Semiotic Analysis: Signs/Codes Images/signs

Reader/viewer applies cultural codes Language/metaphors/dialogue/white space

R/V applies genre/linguistics/discourses Language echoes/mimics discourse (Bahktin)

Genre/story features: symbolic meanings R/V applies conventions/rules R/V infers deliberate patterns/intended meaning

Audience Analysis Who’s the intended or target audience:

Who is this text being written for? How am I being positioned by this text? What signs, markers, images, language,

social practices imply that audience? Do I accept or resist the way in which I

am being positioned?

Positioning Subjective stance within a group Influence of discourses shaping language use

and roles Competing subject positions Adopting positions in terms of class, race, or

gender stances and practices Reaction to and resistance of categories

Critical Discourse analysis Discourses--sources of social knowledge Discourses: ways of knowing/thinking; serves to

limit/restrain ways of talking Foucault (Stuart Hall): “madness”/hysteria Rules for talking/defining knowledge Subjects--represent discourse “mad” people Social practices for dealing with people

Gender as Culturally Constructed Problems with binary categories based

on biological sex Study of historical/cultural aspects of

gender construction Wearing of lace as a masculine marker Matriarchy in Chinese myths

Gay/lesbian studies

Discourse of Femininity Media construction of identity Beauty work: sense of inadequacy Membership in imaginary communities

of consumption “synthetic personalization”

Mass audience treated as an individual “you” “synthetic sisterhood”

Discourse of class Focus on power and social/class hierarchy

Use of the “social ladder” chart Economic factors shaping characters

Ideological positioning of readers/audiences Advertising as indoctrination of consumerism

Analysis of language of catalogues Neiman Marcus Walter Drake Sharper Image

Problems with Theories of Racism: Bonilla-Silva Psychological

focus on individual only as “racist”/”prejudiced” Ignores ideological aspects of racism Ignores institutional aspects

Neoconservative agendas: welfare/housing/poverty as an “individual” problem vs. government intervention

“Institutional racism” Everything is “racist”: simplistic Failure to challenge root causes of problem Binary categories: “black” vs. “white” Lack of coalition with progressive whites

Problems with Theories of Racism: Bonilla-Silva Internal colonialism: white privilege

+ Challenges racism simply as prejudice + Racism as systematic and rational + Challenges notion of curing racism

through education vs. social mobilization Does not analyze how racism is

systematized or reproduced

Racism as “Racialized Social Systems” Placement of people in social categories

Attaching meaning to groups Creation of hierarchies

Top group--economic, social, political power Conflict: maintain vs. challenge hierarchy Application of racial ideology to explain and

justify hierarchy “Blacks as lacking motivation to work”

Racial Ideologies as “Interpretive Repertoires” Common frames

Fear of the other; Token inclusionism “Racetalk”

Avoid being seen as “racist”/Archer Bunker Storylines used to justify hierarchy

“the past is part”/”my friend lost out on a job” Categorizing: whiteness as normalizing

“White lives” isolated in schools/suburbs/peer group Whites as “racial tourists”-- “others defined by what

whiteness is not”

“Color-Blind Racism” Collective understandings/representations Use of “racetalk” to avoid racist label

“Everyone is equal, but….” “I am not prejudice, but…”

Denial of structural nature of discrimination Criticism of government race-based programs

Use of storylines “I didn’t own slaves” “The past is past”

Children’s Programs and Generational Values Baby Boomers

Diversity Equity of wealth Gender equality Open to “difference” Schooling as

important Concern for urban

blight Sesame Street

Under 18 Self-esteem Building relationships Specialization Acceptance of inequity of

wealth/segregation Schooling as side-show

Barney and His Friends/Blues Clues

Discourse of business applied to education Standards that are “measurable” Need for “accountability” Value of “objective” numbers in

assessment Labeling of schools/students as “failing” Concern with “bottom-line investment” Need for more “productivity”

“Implied Adolescents/teachers” Adolescence as “stress/strain” vs. capable of

inventiveness/agency Adopting on-line persona

Preservice teachers In course: imaginative play related to media

use/CD covers In school: need to be in control/wary of imaginative

play

Postructuralist Criticism Challenge to structuralist/formalist notions of

language as a “prison-house” Language meaning a social construction Language categories are “slippery”/need to be

contested and challenged Readers’ stances as constructed through cultural

categories/codes

Postmodernism Challenge to the “master narratives”/traditional

beliefs of modernism Contemporary fiction: DeLillo, Carver, Atwood Pulp Fiction, Mulholland Drive, Run Lola Run,Memento

Challenge to traditional forms of art, music, literature, architecture Wiseman Art Museum building Conceptual/pop art Atonal music MTV: combinations of images/music

Postmodernism Baudrillard: hyperreality based on simulation of

reality Focus on the image/surface/parody of mass culture

Jeff Koons statues (Michael Jackson) All experience as mediated through

language/images Plurality/multiplicity of perspectives Self-reflexivity/ironic humor

Cindy Sherman photos Hypertextual fiction