Theorist’s Flashcards
Roland Barthes
Semiotics codes- Text communicate their meanings through a process or signification.
Semantic- connotations of a text
Promretic- elements of media products which imply something is going to happen
Referential- any codes that refer to a certain culture or ethnicity
Hermeneutical- anything that will intrigue an audience read on.
Symbolic- an item/image that symbolises something
Steve Neale
Genre theory
- Genre may be dominated by repetition, but are also marked not difference, variation and change
- Genres change, develop, and vary as they borrow from and overlap with one another.
Repetition- codes that have been repeated multiple times e.g horror movies conventions
Difference- same genre (horror) but they don’t do the same thing
Claude Levi-Strauss
Structuralism:
- Texts can be understood through an examination of their underlying structure
- Meaning is dependent upon pairs of oppositions
- The way in which these binary oppositions are resolved can have ideological significance.
Stuart Hall
Representation theory:
- Representation is the production of meaning through language, that is defined in its broadest sense of a system of signs.
- relationship between concepts and signs is governed by codes.
- Stereotyping tends to occurs where there are inequalities of power.
David Gauntlett
Identity theory:
- Media provide the audience with ‘tools’ or resources that we use to construct our identities.
- in the past media tended to convey singular, straightforward messages about ideal types of make and female identities.
- The media today offer us a more diverse range of stars, icons and characters whom we may pick and mix different ideas.
Tzetvan Todorov
Narrative theory:
- All narratives share basic structure that involves a movement from one state of equilibrium to another.
- These two states of equilibrium are separated by a period of disequilibrium.
- The way in which narratives are resolved can have particular ideological significance.
Jean Baudrillard
Postmodernism theory:
- In postmodernism culture the boundaries between the ‘real’ world and the world of media have collapsed and can be no longer be distinguished.
- In a postmodern game of simularca we are immersed in a world of images with no longer are ‘real’
- Media images have come to seem more ‘real’ that the reality they are supposed to represent (hyperreality).
Liesbet Van Zoonen
Feminist theory:
- Gender is constructed through discourse and that its meaning varies according to cultural and historical context.
- The display of woman’s bodies are as object to be looked at is a core element of western patriarchal culture.
- In mainstream culture the visual and narrative codes that are used to construct the male body as a spectacle differ from those used to objectify the female body.
bell hooks
Feminist theory:
- Feminism is a struggle to end sexist/patriarchal oppression and the ideology of domination
- Feminism is a political commitment rather than lifestyle choice.
- Race and class as well as sex determine the extent to with individuals are exploited, discriminated against or oppressed.
Paul Gliroy
Post-colonialism and ethnicity theory:
- Colonial discourses continue to inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity in the post colonial era.
- Civilisation constructs racial hierarchies and sets up binary oppositions based on notions of otherness.
Clay Shirky
The end of audience:
- Internet and digital technologies have had a profound effect on the relations between media and individuals
- Conceptualisation of audience Mayberry as passive consumers of mass media is no longer tenable in the age of the internet
- As media consumers have now become producers who speak back to the midlands in various ways, as well as creating and sharing content.
Albert Bandura
Media Effects:
- Idea that media can implant ideas in the mind of the audience
- The idea media representations of transgressive behaviour can lead to the audience imitating those forms of behaviour
George Gerbner
Cultivation Theory:
- Exposure to related patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape to influence the audience in the way they perceive audience.
- Cultivation reinforces mainstream values
Curran and Seaton
Power and media industries:
- Media is controlled by a small number of companies driven by the logic of profit and power.
- Media concentration generally limits or inhibits variety, creativity and quality
- More socially diverse patterns of ownership help to create the conditions for me varied and adventurous media productions.
Judith Butler
Theories of gender performativity
- Identity is performatively constructed by the very expressions that are said to be its results
- There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender
- Performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition and ritual
