Ideological Criticism, Cultural Studies (Discussion)

Decoding (or reading) a text

Group 4

1. Perform a dominant-hegemonic decoding of My So-Called Life. What would be the result of your reading in terms of representations of gender and sexuality, ethnicity, and youth (vs. middle age)?

Group 2

1. Perform a oppositional decoding of My So-Called Life. What would be the result of your reading in terms of representations of gender and sexuality, ethnicity, and youth (vs. middle age)?

Group 1

1. Perform a negotiated decoding of My So-Called Life. What would be the result of your reading in terms of representations of gender and sexuality, ethnicity, and youth (vs. middle age)?

Group 3

1. What do you feel is the preferred reading of this episode? What is the preferred reading in terms of representations of gender and sexuality, ethnicity, and youth (vs. middle age)? ("Hall and others often presume that the preferred reading encoded on the text by the television apparatus will be from the dominant position," but in this case it probably is not.)

John Caldwell and production studies

To understand how the society and culture of the television industry, Caldwell looks both at "texts" associated with the industry and at the interaction of actual television-producing humans. Explain what he means by each of the following "critical industrial practices" and provide at least two examples of such practices and the meanings associated with them:

• Group 4: Deep texts
• Group 1: Emic interpretations
• Group 2: Critical industrial geographies
• Group 3: Liminal industrial rituals

Bibliography

1. Jeremy G. Butler, Television: Critical Methods and Applications (NY: Routledge, 2012).
2. John Caldwell, “Cultural Studies of Media Production: Critical Industrial Practices,” in Questions of Method in Cultural Studies, eds. Mimi White and James Schwoch (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006).