This document discusses several media theories: Laura Mulvey's theory of visual pleasure and narrative cinema argues that women are often portrayed as objects for the male gaze in films. Signs and signifiers refers to how physical forms take on meanings through social and cultural contexts. The hypodermic needle theory views media as directly injecting ideas into passive audiences. The two-step flow theory proposes that media effects occur through social discussion of media with opinion leaders. Uses and gratifications suggests that audiences actively select media to fulfill different needs like information, identity, and entertainment.

1. Theories/Theorists
Jamie Allen, George Blake, Dom Averkiou

2. Laura Mulvey
 Laura Mulvey – visual pleasure and narrative
cinema
 Visual – what we see on screen
 Pleasure- how do audiences interact with the text
(film) in terms of their own subjectivity (visual
location and identity)
 Narrative cinema- story telling medium of film.
 Mulvey takes it as her starting point that the figure
of ‘women’ function within film as a ‘sign’ or
‘object’ within patriarchal discourse.
 They are objects of the male/camera’s ‘look’ or as
she terms it ‘gaze’- the camera ‘desires’ and the
audiences derives pleasure from the spectacle of
the female.

3. Signs and Signifiers
 A sign can be a physical form to which we give
meaning. The signifier is the physical form which we
can see or hear -i.e.
words, diagram, picture, music, siren.
 The signified is the meaning which we attach to the
signifier -i.e. Learner driver, no entry, Nazi etc. The
real world referent is the actual ‘real life’ object -i.e. a
real rabbit.
 Signs cannot be combined purely at random if they
are to mean anything. Our understanding of them
depends on our social and cultural background.
 We can anchor a sign by using words or pictures -i.e.
text on a poster, a caption under a newspaper
splash, text on an advert, a voiceover on a film.

4. Hypodermic Needle Theory
 The hypodermic syringe theory is that the media is
like a syringe which injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs
into the audience.
 In some cases this may work, but the problem is that
people are affected in different ways by the media -
films, advertising, newspapers, television etc. The
‘audience’ are also now much more critically aware of
the media and having ideas ‘injected’ into them.
 However, this theory still has uses -i.e. watching
violent crimes can make you violent for example: the
‘Power Rangers’ fighting in play grounds.

5. Two-Step Theory
The two-step flow theory suggests:
 We are much more likely to be affected by the
media if we discuss it with others.
 Our opinions are affected by the way our friends
etc have viewed the media, i.e. discussions on
Eastenders-Cat and Zoe, views on
documentaries etc. The people we discuss our
ideas with are called ‘opinion leaders’.
 This is another theory where the James Bulger
case has been cited -apparently one boy talked to
his friend about a film he had watched and
apparently influenced the other’s behaviour.

6. Uses and Gratifications
 According to uses and gratification theory we all have different uses
for the media and we make choices over what we want to watch. We
are expecting something from our use of the media.
 1. Information-we may want to find out about society and the world.
We want to satisfy our curiosity.
 2. Personal Identity-we may watch television for models for our
behaviour. For instance -we may identify with soap characters or
their situations.
 3. Integration and Social Interaction-we use the media to find out
more about the circumstances of other people perhaps through
empathy or sympathy.
 4. Entertainment -enjoyment, relaxation, fill the time.
CRITICISMS:
 You don’t always choose what media you use -you may be a
secondary or tertiary user. Your mum has the remote control! You
have no control over what posters you see on your way to school.