CONCLUSIONS
CONTEXT
The discourse study carried out within the context of this paper has in a sense been an exploration fueled by a strong interest in the forces of popular media and the role they play in the real lives of young people. This interest relates directly to my own connections to language, literacy and cultural issues inside and outside education.The discussion in the field of education studies about the relationship between the in-school and out-of-school experiences youth have is passionate. It is, however, mostly had by a small group of ethnographic researchers, educators and linguists, and does not have the prominent position in the larger education debate that it deserves.
Ethnographic work, or qualitative research in education in general, often focuses on the study of young people and students inside the classroom. It studies behaviors, attitudes, motivations, and so on, by observing actual situations and interviewing participants. The same happens in ethnographic research outside the classroom, where researchers engage with young people at home, in their social groups, or even at the mall and in the cinema. The participants are observed and interviewed in great detail, and their experiences with the topics or materials under discussion are recorded and analyzed.
Many of the experiences young people have outside, but also increasingly inside the school, involve popular texts that come in the form of advertizing, television, magazines, movies, websites, music, and video games. These materials have, as ethnographic studies have convincingly shown (e.g. Elizabeth's Moje's work), a profound influence on identity, literacy skills, and social positioning by young people in the environment they live in. Much of those popular culture materials also have erotic, or sexualized content, both visually as well as textually, to entice consumers to buy the magazine, see the movie, or purchase products advertised through them.
The study presented in this paper does not seek to describe the different interpretations young people create from the materials they engage with in the same way an ethnographic study would. What it does present is a discussion of the different grounds there are in these materials that make different meanings possible for different people. That discussion is then set off against actual interpretations made, as far as such interpretative texts are part of the corpus. It is at this point that this kind of work becomes especially challenging. Making connections between the evidence which provides the basis for polyvalent meaning on one hand, and the actually realized meanings on the other is where discourse studies find a socially situated place.
GOALS AND FINDINGS
The main goal of the project, as discussed in the introductory chapter, was to apply discourse analysis methods in examining popular culture youth media to:
- investigate how evaluative semantic resources in the text can produce grounds for different interpretations;
- show linkages between the different possible interpretations of the texts and the various social groups (advertisers, consumers, gay/straight readers, activists) who make use of this polyvalent technology;
- examine which methodologies for analyzing polyvalent, multi-modal popular culture youth media are most productive in determining which interpretations are possible and likely to be employed by the social voices involved.
The idea that started this investigation was the notion of polyvalence. Throughout the analysis and the discussion of the analysis it has become clear that the way in which interpretation takes place, as well as the number of different interpretations, depend on several factors. The text and visual have to allow for multiple interpretations by using, for example, ambiguous language or controversial language, and so contest the notions of normativity with the different readers and viewers. The text can do this by itself, as can the visual, but as we have seen in the Gameboys example this technology becomes much more produductive in 'producing' polyvalence when combined.
Another factor is the viewing position of the interpreter. The reader's or viewer's interpretation strongly depends on the social, political and economical position they are in, and will fall in line with an argumentation organized around supporting and maintaining the political economy they associate with most strongly. Politicians with a conservative following will denounce A&F, jock-loving college girls adore A&F, gay boys can be ambivalent because of A&F's advertising strategies and boycotts, and the board of Abercrombie carefully support company policy and steer away from acknowledgements of controversy. When the polyvalent technology is present, social actors make use of it to suit their needs.
A last important factor is scale. Even if polyvalent technology is present, and given the political positioning of each reader, there is still the degree to which materials are read, viewed or analyzed that influences the final interpretation. A superficial reading of the locker room picture does not generate the same possible meanings as a detailed analysis does, and we have seen this happen in the Gameboys visual as well. To which degree viewers decide to interpret what they see (or read) is again linked to the political position of the viewer (and I understand 'political' here to include gender, sexuality, race, and socio-economic class). Some may choose to read certain things into the text, others may not, but it is always the task of the researcher to point out which meanings are created at which levels, and explore them at every depth. Superficial readings, or intitial responses to texts and visuals, are not less meaningful or sophisticated than detailed analyses. In fact, superficial first readings are probably far more common in a global context than detailed studies, and so shape and support the views of large numbers of people in an important way.
In chapter 5, "Other Voices", we have seen how different groups can have conflicting interpretations of exactly the same material, and how they employ the possibility for these interpretations to serve their political ends. In itself this is not too surprising. What does become clear, however, by analyzing the arguments is that some groups do actually agree on some issues, but do not acknowledge or verbalize that fact. For example, both young XY-reading gay boys and members of the 'American Decency Association' agree that A&F target people much younger than their 'official' range of 18-22 year olds. Neither one will admit or even discuss this fact though, because direct communication between the two groups does not take place, and they may not like each other very much. The 'decency' people and the Abercombie marketeers and managers agree that homo-eroticism or homosexuality are in no way represented or commented on by A&F advertising materials, and that the gay market is not a main, official target. A&F steer away from commenting on the issue, even though they have placed some ads in mainstream gay magazines, probably to avoid looking suspicious by fanatically denying their interest in that group. The 'American Decency Association' analysis of A&F catalogs lists anything from lesbianism to bestiality, but despite the hundreds of pictures of nude males frolicking on campus there is not a word about (male) homosexuality or homo-eroticism. It simply does not exist from their vantage point, and A&F's managers are certainly not going to wake sleeping dogs.
In relation to this last point it is interesting to note that it must have been obvious to A&F's managers and marketeers that they were installing a large degree of polyvalent technology in their texts and visuals. The fact that A&F hired openly gay advertising managers and probably the most famous, and gay, photographer of male nudes in the United States can only speak for the fact that they knew exactly what they were doing in making sure a homo-erotic tone was present in all marketing materials. In most traditional communication theory the message is usually seen as unified and consistent, in the sense that the sender had a clear intention of what the message should be. And that message was one message. In the interpretation of that one message different meanings could be created, as we have acknlowledged that meaning is created between author and reader. There is, however, still one author and multiple readers.In the case of A&F, and I would argue in much of the marketing towards teens and young adults (if not all adults as well) the marketeers install the possiblity for different interpretations consciously. In other words, the meanings that are, according to A&F, likely to occur are anticipated, catered to, and stimulated. This sophisticated marketing strategy may go beyond what the A&F chairman officially calls "coordinated lifestyle reinforcement", as it caters to more lifestyles than the ones he is willing to mention to his shareholders, but the terminology certainly fits the reality and the findings of the analysis presented in this paper.
Analysis of evaluative categories, connected with a discussion of social voices, is very useful to determine how authors feel about the topic at hand, and which basis for their interpretation is present in the material that they discuss. A heteroglossic discussion which identifies the different groups involved and the voices they employ both provides context for the interpretations within the scope of the analysis, as well as social context in connecting the analysis to actual lives of people in the real world. Where visual material is involved, the analyst certainly needs tools for visual and multimodal analysis, which provides tools other more tradionally mono-modal and written language oriented methods can not deliver.
CONCLUSIONS
First and most important within the context of a discourse analysis project, the projects has shown that the concept of polyvalence can be extremely useful when analyzing the kinds of youth lifestyle media discussed in this paper. The analysis showed that grounds for polyvalent interpretation exists in the materials analyzed, and that different social groups use this technology to serve their political needs and inform their personal identities. It is likely that it will be equally useful in studies of other (popular) cultural representations, and therefore further research would be useful to both improve methodology and extend validity towards other materials.
The presence of polyvalent technology in these youth lifestyle media would seem to provide the basis for simultaneous valid interpretations by different groups and so promote the plurality and diversity so coveted by movements involved in 'social justice'. Everyone can create the meaning most relevant and useful to them, resulting in a wonderful palette of diverse opinions and realities, and have their interpretation acknowledged (if only by discourse analysts). I realize that this over-simplified logic does not entirely add up, as it is obvious that people have always disagreed with each other and ignored each other, so the concept of polyvalence has not revealed anything new in this sense. It has simply shown why and how people make different meanings out of the same data, and it is only natural that they will contest each other's opinions from that moment on.
What I am getting at is a touch more slippery. The conscious polyvalent marketing strategies employed by A&F allow each group their interpretation, without blurring the lines between them, confusing its readers/viewers/consumers, or endangering sales seriously. Apart from the small 'decent' minority, the straight jocks like looking at themselves, and the girls and the gay boys like to look at them, and so everyone's stance works for them, and mostly for A&F itself. Homo-erotic interpretations don't seem to upset the straight boys, nor the American Decency Association, and the gay boys buy the clothes anyway because they cannot or will not resist A&F's lifestyle message and erotic content. "We'll let you think and feel what you want, as long as you buy our stuff", seems to work for everyone but religious conservatives (although without these materials they would not have a reason to exist, and so it even serves them well).
All in all, if everybody is happy and the economy fares well by this system, then why criticise what is going on? Because despite the rich assortment of voices that speak in the debate around A&F, or commercial exploitation and sexuality in a larger sense, there is no real empowerment of identities of young people, nor communication or debate on the real issues. Voices stay isolated, attitudes segregated, and wallets open at the expense of any meaningful, critical debate on ubiquitous sexualized commercialization of young people's identities.
I started the conclusions section talking about ethnographic research in education, and how it mostly focuses on the children, the young people, the 'agents' doing the interpreting and making the meaning out of the materials that surround them. I feel strongly that starting there, with the study, involvement and engagement of young people in the semiotic realities that surround them provides great opportunity to build critical understanding of what popular culture is, who makes it, and for what purposes. What may deserve more attention is the study of the actual texts and artifacts young people engage with, and critical discourse studies can make important contributions there to show how and why certain interpretations are made. The notion of polyvalence may be useful in this discussion, as it sheds light on the ways the marketeers of the world find their way to the wallets of teenagers. Discourse studies approaches may also help educators, parents and youth to find ways to discuss the positive as well as the possibly questionable aspects of popular culture. I am not advocating a ban on sex, eroticism, or even every form of consumerism here, but I do believe that young people (and adults) gain from a critical understanding of the texts they encounter, and the political and economic machinery that is behind them.
If ethnographic youth research and critical discourse studies of popular culture can find ways to be mutually informative, we may increase the chance of a socially meaningful and productive debate that empowers our young people beyond the challenges of a clothing catalog.