Theoretical Research
AUTURE THEORY
• French critics believe that film directors should impose a personal vision on their films. the argument is that a director such as Hitchcock featured many creative features in his films.
• These included certain camera set ups and movements. In his film psycho we see this when Norman's mother is stabbing Arbogast. in this shot it is a low angle shot of the knife connoting the power it has, and the mother has over Arbogast.
• When studying this theory you would identify common threads and themes running through a directors price of work. And if it is possible to notice a certain directors signature in some ways, this then might be possible to argue that the might qualify for the auteur status.
• An example of this is with Steven Spielberg is often quoted with this context. Many of Spielberg's films involve people having to confront the other. in close encounters Spielberg makes a reference to the auteur theory he casted the french director Francois Truffaut as the director of the project, Truffaut was one of the original inventors of the Auteur theory when he was a film critique
GENRE THEORY
• The word genre means 'type' or 'category'.
Genre theory places a media in relation to
other media. iconography defines what
genre a text will be placed into. Many
genres, for example horror, they depend
on shared cultural values rather than a
fixed iconography or setting.
• By having a genre it helps the audience
and the institutions make a decisions on
what they want to watch. Each genre has
their own conventions which evolve over
time. And changes within the genre show
changes within society.
• Producers can use the audiences expectation of the genre to their advantage by manipulating the conventions to make new hybrid genres.
• We can apply uses and gratifications to the genre because audience members get certain pleasures from watching certain genres of movies. One pleasure may be recognizing the features of a particular genre because we are familiar with it. Certain genres offer emotional pleasures such as empathy and escapism.
• Steve Neal argued that there is no
pleasure without difference. we may
also enjoy the stretching of a certain
genre and enjoy the constant change of
expectations. whereas Rick Altman
argues that genres are usually defined
by their iconography for example
western have guns and horses and
horror have blood and gore. for
producers a genre is a template for
what text or media product they will
make. for the audience it is weather or
not they like or dislike the formula
chosen for the film.
AUDIENCE THEORIES • Audience members bring social and cultural
experiences when ready a certain type of
media/text. There are 3 theories which we can
apply to audiences the first is the effects model.
The power relies on the message of the text. This
theory is sometimes called the Hypodermic Model.
This means that the messages from the media
product are injected into the audience this is
meaning that the audience are passive within the
theory. The Bobo doll experiment is an example of
the Hypodermic syringe theory this proved that
young children copied violent behavior this was
done in 1961 by Alburt Bandura. within this
experiment children watched videos of adults
attacking a toy clown. The children were taken into
a room where there were toys where children
AUDIENCE THEORIES
• All the theories, the audience go
through a process with no control over
them and they will respond a like.
• The uses and gratifications model, this is the
opposite to the effects model. Within this theory the
audience is an active members. The audience uses
the text; the text doesn’t use the audience. The
audience use this text for pleasures and
gratification, within this theory the power lies with
the audience this means that people like wikinomics
need to get used to the fact that we have digital
natives who take the power from media texts. This
theory is based on around how the audience uses
the theory and what they do with it.
• The audience are free to reject, use or play the text.
Audiences use the text for Escapism, information,
pleasure, personal identity.
USES AND GRATIFICATIONS
• The audience is in control of the media and how
it helps them. For example relaxation and help
with personal, social and aggression issues.
The theory suggests that the consumption of
violent images can be helpful. That the
audience will act out their impulses through
watching media violence. This means that the
need for violence has been settled and they are
less likely to commit violent acts.
RECEPTION THEORY
• A different approach was designed by Stuart Hall in 1970. He said that texts were encoded and then the audience will then decode the text. This theory suggests that the produces makes the text which is encoded with a certain message and/or meaning which they want the audience to see. Sometimes the audience will get the correct decoded message and will then understand the meaning and/or message the producer wanted to portray within their text. But some times the audience will then either reject or accept the message and/or meaning making the audience Active.
CULMINATION THEORY• This is when you keep being shown a
more dominant theory you will slowly
begin to accept it. This can be linked
with the desentisation theory. Where
the more you are shown a theory they
less you being to notice/ or care about
it.
• Where as sentisation theory suggests
that the more you are shown a more
dominant theory the more you disagree
with it.
TWO STEP FLOW
• This is when you have an opinion
leader, so someone will watch a media
product this will be the opinion leader
they are active throughout the process.
The opinion leader will then take their
own reading from a media product who
will then take their interpretation. This
mean that the audience is passive
within this process.
RECEPTION ANALYSIS • This then sees the audience as being the most
active and independent. The audience have complete independence over how they read a media product.
• There are three types of ways in which the audience can read texts:
• Dominant and/or preferred: this is when the audience will decode the message from the producer and agreeing with the message and/or meaning.
• Negotiated: this is where the audience neither agree or disagree with the message and/or meaning.
• Oppositional: this is when the encoded message from the producer is recognized but it is then rejected.
IDENTIFICATIONS
This suggests that the mass audience
identifies with the media products for
stress relief, this means that they offer
are Cathartic process.
Recommended