Month: April 2021

It’s Over!

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I would like to say that I cannot believe it is the end of term, better yet the end of my four years here at UBC but I am so happy. I have learned a lot about popular culture through this course and even some of my own heritage as well which I am grateful for. Isolation has not been easy on any of us, but having sessions over zoom has had its perks.

As for my favourite topic from this course, I would like to say that I enjoyed learning about narcocorridos. That week blew my mind. I had never heard anything like it in Mexico as I usually listen to just Latin pop or folkloric music when I am there. That being said, I had never been exposed to the more underground genres of Mexican popular culture as my family, which is a mix of socio-economic backgrounds, mostly live in those gated communities discussed in our week about telenovelas. I also really enjoyed the fighting Cholitas, I actually showed the video to my sister and she was more confused than anything ahaha.

Anyways, best of luck to everyone on their projects and finals, I also hope everyone stays safe and happy this summer 🙂

La revolución digital: mobile media use in contemporary Cuba

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This piece about mobile media use helped me more fully register (if that makes sense) the cultural intricacies associated with the phenomenon. Just like Grandinetti and Eszenyi (2018) highlight, “Within infrastructures of high-speed and mobile connectivity, immediate access to content is part of social routines.” is something that we as Westerners take for granted because we are not aware of our production of spatiality and spatial experience (p.875). 

That being said, I was intrigued by the description of contemporary Cuba and its recent past interacting with technological infrastructures. Legacies of military and economic power, colonialism, and international corporate interests while negotiating with a socialist government have created this contested public sphere that has divided older Cubans afraid of becoming marginalized if Cuba becomes capitalist while younger Cubans want a greater connection outside of the country. Cuba’s history represented on billboards, revolutionary monuments, murals, framed artwork, and t-shirts are inter-related with the use of wifi hot-spots in public areas such as parks. However, despite increased web access, most internet connectivity isn’t readily available in domestic spaces unless you are wealthy and must be shared communally in public hot spots. The country is already marginalized along class lines so the greater introduction of international markets and increase in connectivity would only ameliorate some of the quality of living in Cuba.

I was also interested in the concept of a shared internet culture such as the USB hard drive exchange economy ‘El Paquete Semanal’ as it does require internet connectivity. Shared pirated movies, television shows, music videos, magazines reflect socialist values within the citizenry even to this extent. It also reminded me of our reading of Peruvian punk and the similarities they share with a sort of ‘underground’ culture whose dissemination was purely social and socially stratified.  On another note, mobile device types, such as the use of laptops or tablets rather than the cheaper alternative of a smartphone, further stratified social classes in spaces such as hotels in Havana in this case that are already characterized by exclusivity and costly nature of web access. 

Taking on this information I just absorbed from this article, I feel like internet access should be subsidized by the government as it has become so essential for connecting people to each other and access resources for social mobility. The goal for any non-corrupt country would be to expand their economy and they can only do that if they give these resources to the lower classes to succeed. And for the sake of this class, would help create new forms of popular culture that do not have to rely on the physical distribution of media that can be lost or destroyed much more easily. But maybe permanence is not the point as culture and fluid and ever-changing. idk

Anywho how do you feel about the transmission of popular culture through either physical copies or online?

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What is your take on limited internet connectivity? Pros? cons?