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Who created semiotics?
Roland Barthes
What is semiotics?
The study of signs and meanings.
Texts communicate their ideas through signification. Signs function at a literal level (signifier, denotation) as well as a figuritives level (signified, connotation)
Exposure to certain symbolic constructions can become self-evident as the sign becomes myth through naturalusation
Who created narratology?
Tzetan Todorov
What is narratology?
The study of narrative.
All narratives share a basic structure, moving from one equilibrium to another. The two states of equalibrium are seperated by disruption or imbalance.
The way that narratives resolve can have ideological significance.
Who created genre theory?
Steve Neale
What is genre theory?
The classification of media products.
Genres are dominated by repetiton of codes and conventions. but also must incorperate difference, variation and change.
Genres change as they borrow from and overlap with eachother (hybridity and subgenres)
Genres exist within specific ecenomic, instiutional and industrial contexts
Who created structuralism?
Claude Levi-Strauss
What is structuralism?
The underlying structures through which meanings are made.
Texts can be understood through an analaysis of their underlying structure
Meaning is often produced through oppositional pairs (E.g good vs evil)
The resolution of these binary opposites can have ideological significance
Who created postmodernism?
Jean Beaudrillard
What is postmodernism?
The making of meanings in a post-structuralist world.
The boundries between the ‘real’ and ‘mediated’ worlds have collapsed
signs are a process of signification with no signifier underlying them they no longer refer to anything as ‘real’ or ‘literal’
Mediated images now seem more ‘real’ than the reality they supposdly represent
Who created representation theory?
Stuart Hall
What is representation theory?
How represntations are constructed
representation is the production of meaning through language (a system of signs)
Sterotyping reduces people and things to a few simple characteristics or traits
Sterotyping tends to occur where there is disparity of power with subordinated/exculuded groups being different or other
Who created Theories of identity?
David Gauntlett
What is theories of idenitty?
Media helps us to construct our identites
Media provides us with tools and resources that we use to shape our identities.
In the past these ‘toolboxes’ were simple as the mediated world has become more more complicated we now have a wide range of media
models- a pick n mix of ideas that we can choose from
What is? Feminist theory - Liesbet Van Zoonen
Gender is constructed through discourse.
Gender as a product of discourse,changes depending on cultural and historical context.
The objectification of womens bodies is core to western patriarchal culture
The codes used in mainstream media to construct the male body are different from the mediated/objectified female body.
What is feminist theory- bell hooks?
Feminism is a political commitment rather than a lifestyle choice.
The intersection of race and class (as well as sex) determine the extent to which indiviudausls are exploited or oppressed.
Who created theories of gender performativity?
Judith Butler
What is the theories of gender performativity?
Identity is a perfomance.
Identity is performatively constructed by the very acts or expressions that are thought to be its results.
There is no inherent gender identity behind the expressions of gender.
performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition or ritual
Who created theories around ethnicity and post colonial theory?
Paul Gilroy
What is theories around ethnicity and post colonial?
Exploring the legacy of colonialism and imperialism
Colonial discourses continue to inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity
civillisation constrcust racial hierarchies and sets up binry oppositions based on notions of ‘other’ness
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