Structuralism (Workshop)

4 - Structuralism - Claude Lévi-Strauss 

(Advertising, music videos, newspapers, television, magazines, online media)

• All media products have an underlying structure, and knowledge of this structure helps us to analyse them.
• One of the fundamental ways that we make sense of not only media products but our lives in general is through the idea of binary oppositions, or two diametrically opposed concepts that end up defining each other (good luck trying to explain to someone the concept of day without using the concept of night!)
• Binary oppositions and the way they are used by producers in narratives demonstrate their ideological significance

Key work - Myth and Meaning 

All media products have underlying structure, and knowledge of this structure helps us to analyse them.

One of the fundamental ways that we make sense of not only media products but our lives in general is through the idea of binary oppositions, or two diametrically opposed concepts that end up defining each other. (Good luck trying to explain to someone the concept of day without using the concept of night).

The producer uses binary oppositions to demonstrate their own ideology.

1 - Semiotics - Roland Barthes

(advertising, music videos, newspapers, magazines, online media)

• Media products communicate a complex series of meanings to their audiences through a range of visual codes and technical codes. These codes can broadly be divided in to proairetic, symbolic, hermeneutic, referential, and so on.
• After many years of codes being repeated, their meaning can become generally agreed upon by society. For example, a scar on the face of a character can function as a hermeneutic code, indicating to the audience that they are ‘the villain’.

Key work – Image, Music, Text 

Proairetic: An action that is caused by a previous event and which leads to other events.

Hermeneutic: It's something that asks the audience a question. It creates a mystery.

Symbolic: When a producer purposely places something that symbolises a certain ideology.

Referential: (Intertextuality) Media's reference to another product.


Binary opposition (Diametric opposition):

Good vs Evil (

Living vs Dead (Les Revenant)

The importance of binary oppositions:

Accentuate the personality trait of a character.

It can establish a clear narrative.

Create conflict for the entrainment of the audience.

Establishes clear ideological perspectives for the audience.

Anchors the audience to believe particular ideological perspective.

Anchorage: limits

Beyonce: Formation

The active choreography in the swimming pool set, the subtle choreography.

Modern fashion to Archaic fashion.

The empty abandoned swimming pool creates conflict with the high end designer costumes of the dancers, encoding a definite hierarchy.

A conflict between modern sportswear, and the conservative religious attire. The binary opposition is emphasised through the exaggerated and energetic choreography and the subtle and conserved choreography.

Les Revenant

Electronic synthetic soundtrack vs The rural mountain range of the French Alps. Emphasises of the high tension of the area.

Life and Death, which is constantly subverted. An ironic representation of death. Fundamental to Les Revenant. Helps the audience to understand the general narrative of the TV show.

Past vs Present, France struggling to come to terms with the present.

local vs foreign. Allegorical to issues facing Europe in the face of globalisation and mass immigration.

Creates a false reality, Postmodernism.

Forces the audience to accept one or another ideology, forces another ideology, leading to simplistic readings.
Encourages a mentality of conflict in the audience. Presenting conflict as entertainment.

Tide Advert:

The slogan "tides got what women want" hermeneutic code makes the reader think what it is the tide has that women want.

The make up of the model symbolises stereotypical housewife.

The love hearts are a proairetic code of her passion for the product. The love hearts are also referential to cartoons comics etc.

The symbolism of women is constructing a patriarchal hegemonic perspective.

The model is referential to Rosie the Riveter (A cultural icon of WW2).

The colours are symbolic of America.

The lexis of the word White. Symbolic annihilation. Very stereotypical. Reference to America in the 1950s and segregation.

It's giving too much power to the audience. Consumer may take one ideology they have constructed too far to what the producer intended.