Theory Flashcards
Steve Neal
Genre Theory.
Audiences enjoy specific texts because of repetition and difference in a genre.
Genre is not something static, it is always evolving
Roland Barthes
Semiotic Theory - structuralism
Semantic, Enigma, Symbolic, Action, Cultural
Levi Strauss
Binary opposition
A good story revolves around conflicts between opposites
Good vs Evil, Young vs Old
Meaning is dependant upon opposition
Todorov
Narratives Theory
Equilibrium, Disruption, Realisation, Resolution, New Equilibrium
Way in which narratives are resolved can have aparticular ideological significance
Propp
Character types
Hero, Villain, Dispatcher Donor, Helper, Princess
All stories feature specific roles that help audiences understand the story
Stuart Hall C
Reception Theory
Producers encoding and audiences decoding
Prefferred reading - accept the products messages
Oppositional reading - reject the products messages
Negotiated reading - where they partially accept and reject the messages
Blumler and Katz
Users and Gratification
Active audiences use the media for different reasons
Media plays a function for audiences:
Personal identity, entertainment, information, social interaction
Young and Rubicam
The Four C’s - Cross Cultural Consumer Characteristics
Explorer, Aspirer, Succeeder, Reformer, Mainstream, Struggler, Resigned
Banduro
Media Effects theory
Bobo Doll experiment
- media can implant ideas in the mind of audience
- audience acquire attitudes, emotional responses
- media representations of violence can lead audience to imitate this behaviour
Henry Jenkins
Fandom theory
Fans are active participants in constructiom of textual meanings
Fans take media text and interpret them in ways not meant - textual poaching
Fans construct social and cultural identies by borrowing and adapting media texts
Clay Shirkey
End of Audience
Internet and tech has changed relationship between producers and audiences
Passive audience consuming media no longer exists because tech has turned them prosumers
Stuart Hall P
Theory of Representations
Media products have a shared conceptual roadmap that helps us understand whats being portrayed.
Media often contains stereotypes that reduce groups to negative characteristics.
Baudrillard
Postmodernism
Media products create representations of reality - ’simulacra’
These are ’hyperreal’ and suggest audiences cant tell different between this and reality.
In COD, gamers are immersed in a world of war that many eblieve is a realistic representation of a war zone country.
Two step flow model
Information from the media moves in two stages
First, the media will influence an opinion leader who will influence the masses
Opinion leaders affect the way in which others interpret the media. They can influence the audeince to think a certain way
Gauntlett
Identity / pick and mix theory
Media provides us with tools to construct our own identities
Suggests that the media conveys straightforward messages about ideal types of identities, however modern media offers a more diverse range of characters and ideas we can pick and mix from
Van Zoonen
Feminist theory
Gender is constructed through discourse, and its meaning differs depending on context
Display of womens bodies as objects is a core part of western culture
bell hooks
Intersectional feminism
Feminism is the struggle to end sexist and patriarchal oppression and domination
Feminsim is a politcal commitment rather than a lifestyle choice
Race and class as well as sex determine the extent of which individuals are exploited or oppressed
Mulvey
Male Gaze theory
Critical of the way women are represented as sex objects to feed the demands of male audiences
Male Gaze theory siggests women are objectified in film where men are in charge of the camera
Women are hereby considered the passive gender to be looked at
Butler
Gender performtivity
Identity is performatively constructed by exlressions that are manufactured through a set of acts
No gender indentity through the expression of gender
Performativity is not a singular act but a ritual
Gilroy
Postcolonial theory
Colonial discoursed continue to inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity
Civiliasationism constructs racial hierachies and connotes feelings of otherness
Curran and Seaton
Power and media industries
Media is controlled by small number of companies that are driven by profit and power
Media concentration limits variety, creativity and quality.
Socially diverse patterns of ownership create varied media productions.
Livingstone and Lunt
Regulation theory
An underlying struggle in UK regulation policy to further the interests of citizens and the need to further interest consumers
Increasing power of global media corporations place traditional approaches to media regulation at risk
Hesmondhalgh
Cultural industries
Cultural industries minimise risk and maximise profits and audiences through vertical and horizontal integration
Large companies now operate a number of different cultural industries
