Textuality: Semiotics

To complement the other readings, here are three different discussions of 'semiotics' and semiotic analysis and their use for cultural studies and the analysis of media representations. These are not required readings if you have encountered 'media semiotics' before. I would however suggest, to those of you who are encountering 'semiotics' for the first time, to treat these readings as required readings: your work in class, your ability to grapple with the other required readings and your final project would certainly benefit from a familiarity with the concepts presented here.

Mieke Bal, Semiotics for Beginners
Scott McCloud, from Understading Comics: Chapter 2, Semiotics
Jonathan Bignell, Media Semiotics: Introduction + The Cinema

From Superheroes to the 'Seduction of the Innocent'

Wright, "Confronting Success: Comic Books and Postwar America, 1945-1950"
Wright, "Youth Crisis: Comic Books and Controversy, 1947-1950"


Wertham, "Seduction of the Innocent"
+ Self-Regulating Codes of the Comics Book Industry


from Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comics
Gabilliet, "Calls For Censorship"
Gabilliet, "Production"
Gabilliet, "The Business of Comic Books"

Bonus Read:
Jules Feiffer, The Great Comic Book Heroes (1965)
Part1 + Part2

Ritual vs Transmission

from Kenneth Anger's 'Scorpio Rising'

James Carey, "A Cultural Approach to Communication" from Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989)

What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream?: Media, Political Economy and Communication

Source: Frugal dad (Find full image size infographic here)

An up-to-date infographic on media consolidation. Use this to think through the issues of consumer sovereignty, the illusion of the market as democratic regulator, the media's role in democracy and its social function, etc. as well as the issues raised by Herman and Curran and our discussions in class.

Also, what makes mainstream media mainstream? How does this prevent the media from fulfilling the social roles that liberal democratic theory assigns to it?

Noam Chomsky, What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream
James Curran, Mass Media and Democracy Revisited
Eric Alterman, What Liberal Media?
Ed Herman, Media in the US Political Economy

David Croteau & William Hoynes, "The New Media Giants: Changing Industry Structure"

Updated Ownership Chart from WSJ in July 2014

Construction and Performance I: Privilege and Representation

Power, Privilege and Discrimination

Peggy McIntosh, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"

Cultural Studies & Representation
Douglas Kellner, "Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism and Media Culture"
Sanjukta Gosh, "'Con-Fusing' Exotica: Producing India in US Advertising"

Ideology and Hegemony
Stuart Hall, "The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media"
James Lull, "Hegemony"

all readings (except the online Peggy McIntosh) are from Dines and Humez (eds), Gender, Race and Class in Media: A Text-Reader; 2nd Edition(Sage, 2003)

Comics? Comics!

Here are a couple of examples of comics that we can use to continue our discussion of what comics are and what they are not. It is also a good excuse to test out your comic book readers (.cbr and .cbz). Let me know if you encounter any problems reading these files.

Ernie Bushmiller, Nancy, selected Sunday Comics, 1941 (Click through to Save)

Winsor McCay, Little Nemo in Slumberland, 1905-1914 (Click through to Save)

Robert Sergel, "Up Up Down Down" from Eschew 2011

Bonus reading: from Douglas Wolk, Reading Comics Chapter 1: "What Comics Are and What They Aren't"

*Bonus Bonus: Andrei Molotiu's essential "List of Terms for Comics Studies"
nb. At the bottom of the linked post you'll find a link to the illustrations. In any case, here.

from Sigmund Freud's notebooks: Comics as dream work

Welcome To Fall 2014

Post-Classical and Post-Modern

To clarify (or further obscure) 'postmodernism':

Fredric Jameson's "Postmodernism and Consumer Society"
As you read it relate it to the screening of Olivier Assayas' Irma Vep and be prepared to discuss the film in terms of its postmodern qualities.

Towards a Third Cinema

 Of all African film directors, Sembene is the first to confer value to images."

--Med Hondo

Fernando Solanas & Octavio Getino, Towards a Third Cinema
Med Hondo, What is Cinema For Us?
Michael Chanan, "The Changing Geography of Third Cinema"

If you are interested in reading a brief outline of the life, ideas and struggles of Ousmane Sembene: OUSMANE SEMBENE: THE LIFE OF A REVOLUTIONARY ARTIST

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema: Theory, Psychoanalysis and Gender

"Woman as image, man as bearer of the look"

Otto Preminger's Laura (1944)

Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"
You can also find it in html format here.

Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1976)

Still from Kathryn Bigelow's Zero-Dark Thirty (USA, 2012). Jessica Chastain as subject and image.

Cinematic Specificity, Art and Theory: Montage and Realism

On Montage:
Vsevolod Pudovkin, "On Editing" from Film Technique
Sergei Eisenstein, "The Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram" + "A Dialectic Approach to Film Form" from Film Form

On Realism:
André Bazin, What is Cinema, Vol. 1
(nb. please only read the essays at pg. 9 and pg. 41: "The Ontology of the Photographic Image" + "The Virtues and Limitations of Montage" (aka Montage Interdit).

On the 'art cinema' and modernism in film:
Bordwell, "The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice"
from Poetics of Cinema

Welcome to Summer I

Welcome to Summer I: for this session the blog is exclusively dedicated to the COM210 Intro to Cinema Aesthetics class. Please check back often to find readings, bits of information from across the network
, clips and other sorts of film related goodies.

Mark Fisher Presents "The Stuart Hall Project", a film by John Akomfrah

Tuesday, 22 April 6:30-9:00pm Aula Magna Guarini Campus 

One of the key thinkers of the post-war period, Stuart Hall (1932-2014) was a leading figure of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. In the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Centre and in remembrance of his recent passing, John Cabot University will screen John Akomfrah’s documentary, The Stuart Hall Project, which is a tribute to the intellectual work of a thinker who had a huge influence on political, cultural and academic debates for over six decades.

John Akomfrah: On essays, identities and Stuart Hall from Frieze on Vimeo.

The film will be presented by Mark Fisher (Department of Visual Culture, Goldsmiths, University of London) who will also outline an intellectual biography of hall.  Mark Fisher is a well known and respected author and theorist. He writes regularly for frieze, New Statesman, Sight & Sound and The Wire, where he was acting deputy editor for a year. He is the author of the much acclaimed Capitalist Realism (Zero Books) and the forthcoming ghosts of my life. As Simon Reynolds has said: “Mark Fisher is our most penetrating explorer of the connections between pop culture, politics, and personal life under the affective regime of digital capitalism. The most admirable qualities of Fisher’s work are its lucidity, reflecting the urgency of his commitment to communicating ideas; his high expectations of popular art’s power to challenge, enlighten, and heal; and his adamant refusal to settle for less.” Prof. Fisher is a member of the faculty at the Department of Visual Culture, Goldsmiths, University of London.

Punk Attitude & Hip Hop Culture

Michael Eric Dyson, The Culture of Hip Hop (from Forman & Neal (eds), That's The Joint! The Hip Hop Studies Reader (Routledge, 2004))

PUNK: Attitude (2005) by Don Letts; Watch it on YouTube.

TV After TV: Global Media Trade, Formats and Channel Branding

Brennan, "A Political Economy of Formatted Pleasures"
Torre, "Reversal of Fortune?: Hollywood Faces New Competition in Global Media Trade"
from Oren & Shahaf (eds), Global Television Formats: Understanding Television Across Borders (Routledge, 2012)

Chap.1: "Deregulation, Differentiation and Niche Targeting: The Emergence of Branding in the Cable/Satellite Era"
Chap.2: "From Channel Brands to Service Brands: US Television Enters the Digital Era"
from Catherine Johnson, Branding Television (Routledge, 2012)

Bonus Article:
"Why HBO Passed on The Walking Dead" from Mother Nature Blog.

Also, if you are interested in the intersection of technology, creativity, production practices and televisual style make sure you follow Ben Consoli's GO Creative Podcast (and Blog). The last three episodes, for example, have seen Consoli interview the DP for House of Cards, have an in depth conversation for with Shane Reynolds, a true one-man band/jack of all trades who produces, shoots and edits his work all on his own for the Travel Network, Nat Geo and others and with Chris Manley, the cinematographer and DP for Mad Men. Great insights on how network pressures, studio concerns with the bottom line line up with technological possibilities and stylistic choices.