Richard Johnson, 1986, define cultural studies as a movement or a network. In todays world, culture is perceived as our shared values. It talks about how we have groups of people sharing certain similar values and how this values may change rapidly, slowly or remains unchanged. This values are mutually shared by people who had been impacted by certain cultural impacts that had struck upon them.
Culture is similar to what we Bruneians have in common with each other, such as, a decent way of pointing is via your thumb, or to kiss or bang head against hand when you shake hands with those older than you. Similar to this, but broader, the culture change is most obvious when we look them in our media world. We can see how certain society change over time and how certain issue can immediately be a culture, or as what people mention them nowadays as "trending".
This is known as the visual culture. Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2009) said that the term ‘visual culture’ means “the shared practices of a group, community, or society through which meanings are made out of the visual, aural and textual world of representations and the ways that looking practices are engaged in symbolic and communicative activities” (p. 3).
Let us now see how the hit American sitcom comedy by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, became a cultural impact towards America, and also the world.
Friends has made a cultural impact towards certain group of people. For one, the fashionistas around the world started to follow Jennifer Aniston's haircut, which they then call the Rachel. Joey's (Matt Leblac) catchphrase, "How you doin?", became popular to western english slang which are use as greetings and also as a pick up line. Another cultural impact Friends made was the Central Perk coffee shop, how few businessman around the world open up their shop base on the Central Perk.
N Fairclough, 1998, talks on how political discourse in the media is an analytical framework. Discourse to Hartley 2002, is a social process in making or producing sense. From Friends, there is a positive discourse of how they promote friendship and have a base in mind which is, "all you need are good friends"
In conclusion, cultural studies help to show why certain things end up being something of a certain value towards a group of people. It help us identify this group of people and show what their cultural practices are. We also can understand the shifts of cultures and the rate on witch they are changing from time to time.
References:
Richard Johnson Social Text, No. 16 (Winter, 1986-1987)
Hartley, J (2002). Communication, Cultural and Media Studies; The key concept (3rd Ed.). New York: Routledge.
Sturken, M and Cartwright, L (2009) Practices of Looking: An introduction to Visual Culture. United States of America: Oxford University Press. p.3
Neil Postman, 1970, said that Media ecology looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value; and how our interaction with media facilitates or impedes our chances of survival.
Media ecology is the study of media as environments. How we are somewhat controlled by media and that the actions we made is affected by how the media is towards us. It speaks of how media shapes and alters our society and how it alters our social structures. Postman said that it structures what we can see and say and, therefore, do.
The media has the power to make us believe whatever their message is. It's only a matter of persuasion, clever lines and a few tactics to get viewers their attention and then their beliefs.
For example, Mount Everest, have you ever been there? Well, for the case of many of us, of course we haven't. But then again, what's our reason for having to believe that Mount Everest is the highest and one of the dangerous mountain in the world? Did you ever experienced the near death everyone mentioned, and have you ever climb the mountain to assume that it is the highest? Of course not.
It's the media. They told you to believe those things. It had an effect on you to believe that it's true. It's called the hypodermic needle effect;where media directly affects viewer. Well, it is a fact that Mount Everest is the highest mountain, but what had made you certain on it? Yes, it's the media. Have you ever question the media? To an extend, you won't question them, because, media are the ones who is shaping you. Not just on Mount Everest, but almost every bit of your life
Marshall McLuhan is well known for his theories about “hot and cool" media. McLuhan, 1964, quoted "Hot media are low in audience participation due to their high resolution or definition. Cool media are high in audience participation due to their low definition (the receiver must fill in the missing information)."
This media environment, may they be hot or cold, affects our decision and life choices. It may generally be harmful as it can manipulate us into doing something stupid and wrong. As what McLuhan said, the medium is the message. So, however way the message are supposedly to be told, the medium are still the ones which influences how the message is perceived. McLuhan, 1911 said that "Technological determinism: the belief that technological development determines the social and culture change."
What changes has the medium took in your life?
Social media, similar to the term, is basically a way of socializing. May that be interacting with others, expressing and sharing your feelings towards the world or stalking other people, social media, via the internet, is making all these things easier as it is just a touch away. This way, people are now becoming much more transparent; expressing their feelings, doubts, fear and so on, and are more courageous to speak up in public (via social media).
Facebook and Twitter, are two of the biggest social media networks today. So, how have this social media, Facebook and Twitter, have invaded and changed our lives?
With Facebook and Twitter, it is a case of, putting it simply,a diary. Having pictures, status updates (expressing feelings, sharing thoughts and what they did) and then having them shared with friends and the world, shows how people are more transparent than how they used to be, revealing their humanness. We now have people openly sharing personal views on social issues, and have the courage to stand up for their political views. Indeed, our decision to reveal and when to reveal our thoughts can be delicate, and there are also things which we wish to keep private,but then again, social media are now helping you to create greater personal transparency.
Having that said, you are now indirectly allowing people to snoop and have a look into your private live, wanting them to invade your privacy. It's similar to having them looking at you through your front window. This seemed to be accepted by everyone nowadays as it is now a part of our life, just as what McLuhan had said about global village, how by the means of these mediums, especially World Wide Web, that it is now easy to accept and pass message thereby making the world become like a small single village where people can easily contact one another; "the whole world considered as being closely connected by modern telecommunications and as being interdependent economically, socially and politically" - McLuhan.
Other than that, the positive of it is that people can easily connect with one another. We can easily talk via internet, video-conferencing and share files and works. This benefits us by how we can now easily send texts without having to end letters, share files without the need of confrontation and so on.
In a way, Media Ecology has it's positive and negative side. But all in all, it does change our life. In the case of social media, we benefit from having easier access to information, the frequent updates on social news and the ability to intercommunicate with people. It also helped us to be more transparent so that we can express our feelings and thoughts without having them questioned. Privacy wise, it has affected us by making us feel that "snooping and stalking into other people's life" is alright. Our morale on respecting other people's privacy became unimportant as their "life" are now publicized.
Reference: MarshallMcLuhanandQuentinFiore (1968)War and PeaceintheGlobalVillage
MarshallMcLuhan (1911) Technological Determinism
McLuhan, E., Zingrone, F., (1997) Essential McLuhan. London: Routledge.
McLuhan, M., (2001) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Routledge.
Neil Postman (1970), “The Reformed English Curriculum.” in A.C. Eurich, ed., High School 1980: The Shape of the Future in American Secondary Education
Jorgen Dines Johansen, 2002, define Semiotics as: when particular things/objects are perceived as a certain phenomena in such a way that they refer to something else than themselves.
As what the above define, semiotics is when a certain phenomena (i.e. objects, trends) are constructed having certain meanings, not particularly similar to different cultures.
Semiotics inslusive of:
Signifier
Signified
Sign
Denotation
Connotation
Codes
Anchoring
Daniel Chandler, 1994 said that Signs are made of:
a 'signifier' (signifiant) - the form which the sign takes; and
the 'signified' (signifié) - the concept it represents.
Example below:
Basically, signifier are of the five sense. simple uninterpreted things we see, hear, smell, touch and taste.
Types of signs
Symbolic- difficult to familiarize with
Indexical - not so clear but understandable
Iconic- similar to the real thing. i.e: Clear photo
Structuralism (Basic concept identification of underlying structures within society)
Example below:
Human Skull: The framework of our head, the bony structure creating the figure of our faces
Different people have different views on these skulls.
Doctors:
they study them, to perform surgery, to identify different cases, etc. All in all, skull is just a mean of education to them.
In Fashion:
The youngsters sees skull as a trend, having them on trousers,shirts etc.
Skulls and Fashion
Pirates:
The flag most commonly identified as the Jolly Roger today is the skull and crossbones, a flag consisting of a human skull above two long bones set in an x-mark arrangement on a black field.
Phrenologist:
Phrenology is the science which studies the relationships between a person's character and the morphology of the skull. They study the shape and protuberances of the skull.
Denotation and connotationof human skulls.
The skull and crossbones signify "Poison" when they appear on a glass bottle containing a white powder, or any container in general. (Toxic Sign)
Denotation: Bottle
Connotation: Poison, Danger, Death etc.
As mentioned above, The skull and crossbones signify "Pirates" when they appear on a black flag.
Denotation: Flag
Connotation: Pirates, Danger, Uncivilized People, Killers etc.
The skull signify "Danger/Hazard ahead" when they appear on road signs.
Denotation: Warning Sign
Connotation: Danger Ahead, To not move further etc.
Hence, human skulls are interpreted differently within cultures. Some sees it as threat while others find it an eye candy and a sense of fashion. Thus, semiotics helps to find the embedded meaning of what these skulls are to different individual.
Chandler said that codes are not simply 'conventions' of communication but rather procedural systems of related conventions which operate in certain domains. Codes organize signs into meaningful systems which correlate signifiers and signifieds. Codes transcend single texts, linking them together in an interpretative framework. Stephen Heath notes that 'while every code is a system, not every system is a code' (Heath 1981, 130). He adds that 'a code is distinguished by its coherence, its homogeneity, its systematicity, in the face of the heterogeneity of the message, articulated across several codes.
Codes are:
a set of rules agreed upon a community.
Only within this community, are these codes understood. Others may understand them but most wouldn't.
Example C1:
Typically, if a group of friends are to hike, and at one point, they were to separate, and are to meet at that particular point in an hour. They decided to call that point the "Fist", for there is a hill shaped almost like a fist nearby.
So the code here is "Fist" understood only by that group of friends.
these rules are used to interpret signs
refer to example C1:
The code Fist are use to interpret the Sign (signified+signified) which is the hill which looks like a Fist.
without knowledge of cultural codes, the interpretation of the sign cannot be understood by others
refer to example C1: If you were to share the Fist with another group, they will obviously not know until told otherwise. Anchoring
Anchorage is text (such as a caption) that provides the link between the image/video and its context; the text that provides relevance to the reader.
Example below:
It's a clever way to associate comedy with anchoring to get viewer's attention.
For the first 20 seconds of the advert, the viewers might not even know what it's all about apart from being funny. Having to not know the real reason of the advert, viewers might assume and guess a number of things.
such as,
hygiene, to not eat things off the floor
dogs, uniting people
the older generation not understanding the younger ones
etc.
When the caption, "Don't judge too quickly" appears, the viewers then starts to understand as their mind is anchored on how it is about "judgments".
Then "we won't" appears, telling them that it's a narrative of someone asking them to trust that they won't judge them or rather customers, quickly. (an act of pulling customers)
The Company's name then closes the deal, reminding viewers that the mortgage company will take seriously any request for a home loan.
So, anchoring
is a powerful tool that shapes how we view and see things
;to anchor the meaning of the sign so that only a specific interpretation is favored. Without this, interpretation of the image/video can be of many directions.
Another example:
"The semiotic toolkit helps you think in an organised way about what you are looking at, and notice similarities and differences in the data within a categoryor sector" -quoted by Rachel Lawes, define Research &Marketing Interenational Plc, 2002, p.7
References:
Jorgen Dines Johansen, Svend Erik Larsen,Signs in Use: An Introduction to Semiotics, 2002, p.1
