A Level Media Theories (Eduqas)

Barthes - Semiotics (Media Language)

Texts are constructed through the use of signs. These signs are made up of denotations (literal meaning) and connotations (metaphorical meaning/myths). The media combines signs to create codes to quickly communicate messages to their audiences. Media producers repeatedly use the same codes to create conventions to help audiences to instantly recognise genre/narrative/form etc.

However, texts are pluralistic and can be interpreted in a range of ways. Codes can be polysemic (have multiple meanings) and so audiences need to rely on the context of the text as well as their own context to interpret the signs.

Levi-Strauss- Structuralism (Media Language)

Meaning is created through the structure of society and its binary opposites.

Media producers rely on binary opposition to quickly communicate messages to their audience who instantly categorise things: hero/villain, rich/poor, good/bad, ugly/beautiful, masculine/feminine, straight/gay.

This means that audiences are quick to judge and there is little room for alternative interpretations of texts. Consequently, minority representations within the media are limited.

Hall- Reception Theory (Audience)

The media producer encodes values/ideologies into their media which are then decoded by the audience. A text can be received in one of 3 ways:

- preferred reading

- negotiated reading

- oppositional reading

The audience uses their own life experience and knowledge (cultural capital) to decode the text. The socio-historical, economic and cultural context of both the text and audience are key determiners in how a text is read.

Hall - Representation

Representation is the process by which members of a culture use language to create meaning. Hall argues that the social and cultural construction of identity is highly influenced by mass media communication. This is linked to the value and power structures within societies. Hegemonic producers of media texts use reductive stereotypes of social groups to quickly communicate a preferred reading to audiences that seek to reinforce their ideologies. This is damaging to the status of non-hegemonic social groups within society.

Gauntlett - Identity (Audience Theory)

Audiences no longer passively consume a preferred reading of a text. Instead, individuals construct their own identities from everything they absorb from society - including a wide range of media texts. Everyone reacts differently to media texts. Audiences can pix and mix elements of a text to inform their identity.

Identities are fluid, however some elements are fixed (ie race)

Identities are collective and audiences actively seek out shared elements of identity to make social connections.

New media allows audiences to become media producers to better create texts that reflect a wide range of identities. Audience have the power over their own representations.

Van Zoonen- Feminist Theory (Representation)

The media portray images of stereotypical women and this behaviour reinforces societal views. She argues that male producers of media texts seek to “secure continuity, integration, order and the transmission of patriarchal dominant values”. The representation of women in the media is reductive and compartmentalised women into binary roles: housewife/femme fatale.

Women's bodies are objectified by the media and are presented to please the male gaze (derived from Mulvey).

'The dominant visual economy is still organised along traditional gender lines: men look at women; women watch themselves being looked at'

bell hooks - Feminist theory (Representation)

The fight against the patriarchy must also be a fight against prejudice of race and class. Women should not be classed as a homogenous social group. Social classifications (e.g., race, gender, sexual identity, class, etc.) are interconnected, and that ignoring this intersectionality creates oppression towards women that changes the experience of living as a woman in society.

Gilroy - Postcolonial theory (Representation)

Non-hegemonic social groups are represented as 'Other' and the racist ideologies of colonialism still run through the narrative created in mainstream media. Post-colonial structures and ideologies are woven into the fabric of society and are reinforced by the media.

Cultural appropriation and exotic fetishism, where certain traditions of one culture are adopted by the dominant culture (ie hair beads, mehndi), undermines minority cultures and reinforces reductive stereotypes.

Gerbner- Cultivation Theory (Audience)

Over time, repeated exposure to media cultivated the belief that the messages conveyed by the media apply to the real world. As audience perceptions are shaped by media exposure, their beliefs, values, and attitudes are shaped as well.

Mean World Syndrome - violent depictions of society in the media create a distorted perception of reality and cause audiences to believe that the world is more dangerous than it is.

Audiences believe that the reality they see on tv is a more accurate representation of the world than their own lived experience.

Butler - Gender Performativity (Representation)

Gender is constructed through the performance of gendered acts. Performances are learned through exposure to dominant representations. These conventional behaviours become part of the norms of society which influence expectations.

Hesmondhalgh - Cultural Industries (Media Industries)

Risk is particularly high in the cultural industries because of the difficulty in predicting success, high production costs, low reproduction costs and the fact that media products are ‘public goods’ – they are not destroyed on consumption but can be further reproduced. This means that the cultural industries rely on ‘big hits’ to cover the costs of failure - to minimise risk and maximise profits. Hence industries rely on repetition through use of stars, genres, franchises, repeatable narratives and so on to sell formats to audiences. Industries and governments try to impose scarcity, especially through copyright laws - this limits access to independent producers and stifles creativity.

The internet has created new powerful IT corporations (big tech), but has not transformed cultural production in a liberating and empowering way – instead, digital technology has sped up work, commercialised leisure time and increased surveillance by government and companies.

Curran and Seaton - Power and Media Industries (Media Industries)

Patterns of ownership and control are the most significant factors in how the media operate.

Media industries follow the normal capitalist pattern of increasing concentration of ownership in fewer and fewer hands - by structuring businesses through horizontal and vertical integration. This leads to a narrowing of the range of opinions represented and a pursuit of profit at the expense of quality or creativity.

The internet, in the grasp of big tech, has not provided the rich global platform and accessibility it promised for diverse voices to be heard. It is constrained by nationalism and state censorship. News is still controlled by powerful news organisations, who have political ideologies and agendas that influence the content of their publications.

Livingston and Lunt - Regulation (Media Industries)

The needs of a citizen are in conflict with the needs of the consumer, because protection can limit freedom. They noticed that regulating media to protect citizens from harmful content can limit freedom of expression There is an increasing tendency in recent UK regulation policy to place the interests of consumers above those of citizens. Traditional regulation is being put at risk by: increasingly globalised media industries, the rise of the digital media, and media convergence. Each culture tends to have its own views on elements such as nudity, sex and violence. This means products might have to be edited when published in other countries. Decisions as to what is considered 'harmful' are subjective and open to misinterpretation and abuses of power that threaten freedom of expression and access to information.

Baudrillard - Postmodernism (Media Language)

We are living in a hyperreal age where the lines between the real world and media are blurred, where we make media about media, and where the idea of a single definable truth is lost into a range of truths that you take your pick from.

These simulacra or hyperreal copies precede our lives, such that our television friends may seem more 'alive' to us than the real person playing that character.

Postmodern texts might include irony, parody, pastiche, homage, intertextuality, fragmented narratives.

Clay Shirky - End of Audience Theory (Audience)

The idea that the Internet and digital technologies have had a profound effect on the relations between media and individuals. Clay Shirky argued audience behaviour has progressed from the passive consumption of media texts to a much more interactive experience with the products and each other.

New digital technologies and social media has made connecting and collaborating incredibly easy. We want to like, follow, tweet, repost, cross-post, comment, review and subscribe. When we create our own content on our smartphones (user generated content) and share our thoughts with the world, the difference between producer and consumer (prosumer) becomes increasingly difficult to define. It is the end of audience.

Steve Neale - Genre Theory (Media Language)

Genre as Repetition and Difference: "Genre is familiar to audiences through the repetition of conventions like a physically strong, dynamic, violent, male hero in Action Adventure Video Games like Assassin's Creed but is challenged by the introduction of female lead characters in later releases. Audiences need to be able to instantly identify genre to engage with the text to fulfill the desired uses and gratifications however genres evolve over time to create new conventions eg horror films since Kiss of the Vampire

Todorov's Narrative Theory (Media Language)

Stories are structured like a wheel:

An ‘equilibrium’ where everything is ‘normal’

A problem occurs

The problem is recognised by the characters

The characters try to solve the problem

A new ‘equilibrium’ – there is normality again, but it might be a ‘new normal.

Albert Bandura: Social Learning Theory (Audience)

Bandura believes that the media can have a direct influence on the values and behaviour of audience members. The media can also have an indirect influence through social networks. He argues that audiences may imitate behaviours they see represented in the media (BoBo Doll Experiment)

This theory can be applied when considering moral panic created around violent media texts such as video games and the demand for stricter regulation.

Henry Jenkins: Fandom theory (Audience)

He believes that fans are active participants in the construction and circulation of textual meanings

He believes that fans take media texts, and sometimes interpret them / use them in ways which were not intended by the producers and he calls this 'textual poaching'.

He believes that fans construct their social and cultural identities by borrowing and adapting media texts / images and that this is a vital part of society. Fans create a participatory culture around a media text.

Although not Jenkin's theory, the idea of parasocial relationships can also be consider within Fandom Theory as fans believe that they are interacting with the star and have a two-way relationship with them. eg 'Swifties' - the fans of Taylor Swift or followers of Zoella.