hello everyone welcome to our fourth lecture for this term and of course to our fourth module titled evaluating messages and or images of different types of texts reflecting different cultures so before i start this particular lecture i would like you to think about the following what does this mean guys okay so perhaps you're you're answering at the back of your heads right now but uh the thing is uh this one can mean good okay good job good work but it also can mean some other thing in some cultures so for example in the western culture this one can also mean i need a ride okay i need a ride so they use this to actually stop a taxicab okay and then uh called attention to driver but there are other cultures which see this as something that is insulting for example iran and iraq next up what is this what does this mean okay what does this mean like um a lot of us uh would use this to actually indicate that okay everything's okay everything's fine everything's doing well okay or everything is working just fine but of course this could also mean money in japan this means money but again in other cultures this would mean something very very rude especially for example in brazil okay this would be something rude to them so don't even there do this gesture in front of a brazilian okay anyway uh next up or the third one okay what about this this is mean okay so again um we usually do this to imitate the italian gesture because this is the italian you know gesture really but um in italy have you ever wondered what this mean what this means okay this means uh what are you saying or may you please clarify what you're saying this gesture is in short used when you don't really find something that said clear enough okay so you actually try to follow up clarifying what that means okay in malaysia though it means to actually wait a minute okay so wait a minute like give me give me some more time okay but then when this gesture is actually put towards the mouth especially in the philippine culture we mean let's eat okay so it's an invitation for people to actually eat already okay so what have we realized in that short exercise okay or in that short um brainstorming of what gestures can mean this actually brings us into the reflection that even just small gesture that we do the nonverbal things that we do would mean differently when we look at them from different cultural perspectives okay and a simple gesture simple text for that matter any kind of image would really mean differently depending on the cultural lens that we are actually seeing it from so this is where we start off right we have to evaluate messages through the cultural lenses that we have not only through our own perspectives or else we are not going to really come up with something successful in terms of our communicative objectives because you know you have to know your target audience you have to know who you're talking to you have to know like where you're at again context right you have to really explore the all the various components that is there that are there in the communication uh scenario that you are in so with that said okay we have to look into several factors okay several landscapes that make up our communication we have to really be uh reflective enough we have to really be evaluative enough in terms of the messages that they send out in terms of the intentions that they have because again different texts reflect different cultures hence they reflect different messages okay so again same gesture can mean so many things depending on where you're coming from so let's discuss linguistic landscape okay so linguistic landscape is a concept okay or a term used to describe the displayed language in a particular space so for example advertisements billboards and other signs okay so we see that language is all around us in textual form right and it's displayed you know on shop windows and commercial signs posters you know traffic signs offices schools or whatnot and most of the time we do not really pay attention to them right we don't really pay attention to these but if we do okay if we do we are looking into the linguistic landscape okay so in the recent years a lot of researchers are focusing now on the linguistic landscapes of a certain uh a certain place and this actually helps them understand like what kind of culture that place has okay depending on the displayed language that they have so it's actually linguistic linguistic landscape is actually a relatively new branch of social linguistics okay and it emerged due to increasing interest in multilingualism or bilingualism or languages or globalization the things that we've been discussing so far right and this is because language has the tendencies to actually interact and create an environment or a global environment for that matter so to not make things very much complicated don't be overwhelmed by the the term because it just means the language of public science okay of public road signs of advertising billboards of street names of place names commercial shops science public science and government buildings and these all all combine to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory or urban or region agglomeration so let's take a look at the different examples of linguistic landscape okay firstly would be the billboards okay we all uh could understand uh that billboards are actually sending out public messages and they usually are in public places and they they are in public places and they have to reach wide you know range of audiences okay that's why they are in the first place uh put as billboards okay so this billboard i like it because it's actually from unicef and it functions as cost support and it urges us to save uh generation covid next up uh are signages so signages like this uh would also be sending out a message it's very self-explanatory when you see this right um and upon seeing an image like this you would automatically know what is about that place that it's slippery and you you have to be careful and that you don't really run in that place etc etc okay so next um type or example of linguistic landscape is this one okay regulations so buses only no smoking do not enter blah blah blah okay so everything that actually regulates our actions or or our movement or whatnot that is uh a kind of landscape as well okay same thing with street names okay street names are also painting the linguistic landscape of a certain territory and graffiti okay even graffiti is actually an example of a linguistic landscape right so sometimes graffiti is actually very powerful as well so later i'm still going to be discussing more of graffiti in terms of the kinds of signs all right next up is geosemiotics okay again do not be overwhelmed with this particular concept or term because it's just pretty easy to understand okay when we say geosemiotics this is the study of the social meaning of the material placement of science and discourses and for actions in the material world that's according to muni and evans 2015. now to put it simply just think about this okay we live in a world that's full of signs and we do not really pay attention to these signs okay and sometimes we're not really aware that they're there that they're even there okay so for example if you look around you right now you have a bottle of water on your desk or on your table or at the side of your bed but you don't even really care to check the label or you don't really put so much attention to the label or the information that is in that bottle so for example um you don't really pay attention to how many times it should be recycled the details of its logo or its brand or whatnot because you know it's typical things that we really encounter or use or or consume every day but the thing is geosemiotics is the one that actually pays too much attention to these details and it actually um explores the meaning of the placement of these symbols or signs in our lives okay so actually geosymbiotics is very interesting because you may start to like see more of the world around you and you may you know see more signs on your way to school or on your way to the market or even in your own home to concretize that's very abstract explanation i know okay i have included the principles of geosemiotics okay by the way perhaps it would help if i would digest the uh the terms structurally so we have here geode which means like location or earth like it's where where you are actually uh seeing the signs and then semiotics study of signs and symbols okay so the meaning of this symbol semiotics according to where they are at or the place that they are put in that's geosemiotics that is actually pretty much it okay the signs and their placement in our lives okay so let's have the principles first is indexicality this principle me uh this principle basically states that in every world in our you know in our world every sign has its meaning but its meaning is actually uh assigned by the place the sign is in or the sign was put in so for example you see a red light at the junction automatically you would know that it says drivers stop okay driver stop that's what the red light tells you right drivers stop but if you see a red light like for example at home or in the forest the meaning would change because it's now placed somewhere else this means that the placement okay automatically changes the meaning of a certain red light and that is what the principle of indexicality means okay meaning was given to a sign by a place the sign was put in so the second principle is dialogicality and this basically means that signs have double meaning and they correspond with each other so double meaning you have the same sign but then when you put them somewhere else okay it will basically have another meaning so that's where the double meaning comes from for example you say slow children at play if you put it near a playground it would mean that you have to slow down because children are playing nearby right but if you put it for example in a sped school you can actually interpret slow children at play so you could be informed that there are children perhaps with disability who couldn't really walk fast or run fast that are playing there okay so slow children at play so it's dialogical because it's the same sign but it can have double meaning so thirdly is selection so this principle states that one does not see all signs okay it just basically means that despite the fact that there are lots and lots of signs around us you don't see them all okay you don't see them all and you are the one who decides which one you do notice and which one you ignore okay which one you really put more attention to and which one you just you know shake off so for example um you are a non-smoker okay you're a non-smoker so almost always don't really care whether you see a sign of you know smoking area because you're not you're a non-smoker so you're not going to be affected whether there's uh an area for smoking or not okay so that sign we usually don't really notice it or we usually ignore it or we don't really pay much much attention to it okay same thing for example if you belong to this class and there's an announcement on big sky that this class has been dissolved you don't really put so much attention to it because you're not really affected right so you're being selective about what to notice and what to ignore because it all depends on what you need at the moment or what you really what's what's important to you or you know um what's urgent or something like that okay so we be selective depending on our own preferences right let's talk about kinds of signs so there are different kinds of signs um and a lot of them are very self-explanatory let's have this one first okay so this are the regulatory signs so again regulatory signs are signs that indicates authority okay and they are also legal and official prohibitions okay so there do not enter yeah things like this they are um they actually impose authority at the same time they are prohibition sorry there they are prohibitions that are legal and that are official next are the infrastructural signs so again infrastructural signs are signs that indicates maintenance of buildings of infrastructures obviously and they label things like this okay and um it's also to give warning to sorry it's also to give warning to people we have commercial okay commercial signs or like this gay you see logos of establishments you see promotions like here you see here what the event is like okay because commercial signs are obviously those signs that advertise or promote products events or services okay and lastly and which is a very interesting as well as controversial one k is the transgressive signs okay the transgressive signs are actually something that deconstructs the traditional or conventional okay semiotics and this is done intentionally or accidentally okay so they break okay they break the conventional signs okay so if you look at this they really break the conventional science okay and um graffiti is one good example of transgressive science okay because this is an unsanctioned um unsanctioned urban text and to me it's actually a way to empower the disempowered okay again this is actually something empowering to the disempowered people and this allows them to leave a visible mark okay this allows them to protest okay this allows them to disrupt the landscape that is increasingly occupied and commanded by the increasingly rich and powerful and powerful so those are the types of signs again regulatory infrastructural commercial and transgressive okay so next up we have the online landscape and this is very very very familiar with us especially the netherzens um right now we are actually operating our educational system within um the online landscape or using big sky and that is uh a you know huge move of the university to actually address the problems in education that we're experiencing during this pandemic okay so apart from big sky of course which is an educational platform you have google classroom you can have zoom etc etc then you have um the entertainment platforms like youtube you have the video sharing platform you have twitter a micro blogging platform you have instagram a picture sharing platform you have facebook you have linkedin and a lot of other social media landscapes that we have right now and we've been discussing what the power of social media is and how it can actually influence the mindset and the psyche of people and um the online landscape is actually a thing right now and it's something that really uh you know is embedded now in our cultural communication okay and the more we delve into social media the more we expand our cultural perspectives because it's really endless possibilities out there okay you can meet so many people from different parts of the world and you can actually share culture and reshare culture from different parts of the world world through social media activity 4.1 in the mojo actually is about memes right and we know that memes are one of the uh tools in an online landscape and you know we should say that memes are very contagious patterns of cultural information and it instantly is passed you know from mind to mind and it's it has the capacity to shape our mindsets our behaviors and our actions now as the last part of this lecture we are going to brush through the questions that we ask when we try to evaluate okay or analyze a particular message of media okay and this could be very flexible this could be applied to you know virtually any text that you encounter so how do we evaluate so there are actually uh principles that we also assume when we look at media and these principles actually dictate what questions to ask so that we can evaluate and analyze these particular messages properly and with guidance okay so the first principle is that all media messages are constructed so the first thing you ask is what is the message of the text right um to what purpose is the text uh created or constructed what message does it send out to you okay or to the community and then second how effectively does it represent reality because again when we are trying to construct something that carries a message or a communication we are trying to represent reality okay so how effective does it represent that reality okay third how is the message constructed so how meaning what are the processes that it went through okay what is the system of the construction okay uh is the is the construction through oral or verbal uh how do you send it out okay so all the the house for that matter right so for example you've got brochures okay brochures are kinds of texts that are very visual and they are actually disseminated to large number of people and um it's constructed through written communication and it's integrated with you know visual elements and whatnot to make it more appealing okay so brochures are actually made for advertisements for example secondly we have um media have embedded values and points of view right so with this principle you ask what lifestyles values and points of views are represented in the text okay so that's very self-explanatory and who or what is missing so again it's not all the bright things that you see okay you also see what's missing because if there is something that is highlighted okay or is this something that's underscored of course there might be something that's being hidden or there might be something that is carried out as half truth okay so you have to ask that too since we're talking about values okay nextly each person interprets messages differently so this is where call um individual differences come in right so individual differences we all know are very much influenced by cultural um diversities that we come from so um when we are actually trying to assume that each person interprets a text very differently from each other we ask what message do you perceive from the text you as an individual and then when you check on yourself you check on others now how might others understand it differently okay and why now the answer to this why one of the answers to this why is culture we understand things differently because of culture now if you evaluate a certain text or a certain media through this you know ask what particular cultural perspective or what particular cultural landscape makes that difference possible or is that difference coming from right nextly media have commercial ideological or political interests and of course with this assumption you ask what is the purpose of the text okay is it serving a vested interest is it serving uh an interest of like the minority is it serving the interest of like the disadvantaged group okay or is it just serving the interest of the trolls for example okay so who is the target audience of the text of course who is the intended reader or listener or viewer of the text that's being created and then who might be disadvantaged again there are certain types of texts that might be rude that might be offensive and that might be hurtful to some um races genders or whatnot so you have to be very sensitive about it okay who created the text actually the creator uh plays a very big role in terms of analyzing the intentions because whoever created the text would have the you know the say in terms of the intentions why that particular media or text is created lastly media messages are constructed using a creative language having its own rules so number one you ask what techniques are used and why so you ask for example um coloring techniques you ask visual arts technique and why are why those colors you can you know because colors also suggest messages skate colors themselves you know are very powerful messages already when you send them across okay so that's just one technique okay there are a lot of other techniques of course secondly you ask how effective were the techniques in supporting the messages or themes of the text and really what other ways of presenting okay can we deliver the message all right so that's it for this lecture i hope that you've learned something and um to end with a positive note actually not a humorous note um i will leave you a meme coming from our online landscape there you go oh it's not seen but it says i don't always plagiarize but when i do i toggle italize yeah okay so could hi everybody i hope that um you have learned something about media literacy and for us to criticize and analyze the potential effects of texts we have to be media literate and we have to ask critical questions okay we have to not settle for less and we have to be um vigilant okay about the things that we are consuming evaluating messages would lead us to be more accountable and responsible users of media instead of media controlling our lives we have to control media for the sake of the common good okay so this is my scarves and bye