Post-colonialism Summary

Post-colonialism is a post-modernist thoery in which it looks at the cultural impact of Colonialism on media texts. Looks at condition in which former colonies find themselves as they struggle towards a national and ethinic indentity in the face of their colonial cultural legacy and the continuing dominance of Western media and cultural imperialism. Colonialism is the power of the big guns in Europe and how they controlled other nations during the 16th century-20th. Legacy lives on through the form of cultural imperialism.

12 key words:

Cultual Imperialism
National and Ethnic identity
Cultural Legacy
Ayubi
Retamar
Dominance
Post-mondernist
Cultural Impact
Independence
Nkrumah
Baylis
National Identity

Red Herrings:

Smakrygchy
Social Solidarity
Borges
Shared Values
Charles Olson

Media effects; effects theory: an audience theory that tends to see the audience as passive and seeks to measure how exposure to particular aspects of media content can influence the behavior of the reader or viewer.

Reality TV: Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors.

How the Participants Are Chosen for Television Reality Shows

Television reality series such as Survivor, Amazing Race, Real World, and Rock of Love, are created to attract the most viewers possible. Beginning with the casting call, thousands of applicants are screened by professionals. The few chosen to be on the shows are picked because of their attractiveness to the audience, and their ability to create conflict. This ensures a dramatic and conflict riddled season.

How the Reality Shows Are Filmed and Edited

The appearance in Survivor is that the participants are alone in a secluded wilderness. It seems that there is no one nearby to help them, and they are truly alone in the world. But are they? They are surrounded by the crews working on the series.

The participants on Survivor regularly have lone interviews where they reminisce about their experiences. While the dialogue they present is not scripted by professional writers, they are prompted with questions and suggestions of what to talk about in these scenes. Then, film material is edited to reflect what they reveal to the audience.

Over the course of about 1000 hours of time on the secluded location, Survivor is edited to give the public about 1% of what actually happened. This is all selected and prepped by professionals whose jobs are to make the show as dramatic as possible.

Adult Perceptions of Reality Shows

Viewers activate what is called in fiction, “suspension of disbelief,” and immerse themselves in the action as it develops. This “suspension of disbelief” causes them to forget that the participants are surrounded by camera crew, sound crew, setting technicians, and directors.

Adult perceptions of reality are also based on what could have happened. If the scenario is plausible, and if it follows through to a logical consequence, then many adults will consider it reality. This perception sometimes even carries over into fiction.

Fiction Confused With Reality

As an example, during the television run of the comedy show Gilligan’s Island, where seven castaways were shipwrecked on a small island, many people began worrying about the fictional characters. Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of the series, stated in a 1984 Parent’s Choice article that the Coast Guard received telegrams stating that someone should be sent to help the castaways.

In a 2009 SuperBowl commercial, the mascot for Jack in the Box was hit by a bus and seriously injured. According to workers at the fast food franchise, many people called in concern for his welfare. Some were joking, but seemingly, some were not.

As reality shows continue in their popularity, it’s important to remember that what is billed as reality, may not necessarily be so. Even though they are based on kernels of real events, they are still created for a target audience, they send a message, and they are constructed and edited by media professionals to create the most commercially viable product possible. Let the viewer beware.

The critical investigation that I chose from the 4 I had left was "the dominant/patriarchal behaviour of men". This is a key issue in the media as most institutions etc are owned by men. The actual media product for this was looking at representations of men in music videos. This is an industry that is male dominated.

Anchor/Anchorage: a key element that fixes meaning of an image and directs the viewer toward a preferred reading. This is important as some anchors can affect this.

deconstruction - the process of taking a text apart to explore and analyse its component elements

post-feminism - takes the achievements of feminism for granted and views it as ineffective in explaining the current condition of women and the identity choices they face.

objectivity - a presentation of a media text from an unbiased or objective standpoint, without institutional bias

new man: new type of masculinity where men are more feminine.