Media Studies

Key Theories & Exam Prep

Audience theories

Active audience: An active audience is one that actively engages with the text.
They do not simply accept every media message. They question what they see
and develop their own interpretation of a media product based on their life
experiences, education, family and cultural influences.

Passive audience: A passive audience does not actively engage with a media
text. A passive audience is one that does not question the message that the
media is sending and simply accepts the message in the way the media outlet
intended.

Identifying media audiences

Media audience can be defined by:

Location the domestic consumption of media output raises questions about

regulation and control

Consumption Audiences are defined by what they consume e.g. an audience

of a particular genre. Audience sterotyping.

Size There is a need to distinguish between mass audiences and niche

audiences

Subjectivity The impact that membership of pre-existing groups will have on

audience members e.g. gender, nationality, race or religion.

Far from being turned into zombies it has grown increasingly clear that
audiences are in fact capable of a high degree of self-determination in the nature
of response that they make to products offered to them Stewart et al.2001.

Uses and Gratification

It is the opposite to the effects model. The audience is ACTIVE.

Why we consume media products? What are we getting out of it as a consumer?

Users of media use the media texts to satisfy certain needs.

Power lies with the audience not the producers.

Emphasis on what audiences do with media texts, how and why we uses them. The audience is free to reject, use or play with
media products as they see fit.

The audience is in control and consumption of the media helps people with issues such as:

Learning

Emotional satisfaction

Relaxation

Help with issues of personal identity

Help with issues of social identity

Help with issues of aggression and violence

Uses and Gratification

Uses and Gratifications Theory is a popular approach to understanding mass

communication. The theory places more focus on the consumer, or audience,
instead of the actual message itself by asking what people do with media
rather than what media does to people (Katz, 1959) .

It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active
role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory also
holds that audiences are responsible for hoosing media to meet their needs.
The approach suggests that people use the media to fulfil specific gratifications.

5 reasons why people may engage with the media:

Escape from reality (film) Relate to others/characters (soap) Elihu Katz

Entertainment (drama/comedy) nformed and educated (news/documentary)
Socialise with others (Facebook/popular series)

Uses and Gratification

Based on Maslows Hierarchy of needs, does not directly link to media products but we can look at the media
theorists who added to the Hierarchy of needs.

Denis McQuail (1987):

Information : finding out about the world; seeking advice; satisfying curiosity; education; gaining security though
knowledge, relevant to documentaries.

Personal Identity : reinforcement of personal values; models of behavior; identifying with valued other; gaining
insight into oneself. The media products you use say something about you, e.g. Kerrang magazine, a badge of
honor, not only buying it for information but buying it to make a statement about oneself as a person not
mainstream, alternative, different to others. Relevant now in sense of listening to certain radio station\artist , using
different form of social media.

Integration and Social Interaction : gaining insight into circumstances of others; identifying with others; basis for
conversation with others; substitute for real life companionship; helping to carry out social roles; enabling
connection with family friends and society. Helps with empathy and identifying with others e.g. watching a
documentary about people in third world countries, its not an issue touching you personally but you are
empathizing with those in that situation.

Entertainment : escapism; diversion; relaxation; cultural or aesthetic enjoyment; filling time; emotional release;
sexual arousal. E.g. watching Geordie shore its just entertainment.

Uses and Gratification

James Lull (1990):

Broke reasons down into 2 categories.

Structural:

Environmental: background noise; companionship; entertainment.

Regulative: keeping time; part of pattern of daily life.

Relational:

Communication Facilitation: experience illustration; common ground; conversation starter; anxiety

reduction; agenda for talk; value clarification.

Affiliation/Avoidance: physical/verbal contact/neglect; family solidarity; family relaxant/conflict

reducer; relationship maintenance.

Social Learning: decision making; behaviour modelling; problem solving; value transmission;
legitimization; information dissemination; education.

Competence/Dominance: role enactment; role reinforcement; substitute role portrayal; intellectual

validation; authority exercise; gatekeeping; argument facilitation.

Maslows Hierarchy of needs

Everything we do and every

media product we interact with
(watch, listen too, read..) we do
so for a reason, we are getting
something out of it.

Maslow breaks down the reasons

into the Hierarchy.

All the things at the bottom are

basic physiological things that we
need to do to survive. As we
move up the pyramid the
reasons for doing things become
more abstract, not physical real
things we can touch and feel,
they are concepts and ideas e.g.
creativity.

Uses and Gratification Issues

We may not have choice about what we watch, for example advertising,
anything in the public domain that we see and consume.

Neglects any aspects of effects theories.

Neglects socio-economic factors who you are, your background, lifestyle etc
Controversially the theory suggests the consumption of violent images can be
helpful rather than harmful.

The theory suggests that audiences act out their violent impulses through the
consumption of media violence.

The audiences inclination towards violence is herefore sublimated, and they are
less likely to commit violent acts.

Effects Theory

Hypodermic Model refers to the idea that the media is like a drug that is
addicted to. (Bobo doll experiment carried out - Bandura)

Audiences influenced against will by the messages from media product

Mass media/mass communications make people powerless to resist messages

the media carries - consumers are drugged, addicted or hypnotized

Effects theories taken up with protection of young, link between violence and the
media.

Media Effect theory is how media can affect society and how society affects the
media.

Some negative implications of this theory are when people do copycat murders,
i.e. when a teenage boy murdered his best friend in 2004, the game Manhunt
was banned in the UK, because the murder was styled upon a murder within the
game.

Effects Theory Key Evidence

The theory helps explain Moral panic in relation to representations of; sex violence and deviant behavior
and its supposed effects on youth.

Moral panic - the feeling that the situation is out of control in some way, and therefore represents a
threat to the moral order.

The media effects theory was firstly proposed by the Frankfurt School of social researchers in the 1920s
from peoples reaction to Nazi propaganda. The school theorised in the 1920s that the mass media
acted to restrict and control audiences to benefit coperate capitalism and governments.

The Bobo doll experiment Albert Bandura 1961. It showed how children copy violent behaviour.
Children watched a video where an adult violently attacked a clown toy called a Bobo Doll. The children
were then taken to a room with attractive toys that they were not permitted to touch. The children were
then led to another room with Bobo Dolls. 88% of the children imitated the violent behaviour that they
had earlier viewed. 8 months later 40% of the children reproduced the same violent behaviour.

The film Childs Play 3 in the murder of James Bulger in 1993

The game Manhunt in the murder of Stefan Pakeerah in 2004 by his friend Warren LeBlanc

The film A Clockwork Orange(1971) in a number of rapes and violent attacks

The film Severance (2006) in the murder of SimonEveritt

Issues with Effects theory

The problems with violence are often social/psychological not to do with the
media, no scientific evidence for the link. It is all anecdotal, based on stories and
hearsay rather than scientific research.

A clock work orange got banned after it came out story in newspaper a bunch
of teenagers beat a tramp to death just like the film. Direct example of effects
theory but show how its based on stories.

The media can often be positive rather than harmful.

Criticism of the media using the effects model is often politically motivated.

There is not real grounding of research and theory for this model.

Two-Step flow

Links with effects theory but takes it further by saying

its not just media products we are influenced by but
also opinion leaders.

As a consumer we dont have any control over the

ideas we create for ourselves, not forming own
opinions, we are influenced by 1. Media products and
2. Opinion Leaders (people who work for newspapers,
TV channels, someone who has a large following and
their opinion is taken on by a lot of people)

Step 1 - Mass media message reaches opinion

leaders.

Step 2 - Opinion leaders pass on their own

interpretation as well as the actual content of the
message to those whom they influence.

Reception Theory

When a producer constructs a text it is encoded with a meaning or message that the producer wishes
to convey to the audience. In some instances audiences will correctly decode the message or
meaning and understand what the producer was trying to say. In some instances the audience will
either reject or fail to correctly understand the message

How we receive the message given to us by the media products, how much we take on board, how
media consumers interact with products.

More modern version of Effects Theory

Based on Passive and Active, as an audience member we can be either and it is about how we
engage with the media product we are consuming.

Active - engaging with critical thought.

Passive - take on board all the messages that are given.

Suggests media texts are polysemic - texts have lots of signals that can have many effects on the
viewer. They can be 'interpreted' in different ways, depending on the situated culture of the audience.

Research examines social, cultural, economic, gender, sexuality as influence on the reading of media
texts.

Reception Theory Audience

positioning

Stuart Hall 1973 suggested texts were encoded by the producers to contain certain
meanings related to social and cultural background of the creator of the text. There
are 3 ways that which we can engage in a media text (3 types of audience member)

Dominant reading (Hegemonic) - all the messages involved in product you take on
board, believe, subscribe too just as the producer wants.

Negotiated reading (reading the way in which we engage with a text) - the
audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of the text in light of previously held
views E.g. Neither agreeing or disagreeing with the political speech or being
disinterested.

Oppositional reading (Counter Hegemonic) - the dominant meaning is recognized

but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons E.g. Total rejection of the
political speech and active opposition

Peer influences: people from same background, social groups, will often read a text
in a similar way, often based on shared cultural ideas.

Semiotics

Media texts are constructed using a complex series of codes, i.e. a system of
signs, language or symbols which communicate various meanings. An audience
can also decode the signs in order to 'read' or interpret them.

'Semiotics' is the media term for this 'reading' process.

Semiotics - the study of signs, sign systems and their meanings.

An image is made through a process. The maker of the image will DENOTE
(show) something, but in addition, by selecting the framing process, the camera
angle, the lighting effects, focus and so on, the image can be given a series of
CONNOTATIONS (hidden meanings or associated meanings) which the
audience will DECODE when viewing the image.

Narrative Theory - Todorov

All films follow the same narrative pattern.

Equilibrium, disruption, realisation, restored order, new equilibrium.

Equilibrium equal state of balance at the beginning of the film, everything is

normal and the majority of characters are content.

Disruption certain problem arises.

Realisation the characters realise they have a problem that needs to be fixed.

New equilibrium usually the ending, after resolving the problem everything
turns back to its natural state.

Strengths and weaknesses

Todorov emphasises that narrative is a process. Between the two states of

equilibrium there is a period of imbalance and its during that time changes of
development happen

Todorovs theory gives us the basic structure of a certain narrative which films
still follow to an extent as they will have a more complicated plot but will still
follow this pattern.

It is seen as too basic, many modern have a far more complicated concept.
Producers may stray from the pattern for a twist in the plot.

Propps Narative Theory

Hero: Individual(s) who's quest is to restore the equilibrium.

Villain: Individual(s) who's task is to disrupt the equilibrium.

Donor: Individual(s) who gives the hero(s) something, advice, information or an

object.

Helper: Individual(s) who aids the hero(s) with their set task.

Princess (Prince): Individual(s) which need help, protecting and saving.

The King: Who rewards the hero.

Dispatcher: Individual(s) who send the hero(s) on their quest.

False Hero: Individual(s) who set out to undermine the hero's quest by
pretending to aid them. Often unmasked at the end of the film.

Levi-Strauss Binary Oppositions

Argued that meaning in narrative is based upon binary oppositions. He

observed that all narratives are organised around the conflict between such
binary opposites:

Good Vs Evil

Human Vs Nature

Black Vs White

Protagonist Vs Antagonist

Ronal Barhtes: Enigma Code

Refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes
a mystery to the reader. The purpose of the author in this is typically to keep the
audience guessing, arresting the enigma, until the final scenes when all is
revealed and all loose ends are tied off and closure is achieved.

Karl Marx - Marxism

Marxism says that people in the world are organized into different groups or classes
based on their relationship to how things are made. Most people are called "workers
because they work in factories or offices or farms for money. They belong to the
"working class" (or "proletariat"). Another group, who are not as big as the working
class are "capitalists", because they own the factories, land and buildings that the
workers have to work in and also own all of the tools the workers have to use. Marx
calls Capitalists the "Ruling Class" because they live off of the work of all the workers.
He also says that the Capitalists own the government, army and courts.

In Marxist views, Capital is the "means of production and money which the Capitalist
can invest in different places of business so that they can "profit" or gain more
Capital. Most workers work for companies owned by Capitalists or "Petit-bourgeois"
(small business owners). The capitalist pays a wage to the worker in exchange for
the worker's time. The capitalist has bought a period of time from the worker which
the worker must then use to labour for the Capitalist, which according to Marxist
economic thinking is the only thing that can create value in a commodity, and then
exploits the time of the worker as much as they can.

Walter Lippmann and Richard Dyer Stereotyping

Walter Lippmann defined stereotypes in the 1920s. Later, Dyer (1993) described four
functions of Lippmanns definition, which are:

an ordering process - stereotypes serve to order our reality in an easy to understand

form which although an incomplete picture of the world is certainly not false, after all,
knowing a little about New York is better than knowing nothing at all!

a short cut - because they are simplifications, stereotypes act as a shortcut to

meanings. One of the most powerful short cuts to meaning is stereotypes used in
iconography. For example, yellow cabs are in New York; red buses in London; an
intellectual wears spectacles and so on ..

way of referring to the world - since stereotypes have their origins in the real world
they are social constructs and as such are a form of re-presentation

an expression of our values and beliefs - stereotypes are only effective if they are
believed to be a view of a group of people which has a consensus. Of course, as many
of the people who hold the stereotype actually derived their view from the stereotype,
then the consensus is more imagined than real.

Richard Dyer Star Theory

Dyer proposes that a star is an image not a real person that is constructed (as
any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (e.g advertising,
magazines, films, music).

Stars are constructed, artificial images, even if they are represented as being
"real people", experiencing real emotions etc. It helps if their image contains a
USP (unique selling proposition) they can be copied and/or parodied because
of it. Their representation may be metonymic Madonna's conical bra in the
early 1990s, Bono's 'Fly' sunglasses, Britney's belly, Justin Bieber's bangs. Pop
stars have the advantage over film stars in that their constructed image may be
much more consistent over a period of time, and is not dependent on the
creative input of others (e.g. screenwriters writing their lines).

Tessa Perkins Stereotyping

Rethinking Stereotypes described the assumptions many people hold about stereotypes

1. Stereotypes are always erroneous (false) in content

2. They are pejorative (critical) concepts

3. They are about groups with whom we have little or no social contact; by implication, therefore, they
are not held about one's own group

4. They are about minority (or oppressed) groups

5. They are simple

6. They are rigid and do not change

7. They are not structurally reinforced

8. The existence of contradictory stereotypes is evidence that they are erroneous, but of nothing else

9. People either 'hold' stereotypes (believe them to be true) or do not

10. Because someone holds a stereotype of a group, his or her behaviour towards the group can be
predicted

Key Individuals

Ronald Barthes

Barthes often claimed to be fascinated by the meanings of the things that

surround us in our everyday lives. Barthes said he wanted to challenge the
`innocence' and `naturalness' of cultural texts and practices which were capable of
producing all sorts of supplementary meanings, or connotations to use Barthes's
preferred term. Although objects, gestures and practices have a certain utilitarian
function, they are not resistant to the imposition of meaning.

Example: A BMW and a Citron 2CV share the same functional utility, they do
essentially the same job but connote different things about their owners: thrusting,
upwardly-mobile executive versus ecologically sound, right-on trendy. We can
speak of cars then, as signs expressive of a number of connotations. It is these
sorts of secondary meanings or connotations that Barthes is interested in
uncovering in Mythologies. Barthes wants to stop taking things for granted, wants
to bracket or suspend consideration of their function, and concentrate rather on
what they mean and how they function as signs. In many respects what Barthes is
doing is interrogating the obvious, taking a closer look at that which gets taken for
granted, making explicit what remains implicit.

Antonio Gramsci

Cultural hegemony Sociological and Philosophical concept originated by

Marxist philosophy Antonio.

A culturally diverse society can be ruled by one of its social classes. The ideas
of the ruling class come to be seen as the norm; they are seen as universal,
ideologies, perceived to benefit everyone whilst only really benefiting the
dominant class.

Jean Kilbourne

Internationally recognized for her pioneering work on the image of women in

advertising and her critical studies of alcohol and tobacco advertising.

Her films, lectures, and television appearances have been seen by millions of
people throughout the world. She was named by The New York Times
Magazine as one of the three most popular speakers on college campuses. She
is the author of the award-winning book Cant Buy My Love: How Advertising
Changes the Way We Think and Feel.

The Male Gaze Lauren Mulvy

Lauren Mulvy developed the the theory that film represents women as passive
objects of male desire. Audiences are forces to view women from the point of
view of a heterosexual male even if they themselves arent.

The gaze is a Feminist theory developed to highlight the power imbalance

between men and women analysing the way men see women, the way women
view themselves and other women. The theory suggests that an audience are
forced to view the text from the perspective a heterosexual male, films
constantly focus on womens curves and events that happen to them are
portrayed at a male angle. The male gaze denies women human agency,
relegating them to the status of objects. Therefore the female viewers
experience the text narrative secondarily, by identifying with a mans perspective
(male gaze). In addition she argues that sexism can also occur in the way the
text is presented. Moreover, people are encouraged to gaze at women in
advertising that sexualizes a woman's body even when the woman's body is
unrelated to the advertised product.

John Berger

Men look, women appear Women are there solely for the objectification of
women within all platforms of the media.

Bell Hooks

The colour codes: Lighter skinned women are considered more desirable and fit
better into the western ideology of beauty. Black women are objectified and
sexualised in hip-hop reflecting the colonialist view of black women(sexually
disposable). Commodified blackness, a mediated view of black culture that is
considered the norm.

Stuart Hall

The media and therefore audiences often blur race and class. Often associating particular
races with a particular class.

Audience reception theory; audiences read/ understand a particular text according to their
cultural upbringing. Western (white dominated) cultures. Continue to misinterpret ethnic
minorities in the media due to underlying racist tendencies. Ethnic minorities are often
represented as the other.

Hall outlines three base images of the 'grammar of race' employed in 'old movies'. The first is
the slave figure which could take the form of either the 'dependable, loving devoted
"Mammy" with the rolling eyes, or the faithful fieldhand attached and devoted to "his" master'
(Hall, 1995:21)

The second of Hall's base images the native (ibid:21). Their primitive nature means they are
cheating, cunning, savage and barbarian. In movies, we expect them 'to appear at any
moment out of the darkness to decapitate the beautiful heroine, kidnap the children.

The last of Hall's variants is that of the clown or entertainer implying an 'innate' humour in the
black man (ibid:22). Interestingly, the distinction is never made as to whether we are laughing
with or at the clown; overt racism is rare in the media rather, says Hall, it is 'inferential' (ibid:20)

Tricia Rose

Hip Hop gives black female rappers a voice introducing female empowerment.

Hip hop gave audiences an insight into the lives of young black urban
Americans and gave them a voice

Paul Gilroy

Black music articulated diasporic experiences of resistance to white capitalist

culture.

Employs the notion of diaspora and how ethnic minorities (particularly black
people) experience dislocation from their homeland. E.g. feeling as if you do
not totally belong in Britain but you also are considered English in the
Caribbean, Africa or Asia etc.

Michael Eric Dyson

Political rap didnt get the support that it deserved when it was prominent in the
80s and early 90s.

Therefore it reverted to the flashy, sexualised, criminal rap which we know today,
as through displaying this it became more prominent and more mainstream.

Kobena Mercer

Black gay film opens up audiences to the understanding of the dual exclusion
(being gay and black).

But through directors such as Isaac Julian they introduce a varied

representation not just pigeon holing into the black or gay stereotype.
Audiences are exposed to diverse representation displaying verisimilitude rather
than stereotype.

Jacques Lancan

The Mirror Stage: Where infants see their reflections in the mirror and see it as
a superior reflection of themselves that they must aspire to.

Seeing iconic rappers who are successful young black males may see them as
a superior reflection of themselves they could aspire to. Particularly those iconic
figures whom have struggled through a deprived childhood e.g. 50 Cent and
Biggie Smalls (Notorious BIG).

Michael Foucault

'Archaeology' is the term Foucault used during the 1960s to describe his
approach to writing history. Archaeology is about examining the discursive
traces and orders left by the past in order to write a 'history of the present'.

Archaeology is about looking at history as a way of understanding the processes

that have led to what we are today.

Therefore when analyzing your contemporary case studies you need to take into
account those past representations and how they have contributed to what we
have today e.g. Birth of a Nation1913, Blaxploitation films (70s), The slave trade
(colonialism) etc.