Again, I have taken a substantial break but am back to wax philosophic about meaning and significance in contemporary American culture, specifically around Presidential politics. Two things have been on my mind lately, and I've been trying to weave them into my coursework so I can explore them in a broader context.
The first is an article posted in the Times on Monday about candidates trying to "break through the media fog". The article explores the candidates frustrations at trying to control the media message. "It has reached a point where senior campaign aides say they are no longer sure what works, as they stumble through what has become a daily campaign fog, struggling to figure out what voters are paying attention to and, not incidentally, what they are even believing", says the Times. In addition, NPR's Fresh Air segment on 9-16 explored various interpretations of Obama's recent comment about "lipstick on a pig". In it, former Governor of Massachusetts, Jane Swift, claims "[y]ou're responsible for words even if they're misconstrued", and that Obama's main fault was in simply using words that could be considered offensive. As accurately described by Geoff Nunberg, it often "doesn't matter if an interpretation makes logical sense" to be believed.
Both of these news pieces point to an increasing complexity in cultural meaning. Candidates' words often get interpreted and reinterpreted multiple times, dizzily swirling around on major media outlets, then onto on podcasts and blogs and then often times back into the major outlets. A cursory examination would suggest that, in a world where 24 hour news and increased, multifarious access to the internet is the standard, there is far more time and space for interpretation. However, I think this phenomenon, if it can even be described as such, signifies a revelation in the way meaning is fluid. It is not an increase in news time and space that has created the situation, but it is this time and space which reveals a rift between words and reality.
Words, if spoken truthfully, were once thought to represent reality. With the exception of the occasional schizophrenic, lying would be a conscious choice. One could decide to tell the truth, and thus use words to accurately describe Reality. Of course, postmodernism refuted that claim, insisting multiple interpretations of reality exist, but this did not linger in the minds' of many people as they participated in democracy or read the newspaper. Now it is difficult not to find an individual who fails to recognize the ambiguity of truth and lying around this political campaign. It is no longer a question of whether or not Senator Obama meant Governor Palin is a pig with lipstick, or whether he meant that she was the lipstick on a piggish campaign. So concerning oneself with meaning of the words he used entirely misses the point - truth is (aka appears to be) no longer linear. Instead, it grows organically, out of the communication itself.
Reality seems to be infested with truths, contained within and simultaneously produced by individual narratives. It is not simply that there are multiple layers of truth being broadcast, which seem to coincide and contradict each other. If such were the case, these truths would exist within a hierarchy and battle for superiority. Truths produced by the Swift Boats Veterans for Truth would lose status as they lost credibility. Eventually, they would cease to be truths at all, and exist only as myths, speculations or blatant lies. However, so long as these truths exist in the media, they do not seem to lose credibility; in fact, they gain strength even through their repudiation.
The first is an article posted in the Times on Monday about candidates trying to "break through the media fog". The article explores the candidates frustrations at trying to control the media message. "It has reached a point where senior campaign aides say they are no longer sure what works, as they stumble through what has become a daily campaign fog, struggling to figure out what voters are paying attention to and, not incidentally, what they are even believing", says the Times. In addition, NPR's Fresh Air segment on 9-16 explored various interpretations of Obama's recent comment about "lipstick on a pig". In it, former Governor of Massachusetts, Jane Swift, claims "[y]ou're responsible for words even if they're misconstrued", and that Obama's main fault was in simply using words that could be considered offensive. As accurately described by Geoff Nunberg, it often "doesn't matter if an interpretation makes logical sense" to be believed.
Both of these news pieces point to an increasing complexity in cultural meaning. Candidates' words often get interpreted and reinterpreted multiple times, dizzily swirling around on major media outlets, then onto on podcasts and blogs and then often times back into the major outlets. A cursory examination would suggest that, in a world where 24 hour news and increased, multifarious access to the internet is the standard, there is far more time and space for interpretation. However, I think this phenomenon, if it can even be described as such, signifies a revelation in the way meaning is fluid. It is not an increase in news time and space that has created the situation, but it is this time and space which reveals a rift between words and reality.
Words, if spoken truthfully, were once thought to represent reality. With the exception of the occasional schizophrenic, lying would be a conscious choice. One could decide to tell the truth, and thus use words to accurately describe Reality. Of course, postmodernism refuted that claim, insisting multiple interpretations of reality exist, but this did not linger in the minds' of many people as they participated in democracy or read the newspaper. Now it is difficult not to find an individual who fails to recognize the ambiguity of truth and lying around this political campaign. It is no longer a question of whether or not Senator Obama meant Governor Palin is a pig with lipstick, or whether he meant that she was the lipstick on a piggish campaign. So concerning oneself with meaning of the words he used entirely misses the point - truth is (aka appears to be) no longer linear. Instead, it grows organically, out of the communication itself.
Reality seems to be infested with truths, contained within and simultaneously produced by individual narratives. It is not simply that there are multiple layers of truth being broadcast, which seem to coincide and contradict each other. If such were the case, these truths would exist within a hierarchy and battle for superiority. Truths produced by the Swift Boats Veterans for Truth would lose status as they lost credibility. Eventually, they would cease to be truths at all, and exist only as myths, speculations or blatant lies. However, so long as these truths exist in the media, they do not seem to lose credibility; in fact, they gain strength even through their repudiation.
posted by peuryan at 10:33 AM
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