MEDIA THEORISTS Flashcards
Semiotics - Roland Barthes
The idea that texts communicate their meanings through signs that can function at the level of denotation and connotation. Codes are also used by producers such as the Hermeneutic Code and the Proairetic Code.
Narratology - Tzvetan Todorov
The idea that all narratives share a basic structure that involves a movement from one state of equilibrium to another which are separated by a period of imbalance or disequilibrium
Genre theory - Steve Neale
The idea that genres may be dominated by repetition, but are also marked by variation. Genres change, develop, and vary, as they borrow from and overlap with one another.
Theories of representation - Stuart Hall
The idea that representation is the production of meaning through language. Stereotyping reduces people to a few simple characteristics or traits and stereotyping tends to occur where there are inequalities
of power.
Theories of identity - David Gauntlett
The idea that the media provide us with resources that we use to construct our identities and in the past the media tended to convey singular, straightforward messages about ideal types of male and female identities, the media today offer us a more diverse range of characters from whom we may pick and mix different ideas.
Power and Media Industries - Curran and Seaton
The idea that the media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the logic of profit and power and that media concentration generally limits or inhibits variety, creativity and quality
Media Effects - Albert Bandura
The idea that the media can implant ideas in the mind of the audience directly so media representations of transgressive behaviour, such as violence or physical aggression, can lead audience members to imitate those forms of behaviour.
Cultivation Theory - George Gerbner
The idea that exposure to repeated patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way in which people perceive the world around them
Reception Theory - Stuart Hall
The idea that communication is a process involving encoding by producers and decoding by audiences and that there are three hypothetical positions from which messages and meanings may be decoded: the preferred reading, the negotiated reading, and the oppositional reading.
Structuralism - Claude Lévi-Strauss
The idea that texts can best be understood through an examination of their underlying structure which often includes a pairs of binary oppositions
Postmodernism - Jean Baudrillard
The idea that in postmodern culture the boundaries between the ‘real’ world and the world of the media have collapsed and that it is no longer possible to distinguish between reality and simulation. Media images have come to seem more ‘real’ than the reality they supposedly represent (hyperreality).
Feminist theory - Liesbet van Zoonen
The idea that the display of women’s bodies as objects to be looked at is a core element of western patriarchal culture and that men are women are presented differently in the media.
Feminist theory - bell hooks
The idea that feminism is a struggle to end sexist/patriarchal oppression and the ideology of domination and is a political commitment rather than a lifestyle choice. Race and class as well as sex determine the extent to which individuals are exploited, discriminated against or oppressed.
Theories of gender performativity - Judith Butler
The idea that identity is performative and that there is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender. Performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition and a ritual.
Theories around ethnicity and postcolonial theory - Paul Gilroy
The idea that colonial discourses continue to inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity in the postcolonial era and that civilisationism constructs racial hierarchies and sets up binary oppositions based on notions of otherness.
