HUM3321 Midterm Study Guide Vocabulary 1 Pedagogy The discipline that deals with the theory and practice of education It concerns how best to teach 2 Multiculturalism Multiculturalism is a social construct or an idea that society created It relates to a society consisting of a number of cultural groups in which the distinctive cultural identity of each group is maintained Different cultures include gender sexuality race and class Race A social construct any of the major groupings of mankind having in common distinct physical features or similar ethnic backgrounds Class A social construct a division or order of society according to status Gender A social construct a euphemism for the sex of a human being often intended to emphasize the social and cultural rather than the biological distinctions between sexes Sexuality A social construct a person s sexual identity in relation to the gender to which he or she is typically attracted These categories were created by those in power to stay in charge and minimize others Hegemony is ruling social political and cultural forces In our culture it is represented by middle upper class moderate white males It is a method for gaining and maintaining power Cultural hegemony describes the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society so that their ruling class worldview becomes the worldview that is imposed and accepted at the cultural norm Manipulates the beliefs perceptions and values 3 Hegemony The study of how symbols form meaning 4 Semiotics 5 Madonna Phenomenon In the context of cultural production this refers to MTV the music industry concerts marketing and images Madonna was MTV s first superstar who crafted images to attract a mass audience She incorporated minority audiences such as blacks and Hispanics with images of interracial sex and multicultural family Her more political videos attracted feminists and academics Her incorporation of alternative images of sexuality attracted gay and lesbian audiences Madonna s popularity was a function of her marketing strategies and her production of music videos that appealed to diverse audiences 6 3 Areas of Media Inquiry Why a film is made how it is made what historical elements contributed to its External Internal productions Reactionary Reflective Intentional Constructionist What sort of people are depicted are the portrayals fairs how your personal identity affects the experience How others respond to the media what other media it influences 7 Stuart Hall s Three Methods of Building Meaning through Language Meaning is thought to lie in the object person idea or event in the real world and language functions like a mirror to reflect the true meaning as it already exists in the real world The speaker the author who imposes his or her unique meaning on the world through language Words mean what the author intends they should mean Acknowledges that neither things in themselves nor the individual users of language can fix meaning in language Things don t mean we construct meaning using representational systems 8 Four Aspects of Cinema as an Institution Economic It is designed to make money so has established itself as an industry an institution that produces a particular though intangible product Social Provides an appropriate form of social contact a way to spend leisure time It became the modern communal activity and largely replaces pre industrial social institutions Technological Its success depended on the Industrial Revolution era inventions such as cameras amplifiers magnetic recording tape and screens Psychological Its purpose is to encourage working class and middle class Americans to frequent the movies by providing a type of entertainment they want as well as promoting a lifestyle that the audience will desire 9 The Kinetoscope Designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole viewer window at the top of the device It was the culmination of an age that saw the invention of the telegraph photography and the telephone It transformed the face of late 19th century culture 10 Nickelodeon Era 11 Birth of a Nation Began in 1905 Small 200 seat theaters devoted exclusively to the showing of motion picture films with an admission piece of only a nickel This era saw a shift in the audiences Directed by D W Griffith in 1915 An intricate 3 hour long narrative Its success transformed the nature of American film production and exhibition It was notorious for its racist agenda illustrating the enormous power of the motion picture medium to communication ideological arguments 12 ISAs RSAs Ideological State Apparatus ISA A certain number of realities which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialized institutions The private domain churches schools families ect Reinforce the rule of the dominant class primarily through ideology People submit out of fear of social ridicule Repressive State Apparatus RSA The government administration army police prisons ect Used by the ruling class as a tool to suppress and dominate the working class The basic function is to intervene and act in favor of the ruling class by repressing the ruled class by violent and coercive means 13 Ideology 14 Style 15 Mise en scene 16 Angle Belief or beliefs about how the world works Represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence in imaginative form Coercive and manipulative omni historical reality Style consists of film elements such as costume setting lighting camera angles camera zooming and panning sound music and scene transitions which create the story that is to be told in a certain way Refers to the relationship of every aspect of a shot to every other aspect of the shot It is the way that directors communicate information to the audience through things like camera angles lighting setting position of the actors and music Camera angles often communicate a character s power or lack thereof 17 Distance 18 Movement Close ups medium shots and long shots help to draw attention to the most significant aspect of the shot Zooming in or out provides the illusion of movement The camera may actually move panning horizontally or through the tracking shots or in any number of directions via a dolly 19 Three Point lighting 20 High low key lighting Key light the chief light used to light the main object of the shot Fill light a weaker light used to fill in the shadows cast
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