Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. 

Binary Oppositions :

– texts can be seen to either support the dominant ideologies of a society, which would make it a reactionary text ,or to challenge, question or undermines the dominant ideologies of society, in which case it could be seen as a radical text.

– individual texts as a set of binary opposites.

CONCEPT	strongly agree	agree	neutral	agree	strongly agree	OPPOSITE CONCEPT
male	✔					female
white			✔			black
poor		✔				rich
straight		✔				gay
urban	✔					rural
mature				✔		childish
critical of government	✔					supporting of government.
educated			✔			stupid
youths	✔					old people

Seymour chatman;

kernels: key moments in the plot/narritive struchtue

satellites: embellishments, developments, aesthetics

This theory allows students to break down a narrative into 2 distinct elements. Those elements which are absolutely essential to the story / plot / narrative development, which are known as KERNELS and those moments that could be removed and the overall logic would not be disturbed, known as SATELLITES. Satellites can therefore be thought as useful to develop character, emotion, location, time and so on, but NOT ESSENTIAL

Roland Bathes:

Proairetic code: action, movement, causation

Hermenuetic code: reflection, dialogue, character or thematic development

Enigma code: the way in which intrigue and ideas are raised – which encourage an audience to want more information.

moving image products are either based around ‘doing’ / ‘action’ or ‘talking’ / ‘reflection’.