Introduction to Module 1

All media texts – books, news articles, radio shows, music, movies, magazine ads, Instagram posts, internet sites, cable talk shows, even a text message on your phone – are constructed. They contain a point of view and draw upon a generally understood set of cultural symbols to create meaning. Every media text, no matter how subtle, also represents an ideological framework. What does the red rose mean in The Bachelor? What does the entire show say about the institution of marriage? What was Kendrick Lamar communicating in his music video “The Heart Part 5”? What does a popular meme about politics convey? People engage with hundreds of media texts every day.

Media messages can emerge from anywhere in society. A powerful media conglomerate can crank out high-budget films watched by millions, like Barbie. But today, a 21-year-old like Khabane Lame, a Senegalese factory worker from the Italian industrial town of Chivasso, can get on social media and create a series of TikTok reaction videos that go viral and are also seen by millions.^[1] (And, Lame and others finding notoriety on social media can be drawn into the orbit of big media to cash in on that fame.) And so, to what extent do media reflect society or affect society? This is what we will be considering in this module. Nothing is produced in a vacuum. Media content producers make choices every day – aesthetic, linguistic, topical, ideological, narrative, and representational choices – and audiences engage with and interpret those choices.

In this module, you will analyze media content: the dominant, residual, and emergent discourses^[2] that come out of various channels (including people’s own social media feeds), and determine what power media content has over you, what power you have in that relationship, and what media literacy means in a constantly changing media environment.

Module 1 consists of five parts, and ends with an essay assignment.

Unit 1 (Week 1): Construction of Meaning / The Power and Delight of Picture Composition

Goal: Identify composition rules and practices for effective visual messaging.

Unit 2 (Week 2): Construction of Meaning / Semiotics: The Study of Signs and Symbolic Meaning

Goal: Articulate semiotic principles--the meaning behind media messages.

Unit 3 (Week 3): Construction of Meaning / Narrative: The Stories People Tell Help Them Make Sense of the World and Their Place In It

Goal: To understand the role narratives play in the construction of meaning and identity.

Unit 4 (Week 4) : Construction of Meaning / Ideology and Hegemony: How Ideological Positions are Articulated Through Discourses and Our Media System

Goal: To identify residual, emergent, and dominant ideologies and hegemonic practices.

Unit 5 (Week 5): Construction of Meaning: Interpretation: Polysemic, Dominant, and Oppositional Readings

Goal: To identify the various interpretive stances taken toward media texts.

Putting it Together: Applying what you know

Goal: To write a long form analysis of a media message drawing upon the entire module of discussions; readings, and viewings having to do with composition, semiology, ideology/hegemony; and residual, dominant, and emergent discourses.

[1]Jason Horowitz and Taylor Lorenz. “Review of Khaby Lame, the Everyman of the Internet.” (New York Times, June 2, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/02/style/khaby-lame-tiktok.html).

[2] Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford University Press, 1977).

Module 01: Construction of Meaning