Media figures/ theories Flashcards
What is Maslows Hierarchy of needs?
-Physiological needs (food, water, warmth, rest)
-Safety needs (security)
-Belongingness and love needs (relationships)
-Esteem needs (prestige, feeling of accomplishment)
-Self-actualisation (achieving potential)
What was Claudi Levi- Strausses idea about binary oppositions?
Suggest that all texts use contrasts/oppositions to ‘tell’ a story/ move forward the narrative/create meaning
Who was the two step flow model created by?
Katz and Lazarsfield
What are the two basic steps of the two step flow model?
- Information taken in when reading or watching a piece of media
- Opinion leaders pass on their opinions and views to other people
What are opinion leaders?
Audiences that have viewed a certain piece of media and pass the information about it/their opinion, onto others
What is an Echo chamber?
Where you only focus on what you’re interested in/ your values. This means you’re blocking out mainstream ideas
What are the good things about an echo chamber?
Makes you feel like your opinion is right
You can focus on specialised information
What are the bad things about an echo chamber?
Breeds intolerance and ignorance
Makes you not accept other opinions or ideas
What was Tzvetan Todorovs idea about the structure of a story?
- Equilibrium (state of order)
- Disruption/ disequilibrium/ chaos
- New equilibrium (order is restored)
What is the Bandura/ Hyperdermic syringe theory?
The media injects messages into the minds of a passive audience.
The people take in the message and believe it
What is the rule of thirds?
Splitting an image into 3, (vertically or horizontally) and seeing where the focus of an image lies.
What is George Gerbners Cultivation theory?
The more you see something, the more you will believe it
What is the opposite theory to George Gerbners and what does it mean?
Innoculation theory = the more you see something, the less effect it has
Baudrillard
Postmodernism
- In a postmodern culture the boundaries between the ‘real’ world and the world of the media have collapsed = no longer possible to distinguish between reality and simulation
- Images in society no longer refer to anything ‘real’
- Media images have come to seem more ‘real’ than the reality they supposedly represent (hyperreality)
Steve Neale
Genre is recognisable but does change over time/ borrow from other genres
Genre is important to institutions because it helps them to market texts
Blulmer and Katz
Uses and gratifications theory:
Audience entered approach that focuses on what people do with media opposed to what media does to people
Liesbet Van Zoonen
-Male objectification differs from female objectification.
-Women are objectified as a result of western patriarchal culture
-Media reinforces patriarchal ideas which oppress women
Laura Mulvey
Male gaze theory
Women in media are viewed from the eyes of a heterosexual man (doesn’t take into consideration the sexuality or gender of other audiences) and seen as passive objects/ male desire
Stuart Hall reception theory
Producers want audiences to respond in a particular way to a text. Some audiences do (preferred), some don’t (oppositional) and some are in the middle (negotiated).
Barthes Codes
-Enigma codes - any code that raises questions
-Action codes - any code that moves readings
-Semantic codes - any code that requires its connotations decoding (not a straight forward meaning)
-Symbolic codes - any code that represents the overaching themes/ideologies
-Referential codes - any code that refers to something outside of the text
Judith Butler
-Gender is a social construct/performance
-Divide between masculinity and femininity is constructed
-Media can construct or deconstruct these ideas
Current and Seaton
The media is controlled by a small number of firms driven by profit and power
Media concentration limits variety, creativity and quality
Diverse patterns of ownership leads to more adventurous productions
Gilroy
Post colonial melancholia
- white/ air brushed British history
- Split between white western civilisation and the black Atlantic
Society has constructed racial hierarchies resulting in the idea of ‘other’/‘otherness’
Gauntlett
The media provides us with tools that we use to construct our identities
Pick & mix theory = the media offers us a range of people from whom we may ‘pick and mix’ different ideas and personalities from, in order to build our own identity
Jenkins
Fans take elements from media texts to create their own culture and identity - participatory culture
Fans are active participants in the construction and circulation of texts
Textual poaching - fans reads texts in ways not authorised by the creators
Shirky
In new media, every consumer is now a producer
Vladmir Propp (theory and name 3 of his character types)
Idea that certain character are types are used in every narrative structure: The villain The hero The donor The helper The princess Her father The false hero
Tessa Perkins
There is some truth in stereotyping
You can hold stereotypes about your own group
Stereotypes aren’t always negative
Stereotypes are not fixed/ change over time
They are not always targeted at a minority group
Hesmondhalgh
Cultural industries minimise risk and maximise audience through vertical and horizontal integration and through how the products are made (minimise risk and maximise audiences through marketing for eg)
Conglomerates operate across many industries
Antonio Gramsci
Cultural hegemony is where the ruling class dominate and manipulate society, thus meaning that the ruling lass worldview becomes the accepted cultural norm.
bell hooks
-Feminism is a political struggle to end patriarchal oppression.
-Race and class also determine the extent to which individuals are oppressed (intersectionality - the sum of oppressed identities)
Livingstone and Lunt
Struggle in U.K. regulation policy between need to protect citizens vs the need to further the choice of consumers
