Seminar paper from the year 1999 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,0 (A), Humboldt-University of Berlin (American Studies), course: Transnational American Culture Studies, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction: In the following study the relationship and interaction between “Hip Hop and the Media in the USA” will be discussed. The aim of this paper is to put hip hop into a wider framework of media and culture. Hip hop has triumphantly emerged from the underground to take its place in the mainstream of popular culture. It is clear that the pervasive influence of hip hop extends to television, film, advertising, fashion, the print media, and language itself. Although it has taken almost twenty years to reach this level of mass exposure, the movement now stands as a multimillion-dollar enterprise and a dominant cultural force that continues to grow. To put it quite bluntly, hip hop cannot be considered as an independent entity on its own; it has to be explained in a broader context – a creation out of a reaction with and against existing conventions. Hip hop must be reinvented from moment to moment, centered around the impossibility of closure – the moment it becomes identifiable, its modes reducible, it dies – but hip hop’s ability is to reinvent itself continually. Hip hop is, as Potter puts it, “a cultural recycling center, a social heterolect, a field of contest, even a form of psychological warfare” (109). This paper tries to shed light on the following questions: What is the media’s influence on the history and development of hip hop culture? How are the different rap categories treated by the media? Why is authenticity especially appealing to a white audience and consequently to the major spending power? In how far are violence, drugs and misogyny important for the development of hip hop culture, how is the media coping with these issues? The latter question leads to the next one: Why is rap, as a part of hip hop, the subject of a permanent call for censorship? To answer this question some examples will be illustrated. [...]
Seminar paper from the year 1998 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0 (A), Grinnell College (English Studies), course: The Tradition of English Literatue, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction: In the following, the notions of “good, true, and beautiful” in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray will be examined, both separately and as they relate to one another. These adjectives carry a positive meaning, and they create a distinct contrast to the critiques and accusations that have been raised against the book and its writer. The Picture of Dorian Gray is in many ways a “pivotal work” (Lawler 285) in Oscar Wilde’s life and career. It sums up his major influences of the 1870s and 1880s, and anticipates the style of his celebrated comedies to come. Why was the public’s opinion, which meant his ruin in the end, so important to Oscar Wilde? To answer this question it is necessary to look at Wilde’s audience and environment. Wilde was “the epitome of a new type of professional writer” (Small 3). Thus The Picture of Dorian Gray and the scandal it provoked have to be situated in the context of late Victorian social institutions of journalism, advertising, homosexual communities, criminology, etiquette, and theater (Gagnier, Cambridge Companion 27). Wilde had always been a great borrower and collector of literary culture, and therefore was often accused of plagiarism, but he transformed everything into his own way of expression. It is the blending of original invention and existing art that enables Wilde to create new effects and moods. This blending helps to explain how The Picture of Dorian Gray embraces the range from classic Greek and Latin masters to contemporary English, French, and German writers. From its first appearance in the spring of 1890, The Picture of Dorian Gray has suggested to readers parallels to other works, ancient or modern, in English or any other language. To specify the focus, the novel can be regarded as a study of various Victorian art movements corresponding to different stages in the development of Victorian human nature, and the main characters are meant to be personifications of these art movements and psychological states (Nassaar 37). This paper tries to shed light not only on Wilde’s paradoxical style, but also on the 1890s society by answering the following questions: Which are the major art movements at the end of the 19th century; how far do they affect Wilde’s work? To what extent is the book good, true, and beautiful? Or are the opposites more appropriate? [...]
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