Festival is what we get if we are able to disengage from lives of over-consumption and violent production. Carnival is when power gives its to nod to parody and satire of the power holders and celebrities of spectacle. it is that bit of theatrics when the workers dress up like the boss for the day and act out in ways to get the attention of power the their exploited condition. Spectacle is what is accumulated all around us in acts of production and consumption. Disney and Las Vegas are just the obvious examples. The Spectacle approach is based in Guy Debord's work and that of Steve Best and Douglas Kellner. 

It is time to realize that Spectacles, the least important of Aristotle's (350 BCE) day, is now the most important theatrical element of late modern capitalism (Boje, 2002c). I view spectacles and carnival in dialectic relatioin, and here and there (but not always), a festive third alternative emerges.

For more on this see the FESTIVALISM study guides. 

SPECTACLE - Spectacle goes back to Roman gladiators, the appropriation of entertainment, art, and festival for political and control purposes. By spectacle I mean Debord’s (1967) the Society of the Spectacle, a theatrics that is often violent and oppressive social control that masquerades as a celebration of progress by recycling pseudo-reforms, false-desires, and selective sightings of progressive evolution, never devolution. Spectacles are defined as – 'intertextual.' Various types of spectacle are intertextual' to other spectacles (the types are explained below); spectacles are embedded in socio-economic contexts by decontextualizing and recontextualizing.  

FESTIVAL - By festival I mean Victor Turner's theatrics that is more related to in-the-moment enjoyment of a thing for its own sake. In ancient times, festival transgressed the boundary of nature and culture. See Festivalism web site. 

CARNIVAL - By carnival I mean Bakhtin's theory of the theatrics of rant and madness seeking repair to separation and alienation, a call for help from corporate power, a cry of distress and repression mixed with laughter and humorous exhibition meant to jolt power into awareness of its psychic organization. Carnivalesque examples (McDonalds) (Carnival web site).

More on Spectacles definitions SEE http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/septet/spectacles.htm 

How does Guy Debord, Steve Best & Douglas Kellner treat Spectacle?

For Debord (1967) spectacle is the basis of late capitalism. The four types of spectacle include concentrated, diffuse, integrated and mega (Best & Kellner, 1997, 2001). ). Best and Kellner (1997) develop Debord’s spectacle types and in 2001 propose the “megaspectacle,” our national fetish to use the media to turn war or scandal into mass entertainment (e.g. the Gulf War and War on Terrorism are popular culture events, as were Watergate, the OJ Simpson trial, and the funeral of Princess Diana).

In sum, I assume that contemporary organizations produce, distribute, and consume spectacle Metatheatrics.

What follows is excerpts from my book Theatres of Capitalism (Boje, 2002c), an all conference paper on Enron presented in London in July (Boje, 2002a), an Academy of Management conference paper presented in August (Boje, 2002b), and a paper my colleagues and I have under review (Boje, Rosile, Durand, & Luhman, 2002). Please read and reference the original papers (See below). 

For MORE ENRON SPECTACLE examples GO THERE NOW, or read on... 

What are the 4 types of spectacles? (first 3 from Debord, 4th from Best & Kellner 2001).

1. Concentrated Spectacles - the theatrical performances of the firm; how the spectacle is produced.

2. Diffuse Spectacles - the theatrical performances of spectacle in the market. Spectacles diffuse through franchising and advertising, and dissemination throughout the globe.

3. Integrated Spectacles - these integrate the first two (concentrated plus diffuse). Its like McDonalds that has a spectacle stage in each franchise site, has diffused to thousands of sites (and stages), and tries to integrate the two. Now all three phases of intertextual are manifest: spectacles are produced, distributed, and consumed by the masses. 

4. Mega Spectacles - from time time to time the integration disintegrates into scandal (megaspectacle). And these become mass entertainment. You know the examples (Watergate, OJ Simpson, Rodney King, Clinton and Monica, Princess Diana's funeral, & Enrongate). 

Where do I find more on Spectacles? 

What is relation of Spectator to Spectacle?

I have two books, one being published and one searching for a home.

Boje, D. M. (2002c) Theatres of Capitalism. Book being published by Hampton Press (San Francisco). Available until publication, on line, at http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/theatrics/index.htm (password is required).

Boje, D. M. (2002d) Spectacles, Carnivals & Festivals of Capitalism. S&F - Use aggie359 (ID) and adventure (pass word). 

Related Sites

• Biotech Century - See I N THE NEWS (press here) - How is the Spectacle of Production and Consumption Changing our Life? Where do Spectacle and Festival intermingle? Posted by David M. Boje.
• NEW - See Toronto Academy of Management Session on Festival, Spectacle and Carnival - David Boje and Brace Ann Rosile 

Carnival -  Carnival is the theatrics of parody and satire sanctioned by power. It can even be organized by power as a way for citizens to let off steam.  In a more enlightened era carnival was a way for power to see how it felt to be under foot. I did some re-reading of Kristeva (1980: 65) and found it was on  Bakhtin's dialogic of text and context and particularly his concepts of the polyphonic and carnivalesque novels that Kristeva demarcated intertextual from structural or comparative analyses. Kristeva (1980: 78) says carnival is the double, "it is a spectacle, but without a stage; a game, but also a daily undertaking; a signifier, but also a signified."  The context of the carnival is the crowd, the stage, the actors, and the game itself. Intertextuality analysis has moved carnival aside. For example, I note that Fairclough's (1992) approach to intertextuality analysis does not include carnivalesque, but instead gives it a different (and still useful) twist. For Fairclough the bottom line is a hegemonic analysis of intertextuality. With this move he resituates intertextuality analysis into the philosophy of critical theory, into the vertical axis of not only context but power.

• Examples of Carnival
• How about this one - a parody of Nobel Prize Ceremony and Awards (press here)

• For more on Intertextuality- Check Learning Module 2 (press here) and 3 (press here) in qualitative methods seminar.
• Try the Bakhtin Search Engine (press here). I entered "carnival" and picked up 20 sites with annotated biblios.
• e.g. "The Semiotic Theory of Carnival as the Inversion of Bipolar

     Opposites" by Ivanov, V.V. 1984 (press here).
• The Fluid Center: A Third Millennium Challenge to Culture Kirk J. Schneider, Ph.D. (see section on carnival). 


Spectacle is above all a legitimating narrative for social engineering and social control masking the violent (non-Ahimsa) acts of production and consumption. By spectacle I mean Debord’s (1967) the Society of the Spectacle, the often violent and oppressive social control that masquerades as a celebration of betterment by recycling pseudo-reforms, false-desires, and selective sightings of progressive evolution, never devolution. By violent I mean the willful and careless and often unnecessary disruption or extinction of the life of another, including the life of non-human species.

Consider the similarities. Both spectacle and festival combine theatrics, storytelling, crafts, and other arts into a community of performance. Both festival and spectacle incorporate food, story, theatrics, music, art, and other entertainment. I want to open up the question of what is festival for more rigorous exploration. They are oftentimes found together, occupying the same time and place. The same work organization has both festive and spectacle garniture.

People do resist spectacle - there is hope for spectacle transformation. There are eco-teams forming in Europe and North America to look at ways to cut back on our over-consumption patterns. Consumer groups are forming that resist shopping addictions, credit card addition, workaholism, and television/Nintendo/Web cyber dependency. Turning Point for example runs full-page ads to raise questions about the impact of technology and transnational corporate strategies on the environment and the ability of nations to sustain growing populations with a quality of life for their people.  It is in this context that I am proposing transorganizational theory and praxis rooted in festivalism and efforts to contain the spread of spectacle.

Simplicity, for example, is a movement to cut out unneeded consumption and production in the hopes that others on the planet will have the means to live. Look at Simplicity and Affluenza movements as background before moving on:

    SIMPLICITY

Building Human Scale Communities - (press here). The Schumacher Society. Consult their on-line publication list (press here).
• Example - Simplify Management: "The Management Explosion and the Next Environmental Crisis  David Ehrenfeld, 1995  In this lecture Ehrenfeld examines the consequences of "the extraordinary proliferation of administration, of bureaucracy, of management, the increasing percentage of people in our society who control events but do not themselves produce anything real."
AFFLUENZA
A movement to resist the spectacle of affluence and engage in the simplicity of festive living. There was an excellent PBS Special:
• All About Affluenza (press here)
• Last year, Americans, who make up only five percent of the world's population, used nearly a third of its resources and produced almost half of its hazardous waste.
• Escape from Affluenza (press here). PBS On Line.
• Kay McFadden / Times TV columnist July 6, 1998  PBS' `Escaping Affluenza' offers cure for consumerism (press here)
• At 31, Joe Dominguez retired from a job as a technical stock analyst on Wall Street. He left with a nest egg of about $70,000 and had lived on the investment income ever since -- about $6,000 a year. Dominguez and his partner Vicki Robin co-authored the Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence (press here for interview).

Take the Affluenza On Line Quiz (press here).
SPECTACLE AND FESTIVAL READINGS
• Boje, David - 1999 Spectacles and Festivals of Organization: Managing Ahimsa Production and Consumption. Book under review at Harwood Academic Press. Chapter 1 definitions of spectacle and festival (press here); Chapter 1 Tables contrasting spectacle and festival concepts (press here).
• Chapter 14 - Spectacle and VIRTUAL University (press here)
  • More on this topic -- See From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
    Full story available at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/s153481.htm 
  • Summary: The cornerstones of civilization are being rattled. Especially the one 
    called Universities. These sacred centers of learning are being all shook 
    up. It's not all good, but it's not all bad either. Who's going to decide 
    what is high quality in education. 
  • Other links:
    • Go Corporate U, an amazing on line resource. 
    • Australian web site which tracks new virtual universities on the 
      web http://www.virtualuniversities.net/ 
      Greenwich University Norfolk island http://www.greenwich.edu/ 
      Universitas 21 consortium http://www.universitas.edu.au/index.html 
      Federal Department of Education, Employment and Youth Affairs, 
      Australia http://www.detya.gov.au/ 
      On Line Course Finder, source of information for US developments 
      in higher education www.onlinecollegecourses.com/ 
      
• Boje - Alternative Postmodern Spectacles: The Skeptical and Affirmative Postmodernist (Organization) Theory Debates (press here)
• Best, Steven and Douglas Kellner Debord, Cybersituations, and the Interactive Spectacle (press here)
• NEW - Vasquez, Tim "Whoever dies with the most toys wins!" (press here). Great primer on over-consumption and it ties also to downsizing/reengineering square on TD gameboard. " Corporations are earning record profits and downsizing the workforce, Americans are spending more hours at work than ever,  and the legislative process has become dominated by big business interests."  Also has links to Nike-TRAC report and to McSpotlight.
• The Ethical Spectacle (press here). Has feature issues and photos on WTO and Seattle as spectacle. See "What Really Happened in Seattle?" "The First Amendment in Seattle." etc.
• "The reports have pontificated endlessly about a few

broken windows, and mostly ignored the Direct Action Network,
the group that successfully organized the nonviolent direct action
that ultimately involved thousands of people. The true story of
what made the action a success is not being told."
• Santiago Cucullu, 'Notes on Debord', _Film-Philosophy: Electronic Salon_,

22 January 1999 (press here).
• NEW Link - Spectacular Times Images "Without a doubt our epoch prefers the image to the real thing, the copy to the orginal, the representation to the reality, appearance to being. What is sacred for it is only illusion. More than that, the sacred grows in it's eyes to the extent that truth diminshes and illusion increases, to such an extent that the peak of illusion is for it the peak of the sacred." Fuerbach. (Press here) for images, cartoons, and texts.
• Situationists for Beginners (press here).
• Spectactular Times: The Media (press here). The Spectacle is not just a collection of images. It is the medium of communication between images and is the means by which the real world is interpreted.
• Spectacluar Times: Everyday Life (press here). Our life becomes divided between "work" time and "free" time. Both are part of that grand illusion - the Spectacle. Within the Society of the Spectacle all time is spectacular time. Sometimes we are the commodity and sometimes the consumer. In our "free" time we buy back what we made during our "work" time. "Work" time and "free" time serve each other... ....and the morality of Spectacular business becomes the morality of the community.
• We start to dismantle the Spectacle by seizing back from the authorities the power to run our own lives. Once again to take control of the organisation of everyday life ourselves - be it at individual level, in our home, our street, at our place of work, or in our community.

 
NICKERSON GARDENS ORAL HISTORY PROJECT (press here) for photo album and time line.
• Boje, David "Postmodern Détournement Analysis of the Popular Mechanics Spectacle using Stories and Photos of the Festive Community Life of Nickerson Gardens" a case on Nickerson Gardens Meets Popular Mechanics (press here).
• Brown, William 1998 "The spectacle of information: Part One" That's Entertainment!." Web document (press here) for complete text (last modified May 27, 1998). Brown makes the point that web and print media articles like Popular Mechanics are part of the commodified spectacle of mass-entertainment.
• Debord, Guy 1967 Society of the Spectacle. For a full on line text (press here).
• For definitions of key SI terms seen (1995) Internationale Situationists #1, June 1958 (translated 1995) please (press here).
• Wallace, Jonathan 1996 "Choosing life or death." The Ethical Spectacle, Vol II (11): November on line journal. (Press Here) for on line text. My application of Wallace is to assert that Popular Mechanics is Spectalce worldview and is a clash with the Nickerson Gardens and my own Festival worldview.


DECONSTRUCTING LAS VEGAS SPECTACLE CONFERENCE

• Deconstructing Las Vegas is the May 30-Apr 2nd 2000 Annual Critical Postmodern Conference at IABD - Call for Papers. And back ground paper on Deconstructing Las Vegas
DECONSTRUCTING NIKE & ACTIVIST STORYTELLING PROJECT
• In 1998, I did a series of Nike and the activists articles (Press here) to see dark side) to show the relationship between multiple storytelling organizations. Philip Knight’s Nike is a "storytelling organization" as are the web-bases activists’ storytelling organizations. The Nike storytelling organization constructs through storied sense making practices i ts very legitimacy to employ young, female Asian workers to accumulate billions in capital. But, activist entrepreneurs are also virtual storytelling organizations, using the Internet to assemble delegitimation stories to damage the integrity of Nike, crafting stories to purposely deconstruct the dominant ideology and institutional memory of Nike, who they frame as Wile Coyote. Activists also provoke print media coverage, letter w riting campaigns, and annual worldwide boycotts of Nike products. Nike focuses on how well paid their employees are and how much better the working conditions are now than in the past.
FOR MORE NIKE STORIES by Boje:
1998a Amos Tuck's Post-Sweat Nike Spin Pp. 618-623. In Business Research Yearbook: Global Business Perspectives, Vol. V. Biberman, J . & Alkafarji, A (Eds.).

1998b Wile Coyote Meets the Road Runner Paper presentation to the Sun Break Conference, Chaos and Complexity, chaired by Janice Bl ack, Las Cruces, NM, February at New Mexico State University.

1998c What Postmodern Philosophers Have to Contribute to Knowledge Researchers Paper presented to INFORMS (Institute for Ope rations Research and Management Sciences) conference, Seattle, WA, October (click on David’s presentation)

1998d A Wicked Introduction to the Unbroken Circle Conference: International Business & Ecology. P. v-xiii. In Internationa l Business and Ecology Research Yearbook.

1998e How Critical Theory and Critical Pedagogy can Unmask Nike's Labor Practices presented to the Critical Theory pre-conference of the Academy of Management meetings, San Diego, CA, August 8.

1998f Nike, Greek Goddess of Victory or Cruelty? Women's Stories of Asian Factory Life Published (October) in Journal of Organizational Change Management. Vol 11(6):461-480.

1998g. The Swoosh Goddess is a Vampire: Nike's Environmental Accounting Storytelling. Pp. 23-32. In International Business and Ecology Research Yearbook. IABD Publication.

1999 New Is Nike Roadrunner or Wile E. Coyote? A Postmodern Organization Analysis of Double Logic, published in Journal of Busi ness & Entrepreneurship. Special Issue (March, Vol II) 77-109.. This is an analysis of the relationship between Nike activists and Nike. This is a pre-publication draft.

• For Nike In the News (press here) for links related to Nike and Activists (press here)
Additional Resources - SPECTACLE AND CORPORATE BEHAVIOR
• Global Exchange Web Site (press here). Resources for building an alternative global economy, from ACORN to Cooperative movements (press here).
• Adbusters (press here) The "Culture Jammer Headquarters" takes aim at all things corporate and commercial. Adbusters also provides sobering information on environmental issues and offers alternatives for action.

• References

  Aristotle (written 350 BCE). E.g. (1954) translation Aristotle: Rhetoric and Poetics. Intro by Friedrich Solmsen; Rhetoric translated by W. Rhys Roberts; Poetics translated by Ingram Bywater. NY: The Modern Library (Random House). Poetics was written 350 BCE. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.html 

  Best, Steven & Douglas Kellner (2001). Postmodern Adventure. NY/London: The Guilford Press.

  Boje, D. M. (2001a). Narrative Methods for Organizational and Communication Research. London Sage.

  Boje, D. M. (2001b). Carnivalesque Resistance to Global Spectacle: A Critical Postmodern Theory of Public Administration. Administrative Theory & Praxis. Vol. 23 (3): 431-458.

  Boje, D. M. (2001c). Global Theatrics and Capitalism. Presentation to Academy of Management Conference, Washington D.C., August.

  Boje, D. M. (2002a). Critical Dramaturgical Analysis of Enron Antenarratives and Metatheatre. Plenary presentation to 5th International Conference on Organizational Discourse: From Micro-Utterances to Macro-Inferences, Wednesday 24th - Friday 26th July (London).
  http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/papers/ENRON_critical_dramaturgical_analysis.htm

  Boje, D. M. (2002b) Enron Metatheatre: A Critical Dramaturgy Analysis of Enron’s Quasi-Objects. Paper presented at the Networks, Quasi-Objects, and Identity: Reintegrating Humans, Technology, and Nature session of Denver Academy of Management Meetings. Tuesday August 13, 2002.
    http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/papers/enron_theatre_LJM.htm

  Boje, D. M. (2002c) Theatres of Capitalism. Book being published by Hampton Press (San Francisco). Available until publication, on line, at http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/theatrics/index.htm (password is required).

  Boje, D.M., Ann L. Cunliffe & John T. Luhman (2002). A dialectic perspective on the organizational theatre metaphor. Paper under review.

  Boje, D. M. & G. A. Rosile (2002a). The Metatheatre Intervention Manual. To be published by ISEOR Research Institute of University of Lyon 2, France.

  Boje, D. M. & G. A. Rosile (2002b). Theatrics of SEAM. Paper to be published in Journal of Organizational Change Management Special Issue on Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM), guest edited by Henri Saval.

  Boje, D. M., Grace Ann Rosile, Rita A. Durant & John T. Luhman (2002). Enron spectacle theatrics: A critical dramaturgical analysis. Under review at Organization Studies, for special issue on organization theatre.

  Burke, K. (1945). A grammar of motives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 

  Debord Guy (1967). Society of the Spectacle. La Société du Spectacle was first published in 1967 by Editions, Buchet-Chastel (Paris); it was reprinted in 1971 by Champ Libre (Paris). The full text is available in English at http://www.nothingness.org/SI/debord/index.html It is customary to refer to paragraph numbers in citing this work. 

   

See Festivalism

 Press to return to TD Game Board or dfor a TD narrative.