Media Theorists

Recommended OCRAS and A2 Media Studies
Theorists

Narrative, Genre, Audience, Media Language and Representation theory can also
be mapped onto G325 Section A: Q1 and 1b but dependent on the question areas
and dependent on the production work completed by the pupil/student. Below also
are suggested theorists whose work can be explored when studying topics offered
for G325 Section B: Contemporary Media Issues it is recommended between 4-6
are referenced in the exam resonse.

KEY Theorists that will help you with your exam. It is essential you research these
theorists and add them to your blog. You could also speak to Mrs Rolfe about the
theorists for Contemporary Media Regulation.

Narrative:

Levi-Strauss: Binary oppositions
Todorov Four Act Structure
Roland Barthes Cultural, Semantic, Symbolic, Hermeneutic, Proairetic Real
media texts addressing audience.
Goodwin useful for analysing music Videos 6 key features
Propp 8 character roles
Lyotard post modern theory against meta narratives, pro micro narratives and
fragmentation
Joseph Campbell monomyths and journeys

Genre:

John Fiske genre as convenience for producers and audiences
Henry Jenkins genre constantly breaks rules e.g. evolving hybridization
John Hartley genre is interpreted culturally
Daniel Chandler genre is too restricting
Steve Neale genre as repetition and difference
David Buckingham genre in constant process of negotiation and change
Jason Mittel industry uses genre commercially
Barry Keith Grant - on sub genres
Rick Altman genre offers audiences a set of pleasures

Audience:

Jeremy Tunstall primary, secondary, tertiary audience engagement
Blumler and Katz uses and gratifications theory
Katz and Larzasfeld two Step Flowtheoty
Adorno passive consumption, hypodermic model (Frankfurt School)
David Gauntlett producer as consumer (Prosumer)
Stuart Hall audience positioning and dominant, negotiated, oppositional
readings
Stanley Cohen moral panics
Martin Barker challenging moral panics
George Gerbner cultivation theory

Representation:

Angela McRobbie post feminist icon theory
Laura Mulvey male gaze/female gaze
Carol Clover last girl theory (horror)
Stuart Hall dominant, oppositional and negotiated readings of representation
Richard Dyer stereotypes legitimize inequality
Levi-Strauss binary oppositions and subordinate groups (see Dyer)
David Buckingham representation and fragmented identity
David Gauntlett identity is complicated, everyones got one (pluralism but
within a hegemonic framework)
Baudrillard hyper realism
Taijfel and Turner intergroup discrimination and stereotyping (also useful for
youth and collective identity)
Andy Medhurst stereotyping is shorthand for identification
Tessa Perkins stereotyping has elements of truth
Judith Butler Queer Theory

G325 Section B: Contemporary Media Issues

Collective Media Identity (Also Good for Representation Question 1b)

David Gauntlett in depth work on this topic including Making is Connecting
and Lego Project
David Buckingham identity as a unique marker of a person
Zygmunt Bauman identity as a reflection of society is problematic
Erving Goffman the nature of social interaction
Anthony Giddens self reflexivity and developing own biographical narratives
Antonio Gramsci shifting nature of dominant ideology
Taijfel and Turner intergroup discrimination and stereotyping
Dick Hebdige youth sub culture maintains divisions in society
Jacques Lacan the Mirror Stage (must be fully understood before applying)
Michel Maffesoli The Time of Tribes
Laura Mulvey male gaze mapped onto the female gaze
Judith Butler gender is what you do, not who you are
Janice Winship on magazines
Marjorie Ferguson on magazines

Global Media:

Nick Lacey on synergy, ownership and institution
Zygmunt Bauman globalization contributes to a sense of fragmentation
Michael Salwen on cultural imperialism
Oliver Boyd-Barrett on media imperialism
Stuart Price global media and ownership
TerhiRantanen consequences of globalization is homogenization and
heterogenization
David Hesmondhalgh understanding global, cultural industries
PradipThomas and ZaharomNain ownership of the media
Noam Chomsky Marxist readings on media ownership

We Media and Democracy:

Dan Gillmor We the Media author
Charles Leadbetter - see YouTube We Think
Clay Shirky collaboration and communal values
Mapping Maslows Hierarchy of Needs We Media, status and self respect
UshaHidi democratizing information/software, crowdsourcing, political
activism
Henry Jenkins fan writers and textual poaching
Jacque Derrida death of the author
Simon Reynolds rave music and dance culture as democratizing
Graham Roberts Movie Making in the New Media Age

Contemporary Media Regulation:

Dan Gillmor Citizen Journalism
David Gauntlett opposes the vulnerability stereotype, youth as active and
literate (see Moving Experiences)
Mary Whitehouse against liberalism
Henry Jenkins video game effects research
Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams 5 points on media and the internet
Professor Julian Petley censorship is a class based issue
Richard Berger Ofcom will subsume the BBFC, future regulation = video games
Stephen Abell (ex PCC Chairman) online proliferation against statutory
regulation
Collins against statutory press regulation
Stokes and Reading newspapers use freedom of the press to legitimize
intrusion
Solevay and Reed self regulation means no regulation
Robertson an Nichol the PCC is an ineffective regulator
Stuart Hall newspapers as the fourth estate, Marxist readings

Media in the Online Age:

David Gauntlett the prosumer
Andrew Keen the prosumer creates a world of amateurs
Daniel Chandler online genre proliferation
Henry Jenkins blurred global boundaries, users of digital technology now
participating in multiple communications
Michael Wesch YouTube as cultural phenomenon
Chris Anderson the internet and the distribution possibilities of capitalism. The
long tail.

Post-modern Media:

Charlie Brooker blurred boundaries, representation of the real
Jean Baudrillard Hyper-reality and simulacra
Christopher Butler Postmodernism: A very short Introduction
Francis Lyotard micro narratives replacing macro narratives
Noam Chomsky against postmodernism, Marxist readings
Ferdinand de Saussure: signifier and signified are often arbitrary
Mikhail Bakhtin the Carnivalesque
Pierre Bourdieu social class is constructed by cultural taste (and in turn by
education)
Dick Hebdige subculture and the meaning of style
Jacques Derrida death of the author (audiences produce meaning)
Fredric Jameson on parody and pastiche
Edward Said on Orientalism
Stuart Ewan style is political
Daniel Strinati we understand the world through the media
Anthony Giddens modernity, not post modernity

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What are some of the major theorists mentioned for studying narrative?

What are some of the major theorists mentioned for studying genre?

Recommended OCRAS and A2 Media Studies

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