Theories, Issues and Debates A2
Barthes (1967) – Cultural Myth. E.g the Cinderella or princess myth (all women are passive, waiting to be rescued from her miserable life by the love of a rich, handsome man) and men are active, economically powerful providers and a woman’s key role is to be sexually alluring
Fiske (1982) – tendency to read connotations as self-evident truth, or denotations. However connotations are codes that are particular to specific cultures. Audiences in different cultures may interpret media texts differently. Media may attempt to limit the interpretations (e.g. newspaper photographs are anchored by the captions).
Structuralism – looks for patterns across texts Barthes (1974) argued that there are narrative codes identifiable across a range of media texts. Action codes, Enigmatic codes and Symbolic codes (binary oppositions)
Post structuralism – emphasises the different range of meanings and interpretations that an audience can create.
Antonio Gramsci – hegemony (Marxist perspective). Popular culture contributes to the manufacturing of consent for bourgeoisie power within capitalist societies. E.g. repeated media representations of middle-class people in positions of power, control and leadership, such as reading news or ‘experts’ suggest that class division in society are ‘common sense’ and natural. This can also be applied to power relations found in gender, sexuality and race.
Chomsky and Herman (1988) – argue that media manipulates populations to prevent them from rebelling against the powerful dominant classes. The media are said to ‘filter information available through the media and therefore control the audience’s ideas and thoughts. This is not always a deliberate but may be driven by the media institutions’ need for profit and to appeal to consumers.
Criticism of Marxism – assumes the audience are passive.
Stuart Hall (1981) – alternative representation of hegemony. Suggests that popular culture is a site for the contestation of ideologies, values and hegemony, and does not merely manufacture consent. E.g. many texts are polysemic.
Liberal pluralism- challenges Marxism. Society is made up of competing interest groups and not just the bourgeoisie. Media conveys a range of views and opinions e.g. TV shows broadcast competing party political issues. Media audiences are free to select and reject a range of opinions, views and ideologies offered to them by the media.
Political economy perspective – argues that the homogenisation of culture and communication through globalisation leads to shared values and ideologies.
Cultural imperialism perspective – argues that American values and ideologies are imposed upon the rest of the world through media texts. (The USA dominates world media with 85% of the global film market and 68% of the TV market).
Globalisation – Disney, News Corporation & Time Warner distribute their media texts across all continents on the globe. This distribution is facilitated by satellite and the internet enabling communications to travel from one side of the globe to the other, instantaneously. It enable events that are taking place in distant countries to be presented to us on our TVs and internet ‘live’ e.g. coverage of 9/11.
Feminism (late 1960’s, early 70’s)- emphasis on sexuality and appearance in the representation of women in the media. Feminists argue that social divisions in society benefit men in terms of work and educational opportunities, wages and access to political and economic power. Media representations are seen by feminists to be ‘naturalising’ the power imbalance by emphasising that woman’s role is a domestic one, as mothers, cares and housewives
Laura Mulvey (1975) ‘Visual Pleasure & Narrative Cinema’ argued that mainstream Hollywood film was the product of a male-dominated and controlled industry and that in such texts:
Gammon and Marshment (1988) – criticise Mulvey and suggest that recent texts have represented men as objects for the female gaze and suggest that women viewers are not passive but active. They stress the range of interpretations that are available from any text and that there have been a range of media representations for men and women to view scopophilically.
Post-feminism - with the introduction of equal pay for equal work, equal rights legislation as well as the increased numbers of women in both higher education and the workforce it has been argued that women have new opportunities, options and choices, making feminism no longer necessary. Post-feminists argue that media texts take a playful and irreverent attitude to the traditional gender divisions of the past. E.g. Spice Girls ‘Wannabe’ (1996) suggests that women could have it all in a new consumer world.
Judith Butler (1999) suggests that gender is not the result of nature but is socially constructed. However a number of exaggerated, disruptive and ‘tongue-in-cheek’ representations of masculinity draw attention to the idea that gender is socially constructed and cause what she calls ‘gender trouble’. E.g Amy Winehouse mixes an excess of traditional 1950’s-60’s femininity in a knowing ay by wearing retro dress that emphasises the female shape and long hair with a range of tattoos and wild drunkenness that would once have been associated with machismo. Similarly the excessive portrayal of suburban femininity in Desperate Housewives (Ch4 2004 - ) suggest that there is nothing natural or ideal about the role of the American housewife.
Post- Colonialism – as theoretically no colonial empires remain in existences, the present era is known as ‘post-colonial’. However this suggests that the influence of colonialism is a thing of the past. Post-colonialism emphasises the importance of cultural, political and military dominance of the past rather than the new, technological inter-related medial world of globalisation. The dominance is the absence of non-white images in the media, which visually suggest the dominance of the white culture. Post-colonialist argue that in looking at media images you should consider what is not there as much as what is.
Edward Said (1995) Orientalism – western culture is constructed against and assumed ‘other’. This sense of the ‘other’ is said to be embedded in European culture. The Orient is held in fascination and fear. E.g. The Painted Veil (2006) Chinese culture is portrayed as fascinating and threatening – the British doctor’s wife is intimidated and physically threatened by local Chinese; whilst China is represented as a place of sexual freedom for Westerners, both alluring and fascinating.
Diaspora identity – many people whose families suffered forced or economically driven migration who have experienced racism in their country of residence have developed a sense of ‘Otherness’ and diaspora identity. This alienation or otherness is emphasised by a lack of any cultural representations of their lives or experiences in contemporary media. It is not always negative however, Gurinder Chada’s post-colonial feel in Bride and Prejudice (2004) reworking the narrative of Jane Austen’s 19th century novel Pride and Prejudice with a Bollywood musical is said to be a positive example of this post-colonial identity
Alvarado (1987)- argues there are four types of representation for members of the black community:
Representations and stereotypes of race and gender are often constructed in terms of binary oppositions, suggesting that individuals can be divided into two diametrically opposed groups, for example black and white, British and immigrants or Christians and Asians. Such representations exaggerate difference and minimise the similarities between people in different groups, which can legitimise often negative attitudes and values that emphasise the boundaries and differences between groups.
Representation of terrorists – defined by a number of key characteristics:
Asylum seekers or immigrants – represented as lazy, threatening individual who survives illegally in Britain by living off the British social system. The tone and language of reporting of these groups has led to a moral panic with demands that government action be taken.
Stanley Cohen (1972) Moral Panics– research into youth groups in 1960’s led to the concept of moral panics. Occurs when a society sees itself threatened by the values and activities of a group who are stigmatised as deviant and seen as threatening to mainstream society’s values, ideologies and/or way of life. In the last 20 yrs there have been moral panics about: HIV/AIDS; ecstasy and designer drugs (meow meow); social security scroungers; teenage pregnancy; binge drinking and teenage girls’ drinking; junk food, poor diet and obesity, especially in relation to children; asylum seekers; religious fundamentalism; dangerous dogs; terrorism; internet pornography; gun and knife crime.