AuDiEnCe ThEoRy...

...Uses and Gratification...

We all have different uses for the media and we make choices over what we want to watch. In other words, when we encounter a media text, it is not just some kind of mindless entertainment- we are expecting to get something from it: some kind of gratification...
Information
Personal Identity
Social Interaction
Entertainment

...Reception Theory...
The way individuals received and interpreted a text, and how their individual circumstances (gender, class, age and ethnicity) affects their reading...
David Morley sees the media as a routine of people’s lives and that audience's read texts in different ways. The reading of a text can often depend upon expectations and even the environment the audience sees the text in...
Using recognised codes and conventions, and drawing upon audience expectations relating to aspects such as genre and use of stars, the producers can position the audience and therefore create a certain amount of agreement on what the code means. This is known as a preferred reading...

...Effects theory...
The effects theory was founded bythe Frankfurt School...it argues that the audience is passive and that they are manipulated by hegemonic values..
It looks at the hypodermic needle which is a term used to descbribe when values and ideologies are being injected into a specific audience..

xXx

MuLvEy...

'ThE MaLe GaZe'

Laura Mulvey

As my independent study is studying the representation of women I now have a greater knowlege of laura mulvey's theory - ' The Male Gaze'. Her theory looks at the way in which men look at women in the media. She dicusses the way male audiences look upon women as sexual objects who are there to satisfy their needs, there perpose is to-be-looked-at or as laura mulvey states "has the quality to-be-looked-at-ness". Films are often shot in a males point of veiw ecouraging men to look at women in this desirable way...

I agree with what laura mulvey is trying to say...

Women are ofetn objectified in the media and it is obvious that their perpose is to satisfy a mans desires. The reaon why many films do objectify women and are often shot in a males point of veiw is because the majority of successful directors are male. In most cases this would lead the women in the film to be represented as the perfect woman in a mans eyes therefore causing them to be looked upon as objects which furfill the male audeince desires. However there are more women in films that could be argued as strong, independent and active characters which goes against Mulveys theory but not often seen.

MaRxIsM...

..MaRxIsM MaRxIsM MaRxIsM MaRxIsM..

Two social classes

Proletariat (working class) – who sell their labour and don’t own production

Bourgeoisie – who own production and employ the proletariat.

------->Wealthy bourgeoisie – do not need to work

------->Petty bourgeoisie – employ others and also work themselves.

Marxism and The Media

Media producers maintain the status quo

Culture industries are profit motivated and often dumb down texts

Mass media is entertainment for the proletariats and often drip feeds them ideologies and beliefs which is also known as the hypodermic needle

Althusser

ISA works alongside the Repressive State Apparatuses to maintain the bourgeois ideologies of:

Religion

Education

Family values

Legal and political system

Political system

Cultural and communication systems

Eisenstein and montage
Eisenstein took a structurelist approach, arguing that cinema is designed to make the audience believe in capitalist propaganda and ideologies. Therefore in his films the narrative is shown through the montage.

Williams

Low culture...suitable for workers e.g. films, TV

High culture...for the bourgeoisie, e.g. ballet, opera, theatre