reading media texts journal

week 6- technolgies of power

wantingkneading — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:25:09 +0000

this week we talked about how technologies of power are used to create docile, passive subjects out of us. we also talked about if these technologies of power are the only thing that helps us become the person we are- are we only who we are based on the things around us, what culture and society demands of us and tells us to be? or is there some sense of individuality, creativity? or is it all controlled by biology?
how do we come to be the person we are?
what determines who i am?
from what i have taken from todays lecture and tute these are the things i see as most important and interesting:
1) technolgies of power (foulcaults early work)
a technology of power is something that informs our actions by being imposed on us. we used the example in class today of that of a school student. what technologies of power are instruct, inform and cause you to conform into passive, docile students, what is at play here? uniforms, rigid subjects and times (english at 9, maths at 10, p.e. in the afternoon), detentions, the teacher/student relationship as dominant/submissive and even pen licences turn us into the kind of person that is a god, typical, same student.
my reading of technologies of power is that they are created by authorative figures in order to exercise control over a large group of people by making them the same and predictable, habitual and ritualistic.
2)technologies of the self (foucaults later work)
this is like technologies of power but reversed so that the individual becomes responsible for his or her own actions and choices. the examples we thought of as technologies of power included religion, eating habits, sexuality. they are things you choose to do, regardless of what may be imposed on you from the penal system or the education system. actually, i had a bit of trouble getting this one. i think it means choices that an individual makes, despite or in spite of what has been taught to them. this is what makes people different from each other- the 40 people from my year 12 class are all very different people, despite having been taught under the same rules, the same consequences and the same expectations. we were exposed to technologies of power but through our own technologies of self, we have remained different from one another. there is something innately different about people. which leads into…
3)biology
i think people are just different form one another. there are different ways of thinking, different voices, religions, hair colours, feelings and perceptions. everything about everyone is different. i share traits with my mother and father. i have temper like my mother and a way of laughing like my father. it is true that these things may not be biological- i might have just learned these habits and ways of being by way of imitation. it could just be that everything is learned, and none of our traits and choices are made from biology alone, though there are people whose mother died when they were born but still they manage to have the same mannerisms and idiosyncrasies as their mother. i think some part of personality and individuality is biological.

in conclusion, i think that technologies of power, technologies of the self and biology are all so closely intertwined it is hard to separate them. they all meld together to form a cohesive whole.

week 4- freedom of speech debate

wantingkneading — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:55:52 +0000

this week we were asked to prepare a debate for next week, so im gonna try to lay the groundwork here.
our topic is “freedom of speech is an inviolable right“
we are on the affirmative.
(To start with, i dont actually fully agree with the statement, and no-one in my team does either.)
We define freedom of speech as any act which expresses opinion, meaning it could be a sentence, an artwork, a protest, anything. We define an inviolable right as a right which cannot be interfered with, that cannot be censored by anyone.
We think that freedom of speech is extremely important, but there is a fine line between speaking your mind and hurting others, whether it be morally, physically or emotionally. It is important to be able to say what you want, but it is also important to make sure that does not cross the line of what we think is right and wrong (which i am aware is a whole other thing).
Having said that, however, revolutions and change could not have happened without people freely speaking things that were found extremely offensive to people.
Black, gay and womens rights would never have been realised if people were not allowed to express ideas that others found offensive. Freedom of speech is important for change.
I, as a woman, would not be allowed to vote if it were not for someone saying something that other people didnt approve of. So, even if an act of freedom of speech is morally, ethically offensive, it may still be valid and does not neccesarily mean it should not be said.
This introduces another point- if freedom of speech is censored, who gets to do the censoring? Certainly noone in this room can claim that they think they have the almighty power to censor someone elses thoughts. then who should it be? the government? religion? a team of philosophers? how could we ever come to a point where we pick on neutral source that can decide whos act of free speech is valid and whos is not? If one person can express something than everybody should be able to. Uncensored freedom of speech makes everyones argument valid, and furthermore allows each person viewer/listener/reader to evaluate for themselves what is opinion and what is stepping the line, because these things are different for everybody.

week 4- freedom of speech

wantingkneading — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 06:15:02 +0000

today we talked about the danish cartoons and all the controversy surrounding them.
we talked about whether or not it was offensive, and if we should be worried that people were offended by them. i think we all decided in the end that people should be able to say what they feel, as long as it is not intended to be hateful. but then again, is hate not a valid thing, a valid opinion to express? say you were subjected to female castration and did not believe it should happen- is it wrong to express hate towards the religion and cultural values that enforce such a thing? is it wrong to express a hate for something (ie, the nazis) if by doing so can cause a percieved positive change in your life, or it can improve the situation?
i am undecided as to whether people should be able to say anything they want. on one hand it makes room for change, revolution and variety in the world. but on the other hand it causes things such as the holocaust. is propaganda free speech, or is it a subtle trick to make you believe what they are saying? is it right to force your opinion on people like that? does freedom of speech include forcing your opinion on somone.
argh, im confused.
anyway, what i wanted to concentrate on in this writing was a art piece i read about recently.
you can see it here: http://elperritovive.blogspot.com/
the main gist of it is that the artist found a dog in a slum and tied it in a gallery with no food or water. the dog died. it was considered (not by many) as a work of art.
i will look at it as a freedom of speech issue (although its not technically “speech” it is an act of expressing an opinion or a thought), and see what we can find.
why should he be allowed this freedom of speech?
- the guy is allowed to do this, legally. the gallery allowed it.
- the dog was a stray/feral and was going to die anyway.
- he is making a statement on how no-one cares about the dogs, no-one pays attention to them when they are on the street and maybe they will if he brings it into a gallery environment.
- he is also challenging what art is- is life and death the ultimate art? does art aim to evoke feelings and thoughts and cause debate (which this work has certainly done), or to look pretty?
- it forces people to evaluate how they feel about this. it forces people to decide whether they will save the dog or not, or if this is an ok thing to do.
why should he not be allowed this freedom of speech?
- because the dog is suffering
- it offends peoples morals because it is not “right” to kill animals (but most people eat meat and it is hard to see how allowing animals to be killed for consumption differs from allowing animals to be killed to arouse debate and public concern about animal welfare)
- because the dog did not consent to this, was not a willing participant
- because we dont have the right to take something else life without a reason? (murder? where does capital punishment come in?)
so it seems to me, that even though i believe that it was a cruel and horrible thing to do, my points veer strongly towards the idea that this was a valid act of free speech, with a reason and purpose, but one that nevertheless was very offensive to a lot of people. it is also worth considering that the work undoubtedly intended to offend many people, either as a publicity stunt or as a thought-provoker.
alright, im way over the word limit.

week 3- questioning meanings

wantingkneading — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:44:41 +0000

this week we learned how semiotics can be used to analyse film. we looked at some still images and some moving sequences to decipher what information they are giving us. what i find interesting is that we barely realise the information we are interpreting from a film until we stop to really think how it is that we have come to know that. it is so ingrained into our everyday thinking and into our signage system that we barely notice that we notice it. for example, from the big chill clip we watched in class today we could figure out that a particular woman was a housewife and that she was rich. it seems so simple but the way we know that is because she is sitting in a house, with a fancy tea set and a polo sweater on. it is such a part of our cultural literacy that i have some trouble even recognising its relevance. its almost like asking “how do we know this is a man, how do we know this is a woman?”. that a man has a penis and a woman has a vagina is so linked to out idea of man and woman that we dont really need to think about it, it just is.
but then i guess you get to more complex things, where things represent other things- like the absolut homage ad we analysed today.(you can see it herevodka the ad features an absolut bottle with martini glasses bent over towards the bottle. at first we read the bottle as a god, and the glasses as its disciples, bowing down to it. i read the spotlight on the bottle as elevating it to rockstar status, and the glasses were its groupies. then lisa suggested maybe it had something to do with sex and we saw that the bottle was quite a phallic symbol and the glasses quite feminine, begging for the bottle to “fill me up” (as one guy said in the tute! haha) the dark colouring and the spotlight certainly alludes to this kind of night-time night-clubbish behaviour. i found it interesting just how much can be read into something that seems so obvious at first, and leads me to the author as god debate. it seems to me sometimes that we read too much into things- some things are simply not intended to mean much at all, and i wonder if there is any point reading so far into them. i know im getting all “whats the meaning of life” but really, if you have to try so hard to find a meaning in something, is it worth finding? and what value does it have? if it not intended to be read that way (author as god style), then does it really have relevance to anything?
i think that sometimes it is useful to read past and deeper than the authors intention and find meaning that is important to you, but sometimes it seems it is just a wanky waste of time…

week 2- langue and parole

wantingkneading — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:58:53 +0000

we talked about langue and parole in both lecture and tute this week. this idea came from the structuralists.
langue is defined as a system, and parole is defined as the way the system is used. we also thought that “langue” may be ale to be used interchangably with “conventions”.
for example, the langue could be the english language and the parole would be grammar, pronounciation etc.
we worked on an example in class where we took a film genre and described its langue, and then took a film and examined how it used the langue (the parole).
im gonna try this again with something different, something perhaps closer to my area of study, a corporate brochure. the langue for a corporate brochure includes the following:
folded a4 or a3 paper
heading/s
sub heading/s
informational text
logo
imagery (not always but common)
contact details

it is the way in which the designer uses these conventions that makes the brochure interesting or not. depending on the combination and relationships with all the other signs the brochure may be anything from a black and white word printout to a full on superslick production. here we get back to the semiotics- the brochure depends on all the signs working with or against each other to create a full system (the brochure).

similary, food packaging displays a langue and parole:
something that encloses the food
the name of the food
a description of the item (an example from my fridge- rev, low fat milk)
a clear area where the food can be viewed
the nutritional information
the ingredients
the use by date
the company who produces the food

however, i can think of a few situations in which the langue is not used in the parole.
imported food often does not have the same types of information printed on it- some does not have nutritional information, some do not have description of the item.
also, some food stuffs do not have a peephole where you can see the food. for example, a type of muesli bar that i often buy is completely enclosed in card and cannot be seen (you can see the pic of the package here, on the products page). i am not sure if this means that “a clear area where the food can be viewed” is not in fact part of the langue, or if it means the langue is being subverted.
actually, no i come to think of it, i can think of a number of foods that do not have a peephole in them. my milk, my muesli bars. i am not sure how common something has to be to be defined as part of the langue.

EDIT 18/3
i showed this to jenny and she said

I am not entirely sure that you understand the lange/parole distinction. Parole is an instance of langue. Langue is a system. Eg the langue of English includes the vocabulary, grammar, syntax, everything that goes into the system. This email is parole, an instance of langue.

so i need to think about it again at some time

week 2- signs and semiotics

wantingkneading — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:29:18 +0000

i actually ended up reading this before i began the course, because id looked in the tute notes and had no idea what semiology was. i feel *sort of comfortable with the idea: semiotics is the “science of signs”.
in the tute we discussed what a sign is. we decided that a sign is anything which has meaning. a gesture, an image, a facial expression etc. in my mind they were almost exactly identical to texts, and i said so. the general consensus was that a sign is different to a text because a text can constitute many signs, whereas a sign is a singular thing. a sign is the building block of a text, i noted. but i still dont really understand the difference.
“‘semiology aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all of these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification’ (Barthes 1967, 9). ” (this quote is taken from the website mentioned earlier).
it is a system of relationships of between signs. Signs do not have an inherent meaning, they are defined by what is around them. you cannot construct a meaningful sentence without many words which create a kind of context for all the other words in the sentence. none of the words make sense without any of the other words. this Shakspeare quote from romeo and juliet came to mind in the lecture:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.”
it seems to me (and i am possibly completely wrong) that this sentence sums up semiotics to me. it is saying there is a system of signs which connects the word “rose” to the idea of the smell and appearance of a rose (i think this is the signified, signifier thing), but that without that everything in the system is reliant upon everything else in the system. a rose WOULD smell the same if it was named something else because it relies on the system of signs around it, not in the name itself.

week 1- context

wantingkneading — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:36:19 +0000

context i something i seem to be able to grasp a little more easily, for some reason.
my notes from the class say that context is the situation (place and time) in which a text is “read”. context is constantly changing, from minute to minute, person to person.
The example we used in class really got through to me, so i will try to elaborate on it and then give my own example a go.
in the example from class the text was WW2. we looked at how the same text could have a different meaning, depending on which context it was placed in. first we watched 2 film previews for films about WW2 that were made when WW2 was just beginning. the films starred big-named actors. they were propaganda films to make people feel positive about the war, like a pep talk. in this context the text (WW2) was read as a huge, manly adventure for brave, handsome and smart guys.
the next film was made after the war and was about a former fighter pilot who had been to war and was surveying a “graveyard” of fighter planes. the mood of the film is solemn, reflective and sad. in this context, the war is seen as a burden this man must shoulder for the rest of his life. in this context, the war is something which has negatively affected people.
we watched some more films after that but i think these two examples really give the gist of it. in different times and places the same text can have a different meaning. different attitudes, experiences and knowledge evolve with time and differ from place to place, so the one text can be viewed in myriad way. while the text remains essentially as the same “thing”, it can be read differently depending on who and where (space and time) we are (ie, the war will be seen “through different eyes” from country to country, military to civilian, one century to the next etc).
i will try another example…i will try a quite traditional text to give me more of a feel for it.
“a clockwork orange”
in this case, making it a bit more complicated, the text is actually 2 texts, originally a book by anthony burgess, and then a film directed by stanley kubrick. but for this i guess we’ll just stick with the film.
when the film was first released it drew a lot of controversy. the film contains a lot of violence and sexual violence.
in the UK for the film was hard to see for 27 years because of how controversial its violent scenes and ideas were.
in the US people were accused of copycat crimes and 30 seconds of the film had to be replaced with something less extreme to get the rating from X to R.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_%28film%29#Responses_and_controversy)
these days though, the film is a cult favourite. while the film has not changed, the context has, and peoples reaction and reading of it has changed. people no longer see it as a senselessly violent film, they see it as commentary on institutions, society and control. another interesting point is the violence itself- the lvel of violence remains the same yet people have a much more subdued response to it because as time has passed we have been desensitised against violence- we see ultra-real violence in movie and on television and the shock factor that people must have experienced when the film came out is no longer the same.

week 1- text

wantingkneading — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:39:33 +0000

the last few days have been the first time ive ever really thought about text and context. pretty stupid really that im a commdesign student…but anyway it means i have a lot to take in, a lot to try and understand.
ill start by trying to explain to myself what i think we learned yesterday.

TEXT

from what i gathered from the lecture, and our kind of confusing tute yesterday is that a text can be anything at all, as long as a meaning can be derived from it. Rebecca Hills definition was “any type of practice that is meaningful”. so here i find it gets difficult, because i would intuitively think of a text as an object, a thing, not something intangible like a smile, or faith, for example.
i will try to unpack a couple of examples for myself to make this less mysterious to me.
to use the examples from class, a text can be something as straightforward as a newspaper, a book, a poem, or can be as abstract as a plant, food or religion. this seems simple enough.
lets use the newspaper as an example-i interpret the information in the newspaper so it has a meaning to me. i can find out whats happening in the world, i can find out what paris hilton is wearing today and who won the football and those sort of FACTS. but i can also get more information from it that is not so obvious (or is so obvious you dont even notice- ie cultural literacy)- for example- say i see someone reading The Age newspaper. what meaning does it have?
i am probably in melbourne
i am probably in an english speaking country
the person reading it is probably educated
so, by the word meaning, do we actually mean clues? and would The Age have a (different) meaning if it was being read by a different person in a different CONTEXT?
in class, we used another, more abstract example of a text- a clock.
how does a clock have meaning? it defines things, it provides information, it has an aesthetic, it is designed. this is a bit challenging for me, so i will try my on example and see what i can get.
food. how does food have meaning? it may show what country you are in, it has been designed (thought about), it may be packaged (which offers other meanings), it may be restaurant food or a packet of chips, it might tell what sort of diet you have (ie, vegetarian, vegan etc).
i think i might be getting the hang of this?