Theory Summaries

 Curran and Seaton/power and media industries-

 patterns of ownership and control are important and how the media functions, media industry is a capitalist and aim to increase concentration of ownership, owners pursue profit at the expense of quality or creativity, impact of the Internet on the ownership of news is nominal and is still controlled by an oligarchy 

Hesmondhalgh/ Cultural industries

They follow a capitalist pattern of increasing concentration and interrogation so production is only controlled by a few conglomerates, risk is seen in terms of loss of money because production costs are high, companies rely on repetition to minimise risk and cover failure

Livingston and Lunt/ regulation

Consumers are individuals who seek private benefits from the media and require regulation to protect them from the damage of the media, regulation in the UK is under threat but increasingly globalised industries because of technological convergence 

Audiences 

Bandura/Media effects

The media influence people directly, or indirectly three related platforms such as social media  

Gerbner/Cultivation theory

Exposure to particular media forms genres or content over long periods of time can cultivate and shape our behaviour, repetition of negative media messages and values are likely to create mean world syndrome

Hall/ reception theory      

Including/decoding model explain the relationship between producer, media product an audience in creating meaning, media produces include product to the preferred meaning, dominant reading negotiated reading and oppositional reading

Jenkins/ Fandom

 New media have enabled participatory culture where audiences are active, participatory audiences create online communities using the media for me to develop or influence how media is consumed    

Shirky/ End of audience

Traditional media are shaped by centralised producers, audience were seen as a mass of people with predictable behaviours, audience behaviour is now variable, user generated content creates emotional connection

Media Language 

Barthes/ semiology

Demonstrations can signify quality shins, they are organised into maps, myths create an ideological meaning and help ideology feel natural real and acceptable

Todorov/narratology

Narratives can be seen to move from state of equilibrium to disequilibrium, The narrative structure the characters we see within it and the role they play help to reinforce ideological values

Neale/ Genre theory

Do you wanna exchange a decline in popularity, there is a process through which generic codes and conventions are shared by produces in audiences, genres aren’t fixed but are constantly evolving

Levi- Strauss/ structuralism

This is the study of hidden roles that shape the structure to communicate ideology or myths, understand the world and our place within it based on binary oppositions

Baudrillard/ post modernism

Post modern society is concerned with hyperreal simulations play with signs of images, social distinctions are no longer rigid

Representation 

Hall/representation       

Through stereotyping and communication ideology those in power tried to fix the meaning of representation, many meanings of representation can generate super third readings can’t be contested, meaning is created by representation, stereotypes in the way they are constructed should be pulled apart and deconstructed

Gauntlett/ identity 

The media have an important but complex relationship with identities, many diverse and contradictory messages that individuals can use to think through their identity

Van Zoonen/ feminist theory

Women’s bodies are represented as objects, ideas of femininity and masculinity are constructed in our performances, gender is what we do rather than who we are and changes meaning depending on cultural and historical contexts

Bell hooks/feminist theory

Into sick she analogy refers to the coming together of gender race class and sexuality to create a white supremacist it’s media representation, women should develop an oppositional gaze that refuses  identify with characters that reinforce patriarchal ideology and politicises the gaze

Butler/ gender performativity                            

Gender is created in response to a performance of gender roles, we learn how to perform gender roles through repetition and ritual that becomes naturalised

Gilroy/ethnicity and post colonialism

The black Atlantic is a transatlantic culture that is simultaneously African-American Caribbean and British, Britain has failed to mourn its loss of empire creating post colonial melancholia leading to a version of British colonial history that criminalises immigrants, representations support a  belief in the inherent superiority of white western civilisation.