Keywords

A collection of cultural concepts modeled after Raymond Williams' Keywords. Compiled by Diana Le Select Keyword Branding Built Environment Commodity Fetishism Deindustrialization Diaspora Discourse Domesticity Ethnic Enclave Ethnoburb Fourth Worlds Gender Division of Labor Gentrification Global Brands Globalization Hegemony Heteronormativity Heterosociality Homosociality Ideology Korean Pop Model Minority Post-Feminism Post-Fordism Transparency Effect Vertical Integration Ubiquitous Listening

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Ubiquitous Listening

Ubiquitous listening addresses the background music in our lives. In industrialized settings, there is an omnipresence of music, the kind of music that is dissociated from specific generic characteristics of music. Rather than listening to the music, we listen alongside it or simultaneously as we perform other activities. This listening is understood as "ubiquitous" because the music is everywhere, in elevators, at malls, even in parking lots. It also is "sourceless" in that it comes from everywhere and nowhere, being heard through plants and walls. It instead attempts to meld itself into part of the environment, where its "projection looks to erase its production" (Kassabian).

The developments in recording technologies in the twentieth century have disarticulated performance space and listening space. You can listen to an opera in your bathtub and arena rock while riding the bus. Ubiquitous listening blends into the environment, never calling attention to itself as an activity of listening. In that sense, it can perhaps be considered the most dominant mode of listening in contemporary life--although "listening" needs to be defined.

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Vertical Integration

Vertical Integration is a means of management where a corporation or company is involved in every step of a process with everything from growing raw materials, manufacturing, transporting, marketing, and retail. This management model allows companies to have full say over how their products are made as well as take in all of the money. An early example of this can be seen with the old major film companies. Major studios like MGM would create their films in their studios with contracted major stars, and then distribute the films in specific theaters owned by the company. That allowed MGM to take in all of the profits. 

A more contemporary example of this can be seen with the Los Angeles-based clothing company American Apparel. Within a single building, they control the dyeing, finishing, designing, sewing, cutting, marketing, and distribution of the company's product. They company shoots and distributes its own advertisements, often using their own employees as subjects. It also owns and operates each of its retail locations rather than franchising.  The vertically integrated model allows the company to design, cut, distribute, and sell an item globally in the span of a week. 

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Transparency Effect

In the new age of ethically conscious consumption, companies are now working hard to extend, and in some cases exploit, the terrain of ethical consumption. An example of a company that teeters between that line is the Los Angeles-based clothing company American Apparel. The company advertises its vertical integration model, producing all its goods under one roof. Its advertising also boasts "brand-free" and "sweatshop-free." The transparency effect comes into play when American Apparel uses images of their employees as part of their marketing and branding. When globalized outsourcing was revealed as highly exploitative and the media covered those exploitations, companies like American Apparel took the opportunity to build a market and brand identity selling the opposite. Their marketing tactics have come under criticism because their advertisements feature pictures of happy, smiling, minority workers in a quasi-imperialist kind of way, where Western consumers can "help" by buying the clothes and making sure these employees still have jobs. The no-brand, transparency effect in a way can also be understood through their minimalist designs--clear shopping backs, white buildings, Helvetica black font, solid colors, simple designs. Even in their shops, they try to be as transparent as possible. Their clothes are understood to have hidden gimmicks, just high-quality basic clothes. Their employees wear the clothes they're selling and resemble the models and employees used in the advertisements. 

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Post-Fordism

The Ford model allowed Western factories to mass-produce standardized products for broad social categories on the basis of class. However, the saturation of the market place turned customers against the idea of mass consumption, so they turned to higher standards of living. As groups began to differentiate themselves and their tastes, the market molded to that new model, going from an economy of scale to an economy of scope. The post-Fordist model outsources the most routinized aspects of production overseas, combining cheap labour and 'just-in-time' production methods to produce shorter runs of more specific niche-market goods. This new market of consumers with increasingly segmented lifestyles and tastes has grown because the ability to produce the short run of specific goods has grown. The emphasis is now focused on the consumer rather than social class. This brought rise to global markets and corporations. We also see a change in the work force, where Fordism had mass blue collar workers in a production line, post-Fordism sees internal marketing, franchising, subcontracting, and part-time employees.  We can also see this change shift in education, where vocational schools rise, and knowledge-based workers take more specialized classes. 

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Post-Feminism

Post-feminism is the ill-conceived idea that feminism has succeeded in removing sexism from society, therefore challenging the goals of third-wave feminism, which seeks to broaden the feminist struggle. We can see examples of post-feminism most prominent through women of power. The media depicts prime time televisions shows of a roster of successful doctors and lawyers on screen. Post-feminism in media rarely addresses the struggles of the work place or sexual harassment or discrimination because it assumes women no longer have to deal with that. Another "sign" of post-feminism are the real women in holding high political offices like Hilary Clinton, and at one point in time, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.  Post-feminism is deconstructed almost immediately when one considers the blatant sexism in the coverage of the 2008 election, where Palin was presented by the media as a sexy soccer mom and Clinton was presented as the useless, nagging wife.

Cultural theorist Angela McRobbie argues that the prefix "post" undermines the strides that feminism has made in achieving equality and assumes that equality has been achieved. Post-feminism can be seen in so-called feminist media like Sex and the City and Ally McBeal, with representations of successful working women, but whose characters claim to be liberated and enjoy their sexuality while spending the entirety of the episode searching for their soulmates. Ally McBeal is often taunted by an imaginary dancing baby. Carrie Bradshaw spends her career questioning sex, relationships, and soulmates. 

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Model Minority

A model minority refers to the media's depiction of an ethnic minority that is "too perfect," achieving a higher degree of success than the population average. This success is usually measured by income, level of education, and social mobility. Within the myth of the model minority, those of the working class who do not meet the standards of this ideology are forgotten. When one community is granted model minority status (as often seen with Asian communities), other minority communities are deemed inadequate. The model minority speaks to upward mobility, disregard socioeconomic class, racial prejudice, and gender bias.

An example of the model minority in media are the TV family, the Huxtables, from The Cosby Show. The Huxtables were an affluent African American family living in a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. The father was a doctor, and the mother was an attorney. Although the show was praised for portrayal of educated and successful African Americans, it was criticized for only portraying a very small portion of the black population. The show also focused on the trials of being a family and growing up, although rarely addressing the issue of race, except for an episode where after the Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination, where the family gathers around the TV to watch the "I Have a Dream" speech.

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Korean pop, or K-pop is a genre of music originating in South Korea. It sells itself as more than a genre of music, but a phenomenon involving a sound, look, production, and presentation. It is a successful export of Korean culture in Asia, especially in Taiwan, but also in China and Japan. K-pop can be viewed in an international market as well as a global market. Its global market value can be seen while listening to the music, where many of the songs have snippets of English. With the help of the Internet, K-pop can attribute part of its success to videos on YouTube and the sharing capabilities of Facebook. To guarantee the success of a new artist, the K-pop industry will invest thousands of dollars training and nuturing upcoming girl groups, boy bands, and solo artists with vocal training, choreography classes, and consistent exercise.

A recent Internet K-pop sensation is Taeyang, the South Korean artist, whose music video "Wedding Dress" has garnered over 11 million views. Also, the song's title and main chorus contain english words. We also see a resemblance between Taeyang and pop/r&b artist Usher, with his brooding love-in-a-hopeless-place outlook and similarity in choreography.

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Ideology

An ideology is a system of ideas and ideals, often formed through economic and political policy. Ideologies reflect a way of thinking for a group of people. Ideologies can be understood through institutions like school, how certain schools conduct their programs and the ways in which students and society should be organized. Another form is ideology is political ideology, where one considers the best form of government (democracy, autocracy, etc), the best economic system (capitalism, socialism, etc), as well as other philosophies. An example of ideology is commodity fetishism, the belief that a commodity has inherent value.

Another way we can think of ideology is through gender ideology. Gender used to be understood as a fixed identity and synonymous with one's sex and sexuality. That mean if one were female, she was straight and performed as a girl. Gender ideology has since evolved to understand that gender is a performative role, and although one may be born male, female, or intersex, gender identity and sexuality are fluid, therefore one maybe identify as butch or femme. Often in queer culture, we see the fluidity of gender and sexuality as a way of challenging dominant gender ideologies.

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Althusser's concept of ideology.

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Heteronormativity

Heteronormativity describes a set of lifestyle norms where people fall into the distinct partnership of man and woman and assume natural roles in life. Heterosexuality is the default sexual orientation. Heteronormativity assumes lifestyle norms of consumption and procreation. Society assumes heteronormativity as the naturalized role and privileges heterosexual couples through government rights. For example, single citizens cannot receive the same rights that married couples receive, and currently, very few states have legalized same-sex marriages. 

Heteronormative lifestyles can also be understood through modes of consumption. We continue to buy and consume and beautify our lawns and keep ourselves up to date with the latest technology because the heternormative lifestyle tells us that in a capitalist economy, our primary role is as consumers.

We can also understand heteronormativity in the way that gender and sexuality are separated in a hierarchy. Heteronormativity has its participants assume assigned, socialized gender roles, where man is superior to woman, and heterosexuality is superior to homosexuality. Those that challenge the heteronormative binary, like bisexuals, transgender people and intersex people exist between categories of gender and sexuality and challenge the heteronormative understanding of gender and sexuality as fixed.

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Hegemony

Hegemony proposes that a culturally diverse society can be ruled by a dominating social class, where the ruling class imposes their beliefs, values and mores as the societal norm. In order to understand hegemony, one must recognize that cultural norms are artificial social constructs (institutions, practices, and beliefs) which exploit individuals on the lower rungs of the social ladder. This form of ideological domination is exerted through soft power, as in persuasion and consent rather than force. 

For example, in many democracies, the wealthy class can be said to have hegemony over the middle class and poor. Wealthy individuals can contribute the most money to the campaigns of certain political candidates, political parties, or causes. Government officials who wanted to be re-elected will use their monetary contributions to pass laws and create policies that favor their contributors. However, it can be argued that although the wealthy have more power, they do not necessarily--or, more often than not, don't--share the same ideologies over the middle class and lower class of which they rule. 

Hegemony can also be understood within the context of media power, where what they choose to publish and air dictates what audiences see, hear, and feel. This includes news and entertainment.

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Globalization

Globalization refers to international integration. We can consider the spread of cultural aspects like religion, language, arts, and even food. Globalization can be thought of culturally in terms of pop stars crossing borders (like Shakira or MTV) or the populariztion of McDonalds and Starbucks in different countries. Economically, globalization deals with the interdependence of national economies for production, markets, competition, and technology. Issues over globalization have risen because it often means the outsourcing of jobs and the exploitation of workers. The globalization of lifestyles is not as straight forward, however, as it necessitates the construction of new consumer subjects. It is not as simple as Americanness or multiculturalism or a commodification of difference. Globalization shouldn't be viewed as unidirectional, but rather several hegemonies come together to bring different forms of globalization. 

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Global Brand

A global brand is understood to reflect the same set of values around the world. These brands are sold in international markets and sell the same products worldwide (with the exception that products may have different names, pricing, advertising execution, etc. depending on language, consumption and cultural differences.) Global marketing used to mean crafting a new name and identity for each local market. For example, America's no. 1 laundry detergent, Tide, is called Ariel in Europe. However, the goal for today's global market is to create consistency and impact--which, incidentally, is a lot easier to manage and the more efficient approach since the same strategy can be used everywhere.

Coca-Cola is a global brand. Old brands like Coke and McDonalds have cut their traditional ad spending and sought a variety of marketing channels, including online advertising, to sell their product. Another marketing strategy is to show an invisible ad, an ad that doesn't feel like an ad, but rather feels like entertainment. In this new world of building brands, mass media advertising is a thing of the past. The most successful brand builders seek to get consumers to invite brands into their lives.

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Gentrification

Gentrification refers to neighborhoods where wealthier people move in to low income and working class communities. What happens is the average income increases, the average family size decreases, and as property value and property taxes rise, the poorer residents who cannot pay the increase are displaced. We can also see gentrification in neighborhoods where old industrial buildings are converted in residences and shops. An example of gentrification can be seen in Downtown Los Angeles, where old industrial buildings have been converted into apartment lofts.

Social agents, institutions, landlords, developers, and banks all play key roles in gentrification. One can also consider the housing market which sorts the population by income into different neighborhoods. There is also the phenomenon known as white flight, where neighborhoods that become overpopulated with "too much color" caused the white residents in the cities to flee to suburbia, where they could keep their distance from their neighbors with expansive lawns and backyards. 

We also see that within gentrification is deindustrialization, where the failure to upgrade buildings and the lack of dispensable income to fix homes leads to the shrinking of capital and a decline in the value of a neighborhood as well as eventual decay and decrepit buildings. 

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Gender Division of Labor

Division of labor appears with the rise of capitalism, where people are placed into categorized jobs based on skill sets, and they perform repetitive, specific tasks. Karl Marx theorizes that the increase of specialization leads to workers with poorer overall skills and unhappiness in the work place. He describes this process as alienation, where workers become more and more specialized and work becomes more and more repetitive, eventually leading to complete alienation from the process of production.

The gender division of labor aligns with expectations of women performing domestic labor (childrearing, cooking, cleaning, etc) and men entering the work force. We can think of this in really simply terms of hunting and gathering. The problem with the gendered division of labor is that the expectation is that a heterosexual couple will come together, so that their specialized labor practices can complement each other and ensure survival. This means that outside of that coupling, the gender division of labor can be harmful to those who cannot adequately survive on their own. The gender division of labor privileges the married.

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Fourth World

Manuell Castells' concept of the fourth worlds understands fourth worlds as the" zones of poverty and exclusion." The first world is not an all-embracing universe of neo-liberal mythology. As such, the Fourth World exists, socially exluding some. It not only appears in impoverished rural areas, but all over the world in ghettos, where mass unemployment exists, in shanty towns, etc. The Fourth World is a sub-population that is socially excluded from global society. Fourth worlds can also exist in a first world country, where a sub population experiences the living standards of the Third World. Los Angeles-based clothing company American Apparel is understood as operating in this "fourth world" within a "first world." The company rationalizes itself as offering jobs to workers who would otherwise have none, who would be excluded from the legal US economy and condemned to work in sweatshops. They wrap a "sweatshop-free" message around their company, acknowledging post-Fordism and 'fourth worlds' and offering a partial solution to these problems. However, their partial solution as a reflexive company makes critics wonder if they're actually further dividing the fourth and first world.

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Ethnic Enclave

An ethnic enclave is an ethnic community that retains cultural distinction from the larger, surrounding area. Ethnic enclaves can form involuntarily, like the formation of ghettos through housing discrimination, or voluntarily, when new immigrants and migrants settle in a neighborhood with those who share a similar cultural background. Ethnic enclaves differentiate themselves from ethnoburbs because they're understood as racialized zones. Ethnic enclaves do less to interact with the communities outside of its own. It's celebrating for maintaining and celebrating its cultural distinctions. The ethnic enclave can be seen as a way to wax nostalgic for a place too far away to visit. 

An example of an ethnic enclave is Little Saigon in Westminster and Garden Grove, CA. Little Saigon is known for their roads paved with the old South Vietnam flag and American flag hanging side by side. In this sense, the ethnic enclave can be understood as a way to wax nostalgia for a lost homeland. Ethnic enclaves are also good for the success of small businesses because the concentrated communities primarily work, eat, and function through their community.