1. “Welcome to Media Studies”
A super-brief overview of a few of the key ideas and theories in cultural studies JC Clapp, North Seattle College

2. Standard Critical Approaches
Content Analysis
Semiotics
Ideological Critique
Additional Approaches . . .
Discourse Analysis/Theory
Social Science Empirical Data
Postmodernism
Post-colonialism
Queer Theory

3. Approach: Content Analysis
Quantitative (counting!) technique measuring specific frequency of various occurrences
Produces raw data

4. Approach: Semiotics Sign = Signifier + Signified
Signifier = the word or speech sound (rain)
Signified = mental concept (the concept of water droplets falling from the sky)

5. Semiotics: Types of Signs
Iconic Indexical Symbolic

6. Semiotics: Levels of Signification
Denotation = Literal Meaning (1st level of signification) -- that ring is literally compressed carbon encased in platinum. Connotation = Cultural Meaning (2nd level of signification) – that ring represents love, engagement, commitment

7. Semiotics: Culture Bound
Signs are arbitrary cultural contructions
Myth = transformation of historical into natural

8. Semiotics: How Ads Work
Ads construct myths about who we are and who we aspire to become Interpellation = consumers are in the subject position and are “hailed” by the ad Ask yourself “Who does this ad think I am?”

9. Approach: Ideological Critique
Ideology = a system of ideas and ideals Ideological Critique looks at cultural power and is focused on how meaning maintains the social order

10. Ideological Critique: Marx
Social relationships are based on domination and injustice and these are seen as natural and inevitable by those who benefit least.

11. Ideological Critique: Gramsci
Hegemony = process through which a group is able to claim, through consent, leadership or power throughout a society – it is not domination.

12. Ideological Critique: Gramsci
Articulation = non-determinist approach (just because you’re in the military, doesn’t mean you’re politically conservative) Discursive Phenomenon = ideology is fragmented and contradictory and in flux Constructed Subjects = ideology creates new identities for us to occupy

13. Approach: Discourse Analysis
Discourse = all forms of talk and texts Discourse analysis interested in texts themselves, rather than seeing texts as a way of “getting at” some reality behind the discourse

14. Approach: Discourse Analysis (Social Psychology )
Four Main Themes:
Concern with discourse itself
View of language as constructive and constructed
Emphasis upon discourse as a form of action
Conviction in the rhetorical organization of discourse (all language is persuasive)

15. Approach: Discourse Analysis (Michel Foucault)
Power is panoptic
Ideology is a power/knowledge nexus (representations aren’t true or false, they just show power relations)
Disciplinary Power (self-monitoring and self-surveillance)
Gender is a discipline and is constructed

16. Postmoderism Artistic movement
Cultural trend (mix of high/low culture, irony)
Historical epoch (time period since the 1960s)
Epistemological crisis (there is no universal knowing)

17. Postcolonialism
Tied to political reform, nation building, global economics, marginalization – refuses a binary reading of texts.

18. Queer Theory
Questions the heteronormative order as “natural” – points out complexity in sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Opposes a binary reading of sexuality.