2. Genre
• Genre not only covers the common conventions of a certain genre or sub-genre of the product
however it needs to include the ideas of how genres are developed and how the institutions
use genre to certain markets.
• Why is Genre important? What does it do? What theories or theorist are relevant to Genre?
• ‘Genre’ is a critical tool that helps us study texts and audience responses to texts by dividing
them into categories based on common elements.
• Genre is important as it plays a part in the construction of identity and different. Genre is
applied different to music videos than to Film or television. It’s rare for a music video to have a
genre of sci-fi which Is common amongst TV and Film. An alternative way of considering genre
is to look at musical genres such as Hip-Hop, Indie or Country.
• Theorists which are relevant to Genre are;
• Denis McQuail “The genre may be considered as a practical device for helping any mass
medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations
of its customers.”
• Katie Wales “Genre is... an intertextual concept”
• Christine Gledhill “Differences between genres meant different audiences could be identified
and catered to... This made it easier to standardise and stabilise production”
3. NARRATIVE
• Narrative refers to the way the story of a film is told, as well as the actual story itself. In
your studies of narrative you will consider narrative structure. This refers to the order in
which the action takes place. It is also important to consider where the audience is
placed in relation to the narrative and whose eyes we see the story through. This isn’t
always the central character. We may observe the narrative subjectively and we may
even see events through different characters’ eyes at various points in the narrative.
• There are essentially three ways in which a narrative can be structured.
1. Circular
2. Episodic
3. Linear
• Narrative is important as without the power to portray a story through a music video, it
would be hard to tell a story which may relate to the song/lyrics.
• The conventions of a narrative will have a potential beginning, middle and end. Music
Videos these days have more of a narrative base in trying to send a message through
the song by having a strong narrative which will tell a strong story.
4. THEORISTS RELEVANT TO NARRATIVE
ladimir Propp
Russian critic and literary theorist. Analysed over 100 Russian fairytales in the 1920s. He proposed that it was possible to classify the characters and
their actions into clearly defined roles and functions. Films such as Star Wars fit Propp’s model precisely, but a a significant number of more recent
films such as Pulp Fiction do not.
• The model is useful, however as it highlights the similarities between seemingly quite different stories.
• Propp’s Character Roles The hero (seeks something)
• The villain (opposes the hero)
• The donor (helps the hero by providing a magic object)
• The dispatcher (sends the hero on his way)
• The false hero (falsely assuming the role of hero)
• The helper (gives support to the hero)
• The princess (the reward for the hero, but also needs protection from the villain)
Tzvetan Todorov Bulgarian literary theorist
Suggests most narratives start with a state of equilibrium in which life is ‘normal’ and protagonists happy.
• This state of normality is disrupted by an outside force, which has to be fought against in order to return to a state of equilibrium.
• This model can easily be applied to a wide range of films.
• Equilibrium Disequilibrium New Equilibrium Roland Barthes French semiologist.
• Suggested that narrative works with five different codes which activate the reader to make sense of it.
• (also used the terms denotation and connotation to analyse images)
• Barthes’ Codes Action – a narrative device by which a resolution is produced through action, e.g. a shoot-out.
• Enigma – a narrative device that teases the audience by presenting a puzzle or riddle to be solved. Works to delay the story’s ending pleasurably.
• Symbolic – (connotation)
• Semic – (denotation)
• Cultural – a narrative device which the audience can recognise as being part of a culture e.g. a “made man” in a gangster film is part of the mafia
culture.
5. THEORISTS RELEVANT TO
NARRATIVE
Claude Levi-Strauss Social Anthropologist.
• Studied myths of tribal cultures.
• Examined how stories unconsciously reflect the values, beliefs and myths of a culture.
• These are usually expressed in the form of binary oppositions .
• His research has been adapted by media theorists to reveal underlying themes and symbolic
oppositions in media texts.
• Binary Oppositions A conflict between two qualities or terms.
• For example 1970’s Western films:
• Homesteaders Native Americans
• christian pagan
• domestic savage
• weak strong, garden wilderness inside society outside society
6. REPRESENTATION
• Representation refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media ) of
aspects of ‘reality’ such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other
abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or writing as well as still or
moving pictures.
• Representations in the music and media industry are similar as different genders, ages, race
etc… are proven to viewed the same.
• The term refers to the processes involved as well as to its products. For instance, in relation
to the key markers of identity - Class, Age, Gender and Ethnicity (the 'cage' of identity) -
representation involves not only how identities are represented (or rather constructed) within
the text but also how they are constructed in the processes of production and reception by
people whose identities are also differentially marked in relation to such demographic factors.
Consider, for instance, the issue of 'the gaze'. How do men look at images of women, women
at men, men at men and women at women?
• (Levi Strauss, 1958).• All representations have ideologies behind them. Certain paradigms
are encoded into texts and others are left out in order to give a preferred representation.
• Gender and Ideology (FEMINISM)• Masculinity and femininity are socially constructed.•
Ideas about gender are produced and reflected in language (O’Sullivan et al (1998).•
Feminism is a label that refers to a broad range of views containing one shared assumption-
gender inequalities in society, historically masculine power (patriarchy) exercised at right of
women’s interests and rights.
7. REPRESENTATION THEORIES
• John Berger Ways Of Seeing (1972)
Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.
Women are aware of being seen by a male spectator. Paul Willis(1990)• Based on a postmodern
return to feminism, that pop stars are symbolic vehicles with which young women understand
themselves more fully...shaping their personalities to fit the stars -alleged preferences.
• POSTMODERNISM AND REPRESENTATIONS OF REALITY
In a media saturated world, the distinction between reality and media representations becomes
blurred or invisible to us (Julian McDougall, 2009).
• Stereotypes
Stereotypes are characters in a media text who are ‘types’ rather than complex people. It is
argued that stereotypes are usually negative representations and most have a lot of assumptions
invested in them.
• Stereotypes Boy bands are often accused of being constructed to offer a calculated range of
representations, each to appeal to different elements of the audience.• E.g. sport member, casual
member, quiet member etc…
• Stereotypes also usually represent an entire social group in a single character, Such as the spoilt
child, drunken Irishman etc…
• Orrin E. Klapps(1962) Stereotype vs. social type - Distinction between stereotypes and social
types is helpful.
• Social types as representations of those who belong to society. They are the kinds of people that
one expects, and is led to expect, to find in ones society, whereas stereotypes are those who do
not belong, who are outside of ones society.
8. REPRESENTATION THEORIES
• Tessa Perkins (1979)
says, however, that stereotyping is not a simple process.
She identified that some of the many ways that
stereotypes are assumed to operate aren’t true.They
aren’t always negative (French good cooks). They aren’t
always about minority groups or those less powerful. They
are not always false. They are not always rigid and
unchanging. Perkins argues that if stereotypes were
always so simple then they would not work culturally and
over time.
9. REPRESENTATION THEORIES
• Ideology and representation
The representations used within a text act to define the
ideology. A family sitcom depends on the use of stereotypes to
find the comedy. We know the ideology of the programme, we
know what representations to expect!
• Dominant ideologies and hegemony
Gramsci defined hegemony as the way in which those in power
maintain their control. Dominant ideologies are considered
hegemonic – i.e. power in society is maintained by constructing
appropriate ideologies which are usually promoted via the
mass media. Identifying ideology• Ideologies are promoted in
many ways.Magazines are a good example because so many
present and ‘ideal’ lifestyle for their readers to aspire to. This
‘ideal’ is directly linked to the dominant ideologies in society.
10. AUDIENCE
• Media texts are all constructed with an audience in mind – they
are made for us, the audience. They also sometimes
(particularly in the case of propaganda) try to construct an
audience. And of course they’re made by people who are part
of the audience too.
• Theories
The Hypodermic Needle Model suggests that the information
from a text passes into the mass consciousness of the
audience unmediated, ie the experience, intelligence and
opinion of an individual are not relevant to the reception of the
text. This theory suggests that, as an audience, we are
manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that our
behavior and thinking might be easily changed by media-
makers. It assumes that the audience are passive and
heterogenous.
• Two-Step Flow and Uses & Gratifications
11. AUDIENCE
• . In 1948 Lasswell suggested that media texts had the following
functions for individuals and society:
• surveillance
• correlation
• entertainment
• cultural transmission
• Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded this theory and published
their own in 1974, stating that individuals might choose and use a text
for the following purposes (ie uses and gratifications):
• Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.
• Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other
interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life
• Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning
behaviour and values from texts
• Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living eg) weather
reports, financial news, holiday bargains
12. AUDIENCE
• Reception Theory
• Extending the concept of an active audience still further, in the
1980s and 1990s a lot of work was done on the way individuals
received and interpreted a text, and how their individual
circumstances (gender, class, age, ethnicity) affected their
reading. This work was based on Stuart Hall's
encoding/decoding model of the relationship between text
and audience - the text is encoded by the producer, and
decoded by the reader, and there may be major differences
between two different readings of the same code. However, by
using recognised codes and conventions, and by drawing upon
audience expectations relating to aspects such as genre and
use of stars, the producers can position the audience and thus
create a certain amount of agreement on what the code
means. This is known as a preferred reading
13. MEDIA LANGUAGE
• This is all about the specific medium and how the
language of the medium has been used to create
meaning for the audience. The meanings generally are a
synoptic round up of other options covered (genre,
narrative/stories, representations).• As part of this it is
important to include terminology about how signs work in
the media. Essentially, however, this is one where a
generic approach is more difficult and the language of the
medium needs careful revision to encourage students to
textually analyse their own essay against medium specific
theory (e.g. Goodwin and music videos)
14. MEDIA LANGUAGE THEORIES
• Stuart Hall - Encoding and Decoding; Preferred/ negotiated/ oppositional readings
• Denis McQuail – Uses and Gratification theory (audiences consume media texts for
Surveillance; Personal Identity; Personal Relationships; Escapism/ Diversion
• Dyer’s Utopian theory – How audiences consume media products with a clear set of pleasures
to draw from that experience. Escapism from people’s real lives.•
• The Hypodermic Syringe - According to the 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- in other words, you watch something violent, you may go and do something
violent.
• The Culmination Theory - Years and years of watching more violence will make you less
sensitive to violence.
• Morley’s Research - Women tend to watch something whilst doing something else and they
watch soaps etc. Men put full focus onto watching a film, sports and news. If a media text
attracts a wealthy amount of people then it is likely to continue even if that percentage is small.
• A series such as Star Trek (attracts single male men), although it only attracts a small amount of
people, the figures and collectables that come with it, make the series successful. "audience
hood is becoming an even more multifaceted, fragmented and diversified repertoire of practices
and experiences.” Ien Ang Media Language• Camera Angles, shots, body language etc…..
• Written, Symbolic, Technical (WST)• Semiotics – Signs of what we see(signifier)
• Denotation/Connotation• Paradigm – set of codes that we see in a media text
