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Journal for Communication and Culture 5, no. 1 (autumn 2016): 18-37
© Institute for Communication and Culture
E-ISSN & ISSN-L: 2247-4404
www.jcc.icc.org.ro • contact@icc.org.ro
JIANXIN LIU
Charles Sturt University
Email: rliu@csu.edu.au
BEYOND GENRE? SCHEMATICALLY FRAMING LADY
GAGA IN THE DYNAMICS OF POP CULTURE
PRODUCTION
Abstract: This article employs schematic framing as an analytic tool to
examine the popular culture figure of Lady Gaga as a genre. It is known that
genre analysis is a powerful tool for popular cultural studies. However, the
typical genre approach which relies on identification of the stable linguistic
(and semiotic) features a genre entails in respect of form, substance, functions,
and relations is only applicable when a text is perceived as a sole composition
of semiotic units such as syntax, textual and rhetoric structures, and lexical
devices. It is hardly useful in this respect in examining social texts such as
popular culture movements that have the propensity to become prototypes or
genres, for other successive social texts. As such, through analyzing the Lady
Gaga genre as schematic frames and mediated publicness, I argue in the
article that macro-analytic tools such as schematic framing are more useful
than the semiotic unit analyses in unpacking the volatility of similar social
texts, as well as their social ramifications in times of rapid digitization and
convergence.
Key words: frame, genre, schematic, social text, simulacrum
Jianxin Liu
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 19
“I'm obsessively opposed to the typical.”
― Lady Gaga
In their paper titled Baudrillard in drag: Lady Gaga and the accelerated cycles
of pop, Brabazon and Redhead (2013) discussed the intriguing cultural
phenomenon of Lady Gaga, with Baudrillard’s (1994) simulacrum as a
theoretical lens of inquiry. They noted the effect of cascading simulations
in Gaga and her successor Mile Cyrus:
Born in 1986 in New York, [Lady Gaga] she has
compressed fifty years of popular cultural history into less
than a decade. She moved beyond genres – capturing the
post-genre reality of popular music. This tendency was
exhibited with great success when she paired with Tony
Bennett for the successful rendition of Lena Horne’s
famous vocal in "The Lady is a Tramp" and sung a
pastiched Marilyn Monroe "Happy birthday Mr.
President" to Bill Clinton in the form of "Bad Romance"
(renamed "Bill Romance" for the evening). She upstaged
Mick Jagger and shocked even Keith Richards with her
performance of "Gimme Shelter." (Brabazon and Redhead
2013, n/a)
Their claim that Gaga’s simulative creations have moved beyond genre
will be contended throughout this article. It is known that genres as
abstraction should not be perceived solely as semiotic representations
but rather broadly as social projections and actions that help reshape the
societal. But since the cycle of pop production has accelerated at such a
pace with unprecedentedly high level of media saturation or fabrication,
pop artists and theorists alike seem to share a similar sense of
vulnerability or precisely, inability to confront, interpret, and understand
innovations. This enticed Baudrillard to petition for a dismissal of the
entire 1990s’s pop history before it even started to take shape
(Baudrillard 1988). It is difficult and unnecessary to contend his
dismissal unless a thorough survey of this century-end pop production
can be achieved. It is equally unlikely to arrive at any conclusion
considering the complexity of pop cultural phenomena: some aspects of
pop culture may maturate over decades and take even longer to unveil
their significance.
This is not the real problem though. The real problem is that,
having rightfully recognised the accelerating cycle of pop culture,
Brabazon and Redhead (2013) were reluctant to provide an interpretation
of the underlying drives for such accelerating cycles, probably agnostic
of causality in light of postmodernist traditions. Their offer of
Beyond genre?
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 20
conceptualizations that have grafted simulacrum, deterritorization, and
disintermediation, however, is powerful, and useful for reconsidering
genre theory and analysis. More critically, if educators across all sectors
are really serious about the application of popular culture to education,
they should stay in tandem with the industry to exploit its
transformative (certainly innovative) forces. Therefore, this article
continues Brabazon and Redhead’s phenomenological analysis of Lady
Gaga on simulacrum to showcase in what way this pop culture figure
has evolved into as genre prototype and public sphere. Rather than a
simple theoretical mash-up or a salutation to the theorists, this article
will be coupled with a discussion of genre and mediated publicness in its
analytic probe.
1. Intertextuality, intersemiosis, and simulacrum
Knowingly, popular cultures have two fundamental characteristics that
differentiate them from high cultures. First, popular cultures are
resistant to hegemonic discourses (Martinez 1997). Rebellion of and
resistance to normative practices and structuration is a key characteristic
shared by the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Psy. As a recent
emergence, Psy’s Gangnham Style (available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0) is in effect a satire
that ridicules the South Korea’s mid upper class hypocrisy as well as its
mainstream pop musical industry, in addition to his detests for the
Communist Korea’s autocratic regime (available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOud7M_qzGk). As an artist, he
has been marginalized for being atypical of Korean musician. Second,
pop cultures are grassroots (Jenkins 2006). A top-down fashion does not
seem to work for pop. Even if it did, it would be a betrayal from within a
dominant school of cultural production. Some members of a high culture
may come out as villains to dethrone their cliques’ crown and order. John
Cage’s 4’33’’ silence concert performance (available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY7UK-6aaNA) is a typical irony
on modern concert conductors’ de-contextualsing persistence on sound
and music. The Beatles’ teenage ignorance of guitar mastery is another
classical instance (Everett 1999).
These two characteristics in pre-democratic and digital times
would be predominantly oppressed until their energy is assuredly
chartered by the forever metamorphosing mainstream. In (post)
democratic and digital times they have become normalized, as the
driving forces of cultural creativity are closely enshrined in the
enticement of addictions (alcohol, drug, sex, violence or war). That may
procure a note for the lamentable yet nostalgic observation that the
Jianxin Liu
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 21
American and indeed the global, pop culture industries have lost their
signature rigor (Jing 2006). The then alternative, underground norms are
now celebrated in the mainstream, irrespective of the means and extent
of their translation into the social realm.
Textual production of pop culture has embraced hybridity that
incorporates intertextuality (referents, indexes, metaphors, metonymies,
substitutions, hyperlinks, permalinks, tags, hashtags), multimodality
(discursive, visual, tactile, auditory, corporeal, cognitive, metacognitive),
and simulations (real, unreal, surreal, virtual real, hyper real, simulated
real, 2D, 3D, and 4D, high definition), for either enrichment or
complexity. Intertextual devices, suggested by Kristeva (1986) and
Lemke (2005), have been increasingly applied to creating networks of
connections. Disney’s cartoon production, either within a series (Micky
Mouse; Donald Duck) or in between movies such as Frozen and Tangled,
are interconnected in terms of themes, cartoon figures, music, and even
design, to evoke predictable pleasures. Such series of production are
intentionally or unintentionally schemed by the producers and their
teams to captivate the diverse taste of viewers and in return to capture
greater global market shares (Levine 2005). The Kung Fu Panda trilogy,
alongside other adaptations of the Chinese folklores, has entertained
Chinese and global cinema goers by reviving the Chinese martial arts
delusion with an American superhero complex (Turney 2013). Disney
cartoon production in this sense represents a typical model of American
cultural economy emulating on corporate-funded research development
labs such as Microsoft’s Windows 10 (visit
https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/features for details). Its
new versions are always updates of the previous ones churning out at a
rapid rate to accommodate the market.
Capitalizing on advances in digital technologies, pop cultural
creators have been exploiting the potential of modality and modes in
seemingly infinite compositions to mobilise their experiencers’ senses
and approximate their responses, relationships, and emotions. Not only
are there material changes but also mediation changes. Paper, metal, and
other physical materials coexist with digital and imaginary materials.
Further, not only are there instrument changes but also instrumental
changes. Iphone-like mobile and smart devices are powerful tools and
spaces with inconceivable functions and applications while big data,
semantic web, and cloud computing are able to revolutionise our sense
of physical space and living. Conceptual, affective, relational,
institutional, and social prototypes are wedded together in
reconfiguration for enhancement. Inter-semiosis and resemiosis of
modality (Iedema 2003) that unveils the contention and permeation of
Beyond genre?
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 22
modality interactions continue to dismantle the singularity of pop
cultural discourse.
Reality, if ever exists or can be lived, has been dulled by its
projections on numerous materials and media, which, following the
photonic motion discovered in quantum physics, reflects on its
projections to interact and remix with other projections or the real to
generate newer projections. Pauses or borders between projections are
hardly discernible if not for artificial classifications. Hence, the physical
site of the Holocaust seems not as horrifying as its virtual replicas on
Second life or in VR games (Trezise 2012) in which details are graphic
and are often augmented by sensual manipulations. Conventional
museums could not but eschew the fate of absolute boredom by contrast
to their reincarnations in social and hyper media spaces. Live and
physical performances of reality can only survive when merging with the
digital and the virtual. The Vivid Sydney project (available at
http://www.vividsydney.com/) which manages to materialise digital
and light projections, arts, music and sounds into seemingly physical
substances (water, air, and architecture) provides a testimonial for this
convergence(Hespanhol et al. 2014). Conversely, it inflicts a threat to the
very survival of more traditional festive events and museums that exist
in closed spaces. An unanswerable question therefore looms large over
creative industries: what will happen next, for other festivals and
museums as well as for Vivid Sydney itself? Simulacra in this sense are
not cascading in linear or cyclical fashions but are randomly clustered as
radiant nodes—varying in size and influence but interactive without
predictable paths.
Evidently, the speed, volume, intensity, and complexity of pop
culture textual production are increasing under the forces of
deterritorisation and disintermediation resulting from new technologies
(Brabazon and Redhead 2013). Borders between modes of production
and disciplines are disturbingly intertwined. For immediacy, tweets
become a news resource for TV broadcasters and hosts, while TV reports
can be embedded in tweets as news feed to increase visuality. Wearable
and printable technologies are able to transform simple sensory aids such
as glasses into powerful play and work stations, as demonstrated by
Google Glass or the Samsung wristwatch. Liminal spaces of the pop are
in constant emergence and revitalisation as increasing numbers of self-
recruited producers are in collaboration with one another to force the
gatekeepers out of the way. Mass but customized and personalized
production is a new popular cultural trajectory.
Disintermediation has pushed the need for a flattened, organic,
new ecology of institutionalisation to replace the stagnated extant
hierarchies in cultural production. The binary division which has been
Jianxin Liu
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 23
hypocritically manufactured may be losing its ground (Gans 2008).
Popular culture is the new high culture that invites, synthesizes, and
coordinates individuals and their cluster differences. The convergence of
cultures, to be mindful, is not about singularity, but rather hybridity or to
be precise, multiplied with differentiation towards individual
preferences, tastes, or styles as would be argued from a productive
stance of postmodernity. This convergence, further, burdens pop culture
participants (indeed all of us!) with the responsibility to reflect on and
reconceive the key construct/s of cultural production (Jenkins 2006), as
will be discussed in the following. Writing/composition of pop
nowadays is a serious, strenuous intellectual challenge as time and space
are extremely strained in terms of sedimentation and reification.
2. Pop culture figures as genre
Deterritorisation and disintermediation in juxtaposition with
intertextuality, multimodality, and simulation have impacted
significantly on the genre space of pop culture production. Genre
engenders a schematic perception of and participation in, the social
discourses, either on a cognitive, metacognitive, emotional, or relational
plane (Frow 2006). Changes in identifications or performances always
have to activate changes in genre perception. Interestingly, similar to
simulacrum, genre is never a real entity. Rather it is an abstraction based
on recognition and identification of and from text or intertext, or as has
been captured in the very term interdiscursivity (Fairclough 2000). A
genre does not exist until being recognised and acknowledged by its
users. Further, within the network or ecology of genre (Heyd 2008,
Spinuzzi 2002), identifying and creating a genre depends on the genres
around it. A genre cannot stand alone, nor can it take shape without
relating to other genres. Hyperlinked identification is essential in
establishing or continuing a genre and its ecology.
A key feature of genre lies in the schematic enablement of
cognition, metacognition, and emotion, whether it has to do with
substance, structure, function, relation, or affect. Genre operates on
textual frames (Goffman 1974) rather than on specifications. The majority
of genre analytic tools and frameworks are developed to examine generic
features of semiotic texts rather than those of social texts, such as generic
structures, rhetorical moves, and lexical cohesions. Unfortunately,
semiotic oriented genre analysis, as have been pointed by researchers
(Cap 2015, Cap and Okulska 2013), are incapable of capturing the
complexity and dynamicity of social texts. Political communications such
as TV interviews with presidential candidates are highly situated and
context-dependent. A pop musical concert is equally complex. In this
Beyond genre?
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 24
regard, only analytic tools with adequate flexibility should be considered
for adaptation.
Framing devices such as schemata (Hyland 1990), positioning
(Davies and Harré 1990), and meta-genre (Martin 2009) are essentially
instrumental in mobilising generic interpretations of and often reactions
to textual performances. The schematic enablement is then the basis of
the argument that genre represents and reifies social constructs and
structure. This is in response to the view that a society is fragmented
with blocks, groups and communities of various kinds through which
individuals are clustered. It is through schematic frames that semiotic
texts become social texts and that textual representations can continue to
evolve against a timeframe into structuration (Giddens 2013, Miller
1994). Again, it is through schematic frames that intertextual connections,
cascading simulacra, and hypermodality are substantiated and
sustained. Identifying schematic frames underlining pop culture figures
and deconstructing their dynamics are therefore paramount as the
following analysis of Lady Gaga unfolds. Although phenomenal
popular figures are susceptible to generification, given the scope of their
impact, schematic framing should transcend departmentalization rooted
in the linguistic domain that underscores content, form, or function.
Instead, each of the frames identified is inclusive of the linguistic
attributes while giving weight to the social and symbolic roles that pop
culture may have constructed.
In the following analysis, I will focus on Lady Gaga as a text to
unpack how this pop culture figure has occupied the genre space of pop
culture and in turn invigorated its economic production. In light of
hypertexuality in which one text can be literally linked to another, I will
not venture into the pop history and life narratives of Lady Gaga.
Notwithstanding, involvements from both the academic and non-
academic worlds have warranted the relevance of studies on Gaga while
generating rich data for other studies to draw upon as hyperlinks, which
in turn has grown a solid foundation for the genre of Gaga to transpire.
As such, in this article, I engage in a social text analysis of Lady Gaga as a
genre.
To further warrant this turn to the social and symbolic domains,
however, I will include two media products of Lady Gaga to quickly
intonate the following analysis of the Gaga genre. The first one is a
timeline of Gaga’s quick rise to fame in the pop world. This art parody
on human’s evolutionary path succinctly delineates Gaga’s transition
from cheeky obedience to confident and commanding. Although its tone
is sarcastic rather than appreciative (i.e., Gaga as an ape-turned/like pop
artist), it unveils several symbolic and social frames that will be
discussed in the following; for instance, Gaga’s excessive exploitation of
Jianxin Liu
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 25
body (including her dress and the use of blood) in her sound production.
More importantly, it concedes to a disturbing fact that the Gaga
simulacrum has been revising the rules (and hierarchies) of pop, or at
least in the show business world. The second is a YouTube video collage
of Gaga’s performances since 2008 (available at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg4LOuogLqc). This seemingly
authentic collection, however, confirms the relevance of symbolic and
social frames.
Figure 1. The evolution of Lady Gaga
(available at http://gaga-fan.ru/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/
Evolution_of_Lady_Gaga_by_Yamino-1024x345.jpg)
3. Gaga the genre
Gaga in this case has become a new genre, not as representation, but as
an abstraction or simulacrum of the beginning of the 21st century’s
American pop that continues its metamorphosis. The semiotic domain of
the Gaga genre has been extensively scrutinised in terms of voice
production, lyrics, and live performances while the social and symbolic
domains are in need of examination. Overall, five main intertwining
schematic frames have emerged since Gaga’s debut performance in 2008,
as Fig 2 illustrates.
Beyond genre?
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 26
Figure 2. Schematic frames in the Gaga genre
Embodiment
Not surprisingly, body is the first and foremost space that the Gaga
genre has occupied to enact her textual performances. The artist’s body
has been exploited through addition, deletion, omission, reconfiguration,
deformation, and animation in between (re)mediation spaces to explore
the possibility of enacting social actions. Unique, eye-popping dress,
make-up, and body piercing are common in Gaga’s performances.
Embodying actions such as wearing underwear as an outfit, veils of
various kinds, the wings of angels, birds, and trees, and even Gaga’s
head on a snake body, are frequently adopted. Sometimes, written words
in different fonts, size, and colour are utilised to produce a discursive
representation of the body. At its extreme, self-harm that resulted in
bleeding and injury was performed live in concerts.
As a familiar space in the post-feminist practice and theorization,
the body is not singular but rather a plurality that archives and enlivens
an individual’s life history as well as the connections and projections of
others onto the corporeal existence. Embodiment is, first of all, an
intrapersonal process that underscores the importance of self, an
ontological yet fundamental process that decides the dynamics of the
Gaga-type pop genre. Pop genre evolution almost always begins with
this seemingly inward awakening of corporeal experiences and practices.
The body is the last fortress and weapon on which resistance of the
marginalised or the powerless can count. Equally, it is also the ultimate
Gaga the
genre
(ir)
responsibility embodiment
sex
(hetero)
normativity
violence
Jianxin Liu
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 27
space on which oppression, contention, and resistance are inscribed.
Nevertheless, popular cultural productions cannot be taken seriously
without exploring and exploiting the schematic frame of embodiment of
their participants.
Sex
Pervasiveness of sexual representations in the Gaga genre (indeed, in
many pop cultural genres) has caused ‘moral’ panic. This ‘Mommy
Monster’ has aggravated the pain/paranoia of the already-panicked
parent community. Yet, sex in the Gaga genre is nothing but a
metaphorical substitution for the opposite of embodiment as the
following quote discloses—the most naked and purist metaphor.
When you make music or write or create, it's really your job to have
mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is
you're writing about at the time.
― Lady Gaga
The anchorage of Gaga’s utterance clearly lies in the mission of writing
rather than in sex. Contrary to Gaga’s own explanation that sex is the
context in which every artist plays, it is by all means purely a trope. Sex,
with its into-the-body and in-between-bodies vectors, is symbolic of the
very intimacy of interpersonal relationships. The self and other construct
is firmly installed. The profusion of sex in the Gaga genre, instead of
claiming the death of sex (Paglia 2010), has reinstated its place as serving
the rhetorical functions and semiotic resources for realizing powerful, if
not the essential, textual performances of human desires. For Gaga, there
is no necessity for sex representations to be implied or inferred. Sexual
interactions must be explicitly consumed through sensual manipulations.
Further, explicit references (and exposures) to sexual interactions have
de-sensitized the reception of the Gaga genre. Over time, the Gaga genre
and its performances may end up embarking on an asexual voyage.
Upstaging performances in musical videos, on the radio and in live
shows, or on the internet, Gaga as a performing artist is conscious of this
one-way journey as is stated in her own articulation:
“A girl’s got to use what she’s given and I’m not going to make a guy
drool the way a Britney video does. So I take it to extremes. I don’t say
I dress sexily on stage--what I do is so extreme. It’s meant to make
guys think: ‘I don’t know if this is sexy or just weird.”
― Lady Gaga
The Gaga genre unexceptionally flags rebellion and resistance.
Certainly, it does not fall into the altercation between feminists and
postfeminists on issues such as equality and duty. Rather, it appeals to
Beyond genre?
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 28
Judith Butler and other post-feminists for problematizing the normativity
resulting from the dualism of gender construction and practices as the
target of resistance (Halberstam 2012). Gaga is conscious that such
heteronormativity permeates every corner of human society, which in
many ways, through militant perseverance and rebirth of norms,
conventions, traditions, and customs, can deter the creativity of
individuals. In this regard, Gaga’s de-gendering through de-sensitizing
sexual perception is an exemplary action that challenges the extant social
norms, regulations, and discourses. Her shameless craving for fame and
attention exposes the naked desires that have been supressed in public or
by the ruling classes. The little Monster Manifesto below again channels
her dissent or even fury against the status quo of the heterosexual world
order and as well as her impulse to remake it. A critical stance that goes
beyond art critique is thus permanently enacted to action on changes.
“This is the Manifesto of Little Monster. There is something heroic
about the way my fans operate their cameras. So precisely, so
intricately and so proudly. Like Kings writing the history of their
people, is their prolific nature that both creates and procures what will
later be perceived as the kingdom. So the real truth about Lady Gaga
fans, my little monsters, lies in this sentiment: They are the Kings.
They are the Queens. They write the history of the kingdom and I am
something of a devoted Jester. It is in the theory of perception that we
have established our bond, or the lie I should say, for which we kill.
We are nothing without our image. Without our projection. Without
the spiritual hologram of who we perceive ourselves to be or rather to
become, in the future. When you are lonely, I will be lonely too. And
this is the fame.”
― Lady Gaga
Imaginary violence
In this post-democratic policing/nanny state where institutionalisation
in some parts of a society is approaching the threshold for change,
imaginary violence has resurfaced as a central schematic frame in the
Gaga-like pop cultural genres. The fear for institutional terror as has
climaxed in the Hunger Games trilogy (irrespective of its naive,
pessimistic imagination of the persistence of the exploitative
institutionalization) has been graphically delineated and confronted
earlier in the Gaga genre. The beginning scene of Paparazzi is bleakly
telling of the organised alienation of and violence (escalations as war)
against individuals or by individuals. The bedroom romance is not only
gazed, consumed but betrayed by its very actants in submission to the
patriarchal request from the media, the state, and the public. The
Goddess of Venus is severely injured in the organised killing of the
nature. The Gaga genre thus is bleeding and self-harming to protest—
through violence against her body to ridicule Big Brother’s collective
Jianxin Liu
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 29
violence on individuals and groups. The message, similar to what was
conveyed in the Hunger Games, is simple and clear: collective violence
relies on individual persons for its very continuum and would collapse
upon individuals’ will to abstain from violence. A poststructuralist
insistence on agency in this sense is manifested.
Irresponsibility
Discussions of agency instigate questioning about the ideologically
loaded term of responsibility. The question that is haunted in the Gaga
genre is: to whom and for what purposes is the Gaga genre responsible?
Or should there be such responsibilities? In a civic society, duties,
obligations, and morals are often imposed on persons without their
consent or inquiries in the name of a collective’s survival, prosperity, and
democracy. This has resulted in the prevailing nationalistic practices in
the arena of politics and then ramifications in pop cultures. Boundaries
are marked, fenced, and protected, cultures and languages are preserved
as heritages or relics for exhibition, but the self is lost in such hustle and
bustle. Abstinent from taking responsibility by Lady Gaga (as well as her
recent simulation, Miley Cyrus) is thus a declaration of interest in self
and self-initiated niches and ecologies. The self is a node in the vast
network of relations that can freely associate with any other nodes to
form alliances. This reignited interest towards the self closely echoes the
Gaga genre’s concentration on corporeal experiences as well as on
eradication of normalisation. Donald Trump, a notorious yet wildly
popular candidate for the Republican nomination for President for the
United States in the 2016 election seems to have been inspired by this
emerging frame of the Gaga genre.
Irresponsibility in the Gaga genre somehow problematizes a
Foucaultian analysis of self-technology (Foucault et al. 1988). Self-
technologies are defined as technologies through which an individual
can transform herself, from a state of having responsibilities into taking
on responsibilities. The individual may put her own development on the
agenda to accept responsibilities. This understanding of self-technology
thus divides the world into subjecting and subjectivation to conjure up
sensitivity to the practices through which the self can be summoned up
and activated to mastermind their own creation (Anderson, 2003).
The interactions of these schematic frames naturally interrogate
Gaga’s own denial of herself as typification. Gaga the genre is not only a
simulacrum of many of the pop figures from the past but also an
approximation of the essential constructs of the post-modern or
democratic society trapped in the global and digital turmoil. However,
the Gaga genre indeed has transcended genre typification, at least
momentarily, through the evocation of performance as Gaga states:
Beyond genre?
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 30
“When I wake up in the morning, I feel like any other insecure 24-
year-old girl. Then I say, 'Bitch, you're Lady Gaga, you get up and
walk the walk today.”
― Lady Gaga
A genre, as abstraction, depends on agency as a precondition for
substantiation and instantiation. Without the existence of agency and the
command for performance, those frames would lose their relevance, not
to mention their revelations. It is thus worth noting that these frames are
neither fixed nor strictly marked, as the identity-based paradigm used to
uphold. Rather, such genre framing provides means and resources for
mapping the flow of desire in popular cultures. The naming of frames
only serves the convenience of analysis or the course of implanting
framing in the mind of viewers. It is an ongoing process without a
braking gadget. Also, the frames themselves are contextualised and
heavily situated (Cap and Okulska 2013). Negotiation is the only and
best way to delineate and employ frames. In other words, the
identification of these frames prepares a leeway for further analyses of
the ways in which they are mobilised or exploited, which is essentially
intriguing but will not be taken up for consideration as the focus of this
article.
Conversely, Gaga’s statement has conceded to the very process of
typification, which is central to generification. Lady Gaga’s day-to-day
performances are not without referents to or anchorages of, “the walk”.
The Gaga genre is enacted the moment when the Gaga referent is called
upon and then the performative aspect of the Gaga genre is enlivened.
The very genre thus takes shape and continues to vary over time,
contrary to Gaga’s desire to be atypical. However, what separate the
Gaga genre from conventional typification are the frames that have been
temporarily embraced, which are devoid of exact forms, functions,
relationships, connections, and emotions. These frames are examples that
reveal a strong tendency to typify but on the other hand have been
shaped in a different way due to the nature of the genre frames. In the
following section, I will discuss two key factors that may have
effectuated the typification of the Gaga genre.
4. Lady Gaga as mediated publicness and institution
The emergence of the Gaga genre testifies to two dynamics of
contemporary pop culture in digital and global times. The first is the
continued evolution of public space into publicness and the other is the
complexity of institutions. Institutions rely on social contracts to balance
security, stability, well-being, and justice over a period of time and to
commission responsibilities and obligations. Public space provides a
space for social participants to exchange views, opinions, and power so
Jianxin Liu
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 31
that positive reforms or innovations of genre and institution are made
possible.
Originally, the notion of public sphere was proposed by
Habermas (1991) in his historical analysis of bourgeois to underscore the
role that civic actions play in shaping society. Public sphere in
Habermas’ view was related to a physical space such as square or street
but has been transformed lately:
The public domain of the 21st century is no longer defined simply by
material structures such as streets and plazas. But nor is it defined
solely by the virtual space of electronic media. Rather, the public
domain now emerges in the complex interaction of material and
immaterial spaces (McQuire 2006, 1).
Mediated public spaces other than material structures (Coman 2012)
have become channels for public voices as well as contestations or
conflicts, though physical contact such as street protests can still occupy
the central stage even in maturated democracies (such as the Occupy
Wall Street Movement in 2011) as the ultimate yet confident means to
contend insolvency and inattention. New mediation and remediation of
the physical to the virtual are not as simple as transference of space.
Immaterialization as such also causes a radical change in the patterns,
venues, and trajectory of information consumption and utilization in
which the ability of attention seeking determines the scope of
communications. Attention economy consequently transforms public
space into publicness (Davenport and Beck 2013). In other words, a
public sphere’s very existence depends on mediated publicness rather
than on public spaces (Baym and Boyd 2012).
This has two implications. First, a public sphere does not have to
rely on a physical space for survival. Second, a public space can be
irrelevant if it is not at the centre of attention (Miranda 2007). The blog
depression (Morrison 2005) that occurred quickly after the meteoric
popularity of blogging is a typical scenario: tens of millions of blogs did
not have a single visitor except their owners. The self or I-media would
remain anonymous unless it has been noticed or has managed to garner
adequate attention. Only a collective gathering of attention to an
embodied performance can engineer its continuum and influence. In this
sense, the precedent social media spaces including Facebook are
conscious of this collective power. Networking friends of friends is the
most effective and often safe way to accumulate attention and
consequently publicness, at various levels.
Lady Gaga’s meteoric rise as a pop cultural pageant by contrast is
a radical pathway of transforming a self-media into a public sphere for
achieving publicness. Different from the moderate, hesitant Facebook
model in which self-censorship in accordance with the terms of
Beyond genre?
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 32
agreement and customary and institutional conventions has been
consciously enforced, the self-media on which Gaga operates is
audacious, provocative, and far-sighted in generating attention,
subsequently effectuating publicness. It is a public space that is
accessible almost everywhere. There is no privacy as the entire Gaga
enterprise is performed under the gaze of the public. If there is such an
entity as privacy, it is created by the information gap and forgetfulness of
the audience’s mind. It is a space operating on the radio, on television, at
the theatre, and on YouTube or Facebook.
Therefore, on the genre space of Lady Gaga, social issues ranging
from politics, sex, gender, ethnicity, nationalism, violence,
discrimination, relationship, emotions, and even health are aggregated
and scrutinized. It is a space that interests both academic and non-
academic circles, as well as commercial and non-commercial
organizations. A simple search on Google and Google Scholar should
suffice this claim (for instance a key word search of Lady on Google
Scholar can yield more than 12000 results). In this regard, this kind of
publicness, as opposed to privacy and secrecy evolved from the pop
figure, does not end with fame or notoriety, which has been tooted as the
catalyst in this new attention economy. Rather, Gaga’s pursuit of fame is
much more profound, as can be seen from the above analysis of the core
frames that help substantiate the Gaga genre. Through attention seeking,
social discourses are magnified on her embodied, corporeal genre space.
Any kind of generification is inevitably an institutional endeavour
through reification (Butler 2010) or structuration (Giddens 2013), either
for the elite to continue their dominance or for the marginalized to
defend their territory. Two essential conditions must be met for the Gaga
genre to become institutionalized. The first condition indisputably
centres on the social contracts including laws, regulations, principles,
and standards that coordinate participants and their contributions. The
second condition underscores condensation. Without the interactions
between the two as well as other elements, an institution would be
unable to prevail.
Jianxin Liu
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 33
Figure 3. Cultural institutionalization
Establishing the Gaga genre as an institution requires social contract as
adhesives. Without social contract, the institutional resources that Gaga
relies on would not be able to orchestrate and the Gaga enterprise would
not have much power to extend its influence. Google as an institution,
for instance, have reshaped the means, manners, and standards of
information in the 21st century. A social contract has emerged and
acquiesced over time between the institution and other parties which not
only include the terms of agreement but also the observation of Internet
protocols, and users’ agreement to volunteer information, etc. In this
regard, a two tier-social contract should be necessitated for Lady Gaga to
become a proto-genre of global pop culture and franchise which is able
to reshape the America pop culture. One is the pop culture itself, which,
as has been discussed above, involves mobilising the primary generic
frames in post-globalized pop culture arena. The second tier connects to
the spaces that mediate its existence. Certainly, the Internet and the
digital infrastructure are at the core of this social contract. Open access,
reciprocal negotiation of meaning, and flattened power structures, for
example, are arraignments that have to be attended in the contract. At
the same time, other institutions such as Google and ISPs will have to
contribute as partners which share the same institutional spaces of the
Gaga genre.
On the end of the spectrum, condensation unfolds the very reality
and mechanism of modern institutions, irrespective of their forms. With
regard to pop cultural figure’s institutionalisation based on mediated
publicness, this condition is not only salient but fundamental. Simply,
institutional condensation requires three conditions: participation,
collaboration, and enterprise. The first two conditions are equally
complex processes that emphasise individual’s presence and their desire
to magnify their significance. An enterprising process is indispensable in
order for a loose group of people to erect their institution, one aspect of
which is to ensure that the size of participants is approximate or exceeds
social contract
condensation
cultural
institutionalization
Beyond genre?
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 34
a threshold for multiple-layered collaboration. Enterprising process in
this regards is an economic process that attends to efficiency in
establishing pop culture genres.
To establish the Gaga genre as a cultural institution in this sense is
to recognise that Gaga as a pop culture figure involves multiple parties
of participation, collaboration, and number of participants. The level of
collaboration increases as Gaga’s popularity grows. On the layer of social
semiotics, the Gaga genre involves participation and collaboration of
numerous semiotic and social textual resources, mediums, and layers of
remediation. For instance, it is digitisation and social media space that
has enabled Gaga’s swift takeover of Madonna’s career long fandom.
Again, media such as the radio alone would not have the capacity to
create, transport, and teleport that Lady Gaga’s hypersexual and
hyperlinked performance. The Gaga genre, after moving from
unpopularity to popularity, has been reified as a primary genre that the
amateurs aspire to emulate. In less than five years, Gaga has
transitioned from a small team product to a gigantic franchise. Finally, as
a social text, the Gaga genre has mobilized the powerful yet essential
schematic frames to challenge and contend the established genre
hierarchies as well as their monopoly of social goods and services. Social
structures engineered in high cultures would be endangered.
5. A final remark
Without a doubt, the structuration of the Gaga genre upon the afore-
discussed schematic frames speaks to the economics of pop culture
production and distribution. This agglomeration of the mediation,
publicness, and institutionalization begs a very simple yet blunt
question: how is it possible for an individual to amass and exploit all
these resources of simulacrum, intertextuality, and multimodality all
together? Certainly it is not. Pop culture industries have evolved over the
decades into a multi-trillion dollar enterprises in the US and worldwide,
with complex systems that have been adopted or adapted across
countries and regions. Apart from the contribution of technological
advances that have enabled mediation, remediation, and dis-mediation,
the two primary conditions for the Gaga genre’s evolution, publicness
and institutionalization, capture the very essence of Adam Smith’s (1776)
economics tradition which insists on a profound yet pragmatic
recognition of the divisions of labor to address the diversity and
complexity of human activities. In the evolution of the Gaga genre, the
divisions of labor as embedded in the schematic frames, together with
social contract, have played a central role in orchestrating the complex
processes and resources involved in producing the Gaga genre as well as
Jianxin Liu
Journal for Communication and Culture vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 2016) 35
the pop culture figure and franchise. Apparently, macro-genre analytic
tools such as schematic frames might be more useful than the semiotic
units in unpacking the volatility of social texts, as well as their social
ramifications in times of rapid digitization and convergence.
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