For Question 1b, you will be asked to select ONE production and evaluate it in the light of ONE NAMED concepts. This will be:
· Representation
· Audience
· Narrative
· Genre
· Media Language
The presentation below summarises all you need to know about each of the five areas, with key theorists and theories explained:
Question 2 on Collective Identity is where you write about the representation of women in the media. Below is a summary of the sorts of theories you could include in your essay, beginning with some quotations to learn from some current theorists:
"Identity is complicated - everybody thinks they've got one." - David Gauntlett - see his Media Theory website at http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-iden.htm"People are increasingly curious about our own construction of identity, which is one of the reasons why people buy magazines and self-help books, and watch 'people shows' on TV, and also one of the reasons why people are interested to do courses in media or sociology or psychology." (Gauntlett, 2001)
"In Media, Gender and Identity I aim to show how people can make use of the work of Anthony Giddens (on how media products can be used as part of the construction of a 'lifestyle' and a 'narrative of the self'); and Michel Foucault (on how media may contribute to the cultivation of the self, and also lead people to monitor and police themselves and their projected identities); and Judith Butler (on the fluidity of identities); amongst others." (Gauntlett, 2001)
"We should never confuse changes in the media with changes in real life. However I do think that popular media can take a leading role in this kind of social change. On its own, the media can't transform people's attitudes, but I think it can help to chip away at people's prejudices." (Gauntlett, 2001)
"Identity is an ambiguous and slippery term." (David Buckingham, 2008)
"What to do? How to act? Who to be? These are focal questions for everyone living in circumstances of late modernity - and ones which, on some level or another, all of us answer, either discursively or through day-to-day social behaviour." (Anthony Giddens, 1991)
'Techniques of the self' or 'arts of existence' as 'those reflective and voluntary practices by which men not only set themselves rules of conduct, but seek to transform themselves, to change themselves in their singular being, and to make of their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria' (Foucault, 1984))
Films you have studied in terms of Collective Identity - representation of Women:
Vertigo (Mystery/Romance/Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Pride and Prejudice (Romance/Drama, Simon Langton, 1995)
East is East (Comedy/Drama, Damien O'Donnell, 1999)
Bend It Like Beckham (Comedy/Drama/Romance, Gurinder Chadha, 2002)
In This World (Drama, Michael Winterbottom, 2002)Eden Lake (James Watkins, 2008, also directed 'The Woman In Black', Drama/Horror/Thriller, 2011)
Ae Fond Kiss (Drama/Romance, Ken Loach, 2004, who also directed 'Sweet Sixteen', Crime/Drama, 2002))
Children of Men (Adventure/Drama/Sci-fi set in 2027, Alfonso Cuaron, 2006)
This Is England (Crime/Drama, Shane Meadows, 2006)
London To Brighton (Crime/Drama/Thriller, Marco Kreuzpaintner, 2006)
Slumdog Millionaire (Crime/Drama/Romance, Danny Boyle, 2008)
Fish Tank (Drama, Andrea Arnold, 2009)
Made in Dagenham (Biography/Comedy/Drama, Nigel Cole, 2010)
The King's Speech (Biography/Drama/History, Tom Hooper, 2010)
You could also mention 'Alice In Wonderland' (Adventure/Family/Fantasy, Tim Burton, 2010) as a way other countries (especially the USA) like to view stereotypical British women
and as contrast with representation of other countries
Farenheit 9/11 (Documentary/History/War, Michael Moore, 2004)
Letters from Iwo Jima (Drama/History/War, Clint Eastwood, 2006)
1. Representation Theory
This theory challenges the authenticity of the images that we receive through the media, focusing particularly on the presentation of individuals and social groups. The ways the media represents nationality can be indicative of the way we see ourselves, as well as the way we see others. The idea of a dominant culture, which sees that which is different as inherently 'other' and is therefore suspicious of it, is relevant here. There is a diverse and rich source of representations of the British (and especially English) in film and television. For example, 'East is East' and 'Bend it Like Beckham' both offer a representation of British people, but neither can be taken as a definitive account of nationality.
Think about the ways representation can be presented either from within a certain culture ('Fish Tank') or from afar ('Lost In Translation', 2003). This becomes complicated when a film is made specifically as an export providing a stylised and stereotypical view of a gender rather than a supposedly 'realistic' model - see Richard Curtis's 'Four Weddings and a Funeral (2004), Notting Hil (1999), and' Love Actually' (2003), which provide rather an idealised version that gives an international audience a vision of English/British identity which emphases such images of the upper and middle classes, black cabs, Big Ben and Beefeaters.
The idea of representation is that viewers can be influenced to respond in certain ways to the people that are presented in the media. Positive and negative images can be shown on our screens, reinforcing or challenging stereotypes. Think about the representation of the 'chav', race, class, gender, sexual orientation. How does this reflect 'real' life?
Thinking about genre, representation and postmodernism, look at the way the British working-class family is represented in these two videos: Madness 'Our House' from 1982.
followed by Kid British 'Our House is Dadless' from 2009:
Over time, the way women are represented has changed. Films about certain eras may not be regarded as the definitive representation of 'what we were like', but they do exist as products of their time. For example, the 1970s was not entirely populated by rabid racists, nor the 1980s with anarchic left-winger
s, the 1990s with hedonistic socialites or the early 2000s with unhinged paper merchants (ie 'The Office'), but texts reflecting these values and ideologies do have a wider cultural relevance.Mise-en-scene - can be used to represent a group positively or negatively. Clothing may indicated a specific stereotype associated with a particular social group. Think about how the women's strike in 'Made in Dagenham' was nicknamed 'The Revlon Revolution'.
Editing - A film may be edited to seem as if we are looking at the world through a character's eyes, which may make us feel closer to them as we experience their emotional reactions. Think of the young boy in 'This Is England'. Sound may be used with a particular theme tune (Romeo in Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo and Juliet') or a voiceover that makes the viewer naturally empathise with the speaker.
Related to Mediation theory 1 - In fictive texts such as films, filmmakers are deliberately manipulating an image or representation of something real in order to stamp their own artistic and creative seal upon it. For example, filmmakers can make a place seem inviting and pleasant by choosing to film it on a beautiful summer's day and lighting it in a certain way. Or they can make a place appear menacing by filming it as a dark, stormy place lit in such a way as to appear gloomy and full of shadows. Eden Lake, for example, begins as a peaceful idyll in the early summer sun then degrades into a much colder, bleaker forest, with the trees looking like prison bars.
Feminist film theory - the way women act and are treated in the media. This also provides the analytical tools to consider how class, race and nationality are represented in the media. The representation of women has been a key area of development in film theory.
Postmodernism - a difficult area because it encompasses so many ideas. Postmodernism encompasses architecture, literature, art, film, politics, economics and much more. It can even be considered as a mode of living (the postmodern condition) in the capitalist information age. Postmodern texts are best considered as cultural products that celebrate and draw attention to their 'false' nature. 1. They don't pretend to be wholly realistic, and often draw attention to the fact that they are fictitious - a character may stop the action and talk to the camera.
2. They deliberately mix genres, and will borrow from music videos, tv, animation and other forms.
3. They often refer to other films (a process called inter-textuality).
4. They often rearrange or disrupt strict linear narratives with a clear beginning and end, and prefer circular narratives and open ended narrative closure.
5. They sometimes contain stories within stories or films within films.
6. The often involve characters that feel disconnected or alienated from their environment, and distrust authorities.
Example - bricolage, a postmodern term applied to the mixing together of different genres, is used in 'This Is England' and 'Made In Dagenham' where we see a mixture of news footage at the beginning of the film.
Theorist Jean Baudrillard has been dubbed 'the prophet of postmodernism'. Baudrillard, in 'Simulacra and Simulation', examines the phenomena that in the postmodern world (post-1900), audiences are so saturated with representations that these now preced perceptions of the actual, subtly challenging them in the process. For example, victims of 9/11 frequently described their trauma as the twin towers collapsed as "...like a film..." As media products become increasingly sophisticated, people may choose to spend their lives in the predictable comfort of cyberspace rather than in the actual world of relationships, pain, mishaps and confusion! Think about the popular weekend activity of 'Larping' (live action roleplaying) and the film 'Role Models'. See 'The Matrix'.
Marxism
This theory has introduced the concept of political aspects into discussion about film. This involves the ideas of Marx and Engels on foregrounding the discussion of class and power. Many films have elements of class struggle and issues surrounding capitalist society. Films like 'Made In Dagenham' can be seen from a Marxist perspective because they depict characters struggling with monetary or class constraints.
Barthes - semiotics, enigma codes, 'steak and chips'
Barthes, a French media theorist writing from 1950s to 1970s, developed the theory of semiotics - where any text is a complex bundle of meaning which can be unravelled to create a whole range of different meanings. These threads are called narrative codes. Texts that can be read in a number of ways are polysemic texts. The handiest code to refer to in essays is the enigma code - found in all successful texts from 'Bob the Builder' to 'CSI'. These codes are constructed to attract and hold the attention of the audience, usually be creating a mystery or puzzle which the audience want to see solved - why has this man been murdered?
2. Audience Theory
Hypodermic syringe model –
the theory that the audience are passive receivers of media messages that they interpret uncritically. This theory is popular when there is a moral panic, such as the case of Jamie Bulger, a toddler who was brutally murdered by two other children. The two killers' defence rested on the fact that their young minds had been corrupted by 'video nasties' that showed horrible violence as fun (aberrant decoding).
Uses and gratifications model
Uses and gratifications model
Media theorists Blumler and Katz put forward the idea that audiences put media texts to their own uses, instead of being manipulated by them. Here are four distinct uses to which audiences put texts:
1. To reinforce personal identity: texts can be used to judge how to behave in reality.
2. To find companionship and meaning by being part of a group: going to the cinema and discussing the latest movie with friends would be a good example of this. Watching soap operas is another example where people actually feel part of Walford or Emmerdale, if their own lives are rather lonely.
3. People also use media texts to find out about current affairs, news and weather and how they should respond to changes taking place. For example, many people read the Financial Times in order to discover stock prices and company fortunes.
4. Finally, people use the media to communicate with each other. The Internet is of course the biggest way this is done, it is a medium that is increasingly being used by advertisers. Interactive TV is also taking off, with millions of people pressing the red button on their remote control to vote on who should be removed from the Big Brother house, or who should be crowned Queen of the Jungle!
Roland Barthes
Marx
Freud
Behaviourism
Moral panics - Stanley Cohen (chavs)
Hegemony
Gauntlett argues against the hypodermic syringe model, saying "making is connecting", suggesting that contemporary audiences use Web 2.0 to engage with the world by creating their own media products. See his four-minute "making is connecting" lecture here
3. Narrative Theory
Narrative is one of the main ways that characters and their characteristics are relayed to the viewer. Narrative also dominates and affects other aspects of film such as editing. For example, if a film centres on the story of a particular character (Shaun in 'This Is England' (2006); Rita O'Grady in 'Made In Dagenham (2002), Jenny and Steve in 'Eden Lake' (2008)), it needs to be filmed and edited to privilege their point of view.
Levi-Strauss and binary opposition – Claude Levi-Strauss identified a narrative system of 'binary opposites' in which symbols and ideas exist in relation to their opposites, with which they are in conflict. The theory is that this helps us draw meanings from a text, such as the need to side with a character who is 'good'. Typical binary oppositions are Good v Evil; Male v Female; Us v Them (Think 'Eden Lake', 'Ae Fond Kiss').
Bordwell & Thompson Narrative Theory
A very interesting text, 'Three Dimensions of Film Narrative' by David Bordwell is at http://www.davidbordwell.net/books/poetics_03narrative.pdf
In 'Three Dimensions of Film Narrative', Bordwell explains that a chain of events within a media form (such as a film or music video) cause effects on a relationship in time and space. The narrative shapes this material in terms of time and space, such as where and when things take place. This can be portrayed by using effects to show the time and space: for example, flashbacks, forwarding time, slow motion and speeding up. There might be titles used, such as in 'The Shining', to show which day it is during flashbacks or flashforwards, connoting the importance of time in the narrative.
Also involves:
Representation Theory
Postmodernism (Baudrillard)
Semiotics (Barthes)
Enigma codes (Barthes)
4. Genre Theory
"Genre is a type" (Chandler, 2001)
The study of genre has often focused on film, where certain codes and conventions have been identified. These are recurrent character, narrative and visual tropes (patterns) that can be identified over a series of films. For example, if we consider the horror genre, we can identify key components that tell us we are viewing that type of film. For example, use of the supernatural, gory scenes, shots from behind objects, through windows, at odd angles, use of a vulnerable female character, music to add tension, sometimes an 'unhappy' tragic ending.
David Buckingham, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Loughborough University, argues that 'genre is not... simply "given" by the culture: rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change' (Buckingham 1993, 137).
Ideology is important here: ( see http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/alevel.php)
Simply put, ideology is the ideas behind a media text, the secret (or sometimes not-so secret) agenda of its producers. It is important to be able to identify the different ideological discourses that may be present in even an apparently simple photograph.
In sociological terms, ideology is a body of ideas or set of beliefs that underpins a process or institution and leads to social relations. These sets of beliefs are those held by groups within society, and the prevalent ones are those held by the ruling/dominant groups.
Hegemony
In any society the accepted and agreed beliefs are those of the ruling class, i.e. the class which is the ruling material (with all the money) force is at the same time its ruling intellectual (with all the ideas) force. Christianity is the main historical example (think of how many legal systems take Christian moral values as their basis)- are there any modern day equivalents? Football currently has hegemonic status in the UK - glance through the sports pages and see what coverage other sports get - and everyone is expected to understand and accept its national importance.
Hegemony is not a forced political movement, however. To use the previous example, no one is forced to watch/listen to/read about football. It's just sometimes it seems that there are few alternatives. This is how hegemonies take hold: a majority decide to 'fit in' with the cultural values and ideas of their time and place and the minority keep their objections quiet. Hegemony is about consent, and one of the things it consents to is inequality - us and them.
What part does the media have to play in developing and maintaining a hegemony?
- Institutions, language, news/information, arbiting taste, regulating output, representations, ownership, authorship
What part does the media have to play in opposing/altering the hegemony?
-Challenging all of the above by presenting the alternatives in a positive light
British Social Realism
Directors such as Ken Loach may choose to follow aesthetic principles that define the tone and content of the texts. These films have a 'gritty' aesthetic that befits the crime-ridden landscape they depict. They may also work against some dominant ideologies about the ways people should behave, as opposed to Hollywood films which have clear ideological rules about heroic individuals who go through testing and struggle and eventually winb through against all odds. This raises the term 'discourse' - a set of hidden, 'agreed' rules about what is acceptable. This leads on to the idea of 'political correctness' where the media widely practices self-censorship where certain ideologies are considered dangerous, such as views on race or gender.
Christian Metz - four-phase process
Metz identified four phases in the audience: the initial phase, the classical phase, the declining phase and finally the parody phase. The disaster genre is a good example with 'The Towering Inferno' in the classical phase and 'Airplane!' as the final parody. To survive, genres must mutate and join with others to form hybrid genres.
Postmodernism - see above
The study of genre has often focused on film, where certain codes and conventions have been identified. These are recurrent character, narrative and visual tropes (patterns) that can be identified over a series of films. For example, if we consider the horror genre, we can identify key components that tell us we are viewing that type of film. For example, use of the supernatural, gory scenes, shots from behind objects, through windows, at odd angles, use of a vulnerable female character, music to add tension, sometimes an 'unhappy' tragic ending.
David Buckingham, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Loughborough University, argues that 'genre is not... simply "given" by the culture: rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change' (Buckingham 1993, 137).
Ideology is important here: ( see http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/alevel.php)
Simply put, ideology is the ideas behind a media text, the secret (or sometimes not-so secret) agenda of its producers. It is important to be able to identify the different ideological discourses that may be present in even an apparently simple photograph.
In sociological terms, ideology is a body of ideas or set of beliefs that underpins a process or institution and leads to social relations. These sets of beliefs are those held by groups within society, and the prevalent ones are those held by the ruling/dominant groups.
Hegemony
In any society the accepted and agreed beliefs are those of the ruling class, i.e. the class which is the ruling material (with all the money) force is at the same time its ruling intellectual (with all the ideas) force. Christianity is the main historical example (think of how many legal systems take Christian moral values as their basis)- are there any modern day equivalents? Football currently has hegemonic status in the UK - glance through the sports pages and see what coverage other sports get - and everyone is expected to understand and accept its national importance.
Hegemony is not a forced political movement, however. To use the previous example, no one is forced to watch/listen to/read about football. It's just sometimes it seems that there are few alternatives. This is how hegemonies take hold: a majority decide to 'fit in' with the cultural values and ideas of their time and place and the minority keep their objections quiet. Hegemony is about consent, and one of the things it consents to is inequality - us and them.
What part does the media have to play in developing and maintaining a hegemony?
- Institutions, language, news/information, arbiting taste, regulating output, representations, ownership, authorship
What part does the media have to play in opposing/altering the hegemony?
-Challenging all of the above by presenting the alternatives in a positive light
British Social Realism
Directors such as Ken Loach may choose to follow aesthetic principles that define the tone and content of the texts. These films have a 'gritty' aesthetic that befits the crime-ridden landscape they depict. They may also work against some dominant ideologies about the ways people should behave, as opposed to Hollywood films which have clear ideological rules about heroic individuals who go through testing and struggle and eventually winb through against all odds. This raises the term 'discourse' - a set of hidden, 'agreed' rules about what is acceptable. This leads on to the idea of 'political correctness' where the media widely practices self-censorship where certain ideologies are considered dangerous, such as views on race or gender.
Metz identified four phases in the audience: the initial phase, the classical phase, the declining phase and finally the parody phase. The disaster genre is a good example with 'The Towering Inferno' in the classical phase and 'Airplane!' as the final parody. To survive, genres must mutate and join with others to form hybrid genres.
Postmodernism - see above
Media Language
Film is a language all its own, a way of communicating using images which is understood around the globe. Like any other language it has rules and conventions which can be deconstructed, and, through deconstruction, understood.
Mention Barthes - semiotics, enigma codes, 'steak and chips'
Binary oppositions
Baudrillard - postmodernism and bricolage
Binary oppositions
Baudrillard - postmodernism and bricolage
Useful reference for definitions you may want to check up on:
http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/alevel.php
Useful academic article all about media theory including Marx, Gramsci, Hall, Adorno...
http://people.bath.ac.uk/hssbpn/theories%20of%20media.htm
Theory Trading Cards.doc
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