ERIC Number: ED312700
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1983
Pages: 13
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Ambiguity of Visual Design and Meaning in TV's "Battlestar Galactica."
Roth, Lane
"Battlestar Galactica," ABC-TV's prime-time science fiction series for 1978-79, illustrates how popular, mass media entertainment can communicate contradictory meanings that correlate with unresolved cultural tensions. The ambiguity of visual design is especially confusing because it is contrapuntal to the simplicity and clarity of the formulaic storyline. The use of circular and triangular motifs in all the battleships does not conform to the clearcut polarities present in the storyline, in which the antinomies of freedom/order and human/machine are isomorphic with good/evil. The visual design works only to obscure these dichotomies. The confusion can be interpreted as signifying anxieties, problematic to human culture, concerning ambivalent values in an increasingly technological world. "Battlestar Galactica" typifies the tendency of popular culture artifacts to communicate unresolved dilemmas. (Ten notes and four figures are included.) (RS)
Publication Type: Opinion Papers; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A