●
Viewers make meaning
Sturken and Cartwright
TOPICS:
(1) Producer’s intended meaning
(2) Aesthetics and state
(3) Reading images as ideological subject
(4) Encoding and decoding
(5) Appropriation and oppositional readings
(6) Re-appropriations and counter-bricolage
Introduction
● Elements for Producing Meaning
a. How viewers interpret image
b. Context for which the image is seen
● Art speaks to a specific set of viewers depending
on style, content, issue, and constructs (Sturken
and Cartwright, p. 45)
● Viewers create meaning from the images, while
the images construct an audience.
I. Producers’ Intended Meanings
● An artist or producer may make an image or
media text, but he or she is not in full control of
the meanings that are subsequently seen in their
work (p. 46).
● People often see images differently based on, but
not limited to, the following factors: (1) visual
clutter; (2) context variations; (3) cultural
associations.
● Meanings are created in part when, where, and by
whom images are consumed, and not only when,
where, and by whom they are produced.
II. Aesthetics and Taste
● Images are judged based quality (beauty) and
● impact on viewers. These criteria that give
● value to an image are dependent on: cultural
codes, shared concepts, and appeal. The
aforementioned factors are context-based.
● Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy which is
concerned with perception of beauty and ugliness.
Philosophers wondered whether beauty exists
solely in the mind of the viewer or if this quality
is inherent to an object. [Ex. Immanuel Kant
believed that pure and universal
beauty—that is outside judgment—could be
found in nature and art.]
● Taste, beyond individual interpretation, is a
culturally specific perception of beauty. It is
informed by experiences relating to one’s class,
cultural background, education, and other aspects
of identity.
Connoisseurship (origin: French) – A skill
acquired by “well-bred” person from an elite
class, and is characterized by the ability to tell a
‘good’ art from a ‘bad’ art. For Sturken and
Cartwright (p. 49): “This class-based notion of
taste as a “discriminating” skill presents it as
something that is natural to the connoisseur,
rather than a skill learned through particular
social and educational contexts.
● In criticism of the connoisseurship, Pierre Bourdieu
wrote that taste is learned through exposure to social
and cultural institutions that promote class-based
assumptions about correct taste and a gatekeeping
structure that enforces class boundaries.
● Kitsch (origin: German) – things that are of
“low” quality, bad taste; something that is of
“low culture.”
● High culture vs. Low culture
HIGH CULTURE LOW CULTURE
OPERA, CLASSICAL COMIC STRIP,
MUSIC, TELEVISION,
BALLET,FREE ART (INITITIALLY)
CINEMA
PATRONIZED BY PATRONIZED BY
THE RULING CLASS THE WORKING
CLASS
III. Reading Images as Ideological Subjects
•What are Ideological Subjects?
-Same as Ideological State Apparatus
•Reading Images
-When something is naturalized, it embodies the ideologies
of its context and time.
-Any time that something within a social and cultural context is
perceived to be “natural” in some way.
-Ideology defines ideas abut how life should be
-Because our lives are steeped in ideologies, which are often in
tension with each other, it is easy not to recognize them as such.
This is because societies function by masking their ideologies as
“natural” systems of value or belief. As a consequence, it is
easier for us to recognize ideologies of other times and cultures
than within our own.
• Louis Althusser
o Representation
o Interpellation
• Antonio Gramsci
o Hegemony
o Counterhegemony
• Marx thought of ideology as a kind of false  “making do with”, or making a new use for, the objects
consciousness and artifacts of a culture.
o Means of production  taking something for oneself without consent for
“Borrowing” or changing meaning.
o Producers and consumer
 In its very essence, to steal
• Barbara Kruger
Cultural Appropriation -A process on making a statement that
o Supreme opposes the dominant ideology through borrowing, changing
o Arts and reconfiguring images.

• Psychoanalysis Transcoding-Process where social movements often take terms

that are considered deregatory and re-use them in empowering
o Experience and memories ways.

• People use system of representation to experience, Examples

interpret, and make sense of the conditions of their lives both as
image makers and as viewers.  Queer

• In essence, we construct ideological selves through  Black is Beautiful

network of representations – many of them visual, that includes Appropriation as Bricolage
television, film, photography, magazines, art, and fashion
-literally means, “making do”
• Meanings of images are created in a complex relationship
among producer, viewer, image or text, and social context. Done mostly by subcultures such that many young people assert
Because meanings are produced out of this relationship, there their defiance of mainstream culture specifically by developing
are limits to the interactive agency of any one member of this styles that do not conform to the good taste of white mainstream
group. culture.
IV. Encoding and Decoding Ex: Dress,Music,Dance
- All images are both encoded and decoded. it is called Textual Poaching as defined by Certeau.
-An image or object is encoded with meaning in its creation or VI. Re-appropriations and counter-bricolage
production; it is further encoded when it is placed in a given
setting or context. It is then decoded by viewers when it is Appropriation
consumed by them. -not always oppositional practice
-These processes work in tandem. -reader engagement or active viewer can coincide with
Stuart Hall has written that there are three positions that dominant culture
viewers can take as decoders of cultural images and artifacts : Television fans
1.) Dominant hegemonic reading-They can identify with the -may have a different meaning about the show
hegemonic position and receive the dominant message of an
image or text such as a television show in an unquestioning -create a profitable market
manner .
Examples:
2).Negotiated reading -They can negotiate an interpretation
from the image and its dominant meanings The X-files (a TV show)

3.)Oppositional reading- they can take an oppositional -clues are given for loyal fans
position, either by completely disagreeing with the ideological
-fan activity is regularly monitored
position embodied
Vintage thrift store clothing fashions
in an image or rejecting it altogether (for example, by ignoring
it. -associated with oppositional youth culture
V. Appropriation and Oppositional Readings -re-appropriated by mainstream fashion industry
Oppositional Reading through: -capitalize market through widely available and inexpensive
vintage fashion knockoffs
 Disagreeing (Dismissal/Rejection)
Doc Martens work boots (early 1990s)
 Ignoring
-associated with AIDS activism or neopunk culture values
Appropriation
*neo-punk is a more efficient form of punk, worry about beliefs
and dress to infiltrate the “Standard”
-became somewhat fashionable everyday shoes without a
political significance
There is a highly complex exchange between the industries
producing mainstream popular culture and their viewers.
Resistant practices to dominant hegemonic readings of
cultural products -offered by fan tactics and cultural
bricolage
*A form of bricolage is when hemogenic forces re-appropriate
the tactics of marginalized cultures into the mainstream
Examples:
-use hegemony and counter hegemony processes
*observed when:
-the culture of inner-city ethnic subcultures is sold to white
consumers promising to grant hipness
-youth culture on the street is retailed to middle- and
upper-class buyers
References:
AIDS activism is the fight against the AIDS epidemic led by
activists.
"Activism." Critical Path Learning Center. Last modified
August 9, 2013. https://critpath.org/advanced-hiv/activism/.

-seen in skills of fashion designer and advertiser in designing "Urban Dictionary: Neo-punk." Urban Dictionary.
and packaging the style of various subcultures and selling them Accessed October 15, 2019.
to the public https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=neo-p
unk.
-rap music mainstreaming became widely appropriated and
famous as it started music industry and popular music defiance “Goodluck sa exams, sa kagandahan ni Brittany you
trust.” (De Castro, 2019) joke1/2
New forms of music come out at the margins
-defiance is redefined when rap styles became mainstream
component
-subcultures on the margins are always reinvented by
themselves
-new style is continuously established by culture industries
This is, how dominant culture in constant flux collaborates
with hegemony
-works in tension with marginal cultures
-since the 1960s
- why marketers work to associate the defintion of "cool" with
their products
There has been a constant marginal subculture and youth culture
mining for mainstream fashion and other products ever since
marketers started borrowing 1960s counterculture concepts in
selling as hip and youthful.
Culture meaning -a highly fluid, ever-changing thing caused
by complex interactions among, producers,
consumers/readers/viewers, images and cultural products
-with negotiation, interpretation, and engagement procedures,
image definition appears
Culture is a process in a constant flux state.
High and low culture
-very hard to perceive
-unsuitable class-based distinctions
-show the meaning of quality marketing of cool and hipness
Mainstream culture
-continually mining culture margins for meaning