Week 13: Culture Jamming

Our lives are definitely ruled by charts, ratings, and rankings.  This concept is pervasive in American culture, especially regarding information: books, movies, music, magazines, websites.  There are books that rate books, and magazines (Consumer Reports) solely devoted to rating all sorts of items.  Consumer culture seems ruled by these rankings, yet who determines them?  It seems that in a large part, these ranking and charts are built by capitalistic, market-driven motives.  On the other hand, open source social media allows users to participate in the ranking/rating process, maybe leveling a bit of the bias inherent in these structures. 

Yet, as Hakanen (1998) reminds us in his article, Counting down to Number One, “Rankings structure our ways of thinking about comparisons, contrasts and order.”  And this often oversimplifies the true content and those who consume and create it.  “Something is lost when beauty, truth, freedom, art, etc. are ordered in such a way” (Hakanen, 1998, p. 97).

 Hakanen stresses that “knowing the chart” is equivalent to being “in” on pop culture and belonging to the consumer culture. He also mentions how technology has blurred the boundaries of relationships between distinct products/music.  As products and information become more homogenous and technology allows us the freedom of choice globally … that when local becomes smaller, more personal.  According to his theories, the niche markets of music don’t seem to fit in chart, but now there are probably charts for niche markets too!  The internet, and Web 2.0 tools have expanded the world of charts and rankings. 

 Blogs and social music sites have created a whole new scene of popularity and “charts.”  Now, you can stream the same tunes off of several social music sites (Lala.com, LastFM, Pandora, iMeem, iLike).  Therefore, these networks are also competing for popularity. Listeners decide which community best fits their music needs, which website offers user-friendly tools, or a wider selection of music they seek.  These consumers then forms playlists and communities that define their demographic and music tastes.  Based on this media consumption, advertisers step in and promote appropriate products.  This generates money for the website, which is important because most consumers don’t want to pay!  Consumers of digital music want to get the most music they can for free.  Additionally, musicians who are heavily promoted on these sites usually gain more downloads and streams of their songs.  This shows that they are popular.  But who has control over this?  The consumers, the website, the musician, or the record label?  With consumers not paying for the music, and this becoming the norm, how do we calculate the value of the music/performer?  How do we rank them? Most importantly, in this system, who get compensated for being top ranked?

 A new and progressive website manifesting this idea is elbo.ws.  This site ranks the musicians based on how often they are mentioned in blogs.  Then they go one step further and rank these music blogs on quality and popularity. Which, as Dr. Simon said in the discussion boards, are two different things “it requires discernment to recognize one, complacency to recognize the other.”   As consumers and professionals who choose, suggest, and review media – we needs to be aware of the implications and double standards involved with rankings.  Especially in regards to collection development, We pour over journals and book reviews for items with the best "ratings."  We order items off the bestseller lists because we know the public acknowledges these lists and will request the books.  But most of all, we serve the public's information needs, and usually this involves ordering materials that are considered the most "popular."  

 When I helped to order books, I couldn't avoid ordering the "popular" materials. This is what serves the patron's information needs.   I also realized that a large majority of the materials we ordered were based on reviews from select journals and our own "ranking system" (aka collection development policy).   I often feel like we're overlooking what the independent publishers, new/unknown authors, and local authors have to offer to our collection.  But maybe it's not financially prudent to order these materials for the library if they aren't considered "popular" and won't circulate.

 I was totally impressed with Dr. Scott Simon’s article, Jamming in the Stacks.  I found this article early in the semester while searching the LIS article database about music and libraries.  In my opinion, it is one of the most interesting, and progressive, article I found that synthesizes current issues regarding music, libraries, community, and the promotion of music in the library.   Simon (2008) also comments in his article that libraries often build a music collection based on “hits.”   Yet, they also include folk and local music that, while not entirely mainstream, are preserved for the public thanks to the library and will not “fade from cultural consciousness” (Simon, 2008, p. 40).  Furthermore, having a collection that is also based on “aesthetic, ethnographic, historic, and shared cultural values” supports the stance that libraries are committed to promoting the inherent human rights of free expression and participation in cultural life (Simon, 2008, p. 44).  This releases the capitalistic, market-driven shackles of “top 40” lists and the crumbling record industry.

Maybe it is time to invoke some “culture jamming” in the library. As described in a 1990 New York Times article, culture jamming often involves “exposing the ways in which corporate and political interests use the media as a tool of behavior modification.”  Culture jamming is a movement that strives to raise awareness about how mass media controls us and our environment. An environment of corporate control and information anxiety.  This “movement” has taken many forms of action: subversive, artistic, merry pranksters.  So, as “information science professionals” working in an information-rich environment, where do progressive librarians fit in?  That is the interesting question, especially in regards to the future of music in libraries.  Is culture jamming a human right to freedom of expression?  As democratic institutions of information, should libraries support this movement?

 I’ll close with this passage from the NY Times article:

“Cultural jamming, on its most profound level, is about remaking reality … ‘The dominant culture utilizes media to promulgate the notion of the commodity as the highest form of existence,’ says Stuart Ewen, author of the 1988 book All-Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture. ‘Cultural jammers draw upon this cacophony of fragmentary media images. At the heart of their reassemblings is the hope that there could be another kind of world, a world where rather than a devaluation of the human in favor of the commodity, there could be an understanding of the commodity in the service of the human.’"

References:

Hakanen, E.  (1998).  Counting down to number one: The evolution of the meaning of popular music.  Popular Music, 17 (1), p. 95-111.

Simon, S.  (2008, Summer).  Jamming in the stacks: Music as a progressive librarian ideal.  Progressive Librarian, 31 (Summer 2008), p. 37-44.

New York Times Article: http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/23/arts/the-merry-pranksters-and-the-art-of-the-hoax.html

More on Culture Jamming: http://www.markdery.com/archives/books/culture_jamming/