bennett - political communication strives to shape messages through the use of formats and symbols.
Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication, signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed and understood.
(from wikipedia)
-- distinctions between signifiers (ex: a green light) and the signified (ex: "go" or "press your gas pedal.")
uniforms are a signifier for what? groups? authority? responsibility?
"gunman" refer to whom? usually criminals and not soldiers or policeman.
this highlights a bifurcation between "legitimate" and not. how do mass media establish, indicate or imply legitimacy?
identities are sometimes less "who we are" than "how we are known to others"
Morality Play
-- dramas of the european middle ages
-- allegories for life
-- characters are abstractions (mankind as a hero, etc)
douglas lyman - studies how the seven deadly sins and the "four daughters of God" (mercy, justice, temperance and truth) manifest themselves in everyday examples of social control.
morality plays create scripts, story-lines and cultural narratives. they allow us to attribute motives to people and create a "vocabulary of motives."
SOCIAL order is part of an EXTERNAL order
-- good vs. evil are represented by symbols
-- divine intervention sometimes occurs
-- justice is related to God's will
Foundations of the Morality Play
-- carried out mainly in the theater
-- a sacred view of the world
-- order and justice are related: disorder "naturally" yields injustice
-- an emotional foundation (hopes and fears)
maladies striking people meant that somebody had done something wrong. "just world" theory.
the Linking of Crime to Morality Plays
-- secular views of the world
-- carried out mainly in the mass media
-- good vs. evil is linked to justice vs. crime
-- evil is a complete status. there's no redemption from it
-- referring to "evil ones" also has implications regarding religion and other ideas of righteousness
-- characters have heroic traits
-- social order is now linked to "legal" order
The American Beauty Rose
-- horatio alger: pull yourself up by your bootstraps
-- hope, upward mobility, self-efficacy, control of destiny
-- contrasts with social darwinism and capitalism
-- note that these stories were pushed and propagated (by industrialists) during a time in which there was strife between the wealthy and poor.
-- takeaway messages are that "this is not injustice, it is due to development and growth."
-- "good" comes from "good"
