| Theory/Theorist | Knowledge | Understanding |
| Noam Chomsky | – He wrote a book called ‘Manufacturing Consent’ – He said that the Media uses the so called ‘truth’ to persuade audiences to conform. – He theorised the 5 Filters of Mass Media (propaganda model): 1. The role of advertising 2. Diversion (Flak) 3. Structures of ownership 4. Finding a common enemy 5. Links with the establishment. – He theorised the idea that the government/ those in power are hand in hand with the media. | – ‘Manufacturing consent’ encapsulates the idea that The Media needs to gain audience approval – The media uses audiences as a product for advertising. – Often, the Media tries to find a common enemy that they can make out to be ‘bad.’ This could be: terrorism, capitalism, other cultures that we aren’t accustomed to. They use this tactic to divert audience attention away from the real problem, the spread of untruth’s and the fact that the media isn’t a “window into the world”, it is tainted by opinion and corruption. |
| Jurgen Habermas | – Transformation of the public sphere – Public vs Private sphere – The Printing Press enabled one place that a different range of opinions and stories could be published at once. – “Arena of public debate” – creating a ‘public opinion’ – Discussion vs Directorial – Libertarian vs Authoritarian – Free vs Slave – He expresses his idea that “once the media is subject to regulation,” the public will lose their ability to share opinion in a public domain. | – Libertarian is the idea that society shouldn’t be governed by dictatorship. The public should be allowed to dictate their own existence. – Authoritarian is the idea that society should be controlled by those in power, everyone should be told what to do. -Habermas’ ideas are fundamental to a society that is inclusive of all opinions. |
| James Curran | – The role of public service broadcasting is to ‘diversify voices’ and create a wide range of programming to cater for age ranges, genders, different personalities. – Regulation of the free press. (LIBERAL FREE PRESS) – Diversity: Ownership, industry etc. – Role of the media -their power/ authority and influence on society. | |
| David Gauntlett | Gauntlett suggests that identity is nonlinear. It is non-binary/objective. – Fluidity of Identity = The idea that identity is a changeable, unstable concept that is ever adapting based on experience and influence. – Negotiated Identity = The ‘middle ground’ in which we find a balance within our identities. How can we display our self expression whilst also complying to societal norms. – Collective Identity = The idea that groups of people who share interests or similar personalities are given a ‘stereotypical’ identity to typecast them into a category. – Constructed Identity | – He says that we live in a “post-traditional society” – Non binary existence Is becoming more of a normality. Negotiated Identity is how we change/ adapt our identities based on the different situations we find ourselves in (who we are with, what we are doing, where we are etc.) |
| Semiotics | – Sign – Code – Convention – Dominant Signifier – Anchorage | |
| CS Pierce | – Symbolic sign (Arbitrary/random) – Indexical sign – Iconic sign | CS Pierce defines the difference between the different types of signs. He says that a Iconic Sign has a physical resemblance to the object it is representing. A symbol has a random/arbitrary link to what it is trying to represent. It is a mutually agreed meaning eg. the fact that the colour blue relates to boys and pink relates to girls. An indexical sign is one that codes for something else. They infer something relating to what is being represented eg. ‘smoke infers fire.’ |
| Ferdinand Saussure | – Signifier – Signified | |
| Roland Barthes | – Signification – Denotation – Connotation – Myth – Ideology – Radical – Reactionary – Paradigm – Syntygm | |
| Harold Laswell | – Wrote a novel called the ‘Propaganda Technique in The World War’ – He created the Linear Communication in 1948. He breaks down this line of communication by identifying: (SENDER, MESSAGE, MEDIUM, RECIEVER, FEEDBACK) Connection between the message sent –> message received. Passive Audience – Laswell wrote around the time of the first world war and looked at propaganda/brainwashing/ how audiences don’t challenge or think about what they engage with. | – This can be described as a ‘HYPODERMIC MODEL OF MEDIA EFFECT’ |
| ‘Hypodermic Needle Theory‘ | – The idea that passive audiences are influenced by the media. They are ‘knocked into submission’ by the injection of the media. | When audiences are being ‘injected’ with media, they are ‘knocked into submission’ and assimilate along with the messages promoted by the media. |
| Paul Lazarfeld | He criticized Laswell’s model, saying that it was too simple and didn’t factor in the different ways messages can be interrupted whilst being ‘sent.’ Rather than looking at the ‘passive’ audience he looks at the ‘active’ audience (how audiences control how they think about what they consume). Martin Moore: “people’s political views are not, as contemporaries thought, much changed by what they read or heard in the media.” He theorises how those who influence us in daily life (parents, friends, teachers etc) can take the media and create their own perceptions. This makes this line of communication subject to bias, interpretation, rejection, amplification, support and change – He created the ‘Two Step Flow Model’ in 1948. Step 1: The media feeds messages to ‘opinion leaders’ Step 2: Opinion leaders influence the ‘masses’ with these messages. |  |
| Uses and Gratifications | Elihu Katz looks at the decision making process that audience go through. He questions: “What do people do with media?” and “What does the media do to people?” Audiences are becoming more active. Individuals choose what they consume based off of their interests and what they hope to gain from it. He defines the different pleasures that media audiences try to extract from the content they engage with: 1. Information / education 2. Empathy and identity 3. Social interaction 4. Entertainment 5. Escapism | |
| Shannon and Weaver | NOISE, ERROR, ENCODING and FEEDBACK. | |
Daily Archives: October 7, 2022
Filters
magazines
SEMIOTICS, PRINT LANGUAGE & REPRESENTATION
dominant ideology of body image
dominant signifier = the man (vin diesel)
dominant blue colour to represent the stereotypical male
negative stereotype of men having to be strong (repetition of losing fat)
constructed reality – men should be strong
collective identity = men all striving to lose weight and be strong ‘build a six pack for life’
counter-type – old people being weak – 69 year old man marathon running
blast, demolish, burn = violent language represents attitude to fat
Steve Neal – genre – genres all contain instances of repetition and differences
- magazines repeat the same idolisation of the ‘standard’ man and woman
Barthes – all narratives share structural features that each narrative weaves together in different ways
- Positive and negative stereotypes
- Counter-types
- Misrepresentation
- Selective representation
- Dominant ideology
- Constructed reality
- Hegemony
- Audience positioning
- Fluidity of identity
- Constructed identity
- Negotiated identity
- Collective identity
The school of life video ‘how to be a man’ presents the ‘cool’ man and the ‘warm’ man. This links to Gauntlets notion that identity is fluid and negotiated. Aklthough this is not a theory we can see examples of the ‘cool’ man and the ‘warm’ man in Men’s Health.
For instance, on the front cover we can see Vin Deiseal positioned as the ‘cool’ man. I can tell this from his alpha-male stance and face expression. Additionally, you can see the ‘warm’ man represented in the contents page.
Men’s Health (UK edition) has a circulation of around 120,000 (down 16% year-on-year and including 40k free copies) and a readership of closer to 1 million. It began as a health magazine in the USA in 1986 and has gradually evolved into a men’s lifestyle magazine. The UK edition launched in 1995.
Although Men’s Health was founded in the US, its international editions have made it the world’s largest men’s magazine brand. These magazines reach over 71 million readers worldwide.
Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, television channels, and television stations, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, Cosmopolitan and Esquire. It owns 50% of the A&E Networks cable network group and 20% of the sports cable network group ESPN, both in partnership with The Walt Disney Company.[4]
In the 1920s and 1930s, Hearst owned the biggest media conglomerate in the world, which included a number of magazines and newspapers in major cities. Hearst also began acquiring radio stations to complement his papers.[16] Hearst saw financial challenges in the early 1920s, when he was using company funds to build Hearst Castle in San Simeon and support movie production at Cosmopolitan Productions. This eventually led to the merger of the magazine Hearst International with Cosmopolitan in 1925.[17]
