CMN2160 Chapter Notes - Chapter 22: Media Studies
Document Summary
Chapter 22: the death of the author - barthes. Media exists as objects before you encounter it, but they only have meaning once you (the audience) interpret them. Relationship between the text and the reader. Big difference: notion of author is irrelevant. Argues that one of the ways in which social hierarchies are maintained is through culture, where experts control the correct the meaning of texts. The controller of language controls the world. Context: significant because it is assumed that readers and writers both work within social and historical contexts which influence the way they make sense of things. Societies are not natural/ inevitable but are held together by a series of structures which have to be learned. Language: all the structures we learn in order to make sense of the media around us. Structuralism: interested in the ways in which media make sense and the structures they draw on.