Week 05 Agenda

Tasks Due Today from Week 4

• Review Week 4 Agenda
• Schedule a Meeting (if we haven’t already met)
• Revise your Reading Response – Semiotics
• Complete Reading Response – Visual Rhetoric
• Submit Week 3 Homework Checklist

This Week’s Topics

• Checkin
• Freewrite – Art of Noticing
• Reading Response Feedback/Discussion
• Concept and Vocabulary Review
• Representation & Context
• Reading Response – Representation Theory
• NO CLASS NEXT WEEK!
• Week 5 Homework Checklist

Check-in (15+ min)

Freewrite – The Art of Noticing

Prompt: In your language of choice, write continuously in your notebook for 10 minutes about what you noticed this week. Don’t edit, or correct, don’t stop, just write. Feel free to share or not.

This week’s task brought to you by Marilyn:

Make a one-minute video about a place

Discover what’s interesting and notable about a place in your neighborhood or block. You might. jump from one designed object to another, constructing a kind of narrative. Do this instinctively or take the time to think about why. It’s up to you how you approach it.

ART OF NOTICING

Next Week’s Prompt by Charles :

Listen Selflessly

There is no greater gift than genuinely listening to a person, without interrupting or judging or inserting your opinion. When what you are hearing makes you want to react, start taking deep breaths to dampen the production of cortisol, a stress hormone. Listening selflessly sharpens your hearing, dials you into non-verbal cues, and opens you up to deeper connection with the other person. Give it a try!

ART OF NOTICING

Meeting request

If you haven’t already, please sign up for a 15 min remote or in-person meeting. If you are unavailable during the meeting slots, please contact me to find another time.

Schedule a Meeting

Activities

Below, find the information covered in this session. Complete all of the following activities, videos, and assignments.

1. Reading Response – Visual Rhetoric Feedback and Discussion (30 min)

Let’s take a closer look at the Reading Response – Visual Rhetoric guidelines and our Hypothesis annotations.

If you haven’t already, review your colleagues responses and add a reply!

Review, revise, and repost your reading response based on feedback/questions and discussions with your peers. If you’d like additional feedback from me or if you have any questions or concerns, please contact me.

2. Concept and Vocabulary Review + GAME (30 min)

Let’s review the theories and approaches we’ve explored over the last two weeks with a game to test your knowledge.

Let’s form 3-4 Teams. Collectively name your team and review these flashcards together. You can also review this Glossary of COMD Theory Terms before we begin. (we haven’t covered everything in this list yet)

Here’s a buzzer each team can use. Or find you own.

Here is the game.

3. Representation and Context – Stuart Hall (30 min)

Stuart Hall was a Jamaican-born British sociologist, cultural theorist, and political activist. He looked at the power of mainstream media (advertising, TV, film, etc) to understand the representation of race, gender, class, ethnicity, and religion.

In this 55 minute documentary from 1997, Stuart Hall offers an extended meditation on representation. Take a close look at 37:54 to the end, where he speaks about representation, meaning, stereotype and power in media.

Note that this video was created is prior to social media and the internet era that we live in now. Has the media power structure has changed and why/why not?

Caution: The intro to this video has some intentionally disturbing representations of African American / Black actors. It is meant to highlight the absurdity of stereotype in Hollywood media, but it may be especially upsetting out of context.

Here’s the example Ita mentioned in class today when we were discussing the mainstream media’s attempt to “fix” meaning and “represent” events. And the independent response which would not have been possible in the mid-90’s when the Stuart Hall gave this lecture.

Stuart Hall’s Theories / Terms

Here are some of the theories and terms associated with Hall’s work.

• ReceptionTheory: This theory asserts that advertising and media are encoded and decoded. The creator encodes messages and values into media, which are then decoded by the audience. Audiences will decode the media differently and not always in the way the creator intended.
  • Dominant, or Preferred Reading: how the creator wants the audience to view the advertisement or media.
  • Oppositional Reading: when the audience rejects the preferred reading and creates their own meaning. This can happen when content is controversial, or when the audience holds different beliefs or is of a different age or culture.
  • Negotiated Reading: a compromise between the dominant and oppositional readings. The audience accepts some of the creator’s view, but also has their own views.
• Representation Theory: There is no true representation of people or events in media. Designers/creators try to ‘fix’ a ‘preferred meaning’ through ideology or stereotyping. Historically, this is driven by people in power.
• Stereotype: are widely circulated oversimplifications of people and groups; a preconceived idea of what a person is like, based on a range of different factors. These factors can involve culture, religion, race, sexual orientation, age, gender, appearance.
• Polysemic: a sign that has multiple meanings
• Myth: a widely accepted meaning of a sign
• Naturalization: in a society, the repeated use of signs shapes their meaning

This 3-minute video breaks down Hall’s Representation Theory:

This 6+ minute video explains Hall’s Reception Theory:

4. Assignment: Reading Response – Representation (2+ Hours)

Follow the assignment guidelines and prompts for Reading Response – Representation.

DUE Wednesday before the next class to allow for feedback.

Resources

• Assignment: Reading Response – Representation
• Using Hypothesis
• Grammarly

NO CLASS NEXT WEEK!

There are no Thursday classes next week because Thursday follows a Wednesday schedule. I hope you’ll use this extra free time to catch up on any outstanding work or get some rest!

Week 5 Homework Checklist

Below are all of the tasks, big and small, for this week. The due date is Wednesday, 11:59 pm before our next Thursday class. Timely completion of these tasks will contribute to your success in this course.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.

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