Communication, Language, and Ideology PDF

Class 1 - January 7th 2025 Theory: definitions & distinctions Theory - Contemplation, spectacle, mental conception Fact - Thing that is known to be true or to exist Opinion - Belief based on grounds short of proof, view held as probable, what one thinks about something -​ “A way of seeing, of und...

Class 1 - January 7th 2025 Theory: definitions & distinctions Theory - Contemplation, spectacle, mental conception Fact - Thing that is known to be true or to exist Opinion - Belief based on grounds short of proof, view held as probable, what one thinks about something -​ “A way of seeing, of understanding, of planning” (hyman 1975:2) -​ “A generalization, relating a new situation to an old one in order to discern patterns and figure out what is likely to happen” Evaluating Theories: 5 criteria -​ Scope - appropriate -​ Testability - able to check -​ Parsimony - simplest definition is the most useful/accurate -​ Utility - is the theory useful -​ Heurism - does the theory allow others to work off of it and move/develop further Three levels of study in communication studies -​ Language - micro level (messages, talk, text) -​ Media - meso level (press, radio, social media) -​ Culture - macro level (class, regional, national) -​ Plausible deniability, dog whistles - two different meanings -​ Public democracy - advertising to win over majority Sophocles (497-405 BCE) -​ language , and thought like the wind -​ And the feelings that make the town -​ Man has taught himself, and shelter against the cold -​ Regue from the rain Language -​ A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many architect in the construction of her cells -​ But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of the bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality Three theories of language -​ Reflective - language is a system for naming objects, things etc (nomenclature) -​ Intentional - what author/speaker intends -​ Constructional - language is social = it ‘constructs’ reality -​ Reality is NOT made up -​ Word choices, structures, connotations etc = create a perception of object/etc -​ “Our perception” = “our reality” -​ Examples, - police officer chatted with the teenager - the police officer spoke to the tennager - the police officer interrogated the teenager Raymond Williams (1921-1988) -​ Theorist, novelist & writer -​ 1958 - culture & society -​ 1961 - The long revolution -​ 1962,1966 - communications -​ 1976 - keywords -​ 1983 - keywords -​ 1974 - television: technology & cultural form -​ Marxism & literature Primary Resources of Communication -​ Human body necessary (voice, hands) -​ Non human objects & forces are adapted & shaped by humans for communication Materiality of language -​ To understand the materiality of language we have of course to distinguish between spoken words and written notations -​ Spoken words are a process of human activity using only immediate, constitutive, physical resources -​ Written words, with their continuing but not necessarily direct relation to speech, are a form of material production, adapting non human resources to a human end Keywords = Historical Semantics -​ The study of reference, meaning, or truth -​ Formal semantics - senses, reference, implication, logical form -​ Lexical semantics - word choices, relations -​ Historical semantics - change over time & place Four Keywords - Common -​ Communication -​ Commune -​ Communism -​ Community Language = commons **** Mass communications -​ Thought of ‘in too functional and too secondary a way’ -​ Large crowds & audiences before “mass comm’ns’ but audiences are now mostly dispersed and small -​ There are no masses, only ways of seeing people as masses Class 2 - January 14th 2025 Language, Metaphor & Rhetoric Winslow and the language of inequality -​ Poverty is not an unfortunate accident “If you work hard you will get ahead” - most people have inherited wealth -​ Coherent account of inequality as an ideological process - -​ Assumed capitalism will inevitably generate arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that pose radical threats to the perception of economic justice -​ Examples of massive failures, communist regimes of USSR, eastern europe and cuba -​ Cutting global poverty from 50% to 20% between 1980 and 2016 -​ Half of that was china through state led and directed capitalism -​ It is misguided to assume empirical methods can explain economic arrangement -​ Not work ethic or perseverance but what matters most is who your parents are -​ Empirical methods an reveal the language we choose to explain why some are rich and poor they can't explain why -​ People don't do “well when confronted with contradictions, conundrums, and paradoxes. We desire order, coherence, and consistency” -​ Ideology = a means to order a disorderly world to better understand one's place in the world and to explain to oneself what is going on -​ ⅗ canadian households are a few paychecks away from homelessness Meme - I need someone to explain to me why its always -​ But ideological adherence is a continuous process, always prone to failure and contradiction -​ Ideology - best understood as a mechanism through which alternatives are foreclosed not as a method of brainwashing - most visible when language and reality divergent - needs to seal up the cracks between language and reality - therefore ideology in the practice is the political language that has capacity to dictate decision, manufacturer consent, influence public belief and behavior and indicate the groups upon which the social order remains stable by generating consent to its parameters through production and distribution of language Communication theory -​ Art of persuasive or impressive speaking or writing -​ Language designed to persuade or impress (often with the implication of insincerity or exaggeration) -​ Yet human communication relies on an assumption of sincerity without which we could not successfully engage in the most basic communicative act -​ Rhetorical analysis: used to uncover probable truth in areas where there is no certainty Three speech situations - three types of speech -​ Forensic for judicial - Past - to determine guilt or innocence  -​ Deliberative - Future - to determine the best course of action -​ Epideictic - Present - praise or blame often at public events - festivals, funerals etc 5 phases of working on a speech or writing -​ Inventio (invention) - address where arguments come from, gathering material -​ Dispositio (arrangement) - logic, organization of the work, order of speech - ‘narrative’ -​ Elocutio (style) - relationship between form and content, language used -​ Memoria (memory) - access a speaker has to the content of speech, extemporaneously -​ Actio - (delivery) - presenting speech to audience 3 Means of Persuasion -​ Ethos - emotional appeals based on character of speaker (credibility) -​ Pathos - appeals to power (fear vs love) -​ Logos - words, speech, reasoning (logic) Metaphor -​ Class 3 - January 21st 2025 Structuralism, Semiotics and Myths Structuralism Ferdinand de saussure (1857-1913) -​ Father of modern linguistics -​ Ancient & indo-european languages -​ U of geneva (1892-1913) -​ (1916) course in general linguistics (publ by his students) -​ Rejects previous theories of language - reflectionist -​ Structural linguistics - structuralism Language and Parole -​ Looks for laws, structures & conventions that govern how people communicate in society -​ Language - universal underlying structure that enables as a linguistic communication system -​ Langue - system of rules and conventions -​ Parole - actual utterances -​ Synchronic - at a particular time -​ Diachronic - over time Signs -​ Sign - signifier + signified -​ Signifier - sound - image -​ Signified - concept -​ Signifier & signified - abstract mental entities Linguistic signs - 4 characteristics -​ Arbitrary nature of the sign - based on convention, fixed by rule -​ Linear nature of signifier -sequentially structure via time or space  -​ Immutability - appear fixed as if chosen by language, inherent conservatism of language -​ Mutability - because of its arbitrariness -​ Only collectives can change language although mostly not intentional -​ More or less rapid change of linguistic signs -​ Principle of change is based upon the principle of continuity Heuristics -​ Structuralist anthropology -​ Society structured around binary oppositions -​ Unover meanings in any society by uncovering patterns & categories of opp’ns -​ Binary opp’ns deep underlying structures spoken unconsciously by members of society eg. human/non-human, nature/culture -​ Major influence on film studies Semiotics -​ Aka semiology - the study of signs (greek) -​ Science of communication and sign systems of the ways people understand phenomena and organize them mentally and of the ways in which they devise means for transmitting that understanding and for sharing it with others - Marcel Danesi 1946 Language is a system of signs -​ Langage = langue + parole -​ Language is a form not substance -​ Langue = rules & conventions -​ Necessary to study the system of rules and constraints that make the generation of meanings possible -​ Parole = utterance or speech - actual use & examples of language in use Signs -​ Icon - signifies through likeness -​ Iconic - resembles what it represents -​ Index - signifies through physical connection -​ Indexical - direct link, logical connection, association -​ Symbol - signifies through arbitrary social connection -​ Symbolic - arbitrary link or by convention Linguistic sign is arbitrary -​ Difference or distinction from other signs -​ The word cat represented cat -​ Because it is not a mat, rat, rat, car, cot, cut, or can or any other three letter word in the english language -​ Sign = signifier (verbal or visual vehicle)/ signified (mental concept) Codes -​ Meanings of specific signs are only understood in relation to each other  -​ Codes organize the particular meanings of signs in a particular arrangement or connect eg traffic lights, weddings, funerals Paradigm/System -​ Paradigm - choice/section (vertical) -​ Syntagm - sequence/combination (horizontal) -​ Meaning - always the result of the interplay of relationships of selection of combination made possible by the underlying structure Mythology -​ Rolan Barthes 1915-1980 -​ Classical letters, philosophy, grammar, lexicology, sociology -​ Ill health TB -​ Travelled widely -​ Popular papers/magazines -​ Professor college de france -​ Structuralism & semiotics to post structuralism Roland Barthes 1957 -​ Myth Today Mythologies -​ 54 mini essays for magazine -​ Analysing french popular culture eg. wrestling, steak and chips, wine and milk, toys, new citroen Mythology = semiology + ideology -​ Semiology - Science of forms -​ Ideology - historical science -​ Barthes myths -​ NOT the same as ancient greek or roman myths -​ Can only be based on history not eternal -​ Pictures, objects, not just words ‘become a kind of writing as soon as they are meaningful’ “Myth” is form not content -​ Myth is not defined by the object of its message but by the way in which it utters this message -​ Myth is a type of speech - chosen by history it cannot possibly evolve from the nature of things -​ Form not content - a mode of signification -​ Myth arises out of the 2nd or 3rd order of signification Order of signification = denotation -​ Literal meaning -​ Use of language to mean what it says  -​ Obvious meaning of the sign Order of signification = connotation -​ Connotes or connotes -​ Associations proc used by the first or denotative order of signification -​ Produces associate, expressive or evaluative meanings Myth = dominant ideology? -​ A type of speech about social realities which supports ideology by taking these realities outside the arena of political debate -​ Myth constituted by the loss of the historical quality of things lose the memory that they were once made Myth = don't look up online not the right definition go into slides Differences in analyzing language compared to raymond williams Midterm -​ 5 short answers out of 8 - think innovative, creative, summarize - readings - argument of that person??? - key points -​ Multiple choice - slides definitions February 4th 2025 - Commodification and Political Economy ‘Keynesianism’ vs ‘Neoliberalism’ USA: 1947-2007 ‘Golden Age’ of Capitalism: Keynesian policies = save capitalism via govt intervention in economy ‘Neoliberal’ Capitalism: State intervention into economy to privatize public goods/services à ‘socialize risks & costs, AND privatize profits’ Marx - Capital: ‘Born of the advent of money in the 16th century, capital is the amount of wealth that is used in making profits, for Marx, the variable excess that is pulled out of labour- power to produce surplus value’. “Dead Labour” - workers productivity -​ Variable Capital e.g. Human labour -​ Constant Capital e.g. raw materials & equipment Mode of Production: Commodity, Use Value & Exchange Value -​ “The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as ‘an immense accumulation of commodities’, its unit being a single commodity Commodity -​ ‘A thing can be a use- value, without having value.... whenever its utility to man is not due to labour....air, virgin soil, natural meadows...’ “acquired exchange value” -​ ‘A thing can be useful, and a product of human labour, without being a commodity Use Value -​ ‘The utility of a thing makes it a use value.... Use-values become a reality only by use or consumption’ Exchange Value -​ a relation, ‘as the proportion in which values in use of one sort are exchanged for those of another sort’ - an equation of commensurability Socially Necessary Labour Time: -​ ‘A key to exchange value, the value that inheres in the commodity of the abstract labour used to produce it. A way of describing average levels of labour productivity in relation to social needs embodied in commodities’. 2 kinds of commodity -​ Money - Historically à commodity whose value determined by ‘average socially necessary labour time’ expended in production -​ Labour power - exchange relation of labour-power commodity = fundamental relation of capitalist mode of prod’n - capitalist buys your time (i.e. ability to labour),in exchange the ‘fruits’ of your labour belong to the capitalist Surplus Value -​ What is in excess of labour cost that is available for appropriation /exploitation and is the basis for capital accumulation: profit’ Absolute Surplus Value  -​ ‘the extension of the work day for the same wage’ Relative Surplus Value -​ “the extension of productivity by extracting more labour out of a given unit of labour by means of measuring and monitoring systems