'Representation and the Media' Stuart Hall, Open University, 1997 (partial text of video)
From Introduction by Sut Jhalley:
Hall's lectures introduce us to 'the politics of the image', which are a site of 'contestation and struggle'.
Communication is always linked with power. We can attempt to grasp the intersection of knowledge and power through the 'interrogation of
the image'.
'Ideas matter.' They have something to tell us. 'They are worth struggling over.'
Question: Why does Marshall McLuhen say that he is not sure who discovered water, but he is sure that it was not the fish? How are we the
fish? Question: Why does Hall say, according to Jhalley, that we "live in an image dominated world that has drifted beyond the reach of
ordinary people"? Question: How do power and knowledge intersect?
Hall 'Visual Representation and the Contemporary World'
Our culture is saturated by 'the image'. It has various forms, transmitted through a variety of media. Visual representation is 'the privileged
sign of late modern culture'. We must study the importance of representations, particularly 'visual texts' transmitted through the media.
Visual representation is ‘the saturating medium of communication.’
The 'common sense' meaning of representation is to present, to depict, as if something is already there, that needs to be discovered and represented. (Another common meaning: Representation means 'to stand in for' as political representatives do.) Hall subverts this common sense
meaning. For Hall, representation is 'the way in which meaning is being given to the things being represented.' Some media studies try to find
true meaning, rather than try to determine what is being represented (Hall does the latter. He regards the former as too literal an interpretation.)
Do events have a true fixed meaning, against which distortion can be measured? He says no. There is no settled, fixed meaning. 'Representation' does not capture what is going on. 'True meaning' depends on what people make of it, and so depends on how it is represented.
Events do not really exist until they are represented. They have no fixed, real meaning.
'Representation does not occur after the event; representation is constitutive of the event.' It enters into the constitution of the event.
'Representation is part of the event.'
Hall 'Culture as Primary'
Culture is the way in which we make sense of the world; give it meaning. We need to (broadly speaking) share culture in order to build a
social world. Culture is made up of the things that help us to share meaning. It is not just about the values that we are born into. Without
culture, we would find the world unintelligible.
Hall 'Classifying the World'
What are the shared conceptual maps, through which we know/share the world? We have complex systems of classification that help us to map
out the world in an intelligible way. 'The particular system of classification used in a society is learnt.' To become human is to learn these
shared maps of meanings; to become a 'cultured subject'.
The conceptual mapping in our heads 'is itself a system of representation'. Concepts allow us to store and think about complicated thoughts
that are not immediately available to us in the world 'out there'. Concepts are a way of representing the world. Concepts allow us to store and
think about complicated ideas. However, concepts are not merely a mirror image of the world. They are highly contested.
Hall 'Language as Communication
We have conceptual maps. However, how do you know that what you mean is what someone else understands? Concepts must find their way
through language, as communication. Hall uses a broad definition of language, including electronic, digital, speech, written, music, body,
facial expression, clothes. Language makes meaning accessible. 'Language externalizes the meanings that we are making of the world.'
Discourse and Reality
Is there nothing but language; nothing but discourse?
True: 1. Nothing meaningful exists outside of discourse.
False: 2. Nothing exists outside of discourse.
Point 2 implies that there is no natural world; no material objects.
Point 1 implies that we need discourses, because discourses provide the framework for understanding and interpretation, in order to make
'meaningful sense' of the world. For example, a football only makes sense in the context of the rules of the game.
Discourses are about how things become meaningful.
'Without language, meaning could not be exchanged.' Without language, there is no meaning.
The Practices of Signification
There is a need to explore 'the practices that produce meaning.' Meaning is produced; it does not simply exist in the world. Human/social
practices and activities produce meaning. Giving and communicating meaning involves signifying practices. Practices carry meaning.
Signifying practices are widely circulated by the media and other means (i.e. personal communication). However, the media often takes the
place of personal communication, because of its widespread character and central role in the dissemination of ideas. This raises the question of
power. Who circulates what meaning to whom?
* Meaning and absence: Absence can also signify.
* On Identification: Advertisements only work when we identify with what is being represented.
* Images constantly construct us through our fantasy relations to the image, in a way that implicates us.
Meaning and interpretation:
* Images have no fixed meaning, but rather potentially a wide variety of meanings.
* Meaning is, in the end, interpretation and contextualization. There is no escaping contestation over meaning. It is always contextual.
* Is this a relativist approach? Yes and no. While meaning can never be 'fixed', you must privilege a meaning for a time. It must be fixed for a
time, even if it is subject to change.
* Power tries to fix meaning. However, meaning can only be changed because it cannot be finally fixed.
* Ideology attempts to fix meaning. However, meaning can be changed, because it can never be fixed.
* Power tries to fix through signification. To close language, to close meaning.
* Stereotyping fixes meanings given to certain groups. (For example: Black men = violence. The limited images of Black men shape how
Black men can be seen in the world.
* Images produce knowledge of the world. The struggle to open up stereotypes is to increase the diversity of images. Diversity opens up new
possibilities for identity. That is the politics of the image.
* We must open up/reveal the practices of representation. Otherwise, they are naturalized, and people and events appear to be just the way
reality is.
* This raises a number of questions:
* Where do images come from?
* Who produces images?
* Who is silenced?
* How is meaning closed down?
* Interogating stereotypes makes them uninhabitable. It shakes up their natural/normal ness.
What is at stake in representation?
* Representation shapes our knowledge of the world.
* Opening up representation allows for new kinds of knowledge to be produced, and new kinds of subjectivity to be explored. It makes possible
new kinds of representation that have not been foreclosed by the systems of power in operation.
End of video transcript....
Another very useful source is Stuart Hall et al, Modernity Blackwell, 1996. See in particular Hall’s essay, “The West and the Rest”
Discourse vs. ideolology
Discourse and ideology are similar in that they both refer to 'a set of statements or beliefs which produce knowledge that serves a particular
group or class'. Hall, 1996: 202-203.
Beyond this they differ.
Marx believes that there is a material reality/underlying truth which can be revealed through scientific investigation (in our kind of society, the
economic conditions of capitalism). Marx uses the concept of ideology to refer to the false consciousness that the working class holds about
their conditions of social life.
Foucault's critique of ideology:
Ideology assumes that facts and truth can be discovered through science. We can then challenge false claims (ideology). However, Foucault
raises the challenge that when we are attempting to understand social organization, it is rarely possible to assert truth or falsehood. Foucault
attempts to avoid having to make these kinds of claims by examining how discourses make truth claims. For Foucault‘It is power, rather than
facts about reality, which make things “true”.’ (Hall, 1996: 203) We can see power at work in how some discourses come to be regarded as
truth. We can see too, the connection between power and knowledge.