Fragment 1 Argumentation and evidence / TV formats as symbolic forms ...

The question may be viewed differently: what can value mean for a mechanism of the cultural industry (such as television) if not money, economic value? What, if not money, could a broadcaster hope to generate when developing a format, a standardized form of entertainment? We could fathom one possible answer if we tried to regard the said format as a symbolic form for the propagation of a cultural industry product across a wide social spectrum (as the one graciously provided by television for the past decades). J. B. Thompson argues that symbolic forms are used as means of cultural transmission. If we pair this with Adornos view of what culture translates to nowadays and the notion of cultural industry, we might understand why a product that generates no value or credit for creating it (it is not widely known that the format of the Survivor TV Show originated in Sweden) or has no patent to be exploited would still be developed and produced for the other commodity that the cultural industry lives for, masses. TV formats provide a means of homogenizing a type of entertainment, a framework that may be used and will be recognized through the globalized world. Fragment 2 Signposting and paragraphing / Culture and values The idea that I want to defend here is that, despite of what the literature calls the homogenization power of globalization, this dispute will never be solved and will, at its best, be overcome through a form of cultural melange. Firstly, the reasons why such a dispute which can be resumed as the West-East dispute which cannot be, in my opinion, completely resolved lie in the different ways Western and Eastern cultures relate to identity. As Anthony Smith very well points out in his work National Identity, the ways and the various poignant characteristics of identity, and also their emphasis, are very different in Western and Eastern cultures. Going to the more formal level of identity formation through abstraction, institutionalization and regulation, as Tomlinson points out, this seems to be more a question of Western modernity, the latter being the harbinger of identity. Continuing the argument why the inherent Western versus Eastern cultures and values dispute comprised in the jihab would not be completely resolved, one should bring into discussion Bergers idea of globalization challenges and their aimingly transformative powers. To sum up, the dispute between allowing women to wear the veil by regulating this practice and not allowing them to choose is a globalization dispute which can be reduced to the differences between identity construction (West) and identity possession (East). As a final note, maybe just as interesting in the light of a given text is the fact that, in Western countries, the practice was regularized, it was forbidden by law. Fragment 3 Defining terms, being critical / Culture and values Every culture is original and beautiful in its own way, it only depends on the judgemental viewing eye. Since cultural globalization spread over most of the planet, every country is trying to save what is left of its originality and customs. The expansiveness of capitalism, democracy and the massive use of the English language (in its Americanised form) have led to the development of a globalised society in almost every country of the world. This is mainly done through cultural hibridization, which relieves a country of its national identity, by implementing a westernized lifestyle among cultures that do not have anything in common with the free world. Cultures that are more difficult and dont have the open -mindedness needed for a quick and successful hibridization, like most of the Islamic world in both Asia and Africa, are left with the image of being barbaric and against modernity. Fragment 4 Defining position, giving reasons, being critical / New forms of visibility The aim of this paper is to critically analyse the emergence of a well-known phenomenon: the violation of the public sphere by new forms of surveillance and by increasing sabotage derived from the new form of visibility. Andrea Brighenti utters that visibility is a process of knowledge, a view shared by John B. Thompson, who emphasises the multitude of types of interaction: face-to-face interaction, mediated interaction, mediated quasiinteraction. If the first two types are purely dialogical and have a clearly established receptor, the latter employs a narrowing range of symbolic cues and is mainly monological, due to the fact that it conveys a message in such a form that it is applicable to a variety of potential recipients. The product released by mediated quasi-interaction, for instance an article aimed to create a scandal in an enticing and titillating tabloid, might be a strategy pre-formed by the mechanism Mathiesen thought to be the Synopticon (the device where the many watch the few). Opposed to the defunct form of surveillance promoted by Michel Foucault, the Panopticon, the above mentioned has a distinct endeavour: to create a spectacle to bring private issues into the public realm, all this happening in the society of self-disclosure (Thomas), where anyone can lay bare of some aspect of their own lives. In this manner, visibility equals fragility we no longer find ourselves in the utopian milieu called public sphere, as previously coined by Habermas, but in a state of mind which resembles one of Hitchcocks movies. We indulge ourselves in the pleasure of voyeurism and become villains of everyones story.