Understanding Key Terms 3

 Everything around us holds a message, especially media. Be it a new song by Childish Gambino or a new Netflix series, directly or indirectly, media conveys a certain message. That meaning is never objective or neutral. It means all media products (shows, games, songs, movies...) are rhetorical. It stands for the use of symbols by humans to influence and move other humans. Symbols, or rather signs, can be anything. Sign is something that invites someone to think of something other than itself. When people agree on the meaning of a sign, it has a shared meaning, but not everyone interprets certain signs the same way. There are three theories of signs. First one is by Ferdinand de Saussure, who says all signs are a combination of signifier and signified, or material form of a sign and a mental concept or the idea that sign forms in the listener's mind. Together, these two parts create one whole, a sign. Second theory belongs to Charles Sanders Pierce, who based his theory on the relation between sign, object and interpretant. Sign stands to somebody for something in some capacity, while the image that appears in their head is interpretant and what sign stands for is an object. Finally, there is a theory of Roland Barthes, who adapted Saussure’s theory. He introduced denotation, literal meaning of words, and connotation, a second place of expression that operated at a higher level of ideology. 

Texts consist of rhetorical structures and those structures can be: clusters, form, genre and narrative. Clusters, the way individual signs are associated with and dissociated from one another. In media, they are used to connect all the signs present to convey one clear message.

Form is a creation or satisfaction of desire. If it goes unfulfilled, it is known as bad form. There are four varieties of form: progressive form (step by step advancement of a story), repetitive form (restatement of the same thing in a different form),  conventional form (appeal of the text) and minor or incidental form (appearance of literary devices). All of these are connected and used together to produce satisfaction in the audience.

Another rhetorical structure is genre.  Genre stands for a combination of messages that share stylistic (syntactic), substantive (semantic), and situational (pragmatic) characteristics. Genre relies on repetitive, familiar behaviour, which the audience can connect to their previous experience. For example, all movies classified as romantic comedy all share the same feature: two protagonists that are gonna become each other’s love interest, happy ending, comical situations. All these features we recognise help us form a movie genre we know as romantic comedy. Different genres (thriller, action, comedy) exist to fulfill different needs and we opt for the one that is formally rewarding and fulfills our needs and desires.

The final rhetorical structure is narrative. Narrative is a series of real or fictional events that occur in succession. Narrative has three levels: story (events and existents), discourse and narrating (tense, mood, voice).

In today’s society, America is anything but the dream. Self centred presidents, police brutality, racism, sexism all frame everyday lives of many Americans. But it wasn’t always like that. American Dream used to represent the attitude of hope and faith, wishes and desires. Those wishes were expressed in Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence- all men are created equal, they have rights such as life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. At first American Dream stood for settlers, who found freedom, spiritual and material happiness in the US. And now, American dream is used as a means to have people be compliant workers for owners, the only ones that benefit in capitalistic society.

American dream isn’t the only idea within a culture. There are also concepts of Roland Barthes’ myth, Pierre Bourdieu’s doxa, and Antonio Gramsci’s hegemony. Myth is a sacred story that reaffirms and reproduces ideology in relation to an object. For example, the mythology behind video games can be the battle between good and evil, a person having to overcome misfortunes to become the hero he was always meant to be. It creates distinction between people, those who are destined for big things and those who are just supporting characters. Doxa stands for any aspect of culture that its members do not challenge or critically reflect upon. In simple words, doxa is common sense. It is tied to ideology and stands for ideologies that should not be tested and be respected the way they are. And like ideology, it is not accepted by everyone, high classes benefiting off of it and lower classes wanting to change it. Concept of hegemony differs because it accounts for the evolution of dominant ideologies. Hegemony explains why one ideology is more dominant than the other. For example, higher ideology would be students having to pay for college. Lower ideology would be that students disagree, but still compromise their beliefs because they see the bigger picture.

Ideology structures the society and it does so through:limitation, normalisation, privileging and interpellation. Limitation stands for limiting ideas of society. Democratic party has its ideology and its followers have to follow it blindly. Normalisation stands for normalising certain ideas to the point society stops questioning them. Example would be a parent-child relationship. How many times have your parents told you “I am older, therefore I’m right.” This attitude is supported by society, creating dominant submissive relationships we rarely question and just accept as they are. Interpellation is a process by which individuals are made to be members of ideology. Example is a woman. From a young age we are taught our role is to be mothers and birth givers. Even if a girl hasn’t even thought of it yet, she has already gotten a role in society.

Exclusion, Whitewashing, Assimilating and Stereotyping are all examples of racism in today’s culture. Exclusion means “writing out” minorities and not giving them representation in the media. Whitewashing represents characters of colour being played by white actors, again, taking the spot from minorities. Assimilating stands for minorities being represented, but being stripped of their cultural identities. Example would be a show showing  a black individual and their love troubles or financial problems, without acknowledging racial injustice they face on everyday bases. Stereotyping is just that, minorities being associated with certain stereotypes, like all Spanish people speaking broken English or all black people being criminals. Othering represents the relationship between white and other or defining a minority character only through their relationship with a white character. Example would be Eddy Murphy being described as “a black comedian”, while Jeff Duhnam as “ a comedian.” Why? Because a comedian is assumed to be white.