Theory 1b

Exam: G325 (1B)

Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production

• Question 1(b) requires candidates to select one
production and evaluate it in relation to a media
concept. The list of concepts to which questions will
relate is as follows:
Genre
Representation
Narrative
Audience
Media language
• You may choose to write about work undertaken at AS
or A2, main task and/or preliminary/ancillary tasks.
Objective: Explore concepts in order to prepare for Key Concepts Exam

GENRE
Genre definition

• A set of types/groups which any medium may be
classified.
• Western Science-Fiction Comedy
• Sitcom Quiz Show Soap
• Reggae Drum n Base Jazz

In each case the acknowledgement of genre
depends on the acceptance of generic conventions.


GENRE
Genre - Timeless?
• No - open to historical change - they are
historical constructs.
• John Fiske - ‘Any one programme will bear the
main characteristics of its genre, but is likely to
include some from others: ascribing it to one
genre or another involves deciding which set of
characteristics are most important.’
• Edward Buscombe felt that iconography was
the best way to achieve generic definitions.


GENRE

Richard Maltby and Ian Craven
• The success of Hollywood is reliant on the
combination of predictable elements with
variation.


GENRE
Auteurs
• Auteurs - A group of film makers that were
considered to be particularly influential
and artistic. Does work show a particularly
unique style?


GENRE
Rick Altman
• Genre theory presumes that viewers pre-
read texts.
• Viewers become passive voyeurs
• Genres are therefore restrictive
• Does not acknowledge or allow for the
hybrid - the blending of genres.


REPRESENTATION
QUESTION 1B REPRESENTATION – Example
The piece of coursework I am choosing to write about for representation is the pop video we made for
‘Dice’ by Finley Quaye. Representation is the way that media products construct a sense of reality and
offer us the idea that what we are seeing on the screen is related to the real world, so it is being RE
presented to us.
This is a major aspect of media literacy – the more you know that the media are representing things in
particular ways and not just showing us things as they are. People who think that the media just
shows us a ‘window on the world’ are less media literate. People who create their own media and
publish it on the internet are often very media literate because you have to understand how the media
is produced to make it yourself. Pop video is representing two things –the song itself (in a promotional
way to make people buy or download it – like a form of advertising) and the ideas and messages that
are in the song. Andrew Goodwin writes that the pop video often ‘anchors’ the meanings of the song –
which might be quite abstract – with the imagery of the main performer as a ‘star’ – a kind of signifier,
in semiotics. He says that this is more of a commercial than artistic idea. Thinking about our video, I
think this is a weakness of what we did because our video really represents the story of the song – a
relationship breaking down – without really creating a star image for the singer. If we had more
performance
in the video this would have worked but to have neither performance or a star image means it looks
less like real pop videos. Goodwin says the pop video is usually an extension of the aesthetics of
performance” and I don’t think ours manages much in the way of aesthetics. One important thing I
have learning on my Media course is that representation is about who is not in the frame as much as
who is, and looking at our video all of the characters are white, and the mise en scene is a suburb and
a rural area, so we haven’t represented anyone from an ethnic minority or anyone with a disability.
And we chose a heterosexual couple for the romance and the affair is also heterosexual. So we are
not really doing anything challenging. But most media is like this and if you think about MTV, what you
see is mostly music being represented through very old fashioned gender roles – what Kaplan calls
‘the male gaze’ in pop video. Compared to lots of videos on MTV our representation of women is quite
progressive – they are not shown as objects and they can give as good as they get. So overall our
video was quite mainstream in how it represented a relationship and didn’t challenge conventions.
And its main weakness was that it didn’t really manage to offer an aesthetic extension of performance.


REPRESENTATION

Answer these questions in
a new blog post

• Who have you represented? Why
• How have you represented? Why?
• How you are talking to your audience?
• What techniques have you used to
commuicate with the audience, i.e,
camera, sound, mise-en-scene, editing?


NARRATIVE


NARRATIVE

Todorov: theory of narrative
structure: Equilibrium – Disequilibrium -
Equilibrium

Vladimir Propp - characters and actions (31
functions of character types)
Barthes:
decided that they could be categorised in the
following five ways: ･ Action/proiarectic code
& enigma code (ie Answers & questions) ･
Symbols & Signs ･ Points of Cultural
Reference ･ Simple description/reproduction

NARRATIVE
Binary Oppositions
Levi-Strauss
Man Woman
Another method of
analysing the meaning
Active Passive and structure of texts.
Texts are structured by
a series of binary
External Domestic conflicts.

Public Private Gender

Producer Consumer
Think about film genre, which
portray very specific binary
oppositions?


NARRATIVE
Binary Oppositions
• In the mid-20th century, two major European academic thinkers, Claude Levi
Strauss and Roland Barthes, had the important insight that the way we
understand certain words depends not so much on any meaning they
themselves directly contain, but much more by our understanding of the
difference between the word and its 'opposite' or, as they called it 'binary
opposite'. They realised that words merely act as symbols for society's ideas
and that the meaning of words, therefore, was a relationship rather than a
fixed thing: a relationship between opposing ideas.
• For example, our understanding of the word 'coward' surely depends on the
difference between that word and its opposing idea, that of a 'hero' (and to
complicate matters further, a moment's thought should alert you to the fact
that interpreting words such as 'hero' and 'coward' is itself much more to do
with what our society or culture attributes to such words than any meaning the
words themselves might actually contain).
• Other oppositions that should help you understand the idea are the youth/age
binary, the masculinity/femininity, the good/evil binary, and so on. Barthes and
Levi-Strauss noticed another important feature of these 'binary opposites': that
one side of the binary pair is always seen by a particular society or culture as
more valued over the other.


NARRATIVE

Andrew Goodwin:

‘Music Videos are simply an extension of the lyrics’
‘Images add new layers of meaning to the words of the
song.’


AUDIENCE


AUDIENCE
The Hypodermic Syringe
theory
The media is like a syringe which injects
ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience
who, as a powerless mass, have little choice
but to be influenced.
You watch something violent, you may go
and do something violent. You see a woman
washing up on T.V. and you will want to do
the same yourself if you are a woman and if
you are a man you will expect women to do
the washing up for you.


AUDIENCE
The Culmination Theory
One media text does not have too much
effect, years and years of watching more
violence will make you less sensitive to
violence, so years and years of watching
women being mistreated in soaps will
make you less bothered about it in real
life.
• What do you think? Can you think of any
criticisms of these theories?


AUDIENCE
Two-Step-Flow
• Another argument suggests that the
‘masses’ will experience the media
individually but then they will discuss what
they have watched with others and it is the
discussion which can then influence
peoples opinions/behaviour.
Are there any ways in which you share your experiences
of the media with other people who weren't around when
you experienced the text?


AUDIENCE
Uses and
Gratifications theory
We make choices about what we watch and
we also have certain expectations; we
expect to be gratified by what we watch

Information The five ways that we
Identification are gratified by the
Interaction media?
Entertainment
Escapism The 3 I’s and the 2 E’s

AUDIENCE

Will everybody watching the same
programme react in the same way?
• One major criticism of ‘mass’ theories is
that they assume that the audience will all
read a text in the same way. In actual fact
our individual reading of a text can be
affected by our culture, gender, class, age
etc.


AUDIENCE
Encoding/Decoding
• This theory extends the idea that we, as
audiences, view texts in different ways.
• Everybody brings different experiences to a text
and this may alter how the text is decoded.
• Watch the following clip and then share with the
person next to you what you thought about it.
Are your opinions the same? What do you think
has affected your opinion?


AUDIENCE
Encoding and Decoding Theory
As consumers we have learned to read a
‘media language.’

We decode
signs in the
same way that Media texts or
we decode messages are
language. constructed for
recognition and
interpretation.
This process is
called encoding.


AUDIENCE

Semiotic Theory
Denotation: What can I see?
Connotation: What does this signify?

The cross becomes a sign.
The actual cross is the signifier.
What is being signified?


AUDIENCE
Ferdinand Saussure,
C.S. Pierce, Roland
Barthes
Barthes: We are likely to read photographs by
interpreting the various elements within
them rather than reading a universal
message.
Mechanical photographic process
(images are denoted by transfer to photographic
paper)
Cultural process
(camera angle, framing, lighting etc.)

Encoder = photographer
Decoder = viewer

How we read a photograph may depend on our
cultural knowledge and experiences.

AUDIENCE

Iconic signs: which actually look like what they
represent.
Symbolic/arbitrary signs: which have a meaning
that must be culturally learned because they
don’t actually look like what they represent.
Indexical signs: which have a connection to what
they represent and are suggestive rather than
directly resembling what they represent.


AUDIENCE
Media texts are polysemic
Potentially open to many interpretations
Class Past experiences

Gender

Age
What could affect your reading of a text?

Ethnicity

Lifestyle Beliefs

Values

AUDIENCE
McMahon and Quinn
Identify three categories of codes that may be used to
convey meanings in media messages: technical codes,
which include camera techniques, framing, depth of field,
lighting and exposure and juxtaposition; symbolic codes,
which refer to objects, setting, body language, clothing
and colour; and written codes in the form of headlines,
captions, speech bubbles and language style. For
instance, a journalist aiming at readers' sympathy for an
imprisoned political activist may choose to publish a
photograph of the activist, crouched behind bars, next to a
picture of a caged animal (making use of body language,
setting, and juxtaposition) and anchor the picture to a
caption that reads "CAGED!"


AUDIENCE

"Pop stars are, to some extent
symbolic vehicles with which young
women understand themselves
more fully, even, if, by doing so,
they partly shape their personalities
to fit the stars" alleged preferences.


AUDIENCE

'Audience' is a very important concept
throughout media studies. All media texts
are made with an audience in mind, i.e. a
group of people who will receive it and
make some sort of sense out of it. And
generally, but not always, the producers
make some money out of that audience.
Therefore it is important to understand
what happens when an audience "meets" a
media text.


AUDIENCE
Constructing Audience
• When a media text is being planned, perhaps the most important
question the producers consider is "Does it have an audience?" If
the answer to this is 'no', then there is no point in going any further.
Audience research is a major part of any media company, using
questionnaires, focus groups, and comparisons to existing media
texts, they will spend a great deal of time and money ascertaining if
there is anyone out there who might be interested in their idea. It's a
serious business; media producers basically want to know the
• income bracket/status
• age
• gender
• race
• Location of their potential audience, a method of categorising known
as demographics. Once they know this they can begin to shape
their text to appeal to a group with known reading/viewing/listening
habits.


Useful links
MEDIA LANGUAGE http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/language_of_film.ht
ml

http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/alevel.php?
pageID=filmlang

• If ‘language’ is defined as how we communicate, then it can be interpreted
in many levels when it comes to the medium of film. We know that each
language consists of learnt “words, phrases, grammar, punctuation, rules
and common practices” (Wohl, Michael; The Language of Film 2008).
Therefore we could transfer this understanding to the micro elements of film,
camera, sound, mise-en-scene, editing etc, and/or go to a deeper level of
analysis with a detailed look at choices of shot sizes, match-on-action, rules
of continuity, framing and how they are pieced/edited together to create a
sentence and therefore a language of communication.
Unlike the other concepts in this part of the exam, we are not so much
looking at what we are communicating but how we are communicating it.
All of the decisions you made in your short films about which shots, angles,
costume, set design, location, lighting, character movement, etc, play a part
in this discussion.
Arguably the language of film can’t be discussed separately from genre,
narrative, representation and audience as your knowledge of each of these
influences the decisions you made throughout production.


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