A very brief response to how we make meaning from images and sounds?

Stuart Halls The Work of Representation highlights and explores the intersection of society and the media it synthesises, reflects and consumes. The crux of this work lies in the understanding of representation, which Hall links to mental conceptualization. The author uses the example of the word glass, which he suggests that one can only think with the concept of the glass or express such through a linguistic sign (1997, p17). This suggests a level of ontological essentialism; that there is an essence or truly existent external nature to which we have language or signs designated to. Hall identifies that in some aspects the dualistic understanding of a separation between what the author identifies as the real world of objectsto imaginary worlds [mental] may indeed go through a process of internalization (p29). A contemporary and multifaceted example is contemporary meme culture, in which a social collectivist culturally expression becomes embodied and represented in external and physical interactions beyond the Internet. This reflexive synthesis of cultural creation may arise in a specific group and proliferate worldwide through Internet media images, and indeed it may hint towards the a priori or self-evident experience, essence of a shared social experience, however I would suggest that this is indeed a perpetual reflexive process with the social reflecting itself representations of mental concepts perpetually onto its' medias.

Hall, S, 1997, The Work of Representation (Excerpts), in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, Sage, London, pp15-30, 36-41, 61-64