Notes from the lecture:

- identity is a construct, a performance, which gets formed by among others the help of the visual world
- how does the visual world set up identities?

- four different (problematic?) categories of identity: gender, sexuality, class and ethnicity
- divided into opposing pairs (= binary oppositions or binaries), e.g. white/black, male/female, etc.
- idea of 'marked' (= noticeable identification with a category, e.g. female characters wearing lipstick to separate them from male characters) and 'unmarked' binaries (= is seen as norm, you don't notice it) -> issue of power

• gender
• male/female is a sex you're arguably born into
• masculine/feminine are social structures and behaviour codes you're taught
• female is marked by giving it what we now see as typically female attributes and accessories, e.g. eyelashes 

• Stewart Hall
• Judith Butler 
• Gender is a performance
• We learn to perform the gender attached to our sex (e.g. body language, appearance, etc.)
• We can strategically play around with it
• Lauren Mulver
• 'the male gaze'
• 'women to-be-looked-at-ness'
• John Berger
• 'Men act, women appear.'

• sexuality
• heterosexual/homosexual - is that all?
• heteronormative society as demonstrated in film and TV
• homosexuality has to be marked, is being played at

• Judith Butler, 'Gender Trouble'

• class
• middle class/lower class - problematic: more classes? Classes at all?
• working class is marked and often seen through the eyes of the middle class, e.g. for comical purposes

• ethnicity
• white/black; British/other; Western/Eastern
• in Disney: villains are often darker skinned while heroes are fairer skinned
• normalisation of whiteness

Questions I ask myself/to ask:

- Where do I fit in? How do I identify myself within these categories?
- When I specifically look at the representation of one category, what happens to the others?
- What is my viewing position? What is the position the cultural text assumes me to have?#
- Young/old as binaries?

• Cultural Capital: refers to non-financial social assets that promote social mobility beyond economic means, e.g. education, intellect, style of speech, dress and physical appearance
• insufficient or the 'wrong' cultural capital can prevent you from realising your aspirations and dreams

• Subcultural Capital: the cultural knowledge and commodities acquired by members of a subculture, raising their status and helping differentiate themselves from members of other groups
• Self-policing and elimination, 'deploying their own versions of subculture as a rationale for their own exclusion' (p.2) 

• Self-efficacy: an individuals belief in his/her capacity to execute behaviours necessary to produce specific performance attainments; reflects confidence in ability to exert control over one's own motivation, behaviour and social environment

• How can self-efficacy be developed?
  -> representation! 

• 'Awkward' questions to ask about the social and institutional structures that support and maintain hierarchies of taste according to Eleonora Belfiore: 'If the debate on cultural value is to go beyond an empty rhetoric of self-celebration then it needs to  be an occasion in which awkward questions are asked of the sector as a whole. '
• 'For whom does the sector generate value?'
• 'What do organisations big and small do to live up to their status as public cultural organisations?'
• Amadasun adds:
• 'Do we want to encourage cultural omnivores by diversifying taste and/or do we want a radical overhaul of the very values that make distinctions between 'high' and 'low' culture?'
• 'How do we survive and make some progress in our day-to-day lives?'

‘For Bourdieu the body, how we carry ourselves, how we dress, how we feel, was key to how the game of power within any field was played out. When there is a fit between us and a particular social field there is ‘ontological complicity’; we are like fish in water.’ - page 1

'It does not feel the weight of the water, and it takes the world for granted.’ (p.127) - Pierre Bourdieu 

When reading this text, I could not help but think about all these classic American teenage high-school films and
 Questions I ask myself now:

All of us are media creators, consumers and multipliers. What are you?

I found this quote from today's lecture on Participatory Culture to be incredibly true and intriguing. I create media through my artwork, photography, Youtube channel, even by blogging on this blog. I consume it by watching Youtube videos by other creators, reading blogs, online magazines, and by being part of various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. And whenever I enjoy something made by someone else, I share it, multiply it on those platforms.

Jenkins firmly believes that in order to achieve "a better Participatory Culture", which is his main goal, we need to move past our history of conflict and aim for an era of a constructive, mutually respectful dialogue. To do that we constantly have to reflect on our own thoughts and what influences them and build up awareness of hidden constructs of society and capitalism that influence us subliminally.

Participatory Culture itself is heavily influenced by developments in technology and our thrive towards free thought and self-expression. In fact, if you look back on its history it opens up the question of where we will go in the future. According to Delwiche and Jacob Henderson, Participatory Culture can be divided into four phases. I have included a graph to visualize and summarize them. In the lecture we discussed a fifth phase to see where we are now.