Dr. Andrew Wood Office: HGH 210; phone: (408) 924-5378 Email: wooda@email.sjsu.edu Web: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda

Chapter Two: Viewers Make Meaning

Reading:

Sturken, M, & Cartwright, L. (2001). Practices of looking: An introduction to visual culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

This image is one of 366 pieces crafted by Nancy Chunn who dedicated herself to "marking up" the front page of every issue of The New York Times in 1996. Applying ink, pastel colors, and rubber stamps, Chunn sought to comment both on the content of the Times and on the need to appropriate dominant media for personal purposes. She notes: "I was talking back to power. . . Here I am screaming or at least getting my two cents in, to the power, to power represented by The New York Times or what's in The New York Times. It was a very liberating experience. It was like activism, in a way" (1997, p. 7). Viewing this piece, one finds evidence of how the most authoritative voices can be co-opted, turned to speak new messages.

Chapter Two (pp. 41-71) begins by reviewing the notion that the meaning of an image does not lie in its production but in its consumption. One may employ semiotic analysis to reveal the sign system found within any image - or how the image serves as a part of a larger sign system - by concentrating on the interaction of signifier and signified in the construction of myths and the affirmation of ideologies. Here, one recalls that myth refers to a process by which connotative meaning appears to be denotative. Think of the oft cited "beauty myth," the assumption that certain notions of physical attractiveness are universal when they are, in fact, limited to a small number of people. Like myths, ideologies seek to appear universal. However, ideologies differ from myths by implying a code of appropriate conduct, often demonstrated by mythic images and icons.

Thus, when one sees a police officer wearing all the accoutrements of the job, leather boots, shiny handcuffs, a deadly weapon, one encounters an icon with mythic references to all sorts of authority figures. The ideology that emanates from this figure reminds us: obey the law. Within that simple statement, one finds a series of value statements about the nature of authority, power, and individualism. The power of this ideology lies not in the utterance ("obey the law"), however. The power lies in the way people choose to interpret the mythic system of signs that construct the image of the police officer. Many police departments have experimented with altering this often fear-inducing system of signs by placing police officers in other sign systems, such as schools. When the police officer brings a friendly dog for kids to pet and speaks in soft, soothing tones, s/he may become "Officer Friendly," not the "Cop on the Beat." For children, the resulting ideology becomes more nuanced, the meaning less stark: "The law protects you." The study of visual communication allows us to explore how images perpetuate or challenge the icons, mythic systems, and ideologies of power.

The authors' section "Reading Images as Ideological Subjects" offers a brief overview of how ideology has shifted from representing a force which compels us to act against our interests to a process of struggle in which dominant interests and resistant individuals continually redefine themselves and the signs they use. The authors begin by noting Karl Marx' notion of ideology as a mirror and tool of a capitalist system through which those who own the "means of production" deploy sign systems to affirm their power. Expanding on this idea, Louis Althusser proposed that ideology represents an imaginary world of signs - the society in which we live - through which we make sense of reality. More than reflecting the economic state of the world, society draws from myths frequently found in the unconscious mind to "hail" us as subjects. Thus, individuals are created through images to act in certain ways. Readers of William Gibson's texts on cyberspace may find this notion in contrast with the idea of reality-as-consensual hallucination. Don't we participate in a meaningful way in the construction of our worlds? Antonio Gramsci certainly thought so when he rejected Althusser's interpellated subject, the self imagined by texts such as the authors' AT&T example in which "you will" inhabit a future shaped by a vast telecommunications conglomerate. Gramsci agrees that ideology represents the "common sense" of society, but notes that the process through which sense becomes "common" resides in continual struggle. His notion of hegemony reflects a tension between groups who never completely attain dominance. One might say that hegemony is the power of the moment, a power of perpetual negotiation between those who hold and those who seek dominance.

From this perspective, consider the famed slogan of The New York Times: "All the News That's Fit to Print." No newspaper can endure if its stories reflect only those who "dominate" society. They must appeal to all persons and classes, filling their pages with images and texts to attract as many readers as possible. The boundary of this consensual hallucination, that which defines who and who does not "fit," changes through time as social groups vie for position. Thus, images and ideas that would have shocked middle class readers in the 1950s are now commonplace in the Times. Now compare that slogan to Rolling Stone Magazine's "All the News that Fits." This source, supposedly more radical than the Times, seeks to hide its editorial position - a choice of values and a hierarchy of voices - by redefining that which "fits" according to the constraints of space, not ideology. Of course, Rolling Stone, like The New York Times, represents a momentary locus of power seeking to appear permanent and failing to do so. As Nancy Chunn's artwork reminds us, any construction of space - from architecture to newsprint - resides in an ever shifting matrix of motives where individuals employ texts for their own uses.

So, if ideological texts and representations reside in a system of continual reading and re-reading, how may they be consumed? The authors cite Stuart Hall's three viewer positions: (1) dominant-hegemonic reading, (2) negotiated reading, and (3) oppositional reading. The first refers to a passive acceptance of the text's intent. Consider the experience of visiting Disney World and strolling through Main Street USA. When you celebrate the spectacle of small town atmosphere, wishing you could inhabit this nostalgic environment, you engage in dominant-hegemonic reading. However, if you inhabit this locale with some degree of resistance, noting to others, "this is fun because it's not real," you may be said to negotiate the site's meaning - using it for your own purposes. Further, if you reject the meaning - either by actively mocking it or ignoring it - you read the text from an oppositional perspective. This act of "ideological labor" requires real effort in the face of Disney's "imagineered" environment. However, you can accomplish oppositional reading by noting that which this idealized small town lacks, wondering whose history it celebrates, and imagining alternatives to Disney's sanitized "small world."

In many cases, oppositional readings require some degree of appropriation - just as I chose to appropriate this example for my own pedagogical purpose. Thus, Nancy Chunn "borrows" covers from The New York Times, cobbling together various media such as rubber stamps and paint to fashion a bricolage - making do with whatever lies about to craft an oppositional reading to a dominant text. Another example of negotiated or oppositional reading may be found in Michel De Certeau's notion of textual poaching, the means by which a text whose completeness represents the power of a (typically) corporate author may be resisted by being reconfigured. Consider the power of TiVo and similar recording devices (tactics) to allow television viewers to refashion the schedules (strategies) created by programming executives to reflect their own taste in narrative - and ignore commercial messages. The authors conclude by noting how resistant practices such as bricolage and textual poaching become used, themselves, to perpetuate dominant interests. Remember: Nancy Chunn's example came from a published book. Can you imagine taking a rubber stamp to one of her pages?

Also see, Chunn, N. (1997). Front pages. New York: Rizzoli International Publications.

Activity

Manipulate a magazine advertisement through any combination of physical or digital means to create an oppositional reading to its apparent ideology.

Off-campus webpages

Olin Art Gallery's Nancy Chunn: In the News <http://www2.kenyon.edu/artgallery/exhibitions/9900/chunn/chunn.htm>

The Onion's Grad student deconstructs take-out menu <http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27794>

Note: These pages exist outside of San Jose State University servers and their content is not endorsed by the page maintainer or any other university entity. These pages have been selected because they may provide some guidance or insight into the issues discussed in class. Because one can never step into the same electronic river twice, the pages may or may not be available when you request them. If you have any questions or suggestions, please email Dr. Andrew Wood.