A2 Media Theory - revision cards designed by students

1. Sonia
Livingstone
Children’s use of the internet
• In the UK, recent surveys show that
among 7-16year olds 75% have used the
internet, double the adult population of
38% (Wigley & Clarke, 2000).
• Valued by children to use for
information and entertainment, for
relieving boredom – the preferred
activity being communication (chat,
email, instant message).
• Youth TGI (2001) – the most common
uses are: studying/homework (73%),
email (59%), playing games (38%), chat
sites (32%) and hobbies and interests
(31%).
• Children prefer online entertainment
centered on fandom transferred from
already-established media – music, stars,
sports, television programs (Livingstone,
2001).

2. Charles Leadbeater
WE THINKWE THINK
The web allows everyone to publish, share,
connect, collaborate and to create…thats
why its a platform for mass creativity and
innovation.
More people than ever can participate in
culture, contributing their ideas, views,
information.
[Sharing] leaves us more open to abuse
and invasions of privacy. Over crowded
participation and forced collaboration.
Gives more people a voice, democratically.
In the past you are what you own, in
today’s world you are what you share.

3. Charles Acland
• Acland (1995) argues that the media
representations of youths actually reinforce
hegemony. This is done by constructing an
idea of normal youth behaviour and
contrasting it with deviant youth behaviour
which is shown to be unacceptable.
• His ‘ideology of protection’ claims that the
out of control representations helps the state
to have more control of them, it has the idea
that young people needed surveillance and
monitoring.
• This is because youth is the time when young
people learn about social roles and values, it
allows the state to make sure that they are
conforming to hegemonic values.
• Young people are being stereotypically watched
and seen as wild.
"Youth is a time
of substantial surveillance,
because it is a time when the
culture is learned".

4. Louis Althusser
• Louis Althusser (1969) discusses ideology in
his work, looking at the way in which people
lose their individuality and become subjects
based on ideological views.
• He believes that ideologies are circulated by
the media and used to help construct
peoples identities. It is subtle so people
don’t realise it is happening.
• He argues one way the state maintains
control is through ideological state apparatus,
they are a range of different groups who
transmit dominant ideology to the groups.
These groups are known as the ruling classes
and brainwash until we believe their
ideologies.
• A dominant ideology is the accepted
stereotype.
• Interpellation – this is when people are
stripped of their individuality and then
categorised into groups. These groups then
live by a set of rules they think is normal
behaviour.
‘Ideology represents the imaginary
relationship of individuals to their real
conditions of existence.’

5. Thomas De Zengotita
• Believed and stated that almost everything
we experience or learn is through the media.
• This also implies that the media shapes and
creates us, our views and our identity.
• We subconsciously believe ourselves to be
important because of all the media
addressing to us.

6. Theodor adorno
• He argued that capitalism fed people with
the products of a culture industry to keep
them satisfied.
• He identified that popular culture was the
reason for people’s passive satisfaction and
lack of interest in the capital system.
• Adorno suggested that culture industries
churn out a debased mass of
unsophisticated, sentimental products which
have replaced the more 'difficult' and critical
art forms which might lead people to actually
question social life.

7. Michel maffesoli
• Discovered the theory about urban TRIBES.
• Wrote the book called “the time of tribes.
• Urban tribes are micro groups of people who
share common interests in urban areas.
• The micro groups share similar views on the
world, dress sense and behaviour patterns.
• Examples of these mentioned in his book
include:
Punks
Rahs
Chavs
Metal heads

8. Carol VernallisCarol Vernallis
Carol Vernallis theory is based on
4 key concepts that all relate to
how a music video is
manufactured:
1.Narrative
2.Editing
3.Camera, Movement and
Framing
4.Diegesis

9. Daniel ChandlerDaniel Chandler
GENRE
“Conventional definitions of genres
tend to be based on the notion that
they create particular fixed
conventions of content (themes or
setting – iconography) and form
(structure or style) which are shared
by the texts which are regarded as
belonging to them.”

10. Andrew GoodwinAndrew Goodwin
Goowin’s theory is based on 5 main
principles:
1.Thought Beats
2.Narrative
3.Star Image/Voyeurism
4.Relationship between lyrics and
visuals
5.Technical aspects

11. "Some groups have more say, have more
opportunity to make the rules, to organize
meaning, while others are less favourably
placed, have less power to produce."
"The meaning of subculture, then, is always
in dispute, and style is the arena in which
opposing definitions clash with the most
dramatic force."
• Dick Hebdige's Subculture is a structuralist (why we do things as
humans) approach to understanding the styles of Britain's youth
cultures.
• Hebdige argues that style, through the rebellion of common
objects, allows Britain's subcultures to characteristically
separate themselves from the mass culture to which they
belong in
• Much of this research was concerned with the relation between
subcultures and social class in post-war Britain, Hebdige saw
youth cultures in terms of a dialogue between Black and white
youth.
• He argues that punk stems from Black Cultures (Reggae,
Rastafarian) response to discrimination in British society in the
1970’s that lead to separatism.
• He also compares the similarities to the Teddy boys, Mods,
Rockers and Skin heads that preceded the punk era. Hebdige
argues that punks only homology was derived from chaos be it
through a thoroughly ordered style of chaos.

12. Henry Giroux
He said that Youth has become an empty
category inhabited by the desires,
fantasies, anxieties and interests of the
adult world.
He further suggests that the collective
identities of youth are constructed by
adults and serve the needs of an adult
society.
1997

13. Galtung and
Ruge
1973 News Values
1.Frequency
— short-term events like murders are preferred over
long-term developments like a famine
2.Threshold
— basically the size of an event indicates his
importance
3.Unambiguity
— events do not have to be simple but they must be
accessible to the public - i.e. simplified by the media
4.Meaningfulness
— divided into two categories after Galtung and Ruge’s
‘Familiarity’: a) cultural proximity
in which the event agrees with the outlook of a specific
culture; b) relevance
where events will be reported and discussed if they
seem to have an impact on the ‘home’ culture,
especially a threat
5.Consonance
— or ‘correspondence’ where the familiar is more likely
to be thought than the unfamiliar
6.Unexpectedness
— or ‘surprise’ where it is the rarity of an event which
leads to its circulation in the public domain; Dutton
notes that the ‘newness’ of the event is usually
processed through a familiar context. It has to work
with 4 and 5.
Our perception of what constitutes an event is culturally determined and not a natural
occurrence – but they also believed that it related to ‘human culture’ and therefore
should not vary too much globally.
Their theory argues that the more an event accessed these criteria the more likely it
was to be reported on in a newspaper.
Example: in the Western world we are obsessed with celebrities and their lifestyles.
David Beckham splits with Posh Spice and on the same day five children are killed in a
minibus accident. The tabloids will carry the Beckham’s story on the front page
because we as a society have decided that celebrity gossip is more interesting and
news worthy than the other story.
These are 12 of the most significant news values:
7.Continuity
— once a story achieves importance will be
continued to be covered for some time
8.Composition
— this is to provide a sense of balance, gloomy news
with good news, foreign with domestic.
9.Reference to elite nations
— events are more likely to be reported if they occur
in the developed world; the threshold system would
apply for developing countries’ events to be
reported
10.Reference to elite persons
— the famous and the powerful are more
newsworthy than ordinary people
11.Personalisation
— events are seen as actions of people as
individuals; an institution may be personalised by
reference to a prominent person within that
organisation
12.Negativity
— bad news is good for the press and TV news; the
threshold is much lower for bad news than for good
news.

14. Greg Philo
• "The culture of violence is real. But for the
British media, it's simple – bad upbringing or
just evil children. Their accounts of what
happens are very partial and distorted, which
pushes people towards much more right-wing
positions. There's no proper social debate
about what we can do about it”
• Greg Philo found that the media depicts teens
as violent hoodie wearing ‘chavs’ and that the
media depicts teens this way as it is exploiting
the fears and views that the middle class hold
on teens. Writing headlines about violent
teens and spreading fear sells papers.
• Contemporary ‘hoodie cinema’ reflect middle
class anxiety about the threat of the working
class
• Mainstream Example: Guardian article titled
‘Hoodies strike fear in British Cinema’ –The
media links social classes with strong
stereotypes (everyone below middle class is
dangerous)
• Niche: Essex Chronicle ‘Teens Hurl large rock
from bridge at car on A12’ (the first line was
about the social class of the people behind
the incident.

15. Michael Wesch Effects of new media on kids
Originally created the video for his
Digital Ethnography class and sent it
only to his colleagues to gather
feedback. From there it spread and
the video was being mentioned in
blogs & used as a discussion piece in
courses.
•YouTube as cultural phenomenon:
here the value of YouTube is being
acknowledged with the availability
and access to resources it provides
being taken for granted despite it
origination in recent history, 2006.
•The machine is us/ing us – to not
fear the future of media but to be
aware of it.
•‘Instead of reacting to the
evolution of technology with
caution we should discuss it, test it,

16. Margot McRobbie
Media influence on gender
British culture theorist
•She looks at the way in which gender roles
are represented within different media. The
media socialise us into gender roles. This
suggests that humans behave like they do
because of what the media tells them to how
to behave and what to do with their lives.
•She believes that in the media men are
portrayed as masculine, aggressive and
powerful. Women are portrayed as weak,
subservient to men and they have traditional
roles such as mother and nurse.
•She believes some representations empower
women as sexually powerful.
•Post feminist icon theory suggesting female
character are determined, strong,
independent and in control but also utilise
their sexuality e.g. Lara Croft, Lady Gaga.
•Examples: Ill manors – Jodie, Chanel,
prostitute, Daily Mail ‘Never mind Brexit who
won Legs-it!’

17. George
Gerbner
• Cultivation Theory: Studied the effect of
television and found that the media over
estimates crime. News Reports/ Drama
and Crime shows show lots of crime which
influences the perception of the world.
• Niche: Essex Chronicle very negative
about crime
• Mainstream Example: Dramas like
Broadchurch
• Personal: Feels like your security is
impacted as it is over exaggerated

18. GENRE
Theory of repetition and
difference
• “genres are instances of repetition and
difference”
• “Difference is absolutely essential to the
economy of genre”
Genre is defined into two things:
• How much it conforms with a genre’s
stereotype and conventions. A film must
conform to these conventions to qualify for
that genre.
Subverts stereotype and conventions. A film must
subvert these conventions enough that it is still viewed
as a unique film, not a clone.
Steve Neale

19. Readings – Preferred, Negotiated,
Oppositional
Believe the media text, take it with a
pinch of salt, disagree completely.
Audience Theory

20. The "Magic Bullet" or
"Hypodermic Needle Theory" of
direct influence effects was
based on early observations of
the effect of mass media, as
used by Nazi Propaganda.
Therefore, it used to create fear
within society and manipulate
consumers.
AUDIENCE THEORY
The media can directly inject message.
Audience is;
Passive – weak and inactive
Homogenous
The audience is powerless to resist
Therefore the media works like a drug
and the audience is drugged

21. Mediation
Mediation is the idea that the media decides what to show its
audience and that it does not tell the whole truth but instead
carefully selects how they want to portray a representation.
Media institutions will alter or leave out information
purposefully so that the article or other media text will have a
bigger impact and attract people’s attention. Sometimes an
entire story will be condensed into one catchy, witty headline
on the front page to make you buy the newspaper - although
this may not accurately reflect the content of the article.
The reality of the event could be drastically different to how it
is represented in the media.
Youth: this can lead to the demonisation of the youth as media
is often diluted to only show the bad side of teens. For
example: sometimes an image of a teenager in a newspaper,
relating to a negative article, would have been carefully chosen
to depict the teenager in a negative way (show them as scary
or threatening.)
EVENT
(Reality)
REPRESENTATI
ON TO MASSES
MEDIATION
PROCESS
Filtering and selecting what to include

22. Hegemony
Otherwise known as Marxist Hegemony as it
was an idea derived from Karl Marx, a
revolutionary socialist in Russia.
The theory is that the Bourgeois elite make
and control the media thus controlling the
stream of information that reaches the
masses.
The masses are passive and believe everything
they read and hear from the media (‘Thank
you for telling me that’)
Youth: This is what used to happen with youth
representations during the time of ‘hoodie
horror’. There were very few positive
representations of youth because the media
did not want to show any. The passive
audience believed what the media said about
teenagers and so began to fear them.

23. Gatekeeping
Gatekeeping is the theory that “those who
make the media are the gatekeepers of
information and chose what to show and
what not to. ”
The editor would be the gatekeeper as
they decide what to print and what to
discard. Their political, social or other
views influence what they chose to print
and where in the paper.
The information will often be filtered
down so that only the most controversial
stories and big headlines get printed.
Youth: Editors will pick the articles that
they know their readers will respond to
and often that involves demonizing the
youth and predominantly showing articles
with negative teenage representations. It’s
more interesting to read about dangerous
and reckless teenagers rather than normal
and good ones- can look to newspaper
articles for these types of representations.
Kurt Lewin- first coined the term
‘gatekeeping’

24. Hegemony/
Dominant
ideology
• Ideology- belief system that is
constructed and then embedded
in the publics consciousness by
the media.
• Media texts- represent the world
usually in order to support the
dominant ideology.
• Example- newspapers often
promotes the dominant ideology
of patriotism through their
representation of race and
nationality. Another example is
marriage and the family – this is
that the right way is to get
married to the opposite sex and
have a family.
• Hegemony- the way in which
those in power maintain their
control. Dominant ideologies are
considered hegemonic.

25. David Gauntlett
• David Gauntlett argues
that classical media
studies fails to define
when the categories of
‘audiences’ and
‘producers’ unite and
that new, altered
teaching methods are
needed.
• Example – Ill manors
i.e. Jake.
“Making is good”

26. Henry Jenkins
“We are entering an era where media will be
everywhere and we will use all kinds of media
in relation to one another”
• Media convergence refers to a range of
media merged into one. Jenkins argues
that media will be everywhere and it
does not exist just in one form. Media
will continue to grow in multiple ways
through computing and communication.
Old media doesn’t die out it evolves in a
new form.
• Example- cassettes to Mp3 file.
• Representation of youth – media is
updated to the new technological
advances we have – turns into the
norm, but some people still use other
forms. In relation to the example some
people still use cassettes.

27. David
Buckingham
‘Genre is not simply given by the culture
rather it is in a constant state of
negotiation and change.’
•He believes that media reveals the bad side
of the world. Children consequently spend
time around various types of media.
•Genres change over time because of how
times change, however conventions stay
the same.
•An example: The Osmonds ‘Love me for a
reason’ (1974) and One Direction ‘Little
Things’. Although they were released 40
years apart, they still show similarities; fairly
simplified editing, no visual narrative and
focus mainly on the vocals of the band.
Buckingham's theory can be applied as the
One Direction music video proves to follow
similar conventions as The Osmond's but has
just evolved to the generation of music now.

28. Tajfel and
Turner
Social Identity Theory –
•Persons concept of self comes
from the groups they are part off.
•Groups construct our identities.
•They suggest people have innate
tendency to categorise themselves
into one or more groups.
•An example: Notting Hill is an
example as they are grouped
through location and class. Also Ill
Manors how they are all grouped
in class.

29. • Commonly associated with the study
of subcultures, and its resistance
against the mainstream of society.
• Working-class encounter daily
hardships from the ruling hegemony.
• Younger generations are reluctant to
suffer from hegemony.
• An example: The media/newspapers
writing about a news article but only
writing about information they want the
public to know. So newspapers are
controlling what we read about a
situation – e.g. only showing
teenagers when writing about the
London Riots.
Dick Hebdige

30. Stuart Hall -
Representation
Hall was concerned with media
power, including how it propagates
social values.
‘The mass media play a crucial role
in defining the problems and issues
of public concern. They are the main
channels of public discourse in our
segregated society’.
He noted how blacks appeared on
TV often in racially stereotypical
positions, despite liberal
assumptions and discussions by
broadcasters.
‘When blacks appear in the
documentary/current affairs part of
broadcasting, they are always
attached to some ‘immigrant issue’,
they have to be involved in some
crisis or drama to become visible
actors in the media’.

31. NARRATIVE THEORIES
Barthes - Narrative
Enigma code – mystery within a text, clues
are dropped but no answers are given.
Action code – this code contains in order
elements of action in the text.
Semantic code – parts within the text that
suggests or refers to additional meanings.
Symbolic code – symbolism within the
text, shows contrast and create greater
meaning, creating tension, drama and
character development.
Referential code – anything in the text
which refers to an external body of
knowledge such as scientific, historical
and cultural knowledge.
Strauss - Narrative
Examined how stories
unconsciously reflect the
values, beliefs and myths
of a culture.
These are usually
expressed in the form of
binary opposites.
Binary opposites are a
conflict between two
qualities or terms.
For example weak and
strong.
Todorov - Narrative
Most stories all follow the
same path.
1.Equilibrium
2.A disruption
3.Realisation
4.Restored order
5.Equilibrium again
Todorov argues that narrative
involves transformation, the
characters or the situation are
transformed through the
progress of disruption.
Propp -
Narrative
Propp’s narrative theory uses
these 7 types of characters so
that audiences can easily
identify the characters in the
film/TV show. Hero, villain,
helper, mentor, dispatcher,
blocker, prize.

32. Daniel Chandler
Chandler says that genre is
made for a specific
audience or ideal reader.
Media texts will include
stereotypes that the
audience expect to see,
with regards to class age
gender and ethnicity.
Genre Theory

33. Henry Giroux
He said that Youth has become an empty
category inhabited by the desires,
fantasies, anxieties and interests of the
adult world.
He further suggests that the collective
identities of youth are constructed by
adults and serve the needs of an adult
society.
1997

34. Greg Philo
“If you want to scare a British moviegoer,
you don't make a film about zombies – you
cast a kid in flammable sportswear and a
hoodie”
Contemporary ‘Hoodie
Cinema’ reflects the middle
class fear of “those who
might undermine their
security” – threat of the
working class.
Niche example: Local newspapers such as Essex Chronicle
covering teenage knife crime – generalised to all
teenagers
Mainstream example: The Guardian article ‘Hoodies strike
fear in British cinema’ – social class linked with
stereotypes e.g. working class youths are ‘thugs’.
British films use teenagers
with hoodies as the ‘bad guy’
– due to the creation of the
violent teen image created
and exaggerated by the
media.
This influences the older generation to feel threatened.
Youths, particularly those in the working class, are heavily
associated with crime and trouble.
Hoodie Cinema

35. George Gerbner
Cultivation Theory
“The more time people spend 'living' in the
television world, the more likely they are to
believe social reality portrayed on
television."
Exposure to
television gradually
‘cultivates’ the way
viewers perceive
reality by being
constantly exposed
to the same images
and labels.
Focuses on
violence – the
media
overestimates
crime in films,
news reports,
dramas etc –
creates fear and
influences people’s
perception of the
world.
Niche example:
Mainstream example: News coverage of London Riots –
caused fear of teens all over the country
Personal example: Use of catchy phrases in TV shows such
as The Only Way Is Essex and Made in Chelsea