Media and Sexuality

From Advancing Sexuality Studies:

a short course on sexuality theory and research

methodologies

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Schedule

Session Timing

IntroductionPre-reading review work & feedback

5 mins50 mins

Session 1. Cultural studies and textual analysis: some key termsLectureScreening & discussion. Stuart Hall: Representation and the MediaGroup work & feedback: textual analysis

140 mins 20 mins70 mins50 mins

Session 2. The media and HIV in AustraliaMini lectureScreening & li8nked activities. RampantHIV/AIDS and STI texts & wrap-up

135 mins10 mins80 mins45 mins

Session 3. The Henson caseDefining moral panicsMini lectureScreening:& linked activities. Insight: The Naked Eye

110 mins20 mins

5 mins85 mins

Conclusion 10 mins

Total: 450 mins(just under 7.5 hours)

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Module aims

To:

• Introduce theories of representation and media consumption as they apply to sexuality

• Encourage participants to reflect on, and experiment creatively with, their own practices of media consumption and analysis

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Participants will:

• Develop a basic understanding of theories of media consumption

• Acquire an increased ability to read, understand and effectively communicate theoretical ideas on media and sexuality

• Gain greater ability to engage in critical and constructive interactions with peers and workmates, thereby increasing collaborative learning skills

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Pre-reading pairs review

O’Shaughnessy, M. & Stadler, J. (2002) 'Semiology'. Media and Society, 2nd edition. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

McKee, A. (2006) 'What is textual analysis?' Textual Analysis: a beginner's guide. London: Sage.

• Working in pairs, try to reach agreement on what each article is saying

• Pay particular attention to defining the concepts of denotation and connotation (20 mins)

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Small group work

• Focus questions for discussion: (20 mins)

– Do McKee's arguments on the nature of reality seem reasonable or unreasonable to you?

– Why do you think you have responded in this way?– Do you think your reaction is influenced by your professional or

disciplinary outlook; your personal beliefs, or other factors?

• Volunteer summary of each article (5 mins)

• Feedback on small group work (5 mins)

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Session 1.Cultural studies and

textual analysis: some key terms

• Lecture

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• How can particular media texts be understood?

• Why do we understand them in particular ways?

• We need to move beyond the issue of whether texts accurately represent the real world, and consider instead how we use languages and images to make sense of reality

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Culture and media

Culture ‘has been used [in the past] to indicate the spread of civilised ideas and beliefs’, but is now applied

‘more neutrally to describe the symbols, meanings and practices that can be associated with living within

a media-dominated society’Nick Stevenson (2002: 227) Understanding Media Cultures

• Media and cultural studies view culture as a site of political conflict, or ‘as a productive network of power relations’ (Ellen Rooney 1996: 22)

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• Audiences or consumers are not just passive receptacles who are brainwashed by ‘media bias and stereotypes’– Active interpreters of the information that is presented to them

• Audiences can also use commercial or mass-produced texts in such a way that they gain a new meaning in their new context, e.g. reggae

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• Media operates on multiple levels

• Always the possibility of multiple strategies for interpreting and using media

• Meanings not ‘fixed’ into texts, not stable– Change according to the time, or location in which they are

consumed– Factors such as class, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, political

affiliation, health and physical ability can all affect how a consumer or audience makes sense of a media text

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Encoding/decoding (Hall)

• ‘Sender-message-receiver’ model– Critiqued by Stuart Hall

• Supposes that a signal or message is formulated by a sender then is transmitted in a clear and coherent way to a waiting receiver– The receiver could be a blank piece of paper written on by the

sender, or a body ‘injected’ with a message by the sender

• Otherwise known as the ‘hypodermic model of communication’

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• Hall:– The message cannot be fixed or controlled by the sender/producer– She or he cannot control all the factors involved in transmission and

reception– ‘Distortion’ of the message is built into the process of communication

itself, it is not the result of a breakdown in the process

• The meanings that audiences make out of images are produced in particular contexts, and they are also consumed in specific contexts

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TREE ARBRE

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• Representations do not distort ‘reality’ – they allow us to make sense of it– Particular groups have their own collective sense-making practices,

also known as codes or discourses– Media images are not simply faithful renditions (or distortions) of the

real world • They are re-presentations of versions or impressions of reality, based on

shared assumptions or understandings

• Encoding: media producers choose to include or exclude certain kinds of words or images in order to shape a meaning that fits a particular world view

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• Images may be decoded in three main ways (Hall):1. Dominant reading

Audience’s understanding of a media representation is shaped by the dominant assumptions in their culture

2. Negotiated readingAudience selectively accepts parts of the embedded codes, according to their own understandings or experiences

3. Resistant or oppositional readingAudience may reject encoded messages outright, because they conflict with the audience’s beliefs or understanding of the world

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Screening

• Stuart Hall: Representation and the Media (1997) (55 mins)

• Focus question:– Given that this video is of itself a media representation, how has

Hall encoded his own work?

– End-of-screening brainstorm (10 mins)

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Textual analysis

• Group work– Choose magazine images, symbols and/or written text that

represent aspects of sexuality or gender through images

• Discuss:– What would be a denotative (purely descriptive) reading of these?– What would be a connotative reading (referring to codes and

conventions)? (20 mins)

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• Choose ONE image, ‘read’ it again and develop a:– Dominant– Negotiated and – Oppositional reading of that image

• Remember Hall! There is no one fixed meaning (10 mins)

• Feedback (20 mins)

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Session 2.The media and HIV

in Australia

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• What is ‘the media’?

• How do media intersect with and reflect attitudes to HIV?

• How do different audiences ‘read’ the same media texts?

• How is public awareness of HIV/AIDS shaped? What role do newspapers, advertising and other media texts play in shaping popular perceptions?

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Screening

• Rampant: How a City Stopped a Plague (2007) (50 mins)

• Focus questions:– How has the narrative been shaped?– How is the ‘reality’ of the Australian response to HIV/AIDS

represented by different interviewees?– Do different speakers seem to have different levels of authority or

expertise? What is the source of this authority?

• Small group discussion (15 mins)

• Feedback (15 mins)

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Sexual health & media

• Analysis of SH promotion advertising, or media coverage of HIV/AIDS or STIs, from the local context – What is the focus of the material?– What strategies does the piece use?– What is the target audience?– Does the piece succeed in addressing this audience?– How might the effectiveness of this piece be measured?

• How do you rate its effectiveness? Why? (15 mins)

• Feedback (15 mins)

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• Reflection on experience:– Anyone involved in developing or delivering SH campaigns?– If so, did they analyse audience, strategies, effectiveness? How?

• Did they consider oppositional or negotiated readings of the campaigns?• If not, might such an analysis have helped improve those campaigns? • Give examples where possible.

– If no one has been directly involved in campaign development, which campaigns have directly affected them?

• How were they affected? Positively? Negatively?• What dominant reading of sexuality did the campaign deliver? (15 mins)

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Session 3.The Henson case

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Defining moral panics

• Can a moral panic be defined as:

a) An overreaction by an individual to unwelcome sexual advances?

b) A condition frequently occurring in philosophy students several days before exams on ethics?

c) An overreaction by a society to a perceived threat to its values and interests?

• Discuss (5 mins)

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• Answer C is correct. Moral panic is defined as:

An overreaction to something - an episode, person or group of persons - that is defined as a threat to societal

values and interests.[From: Cohen, S. (1972) Folk Devils and Moral Panics. London: MacGibbon and Kee.]

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• Five characteristics of moral panics:1. Concern2. Hostility3. Consensus4. Disproportionality5. Volatility

[From: Ben-Yehuda N; Goode E (1994). Moral panics: the social construction of deviance. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 57-65]

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• Can you think of any recent moral panics in your society? – What was the concern? – What disproportionate actions arose? – Did interest in the panic disappear quickly? (10 mins)

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• May 2008: Photographs by internationally known photographer Bill Henson were seized by Sydney police from an art gallery

• Held for investigation as to whether or not they were classifiable as ‘child pornography’

• Police action followed a day of media uproar instigated by publication of a newspaper column condemning the work

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• Part of growing concerns over the ways children and young people are represented within popular culture

• Interlinked with laws around young people’s sexuality

• Henson’s work part of the high school curriculum in some states in Australia

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Bill Henson and one of the works that sparked a moral panic

Photo published in The Brisbane Times, June 6, 2008Uncredited.

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Screening

• Insight: The Naked Eye (2008) (50 mins)

• Focus questions:– Who speaks?

• What do they look like? How do they sound? How do you know who they are?

– Do some speakers seem to have more authority in the debate than others?

• What makes you think so?

– Did anyone try to redefine the way the debate was being framed? • Who, and how did they do it?

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• Feedback (10 mins)

• Discuss: (20 mins)

– What purpose does this kind of television program serve?– What are your personal responses to popular media debates

around sexuality? – Do you think such debate programs are useful, or not? Why? – Do your personal attitudes & values on sexuality (or media)

conflict with your professional responsibilities? • Examples?

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Conclusion• We have:

– Examined who uses media, how, and why– Looked at different ways that media can be used to make sense

of sex, sexuality and sexual health– Practised textual analysis as research methodology

• Media can be used to …– Shape opinions or behaviours– Entertain & distract– Shape identities, or to build communities

• Need to be critical users, not just consumers

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• Module created by:– Dr Katherine Albury, University of New South Wales

• Short course developed by:– The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe

University, Melbourne, Australia and

– The International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society (IASSCS)

– With funding from The Ford Foundation

Available under an Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike licence from Creative Commons