Media Theorists

Semiotics - enigma, action, semantic, symbolic & cultural codes

Narratology - equilibrium is balanced, balanced is disrupted and equilibrium (or a new equilibrium) is restored. 3 act structure.

Genre theory - producers rely on audience’s desire to see repetition and difference in genre conventions. Over rime genres change, combine or form new genres.

Structuralism - all media products have an underlying structure which help us analyse them. We can also make sense of media via binary oppositions.

Representation theory. Representation are constructed via media language and influence by the producer’s ideology. Stereotypes occur where there are imbalances of power reducing people to simple characteristics.

Theories of identity - audiences are not passive and construct their identities by picking and mixing what ideologies suit them, ignoring elements of the product they disagree with.

Feminist theory - gender is constructed by codes and conventions of media and changes over time. Women’s bodies are a spectacle for the heterosexual male audience.

Feminist theory - feminism is a political commitment for everyone to end the patriarchal hegemony. Race, class and gender all determine the extent to which someone is exploited.

Postcolonialism - how postcolonial idea and attitudes shape contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity. Media producers use binary oppositions to reinforce ethnic minorities as ‘others’.

Power & media industries - The media is controlled by a concentrated amount of companies driven by profit and power causing a lack of variety, creativity and quality.

Regulation - There is struggle in regulation between furthering the needs of citizens and furthering the needs of consumers. Digital media has put traditional approaches to media regulation at risk.

Cultural industries - Culture and industry are two terms at odds. Producers try to minimise risk and maximise profit through vertical and horizontal integration and standardising their cultural products.

Media Effects - old-fashioned view about how media products effect audiences by causing them to acquire attitudes, emotional responses and behaviour (eg: violence) via media products modelling ideologies.

Cultivation Theory - being exposed to repeated patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way they see the world (can reinforce mainstream hegemonic ideologies)

Reception Theory - the three main ways an audience may decode producers’ meanings and messages = preferred reading, negotiated reading and oppositional reading

End of Audience Theory - media consumers have now become active producers who can create content and ‘speak back’ to the media as prosumers.

Uses & Gratifications - the audience is active and select the media texts they consume in order to fulfil their needs which can be influenced by factors such as social background

Update to Uses & Gratifications - there are 4 main audience needs from a text: surveillance, personal identity, integration & social interaction and diversion