Key Theory 1:
Roland Barthes - SemioticsSemiotics: Study of meaning
Anything that can have meaning
Signs: Signifier is the word - meaning created in your head then it is signified
Key Theory 2:
Roland Barthes - signifiers vary depending on the personIn Media ANYTHING is a Code
In media, codes refer to any element of media language that creates meaning for the audience
Hermeneutic Codes:
Also known as enigma codes, these refer to something within the media product that creates mystery or suspense
Proairectic Codes:
Also known as the action code, these refer to anything that suggests that something is going to happen ( e.g. colour, sound...)
Symbolic Codes:
Anything with a deeper meaning for the audience
Key Theory 3:
Claude Levi-Strauss - a structuralistThe ways in which stories happen
Binary oppositions - two things that contradict one another e.g. day and night.
We see the world through not through what it is, but what it is not.
Key Theory 4:
David Gauntlet - Theories of Identity
Gauntlet believes that despite many negative perceptions of media, audiences are capable of constructing their own identities through what they see on tv
Additionally, he writes there are now many more representations of gender than the traditional " gender binary"
Gender binary - are female and male
Steve Neale - Theories around genre
Neale believes that genre is essentially instances of "repetition and difference". He suggested that texts need to conform to some generic paradigms to be identified within a certain genre - but must also subvert these conventions in order to not appear identical.
Intertextuality is when one text makes reference to another.
Why does genre exist? To create different categories of media so that the audience can choose what types they like and so that producers can identify what types of genre are more popular.
Believes in the idea of a story has a beginning, middle and end. Basically saying that things can go wrong in narratives.
Narration : The process of telling a story. They call the person telling a story the narrator
Narrative : The way in which a story is told
Arcetype : A type of character that appears time and time again.
Equilibrium is the state of balance
Disequilibrium is when something goes wrong and needs to be solved
Partial restoration of equilibrium is when things are slightly different but better, characters learn a lesson
The liminal period is the period when everything is completely disrupted ( main part )
If a media product has only one narrative then it is a single strand narrative
Multi-strand narrative is a media product that contains multiple narratives
Advantages of narrative equilibrium:
- Can be applied very easily
- Can be used on a macro(everything)and a micro level
Disadvantages of narrative equilibrium:
- Stating the obvious
- Too simple and straight forward
Albert Bandura - media effects
Bandura looked at the idea of media effects, which was a massive thing in the 1940s, Tv started to become popular. The effects model - the hypodermic needle model (Audience are manipulated by the media and ideology)
Advantages of theory - opens people's eyes & it's so simple
Disadvantages of the theory - it's wrong, it assumes all ideology is negative
Passive - you don't know what is happening, or atleast you just let stuff happen to you.
The audience agrees with the dominant values in the text, and agrees with the values and ideology it shows.
Oppositional reading -
When the audience completely disagrees with what they see, and rejects the dominant reading.
Negotiated reading
The audience generally agrees with what they see, but they may disagree with certain aspects
David Hesmondhalgh - Cultural industries
Horizontal integration -
Where a company buys other companies in the same sector to reduce the competition for audiences ( E.g. Disney buying Star Wars )
Vertical integration -
Where a company buys up other companies involved in different stages of the production and circulation. It is illegal in the UK. unfair business practise.
Conglomeration is the process of a conglomerate being formed.
A Conglomerate is a corporation that consists of a group of business dealing in different products or services.
Company ident - identifies the company
Universal is a distributor.
Curran & Seaton - Power and media industries
They believe that media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the profit and power
Media concentration limits variety, creativity and quality
More socially diverse patterns of ownership can create more varied and adventurous media production.
Lisbet Van Zoonen - The idea that gender is constructed through discourse and varied through cultural context. Gender is also constructed through codes and conventions of media products, and the idea of what is male and what is female changes over time.
The idea that the display of women's bodies as objects to be looked at is a core element of western patriarchal culture. Women's bodies are used in media products as a spectacle for heterosexual male audiences which reinforces patriarchal hegemony.
MALE GAZE THEORY
Visual and narrative codes that are used to construct the male body as spectacle differ from those used to objectify the female body.
A feminist is a person that believes in the social equality of men and women in society
S E X U A L I S A T I O N - To make something, person or object display sexual aspects. To define somebody purely by their perceived physical attractiveness
O B J E C T I F I C A T I O N - To present somebody as something inanimate or unfeeling. To define somebody purely by their use or their function.
Clay Shirky - End of audience
Audiences are no longer passive: they interact with media products in an increasingly complex variety of ways.
David Gauntlet - theories of identity
Audiences are not passive, media products allow the audience to construct their own identities. By way of example, what subcultures exist around.
Genre of music - Indie music - hipsters, fashion.
Pick And Mix theory - Audience picking bits out of the media products, which are based on the producers ideologies, and completely ignore elements which they do not agree with.
Feminism is a struggle to end patriarchal hegemony and the domination of women. Feminism is not a lifestyle choice: it is a political commitment. Race, class and gender all determine then extent to which individuals are exploited and oppressed.
"Feminism is for everyone" - her most famous book. Very inclusive.
Very important for men to be feminists because the ways in which women are treated also effects manhood and their masculinity.
Jean Baudrillard - Postmodernism
"It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting signs of the real for the real". A representation is the new reality.
Paul Gilroy - Theories around ethnicity and post-colonial theory.
Colonisation is when one country takes over another country and forces their culture on them. E.g. Britian Colonised India, Australia. Colonisation creates a heirarchy, and the colonisers believe they are better than the other country. Racial Heirarachys and othering made it easy for racism to take place.
Not only is racial heirarchy a form of hegemonic control
Judith Butler - Theories of gender performantivity
Idenitity is a performance , and it is constructed trhough a series of acts and expressions that we perform every day. While there are biologiical differences by sex, our gender is defined through the series of acts. These may include the ways we walk,talk,dress and so on. Therefore, there is no gender identity behind these expressions of gender. Gender performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition and a ritual. It is outlined and reinforced through dominant patriarchal ideologies
REPRESENTATION - VAN ZOONEN, STUART HALL, BELL HOOKS & DAVID GAUNTLET
MEDIA LANGUAGE - BARTHES, TODOROV, LEVI STRAUSS & STEVE NEALE
INDUSTRY - PETER HUNT & LIVINGSTONE, CURAN & SEATON, HESMONDHALGH
AUDIENCE - BANDURAS, SHRIKY, GERBNER & STUART HALL
Gauntlet believes that despite many negative perceptions of media, audiences are capable of constructing their own identities through what they see on tv
Additionally, he writes there are now many more representations of gender than the traditional " gender binary"
Gender binary - are female and male
Sterotypes of Men -
Provide for their families
Strong/Powerful
Men aren't supposed to show emotions
Sex obsessed
The leader
Sterotypes of Women -
Housewives
Bringing up children
Women are weak
Women are there for sexual purposes - sexualised throughout the media
Hysterical/Emotional
Subservient
Key Theory 5:
Steve Neale - Theories around genre
Neale believes that genre is essentially instances of "repetition and difference". He suggested that texts need to conform to some generic paradigms to be identified within a certain genre - but must also subvert these conventions in order to not appear identical.
Intertextuality is when one text makes reference to another.
Why does genre exist? To create different categories of media so that the audience can choose what types they like and so that producers can identify what types of genre are more popular.
Key Theory 6:
Tzventan Todorov - narratologyBelieves in the idea of a story has a beginning, middle and end. Basically saying that things can go wrong in narratives.
Narration : The process of telling a story. They call the person telling a story the narrator
Narrative : The way in which a story is told
Arcetype : A type of character that appears time and time again.
Equilibrium is the state of balance
Disequilibrium is when something goes wrong and needs to be solved
Partial restoration of equilibrium is when things are slightly different but better, characters learn a lesson
The liminal period is the period when everything is completely disrupted ( main part )
If a media product has only one narrative then it is a single strand narrative
Multi-strand narrative is a media product that contains multiple narratives
Advantages of narrative equilibrium:
- Can be applied very easily
- Can be used on a macro(everything)and a micro level
Disadvantages of narrative equilibrium:
- Stating the obvious
- Too simple and straight forward
Examples of Equilibrium:
Only Way Is Essex
Argument then making up
Rick and Morty
Wedding, Agent, Massive Shoot Out, Move Planets
Key Theory 7:
Albert Bandura - media effects
Bandura looked at the idea of media effects, which was a massive thing in the 1940s, Tv started to become popular. The effects model - the hypodermic needle model (Audience are manipulated by the media and ideology)
Advantages of theory - opens people's eyes & it's so simple
Disadvantages of the theory - it's wrong, it assumes all ideology is negative
Passive - you don't know what is happening, or atleast you just let stuff happen to you.
Key Theory 8:
George Gerbner - Cultivation theory
"The idea that prolonged and heavy exposure to TV..cultivates", as in grows and develops in audiences " a view of the world consistent with the dominant or majority view expounded by television"
Takes place over a long period of time
Does TV manipulate our ideology? TV distorts reality
Cultivate - to develop or grow something
Advantages - The effects are long term, makes more sense then suddenly changing from seeing one thing
Disadvantages - Not everybody is the same and as easily manipulated (not everybody is a heavy tv watcher), things were different in the 1970s, with only three channels, the ridiculous amount of ways we have accessing ,media now challenges the idea that any ideology can be mainstream.
Stuart Hall - Reception Theory
The audience is receiving something. This theory thinks about how the different ways the audience receives things. Active audiences, and the fact that different audiences has different opinions and create different effects
Preferred Reading -
The "right" reading of a text, which can be enforced by positioning.
This concept has to be approached carefully: often texts intentionally have multiple meanings/readings and of course, as we have discovered, audiences can potentially get whatever they want out of any media text.
Stewart hall categorised audience response into three separate groups.
These an help us to understand whether or not an audience sticks to the preferred reading or if they decide to make their own decision as to how to decode a text.
Dominant reading -
Key Theory 9:
Stuart Hall - Reception Theory
The audience is receiving something. This theory thinks about how the different ways the audience receives things. Active audiences, and the fact that different audiences has different opinions and create different effects
Preferred Reading -
The "right" reading of a text, which can be enforced by positioning.
This concept has to be approached carefully: often texts intentionally have multiple meanings/readings and of course, as we have discovered, audiences can potentially get whatever they want out of any media text.
Stewart hall categorised audience response into three separate groups.
These an help us to understand whether or not an audience sticks to the preferred reading or if they decide to make their own decision as to how to decode a text.
The audience agrees with the dominant values in the text, and agrees with the values and ideology it shows.
Oppositional reading -
When the audience completely disagrees with what they see, and rejects the dominant reading.
Negotiated reading
The audience generally agrees with what they see, but they may disagree with certain aspects
Key Theory 10:
David Hesmondhalgh - Cultural industries
Horizontal integration -
Where a company buys other companies in the same sector to reduce the competition for audiences ( E.g. Disney buying Star Wars )
Vertical integration -
Where a company buys up other companies involved in different stages of the production and circulation. It is illegal in the UK. unfair business practise.
Conglomeration is the process of a conglomerate being formed.
A Conglomerate is a corporation that consists of a group of business dealing in different products or services.
Company ident - identifies the company
Universal is a distributor.
Key theory 11:
Curran & Seaton - Power and media industriesThey believe that media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the profit and power
Media concentration limits variety, creativity and quality
More socially diverse patterns of ownership can create more varied and adventurous media production.
Key Theory 12:
Lisbet Van Zoonen - The idea that gender is constructed through discourse and varied through cultural context. Gender is also constructed through codes and conventions of media products, and the idea of what is male and what is female changes over time.
The idea that the display of women's bodies as objects to be looked at is a core element of western patriarchal culture. Women's bodies are used in media products as a spectacle for heterosexual male audiences which reinforces patriarchal hegemony.
MALE GAZE THEORY
Visual and narrative codes that are used to construct the male body as spectacle differ from those used to objectify the female body.
A feminist is a person that believes in the social equality of men and women in society
S E X U A L I S A T I O N - To make something, person or object display sexual aspects. To define somebody purely by their perceived physical attractiveness
O B J E C T I F I C A T I O N - To present somebody as something inanimate or unfeeling. To define somebody purely by their use or their function.
Key Theory 13:
Audiences are no longer passive: they interact with media products in an increasingly complex variety of ways.
Key Theory 14:
David Gauntlet - theories of identity
Audiences are not passive, media products allow the audience to construct their own identities. By way of example, what subcultures exist around.
Genre of music - Indie music - hipsters, fashion.
Pick And Mix theory - Audience picking bits out of the media products, which are based on the producers ideologies, and completely ignore elements which they do not agree with.
Key Theory 15:
bell hooks - feminist theoryFeminism is a struggle to end patriarchal hegemony and the domination of women. Feminism is not a lifestyle choice: it is a political commitment. Race, class and gender all determine then extent to which individuals are exploited and oppressed.
"Feminism is for everyone" - her most famous book. Very inclusive.
Very important for men to be feminists because the ways in which women are treated also effects manhood and their masculinity.
Key Theory 16:
Jean Baudrillard - Postmodernism
"It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting signs of the real for the real". A representation is the new reality.
Key Theory 17:
Paul Gilroy - Theories around ethnicity and post-colonial theory.
Colonisation is when one country takes over another country and forces their culture on them. E.g. Britian Colonised India, Australia. Colonisation creates a heirarchy, and the colonisers believe they are better than the other country. Racial Heirarachys and othering made it easy for racism to take place.
Not only is racial heirarchy a form of hegemonic control
Key Theory 18:
Judith Butler - Theories of gender performantivity
Idenitity is a performance , and it is constructed trhough a series of acts and expressions that we perform every day. While there are biologiical differences by sex, our gender is defined through the series of acts. These may include the ways we walk,talk,dress and so on. Therefore, there is no gender identity behind these expressions of gender. Gender performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition and a ritual. It is outlined and reinforced through dominant patriarchal ideologies
REPRESENTATION - VAN ZOONEN, STUART HALL, BELL HOOKS & DAVID GAUNTLET
MEDIA LANGUAGE - BARTHES, TODOROV, LEVI STRAUSS & STEVE NEALE
INDUSTRY - PETER HUNT & LIVINGSTONE, CURAN & SEATON, HESMONDHALGH
AUDIENCE - BANDURAS, SHRIKY, GERBNER & STUART HALL
