Media Theories Flashcards
What is Roland Barthes theory?
Semiotics
- All elements of a media text are codes that need to be read. These can all be understood as the thing they are and the responses they create
What is Todorovs theory?
Narratives follow a pattern of equilibrium
equilibrium - disruption - new equilibrium
What is Neales theory?
Genre theory
The idea that genres change, develop, and vary, as they borrow from and overlap with one another
What is Hall’s theory? (Representation)
Theories of representation
- media language is used to create representations (stereotyping is often used to assert power)
- Producers want audiences to respond in a particular way to a text (preferred, oppositional and negotiated)
What is Gauntletts theory?
Theories of identity
-The idea that the media provide us with ‘tools’ or resources that we use to construct our identities
What is Curran and Seatons theory?
Power and media industries
-The idea that the media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the logic of profit and power (we’d have more media texts if there were more companies)
What is Bandura theory?
Media Effects
- The idea that the media can implant ideas in the mind of the audience directly
What is Gerbners theory?
Cultivation theory
- The more we see the same representations and messages the more we believe they are true
What is Levi-Strauss’ theory?
Structuralism
- Conflict between binary oppositions drives forward the narrative
What is Van Zoonens theory?
Feminist theory
- men and women are represented differently in the media. Women objectified as a result of western culture
What is Bell Hooks theory?
Feminist theory -The idea that feminism is a struggle to end sexist/patriarchal domination. Other factors affect this dominations such as class and race
What is Butlers theory?
Theories of gender performativity
Gender is a social construction
Masculine and Feminine are created through repetition
What is Gilroys theory?
Theories around ethnicity and postcolonial theory
- The idea that colonial discourses continue to inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity in the postcolonial era
-The idea that civilisationism constructs racial hierarchies and sets up binary oppositions based on notions of otherness.
What is Livingstone and Lunts theory?
Regulation
The idea that there is an underlying struggle in recent UK regulation policy between the need to further the interests of citizens
What is Hesmondhalgh’s theory?
The idea that cultural industry companies try to minimise risk and maximise audiences through vertical and horizontal integration, and by formatting their cultural products (e.g. Through the use of stars, genres, and serials)
