Tecnologie e ideologie. La “natura non indifferente” del linguaggio audiovisivo

This contribution explores the theoretical and pedagogical reflections that have inspired a number of audiovisual language education projects carried out over the years with adolescents in a number of secondary schools and which have focused on the natural environment and urban space in the representation of westerns, documentaries and videoclips. The choice of such filmic and audiovisual themes and ‘objects’ made it possible to anchor the teaching of the functioning of the iconic language to ‘representations’, particularly in westerns, in which the hierarchisation of the relationship between human beings and the environment is immediately recognisable through the proceeding of a series of symbologies and visual signifiers. The punctual analysis of the ‘text’ and the focus on the filmic specifics was intended to verify the theoretical starting point: developing methodologies for reading iconic language is a tool to enable students to recognise the linguistic nature and ideological undertones of the constant audiovisual stimuli they are subjected to today.