create communication without using devices such as stars and big sceneries, and was, with the passing of time, financially unsustainable in the industry. To create a link between audience and product it was important to observe the tradition of narrative genres and the serialization system of the production work. These authors, on the other hand, were in a contest that lacked an exchange process between medium cinema—historically and inevitably linked to narrative genres— and art cinema, and had experience of serial professionalism. The fact is that the young Italian directors had not experienced and internalized the serial culture and were unable to display their “artistic necessities” for the cinematographic audience identities. 11

G. Frezza, Le disomogeneità strutturali del cinema italiano; G. Frezza Cinematografo e Cinema. Dinamiche di un processo culturale, Cosmopoli, Bologna, 1996.

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In short, this was a different situation from that of the new American directors that had started renewing their cinema at the end of the 1950s. In fact, they used the narrative codes of the classic genres that for them were the most congenial starting point for stylistic innovation. On the one hand, the medium cinema for the new American directors, some of whom had serial TV experience thanks to the production and creation of telefilms, represented a kind of training and the fiducial point of cinematographic grammar, from which and against which their work developed. On the other, the medium cinema gained importance thanks to the assimilation and revision of art cinema images and ideas, realized over a lengthy period. In Italy, the period of the 1950s that produced the sequels Pane e amore e … and Poveri ma belli had been too short and could only partially be considered serial cinema. It had not been possible to look for a production standard able to support and satisfy the needs of a medium production that created a narrative genre tradition. During the following years, a new production engagement in genre movies by some producers saved Italian cinema from drifting, but not completely. Some examples, such as the Spaghetti-Western, Italian horror, political-crime, and especially Italian comedy became, from the 1960s, the main genres reopening the possibility towards completing the serialization of Italian cinema.

Conclusions Almost 40 years ago Goffredo Lombardo, together with other producers such as Dino De Laurentiis, Carlo Ponti, Franco Cristaldi and Alfredo Bini, tried to open, in an entrepreneurial way, a particular period for the cinema, a “New Italian Wave” that had no real name and could only resemble the French nouvelle vague. On the one hand there were producers that wanted to stop the American threat, the new competition from TV, and to renew their team and invest resources in order to gain money or fame. On the other hand there were authors and directors. This was a great deal at risk because of the different connotations and aims, resulting in conflict. This bond wasn’t broken by the few real directors but by all the cinematographers who agreed with an “author’s philosophy” that was predominant and the only one able to justify in a cultural way all the movies in Italy, the only country in the world where a movie has to be “art” to be considered. This idea is due to irresponsibility towards the “audience” and the market on behalf of a misinterpretation of an author’s art devotion that very often turned into an author’s loyalty towards himself, his anonymous autobiographical tendencies, and inability to

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measure himself against the rules of the social and technical process linked to the production and the cultural industry. Therefore, the logic that controls the author’s idea has broken and disappointed audience’s expectations, forcing them to choose between American and Italian cinema; that is, between a cinema that kept its promises and a cinema that wanted an audience without listening to them. Furthermore, if the audience did not pay to watch the movie, the state would have sponsored the young author. Saying this, we do not want to discuss the attempt to find new ways but rather the results—that which makes people complain about American nosiness and about TV’s higher power but that doesn’t point out the speck in their brothers’ eye when there is a beam in theirs. There has been real static and nonsense over the author and their rights protection, and it follows a need to favour the product, and to try all possible ways to regain the audience’s attention. For this reason, a first step could be one of rebuilding a balanced relationship among the four main figures of the production process: the producer, the director, the scriptwriter and the actor. The second step should be one of improving and motivating the Italian cinema in counting everyday life stories that focus all the contemporary characters with a simple style and language that is both valid and fascinating. In this case, nothing is better than returning to a genre production with a proper authorial style. Italian cinematography has a production tradition to refer to. I do not mean only the big Italian comedies that have been nationally internalized, aspects of which are present in each movie because they are known and expected by the audience, but also the melodramatic and adventure genres, the political cinema, the horrors and thrillers, and other important production experiences directed by various actors like Bernardo Bertolucci, Gianni Amelio, Nanni Moretti, Gabriele Muccino, Daniele Lucchetti, Paolo Virzi and Vanzina. They use a genre that describes Italy, staging all the possible everyday life stories through different narrative patterns, readjusting and changing them.

References AA.VV. (1985). Le botteghe dell’immaginario. Roma: Anica. —. (1986). Modi di produzione del cinema italiano. La Titanus, Di Giacomo, Roma. Abruzzese, A. (1979). (a cura di), La città del cinema, Roma: Napoleone Editore.

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Abruzzese, A. & G Fabre. L’industria culturale tra cinema e televisione, in Abruzzese A. (a cura di), Ibidem. Aprà, A. & C Carabba. (1976). Neorealismo d’appendice. Per un dibattito sul cinema popolare: il caso Matarazzo. Rimini Firenze : Guaraldi Editore,. Argentieri, M. (1988). La Titanus e il mercato. In Zagarrio V. (a cura di). Della Casa S. (a cura di), (1980) La Romana Film, Torino: Torino Movie Club. —. (1986). Una postilla sul cinema mitologico. In Magrelli E. (acura di). —. (1988). Sui generi: i pepla della Titanus. In Zagarrio V. (acura di). Di Gianmatteo, F. (1994). Lo sguardo inquieto. Cinema italiano 1940– 1990. Firenze: La Nuova Italia. Fofi, G. (1967). Maciste sugli schermi, in Catalogo Bolaffi del cinema italiano 1945–1965, Torino. —. (1971). Il cinema italiano: servi e padroni. Milano: Feltrinelli, Milano. —. (1992). I limiti della scena. Milano: Linea d’ombra, Milano. Fofi, G. & F Faldini. (a cura di). (1979). L’avventurosa storia del cinema italiano: I.a 1935–1959; II.b 1960–1979. Milano: Feltrinelli, Milano. Forgacs, D. (1992). L’industrializzazione della cultura italiana 1880– 1992. Bologna: il Mulino. Freda, R. (1981). Divoratori di celluloide. Milano: Il Formichiere. Freddi, L. (1949). Il cinema. Roma: L’Arnia. Frezza, G. (1988). Tra film e fumetto. Disegni e nevrosi in un microcosm della commedia. In Zagarrio V. (a cura di). —. (1996). Cinematografo e cinema. Dinamiche di un processo culturale, Bologna: Cosmopoli. Galli della Loggia E. (1972). “Il capitalismo italiano: interpretazioni schematiche e analisi strorica.” In Quaderni storici, gennaio-aprile. Guback, T. H. (1969). The International Film Industry: Western Europe and American Since 1945. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press. Livolsi, M. (a cura di) (1988). Gli italiani e il cinema nel dopoguerra, Firenze: La Nuova Italia. Lombardo Goffredo. (1960). Dovevo farlo. In Aristarco G. & Carancini G. (acura di). Magrelli, E. (a cura di). (1979). Hollywood Party. Roma: Bulzoni Editore. —. (a cura di). (1986). Sull’industria cinematografica italiana. Venezia: Marsilio. Quaglietti, L. (1980). Storia economico-politica del cinema italiano, Roma: Editori Riuniti.

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Redi, R. (a cura di). (1985). Cinecittà 1: industria e mercato nel cinema italiano tra le due guerre. Venezia: Marsilio. Rondolino, G. (1980). Torino come Hollywood (capitale del cinema italiano, 1896–1916). Bologna: Cappelli Editore. Rossellini, R. (1987). Il mio metodo. Scritti e interviste (a cura di A. Aprà). Venezia: Marsilio. Salotti, M. (1986). 1957–1964: l’industria cinematografica italiana gonfiai muscoli. In Magrelli, E. (a cura di). Sanguinetti, T. & A Farassino. (a cura di). (1983). Gli uomini forti. Milano: Mazzotta. —. (1994). Lux Film. Esthétique et system d’un studio italien. Locarno: Editions du Festival. Savio, F. (1975). Ma l’amore no. Milano: Sonzogno, Milano. SIAE. Lo spettacolo in Italia. Annuario Statistico, Anni 1950–1965, Roma. Spinazzola, V. (a cura di). Film 1961, Film 1962, Film 1963, Film 1964. Milano: Feltrinelli, 1961–1964. —. (1974). Cinema e pubblico. Lo spettacolo filmico in Italia 1945–1965. Milano: Bompiani. Titanus (a cura della). (1975). Settant’anni di cinema, Roma. Williams, R. (1991). Sociologia della cultura. Bologna: il Mulino. Zagarrio, V. (a cura di). (1988). Dietro lo schermo. Venezia: Marsilio. —. (a cura di). (1990). B Dreams. Roma: CNC Edizioni. —. (1996). Non solo Hollywood. Foggia: Bastogi. Zagarrio, V. & C Salizzato. (1991). La corona di ferro: un modo di produzione italiano. Roma: CNC Edizioni.

CHAPTER SIX HINAMATSURI AND THE JAPANESE FEMALE: A CRITICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE JAPANESE DOLL FESTIVAL SALVADOR JIMENEZ MURGUIA MIYAZAKI INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE (JAPAN)

Abstract The tradition of Hinamatsuri or the Japanese Doll Festival originated during the Heian Period as a folkloric practice of scapegoating. Originally, young girls would craft dolls known as hina-QLQJ\ǀ out of paper that were said to embody personal impurities, and would cast them into rivers, metaphorically cleansing their souls. Conversely, the festival is now oriented toward conspicuous consumption. Building upon the critical approaches to material culture of Roland Barthes (1957), this article explores how Hinamatsuri has reflected the socio-political ideals of modern Japan. I argue that these dolls are encoded with ideological expectations of Japanese womanhood and interface with patriarchal notions of discipline, obedience and control.

Introduction On March 3 each year the Japanese celebration of “Girls Day” takes place, incorporating the tradition of Hinamatsuri or Doll Festival. Ranging from ornately detailed and decorated dolls known as hina-ning\ǀ1 to kitschy Hello Kitty figures gowned in Heian period dress, these dolls are the material foci of a celebration said to honour girlhood. Though a seemingly innocent occasion, fostering harmless community and 1

Hina is a contraction of “hi” meaning small and “na” meaning lovely, while QLQJ\ǀ simply means doll.

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commerce, both the celebratory event and the material culture involved in the celebration can invoke a much more political significance. The tradition of Hinamatsuri originated during the Heian Period as a folkloric practice associated with purification, celebration of seasonal transition and scapegoating (Sofue 1965; Yen 1975; Li-Chen 1999). Historians agree that this practice is most likely derived from a similar practice originating in China, yet the exact lineage linked to the incorporation of dolls remains obscure (Li-Chen 1999; Yen 1975; Morris 1994). A popular understanding of this practice in its original form, however, depicts young girls crafting dolls out of paper that were said to somehow embody personal impurities. To complete this ritual, these dolls were then later cast into rivers and streams, metaphorically cleansing their souls through the proxy of the discarded dolls.2 As Darby explains: The special respect accorded dolls in Japan is rooted in popular religious beliefs and practices. Since ancient times, it has been believed that sins or illness could be exorcised by transferring them from a living person to a substitute, often a figure made in human likeness. Once possessed by the evil spirit the figure was discarded, usually in a river, so it would be carried downstream and eventually out to sea. (Darby 1984, 24)

Today, the festival is now oriented toward the preservation, display, adoration and trade of these dolls. Rather than emphasizing the cultural, social or use values that these dolls were once assigned, emphasis is now placed upon the aesthetic qualities associated with their exchange value. Indeed, these dolls are hardly the same durable items used in play; rather, they now exist as objects of conspicuous consumption. Despite a rich history of Japanese toy production in flux with a booming global economy of children’s consumer culture (Cross & Smits 2005), dolls in Japan are not always considered to be items of play; instead, many Japanese dolls commonly embody a much more serious significance.3 Of the hina-QLQJ\ǀ, anthropologist Fredrick Starr noted:

2

Hina-nagashi, or the practice of discarding dolls into bodies of water still takes place in various parts of Japan. Kyoto, a cultural capital of Japanese historical traditions, holds the hina-nagashi ceremony at the Kamo shrine. 3 For example, some dolls in Japan have served as posthumous substitutes for spouses that have died prematurely. See Schattsschneider (2001). In fact, in the Japanese folkloric practice of shiryô kekkon, or “deceased-soul marriage,” families will purchase a hanayome- ningyô, or bride-doll for the deceased in order to appease and assist the deceased in his or her journey toward rebirth and salvation.

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Chapter Six Suffice it to say that anyone that thinks of the doll’s festival as a play, or a display, for the amusement of little girls, is wide of the mark. It is a serious ceremonial, the significance of which deserves recognition. (Cited in Pate 2008, 52)

Regardless of their cultural significance and the protocols for which children engage them, the Japanese dolls are not apolitical objects. Quite the contrary; the dolls can be interpreted as mechanisms of hegemony that promulgate passive consumption.4 Building on the critical approaches to material culture of Barthes (1957), this article explores how Hinamatsuri has reflected the sociopolitical ideals of modern Japan. I argue that these dolls are encoded with ideological expectations of Japanese womanhood and have interfaced with patriarchal notions of discipline, obedience and control. In this way, the central point of inquiry for this article is what to make of fostering a practice where transferring an exclusively female form of impurity becomes a cultural celebration.

The Historical Background of Hinamatsuri and Hina-QLQJ\ǀ The origins of Hinamatsuri are unclear. Most historians, however, would agree that traces of the event are derived from Chinese literati practices associated with the Shang-ssu festival, or Spring Purification celebration that began in the early Zhou Dynasty between 1122–256 BCE (Yen 1975, 52–53). As in many purification customs throughout the world, the proximity to water, ablutions in the use of it, and immersion into it are central features in the purification process. The transference of impurities to objects, such as the early hina-QLQJ\ǀ dolls of Japan, however, may be a result of blending Chinese and Japanese rituals. Indeed, one of the Shang-ssu Festival’s most well-known rituals was the floating of cups of wine downriver to recipients that were, in turn, required to compose poems upon the arrival of the wine (Li-Chen 1999; Yen 1975; Morris 1994). Rudimentary comparisons can be drawn between this Chinese ritual and the Japanese incorporation of a river as a discarding channel. Whether or not an actual connection exists, the following description would suggest some similarities: [With a] doll received from an on’yoji one would stroke his (or her) body and thus, it is believed, the bodily uncleanness or evil attachment might 4

For a discussion of such an interpretation see Formanek-Brunell (1993).

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pass onto the doll; then one would return the “defilement loading” doll to the on’yoji, who, after performing an exorcism, let it flow into the river. (Yen 1975, 53)

As a ritual, the use of these dolls that are said to assume such impurities appears to have made its way to Japan sometime during the late Heian period (794–1185).5 During this period, the artistic and literary expression of the Imperial Court was reflected in the practice of gowning the dolls in high quality materials, effectively stemming the ritual of destroying, sacrificing or dispensing of the dolls down river (Nishizawa 1975; Yen 1975). The celebration gained prominence through its incorporation into educational literature, as well the formation and rise of a merchant class that popularized the trade of these dolls (Yen 1975). During the Muromachi period of 1336 to 1573, the practice of crating Inj-fu dolls emerged, representing husband and wife and emphasizing the union of marriage (Nishizawa 1975; Yen 1975). These Inj-fu dolls were presented as gifts during -ǀ-shi day, the third day of the third month in correspondence with the Shang-ssu festival of China. This event gradually became Girl’s Day, adopting the name Hinamatsuri (Nishizawa 1975; Yen 1975; Saito 1975; Ikeda 2008). During the Edo period between 1603 and 1868, the Imperial Court had its strongest influence on the appearance of these dolls, transforming the tradition of Hinamatsuri into a display representative of the Emperor’s throne (Yen 1975). In fact, the Dairibina, or Emperor (Odairi-sama) and Empress (Ohina-sama) dolls were created during this period, establishing one of the most significant political components of these displays (Yen 1975, 54). Indeed, the actual use of hina-dan, a seven-tier altar for the display of these dolls, was introduced during this period. This hina-dan provided a visual hierarchical structure for audiences, particularly girls, to view. In descending order, from those to be revered to those in service of the revered, the Odairi-sama and Ohina-sama were positioned on the top tier. The second tier displayed the San-nin Kanjo, or three female court servants bearing rice wine. The Go-nin Bayashi, or five male musicians, were positioned on the third tier followed by two ministers, or Daijin, on the fourth tier. The fifth tier displayed three samurai indulging in drink, while the sixth and seventh tiers held a variety of accessories including miniature furniture, clothing, food and carriages. 5

This date may be confirmed due to a similar practice written in the Genji Monogatari, or The Tale of Genji, where transferring impurities to doll-like figures and casting them downriver was mentioned. See Nishizawa (1975) and Saito (1975).

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The increasing popularity of the festival and the aesthetic production of the dolls and their accessories gradually spread throughout Japan. By the late eighteenth century, the hina-QLQJ\ǀ themselves were developing beyond the size and aesthetic parameters of their original form. According to Pate “an explosion of the size and sophistication” of these dolls led to a competition of consumption among “members of the military and imperial elite, fed by keen marketing instincts on the side of wholesalers and dollmakers” (2008, 52). This “explosion,” however, was soon restricted by sumptuary laws. The imposition of these sumptuary laws served to complement the existing class structure (Hearn 1904; Benedict 2005; Noma 1986). As Ruth Benedict noted in reference to these laws, Americans were “horrified by Tokugawa laws which stated that a farmer of one class could buy such and such a doll for his child and the farmer of another class could buy a different doll” (2005, 149). Despite foreigners’ perceptions, these sumptuary laws were so common that they went unquestioned, allowing for the doll-makers to exploit various markets. Material changes in the crafting of the dolls even gave way to new and innovative methods for the preservation of aesthetics (Sato & Okubayashi 2010). Where elegant forms of hina-QLQJ\ǀ were confined to the elite classes, farmers and the impoverished crafted homemade dolls out of such modest materials as “paper, clay and wild flowers” (Pate 2008, 54). In this way, hina-QLQJ\ǀ transitioned from a commodity emphasizing a use-value, to a commodity that was almost exclusively based upon an exchange value. As Sofue noted: With the advent of better dolls sold in city stores, the dolls came to be kept as ornaments and were placed on display … this doll festival has become much more elaborate among wealthy people in urban areas who have been influenced by the commercialization of department stores, etc. (1965, 154)

Today, hina-QLQJ\ǀ are considered expensive items. Although there certainly is a variation in the price of dolls between different brands, two of the more famous brands, Yoshitoku and Kyugetsu, list their dolls anywhere between ¥ 98,000 yen and ¥1,050,000 yen.6

6 For this price range, the current conversion from Japanese yen to the US dollar is $1,270.00 to $13,600.00.

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Gender Inequality in Japan Studies of Japanese females, from childhood to adulthood, have often noted the disparate experiences between males and females, particularly the experience of females as life-long nurturers, caregivers and bearers of incredible responsibilities (Vogel 1978; Condon 1993). It has been substantially argued that the modern roots of this inequality are associated with the Meiji Restoration that began in 1868 (Sievers 1983; Aoki 1997; Liddle & Nakajima 2000). At the heart of this transition between the Tokugawa and Meiji periods was the explicit process of reformation intended, at least in part, to adapt to Western ways of life without compromising the image of Japan and its history. This transition, however, brought major changes to both the national political structure and civil society. Perhaps the two most vital changes engendered by this transition were the nationalistic reformations of sovereignty, or Kokutai, and the establishment of the centralized powers embodied by the Emperor. These changes cultivated an institution of re-educating the citizens in an attempt to orient them toward, among other things, sacrifice for their nation through emergent nationalism and impending foreign conflicts. In addition, these changes led to the development of a “family-state” through the illusory political engineering of a society unified by interrelated peoples, all somehow linked to a common ancestry (Irokawa 1985, 280– 286). Indeed, educational propaganda in support of this transition reinforced the notion that women were to sustain subservient roles as supporters of their husbands and children. In 1910, for example, compulsory textbooks distributed to elementary students included stories with titles like “A Sailor’s Mother,” “A Soldier off to the Front,” “Japanese Women” and “Duties of a Housewife”—all short stories that propagated gendered role expectations of females as passive comforters of their sons and husbands (Irokawa 1985, 304–307). The circulation of literature was only a part of the re-education process. A second educational institution that grew out of these reforms was the informal practice Okeiko, or structured lessons about the “feminine arts” such as mastering a musical instrument, conducting a tea ceremony and the art of flower arrangement (Vogel 1978, 19). Okeiko became an apprenticeship-based form of schooling where girls were taught how to be women and thus, following this logic, suitable mates for marriage. Beyond the enterprise of reforming the image and cultural practices of women, the Meiji Restoration also encroached upon their rights as citizens. In addition to the denial of suffrage through the “Law of

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Election,” and the “Peace Police Law” prohibiting female participation in any political party, the “Meiji Civil Code” gave an enormous amount of power to males as heads of the household in all matters dealing with family and property (Sievers 1983). The Meiji Civil Code as a central feature within the underpinnings of female oppression made a rather sweeping edict that would change the face of the female status.7 In Aoki’s (1993) discussion of the Meiji Civil Code’s cultural impact on vertical bloodlines, hierarchies and even inheritance, she notes that the implications reverberated all the way down to the life or death of preconceived females: “In an environment that required the birth of a male heir for continuation of a household, young girls were discriminated against from the moment of their birth” (1993, 22). This system of positioning the male at the centre of the household would suggest a general marginalization of the female to the periphery. Hinmatsuri was also incorporated into this new re-education scheme. In conjunction with cultivating strong families, stressing an appreciation for monogamy, and teaching the youth about filial piety, national declarations were made depicting Hinamastsuri as an educational event (Saito 1975, 44). Though the obvious implication of this would be to establish an event in the honour of girlhood, another implication may have been the use of this visual model of the social and familial hierarchy instituted in the new Meiji society.

Meaning, Material and Monetary Value The work of twentieth century French cultural theorist Roland Barthes is particularly useful for interpreting Hina-matsuri and the hina-QLQJ\ǀ. Known largely for his application of structural analysis to popular culture, Barthes viewed all cultural phenomena as signs embedded within a larger system of relational structures; namely structures of language. This analysis, then, was the basis for his interpretation of semiology: Semiology aims to take in any situation of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment; these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification. (Barthes 1964, 77)

7

Through this Meiji Civil Code women were accorded the same legal status as minors and the mentally ill. See Aoki (1997).

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Thus, non-linguistic sign systems ranging anywhere from fashion and architecture, to food and automobiles could be interpreted through structural analysis. In his 1957 treatise on material culture titled Mythologies, Barthes attempts to demythologize modern myths—or what he views as ideology—by exposing the underlying messages associated with certain dominant values, namely those of the bourgeois class. That is, on the surface, any item has a literal (denotative) meaning, yet the socially constructed (connotative) meaning is that which is less apparent, and thus what Barthes sets out reveal. For example, toys are largely seen as play things intended to occupy children’s imagination; however, this would merely be a descriptive meaning apparent to most audiences. Yet toys, through at least one other social function, serve to convey certain prescriptions within a society. In the following instance, the connotative significance of socially constructed gender roles is subtly embodied with the material culture itself: There exist, for instance, dolls which urinate; they have an esophagus, one gives them a bottle, they wet their nappies; soon, no doubt, milk will turn to water in their stomachs. This is meant to prepare the little girl for the causality of house-keeping, to “condition” her to her future role as mother. (Barthes 1957, 53)

These items and their less apparent meanings complicate the world of material culture to the extent that all items are actually part of an intricate structure of signs and thus systems of significance. In accordance with the nomenclature of structural analysis, Barthes interprets these signs as having multiple meanings, foremost the fundamental relationship between a “signifier” (an object, image, sound, etc.) and the “signified” (its message, concept, meaning, etc.). In other words, all signs are constructed through a relationship between their signifier and signified parts. These relationships are solidified through an exchange within a larger structure of difference where cultural codes adhere to various combinations. Material items of play generally serve as mechanisms of entertainment (Allison 2006), socialization and education, and function as miniature variations of the larger social world dominated by adults (Barthes 1957; Ball 1967). For the hina-QLQJ\ǀ, the doll may be seen as a sign composed of its signifier (the actual material object of an anthropomorphized being), and its signified (the conceptual idea of dolls as socio-cultural representations of real life used for celebratory purposes). This relationship, however, only reveals a doll’s denotative meaning, or a

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particularly obvious meaning in relation to the intentions of both the person that creates the dolls, as well as the people that consume it. For Barthes, however, it is the connotative meaning that engenders a much more complex significance. As all cultural phenomena are susceptible to the influence of a dominant class, the analytical model of sign, signifier and signified is open to further meanings that permeate beyond the denotative. These new signs occur when the original sign becomes yet another signifier altogether. Barthes refers to these secondary meanings in combination with each other as “sign-functions”—effectively combining the denotative and the connotative (1964, 106–107). For the hina-QLQJ\ǀ, new signifiers, embedded in the original sign, could be an object representing the docility of Japanese womanhood, reverence for the system of Kokutai, commodity fetishism, and so on and so forth. This sign-function would then be the doll as a cultural item of the Girl’s Day celebration, combined with any one of these connotative meanings. Analysis such as this requires that one take note of what is being viewed and the meanings that they can derive from what they see. Objects in general may be viewed irrespective of their denotative meaning, yet without explicitly stating that they have been viewed as such. In one Western view from an art critic describing a traveling hina-QLQJ\ǀ display in London, the message of representation and the conventions of gendered role expectations are quite evident: Those objects are miniature reproductions, often to scale and accurate in every essential of form and of material … peaceful occupations for the Girls’ Festival, and in matters connected with fighting, for the Boys’. (Anonymous 1933, 91–92)

Dolls are rich producers of gender (Hagaman 1990; Wagner-Ott 2002) and should be accorded the critical analysis that reveals their gendered meaning. In this way, one connotative signifier of Hinamastsuri may be an ideology imbued with gender-specific expectations. Through the annual reminder of celebration, such expectations are visually outlined so that girls know their place in Japanese society. Unlike dolls intended for play, the notion of dolls for adoration implies, in one sense, a rather stoic protocol for both the doll and the doll admirer. Also, unlike dolls of play, the material used for its delicate presentation is not to be embraced, dropped, shaken, fed, or subjected to any error at all, but rather to be gazed upon. The doll, motionless, stoic-faced, fragile and confined in many instances to a protective reliquarium, generates an impression of

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something that is intended to be seen, though not heard. It is present—at least once a year—yet, by virtue of size, is inconspicuous when it does surface and is entirely absent for the remainder of that year. It is thus present when needed and absent when not. It becomes a conversation piece that is symbolic of a period in Japanese cultural history that has provided a foundation for both present and future understandings of ancestral womanhood. If it were anything less, it would not have had the same type of cultural capital that it possesses today, unless of course for the exchange value that it embodies. One way of reinforcing such an interpretation is to draw-out other meaningful signs associated with an event or object that are consistent with these connotative notions. Revisiting some the original practices associated with Hinamatsuri is at least one of these departures. The common denominators of purification and commencement found among the Shang-ssu festival of China and the early Hinamatsuri celebration generated a number of similarities. The peach tree as a symbolic icon, for example, had a rather vital significance in the Chinese celebration as its “branches, fruits and blossoms” reportedly “repelled pestilence and evil spirits” (Yen 1975, 54). In the Hinamatsuri celebration, momo no sake or peach wine is served, extending this Chinese tradition. However, peach products in the Japanese celebration take on yet another meaning, particularly that of fertility through happy marriages (Saito 1975; Ikeda 2008). Due to the visual component of their numerous blossoms, peach trees are said to have a reproductive quality, contributing to a folkloric notion whereby the conception of a large number of children may increase the level of happiness within a marriage. Though merely folklore, such significance of the peach tree is cast in association with the female body and her reproductive functions. In addition to beverages, some foods displayed and served during the Hinamastsuri celebration also reveal symbolic associations to this notion of female happiness through her reproductive qualities. One of these food items is hishi-mochi, or water caltrop cake. This cake is often presented as a stack of three rhomboid-shaped layers arranged, in descending order from top to bottom, of pink, white and green. Two of these three layers— the top pink and the middle white—are particularly germane to female faculties related to fertility and purity (Nishizawa 2007). The pink layer is representative of, once again, the peach tree and all its purifying and fertile properties, while the white layer is said to represent purity and cleanliness. Even the vestiges of superstition lingering from the Heian period somehow suggest that the female will encounter misfortune if the protocol surrounding these dolls is not followed. Indeed, as one superstition goes, if

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the altars are not removed by March 4 the female is said to marry late (Mizue 1999). These connotations are not intended to be revealing of truth, but rather ideology. It is important to note that it is the ideological notion of female oppression being viewed here, for which such signifiers are illuminators.

Conclusion The Hinamatsuri celebration and the hina-QLQJ\ǀ are rich in cultural capital. If they are, indeed, meant to honour girlhood then that can certainly be viewed in a positive light. Yet their original meanings appear to have a much more complex significance. For example, to begin with the premise that females, not males, in the historical account somehow possess particular impurities that must be accommodated through ritual, is a subtle argument invested with a great deal of inequality, if not sexism. To ignore the possibility that the origins of such rituals may have been repressive is to view them uncritically. In this chapter, I attempted to reveal these items through a basic structural analysis, yielding a much more critical assessment of Hinamatsuri and hina-QLQJ\ǀ Although such signifiers discussed in my analysis may be arbitrary or at best subjective, they nonetheless contribute to social and aesthetic conventions that reaffirm roles and expectations of Japanese womanhood. A critical exploration of the development between male and female relations, particularly during the Meiji Restoration, reveals some evidence of a concerted effort to sustain such roles and expectations, and thereby engender inequality. I certainly do not mean to argue that Hinamatsuri or hina-QLQJ\ǀ are equivalent to Japanese patriarchy, but rather suggest that they may serve to reaffirm it by providing a model for it. The preservation, display and adoration of these dolls shape ideological notions of womanhood. Though, on the surface, appearing as items of aesthetics, hina-QLQJ\ǀ complement female roles in Japanese society. Like disciplined Japanese females, these dolls exist still and sombre within a hierarchical altar, surrounded by others like them and accessories that inform ideological expectations of them. Finally, like the controlled victims of Japanese patriarchy, the dolls are docile and inanimate, unable to look back at an onlooker, disagree with their display, or opt out of participation.

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References Allison, A. (2006). Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Anonymous. (1933). “A Display of Japanese Ceremonial Festival Dolls.” Folklore 44: 91–92. Aoki, Y. (1997). “Feminism and Imperialism.” In S. Buckley (ed.), Broken Silence: Voices of Japanese Feminism, 17–31. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ball, D. W. (1967). “Toward a Sociology of Toys: Inanimate Objects, Socialization, and the Demography of the Doll World.” The Sociological Quarterly 8: 447–458. Barthes, R. (1957). Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. New York: Hill and Wang. —. (1964). Elements of Semiology. (A. Lavers and C. Smith, Trans.). London: Jonathan Cape. —. (1970). Empire of Signs. (R. Howard, Trans.) NY: Hill and Wang. —. (2005). The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co (Original work published in 1954). Buckley, S. (ed.). (1997). Broken Silence: Voices of Japanese Feminism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chin, E. (1999). “Ethnically Correct Dolls: Toying with the Race Industry.” American Anthropologist 101: 305–321. Condon, J. (1993). A Half Step Behind: Japanese Women Today. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company. Cross, G. & G Smits. (2005). “Japan, the U.S. and the Globalization of Children’s Consumer Culture.” Journal of Social History 38: 873–890. Dalby, L. (ed.). (1984). All Japan: The Catalogue of Everything Japanese. New York: Quill. Formanek-Brunell, M. (1993). Made to Play House: Dolls and the Commercialization of American Girlhood, 1830–1930. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hagaman, S. (1990). “Feminist Inquiry in Art History, Art Criticism, and Aesthetics: An Overview for Art Education.” Studies in Art Education 32: 27–35. Hara, S. (1980). Hinaningyo to Hinamatsuri. [Hina dolls and the Doll Festival]. Tokyo: Yomiuri Shinbunsha. Hearn, L. (1904). Japan, An Attempt at an Interpretation. New York: The Macmillan Company.

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Irokawa, D. (1985). Meiji no Bunka. [The Culture of the Meiji Period]. (M. B. Jansen, Trans.). New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Kodera, K. (1996). “Gender and Space in Japanese Society: An Illusion of ‘Motherhood’.” Revue Internationale de Sociologie/International Review of Sociology 6: 456–477. Kurogi, M. (2006). Toraya no Ohimasama [Hina Dolls of Toraya]. Tokyo: Toraya. Kyburz, J. (1994). “Omocha: Things to Play (or not to Play) With.” Asian Folklore Studies 53: 1–28. Li-chen, J. (1999). Annual Customs and Festivals in Peking: With Manu Customs. (D. Bodde, Trans.). Hong Kong: SMC Publishing Inc. (Original work published 1936). Liddle, J. & S Nakajima. (2000). Rising Suns, Rising Daughters: Gender, Class and Power in Japan. London: Zed Books. Morris, I. ([1964] 1994). The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan. New York, NY: Kodansha America, Inc. Nishizawa, T. (1975). Japanese Dolls and Toys. Tokyo: Iwasaki Art Press. Noma, T. (ed.). (1986). The Nihon: Visual Human Life. Tokyo: Kodansha Co. Pate, A. S. & L Gardiner. (2004). 1LQJ\ǀ7KH$UWRIWKH-DSDQHVH'ROO Boston, MA: Tuttle Publishing. Pate, A. S. (2008). -DSDQHVH 'ROOV 7KH )DVFLQDWLQJ :RUOG RI 1LQJ\ǀ Boston, MA: Tuttle Publishing. Saito, R. (1975). Hinaningyo [Hinadolls]. Tokyo: Hosei University. Sasaki, M. (1999). View of Today’s Japan. Tokyo: Arc. Sato, M. & S Okubayashi. (2010). “Consolidation Treatment of Japanese Ceremonial doll’s Hair at Edo Period with Polyethylene Glycol.” Journal of Textile Engineering 56: 65–70. Schattschneider, E. (2001). “‘Buy me a Bride:’ Death and Exchange in Northern Japanese Bride-Doll Marriage.” American Ethnologist 28: 854–880. Sievers, S. L. (1983). Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Smith, R. J. (1983). “Making Village Women into ‘Good Wives and Wise Mothers’ in Prewar Japan.” Journal of Family History 8: 70–84. Sofue, T. (1965). “Childhood Ceremonies in Japan: Regional and Local Celebrations.” Ethnology 4: 148–164. Vogel, S. H. (1978). “Professional Housewife: the Career of Urban Middle Class Japanese Women.” The Japan Interpreter 12: 16–43.

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Wagner-Ott, A. (2002). “Analysis of Gender Identity Through Doll and Action figure Politics in Art Education.” Studies in Art Education 43: 246–263. Yen, A. (1975). “Shang-ssu’ Festival and its Myths in China and Japan.” Asian Folklore Studies 34: 45–85.

CHAPTER SEVEN JAPANESE ANIMATION AS A GLOBAL PRODUCT: THE LINGERING TRACES OF NIJONJINRON AND THE RISE OF GLOBALISM AND HYBRIDITY DR. OTTO F. VON FEIGENBLATT NORTHWOOD UNIVERSITY (WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA)

Abstract The present study explores cultural representations in three prominent examples of contemporary Japanese animation, Naruto Shippuden, Bleach and Onigamiden. Lingering traces of Japanese exceptionalism (Nihonjinron) are still present in contemporary Japanese animation, such as in the animated movie Onigamiden. On the other hand, two of the most popular animated series, Naruto Shippuden and Bleach, fit a cultural model characterized by hybridity and globalism. Japanese animation has historically reflected the cleavages and conflicts of Japanese society and thus serves as an extension of the public sphere. Japan’s aging population, its increasing heterogeneity and the country’s economic woes, have led to a period of transition in terms of national identity and how that identity is expressed to insiders and outsiders. Keywords: Anime, Public Sphere, Culture, National Identity, Nihonjinron

Introduction Japanese animation is one of the country’s few exports that has not been affected by the Global economic recession of the late 2000s (Iwabuchi 2008; Kelts 2006). In fact, anime’s importance both

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economically and culturally is recognized by the government and has become part of a new campaign to promote Japan’s image as a producer of a large “gross national cool” (Drazen 2006; Yang 2010). Nevertheless, this is only the tip of the iceberg since anime’s role as an extension of the public sphere makes it much more than just an export commodity (von Feigenblatt 2010c). Moreover, anime can provide a glimpse of the cultural trends currently vying for primacy in terms of defining Japan’s identity as a country as well as its relationship to the outside world (Chizuko 2010; Napier 2001; Reider 2003; Yang 2010). This study explores how three representative examples of contemporary Japanese anime—Naruto Shippuden, Bleach, and Onigamiden—exemplify two important cultural currents, namely hybridity/globalism and Nihonjinron (exceptionalism). At the core of each example of contemporary Japanese animation is an attempt at defining what it means to be Japanese and what kind of relationship Japan should have with the outside world. This debate is particularly important today due to the challenges and opportunities faced by contemporary Japanese society such as increased immigration, an aging population, a prolonged economic recession, deregulation of the market, unemployment and a very low birth rate inter alia (Ashizawa 2008; Chambers 2007; von Feigenblatt 2007; Lind 2009; Morton & Olenik 2005; Ryang 2010; Sakamoto 2008; Togo 2005). The following sections provide a brief overview of the challenges and opportunities faced by contemporary Japanese society, introduce the theoretical framework explaining the two dominant cultural currents affecting Japanese identity formation, and describe and interpret the three representative examples of Japanese animation. A final section provides some conclusions regarding future developments in the industry and for Japanese society as a whole.

Contemporary Japan Contemporary Japan lacks the confidence of the Japan of the 1980s when it seemed like double digit growth and development would continue indefinitely (Sakamoto 2008; Smith 1997; Togo 2005). Highly developed economies tend to show lower growth rates than newly industrializing countries and therefore contemporary Japan’s painful introspection and self-doubt cannot be solely explained by changes in economic indicators. Other factors include the perceived failure of the Japan Inc. model based on lifetime employment, the seniority system, a strong bureaucracy, as well as an aging population and increasing inequality (Sakamoto 2008).

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Japan’s economy started to decline in the 1990s, saw a brief upturn in the early 2000s, before plunging into a new recession later that decade (Sakamoto 2008). The importance of the previously mentioned economic downturns is not so much the effect they had in terms of industrial output and gross national product but rather the way in which they were interpreted by the Japanese public and how those interpretations shaped and continue to shape public policy and identity formation. The public’s confidence in Japanese exceptionalism and the Japanese way of doing business based on extreme loyalty to a corporation in exchange with job security and a stable identity was badly shaken (Yang 2010). In the traditional Japanese post-war business model men were supposed to be loyal to their employers and in exchange the employer would provide lifetime employment and promotions based on a seniority system (Morton & Olenik 2005; Smith 1997). This meant that employers could count on a reliable and loyal workforce and thus would avoid unpredictable changes in the labour market. Productivity was virtually guaranteed due to the extreme loyalty fostered among employees and the long working hours (Kingston 2011). This bushido (way of the Samurai) for business required almost complete devotion to the needs of the company and thus resulted in the strengthening of the patriarchal family, centred on the breadwinner father and the stay at home mother (von Feigenblatt 2010b; Morton & Olenik 2005). Moreover, these modern day corporate warriors developed their identities and social networks solely on their companies. The result was a very strong work ethic but at the same time a complete reliance on work for basic psycho-social needs such as recognition and belongingness (von Feigenblatt 2010b). The Japan Inc. model was also based on the social ideal of equality and implicitly defined Japan as a middle class society (Kingston 2011; Sakamoto 2008). In order to have a middle class society certain assumptions had to be made regarding employment and social services. It was expected that most college graduates would have access to a stable job after graduation leading to long-term employment and a stable middle class life. Since the structure of the system discouraged women from working outside the home after marriage, the prevalent model was based on a single breadwinner (Chambers 2007; Chizuko 2010). This means that the welfare of the entire family unit depended on a single earner rather than on two working parents. Due to the prolonged economic recession of the 1990s and late 2000s many people lost their jobs and therefore their families were left in precarious economic conditions (Kingston 2011; Morton & Olenik 2005; Sakamoto 2008; Togo 2005). The result has been

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increased inequality in Japanese society leading many to question the traditional model of development and its implicit social contract. The power of the bureaucracy and the seniority system was also put to the test during the difficult 1990s and continue to be in probation. Bureaucrats have enjoyed considerable power and prestige in the Japanese system due to their subject area expertise and long tenures in their posts, through which they can usually guide policy with little opposition from popularly elected politicians (von Feigenblatt 2007; Miyagi 2009; Morton & Olenik 2005; Togo 2005). Their power is further projected by the widespread practice of amakudari (descent from heaven). Senior bureaucrats are hired by related companies after their retirement where they continue to exert considerable influence through their government connections (Kingston 2011). Needless to say this leads to considerable corruption and also makes change very difficult. Countless corruption scandals as well as the prolonged recession have undermined the trust of the people in the bureaucracy and have also weakened the importance of stability in favour of thirst for change (Sakamoto 2008). Seniority is an important Japanese value connected to a cultural respect for elders. In the business realm this means that employees are promoted based on the length of their tenure in their companies rather than on performance or other factors such as academic qualifications (Chambers 2007; Hook, Gilson, Hughes & Dobson 2005; Morton & Olenik 2005; Togo 2005). Due to the parallel value of lifetime employment and the prolonged economic contraction of the 1990s, most Japanese companies have become top-heavy, meaning that due to automatic promotions based on seniority there are too many managers in comparison to entry level workers (Kingston 2011). It should also be noted that temporary and parttime workers become more prevalent during the recession thus reducing the number of full time employees eligible for promotions based on seniority (Sakamoto 2008). This inverted pyramid structure is very costly and inefficient while also exposing difficult truths, such as that older employees have more benefits than younger employees while in many cases being less qualified (Smith 1997). Many young employees are eager to take on leadership roles and to apply the skills they have learned in college, but since the system is based in seniority they have to wait many years before they can exercise their problem-solving skills (Smith 1997). Previously, the wait was bearable when there was a realistic expectation of achieving the same level of job security and career advancement as their senior counterparts, however massive layoffs and the increased use of irregular workers has undermined those expectations making the system less appealing (Kingston 2011). For millions of young college graduates it

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is not clear whether the system will be in place long enough for them to enjoy the benefits of seniority. The aging population and immigration are two other important issues in contemporary Japanese society (Sakamoto 2008). Due to very high life expectancy and an extremely low birth rate, Japanese society is aging rapidly (Morton & Olenik 2005). This means that a greater percentage of the population is older than fifty-five than the percentage of the population that is under fifteen (Kingston 2011; Sakamoto 2008). Thus, Japanese society resembles an inverted pyramid with fewer younger people supporting a greater number of older people. This state of affairs has important consequences for the economy as a whole. First of all this means that the active labour force will shrink while the number of retired people will increase. Secondly this places considerable stress on the resources of the social security system since there are fewer taxpayers supporting a greater number of beneficiaries (Chambers 2007; Sakamoto 2008). Another important consequence is that there is and will continue to be a need for foreign workers to deal with the shortage caused by the aging population and low birth rate (von Feigenblatt 2007; Sakamoto 2008). Demographic changes as well as economic exigencies have led to increased concern about immigration and the assimilation of foreigners (Ryang 2010; Yang 2010). The relationship between the majority Japanese and minorities has historically been fraught with discord and characterized by inequality and discrimination (Bix 2000; Gottlieb 2010; Lind 2009; Ryang 2010). This is partly due to the myth of homogeneity as well as the historical domination of the majority over marginal groups such as the inhabitants of the former Ryukyu Kingdom (present day Okinawa) and the native Ainu (Morton & Olenik 2005; Smith 1997). Other examples include former subjects of the Japanese Empire such as ethnic Koreans who have faced continued discrimination since the end of World War II (Ryang 2010; Smith 1997). More recent immigrants such as Chinese and Nikkei (South Americans with Japanese ancestry) have faced similar discrimination both inside and outside the workplace (Sakamoto 2008). In terms of culture, Japan espoused cultural homogeneity based on the myth of a single Yamato people up to the period of American occupation after the end of World War II (Bix 2000; Smith 1997). This translates into what Jan Nederveen Pieterse aptly calls domination ethnicity (Pieterse 2007). The majority ethnicity imposes its culture on the minorities as the national culture and expects other groups to assimilate into the majority culture. In the case of Japan this current is most visible in the discourse of Nihonjinron (Japanese exceptionalism) which claims that Japan has a unique history characterized by homogeneity and racial purity (Reider

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2003; Ryang 2010; Williams 2004; Yang 2010). Needless to say this hegemonic discourse denies the histories of minorities in Japan and also obviates the need to incorporate their cultures into mainstream national culture since their very existence is denied. Thanks in part to human rights discourse and partly to the increased exposure of the Japanese public to foreign media and ideas, there is increased interest in minorities and their cultures (Napier 2001; Ryang 2010). It is becoming increasingly difficult to deny that Japan has always been and is increasingly becoming multiethnic and therefore multicultural (Kingston 2011; Smith 1997; Yang 2010). This increased awareness about multiculturalism is contesting control over the public sphere from proponents of Nihonjinron and other conservative pundits (von Feigenblatt 2007; Iwabuchi 2008). The result is a contested public sphere in which essentialist discourses are interspersed with those about hybridity, globalism and multiculturalism.

Nihonjinron, hybridity and globalism While the previous section provided a glimpse into the nature of Nihonjinron and hybridity, the present section provides a more in-depth explanation of the similarities and differences between Nijonjinron, hybridity and globalism. Essentialism and exceptionalism are the two main characteristics of Nihonjinron (Ryang 2010). Closely connected to conservatism and nationalism, Nihonjinron emphasizes Japan’s alleged unique level of racial purity, cultural homogeneity and history (Bix 2000; Shih & Huang 2011; Williams 2004). There are several variants of the Nihonjinron historic-cultural discourse ranging from the ultra-nationalism and Shinto emperor worship of the pre-war period to a more subdued present version that simply emphasizes Japan’s unique culture and the value it places on harmony and conformity (Williams 2004). The important assumption of this discourse is that Japan has always been a homogeneous society, thus negating the histories of minorities such as the Ainu and native Okinawans, and that the very few migrants should assimilate completely into mainstream Japanese culture (Chambers 2007; Kingston 2011; Morton & Olenik 2005; Reider 2003; Ryang 2010). Moreover, Nihonjinron states that one needs to be born of Japanese parents in order to be Japanese. Therefore, there is an important bond between Japanese identity and blood lines. In addition, Nihonjinron stresses the importance of Japan’s culture and encourages its protection from allegedly corrupting foreign influences (Yang 2010). Thus, according to Nihonjinron it is virtually impossible to transcend the divide

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between the in-group constituted by the majority Japanese and the outgroup composed of cultural and ethnic minorities, for example. Globalism tends to share one important characteristic with Nihonjinron—its hegemonic aspirations. This cultural model claims that there is a global culture modelled after that found in the international halls of power such as in the World Economic Forum, diplomatic conduct, and multinational corporations, representing the global consensus of “bestpractices” (Barber 1996; Marchetti 2009). While there are several versions of globalism most agree that English is and should be the global language, that Western dress such as the suit and tie should be the standard, and that the ideas and practices embodied in the discourse of human rights have universal validity (Eriksen 2005; Saul 2006). Therefore, globalism is opposed to cultural relativism and has the implicit agenda of spreading global culture in order to eventually achieve the assimilation of individual cultures or at least cultural convergence (Fukuyama 1992). Thus, globalism is threatening to local cultures for a variety of reasons, such as the dichotomy it creates between being a global citizen and therefore part of modernity, and being a traditional subject and thus part of an outdated world (von Feigenblatt 2009a; Oke 2009). This leads to the conclusion that if a local practice or custom is incompatible with this so-called global consensus then it is outdated and invalid (von Feigenblatt 2010a). A clear example of this can be found in family law as practiced in Muslim countries, which is clearly incompatible with the norms and values encompassed in the global human rights discourse (Kim, Fidler, & Ganguly 2009; Liow 2006; Merry 2006). Needless to say, the ascendancy of the discourse of globalism with the onset of globalization has threatened local cultures and raises fears of silent historic-cultural oblivion for those who espouse traditional customs and practices (Benedek 1999; von Feigenblatt, Suttichujit, Shuib, Keling & Ajis 2010; McCargo 2008; Swain 2009). A third cultural model is the one proposed by Jan Nederveen Pieterse—cultural hybridity (Pieterse 2007, 2009). This model views culture as more fluid and dynamic than the previously presented models. According to this model, culture in our rapidly globalizing world is characterized by a state of hybridism in which traditional cultures interact and blend with foreign customs and practices (Mulder 1996). Moreover, traditional practices are constantly reinvented and adapted to present conditions. Thus, culture looks like a smorgasbord of cultural elements tentatively held together by a web of values and social norms. Therefore, this view of culture is not essentialist and recognizes the contingent and constructed nature of culture as it is constantly being reinvented depending

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on external factors and circumstances (Clark 1989; Murdock 1955). At the same time, this view differs from globalism in that no ideal final culture is envisioned, nor is convergence predetermined. Nevertheless, Pieterse’s model has an additional strength in the way it explains ethnic relations. Pieterse mentions four Weberian ideal types: domination ethnicity, enclave ethnicity, competition ethnicity and optional ethnicity (Pieterse 2007, 40). Domination ethnicity is also known as ethnocracy and describes the relationship between a dominant ethnic group and other ethnic groups (von Feigenblatt 2009b). The key characteristic of domination ethnicity is that the dominant ethnic group defines national culture and aims to negate the existence of other ethnic groups. Any cultural expressions by cultural minorities are repressed and the full power of the state is mobilized to promote a single version of history (von Feigenblatt et al. 2010). Moving to enclave ethnicity one finds an equally lopsided relationship between the dominant group and other ethnic groups but with the important difference being that ethnic minorities are allowed to practice their culture in highly circumscribed areas. Thus, ethnic minorities are relegated to separate enclaves where they live a marginal existence denied by mainstream media and historical accounts. It should be noted that in enclave ethnicity, national culture is still defined by the dominant group and that ethnic minorities suffer discrimination when outside their enclaves. A third type, competition ethnicity, can be observed when other ethnic groups have enough power to contest control over the definition of national culture from the previously dominant group. This may lead to violence and historical revisionism while in other cases may result in a smooth transition to a multicultural society. The final and desired state, according to Pieterse’s model, is called optional ethnicity. In this state, culture becomes fluid, situational and optional. Members of ethnic groups have the option to reject certain parts of their cultures, to incorporate those of others, or simply to selectively choose certain parts depending on circumstances. Therefore, this stage approximately resembles ideal cultural hybridism unconstrained by hegemonic cultural narratives constructed by dominant groups, free from social and essentialist pressures from other group members of minority groups. In other words, power over culture is devolved to the individual.

Onigamiden, Naruto Shippuden and Bleach As mentioned earlier, Japanese animation is an important part of the country’s public sphere (Morton & Olenik 2005), and its relationship to the public and society at large is reflexive and mutually constitutive. Thus,

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Japanese animation provides a reflection of society while at the same time both influencing and defining it. Based on the previous insight about animation’s close and complex relationship to the country’s society and through it to its zeitgeist, it should be possible to observe some or possibly all of the cultural discourses discussed in the previous section, namely globalism, Nihonjinron and hybridity, in representative works of Japanese animation. This section will attempt to identify and explore the deep cultural current currently flowing through Japanese animation in a brief interpretive analysis of two animation series, Naruto Shippuden and Bleach, and one animated movie, Onigamiden. The three examples of Japanese animation were chosen based on their popularity both at home and abroad as well as on reviews in terms of quality. Each work of Japanese animation is treated as a case study in order to identify and track the underlying cultural currents, and in doing so allow a glimpse into important concerns of Japanese society at large.

Onigamiden (“The Legend of the Millennium Dragon”) Onigamiden, also known as “The Legend of the Millennium Dragon,” was chosen as a representative example of Japanese animated movies due to its historic-mythical setting in the Heian period, inclusion of both Shinto and Buddhist symbols, and prominent origin in the well-known Studio Pierrot and a vco-production by TV Tokyo (Kawasaki 2001; Animenewsnetwork.com 2010). The animated movie is based on a novel by the same name by Takafumi Takada and was released in the fall of 2010 (Animenewsnetwork.com 2010). In terms of plot, Onigamiden deals with a young boy who travels 1,500 years back in time to the Heian period. The young boy, Jun, is depicted as a peaceful middle school student who tries to avoid trouble while at the same time holding a strong sense of justice. As he is being pursued by a group of bullies, he hides in a Buddhist temple where he meets a monk, Gen’un, who leads him inside and tries to recruit him to fight for his cause. Jun emerges in the ancient city of Kyoto where he observes the intricate aesthetics of the Heian period and is thrust into the complex politics of the period. Jun is presented with a simplistic view of the world by Gen’un. According to the monk, the civilized world is being attacked by demons from the mountains and that Jun’s hereditary power to control Oroochi, a mythical dragon, due to his direct descent from the Magatama clan, can turn the war in their favour (Kawasaki 2001). Jun initially refuses to fight until he is thrust into the heat of battle by the horror and carnage of the

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many confrontations between the monks and the oni. It should be noted that throughout the story Jun develops strong friendships with several characters and later on discovers that the oni are really only marginalized humans who wear a mask to defend themselves against the encroaching monks. This realization is made even more poignant when Jun discovers that one of the monk’s best warriors is the child of parents from both worlds who eventually decided to join the monks in battle. After spending some time with the oni, Jun realizes their humanity and legitimate needs and interests while at the same realizing that the city dwellers have equally valid interests such as security from raids. Nevertheless, the most important aspect of the plot is the way in which Jun ultimately uses the power he attains through the mastering of Oroochi. Jun harnesses the power of the dragon to play the role of the forceful peacekeeper rather than taking sides. The movie revolves around Jun’s hesitation about whom to trust and offers an interesting depiction of intrapersonal and interpersonal conflict in both contemporary and ancient Japan. In terms of setting and artistic style, Onigamiden follows a traditional naturalistic style that exaggerates certain features of nature while at the same time omitting others. This particular aesthetic style is characteristic of the Heian period and is considered to be at the core of Japanese aesthetics. The naturalistic representation of nature is not only present in the actual art of the animation itself but permeates the architecture, gardening and decoration of the early origins of Kyoto depicted in the movie. The choice of setting in terms of localization is also of particular importance. As the country’s ancient capital, Kyoto holds a special place in Japanese history (Morton & Olenik 2005). It embodies the core characteristics of the Yamato people’s aesthetic taste and represents the early beginnings of a proud Japanese civilization. Thus, the choice of Kyoto is purposeful rather than coincidental and helps to create a mythicotraditional setting for the plot.

Nihonjinron and hybridity in Onigamiden Onigamiden is not considered to be one of the best animated films of the last decade, however its prominent origin in Studio Pierrot and international release by Sony make it a mainstream example of a flagship product of the Japanese animation industry. Moreover, the movie’s plot is characteristically Japanese due to the issues it explores. At its core are certain recurrent themes such as the relationship between peace and conflict, the destructiveness of war, the importance of ancestry and

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tradition, and finally the definition of what it means to be Japanese. While those are the main themes there are many secondary issues such as the role of women, the meaning of friendship, and school bullying in contemporary Japan inter alia. The movie attempts to break dichotomous thinking by exploring the relationship between apparent opposites and showing how the two are one and the same. This process is similar to dialectical thinking but has a much older tradition in Buddhism (Donald S. Lopez 2004). The first theme that is explored through this method is the issue of modernity versus tradition, or “now” versus “then.” Early scenes of the movie showing Jun facing bullying and observing violence in the streets of modern day Kyoto are contrasted with the violence in ancient Kyoto. In other words, the journey through the temple back into the past has changed only superficial aspects of society but not the core issues, such as violence, greed and power. Another important theme is that of marginalization and forceful assimilation. The word Oni can be translated as demon but has a more complex meaning than its English counterpart. Reider has explored how the meaning and popular depiction of oni has changed in Japan from “frightening and diabolical” to marginalized and rebellious, and finally to “cute and sexy” (2003). The first transformation is the one that applies to the present discussion of Onigamiden since it focuses on the transformation of Oni from demons or devils to rebels and those outside mainstream society. According to Reider’s review of the literature, the Japanese depiction of Oni started to incorporate those outside the fold of civilization due to the government’s attempts to dehumanize them and thus justify their exclusion, forceful assimilation, or at times their virtual annihilation (2003). Therefore, this transformation of the meaning and limits of the group defined as oni occurred in tandem with the Japanese government’s civilizing mission aiming to bring a surprisingly vast array of cultural groups into a single cultural fold. Thus, the groups that were deemed to be oni constantly shifted and changed depending on the sociopolitical conditions of the time. At one point, miners and those living secluded lives in the mountains were deemed to be oni due to their different cultural practices (Reider 2003). At other times, entire cultural groups such as the Ainu were considered to possess magical power and therefore were included under the oni umbrella. It is important to explore the reasons behind the transformation. As previously noted, the purposeful use of the oni label to dehumanize those outside the fold of “civilization” was effectively used by the government to advance its centralizing and unifying mission. Nevertheless, this ignores the parallel socio-cultural processes that took place in the public sphere.

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Average citizens dwelling in the cities and villages feared the unknown and due to the early weakness of the state were frequently subjected to raids and attacks by bandits. Thus, the forests, the mountains and the dark were both revered and feared due to their position outside the circle of civilization. Onigamiden’s central conflict revolves around the struggle between civilization as defined by those in power in the cities against those at the margins fighting to protect their way of life and cultural practices. In the movie, Jun is told by Gen’un that they are under constant attack by Oni, but after a few skirmishes he discovers that the supposed Oni are just humans wearing masks for battle. Symbolically, the Oni reside deep in the forests and the mountains and their traditional dress is clearly distinct to that worn in the refined cities of the Heian period. Therefore, the Oni in Onigamiden are defined as Oni by those at the centre of power in order to justify their forceful assimilation. Another important example of this struggle in the movie is that civilization is shown to be Buddhist while the Oni are clearly animists or proto-Shintoists. Nevertheless, the separation of the two religious worlds is not as absolute as it seems, since Gen’un and those in the monastery seem to recognize the power of certain Oni magic and of ancient deities such as the dragon Oroochi (Kawasaki 2001). Therefore, the dichotomy is not the separation between Buddhism and proto-Shintoism but rather the institutionalization of religion in the service of the state. In other words, it is about the taming of religion and the spirits to further the elite’s civilizing mission. What is feared is not the spiritual itself but rather the untamed spirit of the mountains and the forests. Jun’s internal conflict over whom to help and why embodies contemporary Japan’s struggle to find an identity. Notwithstanding the movie’s heroic representation of the Oni in their lopsided battle against the capital, the movie implies that a single culture emerges from the struggle, which is symbolized by Jun’s stroll through modern day Kyoto. This implied Japanese essence is at the core of the discourse of Nihonjinron. Therefore, Onigamiden is a modern day representation of Nihonjinron juxtaposed against the possibility of hybridity. While the movie shows the heroic struggle of the supposed Oni against the capital, the result of the struggle is left open and the glimpse we get of modern day Kyoto hints at the victory of the capital. Nevertheless, the victory of the capital, representing civilization, does not imply the annihilation of the marginalized but rather their assimilation into the new mainstream. Therefore, even if Onigamiden is interpreted as an epic about resistance

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against centralized control, the result is not meant to be permanent differentiation nor long-lasting separation.

Naruto and Naruto Shippuden Naruto and its sequel Naruto Shippuden are some of the most successful animated series ever produced by Studio Pierrot (Naruto.viz.com 2007). Naruto’s success transcends borders as the series has been exported to Europe, Latin American and North America. The original story was written by Masashi Kishimoto in 1997 for publication as a comic in Akamaru Jump (Naruto.viz.com 2007). Originally, the first Naruto series lasted for 220 episodes and was broadcast in Japan by TV Tokyo. In 2007 the sequel was released, Naruto Shippuden, which is still airing at the time of writing. Naruto was chosen for inclusion in this study due to its international success and also due to the way the characters blend international and Japanese cultural practices. The plot revolves around the life and adventures of Uzumaki Naruto. Naruto’s childhood is marked by his strong urge to be acknowledged by the rest of the village. Right before his birth, the village of Konoha (also known as Hidden Leaf) was attacked by an evil spirit/demon known as the Nine Tails Fox. The head ninja (Hokage) defeated the demon and sealed it in Naruto’s navel before passing away. Due to Naruto’s identification with the demon, most villagers shun him and he has few friends. The animated series then follows his adventures as he grows up, goes to Ninja school and eventually joins a Ninja team and makes friends. In terms of setting, the story takes place in an imaginary world with its own geography but resembles feudal Japan in terms of political administration. There are several lands identified by an element, such as Wind, Sand, Rain and Fire. Each land belongs to a feudal lord who is protected by hidden Ninja villages which are headed by a Kage or head ninja. The different lands maintain the peace through a delicate balance of power which at times leads to great ninja wars. Each hidden village is headed by a Kage who is appointed for life and has near absolute power over the village. Ninjas are divided by ranks into genins, chunins and jonins with the latter being the highest rank. Each village has a medical team and the equivalent of a secret police. The physical features of the characters range from clearly Japanese to dark skinned and possibly Middle Eastern. It is interesting to note that some villages show ethnic diversity with inhabitants having a vast array of racial traits such as Chinese features and blond hair. Nevertheless, in terms of food, Hidden Leaf Village appears to be Japanese, as attested by the

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prevalence of noodles such as ramen. Written language does not reflect any existing language but rather original markings resembling simplified katakana. In terms of architecture, most buildings are neutral with the exception of the Uchiha clan house which is clearly Japanese.

Naruto and globalism/hybridity Naruto shows elements of both hybridity and globalism in both the themes it covers as well as in the way they are depicted. Issues such as deference to authority and hierarchy, the meaning of honour and friendship, the relationship between war and peace and loyalty are explored in a way that aims to transcend cultural barriers. The transnational way in which the previous topics are treated partly explains the global success of Naruto, but at the same time some important Japanese cultural traces are evident which imply hints of an underlying hybridity rather than a pure globalism. One way to simplify the difference between globalism and hybridity is by comparing a salad bowl to a melting pot. The proverbial metaphor comparing the assimilation of early immigrants in the United States to a melting pot implies that cultures are thrown into a boiling cauldron and something new results from the blend (von Feigenblatt et al. 2010). Nevertheless, it is important to note that the initial ingredients cannot be recognized after the product emerges. In contrast to this, the salad bowl metaphor implies that the initial ingredients maintain their defining characteristics even after becoming part of the resulting salad. In the case of Naruto it is possible to identify certain elements that can be attributed to particular cultures. One example is the name of certain characters, such as Rock Lee who clearly uses Kung Fu and has a hairstyle that resembles Chinese culture. Another example is the skin colour of the inhabitants of the Lighting Village who have darker skin and could possibly represent Middle Eastern countries. Even musical styles can be identified in the Naruto series, most music being played in relation to Hidden Leaf village tending to be Japanese, such as traditional enka music. On the other hand, hip hop is present in the Lighting Village. Therefore, in terms of cultural characteristics, Naruto closely resembles hybridity rather than globalism.

Naruto and War Naruto explores one of the most frequent themes in Japanese animation—the meaning and significance of war. The plot talks about four

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great ninja wars that involved the entire ninja world and resulted in great destruction and suffering. War is depicted as an undesirable event that should be avoided at virtually any cost. Nevertheless, ninjas, as warriors, are duty bound to protect their villages and to go to war if needed in order to protect their way of life. It is important to note that governance in the ninja world is not democratic and therefore wars are fought for more basic needs such as protecting friends, family members and their homes. There is an important element of honour and shame involved in the reasons for going to war. Examples of this include the main antagonism between Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki. Sasuke is a survivor of a prominent clan that was destroyed under the orders of the Hidden Leaf Village Leadership and who set about searching for power to get his revenge. His longing for power is partly in order to re-establish the honour of his clan. Even Naruto’s search for power is also a search for recognition and acknowledgement, which is a form of honour. The centrality of issues of shame and honour is characteristic of Japanese culture and they are shown as powerful factors driving people to war. Another important theme related to war is hierarchy and organizational behaviour. As previously explained, the Ninja villages and the world in the Naruto series are very hierarchical. The overarching political governance is feudal in nature, with a lord overseeing a land or territory. Each village is in turn headed by an appointed Kage who usually serves for life and has virtually absolute authority. The ninjas are in turn sorted into ranks, genin, chuunin and jonin. Notwithstanding the series’ emphasis in hierarchy and clear high-power distance, challenges to this hierarchical view of the world are also present. The best example of this is Naruto, whose power at times rivals or even surpasses those of the jonin, while at the same time he fails to rise through the ranks and remains a genin for most of the series. His friends get promoted faster while he takes the initiative to play a pivotal role in the life of his village. This shows how informal power may at times trump formal authority, and at the same time explores the theme of free will/agency versus destiny. Naruto is the son of the fourth Kage of the Hidden Village but his origin remains a mystery to himself and to many of his friends for most of his life. Therefore, he grows up thinking that he has a very low birth and that he has to gain respect and recognition through his own efforts. This leads him on a lifelong quest to prove that a person can construct his or her own destiny through sheer will power and effort rather than having to follow a preordained path. His conflicts with members of the Hyoga Clan and Sasuke of the Uchiha clan are great examples of this pivotal theme. Another example is the case of Rock Lee, who is of humble origins, and

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who could not manipulate chakra and had to overcome considerable obstacles to become a ninja. One of the key characteristics of being a ninja is the ability to manipulate chakra and his handicap was considered to be an insurmountable obstacle by most of the other ninjas. Therefore, his dedication and will power to train to overcome his obstacle by concentrating in other skills such as hand to hand combat shows that there is such a thing as free will.

Naruto as both a domestic and global product One of the interesting characteristics of the Naruto series is how it has both a domestic and a global appeal. The series is inherently Japanese while at the same time global in that it deals with universal themes and emotions through mostly neutral symbols. This peculiar universality can be understood when compared with Onigamiden’s strong Japanese essence. Both series are products of well-known Japanese animation studios and both make use of relatively similar animation techniques prevalent in contemporary anime, however the target audience for Onigamiden is clearly domestic while that of Naruto is both domestic and global. There is no contradiction in Naruto being both domestic and global since works of fiction such as novels and short stories tend to have overlapping layers of meaning intended to reach different audiences, classified based on their levels of sophistication as well as on their degree of involvement in the culture supplying the array of semiotic symbols in use. One key sign that Naruto’s creators had both audiences in mind is the explanations provided for the culture-specific symbols included in the series. They are usually provided by other characters, usually older ones, who explain certain traditions as the way things are done in particular situations or in other lands. These cultural cues show that a certain sector of the target audience was not expected to be imbued in the web of meanings of Japanese culture. Thus, those explanations are there for the cultural outsider while at the same time reinforcing those same meanings for the insider. Another important evidence of the assertion of the intended global audience is the avoidance of Japanese characters/script and the instrumental use of religious symbolism always followed by an in-depth explanation for the implied outsider. The previous discussion does not obviate the fact that certain aspects of the series have a culture-specific appeal. One clear example of this is the erotic humour (ero/hentai) surrounding Naruto’s teacher as well as himself. The reason for this is that perverted humour is more accepted in

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Japan than in other cultures (Kelts 2006). This kind of behaviour and humour is considered to be innocuous and comical in Japan while it is considered highly offensive in countries influenced by a Judeo-Christian tradition, such as the United States. Naruto’s placement in late scheduling and its rating for 17 or above can be explained mostly by this culturally specific sexual humour. Other examples include the drinking of alcohol by minors and respected women, such as by the Hokage Lady Sunade. Her gambling and drinking are contrasted with her wisdom and power as a Ninja in a comical way that blurs the borders between good and evil in the Judeo-Christian sense. This kind of humour and trivializing of vice is particularly Japanese and thus targeted at a domestic audience rather than intended to appeal to a global audience (Chizuko 2010; Kelts 2006; Reider 2003).

Bleach and hybridity Bleach is another highly popular animated series which has also enjoyed worldwide success but has a very different appeal to Naruto. Bleach was created by Tite Kubo and produced by Studio Pierrot (Bleachanimeguide.com 2009). This long running series has being airing since 2001 and is still ongoing. As usually happens with most animated series, Bleach first appeared as a manga and was then adapted to an animated format. In terms of distribution, Bleach is distributed internationally by Viz Media and is aired in the United States by Cartoon Network in its Adult Swim section (Bleachanimeguide.com 2009). In addition to Bleach’s international distribution, it is also a highly popular series in Japan and thus enjoys both domestic and international success. The series is supported by longer movies as well as the manga series. In terms of demographics, Bleach appeals to a narrower international audience than Naruto due to the higher complexity of its plot as well as the religious aspects of the story. The following section will provide a brief summary of the story in order to delve deeper into the cultural characteristics of the animated series.

Bleach: The Story Bleach has a very complex plot but the main story is centred on two pivotal locations, Karakura town and Soul Society (Bleachanimeguide.com 2009). Karakura Town is supposed to be in Japan and is meant to represent the average Japanese town. On the other hand, Soul Society is supposed to exist in the spiritual realm. Soul Society is the

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mythical home of the Soul Reapers, also known as the Shinigami. The job of the Shinigami is to put the souls of the dead to rest and to help them move on. In addition, it is their job to hunt down evil souls and to purify them in the world of the living. They undertake their functions with a spiritual sword called a zanpakuto which is used to fight against the evil spirits. At the beginning of the story a teenager called Ichigo Kurozaki meets a Soul Reaper who is fighting a lost soul, also known as a Hollow. The Soul Reaper, Rukia Kuchiki, is hurt and transfers her Shinigami powers to Ichigo to fight the Hollow. The problem is that once she transfers her powers they remain with Ichigo. Ichigo always had the power to see dead spirits but tried to hide the fact from the rest of his friends. This partly explains his spiritual powers, as well as his ability to absorb Rukia’s Shinigami powers. The rest of the story revolves around Ichigo’s quest for power in order to protect his friends from a vast array of spiritual and human enemies.

Bleach and Hybridity Bleach is a very good example of the crosscurrents of Japanese cultural politics due to its dual nature as an essentially Japanese product while at the same time incorporating global cultural elements. The core of the plot revolves around traditional Japanese beliefs about the afterlife and its interaction with the world of the living. The Japanese traditionally believe that spirits coexist with humans and that those spirits can be good and evil depending on the circumstances (Morton & Olenik 2005; Yoshida 1984). At the same time, Shintoism posits the possibility of purifying evil spirits through charms, scrolls, incantations and other rituals (Morton & Olenik 2005). The Japanese nature of the religious plot of the series is clearly evident in the vocabulary that is used to describe it as well as the architecture and dress of Soul Society. Moreover, Ichigo’s school as well as his hometown is clearly Japanese. Notwithstanding the previously mentioned Japanese elements, the series borrows heavily from foreign cultural traditions such as Christianity and Caribbean Santeria inter alia. Spanish is favoured as the second most prevalent language in spiritual vocabulary. For example, the equivalent of Hell is called Hueco Munco which means “abyss world.” The main warriors of that world are called Espada which means “sword” in Spanish. Their special attacks are also named in Spanish. Moreover, one of the main characters, Sado, represents an often ignored minority in Japan— those of mixed Japanese and Latin American descent. Sado’s physical

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appearance shows traits from both ethnicities and his behaviour fits Japanese culture while at the same displaying some foreign characteristics. In addition, his special moves all have names in Spanish, such as his strongest attack called “El Directo,” which means “the direct one.” Another example of a character with a hybrid nature in terms of culture is Ishida, who is supposed to be a human warrior with spiritual powers that he can use to mould bows and arrows to attack his foes. Ishida is presented as one of the last members of the Quincy, an ancient group of humans who have fought against evil spirits for hundreds of years but whose numbers dropped drastically two hundred years ago, and of which there are now only two members left. The Quincy are clearly inspired by the Christian Orders of Knighthood such as the Sovereign Order of Malta and the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, whose influence is shown in terms of the uniform worn by the Quincy as well as by the symbolism of the cross. Nevertheless, it is interesting that Ishida is clearly of Japanese ethnicity and notwithstanding this factor his culture and legacy is European. This subtle separation between ethnicity and culture is also noticeable in other characters such as Ichigo, as well as Shinigamis such as Rangiku Matsumoto. Both have Japanese last names and cultures but ethnically display Western features such as light hair and, in the case of Rangiku, light eyes. This is an important example of the weakening of Nihonjinron in Japan and the weakening of the concept of race, at least in this example of Japanese animation. On the other hand, there are important elements that clearly show Japan’s rich cultural heritage. The pride of place given to the sword as an extension of a warrior’s soul is one such example. Swords are supposed to house ancient spirits that need to be moulded and subdued by the wielder in order to be effective in battle. This view of the sword as a destructive and purifying object at the same time is particularly Japanese in nature and resembles the view of the sword held by the ancient Samurai. Parallel to this is the view of honour presented in the series from a clearly Japanese point of view, displaying both the sensitivity to public shame so prevalent in modern Japan but also the guilt present in ancient Bushido (The Way of the Samurai). Several characters are motivated by the fear of public shame of losing in battle, while others also have a very strong sense of honour in that they have to risk their lives to protect the people they love. Ichigo, the main character, has a very strong sense of honour that transcends shame and includes guilt. Ichigo does not fight for glory but rather for his own sense of honour and duty to protect his friends, as well as everyone around him. On the other hand, other

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characters such as Kuchiki Byakuga have different values and fight mostly to protect their reputations. War is a recurrent theme in Bleach as well as a large proportion of Japanese animation in general. Bleach presents war as an undesirable cyclical event with the potential to bring out the best and the worst in people. Some people will rise to the challenge and attempt to protect their loved ones and those weaker than themselves, while others will fight for the sheer pleasure of fighting. In terms of destructiveness, Bleach depicts war as a dangerous junction between destruction and the creation of something new. Therefore, Bleach shows the traditional Japanese preoccupation with the destructive power of war as well as its capacity to cleanse and allow for the development of something new and improved. The present Japanese aversion to war can be traced back to the traumatic experience of losing the Pacific War (World War II) and to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nevertheless, Bleach’s depiction of war is not as pacifist and totalizing as the one that became prevalent in Japan during the post-war period. War can be justified in Bleach if it is waged to protect important principles and values. In addition, war is a great opportunity to show bravery and courage. Bleach is an example of hybridity in Japan’s public sphere. The series does not present a harmonious integration of cultural elements leading to an integrated and assimilated Japanese culture but rather offers a cacophony of cultural traits in a constant state of flux. This is shown with a constant emphasis on time and the possibility of change. While the Soul Society is in the spiritual realm it is not immune to time through the process of change. Therefore, the Soul Society’s tribulations and challenges in a way represent Japan’s obsession with the past and stability while Kurokara town represents modern Japan as an unsettled salad bowl.

Conclusions Japanese animation is a window into Japan’s public sphere and the three examples discussed in this chapter provide a representative sample of the industry. Onigamiden, Naruto and Bleach are some of the most successful examples of contemporary Japanese animation. Moreover, they represent ideal types in the Weberian sense in terms of cultural worldviews. Onigamiden shows the strongest traces of Nihonjinron while Naruto and Bleach display characteristics of both hybridity and globalism. It should be noted that the demarcation between one worldview and another is not as clear in reality as it is in theory. This reflects the Japanese

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state of mind encompassing a yearning for modernity, or postmodernity, as well as a strong nostalgia for the past, both real or imagined. It is interesting to observe the struggle between the different views of cultural identity as they are represented in prominent examples of Japanese animation. The results of the present study show that Japanese society is torn between an irrational attachment to an idealized and partially imagined past and a longing for a future as part of the community of nations. Thus, the Japanese want to both remain Japanese as well as become more global. Nevertheless, there is a problem with the previous set of goals. Japanese identity has historically been exclusivist which precludes the possibility of integrating it or transcending it to assimilate to a global or hybrid culture. This is the reason why it is so important to define or redefine Japanese identity to solve the dilemma. The core conflict between an exclusivist Japanese identity and the need to transcend it to join the global community is at the centre of Japan’s socio-political development as well as its economic aspirations. Issues as diverse as regional integration, international trade and education are affected by the conflict between the two forces. In the case of regional integration, it makes it difficult for Japan to negotiate a stable and clear role in the international realm. This is something that was pointed out by prominent Japanese scholars of the Kyoto School even before the end of World War II (Williams 2004). Hajime Tanabe famously discussed the challenge of establishing a Co-prosperity Sphere among nations and the conflict between vertical and horizontal relationships among nominally sovereign nations (Williams 2004). The tension between the national interest and regional goals can only be overcome through a clear and stable positioning as a benevolent hegemony that integrates the needs of the group of nations, while at the same time keeping in mind its own interests. This can only be done by achieving self-understanding, or subjectivity, as Tanabe calls it. It follows that true regionalism can only achieved if Japan achieves this level of understanding which, according to the present study, has not occurred yet. In the economic realm, similar problems are encountered, such as the irrational policy in sectors such as agriculture and the media. Japan’s protection of an inefficient farming sector is an example of the lingering power of Nihonjinron linking traditional rice farming with national identity. Issues such as the protection of the farming sector have made it difficult for Japan to enter into broad free trade agreements and initially slowed down the negotiations for a region-wide free trade area including the United States, Australia and other regional economic powerhouses

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(Drysdale 2010; Hwang 2006). At the core of the problem was the lack of a clear subjectivity and thus a temporary loss of purposeful agency. In summary, Japan’s animation industry represents an important and dynamic part of the public sphere and thus displays the contradictions, battles and tensions over national cultural identity. The present study, based on three examples of recent works of Japanese animation, shows that Nihonjinron is still strong but is increasingly in competition with hybridity and globalism as alternative views of culture. Nevertheless, another important finding is that the three can coexist in a single sample representing a holistic and nuanced view of the contemporary Japanese mind.

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25/pierrot-produces-onigamiden-historical-film-for-october (accessed December 2, 2011). Pieterse, J. N. (2007). Ethnicities and Global Multiculture: Pants for an Octopus (Hardcover ed.). Plymouth: Rowman & LIttlefield Publishers, Inc. —. (2009). Globalization & Culture: Global Melange (Second ed.). Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Reider, N. T. (2003). “Transformation of the Oni: From the Frightening and Diabolical to the Cute and Sexy.” Asian Folklore Studies 62 (1): 133–157. Ryang, S. (2010). “To Be or Not To Be--in Japan and Beyond: Summing Up and Sizing Down Koreans in Japan.” Asia Pacific World 1 (2): 7– 31. Sakamoto, T. F. C. T. (2008). Japan Since 1980. New York: Cambridge University Press. Saul, B. (2006). “The Dangers of the United Nations’ ‘New Security Agenda’: ‘Human Security’ in the Asia-Pacific Region.” Asian Journal of Comparative Law 1 (1): 1–35. Shih, C.-Y. & C.-c. Huang (2011). “Bridging Civilizations through Nothingness: Manchuria As Nishida Kitaro’s ‘Place’.” Comparative Civilizations Review (65): 4–17. naruto.viz.com Shonen Jump Naturo Shippuden. (2007). http://naruto.viz.com/story.php (accessed December 14, 2011). Smith, P. (1997). Japan A Reinterpretation. New York: Random House. Swain, S. (2009). “An Enquiry into the Functionality of the Dominant Ideology of Gender in Traditional Hindu Society.” Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences 1 (2): 435–448. Togo, K. (2005). Japan’s Foreign Policy 1945–2003: The Quest for a Proactive Policy (Second Edition ed.). Leiden: Brill. Williams, D. (2004). Defending Japan’s Pacific War: The Kyoto School philosophers and post-White power. London: RoutledgeCurzon. Yang, A. (2010). “The Two Japans of Spirited Away.” International Journal of Comic Art 12 (1): 435–452. Yoshida, T. (1984). “Spirit Possession and Village Conflict.” In E. S. Krauss, T. P. Rohlen & P. G. Steinhoff (eds.), Conflict in Japan, 85– 104. Honolulu: University of Hwaii Press.

CHAPTER EIGHT ENTERTAIN US! ELIASIAN SOCIOLOGY, GAME SHOWS AND REALITY SHOWS SILVIA PEZZOLI UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE (ITALY)

In this chapter we try to understand why game shows have for a long time been—and still are—a constant presence in the television schedules, gaining a high level of acceptance from a faithful audience. It is clear that these are commercially profitable programs, but it seems that they also responds to some specific needs that we will try to identify. The evolution of game shows, however, has been very similar throughout the West and characterized by the presence of two particular passages in two different periods—the first half of the 1980s and the transition between the 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium. These were the times when we found, in the TV schedules, a new television production—the reality show—which may be the result of a peculiar game show transformation. In fact, the reality show plays on the boundary between the true, the false and the “could be”—is it reality or a show? Maintaining the rules of game, the reality show adds a greater degree of spontaneity, focuses on relational difficulties, private issues and non-publishable conversation, and therefore seems to be more “real” since it takes us “behind the curtain.” The work of Norbert Elias gives us a specific model within which we place our study, accompanied by the many other considerations and speculations of social scientists. Entertainment in our society, at least since the 1980s, has certainly played an important role, and game shows and reality shows, having the double nature of game and entertainment, seem to be relevant objects of study to understand some of the peculiar reasons behind this social need for entertainment, which seems to emerge because it presents an opportunity to “play socially,” and because the dynamics of these shows,

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which have over time changed in accordance with society, follow the game of life we face every day. This society, so risky, uncertain and with a weak memory,1 can lead naturally to a kind of regression that makes us live in eternal childhood from which we distance ourselves only through a subsequent step that carries us to an endless adolescence, during which we remain forever young and beautiful, with a perfect body. We also strive to discover how we can always be accepted by our group, as well as by the whole of society,2 and that’s maybe why we need entertainment, and a specific kind of entertainment. Here, we investigate how the media fits into three distinct areas, identified by Elias, as the basis for the civilizing process.3 In this fundamental work, Norbert Elias argues that: (1) objects, events and texts affect the daily lives of individuals in a particular direction; (2) during this process individuals increase their self-control until they come to see themselves as an object; (3) this process does not develop in a planned way and in a certain direction but through the overlap of events.4 What we mainly borrow from Elias’ theory is the model of the process that begins with the birth of the control of aggression and violence and gradually increases the raising of the threshold of repugnance and the regulation of behaviour through the creation of private spaces in which there are zones of limited control. These private spaces will become the focus of our attention when we talk about the rapid transformation of game shows into realities.

The game is the basis of all The game cannot be identified with the set of its rules or with the chain of circumstances that shapes its specific development: “… It’s neither one 1

Z. Bauman, Liquid Modernity, Polity Press, 2000; U. Beck, Risk Society. Towards a new Modernity, Sage, 1992; A. Giddens, Modernity and Self Identity, Stanford University Press, 1991. M., Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, Chicago (IL), The University of Chicago Press, 1992. 2 P. Bruckner, La Tentation de l’innocence, Grasset, 1995; P. Bruckner L’Euphorie perpétuelle: Essais sur le devoir de bonheur , Grasset, 2000. Also interesting for our study: N., Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) 3 N. Elias, The Civilizing Process. Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, Basil Blackwell, 1994. 4 Norbert Elias explains in The Society of Individuals (1990) that the society is not planned or has an end, but rather it is the result of ever-changing plans, each interdependent on the other.

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nor the other, because it is simultaneously both of them.”5 Eigen and Winkler, in their book Das Spiel [The Game], consider it a natural event that takes place in the middle of the dichotomy of chance and necessity, and the basis of each situation. Chance and rule are its constituent elements. Huizinga invests the game with relevant responsibilities: “Culture lies in the form of play, the culture is first played. Within games, and across games, social life is invested with above-biological forms that give life itself a greater value. With those games society expresses its interpretation of life and of the world. So, that does not mean that the game changes or converts to culture, but rather that the culture in its original phases, brings the character of a game.”6 Mead argues that the child’s growth takes place in three phases: (a) “play,” through which the child learns to take the perspective of their fellow players (parents); (b) “game,” in which you buy many different images of the “self” (in kindergarten, in school, with a friend, etc.); (c) the acquisition of the concept of “Generalized Other.” In this way, individuals gain the perspective of a “community of attitudes,” through which they cooperate with different individuals, identifying themselves with the general concept of people.7 Mead, explaining the emergence and development of the Self, considered the game to be the core element that allows the gradual learning of playing a role, and how to imagine the role of another—the Generalized Other—and to see ourselves and our actions with an external gaze. Rules, for Mead, develop as responses to certain game results, and are crucial to predict the reactions of other players and understand their “game.” In establishing the rules it becomes clear what can be done in public and what needs to remain in private. According to Elias, people learn new ways of self-control by adjusting their public behaviour. Elias uses an analytical tool similar to the structure of a great, constantly changing game—the “configuration”8—where elements are continuously changing through relationships.

5

M. Eigen, R. Winkler, Das Spiel, Piper, 1975, 13. J. Huizinga, Homo ludens, Einaudi, 1937, 55. 7 J. H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society, University of Chicago Press, 1934. 8 The configuration is an analytical tool capable of keeping the foundation of its cognitive system within itself. First, the configuration is constantly changing; it is characterized by the presence of individuals in the interdependent relationships between them, whose characteristics are redefined continuously by processing the 6

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What we want to do with this work is demonstrate that there are countless occasions in society for which the game is still necessary. Society offers and demands endless contingencies where it is required to learn how to move, to understand many relations, and to solve a wide range of problems. There are rules to be learned and respected and there are situations where rules do not exist and it is the chance that decides.

Types of games and the evolution of formats Caillois in 1967 incorporates some of the theories of Huizinga about the game, partly criticizing them, and partly adding something new. He develops a “quadrilateral” in which he divides the universe of game and identifies competitive games (agon), luck games (alea), fiction games (mimicry) and dizziness games (ilinx). For us, this kind of distinction is not appropriate since luck is an important element for almost all games, and because there are often competitive games where the dizziness is the protagonist (think of some challenges like the ones in The Mole), and because fiction is also present in reality shows. For us, it is important to point out some fundamental differences to indicate their changes, so we came to the decision to make a simple tripartite division that distinguishes game shows and reality shows into games of “knowledge,” “competition” and “relations.” Again, there will be some overlaps, but this distinction is seen in the light of an analytical path that we will explain. About games of knowledge we can say that, in formats that have been replicated in many parts of the world, there are such examples as Take your Pick and Double your Money, representing the first examples of games with a money prize. These games were characterized by the challenges between experts in specific subjects that they showed to know very well. The knowledge is combined, of course, with luck, but what is to be noted is that people who took part in these games were not ordinary in regards to their knowledge in certain areas, while they were ordinary for what concerned the small part of their biographies that the quizmaster presented to the audience. They were proper “quiz shows,” which slowly disappeared only to make a new entrance on our TVs with the international format of Millionaire? Up to the 1980s, those who participated in these games were characterized by the possession of special knowledge. From the 1980s a large number of new formats were created that, although being seen as report and the rules. Therefore, it is able to observe the genesis of the forms (of relations), ensuring the non-reification of concepts and ensuring their dynamicity.

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games of knowledge, didn’t require specific, deep knowledge. These games were therefore open to “people like us.” The Price is Right, to start with the most simple and accessible, both criticized and accused, is without doubt a staging of the consumer society. It requires precise knowledge of a field—the world of consumption—and consists of guessing the prices of one or more products to win them, or other kinds of prizes. Wheel of Fortune is the most popular game in the world. The atmosphere is much less noisy than the previous game. The set is reduced to the essentials, even if it seems to be in a vaguely “Las Vegas” style. Wheel of Fortune requires puzzle-solving knowledge, but here the role of luck is also crucial. After the success of these formats, lasting for around a decade from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, the production of new kinds of formats in which knowledge was important began, but knowledge that joins intuition and luck and requires a knowledge of “general culture,” and being up to date on “everyday life.” Even today, there are many game shows that focus on the challenges of knowledge, such as The Legacy and Millionaire?, which are hugely successful and represent an acknowledgment of the need to test our knowledge. The widening of the participation and centrality of general culture seems to suggest a willingness to valorize knowledge and improve a shared construction of it. Regarding competitive or competition games, the winning formula of this type has for years been a prerogative of “games without frontiers.” In this program, the two key features of the game are even more evident: the playfulness and the race. Games without frontiers are games that are very close to sporting events but which differ in their rules, in the very original settings and the invention of entirely new games. The setting is very pleasant and many games revise the folk tradition of competing teams. In fact, they play in teams and each represents a country. The principal aim is to encounter and enhance the solidarity among different countries, rather than the need to win. Also, in some formats of reality shows—the most famous being Survivor, but also Circus and The Mole—the competitiveness is essential and the participants push their bodies to extreme physical capabilities, often in adverse and disadvantaged contexts. In these programs, the body becomes the first protagonist—the body exposed and subjected to severe trials; the beautiful body, the healthy and athletic body. Regarding dating games, they can be traced back to the mid-1980s, the most flourishing period for these special game shows, with Blind Date

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being the most successful in those years. This format consisted of choosing a partner to go on vacation with. The decision was anchored on the answers given to certain questions, on the voice of the other participant, and probably on the expressions of the audience and the quiz master, since the possible partners were not visible to the player. Another game which was rather popular, especially in the 1990s, was Streetmatch. The quizmaster, which in this case played the role of Cupid, chose a person on the street who was looking for a prospective partner, and helped them to find a perfect match. The show gave a description of the two candidates—profession, age and zodiac sign are the first aspects revealed, and following this was the date, usually preceded by many commercials. In recent years dating games have decreased, giving birth to hybrid forms of reality and game shows. The most important example is Big Brother, in which tests of physical ability and knowledge (often elementary level) are occasionally included, but wherein it remains primarily a reality where the sexual and romantic relationships are the focus of the audience’s attention. Obviously, here the body becomes increasingly important, and if we think of Big Brother it is logical that the viewers’ attention is on the relationships among the participants locked in the house. But right away the game encouraged the exposure of bodies, although in this case not of the body-machine which can achieve certain results, but rather as a tool of seduction; a body that tends more and more to reach perfection, even through various forms of plastic surgery.

Consequences of change Regarding the change of TV games, both game shows and reality shows, means talking about moving the boundary between the public and the private. Thompson argues that the means of mass communication are the authors of this strange transformation, and with the introduction of the media there has been a gradual shift towards what is private and what is public in the representation of the private. Reality shows are the best example, in which we notice how the private becomes public and everyday life is put on stage.9 The tendency to focus on everyday life can be traced back to the 1980s, wherein game shows did not require any special preparation, but only a general orientation in daily life, which began to be successful. 9

A. Sfardini, Reality TV. Pubblici, Fan, Protagonisti, Performer, Unicopli, 2009.

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Think, for instance, of The Price is Right. It took the idea of the importance of “familiar reception,”10 and thus a type of reception that relaxes and makes the audience “feel at home.” It is important to consider that at that time television was a very strong presence in individuals’ lives, so that real life was no longer separable from mediated life, especially from television life. People began to see themselves as the protagonist of a great show, and this gradually became a reality. It was no longer necessary to be special to be on TV, and everyone had the potential to be interesting enough for screen time. Before the 1980s, television used to enter ordinary people’s homes, but at this point ordinary people began to enter television. It became important to have an imperfect and ordinary biography, to be just one of the “common people.” The more ordinary TV people’s stories were, the more the audience could identify with them. New forms of public representation of the self as the common person were born, and this helped to strengthen the public representation of self and the selfawareness of belonging to a group.11 As David Foster Wallace pointed out in his book A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, in the late 1980s among young writers there was the obsession of the “world behind the screen,” and many pledged to create a private life for prominent public persons. In addition, movie production, according to Wallace, showed traces of this desire to make the screen permeable. In a world where television and other media had always gone to great lengths to make familiar what was strange, the culture of the 1980s was forced to follow a phenomenon born on the small screen and to make strange, or at least interesting, what was familiar. This tendency to make public what is private still powerfully characterizes the offer of TV and new media. Game shows relate to the daily life of participants and spectators and to their structures of everyday interactions. Through “Para-social Interaction,” i.e. the kind of interaction that comes with the advent of electronic media and that gives the illusion of being able to establish relations of intimacy with the protagonists onscreen, these shows offer the material to work on identity.12

10

L., Mikos, H., J., Wulff, Hans J. Zur Analyse von Unterhaltungsshows. 1. Höhepunkte des Fernsehalltags. In: Medien praktisch, 13, 1989, Jg., H. 4, S. 60– 62. 11 L., Mikos, H., J., Wulff, Hans J. Zur Analyse von Unterhaltungsshows. 1. Höhepunkte des Fernsehalltags. In: Medien praktisch, 13, 1989, Jg., H. 4, S. 60– 62. 12 L. MIKOS, Es wird dein Leben! Familienserien im Fernsehen und im Alltag der Zuschauer, MAkS Publikationen, Münster, 1994.

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Game shows and the sociology of Elias It is no coincidence that this trend which saw the proliferation of game shows started thirty years ago. Our society has changed, and now it is always changing, more and faster, in the direction of greater flexibility, uncertainty and liquidity.13 The rules that guided our lives from time to time have been reduced to essential ones and the individual must learn to live in this new situation of “uncertainty.” What can game shows and reality shows teach individuals? How can they help? It is time to justify our decision to choose this field of inquiry and connect it to the wider discourse of the morphogenetic sociology of Norbert Elias, and in particular to his seminal work The Civilizing Process (1939). Elias’ interest has often focused on particular aspects of human reality, maintaining the ability, through the use of the configuration as a means of reading the real, to incorporate and read them into a broader and complex perspective, capable of holding together and highlighting the interdependencies between evolutionary biology and social dimensions, and to identify the bond between them and the evolution of relationships created by humans. Examples of this extraordinary ability are works like Mozart, Sociology of a Genius, The Loneliness of Dying and The Quest for Excitement, this last written with Eric Dunning, in which Elias, leaning on a single theme or character, brings us the detailed and intriguing readings of social configurations interesting for his argumentation. But The Civilizing Process is a work that moves from general aspects and gives testimony to the genius of Elias, allowing us to retrace the changes in Europe and the changing of its habitus through the changes of behavioural standards relating to violence, sex, bodily functions, good manners and much more. In describing the transformation process of the court society, Elias focuses on a series of clues and stages through which individuals have developed a powerful self growth, self-regulation and organization of the sense of self, resulting from the increasingly complex networks of social relations.

13

A. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity, 1990; A. Giddens, Modernity and Self Identity, Stanford University Press, 1991; Z. Bauman, Liquid Modernity. Cambridge, Polity, 2000; Z. Bauman, Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge, Polity, 2006, Z. Bauman, Culture in a Liquid Modern World. Cambridge, Polity, 2011. U. Beck, World at Risk. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008; U. Beck, Risk Society. Towards a new Modernity, Sage, 1992.

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Where Freud identified the Super Ego, for Elias the internalized instance of authority is under investigation, something which began very long ago and on the basis of synthesis models, where there are not opposing units, but rather units becoming a whole. Elias thinks sociology is the study of the organization of the relationships between individuals (interactions and interdependencies), realized as a form of their relations. In addition, the form, i.e. the relationship between the actors, gives life to the configuration, the synthetic model-research unit of Norbert Elias, knowable only through an expansion of the gaze. If in The Civilizing Process the court is the model of sociability, wherein Elias investigates its genesis and its development, in our case game shows are the objects of our attention and also the site of manifestation of tensions between individuals and unbalanced forces. To try to highlight a few clear links between the theory of Elias and our study, we follow the lines of change that brought game shows from being mostly games of knowledge, through to dating games, until the progressive affirmation of products hybridized with reality shows. For Elias, the regulation of behaviour in society happens through lower society layers’ adoption of the particular behaviours (manners) of the upper society layers, and he finds the demonstration of it in the history of the passage from the knightly-courtly society to absolutist-curial society. Initially, he exposes the integration process of the knights in the courts, then reflects on the characteristics of modern states, highlighting how the bans, implemented through mechanisms of hetero-control in pre-modern societies, are kept alive in modern societies through mechanisms of selfrestraint: “The individual is then forced to turn all his psychic economy in the sense of a continuous and uniform regulation of its instinctual life and of his behavior in every aspect of life.”14 Returning to his analysis of the court, the manners of the courts are the sum of the set of behaviours that define the access, define membership and reinforce social distinctions through the definition and respect of a specific label. The behaviour of the upper classes, of the good manners society, is often imitated by lower classes and this quickly diffuses behaviours into common manners. Initially, these rules are learned through strict prohibitions and hetero-control, but over time they become part of social self-regulatory mechanisms. For example, it is no longer necessary today that someone tells us not to bring a knife to the mouth to eat or to clean our teeth because it is uncivilized. 14 N. Elias, The Civilizing Process. Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994, 651.

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What is considered uncivilized, according to Elias, is actually a behaviour that has been subjected to a control and through internalization the rule the behaviour is now regarded as repugnant by individuals that no longer need hetero-control. However, respect for and internalization of these rules increases as the threshold of repugnance moves, and at the same time the individual feels they have reached a higher level of civilization through a mechanism of distinction from classes that have not yet internalized the change, and this provides individuals with complacency and satisfaction. It is almost the same kind of complacency that competitors feel every time they are able to demonstrate their competence, but even more, and in a strong and widespread way, the same kind of complacency that emerges in the homeaudience when they know the answers or, in other ways, understand that they are also capable of playing the game. The audience takes part in the game, but also thinks that it can take the next step in its learning process to harmonize with a group in which they aspire to join. All the elements of daily life can thus be read as texts, and in our case the texts15 are the games on television. In the first phase of development of TV games, knowledge could be the basis of the emergent structure. The first game shows were reserved for a small group of special people, although seen by many, but as in the imitation of the behaviours at court, game shows also gradually became texts for all, where everyone is proud to show off their knowledge. Starting from the 1980s, everyday life became important in regard to consumerism, a practice orientation in the society, incorporating general knowledge so as not to be expelled from an important group, and fortune in order to take the chances that those years offered. Then other values that emerged since the evolutionary dynamics are unpredictable and not related to intentional subjectively or have been collectively planned, but rather have resulted from their interdependence and interaction. Doppelbinder is the double bond, which is typical of the social process in which the potential for change, even when not intentionally implemented, continues to operate. Therefore, other skills become of central importance in game shows, i.e. relational, physical and emotional skills. As the game is crucial to the growth of children for the acquisition of self-regulation and for the development of subjectivity, so 15 See again what Elias says about the three important steps of The Civilizing Process: (1) objects, events and texts affect the daily lives of individuals in a particular direction; (2) During this process individuals increase their self-control, until we come to see ourselves as an object; (3) This process does not develop in a planned manner and in a certain direction but through the overlap of events.

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game shows are interesting texts in understanding which direction the modern individual is going to pursue self-regulation and self-control. If the media offers specific texts, there is probably a societal need to rethink what is civilized and what is not in a particular field. But if this is just a possibility, what is certain is that specific reflections and representations will lead to a change through a transformation in the affective economy that regulates, extends the rules or prohibits some of them, and that regulates, extends or prohibits the use of some symbols. If before we learned while having fun, now at the centre of our entertainment there are emotions, relationships and representations of bodies. The need, or the coincidence, to show these types of broadcast programs simultaneously triggers a mechanism for reflection and response to the need of texts (Doppelbinder), suitable for addressing the uncertainty and indeterminacy of our social relations. The loss of specific social rules leads us to reflect on what is lawful and legitimate and what is not in many fields, and reality shows are examples of this need to always standardize new areas, such as our private lives. Instances of control change, rise and fall affect different areas and the individual plays the game in an attempt to adapt to new requirements, and game shows and reality television give visibility to some of these changes. If private life was first an inaccessible area to the intrusion of others, it is now losing its edges, moving between the public and private, making individuals deal with new decisions. What is interesting is the gradual transformation of the game shows and reality shows and we could say that without the former, the latter would never have been conceived. It seems that the process of self-regulation is now facing a new problem—that of individuals’ intimacy management. The audience starts a new kind of comparison with competitors of that which concerns the private part of their existence, searching for a security that does not exist, highlighting the personal situations that naturally lead to a shift of the threshold of repugnance, and redefining what is public and what is private. The trend of transforming or replacing game shows with reality shows pushes people to discuss what is lawful and what is illegal, what is right and wrong, and what is moral and what is not. This seems to be the essential knowledge required by our society and appears to be one of the most important features of the current process of civilization. Each of us can use our own will, expressing our opinion against a particular competitor, or maybe feeling judged when the participant, who is very similar to us, suffers the negative evaluation of the wider public. This sets in motion an “affect regulation” from a socio-genetics level, and

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game shows and reality shows move towards a psycho-genetic level that will lead individuals able to establish “new civil” mechanisms of selfrestraint. There are mechanisms of self-restraint and internalization of which we don’t know the orientation. They could have at least two directions: one that emphasizes the need for stricter morality, and another that moves toward a new definition of morality, to underline a return of the irrational and the Dionysian (or orgiastic?) to gather fortune, and in which we show our private life in public. In both cases we can speak of a new regulation of effects. The conclusion may dwell on the fact that these shows are peculiar forms, where the intertwining relationships go in a direction that focuses on an expansion, in terms of the number of individuals involved, of the processes of self-regulation and self-control, that arrives at the involvement of “emotional intimacy” through the experience of detachment which is immanent to the representations. But in these shows unpredictability is clearly the central element, so as it is in the reality of our lives. The case, or fortune, is the indicator of the unpredictability of the consequences of intentional actions of people and, in these programs, it is accepted as a sort of prominent guest. Unpredictability is the only element that remains outside the regulatory capacity of people, and still we see various attempts to control it through collective rituals that echo the past of human history, and of which the shows are the contemporary forms. In accordance with the ideas of Elias, the direction of change is neither linear nor unidirectional and can bring us to enchanted lands already known, or proceed towards new conquests. References Allen, R. (1993). Channels of Discourse. Reassembled. New York: Routledge. Appadurai, A. (2001). Modernità in polvere. Meltemi. Barthes, R. (1974). Miti d’oggi. Einaudi. Bauman, Z. (2011). Culture in a Liquid Modern World. Polity Press, 2011. —. (2006). Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press. —. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beck, U. (2008). World at Risk. Cambridge: Polity Press. —. (2000). The Brave New World of Work. London: Cambridge University Press. —. (1992). Risk Society. Towards a new Modernity. New York: Sage.

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Bettleheim, B. (1976). The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Knopf. Berger, P. L., B., Berger & H. Kellner. (1973). The Homeless Mind. Vintage. Berger, P. L. & T. Luckmann. (1966). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. Bruckner, P. (2000). L’Euphorie perpétuelle: Essais sur le devoir de Bonheur. Paris: Grasset. —. (1995). La Tentation de l’innocence. Paris: Grasset. Buonanno, M. (2008). The Age of Television: Experiences and Theories. Bristol: Intellect Books. Carey, J. W. (2009). Communication as culture: Essays on media and society. New York: Routledge. Eigen, M. & R. Winkler. (1975). Das Spiel. Munich: Piper. Elias, N. (1994). The Civilizing Process. Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. —. (1993). Mozart. Portrait of a Genius. Cambridge: Polity Press. —. (1985). The Loneliness of the Dying. Oxford: Blackwell. —. (1983). The Court Society. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983. —. (1987). Involvement and Detachment. Contributions to the Sociology of Knowledge. Blackwell. Fiske, J. (1993). Television Culture. NewYork: Routledge. Frank, M. (1982). Der Kommende Gott. Vorlesungen über die neue mythologie. Surkamp. Giddens, A. (2000). Runaway World. London: Routledge. —. (1992). The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies. Cambridge: Polity Press. —. (1991). Modernity and Self Identity. Boston: Stanford University Press. —. (1990). The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity, 1990. Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. Anchor Books. —. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinburg: University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre, 1959. Fele, G. (1998). Le piccole cerimonie dei media. I quiz telefonici nella neo-televisione. Roma: Rai-Eri. Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergent Culture. New York: NYU Press. Halbwachs, M. (1992). On Collective Memory. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Hallenberger, G. (1988). “Die Quizsendungen und Game Shows von ARD und ZDF. Ein Überblick über Resultate einer Inhaltsanalyse des

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Programmangebots der Jahre 1986 und 1987.” Arbeitshefte Bildschirmmedien 10: 79–91. Horton, D. & R. R. Wohl. (1956). “Mass Communication and Parasocial Interaction: observation on intimacy at distance.” Psychiatry 19: 215– 229. J. Huizinga. (1937). Homo ludens. Torino: Einaudi. Isaacs, S. (1995). L’osservazione diretta del bambino. Tonio: Bollati Boringhieri. Landgrebe, L. (1972). Fenomenologia e storia. Bologna: Il Mulino. Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The post-modern Condition. Manchester: Manchester University Press. McQuail, D. (1993). Le comunicazioni di massa. Bologna: Il Mulino, Mead, J. H. (1934). Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Meinhof, U. H. & J. Smith. (2000). Intertextuality and the Media: From Genre to Everyday Life. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Meyrowitz, J. (1993). Oltre il senso del luogo. Bologna: Baskerville. Mikos, L. (1994). Es wird dein Leben! Familienserien im Fernsehen und im Alltag der Zuschauer, MAkS Publikationen. Mikos L., H. J. Wulff & J. Hans. (1989). “Zur Analyse von Unterhaltungsshows. 1. Höhepunkte des Fernsehalltags.” In Medien praktisch 13, Jg., H. 4, S. 60–62. Pezzoli, S. (2011). Immortalati. L’angoscia della morte e il divenire eterni, Le Lettere. —. (2008). L’audience che gioca, La sociologia di Norbert Elias tra media e intrattenimento. Firenze: Le Lettere. —. (2006) Fuga o comunicazione? Domande di senso della modernità disincantata. Firenze: Mediascape. Postman, N. (1985). Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Schutz, A. (1967). The Phenomenology of the Social World. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Sefardini, A. (2009) Reality TV. Pubblici, Fan, Protagonisti, Performer. Milano: Unicopli. Thompson, J. B. (1995). The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. Boston: Standford University Press. Turner, V. Dal rito al teatro. Bologna: il Mulino, 2001. Wallace, D. F. (1997). A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never do Again. New York: Little, Brown and Co. Watzlawick, P. J., H. Blavin & D. D. Jackson. (1997). Pragmatica della comunicazione umana, Roma: Astrolabio.

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Wolf, M. (2001). From Ritual to Theatre, PAJ Publications. Wulff Regeln, H. J. (1991). “Autoritäten und Kontrollmechanismen.” Medien Praktisch 4: 97–126.

CHAPTER NINE CROSS CULTURAL CHALLENGES FACED BY THE USGA AND THE R&A IN MODERN GOLF MANUEL E. GIL U. MILLENNIA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY (USA)

Abstract Cross cultural challenges have always been related to differences in languages, customs and religions, but there is another definition of culture established by Merriam-Webster (n. d.) that also considers culture as groups or organizations that share the same set of goals, values or even activities in the same time and/or space. This chapter studies the cross cultural challenges faced by the United States Golf Association (USGA) and the Royal and Ancient (R&A) in the relationship and communication process with other subcultures (golf players, public and political figures, golf club manufacturers, press, the Olympic Committee) in modern golf. Using as an example three of the most controversial topics currently discussed in golf (inclusion of women at private clubs and the role of the governing bodies, course renovations at cultural and historical golfing landmarks, and the ban of anchoring the putter against the player’s body), the author demonstrates a changing and contradictory pattern in the USGA/R&A policy, and applies organizational behaviour theories (communication process, decision-making processes, social influences and conflict management) to recommend a new approach to solving the conflict and setting a precedent for future problems. Keywords: Cross cultural challenges, organizational behaviour, conflict management, mediation, arbitration, social influences, power, golf, USGA, R&A, PGA Tour, European Tour.

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Introduction To successfully establish and understand the cross cultural challenges an organization or individuals face, it is in order to establish the ground definition of culture as the basis of analysis. According to Merriam Webster (n. d.), culture has several accepted definitions that fit different environments or situations. First Merriam Webster establishes that culture is “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.” This definition fits the most popular and common belief of what culture involves. It considers the most broad and general side of human nature by not considering any limitation or specification. When we go further in the definitions, Merriam Webster states that culture involves “the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.” At this point we start to see a more specific concept that considers the characteristics of different groups and how it separates them from other behaviours. In the same context, it considers “the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time,” and we can consider this to be the definition of “subcultures.” In the case of this chapter, we will be studying the subcultures of golf players, journalists and USGA and R&A executives, for example—all of which would fall into this category. The final definition considered is “the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization” (Merriam-Webster, n. d.). For example, the United States Golf Association (USGA) and the Royal and Ancient (R&A) as golf associations have their own subculture that separates them from golf club manufacturers; therefore, for diverse subjects they could have different or similar opinions and positions, depending on the factors that surround them.

Scope and limitations Golf is a sport that has been around for over five hundred years according to the USGA (n. d.). Through time, it has seen not only an evolution of equipment and style, but also of rules, propagation and acceptance around the world. The main focus of this chapter is to analyze the different positions taken by diverse subcultures in golf and how those differences have represented challenges for the upcoming development of actions and results. For this purpose, this chapter takes into consideration three of the most important and current topics in golf right now: the

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admission of women to private clubs and the role of the governing bodies on the matter; course renovations and the impact they have on golf significance; and finally the implications of regulations with a main focus on the banning of anchoring the putter against the body. All three subjects will be described with the objective of showing the different approaches the subcultures have over one topic and how they could change over time or over different factors. On a deeper level, the third subject is the one that is going to be further evaluated by using the first two as precedent in order to establish some recommendations. Even though all recommendations are based on social theories supported by the organizational behaviour field of study, their real application and practical demonstration depend entirely on the subcultures involved in the conflict. As the title of the chapter implies, even though different historical factors are going to be considered for this study, the timeframe analyzed and considered is that of current and modern golfing times. This includes statements, articles, rulings and other actions taken in the last three years by the subcultures involved.

Theoretical framework This chapter takes as its base the field of organizational behaviour to describe the phenomena studied. Since it takes into consideration individuals, groups, organizations and how their subcultural differences could transform into challenges, this chapter will cover the concepts of the communication process between organizations, the decision making process in organizations, conflict management and social influence, all of which will be considered through the analysis, findings and recommendations sections of this chapter.

Communication process Greenberg & Baron define communication as “the process by which a person, group, or organization transmits some type of information to another person, group, or organization” (2003, 318). In order to have a successful communication process, the message must be transformed into an understandable form (encoding); it should have a clear path of transmission (channel); the receiver of the message must be able to decipher the code established by the sender (decoding); and there must be some form of interchange among the roles of sender and receiver in order

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to continue the process (feedback) without being altered by any distraction or obstacle (noise) (Greenberg & Baron 2003). According to Greenberg & Baron: “when people speak different languages, it makes sense that communication between them may be imperfect” (2003, 332). It is obvious that there are some cross-cultural differences in communication, but most described by the authors are based on the broad definition of culture previously reviewed in this chapter. If we consider the subcultures with different sets of values, goals, practices and other features of everyday existence (Merriam-Webster n. d.), and add in the fact that those individuals might be communicating for themselves as representations of an informal or formal group, the process in the end is going to be affected in the same way as by a language barrier.

Decision making process Decision making is nothing more than considering the alternatives an entity has (being an individual, a group or an organization), identifying the factors and possible consequences that are behind them, and finally choosing one of those options based on the belief of what would be best (Greenberg & Baron 2003). Wedley & Field (as cited in Greenberg & Baron 2003, 359) developed an analytical model of the decision-making process that acts as a guide to understanding the methodology that organizations follow when they are facing a decision. Even though it is a very well-structured model, it is important to take into consideration that not all situations are a perfect fit for this eight step process (for instance, there could be information missing, or time might be against the decision making entity, and therefore it would be necessary to skip or combine several steps), but the model offers a practical and easy-to-follow approach. Wedley & Field (as cited in Greenberg & Baron 2003, 359) establish that the first step is to identify the problem, recognizing the situation that the entity is facing. This is followed by a definition of the objectives that are supposed to be attained after the decision making must be made. The next step considers the contemplation of the parts that are going to be involved in the process. After that, we need to determine all possible alternatives in order to have an evaluation process. By covering these steps, the preparation stage is completed and must now be followed by an actual choice, its implementation, and followed up with future reviews and corrective actions, if needed. It is important to remember that this chapter is studying the cross cultural challenges the USGA and the R&A face in modern golfing times,

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specifically the consequences of the decisions they are taking as organizations on the relationship and the communication process with other subcultures (players, journalists and golf manufacturers, for example). Taking this into consideration, the decision-making process that these organizations face should be approached by techniques that enhance group decisions in order to avoid deterioration in the relationships among subcultures. Greenberg & Baron explain that “the basic idea behind enhancing group decisions techniques is to structure the group experience so as to enable the many benefits of groups to occur without also experiencing the weaknesses” (2003, 389).

Conflict management As Greenberg & Baron state “in the context of organizations, conflict may be defined as a process in which one party perceives that another party has taken or will take actions that are incompatible with one’s own interests” (2003, 416). In the case of this study, all subcultures involved feel that the decisions taken by the USGA and the R&A to regulate the use of anchoring the long putter to the body, the decision to continue renovations on iconic and “unaltered” golf clubs in spite of their cultural and historical value, or the resolution to move aside on the matter of inclusion of women in private clubs all represent direct conflicts with their individual interests and the interests of golf as a sport. The resolution processes used in conflict management that are going to be considered in this chapter are mediation and arbitration. As Taylor states: What we look for in bringing a mediator on our panel is a significant amount of experience either as a sitting judge or as a lawyer demonstrating the ability to bring parties together. It requires a certain personality type and a deep knowledge of the law; it’s about bringing parties together, listening, patience, persuasiveness, being able to see commonalities. (as cited in Acello 2012, para. 5)

In the case of any of the subjects studied in this chapter, the knowledge required for being a mediator comes from different sources. The entity should take into consideration, for example, the input that the players can provide from the game, the knowledge of the rules the USGA and the R&A have as governing bodies of golf, or the expertise of golf club manufacturers and researches in sports technologies facilities around the world.

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Greenberg & Baron define arbitration as “a process in which a third party has the power to impose, or at least to recommend, the terms of an agreement between two or more conflicting parties” (2003, 421). This could be compared with the fact that since the USGA and the R&A are the governing bodies of golf around the world (therefore they make, revise and change the rules of the sport), in the end all subcultures must comply with their decision if they want their career and tournaments (in the case of the PGA Tour and European Tour) to be considered as both professional and serious.

Social influence In order for an action to be considered influential, it is enough to perform attempts as an individual, group or organization (informal or formal) to make a desired change or alter the patterns of behaviour of another entity; all of this is regardless of a successful outcome (Greenberg & Baron 2003). Kelman established a definition of social influence by using three different forms of his theory: xCompliance: when an individual accepts influence because he hopes to achieve a favorable reaction from another person or group (social approval/disapproval from others). xIdentification: when an individual accepts influence because he wants to establish or maintain a satisfying self-defining relationship with others. xInternalization: when an individual accepts influence because it is congruent with her value system (as cited by Cevik, V., Mazman, S. G. & Usluel, Y. K. 2009, para. 5).

Social influence is possible because of the impact power has over another entity. The power in social influence comes from different origins deriving legitimate rewards or coercive power, and is deployed by different units (individuals, groups or organizations) (Greenberg & Baron 2003). For the purpose of this chapter we will consider the power that golf players, journalists and public figures have as individuals versus the power and influence that the USGA and the R&A have as a solid organization on the matter of golf governing and ruling. The subcultures could use the reference and individual power they have, acting as a joint unit to create a more dominant influence over the matters of inclusion of women in golf clubs, golf courses renovation, and limitations of the use of the oversized putter.

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Analysis: Introduction to the USGA and the R&A The United States Golf Association has as its precedent the Amateur Golf Association of the United States founded in 1894. It acts as the governing body of golf in the United States and Mexico by writing and interpreting the rules of golf, regulates and test golf equipment (golf clubs, golf balls, golf apparel), and maintains both the Handicap and Course Ratings systems in both countries (USGA n. d.). Every change considered and evaluated for current golf rules must be made and taken into action on every quadrennial review the organization has. Since the last review was at the beginning of 2012, the next proposed changes cannot be established until 2016 (USGA 2009). The R&A takes its name from the Royal and Ancient Golf Club at Saint Andrews, which before 2004 not only acted as a private golf course but also as the governing body of the sport everywhere around the world (except the United States and Mexico) (R&A n. d.). Since 2004, the R&A has acted as an independent, separate and distinct organization to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club. The organization basically has the same responsibilities as the USGA only it is oriented to a different and broader geographical region. Both organizations have worked jointly since 1952 (R&A n. d.)

The evolution of golf By existing as a sport for more than five centuries, it is almost impossible for golf not to have experienced an evolution based solely on time and technological advancements. Golf has not only seen an evolution on the acceptance it has around the world (the PGA Tour and European Tour now welcome players from Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, Zimbabwe, Japan, Korea, India and so on), but also a more drastic one over the equipment used by players. Golf clubs, historically known as woods (long clubs usually utilized to make the starting shots on a hole or on second shots of longer holes), were literally made out of wood in the early stages of the sport. Using the same criteria, iron clubs (shorter clubs usually utilized to make the shots to approach the green, or to perform the starting shot on par 3 holes) were literally manufactured using only iron. Nowadays, both of these types of clubs are manufactured with aluminium alloys, with shafts of carbon fibre and other components used to help improve their performance.

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As stated by Aldrich: Golf club design has changed dramatically over the last forty years, centered primarily around two ideas: modifying weight distribution within a golf club head, and improving the materials. Better weight distribution was pioneered in the late 1950s, and early 1960s, in an effort to increase the moment of inertia. A higher moment of inertia minimizes the torque generated by striking the golf ball outside the “sweet spot” of the club. This remains the basis for design of putters, irons, and drivers to this day. (Aldrich 2003, para. 25)

As declared by Hocknell: “recent developments in driver materials and fabrication methods have facilitated the use of thinner, larger faces in driver head designs. These design attributes have created a new highperformance club characterized by impacts with a lower overall loss of mechanical energy” (Hocknell 2002, para. 1). Manufacturers of golf equipment have been using these technological advancements and their expertise to continue testing physical prototypes and maximize the advantage of their clubs (therefore generating more revenue), while staying inside the limits established by the USGA and the R&A (Degaspari 2003, para. 3). Changes have not only been focused on clubs. Golf balls have also experienced several drastic changes over the years, with golf ball manufacturers experimenting with the materials used at the core of the ball, adding more layers between it and the outer surface, or changing the number and form of dimples on the surface of the golf club, all with the objective of increasing the aerodynamics of the ball during its trajectory and therefore gaining distance on the air and the ground after it lands and rolls. This evolution has led to a drastic change in golf statistics over the years. According to the PGA Tour (2012) there were no professional players with a distance driving average of over 280 yards twenty years ago. On the other hand, in 2012 twenty-one players had a consistent average of 300 yards over the entire season, and there are no players averaging less than 260 yards.

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Table 9.1. Driving distance intervals of professional players on the PGA TOUR over the last 30 years Interval (yards)

2012

2000

1990

1980

0

0

5

32

250-260

0

8

59

84

260-270

1

52

101

53

270-280

19

106

27

6

280-290

78

27

0

0

290-300

72

1

0

0

> 300

21

1

0

0

Less than 250

Source: PGA Tour (2012) If we take a closer look on the statistics generated by the PGA Tour (2012), we not only see that the average has grown significantly over the years, but we also find outlaying statistical values of driving distances obtained by players on specific tournaments with specific weather conditions that act as very solid evidence of the consequences the sport is experiencing due to the evolution of equipment. With professional players able to hit a ball with a driver for 450 yards, there is no doubt that courses are not facing the same challenge, distancewise, as in the past, and have therefore triggered a dramatic change in scores at golf tournaments (making them lower), generating a need to perform alterations to the courses to keep pace with technological advances. The new spectacle that golf has added to its already long list of natural characteristics (incredibly long drives), has attracted fresh followers worldwide. With some problems arising due to the propagation of golf to a new and uneducated fan base (such as heckling players during tournaments, causing the average time of a golf round to increase significantly in recent years) not all factors are negative. Marketing departments around the world have started to pay more attention to the

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sport, using rising stars as spokespeople for their products. Also, several companies have started taking important golf tournaments to remote places, virtually “unknown” to golf in the past (for example China, United Arab Emirates, Thailand), hoping to make use of the current trend to create brand awareness.

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Table 9.2. The PGA Tour’s Longest Drives of 2012 Rank 1

Player

Length

Event

Round

Hole

Gary Woodland

450 yards

Hyundai T of C

1

18

T2

Bubba Watson

442 yards

WGCBridgestone

3

16

T2

Keegan Bradley

442 yards

WGCBridgestone

2

16

4

Louis Oosthuizen

430 yards

WGCBridgestone

3

16

5

Kyle Stanley

429 yards

WGCBridgestone

3

12

T6

Bubba Watson

427 yards

Hyundai T of C

1

16

T6

Branden Grace

427 yards

WGCBridgestone

1

16

8

Joost Luiten

425 yards

WGCBridgestone

3

16

T9

Paul Lawrie

422 yards

WGCBridgestone

3

16

T9

John Senden

422 yards

WGCBridgestone

3

16

T9

Bubba Watson

422 yards

WGCBridgestone

2

16

Source: PGA Tour (2012)

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A good example of the rise of golf over recent years is the fact that the International Olympic Committee announced in 2009 that after more than one hundred years, golf would take part in the Olympic Games at Rio 2016. As Ty Votaw, Executive Director of the International Golf Federation Olympic Golf Committee, declared: We strongly believed that golf deserved to be added to the Olympic Program and felt that we presented a compelling case to the IOC. We have received unprecedented support from international golf organizations throughout this process, as well as from the world’s top-ranked men and women players, which was critical to our success. We also stressed the universal nature of golf, with 60 million people playing the sport in more than 120 countries. (as cited by PGA Tour 2009, para. 12).

Inclusion of women at private clubs Even though golf has seen a technological and geographical evolution over time, there is still one aspect where it maintains an antiquated mindset. There are several private clubs around the world that have established a “non-inclusive” policy that does not allow women to become members. The issue has been focussed on the United States in recent years, especially after some declarations made in 2002 by the now former Chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, William “Hootie” Johnson. When Johnson was asked if there would be a time when women would be included at the club, he answered: “the club might someday ask a woman to join, but that timetable will be ours and not at the point of a bayonet” (as cited by ESPN 2012, para. 4). Augusta is not the only private golf club in the United States with a non-inclusive membership policy, but it definitely is the most influential since it is the only one that every year holds The Masters (one of four golf majors around the world). Nowadays, the pressure has shifted to Europe, since in October 2012 Augusta National announced that they would admit their first two women members (the former US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and a South Carolina financier named Darla Moore) at the beginning of 2013. The problem in Europe is that, unlike The Masters, the Open Championship (the only golf major held in Europe) is held every year at a different venue and the facilities selected to hold the tournament in 2011, 2013 and 2015 all are non-inclusive clubs (Royal St. George, Muirfield Village and the Royal and Ancient Club at St. Andrews). Royal and Ancient, as reviewed earlier in this chapter, is the same club that for

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several years that acted as the governing body for the golf world until 2004. The strong positions on this matter came from public and political figures and the press, all of them presenting a strong modern approach to the problem, defending the right of women to not be discriminated against. The UK Minister of Sport, Hugh Robertson, declared in October 2012: It is increasingly anachronistic not to allow women to be members. The defence (SIC) of the Royal and Ancient is that it is a private club and so has the right to do what it wants. That is legally correct and I have no quarrel when it is acting as a private club. However, I believe that when a private club fulfills a public function, such as staging a major event, then there is a different slant. I think this issue should be addressed. Let’s get on with providing equality of opportunity across all sports. (as cited by PGA 2012, para. 2).

The USGA and the R&A continue to remain quiet on this topic, maintaining a neutral position and not compromising themselves by making a statement. Also, professional players have chosen to remain silent over the course of the years on this subject, trying not get caught in a civil rights fight. The only famous active player that has made a public statement with resonance in the press is Tiger Woods, and he waited until after Augusta National changed its policy, stating: “I think the decision by the Augusta National membership is important to golf. The club continues to demonstrate its commitment to impacting the game in positive ways” (as cited by ESPN 2012, para. 14). Jack Nicklaus (one of the most iconic golf players in history, currently retired) declared on the same matter: “Everyone at Augusta National shares a similar passion for the game of golf, and I know they will be great additions to the club” (as cited by ESPN 2012, para. 15).

Golf course renovations Taking into account that the evolution in equipment allowed by the USGA and the R&A over the course of time has led to an increase in the driving distance of professional players, it is no surprise that tournament organizers and clubs have shown an interest in making renovations to their courses, adding more area to them to make it more difficult for players to achieve great scores. The problem in this topic arises when such renovations take place at one of golf’s cultural and historical icons, such as the Royal and Ancient Club at St. Andrews.

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Since the Open Championship is going to take place at St. Andrews in 2015, and considering the fact that in the recent tournaments held at that location there several players have broken the course record for the lowest round (USA Today 2012), the R&A has shown an interest in making renovations to the venue. Currently, there is an ongoing project to make changes to nine of the eighteen holes of the Old Course at St. Andrews. R&A chief executive Peter Dawson affirmed that the changes are focused on demanding better and more accurate shots on the course, and declared that: “The championship committee felt there was an opportunity to stiffen its defenses in some places to ensure it remains as challenging as ever to the professionals” (as cited by USA Today 2012, para. 11). In this specific topic, we encounter a strong traditional position from players acting as the opposition for the modern approach shown by the R&A. By reviewing declarations made by some players on their personal social media accounts we have a notion of what these changes mean to them. Ian Poulter (an English golf player, and part of the European team that won the Ryder Cup on 2012) stated: “If they make changes to the Old Course St Andrews they are insane. The course is great just leave the winning score up to Mother Nature” (Poulter 2012). He also tweeted: “They are going to change the 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 11, and 15. Oh joy let’s play the 11th the par 3 from 240 yards just for fun please. Don’t mess it up” (Poulter 2012), and finally: “I know, let’s draw a Moustache on the Mona Lisa. I’m sure everyone would like that. Same as messing with a great course (St Andrews)” (Poulter 2012). From the same traditional position we have Robert Karlsson, a Swedish player, stating: “Don’t touch sacred ground, so many other old classic courses have already been ruined! Not this one too!” (Karlsson 2012). Steve Elling, a CBS golf journalist and writer declared: “Overhauling the Old Course is like putting the nose back on the Sphinx and arms on Venus de Milo. Quirks, shortcomings part of aura, allure” (Elling 2012). Finally, Paul Azinger, an American player, proclaimed: “The R&A is about to spend $millions adding tees and length to St Andrews because of today’s Drivers/Balls. #Irony“ (Azinger 2012).

The surge of oversized putters The putter is the club used when golfers are on the green to get the ball in the hole. The standard putter is traditionally no longer than the length of the leg of the player using it, although there are no rules regarding the length of the putter rather than recognizing the type by the way a player

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uses it. There are other types of putters called “belly putter” and the “long putter,” which are obviously “oversized putters.” Fig. 9.1. Different types of putters Belly Putter

Long Putter

Standard Putter

Source: Constructed from several Google images (Gil 2012) Oversized putters have existed in golf since the 1930s, according to Stachura (2012), although it was not common to see them in professional tournaments until the 1980s. USGA Executive Director Mike Davis stated that before the mid-2000s the percentage of players using long and belly putters was under 3%, but the average started growing, with players using that type of club representing 11% of the total in 2011, and 15% in 2012 (getting as high as 20% or 25% in specific tournaments) (as cited by Stachura 2012). In April 2011, Davis declared on Golf’s Channel Morning Drive, regarding the use of oversized putters: “We don’t see this as a big trend. It’s not as if all junior golfers are doing this. No one’s even won a major using one of these things anchored to them. So we don’t see this as something that is really detrimental to the game” (as cited by Stachura 2012, para. 14). The problem then came a few months later when Keegan Bradley won the PGA Championship (one of the four major tournaments) on August of that same year by using a belly putter anchored to his body. The debate on the use of oversized putters anchored to the body was restarted, and from that point on rose to the greatest levels since the mid1980s. Any restriction in the use of oversized putters has its precedent in 1989 when, according to Shain (2012), the USGA tried to ban the use of long putters, but Orville Moody (the U.S. Senior Open winner) threatened legal actions if the association passed the ban, therefore affecting the way Moody and other players made a living.

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In November 2012 the USGA announced that they were considering reviewing the anchoring of the putter against the body because they felt it represented an advantage for the player. Mike Davis (USGA Executive Director) stated: It’s been a polarizing issue, and for many years you’ve had people who genuinely care about the game sit on both sides of it. It’s been fairly divisive and it’s only gotten more so in the last year, but this decision gets back to the USGA and R&A feeling that fundamentally golf for 600 years has been about picking up the club, gripping it with two hands and making a free swing away from the body. (as cited by Stachura 2012, para. 4).

As reviewed earlier in this paper, any change in golf rules could not take action until the quadrennial review of both the USGA and the R&A, but both organizations have already made a draft of the new rule. The USGA, with this statement, is trying to put some pressure on the other subcultures (players, journalists, golf club manufacturers, the Olympic Committee), waiting to see if there is a negative reaction after the change is completed. In a joint communication, the R&A and the USGA in November 28, 2012 announced all the information about the proposed change, the transitional time given and the feedback time before a final decision, stating: “Each organization is expected to take a final decision on the proposed rule change in spring 2013. Anyone wishing to provide written comments to the appropriate governing body is encouraged to do so by February 28, 2013 as directed on the respective websites: RandA.org/anchoring or USGA.org/anchoring“ (as cited by USGA 2012). On the same communication, Peter Dawson (Chief Executive of the R&A) declared: “We believe we have considered this issue from every angle but given the wide ranging interest in this subject we would like to give stakeholders in the game the opportunity to put forward any new matters for consideration” (as cited by USGA 2012). If approved, the new rule would read: 14-1b Anchoring the Club In making a stroke, the player must not anchor the club, either “directly” or by use of an “anchor point.” Note 1: The club is anchored “directly” when the player intentionally holds the club or a gripping hand in contact with any part of his body, except that the player may hold the club or a gripping hand against a hand or forearm.

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Chapter Nine Note 2: An “anchor point” exists when the player intentionally holds a forearm in contact with any part of his body to establish a gripping hand as a stable point around which the other hand may swing the club”. (USGA 2012).

The R&A/USGA’s quick approach to the matter may also have been influenced by the fact that on November of 2012 a fourteen year old amateur golfer from China named Guan Tianlang won the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship using a belly putter, earning himself an invitation to the 2013 Masters (arguably the most important of majors) (Crouse 2012). The position presented by players from the PGA Tour and the European Tour varies from modern (supporting the anchoring of the club), to neutral (not participating or stating that it does not make a difference to them), or finally by being very traditional (declaring their approval of the ban because the use of that style represents an advantage in the game, in their opinion). Most significant opposition has been presented by professional golfers who use belly and long putters, specifically Keegan Bradley (2011 PGA Rookie of the year, and 2011 PGA Championship winner), Ernie Els (2012 Open Championship winner), Webb Simpson (2012 US Open winner) and Adam Scott (#7 on the Official World Golf Ranking) (PGA Tour 2012). Bradley made some comments in October 2012, stating: “I’m going to do whatever I have to do to protect myself and the other players on tour. I look at it as a whole, as us all together. I think that for them to ban this after what we’ve done is unbelievable” (as cited by Stachura 2012, para. 20). Only one month later, Bradley declared: “I’m obviously not happy with the ruling, but I respect the USGA, and especially Mike Davis. They make the rules, and I’ll adjust appropriately. I’m going to accept the challenge and hopefully do well when they do ban it” (as cited by Stachura 2012, para. 21). Even though there was a slight change in the “aggressiveness” of the statements made by players, and the fact that there are already some making the transition to other putters, there is an evident conflict between the two subcultures involved. On the other side of the story we have the position of PGA Tour players Brandt Snedeker, Steve Stricker and Tiger Woods (the first two arguably the best putters active in the world of golf today, and the third one of the most influential golfers in the history of the sport). Snedeker declared on the matter: “There’s a whole generation of kids right now that are growing up playing golf, never using a short putter” (as cited by Stain 2012, para. 19). Woods, who has shown a neutral/modern approach to the

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inclusion of women at golf clubs and course renovations, now shows a radically traditional attitude, affirming: I just believe that the art of putting is swinging the club and controlling nerves and having it as a fixed pointed. As I was saying all year, it’s something that’s not in the traditions of the game. We swing all other 13 clubs. I think the putter should be the same. It should be a swinging motion throughout the bag. I don’t know if there’s any statistical data about whether or not anchoring the putter does help on a certain range of putts, especially the guys who have gotten the twitches. One of the things I was concerned about going forward is the kids who get started in the game and starting to putt with an anchoring system. There have been guys who have had success out here, and obviously everyone always copies what we do out here, and that’s something that I think for the greater good of the game needs to be adjusted. (as cited by Harig 2012a, para. 2, 8 and 9).

Stricker, on his part, considers that anchoring the putter is an advantage because it takes the nerves from the hands out of the equation (Harig 2012a). The player also believes that: “There’s going to be a lot of upset people, a lot of guys that have putted with a long putter for a long time, and I have a feeling they’re going to have something to say about the rule” (as cited by Harig 2012a, para. 8).

Findings By studying all the statements and the information made public on these three topics over recent years, the first conclusion that arises is the fact that there is no stable pattern of positions among any subculture able to transcend the other issues. In particular, the USGA, the R&A and golf players as a whole present a very diverse set of approaches that represent an obstacle to the way the topics are addressed with the use of a single strategy, and also an obstacle to the communication process.

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Table 9.3. Differences in the position the subcultures take over each topic

Source: Gil (2012) One of the facts that must be considered to understand the different points of view and positions shown over time by the subcultures is that each and every one has a different nature, set of values and characteristic features of everyday existence that act as an obstacle to the communication process (noise), both impossible to overcome and accentuating the conflict between them. Since the R&A and the USGA have shown positions that have contradicted the approach they chose to take over each matter (from neutral, to modern, to traditional), they do not enjoy the privilege of having reference power over other subcultures, even though they are legally the governing bodies of golf around the world. That absence of reference power has led the subcultures (especially golf players) to

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challenge their decisions, negatively affecting any communication process and therefore deteriorating the existing relationship among them. Table 9.4. Differences in the nature of each subculture Subculture USGA and the R&A

Nature Regulate the game of golf

Golf Players

Have a career and make a living out playing golf

Press

To inform. Form and/or communicate an opinion matrix

Golf club manufacturers

Make a profit from a trend or technological improvements

Olympic Committee

Promote golf and its values throughout the world

Golf fans

To enjoy the game of golf and their favourite players’ careers

Public/political figures

Use golf as a platform to send a message

Source: Gil, 2012 The R&A chose not to consider the opinion of other subcultures by acting with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews in starting the renovation project at Old Course. Golf players who oppose the decision issued strong public statements against it but have not made an impact on the matter because all of their efforts are individual. Even though they belong to golf associations (players who play at the PGA Tour belong to the Professional Golfers Association, for example) they do not use a formal group platform to present any opposition, so the feedback in the communication process is not as formal as expected by the USGA/R&A. The difference now is that the R&A and the USGA have publicly stated their willingness to listen to other parties’ opinions before taking a final

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decision. Even then, we cannot forget the fact that any final change is not actually going to take place before the 2016 quadrennial golf rule review. The only time a formal decision and policy was actually altered regarding the three subjects studied in this chapter was when formal female protest groups and companies sponsoring The Masters took action against the discrimination of women at private clubs in the USA. Over time, those actions encouraged Augusta National to grant membership to two women by 2013.

Recommendations Before getting into the recommendations of this chapter, we first need to consider the fact that there is no action able to change the current status of the conflict on the second topic, since the renovation project is already on its way at St. Andrews. All changes aimed at this topic should have a positive precedent that eases the understanding of the two clashing approaches. On the other hand, in the matter of the inclusion of women at golf clubs, there is a pretty weak position shown by the two main subcultures studied in this chapter (USGA/R&A and golf players), and a very slow (but small) change is already in place. In the long term it would be more productive to take advantage of the efforts of political and public figures by continuing to rely on them for this subject, and focus on setting a precedent that both main subcultures have shown a more active and willing approach. The following set of recommendations are focused on the ban of anchoring the putter to use it as an inflection and reference point for future conflicts on the relationship between the subcultures, and to take advantage of the window of opportunity the USGA and the R&A have already offered.

Shift from informal communications to formal communications Even though golf players enjoy the privilege of being very influential among the golf community, and their statements have a very resounding impact with the press and golf fans, they must not entirely depend on individual statements (individual press conference, interviews, social media personal pages) to have the R&A and the USGA consider their opinions and change their position. In order to experience an improvement in the communication process between players and the R&A/USGA, players must provide their feedback

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through a more formal “channel.” By showing a more professional form of communication, the players would indirectly send a powerful message to the associations and the golf community in general. Not only do they know that they have a voice in the matter, but they are committed to making it count. As explained by Kelman in his social influence theory (as cited by Cevik, Mazman & Usluel 2009, para. 5), golf players should take advantage of the compliance (the acceptance of influence hoping to achieve a favourable reaction from another entity) and identification (acceptance of influence hoping to maintain a satisfying relationship with another) shown by both associations.

Group identification/representation Formal communication must not only come from players, but also include other subcultures. The PGA (Professional Golfers Association) should act as a whole in taking part in this matter by truly combining (as they are supposed to do) golf players, golf instructors and golf tournaments organizers from around the world to provide different point of views, statistics and experiences through a unified front. Even though the association is formed by a diverse group, their different natural characteristics would act as the main support of the reference and expert power necessary to present a more balanced communication and decision making process.

Mediation/arbitration hybrid The USGA and the R&A know that whether or not the PGA Tour and the European Tour comply with the proposed new set of rules is up to both tournament organizers to determine. Even if the organizers choose not to do so, it does not mean that the path taken by the main bodies (declaring the decision of the change and then paying attention to what other parties involved have to say) is the right way to go. The USGA/R&A definitely have good intentions, but both organizations could have used that initiative from the beginning to ease the process. Since there is no scientific data that supports or discards the theory that anchoring the putter to a player’s body would be an advantage in the game, it is now the right time to determine it. A scientific committee formed by most subcultures around the issue must work together to take a consensual decision based on factual data.

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By combining the technological equipment and facilities golf manufacturers have, the understanding and care the USGA/R&A have for both rules and the spirit of golf, the ability, interest and capacity that golf players have to participate in experiments to clarify the conflict, the unbiased, respected and honourable position the Olympic Committee could offer as a mediator, and the coverage the press can give to this historic scientific and joint effort, a truly globalized and “multicultural” evolution of the sport could be possible. The mediation part of the process comes from the diverse but equally powerful representation each subculture has on the committee. The structure and characteristics of the new organization could help bring down the natural barriers elevated by the subcultures (confronting positions), and focus on the real interests of the parties. The arbitration part of the process comes from the previous commitment that all participating parties would make to understand, approve, support and comply with the final verdict emanating from the scientific evaluations, studies and further discussions. Even though there is no certain guarantee that this process would end all debate, in an unsuccessful scenario it would at least provide scientific evidence behind the natural incompatibility of interests between the subcultures, and therefore would eliminate the thought that decisions are taken from a biased approach. On a successful scenario, it would provide the perfect precedent to demonstrate that a “multicultural” evolution of golf is possible.

References Acello, R. (2012). “Making Mediators: as the Field Grows, so does the Need for Negotiation Skills.” ABA Journal 98 (10) 28. http://go. galegroup.com.ezp012ro.lirn.net/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA305249088& v=2.1&u=lirn16516&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w Aldrich, D. (2003). “Laser Surface Modification in Golf Clubs: the Laser Process has the Flexibility to Produce Textures that Generate High Spin Rates for Wedges and Optimum Spin Rates for Drivers, while also Improving the Feel of the Clubs.” Advanced Materials & Processes 161 (9) 38+. http://go.galegroup.com.ezp012ro.lirn.net/ ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA109220585&v=2.1&u=lirn16516&it=r&p=GP S&sw=w Azinger, P. (2012). Paul Azinger’s Twitter Timeline. Twitter. https:// twitter.com/PaulAzinger

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Cevik, V., S. G. Mazman & Y. K. Usluel (2009). “Social influence in the adoption process and usage of innovation: gender differences.” International Journal of Behavioral, Cognitive, Education and Psychological Sciences 1 (4) 229+. http://go.galegroup.com.ezp 012ro.lirn.net/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA218450310&v=2.1&u=lirn1651 6&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w Crouse, K. (2012). Guan Tianlang, Qualifying for Masters at 14, is part of a trend. NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/sports/golf/ guan-tianlang-qualifying-for-masters-at-14-is-part-of-a-trend.html Degaspari, J. (2003). “Golf on course. (Input Output).” Mechanical Engineering-CIME 125 (7), 74. http://go.galegroup.com.ezp012ro.lirn.net/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA105477885&v=2.1&u=lirn1651 6&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w Elling, S. (2012). Steve Elling’s Twitter Timeline. Twitter. https://twitter .com/EllingYelling Eubanks, S. (n. d.). “UK Minister weighs in on women.” PGA.com. http://www.pga.com/news/golf-buzz/uk-minister-weighs-in-women Greenberg, J. & R. Baron (2003). Behavior in Organizations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Harig, B. (2012). “Tiger Woods in Favor of Anchor Ban.” ESPN.com. http://espn.go.com/golf/story/_/id/8683732/tiger-woods-favoranchoring-ban-putters —. (2012). “Rule Change will Ban AnchorinG.” ESPN.com. http:// espn.go.com/golf/story/_/id/8685514/usga-ra-clear-way-bananchoring-putters-2016 Hocknell, A. (2002). “High-Performance Driver Design: Benefits for All Golfers.” Journal of Sports Sciences 20 (8) 643+. http://go. galegroup.com.ezp-012ro.lirn.net/ps/i.do?id=GALE% 7CA91085671&v=2.1&u=lirn16516&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w Karlsson, R. (2012). Robert Karlsson’s Twitter Timeline. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/robertkarlsson Merriam-Webster. (n. d.) Definition of Culture. http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/culture Poulter, I. (2012). Ian Poulter’s Twitter Timeline. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/IanJamesPoulter Stachura, M. (2012). USGA/R&A propose ban on anchored putting. Golf Digest. http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-equipment/blogs/hotlist365/ 2012/11/usgara-propose-ban-on-anchored.html#ixzz2EfJt0RH9 —. (2009). “Changes in the Decisions for 2010 and the Evolution of one Particular Decisión.” USGA. http://www.usga.org/news/2009/Nov

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ember/Changes-In-The-Decisions-For-2010-And-The-Evolution-OfOne-Particular-Decision/ —. (2009). “Golf Receives Final Approval, will be Part of 2016 Olympics.” PGA Tour. http://www.pgatour.com/2009/r/10/08/olympic _announcement/index.htm —. (2012). “Adam’s Scott PGA Tour Page.” PGA Tour. http://www. pgatour.com/golfers/024502/adam-scott/ —. (2012). “2012 Statistical Breakdown: Driving Distance, Accuracy.” PGA Tour. Retrieved from http://www.pgatour.com/2012/r/11/17/ stats-driving/index.html —. (2012). “The R&A and USGA Announce Proposed rule Change to Prohibit Anchored Strokes.” USGA. http://www.usga.org/news/2012/ November/Proposed-Rules-Change-to-Prohibit-Anchoring/ —. (n.d.) “History of the R&A.” R&A. http://www.randa.org/ en/RandA.aspx —. (n.d.) “History of the USGA.” USGA. http://www.usga.org/ about.aspx?id=7881#show=d1615101-00df-42fe-97f1-bb9cd1de416c

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dr. Otto F. von Feigenblatt Professor Otto F. von Feigenblatt is an elected Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, an Academician of the Constantinian Academy of Arts, Letters and Sciences (Palermo, Italy) and a member of the United States committee of the Council for Security and Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP). He currently teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in International Business and the Social Sciences at Millenia Atlantic University (Doral, Florida) and teaches Cultural Anthropology at Northwood University (West Palm Beach, Florida). Dr. von Feigenblatt is the author of “The Association of Southeast Asian States (ASEAN): Conflict and Development,” New Century Publications, New Delhi, India, 2012. His research has appeared in more than 50 peerreviewed academic journals and he is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Contemporary Literature and Entelequia. Dr. von Feigenblatt is serving as the editor in chief of the Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences and as one of the chief editors of the Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies. In terms of formal education, he holds a BS in Social Science from the Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, an MA in International Development Studies from Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok, Thailand), and a PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from Nova Southeastern University (Fort Lauderdale, Florida). Dr. von Feigenblatt was appointed Honorary Cooperating Professor of Social Science by Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche (Elche, Spain) for his contribution to the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Contact: [email protected] Dr. Beatriz Peña Acuña Beatriz Peña Acuña holds an Extraordinary Doctorate Prize with a doctoral thesis about Steven Spielberg and leads an interdisciplinary research group called Personal Development. She studied Spanish Philology, Humanistic Studies and Journalism. She teaches Communication to undergraduates, and Management and Business Administration and Research methods in Teaching Studies at Masters level at the University of Saint Anthony (Murcia, Spain). She is the author of several books in Spanish, such as Journalism and TV studies, Scientific

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Methods of Observation in Education, Human Development and other titles. Her research has appeared in several peer-reviewed academic journals in Spanish and English. She is Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal Spanish Society of Communication (SEECI), and the Journal of Alternative Perspectives (JAPPS). She has researched in New York University (USA), University of East Anglia (Norwich) and Queen Mary College (University of London). She is an Honourary Professor at the University of the International University of Humanities and Social Sciences (IUHS, Costa Rica) of Applied Sociology and Film studies, and she has also been teaching in Erasmus program in some European universities. She is also an elected Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Dr. David Walton Dr. David Walton is professor at University of Murcia at English Department. He has written several books about culture from a Cultural Studies standpoint, one of which, Doing Cultural Theory (Sage 2012), is an academic bestseller in UK. His research interests are postmodernism, popular culture and visual culture. Dr. Silvia Pezzoli Dr. Silvia Pezzoli has a PhD. in Sociology. She teaches Cultural Studies and Identity and Cultural Consumption for undergraduates in Strategic Communication and Media and Society in Politic Sciences at the Faculty Cesare Alfieri at the University of Studies in Florence. She is a member of the research group Personal Development. She has published several books in Italian, such as Immortalati. L’angoscia della morte e il divenire eterni (2010) and L’audience che gioca. La sociologia processuale di Norbert Elias tra media (2008). Dr. Marco Bracci Dr. Marco Bracci has a PhD. in Sociology of Communication (2006), and a Fellowship on Sociology of Communication (since 2007), DISPO, Dipartimento di Scienza della Politica e Sociologia, Facoltà di Scienze Politiche, Università degli Studi di Firenze in Italy. He is the co-author of Da Modugno a X-Factor (Carocci 2010), and a member of the research group Personal Development. Dr. Edoardo Tabasso Dr. Edoardo Tabasso has a PhD. in Sociology of Communication (2004). ಯProfessore incaricato” all’Università di Firenze (Corso di Laurea

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Magistrale in Comunicazione Strategica, Corso di Laurea in Scienze Politiche) e alla Sapienza Università di Roma (Facoltà di Sociologia). “Assegnista di ricerca” from 2004 in Dipartimento di Scienza della Politica e Sociologia (Dispo), Università degli Studi di Firenze. He is the co-author of Da Modugno a X-Factor (2010) and of Raccontarsi. La passione narrativa nel cinema nella tv (2008). He is a member of the research group Personal Development. Dr. Jimenez Murguia Dr. Jimenez Murguia is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Miyazaki International College, Japan. His research deals with the relationship between Religion and Society and has appeared in more than ten edited volumes in countless peer-reviewed academic journals. Most importantly, Dr. Jimenez Murguia embodies the ideal twenty-first century scholar, being transnational while at the same time in tune with local developments. He is working on two books for 2013 and one of his books is to be published in 2012. Manuel E. Gil Manuel E. Gil is a Member of the American Marketing Association, member of the South Florida Chapter of the American Marketing Association, and a Junior Member of the Executives Association of Carabobo (Venezuela). He completed a Bachelor in Business Administration with a Marketing concentration at Tec University of Center (Valencia, Venezuela) obtaining academic distinctions both on his degree and undergraduate thesis. He is currently an MBA candidate at the Millennia Atlantic University (Doral, Florida) eager to further develop his academic and professional career focusing on marketing, advertising and sports management.