Social Value is defined as:
An attitude towards a discourse that a society holds to be true, important or valuable at a particular place and at a particular time. Social values may remain in a society over a number of years and generally change or evolve slowly.
Discourse is defined as:
An ongoing discussion, framework or idea about a topic held by society.
One way to think about social values is by reflecting on how they have changed over time. In film there have been a number of changes to the way particular genre’s are constructed that reflects changes in what ideas are most valued by society.
For example, the genre of ‘natural disaster movie’ has gained a place in the film landscape – films that focus of the end of the world being brought about by natural disasters – this reflects the new focus society has on environmental issues, climate change, etc.
How can you identify social values in a text?
Once you have deconstructed a media text by looking for the main codes and conventions that have been used, you need to step back and think about how each of the codes work together to tell you something about the value placed on particular ideas or beliefs.
Remember, you can’t touch a social value so you have to try to sense what assumptions are being made about the attitude of the audience. Are there any stereotypes in the text that, although gross generalisations, reveal a commonly held attitude of the time? Are there any statements being made about gender roles? Is there a political reference that is commonly accepted as true but has not always been so?