Media Culture and Policy

JOUR 6871 (003)

Media and Cultural Policy

Friday, 9:00 – 11:30

Armory 1B01

Spring 2006

Andrew Calabrese

School of Journalism and Mass Communication

andrew.calabrese@colorado.edu

http://spot.colorado.edu/~calabres

This course will focus on cultural policy in general, with particular emphasis on the role of the media, old and new (including the Internet and convergent media). “Cultural policy” refers to an emerging field of study that addresses a wide range of issues affecting media, arts, and library funding, concepts of culture within commercial and public service broadcasting, language and immigration rights, literacy programs, and constructions of national and ethnic identities.

The study of cultural policy does not focus exclusively on the role of government, but rather on a broader range of institutions that play central roles in governing contemporary culture, as the following distinctions stress:

Cultural policies are most often made by governments, from school boards to Congress and the White House, but also many other institutions in the private sector, from corporations to community organizations. Policies provide guideposts for those making decisions and taking actions which affect cultural life. (“What is Cultural Policy?” Webster’s World of Cultural Policy, http://www.wwcd.org/policy/policy.html)

Similarly, cultural policies have been described as including “those policies which have a bearing on the conduct of those institutions and organizations which make up the cultural sector” (Tony Bennett and Colin Mercer, “Improving Research and International Cooperation for Cultural Policy.” Paper prepared for the Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural Policies for Development, Stockholm, Sweden, 30 March – 2 April 1998, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001106/110614eo.pdf). This includes an emphasis on:

Ø policies of governments that shape commercial and non-commercial cultural institutions and organizations;

Ø policies that cultural institutions and organizations develop themselves;

Ø those elements of civil society that actively seek to shape cultural production, including NGOs, voluntary associations, minority ethnic groups, and religious groups; and

Ø policy outcomes, as reflected in the distribution of cultural goods among consumers, audiences, publics, and communities (Bennett & Mercer).

This course will offer an introduction to the study and practical significance of cultural policy as it relates more generally to culture as a basis of citizenship and civic competence. It will offer a distinctive way of understanding media development that is not grounded strictly in the technological and economic terms often emphasized in communication policy research and teaching. Primary emphasis will be given to historical dimensions of US cultural policies, but substantial emphasis will also be given, through readings, discussions and assignments, to cultural policies in other countries and to comparative research.

Among the key issues and topics to be covered in the course will be:

1. The New Deal Era’s “Federal One” project, which was a part of the Works Progress Administration’s employment relief program. Federal One created the Federal Art Project, the Federal Music Project, the Federal Theater Project, and the Federal Writers Project. The successes and failures of Federal One are a fundamentally important part of cultural policy history in the United States. Its legacy includes a profound impact on the history of film, photography, theater, music, painting, sculpture, and literature in the United States. Federal One was closed down amid a climate of growing paranoia in the late 1930s and early 1940s about a red menace. While inserting politics squarely into art, the Congressional opponents of Federal One claimed to be removing politics from art.

2. Recent controversies over federal arts patronage, particularly the stormy history of the National Endowment for the Arts, culminating in the 1998 Supreme Court case, NEA v. Finley (118 S.Ct. 2168), in which it was decided, to the dismay of many artists and intellectuals, that the enabling legislation for the NEA does not violate the First Amendment by authorizing the NEA Chair to enforce “general standards of decency.”

3. Various efforts toward media industry self-regulation, as in the labeling of recorded music for violent and sexual content, and in television program coding for use with the “V-Chip.” The cultural contradictions inherent in promoting free commercial enterprise, on the one hand, and cultural regulation on the other, will be emphasized.

4. Controversies over, and justifications for and against, language policies around the world that favor bilingualism and multilingualism. Language policy debates provide a valuable means for understanding efforts that by design or default serve the end of constructing cultural nationalism and, conversely, for examining what is sometimes pejoratively called “identity politics.”

5. The US presence in transnational cultural policy. Specific industry sectors and their representatives (such as the Motion Picture Export Association) will be examined. As well, emphasis will be given to the prominence and power of US foreign cultural policy, as in the effects of the US withdrawal from and recent return to UNESCO, US opposition to a “cultural exception” in multilateral trade talks, and the official US presence in such forums as the World Intellectual Property Organization, particularly as it pertains to the music and film industries, and the World Summit on the Information Society.

Tentative Reading Schedule

There are many good readings that we will not be able to cover in this class, the main reasons being the limits on our time and the need for you to have some free time to work on your own papers. However, I am going to place on e-reserve some suggested articles and tables of content from books that you may find useful. In the case of books for which I supply tables of content, I will also place them on reserve at the Norlin circulation desk either library copies or, in cases where the library doesn’t have the book, my personal copies. I intend to do that this coming week. Please note that I may slightly change what is listed for a given date, but the general topic for that date will remain the same. February 17 & 24, and March 3 will be on U.S. cultural policy. The remainder of the weeks for which there is assigned reading, starting with March 10, will be on international and global issues. It will be important for you to use the online version of the syllabus for purposes of using links to web-based readings. I have posted it on the web, and you can get there via a link from my home page at: http://spot.colorado.edu/~calabres/ (note that the final “e” in my name is not on my home page address).

Jan 20 (Intro)

Jan 27 – Overview readings

Caron Atlas, Cultural Policy: In the board rooms and on the streets

Webster’s World of Cultural Policy

Justin O’Connor, The Definition of ‘Cultural Industries’

Tony Bennett, “Putting Policy into Cultural Studies,” in Grossberg & Treichler, ed. Cultural Studies.

Frederic Jameson, “On ‘Cultural Studies,’” Social Text, no. 34 (1993), 17-52.

Feb 3 (Paper proposals)

Feb 10 (Paper proposals)

Feb 17 – U.S. cultural policy

Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard, New Deal Cultural Programs: Experiments in Cultural Democracy.

The Cultural Front, Intro – ch. 6

Feb 24 (Kyle)

The Cultural Front, ch. 7 – Conclusion

Mar 3 (Joe)

Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard, Cultural Policy in U.S. History.

Miller & Yudice, Cultural Policy, Intro – ch. 2

Freedom of Expression: How is freedom of expression protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, especially for artists?

Government Support for Cultural Activities: Is funding of the arts an appropriate government activity?

Government Funding and the First Amendment: How does freedom of expression apply in the context of federally funded activities?

Governmental Determinations of Aesthetic Value: How is aesthetic value determined by the executive and judiciary branches of government?

Excerpt from Wendy Steiner, The Scandal of Pleasure: Art in the Age of Fundamentalism.

Intro

Ch. 1: The Perfect Moment

Conclusion

Additional reading on “culture wars” in the United States

Andrew Calabrese and Silvo Lenart, “Cultural Diversity and the Perversion of Tolerance” (1992).

Todd Gitlin, “The Demonization of Political Correctness” (1995).

Mar 10 – International/global cultural policy (Don, Laura)

Miller & Yudice, ch. 3 & 5

Edward Said, “Overlapping Territories, Intertwined Histories,” Culture and Imperialism [on e-reserve].

“Our imperial imperative” [interview with Niall Ferguson], Atlantic Unbound.

Review of Niall Ferguson, Empire.

David Rothkopf, “In praise of cultural imperialism?”

Joseph S. Nye, “Propaganda isn’t the way: Soft power,” International Herald Tribune.

Thomas Donnelly, “The past as prologue: An imperial manual,” Foreign Policy.

MacBride Report [on e-reserve]:

Foreword

Recommendations

Antonio Pasquali, “The South and the imbalance in communication,” Global Media and Communication, vol. 1(3), December 2005. [Available online via Chinook]

Mar 17: No class meeting

Mar 24 (Sanae)

UNESCO Inventory of recommendations contained in the analytical chapters and international agenda of: Our creative diversity, report of the World Commission on Culture and Development (9 September 1996).

United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Human Development Report 2004, Overview: Cultural liberty in today’s diverse world.

UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (20 October 2005).

“Creative Commons” legal concepts.

“Open Content,” Wikipedia.

Readings on the cultural exception:

UNESCO, What do we generally understand by ‘cultural exception’?

“’Cultural exception’ – an American invention,” Idees de France.

UNESCO, What are the Florence Agreement and the Nairobi Protocol?

“Is there room for ‘cultural exception in the global marketplace?” Idees de France.