Theorists

Question 1

Semiotics, Ronald Barthes

Answer 1

• Language
• Texts communicate their meanings through signs and signification
• The idea that sign can function at the level of denotation which involves literal
• Common sense meaning of the sign and at level of connotation
• Constructed meanings can come to seem self-evident, becomes mythological

Question 2

Narratology, Tzvetan Todorov

Answer 2

• Language
• How the narration in the story is created
• 5 stages that a character will go through: Equilibrium, Disruption, Recongition, Repair the damage and Equilibrium again

Question 3

Genre theory, Steve Neale

Answer 3

• Language
• Genres contain instances of repetition and difference
• Difference is essential to the economy of the genre
• How much is conforms to its genre’s individual conventions and stereotypes

Question 4

Structuralism, Claude Levi-Strauss

Answer 4

• Language
• The idea that every system, including a social system, has a particular structure

Question 5

Postmodernism, Jean Baudrillard

Answer 5

• Language
• In the modern world, what something represents has become more important than what it actually is

Question 6

Theory of representation, Stuart Hall

Answer 6

• Representation
• The production of meaning through language, with language defined
  in its broadest sense as a system of signs
• the relationship between concepts and signs is governed by codes
• 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 7

Theory of Identity, David Gauntlett

Answer 7

• Representation
• The media provides us with ‘tools’ or resources that we use to construct our identities
• 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 8

Feminist theory, Lisebet Van Zoonen

Answer 8

• Representation
• Gender is constructed through discourse, meaning varies through historical context
• Women’s bodies as objects to be looked at
• In mainstream culture the visual and narrative codes used to construct make bodies different to the female body
• Men and women are portrayed differently in media
• Objectified in western culture

Question 9

Feminist theory, bell hooks

Answer 9

• Representation
• Does not fight for the equality of women and men (of the same class) but of a movement that fights to end sexist oppression and exploitation without neglecting other forms of oppression such as racism

Question 10

Gender performativity, Judith Butler

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Ethnicity and postcolonial theory, Paul Gilroy

Answer 11

• Representation
• Colonial discourses continue to inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity in
  the postcolonial era
• Civilisationism constructs racial hierarchies and sets up binary oppositions based on notions of otherness.

Question 12

Power and media industries, Curran and Seaton

Answer 12

• Industries
• Media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the logic of profit and power
• Media concentration generally limits or inhibits variety, creativity and quality, more socially diverse patterns of ownership doesn’t

Question 13

Regulation, Livingstone and Lunt

Answer 13

• Industries
• There is an underlying struggle in the recent UK regulation policy between protectting people and offering them the choice
• Increasing power of global media corporations, together with the rise on convergent media technologies and transformation in the production, distribution etc
• Technology has made it harder to regulate

Question 14

Cultural industries, David Hesmondhalgh

Answer 14

• Industries
• Minimise risk and maximise profit]
• Horizontally and vertically intergrated, digitally convergent, focus on popular genres and formats
• Controlled release schedule, detailed marketing campaign

Question 15

Media effects, Albert Bandura

Answer 15

• Audience
• Focuses on the idea that the media can directly ‘implant’ ideas into the mind of audiences
• Acquire attitudes, emotional responses and new styles of conduct through modelling

Question 16

Cultivation theory, George Gerbner

Answer 16

• Audience
• Overtime repeated exposure to a particular attitude/value encourages audiences to adopt a particular view

Question 17

Reception theory, Stuart Hall

Answer 17

• Audiences
• Dominant reading, Negotiated reading, Oppositional reading, Passive audience, Active audience

Question 18

Fandom theory, Henry Jenkins

Answer 18

• Audiences
• Fans develop their expertise over the material by analysing programmes frame by frame
• Each episode is evaluated
• Character and plot are discussed

Question 19

‘End of audience’ theory, Clay Shirky

Answer 19

• Audiences
• Audience members as passive consumers is no longer tenable in the age of the internet with the rise of the prosumers who can create their own content
• Consumers can also actively engage and speak back to the news media