Theory Flashcards
Semiology
BARTHES- Study of Signs. Signs consists of a signifiers and it’s meaning- the signified.
Denotations signify connotations . Denotations and connotations organised into myths - the ideological meaning. Makes ideology seem natural. (Bulldog activate a myth of Britishness)
Genre Theory
NEALE - about what genres are, about how and why they are created, change endure or decline.
Genre is a process by which GC+C are shared by producers and audiences through repetition in media products.
Genres are not fixed, but constantly evolve with each new addition to the generic corpus, often playing with G C+C or hybrids with other genres.
G C+C est. In products that refer to these products such as critical writing / advertising… NEALE refered as ‘intertextual relay’
Narratology
TODOROV - study of narrative/ narrative structure how the parts fit together to make a whole.
All narrative move from one state of equilibrium to another new equilibrium. The disruption to equilibrium drives the narrative towards a new equilibrium.
Movement of initial equilibrium to the new equilibrium entails a transformation - this transformation expresses what the narrative values.
Structuralism
LEVI STRAUSS - a study of the hidden rules that govern a structure.
Binary Opposition - system of myths and fables ruled by a structure of opposing terms. Opposition drives narrative.
Postmodernism
BAUDRILLARD - idea society moved beyond modernism.
As modern societies were organised around production of goods, postmodern society is organised around ‘simulation’ -the play of images and signs.
Hyperreality - representation of representations becomes new truth. Controls how we think and behave.
Theories of Identities
GAUNTLETT - Media has important but complex relationship with identities.
Now an expectation that individuals make choices about their identity and lifestyle.
Even in traditional media, many diverse and contradictory media messages that individuals can use to think through their identities and way of expressing themselves.
Online media offer people a route to self-expression = stronger sense of self and participating in the world by making and exchanging.
These media places of conversation, exchange and transformation - some igniting new meanings, ideas and passions and some just fading away.
Feminism Theory ( Rep of Femininity and Masculinity)
VAN ZOONEN -BUTLER - Patriarchal culture, women bodies are objects while male bodies viewed as spectacle.
Gender is performative - ideas of Femininity and Masculinity constructed in performances of these roles. Gender is ‘what we do’ not ‘what we are’. Gender is contextual - meaning changes with cultural and historical contexts.
Feminist Theory (Rep of Gender)
bell hooks - Feminism is a movement to end patriarch: sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression. 'intersectionality' - intersections of gender, race, class and sexuality to create a 'white supermacist capitalist patriarchy', whose ideologies dominate media representations.
Theories of Gender Perfomativity
BUTLER - Patriarchal culture, women bodies are objects while male bodies viewed as spectacle.
Gender is performative - ideas of Femininity and Masculinity constructed in performances of these roles. Gender is ‘what we do’ not ‘what we are’. Gender is contextual - meaning changes with cultural and historical contexts.
Theories around Ethnicity, and Post - Colonial Theory
GILROY - African diaspora caused by slave trade has now constructed a transatlantic culture that is simultaneously African, American, Caribbean and British - the Black Atlantic.
Media visually suggests a dominance of shit culture.
Non white viewed ; Exotic/ Pitied/ Humerous/ Dangerous.
Theories of Representation
HALL - Meaning is constituted by representation, by what is present, what is absent and what is different. Meaning can be contested.
A representation
Implicates the audience in creating it’s meaning. Power - through ideology or by stereotyping - tries to fix the meaning of a representation in a ‘preferred meanings’.
Effective is to go inside the stereotyping and open it up from within, to deconstruct the work of representation.
Media Effects
BANDURA - media influence people directly - human values, judgement and conduct can be altered directly by media modelling. Empirical evidence best supports direct influence rather than the alternative models of media effects: two-step flow, agenda setting, no effects, or the media reflecting existing attitudes and behaviour.
•Imitation
Media may influence directly or by social networks, so people can be influence by media messages without being exposed to them.
Cultivation Theory
GERBNER - found that heavy TV viewing led to ‘mainstreaming’- a common outlook on the world based on the images and labels on TV. Mainstreamers would describe themselves as politically moderate.
Found heavy users of TV were more like to develop ‘mean world syndrome’ - cynical, mistrusting attitudes towards others - following prolonged exposure to high levels of TV violence.
Reception Theory
HALL - encoding-decoding model argues media producers encode ‘prefered meanings’ into texts.
Different ways for audience to read texts:
• Dominant-hegemonic position : preferred reading accepts the text messages and ideological assumptions behind the messages.
• Negotiated position : the reader accepts the text’s ideological assumptions, but disagrees with aspects of the messages, negotiates the meaning to fit with their ‘lived experience’.
• Oppositional reading: reader rejects both the overt message and underlying ideological assumptions.
Fandom
Textual Poachers
JENKINS - fans acts as textual Poachers - taking elements from media text to create their own.
Development of new media has accelerated ‘participatory culture’, audiences are active and creative participants and not passive consumers.
They create online communities , collaborate to solve problems… ‘collective intelligence’.
Spreadable media - emphasises the active participatory element of the ‘new’ media.
