Images and News

I found The determinations of news photographs by Stuart Hall the most intriguing reading for this week. The beginning of the article, which focused on codes really interested me.

Which got me thinking… we now live in an era in short video clips are being used instead of photographs to visually capture a moment (ie. facebook, youtube, tmz). I think that the video clips recieve meaning through codes just like pics do. The short clips frequently have captions that inform us how to interpret the video.

The latest example of this (that I can think of) is the female soccer player who was filmed practically beating up her opponents during a game. Clip after clip showed her punched, kicking and pulling the hair of players on the other team. When the video starting gaining attentioning news stations would preface the film by saying how out of control she was, or the abusive. These actions serve the same purpose as captions. The public is informed on how to interpret the film before seeing it.

The Photographic Apparatus

I really enjoyed Flusser’s Towards a Philosophy of Photography.

Specifically, I thought the book forced us to consider where our society is heading. We are assaulted everyday with images. They are on buses, on the train, on jumbo screens attached to buildings… Every moment our eyes are looking at images. Essentailly, then, we have adapted to draw meaning from images. A photography informs us who won an election or a game, it can depict poverty or wealth, war or peace, etc.

As a result, texts are essentially being replaced with images.

My questions is: Is this bad?

Images provide us with the same overall ideas as texts do. We are able to understand what occured. However, images do not provide the in-depth detial texts do. However, unless one is studying a specific topic, is the in-depth detail and analysis needed?

Hall Reading

So I am reading Rachel Hall’s article about transparency and keep questioning how useful this system is. I understand the need to monitor foreginers as they enter America. However, this new system does not eliminate racial profiling (not shocking). In fact, I think it only aids racial profiling. Why? Because it is a system run by people, and people see what they want. They decide who is a “suspcious” person.

Essentially, I am asking how practical is this system? I think my beliefs mirror Hall’s. She questions the purpose of transparency throughout her article but especially in the conclusion, “Transparency is a fantasty of U.S. imperial dominance…” (p. 342). Overall, I believe that this is a system the government wants the public to perceive as an ideal solution. When in reality, it is not.

soooo I’ve been thinking about the discussion in class last night about visual anthropology. Specifically I was very intrigued by our discussion over Schwartz.

The topic of taking pictures to document came up and I started to wonder…. is there a limit? Do visual anthropologist know the limit? Should everything be visually documented?

I feel as if it is a fine line and gradually we approaching it, if not overstepping it. As a result, is visual anthropology eventually going to turn into a dreaded topic?

Just some thoughts.

Semiotics

In Cobley, I appreciated Peirce’s classification of phenomena as well as signs. The idea was logical. My real understanding came from the diagram on page 31. From the graph and explaination of it I was able to understand the “signs”, how they are produced and how the phenomena with signs function are interrelated. Soooo the graph was vital.

I read Peirce’s article next and was left confused. His ideas were far more expansive than Cobley described. I think a lot of it had to do with the wording throughout the article, however, the main concept of the three trichotomies of signs I still do not fully understand (Qualisign, Sinsign, and Legisign). Can anyone help?  A normally worded description would be soooo useful for these concepts and I think help me understand the entire article.

These are my definitions for them (please no laughing, or at least keep it to a minimum as I believe I am COMPLETELY wrong)

Qualisign: a quality which is a sign

Singsign: an actual thing

Legisign: a law

Text vs. Image

I was thinking about the importance of image vs. text after last nights class. And I started to wonder…. are images reliable. I mean how much can you trust an image?? I have often looked at an image and thought it was representing something just to find out that I was completly wrong. Also, aren’t images interpreted according to the person and their beliefs?? Doesnt this leave the opportunity for images to be misleading and mishandled?

With text you can misunderstand the author’s point but his/ her intent is clearly stated as a result of them using words.

I dont know. Just the random thoughts I was having. Thought I’d post them.

“Rhetoric of the Image”

So I just finished this reading and I really agree with the author. I’ve never looked at advertising imagery this way but it makes sense. Images consistently have several signs that as a viewer I automatically see and analyze without thinking about it. Additionally, I also agree that every message has a linguistic message -  as a soceity we depend on writing for communication. Further, I also agreed with his ideas on the denoted image.

However, I remain confused with the last part of the paper. Can anyone provide a quick summary or their thoughts?? I am most confused about the importance of “lexia”.

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