Module 1: The Construction of Meaning:
Composition, Meaning, and Beliefs
Week range:
WEEK 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
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 it mean when Donat Qosja, the actor who plays Naimi in Kafeneja Jonë, regularly drinks milk with a straw at the café? What does the “perfect family” in Familja Moderne suggest about the role of men and women in post-war Kosovo? 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 group like European Broadcasting Union (EBU) can crank out high budget, live music contests watched by millions, like Eurovision. But today, a twentysomething like Denisa Demajj (aka Didi) can get on Tik Tok and create a series of memixes and video sketches that go viral and are also seen by millions. (And, Didi 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 discourses1 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.
1Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford University Press, 1977).