Media theorists

• Semiotics - Roland Barthes


  - the idea that texts communicate their meanings through a process of signification

  - the idea that signs can function at the level of denotation, which involves the 'literal' or common-sense meaning of the sign, and at the level of connotation, which involves the meanings associated with or suggested by the sign

  - the idea that constructed meanings can come to seem self-evident, achieving the status of myth through a process of naturalisation
• Narratology - Tzvetan Todorov


  - the idea that all narratives share a basic structure that involves a movement from one state of equilibrium to another

  - the idea that these two states of equilibrium are separated by a period of imbalance or disequilibrium

  - the idea that the way in which narratives are resolved can have particular ideological significance
• Genre Theory - Steve Neale

  - the idea that genres may be dominated by repetition, but are also marked by difference, variation and change

  - the idea that genres change, develop and vary, as they borrow from and overlap with one another

  - the idea that genres exist within specific economic, institutional and industrial contexts
• Structuralism - Claude Levi-Strauss

  - the idea that texts can be best understood through an examination of their underlying structure

  - the idea that meaning is dependent upon (and produced through) pairs of oppositions

  - the idea that the way in which these binary oppositions are resolved can have particular ideological
• Postmodernism - Jean Baudrillard


  - the idea that in postmodern culture the boundaries between the real world and the world of the media have collapsed and that it is no longer possible to distinguish between reality and simulation

  - the idea that in a postmodern age simulacra we are immersed in a world of images which no longer refer to anything real

  - the idea that media images have come to seem more real than the reality they supposedly represent (hyperreality)
• Theories of Representation - Stuart Hall

  - the idea that representation is the production of meaning through language, with language defined in its broadest sense as a system of signs

  - the idea that the relationship between concepts and signs is governed by codes

  - the idea that stereotyping, as a form of representation, reduces people to a few simple traits or characteristics

  - the idea that stereotyping tends to occur where there are inequalities of power, as subordinate or excluded groups are constructed as other
• Theories of Identity - David Gauntlett


  - the idea that the media provide us with 'tools' or resources that we use to construct our identities

  - the idea that whilst in the past the media tended to convey singular, straightforward messages about ideal types of male and female identities, the media today offer us a more diverse range of stars, icons and characters from whom we may pick and mix different ideas
• Feminist Theory - Liesbet Van Zoonen

  - the idea that gender is constructed through discourse, and that it's meaning varies according to cultural and historical context

  - the idea that the display of women's bodies as objects to be looked at its core element of western patriarchal context

  - the idea that in mainstream culture the visual and narrative codes that are used to construct the male body as spectacle differ from those used to objectify the female body
• Feminist Theory - bell hooks

  - the idea that feminism is a struggle to end sexist/patriarchal oppression and the ideology of domination

  - the idea that feminism is a political commitment rather than a lifestyle choice

  - the idea that race and class as well as sex determine the extent to which individuals are exploited, discriminated against or oppressed
• Theories of Gender Performativity - Judith Butler


  - the idea that identity is performatvitely constructed by the very expressions that are said to be results (it is manufactured through sets of acts)

  - the idea that there is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender

  - the idea that performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition and ritual
• Theories Around Ethnicity and Postcolonial Theory - Paul Gilroy


  - the idea that colonial discourses continue to inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity in the postcolonial era

  - the idea that civilisation constructs racial hierarchies and sets up binary positions based on notions of otherness
• Power and Media Industries - Curran and Seaton


  - the idea that the media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the logic of profit and power

  - the idea that media concentration generally limits or inhibits variety, creativity and quality

  - the idea that more socially diverse patterns of ownership help to create the conditions for more varied and adventurous media productions
• Regulation - Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt

  - the idea that there is an underlying struggle in recent UK regulation policy between the need to further the interests of citizens (by offering protection from harmful or offensive material), and the need to further the interests of consumers (by ensuring choice, value for money and market competition)

  - the idea that the increasing power of global media corporations, together with the rise of convergent media technologies and transformations in production, distribution and marketing of digital media, have placed traditional approaches to media regulation risk
• Cultural Industries - David Hesmondhalgh


  - the idea that cultural industry companies try to minimise risk and maximise audiences through vertical and horizontal integration, and by formatting their cultural products

  - the idea that the largest companies or conglomerates now operate across a number of different cultural industries

  - the idea that the radical potential of the internet has been contained to some extent by its partial incorporation into a large, profit orientated set of cultural industries
• Media Effects - Albert Bandura


  - the idea that the media implant ideas in the mind of the audience directly

  - the idea that audience acquire attitudes, emotional responses and new styles of conduct through modelling

  - the idea that media representations of transgressive behaviour, such as violence or physical aggression, can lead audience members to initiate those forms of behaviour
• Cultivation Theory - George Gerbner


  - the idea that exposure to repeated patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way in which people perceive the world around them

  - the idea that cultivation reinforces mainstream values
• Reception Theory - Stuart Hall


  - the idea that communication is a process involving encoding by producers and decoding audiences

  - the idea that there are three hypothetical positions from which messages and meanings may be decoded (dominant, negotiated and preferred)
• Fandom - Henry Jenkins

  - the idea that fans are active participants in the construction and circulation of textual meanings

  - the idea that fans appropriate texts and read them in ways that are not fully authorised by the media producers

  - the idea that fans construct their social identities through borrowing and inflecting mass culture images, and are part of participatory culture that has a vital social dimension
• End of audience' Theories - Clay Shirky


  - the idea that the internet and digital technologies have had a profound effect on the relations between media and individuals

  - the idea that the conceptualisation of audience members as passive consumers of mass media content is no longer tenable in the age of the internet, as media consumers have no become producers who speak back to the media in various ways, as well as creating and sharing content with one another
• Jennifer Holt


  Women's magazines spread a very uniform picture of women as household-family orientated consumers
• Who is associated with the study of signs in semiotics?

  Ferdinand de Saussure
• What is the title of the print advertisement discussed?

  The Jungle
• What negative stereotype does the advertisement reinforce?

  Powerful men dominate passive women
• What is the primary focus in the exam regarding the advertisement?

  Media language and representation
• What does the advertisement suggest if you buy the hair cream?

  You will get the girl
• How is the man positioned in the advertisement's mise-en-scène?

  He is positioned at the top
• What does the rifle in the man's arms symbolize?

  Violent power and adventure
• What does the indexical animal skin represent?

  Evidence of the man's success
• What does the man's muscular arms suggest about his character?

  He is ready to fight
• What does the watch on the man's wrist imply?

  He values how his time is spent
• How does Barthes describe the signification process in the advertisement?

  As a myth
• What does the representamen in Peirce's model signify in the advertisement?

  Masculine power and control
• How do the women in the advertisement contribute to the male gaze?

  They are objectified and passive
• What does the dark-haired woman's gaze suggest to the viewer?

  You could have power by buying the product
• How does Propp's character type apply to the man in the advertisement?

  He is considered the hero
• What narrative function does the advertisement represent according to Propp?

  A moment of transfiguration
• What does Todorov's framework suggest about the advertisement's narrative?

  It represents a new equilibrium
• What does the title "The Jungle" imply about the advertisement's setting?

  It suggests an exotic location
• How does the advertisement associate the hair cream with adventure?

  By using a hunting expedition theme
• What type of advertising is "The Jungle" an example of?

  Direct advertising