In Ang's chapter on Culture and Communication, she discusses at length the notion of the nation and the processes by which nations are represented. Ang states, "The desire to keep national identity and national culture wholesome and pristine is not only becoming increasingly unrealistic, but is also, at a more theoretical level, damagingly oblivious to the contradictions that are condensed in the very concept of national identity." Thus, the act of representing a nation is a deliberate attempt at "nation-building." Attempting to do so ignores the many conflicting notions of identity that exist in a nation. Specifically here, I want to pose the questions, WHO is the face of America? Who creates the face of America? And, why?
Ang uses the examples of the Malay government’s attempts to foster a Malaysian identity. The government strictly enforced what type of models would be used to represent the country, and thus “national identity is a matter of selective construction.” The WHO in this case is the models that represent the races of Malaysia (at least according to the government). Which answers the next question; the Malay government is directly involved in constructing this representation. Why? For the explicit purpose of fostering nationalism.
The case with the United States is different for many obvious reasons; one being that the U.S. has a highly heterogeneous population. In fact, this is part of the myth of American multiculturalism - what makes America, America! So the questions I posed above get a bit more complicated, especially when the government is not directly implicated in the creation of a national identity. I've posted a clip here called "The Diverse and Multicultural Face of America: Majority Minority."
It was created by XL Cultural Marketing, whose slogan is "elevate culture to elevate profits!" Clearly in this case, a marketing company is contributing to the creation of a specific type of national identity, for the clear purpose of "elevating profits." However, I think it's important to see how these marketing strategies are more that just ways of increasing profit, but they actually do contribute to images of national identity and a so-called "face of America." How do you think such marketing strategies contributes to nation-building? Browse the "Cultural Intelligence" website and think about the questions of who and maybe more importantly why. (Why THIS face for America? Why is it important for the Face of America to be multicultural?)
I really feel like this post is relevant to the understanding of not only the goals of the commodification of multiculturalism, but simply how much money people make by maintaining a certain image. Because the United States has had (and continues to have) such a long stint with racism, that image of negativity must be immediately (or as quickly as possible without others noticing widely) replaced with inclusivity, love and acceptance. Regardless of how people feel, the image portrayed is of joy, progression and multi-racial interests at heart. According to Ang, "In the struggles that are fought out around this issue in many parts of the world today, the structural changes brought about by the transnationalization of media flows are often assessed and officially defined in terms of threat to the autonomy and integrity of "national identity."
ReplyDeleteIn the case that the United States actually looks like how they treat their citizens (lack of multiculturalism, connectedness and knowledge of their citizens), the immediate goal to create this faux autonomy establishes at the least an effort and positive attitude toward multicultural happenings and existence. The face of the US is continuously being defined while probably never reaching a permanence. On the contrary, I think that it's quite ironic that the faces of America (at least according to the video referenced in the blog) is one of the two ethnicities of people that have been the oppressed for multiple centuries.
I believe that the people who has capital makes the face of American. The elite people, oppressors, and famous people in the media is in fact the face of America. The reason is because these are the people that can convince others to buy their products. But now they use multicutural as the face of America because they want to emphasize that the products are also welcome to everyone even they can't afford it.This is where some people spend all their life savings on that product to be engage and feel like the people who are the face of America.
ReplyDeleteI agree the rich people with capital control the message because they have the fund to influence. When you have money it’s much easier to get people to listen to you. For example P-diddy promotes proactive on their commercial, I’m sure he doesn’t use it but the fact that he has money and a famous status people will buy the product he is promoting.
ReplyDeleteThe questions Ang raises concerning the formulation of national identity and "nation-building" are interesting. Is a "national culture" that is "wholesome and pristine" ever realistic? Culture is inextricably tied to power, which is inextricably tied to politics. I agree that those with the power are given the "authority" to create the "image of a nation." Those possessing authority and a means of money systematically constrain, in a top-down fashion, the images of America, often heavily through mainstream media. The selectively chosen, socially constructed, images become institutionalized, enter the mainstream, and become acceptable as "norm." The arenas of advertising and marketing have a propagandist foundation, and no doubt contribute to representation of national identity. The "Cultural Intelligence" web site raised an interesting question, that of why there is hesitation to market to minority audiences. I would argue that the key reason is profit. Big business is profit-driven, and marketing to non-mainstream is seen as too risky. Hence, mainstream media becomes homogeneous, feeding the national image(s) and perpetuating the status quo.
ReplyDeleteOne of the smaller quotes that stood out to me in Ang's piece was "in the west, where everyday life is relatively comfortable even for the least privileged, the struggle for popular survival and self-affirmation seems to have lost its urgency." Perhaps, the image of the nation is not actually created or worked on by the privileged, but rather for the lower class to work on. Indeed, the US does not effect its nation as outright as Malay, yet I think there are different cultural influences that have heavily effected its citizens. Although the upper class may be the face of our nation, the lower class has the most pressure to do the physical work on your nation's makeover. Also, although this is America and we are so "diverse" I truly believe that there are only a couple dominant faces that represent our nation, and unfortunately these are mostly negative images of greed and consumption.
ReplyDeleteI love this post, for I have noticed this marketing company for another class as well. I think this marketing agency proves Ang's main argument that national identity is constantly being re-defined and re-presented, as the example of the Malaysian media system. At first , they had racially-mixed looking models to "represent" the country, but now they insist on making sure that their models only match the races in the country in order to promote national identity.
ReplyDeleteI do find Tichina's observation very interesting...the face of America are the 2 ethnicities that have been oppressed the most in this country (and seen as a threat). It is almost comical that as Fiske's observation of the "Third World in the U.S."...the Third World populations are soon going to outnumber the First World population in the U.S. Are these roles going to really reverse?
I think that once the race quotas even out around 2050, many things will become much simpler in the United States and there will be less problems involving race. However, I think that it will take much more time for the economic levels of the various groups to become even because, as Ang notes, "cultural processes are by definition also ideological in that the way the world is made to appear in a society tends to coincide with the interests of the dominant or powerful classes and groups in that society." The re-distribution of wealth will take time, as just now are we beginning to adopt neoliberal practices like universal health care. But I believe that once some time has passed and a racial majority does not really exist in the same way it does now, that difference will be de-emphasized and multiculturalism will be embraced even more.
ReplyDeleteAll of the comments above are great. I feel that my opinion fits best with the ideas that the face of America is simply those who are elite and have some type of economical power. They have the ability to distort cultural identities and make them commodifiable as stated in Molina-Guzman's writing of Dangerous Curves. I agree that nationalism is a disguise to simply avoid the discreet sites of prejudices that enforces this (as Tichina states) "autonomy" in which democracy is far-fetched in reference to cultural liberalism and the limitations of marginalized people. In Ang's article, he states, that there is a need to return to hegemony (a dominance of one social group over others). "The hegemonic can be found in the very texture of the popular," Ang states and I truly believe this. Having a representation of multiculturalism in a society in which the American Dream seems obtainable for all only reinforces the ideas of making difference marketable to suit the needs of those who have and are in the position to achieve this faulty "American Dream."
ReplyDeleteThanks for "props" Precious. Wow! The posting and comments are excellent. Need to think through hegemony a bit more to make the process of representation and the "power" embedded in representation a complex area of analysis. I think that concept is key to many of the observations being made. Lena your critique of Fiske is well noted. It's truth gave me a chuckle!
ReplyDeleteThe face of America is one that is imaginary. The quote, "the desire to keep national identity and national culture wholesome and pristine is not only becoming increasingly unrealistic, but is also, at a more theoretical level, damagingly oblivious to the contradictions that are condensed in the very concept of national identity" combined with the idea of the "popular" points to, like other people have said, the people who hold a lot of systemic and institutional power and privilege. The face of America is created by them, and influenced by those who threaten them in a much smaller extent, to justify their power and the lack of privilege others don't have. I am supposed to identify with "America: The Person" because then that seems to make me less apt to challenge it as one of the hardest processes is continual critical self reflection.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Antionette’s blog posting the media does create the face of America because it is a source of communication that is project all across the global. So individuals that are not aware of American culture or have ever been to America can only learn about America from the media via TV, newspapers, magazines, etc. Celebrities have been the face of America for years. As time has evolved though multiculturalism has become the face of America. As Bola discusses individuals with capital do have a controlling influence in the images displayed in our media because they have the power to create the image of America.
ReplyDeleteThis article definitely relates to the idea of hegemony. Who creates the face of America? Yes, I agree with everyone else, those in power who have control of the media and politics. Why is it important for America to be multicultural? I feel that those who create this multicultural image find that they can have more control over the people by doing so. Because America appears to accept many different races it is easier for those in power to feed the people with more safe representations of how one should act or be.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Antionette and many others the people who hold capital and are elite within the US make the faces of American. If you had never been to the United States and you thought of who represented the U.S. who would come to mind... The faces of the people who have the money to put their faces out there and are elite enough to represent this nation.
ReplyDelete