The document discusses several key concepts in media theory: 1) Auteur theory holds that the director is the "author" of a film and conveys their personal vision through elements like camerawork and editing, rather than just the screenplay. 2) Reception theory examines how audiences interpret and make meaning from media texts in different ways than intended, based on their own experiences and perspectives. 3) The hypodermic needle theory viewed audiences as passive and easily influenced by media messages, but it ignores that audiences can disagree and have varied responses. 4) The male gaze refers to the perspective of the assumed male viewer in visual media and how it portrays women as objects of voyeuristic or

1. Theory
Sam Williams

2. Auteur theory
• The auteur theory, which was derived largely from Astruc’s elucidation of
the concept of caméra-stylo (“camera-pen”), holds that the director, who
oversees all audio and visual elements of the motion picture, is more to be
considered the “author” of the movie than is the writer of the screenplay.
In other words, such fundamental visual elements as camera placement,
blocking, lighting, and scene length, rather than plot line, convey the
message of the film. Supporters of the auteur theory further contend that
the most cinematically successful films will bear the unmistakable personal
stamp of the director.
• Bibliography: Anon. (unknown). Auteur theory. Available:
https://www.britannica.com/art/auteur-theory. Last accessed 09th sep 2021.

3. Auteur theory
• "Film’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on
the screen. It’s that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what
does the director shoot-the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came
in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve." ~ Billy Wilder
• Bibliography: Anon. (unknown). Auteur Theory Quotes. Available: https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/auteur-theory.html. Last
accessed 09th sep 2021.
• Billy Wilder. (unknown). Auteur Theory Quotes. Available: https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/auteur-theory.html. Last accessed 09th sep 2021.

4. Reception theory
• Reception theory as developed by Stuart Hall asserts that media texts are encoded and decoded. The producer
encodes messages and values into their media which are then decoded by the audience. However, different audience
members will decode the media in different ways and possibly not in the way the producer originally intended.
• Stuart Hall states that audience members adopt one of the following three positions when they decode the text:
• Dominant, or Preferred Reading - how the producer wants the audience to view the media text. Audience members will
take this position if the messages are clear and if the audience member is the same age and culture; if it has an easy to
follow narrative and if it deals with themes that are relevant to the audience.
• Oppositional Reading - when the audience rejects the preferred reading, and creates their own meaning for the text.
This can happen if the media contains controversial themes that the audience member disagrees with. It can also arise
when the media has a complex narrative structure perhaps not dealing with themes in modern society. Oppositional
reading can also occur if the audience member has different beliefs or is of a different age or a different culture.
• Negotiated Reading - a compromise between the dominant and oppositional readings, where the audience accepts
parts of the producer's views, but has their own views on parts as well. This can occur if there is a combination of some
of the above e.g. audience member likes the media, is of the same age as you and understands some of the messages,
but the narrative is complex and this inhibits full understanding.
• Bibliography: Anon. (unknown). Reception Theory. Available:
https://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/media-studies-level-
revision/reception-theory. Last accessed 09th sep 2021.

5. Reception theory
He sometimes believed that the compulsion to make fiction was no more than a bulwark against confusion, maybe even
insanity. It was a desperate imposition of order by people able to find that precious stuff only in their minds ... never in
their hearts. - Author: Stephen King
Bibliography: Anon. (unknown). Top 8 Stuart Hall Reception Theory Quotes. Available:
https://quotestats.com/topic/stuart-hall-reception-theory-quotes/. Last accessed 09th sep 2021. Stephen
King. (unknown). Top 8 Stuart Hall Reception Theory Quotes. Available:
https://quotestats.com/topic/stuart-hall-reception-theory-quotes/. Last accessed 09th sep 2021.

6. Reception theory
Bibliography: Robert C. Holub (19 June
2013). Reception Theory. NA: Taylor &
Francis. 208.
This page is talking about the ways the word reception can be interpreted
differently by people from different counters.

7. Reception theory
This is talking about the background on how the
idea of reseption theory came about and the
people that came up theith the core idea
Bibliography: Robert C. Holub, Professor and Chair of the Department of German Robert C Holub
(1992). Crossing Borders Reception Theory, Poststructuralism, Deconstruction. NA: University of
Wisconsin Press. 244.

8. Reception theory
• Reception-oriented literary theory, history, and criticism, all analyze the processes by which literary texts are
received, both in the moment of their first publication and long afterwards: how texts are interpreted,
appropriated, adapted, transformed, passed on, canonized, and/or forgotten by various audiences.
Reception draws on multiple methodologies and approaches including semiotics and deconstruction;
ethnography, sociology, and history; media theory and archaeology; and feminist, Marxist, black, and
postcolonial criticism. Studying reception gives us insights into the texts themselves and their possible range
of meanings, uses, and value; into the interpretative regimes of specific historical periods and cultural
milieux; and into the nature of linguistic meaning and communication. (sorce 1)
Bibliography: Anon. (unknown). Reception Theory, Reception History, Reception Studies . Available:
https://oxfordre.com/literature/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-1004.
Last accessed 15th sep 2021.

9. Hypodermic Needle theory
• The Hypodermic needle theory is a linear communication theory that suggests that media
messages are injected directly into the brains of passive audiences.
• In this theory the media is seen as powerful and able to ‘inject’ ideas into an audience who
are seen as weak and passive and could be influenced by a message. In Nazi Germany in
the 1930’s and during World War 2 films were used to ‘inject’ propaganda ideas
promoting the Nazi cause to the German audience. Today we still see party political
broadcasts on television during elections.
• The Hypodermic theory comes from a fear of the mass media, and gives the media much
more power than it can ever have in a democracy. The concept ignores the idea that not
everyone in an audience behaves in the same way. How can an audience be passive –there
will be many times when you have disagreed with something you have seen on television
or failed to laugh at a comedy show or just thought a TV programme was terrible.
• Bibliography: Anon. (unknown). Hypodermic Needle theory. Available: https://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-
revision/media-studies-level-revision/hypodermic-needle-theory. Last accessed 09th sep 2021

10. Hypodermic Needle theory
Every plan in which we participate has one constant, ourselves. Not that we are always the same, but that we are always
part of the plan. All else comes and goes: friends, parents, possessions, conditions, situations, and associates, leaving
only us, ourselves. - Author: Wu Wei
Bibliography: Anon. (unknown). Top 5 Hypodermic Needle Theory Quotes. Available:
https://quotestats.com/topic/hypodermic-needle-theory-quotes/. Last accessed 09th sep 2021.
Wu Wei. (unknown). Top 5 Hypodermic Needle Theory Quotes. Available:
https://quotestats.com/topic/hypodermic-needle-theory-quotes/. Last accessed 09th sep 2021.

11. male gaze
• A manner of treating women's bodies as objects to be surveyed, which is associated by
feminists with hegemonic masculinity, both in everyday social interaction and in relation to
their representation in visual media.
• In film theory, the point of view of a male spectator reproduced in both the cinematography
and narrative conventions of cinema, in which men are both the subject of the gaze and the
ones who shape the action and women are the objects of the gaze and the ones who are
shaped by the action. In her psychoanalytic theory of the male gaze, Mulvey argues that in
classical Hollywood cinema, the film spectator oscillates between two forms of looking at the
female image: voyeuristic looking involves a controlling gaze; fetishistic looking involves an
obsessive focus on some erotic detail She claims that these conventions reflect the values
and tastes of patriarchal society.
• Bibliography: Anon. (unknown). male gaze. Available:
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100128610. Last accessed 09th
sep 2021.

12. male gaze
“There are plenty of images of women in science fiction. There are hardly any women.”
― Joanna Russ
Bibliography: Anon. (unknown). Male Gaze Quotes. Available:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/male-gaze. Last accessed 09th sep 2021
Joanna Russ. (unknown). Male Gaze Quotes. Available: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/male-
gaze. Last accessed 09th sep 2021.

13. Chris Hondros
• He was born on 14th March 1970 in New York United States
• He was killed on the 20th April 20, 2011, in Misrata Libya
• Chris Hondros was born in New York City to immigrant Greek and German parents who were child
refugees after World War ll. He spent most of his childhood in Fayetteville, North Caroline, where he
graduated from Terry Sandford High School in 1988.
• Hondros studied English literature at North Caroline State University where he also worked for
the Technician, the campus newspaper. In 1991, Hondros submitted his portfolio and was invited to
attend the Eddie Adams Workshop. After graduating from State in 1993, Hondros moved
to Athens, Ohio, and earned a master's degree at Ohio University School of Visual
Communications. He began his career at the Troy Daily news in Ohio as an intern and later chief
photographer before returning to Fayetteville in 1996 to begin a career with The Fayetteville
Observer and to be close to his father who died of cancer in 2000.
• Hondros left his job at The Fayetteville Observer in 1998 to return to New York and concentrate on
international reporting. From his base in New York, Hondros worked in most of the world's major
conflict zones since the late 1990s, including Kosovo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Kashmir, the
West Bank, Iran, and Liberia.
• Hondros was awarded the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Photojournalism Grant in 1999.In 2001, Hondros was selected for the Pew Fellowship for International
Reporting through Johns Hopkins University.
• Following the September 11 attacks, Hondros took photographs at ground zero. Hondros went to cover
the Liberian Civil War in 2003. It was here that Hondros photographed Joseph Duo in an image that
graced the front cover of publications worldwide. Hondros also followed Sen. John Kerry's presidential
campaign in 2004.When Hondros returned to cover the Liberian election in 2005, he was able to meet
Joseph Duo again to discuss the progress that had been made in Liberia since his last visit. His work
included disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The United States
presidential election in 2008 found Hondros photographing Governor and Vice-Presidential
candidate Sarah Palin.
• His work appeared as the covers of magazines such as Newsweek and the Economist, and on the front
pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Photographer Tyler
Hicks described Hondros as a "sensitive photographer," adding that "He never was in it for himself or
for the vanity of what the job brings with it. He really believes in his work."
• His photography was featured in the documentary film, Liberia: A Fragile Peace (2006).

14. Joseph Duo
This photo was taken during the Liberian civil war in 2003. It is of
a teenager called Joseph Duo after he fired an RPG at Rebel
forces In Monrovia, Liberia. The focus of the photo is Duo as he
jumps in the air under gunfire with his arms stretched out. In the
background of the photo is a man clouded by smoke on his knees
on the floor. The smoke in the background makes Duo stand out
even more

15. A rebel fighter celebrates as his comrades fire a rocket barrage toward
troops loyal to Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi on April 14, 2011

16. Bibliography
• Anon. (unknown). Auteur theory. Available: https://www.britannica.com/art/auteur-theory. Last accessed 09th sep 2021.
• Anon. (unknown). Auteur Theory Quotes. Available: https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/auteur-theory.html. Last accessed 09th sep 2021.
• Billy Wilder. (unknown). Auteur Theory Quotes. Available: https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/auteur-theory.html. Last accessed 09th sep 2021.
• Anon. (unknown). Reception Theory. Available: https://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/media-studies-level-revision/reception-theory. Last
accessed 09th sep 2021.
• Anon. (unknown). Top 8 Stuart Hall Reception Theory Quotes. Available: https://quotestats.com/topic/stuart-hall-reception-theory-quotes/. Last accessed
09th sep 2021.
• Stephen King. (unknown). Top 8 Stuart Hall Reception Theory Quotes. Available: https://quotestats.com/topic/stuart-hall-reception-theory-quotes/. Last
accessed 09th sep 2021.
• Anon. (unknown). Hypodermic Needle theory. Available: https://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/media-studies-level-revision/hypodermic-needle-
theory. Last accessed 09th sep 2021
• Anon. (unknown). Top 5 Hypodermic Needle Theory Quotes. Available: https://quotestats.com/topic/hypodermic-needle-theory-quotes/. Last accessed 09th
sep 2021.
• Wu Wei. (unknown). Top 5 Hypodermic Needle Theory Quotes. Available: https://quotestats.com/topic/hypodermic-needle-theory-quotes/. Last accessed
09th sep 2021.
• Anon. (unknown). male gaze. Available: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100128610. Last accessed 09th sep 2021.
• Anon. (unknown). Male Gaze Quotes. Available: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/male-gaze. Last accessed 09th sep 2021
• Joanna Russ. (unknown). Male Gaze Quotes. Available: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/male-gaze. Last accessed 09th sep 2021.
• Bibliography:Robert C. Holub (19 June 2013). Reception Theory. NA: Taylor & Francis. 208.
• Bibliography: Robert C. Holub, Professor and Chair of the Department of German Robert C Holub (1992). Crossing Borders Reception Theory, Poststructuralism, Deconstruction. NA: University
of Wisconsin Press. 244.
• Anon. (unknown). Reception Theory, Reception History, Reception Studies . Available: https://oxfordre.com/literature/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-
e-1004. Last accessed 15th sep 2021.