Author Archives: Pearl Jeung

Week15: Jensen (pij5030)

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As our last reading of this extraordinary valuable and special class to me, we have read Robert Jensen’s Citizen’s of the Empire. In overall Jensen argued the following three main points: United States is the “greatest nation,” the “best nation;” we must support our troops; patriotism is a positive value.

When Jensen first argued about how many of the people, or more so the politicians of the United States repeatedly call out how great this country is, how this country is the best out there, and why and what we do outside of our country is because we are the best and strongest nation that stands among most of the world, I thought of a concept that I have learned and both tackled at understanding very carefully what ideas a nation holds: ethnocentric, exocentric, and world centric. It always seems so amusing and funny how all of the materials we learn and read in this class is shown and talked about in other classes too, even though we are talking about two very different examples. Anyways, from what Jensen was arguing, in addition to what I have learned, the United States is a very ethnocentric country that has extremely high pride in the country. Whatever that is said, done or shown is focused on and always seems to tie back into the United States, even if that story is “origined” from outside of the country. Jensen’s argument about this first point was that however proud we may be of our country and in whatever place our country may stand, saying something as to be the best, the greatest is always something to be careful of, because it allows oneself to become too full of oneself. There were a lot of questions that Jensen raised that I thought were very important and quite valuable asking, especially when looking at a minority point of view: being the non white, male, light-skinned, blond-haired Caucasian, even though I was born here.

The second point that Jensen brought up was about whether it is supporting the troops that make us support the war, and how those two can really be looked at separately as well as inseparable. As Janelle talked about on Monday in class, this second argument was where I started questioning whether it really is necessary to be questioning the act of those who are a million and billion miles away from home, from family and friends, believing in serving their country and helping the world become a better place for all. Although I agree with Jensen on some occasions and think of the same questions, I too, like the man mentioned in the article, wanted to ask him many times throughout the reading, “why are you so negative in a lot of your points and even have to question/strongly hold on to the questions ‘do you support the troops or not?'” I too agreed to the man that had questioned Jensen during his lecture (?) and was slightly offended, even though I myself did not serve in the army, by proposing what the troops are doing are not and should not be supported because they are carrying the acts of war. Jensen does, however, mention that he acknowledges that it is those in power, the politicians, the government, the congress, the white house and the president who make those decisions of some illegal, immoral, unjust acts of war, and that the soldiers are only carrying out their “job,” their “duty” because they believe they are doing whatever they are doing for the good, for the people, for the best of all. I must say, I do agree that it is a sensitive topic and people may get upset and quite emotional when talking about troops, and I also respect Jensen’s way of trying to think critically to the hardest things, but I think it was really his way of wording that made his second point sound so much more opinionated himself and biased.

The last thing Jensen describes is the notion of how patriotism is a good thing, a positive thing. I would have to say, I admire Jensen of being the critical thinker and the one trying to target on a topic we usually don’t try to uncover or talk about, at the same time, being a little too critical and overly emotional and opinionated himself at the same time. To talk about how he doesn’t support the troops and is against the war at all beliefs in one chapter, and then talk about how patriotism is a “positive” thing in the next chapter, seems a little unorganized and unsure of what he truly believes in and wants his audience to take away with. In overall, Jensen’s reading was interesting in that it sparked new ideas that we really never even stop to think about and question about, but also felt very unprofessional and biased in only what he believes in, making the article appear a little “unagreeable.”

Week14: Lazarus Effect & China, the Giant (pij5030)

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This week’s two articles were very interesting to read because they provided us with  a new perspective in terms of what we read last week, especially Kuehn’s article, which introduced the negative side of how company’s profit from “branding” countries like Africa.

To begin with, The Lazarus Effect, despite the length of the article, gave some in-depth information as well as a better understanding of, specifically the Gap corporation with it’s product RED campaign, resulted in doing (even though the main purpose of the campaigns were not to help the people): saving some lives! It was so surprising and occurred as a shock to know how expensive and so “easily” (sarcastically saying) obtainable these drugs are: “the drugs’ high price- a year’s supply can exceed $10,000 in the developed world…” in addition to how urgent and necessary these drugs are for so many people in Africa, “roughly 28 million Africans are living with H.I.V and roughly 15 percent of them are in dire need of ARV therapy,” seemed mad. How can we have such contradicting situations under the same sky called Earth? How can one place be worried about issues like obesity and discuss about “spendthrift” when another is worried about issues like starvation and poverty that literally can kill them the next day? When I read about the story of the 35 year old pregnant woman who has HIV, a woman who would have gotten a warm bed and careful care from nurses and doctors if there was enough resources and money, but instead got infected by her husband and thankfully was lucky enough to get the ARV drugs, my mind just lead me to think how stupid it is to argue if a company is profiting from campaigns that claim for social justice and help, as long as the people are receiving money, drugs, treatment, food or whatsoever, does this all really matter? Quoting back to what Kuehn said, in the end they are receiving help, that would not or may not have been there if the companies didn’t decide to make “extra money.”

The second article, Enter China, the Giant, was sad to read, because despite the overall argument, I was overwhelmed with feeling how “desperate” money can make people after reading this article. Based on the article and from what we learned in class on Monday, basically the situation was that a conflict broke between the government and those rebelling because the African rebel groups wanted the government to share access from the oil profits; when the rebel groups seemed like they were winning, the government stated to gain the upper hand of the war because China spent “$2 billion a year on Sudanese oil,” in which the money was being used by the government to buy weapons and arms. Although Junger does a nice job on explaining why China began to invest money in Sudan, specifically in Darfur, and why China was so desperate in doing so, but I still don’t understand-and this question was raised and brought to in a lot of my former posts-how someone could just simply ignore the fact that they are helping a war. This same question goes for the African government as well. Even though they had a lot of debt that was piling up after President Deby declared he was no loner going to abide to the loan agreement with the World Bank, how could such an organization like the government, that should be more cautious and responsible in decisions like this, just assign contract with China just because China can pay off a lot of their debt and they have cheap labor? I just cannot simply understand, and I think it is really sad to realize how the world’s economy circulates just based on money, money and more money. During the article, Junger describes the interference of China as, “it was a neat circle of economic interests that started to break down only when the rest of the world go involved.” I think Junger makes a really clear and definite point here about not only China getting involved in the inter conflict of Africa, but also how Western Countries in general get involved in conflicts of other countries, deciding on their own that they need “assistance,” when really they just might need some time to talk things over and resolve whatever misunderstandings in a peaceful way.

Week13: Elavsky, Hesmondhalgh, and Kuehn (pij5030)

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Even though this week’s readings were really long, I enjoyed reading them for two reasons: one of my professor’s wrote the paper, which caught my attention in the beginning, and the context was pretty new and interesting compared to the surprising length.

In professor Elavsky’s United As ONE, he talked about how pop music and culture is used to help support social justice in Africa. Elavsky gives two examples, Live Aid and Live 8, two very popular bands that reached for social justice; in different ways. Live Aid focused on raising funds for donation, while Live 8 focused more on increasing awareness and becoming active citizens. Although both artists sought to help Africa and make the world better, they failed to deliver the real political meaning about famine, poverty, AIDs, and etc. Also, Elavsky talks about how advanced technology allowed more personalized media and music (i.e. listening to music on your ipod) but, “while personalized media may perhaps offer greater access to the world, they in no way guarantee more meaningful engagements with it” (Elavsky, 395). This reminded me of when we first learned about globalization and how advanced technology helped the world come closer to each other, but in my opinion, I think that even though technologically and physiologically we seem to be closer, we are in fact  even more isolated and have strengthened our personal bubble. Relating this to Elavsky’s main point of pop culture and social justice acts, it seems despite the financial success, the true purpose wasn’t carried out.

In the Ownership is only part of the media picture article, Hesmondhalgh focuses more on content rather than media ownership itself, therefore criticizing how McChesney and Compaine fail to adequately assess contemporary media. For this piece, I personally disagreed with Hesmondhalgh’s argument that focusing on media ownership fails to understand how media operates daily for three major reasons. First, even though I agree that content is important too, I think in the end, even content is influenced based on who owns the media. Also, with Hesmondhalgh’s statement, “misses enormously outnumber hits,” I think the result of having more hits will depend on who owns the media. Finally, when the author questions whether the output serves the interests of the owners of media companies and answers ‘yes’ only for those qualified, I  believe the author is making an important point; however to support his answer by stating that the audience and content are the key factors that distinguish what media presents us, feels to me like he is missing the core reason, in this case, the political economy.

Last but not least, for Kuehn’s Compassionate Consumerism reading, there seemed to be more open criticism compared to the first piece which was written by professor Elavsky, and it differed in that Kuehn looked at corporations like GAP rather than just music and pop culture. On page 2, the quote, “is the rise of philanthropic fashionistas decked out in RED T-shirts and iPods really the best way to save a child dying of AIDS in Africa?” seems like a simple question, but is actually quite important that it brings up some essential issues such as the need of social justice in Africa being used as a way to make profit. I considered this simple question very important because it suggests that we can- and currently, mostly, do- help and support people who need help and are more unfortunate only through commodification not by really being aware or being active “volunteers.” Kuehn argues that marketers strategize their marketing by targeting individuals rather than groups, and this goes back to what Karina was describing about on Friday: the United States is more of a individualistic country, which focuses more on individuals rather than the group as a whole. The big example that is mentioned throughout the article is GAP’s RED T-shirt campaign. Kuehn states that the color red was chosen because it symbolizes the color of blood (awareness of AIDs) and that it reflects “African land and spirit” (Kuehn, 9). Yet, there are many problems behind this logic, because neither does this allow consumers to learn anything new about the actual situation in Africa nor allow consumers to think about the unfortunate situation that Africans are going through while wearing RED clothesline: YES, this advertisement requires action, but NO, it does not tell anything else about why and how (other than buying a RED product from GAP). Another problem that occurs is that RED brands Africa. Meaning, by displaying Africa as a brand that we need to support, it homogenizes the African culture; degrades wealth variations; presents false assumptions with misleading campaigns; contradicts by while advocating for social justice in Africa, GAP workers in Africa don’t receive any treatment from this campaign; and by using famous celebrities, they only introduce the fact and increase consumer’s self-esteem by making them think they helped, or made a change from their purchase.

In overall, I think this weeks reading brought up some important issues to think about as well as some important questions, such as “is it really a bad thing for big corporations to use consumerism in order to fund, donate, increase awareness, and become active citizens, when we are already shopping and buying so much anyways? Even in Kuehn’s study, she mentions that the hole in her argument is that “in the end, Global Fund is receiving money from corporations” (Kuehn, 8)

Week 12: Twitchell & Artz (pij5030)

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I love celebrating holidays and I love Disney as well. Not necessarily because of my love was this weeks reading so pleasant and interesting, but because I still got to learn something new, especially with Twitchell’s The work of Adcult piece. I knew that the image of Santa Clause we know of nowadays was created by Coca Cola and that Thanksgiving was created to be thankful of the nature’s giving (harvest) and during that time we see a lot of pictures like the pilgrims shaking hands or having a good time with the Native Americans, aka Indians, unlike the “real” story. When Twitchell started the article with introducing the origin of the word holiday and what it was meant I was shocked that it actually meant “holy day;” before I go on with more of my surprises and more surprises, let’s look at what Twitchell and Artz talked about in overall for each of their pieces.

First of all, Twitchell talks about how adcult is the basis of originally religious holidays transforming into “consume-like-crazy-day.” (my favorite quote from this reading) After having been exposed to and learned about capitalism and how bombarded our society is with consumerism I was not that shocked until I realized that it was not just general adcult that Twitchell was talking about: beer adcult seemed like it was taking over the rest of the adcult industry. Twitchell not only stopped at simply introducing adcult and specifically what holidays are influenced by adcult now, but also went further to illustrate the historical significance and background of how the holiday came to be: the most important holiday in May, Mother’s Day. The story of Jarvis was touching and as long as Mothers had their day celebrated and appreciated they were happy even though historians and travelers were outraged that an important art Mother was sold to another country. So Mother’s Day became the second-largest retail sales holiday, okay. But what about Father’s Day? Why is Mother’s Day so intensely celebrated and not many people even know the date for Father’s Day? Is it because there isn’t a touching story to strongly say “we must acknowledge Father’s Day!” Interestingly, in South Korea, we don’t have to question this, because we have Parent’s Day, where we appreciate both of our parents. Whether this was another strategy of the companies to sell bigger and more expensive portions of gifts to parents, I cannot say, but to dig in the behind-the-scenes adcult of this would be another interesting field of study.

For Artz, comes the Disney piece, which I just have to say again- sadly even after learning and hearing about all the criticisms Disney receives- that I loved, and still love, and will still love! Artz talks about a lot of different aspects of Disney, but mainly focuses on narrowing them down to the success through animation, the hierarchy of the characters, the self-satisfaction and the fantasies. Artz mainly uses the five following films of Disney: Aladdin, Pocahontas, Mulan, Lion King, and Tarzan because they are both among the most popular and financially successful, and the most critiqued. Artz gives various and numerous examples from these five Disney films, how they support his claim of hierarchy in form and content, justifying power and coercion, self-fulfillment through self-gratification, solidarity for none, and realistic fantasies. From these categorized examples we understand how and why Disney receives as much criticism as love globally, and with that note Artz finishes off by stating this interpretation and examination is only to see the extent of Disney’s role of globalization. Although I have seen many documents, read many articles and heard debates about the criticisms Disney gets, I always find the study of Disney and its message, content, idea so fascinating because there always seems to appear new arguments and reasons for that argument, and even if there is nothing specially new, I believe it is important to continue studies of Disney, considering how worldwide its influence reaches.