Theories

Question 1

(Language) Roland Barthes - Semiotics

Answer 1

• The idea that texts communicate their meanings through a process of signification.
• The idea that signs can functions at the level of devotion, which involves the ‘literal’ or common sense meaning of the sign, at the level of connotation, which involves the meanings associated with or suggested by the sign.
• the idea that constructed meanings can come to seem self evident, achieving the status of myth through a process of naturalisation.

Question 2

Tzvetan Todorov - Narratology

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 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

Claude Levi Strauss - Structuralism

Answer 3

• the idea that texts can best be 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 which these binary oppositions are resolved can have particular ideological significance.

Question 4

Steve Neale - Genre Theory

Answer 4

• 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 and vary, borrow from and overlap with one another.
• the idea that genres exist within specific economic, institutional and industrial contexts.

Question 5

Jean Baudrillard - Post Modernism

Answer 5

• the idea that in post modern 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.
• 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 supposed represent (hyper reality).

Question 6

(Representation) David Gauntlett - Identity Theory

Answer 6

• the idea that media provide us with ‘tools’ or resources that we use to construct our identities.
• the idea that whilst 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 stars, icons and characters from whom we may pick and mix different ideas.

Question 7

Stuart Hall - Representation Theory

Answer 7

• the idea that representation is the production of meaning through language, with language defined in its broadest sense as a system of signs.
• the idea that the relationship between concepts and signs is governed by codes.
• the idea that stereotyping, as a form of representation, reduces people to a few simple characteristics or traits.
• the idea that stereotyping tends to occur where there are inequalities of power, as subordinate or excluded groups are constructed as different or ‘other’ (e.g. through ethnocentrism).

Question 8

Liesbet van Zoonen - Feminist Theory

Answer 8

• the idea that gender is constructed through discourse, and that it’s meaning varies according to cultural and historical context.
• the idea that the display of women’s bodies as objects to be looked at is a core element of western patriarchal culture.
• the idea that in mainstream culture the visual and narrative codes that are used to construct the male body as spectacle different from those used to objectify the female body.

Question 9

bell hooks - Feminism Theory

Answer 9

• the idea that feminism is a struggle to end sexist/patriarchal oppression and the ideology of domination.
• the idea that race and class as well as sex determine the extent to which individuals are exploited, discriminated against or oppressed.
• the idea that feminism is a political commitment rather than a lifestyle choice.

Question 10

Judith Butler - Gender Performativity

Answer 10

• the idea that identity is performatively constructed by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results (it is manufactured through a set of acts).
• the idea that there is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender.
• the idea that performativity is not a single act, but a repetition and a ritual.

Question 11

Paul Gilroy - Ethnicity and Post Colonial Theory

Answer 11

• the idea that colonial discourses continue to inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity in the post colonial era.
• the idea that civilisation -ism constructs racial hierarchies and sets up binary oppositions based on notions of otherness.

Question 12

(Audience) Albert Bandura - Media Effects

Answer 12

• the idea that the media implant ideas in the mind of the audience directly.
• the idea that audiences acquire attitudes, emotional responses and new styles of conduct through modelling.
• the idea that media representations of transaggressive behaviour, such as violence or physical aggression, can lead audience members to imitate those forms of behaviour.

Question 13

George Gerbner - Cultivation theory

Answer 13

• the idea that exposure to repeated patterns of representations over long periods of time can shape and influence the way in which people perceive the world around them (I.e. cultivating particular views and opinions).
• the idea cultivation reinforces mainstream values (dominant ideologies)

Question 14

Stuart Hall - Reception Theory

Answer 14

• the idea that communication is a process involving encoding by products and decoding by audiences.
• the idea that there are three hypothetical positions from which messages and meanings may be decoded.
• dominant-hegemonic position: meaning (the preferred reading) is fully understood and accepted.
• negotiated position: the legitimacy of the encoder’s message is acknowledged in general terms, although the message is adapted or negotiated to better fit the decoder’s own individual experiences or context.
• oppositional position: the encoder’s message is understood, but the decoders disagrees with it, reading it in a contrary or oppositional way.

Question 15

Henry Jenkins - Fandom Theory

Answer 15

• the idea that fans are active participants in construction and circulation of textual meanings.
• the idea that fans appropriate texts and read them in ways that are not fully authorised by the media producers ‘textual poaching’.
• the idea that fans construct their social and cultural identities through borrowing and inflecting mass culture images, and are part of a participatory culture that had a vital social dimension.

Question 16

Clay Shirky - End of Audience Theory

Answer 16

• the idea that the internet and digital technologies have had a profound effect on the relations between media and individuals
• the idea that the conceptualisation of audience members as passive consumers of mass media content is age of the internet p, as media consumers have now become producers who ‘speak back to’ the media in various ways as well as creating and sharing content with one another.

Question 17

(Industries) Curran and Seaton - Power and Media Theory

Answer 17

• the idea that the media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the logic of profit and power.
• the idea that media concentration generally limits or inhibits variety, creativity quality.
• the idea that more socially diverse patterns of ownership help to create the conditions for more varied and adventurous media productions.

Question 18

Livingstone and Lunt - Regulation Theory

Answer 18

• the idea that there is an underlying struggle in recent UK regulation policy between the need to further the interests of citizens (by offering protection from harmful or offensive material), need to further the interests of consumers (by ensuring choice, value for money, and market competition).
• the idea that the increasing power of global media corporations, together with the rise of convergent media technologies and transformations in the production, distribution and marketing of digital media, have placed traditional approaches to media regulation at risk.

Question 19

David Hesmondhalgh - Cultural Industries Theory

Answer 19

• the idea that cultural industry companies try to minimise risk and maximise audiences through vertical and horizontal inter gratin, and by formatting their cultural products (e.g. through the use of stars, genres, and serials).
• the idea that the largest companies or conglomerates now operate across a number of different cultural industries.
• the idea that the radical potential of the internet has been contained to some extent by its partial incorporation into a large, profit oriented set of cultural industries.