Ecological Analysis & Media.

The root word in Ecological is "Eco" which is associated with ecology, the environment, our world: our atmopshere. What does the ecology, which is associated with science, have to do with something like media? Well, the word ecology implies the study of environments: their structure, content, and impact on people. The impact. Look into the way our environment dictacts what we should do, what we think is okay and what we should avoid. The things you do in the comfort of your home are not always the same things you'd act on in public.  An environment is "a complex message system which imposes on human beings certain ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving."  It structures what we can see and say and, therefore, do.

Media Ecology was introduced in 1968 at the annual meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English by A. C. Eurich, ed. (1970). Media ecology looks into the depths of ways media and communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value. This analysis also looks at how "our interaction with media facilitates or impedes our chances of survival." Media ecology tries to discover and "understand what roles that media force us to play, how media structure what we are seeing, why media make us feel and act as we do.” But are we really forced or simply influenced? Our environment then specifies what we are permitted to do and what we are not. Media environments are in the form of  books, radios, films and television, etc., the specifications are more often implicit and informal. Media ecology is about seeing the big picture. It studies the ways that media help us live our lives. Understanding how media shape our lives by influencing how we make sense of our social world.

Image source: Google Images

Reference to: Critical Media Studies - Brian L. Ott and Robert L. Mack.

Medium Theory & Media.

Large, medium and small. The context of medium is completely different from the general meaning of medium that we all know all - not too big, and not too small. The real meaning of a medium is its capacity to transform human minds and human affairs and that is what the Medium theory represents. In this theory, it is believed that each medium of communication has fixed characteristics that influence communication in a particular manner. We are influenced by many things in the society that we live in today, but the way we communicate, act and understand is all learned. The Medium theory studies this. An example of a mass medium indicator in media is the Internet.

The real message of the internet is its capacity to extend "human sight, speech, and memory to an unprecedented degree." The goal is to reach a massive area and to influence. A lead indicator in this theory was Marshall McLuhan. He continuously evaluated different types of media based on a metaphorical understanding of their interactive “temperature” - referring to the variations of mediums as either hot or cool.

Hot medium: technology whose message is linear, sequential, and strictly controlled (Radio, Cinema, Video games)

Cool Medium: technology whose message favours participation and is multi-vocal and open ended. little given and much has to be filled in by listener/viewer. (Telephone, Television) 

Media has always been a major factor in the things we understand, what we are influenced by, and also in the ways we communicate. We are not necessarily defined by media, but we are engulfed into the trends bestowed onto us by the media and we channel them into our daily lives. Seeing how we are at the final end of the semester, I remember clearly Professor Petit speaking about how we are influenced by media and we do not even know it. Maybe we are, maybe we are not. But media triggers a reaction out of all of us and that is exactly what they want.

Jouissance

Jouissance is the disruptive pleasure that destabilizes culture and subjectivity, separating domination.

Six Modes of pleasure in Jouissance

1) Abjection (crossing cultural boundaries and the defilement of social categories, including the human body. Abjection results when cultural boundaries are crossed and defiled – the living and the dead, for example: vampires and zombies, The pleasure of abjection lies within its transgressive nature and its power to repel and fascinate, attract and disgust.)

2) Carnivalesque (inversion of social hierarchy; degredation, bebasement, uncrowning. Reality based pleasure, escaping rules and conventions that influence social control. Pleasure in bringing high status people down to earth)

3) Intertextuality (intentionally/unintentionally refers to other texts; shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy are examples. Deep focus on elements within the texts, absence of daydreaming but deep analysis instead, reflecting on matter.)

4) Irony (watch from a variety of viewpoints without choosing one and seeing everything as an ironic opposite of what's said)

5) Liminality (space between ideologies; borders and boundaries)

6) Depthlessness (development of the new information technologies has give to a culture and spectacle. Comsuming images without consuming their meanings.)

These six modes of pleasure all reflect what keeps audiences engaged when it comes to matters of pleasure. It all comes down to what our own personal preferences are, what engages us and what keeps us coming back. When acknowledging the factors of what keeps us interested in what the media dishes out to us in general society, these six factors which relate to our pleasure affect the types of shows we enjoy, what we reflect on or what we over look, the reality behind what we view and so forth. Media and Erotic analysis seeks to understand the ways in which not only the media affects the audience, but how the audience affects what the media will display.

Image source & credit: Google Images, and PowerPoint provided by M. Petit.

Erotic Analysis & Media.

Erotic analysis explores the array of resistive pleasures that audiences derive from media by examining the various sensuous, creative and transgressive ways in which persons use and interpret media. Resistance is defined as the symbolic and material practices that challenge cultural codes, rules and norms that neutralize social structure in a certain space and time. Now, resistance is based on five principles:

               Contextual (how, what when where and why; depends on prevailing norms or codes to resist)

               Tactical (must cease the opportunity; fleeting)

               Creative (takes advantages of available resources)

               Cumulative and Incremental (over time, slowly while incremental resistivness is motivated by personal benefits and desires)

Desire and pleasure hand in hand constitutes domination in one form or another. However, the term interpretive play is quite different. Interpretive Play is an active mode of reading media artefacts that ignores dominant interpretive codes in favor of pursuing one’s own desires. Erotic analysis encourages the understanding that neither text nor audience determines the other, but instead recognize the production of meaning through Open text (“writerly”) A text structured to call for active participation from audiences in the production of meaning. (e.g. Lost, Walking Dead) or Closed text (“readerly”) A text structured to elicit a particular, usually singular, response from audiences. e.g. a situation comedy; tv game show such as The Price is Right)

"Pleasure always means not to think about anything, to forget suffering even when it is shown. Basically it is helplessness." - Theodor W. Adorno.

Pleasure is everything in society. If it feels good, we want more. If it eases the burdens of our hard lives, we "need" it even more. Plaisir is a hegemonic pleasure. A type of pleasure that is both comfortable and comforting, but reproduces dominant culture and subjectivity. Dominant (hegemonic) is the gaze; form, genre and narrative. In contrast, Jouissance on the other hand is described to be the disruptive pleasure that is elusive and ecstatic pleasure that destabilizes culture and subjectivity. Jouissance creates a divide in dominant ideology. Resistive (counter-hegemonic): interpretive play; fandom, cultural production and participatory media.

Reception Analysis.

This analysis proposes a question: What is the role of the actual audience in the process of meaning-making in the media? Well, Reception analysis is described as the method of analysis that "stresses audience interpretation as the primary site of meaning-making." (Critical Media Studies, p. 222). As described in the textbook, Meaning is "fluid and communication is imperfect within this perspective and negotiation between media producers and consumers constantly skews the true meaning of media texts."

We are aware that what makes most happy is what media strives for, not everyone has the same tastes and preferences. This is where the "two step flow" model by Paul Lazarsfeld is introduced. Opinion leaders are considered to be the certain individuals that are attended to media more than others, simply for the fact that their significance can influence secondary audiences  Makes sense, huh? More audience, more money, and more views. In coherence with the reception analysis, the Encoding/Decoding Model  by Stuart Hall was made to make better sense of audience effects. Firstly, a code: a set of rules that govern the use of visual and linguistic signs within a culture. Note that codes are never neutral, and they shape the representations of race and gender in a hegemonic way. The left side called the encoding side of the model is concerned with how dominant ideologies come to exist in mass-mediated texts. Media texts are marked by hegemonic ideologies. The right hand decoding side of the model shows how audiences can actually interpret or read media texts according to three possible codes or positions: (Dominant, Oppositional & Negotiated)

As we know, what majority of the audience takes interest in, the more the media strives to make meaning out of what is most attracted to. Traditionally, this is how most decisions are made, so we can only imagine how much an impact the audience has in sales, progress and the end result of a mass media production. 

Polysemy & Polyvalence.

         There are many meanings to a beginning and end, there is meaning in every aspect of our lives. Even in the things we do not understand, we seek to find meaning. The same thing applies in mass media. Understanding is different as every person is different. To understand is to take things from one perspective and interpret it to give it meaning, for example interpreting media texts. Polysemy is simply defined as "many meanings”. Polysemy was proposed and influenced by John Fiske and according to our textbook, it refers to the relative openness of media texts to multiple interpretations. There are three primary types of polysemy: a. Strategic Ambiguity – The intentional decision on the part of media makers to craft a vague, semantically rich text that is open to multiple interpretations. (Breaking Bad, for example) b. Resistive Reading – The creation of a textual meaning that is contrary to the meaning intended by the text’s author, creator or producer. (Similar to Hall’s notion of “Oppositional Reading”) c. Hermeneutic Depth – Critics recognize that the multiple meanings in a text is the source of its overall meaning. Media studies critics play with and problematize any apparent single meaning and show how it is in fact one of multiple meanings. Polyvalence occurs when audience members share understandings of the denotations of a media artifact but disagree about the valuation of these denotations to such a degree that they produce notably different interpretations. As the terms both seem similar, they are quite different. Polyvalence differs from polysemy in being that the difference between audience members is a connotation rather than being a meaning as a whole. According to Celeste Condit polysemy is seen as the theory that accounts for how audience agree with texts. Stating that polysemy are “compromises that give the relatively well-to-do more of what they want, bringing along as many economically marginal viewers as they comfortable can.”  

Deployment of Alliance & Sexuality.

The topic of sexuality has always been a topic that holds many perspectives and views, so many that it is impossible to generalize all preferences under one. We question why we are attracted to the things that attract us, or how it develops, are we born straight or gay? What does gender have to with anything? With gender comes roles that are influenced by not only what we see, but what we have been taught.

"Sexuality is a social construction made invisible, natural, normal and biological by its discursive aspects.", suggested both theorists Michel Foucault and Judith Butler. 

Judith Butler argues that gender is not an objective natural thing, it is solely and completely a social construction. Repetition of gendered acts in the most mundane of daily activities (the way we walk, talk, gesticulate, etc.) maintains the hegemony of heteronormative standards and the power it entails. Society dictates what each gender should embody. As members of society, we fuel to these expectations because we have been conditioned to do so. On the other hand, Michel Foucault proposed that sexuality allows for people to perceive sexuality as a biological quality. The deployment of alliance is the history behind every society in order to understand relationships of all kind. While the deployment of sexuality is the historical understanding of people possessing a sexuality through the sensations of the body and the quality of pleasures. Foucault believed that our sexuality is influenced by what the higher powers of the past, and how they distinguished themselves in their sexuality.

In other words, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFTheldotb0

Queer analysis & Media: Heteronormativity

Brief overview of Queer Analysis: The word "queer" has been around for years now, in society the term queer is interpreted as a derogatory term associated with human sexuality; the term being slang for homosexual. However, the queer analysis seeks to disrupt socially constructed systems over meaning regarding human sexuality. Queer theorists work to bring the shortcomings of these labels to the light and show how they work to support systems associated with social power and privilege. The analysis explores the “natural” binary both being: heterosexuality and homosexuality. As outlined in the powerpoint, Sexuality is the emotional, romantic or sexual attraction toward others. In connection sexuality, there are variations of sexuality: Homosocial (same-sex environment, such as in prison, the military, and schools) Homoerotic (same sex feelings not acted upon in a sexual manner)  and Homosexual (same-sex erotic activity) 

 Heteronomativity is defined as the "system of inequity" stemming from the homosexual/heterosexual binary. This system convinces people that the binary exists, but it is not easily limited by biological sex. A “heteronormative” view is one that aligns biological sex, sexuality, gender identity, and gender roles. Anything outside this system is seen as “perverse”. To stigmatize homosexuality is called sexual othering. The reason why we classify gender roles, sexuality, preference and so forth is to be able to understand our sexuality. These various categories allow for humans to distinguish and make sense of their sexuality as each person is different. Imagine if everyone felt some type of attraction to the same sex and couldn't make out what exactly it is that they felt. The traditional gender roles and stereotypes fuel to the confusion to one's sexuality. These classifications help to make ends meet when it comes to inner acceptance of sexuality and expression.

Post-feminism & Media.

As defined in our textbook, post-feminism refers to the shift within the understanding of feminist culture. Post-feminism basically focuses on "the evolution in emphasis from the oppression of all women to the empowerment of individual women." Over the years this term has expanded in the focus on the status of women. Historically, the development began in the nineteenth and early twentieth century with the even of the First Wave. This event was worldwide but was most carried out particularly in the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States of America. The First Wave focused on inequalities, primarily on giving women the right to vote. As everyone has a voice and deserves to be heard as all contribute to the condition of society, women fought extensively for this right. Furthermore, the Second Wave occurring during the 1970's and the 1980's focusing on the right to have both workplace and reproductive rights in society. The Third Wave occurred more close to present day, in the 1990's and beyond.

In summary, the three waves of post-feminism were characterized by:

a. sexual agency, reproductive & voting rights

b. personal choice

c. individual empowerment

Although its difficult to pin point what exact post-feminism is, it has been broken down into four basic factors: melding of female sexuality in response to sexualized culture, dominance of individual choice and responsibility in associated with self discipline, supporting theories that address sexual difference between men and women and lastly, a reliance on irony in cultural messages. In all, women’s rights have grown and also progressed in due timing significantly in the last two decades. However the larger challenges at hand remain in order to end global gender discrimination.

Feminism Analysis: Gender Stereotypes in American Media

Feminism generally focuses on the diversity between women and men that are either socially empowered or the complete opposite. The concept of feminism often analyzes the different between both sexes - What the other gains as the other loses, or the general inequality between males and females. In society we know that feminists are depicted to be women with stubborn perspectives that seek to find a way to make it seem as though women have the lower hand in society. Well, if we were to focus on the amount of violence against women in some societies today, then there is some truth behind this stereotype.

Gender stereotypes comes in levels classified as: Active/passive (Males depicted to be the embodiment of strength in the ways media shows males participating in active and sport related activities, while women are represented as the passive beautiful stance, while the man embodies power) Public/private (Family provider being the man of the family, while the woman is the nurturer, the one who keeps the family together, takes care of the needs of the home rather than in society), Logical/emotional (Logic representing masculinity, emotions represent femininity), Sexual subject/sexual object (To be intelligent, logical and in charge is the male perspective, while the woman takes on the role as the sexual object, the one to be lusted after, submissive, emotional, etc.)

 It is clear that females are seen are the weaker link in media; being seen as the ones with the lower hand in society. While men seem to be more glorified or praised, the fact remains that truthfully, all parties in society are affected in one way or another. Media reaches mass majority, everyone endures the struggle of power regardless.

Lacanian Psychoanalysis vs. Freudian Psychoanalysis

Jacques Lacan, a French psychoanalyst who chose to further Sigmund Freud's theory but was always more curious about how the individual mind dealt with culture at large. Lacan believed that the unconscious and conscious mind had to do with language more so than Freud's theory that the factors of the mind were somewhat sexually related. Lacanian Psychoanalysis notes three factors of human existence:
The Real: beyond signification, the things that cannot be explained or put into words. The Mirror stage: basis of ego formation, The Imaginary and the Symbolic (Law of the Father): both represent the steps that a newborn takes in the process of developing a psychical structure that is considered to be normal. Lack: desires unknown to unconscious self as unable to comprehend and Shared: sense of loss between language and imaginary pleasures. On the other side, the Freudian Psychoanalysis theory claims that a person's identity is not passed on or inherited through genes but is a result from their past experiences specifically taking place during youth. This resulting in our identities being influenced by outside forces that were encountered during the early experiences in their lives.

Freud/s theory was based on the preoedipal stage (pleasure principle), postoedpal stage (curbing desire), desire explained through: repression, definition of the unconscious being repressed desires and wanting to make them known or felt, and the phallus: father/s sexual characteristics reflect sexual power to the child

Comparing the two, it is logical to believe that without language, it is impossible to understand, express or denote our experiences. Language is the basis of most of things that we don't feel through personal experience first. Freud's theory being built on the sense that the past and what we experience make up who we were, who we are and who we will become associates with Lacan's theory. The mind is comprised of many factors. There is no doubt that our past influences us, but it does not dictate who we will be. It is simply something that we have lived through and we choose to decide whether or not to let it affect who we will become.

Freudian Psychoanalysis

The face behind the analytic theory: Sigmund Freud - an Austrian psychiatrist that believed that a huge part of the conscious is developed through our subconscious. The things in which we suppress while conscious make up who we are; we are what we think and the things we choose to hide or refuse to address play a role in our overall being.

The Freudian Psychoanalysis theory claims that a person's identity is not passed on or inherited through genes but is a result from their past experiences specifically taking place during youth. Result of identity is influenced by outside forces that were encountered during the early experiences in their lives. In our textbook, it states that Freud believed that babies are born with an ability to experience pleasure of all kinds, labeling this as the polymorphously preserve. The states of developing sexuality occurs in stages:
1. Oral stage: the bond between a mother and her child through breastfeeding. (The mouth being the main erotigenic zone, where most pleasurable needs are met) - Comforting fantasies
2. Anal and phallic stages: Pleasure in letting go of wastes, while phallic stages focus on the genitals as a whole. - Sadistic fantasies and the phallic stage associates with fantasies of control.
3. Oedipus complex: The child's mental structure on desires that are both conscious and unconscious are separated and preserved based on a mother and father influence.

Being so concerned with the mind Freud sought out to understand the bases of humans different factors thrill us, captivate us, as well as our sexual experiences, but mostly how we arrive at our final destination and what drives our direct human action. "Our subjectivity is the result of identification with outside forces and contact with those outside forces results in the formation of the conscious and unconscious divide."   

Image source: Google Images.

The Pleasure Principle vs. Reality Principle: Psychoanalytic Analysis

                                                                                        (Copyrights to YouTube)

The concept of this term pleasure principle reminds me of Janet Jackson's hit song from back in the day entitled "Pleasure Principle" and although they are two completely different matters when compared to what the pleasure principle is from a psychoanalytic perspective, the factor still remains that there is desire present in our wants and potential needs. By the Sigmund Freud, the pleasure principle is defined as: "the uncontrollable human drive to satisfy desire, or an appetite for something that promises enjoyment, satisfaction and pleasure in its attainment." As humans, we crave and desires things in the matter of sex, food and power in all forms. What the psychoanalytic analysis proposes is that pleasure comes from many things we might not associate with, things such as rules and laws. Pleasure does not only concern the parts of life where we experience joy and comfort, pleasure can also come from thrill and excitement - our own forms of ecstasy. The pleasure principle works as an aid to allow people to experience satisfaction that is unrestricted and in all forms for every possible desire.

On contrary to the pleasure principle, the reality principle which "represents the constant curbing of desire according to possibility, law, or social convention."(Ott et al. 2012). This theory is associated with the ego which is a part of the mind where we outweigh the positive and negatives of a particular situations before we make a final decision; desire is no longer present, but the conscience and the concern of the outcome become the main priority. Thus leading into repression which is the process of mentally keeping our desires below recognition; in other words not expressing our desires but rather suppressing them instead.

The common difference between the pleasure principle and the reality principle is that in one sense you are only concerned with obtaining pleasure while the other proposes weighing out the cause and effect of a desire, controlling the desire for pleasure, and understanding the concept of moderation and self control.

Othering & Media.

        The relationship between what is "normal" and what is "white" is the concept of othering. It is another branch in media representation that diminishes minorities by classifying them under a "white" category which represents the idea of what is natural and what is considered to be the norm. These terminologies are not meant to be considered as racial classifications but it has proposed many consequences due to its practices. Othering has a significant history, stemming back to its use in early Hollywood times. Specifically speaking, actresses and actors of colour were hired and given the roles of playing ethnic character such as Native American characters for instance, while actors of white American decent played the roles of characters similar to that profile. The process of this concept of othering had brought about clear distinction between white and non white actors and this has impacted today's culture in media.

                   "The notion of othering greatly influences the way media texts function in America"...

Taking rap music as a common example of difference or othering in media today, the genre is often characterized as a genre where most African Americans popularize it and thus making it a norm to be a place where a certain general population participate mostly with because it is accepted as what's normal and what society is used to. However rap artists of different races such as Eminem for example have changed this perception that rap is an all one type culture and nothing more. But what acts as the othering factor here is the difference between middle class, white individuals involved in the rap genre versus the African American rap culture norm proposed on society for years on end.

How Does Ideology Work?

         Well, how does Ideology create us? How does it work? How does it even influence us to begin with? Think about back in the day, before religion became the base of some social structures, the way elders got the young to believe in their truths was through story telling. Myths of all kinds, no matter how unrealistic a dragon that was half human was capable of changing the weather with the snap of his fingers, spreading fire throughout the land when his people rebelled against him sounded - whatever it was, it was used to install a different sort of truth into their people.

"Ideological Processes: How Does Ideology Work?
1. Myth (Roland Barthes) – a sacred story or “type of speech” that confirms and reproduces ideologies in relationship to a cultural object such as a media artifact.
2. Doxa (Pierre Bourdieu) – knowledge that is beyond question—the “common sense” aspects of culture that supports certain ideologies as simply “the way things are”.

3. Hegemony (Antonio Gramsci) – the process by which one ideology subverts other competing ideologies and gains cultural dominance"

           Ideology not only is a proposed way to live, our own personal idea of where the truth lies, its what we believe in and it is what we practice. Similar to culture, ideology embodies the same attributes of purpose and impact in each individual that abides by these ideologies - these ways of living and practices; whether forcefully or by genuine desire. “Ideological discourse not only speaks to us, it creates the us”. 

                                                                                                       Image source: Google Images.

Ideology: What is it?

        The concept of  Ideology is based on a culture's specific idea of sets of beliefs and customs. This also deals with habits and rituals which are continuously practiced in the given society. Those who abide by these customs, the beliefs in which they stand by are conceived to be the truth, it is what is believed to be natural and useful to their lives and to those in their culture. However, different truths apply to different people and cultures. Religion is a perfect example of an ideology, a truth that is perceived by one group of people, but considered to be aloof to another. The contrast between Muslim faith and Catholic faith, they both possess different ideas of truth, faith, and belief. These sets of beliefs may seem arbitrary, or false to those who adhere to another ideology. "Within any given culture, many ideologies coexist; some are marginalized while others are hegemonic (i.e. dominant and the cultural norm)"

Now that we have understood the underlying message behind what ideology is, the next question this proposes is: what does it do? In class, it was listed that Ideology:
1. Limits the range of acceptable and even conceivable ideas.
2. Normalizes (e.g., naturalizes) particular sets of social relations.
3. Privileges some interests over others.
4. Interpellates individuals into subjects.

Ideologies may be held consciously or unconsciously, people are also either forced into these ideologies or simply willing to adapt to them. Hailing is term used to describe when individuals recognize and respond to an ideology and allow it to represent who they are. Culture is closely related to the concept of ideology, these two impacts reflect on the individual, as our textbook states, individuals are “always already interpellated” into ideology. 

(Image source: Google Images)

Semiology: Signs & Language.

Semiology, a concept established by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) described to be, "“A science that studies the life of signs within society. Semiology investigates the nature of signs and the laws that govern them” (Critical Media Studies, p. 101). As stated in class, the importance of semiology lays in the fact that it permits us to understand and analyze culture as if it were a language. Signs clarify our understanding, they indicate what we are trying to express through language, symbolizing a specific meaning. It proposes the question: if signs did not exist, how would life be? How would we know what to do, when too much is enough or is not enough? Basically, how do we know? There are three characteristics of signs: a. Arbitrary, b. Linear and c. Difference.

According to our Critical Media Studies textbook, Arbitrary is "the meaning of a sign is dependent on its social, historical and cultural context.", Linear means that signifiers operate in a chain which changes the meaning of what is being said and finally Difference associates with the way one sign recalls the other, even if it is not present. "Meaning is made through absence. Meaning is made through difference." If we cannot distinguish one word from another then we cannot communicate. For example, the meaning of “man” is defined through difference and by its opposite: woman. To be a man is not to be a woman. We require one to know about the other. Media associates with this concept in terms of the types of information and data they present to the world.

                                                "This idea of binary oppositions is very important."

Taken from powerpoint, copyright to Professor Petit.

Culture & Media.

Culture is what makes each of us different from the next. Culture is what defines us as humans and classifies us in society. It is the traditions we are taught and it is in what we are taught that reflects in our impact in society and how we contribute to it. Culture is defined according the freedictionary.com as: The patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population.

“Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language. This is so partly because of its intricate historical development, in several European languages, but mainly because it has now come to be used for important concepts in several distinct intellectual disciplines and in several distinct and incompatible systems of thought.”

Raymond Williams, Keywords (1976) 

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~dml3/880williams.htm#N_1_

Culture defines what we consider reality to be. Media is a universal influence world wide, thus reflecting how much we consider to be our own realities and perceptions of what is real and what is not. There are no boundaries within culture and what media considers to be right and just. It is important for media companies keep every aspect of freedom of speech and expression as the main focus because the more audience they have to appeal to, the better. Media strives to paint the picture of having something made for everyone. This is the definition of culture. The influence of semiology is the ability for culture to act as a language. What we speak, express and communicate to one another and around the world. Signs, language are the key concepts of communication. What we speak is our language, which is stemmed from our culture; to be elaborated on in the following post. 

Pragmatic Analysis

Pragmatic analysis could simply be classified as just another branch of philosophy - most concerned with the truth and depth of practicality and the cause and effect. Pragmatics believe the truth is depended upon the way problems are solved; a pragmatic is most concerned with the result and outcome of various aspects in general and in society for common good. Practical reason, regulation, truth and understanding is what pragmatist's view what media should embody and showcase to society. It is hard to please everyone, but with logical reason and regulation, from a realistic point of view, pragmatics view media as somewhat essential for the benefit of common good.

From Pragmatism Approach, there are two concepts that influence the overall analysis: consequences and contingencies  Consequences first off refers to the effects of a given regulation or policy on general society at large. Pragmatics believe the consequences must be beneficially for society if the regulation is considered to be good. While Contingence on the other hand deals with the factors of a regulation to be addressed as the final context and situation. Furthermore, social norms such as technological uses form contingent factors influence the types of regulations. The first set of regular contingencies is the tension between free speech and public interest. The second set of regular contingencies is the give and take relationship between government regulation and media self regulation. If it is one thing that the media strives to attain is the interest of a wide set audience. From a pragmatic perspective, the main thing pragmatics are interested in are the answers and deeper context in their choices of content and overall message. Subject to chance, regulations associated with media must benefit the common good overall and what ultimately interests the greater target audiences.

Media & Violence.

If it is one thing we see throughout media, especially in those action packed video games such as the infamous Grand Theft Auto is violence. Violence plays a major role in the overall aspect of content. It's engaging, it keeps you at the edge of your seat, it keeps you wanting more. Violence is engaging to some, terrifying to others, while others may feel indifferent to the acts of violence in general. Throughout our last lecture in class, the content of what is shown worldwide was a main topic. The idea that freedom of speech while protecting the minds of those viewing certain programs has become a debate on just how much or how little we feed into the ways of the content we view.

Media violence can influence a term called victim effect in which people develop and experience fearfulness of violence. There are various theories suggesting the different ways in which media violence influences/affects different persons in different way. Realistic Violence generates mostly an emotional commotion and approach due to pureness of its content. While Aggressor effect on the other hand suggests that exposure to media violence brings about pleasure and encourages confrontational behavior. The theory of disinhibition suggests that media violence softens the social norms against violence that people would usually abide by. The theory of enculturation is the on going exposure to media violence, thus inspiring the idea of violence as a norm, encouraging aggressive behaviour. The theory of imitation maintains that audiences will copy the aggressive behaviour they see on media programs, especially targeted towards those who do not fully understand violent displays and the extents of it.

One thing that media corporations want to allow is a little bit of everything to interest a wide majority of viewers - which of course keeps everyone coming back for more. But the problem arises when individuals either take too literally to what they view or take it with a grain of salt. Television Content Rating systems have been established to separate the types of content targeted towards different age groups and audiences. This has allowed for both freedom of speech and expression as well as discretion. As they always say, a little discretion goes a long way.

Image source: Google Images.

Organizational Analysis.

How are our goals achieved? Usually with some type of system or with a plan on how to achieve what it is we want with ultimate success. Well, the same thing applies with media and life in general. Organizational Analysis is that one theory that shows us all the things that we cannot always see. The typical media critic who takes on an organizational perspective is invested the process of an organization and the processes it undertakes. Most organizations have documents such as codes of conduct to symbolize the right and wrong way of doing things within that position given. Organizational Analysis is used to understand why media produces the type of content that they do.

The dimensions of organization range from structure and process. Both correspond with how the job will get done within an organization. The way the show is ran starts with the use of a higher level in hierarchy, differentiation and specialization, the professional and formalization where practices are conformed to accept conventions. The way media produces the matter that it does called process, reflects on the framework and what it has been built upon. As Organizational culture is the set of norms, values and customs, this culture is built on the effectiveness of: performance, narrative, textual, management and technology. Performance to express significance, narrative to influence performance in position, textual documents to enforce and support norms such as handbooks, policy manuals, management to assist in success and productivity and lastly technology to perform the skills required for jobs. All factors that contribute to the true value of the foundation built on progress. 

                                                           Image source: Google Images.

Media & Marxist Point of View.

In my previous post, as I talked about false consciousness and the media's connection to it surrounding us, a Marxist would deal with the concept of media. A Marxist is most concerned with what is the economic system behind media, who owns and controls the media. What a Marxist focuses on how the ideas are spread or neglected by the media.Why? Because mass media has influenced our minds consistently over the years. A Marxism's job is to analyze these factors and the extent of the reaction they cause from a social and political perspective.

As Marxism is both a theory and also a social and political movement, the movement has stemmed from the minds of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles, specifically in their writings in "The German Ideology" established in 1845. As learned in last week's lecture, Marxist belief stems in "the mode of production that society determines the social relations of productions or class structure".  The idea that the material world impacts human thought immensely could only end up with media having a hand in determining our conscience.

The base/superstructure represents Karl Marx's perspective of the material conditions of society:

It has been said that the modes of production within any society is characterized by two aspects: "forces of production" which falls into matters such as land, natural resources and technology which are required for material production. While the second aspect is"relations of production" which is labor practices or ownership of property and/or the ways goods are distributed. The way mass media impacts society from a Marxist perspective analysis is the same foundation of what we are built on as a society. We require religion, impact from the media, education to expand our means to living. While the base of it all lays within the political economy platform, we thrive off of the material aspect of what the world has to offer, which just so happens to be where media plays a big role.

Mass Media and False Consciousness

The ways media tries to sell us various ideas that shape and influence our beliefs to reach the main goal of selling a message has been a controversial topic for years.While often times we are rarely aware that we ourselves to some degree, embody the notion of false consciousness, we too give into the messages of media from time to time. An example of false consciousness would be knowing that a product the media is trying to persuade us into buying is evidently useless, but going along and buying it anyway. Now the simple question is, why? The mass media do their job by distracting people from the realities of society and of creating false consciousness. Giving you a reason to believe that what media has to offer will improve your life even when you already can note a few reasons why it simply wouldn't change anything. But as they always say, keep an open mind. And this is where media makes it appeal.

False consciousness is any belief or view that prevents a person from being able to understand the true nature of a situation. Now, one emotion we feel as humans often times is stress. The media appeals to these everyday situations by presenting us with something that makes us feel as though we can find an outlet through them. Why else would people use Twitter for example? Well,  the media presents the idea that it can be used as an outlet to rant about different thoughts and complaints. Let us not forget about the Apple commercial made in 1984, which was also discussed in class, where the use of women and technology come into play. The imagery of women being liberated and acting as a personification of a computer, sends out a message to escape the mess we are in, resulting in following another trend to "liberate" us.


In all, as it has been said, the media industry's "main business isn't to sell product, it is to expand and train our consciousness in order to exploit it."

                                                                       Source: YouTube

Why study media?

Well, why not? Media has become one of the most influential factors of our time. The concept of media surrounds us on a daily basis. How do you think most of our knowledge of what goes on in the world is accumulated? In the news - hearing about that shooting that took place last week at that place, in that area; and all the tabloids broadcasting over the crazy lives of various celebrities? Rest assured that without the impact of media, half of the matters that take place around our world would surely go unnoticed.

Have you noticed that once the news talks about a certain matter, we are all aware? And once the news disregards of the once "breaking news" worthy reports, we forget about it? As professor Petit talked about in our first lecture, "Most of what we know comes from media apart from in body life experiences." As media becomes our reality, as it revolves around our daily lives, the ability to be aware of what is real and what simply is not about our world becomes clouded by the illusion that media tries to sell to us.

To be able to study just exactly how media continues to prevail around the world, the great extents that media goes through just to get a message across, the more we have a chance of combating the effect of what media is capable of pulling us into if we are not careful. Like Marshall McLuhan stated, "We make our tools and our tools make us."

Image source: Google Images.