A2 Revision Session
Media Theory and Theorists
for G325
Section A
Section A Q1b asks you to reflect on your
productions (Foundation or Advanced)
The theory areas you will need to know are:
• Genre
• Narrative
• Representation
• Audience
• Media Language*
The exam will ask you about one of these.
Section B
• Media in the Online Age
• Contemporary Media Regulation
You should find similar theories to apply to
these areas, too.
What do you need to be able to do
with theorists and theories?
• You do NOT need to:
– Learn a load of quotes
– Explain their theories in great depth
– Know them all
• You DO need to:
– Use a few
– Be able to apply them to your work/ case studies
– Consider how useful/ not useful they are when
discussing your work/ case studies
– NB. The theory need not EXPLAIN your
production, you just need to APPLY it
How to use theorists…
• Name the theory/theorist (correctly) eg. Andrew
Goodwin, 6 Key Features of a Music Video
• Quote and/or Summarise the theory
• Comment (link the theory to your production) – this is
where the marks come from
•
•
•
•
Assume your reader knows about the theory/ theorist
Don’t explain the theory; use it.
A Todorovian analysis would argue…
Mulvey’s notion of the Male Gaze provides a useful way of
understanding the video in that…
• Kate Wales statement that “Genre is... an intertextual
concept” could be useful here because…
Genre
•
Gunther Kress Genre is “a kind of text that derives its form from the structure of a
(frequently repeated) social occasion, with its characteristic participants and their
purposes.”
Denis McQuail “The genre may be considered as a practical device for helping
any mass medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its
production to the expectations of its customers.”
Nicholas Abercrombie “Television producers set out to exploit genre
conventions... It... makes sound economic sense. Sets, properties and costumes
can be used over and over again. Teams of stars, writers, directors and
technicians can be built up, giving economies of scale”
Christine Gledhill “Differences between genres meant different audiences could
be identified and catered to... This made it easier to standardise and stabilise
production”
Katie Wales “Genre is... an intertextual concept”
John Fiske “A representation of a car chase only makes sense in relation to all
the others we have seen - after all, we are unlikely to have experienced one in
reality, and if we did, we would, according to this model, make sense of it by
turning it into another text, which we would also understand intertextually, in terms
of what we have seen so often on our screens. There is then a cultural knowledge
of the concept 'car chase' that any one text is a prospectus for, and that it used by
the viewer to decode it, and by the producer to encode it.”
Andrew Goodwin
Genres change and evolve:
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•
•
•
•
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Christian Metz - Stages of genres: Experimental/ Classic/ Parody/ Deconstruction
David Buckingham - “Genre is not simply given by the culture, rather, it is in a constant
process of negotiation and change.”
Semantic/Syntactic/
Pragmatic
Rick Altman in his book ‘Film/Genre’
suggested there were three ways of
breaking down the features of Genre:
• Semantic
• Syntactic
• Pragmatic
Make notes on your sheets from each of the
slides
Semantic
SEMANTIC – elements of the genre
• This is concerned with the conventions of
the genre that communicate to the
audience such as characters, locations,
props, music, shooting style and other
signifiers
e.g. ‘bling’, HumVs/fast cars, swimming
pools in Rap music videos
Syntactic
SYNTACTIC – the order/sequence of
elements
• This is concerned with the relations
between these elements and the structure
of narratives in genres
E.g. The Rapper sings about his
success/wealth, we see others excluded
from that wealth or enjoying it (women)
Note: the syntax of music videos is often
dictated by the story of the song/lyrics
Pragmatic
PRAGMATIC – reality of the genre
• This is concerned with the effect of the
real world on the genre
e.g. AG4 – the record company demands
close-ups on the popular lead singer of
the band, the rest of the band are
excluded
Narrative
• Tzetvan Todorov – Argues that narratives always have a structure
of Equilibrium/ Disequilibrium/ New equilibrium
• Claude Levi-Strauss – Argues that human cultural understanding is
based upon a system of binary oppposites (good/ bad; black/ white;
male/ female…). Narratologists have taken this theory and applied it
to narrative, arguing that binary opposition forms a fundamental way
of understanding narrative.
• Roland Barthes: Enigma code; Action code. Also, Open and
Closed texts.
• Vladimir Propp – argued that narratives always have certain
character types who perform certain actions. Characters are agents
of action.
• Pam Cook argues that the Hollywood narrative structure includes:
“linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma
resolution” and “a high degree of narrative closure”
Todorov
His theory identifies the classic narrative pattern – he says that all
stories can actually be broken down into the same 3 part structure
Equilibrium > Disruption > Restoration
In order to achieve restoration (ie a new equilibrium) the hero
must develop an understanding of the disruption and make many
(thwarted) attempts to resolve things. When he does achieve
resolution (ie defeats the villain, removes the danger), then society
can move forward to a new equilibrium – everything has changed
but order is restored, and there is hope for the future.
Levi-Strauss
• He identified the notion that all narratives are
based on a set of binary opposites that create
conflict and therefore drive the narrative
forward (eg heroes v villains, war v peace,
science v humanity etc)
Barthes
Barthes argued that all narratives are based on a set of
codes. The main two are enigma and action codes.
Enigma: all stories have questions or puzzles built into
them
Action: where the character performs something that
means one set of actions will happen afterwards. For
instance, a cowboy puts a holster on; this means a gunfight
will follow shortly afterwards in the film
http://www.slideshare.net/sarahlambe/barthes-5-narrativecodes-12063567
Representation
‘the process by which the media
present the ‘real world’ (Rayner)
Representation
• The process whereby the media constructs
versions of people, places and events in images,
words or sounds for transmission through a
media text to an audience
• The media provides models (stereotypes?) of
how audiences interpret gender, social groups…
• Representations are mediated and therefore
reflect the value systems/ ideology of their
producer (Moral panics against outsiders)
• No representation is real, just a version.
Representation
Three views of representation:
The Reflection View – the media REFLECT the truth back to us
The Intentional View – the media create a meaning and INTEND
us to react in a certain way
The Constructionist View – a combination of:
• The truth
• What the media want you to believe
• What you believe
• What society (everyone else) believes
Q. Which one are you?
The Constructionist Approach
A useful way of thinking about representation is that the meanings
are created by the relationship between the producers, the text and
the audience:
The representation is constructed with a set of ideas and values
(producer’s intent/intended meaning)
The context of the representation is part of the representation
(media language choices, anchorage, media form, placement/
location, genre expectations etc.)
The audience reacts to this representation and this depends on
their own personal interpretational context: age, gender, political/
religious beliefs, nationality etc. (negotiated meaning)
Representation
• Laura Mulvey – argues that cinema positions
the audience as male. The camera gazes at the
female object on screen. It also frames the male
character watching the female.
– We watch the girl; we see the male watching the girl;
we position ourselves within the text as a male
objectively gazing at the female.
– Can be applied to other media forms also.
Key Point - Selection
everything in the media is a representation –
everything we see is being represented.
the selection process is:
The decision over what is chosen to be represented
and what is rejected;
The choices made when organising the
representation:
The options taken to focus the audience in a certain
way.
Questions we would ask when
analysing representations:
WHO or WHAT is being represented?
HOW is the representation created?
WHO has created the representation?
WHY is the representation created in that
way? What is the intention?
WHAT is the effect of the representation?
Gatekeeping
A theorist called White (1961) spoke of the
‘gatekeepers’ - that is the people who are
part of the decision making process in the
construction of media texts.
Who do you consider to be gatekeepers?
Richard Dyer - The Matter Of
Images
Dyer said: ‘How we are seen determines
how we are treated, how we treat others is
based on how we see them. How we see
them comes from representation.’
Denotation, connotation and
ideology – Semiotics theory
Denotation – what it is, literal, ‘common
sense’
Connotation – what it could mean,
suggests, symbolic, interpretive
Ideology – the overall message, the
dominant view
Myth – hidden values that dictate what we
see e.g. Thin = beautiful
Audience
• Groups/individuals targeted by producers as the
intended consumers of texts
• Some viewers/consumers/readers might not
have been intended audience due to wide
availability of texts
• Identification of target audience crucial for
marketing and advertising – categorised
according to factors such as gender, age etc.
• Considered active or passive depending on
point-of-view
Audience Theory
• Passive (Effects theory tradition)
– Hypodermic syringe (1930s - media injects ideas)
– Two-step flow (Katz and Lazersfeld 1955 – opinion
leaders help transmit messages)
– Cultivation theory (Gerbner 1960s – long term gradual
effects of television)
• Active
– Reception Theory (Morley 1980 – audience actively
interprets texts – dominant, negotiated and
oppositional readings – relating to social and
individual circumstances)
– Uses and Gratifications (Blumler and Katz 1975 audience seeks to satisfy needs from texts)
Hypodermic Syringe
Model
The Hypodermic
Syringe Model
• This model suggests that the audience
passively accepts the message ‘injected’
into them by the mass media.
• This model believes that there is a DIRECT
correlation between the violent behaviour
shown on TV, computer games etc and
anti-social and criminal behaviour in real
life.
Jamie Bulger- Can
violent films be blamed?
Jamie Bulger, a twoyear old toddler who
was abducted and
murdered by two 10
year old boys
Jon Venables and Robert
Thompson, aged 10. Found
guilty of the murder, and
were sentenced to
imprisonment in a young
offenders institution.
The boys had apparently watched ‘Child’s Play
3’ before they murdered the toddler.
As Bulger’s death was very similar to a death in
the film, newspapers such as ‘The Sun’ began to
fuel the debate as to whether such violence in
the media should be accepted.
• Calls for more censorship reflect the
logic underlying this model.
• Psychologists (Bandura, Ross and Ross)
have carried out laboratory
experiments that are claimed to prove
a cause and effect relationship
between media images and
behaviour.
Imitation or Copycat
Violence
Thirty years before Albert Bandura
conducted research into how we ‘learn’
to behave
He made a film of a young
woman beating up a Bobo doll.
A Bobo doll is an inflatable,
egg-shape balloon creature
with a weight in the bottom
that makes it bob back up
when you knock him down.
The young woman punched
the clown, kicked it, sat on it,
hit with a little hammer and so
on.
She shouted various
aggressive phrases
Bandura showed his film to
groups of small children.
They then were let out to play!
In the play room there was a
bobo doll and various toys;
including toy hammers.
Bandura watched as
the kids beat the
daylights out of the
bobo doll.
They punched it and
shouted kicked it, sat
on it and hit it with the
little hammers.
In other words,
they imitated the
young lady in the
film.
The children changed their
behaviour in response to what
they had seen on the TV!
Bandura also showed the children a
film of the young woman beating
up a live clown.
When the children went into
the other room, what should
they find there but -- the live
clown! They proceeded to
punch him, kick him and hit
him with little hammers.
Therefore Bandura concluded that
violent media content could lead to
imitation or copycat violence.
Supporting Research…
• McCabe & Martin (2005) argued that
imitation was a likely outcome of
media violence because, often media
portrays such violence as being
‘heroic’.
• Such acts are then carried out by
young people as they believe it is
acceptable- this is known as the
‘disinhibition effect’
Uses and Gratifications
• Personal identity
– Identifying themselves as part of an audience
• Information
– Finding out about the world, events etc
• Entertainment
– Escape from reality, emotional release…
• Social Integration
– Discussions, companionship, camaraderie
Reception
• Reception theory is an active audience
theory which considers an audience as
actively engaged in the decoding of a text
• There are different ways an audience can
decide/receive/respond to a media text:
– Dominant or preferred reading
– Negotiated reading
– Oppositional or aberrant decoding
• Dominant
– I enjoy Big Brother because it’s interesting to
see how real people cope in an unusual
situation and I vote for the most normal.
• Negotiated
– I appreciate that Big Brother is not ‘reality’ but
I still enjoy watching the contestants complete
the tasks.
• Oppositional
– Big Brother is a fix because it is so unrealistic
and edited to make the audience love and
hate the characters who guarantee ratings.
Media Language
• Any of the theorists from the previous
slides
• Also, think of TV Drama tech areas:
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•
•
•
Camera – shot size, framing, high & low angles, subjective & objective
filming, hand held, tilts, pans, zooms etc, green screen
Sound – diegetic and non-diegetic, sound effects, ambient sound, dialogue,
music, voice over
Editing – fades, cuts, wipes, dissolves, slow motion, fast motion, colour
effects like black & white, bad tv, stop motion animation, green screening
and chroma key work
Mise En Scene – costume, lighting, location, body language, acting, make
up, props etc
Denotation, connotation and
ideology – Semiotics theory
Denotation – what it is, literal, ‘common
sense’
Connotation – what it could mean,
suggests, symbolic, interpretive
Ideology – the overall message, the
dominant view
Myth – hidden values that dictate what we
see e.g. Thin = beautiful
What’s missing?
Examples from Newspapers and the Internet
to link to these theories.
Your task is to provide the slides for this PP
that show how we can apply these
theories.
You will be in pairs and have one area to
focus on.