![Works CitedBarthes, Roland. MythologiesBerger, John. Ways of seeing [videorecording] : Nude or Naked? / part 2Tony Schirato and Susan Yell, Communication and Cultural Literacy, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2000, Second Edition, pp.18-33; 35-7 [25-34]Lisa Cartright and Marita Sturken “Practices of Looking: Images, Power and Politics”, Practices of Looking:An Introduction to Visual Culture, Oxford UP, Oxford, 2001: 10-43 [35-60] de Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics Roy Harris (trans.), London, Duckworth, 1983.On Ideology: Chris Barker, Cultural Studies, Sage, London, 2000, pp. 48-65, (esp. pp. 54-65)](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3a-medialanguageandpower-110811173107-phpapp02/85/3-a-media-language-and-power-32-320.jpg)
3 a media, language and power
- 1. Media, language and powerPaul Emerson TeusnerFlinders UniversityAugust 2011
- 2. Cultural approach vs. Process approachProcess approachCommunication as a transaction between two autonomous, independent individualsCultural approachThe working out and negotiation of meaning by peopleWithin the context of cultural ideologies, structures and processes
- 3. The nature of mediaProcessMedia are the channels/instruments we use to distribute or multiply the distribution of informationCultural“Media are not so much ‘things’ as places which most of us inhabit.”Branson & Stafford (2003)
- 4. Key questions – Process approachWhere communication is seen as a transaction between two autonomous, independent individualsWhoSays whatThrough what channelsTo whomWith what effects?
- 5. Key questions – Cultural approachWhere the focus is on questions of meaning within their total contextWhat’s going on in the totality of the situation, rather than individual acts of communication?What social, cultural and personal factors constitute the structures within which communication is taking place?What meanings are being generated and exchanged, and what contributes to those meanings?How do these meanings influence or regulate the kinds of activities that people engage in or perform?
- 6. Communication as meaningMeanings are in people, not in things“Meanings are not just out there waiting to be identified or discovered, but are read into signs. This process…is not arbitrary, but is what we call an ideological process.”Schirato and Yell (2000)Meanings are context-dependent – contexts vary for person to person and situation to situationThe sender does not control the meaning of a communiction.
- 7. semioticsSigns and how they work
- 8. OriginsEurope – late 19th centuryDisciplinesLinguistics and literary studies cf. U.S. social sciences, marketingMajor concerns:How people make meaning through thinking & languageCf. U.S. – changing people’s behaviour
- 9. Why media?The only way we can understand the world is through how it is “represented” to us in languageThereforeA concern for study of verbal and visual language of media textsHow they work to convey and generate meaningWithin broader structures of society
- 10. Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)How does language work?Key: meaning is relational rather than substantiveWords do not have innate meanings, but associations we give themMeaning is built by differences
- 11. e.g. manNot woman Not childStrong, not weak Stoic, notemotional
- 12. StructuralismWe access and understand social realities only through the stock of language resources without our cultureLanguage makes sense through these pre-existing structures of difference.When we learn language we participate in and reproduce the assumptions and views of our cultureLanguage shapes now just how we explain the world, but also our perceptual practices, i.e. what we see
- 13. StructuralismAn influential social theory beyond linguistics and mediaAn emphasis on existing structures that have their own irresistible logic“All human organization is determined by large social or psychological structures with their own irresistible logic, independent of human will or intention”E.g. Marx’s economic theoryFreud’s psychoanalytic theoryLevi-Strauss anthropologyPiaget – human development
- 14. How do we identify these underlying structures?For Saussure:Through the science of signsStudying signs and how signs workTo identify the underlying structures of meaning
- 15. Semiotics – the Science of SignsSign – something that refers to something other than itselfMade up of “signifier” and “signified”SignifierThe physical form of the signThe written word, spoken sound, visual image, a haircut, a traffic lightSignifiedThe concept that is evoked (concept, not a thing)The connection between a signifier and its signified is totally arbitrary
- 16. Signifier – the physical form of the signSignified – the mental concept evokedThe connection is totally arbitrary
- 17. Denotation and connotationSigns denote signify different aspects of our physical experienceE.g. red a particular part of spectrumSigns connoteEvoke broader cultural concepts and values by linking associationsE.g. red as danger, power
- 19. C.S. Peirce (1834-1914)Different kinds of signsIconic signs – the signs resemble what they signify
- 20. Indexical signs - Signifiers that establish a direct link between the sign and its object
- 21. Symbols – visual signs that are arbitrarily linked to referents
- 22. CodesWider systems of meaning to which there is broad cultural or social agreementCodes can vary for people and groupsCode systems are dynamic
- 23. Saussure’s contributionA range of questions about Saussure’s theoriesSignifieds become signifiers, etc.Concept of differences became binaryCreated a revolution in linguisticsInstead of seeing language as containers into which natural meanings of the world were pouredSaw meaning as constructed and relationalLanguage is a system of relationshipsMeaning is constructed by differences
- 24. Structuralism“existing structures that have their own irresistible logic” political conservatismChallenged by Disruptive events of early 20th centurysocial radicalism of 1960s Poststructuralism
- 25. Semiotics as PoliticalAgainst Saussure, Volosinov points out that language only exists in use (parole) and that it changes constantly eg: TXT, hip hop, Australian slang …Thus signs are adaptable and have a history of meaningsSigns have as many meanings as they have contextsMeanings are produced through ideological strugglesThere are dominant values ascribed to signseg: “the family”; “woman”(Schirato and Yell: 24-26; Dossier: 28-29)
- 26. Ideologies An ideology (ideo-logos) is basically a way of seeing thingsA simplified system of ideas and beliefsContained in discourses, narratives, conceptual frameworks and explanations that circulate in the culture.
- 27. Ideologies are political in nature…They arise from the activities of particular groups of peopleThey reflect the experiences and interests of those groupsThey serve to produce, privilege and perpetuate the interests of one culture or part of a culture over others
- 28. The function of ideologiesThey are frameworks of meaning for integrating often contradictory information the way the world is, how things work, the significance of eventsThey provide the basis for structuring organizations and social processesIn relation to differences such as class, occupation, race, skin colour, gender, age, sexual preference, etc.
- 29. Ideology and communication theoryIdeologies produce, regulate and manage what can and can’t be thought or done.Questions to ask of texts therefore are:In what ways are different group ideologies at work in the production and exchange of meaning?What ideologies are buried in communication dynamics at work?What sort of contests are taking place between competing ideologies?In what ways are particular ideologies being normalised by erasing difference?
- 30. Rethinking the text…In what ways is this signifier creating meaning?What power interests are represented in this construction?What subordinate power interests are excluded?
- 32. Works CitedBarthes, Roland. MythologiesBerger, John. Ways of seeing [videorecording] : Nude or Naked? / part 2Tony Schirato and Susan Yell, Communication and Cultural Literacy, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2000, Second Edition, pp.18-33; 35-7 [25-34]Lisa Cartright and Marita Sturken “Practices of Looking: Images, Power and Politics”, Practices of Looking:An Introduction to Visual Culture, Oxford UP, Oxford, 2001: 10-43 [35-60] de Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics Roy Harris (trans.), London, Duckworth, 1983.On Ideology: Chris Barker, Cultural Studies, Sage, London, 2000, pp. 48-65, (esp. pp. 54-65)