This is Reading

In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.

These are the opening sentences of Guy Debord’s (1967) The Society of the Spectacle, in which Debord argues that capitalism, mass media and certain forms of government have caused social life to become entirely occupied by commodities. In this age, Debord claims, social relations are mediated by things and images, essentially erasing human interaction and replacing it with the exchange of products. In this version of society, he contends, “all community and all critical sense are dissolved (thesis 25).” Debord suggests that the only way to escape this state of ignorance and isolation is to disrupt and separate ourselves from the spectacle in order to critique it.

One need not embrace his premise fully in order to admit that elements of Debord’s version of society ring true. Certainly in this age of constant media saturation (the vast majority of which is designed with only one purpose in mind: to encourage consumption) it is easy to become detached and uncritical of the world around us.

So how can we disrupt the spectacle?

We can teach young people how to read.

There is a long-standing debate over how to teach reading in this country. Most recently, the debate has raged between a Phonics vs. Whole Language approach, but in the past there have been other methods that experts preached as ‘the only right way.’ The current controversy presents a false choice, however. Of course, students should learn language in a holistic way. However, no one is going to learn to read words on a page without some basic phonemic awareness. It’s not an either/or situation. Education for simple decoding skills can occur at all levels. Some kids need more time for that and others pick it up right away. However, it is important to note that not knowing how to spell or sound out a word on paper doesn’t preclude someone from understanding the meaning of that word and all its complexities. (Nor, it should be said, does the ability to sound out words and sentences on a page suggest that more complex understandings are taking place.) No person, young or old, should be denied access to rudimentary phonemic awareness education out of principle. But a lesson in reading fundamentals need not displace a richer understanding of the intricate meanings of signs and texts.

Reading is about so much more than understanding words on a page. It always has been, of course, but recent developments in media technology are forcing this previously hidden truth into the light. Reading education must be expanded to include more than just verbal decoding, but also the decoding of images, sounds and spaces. Reading education should involve helping people at all levels of schooling recognize the disparate and fragmented meanings as well as the oppressive and liberating nature of signs and texts in society. This education should happen at three levels, which I will call: reading signs, signs together and reading stories. There is complexity at all levels and so they are not meant to be seen as hierarchical. All three levels may be taking place at one time at any time in the education process.

Reading Signs

The first level of reading has primarily been the domain of phonics and involves decoding and reproducing basic signs and symbols. Of course, phonics focuses exclusively on verbal decoding skills and centers around the alphabet. But teaching students to decode symbols should involve much more than just the ABC’s. Students should understand that they are also reading when they decode things like shapes, colors, and sounds. In addition to expanding students’ understanding of decoding, teaching students to read signs should include teaching the concept of representation.

According to Stuart Hall (1997), “representation means using language to say something meaningful about, or to represent, the world meaningfully, to other people.” It involves the use of words, signs, and images to stand for (or represent) things (p. 15). Simply put, nothing is simple.

The best way to understand representation is through examples. Since we’re talking about very basic decoding, let’s look at letters. When people learn phonics, they learn that letters make different sounds depending on their placement in words. They learn that the letter A can make an ‘ahh’ sound or an ‘ayy’ sound. They learn about capital A and little a. They learn that A is the first letter of the alphabet. Then they move on to B. But there’s more to the letter A than how it sounds. If I write a giant red A on a piece of paper, what will most people think of? And speaking of the color red, it’s quite a bit more complicated than just the color at the top of the rainbow or the color of roses. The color red has lots of different connotations in lots of different circumstances. To some people, red represents blood and violence. To others, it represents passion and love. And now that we’re talking about ideas and words together, we might want to mention that how you write a word sometimes holds as much meaning as the word itself. Consider the word love, for example. What are the different meanings conveyed when I represent the word love in this font vs. this font. And, furthermore, what happens when you connect images with words? Type in the word ‘love’ to an Internet search engine. How many different visual representations come up?

We’ve just gone down the proverbial rabbit hole of representation in just one short paragraph. Imagine all the complex and interesting things people can learn if reading education were expanded to include representation in addition to phonics.

Signs Together

Once students learn basic decoding skills and are able to sound out letters and words, most reading education moves on to larger combinations of letters and words in the form of sentences and paragraphs. Reading skills taught then expand to include the comprehension of concepts and ideas. Oftentimes, comprehension skills are taught in a very straightforward manner. The assumption is usually that texts have only one meaning and the goal of reading is to discover that meaning. I think particularly of the reading comprehension sections of standardized tests. These kinds of comprehension activities encourage students to read narrowly and without imagination. It is no surprise that when reading education moves into this phase, young people often lose interest in reading altogether. And can we blame them?

Not only is this an unimaginative way to teach reading, it is also faulty as it assumes that words and phrases have inherent and fixed meanings. In reality, of course, all letters, words and phrases are merely symbols. The word ‘chair’ doesn’t have any meaning in and of itself. It stands for ‘a thing to sit down on’ because we have made it so. The meaning of language therefore is incredibly flexible. Stuart Hall writes about the problematic concept of reading for fixed meanings. He argues,

“the meaning is not in the object or person or thing, nor it is in the word. It is we who fix the meaning so firmly that, after awhile, it comes to seen natural and inevitable. The meaning is constructed by the system of representation. (p. 21)”

This concept is much easier understood when applied to art. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” so the adage goes. We seem quite comfortable recognizing and affirming that people can construct multiple meanings from things like a painting at a museum or a piece of classical music. But applying that same concept to written text makes us uncomfortable. Roland Barthes (1975) would have us challenge that discomfort by thinking of the pleasures that reading can bring. Barthes argues that a person taking pleasure in a piece of writing is a person who, “abolishes within himself all barriers, all classes, all exclusions… who mixes every language, even those said to be incompatible; who silently accepts every charge of illogicality, of incongruity… (p. 3).” This state of mind might seem unsafe or irrational, but it is exactly what is required to begin deconstructing systems of representation in both verbal and visual texts.

So what are the systems of representation at work in a simple paragraph in a science text, for example? Well, any presentation of a scientific concept is going to include some kind of argument. It might not immediately appear that way, as most textbooks present their content as if it is undisputed fact. But the reality is that, of course, science is always changing and all scientific information has bias. The representation of information about climate change comes to mind here. Students reading even the most basic information about climate and global warming trends can analyze that information to uncover who wrote it and from what perspective, what research was privileged and what was left out, and whether anyone stands to benefit or lose upon receiving such information, etc.

In addition to printed text, reading at this stage should include texts like photographs, paintings and pieces of music. Reading images and sounds alongside traditional sentences and paragraphs opens the mind and can help students to see the nuances and layers of representation and meaning in even the simplest combinations of words and phrases.

Reading Stories

Once students can reasonably comprehend most combinations of words and phrases, they are ready to read stories. In schools, this stage of reading education usually involves reading short stories, novels or longer expository texts. But there are so many interesting stories to read that aren’t printed on a page. Students of all ages can be taught to read complex verbal, visual and spatial narratives.

In terms of representation, the concept that students are ready to learn at this stage of reading is discourse. Hall (by way of Foucault) explains that discourse is,

“a group of statements which provide a language for talking about – a way of representing the knowledge about – a particular topic at a particular historical moment. … Discourse is about the production of knowledge through language. But … since all social practices entail meaning, and meanings shape and influence what we do – our conduct – all practices have a discursive aspect (p. 44).”

Writing and reading stories is a discursive practice. We write stories with words, images and sounds. Nothing has inherent meaning. It is what we ‘say’ about a given subject that constructs its meaning. The stories we construct about a cultural artifact define our understanding of what that cultural artifact is or should be.

John Fiske (1989) demonstrates this concept expertly in his ‘reading’ of an American institution, the shopping mall. (Yes, it is possible to ‘read’ a mall.) Among other things, his analysis connects the act of women shopping in malls to the both the participation in and the resistance of the oppressive patriarchal male gaze. Patriarchy, Fiske explains, positions women as objects of male desire. By purchasing clothing, makeup, and other beauty items in a shopping mall, women attempt to control their own image. On one hand, the items they purchase are foisted on them from a male-dominated consumer culture. On the other, the choices they make give them agency over how they are perceived and looked upon by other people (specifically, males.)

And here we return to Debord. By teaching students to critically ‘read’ complex social institutions like shopping malls, we give them power to disrupt the spectacle. As Debord argues,

“To effectively destroy the society of the spectacle, what is needed is [men] putting a practical force into action … it is certain that the obscure and difficult path of critical theory must also be the lot of the practical movement acting on the scale of society (thesis 203).”

Expanding reading education to include critical issues of representation is one practical way to empower students to disrupt the spectacle. Students can (and must) learn to both participate in and be critical of the myriad cultural discourses that surround them. By learning to read critically, they learn to interact with culture and each other in authentic ways, thereby resisting the commodification of social life that Debord warned about. It is time to advocate for the expansion of reading education that will empower students of all ages and benefit society.

References

Barthes, R. (1975). The pleasure of the text. New York: Hill and Wang.

Debord, G. (1983). The society of the spectacle. Detroit, MI: Black and Red.

Fiske, J. (1989). Reading the popular. London And New York: Routledge.

Hall, S. (Ed.). (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. London: Sage Publications.