To me, this is a fascinating case, and one that makes me look forward to reading Kong\u2019s book on the subject once it is finished. It also raises a broader question for me, however, particularly since I would not have interpreted Avatar in the way that many Chinese viewers apparently did. I always thought Cameron\u2019s film was a somewhat poor analogy to the fate of Native Americans, mixed with simplistic fad du-jour environmentalism, and overloaded with special effects to distract audiences from the sound of the US cultural industries stealing their money<\/a>. I particularly felt offended by the fact that the naive noble savages end up finding a saviour in the white man, and so this movie review<\/a> pretty much summed the film up for me.<\/p>\n As someone who analyses visual political communication by looking at production backgrounds<\/strong> and at content<\/strong>, while largely side-stepping questions about audience reception<\/strong>, this discrepancy between interpretations at first seems to pose a challenge. Is this example not evidence that meanings are subjective, that audiences will interpret content as they see fit, and that research on political discourse and how it gets produced is a dead end?<\/p>\n In light of these questions, I want to revisit what an analysis of mass-communication content<\/strong> can achieve. In this post, I first discuss why our seemingly subjective interpretations of messages do not need to prevent us from systematically analysing those messages. I\u2019ll share some of my views on the general characteristics of communication<\/strong>, before discussing what makes mass-communication \u201cmassive\u201d<\/strong>. I\u2019ll conclude with some thoughts on why content analyses and reception analyses might not be mutually exclusive enterprises.<\/p>\n Communication between humans is an incredibly complex process. Just imagine what is required on your part if you want to explain to a stranger why you are interested in the politics of East Asia. In order to get your idea across, you have to draw from cultural resources<\/strong> at your disposal to compose a message<\/strong> while carefully judging what background knowledge<\/strong> you can assume on the part of your conversation partner. You then need to get your message across in a specific language<\/strong>, deploying words, body-language, and inflection to assure that your message reaches the intended audience. What is more, most of this process isn\u2019t even under your conscious control<\/strong>, and yet you have to make sure that your conversation partner indeed understands<\/strong> your message the way it was intended<\/strong>. If you are engaged in a dialog, then the other person will have to formulate a response<\/strong>, which you will then need to unpack and interpret, and so on. Imagine how complex all of this gets when you involve additional people, not to mention what happens if some of the actors are joking or are being deceitful.<\/p>\n Yet we rarely come out of a conversation wondering what our communication partners were saying. Miscommunication<\/strong> happens, of course, but it seems to be the exception<\/strong> rather than the norm. That is because human beings evolved to be animals that communicate exceptionally well. In most circumstances, it costs us hardly any effort to communicate our ideas, and we can generally trust ourselves to get the job done without producing too many misunderstandings.<\/p>\n Our ability to exchange ideas is one of the amazing adaptive qualities<\/strong> that helped our distant ancestors survive long enough to produce our slightly less distant ancestors. It is an ability closely linked to our capacity for complex thought<\/strong>. As Paul Chilton (2004: 18) puts it, \u201cif you can simulate the outer world by inner worlds, you are an animal with an advantage, because you can map places, objects and predators, and you can make plans for future actions\u201d. The ability to then share such thoughts<\/strong> has very useful applications. For instance, we can tell our partners and our offspring to mind the woods nearby, since that is where blood-thirsty sabre-toothed tigers are roaming about. It also has the advantage of allowing us to cooperate with other humans, for instance to build a wall that will keep sabre-tooths out of our village all together, or to coordinate our next hunt for woolly mammoths.<\/p>\n There is of course far more to the debate of how language co-evolved with human social and communal behaviour<\/strong> than I have suggested above. If you are interested in these processes, Paul Chilton has provided an excellent nuanced discussion (2004: ch.2). My point here is that communication is of fundamental importance for organizing social actions<\/strong>. It is essential for politics. Small wonder, then, that human communication is generally highly effective, and that the way we communicate is consequently far from arbitrary.<\/p>\n Communication follows certain rules and conventions<\/strong>. For instance, we can reasonably assume that the people we speak to are going to try and understand<\/strong> what we have to say, and that they in turn will try to tell us what they have to say in a manner that is accessible<\/strong> to us. If this weren\u2019t so, we would have serious problems understanding each other. In fact, it is precisely because we make such assumptions on a regular basis that it becomes possible to lie<\/strong> or cheat<\/strong>. However, even such deceptions follow patterns: when I lie, I need to manipulate my deceitful message in a way that gets enough truth across to be believable while hiding or obscuring the parts that are false \u2013 all the while using conversation conventions that make my statement comprehensible. Other highly creative forms of communication similarly follow patterns that are not at all arbitrary<\/strong>, as demonstrated by research into the use of metaphors<\/strong> (Lakoff & Johnson 1980), analogies<\/strong> (Fauconnier & Turner 2002), proverbs<\/strong> (D\u00f6rner & Detje 2001), or humour<\/strong> (Morreall 2009).<\/p>\n This is not to say that meanings somehow exist in an objective, disembodied realm (cf. Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 226-228): Meanings are highly contextual<\/strong>, and they shift not only over time but also between cultural settings. But what is important to remember is that the process of understanding is grounded in mechanisms that are open to analysis.<\/p>\n An approach to communication mechanisms that I have found very useful is the theory of semiotics<\/strong>, which views communication as a compilation of signs that point to certain meanings. I have discussed this theory in more detail in another post<\/a>, but one aspect of semiotics that is worth mentioning here is that communication works through codes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The little bits and pieces that make up meaningful messages do not float about randomly. They are part of larger systems of meaning, which each have their own logic, and this logic is called a “code”. For example<\/strong>, if economists come together and discuss growth rates, and interest rates, and capital accumulation, and total factor productivity, then these concepts may not mean much to the uninitiated, but they make sense to the economists because such key terms are linked together in an overarching framework of knowledge. They are part of an economics discourse. If we know what each of these words stands for, and how they are related, then we can understand what the economists are talking about. Similarly, a discussion about Chinese politics might revolve around phrases like \u201charmony\u201d, \u201cmasses\u201d, \u201cthree represents\u201d, \u201cthree closes\u201d, and other seemingly ambiguous terms, but once we place these terms in the context of CCP ideology, we are in a position to make sense of how they are used.<\/p>\n In short, communication processes are informed by systems of meanings called discourse<\/a>, and are governed by rules called codes<\/strong>. These codes reflect social and cultural conventions. Yet even though certain codes may appear incomprehensible to outsiders, for instance when an adult is confronted with the seemingly nonsensical jargon of youth groups, there is nothing mysterious about them. Once we learn the codes, and learn when to apply them, we can \u201cdecode\u201d communication<\/strong> that takes place within a specific framework of meanings. That is why it is so important to keep the context<\/strong> of a communication process in mind: the plot of Avatar, for instance, may receive radically different meanings when understood through the lens of American history than when it is understood through the lens of contemporary Chinese social problems. In either case, however, I would hesitate to call such interpretations \u201csubjective\u201d, since they follow patterns that can become the object of empirical analysis.<\/p>\n If everyday communication is generally comprehensible, and thus lends itself to analysis, then the same can be said of mass communication. In fact, mass communication is an even better object of content analysis. That is because mass communication aims to reach a broad audience<\/strong>. It intentionally and systematically narrows down the meanings<\/strong> of its messages even more than other forms of communication.<\/p>\n What, then, makes mass communication \u201cmassive\u201d?<\/p>\n The philosopher and art theorist No\u00ebl Carroll (1998) has provided a useful answer to this question. Even though Carroll is primarily interested in a sub-set off mass communication that he calls \u201cmass art\u201d<\/strong>, which includes narrative entertainment in the form of films, TV series, best-seller novels, and so on, his arguments are also useful for understanding mass communication in general. For Carroll, mass art is fundamentally different from avant-garde art<\/strong>, since it tries to be accessible. Works of so-called \u201chigh\u201d art, like Beethoven\u2019s Fifth Symphony, or James Joyce\u2019s novel Finnegan\u2019s Wake, or Picasso\u2019s painting Guernica, are all intentionally ambiguous and do not possess one \u201ccorrect\u201d interpretation. Engaging with their many hidden potentials, their fragmented and complex meanings, and the feelings they illicit in each of us, is a highly rewarding challenge. That is what makes these works interesting and enjoyable. Mass art, according to Carroll, is a different kind of art \u2013 though by no means one that is less worthy of our attention.<\/p>\n This is Carroll\u2019s definition of mass art<\/strong> (1998: 196): \u201cX is a mass artwork if and only if 1. X is a multiple instance or type artwork, 2. produced and distributed by a mass technology, 3. which artwork is intentionally designed to gravitate in its structural choices (for example, its narrative forms, symbolism, intended affect, and even its content) towards those choices that promise accessibility with minimum effort, virtually on first contact, for the largest number of untutored (or relatively untutored) audiences.\u201d<\/p>\nThe art of communicating<\/h3>\n
What\u2019s in a message?<\/h3>\n
Putting the \u201cmass\u201d into mass communication<\/h3>\n
![\"Broadcast](\"http:\/\/www.politicseastasia.com\/staging\/3558\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/radiotower_300x400opt.jpg\")
<\/a>There is more in this definition that is worth unpacking and discussing than I have space for here, and I can only urge you to take a closer look at Carroll\u2019s discussion of the \u201cnature of mass art\u201d (1998: ch.3). Several aspects of Carroll\u2019s philosophy are no doubt controversial<\/strong>. For instance, it may indeed be useful to accept only cultural products as \u201cmass art\u201d that exist as many identical copies<\/strong>, delivered to different recipients by means of\u00a0information and communication technologies<\/strong> like DVDs, TV broadcasts, or mp3s. However, this means that various kinds of performances would not count as mass art, for instance a theme park like Disneyland, or live musicals and pop concerts (unless they are recorded or broadcasted).<\/p>\n