Theorists

Question 1

Roland Barthes

Answer 1

• texts communicate meaning through a process of significations
• constructed meanings can come to seem self evident and achieving the status of myth through a process of naturalisation

Question 2

Van Zoonen

Answer 2

• gender is constructed through discourse and its meaning varies according to social/ cultural context
• the display of women’s bodies as objects is a core element of western patriarchal culture
• mainstream culture uses visual and narrative codes to construct the male body as a spectacle unlike the objectification of the female body

Media can contribute to social change by representing women in non traditional roles - things can change.

Question 3

Stuart Hall (Stereotyping)

Answer 3

• Stereotyping occurs when there are inequalities of power
• groups of power encoded their own ideological biases within the media (eg. patriarchal values)

Question 4

Gauntlett

Answer 4

Identity theory

• Media provides us with tools that we use to construct our identities
• Media today offers a diverse range of stars, icons + characters from where we can pick a mix of ideas to construct out identity

Question 5

Louis Gianetti

Answer 5

Updated ideas of Metz

1. Primitive - genre is developing
2. Classic - Genre is firmly established, recognisable codes and conventions
3. Revisionist - Films that play with/ subvert typical genre elements to explore new ideas
4. Parodic - Mocking the genre for the audiences pleasure

Question 6

Claude Levi-Strauss

Answer 6

• Texts can be best understood through the examination of their underlying structure
• Meaning is dependent on pairs of opposites
• The way these binary opposites are resolved have particular ideological significance

Question 7

Stuart Hall (Representstion)

Answer 7

• Reflective view, media replicated the world without distortion
• Media produces versions of reality that are shaped by the subjective viewpoints of their creators

Question 8

Nick Lacey

Answer 8

Argues that each genre has its own repertoire of elements to help distinguish each other from other genres.

Eg. iconography, setting, style, character, narrative

Question 9

Christian Metz

Answer 9

1. Experimental - genre is established
2. Classical - Develops the codes and conventions
3. Parody - Media texts ‘mocking’ the genre
4. Deconstruction - hybridisation, merging with other genres

Question 10

Steve Neale

Answer 10

• Genre may be determined by repetition but is also marked by difference
• Genres change, develop and vary as they borrow and overlap with one another
• Genres exist within specific economic, institutional and industrial context

Question 11

Goodwin

Answer 11

Illustration - visual narrative tells the story of the song lyrics, literal interpretation
Amplification - clips introduce new meanings which add layers of meaning
Disjuncture - when the imagery doesn’t match the lyrics, adding a new meaning. or when the visual narrative contradicts the lyrics or unintentionally undermines them

Question 12

Bell Hooks

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Alvarado (1987)

Answer 13

Racial representations
1. The exotic
2. The dangerous
3. The humorous
4. The pitied

Question 14

Gilroy

Answer 14

• The idea that colonial discourses continue to inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity in the post colonial era
• The idea that civilisation constructs racial hierarchies and sets up binary oppositions based on ‘otherness’
• Media texts reinforce power (overlaps with Levi-Strauss and Stuart Hall)

Question 15

Laura Mulvey

Answer 15

• Audiences are typically positioned to identify with, and look through the eyes of, a heterosexual male
• In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female
• Women are objectified (appearances portrayed for strong visual and erotic impact)
• Women’s bodies are often fetishized through fragmented close-ups

Question 16

Curran and Seaton

Answer 16

• The 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 help to create the conditions for more varied and adventurous media productions.

Question 17

David Hesmondhalgh

Answer 17

• companies try to minimise risk and maximise audiences through vertical and horizontal integration, and by formatting their cultural products (e.g. through the use of stars, genres, and serials)
• The largest companies or conglomerates now operate across a number of different cultural industries

Question 18

Livingstone and Lunt

Answer 18

• 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), and the need to further the interests of consumers (by ensuring choice, value for money, and market competition)

Question 19

Bandura

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Stuart Hall - reception theory

Answer 20

How the audience responds to a media text:

• dominant-hegemonic position
• negotiated position
• oppositional position

Question 21

Henry Jenkins

Answer 21

Fandom

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

Question 22

Clay Shirky

Answer 22

End of Audience
- The conceptualisation of audience members as passive consumers of mass media content is no longer tenable in the age of the Internet, 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.
(Hypogenic needle)

Question 23

Uses and Gratifications

Answer 23

1. Information
2. Personal Identity
3. Social interaction
4. Entertainment

Question 24

Gerbner

Answer 24

• Exposure to repeated patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way in which people perceive the world around me
• cultivation reinforces mainstream values

Question 25

Judith Butler

Answer 25

• Identity is performatively constructed by very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results (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 26

Marjorie Ferguson’s facial expressions

Answer 26

• chocolate box
• invitational
• super smiler
• romantic/ sexual

Question 27

Edward Said

Answer 27

• ‘Orientalism’ is a way of seeing that exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab people and culture as compared to that of Europe and the USA
• Often involves seeing Arab vulture as exotic, backwards and uncivilised and at times, dangerous

Question 28

Theodor Adorno - false needs theory

Answer 28

• popular media is the product of a ‘culture industry’ which keeps the population passive, preserving dominance of capitalism at the expense of happiness
• mass media is standardised, and the pleasures is offers are illusory - the result of ‘false needs’ which the culture creates

Question 29

“The Ideal Woman” Jennifer Holt - EXTRA ARTICLE

Stereotypes discussed

Answer 29

1. “A woman’s place is in the home with her family”
2. “women do not make important decisions”
3. “women as dependent on and in need of a man’s protection and acceptance”
4. “men regard women primarily as sexual objects and thus of a lower status”