Category Archives: Psychology

APPROACHING MEDIA TEXTS

Gill Branston, besides having a pretty sweet name, analyses text in ‘Approaching Media Text’. As Branston says, “‘text’ originally referred to sacred writings, such as the Bible”, but more recently, a text has been described as “anything which is to be investigated” (2010 p11). From this we can assume that texts surround everyone in everyday life, and cannot be avoided.

Branston refers to the semiotic analysis approach established by Ferdinand de Saussure (and later used by Roland Barthes) as a primary method for understanding texts. Semiotics is defined as “the study of signs, or of the social production of meanings and pleasures by sign systems, or the study of how things come to have significance” (Branston 2010, p12). Texts are filled with a variety of signs, signifiers, signifieds, referents, connotations and denotations which create meaning. These terms suggest that whilst there are intended messages, all texts are highly interpretable across different demographics and cultures.

Branston links the study of texts to the Structuralism theory prominent in Psychology. This theory deals with audiences subconscious responses to texts and how they react to them in ways that they aren’t fully aware of. This is the genius of advertising, pinpointing target demographics, and convincing them to purchase a specific product, or instilling subconscious beliefs.

What Branston provides is a variety of methods used to understand different media texts. He quotes McKee as saying “textual analysis [is] an educated guess at some of the most likely interpretations that might be made of [a] text” (2011). This sentence reinforces the notion of texts being very ’roundabout’ in nature. Although information is presented to an audience in a specific way, there’s no guarantee that the intended audience will fully comprehend the desired message.

Just as a side note on the topic of subliminal marketing, advertising and blatant brainwashing, a friend of mine showed me this video:

Source

“TRUST THE US GOVERNMENT”

The message doesn’t shock me as much as it first did. But I think that’s just because Tony Abbott is running the country.

References:

  •  Branston. Gill, Stafford, Roy. The Media Student’s book, (p, 9-26, 31) 5th ed. New York, NY : Routledge 2010

– Gabriel

YOUR RETENTION PLEASE

After spending a couple of years at RMIT, I feel comfortable with the practice of interactive lectures. It is a great way of engaging students and involving them rather than sitting and passively absorbing information for 2 or 3 hours. Being apart of the media means being able to interact and communicate with not only peers but potentially people outside of our comfort zones. These lectorials push the boundaries and will push development. But this seems to depend on how focused and willing we are as students.

The Deep attention/hyper attention reading task piqued my interest. It was a funny experiment, asking students to attend to an essay on attention span. I didn’t feel like a guinea pig or anything, it was just a clever way of getting the class to talk about study habits among other things. Our ability to disperse our attention while studying among media platforms is suggested to be a rapid form of hyper attention, or multitasking. Although, the reading suggested a decline in efficiency when it comes to multitasking, it seems to be a subjective matter. For me, listening to music while studying can create a comfortable atmosphere in which to study and focus. The comfort factor is very important to me when it comes to gettin’ stuff done. If I wasn’t comfortable then I would do absolutely nothing. Where’s the efficiency there? Perhaps it is the sweet rhythm of music that keeps me on track.

The reading encouraged me to think about the science behind retention of memory and this is something I am keen to explore. There is a definite relationship between Psychology and Media, and I want to understand it. Being able to give an explanation of the relationship would be better. Media is about getting inside people’s heads and tapping into their thought processes in order to create appealing content. To get through to an audience, you have to think like them. You have to be the audience. In this program, I expect we will have plenty of opportunities to be an audience member and plenty of opportunities to be a cast member. I look forward to collaborating and discussing with my peers.

If you’re game, have a watch of this video…

 Source

Reference Material

  • N. Katherine Hayles (2007), ‘Hyper and Deep Attention: The Generational Divide in Cognitive Modes’, Profession, pp.187-199

– Gabriel