Classwork: Theories

Here I will summarise all the theories I learned during class (most of the material are taught by the teacher). Most of the notes are in written form, however I will be transferring most of them digitally here This post is written by me (Chelsea). 

REPRESENTATION THEORY (STUART HALL)

Below I created a spider web diagram based on our classroom presentation taught by our teacher for easier comprehension: 

GENRE THEORY (STEVE NEALE)

Below I created a spider web diagram based on our classroom presentation taught by our teacher for easier comprehension: 

USES & GRATIFICATION (BULMER & KATZ) 

Below is the notes I took on the reasons why people consume the media in a form of simple bullet points:

• Diversion: A form of escapism from the stress and strains of life as a form of distraction or entertainment due to. the mundaneness of the real world 
• Personal identity: The media supplies us with role models and ways of understand our place in society 
• Social relationships: People make connections with performers they see on the screen & people form relationships with people in society when discussing a media product
• Surveillance: Audiences use the media to gather information

VAN ZOONEN (FEMININE DISCOURSE)

Below are the notes (mostly just the main ideas so I could refer back to this easily) I took based on our classroom presentation and our teacher's explanation. I also watched a Youtube video from Mrs Fisher's channel to help me gain deeper understanding on this theory:

• Gender is constructed through discourse
• Gender is not fixed, it is constantly being remade through cultural, social and historical contexts 
• Feminine and masculine ideals have changed overtime
• Gender representation in the past were simple, now gender representation is more complex 
• There are constant representations in the media of men in positions of power and women being subservient to them reinforces the patriarchy (men being in control in the real world)

LAURA MULVEY  (MALE GAZE THEORY) 

Below are the notes I summarised of my individual research on this theory from a source from studiobinder.com: 

• Definition: Portraying women as objects of sexual desire and defines their identity in relation to a male character
• The portrayal of women are constructed in an objectifying and limited manner to satisfy the psychological needs of men
• Most scriptwriters in Hollywood are men, so their narratives usually follow a male protagonist who saves the world and rescues the girl 
• As Laura Mulvey says, "The presence of woman is an indispensable element of spectacle in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to work against the development of the story line."
• Movie example: In "Aladdin" live action released in 2019, Jasmine has her own goals and stands up for herself throughout the film, however she is still objectified by the story and every man in it. 
• How to subvert the male gaze: Swapping genders by take a role a women always plays and cast a man instead (e.g. the character swap in Jumanji).

INTERTEXTUALITY 

Below are the notes I summarised of my individual research on intertextuality (especially homage) from a source from studiobinder.com and other resources:

• Definition: It is anytime one media text is referenced in another text
• Homage is a part of intertextuality, defined as a respectful imitation of another work or deliberately reference or tribute to a previous text to express admiration or influence. It is a way of acknowledging and honoring past creations
• Other examples of intertextuality includes Allusion (A direct reference to another work) or Parody (An exaggerated imitation of a work, often for comedic effect)

ANDREW GOODWIN (MUSIC VIDEO THEORY) 

• The 7 key points from this theory: 
• All music videos have certain genre characteristics depending on the genre: The visuals of the music video should be styled to suit the genre of music (in terms of technical elements)
• More often than not there is a relationship between the visuals and the lyrics: The lyrics of the song are represented with images (either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting)
• There is a relationship between the music and the lyrics: The tone and atmosphere of the visual reflects the music's melody 
• The demand of the record label will be evident in the video: The record label have a certain amount of control over the artist they sign, so how artists are represented in the media is up to the record label
• Artist iconography: Ensuring that the artist is dressed in a particular way through the range of their videos, allowing the artist to be easily recognised by the audience
• The notion of looking: Music videos demand the audience to be voyeuristic (increasing the video's attractiveness particularly to males, where females are usually objectified)
• Intertextual

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━•❃°•° Self reflection°•°❃ •━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓

Similar to the technical elements blog post, this blog post includes my summary of every theory I've studied in class as well as my own research. This is also crucial for my project later on since, by putting these theories into practice, I will be able to comprehend and demonstrate my understanding of the meaning I am attempting to convey in every idea I develop that aligns with these theories, which adds depth and clarity. Given that our concept will center on topics such as love, relationships, heartbreak, confidence, and femininity, these theories will help me in exploring the various ways in which the audience might interpret these messages. These theories can also explain to me why we used all of our technical elements and media language, not at random, but intentionally. I hope by learning each of these theories, I can apply it effectively to my project.

┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━•   ❃°•°❀°•°❃   •━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛