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MAC201 Hall & Morley simplified

MAC201 seminar

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• Reaction against ‘media effects’ and notions of passivity

• Attempt to consider what the media means to audiences

• Combines semiotics with ideological analysis• Audiences makes sense of texts by drawing on

‘interpretive frameworks’– Their understanding of how the media functions; their

cultural repertoire (cultural formations: ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender, age, class, etc, positions)

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Media producers:WhiteMiddle classMaleAged 35+No religious denominationPolitically conservative

Media audiences:White/black/etc?Middle/working/under class?Male/femaleAged 0-100+?Religious?Politically motivated?

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DominantDominant

NegotiatedNegotiated

OppositionalOppositional

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DominantDominant

NegotiatedNegotiated

OppositionalOppositional

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DominantDominant

NegotiatedNegotiated

OppositionalOppositional

Shop stewards

Trade union officials

HE Arts Students

TraineeTeachers

Schoolboys

Bank managers

Apprentices

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DominantDominant

NegotiatedNegotiated

OppositionalOppositional

Resistant?Resistant?

Shop stewards

Black FE students

Trade union officials

HE Arts Students

TraineeTeachers

Schoolboys

Bank managers

Apprentices

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Problems?Problems?

• Difficult to test• Suitable methodology for analysis?• What is the ‘preferred meaning’ of a text?• Who gets to claim the authority to know what

this is?– Hall thought it was ideological and semiotic– Morley showed it was also culturally located (i.e.

taste)

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Benefits?Benefits?

• Acknowledges that there are different responses to the same media messages

• Responses may fall into clusters based on the cultural formation of audience members– (class, race, age, gender, political stance, sexuality,

ethnicity, religious beliefs, etc)

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TaskTask

• Look at the following example• Pinpoint the defining characteristics of the advert at

the level of:– Style– Ideological aims

• Can you identify 3 reading positions (circa Hall’s model) for this text?

• Does the style of the ad support the ideological underpinnings or contradict them? Does it have no baring on our understanding of it?

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2008

2009

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TaskTask

• Watch an extract from <insert example>:• Pinpoint the defining characteristics of the

programme at the level of:– Style– Ideological aims

• Can you identify 3 reading positions (circa Hall’s model) for this text?

• Does the style of the film support the ideological underpinnings or contradict them?

• Greenpeace palm-oil campaign• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV1t-MvnCrA

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