A month ago I happened to turn on the TV to find something I remembered with admiration, affection, and respect; I refer to Kubrick’s science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. After watching it again with friends, we all agreed it was a disappointment.
The film, which had stunned us a generation ago with its extraordinary technical and figurative invention, now seemed to repeat wearily things we had seen a thousand times before. The drama of the paranoid computer still maintains its tension, though it [1]( 1. still 2. no longer 3. nonetheless) seems amazing; the beginning with the monkeys is still a fine piece of cinema, but those non-aerodynamic spaceships are now no more than the discarded plastic toys of yesteryear.
And yet we [2] (1. considered 2. are considering 3. had considered) Kubrick an innovator of genius. But that is the point; the media have a history but they have no memory (two characteristics that ought to be incompatible). The mass media are genealogical because, in them, every new invention sets [3] (1. off 2. out 3. on) a chain reaction of inventions and produces a sort of common language. They have no memory because, when the chain of imitations has been produced, no one can remember who started it, and the head of the clan is confused with the latest great grandson. [4](1. Therefore 2. In contrast 3. Furthermore), the media learn ; and thus the spaceships of Star Wars, descended from Kubrick’s, are more complex and plausible than their ancestor, and now the ancestor seems to be their [5] (1 .imitator 2. origin 3. model).
It would be interesting to inquire why this process does not occur in the traditional arts, to ask why we can still understand that Rembrandt is better than his imitators. It could be said that in the mass media it is not invention that dominates, but technical execution, which can be imitated and perfected. But that isn’t the whole story. For example, Wenders’ film Hammett is technically much more sophisticated than Huston’s classic The Maltese Falcon, and yet we follow the former with interest and the latter with religious devotion. In other words, a system or a horizon of expectations operates in us, the audience. When Wenders is as old as Huston, will we perhaps see his work with the same emotion? I’m not up to [6] (1. be able to handle 2. handle 3. handling) here such tough questions. But I believe that a certain innocence that we will always enjoy in The Maltese Falcon is already lost in Wenders. Wenders’ film, unlike the Falcon, already moves in a universe where the lines are blurred, where it is hard to say that the Beatles are alien to the great musical tradition of the West, and where comic strips enter museums via pop art and museum art enters comic strips.
So much for the difference between the media and the traditional “high” arts. What about the way we deal with material goods? Our relationship with mass-produced goods has changed as it has with the products of “high” art. Differences have been [7] (1. induced 2. reduced 3. produced), or erased; but along with the differences, temporal relationships have been distorted. Scholars may still be [8] (1. ignorant 2. unconscious 3. aware) of them, but not the ordinary consumer. We have achieved what the culture of the 60s was demanding, that there should not be one set of products for the masses and, other, more difficult products for the cultivated, [9]( 1. responsive 2 .renowned 3 .refined) public.
Our relationship with the mass media has also changed. We must learn new instruction on how to [10] (1. react 2. refer 3. return) to the mass media. Everything that was said in the 60s and 70s must be reexamined. Then we were victims of a model of the mass media based on the relationship with authority, a centralized transmitter, with precise political and pedagogical plans. The messages were sent through recognizable techno· logical channels such as TV, radio, and the magazine page, to the victims of ideological indoctrination. We [11] (1. could 2. would 3. might) only have to teach the addressees, we thought, to “read” the messages, to criticize them, and perhaps we would attain the age of intellectual freedom and critical awareness.
Radio and television today send out countless, uncontrollable messages that each individual uses to make up his own composition with the remote control switch. The consumer’s freedom may not have increased, but surely the way to teach him to be free has changed. We are faced with a new phenomenon; the multiplication of the media and “media squared.”
What is a mass medium today? Let’s try to imagine a not so imaginary situation. A company produces polo shirts with an alligator on them and advertises them. A [12] (1. member 2. generation 3. character) begins to wear the polo shirts. Each consumer of the polo shirt advertises, via the alligator on his chest, this brand of polo shirt (just as the owner of a Toyota is an unpaid, and paying, advertiser of the Toyota line and the model he drives). A TV broadcast, to be faithful to reality, shows some young people wearing the alligator polo shirt. The young (and the old) see the TV broadcast and buy more alligator polo shirts because they [13] (1. have 2. take 3. give) “the young look.”
Once again, what is a mass medium? Is it the newspaper advertisement? The TV broadcast? The polo shirt? Here we have not one but two, three, perhaps more mass media, active [14] (1. with · 2. from 3. through) different channels. The media have multiplied, but some of them act as media of media, or in other words media squared. And at this point who is sending the message? The manufacturer of the polo shirt? Its wearer? The person who talks about it on the TV screen? Who is the producer of ideology? And what is the polo shirt manufacturer trying to say? What does the wearer want to say? [15](1. As 2.To 3.In) a certain sense the meaning of the message changes according to the channel under consideration, and perhaps also its ideological weight.
And what about authority? Do we perhaps identify authority with the designer who had the idea of inventing a new polo shirt design, or with the manufacturer who decided to sell it, and to sell it on a wide scale, to make money? Or with those who legitimatelee agree to wear it, and to advertise an image of youth and recklessness, or happiness? Or with the TV director, who has one of his young actors wear the polo shirt to characterize a generation? Or with the singer who, to cover his expenses, agrees to sponsor the polo shirt? All are in it, and all are outside it. Power is elusive, and there is no longer [16] (1. any 2. some 3. all) telling where the “plan” comes from. There is a plan, but it is no longer intentional. Therefore, it cannot be criticized with the traditional [17] (1. critic 2. criticism 3. critics) of intentions. All the professors of communication, trained by the texts of twenty years ago (this includes me), should be pensioned off.
Another example. There is nothing more private than a telephone call. But what happens when someone hands over to an investigator the tape of a private phone call which is then leaked by someone in the government to the newspapers so that the newspapers will [18]( 1. print 2. talk 3. publish) about it, and thus compromise the investigations? Who produced the message (and its ideology)? The person who spoke over the phone? The one who taped it? The police investigator? The newspaper? Or perhaps the reader who passed it on to a friend with no idea how all this happened?
Times have changed. It used to be that we could blame the media for everything. There was a guilty party. [19](1. Again 2. Because 3. Then) there were the virtuous voices that showed us who the criminals were. Art offered alternatives for those who were not prisoners of the mass media. Those days are gone forever and we have to start again from the beginning,
asking one another what’s going [20] (1. on 2. to happen 3. to be happening).
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