The document discusses several theories related to film directors, genres, audiences, and media reception: 1) The auteur theory argues that directors impose their personal vision through stylistic elements like camera work. Hitchcock is cited as an example who featured creative techniques. 2) Genre theory categorizes media based on shared iconography and cultural values. Genres help audiences decide what to watch and evolve over time with changing conventions. 3) Audience theories range from the effects model where messages are passively received, to uses and gratifications where audiences actively seek pleasures, to reception theory where messages can be interpreted differently.

1. Theoretical Research

2. AUTURE THEORY
• French critics believe that film directors
should impose a personal vision on
their films. the argument is that a
director such as Hitchcock featured
many creative features in his films.
• These included certain camera set ups
and movements. In his film psycho we
see this when Norman's mother is
stabbing Arbogast. in this shot it is a
low angle shot of the knife connoting
the power it has, and the mother has
over Arbogast.

3. • When studying this theory you would identify
common threads and themes running through
a directors price of work. And if it is possible
to notice a certain directors signature in some
ways, this then might be possible to argue that
the might qualify for the auteur status.
• An example of this is with Steven Spielberg is
often quoted with this context. Many of
Spielberg's films involve people having to
confront the other. in close encounters
Spielberg makes a reference to the auteur
theory he casted the french director Francois
Truffaut as the director of the project, Truffaut
was one of the original inventors of the Auteur
theory when he was a film critique

4. GENRE THEORY
• The word genre means 'type' or 'category'.
Genre theory places a media in relation to
other media. iconography defines what
genre a text will be placed into. Many
genres, for example horror, they depend
on shared cultural values rather than a
fixed iconography or setting.
• By having a genre it helps the audience
and the institutions make a decisions on
what they want to watch. Each genre has
their own conventions which evolve over
time. And changes within the genre show

5. • Producers can use the audiences
expectation of the genre to their
advantage by manipulating the
conventions to make new hybrid
genres.
• We can apply uses and gratifications to
the genre because audience members
get certain pleasures from watching
certain genres of movies. One pleasure
may be recognizing the features of a
particular genre because we are
familiar with it. Certain genres offer
emotional pleasures such as empathy
and escapism.

6. • Steve Neal argued that there is no
pleasure without difference. we may
also enjoy the stretching of a certain
genre and enjoy the constant change of
expectations. whereas Rick Altman
argues that genres are usually defined
by their iconography for example
western have guns and horses and
horror have blood and gore. for
producers a genre is a template for
what text or media product they will
make. for the audience it is weather or
not they like or dislike the formula

7. AUDIENCE THEORIES
• Audience members bring social and cultural
experiences when ready a certain type of
media/text. There are 3 theories which we can
apply to audiences the first is the effects model.
The power relies on the message of the text. This
theory is sometimes called the Hypodermic Model.
This means that the messages from the media
product are injected into the audience this is
meaning that the audience are passive within the
theory. The Bobo doll experiment is an example of
the Hypodermic syringe theory this proved that
young children copied violent behavior this was
done in 1961 by Alburt Bandura. within this
experiment children watched videos of adults
attacking a toy clown. The children were taken into

8. AUDIENCE THEORIES
• All the theories, the audience go
through a process with no control over
them and they will respond a like.

9. USES AND GRATIFICATIONS
• The uses and gratifications model, this is the
opposite to the effects model. Within this theory the
audience is an active members. The audience uses
the text; the text doesn’t use the audience. The
audience use this text for pleasures and
gratification, within this theory the power lies with
the audience this means that people like wikinomics
need to get used to the fact that we have digital
natives who take the power from media texts. This
theory is based on around how the audience uses
the theory and what they do with it.
• The audience are free to reject, use or play the text.
Audiences use the text for Escapism, information,
pleasure, personal identity.

10. • The audience is in control of the media and how
it helps them. For example relaxation and help
with personal, social and aggression issues.
The theory suggests that the consumption of
violent images can be helpful. That the
audience will act out their impulses through
watching media violence. This means that the
need for violence has been settled and they are
less likely to commit violent acts.

11. RECEPTION THEORY
• A different approach was designed by Stuart Hall in
1970. He said that texts were encoded and then the
audience will then decode the text. This theory
suggests that the produces makes the text which is
encoded with a certain message and/or meaning which
they want the audience to see. Sometimes the
audience will get the correct decoded message and will
then understand the meaning and/or message the
producer wanted to portray within their text. But some
times the audience will then either reject or accept the
message and/or meaning making the audience Active.

12. CULMINATION THEORY
• This is when you keep being shown a
more dominant theory you will slowly
begin to accept it. This can be linked
with the desentisation theory. Where
the more you are shown a theory they
less you being to notice/ or care about
it.
• Where as sentisation theory suggests
that the more you are shown a more
dominant theory the more you disagree
with it.

13. TWO STEP FLOW
• This is when you have an opinion
leader, so someone will watch a media
product this will be the opinion leader
they are active throughout the process.
The opinion leader will then take their
own reading from a media product who
will then take their interpretation. This
mean that the audience is passive
within this process.

14. RECEPTION ANALYSIS
• This then sees the audience as being the most
active and independent. The audience have
complete independence over how they read a
media product.
• There are three types of ways in which the
audience can read texts:
• Dominant and/or preferred: this is when the
audience will decode the message from the
producer and agreeing with the message
and/or meaning.
• Negotiated: this is where the audience neither
agree or disagree with the message and/or
meaning.
• Oppositional: this is when the encoded
message from the producer is recognized but
it is then rejected.

15. IDENTIFICATIONS
This suggests that the mass audience
identifies with the media products for
stress relief, this means that they offer
are Cathartic process.