COMS 203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Mimesis, Roland Barthes, The Selfish Gene

• School: University of Calgary
• Department: Communications Studies
• Course: COMS 203
• Professor: Tamara Shepherd

Document Summary

Objectives: to apply the neff et a. (2012) reading on affordances to new media, think about new media"s material infrastructures. Affordances: don norman, design lab, university of california, of infrastructure, eg. One laptop per child: of devices, of platforms, of algorithms, lawrence lessig (1999, 2006): code as law, eg. Affordances & power: agency: resistance, free & open sources software (f/oss, hacktivism. Objectives: to understand symbolic power in images, to consider new media as visual media. New media: interfaces: command line interface: 1960s-1980s, graphic user interface (gui): 1981- present (p. 19, app tiles, profiles. Images create & communicate meaning: meaning as a system of signs: semiotics, roland barthes, mythologies (1957, emojis, representation, sutart hall (1997), representation: cultural representations & signifying. Cultural studies: stuart hall, ecoding/decoding model (1980, eg. Dove visible care ad (2011: emojis, snapchat filters. Memes: richard dawkins (1976), the selfish gene, mimesis & gene = meme, viral circulation, hypersignification: limor shifman (2014)