This document discusses various theories related to media influence and representation, including cultivation theory, cultural effects theory, pluralism, hegemony, stereotypes, implicit personality theory, social identity theory, and countertypes. It provides definitions and perspectives from theorists such as George Gerbner, Henry Giroux, Stanley Cohen, Richard Dyer, and Henri Tajfel on how media representations can influence audiences and society over time through reinforcement of dominant ideologies and social norms.

1. Collective
Identity

2. Lets just start in USA
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZkC_fNxm
Qk

3. Cultivation Theory
 CULTIVATION theory helps us to understand the
importance of the media. Same area as
audience effects models but slowing down from
an immediate to a slower more ideological
effect.
 George GERBNER started this and cultivation
theorists argue that TV has long term effects ,
which are small gradual, indirect and cumulative
and ultimately significant. That TV reinforces
values already present in society and to support
the dominant ideology.

4. Cultural Effects Theory
 Similar the ‘drip drip theory’, cultural effects
theory argues that the relationship between the
media texts and peoples behaviour is long term
and subtle. And that constant exposure to a
particular message can be seen as slowly
affecting judgement and attitudes.

5. Two videos on Media Influence
 Media Influence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN4FgBXoV
g8pt 1
 A bit radical maybe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOQ1jZOj_h
o But useful to watch

6. Back to Basics
 IDEOLOGY – are messages or values that are
embedded into media
 Ideology refers to the influence of ideas on people’s
beliefs and actions’ (Anthony Giddens)
 DOMINANT IDEOLOGY – these are the ideologies that
are accepted by the majority as the norm in society.
So that it should be clear that people in control of the
media have the ability to promote the messages and
values that they want to.
This leads to the next term….

7. Hegemony – from Marxism
 The ruling class maintains their power through he
control of ideas and culture rather than force.
 The mass media adopt a consensus of what is
normal, a kind of unquestioned commonsense, a
set of values that the majority of people agree
with without even thinking about it.
 Media traditionally controlled by white middle
class men, and that they construct media texts
to maintain the status quo and keep them in
power.

8. Hegemony – from Marxism
 GRAMSCI – Antonio GRAMSCI (1891- 1937), Italian, developed
this notion of cultural hegemony, when societies norms are
defined by the way the dominant classes portray things.
 ALTHUSSER – Louis ALTHUSER (1918 - 1990). French, argues that
people are not free and self-determined but rather controlled
by the ruling classes ideology, which is promoted through state
control. This consists of everything from education, media,
religion and family. To put it another way he believed that a
persons ability to define themselves is not innate but acquired
within the structure of the established social practices, these
then determine their characteristics and the range of the
characteristics that they can have and their limits.
 NB not really relevant but he did strangle his wife in 1980!

9. Pluralism
 Says that the media is diverse, with a wide range
of available choices.
 Consensus values in society influence the media
whose texts just mirror society.
 If particular representations are dominant it is
because it is popular with its audience, not
because they are being pushed by media
institutions.

10. Pluralism - cont
 The main function of media to entertain, their
audience, then it make sense to provide
representations that meet audience
expectations
 These leads to stereotypes, pandering to the
views of the audience, and the more they
pander the more money they make.
 So they need to be constantly adjusted , as
society changes it views

11. Interesting little video!
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY8pxyO0X
L8

12. Pluralism - cont
 GIROUX – Henry GIROUX( 1943- ) American,
introduced the thinking that media
representations may have little to do with who
are being represented, (‘empty representations’)
as there is no self-representation but rather being
portrayed by another group, eg the
representations of youth in main stream mass
media are constructed by adults, and you can
extend that out to gender.

13. Females in film
 Feature films: In 2010, women comprised 16% of
all directors, executive producers, producers,
writers, cinematographers, and editors working
on the top 250 USA grossing films. This represents
a decline of 1 percentage points from 1998 and
is even with 2009 figures. By role, women
accounted for 7% of directors, 10% of writers,
15% of executive producers, 24% of producers,
18% of editors, and 2% of cinematographers.
(Martha Lauzen, Celluloid Ceiling, Center for the
Study of Women in Television and Film, San
Diego State University)

14. Mediation
 What happens to real events or people that are
changed into words or images and used to form
media texts that the audience consume.
Three main areas
 Selection – more is rejected, eg news
 Organisation – life is not organised but this will be
 Focussing- will lead audience to concentrate on
certain things and ignore others

15. Moral Panics
 COHEN – Stanley COHEN (1942 – 2013), South African,
first coined the term moral panic in 1987. A moral
panic is an episode that causes society ( and by that
we mean the dominant class) to worry that it might
cause an upset to its values and principles. This he
explains can be a person or group of people which
become defined and seen as a threat to societal
interests and values. He discussed the roles that the
mass media has in these cases by mediated them,
amplifying the facts ( and apparent frequency by
spiralling the reporting) their importance . And it can
do that by use of emotive language, reporting
frequency, and across different media text.

16. Moral Panics
 He argued that from time to time ‘folk devils’
emerge which reflect the worries and anxieties
of society, and by reporting on these folk devils a
moral panic occurs which involves police,
politicians and the mass media reporting and
reflecting on it and mediating adding to the
moral panic. One outcome of this moral panic is
how it reinforces hegemony but making it clear
what society will tolerate and what it wont, and
what its values are
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1a8-
BJD8qg

17. Representation
 Reflective Representation – trying to replicate the true
meaning of the thing or person. People think the news
is this
 Intentional Representation – opposite to reflective,
most important is the person doing the
representation, presenting their view of things their
opinions
 Constructionist Representation – where things do not
have a meaning, we create the meaning, and it is
not fixed. This is the most popular.

18. Stereotypes
 A shortcut way to deliver to the audience a set
of characteristics about a person by attributing
identical characteristics to everyone on that
group.
 If the audience accepts them may well change
their perception of the word and hence
behaviour.
 Constructed using a set of variables, such as
clothing, language, habitat, music, lifestyle etc
and based on simplification, exaggeration or
distortion and generalisation

19. Stereotypes - cont
 DYER – Richard Dyer ( 1945 - ) stated (1979) that
stereotyping involves a number of processes: the
complexity and variety of a group is reduced to
a few characteristics, and exaggerated version
of these characteristics is applied to everyone in
the group as if they are an essential element of
all members of that group, and that these
characteristics are represented in the media
through media language.
 He suggested that stereotypes are formed by
those with power about those with less power.

20. STEREOTYPES cont
 TAJFEL – Henri Tajfel said that stereotyping is
based on a normal cognitive process, the
tendency to group things together.
 In so doing we tend to exaggerate
 The differences between groups
 The similarities of things in the same group

21. Stereotypes - cont
 MEDHURST – Andy Medhurst ( 19xx - ) suggested
(1995) that stereotypes can be seen as a type of
media shorthand allowing an easy quick
communication with the audience. Stereotypes
would therefore by used when time was an issue,
TV adverts, sitcoms, less significant characters in
soaps or when introducing new ones.

22. Implicit Personality Theory
 Implicit Personality Theory is a way that we ‘work
out’ details about a person from a limited
amount of information that we have about
them.

23. Social Identity Theory
 SociaI Identity is a persons sense of who they are
based on their group(s) membership
 TAJFEL – Henri Tajfel proposed that the groups
that we belong to a re a source of pride and
self-esteem. This belonging to groups gives us a
social identity and a sense of belonging to the
social world. To increase our self-esteem we
enhance the standing of our group (eg England
is the best) and degrade the rest. Therefore
dividing the world into us and them based on
social categorization.

24. Social Categorization
 Social categorization – is the process by which
we categorise people into different groups base
don common characteristics. Some of the most
common grouping people use include age,
gender, occupation and race. Can have
positive and negative aspects, can make
judgements really quickly and establish
expectations on how you expect that person to
behave in certain situations very quickly
 Can lead to errors and stereotyping.

25. Countertypes
 A specific type of stereotype, usually formed
from a negative stereotype, to form a positive
one by selecting some positive features from
that group.
 It is still a stereotype, so still a simplification of the
diversity within a group.