This document summarizes a student paper about how viewers of the TV show Criminal Minds perceive and interpret depictions of mental illness in relation to criminal behavior. The paper applies John Fiske's polysemic text theory, which argues that TV shows allow for multiple interpretations based on viewers' unique experiences. The student observed a live audience watching a Criminal Minds episode. Findings showed viewers used humor to cope with on-screen violence and sympathized with criminals' mental illness but not their criminal actions. The document provides background on polysemic text theory and how audiences actively make meaning based on their own lives when interpreting TV shows.
The document discusses the relationship between media and ideology, power, and racism. It notes that politicians see media as a way to disseminate ideology and normalize social relations. Media plays a role in shaping understanding of sexuality. Media also aims to control minds and help powerful groups exercise cultural leadership by circulating their ideas, though those ideas can also be contested. Media can promote some races over others. It concludes that people should have "media literacy" to understand these influences.
Media Discourse Analysis is a presentation on behavior of media and society its includes science of colors , brain , society ,electronic media ,print media , examples of anchors and dramas , Pakistan society based dramas example , drama example and its factor ,media reporting and its factors .
This document discusses the concept of identity. It defines identity as the image of a person constructed in others' minds, which can vary between people and environments. A person has multiple identities that change over time and context, such as being a father, brother, and coworker simultaneously. Identity is independent and complex, as a person has no control over how others identify them, and all aspects of their identity are interconnected. Identity is displayed through both verbal and nonverbal communication, as well as in written discourse. A person's identities are constructed and reconstructed through their interactions in society over their lifetime.
This document outlines different levels of stylistic analysis for examining written works, including graphology, phonology, grammar, lexical analysis, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse analysis. It provides examples of features analyzed at each level, such as rhyme schemes, punctuation, parts of speech, inferences, and repetitions. The document also discusses word frequency analysis and lists common literary devices and techniques.
Full summary an_introduction_to_sociolinguisticsLutfan Adli
This document provides an overview of Chapter One from Janet Holmes' book "An Introduction to Sociolinguistics". It discusses key topics that sociolinguists study such as how social factors influence language varieties and how sociolinguists define terms like variety. Sociolinguists are interested in explaining why people speak differently in different social contexts and how social factors like social distance, status, age and gender impact language varieties and convey social meanings.
The document summarizes several media system theories, including media system dependency theory and hegemony theory. It provides definitions, key assertions, and examples of each. Media system dependency theory proposes that the influence of media depends on how much an individual relies on media to meet needs. Hegemony theory suggests that dominant social groups can manipulate ideas to make their worldview accepted as normal.
The document discusses critical discourse analysis (CDA) and its application to analyzing newspaper articles. CDA examines how social power, dominance, and inequality are reproduced through language. Newspaper articles have rhetorical organizations and language choices that can reveal underlying ideologies. Journalists use headlines, leads, and story details to shape readers' views in ways that maintain social hierarchies. An example newspaper title is analyzed to show how just a few carefully chosen words can implicitly summarize and position readers to interpret events in a certain light.
The document discusses the relationship between media and ideology, power, and racism. It notes that politicians see media as a way to disseminate ideology and normalize social relations. Media plays a role in shaping understanding of sexuality. Media also aims to control minds and help powerful groups exercise cultural leadership by circulating their ideas, though those ideas can also be contested. Media can promote some races over others. It concludes that people should have "media literacy" to understand these influences.
Media Discourse Analysis is a presentation on behavior of media and society its includes science of colors , brain , society ,electronic media ,print media , examples of anchors and dramas , Pakistan society based dramas example , drama example and its factor ,media reporting and its factors .
This document discusses the concept of identity. It defines identity as the image of a person constructed in others' minds, which can vary between people and environments. A person has multiple identities that change over time and context, such as being a father, brother, and coworker simultaneously. Identity is independent and complex, as a person has no control over how others identify them, and all aspects of their identity are interconnected. Identity is displayed through both verbal and nonverbal communication, as well as in written discourse. A person's identities are constructed and reconstructed through their interactions in society over their lifetime.
This document outlines different levels of stylistic analysis for examining written works, including graphology, phonology, grammar, lexical analysis, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse analysis. It provides examples of features analyzed at each level, such as rhyme schemes, punctuation, parts of speech, inferences, and repetitions. The document also discusses word frequency analysis and lists common literary devices and techniques.
Full summary an_introduction_to_sociolinguisticsLutfan Adli
This document provides an overview of Chapter One from Janet Holmes' book "An Introduction to Sociolinguistics". It discusses key topics that sociolinguists study such as how social factors influence language varieties and how sociolinguists define terms like variety. Sociolinguists are interested in explaining why people speak differently in different social contexts and how social factors like social distance, status, age and gender impact language varieties and convey social meanings.
The document summarizes several media system theories, including media system dependency theory and hegemony theory. It provides definitions, key assertions, and examples of each. Media system dependency theory proposes that the influence of media depends on how much an individual relies on media to meet needs. Hegemony theory suggests that dominant social groups can manipulate ideas to make their worldview accepted as normal.
The document discusses critical discourse analysis (CDA) and its application to analyzing newspaper articles. CDA examines how social power, dominance, and inequality are reproduced through language. Newspaper articles have rhetorical organizations and language choices that can reveal underlying ideologies. Journalists use headlines, leads, and story details to shape readers' views in ways that maintain social hierarchies. An example newspaper title is analyzed to show how just a few carefully chosen words can implicitly summarize and position readers to interpret events in a certain light.
Stuart Hall was a prominent British sociologist and theorist known for his work on multiculturalism, identity, and media studies. His influential writing emphasized that audiences decode media messages differently based on their backgrounds and experiences. Hall analyzed the television communication process through four stages: production, circulation, use/consumption, and reproduction. He argued that encoding and decoding do not necessarily match, and that audiences can interpret messages in dominant, negotiated, or oppositional ways. Hall's work was groundbreaking in establishing cultural studies and shifting focus to how audiences make meanings from cultural symbols.
Sequence organization in conversation focuses on how utterances are ordered in an orderly, coherent manner. The basic unit of sequence is the adjacency pair, which consists of a first pair part by one speaker requiring a second pair part in response. However, sequences can be expanded in complex ways. Expansions can occur before the first pair part (pre-expansion), between the first and second pair parts (insert expansion), or after the second pair part (post-expansion). Pre-expansions include actions like checking availability before inviting. Minimal post-expansions use responses like "oh" and "ok" to acknowledge information or actions, while non-minimal post-expansions provide more elaboration.
the essential features of italian neorealism AyshikaKarmakar
Italian Neorealism emerged after World War 2 and was characterized by stories about the poor filmed on location using non-professional actors. The Bicycle Thieves exemplified these traits by casting a factory worker in the lead role and filming on location with a documentary style. Some key features of Neorealism films included location shooting, a focus on the lower classes, natural dialogue, and a documentary aesthetic. The French New Wave similarly shot on location with available light and recorded sound on set rather than in a studio. Example films included Breathless, The 400 Blows, and Paris Belongs to Us directed by Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, and Jacques Rivette respectively.
This document provides an overview of key concepts related to media language. It defines media language as the visual language of signs used in media texts. It explains that signs have a denotation, which is the literal meaning, and a connotation, which is the implied or underlying meaning. The document also introduces several types of codes that carry meaning in media, such as symbolic codes involving images, colors, gestures, and body language, and technical codes involving camera angles and lighting.
The document discusses the key sources of news gathering for television journalists. It identifies the three main sources as people, records, and personal observation. Reporters gather most of their information from interviewing people as personal sources. They also consult stored sources like government documents and company records. Additionally, reporters may attend events to personally observe and report on them. The document emphasizes the importance of understanding where information comes from and developing relationships with sources.
The Uses and Gratification Theory proposes that people actively seek out specific media to satisfy certain needs. It focuses on understanding why and how audiences use media rather than how media affects people. The theory suggests people choose media to fulfill needs like information, personal identity, social interaction, and entertainment. It presents an audience-centered perspective on mass communication.
Whiplash is a psychological drama film from 2015 directed by Damien Chazelle. It follows the story of Andrew, a jazz drummer student at the fictional Schaffer Conservatory of Music who is pushed to his physical and emotional limits by his abusive instructor, Terence Fletcher.
The film exhibits many conventions of the drama genre through its focus on realistic characters and settings, chronological narrative that builds tension to a climactic performance, and themes of personal struggles and emotional pain. However, it also challenges drama conventions by prioritizing intense, fast-paced musical sequences over emotional interactions between characters. As a film centered around jazz music, it can also be considered a musical drama hybrid genre. The director has stated
This document summarizes various processes of language change including lexical, semantic, phonological, and grammatical changes. It provides examples of how new words are coined or borrowed from other languages. It also describes how word meanings can broaden, narrow, become more or less positive over time. Phonological changes are illustrated through the Great Vowel Shift. Grammatical changes include the loss of inflections and changes to pronouns over time.
This document provides an overview of discourse analysis and methodology for discourse analysis projects. It discusses what discourse analysis is, including that it is the study of language in text and conversation and aims to reveal hidden values and perspectives. It also discusses developing a discourse analysis project, including choosing a topic, refining the topic into a research question, and doing a literature review. Finally, it discusses methodology, including using a transdisciplinary approach to analyze political discourse, new capitalism, and systemic-functional linguistics.
This document provides an overview of conversational implicature including:
- Grice's contributions to implicature through his cooperative principles and how flouting them leads to implicature.
- Types of implicature such as generalized, particularized, and scalar.
- The difference between conversational and conventional implicature.
- Examples of implicature derived from flouting the Gricean maxims of quality, quantity, relation, and manner.
This document discusses Stuart Hall's circuit model of communication and culture. It explains that culture involves shared meanings that are circulated through media. Hall's circuit model shows how cultural meaning is generated and shaped at five moments: representation, identity, production, consumption, and regulation. The model also emphasizes that meaning is context-dependent and can vary between creator, text, and audience. Examples are provided to illustrate how representations can take on different meanings in different cultural contexts.
- The document discusses the concepts of solidarity, politeness, and address terms from a linguistic perspective.
- Historically, the use of "tu" versus "vous" in French indicated social relationships, with "vous" signaling respect between upper classes and asymmetry signaling power dynamics. Symmetrical use of address terms now indicates equality and familiarity.
- Addressing someone by title, last name, or asymmetrically signals inequality, while mutual first names indicate equality and familiarity. The more powerful person usually initiates a switch to first names.
Cultivation theory posits that heavy television viewing shapes viewers' perceptions of the world by presenting an exaggerated view of violence. Specifically, it suggests that heavy viewers come to see the world as a scary place, overestimate crime rates, and feel less safe. The theory also argues that television has become society's dominant storyteller and influences viewers through constant exposure to the same portrayals, especially of marginalized groups as more likely to be victims of violence.
Attitudes toward pidgin and creole languageNawan Rz
Pidgins and creoles are new language varieties created from existing languages. The author recalls an experience with a young African American boy who spoke Gullah creole, which is closer to standard English. Some teachers had students act as translators between creole and standard English varieties. While girls were able to switch between the languages, boys rejected the formal variety. Pidgins and creoles are often viewed with disdain despite being the primary languages of their speakers. They develop from a need to communicate between groups with different languages under conditions like trade or forced labor. Creoles emerge when a pidgin becomes a community's first language over generations.
Stuart Hall's essay focuses on the communication process in television and proposes a new theory that the audience plays an active role in interpreting messages, rather than passively receiving them. It outlines four stages of communication: production, circulation, consumption/understanding, and reproduction. Hall challenges the traditional view that messages have fixed meanings, arguing that encoding does not guarantee decoding and audiences decode messages differently based on their backgrounds and experiences. The essay also discusses how semiotics influences Hall's work and identifies three positions audiences can take in decoding messages: dominant, negotiated, or oppositional.
This document discusses key concepts related to meaning at the sentence level, including:
1) The difference between an utterance and a sentence, with an utterance being a stretch of talk by a speaker and a sentence being a string of words put together by grammatical rules.
2) Propositions, which are the condition that would make a sentence true.
3) Sentence relations like synonymy, entailment, contradiction, and presupposition which relate to how the meaning and truth value of one sentence depends on another.
4) Logical concepts used to determine truth value and truth conditions of sentences like negation, conjunction, disjunction, modus ponens, and modus toll
The document discusses news values, which are criteria used by journalists and news editors to determine what stories are most newsworthy and should receive prominent coverage. Some of the key news values mentioned include proximity, recency, currency, continuity, uniqueness, simplicity, expectedness, elite nations/people, exclusivity, and size. The higher a news story scores on these values, the more likely it is to receive prominent placement or coverage. However, news judgment is also subjective, and different outlets may prioritize stories differently based on their own standards and audience.
The document discusses different types of media discourse such as in newspapers, television, and radio. It defines key concepts like critical discourse analysis and different genres like drama, talk shows, news, and music. Some key points made are that media discourse can influence perspectives and be shaped by various micro and macro level factors. Examples from Pakistani media show how discourse addresses social and political issues through language used in dramas, talk shows, news headlines and music.
This document introduces the concepts of transactional and interactional functions of language. Transactional functions involve the expression of "content", aiming to communicate information. Interactional functions involve expressing social relations and personal attitudes. The distinction corresponds to other dichotomies in linguistics such as referential/emotive and ideational/interpersonal. While language often serves multiple functions simultaneously, this distinction provides an analytic framework. The document notes that most linguists see the primary function as the transactional communication of information, though other views emphasize the social aspects of language use.
This course explores performance in films and video games from artistic, historical, and cultural perspectives. It covers different performance styles including realism, classicism, and formalism. Realist performances strive for objectivity and authenticity, while classical Hollywood style prioritizes believability and entertainment. Formalist performances distort reality in subjective ways and use characters as metaphors. The document analyzes John Wayne's performances in terms of semiotics, how he embodied American cultural codes of individualism, patriotism, and racism through traits like independence, importance, and triumph over "savages."
John Fiske asserts that genres reflect the dominant beliefs and principles of their time period, known as the zeitgeist. Genres can provide insight into the "way of the world" of their era. The document provides examples of this using the genres and popular artists of the 1960s and 1990s. In the 1960s, rock music emerged and incorporated elements of folk, blues, and rock and roll. Defining genres of that era included folk, psychedelic rock, and soul. The 1990s saw the rise of grunge, hip hop, boy bands, and pop alongside artists like Nirvana, Snoop Dogg, Backstreet Boys, and Celine Dion.
Stuart Hall was a prominent British sociologist and theorist known for his work on multiculturalism, identity, and media studies. His influential writing emphasized that audiences decode media messages differently based on their backgrounds and experiences. Hall analyzed the television communication process through four stages: production, circulation, use/consumption, and reproduction. He argued that encoding and decoding do not necessarily match, and that audiences can interpret messages in dominant, negotiated, or oppositional ways. Hall's work was groundbreaking in establishing cultural studies and shifting focus to how audiences make meanings from cultural symbols.
Sequence organization in conversation focuses on how utterances are ordered in an orderly, coherent manner. The basic unit of sequence is the adjacency pair, which consists of a first pair part by one speaker requiring a second pair part in response. However, sequences can be expanded in complex ways. Expansions can occur before the first pair part (pre-expansion), between the first and second pair parts (insert expansion), or after the second pair part (post-expansion). Pre-expansions include actions like checking availability before inviting. Minimal post-expansions use responses like "oh" and "ok" to acknowledge information or actions, while non-minimal post-expansions provide more elaboration.
the essential features of italian neorealism AyshikaKarmakar
Italian Neorealism emerged after World War 2 and was characterized by stories about the poor filmed on location using non-professional actors. The Bicycle Thieves exemplified these traits by casting a factory worker in the lead role and filming on location with a documentary style. Some key features of Neorealism films included location shooting, a focus on the lower classes, natural dialogue, and a documentary aesthetic. The French New Wave similarly shot on location with available light and recorded sound on set rather than in a studio. Example films included Breathless, The 400 Blows, and Paris Belongs to Us directed by Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, and Jacques Rivette respectively.
This document provides an overview of key concepts related to media language. It defines media language as the visual language of signs used in media texts. It explains that signs have a denotation, which is the literal meaning, and a connotation, which is the implied or underlying meaning. The document also introduces several types of codes that carry meaning in media, such as symbolic codes involving images, colors, gestures, and body language, and technical codes involving camera angles and lighting.
The document discusses the key sources of news gathering for television journalists. It identifies the three main sources as people, records, and personal observation. Reporters gather most of their information from interviewing people as personal sources. They also consult stored sources like government documents and company records. Additionally, reporters may attend events to personally observe and report on them. The document emphasizes the importance of understanding where information comes from and developing relationships with sources.
The Uses and Gratification Theory proposes that people actively seek out specific media to satisfy certain needs. It focuses on understanding why and how audiences use media rather than how media affects people. The theory suggests people choose media to fulfill needs like information, personal identity, social interaction, and entertainment. It presents an audience-centered perspective on mass communication.
Whiplash is a psychological drama film from 2015 directed by Damien Chazelle. It follows the story of Andrew, a jazz drummer student at the fictional Schaffer Conservatory of Music who is pushed to his physical and emotional limits by his abusive instructor, Terence Fletcher.
The film exhibits many conventions of the drama genre through its focus on realistic characters and settings, chronological narrative that builds tension to a climactic performance, and themes of personal struggles and emotional pain. However, it also challenges drama conventions by prioritizing intense, fast-paced musical sequences over emotional interactions between characters. As a film centered around jazz music, it can also be considered a musical drama hybrid genre. The director has stated
This document summarizes various processes of language change including lexical, semantic, phonological, and grammatical changes. It provides examples of how new words are coined or borrowed from other languages. It also describes how word meanings can broaden, narrow, become more or less positive over time. Phonological changes are illustrated through the Great Vowel Shift. Grammatical changes include the loss of inflections and changes to pronouns over time.
This document provides an overview of discourse analysis and methodology for discourse analysis projects. It discusses what discourse analysis is, including that it is the study of language in text and conversation and aims to reveal hidden values and perspectives. It also discusses developing a discourse analysis project, including choosing a topic, refining the topic into a research question, and doing a literature review. Finally, it discusses methodology, including using a transdisciplinary approach to analyze political discourse, new capitalism, and systemic-functional linguistics.
This document provides an overview of conversational implicature including:
- Grice's contributions to implicature through his cooperative principles and how flouting them leads to implicature.
- Types of implicature such as generalized, particularized, and scalar.
- The difference between conversational and conventional implicature.
- Examples of implicature derived from flouting the Gricean maxims of quality, quantity, relation, and manner.
This document discusses Stuart Hall's circuit model of communication and culture. It explains that culture involves shared meanings that are circulated through media. Hall's circuit model shows how cultural meaning is generated and shaped at five moments: representation, identity, production, consumption, and regulation. The model also emphasizes that meaning is context-dependent and can vary between creator, text, and audience. Examples are provided to illustrate how representations can take on different meanings in different cultural contexts.
- The document discusses the concepts of solidarity, politeness, and address terms from a linguistic perspective.
- Historically, the use of "tu" versus "vous" in French indicated social relationships, with "vous" signaling respect between upper classes and asymmetry signaling power dynamics. Symmetrical use of address terms now indicates equality and familiarity.
- Addressing someone by title, last name, or asymmetrically signals inequality, while mutual first names indicate equality and familiarity. The more powerful person usually initiates a switch to first names.
Cultivation theory posits that heavy television viewing shapes viewers' perceptions of the world by presenting an exaggerated view of violence. Specifically, it suggests that heavy viewers come to see the world as a scary place, overestimate crime rates, and feel less safe. The theory also argues that television has become society's dominant storyteller and influences viewers through constant exposure to the same portrayals, especially of marginalized groups as more likely to be victims of violence.
Attitudes toward pidgin and creole languageNawan Rz
Pidgins and creoles are new language varieties created from existing languages. The author recalls an experience with a young African American boy who spoke Gullah creole, which is closer to standard English. Some teachers had students act as translators between creole and standard English varieties. While girls were able to switch between the languages, boys rejected the formal variety. Pidgins and creoles are often viewed with disdain despite being the primary languages of their speakers. They develop from a need to communicate between groups with different languages under conditions like trade or forced labor. Creoles emerge when a pidgin becomes a community's first language over generations.
Stuart Hall's essay focuses on the communication process in television and proposes a new theory that the audience plays an active role in interpreting messages, rather than passively receiving them. It outlines four stages of communication: production, circulation, consumption/understanding, and reproduction. Hall challenges the traditional view that messages have fixed meanings, arguing that encoding does not guarantee decoding and audiences decode messages differently based on their backgrounds and experiences. The essay also discusses how semiotics influences Hall's work and identifies three positions audiences can take in decoding messages: dominant, negotiated, or oppositional.
This document discusses key concepts related to meaning at the sentence level, including:
1) The difference between an utterance and a sentence, with an utterance being a stretch of talk by a speaker and a sentence being a string of words put together by grammatical rules.
2) Propositions, which are the condition that would make a sentence true.
3) Sentence relations like synonymy, entailment, contradiction, and presupposition which relate to how the meaning and truth value of one sentence depends on another.
4) Logical concepts used to determine truth value and truth conditions of sentences like negation, conjunction, disjunction, modus ponens, and modus toll
The document discusses news values, which are criteria used by journalists and news editors to determine what stories are most newsworthy and should receive prominent coverage. Some of the key news values mentioned include proximity, recency, currency, continuity, uniqueness, simplicity, expectedness, elite nations/people, exclusivity, and size. The higher a news story scores on these values, the more likely it is to receive prominent placement or coverage. However, news judgment is also subjective, and different outlets may prioritize stories differently based on their own standards and audience.
The document discusses different types of media discourse such as in newspapers, television, and radio. It defines key concepts like critical discourse analysis and different genres like drama, talk shows, news, and music. Some key points made are that media discourse can influence perspectives and be shaped by various micro and macro level factors. Examples from Pakistani media show how discourse addresses social and political issues through language used in dramas, talk shows, news headlines and music.
This document introduces the concepts of transactional and interactional functions of language. Transactional functions involve the expression of "content", aiming to communicate information. Interactional functions involve expressing social relations and personal attitudes. The distinction corresponds to other dichotomies in linguistics such as referential/emotive and ideational/interpersonal. While language often serves multiple functions simultaneously, this distinction provides an analytic framework. The document notes that most linguists see the primary function as the transactional communication of information, though other views emphasize the social aspects of language use.
This course explores performance in films and video games from artistic, historical, and cultural perspectives. It covers different performance styles including realism, classicism, and formalism. Realist performances strive for objectivity and authenticity, while classical Hollywood style prioritizes believability and entertainment. Formalist performances distort reality in subjective ways and use characters as metaphors. The document analyzes John Wayne's performances in terms of semiotics, how he embodied American cultural codes of individualism, patriotism, and racism through traits like independence, importance, and triumph over "savages."
John Fiske asserts that genres reflect the dominant beliefs and principles of their time period, known as the zeitgeist. Genres can provide insight into the "way of the world" of their era. The document provides examples of this using the genres and popular artists of the 1960s and 1990s. In the 1960s, rock music emerged and incorporated elements of folk, blues, and rock and roll. Defining genres of that era included folk, psychedelic rock, and soul. The 1990s saw the rise of grunge, hip hop, boy bands, and pop alongside artists like Nirvana, Snoop Dogg, Backstreet Boys, and Celine Dion.
This document discusses various theories of active audiences in relation to media texts. It outlines Stuart Hall's reception theory of dominant, negotiated, and oppositional readings that audiences can take based on their social position. John Fiske's theory rejects that audiences are passive and that texts have set meanings, instead finding meanings are often polysemic. The uses and gratification theory by McQuail suggests people use media to fulfill needs like escapism, social interaction and entertainment. Gauntlett's work on role models discusses how audiences may look to different types of role models like those overcoming difficulties. Students are asked to apply these theories to one of their own media productions by considering things like who the target audience is, how they positioned them
Compound Noun Polysemy and Sense Enumeration in WordNet Biswanath Dutta
Sense enumeration in WordNet is one of the main reasons behind the problem of high polysemous nature of WordNet. The sense enumeration refers to misconstruction that results in wrong assigning of a synset to a term. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to discover and solve the problem of sense enumerations in compound noun polysemy in WordNet. The proposed solution reduces the number of sense enumerations in WordNet and thus its high polysemous nature without affecting its efficiency as a lexical resource for natural language processing.
The document provides an overview of several postmodernist theories and theorists related to genre. It discusses John Fiske's theory of intertextuality and how audiences make sense of genres based on cultural knowledge. It also mentions Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Claude Levi-Strauss, Gerard Genette, and their contributions to understanding genres and intertextuality. The document then discusses some key postmodernist thinkers like Baudrillard, Lyotard, Jameson, and their perspectives on simulation, rejecting grand narratives, and viewing postmodernism as responding to late capitalism.
This document discusses various concepts related to postmodernism, including theories proposed by theorists such as Fiske, Barthes, Derrida, Levi-Strauss, Genette, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Kramer, and Jameson. It examines ideas around intertextuality, genres, simulation, hyperreality, and rejection of grand narratives. Key concepts covered include codes, cultural knowledge, making sense of reality through other texts, circular referentiality, and pastiche vs parody.
This document discusses media genres and textual analysis. It begins by defining genres as categories of cultural products that help producers and audiences. It then outlines Berger's four basic television genres based on emotionality and objectivity: contests, actualities, persuasions, and dramas. The document also discusses how genres have developed on the internet, news as a central media genre and narrative, analyses of violence and cultural texts, concepts like seriality and realism, and how texts can be gendered and polysemic. It concludes that classifying media content into genres has become more difficult with expanding and diversifying media forms.
This document provides an abstract and introduction for a research paper exploring how crime drama TV shows may affect people's attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of crime. The paper focuses on three shows as case studies: CSI, Dexter, and The Sopranos. Focus groups were conducted to gather primary data on how these shows represent gender, race, and their perceived realism. The introduction outlines the research question and justification for focusing on these aspects. It also notes that the paper aims to explore one part of the broader issue of how media impacts perceptions, leaving room for further research on other narratives in crime shows.
The document discusses verbal and non-verbal communication across cultures. It examines factors that can interfere with accurate communication between cultures, such as thought patterns, perceptions, stereotyping, attitudes, and differences in social organization, language, and use of time. Non-verbal communication like kinesics (body language) and proxemics (use of space) are also culturally specific and can lead to misunderstandings between cultures if not properly understood in context. Overall, the document analyzes some of the key psychological and social variables that can impact cross-cultural communication.
This document discusses several media theories and their relevance to communication practice. It begins by discussing indigenous media or folk media, which refers to traditional means of mass communication used by ancient communities, such as drums, dances, and paintings. The Magic Bullet Theory is relevant here, as indigenous audiences are directly influenced by these media. It then discusses traditional print and broadcast media, noting the Cultivation Theory, which posits that heavy exposure to media shapes audiences' views of social reality. The document emphasizes that understanding media theories is important for communication students and practitioners to effectively reach and influence audiences.
This document discusses several media theories and their relevance to communication practice. It begins by discussing indigenous media or folk media, which refers to traditional means of mass communication used by ancient communities, such as drums, dances, and paintings. The Magic Bullet Theory is relevant here, as indigenous audiences are directly influenced by these media. It then discusses traditional print and broadcast media, noting the Cultivation Theory, which posits that heavy exposure to media shapes audiences' views of social reality. The document emphasizes that understanding media theories is important for communication students and practitioners to effectively reach and influence audiences.
This document discusses audience theory and research in British cultural studies. It summarizes David Morley's influential study from 1980 where he had different socioeconomic groups watch an episode of Nationwide and analyzed their interpretations. It also discusses Dorothy Hobson's research on the soap opera Crossroads, which took a more ethnographic approach than Morley by observing viewers in their own homes. Key concepts discussed include dominant, negotiated, and oppositional readings; how audiences construct meaning differently based on social position; and differences between ethnography and anthropology as research methods.
Wiley and American Anthropological Association are collabora.docxjoyjonna282
Wiley and American Anthropological Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
American Ethnologist.
http://www.jstor.org
National Texts and Gendered Lives: An Ethnography of Television Viewers in a North Indian
City
Author(s): Purnima Mankekar
Source: American Ethnologist, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Aug., 1993), pp. 543-563
Published by: on behalf of the Wiley American Anthropological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/646641
Accessed: 08-05-2015 21:11 UTC
REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/646641?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]
This content downloaded from 140.182.176.13 on Fri, 08 May 2015 21:11:22 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=anthro
http://www.jstor.org/stable/646641
http://www.jstor.org/stable/646641?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
national texts and gendered lives: an ethnography of
television viewers in a North Indian city
PURNIMA MANKEKAR-Stanford University
Recent trends in anthropology reflect an increasing acknowledgment of the significance of
mass media to processes of identity formation (see, for instance, Appadurai and Breckenridge
1988; Ivy 1988; Russell 1991; Traube 1989). In this article I analyze the ways in which men
and women in New Delhi actively engage with and interpret Indian television, and I explore
the place of their interpretations in their constitution as national and gendered subjects. Given
the tendency of some scholars to depict audiences of mass media as passive consumers and,
in the case of women who live in the "Third World," as helpless victims of a total izing patriarchal
"system," my approach to popular culture and subjectivity represents important theoretical and
political gains.
Studies attempting to link television with the construction of identity have tended to focus on
the effects of populartexts upon the lives of those who interactwith them. For instance, Modleski
stresses the centrality of the pleasures of television's texts to the construction ...
This document discusses how media represents and influences gender. It covers how media forms like television became ubiquitous and now dominate leisure time. Media is approached as a social institution that constructs and reinforces gender through representations that respond to one another across formats. While media economics aim to market to audiences, media also exercises power to influence social norms and what it means to be masculine or feminine. The document discusses ways people can develop a critical oppositional gaze to resist dominant media influences on gender.
Essay on Population | Population Essay for Students and Children in .... World population essay. World Population Day Essay. 2022-11-14. College essay: Population essay. Population Essay - International Baccalaureate Geography - Marked by .... Increase In Population Essay Topics. Population Essay. School essay: World population essay. Population Growth Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 .... An Essay on the Principle of Population | PDF Host. In Essay on the Principle of Population | Labour Economics | Economies. HISTORY30067 - Population Growth Essay.pdf - The Impacts Of World ....
A MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF SELECTED ADVERTISEMENT OF MALARIA DRUGSNicole Heredia
This document presents a multimodal discourse analysis of advertisements for several new malaria drugs in Nigeria. It analyzes the visual and linguistic components of 4 advertisements. For the first ad, it describes how the image of a monster-like mosquito signifies malaria as a deadly threat that the advertised drug can remedy. The second ad shows a happy family who appear to have been helped by the drug, with the message that it stops mosquitoes and therefore malaria. The third places images of African children in a map of the continent to represent the huge impact of malaria in Africa, where the advertised drug could help. The fourth features a famous actress endorsing the drug to increase the ad's popularity. Overall it examines how images enhance and communicate messages
Synthesis Essay
Crystal Jefferson
June 9, 2013
WRTG 101
Annemarie J Chiarini
Synthesis essay
Every multimedia medium enables a unique method of discourse by offering a different orientation for expression, sensibility, and thought.According to McLuhan in the article ‘The media is the metaphor’ identifies medium as the message. Forms of media do not denote specific or concrete statements regarding the environment or world but are rather metaphors, which work to enforce various reality definitions. Whether an individual or group is experiencing the immediate environment or the world using a speech, printed words or television, media-metaphors classify, sequence, and argue the case concerning how the world is in reality (McLuhan, 2003; Postman, 2005). Comment by Annmarie Chiarini: Read your paper out loud to ensure clear and accurate sentence structure Comment by Annmarie Chiarini: “ ->use these quotes Comment by Annmarie Chiarini: Where is your thesis? From Drew University’s website:
A research paper with a weak thesis (such as: "media images of women help to shape women's sense of how they should look") will organize its findings to show how this is so without having to spend much time discussing other arguments (in this case, other things that also help to shape women's sense of how they should look). A paper with a strong thesis (such as "the media is the single most important factor in shaping women's sense of how they should look") will spend more time discussing arguments that it rejects (in this case, each paragraph will show how the media is more influential than other
factors in that particular aspect of women's sense of how they should look").
Postman uses the term “conversation” metaphorically referring to all the technologies and techniques that permit individuals to pass across messages. Every culture is regarded as a conversation or corporation of conversations in symbolic modes. Postman seeks to show how the various public discourse forms can regulate content of multimedia message. Television has had an effect in delivery of news in the sense that “news of the day” does not exist if media is not available to provide it with expression. Lack of a technology to communicate a message results in people not paying attention to it thus without any medium to create form, news of the day does not exist (Postman, 2005). In the article “The Transition to Digital Journalism” Gomez writes that a lot of journalists enter this profession because of the love of telling stories. Gomez raises concerns that digital media, such as television will bring doom to narrative as a result of constant eruption of information which, lack context. This factor is affecting delivery of news by making many people lack attention span to seek in-depth news.
Quayle believes in “The method of the medium is in motion” that television news has the potential to support higher public discourse level. An individual’s body is irrelevant in as compared ...
Internationalisation of media industries and sense of spaceNikos Koulousios
This document argues that the internationalization and conglomeration of media industries does not have a positive effect on our sense of place and belonging. It contends that as media ownership becomes more concentrated, content will become more uniform, potentially threatening diversity and local identities. While international media can foster a global communicative space, without common political and social systems, it will be difficult to establish a shared identity. The trend towards media conglomeration risks the creation of a homogenized global cultural identity driven by profit motives, rather than diversity and local distinction.
This document summarizes several key media theories and theorists. It covers semiotics, narratology, genre theory, structuralism, postmodernism, representation, identity, gender, ethnicity, media industries, audiences, and fandom. Some of the main ideas discussed include Barthes' concept of signs, Todorov's narrative patterns, Neale's views on genre as process, Levi-Strauss' structuralism, Baudrillard's ideas of simulation and hyperreality, Hall's work on representation, Butler's gender performativity, and Jenkins' concept of fans and participatory culture.
This document provides an overview of mass media and its functions. It discusses how mass media reflects cultural values while also influencing attitudes and behaviors. Mass media is defined as communication targeting a large, anonymous audience through technologies like newspapers, radio, and television. Key points made include:
- Mass media has immense power to incorporate people into society and influence their values, though direct links between media messages and behavior are difficult to prove.
- Television in particular has become a dominant medium, with people spending half their free time watching on average. However, television may not fully capture viewers' attention.
- Mass media serves important functions like warning of dangers, providing companionship through media personalities, and conferring status on individuals through
This document discusses several key concepts in media studies, including:
1. Media audiences can be segmented by various demographic factors and respond to media texts in different ways such as identifying or aspiring to characters.
2. Media institutions aim to communicate with target audiences and make money, such as through advertising revenue, which can influence the content they produce.
3. Media representations are constructions that re-present reality and can positively or negatively portray people, groups and issues through aspects like language, costumes and stereotypes.
4. Several media theories are outlined that examine how audiences interact with and make sense of media texts, such as uses and gratification theory, cultivation theory, and reception theories on dominant, negotiated
Political economy theory reveals that television broadcasting is heavily influenced by business and political interests. Management treats television as a business and producers aim to satisfy audiences to receive funding. Independent television allows more freedom for new ideas. Political economy supports removing corporate and government influence to achieve true free press. It also examines the influence of American media on Australian television content through formats and styles. Ultimately, audiences decode messages in their own cultural context.
This document discusses audience research and various audience theories. It provides an overview of John Hartley's classification of audience groups into 7 categories including self, gender, age, family, class, nation, and ethnicity. It also summarizes John Fiske's concept of "semiotic democracy" where audiences actively interpret media texts based on their own experiences rather than passively accepting the intended meaning. Additionally, it explains that a vox pops segment in news involves short interviews with public members to represent different opinions on events in an informal way.
Audience Construction: Race, Ethnicity and Segmentation in Popular MediaThink Ethnic
This document summarizes Oscar H. Gandy Jr.'s paper on audience construction with regards to race, ethnicity, and segmentation in popular media. It discusses four main perspectives on how audiences are constructed: as publics, markets, commodities, and victims. Segmenting audiences based on attributes like race and ethnicity is a social practice that both reflects and reinforces group definitions and boundaries over time. While segmentation is usually explored from the perspective of powerful actors, individuals also recognize themselves in these constructed segments.
Similar to Polysemic Text in Television- How People Perceive Mental Illness in Criminal Minds (20)
Audience Construction: Race, Ethnicity and Segmentation in Popular Media
Polysemic Text in Television- How People Perceive Mental Illness in Criminal Minds
1. Polysemic Text in Television: How People Perceive Mental Illness in Criminal Minds
Anakaren Ureño
Spring 2016
Department of Communications
California State University, Fullerton
2. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 2
Abstract
John Fiske’s polysemic text theory argues that television is an open text and that the “structure of
the narrative and its presentation allow for a multitude of interpretations by different audiences”
(Sullivan, 2013, pp. 133-160). Using observation of a live media audience as they watch an
episode of Criminal Minds and the application of the polysemic text theory, this paper examines
how viewers perceive and interact with mental illness when it is associated with criminal
behavior. Findings of this observation suggest that audiences utilize humor as a “coping”
mechanism to deal with the onscreen violence when it comes too close to reality. In addition, the
observation reveals that audiences who have personal experience with mental illness are able to
sympathize with the criminal, but not the criminal actions that result from the mental illness.
3. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 3
Introduction
Media consumption has managed to infiltrate almost every aspect of our lives. We are
consistently being served information through various forms of media that surround us. We piece
together these different bits of information and combine them with personal experiences to form
our opinions and develop an understanding or interpretation of reality.
Television shows, movies, newspaper articles, social media campaigns and more are
consistently at work in an attempt to accurately depict mental illness. Television shows like
American Horror Story, which dedicated a season to mental illness in its short series, “Asylum,”
and FOX’s Empire, which showcases bipolar disorder and a history of familial mental illness,
focus on highlighting the effects of mental disorders and they attempt to provide us insight into
how those who are living with the various disorders feel. However, shows like Criminal Minds
and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit consistently tie crime back to mental health and never
intend to give us insight into the mental struggles of the criminal.
Newspaper articles discussing mental illness are often in response to gruesome crimes
that make for attention-grabbing headlines. Mass shootings, especially in recent years, have
taken over the headlines and mental illness often has its moment in the political spotlight during
international press conferences discussing how a series of events could have been prevented and
in discussions about gun control.
Furthermore, each individual’s personal experiences with mental illness are unique.
While some are living with mental illness, others have watched loved ones struggle with
illnesses that have taken over their lives, some have lost relatives to crime involving mental
illness while others have only seen it on television.
4. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 4
This paper seeks to understand how television audiences, specifically of the show
Criminal Minds, interact with mental illness as depicted in association with crime throughout an
episode.
Literature Review
Stuart Hall’s (1980) encoding/decoding model introduced an influential development and
understanding of media audience behavior. Hall (1980), alongside a group of scholars from the
Birmingham University Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), advocated against
textual determinism. Hall and the Birmingham group argued that because audiences approached
media texts with individual experiences and unique cultural backgrounds, their interpretation of
mainstream media content could not be predetermined (Sullivan, 2013, pp.133-160).
Fiske (1986) argued that television was an open (polysemic) text that allowed its diverse
audiences to produce individual meanings based on their own experiences and identities.
“Despite generations of life under the hegemony of capitalism there is still a wide range of social
groups and subcultures with different sense of their own identity, of their relations to each other
and to the centers of power” (Fiske, 1986). For example, in an analysis of the portrayal of
feminism in Sex and the City, Southard (2008) notes that “polysemic texts in which many salient,
conflicting perspectives interact simultaneously” (p.150) have the ability to play out multiple
meanings that resonate with individuals based on their own personal experiences.
Fiske (1986) noted that central to his polysemy television text theory was the “notion that
all television texts must, in order to be popular, contain within them unresolved contradictions
that the viewer can exploit in order to find within them structural similarities to his or her own
social relations and identity.” (p. 392) Furthermore, “these contradictions provide opportunities
for readers to construct alternative interpretations of what they see” (Gillespie, 2000). These
5. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 5
television shows are able to “recognize differences, oppressions and privileges as they pertain to
race, class, sexuality and nationality” (Southard, 2008) seamlessly through accomplished
storytelling.
Thus, the polysemic text theory, introduced by Hall and solidified by Fiske, argues that
television is an open text and that the “structure of the narrative and its presentation allow for a
multitude of interpretations by different audiences” (Sullivan, 2013). Often, a television show is
set up so that the audience has an opportunity to execute a “creative process of associated
meaning with information on the screen” (Sullivan, 2013) and “invites the participation of the
audience in completing the picture” (Sullivan, 2013) before the conclusion of the television
episode or series. The polysemy of television encourages an active audience that is consistently
associated meaning and symbolism to different aspects of the show. More often than not, these
associated meanings are derived from personal and unique experiences.
However, the author must be acknowledged in the relationship between television and
audience. “This implies a power relationship between text and reader that parallels the
relationship between the dominant and subordinate classes in society. In both instances authority
attempts to impose itself, but is met with a variety of variously successful strategies of resistance
or modification that change, subvert or reject the authoritatively proposed meanings” (Fiske,
1986). These strategies of resistance are in part successful because the “television audience is
not a social category like class, or race, or gender” (Fiske, 1989), but rather composed of a
myriad of people who “constitute themselves quite differently as audience members at different
times” (Fiske, 1989). In other words, the same audience member will elicit different responses
based on the subject matter presented—they may be one person at the opera house and a
completely different member at a football game the following weekend. “What the set in the
6. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 6
living room delivers is television, visual and aural signifiers that are potential provokers of
meaning and pleasure. This potential is its textuality which is mobilized differently in the variety
of its moments of viewing” (Fiske, 1989). With this, Fiske argues that it is neither the content nor
the context that assign meaning to a television show but rather the breadth of personal
experiences that the viewer contributes to the viewing. The potential of its text is unique to the
viewer and his/her experiences.
Hall (1980) looks at the process between source (author) and reception (audience) as a
series of a moments in the television production process that all contribute to the realization of
the message. “Production and reception of the television message are not, therefore, identical,
but they are related: they are differentiated moments within the totality formed by the social
relations of the communicative process as a whole” (Hall, 1980, p.129). Going beyond the
moments of production and reception, are the moments in which the author must encode the text
with meaningful language and discourse. However, the meaning cannot be realized unless it is
also meaningfully decoded. It is at this moment that the message takes its own form depending
on the viewer and the different socio-economic structures that surround them, allowing for the
meanings to “acquire social use value or political effectivity” (Hall, 1980, p.129).
In an age of such diversified television, it can be argued that viewers no longer exert any
effort in decoding the text. If the literal language and representation that a specific television
show produces do not appeal to the viewer, they can simply choose a different program that
caters to their niche interests. It can be argued that the era of post-network television, with its
myriad of viewing options catering to niche cultural, social and political interests has rendered
the necessity for audiences to decode television messages irrelevant. However, the changes “do
not eliminate the need for attention to the ways that television continues to play a part in
7. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 7
struggles for power. The medium need not speak in a single voice to be a factor in the exercise of
dominant interests, nor do its audiences need to engage in a single experience of television to
make their negotiations with it central to current social, cultural, and political debates” (Levine,
2011). The value of the commentary that television makes on society is not diminished in the
polysemy of the text, rather it enhances the meaning by adding multiple layers of interpretation
riddled with the unique personal experiences of each viewer.
Finally, Levine (2011) addresses the diversity in American television: “How much has it
diversified the stories, the myths, the ideologies that it presents?” The new introductions of
television viewing options may add to the extent and dimensions in which its effects and
relationships can be researched, but it does “little to alter these fundamental workings of
television culture, even in a post-network age” (Levine, 2011). Even in a post-network age where
there exists an unlimited number of viewing options, the foundation of television culture remains
the same. The storylines may change, but plot lines have historically continued to mimic each
other.
“There is no degree zero in language” (Hall, 1980). The conclusions that are reached as a
result of the audios and visuals presented through television are a result of discussion and
interpretation, rather than a direct result of how the storyline is represented; the text is polysemic.
Research Questions
A polysemic text allows for a myriad of interpretations of a single television episode of
any given series. In Criminal Minds specifically, the behavioral profile of a criminal is unveiled
as a team of detectives uncovers key pieces of evidence relating to the personal and criminal
history of the individual. Given that each individual that will be involved in my observational
8. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 8
process has a unique understanding and experience with mental illness, my research questions
are as follows:
RQ1: How do media audiences perceive and respond to mental illness depicted in
television shows in the form of criminal behavior?
Methodology
For this study, qualitative research methods were employed in the form of observational
audience analysis and informal interviews in order to gather insight into how media audiences
interact with the representation of mental illness in television shows.
The research will involve the observation of 16 individuals, 12 females and four males,
between the ages of 12 and 56 as they watch an episode of Criminal Minds. This audience
regularly consumes the news, participates in social media and consistently views other television
series. This observational aspect will be necessary and essential as it will allow the researcher to
take note of how and when the audience engages and reacts to certain criminal behavior that is
associated with a mental illness. The observation will include the interaction of the audience with
the television episode and the researcher will record any commentary on the episode and the
attitude with which criminal behavior associated with mental illness is received.
After the episode has concluded, each participant will be asked two questions
surrounding the episode. In conjunction, both questions will seek to gain an understanding of the
perspective that the viewers have of the criminal’s behavior.
Participants
Individuals in the study consisted of 12 females and four male participants, all living in
Orange County. Ages of the participants ranged from 12 to 56 years. For this study, each of the
9. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 9
participants had declared personal experience with mental illness, some more intimately than
others.
Procedure
Participants were not given any specifics beyond informing them that they would be
observed throughout the television episode. The researcher did not include additional
information surrounding what they were looking for in specific, in an effort to keep the
observation as organic as possible. There were two structured questions used to assess perception
after the episode viewing. The list of questions is provided in Appendix A.
Analysis
The observations were transcribed and analyzed for themes pertaining to the research
question that attempts to understand how viewers perceive and respond to mental illness when
depicted in conjunction with a gruesome crime.
Results
Q1: How do media audiences perceive and respond to mental illness depicted in television shows
in the form of criminal behavior?
The Criminal Minds episode that was used to observe the audience was “Hostage,” from
season 11. The Criminal Minds Behavioral Analysis Unit travels to Missouri when an 18-year
old woman escapes from a house where she and two other women were held captive for a
decade. The episode opens with the 18-year old woman, Gina, in a dark room wearing worn and
dirty clothes while she is sawing away at an iron-barred window, clearly trying to escape from an
unfortunate situation. As this opening scene played on the screen, viewers began making
commentary calling the woman “Carrie part three,” referencing a popular American horror film
that centers on a 17-year old outcast with telekinetic powers that she ultimately aggressively uses
10. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 10
in self-defense to murder classmates. As the scene revealed additional victims, a second viewer
commented, “This is going to be a good one. There’s more than one hostage.”
Rather than focus on the gravity of the situation, viewers began to comment on Gina’s
physical appearance and several of the viewers inject alternative ways in which they would have
escaped. The viewers begin to make jokes about the victim’s situation as the episode begins to
reveal additional information about the circumstances and the room in which they are being held.
There is continued commentary on Gina’s physical appearance from viewers.
As the episode progresses, viewers inject themselves into the scenarios and resolve them
by presenting humorous hypothetical scenarios. As Behavioral Analysis Unit becomes involved
in the situation, viewers begin to comment on the effectiveness of law enforcement and the
viewers begin to participate in the decoding of the episode. As the show progresses and more
details are revealed, viewers take turns calling out certain specifics and labeling them as potential
clues. At this point, several viewers have vocalized different guesses as to who the “unknown
subject” might be.
The detectives identify the weapons that the victim was tortured with and a viewer makes
a joke about in reference to 50 Shades of Grey, a 201l novel that became popularized due to its
elements of sadism, masochism, dominance and submission. The episode shares a flashback that
shows an eight-year old Gina being kidnapped and a viewer makes a comment about the age at
which she was kidnapped, explaining that she doesn’t find it believable that an eight-year old
could be so easily kidnapped.
At this point, the episode has begun the characterization process of the “unknown
subject,” showcasing an apartment with carefully folded clothing, all the same, allowing him to
wear the same clothes day after day; a viewer comments, “hashtag routine.” As more details are
11. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 11
shared with the audience, there is an audible increase in commentary, each viewer interjecting
with opinions on how they believe the crime will be solved.
The episode reveals a compelling scene in which one of the three victims succumbs to
her injuries and dies. The audience responds to this scene sympathetically, commenting on the
sadness and on how “messed up” it was that the victim was not able to fully reunite with her
family. As this scene ends, the screen changes to a third victim, still with the criminal. The
criminal has been identified as a white, heavyset male in his late 50s with dirty blond hair. He is
on the run, knowing that his time is limited because his victims have escaped and he throws a
cheeseburger to his hostage in the back of a van. A viewer in the audience makes a joke about it,
commenting about how they’d appreciate it if someone threw a cheeseburger their way.
The criminal is apprehended by the Behavioral Analysis Unit and is being interviewed by
a lead detective who presents him with a list of crimes and waits for an explanation from the
criminal. The detective describes the torture and rape to which the criminal responds, “Children
need discipline.” The viewers laugh at the reasoning that the criminal provides for each of his
crimes. However, when an additional crime is mentioned, the viewers respond with disgust and
negative reactions.
The episode, “Hostage,” goes on to reveal two additional victims that are being held
hostage in a dark, seemingly abandoned house. The victims are two young girls that appear to be
rationing droplets of water. While the audience had expressed sympathy for a dying victim 30
seconds prior, a viewer now makes a joke about the conditions in which the victims are being
held. However, when additional information is revealed surrounding the gravity of the situation
the viewers respond sympathetically.
12. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 12
The scene ends and switches to one where the criminal is in the presence of one of his
victims who is demonstrating signs of Stockholm syndrome and has asked to speak with her
captor. He reaches out to hug her and the audience responds in disgust, almost as if they
themselves are repelled by his touch. Later, as a victim is reunited with her biological family and
the father embraces his daughter, the audience responds with tones of sympathy and
contentment.
In a closing scene, the criminal is shot down and killed as he is being taken into custody
and the audience begins a line of commentary centered on how he deserved it. The audience
takes turns offering up other scenarios in which the criminal would have suffered more before
death. They absolve the woman who killed him, saying she is not to blame for wanting to bring
her daughter’s captor to justice.
At the conclusion, each participant was asked to answer the following two questions:
- Could you understand the criminal’s behavior in any way?
- What do you think is the cause of the criminal’s behavior?
These questions were asked because each Criminal Minds episode clearly provides a
psychological analysis of the criminal in which they provide the cause and effects of their
psychological trauma.
Among the responses there was a prevalent theme that spoke to an understanding of
mental illness. Viewers commented on how the criminal’s traumatic childhood contributed to his
actions and they commented on how they were able to sympathize once they learned about the
horrors that he was exposed to as a child. However, some continued to comment that while they
understood why he had done the things he had done, there was still no justification for inflicting
the same pain on others.
13. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 13
The responses to the second question included commentary on the criminal’s upbringing,
his childhood development, the trauma he was exposed to, his history and his mental illness.
Others attributed his actions to poor impulse control, poor socialization and calling him “just
plain psycho.” The implications of these responses will be discussed further in the analysis of the
results that follows.
Analysis of Results
An analysis of the observations revealed that there were three types of scenes to which
the audience responded most avidly: moments of action showcasing torture or horrible captive
conditions (type A), moments that demonstrated the effects of the torture (type B) and moments
in which the detectives uncovered additional details about the “unknown subject.” Each of these
moments elicited a high response from the audience, albeit each unique.
The predominant theme in the scenes where the torture and hostage conditions were
showcased was humor. Throughout the scenes in which torture was depicted, the audience
frequently made comments with varying degrees of humor sprinkled throughout. Their focus was
on the details that were not relevant to the crime, such as the physical appearance of the victim
and connections to popular culture. While further research would be required, this pattern
indicates a use of humor to deal with the discomfort of coming face-to-face with the criminal
effects of mental illness. This can be viewed as a coping mechanism amongst viewing audiences
to figuratively avert their eyes from the terrors that they are witnessing firsthand.
A theme that was identified in the commentary made during scenes that demonstrated the
effects of the torture or criminal activity was sympathy. After the audience “survived” the
torture, they responded sympathetically either demonstrating sadness for the loss of a life,
happiness when a family was reunited or relief when the criminal was murdered.
14. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 14
Evidence of a polysemic text emerged in the scenes in which the detectives uncovered
additional details about the crime and the “unknown subject.” It was during these moments that
each viewer shared different conjectures and made calculated guesses as to who the criminal was
or how they would capture him based on the information that the episode had thus far provided.
It is interesting to note that while everyone was simultaneously watching the same episode,
viewers each identified different pieces of information that they felt were of value to the
investigation. It is at this point of the decoding process that the audience makes use of their
unique experiences and knowledge of mental illness to identify pieces of information that would
be of value to the team of detectives. To each of these individuals, a different piece of the puzzle
is more important than others because of what they have been exposed to in mainstream media,
life and alternate forms of entertainment.
The audience responded with humor to the moments in which the mentally ill criminal
exposed his victims to torture or displeasing hostage conditions. However, when asked for their
thoughts surrounding the criminal’s behavior in the questions posed after the episode viewing,
several demonstrated an understanding of mental illness and acknowledged sympathizing with
the criminal. They acknowledged that childhood trauma could be to blame for his mental illness
and thus the cause of his behavior, but made it clear that they still did not find the behavior
acceptable or excusable.
Finally, while the details of the episode explained the reasons for the behavior of the
criminal, when each individual was asked to identify the cause of the criminal’s behavior, each
response varied. The detectives clearly identified a traumatic childhood in which he was
abandoned by his mother and continuously exposed to inappropriate sexual behavior by his
father. In their responses, the audience attributed his behavior to a variety of reasons including an
15. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 15
inability to accept his “history” or past, an attempt to seek something he desired, bad parenting or
a traumatic upbringing, childhood development, mental disorder and an attempt to regain control
of his life. The audience, all having been exposed to the same episode and the same pieces of
“evidence,” still managed to reach different and varying conclusions surrounding the behavior of
the criminal.
Conclusion
Three response themes emerged in the analysis of the observation notes. These themes
included humor in response to violence, sympathy in response to the effects that violence had on
the characters and a theme that involved the unique decoding of the television text that supports
the polysemic text theory.
The predominance of humor in audience commentary during the scenes where violent
and horrific conditions were showcased can speak to a form of coping amongst audience
members. Each of the participants involved in the viewing declared having had some personal
experience with mental illness prior to the episode viewing, however the extent and form in
which they experienced was not clarified. The use of humor during these horrific moments
speaks to the audience’s need to avert their attention from the “reality” on the television. Rather
than focus on the pain or torture, they focused on petty details such as the fashion sense of the
victim, her age and other minute details.
The conclusion that humor was used as a coping mechanism is supported by the second
theme that emerged in the analysis of the results. Once the moments of torture had passed and
the episode showcased the effects of the torture, the audience relaxed and responded
sympathetically to death, post-traumatic stress disorder and family reunions. They were able to
more realistically interact with the characters on the screen once a resolution had been reached.
16. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 16
This study reveals that there are moments in the text of Criminal Minds that lend
themselves to polysemy, while others are intended to guide the audience towards a shared
thought. The facts are laid out by the episode script, including the criminal’s childhood
background, his habits as an adult and the reasons for which he kidnapped and held those girls’
hostage. Those facts were clear. However, despite the plot line clearly outlining the cause of the
criminal’s behavior, audience members interpreted and decoded the cause of his actions
independently. Each attributed the criminal’s mental illness to different aspects of life that went
beyond the details. Their explanations went beyond the psychological and incorporated reasons
involving upbringing and an inability to accept his childhood while in his adulthood.
Furthermore, while the audience demonstrated an understanding of the criminal’s mental illness
and the cause, they did not go as far as to justify his actions or excuse him. Instead, in their
viewing commentary, they applauded his murder and offered up crueler ways in which he could
have been killed.
Limitations
Due to the qualitative nature of the study, there were limitations in terms of sample size
and diversity. In addition, because the methodology was limited to audience observation and
semi-structured interviews, there is conjecture involved in the conclusions reached that could
benefit from further research.
All of the audience members observed shared that they had personal experience with
mental illness, however the extent to which they experienced it in their personal lives was not
explored.
Finally, the viewing was limited to one episode and the commentary that ensued
throughout that episode. The reactions and interactions could have varied depending on the type
17. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 17
of crime that was committed and showcased. In the future, multiple viewings, at different times
and on different days, would prove beneficial to the study.
Suggestions for Further Research
Based on the findings of this study, further research can be carried out surrounding the
use of humor as a way to cope with graphic depictions of violence and the effects of mental
illness in television. More specifically, when the events that are being depicted on television in
some way reflect reality.
The depiction of mental illness in criminal television can also be explored further using
participants with varying degrees of experience and understanding of mental illness to further
support the polysemic text theory.
18. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 18
References
Croteau, D., & Hoynes, W. (1996). The political diversity of public television: Polysemy, the
public sphere, and the conservative. Journalism & Mass Communication Monographs,
(157), 1-55.
Doran, N. (2008). Decoding 'encoding': Moral panics, media practices and Marxist
presuppositions. Theoretical Criminology, 12(2), 191-221.
Fiske, J. (1986). Television: Polysemy and popularity. Critical Studies in Mass Communication,
3(4), 391.
Fiske, J. (1989). Moments of television: Neither the text nor the audience. In E. Seiter, H.
Borchers, G. Kreutzner, & E. M. Warth (Eds.), Remote Control: Television, Audiences,
and Cultural Power (pp. 56-78). New York, NY: Routledge.
Gillespie, T. (2000). Narrative control and visual polysemy: Fox surveillance specials and the
limits of legitimation. Velvet Light Trap: A Critical Journal of Film & Television, (45),
36.
Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. Culture, media, language: Working papers in cultural
studies, 1972-79. London: Hutchinson.
Levine, E. (2011). Teaching the politics of television culture in a "post-television" era. Cinema
Journal, 50(4), 177-182.
Michelle, C., Davis, C. H., & Vladica, F. (2012). Understanding variation in audience
engagement and response: An application of the composite model to receptions of Avatar
(2009). Communication Review, 15(2), 106-143. doi:10.1080/10714421.2012.674467
Morley, D. (2006). Unanswered questions in audience research. Communication Review, 9(2),
101-121. doi:10.1080/10714420600663286
19. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 19
Perks, L. G. (2010). Polysemic scaffolding: Explicating discursive clashes in Chappelle's Show.
Communication, Culture & Critique, 3(2), 270-289.
Perks, L. G. (2012). Three satiric television decoding positions. Communication Studies, 63(3),
290-308. doi:10.1080/10510974.2012.678925
Peterson, J., PhD, Kennealy, P., Phd, Skeem, J., Phd, Bray, B., & Zvonkovic, A. (2014). How
often and how consistently do symptoms directly precede criminal behavior among
offenders with mental illness? Law and Human Behavior, 38(5), 439-449. Retrieved from
http://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/lhb0000075
Pillai, P. (1992). Rereading Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model. Communication Theory,
2(3), 221-233.
Rabinovitz, L. (1991). Television criticism and American studies [Review of Comic Visions:
Television Comedy and American Television; Boxed in: The Culture of TV; Rocking
Around the Clock: Music Television, Postmodernism, & Consumer Culture; Television
Culture: Popular Pleasures & Politics]. American Quarterly, 43(2), 358–370.
http://doi.org/10.2307/2712935
Seiter, E., Borchers, H., Kreutzner, G., & Warth, E. (n.d.). Remote control: Television,
audiences, and cultural power.
Stillion Southard, B. A. (2008). Beyond the backlash: Sex and The City and three feminist
struggles. Communication Quarterly, 56(2), 149-167. doi:10.1080/01463370802026943
Sullivan, J. L. (2013). Media audiences: Effects, users, institutions, and power. Thousand Oaks,
CA: SAGE Publications, 133-160.
20. Polysemic Text in Television
Ureño 20
Appendix A
Criminal Minds Response Questionnaire
Age:
1. Did you find that you understood the reasons criminal’s behavior?
2. What do you think was the cause of the criminal’s behavior?