Youth, Schooling, and Pop Culture

Media

an array of modern communication technologies/platforms that disseminate information to large audiences, such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, movies, video games, Twitter/X, radio, internet, magazines, television, newspapers, etc

Media Education

 teaching and learning about the purposes and functions of media in industrialized societies. Buckingham (2003a) distinguishes between teaching about media and teaching through or with media.

Work Ethic

• a state of mind in which work is viewed as positive

• it is characterized by diligence and hard work and it strengthens your character 

• it is a set of skills consisting of (but not limited to) professionalism, respect for the work and colleagues, timeliness, integrity, and discipline

Media Literacy

refers to the specific skills attained through media education. For example, analyzing media codes and conventions, abilities to analyze dominant ideologies, competencies to interpret the multiple meanings and messages generated by the media texts

What is Political?

1. Politics/Political is a struggle for power and advantage. “Whoe gets what, when, and how?

2. Politics or Politics refers to the social process through which society makes its governing decisions.

3. Institutions are engaged in these social processes in which power and authority is created, organized, distributed, and employed, for example elections.

4. Politics is also a process through which a society settles its conflicts.

5. Performative acts used to persuade you or your constituents to support a particular perspective or policy position.

   1. making speeches, organizing, forming coalitions, fundraisers, making deals, creating media spectacles, etc.

Political Conflict

Resources/Scarcity— Health Care, Housing, Education, Jobs/Money, Student loans, etc…

Values— voting, immigrations, abortion, gun rights, citizenship, environment, the economy, poverty, etc.

Power

• A contested concept

• It’s the ability to make things happen in spite of obstacles, resistance or opposition.

• It is a thing that is held, coveted, seized, taken away, lost or stolen; it is adversarial between those who have it and those who do not.

Ascribe

 identity forced/put on you (ex: girls rooms being pink at birth)

Avowed

 you determine your social identity that you wanna be (start to resist the one ascribed on you)

Oppression

• Oppression is when people reduce the potential for other people to be fully human.

• In other words, oppression is when people make other people less human. This could mean treating them in a dehumanizing manner.

• It could also mean denying people language, education, and other opportunities that might make them become fully human in both mind and body.

What is Social Identity

• “The personal qualities that one claims and displays to others so consistently that they are considered to be part of one’s essential, stable self.” 

• You come to “believe” these personal qualities because others respond to you as though they are true. They and you are socialized to believe this.

• Labelling Effect = categorized as a certain type of person with a certain type of qualities → inflicted onto you → gives people power

• Gender, Age, Race, Ethnicity, Sexual Orientation, Economic Class, Religion, Ability Status, Nationality

• Your social identity can be ascribed. Members of the agent group (society) can demand you behave a certain way

• And, your social identity can be avowed. You decided to disrupt or reject

Socialization

• Refers to our systematic training into the norms of a culture

• It is the process of learning the meanings and practices that enable us to make sense of and behave appropriately in that culture.

What keeps Us in the Cycle?

• Fear → targets violence; agents lose privilege

• Ignorance → targets/agents don’t understand oppression

• Confusion → oppression is complex, not sure how to engage

• Insecurity → rarely do we interrupt oppression; so we are unsure

• Power (lessness) → targets-believe cannot make a difference; agents have to change the system to make a difference-very hard

Techical Codes

• The creator of the text uses special devices within the text to accentuate or target a specific scene, thought, or concept.

  • Camera Angle

    • overhead shots denote power

    • close-up to show emotion

    • long shots denote vastness, immensity

  • Sound

  • Lighting

  • Special Effects

Symbolic Codes

•  Subtle devices used to convey powerful ideas through the use of symbols and metaphor

  • Clenched fist: power, anger, determination

  • Broken mirror: shattered hopes, despair

  • (passion/love/anger), blue (calm/sadness/cold)

  • Masks: non-human/shame

  • Clocks: passing of time/frozen in time

  • Staircase: social mobility/journey into unconsciousness

  • Words

Reflexivity

 The ability to recognize forces of socialization and change them.

Socialization is…

• Pervasive → coming from all sides and sources

• Consistent → patterned and predictable

• Circular → self-supporting/centrifugal force

• Self-perpetuating → intra-dependent

• Unrecognizable

What is Social?

• “Social” refers to the ability to act, work, or cooperate with others in a social system.

• You are motivated to reach goals as defined by the social system… you are at some level relational with others.

What is Social Media?

• “Social media” refers to a wide range of platforms, both internet and mobile services that allow users to participate in online exchanges as well as create their own content and network with others online communities

Collective Action Problem

• Something beneficial would happen if everyone in the group behaved a particular way

• No one wants to act first because it is perceived to be costly or risky

• Thus, nothing happens and everyone loses out

Social Media-Virtual World

1. “Social media is disembodied. Nobody is needed, just language.”

• Implications: 

  • a chat bot could be communicating with you

  • catfishing could be occuring

2. “Social media are heavily asynchronous, happening via text-based posts and comments. (A video call is different; it is synchronous.”

• Implications:

  • human communication cues are missed

  • time lapses between responses becomes problematic

  • meanings of language can be misinterpreted

3. Social media “involves a substantial number of one-to-many communications.”

• you can also broadcast to a vast audience

• multiple interactions can be happening

• Implications: 

  • misinterpretations abound

  • disagreements are inevitable

4. Social media occurs “in communities that have a low bar for entry and exit, so people can block other people or just quit when they are not pleased.

• Implications:

  • you can easily learn dysfunctional social behavior

  • relationships are easily disposable; lack accountability

  • social skills may not fully develop

Social Media and Dopamine

• Central to the brain’s reward system and motivation

• Brain chemical that regulates pleasure, motivation, movement, learning, and reward

• It influences how we feel and act every day

Social Media: The Hook Model

• The Trigger

  • two types: external and internal

  • external - call to action (stimuli that intrigues/draws you in)

    • hooks are created that forms association in your mind

    • these create the internal triggers (memories, emotions, people, places, routines, etc), which connect to emotions and existing behavior

    • negative emotions are highlighted here

  • these are human needs

• Action: the behavior to get the anticipated reward

  • designers make sure the action is simple

  • there is a psychological motivation (anticipated reward/the emerging dopamine rush)

• Variable/Intermittent Reward

  • the hook creates craving → giving the reward at unpredictable times, multiplies the effect

    • the mind focuses on the reward

    • judgement and reason are suppressed

    • wanting and desire are activated

• Investment 

  • the user puts something into the product: time, data, effort, social capital, money 

  • the investment shows you want to improve the service

  • thus, trigger becomes more engaging

What is Theory?

• an intellectual device (a vocabulary) used to explain social phenomena (actions/behaviors)

• established principles based on repeated observation or testing

• the term “theory” derives from the Greek root theria: it privileges, seeing, so one function of theory is to help individuals see and interpret phenomena and events

• theory assist in deciphering phenomena using particular perspectives—theory, however, does have “blindspots” and limitations which restrict their focus

• theories also provide understanding and modes of interpretation which allow for more critical and nuanced interpretations of the world

• Theory illuminates social realities; it helps us to make sense of the world.

• Theory is a tool that helps us to operate in a variety of disciplines.

• Theory can be used as maps to gui our thinking or as “weapons” to challenge “truth.”

What is a natural fact?

• A fact that is so real in our everyday practices and in our minds that we do not question it.

• It does not require further elaboration; it is self-evident and true.

• It is the way things are supposed to be; the way things have always been.

Media Literacy Concept 1: Principle of Non-Transparency

ALL MEDIA MESSAGES ARE CONSTRUCTED

“The media do not present reality, they (re) present it.”

Media Literacy Concept 2: Codes and Conventions

MEDIA MESSAGES ARE CONSTRUCTED USING A CREATIVE LANGUAGE WITH ITS OWN RULES

Semiotics, technical and symbolic codes, camera angles, etc.

Media Literacy Concept 3: Audience Decoding

DIFFERENT PEOPLE EXPERIENCE THE SAME MEDIA MESSAGES DIFFERENTLY.

Dominant, Negotiated, and Oppositional Readings

Media Literacy Concept 4: Content and Message

MEDIA HAS EMBEDDED VALUES AND POINTS OF VIEW

Dominant Ideology: SCWAMP

Media Literacy Concept 5: Motivation

MEDIA ARE ORGANIZED TO GAIN PROFIT AND/OR POWER”

1. Political/Economy

2. Attention Economy

Max Weber’s opinion on Power

Power (Top-Down)

• Power = ability to control others, events, or resources

• Ability to make things happen despite resistance

• Top-down → authority → citizens

• Power is something you can:

  • hold

  • gain

  • lose

  • steal

• Politics = competition/conflict between those with power and those without

Michel Foucault’s opinion on Power

Power (Circulating)

• Power is not just repressive

• Power also produces knowledge, norms, behavior

• Not located in one person or institution

• Circular / everywhere

• Exists in everyday relationships (schools, media, family)

• Politics happens through social interactions, not just government

What is the Canon?

The Canon refers to an authoritative, sanctioned body of related works considered accepted, legitimate, or worthy of study. The term comes from Middle English and has religious origins, referring to the official list of books accepted as Holy Scripture. It can also mean an accepted principle or rule.

What are the religious connotations of “Canon”?

It implies THE authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scripture.

What are problems with canon selections?

• Where do we begin? Who gets to decide? Is the author’s presence or known background necessary?

• For example, in American literary traditions, we traditionally start with Cotton Mather and Jonathon Edwards–but these people did not view themselves as authors

• What about Thomas Otway and Herman Melville? (p. 13)

• Even texts that are “canonized” are problematic because they have no author (Beowulf or The Odyssey)

Author as a noun:

Authority, credibility, truth, honor, and reverence; critical thought, inquiry or challenge is rendered useless.

Author as a verb:

The writer has the ability to “write” but does not garner power, authority, or reverence to be studied by future generations.

Author/ity and Power:

• Author (noun) functioned as the source to validate and guarantee meaning.

• The author (noun) determined what knowledge was included, excluded, and occluded.

• “Not only did the author-function serve to guarantee the truth of particular discourses, but it was also used to invalidate and exclude other kinds of discourses” (p. 18).

What is authority?

• the ability to make binding decisions

• accepted power, people agree to follow it

Traditional Authority:

• Authority/power that has been traditionally given; its legitimacy derives from its being accepted for a long time.

• People accept it because they are invested in the past and feel obligated to perpetuate it.

Charismatic Authority:

• Authority/power that people give to a leader because they are drawn to the leader’s personal qualities.

Rational-Legal Authority

• Authority/power made legitimate by laws, written rules, and regulations.

• Authority/power is invested in a particular rationale, system, or ideology and not necessarily in the person who implements the specifics of the doctrine.

Death of the “Author”

• If the author’s privilege of controlling the meanings or interpretations of a test is challenged, the reader now has the power to “produce meaning rather than find it.” (p. 18)

• Not a literal but rather figurative death–the ability of institutions to fix, freeze, or hold meanings is challenged.

• Political consequences: If the sole authority of meaning-making is taken away from the author (used as a noun), then new meanings and new ways of thinking and behaving can occur.

What are “Instiutions”

• Institutions are people

• An established organization of public character that seeks to create, promote, and protect cultural values and norms

• Large-scale social structures are created to fulfill certain fundamental societal needs. They appear to be neutral

• Examples: family, education, religion, economy, media, the state (government)

• “It is precisely the ‘multiplicity of meanings’ that, according to Foucault

What is Hegemony?

• “Hegemony or hegemonic” refers to ongoing and ever-changing strategies and tactics employed by the dominant/agent to persuade the subordinate/targeted to willingly be satisfied with their political, social, economic, and cultural status

Coercive Hegemony

using obvious force or threats

• being arrested, fined, punished/suspended

• being fired from a job

• being punished politically–resources taken 

• threats/fear

• violence 

Non-coercive Hegemony

using subtlety or ideology to deceive your reality

• believing natural facts/descriptive ideology

• make you believe or feel stupid or inferior

• encouraging you to believe you are powerless

• incorporate/appropriate the idea or action

• investment/ignorance/confusion

Definition of language used broadly

written words, spoken words, visual images, facial expressions, gestures, language of fashion, pixels on a television screen, language of the traffic light, etc.

Semiotics

the study of signs in culture and of culture as a sort of language

• Denotation: the basic, simple, descriptive level, where consensus is wide.

• Connotation goes beyond description – now culture, history, ideology, and shared social values shape deeper meaning.

What is a sign?

• Anything that conveys meanings

• Change the sign, the meaning changes

The “Sign”: Signifier and Signified

• Saussure believed that the marking of difference in the signifier was fundamental to the production of meaning

• Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure analyzed the “sign” into two further elements:

  • Signifier is the actual word, image, photo, etc.

  • Signified is the concept triggered off in the head.

What is reading?

• A negotiation of signs in a variety of contexts (historical, political, social, cultural, etc.) to make meaning of something. 

• Contexts determine meaning - social, historical, political, ideological, etc. 

What is Ideology?

• contested idea

• partial truth

Prescriptive Ideology

• Ideology is a systematic body of ideas that is geared to mask the real conditions of a situation because they are masked by false ideas.

• Ideas are used to divert you from the real condition

• False consciousness

Descriptive Ideology

• Ideology is a systematic body of ideas, usually unspoken, which governs our everyday activities

• These ideas help to legitimate dominant social and political power

• There has to be some consensus (internalization) on what the present material world means. 

• SCWAMP (straight, christian, white, able-bodied, male, property-holding)

Interpellation or Hailing

• Interpellation is how language “calls” people into social roles and positions them within society during communication.

• Like when someone says, “Hey, you!” to get a taxi’s attention. 

• We are subject to the “call” because ideology was here before we were born; indeed, your selfhood has been subjected.

• We freely and willfully accept the call because we want to be recognized and noticed as well as others.

• Naming interpellation is the first act of refusing it.

Althusser’s Definition of Ideology

• Althusser argues that ideology is shaped by everyday actions, not just beliefs. What people habitually do matters more than what they think.

• These practices create ideas of what seems normal, natural, or common sense. Repetition teaches which behaviors are proper.

• Institutions (ideological state apparatuses) like family, religion, media, schools, politics, and law reinforce these norms and protect dominant power

Subject Position

Subject position is the socially constructed location ( ideologies ) that determines who you are allowed to be. 

1. It is the ideologies that pre-exist you

2. You are socialized into and by these ideologies

3. You cannot escape this process because the tools of critique were produced by ideological interpellation. 

4. You are called “into” this position-recognition 

5. It determines how you make sense of who you are, others are, and what society is in general. 

Subject position is the socially constructed location that determines who you are allowed to be. 

1. Ultrasound announcement 

2. Pledge of Allegiance

3. Religion at Birth

4. You are so smart

5. Social Media – you produce yourself as subject – “Hey, you!”

Subject Location

Social location refers to the specific social identities you have as well as the specific life circumstances that shape who you are, including era of birth, family of origin composition, schools attended, etc.

Audience Reception

• Examines how an audience makes meanings of a text, and how the creator uses technical and symbolic codes in an attempt to position the audience. 

• One’s social location in relation to semiotics comes into play here. Everyone has a reading position. 

• Hall believed people engaged in a process of negotiation with the text to reconcile their social experiences with the text. 

• Spectator positions do not predict how audiences will interpret a text.

Dominant Reading Position

The reader agrees with the prevailing or dominant ideology embedded within the text; it is accepted. 

Negotiated Reading Position

The reader accepts parts of the prevailing or dominant ideology, but must flesh out the conflicts and contradictions, looking for new ways or interpretations to explain these conflicts and contradictions. 

Oppositional Reader

Opposes substantial parts of the text; they resist the dominant ideology and do not attempt to reconcile or negotiate the text with their social experience

Mode of Address

• Who does the text (film, novels, college lecture, etc.) think you are?

• Ellsworth argues that text producers - consciously or not - design a specific relationship with their audience. 

• For the text to “work,” viewers must accept the role the text assigns them. 

• Mode of address, like” hailing,” positions viewers to accept certain ideologies

• Since cultural texts are profit-driven, they target multiple audiences at once - embedding different characters and modes of address to hail various groups simultaneously.