Theorists - A Level Media Studies

Semiotics - Barthes

• The study of signs and meaning

• Texts communicate their ideas through signification

• Signs function at a literal level (signifier, denotation) as well as a figurative level (signified, connotation)

• Exposure to certain symbolic constructions can become self-evident, as the sign becomes myth through naturalisation

Narratology - Todorov

• The study of narrative

• All narratives share a basic structure, moving from one equilibrium to another

• These two states of equilibrium are separated by disruption or imbalance

• The way that narratives resolve can have ideological significance

Genre Theory - Neale

• The classification of media products

• Genres are dominated by repetition of codes and conventions but must also incorporate difference, variation, and change

• Genres change as they borrow from and overlap with each other (hybridity and subgenres)

• Genres exit within specific economic, institutional, and industrial contexts

Structuralism - Levi-Strauss

• This underlying structures through which meanings are made

• Texts can be understood through an analysis 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

Postmodernism - Baudrillard

• The making of meanings on post-structuralist world

• The boundaries between the “real” and “mediated” words have collapsed

• Signs are a process of signification with no signifier underlying them; they no longer refer to anything “real” or “literal”

• Mediated images now see more “real” than the reality they supposedly represent (hyperreality)

Theories of Representation - Hall

• How representations are constructed

• Representation is the production of meaning through language (a system of signs)

• Stereotyping reduces people and things to a few characteristics or traits

• Stereotyping tends to occur where there is disparity of power, with subordinated/excluded groups being different or “other”

Theories of Identity - Gauntlett

• Media helps us to construct our identities

• Media provides us with ‘tools’ and resources that we use to shape our identities

• In the past, these media toolboxes were simple; as mediated world has become more complicated, we now have a wide range of media models - a pick-and-mix of different ideas that we can choose from

Feminist Theory - van Zoonen

• Gender is constructed through discourse

• Gender, as a product of discourse, changes depending on cultural and historical context

• The objectification of women’s 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

Feminist Theory - bell hooks

• Smash the patriarchy

• 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 individuals are exploited or oppressed

Theories of Gender Performativity - Butler

• Identity is a performance

• 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

Theories around ethnicity and Postcolonial Theory - Gilroy

• Exploring the legacy of colonialism and imperialism

• Colonial discourses continue to inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity

• “Civilisationism” constructs racial hierarchies and sets up binary opposition based on notions of “other”ness

Power and Media Industries Theory - Curran and Seaton

• Media is driven by the logic o power and profit

• Media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily concerned with gaining profit and power

• Media concentration typically inhibits or limits variety, creativity, and quality

• Socially diverse patterns of ownership help to create conditions for more varied and adventurous media products

• Socially diverse patterns of ownership help to create conditions for more varied and adventurous media products

Regulation Theory - Livingstone and Lunt

• Exploration of media policy

• There is an underlying struggle between the need to further the interests of citizens (protection from harmful material) and the interests of consumers (choice, value, competition)

• The rise of media conglomerates and the emerging population, distribution, and marketing of digital media have places traditional approaches to media regulation at risk

Cultural Industries Theory - Hesmondhalgh

• Exploration of media industries

• Media companies try to maximise risk and minimise audiences through vertical and horizontal integration and through the form of their media/cultural products (through genre, serial format and by including stars)

• The largest companies and conglomerates now operate across a number of media industries

• The Internet, and its radical potential, has been partially contained by its incorporation into large, profit-oriented cultural companies

Media Effects Theory - Bandura

• The effects that media have on audiences

• Media is capable of implanting ideas directly into the minds of its audiences

• Audiences respond to the modelling in media and, thereby, acquire new attitudes, styles, of conduct and emotional responses

• Media representation of transgressive or antisocial behaviour can lead audience members to imitate those forms of behaviour

Cultivation Theory - Gerbner

• The effects that media have on audiences

• Repeated exposure to patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way the audience perceives the world around them (i.e by cultivating particular points of view and opinions)

• Cultivation reinforces mainstream, or dominant, values and ideologies

Receeption Theory - Hall

• Exploring encoding and decoding meaning

• Communication is a process involving encoding by producers and decoding by the audience

• There are three hypothetical positions from which meanings can be decoded:

  • The dominant-hegemonic position: the encoders intended meaning is fully understood nd accepted

  • The negotiated position: the legitimacy of the encoders message is acknowlege, but the message is adapted to better fit the decoders individual exeriences of context

  • The oppositional position: the encoders message is understood, but the eoder disagrees with it, reaing it in a contrary or oppositional way

Fandom - Jenkins

• Exploring fans percetion in culture

• Fans are active paarticipants in the construction and circulation of textual meanings

• Fans also approve texts and read them in ways that are not fully authoriased by the media producers (“textual poaching”)

• Fans construct their social and cultural identies by borrowing and infleccting mass culture images and participate in a culture that offers a vital social dimension

‘End of Audience’ Theory - Shirky

• Exploring the relationship between digital media production and comsumption

• The internet andd digital technologies have a profound effect on the relationsn between media and individuals

• In the age of the internet, audience members are no longer pasive consumers of madd mesi content: consumers now have the ability to “speak back tp” media i nvarious ways

• Media conssumers engage in the creating and sharing of content with one another