hello i am michael collins and this is mediafocus in this video we are going to be looking at absolutely every single last theory that we study in a-level media studies that's right we're going to be looking at 19 theories in just one video so hopefully this is fairly obvious here but um i'm going to be cutting a lot of corners when i go through this so these theories these concepts they're all complicated they are all extremely useful in their own way but what i'm going to try and do is i'm going to try and boil them down to just one or two key points in order to help you to remember them for the exam um just before we jump into this um please do remember that the purpose of any theory is not there to just kind of you know just be a fact um but the purpose of a theory instead is to help us to answer a question okay so we have questions that we are asked we have questions which are posed to us in us in everyday life and theories help us to understand and to interpret the world around us theories are not proven facts but they are ways of interpreting media and indeed the world around us and another thing also to point out is that every single last one of the theories that we're going to be looking at have absolute total inherent flaws in them and they can and should be criticized but in order to save time here i'm not really going to be criticizing any of these theories i'm just going to be pointing out exactly what they are and what they mean in order to get you going with the exam so let's begin um so we're going to categorize these into four different groups and the first category that we're going to look at are media language theories and the kinds of questions that these theories answer are these kind of questions how do we make sense of the world what is the world around us and how do we understand the world around us so the first very we're going to look at is key fairy number one rolling bar and semiotics and in a nutshell this theory is but we make sense of the world through a series of signs that hold meaning so in a media product a sign could be absolutely anything it could be a shot type it could be a camera angle it could be a color it could be an element of misonsen and according to roland bar absolutely all of these hold some kind of meaning so here is an image i drew about 10 years ago which doesn't really tell you anything so anyway there are a number of different codes which roland bark came up with um and this idea of hermeneutic codes so hermeneutic codes are anything which has a meaning okay so hermeneutic codes are anything which poses a question to the audience we sometimes know these as enigma codes so for example if we ever see for example in a court a corpse in a crime drama the immediate question that we're going to be asking ourselves is well who killed them and we as an audience expect this to be solved we also have prioritic codes and prioritic codes are action codes and these are things which suggest that something is going to happen so the example i always really like to use is if someone cracks their knuckles like this okay it wasn't quite as dramatic as i thought it was going to be this suggests that someone is about to be punched possibly right in the head um but it needn't be violent uh prioritic codes could be absolutely anything so for example uh in the tide advert where we see the model pursing her lips this is an example of a proretic code which suggests that she's about to do something romantic i.e kiss the box of soap um symbolic codes nice and straightforward these are anything with a deeper meaning so the classic media studies example is a red rose the red rose is symbolic of love is symbolic of romance but we also need to consider these different symbols have different meanings in different contexts so for example in the brothel scene in the tv show humans the use of the color red here is used instead to symbolize sex um as well as danger as well referential codes we also know this by the term intertextuality and referential codes are where one media product makes reference to another media product and again thinking of the tv show humans it makes numerous references to other sci-fi tv shows uh and films for example the very very first shot of anita's eye is a very specific reference to ridley scott's 1982 film blade runner which also focuses on um androids and the idea of humanity roland bart wasn't just interested in these ideas of codes he was also interested in these ideas of myths as well and a myth essentially is a story that we tell ourselves and helps us to make sense of the world around us they are very very closely tied to the notion of meta narrative as well so a myth essentially is a way of looking at the world and understanding it and examples of myths include science include religion include marriage just basically any set of rules that we follow that help us to make sense of the world right that's the longest one hopefully all the rest of these should be uh fairly straightforward key theory number two narratology it's vertantarov and in a nutshell this is all narratives share a basic structure that involves movement from one state of equilibrium to another now a narrative is a way of telling a story and according to todderov there are essentially infinite ways of telling stories but really only a few plots or stories but what's most important here is the way of telling a story but this kind of doesn't matter because according to toddler of all narratives basically move from one state of equilibrium to another now what does this mean well equilibrium is a state of balance so essentially in a narrative we have a state of everything being completely fine and then a state of disequilibrium where everything is not completely fine and then we move back to a state of equilibrium um a really excellent example of this would be on the front cover to the daily mirror with theresa may looking depressed and aghast out of the window um and you know the notion here is that she has moved from a state of equilibrium to disequilibrium this kind of state of horror and terror her own life um and yeah next up we have steve neal nice and straightforward this one well at least the way in which we study it steve neal theories around genre genre is a type of media product it's a way of categorizing a media product and it's very clear that we can just instantly work out what genre something is so for example if we look at the video 2 formation by beyonce we can tell that this is within the r b genre but this has elements of rap and hip hop that this has elements of uh bounce music as well which is a very very specific genre of music which is related to new orleans um for steve neal this is a perfect example of repetition and difference so the song formation by beyonce is pretty much what beyonce does every time it's this kind of stop start r b um but this time she's got this element of uh um kind of southern bounce music in there as well which keeps things interesting for the audience so we repeat certain aspects and then certain aspects will be different every time key ferry number four is clearly by strauss and his notion of structuralism and structuralism is this idea but um essentially narratives stories the world around us and everything we know about the world is based on certain structures nice and straightforward and the most key kind of concept of this is this idea of binary oppositions where two things are in direct opposition with one another and according to claude levi strauss we make sense of the world not through what it is but through what it is not so for example going back to humanness again how can we tell that anita is tall and beautiful well she forms a direct binary oppositions with laura the mother who is rather shorter and perhaps we could say less hegemonically attractive which emphasizes laura as something very very different laura is also sorry anita is also east asian which creates a binary opposition with the white hawkins family and you know maybe fairly obviously she's a robot as well and the hawkins family are not um we see binary oppositions throughout everything we can look at in media studies uh it's also actually absolutely essential for the advertising industry it's absolutely essential for the newspaper industry we can see tons and tons of binary oppositions and magazines this is a really really good theory to apply pretty much everywhere next up perhaps the most complicated theory in the whole of a-level media studies i'll try and keep this brief is jean-beaujolais notion of post-modernism now post-modernism itself needs to be broken down in a nutshell post-modernism is this idea of breaking rules and challenging conventions and probably the most important aspect of media products breaking rules and challenging conventions is the idea of hyper reality hyper reality is a representation which is more real than the thing that it is representing and again going back to humans the most kind of classic example i keep talking about humans but it's so so useful for many of these media language theories um the classic example there is anita she is hyper real she is better than the thing that she's representing she is better than human she is perfect which is rather creepy um for jean beaujola we live in a world which is bombarded with images which makes it absolutely impossible to tell what is real and what is not real an excellent example of this would be in the marketing of zoella where her youtube channel and her commercial endeavors and her blog um are completely at odds with her own life and the occasional embarrassing things that she has posted to twitter in the in in in the past um because we're hit by so many of these wonderful social media accounts and these absolutely perfect representations um another conclusion we can also make is that the virtual world or the simulation is much much more interesting and better than our own lives so that's the one that we tend to fall for um they are all the theories of media language next up we have theories of representation now representation is we'll define that in just a second but basically these theories will help us to answer how are different groups represented in media products first up we have stuart hall and his theory of representation um first of all he offers a definition of representation well it's a representation and that's something which is absolutely essential representation is not just showing something okay so when we watch uh when we look at an advert for example we are not seeing a man or a woman or a vampire or whatever we are seeing a re-presentation of this concept and representations are a reconstruction of reality so maybe this is totally obvious but media products they're not real it doesn't even matter if they're kind of semi-fictitious or if if they purport to depict reality for example news broadcasts they are always reconstructions of reality however stuart hall points out that representations can inform reality so for example if we think about news media and if we think about the coverage of black and minority ethnic youth um we get to this situation where negative stereotypical representations can actually reinforce and cultivate the way in which people behave and in sociology we might refer to this as um what's the term i'm looking for i can't remember let's move on so representations are and this is absolutely essential constructed through media language okay so whenever again it just proves exactly how important media language is to this subject shot types camera angles color if you're not talking about it in the exam you're not getting mass marks for this so every time we see somebody in a media product they are constructed through lighting they are constructed through editing they're constructed through cinematography and you need to discuss exactly how they're constructed and for what reason as well so this is stuart hall's theory next up i'll keep this really really straightforward david gauntlet and his theories of identity um a little bit more complicated than stuart hall's um essentially audiences can construct their own identity through media products an excellent example of this may well be the assassin's creed franchise where audiences can purchase merchandise and participate on fan forums as well in order to demonstrate their own identity and their own allegiance to the brand next up feminist theory elizabeth van zumlin the first of two feminist theorists that we look at in a-level media studies the way in which to think about this one is that men's bodies and women's bodies are encoded in completely different ways in media products and once more these representations are constructed through media language so for example in i'm trying to think of the example that isn't humans in les revenon we see characters such as julie who is represented as being a vulnerable woman stalking through the streets always looking over her shoulder the use of harsh loki lighting emphasizing her vulnerability while other characters like simon um are much much more um not aggressive but more assertive uh lit in a completely different way his actions demonstrate far far more com confidence um these subtle distinctions between male and female characters are repeated over and over again throughout media products which emphasizes this idea that men and women are completely different zine also goes on to say that women's bodies are used as a spectacle i.e something to look at to sell media products and again this is something we see extensively in the music video industry as well as the advertising industry as well as basically every single last media industry that we look at next up another feminist theory but this one is a little bit different this is bell hooks um bell hooks his idea is nice and progressive and it is also far more optimistic as well it's the idea that feminism is for everybody not just those who identify as women so for example negative representations of women will affect men if we assume that women are nurturing caregivers then this will assume on the other hand that men cannot fulfill this and that men cannot do these things therefore while women should be nurturing and should be passive and should be pretty men on the other hand should be aggressive and destructive and assertive um and anybody who doesn't fit into these stereotypes uh quite clearly may well be ostracized by society so for bell hooks this isn't just pointing something out this is a struggle feminism is a struggle to end patriarchal hegemony and the idea that women are dominated by a patriarchal hegemonic system and for bell hooks it isn't just about if you're a man or a woman but other things as well also come into this situation so things like race class ethnicity gender and sexuality all affect how we are represented um an excellent example of this would be attitude online which seeks to well basically reinforce certain stereotypical representations of gay men while at the same time subtly challenging others next up maybe maybe the joint hardest theory in a level media studies is judith butler's notion of gender performativity do be careful with this one because it's very very very easy to do this one wrong uh there is a difference between gender performance and gender performativity so butler argues that gender is a performance this is something that we act out every day so for example we may put on high heel shoes or wear makeup or shove on a lovely jumper or a tracksuit or behave in a certain way or move our hands in a certain way or walk in a certain way and essentially what we're doing here is that we are performing and we are living up to gender stereotypes or we are challenging gender stereotypes and our performance is shaped through hegemonic expectations of what we're supposed to do of how we're supposed to dress or whether or not we're supposed to put our makeup butler argues that sex and gender are too completely different concepts so sex is essentially what we are born as well gender is something that we become and something that can change many times over throughout our lives um this is a difficult thing for certain people to get their heads around but what judith but definitely is not saying is that if you put on a dress you magically become a girl she is saying that it is the repetition of this action over and over again which leads to the uh the malleability of gender um butler also argues so this is so far as gender performance this is idea of what we do reflects our gender um but for judah butler the most important thing is this idea of gender performativity and it's this idea that our performance of gender affects the world around us and that is absolutely essential so going back to the idea of humans uh anita arriving on the scene instantly stirs stuff up within the hawkins family her stereotypical hegemonically enforced representation of gender here basically infuriates laura who sees her as a threatening of a mother it excites young sophie who realizes that she has an older sister now to play with it uh sexually excites joe and toby uh who are both very very excited to engage with her sexually so i won't go into that in too many details um and it also fascinates uh and upsets matty in equally different directions although matty is much much more interested in anita as a computer than she is as a woman so essentially the way in which we perform gender has an effect on the world around us next up is paul gilroy and his theories around ethnicity and post-colonial theory now again this is a fairly complicated one but the united kingdom used to essentially own and occupy a number of different countries and states around the world for example australia india hong kong parts of north america um canada and so on um this has gradually kind of faded into obscurity the united kingdom no longer has this power that it once had and according to gilroy this has led to the united kingdom being in this state of anxiety so whereas previously we have this ownership over different people of different countries of different races we in the united kingdom do not have that anymore however there are still many subtle and frankly not so subtle racial prejudices which exist in our society ways in which for example black people asian people east asian people are represented on television in media products and all of all of this is totally deeply rooted into our colonial past so for paul gilroy when we in media products white people and non-white people are often presented as a binary opposition the same and the other and we frequently see examples of this so again thinking back to the video for formation by beyonce um she reinforces this idea of black and white people as being a binary opposition in order to draw attention to very very serious and systemic issues of racism which exist in american culture right that's all the representation theories and industry theories are quite frankly a little bit more straightforward these kind of theories are there to answer questions like how and why are media products made so first up curran and seton power and the media industries so current and satan argue in their book power without responsibility but the media by which they generally mean the news media but also this kind of refers to other forms of media as well is controlled by a very very small number of companies getting smaller every year and these companies are not considerate well then they're not totally based on this idea of marketing interesting exciting products to audiences no way they are primarily driven through profit and power through making money and through competing with other companies um and for current and seaton this is a big issue because this leads to an inferior and repetitive product so in a nutshell media companies are driven by profit and power next one is regulation so sonya livingston and peter lunt and regulation of the rules and restrictions that media products have to follow for example in the film industry the bbfc sets age certificates in the advertising industry the advertising standards agency will set one up but canon can't do on television and radio we have the regulatory body ofcom um for livingston and luntz this is all completely by the by because thanks to digitally digitally convergent technologies like the internet i hear what what you're viewing this video on right now um we can just completely bypass every single last form of restriction possible so who cares if a film is rated 18 um you can you know go and find that film anyway and watch it and there is absolutely nothing that anybody can do about this um who cares if for example if we look at the daily mail which quite frequently uh posts things which contradict uh rules and regulations on the depiction of suicide um quite frankly they get away with this because a they publish this online and b also they have the money to pay any fines which might come up so essentially these rules are being broken by audiences by producers on a daily basis and large media conglomerates um like for example with daily mail will completely and actively avoid any form of regulation as long as they can help it next up we have david hasman hull and his theories of the cultural industries well this isn't really a theory this is just i mean he wrote an absolutely excellent textbook called the cultural industries and this isn't really a theory this is just him telling it how it is um but for david hesmond hull every media industry is specialized so the advertising industry specialized the newspaper industry is specialized the film industry is specialized to do what to do one thing only and that one thing is to minimize risk and to maximize profit so to do things in the least risky way which get the most money now david hesman hull also discusses at great length the idea of integration so media conglomerates and a conglomerate is a an organization or a company which has lots and lots of different uh businesses within it which do different things they're based around vertical horizontal and multimedia integration vertical integration is where one organization of company controls both the means of production and distribution for example disney who distributes marvel films such as black panther not only own studios like marvel studios but they also own the primary means of distribution for example disney plus horizontal integration is where one organization buys out other companies within the same sector in order to completely destroy them um so again for example disney uh purchased pixar disney have purchased marvel studios disney have purchased lucasfilms why um basically because they were the competition and now disney owns the competition and now the competition is disney and the basic there's nothing that anyone can do about it multimedia integration is where one organization will use different forms of media which work together in order to sell a product or create a product or release a product or distribute a product so for example um disney obtaining a company like lucasarts um means that it also has access to their video game franchises as well as their film franchises and disney also digitally distribute stuff and physically distribute stuff on dvd and yep so this is basically it um another thing as well is that media producers will do things in order to minimize this risk for example including well-known stars people you know in films um they will franchise i.e they will release if a film is successful they will make other films within that franchise and they will also rely on extremely um proven genres for example superhero films and action films and sci-fi and fantasy are the genres which tend to do best at the cinema why in order to maximize audience reach and appeal right they are all the industry theories they're not very many of them but finally we have audience theories and audience theories are ways in which well these theories of audience um purport to answer the question how can audiences respond to and to use media products so first of all we have albert bandura and his media effects model and he argues that we are directly influenced by what we see in media products this theory is kind of useless uh is extremely basic he basically experimented on children um and that doesn't really tell us much apart from children are very very easily influenced by the media however this theory is really really important because quite frankly the vast majority of people do believe that if we see something violent for example if we play a violent video game such as assassin's creed then we will become violent people and this has led to much criticism of video game series such as grand theft auto such as the doom series and so on um however in actuality if you've ever played a violent video game and you've not killed someone you've kind of disproved this one next up is the much better notion of cultivation so george gerbner suggested that if we are exposed to media products for a long time over and over again then gradually what will happen is they will cultivate or grow and reinforce certain dominant hegemonic ideologies so thinking back of video games okay we're not going to play a video game once and go out and kill somebody however if we keep playing violent video games and if we keep watching violent films and if we keep seeing television shows where problems are sold with violence then this will cultivate and reinforce the idea that violence is an answer which can be used to solve problems next up it's still oh he's back again with a completely different theory this time reception theory uh reception theory is this idea that audiences don't just see something and do what they see so the last two various we looked at by e alba bandura and george governor these are examples of passive audience models so where audiences see something and they do it they've been walked all over they're just some doormat they're just some kind of zombie um stuart hall on the other hand argued for audiences being active they can do what they want with media products so we as an audience we can agree with the preferred reading i.e we can agree with the dominant ideology of the product we can disagree with the product and go against what it's all about or we can negotiate this reading and we can come somewhere in the middle so preferred negotiated and oppositional readings of the ideology of the producer um and yeah so every media product that we see or read or hear or play will reflect the dominant ideology of the producer so when you're talking about this one in the exam you need to point out the dominant ideology of the producer what is this tv show saying what is this film saying what is this music video saying but the audience are able to take this and able to negotiate or mediate this according to their own lives and experiences so basically every audience who views a media product will interpret it in their own way based on their own lives and experiences and this is called audience negotiation penultimate theory henry jenkins and his idea of fandom well henry jenkins goes further than stuart hall and he argues that not only do we have audiences i.e the people for whom the products are made for but we also have fans and fans love media fans do stuff with media and they are invested in media and they are motivated by media products and they would do anything for these media products so for example if we think about the example of zoella they are able to use zoella as it were in many many different ways so they are able to take pleasure in messaging her online they are able to take pleasure in buying her book they're able to take pleasure in cooking her recipes um and maybe even learning some makeup and style techniques to get take selfies in the same style of zoella so this is just one way in which fans can use media products um in a completely different way from how general audiences might do this and fans are also able to use media products in other ways for example writing fan fiction so entire new stories um which are related to the original product but then they've added loads loads more detail we've gone off on one they've added hitherto unseen sexual elements and henry jenkins refers to this as textual poaching so poaching as in the idea of stealing something so they have taken something from the media product and used it to their own advantage and the way in which the producer might not have actually considered it in the first place and finally we have hen uh no clay shirky and his end of audience theory and this one is the most extreme of all this is the idea that audiences are no longer passive they're not even just active anymore they actually make media products they are able to interact with and to create media products in a variety of different ways so for clay shirky this idea of audience is kind of complete nonsense now because audiences can just make media products instead they by interacting with media products are taking on the role of producer so audiences can use digitally convergent media to create media they can use social media to comment on and to critique a tv program and to write about it and to make a youtube video slagging it off or whatever um and they can then use this essentially to completely destroy the line between audience and producer um and so yeah according to clay shirky these ideas of audience and producer are now pretty much irrelevant so there we go 19 kiev beerus gone through in probably the quickest i ever have done ever um and hopefully this has given you some indication about how you can use these theories in a simple and straightforward way in the exam