This document discusses several key concepts in media and cultural studies as discussed by prominent scholars: 1) Angela McRobbie offers one of the most sophisticated analyses of gender and popular culture while Laura Mulvey is best known for her 1975 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". 2) Stuart Hall argued that the media appear to reflect reality but construct it, following Althusser. 3) Several concepts are examined including how stereotypes legitimize inequality, how binary oppositions serve to maintain dominant cultures, and how genre and media consumption have changed over time.

1. By Francesca Carter

2.  Angela McRobbie is currently Professor of Communications
at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She offers one
of the most sophisticated and thoughtful analyses of gender
and actual popular culture today.
 Her early research work on the relationship between teenage
girls and magazines, in the 1970s, involved a rather simplistic
model of beliefs and how this might be absorbed by readers.

3.  Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist. She is
currently professor of film and media studies at
Birkbeck, University of London. She worked at the
British Film Institute for many years before taking up
her current position.
 Mulvey is best known for her essay, Visual Pleasure
and Narrative Cinema, written in 1973 and published
in 1975 in the influential British film theory journal
Screen.

4.  Stuart Hall, now Professor of Sociology at the Open
University, was a major figure in the revival of the
British political Left in the 1960s and '70s. Following
Althusser, he argues that the media appear to reflect
reality whilst in fact they construct it.

5.  Stereotypes Legitimize Inequality: "A way to
ensure unequal power relations are
maintained is to continually stereotype -
GTAV is a misogynist video game where
players have the opportunity to kill
prostitutes in their own violent way - the
game is entirely male point of view and
arguably serves to maintain dominant male
culture".

6.  Binary Oppositions and Subordinate Groups: "Levi-Strauss' theory is a way
of understanding how representation are deliberately placed in binary
opposition to ensure the dominant culture is maintained and the minority
representations is seen as subordinate and marginalized. In Game of
Thrones southern regional identity is often seen as the preferred culture
through representation within the mise-en-scene - there is more money in
the south, the southern King speaks with an elaborated language code, the
buildings have cleaner lines, dress code is smarter and there is significant
daytime shooting. In the North the scenes are often shot at night,
characters are rougher, have long hair and beards and are often seen heavy
drinking and shouting, talking in an aggressing way about battles and
conflict".

7.  Genre in Constant Process of Negotiation and Change:
"Genre must respond to socio-economic and cultural
change e.g. Brokeback Mountain has elements of the
western (setting, objects and props, dress code) to
develop a emotive romance about two men and their
love for each other".

8.  Producer as Consumer (Prosumer): "Media
Studies students regularly make their own
short film productions but are also regular
consumers of the media - in doing so they are
both producer and consumer blurring the
boundaries of traditional media
consumption".

9.  Hyper Reality: "Some texts are difficult to distinguish
in terms of the representation of reality from a
simulation of reality e.g. Big Brother. The boundaries
are blurred as codes and conventions create a set of
signifiers which we understand but in fact the
representation is a copy of a copy".

10.  Stereotyping is Shorthand for
Identification: "One way that texts like
Waterloo Road and Skins for example
allow for audience identification is
through stereotyping and giving
characters an extreme representation".

11.  Stereotyping has Elements of Truth:
"Although stereotyping can have negative
effects often it is based of some degree of
reality but distorted and manipulated for
the purpose of entertainment values".

12.  Judith Butler – queer theory