Media studies, cultural imperialism, encoding/decoding model, soft power, cultural diversity, mass culture, popular culture, Dallas series, reception survey, cultural communities, ideological domination, bourgeois class, sociocultural groups, media influence, interpersonal relations, opinion leaders, R. Hoggart, E. Thompson, R. Williams, Birmingham School, Tamar Liebes, Israeli media, media analysis, semiotic approach, sociolinguistic approach, transdisciplinary approach, cultural industries, working class culture, oblique attention, media consumption, television viewing practices, hegemonic reading, critical reading, referential reading, pragmatic level, syntactic level, aesthetic codes, genre conventions, cultural values, social environments, cultural manipulation, media texts, audience interpretation, cultural studies.
Reader
Abstract
Extract
of 6
Abstract
This document discusses how different cultural communities interpret media content, challenging the idea of cultural imperialism and highlighting the complexity of media reception.
Extract
[...] The researcher's gaze will shift, from media content to the public. Before cultural studies, we considered that a media content was significant in itself. = We thought that there was only one possible interpretation. ? This is what is called textual determinism / Immanentism. We begin to consider that meaning is a phenomenon that relies both on the producers of content and on the readers who will reactivate the text by giving it meaning. (=co-construction of meaning). 1. Cultural Studies R. [...]
[...] - Comments at the semantic level: focus on the themes and messages of the series. Individuals will look for a message in the fiction. - Comments at the syntactic level: it is for the viewer to recognize the codes of a genre, a formula, its conventions (remarks that focus on the form, the aesthetics of the series). We make comments rather on the form of the series, the codes, conventions . - Comments at the pragmatic level: individuals are able to describe their relationship with the text and explain why they are critical. [...]
[...] These Russians will perceive manipulative intentions, propaganda . Love and Katz show that these criticisms of capitalism are rather very passionate which refutes their initial hypothesis. What has most bothered the Japanese is at the syntactic level, the suspense. They have not at all adhered to this stylistic technique. The kibbutz identify well the soap opera genre and some adopt a reflective attitude to explain their interest in the series. According to them, Dallas can please everyone because the series echoes the problems that all families encounter. [...]
[...] He drew inspiration from semiotics. For him, encoding takes place at the level of connotation and it is a matter of understanding how producers connotate a message and how this connotation is received by the publics. 3 possible reception postures: - posture/hegemonic reading: these are the moments when the publics accept the messages/the ideology encoded in the message and therefore use the same code (values, ways of seeing the world) as the one used for encoding by the producers. - Negotiated reading: accepting in part the elements of the encoding but not necessarily recognizing any interest for oneself. [...]
[...] The Westerners (Los Angeles Americans and kibbutz members) The Easterners (Arab citizens, Jewish-Moroccans, Jewish citizens+) Before each observation, they handed out a questionnaire to the different couples regarding their sociological characteristics and television viewing practices. The reactions and comments of the couples to the series were recorded before, during, and after viewing. Survey Results They will identify 2 types of statements: - Referential statements: literal reading: consists of explicit statements about what is happening. Talking about fiction as if it were reality. [...]
