Psychology of Spectatorship - Psychoanalytic Approach to Media Analysis 2500-EN_F_35
Watching a movie is a viscerally appealing experience – not only on a
sensory and perceptual level* but also on a higher stage of cognitive
processing, which involves understanding of audio-visual communication,
semantic interpretation of content, reasoning and making inferences. We
are responsive to a movie not only in a cognitive way but also on an
emotional level – audience experience a heightened states of arousal
while viewing an audio-visual creation or performance, as well as easily
integrate / identify with characters and images perceivable through
screen or stage. That makes film a substantially suggestive medium. The
impact of audio-visual messages communicated to us via varied media
platforms (radio or television broadcast, cinema industry, digital
visualizations, internet, social and interactive applications) shapes our
attitudes, emotional responses, interpretations as well as decision
making.
However, these influential contents are often based on the
classical threads that we know already since our childhood, and which
have been aptly defined by the psychoanalytic theorists. Stories, that we
watch and follow, refer often to our previous experiences activating
memories, primal fears, unconscious issues and unexpressed desires.
Through the lense of those activated psychological constructs are the
media messages received and further interpreted. The course Psychology
of Spectatorship - Psychoanalytic Approach to Media Analysis aims in
highlighting the psychoanalytic theories, notions and techniques that can
help us analyze how the surrounding media are being shaped and how do
they shape us, the spectators.
Film and psychoanalysis have always been considered as siblings – the
birth and development of early cinema coincided with a renaissance in
psychoanalytic theory. The primary source and inspiration for many
prominent film theorists (for example Christian Metz, who pioneered the
application of semiology to film) was Jacques Lacan and, to a further
extent, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Psychoanalitical school has provided
a very useful toolset for discussing the relationship between cinema and
the spectatorship. The analogy between these two domains has been
primarily built up through the metaphor of dream work** , in which
stories told via images constitute a “royal road to the unconscious” (S.
Freud): "Psychoanalytic film theory emphasizes the notion of production
in its description, considering the viewer as a kind of desiring producer of
the cinematic fiction. According to this idea, then, when we watch a film it
is as if we were somehow dreaming it as well; our unconscious desires
work in tandem with those that generated the film-dream.” (Robert
Clyde Allen, 1992)
(** notice an exemplary analogy between the Freudian theory of „dreamwork”
and the name of the Steven Spielberg’s studio „DreamWorks”,
which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and
television programming)
Everyone learns the customs of the culture (s)he grows up in. In our case
and in the case of our children – we learn the stories and threads mostly
through our current audio-visual culture. However Lacan inverted this
statement claiming that we are rather spoken by the culture itself and
that our sense of self is formed through the actions and messages of
others, thus through our encounters with the culture. The process of
identity formation is being deeply enriched by our engagement with
media: we are shaping and being shaped, we are what we watch and
hear, we are what we make and say. Underpinned theoretically by the
concepts form the Lacanian psychoanalysis, a serious discourse appears
concerning the parallel roles of film spectatorship: we, the viewers, are
the receivers and the producers in the same time.
The reciprocity of theoretical feeds between the Film Theory and the
Psychoanalysis is being nowadays extended by professor William Indick
who investigates the theoretical basis of psychoanalysis as a timber for
constructing a conflict in a film scenario, in a theatrical script, within the
content of media message or other creative storytelling (see the list of
topics for the relevance). In the era of new, rich media, ubiquitous
interactivity and interconnectivity, multiple and parallel channels of
communication, psychologists has more and more responsibilities in
defining the mechanisms within the relationship between the media
content and the spectator. Taking advantage of the elaborated theories
within the broad heritage of the psychoanalytic school, the new
generation of psychologists – rising up together with vividly developed
rich media platforms – have a great potential for delivering substantial
knowledge and conclusions on the attitudes, tendencies or difficulties,
that spectators must nowadays deal with. Another premise of the course
is to foster the cooperation between future psychologists and the media
makers (scenarists, creative strategists, filmmakers and graphic designers)
by accentuating the psychoanalytical analysis of the media content and its
reception.
Applying the psychoanalytic approach to the film and media
communication, as well as to the structures of a plot, story and
characters, can elevate the appropriateness of the messages intended to
a particular target public, make them more effective and resonant. The
engagement of theoretical input from the psychologists’ side into the
processes of media creation is nowadays highly demanded.
* see also the course content „Visual Perception of Film and Media” given
in previous years.
Type of course
Learning outcomes
Students are expected to have learned after successfully
completing the course:
Mastering the core concepts of Psychoanalytical School relevant to
the film and media analysis as well as being able to apply those into a
discussion and analysis of the media content.
Being able to identify the creative strategy of media creators while
analysing a particular casus (a film, a TV show, a computer game, an
audio-visual performance) as well as to identify the technique that
has been used in order to realize such strategy. Subsequently: being
able to compose own strategy while working on a content of an
informative communication, commercial media campaign or on an
artistic audio-visual performance.
Understanding the difference that the media content makes on
spectatorship while being communicated via different media forms,
e.g.: social media, nonlinear storytelling, digital and parallel
communication, interactive film, augmented reality and semianimated)
book, etc.
Assessment criteria
Students will be obliged to fulfill the following tasks. Each task will be
separately evaluated
Written exam:
At the end of the course students will be obliged to take a short,
theoretical test. The test will consist 30 (15 closed and 15 open)
questions concerning the basic terms and concepts from the
psychoanalytic school. In some questions students will be asked to
apply a psychoanalytic theory or a technique to a practical problem
from the media creative domain to solve the casus. The maximum
score for the test is 30 points
Two practical assignments (homework):
There will be two obligatory pieces of homework, which will be based
on information provided by the instructor during the class. It will
concern a small analysis of a problem (introduced during the class),
which students will have to individually transfer and apply to another
example (casus) form the media domain. Students will subsequently
present and explain their work to the rest of a group of students. Each
presentation should be followed up by a group discussion. The
maximum score for these two tasks is 20 points.
Grading system:
43 - 50 points = grade A
44 - 42 points = grade B
35 - 43 points = grade C
26 - 34 points = grade D
< 25 points = grade F – failed
Attendance rules
No more than 2 unexcused absences are allowed
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: