2. making sense of the media

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

MCS.101Block 2 ‘Media lives’

2. Making sense of media

Tim DantSociology, University of Lancaster

The Interpretation of Dreams

Relief-block Print by Stephen Alcorn

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

Introduction– interpretations:

• narratives• content• ideology• signs• codes

– audiences– people are affected differently:

• class, gender, ethnicity, education etc. • exposure to media affects how future media is made sense of

– media lives:• lives of those in the media• our lives as we engage with the media

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

text and narrative

• text: • A text is any mediated piece that is intended to be

consumed as having meaning that is complete in itself.

• narrative:• A narrative is a text in which a sequence of linked

events that are joined together in time

• temporality of events - may be fact or fiction - may be spread across texts

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

story carries on…

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

narrative form

1. sequence implies causes

2. narrative moves to resolution, ‘closure’• may be postponed; serials, soaps, news etc.

3. agents drive action: • characters, natural forces, technology

4. subplots and subsidiary agents– e.g. ‘romantic interest’

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

narrative form (continued)5. genres: types of narrative

• sci fi, western, thriller, romance, comedy

• scandal, crime, political, economic

• sports, quiz, drama, documentary, ‘reality’?

6. temporality:• story time / discursive time

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

limits of narrative analysis

• limits of narrative analysis:– single unit; text or texts

within series or genre– emphasizes author’s

intentions – obscures social context– no account of ‘reader’

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

content analysis

• quantitative method• counting words, phrases, features, images, amount

of text• can operate across the output of a medium;

television channel, newspaper etc.• e.g. column inches on crime, number of blackfaces,

use of ‘strike’

• limits: definition, causes, context

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

ideological analysis

• narrative and content analysis ignore the impact on the audience audience

• Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies– Birmingham - Stuart Hall

• Marxism, structuralism

– ideology: interlinked systems of meaning that affect the world and how it is perceived

– meaning as socially and politically important

Hall 1996: 161

“…ideologies do not consist of isolated and separate concepts, but in the articulation of different elements into a distinctive set or chain or meanings… we formulate our intentions within ideology… we have to ‘speak through’ the ideologies which are active in our society and which provide us with the means of ‘making sense’ of social relations and our place in them.”

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

ideology

• Hall on ‘freedom’:– western liberal

democratic ideology• freedom = individual

– socialist ideology• freedom = collective,

equal

• ideology situates audience for the media

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

race and ideology

• race 1970s: immigration, police, problems

• race 1910: empire, strangeness, language, distance

• media construct ideologies– ‘overt racism’ - repeating racist remarks– ‘inferential racism’ - documentaries linking

social problems to race

• despite intentions

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

semiology• semiology = study of signs

and symbols– meanings of words linked to

context of use (not fixed as dictionary meaning)

– words as signs in a system (Saussure)

– denotation - literal or obvious meaning

– connotation - associated or linked meanings

• signs in codes

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

audience ethnography

• attempt to study actual audiences - e.g. of a soap opera– variability of attention– other people affect how media is read– biography varies - e.g. education– experience of media

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

conclusions

– narrative analysis - temporal sequence– content analysis - topics and themes (counting)– ideological analysis - social and political values– semiological analysis - codes and values– audience ethnography - variability of audience

• media lives of those who watch or read intertwined with the media lives they are watching or reading about

Tim Dant - Sociology - Lancaster

Leningrad cowboys• “Its only rock and roll”

– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHfQZs5Yx_I

• Helsinki 1993 - with Red Army Choir• co-present + mediated• signs:

• music, quiffs, uniforms, medals, tractor, shoes, cactus

• ideology:• Finland, Russia, America, UK• black/white• farmers/military• state/people• establishment/yoof