Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Mediated Caroling
I was watching this commercial this morning for Hallmark or some kind of greeting card. A couple opens a door to a group of neighbors, supposedly caroling. Instead, the group hands the couple a holiday card, which when opened plays the song the carolers were going to sing. Rather than actually singing, the carolers just sway to the music. The canned sound of the card fills the evening air as the gratified couple smile and hug each other. Yet another tradition now replaced by mediation. Is it the same thing?
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Oh, you can get even more mediated than that. Check out this advertisment on the Radio Shack web site for what they call "Caroling 2.0":
"In this project, you'll be using a digital video camera to film your yuletide sing-a-long. Then, you'll load it onto an iPod®, and send it cruising door-to-door in a cool RC car."
I argue that the couple does not have the same experience enjoying the automated music of the card versus the singing from the carolers themselves. Marshall McLuhan’s argument actually works quite well in this situation to present why the mediated singing changes the caroling experience.
Marshall McLuhan considers the “psychic and social consequences of the designs or patterns of a medium as it amplifies or accelerates existing processes,” suggesting that the social qualities of the experience would change when the carolers do not use their own voices but the medium of the greeting card to express their holiday cheer. McLuhan argues that, “The ‘message’ of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.” Instead of singing quieter or softer, faster or slower or even selecting the tune they wish to sing, the card decides the degree, tempo and outline of the song for them. The carolers can no longer adapt their music to the social context of the situation, which creates a different effect for their audience. It underlines the point that “the medium is the message” because, in this case, the medium shapes and controls the scale and form of the human association (108).
This idea of a "tradition being replaced" made me think of the Meyrowitz reading on role changes. I guess now we have to think of caroling as a social interaction changed by new media, and as Meyrowitz says "new media may change our conceptions of a wide range of social roles." In the categories of roles Meyrowitz lays out, I would say carolers and the act of caroling fit within group identity and socialization. By bringing this "new media" (recorded, card-sent caroling) to the act of caroling, the social roles and traditions around it must change. Meyrowitz writes "by severing the traditional link between physical location and social situation, for example, electronic media may begin to blur previously distinct group identities by allowing people to "escape" informationally from place-defined groups and by permitting outsiders to "invade" many groups' territories without ever entering them." In this case, caroling that would be saved exclusively for neighbors or those friends whom you were close to, can now be extended by a caroling card, and therefore you can enter other "groups" (by sending these cards to other friends) that you weren't reaching before.
At the same time, the whole concept of caroling, and perhaps its charm, is based upon this link between physical location and social situation. Is it really caroling if you can send the card to someone? Or is it simply a singing card? I would argue the latter. By removing the aspect of going and visiting someone and singing, you remove the idea of caroling all together.
A couple of things jump out at me looking at this. For one, I think it might be an overreaction to some degree to discuss this too seriously. Remember, Hallmark is trying to sell something here, and I think they're trying to use a sort of humerous juxtaposition to do so. They're making the obviously exaggerated claim that their card can replace traditional human holiday vocalizations.
But assuming this was a real possibility, does caroling actually exist as a tradition that can be replaced anymore? I can't remember ever seeing door-to-door carolers in person in my lifetime, and certainly not in recent memory. It just doesn't seem to be common at all now. I swear I'm not just trying to weasel my way into another Starbucks gift card here, but I see a strong tie in to Putnam here. We simply don't have the feeling of kinship with our fellow humans that would foster a tradition such as caroling. In today's environment of increasing peer-to-peer isolationism, the prospect of going around to the houses of people we don't know at all, people we barely know, or even our dear family and friends, seems awkard, contrived, and foreign.
I don't think the ultra-mediated idea of "Caroling 2.0" is capable of altering this reality, and in fact I think it would exacerbate it. Caroling's main appeal was (note the use of the past tense here) its human element, not its sonic values. People were heartened by the fact that other people took the trouble to learn or recall songs, and then walk around while freezing their asses off and singing. The effort was the gift.
If people actually adopted a tradition of 'mediated caroling', it would be like giving a gift card instead of an actual gift. Giving a gift card is functional, but it does not require the thought as does picking out an actual gift, and, more strikingly, it does not require any kind of friendly relationship. Caroling, in the traditional sense, might not have required any friendly relationship, but it required effort, and 'mediated caroling' does not require the same level of effort. Stripped of its human element, the traditon of caroling would lose even more of its already severely waning appeal.
-Andrew (a.k.a. Scrooge)
I have to say that I totally agree with Andrew's comment here that this is similar to the idea of giving a gift card instead of giving, or even - gasp - making a handmade gift.
Our traditions are continually subverted by the newer and more convenient technologies of today. Rather than give a gift in person, we can now send a "facebook gift" to a friend. Of course, even tho these gifts can not actually be seen or touched, they still cost one dollar - giving the illusion that they actually have real worth.
This takes me back to a theorist we looked at early in the semester - Carey's idea of "communication as culture." If our traditions are a large part of what make us part of a culture or a society, and those traditions are replaced by a mediated reality form of those traditions, then the traditions - along with our culture - are placed within the limits of technology.
Can we really place human interaction within that kind of boundary?
--Nicole F.
This reminds me of something I learned in J646 called "greeting card holidays" whereby the ritual and tradition of holidays are replaced by mediated events generated for money-making and company publicity. By no means is a singing card the same as a group of carolers (even though it is quite entertaining). While the media is undeniably powerful, we are loosing a part of our culture by buying into a world of greeting card holidays driven by conspicuous consumption.
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