A Level Mediastudies Keyterms

A Level Media Studies
Key Terms Explained

by Year 12
Archetype
The original pattern or model of
which all things of the same type
are representations or copies
(e.g., Romeo and Juliet is the
archetype for a tragic love story.)
Hegemony
Hegemony was a concept previously used by Marxists such as Lenin to indicate the political
leadership of the working-class in a democratic revolution, but developed by Gramsci into an
acute analysis to explain why the 'inevitable' socialist revolution predicted by orthodox Marxism
had not occurred by the early 20th century. Capitalism, it seemed, was even more entrenched than
ever. Capitalism, Gramsci suggested, maintained control not just through violence and political
and economic coercion, but also ideologically, through a hegemonic culture in which the values of
the bourgeoisie became the 'common sense' values of all. Thus a consensus culture developed in
which people in the working-class identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and
helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting.
The working class needed to develop a culture of its own, which would overthrow the notion that
bourgeois values represented 'natural' or 'normal' values for society, and would attract the
oppressed and intellectual classes to the cause of the proletariat. Lenin held that culture was
'ancillary' to political objectives but for Gramsci it was fundamental to the attainment of power that
cultural hegemony was first achieved. In Gramsci’s view, any class that wishes to dominate in
modern conditions has to move beyond its own narrow ‘economic-corporate’ interests, to exert
intellectual and moral leadership, and to make alliances and compromises with a variety of forces.
Gramsci calls this union of social forces a ‘historic bloc’, taking a term from Georges Sorel. This
bloc forms the basis of consent to a certain social order, which produces and re-produces the
hegemony of the dominant class through a nexus of institutions, social relations and ideas.
Gramsci stated that, in the West, bourgeois cultural values were tied to Christianity, and therefore
much of his polemic against hegemonic culture is aimed at religious norms and values. He was
impressed by the power Roman Catholicism had over men's minds and the care the Church had
taken to prevent an excessive gap developing between the religion of the learned and that of the
less educated. Gramsci believed that it was Marxism's task to marry the purely intellectual critique
of religion found in Renaissance humanism to the elements of the Reformation that had appealed
to the masses. For Gramsci, Marxism could supersede religion only if it met people's spiritual
needs, and to do so people would have to recognise it as an expression of their own experience .
The meaning of the text will be constructed differently according to the discourses
(knowledges, prejudices, resistances etc.) brought to bear by the reader, and the
crucial factor... will be the range of discourses at the disposal of the audience...
Individuals in different positions in the social formation defined according to
structures of class, race or sex, for example, will tend to inhabit or have at their
disposal different codes and subcultures. Thus social position sets parameters to the
range of potential readings by structuring access to different codes. Whether or not a
programme succeeds in transmitting the preferred or dominant meaning will depend
on whether it encounters readers who inhabit codes and ideologies derived from
other institutional areas (e.g. churches or schools) which correspond to and work in
parallel with those of the programme or whether it encounters readers who inhabit
codes drawn from other areas or institutions (e.g. trade unions or 'deviant'
subcultures) which conflict to a greater or lesser extent with those of the programme.
(1983, p. 106-7; see also 1992, p. 87).
Audience
Audience theory is the starting point for many Media Studies tasks. Whether you are
constructing a text or analysing one, you will need to consider the destination of that text,
ie its target audience and how that audience (or any other) will respond to that text.
For GCSE, you learned how audience was described and measured. For AS level you
need a working knowledge of the theories which attempt to explain how an audience
receives, reads and responds to a text. Over the course of the past century or so, media
analysts have developed several effects models, ie theoretical explanations of how
humans ingest the information transmitted by media texts and how this might influence
(or not) their behaviour. Effects theory is still a very hotly debated area of Media and
Psychology research, as no one is able to come up with indisputable evidence that
audiences will always react to media texts one way or another. The scientific debate is
clouded by the politics of the situation: some audience theories are seen as a call for
more censorship, others for less control. Whatever your personal stance on the subject,
you must understand the following theories and how they may be used to deconstruct
the relationship between audience and text.
“Hegemony is the dominance of one group over other groups,
with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance,
the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its
advantage; or more broadly, that cultural perspectives become
skewed to favour the dominant group.”
“Theories of hegemony attempt to explain how dominant groups

or individuals can maintain their power -- the capacity of
dominant classes to persuade subordinate ones to accept, adopt
and internalize their values and norms .”
•An eponym is the name of a person, whether real or fictitious, who has (or is
thought to have) given rise to the name of a particular place, tribe, era,
discovery, or other item.
•An eponymous person is the person referred to by the eponym. In
contemporary English, the term eponymous is often used to mean self-titled.
•Eponyms are usually false, i.e., things are rarely named after the person who
discovered or invented them.
• A character in a story, etc: having the name which is used as the title.
Interesting fact:
eponymous was
the name of
R.E.M’s album!
• Ideology, in simple terms is a set of beliefs and ideas that we are born
with, in our cultures and by what we see.
• set of ideas which produces a partial and selective view of reality.
• Ideology is a difficult - but important - concept to grasp. Simply put, it is
the ideas behind a media text, the secret (or sometimes not-so secret)
agenda of its producers. It is important to be able to identify the different
ideological discourses that may be present in even an apparently simple
photograph.
• When we examine the ideology of media, we are not so much interested
in the specific activities depicted in a single newspaper, movie, or
hit song as in the broader system of meaning of which these depictions
are a part. For ideological analysis, the key is the fit between the images
and words in a specific media text and ways of thinking about, even
defining, social and cultural issues.
contemporary lifestyle and items that are well
known and generally accepted, cultural
patterns that are widespread within a
population; also called pop culture.
Jade n Shel
Popular culture, sometimes abbreviated to pop culture,
consists of widespread cultural elements in any given society.
Such elements are perpetuated through that society's
vernacular language or an established lingua franca. It
comprises the daily interactions, needs and desires and
cultural 'moments' that make up the everyday lives of the
mainstream. It can include any number of practices, including
those pertaining to cooking, clothing, consumption, mass
media and the many facets of entertainment such as sports
and literature. (Compare meme.) Popular culture often
contrasts with a more exclusive, even elitist "high culture,
that is, the culture of ruling social groups.
Pop culture finds its expression in the mass circulation of
items from areas such as fashion, music, sport and film. The
world of pop culture has had a particular influence on art from
the early 1960s on, through Pop Art. According to
popeducation.org, when modern pop culture began during the
early 1950's, it was harder for adults to participate. Today,
most adults, their kids and grandchildren "participate" in pop
culture directly or indirectly.
Jade n Shel
A stereotype is – a conventional, formulaic and over simplified
conception, opinion or image.
An example of a stereotype is…gay men e.g., Jack off ‘Will and
Grace’. He is very camp and effeminate. He is very bothered
about his hair and how he looks and what people think of him.
His mannerisms are very camp.
Stereotypes are often displayed in the media in situation
comedies. Stereotypes often create much debate in the
modern world, particularly with social status. E.g. men are the
main money earners and women should stay at home and look
after the children.
Realism
Definition
1. Interest in or concern for the actual or real, as

distinguished from the abstract, speculative, etc.
2. The tendency to view or represent things as they
really are.
The relationship between particular mass

media forms/examples and the "reality"
that is being represented.
Example
If there was a volcano eruption on TV it

would be shown through sounds, peoples
reactions and visual images of terror to
show it to be realistic and believable. If
there was somebody acting joyful at it, it
would not contain ‘realism’.
Example
If there was a volcano eruption on TV it

would be shown through sounds, peoples
reactions and visual images of terror to
show it to be realistic and believable. If
there was somebody acting joyful at it, it
would not contain ‘realism’.
What is
verisimilitude?
Verisimilitude is the state or quality of something that exhibits the

appearance of truth or reality. In literature and theatre, a work with a high
degree of verisimilitude means that the work is very realistic and
believable; work of this nature are often said to be ‘true to life’.

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A Level Media Studies

Key Terms Explained

“Theories of hegemony attempt to explain how dominant groups

1. Interest in or concern for the actual or real, as

The relationship between particular mass

If there was a volcano eruption on TV it

If there was a volcano eruption on TV it

Verisimilitude is the state or quality of something that exhibits the

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