open | situating Cool | pedagogical apparatus | coda
Pedagogical Apparatus
According to Jeff Rice's book:
Media theorist Mark Dery calls the appropriation of advertising slogans and images for resistance purposes “cultural jamming.” Cultural jamming, Dery states, is itself appropriated from a 1970s CB term for illegal interruptions in CB and radio broadcasts. When CB and radio transmissions came under attack by strange sounds and noises, they were being “jammed” by users attempting to break up communication. Dery notes how “jamming” no longer refers only to radio broadcast transmissions, but rather to efforts to undermine specific cultural practices. Dery, a long-time member of The Well community, sees current cultural jamming as a grass roots organization intent on taking back media forms for non-commercial purposes. Proponents of cultural jamming target advertising which has been deemed abusive or misleading. Dery believes cultural jamming is a way to empower everyday citizens so that they can voice alternative ideas regarding consumerism and governmental control. (38).Cool is jamming what a textbook should be, but there is also a structure to its chapters. They focus on issues or themes such as Popular Culture and Cool, Manhood, and The Beats. Rice gives a two or three page opening salvo about the topic and then slides into a narrower, more focused issue or screen for analysis such as the Icon (26) or Cultural Jamming (38). These concepts are used to complicate, to undercut, to challenge–really to make the major topic more fun to write about. Finally, the chapters end with Further Reading, Further Listening, and Further Viewing suggestions as well as references to the book’s website. All of these mechanisms make me think that Cool would be a good source book: Get it to the students; work on three or four of the chapters; and then, let them go further with Rice's suggestions and leave the book behind, a launching pad of sorts.
The last two marks of the textbook on Cool are the Class Discussion and Exercises at the end of each chapter. Although I usually find these materials to be canned goods in composition textbooks, Rice has actually managed to make these puppies tough and engaging. Consider these examples:
- Black males are often depicted as either engaging in sexual activity or fighting. Can you think of other stereotypes that proliferate in our culture regarding other gender and ethnic groups? Where do you find such stereotypes? (81)
- How to Be a Beat Web Designer. Much of what the Beats teach is relevant to Web design. Their interest in nonlinearity and cut-ups shares similar attributes with Web designers’ interest in constructing Web sites. For this assignment, we’ll push the notion that the Beats are relevant to electronic writing by using their work as instructions for how to be a Web designer. This assignment requires additional readings. We’ve provided a short list of relevant Beat writings in the Recommended Readings list, but more exist. Do an inventory of various Beat novels, poems, and interviews. Make a list of every point about writing made or performed by these writers. You want to note how they write as well as what they say about writing. After you have accumulated a significant number of ideas regarding writing, construct a guide that explains how to use these ideas in order to create Web pages. Only, instead of writing a descriptive step-by-step account of each point, perform each item while explaining it. For example, if you choose nonlinearity, then your section on that point should be nonlinear. Use the various scripts and HTML codes we’ve used previously to make your case as compelling as possible. Experiment with refresh tags, drag-and-drop scripts, tables, etc. Visit this book’s Web site for further information regarding where to find such codes. (120)
- Gladwell and Rushkoff see youth as a main contributor to cool as commercialism. But they also feel that the ideologies of consumerism adapt youthful attitudes for commercial purposes. Using the styles and attitudes you are familiar with in popular media forms (music, fashion, television), create your own Web version of what cool means to youth culture. How much is your version dependent on commercial products (Nike, Sprite, MTV)? How much of it isn’t? How do the slogans of advertising change the ways you will set up a Web site? Do they guide you? Deter you? To do this project, you need to research the ways styles and attitudes are shaped by companies. Adapt these companies’ approaches to create your own version of cool. Much of this will involve you imitating the companies’ methods. By imitating previous methods of expression, we can learn a great deal about how to express ourselves. (44)
