Media theory

Question	Answer
Structuralism	Emphasises the existance of universal structures underlying surface differences and assumed randomness of various cultures, stories and media texts.
Auteur theory Structuralism	The study of the style and themes of a director's films and assign them to the title of art if they show consistency of style or theme.
Saussure Structuralism	Suggested there are 3 levels on which we read media texts: Syntactic, representational and symbolic.
Barthes Structuralism	Suggests our understanding of many media texts is based on the texts relationship with frequently told stores and myths in our culture.
Fiske Structuralism	There is a tendency to read connotations as if they were denotations.
Laura Mulvey Post-feminism	Mainstream Hollywood cinema was the product of a male dominated industry in which Men controlled the action, women were represented as passive objects and pleasure from viewing came from voyerism, narcissism and scopophilia.
Naomi Wolf Post-feminism	Claims the notion of beauty is socially constructed and patriarchal. Men in a given society create rules of what is considered beautiful in women but this changes from culture to culture.
Kilbourne Post-feminism	Discusses notion that advertising is selling not just products but the idea of what it is to be 'normal' in society.
Gender trouble Post-feminism	Refers to behaviour and representation that disrupts culturally accepted notions of gender.
Judith Butler Post-feminism	Argues there are a number of exaggerated, disruptive 'tongue-in-cheek' representations of masculinity and femininity which draws attention to the idea that gender is socially constructed.
Queer theory Post-feminism	Challenges traditionally held assumptions that there are is a binary divide between being gay and heterosexual and suggests that sexual identity is more fluid in contemporary media texts.
Marxism	Interested in the impact of capitalism on society. Believed that power was held by a minority, the elite were the only ones who had access to the means of production and the mass were dependent on the elite for survival.
Fetishisation Marxism	Idea of being working class is romanticised and shown to be a positive thing.
Demonisation Marxism	Presenting the poor as undeserving or in their financial position through choice rather than social circumstances.
Post-colonialism	A range of ideas that are critical of the impact of Western colonialism on non-Western cultures.
Orientalism Post-colonialism	Suggests the East and the Orient are represented as provoking fear and fascination within Western culture.
Diaspora identity Post-colonialism	Result of forced or voluntary migration where people experience belonging to a cultural group that is 'other' the the dominant culture in their country.
Liberal Pluralism	The idea that individuals have a vast range of media messages to choose from, representing a variety of viewpoints and ideologies that exist in society.
Chomsky and Herman Liberal Pluralism	Argue that media filters available information to control our thoughts therefore preventing us from rebelling against the dominant class.
Economic regulation	Where economically powerful groups, advertisers and sponsors exert pressure to limit content of media texts.
Cultural regulation	Cultural attitudes and values of the audience limit the content of media texts.
Legal regulation	Where acts of parliament or government approved industry institutions regulate media content.
Post-modernism	Refers to the number of theoretical ideas which seek to try to make sense of contemporary culture.
Strinati Post-modernism	5 ways to define post-modernity in culture & media texts: breakdown of distinction between culture & society, emphasis on style over substance, lack of distinction between high culture & popular culture, confusion over time & space & the decline of meta-narratives.
Baudrillard Post-modernism	Culture perceives copy as more real than the original and stated that we live in a culture where fake is more readily accepted than the real, therefore creating a hyper-reality.
Simulacrum Post-modernism	A media text that makes no attempt to represent reality and just represents other representations.
Hyper-reality Post-modernism	The distinction between the real world and the media is disappearing.
Jameson Post-modernism	A cultural depthlessness is created as he sees the culture as being one where meaning is lost and all that is left is surface representation. Extreme emotional outbursts are a way of replacing the shallowness of style over substance.
Bricolage Post-modernism	Process of adapting and juxtaposing old and new texts, images, ideas or narratives to produce new meanings.
Sontag 9/11	Films that represent large-scale destruction is the 'imagination of disaster' and for the last two decades mainstream Hollywood has been characterised by big budget, SFX films that see America and global communities under threat and experiencing huge loss of life.
Petley and Richardson 9/11	Islamaphobia is a quick way of describing discussions and behaviours that "express feelings of anxiety, fear, hostility and rejection towards Muslims.
Kilborn Reality TV	Part of pleasure for audiences is watching how well the participants handle different contexts as well as becoming a way for audiences to identify with the way in which this behaviour may mirror their own.
Corner Reality TV	Suggests popularity of reality TV rests upon the dynamics of 'anxiety and security'.
Stacey Reality TV	The meaning audiences place on celebrities is linked to the pleasure through fantisising about escaping from the confines of their own lives.
Perkins Stereotypes	Noted that stereotypes usually have an element of truth in them which makes them plausible.
David Gauntlett New Media	New digital media is no longer an 'optional extra' and has changed the way we engage with media texts. New media texts are now characterised by the way in which users generate media content themselves.
Matthew Allen New Media	The internet and its new media content is not characterised by new institutions but by new audience behaviours: interaction is the new content, distracted and fascinated and you can get it for free.
Stanley Cohen Moral Panics	Mass media can exaggerate the extent and significance of certain events and create a 'panic' amongst the general public.
Goode and Ben-Yahuda Moral Panics	5 elements of a moral panic: Concern for a groups behaviour & consequences, hostility = group is viewed as enemy, consensus= population agree threat is real & serious, disproportionality= perceived threat is greater than reality, volatility= threat appears quickly & fades.
Marwick Moral Panics	Technopanics are moral panics that are a response to fears around new media technologies and tend to make young peoples use of the internet seem abnormal and unhealthy.
McQuail Moral Panics	6 main areas of concern regarding the internet which has led to moral panics: ease of access to sexually explicit material, unreliability of sources, invasion of privacy, defamation, fraud and cybercrime and facilitating terrorism.
McLuhan Globalisation	The world has become a 'global village' where countries are becoming interconnected and more independent, especially in economic terms.
John B. Thompson Globalisation	Globalisation is the growing interconnectedness of different parts of the world which results in a complex form of interaction and interdependence.
Slavoj Zizek Globalisation	Media reinforces and naturalises ideology that making money is the right way of conducting business & allows people to feel less guilty about how goods are produced.
Habermass Alternate media	Media texts should provide space for citizens to debate and criticise government actions and form public opinion. DYSTOPIAN
Del Sola Poole Alternate media	New media will facilitate a positive media world where there will be much wider range of media texts produced that meet the needs of more groups in society. UTOPIAN

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	Created by Megan Griffiths almost 9 years ago