Post modern theories

1. The Last Theorists!
Bathes
Hall
Jameson

2. Bathes –Semiotics
• The study of signs and symbols (denotative
and connotative)
• Bathes argues that the interpretation of
meaning lies with the audience and depends
on the experiences, interests, beliefs and
culture they bring with them (multiple
meanings – micro narratives, no single truth)

3. Hall
• Hall again focuses on the audience and the
different reading they can make of a text
• But in this case individuality is downplayed
and it is more about the relationship between
the audience and the producer/institution
making the text – active audience
• The Producer will have in mind a way in which
they want their text to be read and we as an
audience can either accept or reject that
reading

4. Hall
• Hegemonic Reading
– Reader accepts and reproduces the preferred
meanings of the text (as set by the ‘institution’)
• Negotiated Reading
– Reader broadly accepts the preferred reading but
resists or modifies elements
• Oppositional Reading
– Reader understands the preferred reading but
rejects it

5. Jameson
• Pomo for Jameson is all about the modern day and how it
has lost connects to the past.
• In regards to ‘reality’ Jameson argues that we make no
effort to get to know the ‘real’ but instead like and get to
know the exaggerated replicas of people (simulacra –
Hyperreality, Style over substance)
– Less on concern about the past
– The entertainment value is more important than historical
accuracy/ meaning eg Music Vidoes
– ‘Historical deafness’
– We live in the here and now (instantaneous)
– Depthlessness: there is not deep thought/meaning/ ideology
anymore
– But is this true???? Construction of meaning often relies on
knowledge, intertextuality (past), is Inception depthless???

6. Jameson