What has Roland Barthes' idea of myth contributed to our understanding of popular culture?
What does Roland Barthes' concept of 'myth' contribute to our understanding of popular culture? Before we can answer this question, we must first indentify any ambiguities and issues within the title. The first is the use of the word 'understanding'. One definition of understanding is 'the power of comprehending; esp the power to make experience intelligible by applying concepts and categories'1. There are numerous theories and arguments surrounding popular culture, and as such it could be argued that we still do not truly understand it. Secondly, comes the assumption that the reader agrees with the suggestion that Barthes' writings on myth did in fact have an impact on the way we assess popular culture. There are several facts that can be used to highlight this point. For example, it could be argued that as Barthes did not have a following of thinkers who modelled their own theories after his, and that as such there is no recognised term as 'Barthesism', that Barthes work was not as important as and lacked the visibility of Karl Marx, and could therefore be considered 'unimportant' in comparison. In light of this, this essay will instead look at the ways in which Barthes' work has changed the ways in which we look at popular culture, and aims to answer the question, 'To what extent did Roland Barthes' concept of 'myth' influence the ways in which we examine popular
The Importance of Women in the Colonial World
The Importance of Women in the Colonial World Women's importance in the colonial world was an ever-changing process. They were seen as equals in early Native society but over the years women's roles have changed drastically. The books one has studied have great influence on how people view women in the past but others have little. Women have played a role from the earliest times even before written language, among the Natives, in their stories and legends of women beings. Women once had a role in every aspect of human lives but as the colonists and religious leaders from other countries started to migrate there role was changed and never reestablished. Women have important roles to play in their own societies. Eleanor Burke Leacock's, Myths of Male Dominance: Collective articles on Women Cross- Culturally (Monthly Review Press New York and London, 1981), beautifully describes the importance of native women and their roles. Leacock points out that "universal male dominance is myth not fact"1 and because this book contains articles by different authors, one gets a wide variety of works that each encourage and represent women in different areas. The authors illustrate native women before and during colonial times by discussing gender roles, the evolution of society, and male dominance ideology. Leacock gathered articles that directly represent women's
During the recent years in the history of modern art, there is one thing that one cannot miss to notice - we see that artists and the media are bound together.
During the recent years in the history of modern art, there is one thing that one cannot miss to notice: we see that artists and the media are bound together. One cannot exist without the other. The media feed from the extremes artists, sometimes, go to so that they can deliver a piece of art. And artists survive completely on the coverage of the media. Artists wish to shock and provoke in order to achieve getting as much publicity as possible. Art collectors also benefit from scandals or publicity stunts that are being created solely for attracting attention on a specific name. Saatchi is a very good example of an advertisement expert who knows how to play the media game very good and he secures his investments by creating as much publicity as possible around the artist whose pieces he bought. Throughout the history of modern art, there have been many people who know well how to attract the media and take advantage of that to raise their value in the art market. But there are two who we can consider masters into creating some kind of interest around their names: Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons. Each used the media as their subject matter and also became a media subject at the same time. Each made their purpose in life to live under the spotlight because they knew that only this way their words would be heard. I will start with Andy Warhol. He
Computer Graphics - Quadtree decomposition and effect of depth.
Computer Graphics PROJECT Quadtree decomposition and effect of depth. ) Introduction This document represents the final report for our project done for Prof. Gregory Dudek in Computer Graphics (308-557) course taught at McGill University. I have chosen the area of quad trees, and particularly the effect and advantages (and disadvantages) of depth on the image outputted after compression in the quad trees. The definifition of a picture is a two-dimensional array, where the elements of the array are black or white points; two-dimensional arrays are very widely used to represent different kind of pictures Here is an example of an image represented as a two-dimensional array. Each pixel is an element of the array. Most of the time, the 'gif' and 'jpeg' standards provide performance hard to imitate , so we are going to test if even with less data stored we can have also a good picture . 2) Brief Overview a)Basic Algorithm Quad tree Decomposition consists in subdividing the image into blocks that are more homogeneous than the image itself. This technique works by dividing the square image into four equal-sized squared blocks. If block meets the criterion, it is not divided any further. If it does not meet the criterion (only black or only white value), it is subdivided again into four blocks, and the test criterion is applied to those blocks. This process is repeated
A critical review of newspaper articles published in October 2003, 'after' the war in Iraq.
000116828 A critical review of newspaper articles published in October 2003, 'after' the war in Iraq For the purpose of this review I have chosen to discuss three separate newspaper articles regarding the war in Iraq. Firstly, I chose an article from 'The Observer', entitled 'Free after 50 years of tyranny', written by Julie Flint at the beginning of October, 2003. This article was written shortly after the United States (US) and Britain declared victory for the West, but there was still much controversy regarding the legitimacy of partaking in the war. Flint dismisses Britain's fears of going to war, indicating the end result has justified the efforts we put forward, and depicts anti-war activists as ignorant; 'the anti-war lobby has refused to listen to those Iraqis who supported war over continued tyranny.' (Flint, 2003) She praises 'the Brits' and tends to blame US troops for any mistakes that were made. She claims that 'Western reporters detail, quite properly, the misdeeds, the crimes even, of the occupying forces. But this is only part of the story.' (Flint, 2003) The second article, 'Pentagon was warned of Iraq chaos after war', was written from New York, by David Teather and was published on October 20th 2003 in 'the Guardian'. This article discusses a report, which was allegedly released to the Pentagon and US officials before the war, which warned of the
Stereotyping in Tabloid newspapers
Stereotyping in Tabloid newspaper Li, Xiaomei Social Science Department Loughborough University Abstract Concern has long been expressed over possible adverse effect of stereotyping. This essay investigates a sample of news stereotyping to determine how gender portrayal stereotypes women. Findings indicate that women are significantly more likely than men to appear as images of sexual beings first, rather than intellectual beings, and at the same time, journalists tend to focus on the domestic aspects of the politically active woman's life. This is a sample from the DAILY STAR on the page 7 on November, 9 2003. The news story is about Ruby Wax who is well known herself due to the success of shows like "The Full Wax" which she writes herself, she is also a famous director at the BBC. In this essay, I will analyze how this newspaper article stereotypes Ruby Wax from 4 aspects namely photograph, placement, headline and content. , photograph The size of the photograph it takes on the page is an important code for the reader as it affects the attention given to the article. There are two photographs of Ruby Wax that take up 4/5 of the space given to the story; the other 1/5 is taken up by the written report. Your eyes tend to be drawn by the larger photograph first in the centre of the page. It shows Ruby Wax, the subject of the story, who is wearing a glamorous velvet
Are The Media Racist? Discuss using appropriate examples with particular reference to Pilger's concept of 'unpeople'.
Are The Media Racist? Discuss using appropriate examples with particular reference to Pilger's concept of 'unpeople'. "It requires a certain contortion of intellect and morality to condone one set of atrocities as 'blunders' while humanising one set of victims and dehumanising another." John Pilger 2000, Hidden Agendas1 The aim of this essay is to discuss whether or not the media, specifically the British media, are racist. Using Miles' definition of racism as my standard as well as its symbolic and aversive incarnations, as discussed by Saeed, I will attempt to analyse the representation of ethnic minorities in broadcast media and the press, with reference to the work of Stokes and Van Dijk ('question of numbers'), Ferguson ('the problem within'), as well as Gilroy and Saeed ('question of identity'). To relate the discussion to current issues in the media I will draw on work by John Pilger and Michael Parentti as well as specific examples and issues such as Asylum seekers, the September 11th aftermath and the present Iraqi crisis. So, are the Media racist, and if so to what extent? The current international situation in Iraq and the recent events following the events of September the eleventh go a long way to answer this very question on an international level, but its the media's portrayal of ethnic minorities here at home that can deliver the most worrying
ICT GCSE Major Project : A Media magazine aimed at teenagers in the school
ICT GCSE Major Project Analysis Project Title: A Media magazine aimed at teenagers in the school The Situation: Ras Al Khaimah is a small emirate (equivalent to a county) based in the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East. It is about 80 km from Dubai, a neighboring emirate with an entertaining and lively capital. Ras Al Khaimah is a small city with all types of nationalities such as English, Pakistani, Egyptian and of course Arabs living there. It has few public facilities, only last year was Ras Al Khaimah's first shopping centre built which has a cinema, restaurants and a variety of shops and there are few other entertainment's in Ras Al Khaimah, so many people travel to Dubai to be able to fill up their social lives. Most people worship Islam, and there are a numerous number of mosques in the city, there is one church in Ras Al Khaimah where Christians can go to worship. Ras Al Khaimah English Speaking School or RAKESS is a moderately sized school, based in Ras Al Khaimah (in which you must be able to speak English), which has around 350 students in all of primary and secondary. It is a private school for both boys and girls, and has many facilities including a swimming pool, tennis courts and 4 fully equipped I.C.T labs. One of the problems of Ras Al Khaimah is its social life, it only has one shopping centre and many people have to entertain themselves by
Sterotypes in the media
§ Examine the evidence of the stereotypes of social groups / issues in the media. What are the causes of stereotyping and to what extent do they influence attitudes. Draw on at least two groups and / or issues in your answer. Stereotyping in mass media is often inevitable as media producers need as wide audience as possible to quickly understand information. This can be seen as a form of 'coding' as it quickly gives audiences a common understanding of a particular social group or issue, usually relating to their / it's classing, race / ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender. For this reason stereotyping is often seen in a negative way as it creates simplistic categories of wide and diverse groups of people and these often ignorant assumptions can be transformed into realities. This can lead to representations being used to justify those in positions of power and can perpetuate social prejudice and inequality. Representation is the process in which meaning is derived from stimulus denoted by the media and connotative messages can be varied and individual to the consumer. Representation is a construction of reality, not a mirror image. The media has the power through selection and reinforcement to give portrayals of groups and subcultures in society. To examine the causes and consequences of media stereotyping, I will look specifically at the representation of two
New media culture/ Cyberculture
Topic 2: It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say new media is exploding at a grand scale that has never been witnessed before. Its application and involvement in every aspect of our lives are countless, and the ripples of its effect broaden so vastly that our society nowadays has called it as a culture: new media culture. It is interesting to know how this new culture creates or blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality as well as how our everyday lives are described today, thus raising some consequences of this new culture in terms of social and communication. New media culture/Cyberculture is the culture where ways of our lives are shaped by using computer networks for various aspects from communication, education, business to entertainment. By serious researches from the first use of the term cyberculture in 1986 by novel writer William Gibson to its popular use in early 1990s by other Internet activists, Lister et al (2009, p. 317) summarizes 'it is a culture in which machines play a particularly important role'. These researchers claim that the elements which make up this culture include 'communication networks, programming, software', 'the issues of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, artificial life, and the human-computer interface' (Lister et al, 2009, p. 317). To clarify, the work of Dr. Flew (2008, p. 24) points out the nature of