Power Simple Definition : ability to do or act; capability of doing or accomplishing something
I wanted to go through the process with you of thinking about how to deal with researching about power as it is such a broad topic, you will notice that if you go to a definition of power in the dictionary it will be a large entry covering many aspects.
I gave myself two hours to think and explore the topic and create a diagram of possible things that could be explored in the development of an artefact related to an aspect of power. My Map is not definitive or the only answer but it might give you a starting point for your own thoughts and research questions.
The obstruction related to the power artefact is to come.
I began exploring Power first by looking at a simple general definition as seen above. I then went through the process of thinking of keywords that I thought related to the definition. The keywords I thought of were generated through my own knowledge and experience. The process of research is then to test your knowledge and experience: Does it hold up? Is it well founded? Is it based on sound knowledge and analysis or is it prejudice?
A thumbnail of my Map is below and I used a free tool to do this called Freemind which works on Mac or PC. Download Here.
Lets Take a closer look at the Map and explore its elements as we go. I will take you through the map first and then visit each of the nodes in order.
- Personal Power
- Media Power
- Technology
- Economic
- Protest
Personal Power
How much power do you feel that you have over your own circumstances? Think about power from your own experience. Ask questions about your own circumstance. Why are things as they are for you at the moment? Are they similar for the people around you? Are issues shared amongst your group of friends? Find out.
Questions that you might ask yourself about your own abilities to act, to do or to accomplish.
Is my own ability to act constrained by myself or is it a wider constraint imposed upon me?
- Student Debt is it fair? Why are there student loans? What has happened to the grant? Will a debt constrain my ability to chose what I do later in life? How might it make me live?
- Do I vote? Do I think it is worth it? Do I think I can change things through political choices I make?
- How might current circumstances impact on my future? (Credit Crunch, Election, European Community, Climate Change)
- Have I ever protested? What do I think of people that do? Has anybody I know protested? Are they proud or embarrassed about it?
- What do I think about some current issues…..The Mail Strike, Nick Griffin, Afghanistan ? Are my views based on knowledge or prejudice?
The importance of testing our own views. Research is about testing your own views and perhaps suprising yourself and even changing your mind in the light of the things that you find out. Lets have a look at two examples that we can check the facts on.
Child Mortality
Below are several pairs of countries which countries in each pair has the higher child mortality? One of the countries in each pair have at least double the child mortality of the other paired country.
- Sri Lanka or Turkey
- Poland or South Korea
- Malaysia or Russia
- Pakistan or Vietnam
- Thailand or South Africa
The answers may suprise you and point out that often the views we have are mistaken. We can only have an accurate view if we check find out the actual data and then form a view in the light of the available data.
Have a look at the video explaining this by Hans Rosling
Inequality In Countries (ECONOMIC)
Where might Britain come in terms of measures of inequality with other European countries? Better than some? Better than most? How about comparison to the United States or lesser know countries like Slovakia?
A link to some data about inequality.
Further data about income inequality between richest and poorest.
How do you think we do? How is this measured?
This concern with the difference between rich and poor is not new during the last great depression in the 1930’s many in the USA were protesting about this inequality and acting to change things. A little remembered Governor in Louisiana called Huey P Long was very popular and had huge support for some of his polices that went under the title of share our wealth and challenged Roosevelt and the timidity of the new deal. He was assassinated in 1935.
Media Power
Broadcast Media: Televison Networks, Newspaper Ownership, Radio Ownership, Internet Companies.
If we look at old media first, TV it is still very powerful and can command large audiences. Popular mainstream programmes of the recent past like Big Brother had huge audiences recent programmes like the X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing also command millions of viewers. Even political programmes, Question time with Nick Griffin had eight million viewers last Thursday.
What are the popular formats based upon and how do they rely on old forms?
If you think about the popular formats how might they be characterised? What elements do they have in common?
- Panels of experts
- Judging
- Voting
- Popular choice
All of these elements are ancient and draw on the power of Ancient Myths like the Beauty Contest. The Greek myth The Judgement of Paris was the first Beauty Contest, not in the sense of simple beauty but in the sense of a judgment being passed on the the elect and the not chosen.
Peter Berger talks about the power of the Beauty contest in our culture.
These forms have been challenged at points see the clip below from the UK leg of Miss World compared by Bob Hope
These similar forms are still at work in TV, although they have a twist. Much more audience involvement.
Clive James commented on the phenomena:
The facts, alas, say that in every opera house in the world the chorus contains at least half a dozen people with voices as good as Susan’s, and most of them won’t become stars, so all the hoo-hah about Susan’s sudden stardom was at least partly illusory, based on the dangerous notion that overnight prominence on television will always change reality permanently.
In the opera house, music ought to matter more than anything but it remains true that one of the reasons people flock to hear Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca singing together is that they look the part almost as well as they sing it.
Things shouldn’t be that way, but strangely enough they have become more and more that way in the last forty years, during the very period when feminism as a train of thought has done so much to educate us about the restrictive nature of expectations based on pulchritude.
When I first started attending Covent Garden in the early 1960s it was still quite common for the soprano to be an unlikely stimulus for the tenor’s cries of passion. Today, most of the sopranos look like film stars. It could be said that the more our primitive male prejudices are broken down, the more we all become free. But one of the consequences of freedom is that ticket buyers are free to choose, and it is likely to remain a fact that ticket buyers of both sexes will choose to see the imported dreamboat.
Susan might very well, after this, get a job in the chorus and even sell a lot of records, but if the press expects more than that it could be adding yet another chapter to a long story in which discoveries have been shoved onto the boards to fulfil a role in a fairy story which is fated not to turn out well.
And it didn’t, but it also unveils the forms that TV draws upon like the fairy tale …..in this case the ugly duckling turning into…………
Technology
Satire can often unmask and play with these forms by methods of exaggeration. The way the news is constructed and the cult of the presenter has been deconstructed by Chris Morris.
The banned programme on paedophiles.
Protest
Technology is being used by people who are actively protesting about issues. The G20 was a good example.
People now carry devices that can easily capture still and moving images that make it hard to deny evidence of reported events that infringe peoples rights.
Similarly The Freedom of Information act has enshrined in law the ability for citizens or groups to request information held by public bodies. The recent example of this has been Parliamentary expenses. This campaign was first set in motion by a Journalist called Heather Brooke. She used technology, blog and Twitter to make the responses to her FOI requests more widely known. She has also produced a book on how to use the FOI act.
Just in the last ten days twitter has been used to make known a gagging order on Newspapers reporting the Trafigura case.
And the Daily Mail article by Jan Moir accused of homophobia
Finally the coverage of the Royal Mail Strike