Media language

Semiotics - science of signs and symbols
Form - structure of the media product e.g radio, music video


Charles Sanders Pierce (1931)
'we only think in signs'
'nothing is a sign unless interperated as a sign'
Pierce suggests there is 3 types of signs:
Icon/iconic: a symbol/sign that anyone can recognise e.g Empire State Building is linked with New York or  the Eiffel Tower is linked to Paris
Inder/indexical: linked directly to the concept e.g a clock linked to time
Symbol/symbolic: signifier does not resemble the signified e.g. national flags

Sven E Clarsson (1999)
Believes music artists represent themselves as one of three things:

Commercial exhibitionisnts - presenting themselves as a brand and selling their appearance e.g 'Drunk in love' Beyonce (2013) or 'Jenny from the block'  Jennifer Lopez (2002)




Televised bard - the artist representing themselves as part of the story or as the storyteller e.g 'Seven years' Lukas Graham (2016)



Electronic shaman - Big budget productions where the artists has immortal powers or adops an alter ego of another iconic character, personality or superhero e.g. 'scream' Michael Jackson (1995) or 'Roar' Katy Perry (2013)






Feminist and stereotype theory

Male gaze - objectifying of womens bodies in the media have been constant.

Laura Mulvey (1975)
Dominant point of view is masculine. The female body is displayed for the male gaze to provide male erotic pleasure

O ' Sullivan et al (1998)
Details that a stereotype is a label that involves a process of categorisation and evaluation.

Narrative

Tim O'Sullivan et al (1998)

• All text tells us some kind of story.
• Media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves. Usually the story of us as a culture or set of cultures.
• Shows that what we experience when we 'read' a story is to understand the set of constructions or conventions.

Narrative : The structure of a story

Diegesis :The fictional time and space implied by the narrative - the world in which the story takes place

Verisimilitude : To engage us it must appear real to us as we watch it.

Bordwell and Thompson (1997)

• Offer two distinctions between story and plot which relate to the diegetic world of the narrative.
• Fabula (story) events in the narrative that we see and infer. 
• Syuzhet (plot) everything visible and audibly present before us 

Tzvetan Todorov (1977)

1. •Stage 1: A point of stable equilibrium, where everything is satisfied, calm and normal.
2. •Stage 2: This stability is disrupted by some kind of force, which creates a state of disequilibrium.
3. •Stage 3: Recognition that a disruption has taken place.
4. •Stage 4: It is only possible to re-create equilibrium through action directed against the disruption.
5. •Stage 5: Restoration of a new state of equilibrium. The consequences of the reaction is to change the world of the narrative and/or the characters so that the final state of equilibrium in not the same as the initial state.

Barthes (1977) 

Narrative works with five different codes and the enigma code works to keep up setting problems or puzzles for the audience. His action code (a look, significant word, movement) is based on our cultural and stereotypical understanding of actions that act as a shorthand to advancing the narrative.

Kate Domaille (2001)

Identifies 8 narrative types:

•Achilles: The fatal flaw that leads to the destruction of the previously flawless, or almost flawless, person, e.g. Superman, Fatal Attraction.

•Candide: The indomitable hero who cannot be put down, e.g. Indiana Jones, James Bond, Rocky etc.

•Cinderella: The dream comes true, e.g. Pretty Woman.

•Circe: The Chase, the spider and the fly, the innocent and the victim e.g. Smokey And The Bandit, Duel, The Terminator.

•Faust: Selling your soul to the devil may bring riches but eventually your soul belongs to him, e.g. Bedazzled, Wall Street.

•Orpheus: The loss of something personal, the gift that is taken away, the tragedy of losss or the journey which follows the loss, e.g. The Sixth Sense, Love Story, Born On the Fourth Of July.

•Romeo And Juliet: The love story, e.g. Titanic.

•Tristan and Iseult: The love triangle, Man loves woman…unfortunately one or both of them are already spoken for, or a third party intervenes, e.g. Casablanca.

Vladimir Propp (1928)

Identified 7 broad characters:

•The villain - struggles against the hero.

•The donor - prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.

•The (magical) helper - helps the hero in the quest.

•The princess and her father - gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished.

•The dispatcher - character who makes the lack known  and sends the hero off.

•The hero or victim/seeker hero - reacts to the donor, weds the princess.

•[False hero] - takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.

Representation

Representation

Intertextuality

Text alludes to or references to another text. Julia Kristeva (1969) literacy critic and sociologist; “the shaping of texts meaning by another text”.

“The use of an intertextual reference in any texts is the absorption and transformation of another”

Some referencing is iconic and the audience can easily remember and recognize the style. Referencing can reinforce nostalgia and familiarity.

·         Bettie Page  -  1950’s glamour model and pin up.

·         Divine - US actor and drag queen

·         Pierre and Gilles - fashion and art photographers

·         Blacksploitation  film; Jackie Brown (film) - typography

·         Russ Meyer - US director linked with sexploitation films

·         Roy Lichtenstein - US pop artist

·         Thelma and Louise - feminist focused film

·         Zip pan (shot) - 1950s  Batman

·         Wonder Woman and Captain America

Genre

What is genre?

Genre helps us study texts and audience responses to texts by dividing them into categories based on common elements. 

Daniel Chandler (2001): argues that the word genre comes from the French (and originally Latin) word for 'kind' or 'class'. The term is widely used in rhetoric, literary theory, media theory to refer to a distinctive type of ‘text’.

All genres have sub genres. 

Barry Keith Grant (1995): Genre divided up into more specific categories that allow audiences to identify them specifically by their familiar and what become recognisable characteristics

Steve Neale (1995): “Genres are not ‘systems’ they are processes of systematization” – i.e. They are dynamic and evolve over time.

Jason Mittell (2001): Genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries of media texts and operate within industry, audience, and cultural practices as well.

Rick Altman (1999): Genre offers audiences ‘a set of pleasures’

•         Emotional Pleasures: The emotional pleasures offered to audiences of genre films are particularly significant when they generate a strong audience response.
•          Visceral Pleasures: Visceral pleasures (‘visceral’ refers to internal organs) are ‘gut’ responses and are defined by how the film’s stylistic construction elicits a physical effect upon its audience. This can be a feeling of revulsion, kinetic speed, or a ‘roller coaster ride’.
•          Intellectual Puzzles: Certain film genres such as the thriller or the ‘whodunit’ offer the pleasure in trying to unravel a mystery or a puzzle. Pleasure is derived from deciphering the plot and forecasting the end or the being surprised by the unexpected.

COMEDY OR ANIMATION ARE NOT GENRES

They're styles or treatments

The Strengths Of Genre Theory

The main strength of genre theory is that everybody uses it and understands it – media experts use it to study media texts, the media industry uses it to develop and market texts and audiences use it to decide what texts to consume.

The potential for the same concept to be understood by producers, audiences and scholars makes genre a useful critical tool. Its accessibility as a concept also means that it can  be applied across a wide range of texts.

Genre Themes

David Bordwell (1989): 'any theme may appear in any genre‘.

Horror films, for example, are basically just modern fairy tales and often act as morality plays in which people who break society’s rules are punished.

Fear of the unknown – the monster is the ‘monstrous other’ i.e. anything that is scary because it is foreign or different.

Sex = death – in horror movies, especially Slasher movies, sex is immoral and must be punished, werewolf movies can be seen as a metaphor for puberty, vampires can be as metaphors for sexually transmitted diseases or rape etc.

The breakdown of society – post-apocalyptic movies are about our fear (or secret desire for) of the breakdown of society. The collapse of civilisation results in human kind reverting to their animal instincts.

David Buckingham (1993): 'Genre is not... Simply "given" by the culture: rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change’.

Coursework brief

A promotion package for the release of an album, to produce and music video promo video together with:

• A cover for its release part of a digipak (cd/dvd package)
• A magazine advertisement for the digipak (cd/dvd package)