Theories and Theorists

Theory And Theorists

Steve Neale- Repetition and Difference.
He said genres are instances of repetition and difference and that difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre.

Stuart Hall- Reception Theory  
The theory states that media texts are encoded by the producer meaning that whoever produces the text fills the product with values and messages. The text is then encoded by the audience in different ways.

Albert Bandura- Media Effects-The idea that media can implant ideas in the mind of the audience directly.
The idea that audiences acquire new styles of conduct through modelling.
The idea that media representations of transgressive behaviour, such as violence/ physical aggression, can lead audience members to intimidate those forms of behaviour.



George Gerbner- Cultivation Theory- Cultivation theory suggests that exposure to television, over time, subtly "cultivates" viewers' perceptions of reality.

Barthes- says texts may be 'open' (i.e. unravelled in a lot of different ways) or 'closed' (there is only one obvious thread to pull on). Barthes also decided that the threads that you pull on to try and unravel meaning are called narrative codes. Also, he is one of the leading theorists of semiotics, the study of signs. He states that every sign have also have connotations, further meanings, that is implied.

Hypodermic Needle Theory-  The theory explains how media controls what the audience views and listens to and the effects, which can be immediate or later in future.

 

 

Galtung and Ruge- News Values- In 1965 some media researchers analysed international news stories to find out what kind of stories came to top of the news 'agenda' worldwide. Their findings led to them creating a list of 'news values' - a scoring system. A story that scores high more likely to make the front page