Revise these key words and theories for your assessment on Thursday. This will count towards your interim and will be your first opportunity to experience a Section B style question under exam conditions.
Section
B: Cross Platform Case Study REVISION
KEY
WORDS
Convergence
The coming
together of media technologies – blending together a variety of media forms
into one platform (e.g. phone or tablet).
Synergy
The process
through which a series of media products derived from the same text is promoted
in and through each other. E.g. Disney’s High School Musical – Cinema, DVD, CD,
app, merchandise etc.
User-generated
content (UGC)
Media
content produced by the audience. E.g. social networking; YouTube comments etc.
Web 2.0
A term
coined in 2004 to describe the second generation of web-based communities such
as social networking, wikis etc. This is to do with how we use the web rather
than technological changes.
Intertextuality
Within a
media text, references are made to other media texts. Parody and pastiche are
good examples – such as the Simpsons parodying classic films. Advertising also
regularly uses intertextuality.
Polysemic
More than
one meaning; open to interpretation.
KEY THEORIES: AUDIENCE
Hypodermic
needle
Dating from the 1920s, it is a crude model that suggests
that audiences passively receive information transmitted via media text, without
any attempt to process or challenge the data.
Uses and
gratifications – Blumler and Katz (1974)
Individuals choose and use a text for the following
purposes: Diversion (escape); Personal Relationships (emotional
interaction); Personal Identity (finding yourself reflected in texts); Surveillance
(useful info for living - news, weather)
Reception theory – Stuart Hall
Encoding/decoding model of communication - text encoded
by producer and decoded by reader. There may be major differences
between the two readings of the same code. However, by using recognised codes
and conventions, producers can create agreement on what the code means. This
is known as a preferred reading. An alternative interpretation is known
as an oppositional reading.
KEY THEORIES: IDEOLOGY
Ideology
A set of beliefs and values. Put simply: the
ideas behind a media text; the agenda of its producers.
Dominant ideology or hegemony
The process in which a power relationship is accepted,
consented to and seen as ‘common sense’. E.g. Football currently has hegemonic
status in the UK – no one is forced to watch it but a look at newspapers or TV
schedules shows its power.
KEY THEORIES: NARRATIVE
Barthes
Codes: signs and signifiers. Texts can be open
or closed to a variety of interpretations.
Myth
Accepted
connotation, or myth, is created by the culture we are part of. Our
myth of the countryside, for example, refers to a chain of concepts such as: it
is good; it is natural; it is beautiful. Link to ideology.
Todorov – Equilibrium
Narratives begin with a state of equilibrium, where
there is harmony and balance between characters and their
environment/situation. Then comes some form of disruption which sets in
motion a train of events. At the end of the narrative a new
equilibrium is reached.
KEY THEORIES: REPRESENTATION
Mulvey – Male gaze
Mulvey declared that in patriarchal society ‘pleasure in
looking has been split between active/male and passive/female’. Men do the
looking; women are there to be looked at.
Kaplan – Male AND female gaze
Kaplan argued that the gaze could be adopted by both male
and female subjects: the male is not always the controlling subject nor is the
female always the passive object.
