Sign's of Life

If you take an individual from the backwoods of Russia, who has never watched TV, listened to the radio, or seen pictures of a football field and show him a picture of the uprights at the very end of the field, what will he think?  What would that sign mean to him visually before any explanation of the game of football?  Will he think that the tall, yellow polls spaced 18.5 feet apart are an ornament for the field, or will he think that you have to throw, kick, do something to a ball through the posts in order to win?  I highly doubt he will choose the ladder, but as Americans we know and understand that in football if you kick a football through the uprights, depending on the situation, you either get one or three points; in some rare cases, you get two.  This is the denotative meaning, you make it through and you get points.  The denotative meaning to uprights on a football field has given people an avenue to many other meanings.  Some fans look at uprights and think, "Man, only if the kicker would have made the field goal we could have won," or, "Well if it comes down to a field goal tonight, we sure aren't winning, our kicker sucks."  

For me personally, field goal posts have several connotative meanings.  Seeing field goal posts often gives me confidence in myself because in my past, I have made field goals to help my teams to victory.  I see them and I remember the times when I was the only one out on the field working at my skill, trying to get better.  I see them and there is a calm pressure that sets in and says to me, "If you don't make this, your team might lose, you cannot fail."  I see them and I remember the times I have missed key kicks in big situations.  I see them and think, it's 120 yards between the two posts I wonder if i could ever kick a ball from one end to the other.  All of these meanings bring to focus two main feelings I have for the game of football, confidence and love.  I feel confident when I see them because I know that through hard work I can progress and be a better athlete.  I feel love for the game because kicking a football is what I love to do, plus I love to score points.

Across other semiotic domains, field goal posts have similar denotative meanings in the sport of Rugby.  You score points when you kick the Rugby ball through tall posts, similarly placed on opposite ends of the field.

Semiotics and Media Myth ID

Flipping through channels one day, I came across a TV show on ESPN called the Madden Challenge.  The Madden Challenge is a series where people compete against one another in a video game tournament playing Madden NFL 2009 on XBOX 360.  At first I did not think that there was a myth to the show, but as I started watching and seeing through my "Rudd Glasses" as I like to call them, I started to see how the entire series is based on the myth of the Value of a Challenge.  The competitors go on through this tournament and everyone goes into their match-ups as the underdog.  Think about it, each player is playing as an underdog, there are no favorites.  The prize for winning the tournament is a hefty check for 100k.  Seeing that the name of the tournament and the myth have a common word, challenge, it works out because there is a goal trying to be reached.  The sign within this myth is the name Madden.  The video game took its name from famous Super Bowl champion coach John Madden.  1988 was the first year the game went into production.  I remember as a young boy growing up and playing versions of the game on my Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo 64.  By then, "Madden Fever," had already hit.  When seeing the name Madden, they see it as a sign/symbol for video games, though it has a lot more meaning to it.  The Madden franchise has given the EA Games Corporation a popular reputation in the world of sports, movies, and television.  The name Madden is also synonymous with ESPN because the tournament is filmed and aired over the course of two months on the ESPN family of networks.  John Madden established his name as one of the greatest coaches in NFL history, so when older folks hear his name you might think of three Super Bowl Championships with the Raiders, or the first coach to ever take a Punter in the first round of the NFL draft because it was the best choice for the team.  For the more contemporary, comedy viewing crowd, John Maddens name can also be heard in punch lines by voice impressionist Frank Caliendo.  I never knew that one name as a sign could cut across three different mediums of entertainment and carry the same weight through all three.

Myth in Mass Media

The movie "Shooter" with Mark Wahlberg, is a great example of the myth "Presence of a Conspiracy."  It is a movie, where an ex-Marine sniper is commissioned to organize and scout an assassination attempt on the President's life.  An agency intercepted a supposed transmission about a group that will make an attempt on the President at one of the three public rally's he will attend.  Turns out, the people who came to him were only looking to set him up because of a military operation that went wrong during his Marine career; they claim he knows too much about a covert operation and is expendable.  The protagonist (Wahlberg), after the President is murdered becomes the USA's top fugitive and he strives to make his name clean.  The antagonist (Danny Glover) and his agency break into Wahlberg's home and steal his sniper rifle to frame him with the Presidents murder.  This conspiracy was broken through the help of a rookie agent in the FBI who believed that Wahlberg's character was innocent.  The movie goes through a maze of lies, secret government cover ups, and a lot of bullet action.  In the end, Wahlberg's character proves his innocence by demonstrating that his rifle was not the one who killed the assassinated victim.  It turns out that he takes the firing pins out of all his weapons after using them.  He was able to tie up his lose ends and in the end  eliminate the people who tried to ruin his life.  It exemplifies the conspiracy myth because one person is brought into an operation on a set of lies then has to prove his innocence.  The Kennedy Assassination comes to mind, the movie is a lot similar to how everything went down

One hybrid myth in text that just occurred was at the Australian Tennis Open, January 25th, 2009.  It incorporates the value of a challenge myth and pull yourself up by your bootstraps myth.  Roger Federer was quickly down two sets to none and facing his quickest elimination in his professional career.  He came back to win, and did it against a crowd that had turned on him when he was down by those two sets.  The story can be found here: http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/aus09/columns/story?columnist=tandon_kamakshi&id=3858898.

The other hybrid myth that exists is also from the world of sports.  It happened in the 2009 NHL All-Star game.  Incorporating the coming of the messiah and eternal return myths, the Eastern Conference team, who was up by three goals in the second period allowed their lead to slip away.  Everything fell apart for the team, nothing was going right, and they managed to end regulation with a tie score.  Neither team scored in overtime which meant the teams would go to a shootout to determine the winner.  After 9 chances combined, no goals were scored.  On the Eastern Conferences last shooter, Alex Ovechkin scored the goal against the odds and led his team to victory.  The story can be found here: http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/recap?gameId=290125031.

Myths un/true....

One myth that is true in everyones life is the "coming of the messiah" myth.  This time I am not talking about Christ, although I hope everyone can come to a knowledge of the truth and accept Him in their lives.  In sports these days there are always athletes who single handedly rise to the occasion and lead their team to victory.  This can be a seasoned Veteran who is a background, clubhouse type of guy who gives advice to the youngsters and rookies, or it can be a rookie who mouths off in the press and holds true to his words during the game.  This myth gives organization to people that hear it, tell it, and believe in it because it allows a story to be told and re-told throughout history.  In the 1988 World Series Kirk Gibson came off the bench as the last possible reserve player for the Dodgers; he wasn't playing because of two knee injuries and could barely walk.  He was facing the best pitcher in the game at the time Dennis Eckersley.  The Dodgers were down by 1 with two outs and a runner on base.  Essentially, the Dodgers had no chance.  After battling in the at-bat, Gibson hit a two run home-run to win the game in the bottom of the 9th.  This story/event has gone down in sports history as one of the greatest stories of all time.  Anytime there is a vintage World Series reel run, this highlight is in it, usually with the original audio and the fans in the stadium going wild.  It also usually happens at the climax of the reel when the video stops, calling the viewers attention to the screen.  The re-telling and re-immortalization of Kirk Gibson as the savior of the Dodgers in the 1988 World Series is a classic example of how the myth, "the coming of the messiah," is properly portrayed in real life.

On the flip side, this myth can also be true in the same circumstances.  When?  When the media immortalizes a player before anything great happens.  As Dr. Rudd spoke about it in class, sporting event production crews are always compiling highlights and music to show how a team or player are greater than the situation at hand.  In the process, announcers talk about how a player is going to come around and lead his team to victory, and then flops by striking out four times or giving up a game winning home-run.  These people both announcers and floundering players alike can hurt this myth.

ESPN

The world wide leader in sports, as it is dubbed, has greatly influenced my life.  I can remember back when I was 6 years old and growing up watching SportsCenter at 7am before it was time for me to leave for school.  This is back in the day when prolific anchors like Dan Patrick was paired with Kenny Mayne, and Stuart Scott was co-hosting with Rich Eisen who now works for the NFL Network.  Since then, the ESPN brand has expanded to several other mediums like the internet and radio.  With virtually all media now being on the internet, access to it is as easy as pouring a glass of milk.  Every morning, after I shower and get ready for the day and check the weather report, I check to see what the Top Story is on ESPN.com.  Most of the time it is about a big game from the night before, but as the day unfolds specific stories about players and columns begin to appear.  I have a dream to one day be a sports writer/journalist who covers either a specific team and/or division of teams in professional sports.  From reading the stories on "the .com" as they call it on ESPN television, I am being given examples of how good journalists write and the specific styles they use to communicate the vast information located in the world of sports.  I wrote for a city college newspaper in California this fall semester.  It was my first ever journalistic experience and I would always go to the ESPN.com pages and columns to see how beat writers would portray certain events and plays during a game.  I remember my first story was the revealing of the new scoreboard which was installed during the summer.  I went to the website to see how writers wrote their non-game stories.  I gathered my thoughts from their examples and wrote my story.  Lord willing, one day I hope to provide young adults who are my age now with good examples of how to write and be good and ethical journalists.

Problems in Mass Media

When i think of media, I tend to look at it in an wildly biased, subjective manner.  I always catch myself thinking, "How is what I am reading, watching, or listening to trying to make me think?"  A lot of times the answer never comes to the forefront because there is a mask covering the hidden intentions of the media.  However, also, there are a lot of times where you can see how media is trying to make you think in a certain way about a subject.  A great example is political propaganda.  During election time you see a lot of commercials that say great things about a candidate.  These usually come from within the party.  Then there are other commercials that show the ugly side of the candidate and their inability to properly govern or lead certain groups or events.  Perfect example: Senator Barack Obama was the Chairman of a committee that oversaw the operations going on in Iraq.  That committee supposedly never convened.  Purpose of the commercial: Show Obama's ineptness at properly leading.  These kind of commercials and other types of filtering information in media is what's wrong with mass media.  These problems cause individuals to only be given one side of the story.  In my opinion, I see media as a medium to get a large group of people to act, think, or behave in a certain way.  These three things are all affected by what you see on television, hear on the radio, or read in the internet.  The filtering of content causes us only to see one side of the spectrum when in reality there are many others.  Another problem with mass media is that is it virtually accessable anywhere.  Some might view this as a great thing, it certainly is a great thing for business because you are able to receive stock quotes and share important emails with the firm if you are out of the office.  Conversely, because sports scores, breaking news, and gossip are at your finger tips, it seems to never give you any peace.  It is as if we are connected to our electronics more than we are our own mind.

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