Media Analysis Techniques

by Berger, Arthur Asa

• ISBN13: 9780803943629
• ISBN10: 0803943628
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1991-06-28
• Publisher: Sage Pubns

Summary

J R Ewing is shot in an episode of TV's Dallas. Depending upon your perspective, an analysis of this episode might focus on: the degradation of the characters, resulting from a bourgeois capitalist society; J R's emotional problems, stemming from an underlying Oedipal complex; the significance and symbolism of Southfork and the Ewing tower; or the inadequate representaton of particular social groups. Each represents a different theoretical perspective - Marxist, psychoanalytic, semiological and sociological - that can be usefully applied to the critical analysis of the particular episode. In Media Analysis Techniques, the author offers clear, concise explanations of these four basic perspectives with enough detail to allow students to conduct their own analyses of various popular media and other texts (including literature, advertisements and political propaganda). Having covered these approaches, the author provides essays which demonstrate how the various perspectives might be applied to to the public arts. He examines Murder on the Orient Express, fashion and cosmetic advertising in Vogue, football, and all-news radio stations that use the techniques explained in the first part of the book. This successful book, originally published in 1982, reprinted eleven times and translated into Italian, has now been revised. New concepts have been added and discussions have been amplified. More than ever, the student interested in methodology will feel empowered by this book.

Table of Contents

Techniques of Interpretation

Semiological Analysis

Marxist Analysis

Psychoanalytic Criticism

Sociological Analysis

Applications

Murderers on the Orient Express

Seven Points on the Game of Football

Sex and Symbol in Fashion Advertising

All-News Radio and the American Bourgeoisie

Epilogue

Shmoos and Analysis

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