The Education Resource for BTEC, GCSE, AS & A2 Media Studies
Monday 23 May 2011
Monday 16 May 2011
ESSENTIAL THEORY TOOLKIT
Form theories - Narrative, Representation and Structure
Barthes Narrative codes including the action code and the enigma code
Todorov's Equilibrium - narrative structure which can be simply reduced to equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium
Propp's Character types - all characters can be broken down into key character functions including dispatcher, hero, villain, damsel in distress etc.
Levi-Strauss' Binary Opposition - one concept can only be understood in relation to it's opposite, so god characters are shown in conflict with bad character's etc.
Barthes Semiotics and Signs - texts are made up of a series of signs which signify meaning for the audience. Audiences can read these signs on a literal level - the denotation or a conceptual, symbolic level - the connotation.
Audience theories:
Remember key terms:
Mass or Broad audience, Niche audience
Primary and Secondary audience
Katz and Blumler's Uses and Gratifications - audience use media to reaffirm personal identity, surveillance and information, diversion and entertainment and maintaining personal relationships
Cultivation Theory - the long term effects of media on an audience that they become desensitized to media content and dominant ideologies are formed and shaped.
Hall's Reception Theory - media texts have an encoded preferred reading. What is now believed is that at best audiences 'negotiate' reading as they modify, select and discard parts of the text based upon personal experiences etc. Oppositional readings occasionally happen when the audience read a text is a way unintended and unexpected by the text producers.
Two-Step Theory - audiences are brought to texts by opinion leaders who partially shape the audience response to a text and encourage the distribution of the text.
Other useful Theories
Baudrillard's Hyperreality - where in the media saturated world, reality is a media construct and cannot be separated from what is fictional.
Postmodernism - not really a theory more of a collection of elements which mean a media text is postmodern. these include hybrid genres (mixing two or more genres together), pastiche or parody of an existing genre or story, intertextuality (weaving existing stories together to create a new, original story) blurring of boundaries between fact and fiction including use of CGI, multiple or disjointed narrative, rewriting of known narratives like historical events)
Mulvey's Male Gaze - that media is constructed through the eyes of a heterosexual male.
Hegemony - that the audience although they may not willingly accept the power of the institutions do maintain and support the power balance.
Liberal Pluralism - that society or media is made up of numerous special interest groups creating texts relevant to them and that the media simply responds to their needs.
Barthes Narrative codes including the action code and the enigma code
Todorov's Equilibrium - narrative structure which can be simply reduced to equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium
Propp's Character types - all characters can be broken down into key character functions including dispatcher, hero, villain, damsel in distress etc.
Levi-Strauss' Binary Opposition - one concept can only be understood in relation to it's opposite, so god characters are shown in conflict with bad character's etc.
Barthes Semiotics and Signs - texts are made up of a series of signs which signify meaning for the audience. Audiences can read these signs on a literal level - the denotation or a conceptual, symbolic level - the connotation.
Audience theories:
Remember key terms:
Mass or Broad audience, Niche audience
Primary and Secondary audience
Katz and Blumler's Uses and Gratifications - audience use media to reaffirm personal identity, surveillance and information, diversion and entertainment and maintaining personal relationships
Cultivation Theory - the long term effects of media on an audience that they become desensitized to media content and dominant ideologies are formed and shaped.
Hall's Reception Theory - media texts have an encoded preferred reading. What is now believed is that at best audiences 'negotiate' reading as they modify, select and discard parts of the text based upon personal experiences etc. Oppositional readings occasionally happen when the audience read a text is a way unintended and unexpected by the text producers.
Two-Step Theory - audiences are brought to texts by opinion leaders who partially shape the audience response to a text and encourage the distribution of the text.
Other useful Theories
Baudrillard's Hyperreality - where in the media saturated world, reality is a media construct and cannot be separated from what is fictional.
Postmodernism - not really a theory more of a collection of elements which mean a media text is postmodern. these include hybrid genres (mixing two or more genres together), pastiche or parody of an existing genre or story, intertextuality (weaving existing stories together to create a new, original story) blurring of boundaries between fact and fiction including use of CGI, multiple or disjointed narrative, rewriting of known narratives like historical events)
Mulvey's Male Gaze - that media is constructed through the eyes of a heterosexual male.
Hegemony - that the audience although they may not willingly accept the power of the institutions do maintain and support the power balance.
Liberal Pluralism - that society or media is made up of numerous special interest groups creating texts relevant to them and that the media simply responds to their needs.
Sunday 15 May 2011
Saturday 7 May 2011
Great Discussion of the Impact of New Media on Newspapers
Click on the link below for some really useful thoughts on how new technology has affected the Print Industry - newspapers in particular.
Useful for GCSE, AS and A2
We Study Media Blog
Useful for GCSE, AS and A2
We Study Media Blog
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