 Hi everyone. I'd like to take a look today at sociological analysis, which is another step in our exploration of critical media studies. Much like reception analysis, sociological analysis has a lot to do with the audience and their interpretation of an artifact and the role that the audience plays in hoping to both define and interpret and then eventually be critical of that artifact and understand it at a different level in a different way. So let's get started. For sociological analysis, examines the recurrent patterns in media, how those patterns influence the interactions of people, and how an audience assigns meaning to symbols used in an artifact. So as you can see, it has to do with the artifact in the media, of course, but it also has to do with how our society influences people and how that in turn then influences the interpretations that people might have of a particular artifact. It kind of started the origins of sociological analysis, apart from strictly sociology of course, have been grounded in symbolic interactionism, which is the character and content of people's social interactions and how they're influenced by the symbolic meanings that people assign to objects, events, other people, and social contexts. That's what we mean by symbolic interactionism. So really what we're getting at here with social interactionism is that people have different interpretations of things. Somebody on an island sees a boat, gets very excited. Somebody on a boat sees an island, gets very excited. So they have different meanings of the same construct, the same context. So what this leads us to is the belief that meaning is relative and personal. Meaning that as we've talked about in previous videos, meaning really rests within people, that the symbols themselves, the words, the objects and things don't have meaning so much as that the people observing them and interacting and engaging with those things have meaning and apply meaning to those things. So meaning is relative though and personal. It's different for each person and it varies from person to person. It's very subjective. Meaning is also built via social construct. We are of course influenced by the world around us, especially as adolescents, but even all throughout our lives really. We are influenced by where we're at, who we are, who we're with, the things that we've learned and experienced and all that kind of stuff and what our culture expects of us, what society expects of us. Meaning is built and influenced heavily by these social constructs. And in the end though, because meaning is relative, it's personal and all that, meaning is interpreted. Meaning is interpreted. Meaning that each person assigns meaning to a particular event or symbol or anything else that's going to be assigned specifically by that individual and it's going to be interpreted. Meaning we make meaning out of these things essentially. That meaning is not automatically just assumed or lined up for us. We make meaning ourselves out of these things. Meaning is interpreted. And what this looks like sort of in a real world sense is that there's really a very, very much a loop here and it starts with that symbol. Whatever that symbol is, is that symbol a word? Is it an image? Is it an object? Is it a particular social context? Whatever that is, we have that symbol. Whatever it is we're going to interact with. Then we have that individual meaning. When I look at a tree, I see one thing and you look at that same tree, you may have a different feeling about that tree or different meaning related to that tree, right? Depending on your perspective, your experience, your frame of reference. So each of us has an individual meaning for whatever symbol it is that we're taking in. That individual meaning is of course built on social influence and affected by social influence. We are creatures of our environment. We are influenced by those things that surround us and the people who surround us and also again our own past experiences and things. But we are socially constructed beings really. So there's a lot of social influence that goes into that individual meaning, right? That hits us with that individual meaning as it's developed by the environment around us. And then though our interpretation, our sense of whatever it is that symbol is, is constantly evolving. We rarely just stay the same. Now these don't happen a lot of times when we talk about persuasion sometimes and persuasion is incremental a lot of times. It's very rare that we just have a complete about face, about a topic, or about something all at once. These things happen over time. But over time, if you look back to who you were 10 years ago, 20 years ago, even even five years ago or a year ago depending on where you're at in life, you'll see that you see things differently. You interpret things differently based on where you're at. I can tell you, for example, becoming a parent significantly alters you for you the world. You see danger in places you didn't even dream it existed before, right? And you have worries that you never thought about before when you become a parent or when you move out of the house for the first time, your world changes because now you're responsible for the bills. You're responsible for remembering to get groceries. You're responsible for all these things you weren't responsible for before. That changes the meaning of these things for us. We are constantly evolving and so are our interpretations. So then the next time we see that symbol or come across that symbol, we may have a different individual meaning and that cycle continues, right? So to put this in context just a little bit further, we could take a symbol like this is a sort of a controversial one, but that's why it's a good representation here, I think, but like the Confederate flag, right? That's a symbol. It's a symbol and there are a lot of feelings about the Confederate flag. People have a lot of different feelings about it and interpretations of that, but it's important to remember that those interpretations are individualized. Each of us has our own individual meaning behind it for some people who grew up in the South and really have a strong affection for that flag. They would tell you that it's about Southern pride and that it's about independence and that it's about individual rights over corporate federal rights and so forth and those types of arguments. Other people look at it and say, well, that's a symbol of secession. That's a symbol of people who wanted to leave this country and we didn't let them, but that's a symbol of secession and division within the United States. Other people look at it and say that's a symbol of slavery. It's a symbol of people who wanted to perpetuate slave ownership and so forth. So we all have these different individual meanings and they'll have these different shades as well. I mean you can talk to some people who, you know, if you get a groupie who'd be people together who like the Confederate flag, just as an example, who appreciate the Confederate flag, then within that group though you'll have all kinds of different reasons. They'll all be on that end of the spectrum in terms of we like the flag, we appreciate the flag, but their reasoning will be different. The strength of which, you know, some people are like, this is the greatest flag ever and should not be, you know, done away with it, whatever, and other people I like might say, you know, I like this flag, but is it really something I'm ready to fight over? Not really. I don't want to have an argument over it or get into a big thing over it. I like the flag, but it's not that meaningful for me. So you'll have all these different people across the spectrum, all these different individual meanings related to that. A lot of these will be, of course, constructed by our society, by, you know, if you grew up in the south, you're much more likely to have some special connection to this flag than somebody who grew up in the north, for example. It's not to say everybody who grew up in the south approves of this flag or whatever, but odds are if you grew up in the north, you're not really going to have any special connection to this flag at all in that way. So it's kind of, for the most part, that kind of subgroup grew up in that society, grew up in that culture where they were taught a different meaning of that flag or taught to see it in a different way than other people might be. And then we take it not only just growing up, but what's the current climate around where we live? Do you live in a community where the Confederate flag is flown proudly, or do you live in a community where, you know, it's kind of like, that's a thing of the past, let's get rid of it. And so your society, your cultural influences, will play a factor in that as well as you grew up. So it's not just what we grew up understanding and how we established that frame of reference, but what our society says now, what our culture says now, and how that influences us, right? And of course we're constantly, our idea is going to be constantly evolving over this. Maybe that as a kid you thought, well that's a cooling flag, I really like it. Or you know, you've heard all the stories about Southern pride and independence and so forth, but then maybe later on you get to college, you get to a point where you're learning about the history, some of the history of that flag and thinking, boy that's not so great, I don't really approve of everything that it represents. And maybe I'm not as much in favor of it, so your idea of that flag may evolve over time. And then the next time you encounter that symbol, who knows where you end up with it, right? Again it's not like you're probably just going to hear one person talk about the flag and automatically decide, oh well now I don't like it, or now I do like it. Change your mind entirely, but the next time you see it, it's going to be a little different, right? And that cycle continues and we go back and forth and we go back and forth on these things. So depending on our individual meanings and societal influences on that, so anyway, so this is kind of all grounded in symbolic interactionism and the way that we engage and interpret those symbols as an individual. Some of the major premises, there are a couple major premises really at work here in contemporary terms for sociological analysis. One is what we call dramaturgy. Dramaturgy in, you know, kind of layman's term so to speak, I guess he's not a layman, but Shakespeare once said, all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. Really that last part there is what we want to look at. One man will play many parts. What does that mean? Well that's what dramaturgy is getting at really, that dramaturgy approaches communication approaches, analysis approaches society as though it is a drama, that we are actors on a stage in essence, that we are constantly engaging in what we call impression management, impression management, which is just that we put on these different sort of faces. Not that any of them, I'm not saying that we're lying all the time, but you know we're slightly different at home than we are at work or than we are when we're out with our friends. We put on these different kinds of personalities in some ways. That's what we mean by impression management. Now there are a couple of different ideas at work here as we define dramaturgy. One is stage, which is just the you know the overall idea that the world is the stage that this is constantly happening. Another is the setting, so the specific context that we find ourselves in and how that affects and shapes how we're going to behave, what language we're going to use, all that kind of stuff. The part refers to the individual, refers to you if we're talking about us in terms of our own impression management, then we are the part. This is the part that we're playing. This is the part of us that we are that we are choosing for this moment and thinking that this will provide us with the best way to achieve whatever outcome it is we have for that situation, we desire in that situation. Then the team, there's a team aspect to all this too. You know it's pretty rare to have a one-man show really, so they happen but they're not all that common right. Most theater takes place in a group context and that's what we mean by team. It requires other people to kind of buy into what it is you're you're trying to sell, right, to approve of and to kind of participate in your little drama, whatever it is, the impression you're trying to convey there. So basically dramaturgy just sets out life in society and in conjunction with others as in the midst of our play here. So we have the idea of dramaturgy as one type of sociological instance and so it's not difficult to see, sorry, it's not difficult to see how dramaturgy really affects the media as well. Of course if we talk about first of all social media obviously we're very much engaged in dramaturgy there. We're selecting the pictures that present us in the best light and we're very specifically choosing what to post and how we frame it, how we, what language we use and all that kind of stuff, right. And then in the media as well the media convey this ideal framework of social identity and we found that some critical analysts would tell you that that the media really is working to influence who we should want to be and telling us who we should want to be, right, setting out all these ideals and and setting out this is who, this is what's normal for life, this is what's right about life and in some ways giving us some pretty false expectations about these things. So, but that's how the media factors into all this then too. They provide this framework for us to look at and say oh that's what I should be doing or that's who I should be, that's what I should be holding out for, right. And that's, so, for example that's a regular comment in my home, my wife loves hallmark movies. And one of the regular comments when she's watching a hallmark movie and I always know this is coming is why don't you do that for me, why don't you, these guys are doing all this stuff on hallmark movies and say why don't you ever do that or why don't you ever say that to me. Because we don't live in a hallmark movie and I'm not as smooth as those guys and I don't have a team of writers writing for me, right. But I mean that's the short answer but but it really sets out these expectations, right. And I know she's kind of joking around but but in some ways it does affect our sense of reality and and set forth this sort of in intenseness in our dramaturgy in the lives and though in the role that we're trying to play because we feel like we have to live up to these things or this is what I should be doing and who I should be or who I should at least want to be. It sets that framework for us a lot of times media does through dramaturgy then. Another premise that we look at and another idea that we can look at and dramaturgy approaches things from the perspective really of the individual putting on the show, right. But then there's also what we call frame analysis which has to do with specifically how things are framed and will then interpret how a person will then affect how a person interprets it, right. So how something is explained to us or how something is is set forth for us will interpret how we view that how we engage with that information. So for example if we look at you know personal reality we're talking about you know personal reality and frame analysis. We're talking about you know the way our frame of reference is developed. We have these experiences, we have our culture, we have our behavior attitude and values system. These things shape who we are, shape our perspective of the world and how we see the world and how we engage with the world, right. But connecting this then to media and to artifacts in the media we can look at what we call media frames or what are known as media frames and these media frames really have to do with selection, emphasis and presentation, right. So when we look at the media we understand that somebody is putting this together. We touched on this in reception analysis but somebody is creating this stuff and specifically if we look at the easy example here is the news. If we look at news broadcasts or news channels somebody has to decide what's going on the news, right. That's selection. Somebody's making a choice about what to put in, what to keep out. Probably based on what they think an audience wants to see but it could be that they have an agenda as well so they're making selections here about what's going to be talked about, what's going to be shown in the news, how it's going to be presented, what language we're going to use, all this things. So but initially the selection is just what are we going to put in, what are we going to keep out, what are we going to choose to have in this broadcast and tell people about, right. Then we can look at emphasis as well. When we choose a story, first of all that, I mean the selection process is an important one but then once we've decided something's going to be in what emphasis are we going to place on it? What emphasis are we going to place on this? Are we going to present, you know, if we look at a newscaster, a news program reporting on a trial, for example. This is an easy example here. If you're reporting on a trial what are you going to emphasize? Are you going to emphasize the kind of the, you know, essentially whose side are you going to take? I mean, they aren't supposed to do that but it happens, right? We have to make choices about how are we going to present this to people and that's the last one presentation, how are we going to present it but what are we going to emphasize? Are we going to emphasize if the defendant is a young person or are we going to emphasize their youth and their naivety and kind of almost set it up like, well they didn't really know what they were doing. We're not going to say that out loud necessarily but are we going to emphasize, look at this young man. He doesn't really know what's happening in court, didn't really know what's happening in that situation or are we going to emphasize, you know, the plight of the victims, for example, of whatever this person is on trial for. What are the plight of the victims? Are we going to emphasize that? Are we going to side kind of with them and really tell their story more and then that impacts how we present this information. What are we going to choose to about that story? What are we going to choose to present and how are we going to present it? What language are we going to use? What imagery are we going to use? All those types of things. How much time are we going to give this? So the media goes through this process of selection, emphasis, and presentation and we are exposed to this. We're exposed to all these things so between the two of them though we still have our personal reality but we also have the media framing things, right? And so that agenda setting function that we talked about in reception theory but the two of these then combine to create what we would call an individual frame which is that person's unique perspective on things. So we can look at things on okay what's this person's background? What media are they taking in and how does that impact how they're viewing this artifact? We need to get to know the audience member a little more so that we can understand their perspective in that regard through frame analysis and that's what we're talking about there. Okay this has just been a brief rundown of sociological analysis. I hope it helps you understand a bit more in the different aspects of sociological analysis. It's really a broad topic and a lot that we could look at in it but I just wanted to give you an overview for some for some basic shared understanding of that topic. If you have questions about sociological analysis or anything else related to critical media studies please feel free to email me. I'd be happy to chat with you and answer any questions that I can via email. In the meantime I hope you'll really get out there and consider the context in which all these things take place and how our individual influences but also the the sociological influences of the media then impact how we view an artifact.