Question 13

b

Question 12

b

Question 10

b

Question 11

Both the Radway article "Women Read The Romance: The Interaction of Text and Content" and the Ouellette article "Inventing The Cosmo Girl: Class Identity and Girl-Style American Dreams" seamlessly fit along with my overall topic for the semester. The articles discuss the use of fantasy in advertising as well as the construction of certain demographics. This Gucci advertisement blatantly displays the elements of female fantasy, being dominant over a man in more ways than one, and a possibly 'typical' Cosmo girl.

Question 9

In the story from The Onion Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail, they are parodying the idea that Obama is a terrible president who is unfit to be running the country. Clearly, everyone has a right to his or her own opinion, but Fox News has always taken their conservative Republican views to the extreme over and over again, such as in the segment Fox News Blames Obama for Jay-Z and Young Jeezy Lyrics. The anchorwoman in this segment acts as though she is appalled that rappers are cussing and, of course, because they are black like Obama, their actions and words are reflected by Obama himself, who actually had nothing to do with the incident. Gatekeeping, the process in which information is filtered before its publication, and agenda setting, the practice of supporting and twisting certain stories in order to adhere to a certain viewpoint, are both blatantly obvious here. Fox News' agenda is against Democrats and Obama, while The Onion article is a critique of this.

Question 8

Both of these documentaries, especially in their first parts, heavily touch on the ideas of cultural studies and political economy. I noticed that Mouse Trapped was a bit more focused on political economy, while Mickey Mouse Monopoly discussed aspects of cultural studies more. In Grossberg’s article, he states that, in the argument over the differences between cultural studies and political economy, “the issue has always been how one thinks about the relationships or links between the different domains (forms and structures of practices) of social life” (627). Cultural studies focuses much more on the actual culture itself, while, to an extent, somewhat ignoring the broader social context. In Mickey Mouse Monopoly, it is discussed how Disney has formed a media monopoly that dictates what news gets out and is heard by the public, an example of political economy.

Question 7

The film How to Make Your Breasts Look Bigger is a critique on how women go about using their breasts to accomplish things, as well as a reference to stereotypical pornography story lines, with the 'I need to call a handyman to fix my radiator and use sexual innuendo while wearing a bra to do it' parody. It is an appropriation because it uses the idea of putting down women in porn, yet reappropriates it by using the porn as a critique of the original idea. Same goes for the appropriation and reappropriation of the sexual signifiers from early pornography; they are use to critique the original idea of women using their bodies to gain what they want.

Question 6

In this advertisement, there are connotations about globalism and exoticism within the references to India. In Conan supposedly going all the way to India in order to "outsource" the curtains for his show to get the very best quality, American Express is saying that products made in exotic lands are of far better quality, simply because they are foreign. However, the commercial also provides commentary on the work conditions and stereotypes of how things are done in India, even today, with the looms and berry crushing that suggest that they are more primitive than our Western culture, as well as that they do all work by hand and without machines.

Question 5

Ideology can be defined as the study of ideas or, in simpler terms, common sense, while hegemony is the reification (construction and maintenance) of ideology. In "The Urinal Game," the object is to see if you really understand men's bathroom etiquette, which is essentially just a social construct. The game uses ideology, or common sense, to innately know which urinal to choose. We know and understand these constructs because they have become social norms in our daily existence, whether you are a male or a female. A hegemonic community can cause you to follow its practices and norms as they are accepted by society, whether you realize it or not.

Question 3

In Delta Airlines, the typical black stereotype is made fun of through exaggeration, while in the Everest College commercial, the exact same stereotype is used to make a relationship between the spokesman in the video and the likely potential viewer. The audiences they are aimed at are different too; Delta Airlines is a comical approach, while Everest College looks to be inspiring and easy to relate to for anyone similar to their spokesman.

Question 4

In this painting by Magritte, the copy translates to "this is not a pipe," by which he means that it is only a picture, or a representation, of a pipe, but is not an actual pipe. This is an important idea to semiotics because it is a critique of how symbols are mere representations of what they are signifying. Often times, symbols are just as (if not more) recognizable as whatever they are a representation of, which comes into play in cultural studies.

Question 2

An audience fallacy is when the author asserts an idea about the audience or a group of people that is not necessarily true. An example of this would be to make an assumption about how all women feel about something when, in reality, there is no way that all women feel exactly that way. Authorial fallacy, however, is when the author discusses the beliefs or characteristics of an argument as being their own, which would effect how a reader would interpret the piece. This could happen if an author said something along the lines of their personal religious views, and then went on to discuss another religion in a negative light. Both of these would be essentially making a false claim, therefore nullifying the argument.

Question 1

Typically, when cultural studies theorists use the shorthand form of capitalizing a word that is not a proper noun, they are trying to make a distinction between the word's denotation (what it actually means) and its connotation (society's use of the word). When the word is capitalized, it is usually signifying the connotation.