Response to Warnick, Porter, and the New Yorker — Angelopoulos

The cover for the July 2008 New Yorker, featured above, depicts a caricature of Barack and Michelle Obama; it’s title – “The Politics of Fear.” The artist, Barry Blitt, intended for the image to be a satirical parody of the Obamas, one that “explicitly takes up and plays upon the larger social text” (100).  In this case, the larger social text revolves around the 2008 presidential campaign, during which misinformation regarding the Obamas circulated in an effort to derail their campaign. The image attempts to draw upon this misinformation to expose the ridiculousness of the public’s naivety towards the politics of fear.

Warnick states that, “culturally specific motifs, knowledges, and beliefs provide the intertext that informs the reader’s appreciation and understanding of the intertextually supported text” (96). When this issue of the New Yorker was released, Obama was in the midst of receiving criticism from the misinformation that circulated regarding his cultural background. Paying no attention to his Irish ancestry, Obama’s adversaries used his Kenyan background to make racist accusations concerning his religion as well as his sentiment on terrorism. The image features Obama dressed in a turban, with a portrait of Osama Bin Laden hanging above a fire enveloping an American flag behind him. In viewing these satirical images, the audience is intended to draw upon information they’ve heard in the media in order to interpret the intertextual relations at hand. Juxtaposition is vital to this interpretation.

Porter defines presupposition as a form of intertextuality that “refers to assumptions a text makes about its referent, its readers, and its context” (35). The image above presupposes a cultural comprehension of the politics of fear. Blitt took claims of Obama being unpatriotic and sympathetic towards terrorism and incorporated a portrait of Osama and a burning flag in his image to dramatize them to the fullest extent. His image is a parody, and more importantly a piece of visual rhetoric that aims at exposing the ridiculous scare tactics used to dissuade voters from Obama. Viewers who are aware of these cultural references to the right wing’s criticism of Obama can read the “sociopolitical messages between the lines;” they can construct meaning about the politics of fear from the image because they understand its intertextuality.

However, as Warnick asks: “What role does the originator of the text have in the interpretations of its meaning?” (103). While she states that both producers and readers play a role in the interpretation of meaning, this relationship can only be successful if the audience actually grasps the intertextual references at play. Those members of the audience who fell victim to the Obama rumors may have interpreted the image as a dramatization of fact rather than a parody. Those who do not recognize these sociopolitical allusions have an “oppositional reading” by default, inherently reading the text’s code as literal rather than satirical. Thus, looking back to Warner and Jenkins, it is apparent once again that the public must actively participate in the media in order to grasp intertextually based works such as this one. 

Response to Warnick, Porter, and the New Yorker — Angelopoulos

The cover for the July 2008 New Yorker, featured above, depicts a caricature of Barack and Michelle Obama; it’s title – “The Politics of Fear.” The artist, Barry Blitt, intended for the image to be a satirical parody of the Obamas, one that “explicitly takes up and plays upon the larger social text” (100).  In this case, the larger social text revolves around the 2008 presidential campaign, during which misinformation regarding the Obamas circulated in an effort to derail their campaign. The image attempts to draw upon this misinformation to expose the ridiculousness of the public’s naivety towards the politics of fear.

Warnick states that, “culturally specific motifs, knowledges, and beliefs provide the intertext that informs the reader’s appreciation and understanding of the intertextually supported text” (96). When this issue of the New Yorker was released, Obama was in the midst of receiving criticism from the misinformation that circulated regarding his cultural background. Paying no attention to his Irish ancestry, Obama’s adversaries used his Kenyan background to make racist accusations concerning his religion as well as his sentiment on terrorism. The image features Obama dressed in a turban, with a portrait of Osama Bin Laden hanging above a fire enveloping an American flag behind him. In viewing these satirical images, the audience is intended to draw upon information they’ve heard in the media in order to interpret the intertextual relations at hand. Juxtaposition is vital to this interpretation.

Porter defines presupposition as a form of intertextuality that “refers to assumptions a text makes about its referent, its readers, and its context” (35). The image above presupposes a cultural comprehension of the politics of fear. Blitt took claims of Obama being unpatriotic and sympathetic towards terrorism and incorporated a portrait of Osama and a burning flag in his image to dramatize them to the fullest extent. His image is a parody, and more importantly a piece of visual rhetoric that aims at exposing the ridiculous scare tactics used to dissuade voters from Obama. Viewers who are aware of these cultural references to the right wing’s criticism of Obama can read the “sociopolitical messages between the lines;” they can construct meaning about the politics of fear from the image because they understand its intertextuality.

However, as Warnick asks: “What role does the originator of the text have in the interpretations of its meaning?” (103). While she states that both producers and readers play a role in the interpretation of meaning, this relationship can only be successful if the audience actually grasps the intertextual references at play. Those members of the audience who fell victim to the Obama rumors may have interpreted the image as a dramatization of fact rather than a parody. Those who do not recognize these sociopolitical allusions have an “oppositional reading” by default, inherently reading the text’s code as literal rather than satirical. Thus, looking back to Warner and Jenkins, it is apparent once again that the public must actively participate in the media in order to grasp intertextually based works such as this one. 

Response to Rushkoff — Angelopoulos

In “Media Virus!” Douglas Rushkoff examines the rhetorical situation surrounding the media, or more specifically: the datasphere. In his introduction, Rushkoff presents the concept of media viruses within the datasphere and then familiarizes us with their three different forms: constructed viruses, “bandwagon” viruses and self-generated viruses. In the following chapter, he delves further into the importance of media viruses in our culture, as well as the surprising correspondence between the datasphere and the inherent chaos of nature.

After establishing the media as our only real frontier, Rushkoff defines the datasphere as “the new territory for human interaction, economic expansion, and especially social and political machination” (4). I find it interesting that he says we’ve moved into the datasphere because we have “nothing left to colonize” (3). It appears our need for constant growth has resulted in us occupying the media rather than physical territory. Rushkoff explains that occupying this new space empowers the American individual. This is a rather stimulating idea because, according to Rushkoff, the datasphere is a territory that we can all occupy and that we can all participate in so that we can “chart and control” the course of our own culture. I find this to be especially transformational since, unlike physical territories, the datasphere provides a space where marginalized groups can be empowered.

Rushkoff combats the most common criticism of the media, which is that it exists outside the realm of nature, by personifying the mediaspace and demonstrating how technology actually abides by the laws of nature. He refutes the assertion that it is not reality and then establishes the datasphere as a biological entity. In doing so he uses personification as a rhetorical strategy, one that perfectly corresponds with the exigence of his work.

Another rhetorical strategy that Rushkoff employs involves the juxtaposition of public relations ploys with media viruses: “The easy way to tell the difference between a media virus and an old-fashioned public relations ploy is to determine whether it makes an issue simple and emotional or dauntingly complex” (36). He describes PR ploys as oversimplifying issues in order to appeal to an audience’s emotions, while media viruses contrarily complicate issues to appeal to reason. Media viruses are also said to disable the marginalization that PR experts immediately assign to countercultural ideas.

While I identify with Rushkoff’s “Support our Troops” example, I find the strategy he uses here confusing. If an idea appeals to emotions, should it immediately be rendered a public relations ploy? Rushkoff seems to use “emotional” and “simple” as if they are analogous adjectives, and I find this debilitating to his work. Emotional responses can be complicated and so long as they are being summoned to examine real issues, and not oversimplified distractions, I believe they hold significant value. As Rushkoff explains later, “the media promotes a new kind of intimacy, and no one can escape the flood” (39). Participating in the datasphere creates a global intimacy that links us all to one another, making moral escape extremely difficult. Thus, appeals to our nondiscriminatory emotions should not be dismissed so easily.

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