Short Paper 1: The Dumbest Generation, Semiotic Analysis

Short Paper #1: Semiotic Analysis of a Website

About

Mark Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory University and has worked as a Director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversaw studies about culture and American life [1].

The primary claims of Mark Bauerlein – The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30)

As you skim through the website fronting Mark Bauerlein’s book, you are introduced to the statements he so eagerly wants to depict. The introduction of ICT (information and communication technology) was supposed to enlighten us, and to be used as a tool for us to evolve mentally as human beings. But, if you believe Bauerlein, it has done just the opposite. He believes that these new forms of medium is rather distracting, than enriching, young minds. As he says in a CNN debate: “… the internet has the potential to be a fantastic, miraculous knowledge and taste inducing activity, but when you look at most teenagers what they are going to do … they are going to care about what most teenagers wants to care about; other teenagers”[2]. He further goes on telling that nine out of the ten most famous websites are for social networking, and not for websites related to museums etc, underlining the fact that we get abashed from learning “important” things.

If these statements are true or not are not mine to tell, and is up to the reader to decide. I will in this assignment focus on conducting a semiotic analysis of how this website, focusing mainly on the welcome page, is built to supplement Bauerlein’s book, addressing some aspect of digital culture. (Before you read the text further, it might be wise to look at the definitions of the technical terms in the attachment).

How each mode operates as a semiotic resource.

Intratextuality

The first thing that you probably notice when entering the website, is the horrible colour and letter changing text at the top. It is annoying and distracting you from enjoying the rest of the page. How might this be relating to the meaning system of the website? The site has multimodal signs that work together to produce meaning. Above the changing text it says: “50 million minds Diverted, Distracted, Devoured”, referring to the young minds of the U.S.A. Bauerlein says that new media is distracting people from important educational activities, such as reading literature. People “are spending so much time engaged in digital electronic activities that they are losing the capacity to sit quietly in a room by themselves and read a book” [4]. the changing text, distracting us from watching the picture of the cover of the book is therefore an intratextuality, depicting exactly this.

Colour connotation and rhetoric

There is a lot to say about the cover of the book in itself. The colour of the word dumbest is dark red, which makes it stand out from the rest of the heading, and really heats the word up. Dark red is also a colour connotation for warning and danger [5], indicating that Bauerlein wants to bring to our attention that we have something to worry about. The use of a word ending with ‘est, is a rhetorical way of intensifying it, underlining in an exaggerated way the importance for us to take notice. “Never have American students had it so easy, and never have they achieved less”. [6]

Intertextuality, metonym and metaphor

In front of the word dumbest, there are three transformers figures, holding up an American flag. A flag is often seen as a symbol of a nation, and the picture is therefore a metonym of what kind of people that are going to be carrying the nation in the years to come; toy figures. This picture is also an intertextuality of Raising the flag on Iwo Jima by Joe Rosenthal. The reason for him to use this intertextuality is to show the difference between young adults who were alive during World War II, and young adults living now. The people living in the 1940’s had to fight and defend their country in a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world’s nations. Many young adults living today are also taking part in a war across nations, but a fictional one. They play social network games such as World of Warcraft, where they fight not for their country, but for themselves. This is therefore a metaphor, where as opposed to the real heroes during WWII, young adults today are simply toy soldiers. “As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.”[7] They live in more of an artificial reality, facing many of their everyday problems and amusements through the internet.

The use of the transformers figures also has an additional meaning; after the advent of ICT, humans have been transformed into lesser knowledgeable beings. “From 1992 to 2002, the gender gap in reading by young adults widened considerably. In overall book reading, young women slipped from 63 percent to 59 percent, while young men plummeted from 55 percent to 43 percent.” [8] “If Americans were reading at the same rate today as they were in 1982, we would have twenty million more people reading a single poem, short story, or novel in a given year”.[9] We are the dumbest generation, being an intertextuality to the greatest generation, an expression coined by Tom Brokaw. The greatest generation is referring to people who grew up during the great depression, and who fought in WWII. Again we can se Bauerlein referring to, and underlining, the difference between people growing up before and after the widespread use of ICT.

A well-known slogan from the 1960’s is “don’t trust anybody over 30”, from the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley. The text in black and white rectangle, don’t trust anyone under 30, is therefore an intertextuality referring to this particular slogan. What Bauerlein here wants us to notice, is the so called generation gap, which “is a popular term used to describe big differences between people of a younger generation and their elders”[11]. The generation gap tells that there are big differences, and the biggest one is that young adults today are the dumbest generation, as opposed to their parents who are the offspring of the greatest generation.

Synecdoche

Under the transformers figures we again have a sentence with the colour red, acting as a warning. Here he is already telling us our thoughts, and indicating what the book probably will contain. This can be seen as a synecdoche, as it acts as a part standing in for the whole. At the end of this sentence you can also see an asterix, referring to the black and white frame underneath the text. This is a logo often used as a parental advisory for CD’s containing explicit lyrics. “Parental Advisory is a message affixed … to audio and video recordings in the United States containing offensive language and/or content”. [10] This is an indicator that the above text probably will be found provocative by certain people, as it will contain offensive language and/or content.

Conclusion

Bauerlein’s book is about how new media, such as the internet, are contributing into making the young minds of our societies dumber. In order to underline his statement, he uses various semiotic instruments on his website, such as metaphors, synecdoche and intertextualities. All of these aid him in portraying a picture of how the digital age stupefies young Americans and jeopardizes our future.

References

1. Mark Bauerlein, About, http://www.dumbestgeneration.com/about.html, (27/02-2009)

2. CNN headline news, http://www.dumbestgeneration.com/media.html (Video clip, 27/02-2009)

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric (27/02-2009)

4. Richard Bernstein, Don’t trust anyone under 30?, International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/14/news/letter.1-407193.php (In the news, 27/02-2009)

5. http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html (28/02-2009)

6. Charles Mcgrath, Growing Up for Dummies, NY times, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/education/edlife/books.html?_r=3&ex=1209268800&en=129e4f750e5067d0&ei=5070&emc=eta1 (Review, 28/02-2009)

7. James Bowman, Is Stupid Making Us Google?, The new Atlantis, http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/is-stupid-making-us-google (Review, 1/03-2009)

8. Mark Bauerlein and Sandra Stotsky, Why Johnny Won’t Read, Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33956-2005Jan24.html (Article, 28/02-2009)

9. Jeffrey J. Williams, Culture and Policy: An Interview with Mark Bauerlein, The Minnesota Review, http://www.theminnesotareview.org/journal/ns6364/iae_ns6364_cultureandpolicy.shtml (Article, 28/02-2009)

10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_Advisory (1/03-2009)

11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_gap (1/03-2009)

Other references

Chandler, Daniel. 2007. “Semiotics: the basics, 2^nd edition”

Attachments

Technical terms

This short paper will use technical terms, and it is therefore relevant to give these terms definitions.

• Signifier – in the Saussurean tradition, it is the form which a sign takes, something which can be seen, heard, felt, smelt or tasted. (Chandler, 2007: 261).
• Signified – Saussure’s signified is the mental concept represented by the signifier (and is not a material thing). (Chandler, 2007: 261).
• Denotation and connotation are terms depicting the relationship between the signifier and its signified. Denotation is often regarded as the dictionary attempt to describe a sign, and could be said to be what people within a certain culture would mean the sign is portraying. The connotation is more the personal understanding of a sign, and therefore more open to interpretation.
• Rhetoric is the art of using language as a means to persuade [3].
• Tropes – rhetorical “figures of speech”.

◦ A metaphor can be seen as a simile, in the sense that it is saying a thing in terms of another, but without using the words “like” and “as”. For example: “I love you like a fat kid loves cake, acting on the fact that most children loves cake a lot (and maybe especially and overweight one). If you portray it in a semiotic point of view it would involve “one signified acting as a signifier referring to a rather different signified” (Chandler, 2007: 253).

◦ Synecdoche – a figure of speech involving the substitution of part for whole, genus for species or vice versa (Chandler, 2007: 263). For example: “Can you pass me the grapes”, referring to a bottle of wine.

◦ Metonymy – a figure of speech that involves using one signified to stand for another signified which is directly related to it or closely associated with it in some way, notably the substitution of effect for cause. (Chandler, 2007: 255). For example: “Can you pass me the bottle”, referring to a bottle of wine.

• Intratextuality – internal relations within the text (Chandler, 2007: 251).

Word count:

Without References and Attachments : 1274