Ideology II

8/14/2019 Ideology II

1/34

IDEOLOGY II


2/34

Last week we spoke of ideology in the

media as working at the level of

Interpellation, where it isolates and places

an individual to receive it in some way.

This process takes place at the level of

identity individuals are identified as

audiences of media products, and definedthrough their identities


3/34

Identity

Identity refers to who we are in relation to others

in society.

People are constantly in search of who they are.

This is part of the identity crisis. Identity is notfixed

The media has become a significant site for

reproducing identities

Previously, people used the traditional sources

of identity such as the family, work and religion


4/34

The wide-spread nature of the media has

ensured that it occupies a major position

in defining identities.

Medias cultural content is informed by

differences in identities


5/34

Media audiences

There are two forms of media audiences

defined around identity:

Audiences as markets

Audiences as social and cultural products


6/34

The audience as market

Audience social construction used to refer topeople who consume a particular product or theimagined recipient of a media product.

It is an ideological concept It exists in the way it is defined by particular

groups for particular purposes

How the audience is constructed determines

how it can function and how the relationshipbetween the media and their audiences can bedescribed, measured and evaluated.


7/34

Audience as market

The audience is often seen as a potential

or potentially overlapping market (one

person can occupy several positions of

audience)

A market identifies a subsection of the

population as potential consumers of a

particular identifiable product or set ofproducts.


8/34

Example

How can you tell the potential market of a

magazine?

Female? Why?

Letters section?

Themes

The example of the two Kenyan magazines,

Adam and Eve.


9/34

The audience as market is not a

composite whole. It can vary in size,

duration and stability/flexibility

Markets have identities attached to them

eg Sex and The City; WWF wrestling,

CNN news


10/34

Beyond finding appropriate audiences,

producers also include content that will

keep others out of an audience


11/34

Adam magazine Men first Hummer F1

Strip clubs Eve Magazine

Motherhood Good wife

True Love Maids in Mzansi-Why eve doesnt want a black

madam Dream your way to better sex, think like a man etc


12/34

Audiences are therefore defined as consumersor commodities

As consumers, the media producer always has

in mind the person who is going to consume theproduct.

This idea is referred to as a market type.

People also categorize themselves according to

their consumer positions (I wouldnt live inHillbrow; I like plasma TVs; I watch cartoons; Ilike RnB or 80s music)


13/34

Producers must therefore develop specific

ways to attract this audience

They do this in three ways

Demographics

Tastes and cultures

Lifestyle cultures


14/34

Demographics

Quantitative description according to a setof social or sociological variables.

Age, race, gender, income level,

educational level, place of residence. The producers make assumptions about

consumers when making market

categorizations. That is why media organizations carry out

extensive market researches


15/34

This helps them to determine marketing

strategies and advertising styles

Why do soccer adverts mostly feature

black people and rugby feature white

people? What is the demographic

assumption?


16/34

Tastes and culture

This depends on the continuing

commitment of a group of people to some

type of product.

Watch SABC 1, SABC 2 and SABC 3.

Look at the kinds of adverts. What are the

assumptions regarding taste and cultures

of those who watch these SABCchannels?


17/34

Producers operating with an

understanding of the audience as taste n

cultures construct media products

according to their understanding of thefeatures of the product that hold such

tastes and cultures together rather than

according to their image of a particulardemographic group of consumers.


18/34

Lifestyle clusters

This is a mixture of demographic and

consumption habits and tastes.

A lifestyle cluster represents a segment of

the population that tends to purchase

certain kinds of products or to make

certain decisions, including voting

SAFM


19/34

A lifestyle cluster creates groups in the

population whose members have several

characteristics in common.

These members often spend their money

and time in similar ways.

Advertisers and media producers can

target a specific lifestyle cluster


20/34

E.g Adam and Eve

Shopping Malls A pick n Pay in Hillbrow

and one in Sandton what would be the

differences?

Time magazine and Drum magazine?


21/34

The need to make people think of

themselves as consumers

Media instrumental in constructing the

idea of consumers (one identity)


22/34

Origins of consumerism

Industrial development

Mass production

People had to be convinced to spend theirmoney

Modern mass media how to be a

consumer


23/34

This consumer is active - choices

So the producer has to convince

The media reminds the audience to be aconsumer.


24/34

The Audience as commodity

The audience as commodity exists as an

object to be sold for profit.

Think of how advertising works

The media produce an audience for their

own media products then deliver that

audience to another media producer the

advertiser


25/34

When people watch TC shows, they are

also watching adverts

One can argue that this audience can

move away from the channels during

adverts; buy DVDs and avoid them etc

Genres such as music sell their audiences

they sell them to clothing houses, Think

of the Hannah Montana brands,


26/34

Cultural identities

Beyond being consumers and commodities, theaudience can also be defined as culturalidentities

Given that id is a product of a variety of social

groups and differences, audiences are definedusing multiple terms

In media, the question to ask is: what is therelationship between the images and sounds of

identities made available through the media How do people take up and live their ownidentities and relate to others inhabiting otheridentities


27/34

Categories

1) Essentialist representation of identity

is natural, accurate and universal

2)Non essentialist Categories of

identity are culturally constructed


28/34

Stereotypes in the media

The media provides pictures of people anddescriptions of different social groups andsocial identities

What do we think of how we arerepresented in the media?

Stereotyping help to categorize,

however, often viewed as biased. The biasness can be in the form of

absences, negative portrayals, distortions


29/34

The media contributes to the construction ofstereotypes as a result of systematic biases

The wests view of Africa in the movies

Hunger Salvation and salvaging

Disease

Blood Diamonds, Constant Gardner

South African movies blackness Tsotsi Jerusalema

Hijack stories


30/34

Representation as a cultural

construction

Media representations are actively

involved in construction of identity

In culture

How is a category of identity established

How are individuals assigned to it

How is meaning determined?


31/34

Categories of identity such as gender and race

are products of cultural codes which select some

aspects of the body and make them significant

signifiers whereas others remain just other partsof the anatomy.

Such codes organize signs in relation to

difference, so that any signifier of identity is only

significant insofar as its difference from othersignifiers is provided as a code itself


32/34

Culture selects the relevant dimensions

that will constitute peoples identity and

organize them into relations of difference

One term is always dominant and defines

the norm. This norm is neither ve nor

+ve. It is neutral. E.g femaleness is

measured against maleness; povertyagainst wealth; black against white


33/34

In media, people are interpellated to get

into their appropriate positions women

seem to be largely defined or placed as

the object of male pleasure


34/34

ANNOUNCEMENT

NEXT QUARTER WE CHANGE OUR

CLASSES TO TUESDAYS 14:00-15:45

Same venue

Documents

Ideology II