Theories - TV Drama 12 MsC

Detailed flashcards explain the key ideas of essential TV Drama Theories

David Gauntlett Pick-and-Mix

Audiences can choose from a variety of media representations to shape their own identities.

Laura Mulvey Male Gaze

The concept where women are objectified in film and visual culture. The camera often adopts a heterosexual male perspective, presenting women as objects of male pleasure.

Judith Butler Gender Performativity

Gender is not something one is, but something one presents. Gender identity is constructed through repeated actions and behaviours.

Paul Gilroy Post-Colonial

Media representations often reinforce racial hierarchies and stereotypes. They comment on 'Civilisationism', the portrayal of Western culture as superior to other cultures.

Claude Lévi-Strauss Binary Opposition

This theorist posits that human thought is fundamentally structured around pairs of opposites, known as binary oppositions. These oppositions are used to categorise and make sense of the world. (e.g., good vs. evil, hero vs. villain).

Claude Lévi-Strauss Myth is Meaning

This theorist believes that myths and cultural narratives (any story) are constructed using binary oppositions, and by analysing these structures, we can uncover the underlying logic and meaning within a culture.

Steve Neale Genre

Genres are constantly evolving. They are defined by the repetition of certain conventions, but they also incorporate variation and change. Conventions emerge from repeated use of specific mise-en-scene, characters, and plots

Jean Baudrillard Postmodernism

This theorist argued that in a postmodern world, the boundaries between reality and representation have collapsed. Media creates hyperrealities - blurring the lines between what is real and what is simulated.

Tessa Perkins Stereotype

Stereotypes can also be positive, are not always about minority groups, and change over time.

Louis Althusser Ideological State Apparatus Theory

Institutions perpetuate the ideology of the ruling class through education, religion, family, and media. The education system, for instance, teaches values that support the status quo, while the media reinforces dominant ideologies through representation.

Van Zoonen Feminism and Patriarchy

Highlights how media perpetuates patriarchal values through various strategies. She emphasises the need for women to create their own narratives and media platforms to counteract these dominant ideologies.

Roland Barthes Semiotics

How media texts communicate ideas through signification, and how these signs reveal deeper cultural meanings and ideologies

Stuart Hall Representation

Agues that representation doesn’t just reflect reality but actively shaping how we understand and interact with the world

George Gerbner Cultivation

 

Repeated exposure to patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way the audience perceives the world around them.