RESEARCH JOURNAL

MEDIA THEORIES

Stuart Hall

He asserts that media texts need to encoded and decoded

His theory of representation, argues that all representations are constructed through language that is made up of signs and codes that are understood by the audience. Stuart Hall states that audience members adapt one of the following three positions when they decode the text: Dominant, or Prefered Reading- how the producer wants the audience to view media text.

• Consider how the front pages and articles in the newspaper you have studied use signs and codes to communicate messages. For example, the newspaper examples include use gesture and expression to represent the text.
• Consider how newspapers construct recognisable stereotypes to reflect their attitudes and beliefs.
• Consider how these stereotypes reinforces inequalities of power, particularly with reference to excluded groups. For example, some newspapers construct stereotypes of the working class and of refugees through the images and language they use in relation to stories featuring these social groups. They are often constructed as different or ‘other’ and demonised by some newspapers.

Andrew Goodwin

LINKS BETWEEN MUSIC AND VISUALS

This is when there is close relationships between the musical style and what is seen on screen.

• To illustrate the lyrics at a more straightforward level
• To amplify the lyrics in order to communicate a message more clearly to an audience
• To offer a contradictory message creating discussion

John Berger

Theory of being Glamorous– being envied by others therefore making you glamorous.

Publishing yourself to be envied

Berger argues that continuity constrained how certain forms of femininity are understood, and therefore the terms on which women are able to live their lives.

David Gauntlett

David Guanlett’s theory of IDENTITY is relevant to both the forms of advertising and marketing, and music videos.

He asserts that the media provides us with the ‘tools’ or resources that we use to construct our identities, Both advertising and music videos offer role models for viewers; he suggests that they then ‘Pick and Mix’ which aspects of the product we want to us in constructing our own identities.

Laura Mulve

Laura Mulve is predominantly know for her Theory regarding sexual objectification of women in the media .

The Male Gaze: Is when men look at women without them knowing- which leads to other women also looking at the women because they are being looked at.

Van Zooen

The meaning of gender varies according to cultural and historical context and as such is a reflection of the society at the time.

The meaning of Gender varies according to cultural and historical context and such is a reflection of the society at the time.

Steve Neale

Steve Neale’s theory of Repetition and Differences. Steve New states that genre’s all contain instances of repetition and differences is essential to the economy of the genre.

Claude Levi- Strauss

Levi-Strauss investigated the idea that texts that texts can be understood through an examination of their underlying structure. He believed that meanings are created through pairs of oppositions, which he called BINARY OPPOSITES. He suggested that they way in which these binary oppositions are resolved, had ideological signification and as such communicates meanings to the audience.

Roland Barthez

Barthez was a French writer who studied semiotics. SEMIOTICS: is the study of sign processes. He argued that all texts communicate their meaning through a set of signs that need to be decoded by the audience. He was particularly interested in the way in which signs take on the ideology of a specific society , and their meanings become accepted and appear natural through repetition over time. He also argued that the way I’m which the audience interprets the image is influenced by other forces, for example culture and context. KEY ELEMENTS:Denotation and connotation