Media Theories (Media Language)

Question 1

Semiotics (Barthes)

Answer 1

The idea that texts communicate their meanings through a process of signification.

The idea that signs can function at the level of denotation, which involves the ‘literal’ or common sense meaning of the sign and at the level of connotation, which involves the meanings associated with or suggested by the sign.

Question 2

Narratology (Todorov)

Answer 2

The idea that all narratives share a basic structure that involves a movement from one state of equilibrium to another.

The idea that these two states of equilibrium are separated by a period of imbalance or disequilibrium.

The idea that the way in which narratives are resolved can have particular ideological significance.

Question 3

Genre Theory (Neale)

Answer 3

The idea that genres may be dominated by repetition, but are also marked by difference, variation and change.

The idea that genres change, develop and vary, as they borrow from and overlap one another.

The idea that genres exist within specific economic, institutional and industrial contexts.

Question 4

Structuralism (Levi-Strauss)

Answer 4

The idea that texts can be best understood through an examination of their underlying structure.

The idea that meaning is dependent upon (and produced through) pairs of oppositions.

The idea that the way in which these binary oppositions are resolved can have particular ideological significance.

Question 5

Postmodernism (Baudrillard)

Answer 5

The idea that in postmodern culture the boundaries between the ‘real’ world and the world of media have collapsed and that it is no longer possible to distinguish between reality and simulation.

The idea that in a postmodern age of simulacra we are immersed in a world of images which no longer refer to anything real.

The idea that media images have come to seem more ‘real’ than the reality they supposedly represent (hyper reality).