Page 140 - CULTURE IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE

CULTURAL FRONTS

define and identify, that which they believe is dead and alive in their own
culture. These are all steps along an infinite path of symbolic activity and
dialogical reflexivity in which meaningful encounters with the ‘other’ are
crucial. Indeed, a complex cultural attitude is surely needed as we navigate the
turbulences of the Communication Age.

Notes
Special thanks to James Lull for his constant encouragement and extensive editorial
work in Colima and California, and for procuring the photos of Ricky Martin and Los
Tigres del Norte. Thanks also to Henry Trueba for his donation of space, time, and
resources in support of this work.
1 I use ‘momentum’ (quantity of motion of a moving object) instead of ‘state’
(condition) to name such complex and mobile symbolic relations.
2 Los Tigres del Norte are probably the most important ranchero band, both in Mexico
and the United States, mainly because of the traditional flavor of their music and
lyrics, and because of the appropriation of the music by Mexican workers in the
USA. Through their music, the lived experience of millions of Mexican immigrants
has been elaborated into a musical narrative that has enormous appeal and meaning.
3 I use the expression ‘second-order elaboration’ to describe a more complex level of
discursive work upon first-order interpretations of the world, all of them taken for
granted, or doxa (Bourdieu 1993).
4 This film has been shown for a complete year in Austin, Texas.
5 Ricky Martin gained world visibility through a combination of public ritual and
television, first in July 1998 when his song, ‘ La Copa de la Vida’ was selected for the
opening ceremony of the World Cup in France. His performance was well received
(mainly in terms of economic profits), and he was invited to the Grammy Awards
Ceremony in 1999 (another combination of public ritual and broadcasting), in
which his song and style were received as ‘fresh air’. Suddenly, ‘Livin’ the Vida Loca’
became a big hit. Martin then went straight to the cover of various magazines and
the most popular prime-time American television shows.
6 A taxonomy implies making explicit some principle of the hierarchization of
relations and symbolic objects.
7 An ‘attractor’ is a concentration point in which all trajectories converge in equi-
librium. The social relations of hegemony can be attracted as a complex attractor if
the convergence point functions to draw and frame different trajectories of meaning
as an ideological ‘center’ (see Coveney and Highfield 1996).

References
Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism. London: Verso.
Babbie, E. (1997). The Practice of Social Research. Belmont: Wadsworth.
Bakhtin, M. (1996). The Dialogical Imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bertaux, D. (1977). Destines Personnels et Structure de Classes. Pour une Critique de
L’Anthroponomie Politique. Paris: PUF.
Bertaux, D. and Thompson, P. (eds) (1993). Between Generations: Family Models, Myths and
Memories. New York: Oxford University Press.

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