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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School School of Humanities POSTHUM(OR)OUS: THE FOLK RESPONSE TO MASS-MEDIATED DISASTERS IN THE DIGITAL AGE A Dissertation in American Studies by Trevor J. Blank © 2011 Trevor J. Blank Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2011 The dissertation of Trevor J. Blank was reviewed and approved* by the following: Simon J. Bronner Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Folklore Director, Doctoral Program in American Studies Coordinator, American Studies Program Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee Michael Barton Professor of American Studies and Social Sciences Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies Charles Kupfer Associate Professor of American Studies and History Girish Subramanian Professor of Information Systems *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ii ABSTRACT Today, Americans are raised to seek and sustain intimacy with others through the use of computer-mediated communication. As a result, American society is becoming gradually more addicted to the convenient accessibility of satisfying content and the opportunities for expressive exchange. To be sure, people inherently need to feel connected or united with others in some way. New media technologies deeply fulfill these needs by providing users an expansive forum for humorous, combative, or intellectual communicative exchanges—especially in times of social anxiety or forced emotional suppression. More so than other events, shocking news of death, disaster, and scandal invite humorous vernacular expression on the Internet when repetitively consumed via mass media outlets. The Internet propels the diffusion of humor about tragedies to many people that would not have been included in previous years. Considering that the Digital Age‘s accessibility and interactivity now prohibit most stories, jokes, or regional behaviors from remaining exclusive to their originating contexts, it is essential that we examine the new ways that people respond to media disasters in contemporary society, and how cyberspace became the ―go-to‖ format for vernacular expression. By comparing the pre-Internet contexts of local, regional, and national responses to disaster with the trends of vernacular expression in today‘s new media-driven society and popular culture, this dissertation shows that the global reach of cyberspace has irrevocably extended itself into the ways that modern society expresses itself and underscore the implications that this has for the trajectory of contemporary folklore studies. Most importantly, this work demonstrates that the allure of the Internet (as a locus of vernacular expression) comes from not only its widespread accessibility, but because it eases the growing trend of physical detachment from the analog world that cyberspace has made commonplace in the lives of working people. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………………………...vi.. PREFACE………………………………………………………………………………….…….….v ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………………………………………………………..………xx viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………….………..1 1.1. Cyberspace, Technology, and Mass Media in the Twenty-First Century………………..……..1 1.2. The Cultural Inventory as Storehouse for Folk Knowledge……………………………………4 1.3. Humor, Disaster, and the Cognitive Organization of Mass-Mediated Folklore…………..… 7 1.4. Perceptions of Folk Culture and Technology in the Digital Age..………………………………13 CHAPTER 2. SEARCHING FOR CONNECTIONS: HOW AND WHY WE USE NEW MEDIA FOR VERNACULAR EXPRESSION………………………………………19 2.1. Technology and the Transmission of Knowledge……………………………………………...20 2.2. The Hybridization of Analog and Digital Expressive Behaviors………………………...…….25 2.3. The Normalization of Death in Popular Culture and Mass Media………………………….. 27 CHAPTER 3. THE EVOLUTION OF HUMOR AND MASS-MEDIATED DISASTERS IN THE TWENTIETH AND EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY…………………...33 3.1. Pre-Internet Responses to Tragedy: The Three Mile Island Accident………………………....33 3.2. The Challenger Disaster Joke Cycle………………………………………………………… 43 3.3. Vernacular Expression and the Emergence of the Internet: 9/11 and Other Disasters………....46 CHAPTER 4. ―INTIMATE STRANGERS‖: THE FOLK RESPONSE TO CELEBRITY DEATH AND FALLS FROM GRACE……………………………………………..54 4.1. Imaginary Social Worlds and Celebrity Culture Consumption…………………………………57 4.2. Simulative Social Worlds and the Response to Mass Media…………………………………...64 CHAPTER 5. FROM SPORTS HERO TO SUPER VILLAIN; OR, HOW TIGER WOODS WRECKED HIS CAR(EER)………………………………………………………..7 0 5.1. The Beginning of the End: Tiger Woods‘ Crash as Impetus for Public Discourse…………….71 5.2. Humor, Betrayal, and the Meaning of the Burgeoning Folk Response to Tiger Woods……….73 5.3. Oral and Digital Variations on Tiger Woods Humor: Proverbs, Riddles, Photoshops, and Narratives…………………………………………………………………………………..75 5.4. Contexts, Cultural Inventories, and Traditionality in the Evolution of Woods Humor………79 5.5. Tiger Woods and the Function of Humorous Expression………………………………………82 CHAPTER 6. MICHAEL JACKSON AND THE HUMOR OF DEATH………………………….86 6.1. Mass Media and Hybridized Performance in the Folk Response to Death…………………….88 6.2. Joke Types, Variations, and Meaning…………………………………………………………..92 6.3. The Function of Humor in the Bereavement of Celebrities…………………………………….10 2 iv CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………..10 5 7.1. Laughing to Death: Tradition, Vernacular Expression, and American Culture in the Digital Age………………………………………….………………………………………. 105 7.2. Predictions on Future Trajectories of Vernacular Expression and New Media………..…… 116 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………………..12 0 NOTES………………………………………………………………………………………………139 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Benjamin Franklin‘s ―Join, or Die‖ Political Cartoon…………………………….…… 21 Figure 2: Three Mile Island Mushroom Cloud Imagery...……………………………………….. 37 Figure 3: Another Example of TMI Photocopylore in Circulation Following Accident…….…… 39 Figure 4: A T-Shirt created during a Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA) Design Competition……. 40 Figure 5: ―Canned radiation‖ – TMI Ephemera created locally…………………………………... 4 0 Figure 6: React-or: A Radiating Experience Board Game………………………………………... 41 Figure 7: Three Mile Island Novelty Lamp……………………………………………………….. 41 Figure 8: New Design for Rebuilding the World Trade Center…………………………………... 50 Figure 9: Presidents George H.W. Bush and George ―Dubya‖ Go Fishing in New Orleans…….. 51 Figure 10: The Death of Aquaman: Digital Folk Art Takes Aim at BP………………………….. 51 Figure 11: The BP Oil Spill Kills Mario… and his Underwater Enemies………………………... 5 2 Figure 12: Image from Circulating Email Attachment Titled ―Tiger Woods‘ Christmas Card‖.... 78 vi PREFACE In America, where close-knit communities and neighborhood barbeques are romanticized, idealized, and mythologized components of regional livelihood, the reality of individualism and isolationism has become a mainstay of American culture. As a result, self- sufficiency has been symbolically imprinted as a defining trait in the folk conceptualization of the American dream and ―spirit‖ for decades (see Cullen 2004). Nevertheless, as political scientist Robert Putnam argues in Bowling Alone (2000), the supposed decline of communal relationships and physical group activities within modern society suggest an abandonment of ―traditional‖ American values such as physical togetherness with friends, the gregarious pursuit of family time outside of the home, or communal involvement in civic activities. Have Americans dramatically altered the ways that they meaningfully connect with others over the last century? And if so, is technological progress to blame? This dissertation demonstrates that the global reach of new media, particularly the Internet, has now irrevocably extended itself into the ways that modern society expresses itself. To illustrate this, I examine the evolution of the humorous visual and especially narrative folk responses to death, disaster, and scandal as they have emerged in technologically mediated expressive communications over time. In doing so, I contend that as a locus of vernacular (or indigenous, ―folk‖) expression, the allure of the Internet comes from its widespread accessibility, and the ability to digitally compensate for individuals‘ physical detachment within the physical world by providing a unique combination of instantaneity, simultaneity, and heterogeneity. The research presented herein is not intended as a mere survey. I offer a series of case studies which show the explanatory potential of using folkloristic tools to analyze expressive responses to death, disaster, and scandal. Principally, I hope to draw attention to the significant ways in vii which folk and mass culture have evolved throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century, and demonstrate the importance of technologically mediated communication devices for self- expression, especially through the circulation of humorous rhetoric and artistic creations online. The central point remains that we now ―are moving away from a world in which some produce and many consume media toward one in which everyone has a more active stake in the culture that is produced‖ (Jenkins et al. 2009, 12). When collectively observed, the technologically influenced cultural patterns constitute the presence of a significant historical time: the Digital Age. The distinctiveness of this era became increasingly obvious to pundits who witnessed the progressive sophistication and miniaturization of the personal computer and other broadcasting technologies