Wk3: O’Shaughnessy Chs 11-19
Discourse! Ideology! Hegemony! Resistance!
This week’s first set of readings, Chapters 11-14 of O’Shaughnessy (or 10-13 of the 4th edition of the text), contain some big concepts. They’re really useful, which means they’re used often by Media Studies scholars.
It can be confusing to sort out what each of these terms means, at first; so here’s a quick breakdown:
Ideology: main way of discussing issues of social power and the media
Discourse: how these ideologies are communicated
Hegemony: how ideologies are negotiated, maintained, and disputed
As I explained last week, an “ideology” is a set of values, beliefs, and feelings that, together, offer a view of the world.
When we analyze media images (such as advertisements) for the ideology they contain, we are actually analyzing their discourse–how they communicate the ideologies they contain.
For example, here is an ad for a special type of lights. Take a look at the ad and ask yourself: what does this ad suggest is valuable about people? What beliefs and feelings does it convey? What is the worldview in this ad? Please look at the ad and jot down your own answers/ideas before scrolling further down this page.
Did you jot down what you’re thinking?
OK. I would answer my own questions about ideology and discourse as follows:
I think the ad’s discourse is suggesting that youth and beauty is valuable. This is implied by the side-by-side of an elderly woman under “normal” lights and a young woman under the “special” lights. It is meant to suggest, humorously, that the advertised lights will make people look that much better.
The ad’s discourse also conveys a belief or feeling that sexually available women are better than women who do not appear to be sexually available. I think this is the case because the woman on the right side of the ad isn’t just younger than the woman on the left–she’s also dressed in a sexually provocative manner.
The worldview or ideology, then, is that younger is better than older, and that sexually available women are great!
But why does our society believe that “younger” is inherently “better”? Some cultures revere older people for their wisdom and experience.
And why the emphasis on sexual availability? Wouldn’t it have been just as funny if the woman were still dressed in old lady clothes? From my perspective as a woman, I think it would have been funnier that way–but the target audience for this ad is probably men, and “sex sells.” So, make her not just younger, but sexy.
The people who most benefit from the worldview described above (and encoded in the ad) are, arguably, young, heterosexual men. By “putting down” older people (particularly women) and objectifying younger women, the idea that women are valuable insomuch as they are visually appealing to men is promoted. And this is arguably beneficial to young men more than others.
Now, that’s not young men’s fault–it’s not like young men are going around saying, “Let’s insult old women and suggest that young women should be dressed to titillate us!” I’m simply saying this is the discourse in the above ad, and that it is accepted as pretty normal in our society, for better or worse.
People don’t think about it too much.
And that’s one of the cool things about media studies–we get to think about things in our culture that people take for granted.
(In other words, I’m not trying to start an ideological argument here; I’m just showing how this kind of analysis can work!)
So: hegemony. (Pronounciation: heh-GEM-o-nee.) Hegemony is one way of explaining how the worldview described above gets to circulate and be accepted as normal, taken for granted. What does your textbook have to say about hegemony and dominant ideologies? What does it have to say about how people resist hegemonic (he-gem-ON-ic) ideas in media and culture? It’s something to think about. Read it carefully and try to apply it in the discussion threads this week. If any particular questions come up, let me know.
Narrative, Genre, and Binary Opposition
You’ll also be reading Chapters 15-19 (or 14-18 of the 4th edition of the text), which feature some fundamental concepts that apply to many types of texts. For example, you have probably heard about genres and narratives in relationship to literature. These same terms also apply to other texts, such as the media texts that are the focus of media studies.
In literature, you are probably familiar with common genres such as romance, mystery, thrillers, young adults, and so on.
Television has stories within these genres, but new genres also emerged with the advent of television that did not previously exist: sitcoms, soap operas, reality television, etc.
This weeks readings will help you understand what the definition of a genre is and how to identify specific codes and conventions that are integral to various genres, as well as to use genre theory to analyze films and television programs.
An important concept set that you will read about is narrative structure and binary oppositions.
Narrative structure is rooted in structuralism, an anthropological approach to studying society. By drawing upon the methods of structuralism as developed by anthropologists, media studies scholars can assess the narrative structure of media to better understand how that structure can attribute to meaning.
Binary opposition is a helpful way to consider narrative structure. The term binary opposition refers to the patterns in which two concepts (binary = two) are positioned as being polar opposites in various narratives. In just about any television show, movie, or other media text, it is possible to consider which elements are presented as being binarily opposed.
As you are viewing various television programs or movies this week, keep these concepts in mind and try to figure out how they apply.
Discussion:
Wk 3 Discussion: O’Shaughnessy Chs 11-19
1
- Media Discourse, Ideology, Hegemony, Resistance
- Read: O’Shaughnessy textbook, chapters 11 -14 (or 10-13 of the 4th edition)
- Genres, Codes, Conventions; Narrative Structure and Binary Opposition
- Read: O’Shaughnessy textbook, chapters 15-19 (or 14-18 of the 4th edition)
In the space below, please spend the week discussing this week’s readings. To do so successfully requires visiting this discussion forum at least three times:
- Write an initial essay-style discussing your thoughts on the readings (length may vary; should be several hundred words).
- Next, please do replies, reactions, building on their comments and asking questions.
Discussion prompts:
Feel free to answer some of the following questions, or simply write on a similar topic.
- What stood out the most to you about this week’s readings?
- What information from this week’s readings surprised you? Why?
- What information was exciting? Why?
- What information was confusing? Why?
- Does anything from this week’s readings remind you of anything you’ve encountered in your day-to-day life lately, or vice-versa? (Did you see something somewhere that reminded you of this week’s readings?)
