Learning Experience during the Media and cultural studies

classes
By
Vanshali Sanwalka(MFT-1)
Analyzing different media elements, like movies, advertisements and
soap operas:
Our introductory class was all about briefing the complete syllabus as to
what we will be studying for the rest of the semester. The most interesting
part of the complete syllabus was learning as to how to watch movies and
advertisements intelligently and analyzing them to the very minute details
as to how they appeal the mob and influence their mindset. The analysis
helped us in understanding what customer needs, and also helping us
generate the product according to it.
The study teaches us Whom to value and what to value. Nearly all brands
these days follow the above phrase and implement it to raise revenue for
the company. Any form of media is supposed to create and transform
everydays life experience. And is expected to provide its customers what
all they want to see and perceive.
TEXT

CONSUMERS

MEDIATOR
MEDIA SITE

Text here is a combination of signs that consists of both the signifier as well
as the signified.
The value these texts hold are never fixed and are always contradictory.
The effect these values produce are not always predictable, the meaning of
text is not contained in it, but inside the dialogue and is always negotiable.

We also learned about the fact that the major function of advertising
agencies is to convert commodities into profits. Although it is never a sure
shot thing that advertisement will increase sale.
We also learnt as to how media is just a simulated reality. All of us live
our lives through stories. They are our binding force with nature. The
advertisements are designed in such a way that they give out a false image
of these stories being created and followed upon. They gain the attention of
their viewers by hitting onto the most sensitive area of their deep desire
and thought. These advertisements are not meant for everyone and the
values they hold matters to the society. Need is generated by showing as to
how consumption of commodities is related to happiness and also an
emotional quotient gets generated for every individual product that marks
its success.
Thus, media is shown to actually create a simulated reality so as to
enhance more customer satisfaction and attention.
Market appeals to the worst in us and discourages whats best about us:
It is rightly said by Margaret Thatcher that, There is no such thing as
society. They are just individuals and their families. Advertising tells us to
think as an individual and not together as a collective bunch of people to
solve an issue. As species we are bound to think together but
advertisement regulates this fact and compels us to think for our own
benefit, think about only our dreams and also talk about ones own desire.
Thus, it can be rightly said that advertisements and growing market
subdues the best qualities mankind has, like caring , compassion, love and
sharing while enhancing the worst facts like jealousy, hatred etc.
Semiotic analysis:
Semiotics can be applied to anything which can be seen as signifying
something - in other words, to everything which has meaning within a
culture. Even within the context of the mass media you can apply semiotic
analysis to any media texts (including television and radio programmes,
films, cartoons, newspaper and magazine articles, posters and other ads)
and to the practices involved in producing and interpreting such texts.
Within the Saussurean tradition, the task of the semiotician is to look
beyond the specific texts or practices to the systems of functional

distinctions operating within them. The primary goal is to establish the

underlying conventions, identifying significant differences and oppositions
in an attempt to model the system of categories, relations (syntagmatic and
paradigmatic), connotations, distinctions and rules of combination
employed. For instance, 'What differentiates a polite from an impolite
greeting, a fashionable from an unfashionable garment?' (Culler 1985, 93);
the investigation of such practices involves trying to make explicit what is
usually only implicit.
Steps we followed:
Identifying the text
o Wherever possible, include a copy of the text with your analysis
of it, noting any significant shortcomings of the copy. Where
including a copy is not practicable, offer a clear description
which would allow someone to recognize the text easily if they
encountered it themselves.
o Briefly describe the medium used, the genre to which the text
belongs and the context in which it was found.
Consider your purposes in analyzing the text. This will affect which
questions seem important to you amongst those offered below.
o Why did you choose this text?
o Your purposes may reflect your values: how does the text relate
to your own values?
How does the sign vehicle you are examining relate to the type-token
distinction?
o Is it one among many copies (e.g. a poster) or virtually unique
(e.g. an actual painting)?
o How does this influence your interpretation?
What are the important signifiers and what do they signify?

o What is the system within which these signs make sense?

Modality
o What reality claims are made by the text?
o Does it allude to being fact or fiction?
o What references are made to an everyday experiential world?
o What modality markers are present?
o How do you make use of such markers to make judgements
about the relationship between the text and the world?
o Does the text operate within a realist representational code?
o To whom might it appear realistic?
o 'What does transparency keep obscure?' (Butler 1999, xix)
Paradigmatic analysis
o To which class of paradigms (medium; genre; theme) does the
whole text belong?
o How might a change of medium affect the meanings
generated?
o What might the text have been like if it had formed part of a
different genre?
o What paradigm sets do each of the signifiers used belong to?
Why do you think each signifier was chosen from the possible
alternatives within the same paradigm set? What values does
the choice of each particular signifier connote?
o What signifiers from the same paradigm set are noticeably
absent?

o What contrasted pairs seem to be involved (e.g.

nature/culture)?
o Which of those in each pairing seems to be the 'marked'
category?
o Is there a central opposition in the text?
o Apply the commutation test in order to identify distinctive
signifiers and to define their significance. This involves an
imagined substitution of one signifier for another of your own,
and assessing the effect.

Analyzing different forms of cultures existing:

Cultural Studies is relatively undeveloped in France, where there is a
stronger tradition of semiotics, as in the writings of Roland Barthes.
It is an innovative interdisciplinary field of research and teaching that
investigates the ways in which culture creates and transforms individual
experiences, everyday life, social relations and power. Research and
teaching in the field explores the relations between culture understood as
human expressive and symbolic activities, and cultures understood as
distinctive ways of life. Combining the strengths of the social sciences and
the humanities, cultural studies draws on methods and theories from
literary studies, sociology, communications studies, history, cultural
anthropology, and economics. By working across the boundaries among
these fields, a cultural study addresses new questions and problems of
todays world. Rather than seeking answers that will hold for all time,
cultural studies develops flexible tools that adapt to this rapidly changing
world.
Cultural life is not only concerned with symbolic communication, it is also
the domain in which we set collective tasks for ourselves and begin to
grapple with them as changing communities. Cultural studies are devoted
to understanding the processes through which societies and the diverse
groups within them come to terms with history, community life, and the
challenges of the future.

According to Raymonds William, culture is a reaction to changes in the

condition of our common life
The idea of culture describes our common inquiry but our conclusions are
diverse, as our starting points were diverse. The word, culture, cannot
automatically be pressed into service as any kind of social or personal
directive.
This is the summary of all the findings by Raymond:
PHASE1. 1790 1870: a phase of working out new attitudes to
industrialism and democracy.
INDUSTRYThe rejection of production and the social relations of the
factory system
DEMOCRACYConcern at the threat of minority values by popular
supremacy of the new masses.
ARTA period of questioning the intrinsic value of art and its importance to
the common life.
PHASE2. 1870 1914: narrower fronts, specialism in the arts, direct
politics.
INDUSTRYSentiment versus the machine.
DEMOCRACYEmphasis on community, society versus the individual
ethic.
ARTDefiant exile: art for arts sake.
PHASE3. 1914 1945: a phase of large scale organisations and the
mass media.
INDUSTRYAcceptance of machine production.
DEMOCRACYFears of the first phase are renewed in the context of
mass-democracy and mass communications.
ARTthe reintegration of art with the common life of society centred on the
word communication.
While studying this section we also compared British and American Culture,
and folklorization of rural India for elite consumption. There was a brief
assignment submitted as to what impact of culture is existent in certain
places like malls and melas. Also a differential analysis was done to
distinguish between the cultures of both the places.
Use of MCS in fashion Technology:

Media and cultural studies can help us in analyzing the areas of product
development that needs constant innovation. Studying the latest trend and
forecasting minds of people to mould designs being the major objective.
Studying media also help in understanding the mindset of people helping
retails and brands to organize their product in such a way that it appeals to
most of the people and is all set to influence the targeted audience.