The document discusses several theories related to film direction, genres, audiences, and media reception: - The auteur theory argues that directors impose their personal vision through consistent creative choices like camera work. Genre theory categorizes films based on shared iconography and cultural values. - Audience theories range from the "effects model" where media directly influences passive audiences, to uses and gratifications where active audiences use media for needs like escapism. - Reception theory holds that media texts are encoded with meanings that audiences may decode differently by accepting, negotiating, or opposing the intended meanings. Identification theory proposes audiences find stress relief by identifying with media characters.

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 changes within society.

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 chosen for the film.

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 a room where
there were toys where children couldn’t touch; they

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

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