 If you were able to recall the 2016 presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and were the primary candidates there for the Republican and Democratic parties, you recall at maybe the end the next day when they announced the result that Donald Trump had won the presidency. Boy, that was a real shock. I mean, I think everybody was was a little bit taken aback, a little bit surprised for the most part, even by some accounts, Donald Trump was surprised at the result and really, you know, it took him by surprise in some ways. So and so much so that the Hillary Clinton afterward wrote a book called What Happened, you know, where she tried to explain what happened because everybody just assumed that she would win and that that would be the result. But the truth is the result was the result, right? The 2016 election happened. There were votes counted and that was the result that Trump won the election. And so then we moved forward from there for better or for worse, right? We moved forward because that was the end result of what had happened. And we can look back on it now and and assess everything and talk about, you know, what happened after the fact. But the truth is that's what happened. So that's how we examine it, right? That's really kind of at the core of pragmatic analysis, what we call pragmatic analysis in critical media studies. So we're going to take a look at pragmatic analysis. What it is, what are some of the questions and and try and apply it a little bit, just to give you an example in this video. But so we're going to take a look at pragmatic analysis. So what is pragmatic analysis? Pragmatic analysis examines artifacts from a perspective that assesses truth in terms of effect, outcome and practicality. So it really just looks at, OK, what happened? What was the result and was that, you know, an appropriate expression for that time? How did that fit into the context of that moment? Removing some of these other lenses, some of these other critical aspects, you know, just what was the practical effect of that of that artifact? So some of the major premises of pragmatic analysis start with truth should be based on tangible results and possible consequences. So just looking at, you know, what are the what actually have one of the tangible results and what are the possible consequences that happen as a result of that? Then we also extend that into the idea that truth is dependent on contextual factors that takes into account that, you know, for that moment, what was what was contextually true for that time, that moment in history, for that geographic location, for that culture, whatever context you want to place it in. That truth is, in fact, dependent on those contextual factors. We have to examine the artifact within those factors as well. Habits are also changeable qualities that predispose us to future actions. So habits are there, but they're changeable and they kind of guide our future actions, these habits that we have, the way that we tend to do things, the way that we tend to look at things. And so those are those are changeable, but they do predispose us to future actions. And habits are also socialized. They're things that we learn. Culture is is something that is learned and taught, right? And habits are kind of the same way in many ways. We learn these things from our context, from our culture, and they are learned and socialized in that way. And also, those societies constantly evolving. So these habits are changing. What we see as appropriate, what we see as good or relevant at that time may be different a decade from now. And so, but we need to view things within the context of that moment. So again, the major premises then continue with the artifacts are regulated by the norms and context of that time. So things that are produced are produced as a result of things that are going on at that time, they're guided by the rules and regulations and and creative, whatever forces that are in place at that moment in time and in that culture, that specific culture. And we also need to know when we talk about good or bad in pragmatic analysis, good is anything that is beneficial or corrective in society. Anything that benefits society or is somewhat corrective in some ill of society, that's considered good in pragmatic analysis. We would call that good on the flip side. Anything that we would call bad would be something that's not beneficial. Or corrective, simple as that. If it benefits society, if it corrects something that is presumably wrong with society, then it's good. If not, then we would call it bad in terms of pragmatic analysis. OK, a couple of contemporary perspectives that we need to keep in mind. First of all, things have consequences, choices have consequences, actions have consequences. So there's a there's a cause and effect at play here for everything. Right. There's when something happens, there is a cause, there is an effect. And so there are consequences that result from those those choices and from those artifacts and anything else. But there are also contingencies at play here. So for example, in our culture, we have in the United States right now, we have free speech and public interest, right? Free speech and things that are there for public interest. So so those are contingencies in which we allow artifacts and make, you know, so when the pandemic started, if you remember, going back in 2020, there was some big discussions and still those continue about whether vaccination is good and whether we should stop mandatory vaccination, which mandatory vaccines were not mandatory at that time. But so in that context, but but the people had a right to to object to these things. And so whether it was good or bad, you know, OK, but there's still that that right to free expression and public interest. We also have to consider government regulation and then media self regulation in this context, right? So there are things that the government regulates that the government says you can and can't do and their laws and their policies and things like that. But then there's also media self regulation. So if you if you're familiar with video games, for example, you may have seen these tags on different video games that indicate, you know, what age levels is appropriate for it. And some people say, well, you know, that's a government program. It's not. This is a self regulation from the video game industry. Movies are the same way. Movie ratings and things are not regulated by the government. Those are things that were created by those industries really to avoid government regulation in these things. By stepping forward and saying, well, we'll just do it ourselves. So the government doesn't have to worry about it. But really, they don't want the government involvement, which is understandable in some ways. So they do these things on their own. They regulate themselves. So there are contingencies there as well that they're defining what's appropriate for that particular time and context. And again, these things change over time. So there are a couple of issues in media regulation. First of all, the idea of media ownership is an issue that we are in many ways combating monopoly right now. There's we've talked about before, there the conglomeration and consolidation of media, where most media now is owned by a handful of companies. And so that's that's an issue that you have just, you know, a handful of companies that are then self regulating and making up the rules themselves. Sometimes those rules are for the better. Sometimes they're not. We also think about protecting intellectual property. That's that's an issue with media ownership. Who owns what if it's intellectual property? How do we regulate that? How do we enforce those different types of things? Also, we're balancing all of this with maintaining national security. Of course, we've got issues with, you know, if we make these consumer goods available, how is this affecting national security? Recently, there's been an issue with TikTok. Lots of government agencies are banning TikTok because they feel like it opens the United States to security issues through that that media because it's owned by a foreign entity. Right. And so so there's issues in media ownership that need to be considered and addressed within this as well. And then also media content. Depending on the time, you know, is media content does it promote diversity? Does it does it do that? Or does it not? And does it claim to but is it really, you know? So we need to think about does media content promote diversity and how are we doing that? Is media content being used to manage morality? And you have a few people making the choices about what gets made. What doesn't this gatekeeping function, right? And within that, are they determining, OK, what's moral? What's not what's appropriate? What's not? Are they determining that for the larger culture and really setting the tone for that, for for an entire viewership and entire culture then? And how are we ensuring accuracy in the media? And this is not a shot at any one particular, you know, person or outlet, just as a society. How do we go about ensuring accuracy and helping people become more media literate? And, you know, part of that is critical media studies, of course, but just in general, how do we get people to fact check their own media, whatever they're watching, however they're getting their media? How do we get people to really understand that that accuracy is important in these things? So there are some issues there and some things that go along with this different considerations that we need to keep in mind that are part of the broader context of pragmatic analysis. But let's focus in again on, you know, just get down to the core. What are some of the common questions that we ask with pragmatic analysis? Now, let me let me just preface this by saying these are just a handful of questions and pragmatic analysis because a lot of different directions and is much, much deeper than this. We're just skimming the surface here, just to give you an idea of what this is. But so some of the more common questions, for example, is when was the artifact created? We need to know that so that we can put it in the appropriate context for that time, that culture. So all of those things, when was that artifact created? What were the prevailing social norms at the time? So we can look at, you know, was it created in the 60s, the 70s, the 90s, the 2000s, whatever? What were the norms at that time? What were the cultural expectations at that time? What was happening in the world? What was happening in that particular society? So what were the social norms of that time? Did this artifact conform to those norms? Or did it push those norms? Or did it violate those norms? And did it try and fit into the box properly? Or was it intentional about not trying to do that? That's something that we see in media as well at times, right? Trying to push those boundaries. But did the artifact conform to the norms of that particular time? And would this artifact have been seen as beneficial at that time? Remember, beneficial, meaning we call it good. If it's in some way benefited society or was corrective in some way. And if we would call it bad, if at that time it did not benefit society or was not corrective. So again, just some of the basics, but some of the basic ideas of what we would look at with pragmatic analysis. So let's try and apply this just a little bit to a couple of different television shows. And so I've chosen for this, we're going to take a look at the Cosby Show and Martin, the television program Martin. So the Cosby Show and Martin are both very popular in their times. Cosby Show is an enormous show. And just to be clear, we're going to talk about the Cosby Show setting aside the obvious that Bill Cosby since that time has been convicted of some atrocious things, you know, sexual assault and violations against women. I mean, all of that is the case. But we're looking at this in the context of the time. None of that had happened yet. OK, so that's not to diminish or say that was appropriate or in any way excuse the actions of Bill Cosby and what he was convicted of doing. But we're setting that aside for the context of this because this was this show had had aired in the 80s and that had not happened yet. So we're just exclusively looking at the show. So we have the Cosby Show in the 80s, Martin in the 90s, both very popular and both very influential in their own way and in that part of society and that time. So now I will point out that Martin was a little more controversial. Cosby Show is very much not controversial. It was very widely popular and stuck to the norms as we'll talk about. The Martin Show is a little more controversial because specifically of a character that they featured on the show, played by Martin Lawrence called Shanae Nae, which some people ascribed as a very much a stereotype, a negative stereotype of African American women at that time. So we're going to address that as well, but just be aware of that fact as well. But let's take a look at each of these shows in the context in which they came at their time. So when was this artifact created? So we have two artifacts. When were these artifacts created? The Cosby Show was in the 80s, immensely popular in that decade and part of the 80s. Just one of the most popular television shows of that time in that era. And Martin was on in the mid late 90s, maybe into the early 2000s in that in that area. So it came later. It was about a decade after the Cosby Show really. And so so that's when they were created again. The Cosby Show in the 80s and the Martin Show in the 90s. And it's important to note that because in the 80s, you really had only three major networks, ABC, NBC and CBS. Cable TV was there, but it wasn't really hadn't really taken off the way it has today. You didn't have the fragmentation of media that you had today. And even that you had into the 90s when Martin came around, because, you know, he'd added Fox at that time. Martin aired on Fox, which at that time was a fairly new network. And so trying to make its name and and and so did a lot more edgy stuff than other networks might have. But and then you also had more cable networks available and saw a lot more fragmentation in the media at the time that Martin aired as opposed to the Cosby Show, which was, again, very much just a couple networks. And so it's important to note that as to when that artifact was created as well. That that was that was a factor. So what were the prevailing social norms at that time? In the 80s, as far as media went, especially TV, again, these were three broad channels trying to appeal to as broad an audience as they could. So it was very safe. TV was very safe, especially primetime television was very safe at that time. You didn't have any any cursing. Certainly didn't have any nudity on on television at that time. I was just, you know, not acceptable. And it was it was safe. It was supposed to be family style entertainment that everybody could watch together. And so it was, you know, pretty homogeneous in terms of the product that you had and lots of the shows were the same and trying to appeal to the same audience, compete for the same narrow kind of audience, except that audience was also very broad. But Martin, again, came at a time when to jump back to the Cosby Show real quickly, they were at that time, there were like, I can't think of any other shows that had lead characters, let alone an entire family of any kind of minority. It was very homogenous in terms of the lead characters were white. They were Caucasian Caucasian, right? And that was pretty much it. If you saw minorities represented on television, it was in a specific stereotype, right? It was, you know, people were not minorities were not portrayed as people with professional jobs. They were not pervade portrayed as lead characters and things like that. It was very white and homogenous on television at that time. So the prevailing social norms at the time when Martin came around, there were a little more, a little edgier, right? At television was a little edgier. So as I mentioned, television was more fragmented at the cable networks had started to explode a little bit. So you had more options. And so, you know, Fox in particular was new, for example, and they were trying to appeal to an audience. And at that time, they were really focusing on African American audiences. So they had several shows that featured African Americans in the leads. And, you know, I'm prominently featured shows with African Americans because they were trying to appeal to that, that particular segment of the audience. So that was very different. And there was a different view of of city life, for example, that was starting to, you know, starting to see more diversity in city life. And Martin took place in a major city. And I can tell you, as somebody who grew up in a very small town, that was different for me. So even though the Cosby show took place in New York, it didn't feel like New York. That wasn't a featured character, for example. It wasn't just that's just where they happened to be. It wasn't like we really understood what it was like to live in the city. Martin featured the city more and featured more of city life in that context. So so it did prevail to both of them prevailed to social norms at the time in that context in some ways. Martin was allowed to be a little edgier because television was a little edgier. They were pushing harder to find that audience and to compete for audiences in a fragmented media world at that time. The Cosby show very much fit into the social norms of safe family, whole family, mom, dad, kids, both parents had professional jobs. Cliff Huxball was a doctor. Claire was a lawyer. And so presented them that way. And so and the Martin characters were a little edgier. And again, because that was the norm at that time, we were starting to see those, see more representation, not only of minorities, but of just different ways of living. You know, so so we saw those prevailing norms represented there. Did the artifact conform to those norms? Yeah, I guess I would say they did both conform to the norms. Certainly Cosby show, I get major, major network television show immensely popular. They weren't taking a lot of risks. They were playing it safe and television was safe at that time. So there wasn't a lot of controversy that surrounded the Cosby show at that time. So they definitely conformed to the norms of what was expected for network television. Again, with the major exception of featuring minority cast. That was the only norm they really went against. Martin show went against some of the norms of how we viewed African-Americans at that time, I guess, in terms of a media representation. I can tell you somebody who again grew up in a very small town and a very white area. The Cosby show was kind of an introduction to, you know, African-American life as always, but really the Martin show. It represented that for me and that era in which I grew up and the area which I grew up was like, oh, wow, this is what it's like to live in the city. This is a little more what it's like to be an African-American in a city like that and to try and, you know, the challenges and different things that are true for their life, that were very different in my life as somebody who's not only white, but I get very, very small town and very different context that I was growing up. But I could relate to that and see, you know, kind of open my, both of them really provided a different window for me. Again, from my up where I grew up, a different window to the world of different cultures for me. So it did conform to those norms that were true, that represented for them what was probably true. But Martin did go against the norms a little bit in terms of being edgier, but that was also appropriate for that context of that media landscape at that time. Would the artifact have been seen as beneficial at that time? Again, there's some controversy about the one character from Martin about whether, you know, is that too much of a stereotype? Does it represent, does it provide a negative stereotype for, you know, African-Americans and specifically African-American women that it enhance that negative stereotype of that, especially again, somebody like me who would not have had a lot of exposure to that, that then could have come to represent my view of African-American women to think, oh, well, they must all be like that, right? All African-American women, especially those from cities are like, are like shenanigans. So, but on the whole, so that could have been seen as a negative, but on the whole, really, I would say they both were beneficial at the time. First of all, the representation of the folks from the Cosby show just in general to diversify the cast of what was on television and to provide some exposure to people of different cultures was really important at that time. And then Martin to portray the kind of a more realistic representation of many ways of what life was like for young, youngish African-American folks at that time in a city and to provide those different perspectives was very important. So I think, yeah, both of them would have been considered beneficial at that time. Now, have they totally aged well? You know, certainly Cosby has not with the knowledge now of what was going on with him outside of the show would not have been seen as beneficial. And there's some argument that that it didn't really represent the true experience of African-Americans or, you know, of the broader number of African-Americans from that time. And so there's some argument about that you can make. So again, looking back, we can do those things, but pragmatic analysis at that time, yes, I think they would have been seen as beneficial in the role that they played at that time, if we were to view it specifically in the context of when they aired. Hopefully this gives you an idea of what pragmatic analysis is like just examining things as they as the effect that they had at that time and the appropriateness that they had at that time in that context, which is an important perspective to have, I think one of just many, of course, we're looking at a variety of different critical lenses in critical media studies. But this is this is a significant one, I think an important one for us. If you have questions about pragmatic analysis or any other, the critical media studies lenses that we're looking at, please feel free to email me. I'd love to hear from you there. But hopefully this adds, you know, one more tool in your tool bag to understand the different types of critical media analysis lenses that we can use and should use as we continue to examine different artifacts are presented to us through the media.