{"id":408,"date":"2013-10-03T06:04:07","date_gmt":"2013-10-03T10:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/e2mc\/?page_id=408"},"modified":"2015-09-13T19:09:32","modified_gmt":"2015-09-13T23:09:32","slug":"glossary-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/e2mc\/glossary-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Glossary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Both the Media Ecologies course and the book Ecologies of the Moving Image<\/em> (henceforth, EMI<\/em>) use a variety of terms from different subject areas. (The book invents several of its own as well.) The following is a glossary of some of these terms. It is partial, and more terms will be added.<\/p>\n

Anthropomorphism<\/b><\/span> \u2013 literally, \u201ctaking the form of the human.\u201d In regular usage, this refers to the depiction or characterization of something nonhuman as if it were human; for instance, in the film Bambi<\/i> the deer that is its main character, in being shown speaking and generally behaving like a human child, is anthropomorphized. In EMI<\/em>, this term is used differently: it refers to the way in which human-like agents \u2013 and human-like agency \u2013 are produced or \u201cgiven life\u201d in a film; so this refers to the way in which an idea of \u201chumanity\u201d is defined and delimited.<\/p>\n

Anthropocentrism<\/b><\/span> \u2013 the belief or ideology that assumes that humanity is more valuable than other organisms or species; the view that humanity is at the center of the \u2018moral universe.\u2019<\/p>\n

Biocentrism<\/b><\/span> \u2013 the view that all living things deserve equal moral recognition.<\/p>\n

Biomorphism<\/b><\/span> \u2013 literally, \u201ctaking the form of life (or the alive).\u201d In EMI<\/em>, this term refers to the way in which a lifelike, dynamic and relational liveliness is produced by a film, such that the things shown to be lively in this way are not clearly human agents nor physical objects, but something in between, something that \u201celudes capture\u201d by the human\/natural binary.<\/p>\n

Brechtian \u2018distanciation\u2019 or \u2018alienation\u2019 techniques<\/b> <\/span>\u2013 Bertold Brecht was a playwright and dramatist who influenced certain filmmakers. The techniques he developed were intended to make people stop and think<\/i> and remember that they\u2019re watching a play (or a film<\/i>). For instance, if you\u2019re watching a normal film and then suddenly the film camera moves into the picture, or the actor looks directly at the camera and says \u201cWhat about you? What have you done about [x]?\u201d That breaks up the narrative flow \u2013 the intent is to stop both the \u2018spectacle\u2019 and the \u2018narrative\u2019 and to make you think \u2018exo-referentially.\u2019 But if this technique is used a lot, it doesn\u2019t do that \u2013 it just becomes a stylistic gesture by the filmmaker and we recognize it as \u201cthe kind of thing that X (e.g., Michael Moore, Quentin Tarantino, Jean-Luc Godard) would do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discourse<\/b><\/span> \u2013 a structured system of linguistic meanings and codes, governed by rules and conventions. E.g., the \u2018discourse of terrorism\u2019 defines a particular phenomenon (\u2018terrorism\u2019), specifies what is and what is not part of it, provides value judgments (\u2018evil\u2019) and responses toward it (\u2018stamp it out\u2019), etc. An alternative discourse applied to the same phenomenon might be that of \u2018liberation struggle\u2019 or \u2018freedom fighters.\u2019<\/p>\n

Ecocentrism<\/b><\/span> \u2013 the view that living communities (ecosystems, et al.) deserve primary moral recognition.<\/p>\n

Epistemology<\/b><\/span> \u2013 the study of how we know things; an account of what constitutes real knowledge and what does not, in a given situation.<\/p>\n

Exoreferentiality<\/b><\/span> \u2013 reference to things outside the boundaries of the film-world. I use this to refer to the different forms of filmic \u2018thirdness,\u2019 i.e., the ways in which meanings are generated when a viewer\u2019s previous knowledge, memories, and experiences are connected to what that viewer is seeing.<\/p>\n

Gaze<\/b><\/span> \u2013 term used to refer to various ways of looking encompassed within the visual arts, such as the spectatorial<\/i> gaze (audience members\u2019 gaze, uninvolved, outsider\u2019s gaze), intra-diegetic<\/i> (gaze within the portrayed scene) and extra-di<\/i>egetic gaze (gaze out of the portrayed scene, as when a character in a film looks toward the camera), direct<\/i> and indirect<\/i> gaze, and others. Various critiques have been developed to describe the effects of certain \u2018ways of looking\u2019; for instance, the imperial<\/i> or colonial gaze<\/i> is said to encompass certain ways of displaying (for the gaze) objects that are thereby subjected to colonial or imperial control by one who has power over those objects.<\/p>\n

Geomorphism<\/b><\/span> \u2013 literally, \u201ctaking the form of the physical, material, or earthly.\u201d In EMI<\/em>, this term refers to the way in which a physical, material, and basically nonliving or non-agential \u201cbackground world\u201d is produced as part of the world depicted in the film.<\/p>\n

Hegemony<\/b><\/span> \u2013 \u2018A conflictual process of everyday, lived practices that constitute, renew, and alter a culture\u2019s shared reality, its common sense.\u2019 A \u2018moving equilibrium\u2019 of generally accepted understandings (about politics, economics, social relations, the relationship between humans and nature, etc.), shaped in and through processes of articulation (the putting forward of meanings, embodied in images, narratives, discourses) by different social groups. Hegemony \u2018implies a willing agreement by people to be governed by principles, rules, and laws they believe operate in their best interests, though in actual practice they may not.\u2019<\/p>\n

Heteroglossia<\/b><\/span> \u2013 many-voicedness; containing a multiplicity of voices or perspectives (adj: heteroglossic);\u00a0opposite of monologism<\/i>\u00a0<\/i>or univocity<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Interpellation<\/b><\/span> \u2013 the process by which a particular kind of \u2018subject position\u2019 (e.g., \u2018concerned citizen,\u2019 \u2018responsible parent,\u2019 et al.) is constituted through a text or discourse; i.e., the text is directed to or \u2018hails\u2019 a reader or subject, providing a certain position into which that reader can insert him or herself.<\/p>\n

Interpretive community<\/b><\/span> \u2013 a subset of society that shares a particular way of interpreting and understanding something.<\/p>\n

Metaphor<\/b><\/span> \u2013 use of one thing to denote another because of some resemblance between them; e.g., \u2018He is a fox\u2019 (meaning: he is sly).<\/p>\n

Metonomy<\/b><\/span> \u2013 use of one thing to refer to another because the first is significantly associated with the second; e.g. when the word \u2018crown\u2019 is used to mean \u2018the king.\u2019<\/p>\n

Ontology<\/b><\/span> \u2013 the study of what there is; an account of what is real in the universe (and what is not real, and why they are real or unreal).<\/p>\n

Phenomenology<\/b><\/span> \u2013 the study of the way things appear to us; an account of the experience of phenomena as they appear to us. The phenomenological movement in philosophy included Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and many others. C. S. Peirce referred to his brand of phenomenology as “phaneroscopy,” meaning the study of the “phaneron,” or of the appearance of things. (No one else uses that word.)\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Polysemy<\/b><\/span> \u2013 openness to multiple meanings or interpretations (adjective: polysemic<\/i>)<\/p>\n

Profilmic<\/b><\/span> \u2013 preceding the filming; the world (e.g., a place or setting) before it was shot by camera and turned into film footage.<\/p>\n

S\u00adign<\/b><\/span> \u2013 anything that represents something else; something that carries a meaning.<\/p>\n

Signification<\/b><\/span> \u2013 the process by which things (e.g., words) mean.<\/i><\/p>\n

Signified<\/b><\/span> \u2013 that which is meant by a sign (see signifier<\/i>). E.g., the three-letter word \u2018cat\u2019 is a signifier<\/i>; a particular kind of furry, four-legged critter is its signified<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Signifier<\/b><\/span> \u2013 the sign that means something. See signified<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Synecdoche<\/b><\/span> \u2013 use of a part or element of something to stand for the whole thing (e.g., when the New York City skyline or the World Trade Centre stands for the whole city of New York), or vice versa, use of the whole to stand for the part.<\/p>\n

Umwelt<\/b><\/span> (German \u201csurrounding world\u201d or \u201cperceptual world\u201d, a term popularized by biologist Jakob von Uexkull) \u2013 the \u201cbubble of meanings\u201d in which an organism lives. For instance, a frog only perceives certain things: rapid changes of light\/darkness, rapid movements of large or small objects in its field of vision, rapid changes of temperature, etc. These things make up its perceptual world or its \u201cUmwelt.\u201d Other things \u201caren\u2019t there\u201d for it. The Umwelt is the collection of meanings (signs from the world that mean things) that an organism dwells in.<\/p>\n

Univocity<\/b><\/span> \u2013 carrying only one voice; meaning only one thing (adj: univocal<\/i>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Both the Media Ecologies course and the book Ecologies of the Moving Image (henceforth, EMI) use a variety of terms from different subject areas. (The book invents several of its own as well.) The following is a glossary of some … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-408","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/e2mc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/e2mc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/e2mc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/e2mc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/e2mc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/e2mc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":530,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/e2mc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/408\/revisions\/530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/e2mc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}