Punk Rock Communication

[Fundamentals of Punk]

  Three core concepts will help you along your journey to musical expression breaking the chains of normalcy in a stagnant musical scene. 

1  Reject the Status Quo 

Starting or becoming part of your own punk scene means a consistent effort to reject what is currently the norm and do something new.

2  Participate and allow others Access 

Play shows, go to shows, get involved, get others involved, allow people to see and be a part of your artistic musical expression. 

3 Do it Yourself 

Everything Punk can be homemade, make your own shirts, make your own stickers, record your own music, book your own shows, independently you can create everything you need to spark change. 

Here is a clip of a documentary on the punk rock movement in 1979

Creativity

"Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships, that is why good ideas are always initially resisted. Good ideas come with a heavy burden. Which is why so few people have them. So few people can handle it."

-Hugh Macleod

Creativity can be our only way of having true freedom.  Through exploring creative process, we break the chains of compliance that seems to be heavily weighing in on us daily.  How often do we push ourselves to be creative on a daily basis?  I can think of some examples of when I felt inspired and highly creative, but I had to set time aside for this process.  I have always enjoyed music and there are moments when playing in a band that you have a sense of everything "clicking" when writing a song.  These moments leave you feeling accomplished, satisfied, and proud.  I do not understand how I have not found ways of channeling this creativity into more aspects of life.  Life is a creative project, in addition to a journey.  

Indigenous media

How much does the media impose its will on us? How much do we take the media and manipulate it in our own way? These are important questions that need to be explored when discussing international communication.  As the You-tube video clip implies we are under heavy pressure to absorb media that has an agenda and conditions us to think a particular way.  However the clip itself is a way of taking what the media gives us and making it our own.  Can a global mass media and a indigenous local media co-exist? Although today's technology and globalization blur the lines further they must co-exist.  People are more than just vessels that have mass media impose there will on we still create, interpret, and chose to add an individualist take on the media.  

Sameness and Otherness

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickwheeleroz/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The two specific examples that represent "sameness and otherness" in mass media are the nytimes.com and the film Slumdog Millionaire can be further examined to explore the ideas of media fostering sameness and otherness.  The New York Times will often do " human interest" stories when discussing the rest of the world.  These news stories often strive to make the comparison of humanity and draw on emotions that everyone can identify with. Love, loss, despair, hope, understanding, tolerance, freedom. human rights and many other  themes are often emphasized in these types of news stories  The New York Times can also emphasize otherness when depicting a news story especially when condemning a nation that steps on these human attributes or is seen as an oppressor of human rights.  These news stories seem to emphasize the otherness of the cultures being discussed.  Slumdog Millionaire offers a good example of a media that draws on both sameness and otherness. In this film the culture of India especially that of the urban "slumdog" is shown as very different.  Although the film emphasizes the difference in culture it uses  a story that highlights sameness as well.  The story of the underdog is a very American concept and the TV game show who wants to be a millionaire is paralleled.  Often media chooses to anchor on the sameness of particular culture at least to give the audience something to identify with even if the media is ultimately trying to highlight the otherness.  

Kinesthetic Practices

Do societies remember through cultural practices with their bodies and in todays society is this lack of kinesthetic practice destroying our culture?  Often cultures have had customs and rituals that have been passed down from generation to generation many of them involving religious ceremonies or rites of passage within a given cultural group.  Dancing has been for a long time a very culturally diverse practice and often very traditional styles of dance represent what those cultures stood for or are remembered for.  These practices have given cultures a form of identity in addition have passed along customs and traditions for years. 

Memories were internalized people were there memories, with technology growing and changing the landscape of peoples lives where does this leave our memories.  Do we now become our Facebook page, our twitter account, are these social networking web sites the new practices that will define our cultural to the next generation.  This is a scary thought. The internet is becoming an extension of ourselves more so than any other media format.  The internet allows for an interaction that was not possible with other media formats in addition to encompassing them.  Videos, pictures, music, are included in the various ways of self expression on the Internet and with no real kinesthetic practices.  

here are some videos of dance that represent different cultures that I personally enjoy: 

Where does identity come from?

In a class discussion the concept of identity and where it is created or derived from.  A few questions that really intrigued me came up:

1 Where does the universal "we" or " them" come from ?

2 Who does this refer to?

3 Why do we use terms like "arab american" or "spanish american" and not just american?

When discussing particular topics many people including myself use terms like we or them when discussing different cultures or peoples.  Politicians often use terms like we and them when giving speeches but I am not so sure these terms are clear as to who the "we" are or who the "them" are.  To take it a step further most times it is unclear as to how people chose to define themselves when making a declaring statement using "I".  What gives us our identity, is it physical features, ethnic backgrounds, location, and what words do you we often use to define ourselves.  From taking a history course during the industrial revolution as immigration to the US grew enormously many people tried to leave there ethnic origins behind in order to blend in with Americans.  An Irish immigrant would not want to call themselves an Irish American due to discriminatory and prejudice factors that society placed on them. Somewhere along the way Americans began to search for identity in the cultural landscape and more terms like Arab American, Latin American, or Native American.  

The argument that in the US today it is not or ethnic origins that define who we are but in fact commercial products that shape our identities.  The car you drive, the clothes you wear, the music you listen to, all the products you purchase define who you are.  I recall a scene in the movie Fight Club where the main character  played by Edward Norton has his apartment blown up and he is distraught claiming every piece of furniture represented him and now that it was gone he was unsure as to who he was.  

Transnational Model

The concept of media being a conglomerate of multiple nations owning the production that takes place in one nation.  The hybrid identities on these conglomerate media giants changes the debate of cultural hybridity versus cultural imperialism.  The US is often seen as a large media producer that forces its media onto the rest of the world.  This does portray an accurate picture of the complex media landscape.  

Thinking about communication and media in transnationally encompasses both sides, these conglomerates are highly efficient business capable of marketing media in very specific ways but at the same time the viewer has an active participation and personal interpretation of the various media.  Whenever media conglomerates are discussed Disney immediately comes to mind.  Disney is very effective in producing media that is consumed world wide and has very specific control on the type of media it creates for consumers.  The influence of media is largely debated but the products created are created in a particular way.  These media products communicate particular values, ideas, to the world and to some degree can represent what many people internationally think of the US.  

Discovered this video on youtube thought it was a funny way of looking at the debate of how much media influences people