Study Questions 3: Feb. 6th

1. What story is Jhally telling about the evolution toward our current "image-based culture"?

2. What have been some of the major stages this development towards an ever more image centered culture has taken?

3. What relation does Jhally see between "quality of life surveys" as to what people want from life and the system of marketed commodities? What would he say is the relation between "the good life" and "goods" (commodities)?

4. What is "partipulation" (sic) and how does it work?

5. What are the main dangers Jhally sees in a market-driven, image-based culture?

6. How does environment figure in his picture?

7. He names four areas particularly impacted by the new image-saturated culture: gender; politics; children's lives; and other forms of culture like music. What does he see as the impact on each of these areas of life?

8. What does Jhally see as the source of and the implications of the increasing "speed" and "fragmentation" found in our image-based culture?

9. What solutions does Jhally suggest might solve some of the problems created by the conditions he has analyzed?

10. Do you agree with Jhally that our lives are now dominated by images? Do you agree with his analysis of the dangers of such a system?