The pre-class activity for this week was to read a section of Mythologies by Roland Barthes and create a chart with the relevant denotations, connotations and the myth. I chose to read The Iconography of the Abbé Pierre. It was about the physical appearance of Franciscan priests and the significance of their haircuts and beards.

During class we had a long discussion on ideology and signs to look out for in dominant discourse. We watched a video that explained how biases and stereotypes can be created by the people in control of information.

Afterwards we were put into our groups for project 2. Lara, Louie, Nina and I started brainstorming some ideas and also setup the slides for the idea pitch for milestone 1. We are still looking at what media to use for semiotic analysis and remixing. We are considering doing a children's book or a poem but we will narrow down a specific one to look at later in the week.

Weekly Reflection

What?

Dominant ideology in my own words:

A set of beliefs and values of what "normal" or the "standard" in society should be that are more widely accepted across one or more cultures.

So what?

An example of stereotypes being reinforced in media:

The stereotypes featured in the video are typical "bogans" discussing covid vaccines, calling them "poisonous" despite using various dangerous substances themselves. While the point of the video is clearly satirical in nature and is meant to highlight the hypocrisy of many anti-vaxxer's viewpoints, it reinforces the idea that people near or below the poverty line are all stupid bogans or drug users who are anti-vax and are a menace to society.

In reality, not everyone in the lower class is necessarily a bogan, drug user or of lower intelligence who are becoming anti-vax. I believe it is more of an issue with education, or simply there is a need for more clear messaging on the risks and benefits of the covid vaccines to dispel the misinformation going around on the internet.

Now what?

What tools can we use to question the stories you are being told through the media we consume?

I think the best way to check a story for factual validity is to use multiple sources and see where they are getting their information from, and if possible find the primary source. This is of course very time consuming and not a realistic thing to practice for everyday media consumption, but perhaps good to utilise for the most important pieces of media we come across.

The best balance I think, is to follow sources that have a track record of being factual, and have as little bias as possible in the information they report. I personally get most of my news from various Reddit threads where I usually come across a variety of different news sources, and when I come across anything that greatly interests me I will look up more information about it on Google.

Notes

Denotation definition - What is obvious

Connotation definition - What is open to interpretation