Theories List

Media Language theories:

• Barthes - Semiotics:
• Hermeneutic codes - questions audiences have.
• Proairetic codes - action codes, suggests something is going to happen e.g cracking knuckles.
• Symbolic codes - deeper meaning, symbols have different meanings in different contexts.
• Referential codes - intertextuality.
• Myths - ways we look at the world.
• Todorov - Narratology:
• All narratives moves from one state of equilibrium to another.
• Disequilibrium.
• Neale - Genre:
• Repetition and difference.
• Hybridity.
• Levi-Strauss - Structuralism:
• Binary oppositions.
• Baudrillard - Postmodernism:
• Hyperreality is a representation that is more real than what is being represented, impossible to differentiate between what is real and what isn't.

Representation theories:

• Hall - Representation:
• Re-presentation.
• Reconstruction of reality and inform reality constructed through media language.
• Gauntlet - Identity:
• Audiences can construct their own identities through media products.
• Zoonen - Feminist:
• Media products encode men and women's bodies differently.
• Women's bodies are used as a spectacle to sell media products.
• hooks - Feminist:
• Feminism is for everyone, including men.
• Feminism is a struggle to end patriarchal hegemony.
• Race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality all affect how an individual is represented.
• Butler - Gender Performativity:
• Gender is a performance.
• Performance is shaped through hegemonic expectations.
• Sex and gender are different.
• Gender performance influences and shapes the world around us.
• Gilroy - Ethnicity and post-colonialism:
• After colonialism, UK is in a state of anxiety.
• Subtle and not so subtle racial prejudices in our society, deeply rooted in colonial past.
• Media products of white and non-white people are depicted as binary, 'same' and 'other'.

Industry theories:

• Curran and Seaton - Power and media:
• Media is controlled by a small number of companies and primarily driven through profit and power.
• Inferior and repetitive product.
• Livingstone and Lunt - Regulation:
• Due to digitally convergent technologies made possible by the internet, now impossible to regulate any media idustry.
• Audiences, producers and conglomerates break this. Large media conglomerates in particular will actively avoid forms of regulation.
• Hesmondhalgh - Cultural Industries:
• Every media industy is specialised, structured to minimise risk and maximise profit.
• Media conglomerates - vertical, horizontal and multimedia intergration.
• Media producers use well known stars (star appeal), franchising and genre in order to maximise audience reach and appeal - maximise profit.

Audience theories:

• Bandura - Media effects:
• Audiences are directly influenced by what we see in media products, this theory isn't necessarily true but could be used for young children or vulnerable groups.
• Passive.
• Gerbner - Cultivation:
• Through prolonged exposure, media products gradually cultivate and reinforce dominant hegemonic ideologies.
• Passive.
• Hall - Reception:
• Preferred, negotiated, oppositional readings.
• Every media product reflects the dominant ideology of the producer, but the audience are able to negotiate or mediate it according to their own lives and experiences.
• Active.
• Jenkins - Fandom:
• Fans are different from audiences, fans are active consumers whereas audiences are passive consumers.
• Fans are heavily invested in and motivated by media products, they are able to use media products in a variety of ways.
• Active.
• Shirky - 'End of audience':
• Audiences are no longer passive, they interact with media products in a variety of ways.
• Audiences can now use digitally convergent technology to create media, audiences and producers are becomming increasingly irrelevant.