This is a brief and thoroughly informative, document exploring media theorist terminology.
This document includes all AQA Media A-level theorist ideology and key terminology with some application to CSPs organised under headings of INDUSTRIES, AUDIENCES, LANGUAGE and REPRESENTATIONS.
It also in...
BARTHES - Semiotics
● ‘Denotative readings’ - occur when readers recognise the literal or physical
content of media imagery.
● ‘Connotative readings’ - the deeper understandings prompted by media imagery
and the emotional, symbolic or even ideological significances produced as a
result of those readings.
● ‘Hermeneutic codes (enigmas)’: construct moments of mystery to intrigue the
reader or viewer.
● ‘Proairetic codes (actions):’ narratives also offer moments in which meaning is
conveyed through action or demonstration.
● ‘Semantic codes (connotative elements):’ refers to any element within a media
text that produces a single connotative effect.
● ‘Symbolic codes:’ repeated symbols that convey a deeper meaning.
● ‘Cultural codes (referential codes):’ refers to the inclusion of material that
generates meaning from outside the product.
● ‘Anchorage’ - the process of fixing the meaning, usually the meaning of an image,
through the use of another component – usually a text-based feature such as a
header or caption.
● Traditional myths, Barthes tells us, are important because they present a
collective representation of the world.
- Naturalisation: as a result of the media’s uncanny ability to look and feel
realistic. (Advertising that positions women as mothers or as responsible
for domestic chores naturalise the idea that a woman’s place ought to be
in the home.)
- Media myths are reductive: Barthes tells us that the media, by and large,
simplifies, reduces or purifies ideas, turning complexity into easily
digestible information. The use of simplicity creates audience appeal,de-
, intellectualising and depoliticising ideas and discourages audiences from
questioning or analysing media content too closely. (Newsbeat?)
- Media myths reinforce existing social power structures: Those who have
power tend to control the myth-making process, either owning or
indirectly channelling media content through privileged access
arrangements, they able to harness the creative allure of the media
industry to maintain the illusion that the system we live in, the system that
benefits the powerful the most, is naturally ordered and unchangeable.
(WOW and BBC???)
LEVI-STRAUSS - Structuralism
BINARY OPPOSITIONS: Lévi-Strauss infers further that the universal use of these
oppositional forces to organise stories is prompted by humankind’s innate bias towards
organising the world using binary thinking. (death is bad = life is good)
- To clearly explain ideas
- To create compelling narratives
- To create identifiable character types
- To create audience identification
TODOROV - Narratology
● The hero: Propp identifies two significant types of hero – the seeker-hero (who
relies more heavily on the donor to perform their quest) and the victim-hero
(who needs to overcome weakness to complete their quest).
● The villain: fights or pursues the hero and must be defeated if the hero is to
● accomplish their quest.
● The princess and the princess’s father: the princess usually represents the
reward of the hero’s quest, while the princess’s father often sets the hero
difficult tasks to prevent them from marrying the princess.
● The donor: provides the hero with a magical agent that allows the hero to defeat
the villain. (Maybaleing offers Manny and Shayla the mascara to avoid being not
‘bossed up’)
● The helper: usually accompanies the hero on their quest, saving them from the
struggles encountered on their journey, and helping them to overcome the
difficult tasks encountered on their quest.
, ● The dispatcher: sends the hero on his or her quest, usually at the start of the
story.
● The false hero: performs a largely villainous role, usurping the true hero’s
position in the course of the story. The false hero is usually unmasked in the last
act of a narrative.
● Meta/ micro narrative
● Narrative hook
NEAL - Genre
Products, by necessity, have to adapt genre-based formulas to maintain their
commercial viability and maximise audience engagement. - Repetition and Difference
● ‘Genre subversion’: Neale resists the suggestion that genres deliver stable
products for any length of time. All genres are subject to a continuous process of
evolution and/or subversion.
● ‘Contextual influences’: Media makers adapt genre-driven content as a result of
historical, political, social or econimic influences. Social norms regarding gender-
based roles, for instance, have guided a number of genres to abandon lead male
character conventions. (the games/ tbl etc??)
● ‘Genre hybridity’: The deliberate inclusion or intertwining of conventions from
across a number of genres.
● ‘High and low culture remixing’: hybrid products allow producers to shape
products that have serious subtexts while also deploying narrative content that is
accessible and popular. (Bbtl)
JEAN BAUDRILLARD - Postmodernism
● ‘Repetition and duplication effects’: The postmodern media, Baudrillard further
argues, repeats and repurposes content in a never-ending chain of replication.
Commercially successful products are repurposed, remade, serialised or copied
to attract and maintain audiences,
● ‘Meaning implosion’: The variety of arguments and opinions presented via
television, news and online media makes it difficult for audiences to reach an
objective conclusion about the real world. (Newsbeat)
● ‘hyperreal inertia’: a mesmerised yet transient engagement that prevents readers
and viewers from gaining an objective sense of the real world at large.
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