Presented by HyeJung Lee & Jihye Ok Practices of Looking Presented by HyeJung Lee & Jihye Ok

Images, Power, and Politics

Practices of Looking - We are in the practice of looking to make sense of the world around us. - To see is a process of observing and recognizing. - To look is to actively make meaning of that world.

Practices of Looking A single image can serve a multitude of purposes, appear in a range of settings, and mean different things to different people.

Representation - Representation refers to the use of language and images to create meaning about the world around us. - These systems have rules and conventions about how to express and interpret meaning.

Is this image simply a reflection of this particular scene or does it produce meanings about these objects?

Representation - Rules and conventions of the systems of representation within a given culture. - This show the complexity of how words and images produce meaning in our world.

The Myth of Photographic Truth - The term myth refers to the cultural values and beliefs that are expressed through connotations parading as denotations. - Myth is the hidden set of rules and conventions through which meanings, which are in reality specific to certain groups, are made to seem universal.

The Myth of Photographic Truth Myth allows the connotative meaning of a particular thing or image appear to be denotative.

How We Negotiate the Meaning of Images - Decode, or read, complex images almost instantly, giving little thought to our process of decoding. - Decode images by interpreting clues to intended, unintended, and even suggested meanings. - Clues may be formal elements of the image, such as color, shade, and contrast, or the socio- historical context in which it is presented.

How We Negotiate the Meaning of Images - The process of interpretation is derived from semiotics, a theory of signs which is concerned with the ways things are vehicles for meaning. - We live in a world of signs, and it is the labor of our interpretation that makes meaning of those signs. - The sign is composed of the signifier and the signified.

What is the signifier, signified, and sign in this?

The Value of Images Images do not have value in and of themselves, they are awarded different kinds of value – monetary, social, and political – in particular social contexts. For example, in the art market, a painting gains its economic value through cultural determination concerning what society judges to be important in assessing works of art.

Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

Image Icons Andy Warhol emphasizes that cultural icons can and must be mass-distributed in order for them to have mass appeal.

The mass media and The Public Sphere

The Mass media Western industrialized cultures live in a multimedia environment where mechanical and electronic images, text, and sound are at almost constant presence. The term mass media has been used to define those media designed to reach large audiences perceived to have shared interests. The mass media refers to forms and texts that work together to generate specific popular representations of events, people, and places

The mass media Some say that the term mass media is no longer entirely applicable. As more diverse media forms emerge, such as cable television and various social media, more fragmented audiences form to replace the undifferentiated mass, and the mass media are less pervasive.

The mass media Some critics of the media have argued that radio and television largely control the exchange of information by restricting authorship of information to those with access to the means of media production.

What you see is not really what it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

Television and the question of Sponsorship Consumers watch television programs primarily to see programs, but what keeps television afloat is the viewers not- so-incidental exposure to advertisements for products In U.S. television’s early years, product endorsements were entangled with programming itself, making it difficult to separate the product from the program.

Television and the question of sponsorship Some western countries, such as Canada, England, France, and Germany, have opted for state-controlled television, in which the government plays a more active role in the industry and programming. Meanwhile, U.S. television is shaped by free market forces which relies on corporate sponsorship and advertising. There are good and bad product placements. Some of them are discreet while others are obvious. Some contributes witty and funny element to the program while others are just annoying and gets in the way.

Good Product Placement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36wUmJGzvA

Worst product placement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-fxY8MwATc

Princess Diana’s Funeral AND the public sphere A public sphere is ideally a space where citizen come together to debate and discuss the pressing issues of their society. In events such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the funeral of Princess Diana, and the attacks of Sept. 11th, 2001, the media served to create a sense of community at local national, and global levels. Princess Diana’s Funeral

AND the Public Sphere Sometimes, maybe more times than you would expect, the media does not tell the publics the whole thing or directs the publics to form certain opinions that the government or some authority figures intended.

And the Public Sphere Recently, in South Korea, average 2,300 women around age 20 have been lost per year. Protect Citizen Organization found that those women are getting lost for the black market of organ sales. They insists that those women has become targets of focused abduction after the mafia groups found the matched organs of their clients on the medical data bases. Korean mass media broadcasted these losts as unsolvable problems and said in unison that the overly competitive society aggravated people with great amount and resulted in those numerous “don’t ask” social crimes.