| 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. | |
