Week 6 : Theories of Reception

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Week 6 Theories of Reception Taste
Mid-Summer Night Swing Dancing at the Lincoln
Center, NYC http//www.youtube.com/watch?vPhGx4Rh
0Qo8
Headbangers--Heavy metal fans
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Plan for Class Today

• Lecture Introduction to Theories of Publics,
  Reception Taste
• More presentations of First Short Case Studies
• IF TIME Videoclip from Breaking Boundaries,
  Testing Limits

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Recall Last Lecture Participants in art worlds
Creators/artists
art
Mediators
Audiences/publics/consumers
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Problems with Cultural Diamond Model
Source V. Alexander Sociology of the
Arts(2003), p. 63.
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Relation to Theories of Communication

• Transmission Models of Communication from the
  Communications, Cultural and Media Studies
  Infobase expecially
• Shannon-Weaver Model of Communication,
• Lasswell Formula,

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Example of Tranmission Model Lasswell Formula

• Communication as transmission from source to
  receiver
• Research Uses Study of Propaganda

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Critique of Transmission Models

• Problems with
• Conduit metaphor
• Needs to be contextualized
• Variations with channel/media
• Relationships between senders and receivers
• Semiotics
• Politics of interpretation
• Indeterminency, multiple meanings (polysemy)
  etc..

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Maletzkes Model (More nuanced approach--Mass
Media)
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Other General Models

• Braddock 'Who says what to whom under what
  circumstances through what medium and with what
  effect? (subdivision into 84 elements)
• McLuhan (7 elements) source of information, the
  sensing process, sending, the flight of
  information or transportation of information,
  receiving, decision-making, the action
• Gerbner (10) (1)Someone (2)perceives an (3)event
  and (4)reacts in a (5)situation through some
  (6)means to make available (7)materials in some
  (8)form and (9)context conveying (10)content of
  some consequence.

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Communication as ritual (Carey)

• Maintenance of a society in time
• Construction of an ordered and meaningful world
• Not mutually exclusive-- how are significant
  forms created, apprehended and used?

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Another theoretical stream Communication Studies
Semiotics

• To overcome reductivist theories of
  transmission
• Meaning-making as process, politics of
  signification
• Context, content, intentions, media
• Signifying systems

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Examples of Studies of Reception in research on
Art Worlds

• Types of Musical Listeners (Theodor Adorno, and
  R. Petersons work on omnivores/univores)
• music as an affordance, a technology of the self
  (Tia DeNora)
• Reception as part of the mediation process in
  Actor Network Theory (Antoine Hennion)
• aesthetics of reception (H.R. Jauss)

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The Arts Identity Politics in Studies of of
Publics

• labeling, status distinctions
• symbolic boundaries
• taste groups, shared values

Elvis Presley Fans Impersonators Elvisn Me
website
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Place of Publics in art-society relations
communications

• Publics as part of social processes of creation
  of belief in art
• Impact of the arts on publics
• tastes status,
• identity issues,
• as education (about social issues)
• Terminology (implies different theoretical
  approaches)
• Audience (readership, viewers etc.)
• Public
• Peers, Connoisseurs, Fans, General Public
• Consumer (arts management term economic
  connotation)

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Theories of reception as production or mediation
processes

• avoid extremes (Zolberg)
• audiences not totally autonomous free agents
  (Death of the Artist)
• not totally sheep (theory of the masses)
• reception part of creation/mediation process
  (Critical Theory)--horizon of expectations
• H.R. Jauss--School of Constance,
• Umberto Eco--open work
• appropriation of art (DeNora)public transforms
  the art, an active process (ex. DJ culture)

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Types of publics

• classification according to knowledge position
  in art worlds
• uninformed (general public),
• connoisseurs(fans, experts)
• critics (insiders),
• peers
• other classifications

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themes of populism vs. elitism in audience
studies

• historic conflict between elitism equality
• DiMaggio on Boston Brahmins
• Theodor Adorno--serious vs. sybaritic
• Lynes Bourdieu-- different approaches to
  lifestyles tastes
• Herbert Gans-- art as a human right (part of
  democratization discourse)
• blurring of boundaries between high/lowbrow art
  worlds
• but different styles genres made for adopted
  by different social groups

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Adornos Typology of Ways of listening

• hierarchy of ways of listening--Types of Musical
  Contuct in Sociology of Music (1962)
• expert listener--full awareness (musical logic
  technique)
• good listener--unconscious mastery
• amateur-- culture consumer--ex. well-informed
  collector
• emotional listener
• resentment listener-- seeming non-conformist
  (scorns official music)
• entertainment
• indifferent, unmusical anti-musical

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Other types of Studies of audiences/publics

• Tastes as Status Markers (Demaggio, Halle)
• Identity Politics in Context (Ehrenreich Fiske)
• Readings
• DiMaggio, Paul on Cultural Entrepreneurship.
• Ehrenreich, et al. on Beatlemania. A Sexually
  Defiant Consumer Subculture? in Gelder, Ken and
  Thornton, Sarah, The Subcultures Reader,
  Routledge, London and New York, 1997, pp. 523-536
• Fiske, John. Elvis A Body of Controversy,
  Power Plays, Power Works. London Verso, 1993,
  pp. 94-107, 122-3.

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DeMaggio cultural entrepreneurship

• Organizational emphasis
• Issues of transformation of arts to High culture
  model through institutionalization process
• status hierarchy in society status of the arts
  created by building symbolic capital economic
  power (Bourdieu)

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Ehrenreich et al Beatlemania

• Publics and fans as part of social political
  process of change
• Social change youth movements (British
  American Cultural Studies approach)
• Reception of art (Beetlemania) in context of
  change of womens roles sexual revolution

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Fiske on Elvis

• Draws on sociological notions of Michel Foucault
• Body as a site of social control
• Elviss image/body studied
• During lifetime (transgressions of conventional
  uses of the body by musicians)
• After death (Elvis lives mythology immitators)

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Halles study Inside Culture (audiences/publics,
art genres, status)

• what art do people have in their homes in
  different socio-economic neighbourhoods?
• Methods visited homes, photographed them, did
  floor plans, interviewed people
• empirical study with theoretical implications

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Greenpoint bedroom
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Greenpoint Living Room
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Greenpoint Row House Plan
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Manhattan Den
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Family Photos by Type of Neighbourhood
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Definition of art-cultural items (Halle)

• High cultureoriginals of financial or aesthetic
  value
• Middlebrow reproductions works of little
  value in international art markets
• Extendedbroad range of visual images, including
  family photos etc.

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Factors linking art/culture ltconsumptiongt with
power

• identity
• status
• Ideology
• Other?????

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What Halle described

• The House as context different styles of homes
  places art was displayed
• Class similarities differences in different
  ltgenresgt
• Landscapes
• Portraits family photos
• Abstract art
• Primitive art
• Religious art

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Landscapes

• popularity in all social classes
• Class differences in
• peopled not-peopled landscapes
• Foreign
• Named artist or not
• And more

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Portraits family photos

• Class differences in
• Photos of family members (common in middle
  working class, rare in upper-class
  homes)different definition of what constitutes
  ltartgt
• Painted portraits, etc..
• Interviews about attitudes towards portraits

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Abstract Art

• Homes with or without it (10 times as many in
  upper-class neighbourhoods)
• Likes or dislikes (twice as many liked it in rich
  neighbourhoods but still one third liked it in
  working class area)
• Comparison of reasons

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Another Approach Uses of the arts in everyday
lifeDe Nora

• interviews with 52 women
• four ethnographies of music in social settings
• karaoke at local pub
• music therapy sessions
• aerobics classes
• retail clothing outlets

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Theoretical Basis of De Noras study

• music as a medium for
• social agency, identity work, constitution of
  the self
• emotional work
• energy levels
• body, intimacy
• reflexivity (self-monitoring self identity)

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De Noras findings

• knowledge of music self-knowledge of needs
• Choices of music in certain places at certain
  times (music effects)
• active role of listeners (how individuals
  configure themselves)
• music as a resource (affordance)--
• feeling, desire, action, energy
• music mental concentration
• music identity construction others
• intimate, romantic, emotions, memories
• overview-- appropriations of music as a
  technology of the self

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Example of Artists Approach to Publics as
participants in Art Making Theories of
Reception.

• Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamids national surveys
  about taste in art and what art would look like
  if artists gave people what they say they want
  http//www.diacenter.org/km/

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Ex. Use of audiences/patrons by artists

• Komar Melamid-- Painting by Numbers. publics
  tastes as sources of inspiration but mocking

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V. Komar A. Melamid. Americas Most Wanted,
1993
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Komar Melamid Americas Least Wanted, 1993
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Komar Melamid. Russias Most Wanted,1994
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Use of art to provoke socio-political actions

• Joachim Gerz Hamburg monument against fascism
• Public invited to sign monument leds to
  destruction of the work of art
• Gran Fury and aids activism

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Other approaches to Reception (later in course)

• Studies of rejection of art controversies (ex.
  Mitchell, Gamboni)
• Art and Collective memory Studies (monuments
  public art ex. Bologna)