Comics
A B C D E F G H I
JK
L M N O P R S T U V
XYZ
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Ridout and Cliff ord Witting say in Th e Facts of
English (Pan Reference Books, 1973), ‘the slang
of yesterday becomes the colloquialism of today’.
See dialect; jargon; register.
Colonization Term used to describe the process
by which various cultural material is acquired
from a variety of contexts and then reassembled
to construct particular messages. In this process
the meaning of the original signs is often
changed, if not subverted; their use may appear
to celebrate differences between people, but
the goal to which they are put may have as its
purpose the reinforcement of the dominant
culture, and the denial of diff erences and the
confl ict which they bring.
Advertising messages contain many examples
of colonization. For example, the signs and
symbols widely associated with certain youth
cultures are often employed to sell goods and
services to various audiences – whether young
people themselves, or older consumers who are
presumed to identify with a particular youth
culture. Ironically, whilst youth cultures are
often a site of resistance and challenge to the
dominant culture, their signs and symbols are
in this way used to draw them further into the
dominant culture, for instance through encour-
aging certain patterns of consumption.
Comic impetus See sitcom.
Comics Th e fi rst newspaper comic-strip is gener-
ally considered to be that which appeared on 16
February 1896 in the New York Sunday World. It
was a three-quarter-page feature in colour called
‘Th e Great Dog Show in M’Googan’s Avenue’.
Kids in the city’s slum backyards were organizing
their own dog show; the hero, dressed in a bright
yellow nightgown, soon became the ‘Yellow Kid’
and ‘Hogan’s Alley’ achieved immediate popu-
larity as a long-running comic strip (see yellow
kid).
The idea was not new. English cartoonist
Thomas Rowlandson (1757–1827) created a
comic character, Dr Syntax, who was popular
with the public, and considerably earlier William
Hogarth (1697–1764) included speech ‘balloons’
in his engravings satirizing London life. George
Orwell took comics seriously enough to write
about them.
In ‘Boys’ Weeklies’ (1939), published in
Selected Essays (Penguin, 1957), Orwell analysed
the social and political connotations of early
publications in the genre. What seemed to
characterize comics in Orwell’s day was their
social changelessness – deep down, if not in
the surface detail. Orwell did fi nd diff erences
between the older and the new generation of
Psychological Reactance theory, developed by
Brehm (1966), can also be classed as a consis-
tency theory. Psychological reactance occurs
when we are restricted from doing something
that we were previously free to do and we
perceive that restriction to be illegitimate or
unjustifi ed. Psychological reactance motivates us
to restore the threatened freedom of action. Th e
degree of reactance we experience will depend
upon the extent of the restriction placed upon
behaviour, how important that behaviour is to
us, and whether there are similar alternative
choices open to us. Th ere are also some individ-
ual diff erences in our response to restrictions on
our behaviour. Take for example the imposition
of censorship. Robert Cialdini notes in Infl u-
ence: Science and Practice (Pearson Education,
Inc., 2009) that ‘almost invariably, our response
to banned information is to want to receive that
information to a greater extent and to become
more favourable toward it than we were before
the ban’.
Theodore Newcomb (1953) developed a
version of balance theory – the ABX model of
communication (see newcomb’s abx model)
- that focuses upon equilibrium within interper-
sonal communication. Our preference for cogni-
tive consistency can leave us prey to its use in
persuasive communication. As Robert Cialdini
comments in Influence: Science and Practice
(Pearson Education, Inc., 2009), ‘Th e drive to be
(and look) consistent constitutes a highly potent
weapon of social infl uence, often causing us to
act in ways that are clearly contrary to our own
best interest.’ See cognitive (and affective);
defensive communication; effects of
the mass media; groupthink; resonance;
symmetry, strain towards. See also topic
guide under communication theory.
Cognitive dissonance See cognitive consis-
tency theories; congruence theory;
dissonance.
Cold media, hot media See hot media, cold
media.
Collocation Th e tendency of words to occur in
regular association; words set together through
customary usage such as ‘fair’ and ‘play’, ‘auspi-
cious’ and ‘occasion’.
Collodion or wet-plate process See photog-
raphy, origins.
Colloquialism An expression used in common,
informal speech, but not as far removed from
acceptable modes as slang. If your comments
‘cut no ice’ with somebody, that is a colloquial-
ism; if you are told to ‘keep yer ’air on’, that is
slang. It is a modest distinction, for as Ronald
