CONCEPT TO SEE:
IDENTIFYING MEANINGS IN HUMAN INTERACTIONS USING FILM OBSERVATIONS
A systematic method is needed for identifying cultural hazards related to meaningand altered meaning. A first step is to determine a method for identifying meanings.Films present an opportunity for doing so.
The need to identify and describe cultural hazards requires building knowledge about potential sources of these hazards, such as knowledge about meaning and altered meaning. Films are particularly useful because they replicate the continuous challenge to the brain/mind as it registers, organizes, and interprets the massive number of stimuli impinging on it as we move through our day – building knowledge about ourselves and our environments, especially other humans – the meanings of our worlds. Therefore, films, and short film segments (film clips), can present for observation useful examples of any specific meaning that is significant in our lives. We can begin by identifying potentially useful film examples of the meanings of various behaviors and communications during interactions between people. Using these meanings, we can select those that might be related to the development of cultural hazards, and describe how this occurs.
Watching a film, and observing your experience as you do so, comparing your observations with those of other observers, and thinking about all of the elements afterwards, is an instructive experience. While all will report similar observations, it is also true that each will describe certain observations either missed or not emphasized by the others. This curious occurrence illuminates fundamental elements of the film experience. First, it is highly complex, meaning that there are a remarkable number of stimuli available to be considered – so many, that to be thoughtfully observant requires substantial effort. Second, many elements reported by individuals are missed or ignored by others, for reasons not immediately apparent. Third, there is a core of observed elements described by all viewers, and these uniformly observed elements are the product, in part, of the shaping of the audience experience by the director of the film.
We shall approach these film experience elements in reverse order, beginning with observing what we “see” when someone guides what we are likely to “see” (a film director, novelist, historian, etc.) by determining our focus. This will help to clarify the techniques that enable us to “see” what we might not have seen. This process is of special consequence when it pertains to the problem of learning to identify and describe cultural hazards related to meaning and altered meaning — therefore, to “see” what we might not have seen about meaning and its potential contributions to the genesis of cultural hazards and why we have not understood these hazards.Second will be a look at the curious phenomenon of what we do not“see”, and an initial effort to describe why. Finally, we shall return to the extraordinary problem of complexity, and its role in our lives.
To achieve our goal of recognizing cultural hazards by an improved understanding of meanings we must be selective among the film elements by elevating an element to the highest position of interest. In soccer the greatest interest is in winning a game; in a business the greatest interest is in efficiently and justly increasing income; in a war the supreme interest is in vanquishing the enemy. In medical research the phrase “isolate the variable” is frequently used – in other words to examine one variable while removing the influences of competing variables. This approach also can be applied to the preparation of an advertisement. For example, when studying the effects on consumers of the use of the color ‘yellow’ in an advertisement, it is necessary to ‘isolate yellow’ from other variables that might compete for your attention and explain outcomes attributed to the presence of ‘yellow’ equally well, if always present in the ad with ‘yellow’ (e.g., an attractive, seductive person; an expensive clothing accessory; or very appealing music).
Isolating and identifying meaning in a film clip differs from what is of greatest importance in a sport, business, or military operation due to its time frame: it is a short-term event, typically measured in seconds or minutes as actions and communications express a meaning — as opposed to the relatively long-term event of an athletic contest, a business deal, or a military battle. Yet, even in a short-term event, there are innumerable competing stimuli to be considered, as they form various groupings of potential interest; one such grouping of stimuli available to be learned and used is the communicative meaning of the stimuli.
When learning about meanings, the greatest interest can be focused on activities and their meanings occurring across a long period of time, but short-term meaning is just as essential. This is the challenge to identify, through description, and also through identification and repetition through many different examples, a specific meaning – so that one develops the ability to pick this meaning out of a group of candidate examples, and eventually to learn to describe it easily with no aids, such as examples. The event containing meaning might be considered to be more similar to a fundamental skill in an athletic contest, which might be the focus of greatest interest during a practice before a game. In this sense, we are learning a fundamental skill to be used later in our interactions with others.
These are skills that we have or do not have. When the stimuli in an interaction with someone produce the opportunity for the understanding of a specific meaning, contributing to our responses during the interaction, we respond automatically. The automatic response uses, or fails to use, usually without our realizing it, the specific meaning according to whether or not our experiences taught us the skill of understanding this specific meaning. It is very useful to have this understanding of the specific meaning available as a skill available to be actively, consciously chosen as the event element of greatest significance when that is the case.
A film director takes this use of meaning seriously, presenting his perspective on the significance of a meaning among competing meanings by emphasizing it blatantly or subtly.
A TASTE OF LIFE
A TASTE OF LIFE
Therefore, this is part of building skills – a repertoire of knowledge about concepts and tactics related to meaning to be available for selection when it is of greatest importance for responding effectively in an interaction. This easy recognition and understanding of a particular meaning also makes it feasible to begin to study this meaning in the context of others, and why one is used, or is popular, as opposed to another available meaning.
Each film clip contains many meanings. Film clips can be used to choose and present many examples, within different stories and varied contexts, of one specific meaning of a behavioral sequence; this is the process of making it the focus of greatest interest. Doing so enables us to recognize the meaning, to “see” the meaning in different contexts.