Assignment Question
Concept A.: Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules.’ Each form of communication –Whether newspapers, TV game shows or horror movies—has its own creative language: scary music heightens fear, camera close-ups convey intimacy, big headlines signal significance. Understanding the grammar, syntax and metaphor system of media language, especially the language of sounds and visuals which can reach beyond the rational to our deepest emotional core, increases our appreciation and enjoyment of media experiences as well as helps us to be less susceptible to manipulation. Core Question: A. What creative techniques are used to attract my attention?
Guiding Questions:
1. What do you notice about the way the message is constructed? a. Colors and shapes? b. Sounds and silence? c. Props, sets, clothing? d. Movement? e. Symbols? 2a. Where is the camera? What is the viewpoint? 3a. What are the sounds? Music? Words? Narration? Dialogue? Silence? Sound effects? 4a. How is the story told? Symbols? Metaphors? 5a. What’s the emotional appeal? Persuasive devices? 6a. What makes it seem “real”? “Interpretation”
Concept B.: Different people experience the same media message differently. Audiences play a role in interpreting media texts because each audience member brings to the media text a unique set of life experiences (age, gender, education, cultural upbringing, etc._) Which, when applied to the text – or combined with the text –create unique interpretations. Core Question: See below – do not answer here – walk through it below – (question is – B: How might different people understand this message differently from me?)
Guiding Questions: 1b. How well does this text fit with your experience of the world? 2b. What is your opinion about what this text means / message trying to send. 3b. Make up a person who is different from you in two or more ways. (Different home country, age, gender, sexual identity, class, race/ethnicity, religion, social group, etc.) List their characteristics. 3B1: NOW GUESS how this person would answer questions 1b. and 2b. And share answers. 4b. Make up ANOTHER person who is different from you in two or more ways. (Different home country, age, gender, sexual identity, class, race/ethnicity, religion, social group, etc.) List their characteristics. 4B1: NOW GUESS how this person would answer questions 1b. and 2b. And share answers. 5b. Are other viewpoints just as valid as mine? “Meaning”
Concept C.: Media have embedded values and points of view Media, because they are constructed, carry a subtext of who and what is important – at least to the person or persona creating the construction. Media are also storytellers (even commercials tell a quick and simple story) and stories require characters and settings and a plot that has a beginning, a middle and an end. The choice of a character’s age, gender or race mixed in with the lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors that are portrayed, the selection of a setting (urban? Rural? Affluent? Poor?), and the actions and re-actions in the plot are just some of the ways that values become “embedded” Core Question: C. What lifestyles, values and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message?
Guiding Questions: 1c. What questions come to mind as you watch/read/listen? 2c. What political or economic values are communicated in the message? 3c. What judgments or statements are made about personal or social relationships? 4c. What is the cultural context or worldview? 5c. What ideas or values are being “sold” in this message? 6c. How is the human person characterized? 7c. What type of person is the reader/watcher/listener invited to identify with? 8c. What kinds of behaviors/consequences are depicted? 9c. Who or what is left out?
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