How do we perceive media?

There are several aspects in which we perceive media. The ideological process that we instil when viewing media shows how certain ads catch our attention and divert our attention as well. First a myth is produced in which a story or speech confirms an ideology in relationship to the cultural object in media. Second a doxa is in place in which a grey area is is drawn which we do not draw attention unless drawn to. Finally a hegemony is dealt in which one ideology challenges another ideology to gain dominance. Since we use ideology and race together in media there are 4 aspects that create the effectiveness of media ads. 1. symbolic annihilation 2. stereotyping 3. assimilation and finally 4. othering. These steps emphasize the way ads are manipulated in order to draw our attention to what they want us to pay attention to.

Are we AWARE of what is around us?

With our crazy world we live in, do we really follow the saying and "stop and smell the flowers"? with our cultural analysis we are so distracted we do not look closely to the things around us. This notion causes us to develop a structural feeling. When someone says "is it cold outside" we start to think about the weather when we weren't thinking about it until it was caught to our attention. This causes our society to be blinded by media in the ads we encounter. It creates an ideology that 1. limits the range of ideas 2. sets social relations 3. sets some interests over others and 4. interrelate individuals into subjects.

As we are being made aware of certain things in media, does media pick and choose what we should believe and be aware of???

What Makes a Sign...a Sign???

There are certain implications we can make about signs, we know the truth and nothing else. There is a triangular method to signs that involve a sing being an object, representation, and the interpretant. There are iconic features about a sign that reference an object or symbolic references that bear no relation to the object itself. There are certain signs in our life that have indexical meaning that can be either a denotation (index) or connotation (symbol). The way we interpret signs show that we use narration in the form of tense, mood, and voice for associating the sign.

The way we interpret signs is associated with our own knowledge and well-being to perceive it in a way it favours our own reality.

What is Culture????

According to Matthew Arnold, culture is the best and brightest such as the opera, it includes sophisticated arts and individuals. However Raymond Williams says that culture is the most complicated word because it doesn't separate high culture apart from low or pop culture. The Rhetoric Analysis from Plato suggests that we are in a cave and that when we are so accustomed to our ways and venture out, we do not accept the truth to use symbols and signs to influence culture. When we use an image or sound to distinguish an object the concept is then returned with the association. The three characteristics of a sign in our culture are; arbitrary - the meaning of a sign is dependent on its social historical context, linear - which is a system that gives meaning to the previous word or symbol, and finally difference - which recalls from the absence or opposite of a sign.

Does the context of a sign or symbol in our culture have different meaning based on location and social culture???