CCT314 - Mind, Media and Representation

Media / Culture = Identity. In other words, we are not individuals, we are subjects of media. We cannot have an identity if we do not have an attachment to the media around us Representation: Representation involves making meaning by forging links between three different orders of things, the world of thing, people, events, and experiences, the conceptual world. The mental concepts we carry around in our heads and the signs, arranged into languages, which stand for or communicate these concepts

According to McLuhan Two big ideas from McLuhan Media are anything that extend the human senses. Media are multiple things Secondly, the medium is the message. McLuhan argued that the means by which we communicate is the most significant thing about our communication Critiques of “the medium is the message” Some think media content is still more important than its mode of delivery. Ex. The way that emoticons are used in social media over how the message is delivered Others say McLuhan glorified

Review: Karl Marx Karl Marx is part of a political economy tradition in media studies. He is an example of political economist, examining the relationship between politics, government, and how the society is structured Karl Marx questions how the government plays a role in production Defining Power Power: Power is the ability to determine the actions of others, as well as our ability to determine our own actions. This refers to who has powers, and who determines powers for others Dominant: Domin

Last Week: Introduction to Marxism The way a society organizes the means of its economic production will have a determining effect on the type of culture that society produces or makes possible A Marxist way of thinking about popular culture would argue that the products and services being produced during the time will shape that specific society (superstructure) The superstructure consists of certain political forms including family, religion, mass media, education What is Ideology? An ideology

What is Discourse? Discourse refers to the way individuals use language (this includes spoken, written, gestures, and images) in a ritual fashion in order to make sense of the world Discourse is thus a group of statements which provide a language for talking about or a way of representing the knowledge about a particular topic at a particular historical moment Furthermore, Foucault argued that discourse never consists of one statement, one text, one action, or one source. The same discourse, cha

Antiglobalization The Battle of Seattle in 1999 Protestors against exploitative economic and corporate globalization. This was one of the biggest protests since Vietnam. These protestors were labeled as antiglobalization, however, they state that they were specifically against exploitation caused by economic and corporate globalization Are the poor getting poorer? Apologists of globalization point to their belief that the poor who participate in trade and exchange are mostly getting riches. In