Group 10 Questions

Maya Cochrane
Jordy Craddock
Gorretti Layco
Przemek Pyszczek


Questions: The Ecstasy of Communication

1. In the past we had governing forces such as the Catholic Church to dictate what is good, or bad and right or wrong however now in contemporary society, we are left alone amidst the boundless network of information to decide our own morals. In Baudrillard’s Ecstasy of Communication he talks of Marx theories of commodity and how this new world of information/communication overload is obscene. Is the information around us obscene? Does information/communication add or detract from our quality of life? Is the idea of obscene subjective or is all information/communication, as stated by Hall, obscene?

2. Scene and mirror can be understood as a method in which we reflect our own values onto objects. Contrarily screen and network, forces the individuals to become the screens that speak a projected message. However in the context of consumer society did scene and mirror ever truly exist?

3. The production of images and scenes that connect humans has now surpassed production of tangible human connections. The growing virtual nature of contemporary society has brought about less need for physical spaces. Can we effectively bring about change as a society if our interactions occur in virtual spaces, rather than physical public spaces?

4. Because government, corporations and financial investors have associated themselves with all that is deemed “public,” has the internet(work) become the one true space that is public?

5. Baudrillard states the “TV renders the room into an archaic envelope.” This implies that the physical spaces we inhabit no longer exist to shape our lives; instead these spaces are used to house the images that bring the events of the world to us. Many would argue that all aspects of culture and society are interwoven, and that architecture reflects these characteristics. Thus, why has no change occurred (in an architectural scale) with the development of the relationship between the room and the TV/person and room?

Question: Encoding, Decoding

6. In the past communication theory has been organized as sender message receiver and now the linear progress has been broken down into distinct, autonomous stages; each imprinted by institutional power relations. If we do break down these communication stages then who is in control of the messages sent and how they should be received?

7. There is a debate between the credibility of corporate news agencies verses the independent Blogger? The advent of the Internet has allowed for independent and corporate to exist within the same media source. Who should be in control of what type of information is in circulation?

8. “The event must become a ‘story’ before it can become a communicative event.” If all events become narratives and if we assume we each event could be constructed into our own personal narrative, then is it even possible to construct a dominant stream? If there are dominant streams, then how do you become part of it or begin to decode the preferred code? Hall states that the communication circuit creates a pattern of domination. Is a dominant stream a positive or negative element in our society?

9. There are advertisements where in production, the message has been lost or completely omitted. If this type of advertisement is distributed and is omnipresent in society then does it abide by Hall’s theories on the communication process? For instance, if an advertisement with no intended meaning was distributed, would society begin to construct their own meaning? Is it possible to decode an advertisement at the stage of consumption?

10. Should we be socially responsible for the messages that TV sends out? If we no longer have a collective set of morals, then who should monitor the “obscene” broadcast on the TV?

11. “The representations of violence on the television screen are not violence but messages about violence”… If an act of violence results from the messages portrayed on a television screen that is responsible for the decoding of the message? Should the responsibility of decoding the meaning be placed on the viewer or the producer of the message?

12. When signs that already have encoded meaning are introduced to a cultural context they take on new meanings. Is this mechanism of appropriation enriching these meanings or are they being devalued from its original content?

13. In the past we used the TV as a single source representation of our cultural values. For the most part the TV programs were highly constructed and idealize representations of society. In today’s context we have multiple sources providing live feeds, reality television, and personal Blogs, etc. What are the effects this personal technological revolution? Is it changing our cultural values? Are the new opportunities for opposition and plurality a good thing? Or is it just a just another means for dominant messages to be circulated?