Communication 372
Updated 6/11/07
Representation of Difference
Introductory Notes
& Questions
There are different ways to study representation of race,
sex/gender, sexual orientation, nationality, age, and physical disability in
the media. Two primary means are through quantitative content analysis and
through interpretive rhetorical criticism.
For this class period, you will read two journal articles and my class notes. For each article, know:
Main questions:
Ø
The main purpose of the article
Ø
Any theories or key terms for the review of
literature
Ø
The specific research question(s) or hypothesis(es) of the study
Ø
The method the author(s) used
Ø
The key findings. For these, note how they are
stated and the types of claims that can be made.
Ø Is the article scientific, humanistic, or critical (note—might combine 2 of the above!—a good chance to assumptions of research for the final exam!)
Article 1: Dixon, Azocar, & Casas: Representation of race & crime on televised news.
Article 2: This semester, we will read essays in Martin, Nakayama, & Flores for 2nd
article [See notes below!] Choose 1 essay and respond (required!)
For a power point that summarizes some of these same points. This is a fun Ppt, with links to various videos that you can think about or analyze as a response to the Webboard Question below. There are many concepts pertaining to specific theories that are useful, but not necessary for quiz/exam. Let the red words guide you!: http://www.ilstu.edu/~jrbaldw/372/Representation.ppt
Introduction:
Like any area of intercultural research, we can see both scientific and humanistic approaches to the study of representation in the media. First, however, we should ask why intercultural communication researchers and students should even be interested in media representation. Briefly, we can summarize two reasons that media is important (but there may be more!)
Mass media produces (creates) and reproduces (passes on)
ways of seeing that at a minimum reflect, and some argue, shape our
culture. That is, we can look at the media of a culture to
understand more about its values and norms (as long as we realize the
limitations of looking at media. For example, does American news really
represent what American “culture” is like, or only what “stands out” (is
“new”) from everyday American culture—the noteworthy, the surprising. Or,
more, does it represent what media
makers, supported by advertisements, think will sell, thus the
sensational, the absurd, the violent, the conflictual?
Also, if we agree with certain scientific or humanistic theories of media,
long-term exposure to media may lead people to see the world in a certain
way or to behave in certain ways. Over time, if enough people are so
influenced, then culture itself will change.- Mass media produces and reproduces stereotypes of cultural groups within a country, as well as the view of people from other cultures. It is likely that the mediated representation of cultural others is one of the primary places we gain meanings about others, especially if we don’t have contact with those others. But even if we do have contact with people from the group, we may interpret our experiences through what we “learn” in the media. Note: Most of my students today believe strongly that they are “active” individuals, making their own choices, not influenced by media. We don’t want to think that we are dupes, being fooled or misled by media images. But studies show that media does have some influence on the way we see reality or act, even if we are not aware of or will not admit media’s influences.
Ways of studying
media:
Some
people study media to make claims about media in general—that is claims that
can be generalized to a large section of media—such as a channel (television) a
genre (primetime family shows, sports, country & western music), or to a
specific genre within a specific channel (print journalism; television
advertisements). Others seek to determine if exposure to media has effects on
individuals (does it make us more apathetic about violence? Does it lower
women’s self-esteem? Is it associated with aggressiveness in children?).
Studies of either of these types are considered to be scientific (cause-effect, variables,
prediction, generalizable claims of Truth). Studies
in this line usually measure variables and do statistics to see if there are differences
between groups (ex: Are women and men represented differently in
country & western, rap, and Christian videos? Do Blacks and Whites react
differently to racial representation in commercials aimed at children?) or determine whether there are relationships between variables (Is girls’ self-esteem related to their use of
teen fashion magazines? Do people who read rifle and gun magazines rate higher
on ethnocentrism than those who do not?). [Video
to L is Marshall McLuhan, http://crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/mcluhan.mov,
one of the leading writers in the argument that the shape of
the media, e.g., print versus televised versus digital, affects all the
rest of society. See summary of his views at: http://crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/mcluhannotes.htm].
Other studies seek to interpret a single text. That text
might be a specific speech (ex: the 2004
Finally, studies of either type (scientific or humanistic) can take a specific value orientation—to fight social inequality, to criticize structural inequalities (sexism, racism, classism, etc.) in the text. We will call these studies that deliberately seek to change social structures or fight mediated forms of oppression critical. However, in communication, most (not all) critical work has been interpretive/humanistic (see reason below)
Scientific Theories:
Several scientific theories of media effects have focused on how media might change the world (more than we can cover here). Be responsible only for those bolded in red (main idea of each theory!)
- Diffusion of Innovations: Focuses on how media, as well as face-to-face communication, works to bring change to a culture or group as a majority of the group (not just single individuals) are persuaded to adopt some new idea, behavior, or artifact (the “innovation”), such as crop-rotation or use of condoms to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
- Technological Determinism: Marshall McLuhan (the man who coined the phrase, “the global village”) suggested that the forms of our media (e.g., writing as opposed to telegraph as opposed to television as opposed to computer) shape the rest of the culture. It is not the content of the media that has the greatest effect, but rather the form. McLuhan argued, “We shape our tools and our tools shape us.” (See, related to this, work of Neil Postman, who criticizes some modern forms of media as they impact culture).
- Cultivation
Theory: This theory suggests that prolonged exposure to television
leads to a general way of seeing the world. While original studies
and theory focused on violence (ex: the Mean World Syndrome—the idea that heavy
viewers see the world as “a mean and scary place”), later work has
considered stereotypes and gender roles. The idea is that heavy media
users (in
Studies often contain two important phases:
- Content analysis of media content: Usually a quantitative analysis of a large number of media images, such as commercials during primetime for a month time period, a large number of romance novels, or a randomly selected (fairly large) number of magazine advertisements in a specific type of magazine (e.g., women’s variety magazines). Often the findings are presented only in terms of numbers and percentages. This stage is important because it tells us whether a group is represented in a medium and genre and often a quantitative description of how groups are represented (e.g., are Blacks or Whites more often portrayed as perpetrators or victims of crime).
- Comparison of viewer’s attitudes with
media content: Often, based on their own research or that of others,
researchers will develop a study to measure audience attitudes towards
something (such as stereotypes towards minorities, perception of
appropriate gender roles) to see the degree to which people’s attitudes
match what research has shown to be true of representation in
the
media. - Social Cognitive Theory: Originally called social learning theory, this theory suggests that people learn how to behavior by modeling the behavior of others (for example, parents, friends, teachers, coaches)—but that one of the primary models for our behavior is what we see on television.
Critical Theory, Cultural
Studies, and Extensions Beyond
General Focus of Critical Theory
One of the problems with most quantitative research is that it has found only limited support of connections between media use and either attitude or behavior. Some writers, like Stuart Hall, have supposed that one of the reasons of this is that there is a conflict of interest—many of the research projects on these theories is supported by major media companies. Stuart Hall and others turned in the 1970s and 1980s to begin to apply tools from literature analysis to popular media, using almost exclusively an interpretive (rather than quantitative) approach. This led to the area we now call cultural studies, which looks at popular culture from a critical, interpretive (usually) perspective. But this area is grounded in a larger framework of what is called critical theory. Critical theory is any branch of socially conscious theory that seeks to fight or address some form of social oppression or inequality. Note that critical theory is the bigger “umbrella” that covers cultural studies and many other areas of critical research (such as feminism).
That is, there are many types of critical theory, and many critical theorists do not look at popular culture (such as feminists who look at language use). Once within critical theory, however, we should be aware that a particular study might use strands from any one of the various approaches presented here. That is, a study might look at mediated culture (cultural studies) from a feminist, postmodern stance. Or the study might look at the construction of live college football games using a Marxist, semiotic approach. Critical Theory is very diverse: it can be quantitative or qualitative; it can exist in any given field; scholars within can hold strongly opposing viewpoints. The key elements that hold CT together are the desire to view phenomena in relation to the surrounding cultural environment, and a focus on power/domination. In later versions (e.g., postmodernism), this focus is broadened to also consider pleasure/freedom of expression. Cultural Studies is a branch of CT which focuses on popular culture of a given society.
To save on your reading or printing, I am greatly summarizing several of the strands of thought, but focusing more on those that are the most relevant for our short term! For the longer notes, link here.
History
and Key Terms:
The
·
A belief that
capitalism was the root of many social problems, including prejudice (The Authoritarian Personality, Adorno & Horkheimer, 1950).
·
A distrust or
dislike of popular culture, as it deceived and distracted the workers from
“revolution”
·
A belief that
capitalism turned everything eventually (including folk culture) into
something that could be bought or sold for a price (a commodity to be
consumed)—that is commodification.
For example, when O.J. Simpson was accused of
murdering his ex-girlfriend, two news magazines presented images of Simpson. Time’s cover was significantly darker,
and Simpson had more stubble, even though they came from the same news
photograph. Time later admitted they
took artistic license with the image to make it look more criminal (note: the
tie of “darkness” to criminal is based on racist
assumptions about criminality).
But in terms of commodification,
Simpson’s racial identity and complexion became something to be manipulated in
order to sell a magazine. It was commodified.
Specifically, some authors (e.g., Martin
& Nakayama, 2000), distinguish between:
§
Folk Culture: The everyday culture of a group of people,
especially as presented through artifacts, dance, and so on (e.g., Carnaval, candomblé, and capoeira of
§
High culture: Cultural representations that appear “only
once”—such as an original painting (seen in an art museum), an opera or play;
might also include “classic” novels of the literary canon (Shakespeare, Göthe). The original critical theorists (F.S.) noted that
high culture was something that was experienced by elite.
§
Low/popular culture: Culture of the everyday people, but not the
artistic representations—not the creations
of the everyday people (that would be folk culture), but the culture that is consumed by the everyday people—that is,
mass-communicated culture: billboards, music
videos, fashion, romance and mystery novels, the evening news, and so on. The F.S.
did not like low culture, as they felt that it was a form of “commodification”—that it turned “art” into a consumer good
and that, by purchasing it, the masses fell into a a
sense of false consciousness, thinking they had “arrived” and could “experience
culture.” This, in turn, distracted them from rebelling against the elite…
Ø Structuralism: Many linguists and anthropologists (like Claude
Lévi-Strauss) began to note how certain social structures (e.g., capitalism)
permeated all of society. One could look at the myths or religion of a culture
and see the same patterns as one saw in the family and (most importantly) in
the economic system. This supported what Marx said about society: that the base
(the economic system) led everything else—media, religion, art, literature,
politics, family, and so on (the superstructure) to support its
existence. If a society is capitalistic, all aspects of the society grow to
support and propagate that economic system.
Ø Neo-Marxism:
Following the structuralists,
many writers began a break with Marxism in some ways. To
various degrees, they still believed that economic systems created and
recreated themselves through other aspects of culture, but, to different
degrees, some begin to think that there was more to the mess than just social
class. The writers are diverse, but some of the things that came from this
school become very important as we move to cultural studies (C.S. writers
read and cite the authors from this school of thought extensively. For example,
some have said that Antonio Gramsci and Roland
Barthes are among the most cited authors in current media studies!). Some
points:
o
Oppression is not based on class alone! There can be different “spheres” of oppression—“race,”
gender, sexual orientation, nationalism, age, and political ideology among
them. Thus, even an African American who is among the economic “elite” might
still face some forms of intolerance.
o
Domination is of different types: Hegemony, the word for dominance of one group over another
can be social, economic, political, and cultural.
o
Dominance is not held in place by force
alone! One writer says that there are
two ways to control a people—through force (repressive state apparatus),
such as courts, laws, and police (or, in the workplace, firing people, reprimands),
or through ideas (ideological state apparatus)—outlets like textbooks, radio, and
advertising that keep people in line. If a group can control the ideas, there is
little need for repression! Thus, many neo-Marxists turned their
attention to how ideas are controlled. The key term becomes ideology: This term "refers to those images,
concepts and premises which provide the frameworks
through which we represent, interpret, understand and 'make sense' of some
aspect of social existence" (Hall, 1981p. 31). That, ideology is a set
of ideas that is held by some group of people that shape
the way we understand and respond to the world. Unlike old ideas of
ideology (Marxist) as “false consciousness” or incorrect thinking, ideology
refers to any set of ideas. It is not
focused on whether the set of ideas are true or not. Therefore, all
ideas are ideological—they have some place in some set of ideas. All
teaching is ideological. All research is ideological. [I was once in a meeting
where the leader proudly said, “I am only going to present the ideas here. I
have no agenda.” I kindly informed him, “Everybody has an agenda. We just don’t
all admit it to ourselves.]
o
Domination is not (always) deliberate! While traditional Marxists believed that the elite
were like puppeteers pulling the puppet strings of society, many neo-Marxist
writers began to see economic (and other types of) oppression simply “within
the system,” passed on without intention, as they are part of the structure.
(Now a new cause arose—to help people be aware of how these invisible and
often/usually unintentional forms of intolerance are passed on).
o
Domination is not total! All groups in a society have some power. For example,
through the 1950s and 1960s, Whites in the
Ø Semiotics
and the Linguistic Turn: With a turn to ideology, many critical theorists
began to focus on language and “texts” as a way that groups
battle over meaning and social status. Texts can be speeches, words, symbols--anything
with social meaning. Specifically, a text for our purposes is a set
of symbols collected together to give meaning. A "text" can be a raised, clenched
fist; it can be an American flag; it can be the image of who Oliver North is
(how society "constructs" Oliver North, as opposed to any objective
reality of who he really is); it can be a concept such as "race" or
"gender"; it can be the clothes, body piercings,
and tattoos that adorn you as you read this Website. Semiotics looks specifically at the
relationship between texts and their underlying meanings (specifically, at
social structures which they represent).
The word Semiotics refers to the study of signs in a text, and semioticians usually look at texts in very close detail to uncover
what the signs are and what they mean—and, in the case of critical theorists
(not all semioticians are critical theorists!), how
these sign systems relate to the battle to gain dominance (hegemony) in terms of social meaning (ideology). The area is very broad, so for our focus, we will choose
a critical semiotician who has a fairly simple and
useful approach, Roland
Barthes. Based on his approach, we see three simple, but useful principles:
o
A sign is a combination of the
signifier plus the signified.
That is, the “sign” represents a some “real” construct
or thing (abstract or otherwise)—the thing that is signified or represented. Then a thought
or word image represents that thing. That is, it “represents” or “signifies” it
(the signifier).
The process of representation is called “signification.” Example follows!
o
Signs work together to form codes, or sign systems. People who want to portray a meaning (such as through their wardrobe or
in a media advertisement) rarely use only one signifier to represent an
idea—they want the idea to be clear.
o
Sign systems work together to
reinforce ideology (Barthes’ original idea): Sign systems are never neutral, but work
together to create and pass on (produce and reproduce) ways of thinking. I
think today we must also realize the potential for sign systems to challenge ideology as well! [And, as we
will see in Postmodernism, sometimes they do both!]. Signs systems do this by
what is known as connotative shift, the rubbing
of meaning from one sign to another. Sometimes signs use second-order
sign systems, where a signifier in one image represents an
entire sign in another image. For example, in the image below, if we put a
cowboy hat on the male model, the hat
(signifier) would represent cowboy
(signified)—but the whole image of cowboy
becomes a signifier of rugged individualism and masculinity, with an entire
“mythology” behind it.
|
A
sample analysis of an A&F ad:
o
open-mouth
expression (signifier) represents shock (signified) o
Wood bar, heavy
quilt represent sort of a cabin o
Smiles
represent fun Sign systems: o
Beauty:
long hair (women) smooth skin (all models—note most A&F men have no hair on
their chest); big lips (women); slender (all models—how many heavy A&F
models do you ever see?); skin tone (how many African, Asian, or
Latino/Latina A&F models do you ever see?) o
Sex: torso
line at man’s waist and women’s holding boxers represent that he is naked,
which represents sexuality. o
Fun: Even
models who have shocked expression have “smiles” in
their eyes, indicating that it is a mock surprise (note, for example, model
on the left). Ideologies: o
The most
apparent (and probably deliberate) ideology is that sex is fun and that
A&F is associated with sex and fun. (The meaning rubs from one image to
the rest of the images). o
There is
another (perhaps unintentional) ideology of masculine and feminine beauty:
Who is “beautiful” in the so-called A&F lifestyle—and who is left out of
that image of beauty? And what are the purposes of beauty? Here, it is tied
to pleasing the opposite sex (One writer, Schwictenberg,
argues that the mult-billion dollar American beauty
industry is focused on making women make themselves pleasing for men and
supports mostly the owners of the beauty products and the ad companies). o
Finally, it is
interesting that there is one man with four women in the ad. Would the ad be
understood differently or accepted differently if there were one woman in the
bed with several men? What will one man do in a bed with four women? This may
feed indirectly into the notion of women being there primarily for men’s
pleasure and not vice versa (though many Madonna videos upset this imagery!).
Also, while we might see one man with several women, we rarely see one woman
with several men (what would that imply!?) unless the woman is clearly
between the men. Female sexual contact can be implied or even stated
explicitly, because it is often shown for the male gaze, for masculine
desire (a phenomenon known as lesbian
chic). |
Want to see a fuller example? Here is an
on-line article that analyzes the use of male imagery in perfume/cologne ads
using semiotics: http://www.imageandnarrative.be/worldmusicb_advertising/godeo.htm
Ø Postmodernism: The old
notion of media was that it had a given effect on the audience. Soon, however, people began to question
this. It seemed, rather, that there were
multiple audiences, or segments of a public, who observed a given
text. Or, another way of thinking of
this is that we used to believe that “gender affected behavior” as a variable
(scientific notion). We soon came to believe that “each society constructs
gender in its own way, and the construction of gender changes.” What it means
to be a woman or man today is different than, say, 50 years ago in the
o
There is seldom a single meaning in a text, but multiple
meanings (polysemy).
Some texts deliberately lend themselves to multiple possible “readings”
(interpretations), such as Madonna music videos or gay-friendly commercials
(just vague enough for the mainstream audience, but just same-sex oriented
enough to speak to a gay or lesbian audience). Readers can take different
approaches to any text, however. These readings include:
§
The dominant or preferred reading: This is the reading the text-maker intends you to take, or perhaps the
‘mainstream’ reading. The Madonna video below is a love story. Marlboro
cigarettes will make you manly. Big Johnson t-shirts are funny (even the
dominant reading would say that they are about sex!)
§
An oppositional reading
takes issue with the underlying
ideology of the text. The Marlboro man image of masculine sexuality is
restrictive to many other ways of expressing one’s identity. The Big-Johnson
t-shirts show women as sex objects only, not as relational partners or, much
less, individuals (they are “bodies,” not “somebodies”).
§
Someone who takes
a negotiated
reading of a text may agree with the overall message of the text
(that is, agreeing with the overall ideology that Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee presents a more complex view of
urban (including Black) reality than many other texts, but disagree with how the text plays out (for example, how the women in
the text are still passive and framed
primarily in sexual terms).
o
Often texts borrow meaning from other texts
(intertextuality),
so that, rather than being very linear in how it changes, meaning leaps and
jumps unpredictably from text to text. For example, Shrek makes use of Freudian
psychoanalytic theory (Lord Farquhar has a big castle—he must be compensating
for something), Walt Disney (the lines to enter the
o
Any sign, image,
or idea has meaning only in terms of the set of ideas with which it is placed
(or discourse). As a good example, we recently saw
competing fliers in Fell Hall. One said The
Daily Vidette was unpatriotic because it showed a comic critiquing
o
Much of what was
associated with modernism is abandoned. So, instead of
§
Logic, PM values
emotion, spirit, irrationality, and pleasure
§
Linearity, PM
values non-linearity
§
Structure, clear
boundaries, PM values blurred genres (for example, the line between genres—a
comedy mystery mass comm theory textbook was created
by Arthur Asa
Berger).
§
Metanarrative (single, overarching explanation of any kind), PM
values multiple narratives, competing stories
§
Unity, PM favors
fragmentation
o
So, in terms of
how this applies to culture, intercultural communication, and representation,
§
PM would see many
different Black cultures, rather than a single African American culture
§
PM would see a
single person’s identity—or the meaning in a given text, as fragmented, rather
than consistent, as we are the result of competing
messages.
§
PM gave rise to multiculturalism,
the idea that there can be multiple cultural truths, equal validity (indeed, if
we take PM to its fullest extent, there is no truth of any kind, for that would
be a “metanarrative.” There are only ideas set in
relation to other ideas. Of course, that itself becomes a statement of “truth”
about what it is like, so the very statement contradicts PM itself! Oh, I love
irony. J]
§
PM would look for
fragments and difference in an account of culture, rather than the way everyone
is alike (it would hate “individualism/collectivism” etc.
§
PM would not expect
a text to have a unified cultural representation, but a fragmented and even
contradictory representation.
|
Watch this
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzW9Q7rK1o4 (Very abbreviated!)
Analysis: A
sample PM analysis: “Express Yourself” In the video, “Express Yourself,” Madonna portrays a
woman who is apparently owned by a wealthy man who owns a factory. The
factory is full of male workers who work in a dark, drippy, and hot climate
with lots of cogs and The man goes to check on his workers. The woman sends her cat (hmmm—wonder what that represents) to |
