My initial reaction towards the questions was that they are kind of boring and lame. The only question I was immediately drawn to was “What is omitted?”. I think this is a commonly overlooked aspect of analysis; everything else just seemed like it had been said before in other ways. But then I realized that I was applying those questions to my concept of literary analysis. Never before have I taken the time to consider how different media analysis is from the analysis of a text. Because media as a valid source of information is a fairly new concept in our society, we’re having to start back over with the basic questions.
Knowing this, I think it would be easy to take these questions into my classroom and have my students use them to develop their own opinions on the subject. They are very broad, but I imagine giving my students a very specific clip where there are one or two obvious answers to the questions—that way they feel comfortable with the idea of making decisions in how to answer the questions. Slowly, the clips would be harder (which really means they would have more options for interpretation) allowing the students to branch out and understand that they are dozens of ways that people could intend for their messages to be received.
I think the one questions that I would be most interested in restating would be number three: How might different people understand this message? I think a follow-up question to that would be, “how is the message misunderstood?” and “Can a message be misunderstood?”. One could argue that media is meant to be interpreted however the audience views it. But how many times in commercials or on social networking sites do we misunderstand something that is said or portrayed to us? I appreciate that Hobbes acknowledges that we understand meaning different within different mediums of presentation. There is an immense amount of understanding that has to enter every creator’s mind in order to judge how any audience member could interpret the text to better gauge how they can appeal to a wide variety of people.
I read Homeplace in Seeing and Writing, and I thought it was very interesting. My favorite line from the piece was, “When we cease to be migrants and become inhabitants, we might begin to pay enough heed and respect to where we are.” I think this concept is incredibly interesting, but upon considering the five analysis questions, I realized I probably need a few practices with using the questions before I challenge my students to do the same. The question about what creative techniques hold our attention leads to you break down a piece of writing to see that it can be interpreted as nothing more than a political piece by a tree-hugger with an agenda. The author uses the emotional story of the family who rebuilds their house in the beginning to show us staying in one place is something to be proud of. This concept is quickly looped into the idea of green peace in a convoluted way, but you hardly even notice the transition unless you are clearly looking for it. When I noticed this through reading, I became an active analyzer, just like I want my students to be. Once they understand the questions and become aware of what they are reading, they will be able to make those informed decisions. Unlike in other classes, we’re not asking students what the message or theme is—we’re asking them to be their own critics.
1 comment:
It’s interesting that you think textual analysis is different from media analysis. I tend to approach them as the same, or at least very similar, ideas expressed through different ways. Throughout the centuries, we have evolved different means of communication, verbal, visual, aural, etc. Each way has had its own different pieces in it that were singular to that particular means of communication, but each, in my opinion, could be analyzed through similar channels, since they had evolved from each other.
I think that the best way to use these questions, or perhaps the only effective way to use these questions, is starting with specific clips or pictures, or something that the students already have some knowledge about. That way, they can express themselves without feeling like they don’t know anything. It would be wise, I think, to tackle a few lessons on good research methods at the same time so when you get to the point of using clips or pictures that the students don’t know very much about, they can then go and find the things that they need to know in order to present their argument or discussion intelligently. (That being said, I think there doesn’t need to be very much in the way of lessons on research, since the students of these generations already know so much about technology and the internet – probably more than we, their teachers, do.)
Your point about different interpretations of media and advertising is interesting. It reminds me of a few days ago an acquaintance made a comment along the lines of “there are some news headlines that talk about the main issue and they hook you with something like, ‘this person received some good news, click to find out’. Even though what I find out may not always be exciting (still good), I give journalists props for hooking us in.” When I read that I was very surprised. This person came up with a completely different idea of what that article was going to be about than I did. Every time I read those headlines, I think something like “oh, yeah? Well I don’t particularly care that (fill in the blank here) actually happened instead of (fill in blank here).” Their different frame of mind led them to believe that whatever had happened to that person was truly important to them (my acquaintance). Or perhaps it was that person’s curiosity (for they must always know what is going on) that engaged them to think this way. Either way, their interpretation of the story was vastly different than my own, even though we both have seen many of the same stories. Advertisers, writers, etc. must know that this occurs frequently. Therefore they have to have done a lot of study into what their particular target group is like and what they want.
I’m interested to see how trying to use these questions in my own classroom plays out. I’d like to start thinking now what type of good project (for I think this works better in projects that can be applied to the students’ lives rather than simply theoretical discussion) would work within my different theatre class (what would work in stage craft? Acting I? Designing? Directing?) The impact on the students will hopefully be significant and beneficial. I think I’d actually like to try this within one of my own classes or with a group of friends first.
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