A brief presentation on Media Discourse.pptx

A brief presentation on Media Discourse

1. Media Discourse The media is considered to be reflecting reality as it transmits information on various issues to the public.

2. Nevertheless, the media cannot and do not always offer a simple reflection of the real world. Instead, media analysts have favored the concept of representation, with metaphors of distorting lenses or selective filters replacing those of reflection's clear mirrors or translucent windows

3. 'Representation' recognizes the media's dependence on sign systems that operate symbolically and connotatively . The beginning of the twenty first century is known as “Post modern” to point that it is a period where people have become skeptic about all forms of knowledge or “grand narratives” that previously enabled shared ways of understanding the world.

4. For instance, we may not agree with what could be suggested by a film that is said to narrate how the Second World War ended in 1945: Media sources from the USA and Germany may have different versions of how the war ended, just because they have opposing perspectives regarding how the war ended.

5. We still could have a number of different perspectives regarding World War II . It can be said that the media still figure strongly as narrative-makers, capable of influencing our perceptions of a “reality” beyond our borders. For instance, without going to Europe or the US, we can learn about daily lives in America through the media such as films, Series films or social media.

6. Thus, it is important that we look into the relationship between media texts and the social world. Nevertheless, exploring media discourse implies that the relationship between media texts and the social world is always changing. It suggests the ongoing contest between differing ways of configuring “reality”.

7. Media contents such as images, sounds and written words are examined against their implications in the real world. It refers to a system of communicative practices that are integrally related to wider social and cultural practices, and that help to construct specific frameworks of thinking.

8. These 'specific frameworks of thinking' are themselves provisional, open to contest and debate, making discourse more understandable as a process of making meaning, rather than a fixed position.

9. Thus, media contents should be critically examined before we accept them as directly communicated or indirectly implied to us. The concept of discourse offers a variety of insights into the media’s current strategies for communicating with their public.

10. It shows the media are not only communicators of “realities” to the public, but also partial originators of ideas and values. E.g:What advertising does. The media do not usually use any new discourse to communicate messages of the advertisers; rather they react to perceived public desires or concerns. For example, in a television advertisement, we may see a food oil producing company selling food oil with lower prices to the public. The advertisement may claim the company strives to meet its social responsibility by selling quality food oil with low cost to us.

11. Media Discourse and Representation Reality remains profoundly unknowable since our only access to it is through the constructionist prism of discourse. It therefore becomes pointless, to argue about the accuracy of any representation of the real world . Representations of “realities” are made well by the use of words, images and written texts which are immensely powerful relative to physical actions. E.g. Rape by acquaintance and rape by violence.

12. The meanings we attribute to words and images depend on cultural assumptions, and help, in turn, to carry on these assumptions . If we take single women and married women, habitually they are not perceived in the same way by the public.

13. This is language or image with its socio-cultural roots exposed and its socio-cultural effects revealed. In other words, it is created by a group of people or individuals that share similar cultures, speak same language or live in a certain geographical location with similar mental models etc.

14. E.g : Since the Battle of Adwa is a shared history by all, the media easily use it for mobilization. Single terms or images do not, of course, achieve this by themselves. As the working definition of discourse emphasizes, it is a system of communicative practices that are integrally related to wider social and cultural practices, and that help to construct specific frameworks of thinking.

15. Even though we have the right to dress in the way they wish, men do not wear dresses and women trousers in the public sphere. So our selection of forms of language or image is both bounded by unacknowledged conventions and yet it could mean different things to different people based on their cultures.

16. Discourse and Representation As far as presenting historical realities through media is concerned, we cannot speak of its accuracy for sure. E.g : For instance, they may show us how the Battle of Adwa was fought and how it ended. If the same event was represented by two films made by an Ethiopian and Italian film producers, we may find contradictory narratives.

17. At its most basic representation revolved around two issues: that of the fundamentally conservative nature of the form of realism (practicality), outlined by MacCabe ; and the problem of deciding, even if reality were desirable, whose reality was going to be represented, and from whose point of view?

18. Media or Cultural Texts and Reality in Post Modern Society Postmodern thinking, on the other hand, denies the point of positing any link whatsoever between media or cultural texts and reality. What these present is neither a representation nor a construction, but a mere simulation: 'simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation as itself a simulacrum (Poster, 1988: 170).

19. Semiotics (the science of signs) placed emphasis on the relationship between the material embodiment of the sign, the idea it formed in our heads, and the object to which it referred.

20. No. Product or service items Denotative meaning Semantic meaning Connotative meaning No. Product or service items 1. Indomie Instant Noddles Brand name Pasta that can be cooked fast Modernization 1. Indomie Instant Noddles 2. Sheba Brand name Queen of olden Ethiopia known for her wisdom and power Nationalism, wisdom, exoticism, beauty, intelligence 2. Sheba 3. 2BF-Brothers Brand name Male persons having either or both parents Harmony, exoticism, Compassion 3. 2BF-Brothers 4. St. George Brand name Name of a saint (Roman Soldier) said to have killed the serpent History, Nationalism 4. St. George

21. So through the use of the products’ names, we happen to replace the products with the names and anything else we imagine they can make us do. In other words, they make intertexual play: they get connected historically.

22. Media and the reality the media help to construct versions of reality, and that these constructions are always open to contest. It refuses a sharp dividing line between 'reality' and its 'representation', especially since apparent realities are often discursively (indirectly) shaped. Even statistical accounts of social phenomena will be strongly influenced by the terms in which we talk about these, or, indeed, by our reluctance to discuss them.

23. The worlds of representation and reality Do the media represent reality as it is? For instance, when Diana died in September 1997, the media broadcasted that people were mourning her death at her funeral. But the question is were all people who attended the funeral ceremony mourning? The same could be asked of the late Prime minister of E thiopia, Meles Zenawi .

24. Yet avoidance of this question is particularly difficult when evaluating media discourses because the media themselves make claims for truthfulness and accuracy in relation to their coverage of real events and, despite the turn to the postmodern in academic criticism, much of the lay public's discussion of news and current affairs programmes centres on the credibility of what is seen and heard.

25. So we should dig down till we find genuine evidence that allow us to trust what we access on media.