Communications

Posted: September 25th, 2015

Watching this clip , choose and answer 2 of the questions.

1. List and describe two or more binaries you see going on in this clip. Remember binaries are either/or constructions that define meaning by establishing difference–remember the concept of negative identities, that we are defined by what we are not? examples of binaries are black and white, male and female, civilized/uncivilized, etc. Provide one example from the clip where you see this binary represented.

2. Analyze the relationship between the two “terms” or elements of the binary. Is one term privileged, or set up as superior, over the other? Does one side of the binary get represented as “normal,” while the other is deviant? What groups are associated with each term of the binary? Give an example from the clip where you see one term of the binary privileged over the other.

3. List the denotative meanings of a particular scene of interest (just describe the signs in a brief scene, like embassy or wall or turban or glasses or people running), then do a more indepth reading of its connotative meanings (what are the myths and meanings culturally associated with those signs?).
(e.g. a pastoral setting for cigarette smokers, a gentle rocking chair in a lovely room for motherhood)? I use “myth”, also known as “second-order signification,” in the sense in which it is used by Roland Barthes: as a sign which refers to a broad, general cultural meaning; see his Mythologies. An experience or event or thing is mystified when a broad cultural meaning obscures the particulars of that experience, event or thing; this obscuring usually covers up or ‘disappears’ contrary or inconvenient facts, as in the examples I have given. To demystify, pay attention to the particulars, the specifics, the concrete reality, with all its blemishes and contradictions.