Schiller, Dan. “Pushing informationalized capitalism into science and information technology.”

Dan Schiller, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offers an alternative view to the previous mentioned authors about the state of current culture. He contends that it is not due to newly developing technologies that we are in age of informational capitalism. He credits the change on political and economic fronts. While this article does not so much touch on copyright per se, it is useful because it provides another perspective on the issue of culture and information. In addition he touches on intellectual property as well as copyright law in general stating that global policies while seemingly for free enterprise, growth, and creativity is rather all about profit. He seems to accredit persons (such as corporate leaders, government and communities) for developing a new market of information to adapt to the changing global market.

This article contributes precisely because it provides a counter argument in some ways thereby adding complexity to the topics being discussed.

 

"Postmodern Antihero: Capitalism and Heroism in Taxi Driver" Bright Lights Film Journal 47 (2005).

 

    The author of this article compares Taxi Driver to a number of other film genres, as it combines elements of noir, the Western, horror, and urban melodrama. Iannucci believes Travis’s lack of a distinct identity compels him to compose an exoteric identity which is externally influenced by personalities such as the “gunslinger” and the Indian. In reality, what Travis Bickle does is create a postmodern antiheroic identity that is nostalgic and pop culture oriented. The author argues that Travis employs a Western-style philosophical approach to life by solving a complex contemporary problem with an individual solution. The film’s climactic ending shows how absurd the Western idealistic depiction of heroism is because the media in the film not only ignores Travis’s actions but also glorifies a psychopathic killer as a noble citizen. According to Iannucci, Travis’s search for vengeance under the guise of violence makes him an antihero because it is more insane than courageous. In addition, Scorsese’s camerawork is discussed as he implies characters’ ambiguities and complexities with the use of editing and odd framing angles. Scorsese uses dissolve sequence to create a deformity that permits the viewer to understand Travis’s consciousness and point of view.
    Although Travis lives in the city, he stands bent by his own loneliness and trapped by his own isolation because he cannot seem to connect with anyone on a personal level. The value of this article is that it allows the violence of a film like Taxi Driver to be understood a little deeper as it dwells into the psyche of Travis Bickle. Travis’s contradictory intentions are confusing because he attempts to rid the city of violence by committing the ultimate act of violence, which is murder. His logic is irrational and circular as his solution suggest that violence is the only answer to alienation and loneliness. Travis takes it upon himself to play the role of Iris’s protector and save her from the evil realms of prostitution. His “antiheroic” actions stem from the need to save Iris and perhaps impress Betsy, thus, giving his life a “sense of direction”.
    

 

lecture
A Brief History of Neoliberalism [02:02:30]
David Harvey
@ University of Pennsylvania (2006-11-02

From the Urban Studies Program at UPenn: "In his talk, Harvey will draw on his recent book, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005), in which he traces the rise of neoliberal principles based on the theory of free markets and unfettered international capital flows from an obscure economic theory to dominance on the world stage. Harvey shows how proponents of a neoliberal economic philosophy, such as the influential leaders Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, gained the consensus of key figures and economic and political institutions, driven by an aspiration to re-establish class power. He dissects the logic of neoliberalism, revealing its built-in contradictions and the tremendous variation in how it looks from place to place and at different scales. He will talk about how cities have both complied and resisted neoliberalism's discipline."

Lecture begins 00:06:35. Lecture ends and questions begin 01:25:55. Audio goes bad around 01:34:00.

Here, Riekert adopts Gladwell’s term to refer to street-style fashion bloggers whose keen sense of fashion results in documentation of the some of globe’s newest and funkiest looks featured on the web for all to see. As a result, fashion industry executives, rather than hiring street teams to seek out “cool” looks, are turning to fashion bloggers in order to ascertain what is in style. This occurrence is widespread and Riekert identifies several companies whose soul purpose is to sift through fashion blogs in the hope of determining the next big thing.

Riekert argues that while these blogs provide a valuable service to the fashion industry, they also democratize the act of coolhunting. “In the end, the price the companies pay for this 'free' information is that they don't have exclusivity,” she explains. Yet coolhunting does not just apply to the fashion industry; indeed, corporations focused on almost any aspect of culture or technology frequently turn to blogs in order to ascertain what the next big trend will be. Like Gladwell’s version of coolhunting, online coolhunting is valuable because it provides up-to-date and cutting-edge information. Furthermore, the interactivity of blogs helps generate further dialogue, as readers comment on posts and debate trends. In the end, ideas debated and favored on the web can be translated into real products created by the industries for the marketplace.

In general, Riekert combines interviews with bloggers and media companies and web statistics to form a solid argument, yet her adoption of the term “coolhunter” to refer to fashion bloggers seems to deviate slightly from Gladwell’s original designation. Unlike the coolhunters of the 1990s, today’s coolhunters are not tied to industry insiders but work for themselves. Rather than reporting their finders directly to a fashion corporation, they post their findings online. Thus, fashion industry experts must go through an extra step in order to access the information that the coolhunters have amassed. This extra step is crucial because it grants both industry insiders and the general public the same information at the same time. Thus, readers are providing feedback in the form of comments and discussion at the same time the fashion industries are designing their new lines. The result is a line of fashion directly influenced by popular opinion.

Yet while many fashions captured by fashion bloggers end up being adapted by the masses, just as many of these fashions are ridiculed or rejected. Although Riekert never explicitly states that fashion blogs make the so-called “cool” subjects featured on blogs susceptible to the (sometimes cruel) opinions of the greater blog-reading public, she ends her article with the mention of a German blogger whose blog features tee-shirts with faux underarm hair – a trend which will likely (or at least hopefully) be rejected by the masses. Extrapolating, one can glean that this more accessible form of coolhunting also strips the cool of some of their power to dictate the fashions, as any new trends must be approved by the masses before they are translated into profitable market goods.

This article examines how online fashion bloggers are gaining more and more credibility with industry insiders who are attracted to their large numbers of readers and hope to win them over. As a result, these bloggers are granted advertising deals with major industries and are greeted with open access to fashion shows and events formerly accessible to major media companies only. Top-ranking blogs can also be sold for considerable amounts of money, especially among media companies looking to strike it rich in the world of the elite.

Bloggers also wield considerable power because their snarky, critical comments leave designers fearing an online trashing. Other designers seek out bloggers in the hope of gaining extra publicity. Finally, many designers and media corporations recruit bloggers to come and work for them, hoping that bloggers’ keen sense of style will give their company a coolness boost.  Fashion-blogging represents a quickly growing industry, with revenues only expected to rise as online advertising becomes increasingly popular. 

A well-researched article, Dodes incorporates comments from several top fashion executives and photo-bloggers with statistics from Technorati (a blog tracker) and BlogAds (an agency responsible for placing advertisements on top-raking blogs.) While the article uses the data to draw reasonable conclusions, it neglects to consider differences between blogs that cover street style versus those that cover couture or celebrity styles. Although Dodes’s failure to differentiate between different types of blogs makes the article appear as it if speaks for them all, when analyzed closely, Dodes seems to focus only on the latter two types. Thus, while she draws a connection between fashion bloggers whose posts about couture and celebrity style may gain them insider status, she does not mention street-style bloggers and never suggests that the writers of such blogs might have a different relationship with the fashion industry.

Nevertheless, the implications of this article are enormous. First of all, Dodes credits fashion bloggers with making the secrets of the fashion world available to anyone who cares to seek them out via the internet. It also posits fashion bloggers as independent and increasingly powerful experts, almost akin to a ruling aristocracy, who are not tied to any one company or designer, but who can praise or criticize different labels as they see fit, and who have commanded the attention of both media companies and fashion industry bigwigs. Finally, Dodes posits a capitalist superstructure (not surprising for WSJ) which maintains that control ultimately lies with whoever influences the masses, and that bloggers succeed because they are more in touch with reading audiences (and thus more likely to influence their liking of a particular item or design) than the industries themselves.

Annabelle Lyons Film History