Module Learning Objectives

After this module you will be able to 

1. Explain the effect of polysemy as it conditions the interpretation of television programs

2. Analyze messages within television in terms of dominant/hegemonic, oppositional and negotiated readings

3. Analyze ideology within television programs 

4. Situate a television program and its ideology within a critical social framework of power relations between various social groups

Key Concepts

Culture: The actual practices and customs, languages, beliefs, forms of representation, and a system of formal and informal rules that tell people how to behave most of the time and enable people to make sense of their world through a certain amount of shared meanings…

Hail: When an image or a discourse “hails” a person, i.e., it calls to the person and to answer the call, the person must recognize that it is she or he, not someone else, who is being hailed. 

Hegemony: A way of life and thought that is dominant in society to the point that it seems natural. 

Ideological codes: Ideologies such as individualism, patriarchy, class, materialism, and capitalism to encode a preferred meaning. 

Ideology: A set of beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors, as well as ways of perceiving and thinking, that are agreed on to a point that they constitute a set of norms for a society that dictate what is desirable and what should be done. 

Pleasure: Pleasure is derived from making meaning that is pertinent to oneself. Experiencing pleasure by accepting, opposing, or negotiating the preferred meaning frees viewers from ideological dominance and gives them a sense of control over the production of meanings. 

Polysemy: Multiple meanings are possible because various people incorporate their own lifestyles, values, and other cultural practices into their interpretations

Social codes: Codes that relate to appearance, behavior, speech, sound, and editing to encode reality. 

Subject: Recognition and cooperative response by a television viewer to the social position that has been constructed in encoding the image/discourse.

Symbol: It stands for something else but does not necessarily attempt to duplicate it. The meaning of a symbol must be learned. 

Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze theory explained

Stuart Hall's Reception theory explained