Intro to Media Studies Exam Flashcards
What is the ‘Myth of Facility’?
While media often seem immediate and easy to understand, it does take effort to understand media texts
What is signification?
The relationship between the signifier and the signified
Signifier
The signifier is the physical part of the sign
Signified
The signified is the mental part of the sign
Denotation
Denotation refers to the simple, basic, descriptive level that is widely agreed on (e.g. hat = cowboy)
Conotation
Connotation refers to meaning at a wider level, that can be debated, diffuse and reflective of ideology. E.g. hat = masculinity, law and order, history etc
What is hot media?
Hot is low participation Radio Photograph Film Books
What is cold media?
Cold is high participation → game Telephone Cartoon Television Comics
Hot vs cold media
“Hot media are, therefore, low in participation, and cool media are high in participation.” A way of comparing texts
Define: The ‘other’
The Other: Categories of people who are not exnominated in society have been theorised as forming the ‘other’. Edward Said described ways in which ‘othering’ can occur…
Define: Symptomatic reading
Symptomatic reading: A symptomatic reading is one that is sensitive to the ideology at work in the text. Sometimes this is described as a Marxist reading. An example of a symptomatic reading could be…. Spiderman, coming from the Frankfurt school
Define: Modernism
Modernism: Modernism was a set of aesthetic responses to the era of modernity. Though it would be a mistake to suggest that all modernists were the same, or homogenous, one common uniting factor for modernist artists was a desire to ‘humanise the machine’. An illustrative example of modernism is… (Spaghetti western, The Rite of Spring, Le Corbusier architect)
Define: semiotics
Semiotics: Semiotics is, according to Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, ‘a science that studies the life of signs’. A semiotic approach to analysing media includes a heightened sensitivity to signifiers, critical distance, and close scrutiny of a text. Signification is a process involving two elements: the signifier, which is the physical part of the sign…
- What are the possible ‘decoding’ positions put forth by Stuart Hall, and what are their implications for how we understand audiences?
Hegemonic/Dominant
Negotiated
Resistant/Oppositional
A current affair story about the dangers of Shar’ia law.
Piracy ad
Implications: considering the audience as active consumers and meaning-makers; ‘meaning’ as being outside the text → Stuart Hall, we don’t just get injected with meaning, part of meaning is outside the text
- Describe three key features of postmodern media and identify how they diverge from modernist thought.
Intertextual Bricolage Pastiche An example for each Diverging from modernist thought: resisting metanarratives, breaking down binaries, opening meaning to the audience
Intertextuality
Texts that refer to other texts
A Postculturalist concept coined by Julia Kristeva in 1966
It positions a text at the centre of a spider’s web of other texts it cites, plagiarises and alludes to
Places emphasis on the viewer’s own literacy and understanding (audience, context)
Frankfurt School
Adorno and Horkheimer
A group of intellectuals originally based in Frankfurt although many of them were exiled and some ended up in Los Angeles
Influenced by Karl Marx
Chose the term ‘industry’ rather than ‘Mass culture’ to avoid the impression that culture arises spontaneously from the masses
Ideology, Interpellation (Althusser), Hegemony (Gramsci), State Apparatuses (Althusser) and Symptomatic reading
Adorno and Horkheimer
- All mass media are the same
- Perceived differences between mass produced culture support the overall system
- The financial ‘industry’ of mass media has created a monopoly
- The similarity of mass media gives audiences no room to think and reflect
Marxism
Ideology
Raymond Williams (Keywords)
1. A system of beliefs characteristic of a particular class or group
2. A system of illusory beliefs which can be contrasted with true’ or scientific knowledge
3. The general process of meanings and ideas
Interpellation
Louis Althusser describes how ideology functions using the term ‘interpellation’
Ideology works on a mass by addressing the individual
The ‘hail’
The Frankfurt School argued the media interpellates its audience
Hegemony
Antonio Gramsci was a founding member of the Italian Communist Party, and was imprisoned by Mussolini’s fascist regime from 1926 until his death in 1937
Wrote about ‘cultural hegemony’ in his Prison Notebooks
Hegemony: describes how one social group can dominate society
The ruling class normalises disparities and creates the perception that their power benefits everyone
State Apparatus
Louis Althusser says that the state maintains power through two forms of institution:
1. Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs): the military, the courts, the police
2. Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs): churches, schools, the media
What is a symptomatic reading?
Ideology
A symptomatic reading is one that is sensitive to the ideology of a text. It looks to find instances of cultural hegemony at work.
What is the ‘culture industry’ argument?
It presses the same stamp on everything
All mass media is the same, pretending to offer choice
Frankfurt School “chose the term ‘Industry’ rather than ‘Mass Culture’ to avoid the impression that culture arises spontaneously from the masses” (Stam, p.68)
Name the three different types of decoding? Whose idea was this?
Stuart Hall ‣ Hall accordingly offers three different positions for decoding: 1. Dominant/hegemonic reading 2. Negotiated reading 3. Oppositional/resistant reading
What is exnomination?
Dominant groups in society that are normalised to the point of being invisible Exnomination: ‘outside of naming’, ‘the social class that does not want to be named’
What are the 3 types of cultural capital?
Pierre Bourdieu and cultural capital
Bourdieu suggests three types of cultural capital.
Embodied: The way you present yourself
Objectified: Maybe you own a great work of art?
Institutionalised: Qualifications, awards
What is the ontology of the image?
The relationship of the image to real life
Andre Bazin: The philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality.
Who was Andre Bazin?
André Bazin (1918-1958)
French film critic, cofounder of hugely influential journal Cahiers du Cinéma
Like the Frankfurt School, Bazin was troubled by media’s role in the rise of fascism, but celebrated the power of film to represent reality
Mummy complex
Ontology of the image
What is the ‘mummy complex’?
“[A]t the origin of painting and sculpture there lies a mummy complex… the preservation of life by a representation of life”
Who was Walter Benjamin?
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936)
Mechanical Reproduction:
Shifts art from its original context
Therefore diluting its aura
Provides a new way of seeing the world
One way of which ‘reception in a state of distraction’
What is modernism?
The reaction to modernity
Aesthetic movement
‘humanising the machine’
What did Dick Hedige think about subcultures?
The subcultures challenge dominant forms of society through resistance
Punks resisted the market, made their own clothes
Subcultures: Dick Hebdige argues subcultures work on the level of style and symbols, hybridising available material
What is Taylorism?
Henry Ford → assembly lines
Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) devised a method based on simplified movements for workers, as determined by rigorous time-and-motion studies
What are the key traits of postmodernism?
Intertextuality
Bricolage
(Creating things from things that are already around)
Pastiche
When/what is postmodernism?
1934+ (Mid 20th century) A critique of modernism A time period A set of aesthetics A way of understanding knowledge A set of ideas Jean-Françoise Lyotard: “Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives”
What’s a metanarrative?
A grand theory that explains the world
Bricolage:
creation of something from a diverse range of things that happen to be available (‘to hand’)
(Punk)
Pastiche:
Pastiche: celebratory imitation (often slavish)
Intertextuality:
Intertextuality: a text as at the centre of a spider’s web of other texts it cites, plagiarises, and alludes to (coined by Julia Kristeva in 1966)
What’s a binary?
2 options
Postmodernism wants to get rid of binaries → High culture vs low culture
Wants to mash together
