Guy Debord, ‘The commodity as spectacle’, paras. 1–18 and 42, from Society of the Spectacle (Detroit: Black & Red Books, 1977 revised edition) in Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks, ed. Meenakshi Gigi Durham & Douglas Kellner (Malden, Mass. ; Oxford : Blackwell, 2006), pp.117-121

 “The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life.”(1)

I think this quite a good quote to start off from as it outlines what the spectacle is. I think Debord is trying to say when a commodity, weather that be through a social media in modern times or maybe in 1977 this was through television, magazines and news papers. These commodities are attaining the so-called occupation of social life by being the only thing people talk about or are involved in outside of their own life or even including things that are going on in their life too. They are more interested in the life of celebrities or figures of higher power, relating to Marx’s theory.

The Situationists didn’t agree with this culture of media in the every day life.

The Situationists created a number of methods to subvert the ‘spectacularization’ of everyday life. They were interested (especially during the earlier period of the early 1960s) in very visual creative strategies such as the dérive (and the study of psychogeography) and a method called détournement, which can be translated to the word ‘detour’ but also meaning to ‘hijack’. The Situationists battled saying that in order to combat this mass media society (the Society of the Spectacle), people needed to hijack and divert advertising imagery, film and anything produced by the ‘spectacle’ in order to show how false and misleading these images were to the public eye.

Later on the Situationists realised that the capitalist society had gotten to a stage where the act of rebellion and battle against the cause could be ‘sold’ back to the masses and used as fashion statements.

“The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.”(2)

This quote explains how the spectacle isn’t the media that is produced that the Situationists don’t like, however it is the connotations that these media images have and how they effects the publics perception of social life and the way they go about living their social lives because of this media that the Situationists strongly disagree with.

1.     Guy Debord, ‘The commodity as spectacle’, para. 42 from The Society of the Spectacle

2.     Guy Debord, ‘The commodity as spectacle’, para. 4 from The Society of the Spectacle

Jean Baudrillard, ed. Mark Poster, ‘Simulacra and Simulations’, Selected writings (Cambridge : Polity, 1988), pp.166-172

A look into the French sociologist Jean Baudrillard’s ideas about ‘simulacra’ and the hyper-real. Baudrillard seems to be portraying that the media is a reflection of basic reality and that it masks and perverts a basic reality, he also believes that it masks the absence of basic reality. It bares no relation to reality whatever: its own pure simulacrum.

“In the first case, the image is a good appearance: the representation is of the order of sacrament. In the second, it is an evil appearance: of the order of malefice. In the third, it plays at being an appearance: it is of the order of sorcery. In the fourth, it is no longer in the order of appearance at all, but of simulation.” (1)

You can find this in lots of modern media, a main case being the Mark Duggan police shooting in 2011 “Mr Duggan, 29, was shot by officers last Thursday in Tottenham. His death sparked the initial riots in London which were followed by disorder in other English cities. The Independent Police Complaints Commission later released a statement to make it clear that Mr Duggan did not fire a gun at police. Ballistic tests found that a bullet which lodged itself in one officer's radio was police issue. It was reported by many media outlets at the time that a police officer had been shot before Mr Duggan was killed.” (2)

Police have supposedly lied to the media to cover up this shooting which may have been unlawful. Even to this day the whole story has two sides from witnesses and the police themselves. Quite a famous aspect of this story is the image used of Mark Duggan, which was an image of him holding a plaque at his daughter’s funeral, which has been cropped to make him look to be a violent man. This backs up Baudrillard’s point he is making about the media masking and perverting basic reality very strongly. 

I think peoples main problem with media at the minute is weather to trust it or not and stories like this bring mixed opinions to everyone’s minds, weather that be about the media or in turn the information which is brought forward to the media.

1. Jean Baudrillard, ed. Mark Poster, ‘Simulacra and Simulations’, Selected writings (Cambridge : Polity, 1988), pp.166-172

2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14510329

3. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/08/mark-duggan-death-london-riots

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, section on ‘ideology’, The German Ideology (London : Lawrence and Wishart, 1974), ed. C.J. Arthur, pp. 46-48.

Ideology depicts the way everyone thinks about everything, how we look at it. It explains how our thoughts and ideas can be manipulated and changed to create perceptions. 

Marx thinks that being powerful creates ideology and ideology creates fake consciousness. He believes that people in higher positions have the capability to shape every part of society and in turn can persuade a society to accept a social system that puts the majority at a disadvantage.

Throughout the passage, Marx explains his own views on ideology and his individual definitions as well as the effects of capitalism on society. Different to Plato, Marx is a realist. He explains his theory’s through the views of every day practices to contextualise his ideas using historical events and personal experiences. Marx believed in a world without money or class, a world where everyone gives and takes according to their abilities and needs. It is the attachment to material items and the conflict developed by this that Marx believed sent history quickly into a capitalist society. He said this was  ‘dialectic materialism’ and this came about at the same time as the industrial revolution.

He blamed the industrial revolution for this capitalist society as goods were being produced faster than ever before making the rich richer and the poor poorer as they were working in factories.

Marx thought this created alienation; alienation of disconnection, alienation from self and alienation from society.

“A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.” (1)

This quote explains how commodities and items have shaped the society and even though it doesn’t look like there is much to the item it has deeper significance and effects society a lot more than you realise. I think this in a way is quite true as people become greedy for newer and better items every year when corporate companies such as Apple bring them out. The consumer doesn’t necessarily need this item but to uphold appearances they purchase this item creating alienation. And in turn making the gap become larger as the rich are getting richer and the poor are still getting poorer.

 1. Marx, Capital, Chapter1, § 4

“Whether it has come from a clearer world and is confused by the unaccustomed darkness, or whether it is dazzled by the stronger light of the clearer world to which it has escaped from its previous ignorance." Plato, 'Book 7- The Allegory of the Cave', The Republic, trans. Desmond Lee (Penguin: London, 2007), pp.241-245

Plato is saying that the cave has light and dark patches where information can be seen and cannot be seen. He is also stating that this is how the media operates and this can manipulate information we see.

“[A] Painter can paint a portrait of a shoemaker or a carpenter or any other craftsman without understanding any of their crafts; yet, if he is skilled enough, his portrait of a carpenter may, at a distance, deceive children or simple people into thinking it is a real carpenter.” (1)

This simple quote helps explain how the media in modern culture can influence the people’s minds even if the information is false or skewed.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists… And some, I assume, are good people.” Donald Trump quotes like this were brought to light during the recent 2016 presidential election and used to help Hilary Clinton campaign her cause. However the media in the United States tended to use these to his advantage and get him more publicity as it lead to his other views which the American public felt very strong about (immigration and patriarchy).

This is similar to the UK’s Brexit campaign as being patriotic and immigration laws were pushed to the less educated people in the country and lies were fed to them to only be turned back upon “We send the EU £350m a week. Let’s fund the NHS instead.” This money was promised by what seemed to be strong ‘leaders’ of the Leave campaign. The media then plastered these lies across all publications and the public latched onto the idea of being promised a new Ferrari and now they claim they merely hinted at a used red Renault Clio.

This brings me back to the point of the cave.  A lot lies behind the front face of the media, which a lot of people don’t notice. Sometimes it’s the information it’s self, which is skewed. But it’s the medias responsibility to publish this information and the way they word it makes a lot of difference how the public views the information and how relevant it is.

1. Republic X, 598b-c (Penguin p. 340)

2. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jocelyn-greenky/trumping-office-politics_b_9623144.html

3. http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/06/how-brexit-campaign-lied-us-and-got-away-it