Role Of Music In Sonnys Blues - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 2 Words: 485 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2019/06/24 Category Literature Essay Level High school Tags: Sonny's Blues Essay Did you like this example? Music plays an integral role in the development of social theory and understanding of identity. Sonnys Blues incorporates the idea of music to help define the characters and establish a better understanding of the sociopolitical reality and culture of Harlem. The rather turbulent relationship between the two brothers becomes apparent early on as Sonny yearns to translate his passion for music into a careera decision his brother struggles with accepting. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Role Of Music In Sonnys Blues" essay for you Create order The two brothers have different visions of life, which, in turn forces them to continually have contrasting views. Sonny struggles to be heard especially by his brother however it is through music that Sonny is able to express that which could not be articulated in the verbal language and continually communicates his reality through the medium of jazz. The pain and suffering Sonny endures can be witnessed through the characters adoration of Charlie Parker, a jazz musician who himself died at an early age as a result of drug addiction. We see the parallel between the character and Charlie Parker who at the end of the short story plays his music in front of his brother. The narrator finally listens to his brother Sonny play, revealing the raw essence of his reality which in turn brings the brothers closer and provides both understanding and acceptance of the other in a previously strained relationship. Music served as Sonnys salvation and allowed for the two brothers to open a respectful and understanding dialogue. The narrators understanding can be further demonstrated when he says, Sonnys fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others, indicating that he had now accepted Sonys music and no longer undervalued the meaning it holds. Sonnys Blues is a story about suffering and triumph which play a fundamental role in the development of identity. Each experience served as a chance for salvation and an opportunity for the brothers to make sense of the cruelty of life. Through communication the two brothers are able to achieve a form of salvation by articulating that which seemed impossible. Through listening the two brothers are able to achieve a sense of freedom from the despair that fuels their reality. Music acts as the underlying method of communication for Sonny allowing the character to express his internal struggles that his brother ultimately understands. Baldwin ultimately believes that true sympathy is shown not by trying to change an individuals lifestyle or personality but to support the individual and remain at their side. True compassion does not stem from agreeing with an individuals perspective but rather results from a meaningful attempt to understand the perspective of others that leads to genuine regard for one another. Perhaps this was the message Baldwin attempted to illustrate in Sonnys Blues, that in order to function as individuals in a rather austere environment it is paramount to communicate and listen, for that is what will ultimately free us.

The Life of Virginia Woolf Essay - 1535 Words

The Life of Virginia Woolf Driven by uncontrollable circumctances and internal conflict, her life was cut short by suicide. One of the greatest female authors of all times, Virginia woolf, produced a body of writtings respected world wide. Her role in feminsim, along with the personal relationships in her life, influanced her literary. Virginias relationships throughout her life contributed not only to her literature, but the quality of her life as well. Perhaps the greatest influence in Virginias life is her mother, Julia Stephen. Julia Stephen was the most arresting figure which her daughter [Virginia Woolf] tried to resurrect and preserve (Gordon 4). Woolf, a manic-depressive, found herself constantly searching for approval.†¦show more content†¦(Bond 59) They were both extremely outspoken while sparing no ones feelings with their comments. Virginia and Leslie both had strong personalities and rapid mood changes. Woolf portrayed her father, like her mother, through characterization in To the Ligh thouse. Mr. Ramsey captures her father as a man of baffling mutability, a lightening switch from the most lovable of men, to a famished wolfhound and back again (Gordon 22). This portrayal of Leslie Stephens relates to his uncontrollable rages and mood swings. Leslie Stephen not only controlled Virginias mental development, but her intellectual development as well. He became his daughters mentor, and trained her to become his intellectual aire (Bond 60). Mr. Ramsey parallels Woolfs father in his need to pass his intellectual nature onto his children (Gordon 26). Leslie Stephen saw no problem with his uncontrollable behavior. Virginia, on the other hand, found it infuriating. She established: In the creation of this character#8230; the examination of Mr. Ramsey#8230; is like a witness box account of the pros and cons of his [Leslie Stephens] behavior. (Gordon 22) Despite their differences, Virginia and her father formed a special bond not understood by anyone but each other. His inse curities and flaws became hers, which added to the already enormous struggles in her life. The relationship betweenShow MoreRelatedLife And Death Of A Moth By Annie Dillard And Virginia Woolf1153 Words   |  5 PagesLife and Death Told by a Moth In the short stories, the â€Å"Death of the Moth,† Annie Dillard and Virginia Woolf discover a moth flying and observes it. The short versions has two versions and both author tries to explore the theme of life and death and explains their perspectives on it. Both of the short stories have similar titles, but both pieces exhibit several differences. Annie Dillard starts off her short story by beginning the death of the moth and realizes the valueRead MoreThe Game Of Life : Who s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?1849 Words   |  8 PagesGame of Life in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Edward Franklin Albee, is an American playwright known for his works such as The Zoo Story, The Sandbox and Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He had an unpleasant childhood as he had a challenging relationship with his adoptive parents; especially his mother who was distant and unloving. Among Albee’s one-act plays, The Zoo Story, The Sandbox and The American Dream were the most successful, but his first full-length play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia WoolfRead MoreAnalysis Of Virginia Woolf s Woolf 1001 Words   |  5 Pagesinfamous modernist novels and short stories, Virginia Woolf is the way to go. Woolf was famous for a few of her famous novels, many short stories, and her feminist views that were not as normalized as it is today. Because of her work and who she was as a person, Woolf’s work left a mark on the literary world in the twentieth century. Woolf’s work is presented in many different ways because of the many ways that she formed her thoughts onto paper. 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My research of Virginia Woolf involved looking at her life to determine why she turned out the way she did, and why she wrote the way she wrote. From her early childhood, Virginia WoolfRead MoreEssay on The Bloomsbury Group1644 Words   |  7 Pagesthe most important aspects of the Bloomsberries were Literature and Art. All members of this circle of intellectuals were vastly incorporated with both of these aspects as well as a few others. The most well recognized writer of this group was Virginia Woolf. The Bloomsbury Group is a popular collective designation for, a number of English intellectuals prominent in the first quarter of the 20th century, all of whom were individually known for their contributions to the arts or to the socialRead MoreAnalysis Of Virginia Woolf s Gone At The Lighthouse Never Go Return 1706 Words   |  7 PagesElizabeth Conner 9 November 2017 ENGL-4010-001 Professor Westover Virginia Woolf: Gone to the Lighthouse, Never to Return Many authors inject a little bit of their personalities and lives into their writing, making it more relatable to their readers and more marketable to publishers. However, depending on the work, it can sometimes be difficult to determine what is inspired by real life and what is merely fiction. Therefore how important an author’s biography is to a story can also be hard to understandRead MoreMrs. Dalloway By Virginia Woolf1443 Words   |  6 PagesMrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf examines the lives of a group of socialites in post World War I England. Clarissa Dalloway spent her life suffering from anxiety but was devoted to hiding it from the world. Septimus struggled with shell shock, or post-traumatic stress disorder, that no one could help him with. These people were not only characters in Virginia Woolf’s story, but also a representation of what had been going on in Woolf’s life. She used her own struggle with mental illness as inspirationRead MoreModernism Essay1103 Words   |  5 Pagesno exception. Susan Gorsky, in her book titled Virginia Woolf, states that Virginia Woolf perhaps spoke for the writers coming of age around WWI: We are sharply cut off from our predecessors. A shift in the scale - the sudden slip of masses held in position for ages has shaken the fabric from top to bottom, alienated us from the past and made us perhaps too vividly conscious of the present. (Virginia Woolf, 280). The continuous change in life and the constant shift in the scale forced writersRead MorePsychiatric Evaluation and Diagnosis of Virginia Woolf757 Words   |  4 PagesI have chosen to write about Virginia Woolf, a British novelist who wrote A Room of One’s Own, To the Lighthouse and Orlando, to name a few of her pieces of work. Virginia Woolf was my first introduction to feminist type books. I chose Woolf because she is a fantastic writer and one of my favorites as well. Her unique style of writing, which came to be known as strea m-of-consciousness, was influenced by the symptoms she experienced through her bipolar disorder. Many people have heard the word bipolar

Sex Online Free Essays

string(61) " sex happen in a space where both participants aren’t\." This lecture is really an intro to the course. It defines the act of sex as the â€Å"exchanging of genetic data by two organisms for procreation. † This lecture also challenges our ways of thinking about sex as more than Just an act of procreation, but also as an act with social, political, mental, and personal complications. We will write a custom essay sample on Sex Online or any similar topic only for you Order Now From strictly an evolutionary perspective, the goal of our genes Is to have as many babies as possible, through the act of sex. This lecture tells us sex has never Just been about babies (although they do allow for a kind of immortality and free labor) but also has o do with culture. Lecture 2- Fertility Tech This lecture begins to transcend Into the discussion of sex and technology. Technology comes from the Greek word techno, which means â€Å"Knowledge around a way of doing something. † This lecture also discusses the early forms of sex tech, specifically fertility control through herbs, abstinence through calendar manipulation (also known as the rhythm method introduced by SST. Augustine, 4th Century), and acupuncture. This lecture also discusses the economic effects on fertility, such as the requirement of money to support a child. Culture was fluid and open. Homosexual relationships with young boys were considered fine in Greg Lecture 3- Why do we do It? This lecture clarifies the argument, that even In ancient times sex was not always for procreation. Early times were less hung up on sex. After human environments began to become heavily agricultural, sex did undergo a change that saw sex as something that should be controlled, or even saved for marriage. Still, sex in ancient times was still used much like it Is today, for pleasure. Condoms made of animal bladders, women using preemptively forms of lipstick, and all types of masturbation and roof sex demonstrate that In regards to the act of sex Itself, not much has changed. Sex in modern and ancient times was/is performed for pleasure, for ritualistic cultural purposes, for money, power, and even in situations where it was/is forced. Lecture 4- The Classical World This lecture discusses sex In the classical world. It talks about sex In ancient viewed abroad. Sexual practices across these different places were not shared, especially the tech that was used for sex. For example, in 800-B. C China, sex manuals were popular for men AND women, yet, in Greece sex was considered a more male entered-power act, in which the penetrator had the power. In Iran, sex was more strictly controlled, versus India and China where the sexual CE, as young boys didn’t yet have the â€Å"power. † Lecture 5- World religions and Sex Religions that came out of the Classical Period, sought to control sex. Into the Middle Ages, the main religions all agreed sex needed to be controlled, and saved for marriage (save the Hindus, they didn’t have the same kind of restrictions). Paul really started the move towards Church control of Sex (1st Corinthians), but his views were skewed by a belief Armageddon was coming within a few years. The Christian churches’ belief in sexual control stems from Chrism’s obvious display of a lack of sexuality (some argue Christ had kids. In other religions such as Buddhism, monks also abstained from sex( before priests did). When settlers came to the New World, they viewed Native American men as feminine and weak for their dress and homosexual acceptance, and the women as objects of great sexual passion for their open sexuality. Yet, before world religions became overarching, religion and sex was intermixed ( in Hellenic Greece, Syria and Babylon, India, and Nepal, temple prostitutes were used). Even cults (such as the Oneida Commune) sex was controlled with communal control over fertility and children, yet, sex was free and open. So, is religion considered a technology? The answer is basically, yes. Lecture 6- Pre-Electric Erotic Communication Tech This lecture discusses sex technology, the earliest of which was used for communication purposes(cave paintings). Some of the earliest cave paintings depicted sex! Along with paintings, devices such as the Venus(clay statue emphasizing big boobs and vulva) and even ancient dildos display sex tech and communication is as old as humanity itself. This lecture really pushes the point that every technology (paintings, stone mastery) was eventually put towards some sexual use, even ask years ago. First uses of any medium, are often erotic. This is displayed by sexual magazines made of papyrus in ancient Turin, Chinese art, and Japanese Shunts. Early erotic messages in Bibles (known as â€Å"Books of ours†) also demonstrate that as early as printing and engraving processes were created, they were used to create erotica. Lecture 7- Mass Sex Tech With the creation of printing presses and engraving machines came social change. Due to the high cost of owning a book, early erotic books and porn pieces were only for the wealthy and elite. Some art pieces, (specifically by Marquis De Side) were â€Å"art. The use of sexual art was also used for comedy (Romans thought huge penises were hilarious). Like any technology, when it was first created it was expensive. Yet, as things like printing and photography ( the first Polaroid camera) pornography began to become cheaper and easiest to create. At first, porn was thought only appropriate for wealthy men, as it might corrupt the poorer lower classes, yet, as cameras and elm became cheaper, porn began to drive the tech market. Many argue the Polaroid camera and VS. were huge successes because of the want to make pornography in a discreet, private settings. Lecture 8- PEP Networks Mass communication in regards to sex started simply as person-to-person communication. Love letters were probably the earliest forms of sexual PEP communication, followed by personal nude photos, and phone sex. Once operators were removed from phone lines, it became possible for people to have private phone sex. With phone sex, came the centralization of phone sex though sex lines. The dead of this lecture is to establish the idea that phone-sex, and virtual sex happen in a space where both participants aren’t. You read "Sex Online" in category "Papers" Out of the PEP networks, would eventually spawn the porn industry as we know today. Y. At this time, internet downloads took forever, which is why the classic â€Å"Porno Movie† took hold. These were typically well funded films that created â€Å"stars† who appeared in more than one video. Yet, the internet began to change all of this in the ass’s, as download times began to be reduc ed, and videos and images could be shared via the web. From videotape, porn moved to DVD, then finally to digital online). Lecture 9- The Industry The sass really started pornography as an industry, not Just a private PEP network. With technology advancing in forms of film, VS., and cameras, porn also advanced as an industry. With movies like â€Å"Deep Throat† porn began to become commonplace in the theater, and would eventually move even into hotel rooms (pay- per-view). With more premiership, Porn began to make more money, became mass produced. Currently, the porn industry is struggling due to technological advances on the web. How do sex online differ from prostitution? Is it the same? Lecture 10- The Sex-Tech Nexus This lecture is a summary of what we Just learned. It asks us to re-think the outcomes, and what counts as sex are difficult to measure and vary. Module 1 Readings: 1 . Coppersmith: Pornography and the Internet Two main arguments -In the last 2 decades consumers of porn have accelerated the diffusion of new communication technologies like the VS. CD-Room by becoming early buyers and users, thereby providing a profitable market for newly introduced services – Waves of new communication technologies have affected porn in ways as revolutionary as any other area of society The article focuses on the idea of the â€Å"demagnification of orangeroot’ by reducing entry and transaction costs. Porn has served as an agent of change for both innovation and quest for profits. Video porn provided customers with a product to Justify acquiring costly equipment (VS.) and accelerated the diffusion of new technology without shaping it. Cyberspace attracted users to browse the internet and increased their knowledge of the system. Porn products have shaped computer technology by pushing the technological and commercial envelope. 2. Hughes: The Internet and Sex Industries From the introduction video, when thinking about the arguments made by Hughes, e able to take a stance and have information that would reinforce her arguments, or counter (thinking this could be a potential essay/short answer question Just throwing it out there) 3. Wallace: Greek Kings of Smut At first the invention of the internet was great to the porn industry, but as the years have went by, it has become detrimental. Now, there are not as many people buying porn because so many websites give you access to free porn these days. These amateur sites that offer free porn are even pirating from professional sites, and it is hard for them to stop this from happening because it occurs so often. . Dibbled: A rape in cyberspace The discussion of a textual rape that took place on a early form on an online community called Lampoon. A character named Bindle (SP? ) virtually raped 2 other characters in an open living room space. Brought about questions of Just because this took place online, do it dismiss the crime committed against the avatars. The Lampoon community was brought together to discuss Just that, and what the punishment should be for the rape in cyberspace, which was a proposed â€Å"toadying† or banishing that character. Also discussed about individuals real connections with setting proportions. Ultimately, the community came together to form a type of government to deal with such issues, and the resulting punishment for Bindle was toadying. 5. Avider: Waller: A Freudian Analysis of Setting Fantasy is not only an imitation of one’s relationship with reality, but it is also a different relationship to a world that’s entirely different. Setting becomes an alternate reality. 6. Ross: Typing, Doing, and Being The increasing salience of sexuality on the internet, whether cyberspace or use of the internet to make sexual contacts, has focused interest n how internet-mediated sexuality informs social theory. This article reviews social theory and sexuality in relation to the internet, with specific reference to the development of intimacy, the association of texts with sexual scripts, the emergence of accessibility as a sexual space midway between fantasy and action, and the question of boundaries and the location of the person in sexual interaction. Also, the supplanting of the real by the symbolic, the internet as a sexual marketplace, its important role in creating sexual communities, particularly where sexual behavior or density is stigmatize, its impact as a new arena for sexual experience and experimentation, and its impact in shaping sexual culture and sexual- TTY are noted. Finally, the importance of the internet as a medium for the exploration of human sexuality and as an opportunity to illuminate previously challenging areas of sexual research is discussed. Quiz 1 Questions and Answers Question: Giddiness argues that all but one of the following have led to new reflexivity and plasticity of our sexual identities? Which of these influences was NOT included in Giddiness’ ideas? Answer: The Internet. Which of these does Ross argue lead to the success of cyberspace on the internet, but the ultimate demise of phone sex, despite the similarities between the two. Text allows you to distance yourself more from your statements about preferences or desires when compared with voice. Which of the following does Ross suggest may be possible effects of sex online? Answers: Cyberspace becomes a new niche of sexual behavior. There is an expansion of sexual possibilities and partners made available to users. People will feel freer to experiment with alternative sexual experiences in a stigma- ere environment and learn more about themselves. The borders of where we consider ourselves and our bodies may change in unpredictable ways. At least two of our readings this module suggest that the internet provides a space for consequence free exploration of identity. Mr.. Bungle also made this claim. How does Dibbled Judge his comment? He suggests that the â€Å"it’s only play† excuse is available only to newbie’s and sociopaths. Others come to have a closer connection to their online personae. The New York Magazine article suggests that the online adult industry is hurting. What do most in the industry attribute this to? Tube sites and amateur. Module 2- This lecture is an intro about specific parts of pornography. Specifically, rule 34-if it exists there is porn about it. The idea behind Rule 34 is about community, meaning if someone likes a weird porn, odds are there are others that like it too(even if those numbers are small). Within this intro, is also an intro for the topics of future lectures in regards to extreme porn, horror porn, rape porn, snuff and the large variety of different pornographers. Lecture 2- Manipulating Intimacy This lecture starts the discussion about intimacy, and its relation to sex. Sex is arguably the most intimate a human can be with another person, yet online sex manipulates this intimacy. Eric Gong in her book, A Fear of Flying, discusses the idea of the Zippers buck, a pure buck that has no power game, nothing is taken or given, there is no humiliation, and there is nothing to prove. However, the Zippers buck according to Gong is as rare as a unicorn, and begs the question, does it even exist? Sex without intimacy is the main idea of this lecture, and whether or not it’s even possible. Things like swingers clubs, bathhouses (1 5th century) and anonymous sex presented early forms of sex without intimacy, or â€Å"baggage† so to speak. While detached sex is not a product of the internet, it has become a cultural part of it. In terms of anonymous sex, there is not much social consequences as identity remains hidden, whereas actual-biological sex comes with the possibility of disease and such. The internet and things like phone sex allow for users to take on an identity, partake in sexual activity, and leave, whereas an online performer is not anonymous. In summary, the complexity of online sex is tied to identity, and anonymity. Lecture 3- Texts Is text interactive? Yes. In the early days of the internet when images were not possible, text was the main way of communication sexual speak. Coatrooms known as MUD’S and Moon’s, allowed for people to gather in basic chat rooms and talk. These talks could often become sexual in nature, especially with questions like SSL (age, sex, location). Texts is also seen in romance novels for example, and even in sexual fan- fiction known as Slash. Virtual engagement programs like Cork and Elise created bots that could talk, which was then turned into a sexual chatterbox. These early MUD’S and bots paved the way for online sexual communities, Lecture 4- Pictures Online From text, came the first online pictures created using text. Images of a nude picture would be created using type writer, and when connected to a computer, could be shown to others around the web. FTP (file transfer protocol) allowed users to share a file on an FTP server. Users were then able to download and share various images, some scanned from magazines and even some slash fiction. These early FTP servers created early marketplaces for porn, and early porn sharing services (think Egan taking pictures directly for web consumption. But how did people find these sites? The answer was early search engines. Search engines like Google rose to prominence for their ability to cut through massive amounts of porn related searches on the early internet and show users only subjects they wanted to search for. Tags, (thumbnail gallery post) were sort of online magazines, that websites tried to trick Search Engines and users to clicking on, driving traffic to early web pages. Lecture 5- Video Due to the slow download speed of videos, it took a while for videos to hit the internet. Yet, with the increase of bandwidth, small-stamp size videos eventually made their way onto the net. Early programs for video feed (Consume) allowed users to see one another, in slow frame-by-frame speed. With the explosion of the internet in 95†², early WebMD sites like Jenny Cam took off, drawing viewers and eventually money from complete strangers. What started with porn images, moved to videos in the late ass’s as file compression, and the web itself advanced. Lecture 6- Mobile The idea of mobile pornography was not very popular early on. Yet, the mobile phone itself also grew as a result of pornography. Cell phones started with phone sex, and then grew to locative technology (tinder, grind etc). Cell phones allowed social life and internet life to mix, and at the same time created a mobile, private sexual place for people to explore. The gradual growth of mobile technology allowed for connections to be made that were sexual in nature. The main point of this lecture is that phones mixed online sexuality, and social culture. Lecture 7- Community Module 2 Readings: 1 . Fiddle: Indentured Servitude (Gizmo Article)- This article discusses chemicals and how some can make tons of money, and how there make little to no money. It’s easy to get into this industry if you own a computer and are willing to show off your body to anyone willing to pay. Websites like Embraces make it easy for the people who own them to launder money because nobody actually knows where the money goes because it’s hard to track it. 2. Passion: Labors of Love, Network This article talks about the transformation of porn online. There were sex wars in the feminists have said porn identifies women as being subjected to violence. Moral conservatives says it is faith and morally decaying in any social or cultural value. Network refers to pornographers specific to online platforms and networks. This article talks about two very different forms of new porn and amateurism; network and porn on the net. Network refers to a more grassroots pornography movement in â€Å"which online technologies restructure the pornographic, porn on the net refers to the recycling of the same old pornographic images and texts from print media, video, and film on the internet† – Porn on the net also can include â€Å"gone’ porn. Alt porn mature porno are submerges of network: both â€Å"shift roles of porn consumers and producers within the framework of Web 2. † An example of ALT Porn is Suicide Girls. ALT is normally â€Å"soft-core† porn; typically included with â€Å"exhibition of non-standard subculture styles† It is considered the answer against mainstream porn; not Just in esthetics but in the business model used. 3. Rookie: Beyond Key Parties and Wife Swapping 4. Rubber: Getting Started with Sex in Second-Life – This article talks about the gaming website called Second-Life. It is a virtual world in which people can meet anonymously and have cyberspace with each other. Cyberspace can be 100% text based or you can use avatars that you create perform the sex acts.. Members can become anyone they want, selecting enhanced, or different body parts, clothes, hairstyles, and personalities that they wish they had, or simply play with an alter-ego. Members navigate the site much like a game, but this is in order to meet different members. Once you meet and chat with another member, you can engage in virtual sex with that member, and they rarely say no. Second Life sex is a combination of the visual and the verbal. Players strip their avatars down to their cyber skin, use pose balls (those floating orbs placed in romantic areas throughout he virtual world) to animate them into various sex acts, and keep up with the whole thing in IM. There’s even a third option: climbable body parts attached to the avatars. These nipples, slits, penises, etc. Can be â€Å"touched† Just by clicking on them. Since the parts monitor the avatar’s â€Å"arousal,† avatars can even orgasm this way. 5. Sutherland: Journalist or Panderer? This article talks about the online threat of websites used by minors. In the article the boy Justine Berry who was 13 at the time when got his first WebMD in which he was lured by sexual predators into striping, touching himself while they watched. How to cite Sex Online, Papers

Critical Analysis of Women’s Representation free essay sample

Through the interpretation of texts, and subsequent creation of social reality, mediated representations are often seen to be presented within the certain of ideological discourses that reflect the existing power structures. The main objective of this paper is to analyze television commercials with an emphasis on gender roles to decode the main elements of a dominant discourse (preferred readings) and representation mechanisms; and the elements relationships with ideology, hegemony and power relations in reproducing a dominant discourse. Grounded in an interdisciplinary theoretical framework of cultural studies and critical studies perspectives, the two-layer analysis is used in this paper – a semiotic and critical discourse analysis of television commercials with an emphasize on gender roles and ideology. The results demonstrate that the TV advertisements selected in this paper represent dominant gender relations and reproduce traditional values. Furthermore, these representations illustrate a contradiction between society and media in gender roles. Keywords TV advertisements. Representation of women. Gender roles. Critical discourse analysis. Ideology. 1 Ali Hajimohammadi PhD Candidate, Cultural and Media Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran, PO Box 773/14395, Jalal Al e Ahmad AVE, Tehran, Iran. e-mail: [emailprotected] com Published Online: 15 January 2011 108 Introduction The research is placed within the cultural studies perspective that assumes an intertwined relationship between the production and reproduction of symbolic meanings and actualized meanings. From a cultural studies perspective, the study of womens representation in mainstream television advertisements with emphasize on gender roles is embraced. Media has an important role in representation of different groups in a society, but television, as the most popular medium, plays a significant role in representing and shaping attitudes. Advertising, as one of the television genres, is a prominent discourse type in virtually all contemporary societies (Cook, 2005). In addition to information regarding services and products, it constructs a secondary discourse about society and power relations. Gender relations are one of the secondary discourses that advertisements construct. The image of woman and man in media, particularly in television, is essential for the understanding of social practices, social interactions and ideology. Therefore, advertising has an important role in the representation of gender in a society. Advertising, as a powerful force, often reflects and enhances the social ideologies that it selectively endorses. At the same time, advertising is a cultural environment challenged by ideological discourses in the society and is constantly evolving in response to the shifting power relations between social groups. In addition, advertising considered as a cultural form and discourse is a site in which different subjectivities struggle to impose or challenge, to confirm, negotiate or displace definitions and identities† (Gledhill, 1988, p. 72). On the other hand, representations are directly associated with collective meanings, power relations, status hierarchies, resistance, alliances or conflicts that may exist in the public sphere. Thus, it is a common belief among scholars that the representation of gender relations actually reflects the social, cultural, political and economic values of the society (Dines Humez, 1994; Gauntlett, 2002). Recent studies in relevant literature have illustrated that the present systems of mass communication express to a considerable extent gender representations of the dominant Published Online: 15 January 2011 09 patriarchal ideology (Brunsdon, 2000; Shattuc, 1997). Accordingly, television programs mirror dominant gender relations and patriarchal values that still remain in post-modern societies (Van Dijk, 1993). Representation of women in the media, especially television, is an important issue in social communication and cultural studies, since media has an important role in communities. Media typically carries dominant values, cultural elements, and dominant ideology in any society. In Iran, despite changes in the representation of women in television, dominant discourse in advertising is evident, thus challenging the dominant regimes of representation should be considered. Utilizing a critical approach, the mainstream television commercials represent women and gender roles is going to be investigated. This study also aims to explore the intersections of gender and ideology that are embedded in television advertising. Research Approach Cultural studies have linked communication, consumption and cultural transformation to identity through the analysis of both media texts and living experiences (Muhammad, 2003). In terms of method, the cultural studies perspective raises questions that emphasize qualitative and interdisciplinary modes of investigation. In this paper, critical discourse analysis is used as a linguistic tool in cultural studies. According to the purpose of this study, the following research questions serve as the guidelines for analyzing the advertisements: How are women represented in television commercials? What are the common mechanisms in presenting female characters in television How do television commercials conceptualize women in relation to the dominant What are the socio-cultural mechanisms and ideologies that play a role in How does the dominant discourse become naturalized in television commercials? commercials? male culture and for what reason? shaping these representations? To answer these research questions, a qualitative analysis method is used. A ajor criticism against quantitative research on the evaluation of gender roles focuses on this aspect that statistical content analysis usually describe the visual elements of audiovisuals, easily recognizable and clearly measurable factors but do not provide an in-depth reasoning about the hidden ideologies and the social interaction of the production procedures (Norenee, 1977). Furthermore, quantitative analyses usually do not investigate advertising as an intermediary system between economy, culture and society (Pazarzi Tsangaris, 2008). In this respect, a qualitative study is conducted – a textual analysis that studies all the elements in which femininity is conceived, constructed and projected in society through three TV commercials. Textual analysis has been widely used within the cultural studies to uncover the preferred meanings encoded in a text. Specifically, this textual analysis is intended to show how ideology and meanings are accepted and conceptualized by TV commercials to define a woman (or man) in mediated culture. This is especially true in the analysis of TV advertising because textual analysis often deals with a relative smaller number of texts, but seeks to get into the beneath of the surface, the denotative meanings, to examine more implicit, connotative, and symbolic meanings, through the researcher? s interpretation rather than systematic measuring. By uncovering the connotative meanings and the deeper social and marketing ideologies shaping these images and messages, one can reach to this understanding of how women are being represented and gender roles constructed and ideology enacted in advertisement. The critical discourse analysis not only concentrates on visual issues and constructing meanings, but it also focuses on the question of how these meanings reflect or support the dominant patriarchal ideology and naturalization of dominant discourse in the society. As mentioned earlier, commercial advertisements are cultural phenomena in the society. Different methods are used to study cultural phenomena, but cultural studies Published Online: 15 January 2011 111 like other qualitative forms of sociological inquiry, inevitably emphasize on â€Å"circle of meaning† which is inspired by Derrida (1979) and Laclau and Moufee (1985). For these thinkers, nothing exists outside of discourse; and race, gender, nationality and class are discursive. Consequently, â€Å"semiotic approach cannot explore their strategies. In semiotic approach, representation was understood on the basis of the ways words functioned as signs within language, but in a culture, meaning often depends on longer units of analysis – narratives, statements, group of images, the whole discourses which have acquired widespread authority. Therefore â€Å"semiotics seemed to confine the processes of representation to the language and to treat it as a closed, rather static system† (Hall, 2003, p. 2). It is the fundamental basic of development from semiotics to metatextual analysis. Subsequent developments became more concerned with representation as a source of production of social knowledge and power relation that led to critical discourse analysis and its different approaches. Considering the main vocabulary and purpose of critical discourse analysis (Van Dijk, 2003) and the formations of cultural studies (Barker, 2003), it can be concluded that gender and representation are the main areas of critical discourse analysis and cultural studies. In other words, they are the shared subject of many researches in these fields. Since approaches of critical discourse analysis are complicated and numerous, and cultural fields also involve a vast part of the community, explaining the interaction between methods of discourse analysis and cultural studies in a brief article like this is not possible. Therefore, the focus is going to be on a certain approach of critical discourse analysis to achieve a clear and perfect vision of cultural phenomena. As mentioned above, the analysis of representation should go beyond the semiotic approach to provide a more complete analysis. The analysis of gender representation has to go beyond semiotics approach and utilize a discourse approach. Laclau and Mufee? s (1985) approach is the appropriate theoretical framework of analyzing text for the whole discourses embedded in advertising about gender roles and its discourses. Published Online: 15 January 2011 112 Explanation of the theoretical principles of Laclau and Mouffe? s (1985) theory and utilizing it as the method of analysis is not impossible here. This theory is primarily based on Foucauldian interpretation and manifesto of macro semantic system. It helps researchers to identify discursive distinction and antagonism among discourses and floating signifiers to determine what discourses they produce and which discourses are highlighted or marginalized. Questions like whether it also demonstrates the interaction of them over the definition of signifiers, or how television advertisements, according to this theory, reinforce and reproduce the dominant discourse and dominant patriarchal system. Hence, the two-layer analysis is used in this paper – a semiotics and critical discourse analysis of television commercials. Grounded in an interdisciplinary theoretical framework of cultural studies and critical studies perspectives, the present research can contribute to the current understanding of how TV commercials represent women and how the dominant male discourse becomes naturalized. The common advertising strategies targeting gender roles are examined to illuminate how gender roles are encoded in TV advertising texts, how woman is defined through consumption ideologies, and how advertising constructs subjective positions. Therefore, a detailed analysis of advertising representations of women and the preferred meanings in advertising are presented. Sampling The main sampling method in this paper is purposive sampling, the most common sampling method in qualitative research (Creswell, 2007). The purposive sampling approach is used when samples are chosen because they have particular features of characteristics that will enable detailed exploration and understanding of the central questions that the researcher intends to study,