Authenticity and sincerity in tourism.

Jim McGuigan discusses cultural policy as a manifestation of cultural politics in the widest sense. Illustrating his case with examples from recent cultural policy initiatives in Britain, the United States and Australia, he looks at:* The rise of market reasoning in arts administration* Urban regeneration and the arts* Heritage tourism* Race, identity and cultural citizenship* Censorship and moral regulation* The role of computer-mediated communication in democratic discourse

Culture and the public sphere

There is as yet no "anthropology of mass media." Even the intersection of anthropology and mass media appears rather small considering the published literature to date. Within the last five or so years, however, as anthropologists have increasingly struggled to define what falls within the legitimate realm of the study of "a culture" and within the privileged purview of "a discipline" (48,51,75, 107, 164), there has been a dramatic rise in interest in the study of mass media. Indeed, mass media themselves have been it contributing force in these processes of cultural and disciplinary deterritorialization. Mass media-defined in the conventional sense as the electronic media of radio, television, film, and recorded music, and the print media of newspapers, magazines, and popular literature-are at once artifacts, experiences, prac­ tices, and processes. They are economically and politically driven, linked to developments in science and technology, and like most domains of human life, their existence is inextricably bound up with the use of language. Given these various modalities and spheres of operation, there are numerous angles for approaching mass media anthropologically: as institutions, as workplaces, as communicative practices, as cultural products, as social activities, as aesthetic forms, and as historical developments. But beyond approaching specific facets of mass media anthropologically, it seems that the greater challenge lies in integrating the study of mass media into our analyses of the "total social fact" of modem life. How, for example, do mass media represent and shape cultural values within a given society?

Anthropology and Mass Media

Introduction: identity, place, landscape and heritage

This paper uses visual ethnographic methods, specifically participant observation and photography supplemented with interviews, in its investigation of the consumption of spectacle at Nike Town, Ch...

Just doing it: A visual ethnographic study of spectacular consumption behavior at Nike Town

"Throwing open to debate the practices of museums, galleries, and festivals, Exhibiting Cultures probes the often politically charged relationships among aesthetics, contexts, and implicit assumptions that govern how cultural differences and art objects are displayed. This innovative volume brings together museum directors and curators, art historians, anthropologists, folklorists, and historians to examine how diverse settings have appealed to audiences and represented the intentions and cultures of the makers of objects. The essays address such major issues in the politics of culture as how the learned experience of everyday life is used to make exhibitions comprehensible, what happens to minority and exotic arts when they are assimilated into the hegemonic context of the "great" museums, and why ethnographic museums have been neglected in an age of museum expansions" -- p.[4] of cover.

Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display

This first ethnographic study of a folklife festival focuses on festival participants - those who cook, dance, tell stories, play music, or demonstrate crafts in a public display of folk culture. Valorizing and legitimizing divers aspects of different ethnic and regional cultures is the philosophical foundation of folklife festivals. As a form of representation, the festival, according to its proponents, should allow members of the cultural groups represented to "talk back" to those producing the representation - scholars, folklorists, anthropologists, etc. Supporters of these events argue that this form of folkloric representation is as intellectually legitimate as the scholarly article or monograph. The validity of this contention, however, depends upon an openness to critique by other representers and participants. This study is an attempt to fulfill that critical function.

Patricia Sawin

Papers

Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display

Reflections on the Folklife Festival: An Ethnography of Participant Experience