·· the discourse of justice, which is enshrined in the US Constitution ·· the social value that people should be treated justly across and within the USA ·· the social issue that it was hard to find or receive justice for African Americans in the Southern states, both before and at the time the film was made.

The texts that you have been studying were created under certain conditions that will, to a greater or lesser extent, have a bearing on what kinds of discourses the texts were produced under and what social values are present in the texts. The texts may also be a result of or response to a social issue. The period when a text was produced is obviously important; there is a great deal of difference between a television series that was produced in 1956 and one that was produced forty years later in 1996; for example, The Honeymooners (1955–56) and Friends (1994–2004).

### DISCOURSES . DOMINANT. EMERGING AND OPPOSITIONAL SOCIAL VALUES

Of course, not everyone in a particular society holds the same social values, and not all texts reflect the same social values. Also, social values are never static; as societies change, various social values often evolve in conflict with each other. The social values involving attitudes towards slavery are a good example of how discourses can change over time and also how a society can hold what appear to be conflicting values. In many ancient societies, slavery was considered neither good nor bad; it was simply normal, the way things were, and this attitude can be seen in the cultural artefacts and products of the time. When most people in a society hold the same social value, it is called a dominant social value. In ancient societies, this attitude to slavery could be called a dominant social value. Over time, a variety of new discourses evolved to challenge this dominant social value. In Europe in the eighteenth century, discourses involving religion, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and the ‘Rights of Man’ created new ideas and groups opposed to slavery. When a new social value emerges against or alongside a dominant social value, it is called an emerging social value. The idea that slavery was wrong had become an emerging social value. Emerging social values sometimes fade away, but sometimes they grow to become oppositional social values. An oppositional social value is strongly positioned against dominant social values and discourses. In the case of slavery, the emerging social value soon became oppositional: the dominant social value held that slavery was good and normal, and the oppositional value held that slavery was evil and unnatural. Over time, the oppositional social value grew to overwhelm old attitudes, so that eventually it became the new dominant social value. This change in attitudes towards slavery followed a common path for social values: from the dominant ‘this is normal’, to the emerging ‘something is wrong’, to the oppositional ‘this must change’, untl the oppositional succeeds to become the new dominant. The USA in the nineteenth century provides a good example of the interplay of social values and discourses surrounding slavery. Before the US Civil War of 1861–65, many of the Southern states relied on slavery as the basis of their economy. In the South, the idea that slavery was normal and necessary was a dominant social value, and the