Social Media Essay Example Pdf - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 7 Words: 2143 Downloads: 9 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Literature Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? Discuss Barthes essay with reference to social media In his seminal essay The Death of the Author, Barthes (1977) challenged the world of orthodox literary criticism by claiming that its obsession with distilling the truth of an authors intentions from his works is futile. The act of writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin (Barthes, 1977, p. 142). Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Social Media Essay Example Pdf" essay for you Create order The authors aims and motives are obscured by the duplicity of language: not only is language inadequate to express the authors inner world, but language also skews the readers interpretation of the work. Language is a complex network of cultural codes and associations over which the author has no control. Yet, the notion of authorship is not confined to literature. In this essay, I shall be examining how Barthes ideas apply to Facebook, a social media website. Here, users create Facebook pages, which are in effect mini-autobiographies that they update with news, photos, biographical details etc. Users are also able to make friends, i.e. to subscribe for updates from other users pages, and to comment on these updates. Facebook is then a vast network of individuals who are both authors of their own pages and readers cum critics of their friends pages. Moreover, not only is communication between author and reader mediated via language, it is also restricted by the Facebook software, which as shall be seen, permits only certain kinds of expression on the part of the author. This essay is structured as follows. Firstly, I will review Barthes essay in more depth, emphasizing the issues relevant to my study. Secondly, I will consider how Facebook mediates between author and reader, providing a cultural template through which an individuals biography is filtered. Finally, I will consider how Facebook alienates users in the manner envisaged by Barthes in his essay. According to Barthes, it is the identity of the author that is paramount for the literary critic: the work is tyrannically centred on the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his passions (Barthes, 1977, p. 143). The responsibility for meaning, for the truth of the work, as well as its success or failure, is placed squarely on the authors shoulders. The work of literary criticism is to enlighten the readership as to the authors motives by invoking their personal biography: Van Goghs genius is at tributed to his madness, Tchaikovskys to his alcoholism and Baudelaires to his failure (ib.) as a man. Yet, Barthes maintained that the medium of language interferes with the process of writing, such that an author necessarily relinquishes control over the manner in which his work is interpreted. Influenced by contemporary advances in linguistics, Barthes claimed that language knows a subject not a person (Barthes, 1977, p. 145). The subject, or author, of the work is not an individual. In other words, the author as individual with a biography, emotions and intentions is invisible to the reader. Rather, they see the subject, an empty construct, an abstraction formed by the words on the page. This subject is empty outside the enunciation which defines it (ib.): it is the work that calls the subject into being and the subject is entirely dependent on the work. The authors true identity has been hollowed out due to the alienating effects of language and has been replaced by the subj ect, a mere place-marker holding language together. Language, argues Barthes, has this alienating effect since a text is nothing more than a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture (Barthes, 1977, p. 146). An authors words, and the manner in which he utilizes them, are not the authors own but are drawn from a huge cultural reservoir of previous texts. A phrase elicits a culturally determined meaning, provoking a myriad of contextual associations giving the text a life of its own, constantly displacing its meaning even further from the authors intentions. Attempting to pin down meaning is futile since no text was ever written in a vacuum; the cultural landscape has no origin, no founding text that would guarantee all meaning. Rather, the origin is language itself, which ceaselessly calls into question all origins (Barthes, 1977, p. 146). The author is then doubly deceived by language. Firstly, language does not belong to the author. It is an alien pre sence that inhabits him and that enforces a culturally dependent mode of expression. The author can never perfectly capture his inner experience through language, as there is always some part of that experience that evades capture through words. Rather, he evokes the subject, his avatar, as seen through the lens of language. The authors true identity, if indeed there is a truth of his existence, will always elude the reader and in fact, himself. Secondly, the reader also has this alienating relationship with language. The meaning of a text, as supposed by the reader, is coloured by their cultural context. The author, in allowing his work to be read, relinquishes control over how it is received by his audience. They will draw their own conclusions, make their own associations and interpretations which depend on the immense dictionary (Barthes, 1977, p. 147) of cultural references that they have at their disposal. Thus, the reader imagines the author as a subject, a construct of th eir own conception of language. This subject differs not only from reader to reader, but temporally, being reconstructed every time a particular reader approaches the same text. Any attempt to attribute a works success or failure to a particular author is fruitless. When a critic examines and re-examines a text, they are merely reconstructing their own conception of the author as subject, which can never coincide with the authors conception, let alone his true identity. Asking an author to explain a text merely creates another text with another subject, and the game begins again. The author is effectively powerlessà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ responsibility for a texts interpretation is passed to the reader. There is no ultimate meaning: In the multiplicity of writing everything is to be disentangled, nothing deciphered (Barthes, 1977, p. 148). Yet the effects of language are not disproportionately visited upon the author. According to Barthes, languages alienating effects apply equally to the reader. The reader is without history, biography, psychology (Barthes, 1977, p. 148), an impersonal destination (ib.) for the authors work. The readers role is to hold the text together, to create a unity from the cultural codes that make up the text. In other words, the authors relationship with the reader cannot be personal: they can make no assumptions about the readers identity because the reader, in the process of reading, is also an abstraction evoked by the text. By symmetry, both author and reader, as represented by the text, are subjects. Barthes textual examples in Death of the Author (1977) are not limited to literary texts: as mentioned previously he uses the music of Tchaikovsky and the work of Van Gogh as illustrations of his thesis. Indeed, Barthes never limited his analysis to so-called high culture: in his book Mythologies (Barthes, 1972) he deconstructs the cultural meanings of, for example, advertisements and films. Facebook is therefore an entirely appr opriate medium for a Barthesian analysis. First, however, I will examine what is meant by a text in Facebook, and nature of the cultural codes peculiar to it. Facebook can be viewed as a form of relational biography (Richardson Hessey, 2009). Users update their biographies by adding essentially static information (date of birth, education etc.) as well as time-dependent data about their feelings, social commitments etc. This data can be annotated by other users in the form of comments. The user in essence constructs a timeline which amounts to a somewhat haphazard diary of their inner life and social relations. This timeline can be read by the user and, within certain restrictions, the users friends. It therefore amounts to a text, from which an interpretation of the author-as-subject is constructed in the readers mind. Facebook updates can take written form, which is subject to the constraints of language and alienating to both author and reader as demonstrated earlier. Yet, the architecture of Facebook is such that further restrictions are imposed on the author. One example of this is the like button. A user demonstrates his or her preferences by liking other users comments or updates. Yet, this restricts the users reaction to mere approval. This has led some users to call for a dislike button, or a range of options to indicate, for example, humour or sadness (Guynn, 2015) in response to an update. Such an innovation would, however, still place a limit on the users reaction. Facebook texts are therefore subject to a far more restrictive cultural template than literary texts. The Facebook user-author is potentially alienated as a subject to a greater extent than the author of a literary text. However, such alienation appears to be exactly what users of Facebook want. Das and Kramer (2013) note that a large proportion of users (over 70%) practice self-censorship. That is, they manipulate both the data they post to Facebook and their reactions to othe r users activities, in an attempt to create an idealized autobiography. They might attempt to post only positive updates in order to seem optimistic, or they might like other users posts in order to appear friendly. In Barthesian terms, they are manipulating the language of Facebook in an attempt to manifest themselves as an ideal subject. The Facebook author is not only dead, but the cause of death appears to be suicide. Unfortunately, as Barthes predicts, such an exercise is futile. The restrictive cultural code inscribed in the apparatus of Facebook leads to far greater opportunity for the reader to misunderstand the user-author. Such misunderstandings can lead to flame warsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ heated comment exchanges between usersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ or in extreme cases unfriending (the revoking of the right of another user to read ones Facebook page). This had led to the publication of numerous books on Facebook etiquette that document the possible ways in which such misunderstan dings occur and provide tips on how to avoid these situations (see e.g. Awl (2011)). However, such rules of etiquette serve only to narrow the options a user has for self-expression, leading to further alienation. These cases serve to illustrate Barthes claim that the reader is without history, biography, psychology (Barthes, 1977, p. 148), an abstract concept emptied of intention and affect. When a user-author makes an update on Facebook, they make certain assumptions about the reader and how they will react, and tailor the update to such a reader. Yet, these assumptions are not necessarily transmitted to the readership, each of whom infers their own reader-subject from the text. An example is the relationship status: a user can define themselves as single, married, in a complicated relationship etc., and a complex etiquette has arisen to prevent misunderstandings of this status (Suddath, 2009). For example, the author might set their relationship status to complicated and assum e readers will interpret this as difficult and view it fairly neutrally. However, the authors partner might interpret it in an entirely different fashionà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ as an open relationship, perhapsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ and have a negative reaction. The author and their partner each invest the reader of the text with a different identity: the reader-subject of the text is an abstract concept, given flesh by the individual reactions of the texts consumers. In conclusion, I have examined the phenomenon of Facebook from the perspective of Barthes essay, The Death of the Author (1977). I have argued, not only that the Facebook author is dead in the sense that their identity cannot be inferred from their text, but that Facebook architecture and the self-censorship of its participants lead to a greater alienation of the author from their text than that achieved in a purely literary context. Moreover, I have demonstrated that this alienation applies both to the author and the reader of the text. Not only is the censorship practised by user-authors with the aim of creating an idealized self-image counterproductive, but the message the user-readers receive about their identity is equally alienating. Since Facebook authors are at the same time readers, this leads to a double alienation that Barthes had not anticipated when he wrote his essay. Bibliography Awl, D. (2011). Facebook Me! A Guide to Socializing, Sharing, and Promoting on Facebook. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press. Barry, D. (2012). How To Facebook The No Nonsense Guide To Using Facebook. UK: KernowWeb. Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies. New York: The Noonday Press. Barthes, R. (1977). The Death of the Author. In R. Barthes, Image, Music, Text (pp. 142-148). London: Fontana Press. Das, S., Kramer, A. (2013). Self-Censorship on Facebook. San Diego: Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. Guynn, J. (2015). USA Today. Retrieved October 19, 2015, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/10/08/facebook-reactions-emotions-like-button-dislike/73574704/ Richardson, K., Hessey, S. (2009). Archiving the self? Facebook as biography of social and relational memory. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 7(1), 25-38. Suddath, C. (2009). Your Facebook Relationship Status: Its Complicated. Retrieved October 19, 2015, from Time: https://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1895694,00.html

The Elephant as a Symbol for Imperialism in Shooting an...

In â€Å"Shooting an Elephant,† Orwell retold an occasion where he was struggling to come to a final decision of whether to shoot the elephant or not. With his final decision, the elephant finally lay dying in front of thousands of people. He said that he was forced to shoot it because the Burmese people were expecting him to do that. In addition, he also explained that he had to do it â€Å"to avoid looking like a fool† in front of the crowd (14). At first glance, one would think that it makes sense for him to kill the elephant to save his face, but that was not the case. He effectively uses this incident to demonstrate the â€Å"real nature of imperialism† (3), whereas the elephant represents the British Empire. Orwell was ambivalent about†¦show more content†¦Upon seeing the rifle, a huge crowd started to follow him. He had no intention to kill the elephant. However, the crowd was expecting him to shoot it. They did not want to kill it because it had destroyed the bazaar, but rather to enjoy the fun and to get the elephant meat. The crowd’s expectation leaves Orwell no choice but to shoot the elephant. He points out that he had to shoot it to â€Å"impress the ‘natives’† (7). If he had not done it, the crowd would have laugh at him, and it would hurt his pride as a white man living in the East. In the end, he decided to trigger the gun and shot the elephant. The elephant, in this case, represent imperialism. Orwell, being in the middle of imperialism and the Burmese people, did not want to destroy imperialism in the first place even though he does not like the way it treated the innocent Burmese people. However, seeing the elephant destroying Burmese’s homes and lives, he finally realized what imperialism had done to the people of Burma. The Indian man who died represent the fact that Burmese people are weak against the British; they are poor and have neither strength nor â€Å"the gut to raise a riot† (1) against imperialism regardless of how much they hated it. Even though he did not kill imperialism like the way he did to the elephant, he believes that it will be destroy one day for the evil thing that they had done. As illustrated by Orwell,Show MoreRelated George Orwells Shooting an Elephant as an Attack on Colonialism and Imperialism842 Words   |  4 PagesGeorge Orwells Shooting an Elephant as an Attack on Colonialism and Imperialism    The glorious days of the imperial giants have passed, marking the death of the infamous and grandiose era of imperialism. George Orwells essay, Shooting an Elephant, deals with the evils of imperialism. The unjust shooting of an elephant in Orwells story is the central focus from which Orwell builds his argument through the two dominant characters, the elephant and its executioner. 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What Were Several Staple Crops in the Carolinas Free Essays

What were several staple crops in the Carolinas, grown by the slaves? How did this crop affect their cuisine? When the slaves were being transported to the new world they brought with them native African foods to eat along the journey. They also brought with them many customs and cooking techniques that were not yet used in the Americas. The introduction of these crops proved to be a major influence in what we now called Southern cuisine or soul food. We will write a custom essay sample on What Were Several Staple Crops in the Carolinas or any similar topic only for you Order Now Rice is the major staple of slave cuisine. It is said that the rice originally came from seeds directly imported from Madagascar in 1685. Africans were familiar with the growing and cultivating of rice and taught their â€Å"owners† how to grow it as well. The rice fields were cultivated on tidal swamp lands along coastal rivers. Slaves cleared these low-lying land and build canals, dikes and small floodgates that allowed the flooding and drainage of the fields. Peanuts were originally from South America, but made their way to Africa via trade then eventually made their way to America on the slave ships. Slaves used peanuts in several different ways including making peanut pie and peanut soup. They also used to boil the peanuts in salt and spices and eaten soggy, this was a great source of nutrition. This dish is still widely consumed today. The use of the peanut was not limited to just the slaves; in fact George Washington Carver researched this product in depth. He discovered over 300 possible uses for the peanut including Jersey Milk, instant coffee, flour, synthetic rubber and linoleum. It was also discovered that rubbing peanut oil on aching muscles will help them rejuvenate more quickly. Okra was another staple crop grown and consumed mostly by slaves at first but then made it’s way, as many other foods, into the white man’s diet. Okra or gumbo as it’s called in Africa made its way to America via the transatlantic slave trade in the 1600s. The most popular dish that is made from Okra is Gumbo, a stew in which okra is the main ingredient and is thickened with powder from sassafras leaves. The seeds were also used to make a coffee substitute and for some medicinal purposes including softening ointments. African food traditions contributed greatly to the culinary cuisine of America. Southern cooking and soul food became a cultural and culinary experience in which both black and white Americans contributed to. Works Cited Opala, Joseph. â€Å"South Carolina Rice Plantations. † South Carolina Rice Plantations. N. p. , n. d. Web. 26 Oct. 2012. lt;http://www. yale. edu/glc/gullah/02. htmgt;. â€Å"- SlaveRebellion. org. † – SlaveRebellion. org. N. p. , n. d. Web. 27 Oct. 2012. lt;http://slaverebellion. org/index. php? page=african-contribution-to-american-culturegt;. How to cite What Were Several Staple Crops in the Carolinas, Papers

Getting Down to Business free essay sample

Look! Look at what I can do! These proud words left my mouth with every picture I drew, be it purple unicorns or orange bunnies. Napkins, envelopes, and toilet paper anything remotely related to paper were at the mercy of my almighty crayon. And woe to my poor father who left me alone with a canvas of a newly painted white wall. While all my fellow peers talked about being world renowned astronauts and wrestlers, I graced them with a quick nod and tended to my most recent masterpiece. It wasnt like I never thought about being an astronaut or a wrestler because I actually considered both. My passion for creation was just so great that not even the promise of rocket ships and spandex could sway me. When I entered elementary school, all of the responsibilities of being a six year old blocked my ever flowing imagination. I now had to learn that adding two pennies to three pennies meant that there were five pennies and its wrong to place a period in the middle of a sentence. We will write a custom essay sample on Getting Down to Business or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Long gone were the days of my hourly scribbling ritual. I had to part with my beloved crayon to make room for this so-called schooling. Despite this, the beast of artistic creationism was still roaring inside of me. High school was the time when I officially became involved with art in the form of extracurricular classes. It wasnt until a few years ago when inspiration smacked me straight across the face. Every year, my family holds an annual get together, hosted by the winner of drawing straws. It so happened that the Goddess of Luck shined brightly upon my aunt during our nations 228th birthday. While preparing for the American feast of charcoaled cow patties and fried potatoes, I saw a burly man covered in dirt walking around the house. I later learned the strange man was my aunts gardener. Of course, that job title was a bit less than impressive, but when coupled with his graduate degree from Cornells business program, it didnt seem quite so lowbrow. In that instant, I saw how he was able to use business as a means to pursue his love of gardening. Therefore, why couldnt I do the same? I had found the key to unleashing the beast. So, in twenty years, with my crayon in one hand and my companys business plans in the other, I want to be able to say, Look! Look at what I did!