CMST 1A03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault, Propaganda Model

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Communication Studies
• Course: CMST 1A03
• Professor: Dilyana Mincheva

Document Summary

Regarding content - can people encode whatever meanings they want into media. Do societal structures/processes determine the range/character of messages they can messages (agency) produce (structure) Author/language/culture (historical, gender - context) determines meaning of text. Influential in film studies: director has a personal vision + makes all decisions. Only the text matters - author/culture is not key for understanding the message. Found similar narrative structure (same elements - hero, villain, helper) If the content of myth is contingent, how are we to explain the fact that myths throughout the world are so similar? . There are universal principles that guide the human mind. Cultural texts are capable of having multiple meanings. Myths are cultural constructions, but can appear to be universal truths. Main thesis: mass culture is analogous to mythology (cultural work previously done by actually constructed) gods is now done by movies, film stars, commercials) Meaning is made in act of decoding (up to reader)