Introduction
This session focuses on how to use the structuralist theory of Claude Levi-Strauss and the post structuralist, semiotic theory of Roland Barthes to its full potential. While this session will primarily be geared to the A-level media studies exam (component one a and Component two), it will also be useful to students seeking to study media, film, critical theory and cultural sociology at university and beyond.
Structuralism - Claude Lévi-Strauss
(Advertising, music videos, newspapers, television, magazines, online media)
• All media products have an underlying structure, and knowledge of this structure helps us to analyse them.
• One of the fundamental ways that we make sense of not only media products but our lives in general is through the idea of binary oppositions, or two diametrically opposed concepts that end up defining each other (good luck trying to explain to someone the concept of day without using the concept of night!)
• Binary oppositions and the way they are used by producers in narratives demonstrate their ideological significance
Semiotics - Roland Barthes
(advertising, music videos, newspapers, magazines, online media)
• Media products communicate a complex series of meanings to their audiences through a range of visual codes and technical codes. These codes can broadly be divided in to proairetic, symbolic, hermeneutic, referential, and so on.
• After many years of codes being repeated, their meaning can become generally agreed upon by society. For example, a scar on the face of a character can function as a hermeneutic code, indicating to the audience that they are ‘the villain’.
Illustrating the importance of diametric oppositions
- Establish a clear narrative
- Accentuate the personality trait of a character
- Create conflict for the entertainment of the audience
- Establishes clear ideological perspectives for the audience
- Anchors the audience to believe particular ideological perspectives
Structuralist approaches to music videos - Formation
- Setting contrasts with costume: empty abandoned swimming pool creates conflict with the high end designer costumes of the dancers, encoding a definite hierarchy
- A conflict between modern sportswear, and the conservative religious attire. This is further emphasised through the difference in choreography, contrasting the static religious characters and the constantly moving dancers in the swimming pool
- Beyonce lying nonchalantly on the car demonstrates a clear binary opposition between working class female black identify and the symbolic connotations of the oppressive police car
Structuralist approaches to Television - Les Revenants
- Electronic synthetic soundtrack creates an opposition with he beautiful natural setting, emphasises the isolation of the area
- Life and death, which is constantly subverted. An ironic representation of death that helps the audience to understand the general narrative of the TV show
- Past vs present, France struggling to come to terms with the present
- Local and foreign. Allegorical to issues facing Europe in the face of globalisation and mass immigration
Implications of structuralism as a metanarrative
- Forces the audience to accept one or another ideology, leading to simplistic readings
- Encourages a mentality of conflict in the audience, presenting conflict as entertainment
(the below notes are by Richie, slightly edited for clarity. Thanks Richie!)
Roland Barthes - Post structuralism The death of the author.
Barthe's classic essay suggests that we should stop obsessing over the INTENT of the author, and instead consider how meanings and ideological perspectives can be decoded.
Semiotic approaches to advertising: Tide Print advert
- The love hearts emanating from the main woman is a proairetic code toward how the woman may be falling in love with the soap box, even about to marry her.
- The advert reinforces the stereotypical viewpoint of women which ties in to the time the advert was published. Symbolic for how women for are simplistic and only like cleaning, and potentially other household chores.
- The producer builds up the audience and constructs a reinforcement toward the patriarchal hegemony, with use through hermeneutic codes.
- Referential code to 'Rosie the Riveter', a pin-up girl used to boost patriarchal moods.
- Symbolic annihilation - no black characters or even references to it. Socio-political influences at the time help to reinforce this, and the ideology at the time reinforces this
Criticisms of semiotic analysis
Does Barthes theory give too much power to the audience? however it is truly the producer who is actually encoding his ideology into the media product. Additionally, much of Barthe's own analysis is focussed on authorial intent. It took later post structuralist and 'post-audience' theorists to move towards more radical models, for example those involving fan production, fan fiction and fandom in general (eg Jenkins)