Theorists Flashcards
What is Roland Barthes theory of semiotics?
This theory explains that there are signs within media texts. These signs have two main components namely a signifier sign and a signified sign. The context that appears helps assign that meaning to the audience who receive it.
What is Steve Neales genre theory?
Two main key terms: repetition and difference.
Audiences enjoy the familiarity of repeated genre conventions as they know what to expect from the media text and this helps producers target a specific audience.
Audiences also enjoy the originality of different conventions and might be disengaged if the genre conventions are too predictable.
What is Stuart Halls representation theory?
Argues that within a media texts, there will oftentimes not be a true representation of events, people, places or history.
Media represents something and it’s this process of representation that creates the meaning.
Of course there are unequal power dynamics within this process.
What is Levi-Strauss’s theory of binary opposition?
Opposites are used to help develop narratives.
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What is David Gauntletts ‘pick and mix’ theory?
Audiences are sophisticated and accept the meanings that they agree with or are appropriate for them, and ignore the meanings which they disagree with, or are irrelevant to them.
What is Paul Gilroy’s ethnicity and post-colonial theory?
Even today, the foundation of colonialism (a belief in white superiority) still persists.
There remains ‘postcolonial melancholia’ - a romantic idea about Britains past and an ‘us and them’ mentality, with white western civilisation seen as superior.
What is David Gauntlett’s theory of identity?
Audiences develop a sense of their own identity through the media products they consume.
In the past, identity was represented as more straightforward and fixed.
These stereotypical ideas about identity have changed.
Now there are more diverse and complex forms of identity in media representation.
What is Liesbet Van Zoonen’s make gaze theory?
Women’s bodies are represented as objects and a spectacle for heterosexual men.
Media does this believing that they are mirroring dominant social ideas.
What is Stuart Hall’s reception theory?
Identity is more than just an internal idea that a person holds about themselves but is formed though ongoing conversation between a person and the people around them.
What is Bell Hooks social theory?
Media represents the values of the dominant group who control, media industries (male, white, upper class).
The non-dominant groups may be be misrepresented or ignored.
Discrimination against women can differ.
What is Antonio Gramsci’s cultural hegemony theory?
The most privileged people can be cultural institutions to maintain their power in capitalist societies.
They propagate their own values by using ideology, rather than physical force.
The most privileged and powerful people manage to convince others that their own dominant ideas are simply common-sense values.
What is Albert Bandura’s social learning theory?
Argues that human behaviour traits are learned from observing others.
Audiences may be conditioned by the media, to learn how to behave as a man or woman.
What is Todorov’s narratology theory?
All narratives share a basic structure, moving from one equilibrium to another.
These two states of equilibrium are separated by disruption or imbalance.
The way that narratives resolve can have ideological significance.
What is Levi-Strauss’s theory of structuralism?
Texts can be understood through an analysis of their underlying structure.
Meaning is often produced through oppositional pairs.
The resolution of these binary opposites can have ideological significance.
What is James Curran/Jean Seaton power and media industries theory?
Media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily concerned with gaining profit and power.
Media concentration typically inhibits or limits variety, creativity and quality.
Socially diverse patterns of ownership help to create conditions for more varied and adventurous media products.
What is Albert Banduras media effects theory?
Media is capable of implanting ideas directly into the minds of its audiences.
Audiences respond to the modelling in media and, thereby, acquire new attitudes, styles of conduct and emotional responses.
Media representation of transgressive or antisocial behaviour can lead audience members to imitate those forms of behaviour.
What is George Gerbners’s cultivation theory?
Repeated exposure to patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way the audience perceives the world around them.
Cultivation reinforces the mainstream or dominant, values and ideologies.
What is Clay Shirky’s end of audience theory?
The internet and digital technologies have a profound effect on the relations between media and individuals.
In the age of the internet, audience members are no longer passive consumers mass media content: consumers now have the ability to “speak back” to media in various ways.
Media consumers engage in the creating and sharing of content with one another.
