“Texts are material traces that are left of the practice of sense-making : the only empirical evidence we have of how other people make sense of the world”

This was the first quote that was delivered to us today by Brian Morris in his Lectorial focusing around the ideas of Texts as cultural meanings and the post-structural analysis of text that occurs today (in all its denotative and connotative forms).

Post-structural textual analysis aims to address all what were and what are the reasonable sense making practices employed in a text and what effects these practices exhibited on the targeted society as both a whole and individually.

The idea of Semiotics and Signifier & Signified managed to resonate the most with my analytical thought process and develop traction as the class drew to a close. Upon leaving the class, I made note to further research the theorists that Brian made mention of during the class : Albert Bandura & George Gerbner.

Albert Bandura and his works with the Bobo Doll drew my attention.

Housed under the theoretical framework of ‘Social Cognitive Theory’, Bandura proposed the idea that : People, after seeing behaviours acted out by a respectable person, will subconsciously recreate the same actions, no matter the consequences. He formulated these theories off the experiments he undertook on children; who were subject to an adult ‘beating up’ a Bobo Doll. Upon watching the adults behaviour, the children exhibited the same traits and ‘beat up’ the Bobo Doll too.

I feel that this ‘Social Cognitive Theory’ remains of high relevance in a modern media world, as consumers follow the traits of their own personal idols and exhibit these traits somewhat subconsciously. The epitome of this would be a person who succumbs to fandom; literally recreating and reshaping their whole life to fit within the constraints that their idol mediates.

– donandsherri