M92MCCultural Framework

John KeenanJohn.keenan@coventry.ac.uk

Conclusion

Culture has institutions and they have rules. PR is one such institution. It works in the larger framework of post-industrial and neoliberal society which also come with their own structures and rules.

“people make history but not under conditions of their choice”

Louis Althusser

Marx cited in Bauman 2004 ANSE Conference May 7th, Netherlands

Foucault

Plague society - controlled

Institutions - control

Panopticon – being watched

Discipline and punishment

Foucault discipline and punishment

A discursive framework

A paradigm

“stands for the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community”

Kuhn 1970 cited in Aldoory 2005: 669

Garner 2010 405-9

Think about a job you have or have had. If you have no job then consider the situation at university.

What are the rules?

What happens if you break the rules?

Who is watching you?

Garner 2010: 405-9

Discourses are

‘governed by analyzable rules’ Foucault 1972 cited in Leitch 2007: 264

Discourses inform:

What can be said

Who can speak

The positions from which they can speak

Press conference news

Leitch 2007: 264

Power‘The exercise of power perpetually creates knowledge and, conversely, knowledge constantly induces effects of power. The university hierarchy is only the most visible…and least dangerous form of this phenomenon. One has to be really naïve to imagine that the effects of power linked to knowledge have their culmination in university hierarchies. Diffused, entrenched and dangerous, they operate in other places than in the person of the old professor’

Foucault 1980 cited in Leitch 2007: 265

Think of a situation in education – lecture, seminar, tutorial, group work etc

Consider

What can be said

Who can speak

The positions from which they can speak

Leitch 2007: 264

Garner 2010 405-9

Neoliberal Discourse

Other cultural discourses

CommunismFeudalismModernismCapitalismTribal

Richard Hoggart

The Uses of Literacy

Industrial society

“an all-pervading culture”

Shared working-class life in the 1930s

Superstition - touch wood, black cats

Attitude - family, neighbour

Fixed gender roles

wife - corner shop, clothes line,

husband - work, pub

Language - mam, our Alice

Food - chops, chips

Your culture

food clothes

attitudes family

taboo

gender roles

beliefs

‘What is private is necessarily good and what is public is necessarily bad’ Apple 2000: 59

Neoliberalism – what do you know?

‘Put simply, neoliberalism, from the moment of its inception, advocates a programme of deliberate intervention by government in order to encourage particular types of entrepreneurial, competitive and commercial behaviour in its citizens, ultimately arguing for the management of populations with the aim of cultivating the type of individualistic, competitive, acquisitive and entrepreneurial behaviour which the liberal tradition has historically assumed to be the natural condition of civilised humanity, undistorted by government intervention. This is the key difference between classical liberalism and neoliberalism: the former presumes that, left to their own devices, humans will naturally tend to behave in the desired fashion. By contrast the latter assumes that they must be compelled to do so by a benign but frequently directive state. This, according to neoliberals, is partly because a certain habitual tendency towards collectivism, if left unchecked, will lead commercial producers, workers, service-providers, managers and government officials to act only in their selfish corporate interests.’ Gilbert 2013

Keynesian Neoliberal

‘Public relations played a major role in moving society from a Keynesian to a neoliberal system’

Leitch 2007: 266

Adam CurtisThe Trap

Hegemony

becomes unquestionable

The Truth

Hegemony?

Hegemonic truths

FreedomEqualityFairnessChoicehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04ypfst/the-papers-23012015

1.30

‘what is most strikingly novel about neoliberal theory is its commitment to certain kinds of highly individualistic egalitarianism, promoting programs aimed at widening property ownership and distribution and securing equality of access to the competitive labour market for members of disadvantaged social groups, irrespective of their class or ethnic background’

Gilbert 2013

The End of HistoryFukuyama

‘We know that we don’t like neoliberalism, didn’t vote for it, and object in principle to its exigencies: but we recognise also that unless we comply with it, primarily in our workplaces and in our labour-market behaviour, then we will be punished (primarily by being denied the main consolation for participation in neoliberal culture: access to a wide range of consumer goods), and will be unlikely to find ourselves inhabiting a radically different social terrain. This paradox is made bearable by a crucial feature of neoliberal ideology itself: the insistent belief that it is our private, personal beliefs and behaviours which define our ‘true’ selves, whereas our public behaviour can be tolerated precisely to the extent that it is not invested with any emotional significance.’

Gilbert 2013: 13

Who has the Power?

‘induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse’

Foucault 1980 cited in Leitch 2007: 265

Post-industrial Society

Daniel Bell – The Coming of Post-industrial Society (1973)

Future Shock, Alvin Toffler

Liquid Modernity, Zygmunt Bauman

‘a society of numerous power and property units of relatively equal size, tends under strong competitive pressures towards an enlargement of a few units and finally towards monopoly …fewer and fewer units are able to compete’

Elias N (1982) in Bauman Freedom, p.55

Industrial Society - Manufacturing

knowledge

‘The post-industrial society … is a knowledge society’ Bell D (1974) The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, p.212

‘knowledge has become the central economic resource’ Drucker P (1992) The Age of Discontinuity, p.37

PR in a Neoliberal and Post-industrial society

1. Those in PR need to conform to neoliberal discourse

2. Advice from Bauman3. Project…short-term…’ethics’

1.

Groups of 5 or 6

Bosco supermarket has been accused of making Fair Trade products in a sweatshop in Indonesia.

Consider a response which will protect the Bosco and make sure it responds to neoliberal concerns.

‘Following a precedent is not a good advice any more. Accumulatingknowledge and relying on knowledge accumulated a long time ago,is not a good proposition today. Relying on unchanged routine which you can actually imbibe and follow blindly, is also not a good recipe. The same is true for acting according to habits and customs. All this is counterproductive in a rapidly changing world in which there is no longer one dominant authority but a competition of authorities, very often at cross-purposes, very often mutually contradictory. The responsibility for choosing between these authorities falls entirely upon the person involved.’

Bauman 2004 lecture liquid modernity

2. How to act

‘So our society is integrated by projects. … as today’sexperts in sociology of employment say, “you are as good as yourlast project”. And remember also, ladies and gentlemen, that thememory in our “liquid” modern world is also short-term, so yoursuccess in the last project is not long remembered. So, the greatproblem is how to sensibly behave in such a world in a dignified,ethically correct way and yet be successful. Now, that’s acontradiction which is extremely difficult to resolve. That’s why Iperceived dreaming of being supervisor as a sort of nightmare.’

Bauman 2004 lecture

3. PR is Project-based

Conclusion

Culture has institutions and they have rules. PR is one such institution. It works in the larger framework of post-industrial and neoliberal society which also come with their own structures and rules.

https://m92mc.wordpress.com/cultural-framework/

Also revisit Mickey from last week from page 5