Media theories are divided into Media Language, Representation, Media Industries and Audience. Media Language theories, such as Semiotics by Barthes and Genre Theory by Neale, explore how media communicates meaning and evolves genres. Representation theories, including those by Hall and Mulvey, analyse how media portrays social groups, focusing on issues like stereotypes and gender objectification. In Media Industries, Hesmondhalgh’s Cultural Industries theory examines how conglomerates like Disney control cultural production. Audience theories, like Bandura’s Media Effects and Shirky’s End of Audience, explore how media impacts and engages viewers, highlighting the shift to active participation in the digital age.

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Semiotics - Roland Barthes

Barthes’ semiotics explores how texts communicate meaning through signs and symbols, distinguishing between denotation (literal meaning) and connotation (associated meanings). This theory also examines how constructed meanings become naturalised as myths.

Useful For: Analysing advertisements and media texts, such as product branding or political messaging, where signs and symbols are used to convey complex ideas and ideologies.

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Narratology - Tzvetan Todorov

Todorov’s narratology theory posits that narratives typically follow a structure moving from equilibrium to disequilibrium and back to a new equilibrium, with resolutions often carrying ideological significance.

Useful For: Examining the plot structures of films and television shows, particularly those with a clear journey from order to disorder and back, like detective or adventure series.

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Genre Theory - Steve Neale

Neale’s genre theory highlights that genres are defined by repetition and variation. Genres evolve by borrowing from and overlapping with each other and exist within specific economic and institutional contexts.

Useful For: Investigating the development of film genres such as horror or sci-fi, and understanding how contemporary films blend elements from various genres.

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Structuralism - Claude Lévi-Strauss

Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism focuses on understanding texts through their underlying structures, emphasizing binary oppositions (e.g., good vs. evil) and how resolving these oppositions can reveal ideological significance.

Useful For: Analysing narratives in literature and media that use binary oppositions, such as moral conflicts in fairy tales or character dynamics in drama series.

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Postmodernism - Jean Baudrillard

Baudrillard’s postmodernism theory argues that in postmodern culture, the distinction between reality and media representation has blurred, leading to a state of hyperreality where media images become more real than reality itself.

Useful For: Critiquing media representations in reality TV or advertising where simulations and representations become central to the experience.

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REPRESENTATION

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Representation - Stuart Hall

Hall’s theory of representation explores how meaning is produced through language and codes, how stereotyping simplifies and reduces people to a few characteristics, and how these processes often reflect power imbalances.

Useful For: Analysing media portrayals of different social groups, such as race, gender, and class, in news media, films, and advertisements.

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Identity - David Gauntlett

Gauntlett’s theory of identity suggests that media provide diverse tools and resources for constructing identities, moving beyond traditional singular representations of gender and identity.

Useful For: Examining how contemporary media offers varied and complex representations of identity, including gender and sexuality, in TV shows and online platforms.

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Feminist Theory - Liesbet van Zoonen

Van Zoonen’s feminist theory examines how gender is constructed through discourse and varies with cultural and historical contexts. It also looks at how the female body is objectified in patriarchal cultures.

Useful For: Analysing the representation of women in mainstream media, such as film and advertising, and how these representations reflect broader societal attitudes towards gender.

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Feminist Theory - bell hooks

Hooks’ feminist theory focuses on feminism as a political struggle against sexism, and how intersecting factors like race and class impact oppression and discrimination.

Useful For: Exploring how media representations intersect with issues of race, class, and gender, and how these intersections affect portrayal and perception in media.

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Gender Performativity - Judith Butler

Butler’s theory of gender performativity posits that gender identity is constructed through repeated performances and expressions, with no inherent identity behind these expressions.

Useful For: Analysing media portrayals of gender and how identity is constructed through performance in television shows, films, and online content.

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Male Gaze Theory - Laura Mulvey

Mulvey’s male gaze theory argues that Hollywood cinema is structured around a male perspective that objectifies women as sexual objects, influencing how women are portrayed and perceived.

Useful For: Critiquing the portrayal of women in films and media, particularly how female characters are visually and narratively objectified.

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Ethnicity and Postcolonial Theory - Paul Gilroy

Gilroy’s theory explores how colonial discourses continue to shape contemporary attitudes towards race and ethnicity, and how civilizationist ideas create racial hierarchies and notions of otherness.

Useful For: Analysing postcolonial narratives and representations in media that reflect or challenge colonial legacies and racial hierarchies.​

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INDUSTRY

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Power and Media Industries - Curran and Seaton

Curran and Seaton’s theory examines how media industries are dominated by a few powerful companies driven by profit, and how this concentration limits diversity and creativity.

Useful For: Investigating the impact of media ownership on content diversity, such as in news media or entertainment industries.

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Regulation - Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt

Livingstone and Lunt’s theory looks at the tension in media regulation between protecting citizens and ensuring consumer choice, especially in the context of global media and digital technologies.

Useful For: Analysing changes in media regulation policies and their impact on media content and audience protection in the digital age.

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Cultural Industries - David Hesmondhalgh

Hesmondhalgh’s theory focuses on how cultural industries manage risk and maximize audiences through integration and formatting, and how the internet’s radical potential is contained by commercial interests.

Useful For: Exploring how cultural products are produced and marketed, and how internet content is shaped by commercial pressures.

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AUDIENCE

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Media Effects - Albert Bandura

Bandura’s media effects theory suggests that media can directly influence audience attitudes and behaviors, especially through modeling of aggressive or transgressive behavior.

Useful For: Investigating how media portrayals of violence or aggression impact audience behavior and attitudes.

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Cultivation Theory - George Gerbner

Gerbner’s cultivation theory posits that long-term exposure to media representations shapes viewers’ perceptions of reality and reinforces dominant ideologies.

Useful For: Analysing how repeated media portrayals of certain themes or stereotypes influence public perception and societal norms.

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Reception Theory - Stuart Hall

Hall’s reception theory examines how audiences interpret media messages based on different positions: dominant, negotiated, or oppositional.

Useful For: Studying audience responses to media texts, such as how different groups interpret films or news stories in varied ways.

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Fandom - Henry Jenkins

Jenkins’ theory on fandom explores how fans actively engage with and reinterpret media texts, constructing their own meanings and participating in a participatory culture.

Useful For: Analysing fan communities and how they engage with and transform media content, such as through fan fiction or online discussions.

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‘End of Audience’ Theories - Clay Shirky

Shirky’s theory argues that digital technologies have transformed media consumers into active producers and sharers of content, challenging the traditional passive audience model.

Useful For: Examining the impact of social media and digital platforms on audience engagement and content creation, highlighting the shift from passive consumption to active participation.

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