presentation on 'Power and Algorithms'. as the part of Pop Culture

1. Prepared by : Avani Jani
M.A Sem: 3
Paper : Paper 205A: Cultural Studies
Roll no: 3
Enrollment no: 4069206420220014
Submitted to: Department of English, MKBU

2. Points to ponder
1] Definition:
2] History of Pop Culture:
3] Cultural Elitism and Mass Culture Stigma:
4] Worth and Worthlessness
5] Mass Consumption
6] Power and Algorithms
7] Conclusion

3. Definition:
● As per Cambridge Dictionary:
music, TV, cinema, books, etc. that are popular and enjoyed by ordinary people, rather than experts or very
educated people
● Popular culture is culture of masses.(Nayar )
History of Pop Culture:
● Although the Oxford English Dictionary lists the first use as 1854, it appears in an address by Johann
Heinrich Pestalozzi in 1818, in his book The Address of Pestalozzi to the British Public -”I see that it is
impossible to attain this end without founding the means of popular culture and instruction upon a basis which
cannot be got at otherwise than in a profound examination of Man himself; without such an investigation and
such a basis all is darkness.” (Pestalozzi )
● As per Pramod K. Nayar, In the 1950s and 1960s a change in focus came about in cultural analysis. Scholars
started taking popular culture seriously. In 1969 the Department of Popular Culture at Bowling Green University
(USA) launched the Journal of Popular Culture. (Nayar )

4. Pramod K. Nayar observes that- For a long time, forms of art considered "mass
culture" were viewed negatively, with only the culture of the elite being deemed
"true" culture. Academic studies focused on "great works of art" and classical
authors, ignoring the preferences of the majority. Standards of judgment and ideas
of taste were based on these elite forms, associating the term "culture" with a small
section of the population and their preferences. (Nayar )
Cultural Elitism and Mass Culture Stigma:

5. ● In his book ‘Origins of the Popular Style’, musicologist Peter Van Der Merwe suggests that "reviewing
the popular music of the twentieth century as a whole, most people would probably agree that some of it
is excellent, some unbearable and most of it very indifferent. What the good, bad and indifferent share is
a musical language" (Van der Merwe)
● Most people generally agree with the statement, but disagreements revolve around specific songs, genres, or
performers. Aesthetic debates exist within a shared musical and critical discourse, emphasizing that we
understand the meaning of the music we prefer or dislike.
● Simon Frith agrees with Peter Van Der Merwe and argues further with authoritative statements:
● 1] The first comes from the most famous middlebrow intellectual of the 1980s-Allan Bloom. "Rock music," he wrote in The
Closing of the American Mind, "has one appeal only, a barbaric appeal, to sexual desire-not love, not eros, but sexual
desire undeveloped and untutored... these are [its] three great lyrical themes: sex, hate and a smarmy, hypocritical version
of brotherly love" (Bloom )
● 2] A leftist cultural critic-Mark Crispin Miller "struggles to interpret something that requires no interpretation... tries to
appraise and explicate a music whose artists and listeners are anti-intellectual and usually stoned, and whose producers
want more than anything to own several cars" (Frith)
“What decides worth or worthlessness?”
Worth and Worthlessness

6. "positive mass consumption" (which became-and remains the pithiest academic definition of
"popular" culture). The value of cultural goods could therefore be equated with the value of the groups
consuming them-youth, the working class, women, and so forth. (Frith)
"if it's popular it must be bad" to the position "if it's popular it must be bad, unless it's popular with the right
people." First, this remains a highly politicized notion of popular cultural value, whether explicitly, as in the
British use of terms like resistance and empowerment, or implicitly. as in the American celebration of opinion
leaders and taste publics in the name of a pluralist democracy. (Frith)
Mass Consumption
(Agnihotri) (Sen)
(Agnihotri) (Sharma)

7. Popular Feed Algorithm
Power

8. ● The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change claims that algorithms are
biased.
● algorithms can be used in the wrong context. Imposing a one-size-fits-
all algorithmic decision in inherently complex environments or with
insufficient human checks and balances can run a much higher risk of
skewed, inaccurate or biased decisions.(Innes and Beacon)
● The design, deployment, and use of new technologies can have
lasting effects on society, setting us on paths that in many cases are
difficult to depart from or reverse. (Cobbe)
● The internet has come far from Barlow’s infamous “Declaration of the
Independence of Cyberspace”, in which he asserted that governments
were not welcome on and had no sovereignty over the internet (Barlow)
Power and Algorithms

9. ● Boyle sees Barlow’s libertarian, utopian viewpoint failed to anticipate
the predictable emergence of commercially incentivised private forms
of order that in some ways match or surpass that imposed by
states.(James)
● The governmentality of algorithmic censorship would depend upon
widespread surveillance, forming part of a broader, more extensive
surveillant assemblage. (Haggerty and Ericson)
● Foucault argued that modern governmentalities pursue “the dream of
a transparent society, visible and legible in each of its own parts”,
eliminating the “zones of darkness” established by governmental or
corporate power(Foucault )

10. Conclusion
In conclusion, the understanding of popular culture has
evolved, and its value is determined by various factors,
including its reception by different groups. Technology and
algorithms play a significant role in shaping contemporary
culture, and the discussion has moved beyond simplistic
notions of good or bad, emphasizing the importance of context
and societal impact.

11. Agnihotri, Vivek, director. The Kashmir Files. Zee Studios Abhishek Agarwal Arts I am Buddha Production, 11 March 2022.
Agnihotri, Vivek, director. The Vaccine War. I Am Buddha Production, 28 September 2023.
Barlow, John Perry. “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.” Electronic Frontier Foundation, https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-
independence.
Bloom, Allan. Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students.
Simon & Schuster, 2012.
Cobbe, Jennifer. “Algorithmic Censorship by Social Platforms: Power and Resistance.” SpringerLink, 07 October 2020 volume,
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-020-00429-0.
Foucault, Michel. Power/knowledge: selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977. Edited by Colin Gordon, translated by Colin Gordon,
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1980.
Reference cited:

12. Frith, Simon. “The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent: Defending Popular Culture from the Populists.” JSTOR, vol. 21,
https://doi.org/10.2307/465379.
Haggerty, Kevin D., and Richard V. Ericson. “The surveillant assemblage.” UiO,
https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/ifi/INF3700/v17/bakgrunnsnotat/the_surveillant_assemblage.pdf.
Innes, Kirsty, and Rosie Beacon. “Government by Algorithm: The Myths, Challenges and Opportunities.” Tony Blair
Institute, 25 January 2021, https://www.institute.global/insights/tech-and-digitalisation/government-algorithm-
myths-challenges-and-opportunities.

13. James, Boyle. “LECTURE: Foucault in Cyberspace.” Yale Journal of Law and Technology,
https://openyls.law.yale.edu/handle/20.500.13051/7820.
Nayar, Pramod K. An Introduction to Cultural Studies. 2nd Edition ed., Viva Books, 1 January 2016.
Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich. The Address of Pestalozzi to the British Public, Soliciting Them to Aid by Subscriptions His Plan of
Preparing School Masters and Mistresses for the ... of Intellectual Instruction from Their... Nabu Press, 13 March 2012.
“POP CULTURE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary.” Cambridge Dictionary, 18 October 2023,
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/pop-culture.
Sen, Sudipto, director. The Kerala Story. Sunshine Pictures[, 5 May 2023.
Sharma, Anil, director. Gadar 2. Zee Studios Anil Sharma Productions MM Movies, 11 August 2023.
Van der Merwe, Peter. Origins of the Popular Style: The Antecedents of Twentieth-century Popular Music. Clarendon Press, 1989.