What is mediation? Where the media takes something that is real and changes it to their liking this means bias can be applied to what they show.

What is postmodernism? A challenging of authority and recognition of that fact everything is a construct. Denying truth through the concept that everything is a concept. 

What are the two elements that we are most interested in? that a text can have multiple meanings and recognising that everything is a construct.

What was Jean-Francois Lyotard’s ‘Postmodern Condition’? faith in master narratives and claims to universal truth are lost. Any pre-concepts of people being dominant are false.

Religion imperialism

What is Jean Baudrillard’s idea of ‘hyperreality’? constant bombardment of information reality is replaced with hyperreality. The hyperreality is made up and replaced and expectations are false.

Give examples of ‘hyperreal’ texts

• Deadpool
• Bandersnatch
• big brother
• towie
• love island

What is reflexivity and self-consciousness? Play with the conventions of constructed. they are aware they are a text

What is fragmentation & discontinuity? Like pulp fiction you can fragment the narrative

What is pastiche? Its impossible to be original and the present cannibalises the past

What is parody? Thinly veiled replication of the original made to make fun of the original

What is irony? Something that is self-conscious and appears to be doing another thing.

What is kitsch? Mass produced tacky and cheap

What is a bricolage? When something is stitched together using other media texts creating new meaning from the old.

Define ideology

What is a ‘dominant ideology’? it’s the main shared belief system that is generally accepted by society.  Such as religion or class this is the thinking you are taught to believe.

What is an ‘alternative ideology’? this is a way of thinking that is alternate so it has combating opinions to the belief system set by society.

What is capitalism? It is a economic system that allows for private ownership of land, production and produce.

What is Marxism? Its an economic system that gives an equal class system and values the impoverished the same as rich.

Who created the theory and what did they want? Carl Marx created it as a way for the poor majority to revolt against the rich.

Who are the proletariat? It is the poor majority that revolted against the rich.

Who are the bourgeoisie? The exploiters of the working class who took advantage of the working class.

What is Coercive State Apparatus?  Something physically forced upon you to contrast this would have you met with physical force.

What is Ideological State Apparatus? No need to resist the subject is instituted subtly and cant be resisted

What is ‘false consciousness’? a state of mind that has been put upon you so that you don’t realise the real state of the world.

Outline Antonio Gramsci’s argument you should rely on culture and media to brainwash the proletariat in order to change the norms

Outline Theodor Adorno’s argument you should rely on pop culture and star theory to brainwash the majority

Outline Louis Althusser’s argument that the ruling class used texts and media to brainwash the proletariat by passively absorbing. Because of this the portrayal of women and men became altered and made it easy to oppress women and make men go into working.

What are the two ways in which Marxism might be applied to media texts? In star theory and Freudian techniques in film

Auteur theory

What is auteur theory? How do you define it? Auteur means author in French it is the theory that a filmmaker can be identified by their work

What job roles are usually credited as the auteur? Film is a collaborative medium. Director is usually the auteur but can be writer or producer

Give examples of a few filmmakers who might be considered auteurs. What recurring visual elements or themes link their films? The more detail you can give, the better!

William castle

• Low budget
• Appear in films
• Interactive theatres
• Fright break

Michael bay

• Faced paced
• explosive fight scenes

Quentin tarentino

• gratuitous violence and justifiable violence

woody Allen

• romance
• influential or controversial
• neurotic characters

How did the theory develop? Talk about why it emerged in France via Andre Bazin and how it was applied to Hollywood via Andrew Sarris. It became a method of evaluation. Young French critics creates a cultural profile. Bazin was the father of auteur theory he thought that we could interpret world view through their works. A magazine picked the theory up developing it in to their own such as Truffaut who coined the phrase policies des auteurs. 

What are the benefits of using auteur theory? Creates a template for other filmmakers to replicate. Now it can be about the stars that makes it easier to create a fanbase. The identity of an actor can be made by a film creating star theory.What are the main problems with auteur theory? Creates a hierarchy, used to criticize other filmmakers. It can make other peoples works diminished claiming sole author rather than the group effort that it is rather than it being based on genre it is put into directors’ categories. The hardest works lose all credit. Bad filmmakers can create an auteur most people should not claim sole credit as it makes their names look bad in the filmmaking world and ties them to one genre.

Define ideology?

The rules and doctrines that we have embedded into our culture. Commonly held belief system.

Mad max animal farm Mr robot blade runner

What is a ‘dominant ideology’? the set of beliefs that the majority of the population believe in

What is an ‘alternative ideology’? the minority of belief usually seen as wrong

The world is real/ it is a simulation

God exists/does not

Patriarchy/matriarchy

Capitalism/Marxism/communism

What is capitalism? Capitalism is the ideology that people are driven to provide services for money

What is Marxism? All people are equal and therefore labour workers and managers are equal and should be payed the same

Who created the theory and what did they want? Carl Marx a revolution of the proletariat

Who are the proletariat? working class that was being exploited 

Who are the bourgeoisie? Owners of the factory and the richer more dominant group

What is Coercive State Apparatus? Physical force that oppresses the proletariat. The police publicly beat people in order to stop and threaten the proletariat  

What is Ideological State Apparatus? That subliminally the government sends messages that its fine and hides its problems. Saying that the power distribution works in their favour 

What is ‘false consciousness’?  not actually being aware of the situation only having a ideas of the real state of the world. The media says nothing about the truth because it is owned by the rich

Outline Antonio Gramsci’s argument cultural hegemony means dominance. He thought media and other cultural industry could and were used by the ruling class to influence others.

Outline Theodor Adorno’s argument the theory that popular items will keep you happy and quiet by giving simple and direct pleasure and silences their masses by giving undemanding practices.

Outline Louis Althusser’s argument when watching media people become absorbed and accept the norms and values that they present. This means that we are dominated by the ruling class as those are the values presented in current media.

What are the two ways in which Marxism might be applied to media texts?

The ideas and beliefs are transferred by media and keep the audience passive through their own universes that have been constructed by the ruling class.

Media texts explore the corruption of the ruling class and prove that people arte manipulative and untrustworthy.

What films or TV shows might be seen to explore issues of Marxism? Lego movie, mr robot, the good place, matrix, v for vendetta, chicken run, fight club, joker, district 9 and hunger games.

What is psychoanalysis?

investigating and explaining the mental disorders that people suffer from.

Why would media people care about or use psychoanalysis? In order to use in in depth to explain what a person acts like and replicate or compare into a media profile whist showing how that has an effect on the audience.

Who was Sigmund Freud? Sigmund Freud was a neurologist that redefined his field by explaining how he thought behaviour worked and why people act like they do.

What is the ID, ego and super-ego?

The id is the human instincts its why humans act like animals and the drive to survive like and animal. It is chaotic and unreasonable it is completely subconscious although the ego allows us to dictate our behaviour.

Ego is the mediator of the superego and the id what passes through our conscious mind and how we respond whether with the id (primitive behaviour based on survival) or the superego (less primitive more moral). The ego is for the mostly your conscious grip on your behaviour bordering on the preconscious

The superego it is all preconscious unconscious and conscious all at the same time it is developed during the psychosexual stage of development and is made based on the external sources a dominant superego can make someone neurotic.

What is the Virgin/Whore Dichotomy? It is the theory that men don’t find good traits attractive but when a woman shows bad traits she is deemed untrustworthy but one trait had to be adopted. This is seen an media as stars adopt either of these traits to further their career like Miley Cyrus adopting one ort the other at different points in her life. Society values the pure trait and punishes the bad trait. or in Greece the mad describes a bad trait in order to get approval but in actuality it is the virgin trait that he hides.  

What is the Oedipal/Oedipus Complex? The theory that we favour one parent over the other it is mainly men who are completely dependent on their mother going to them for protection and nurturing. the infant fears the father so he wants him gone. There is an example of this in the Babadook where the boy has no father and has an unhealthy relationship with his mother this causes him to act out whenever he is met with resistance in being with her. Or the boy where a matriarchal figure enters the house and when the patriarchal figure enters he acts wildly out of control.

Define representation

How you portray someone or something in a particular way. Like how a certain population is made out to look like whether true or not

Define voyeurism and scopophilia

Voyeurism gaining pleasure from seeing someone when they can’t see you. Like in the Babadook the mother takes pleasure from looking at both a woman looking at a tv peacefully and people making out makes her happy.

Scopophilia taking pleasure from looking at someone

Define objectification

Objectification is when a person is seen as nothing more than their physical attributes and what the person objectifying the other thinks they act like. Like when people make a mental image of someone and don’t expect them to deviate from this and interpret every move like their sole purpose it to be a sexual object.

Define Laura Muley’s ‘Male Gaze’

It states that the media in question is built for men and so women will be objectified and makes the man in the right. It consists of how the man looks at the woman both actor and the person watching. The theory states that the way these movies are filmed objectifies women automatically and changes the way women are viewed in the movie.

Evaluating the theory

The theory is accurate when movies are filmed like this it discredits the actress and makes moviemakers more successful with a certain audience but it is not ethically right but since there aren’t any laws for ethics like this people don’t abide by how things should be the theory shows how women are reduced to their physical attributes a instance of this was Marylynn Monroe she was terrible as an actress but she was pretty so she did well even if she was hard to work with. The female is mostly the damsel in distress but when she is not she is either sexualised or over passed by a male character for instance Laura croft is sexualised as she has a different man in every film meaning she has to have a man to be successful whether he does something or not. Or princess leya she was supposed to be but she was put into slavery and that has become a more popular image.     

Semiotics

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbolism. semiotics is important to society as it defies language as people from different cultures may find that symbols are the same and sometimes symbols are different.

Polysemy the coexistence of meanings for words or symbols as in where a symbol might connotate something negative somewhere, somewhere else it may mean something peaceful.   

Interactive possess interactive process is about open and closed text as some text is open and can have several meanings but closed means there is a meaning in mind and it does not have several meanings.

Denotation the literal meaning as a physical description

Connotation additional meaning what you think it could mean what the image makes you think

Anchorage the way the source keeps the meaning about it and how it is anchored to the possible meanings

In different cultures signs can mean many things through polysemy like how the swastika means peace  in some Asian cultures but means fear in America and Europe.

Open text is open to interpretation and how the reader draws inspiration from it. It is not defined by the writer but your own individual opinion as such it can mean many things a example in Frankenstein the writer referred him to a modern day Prometheus which is only a anchorage but not a direct meaning.

Closed text it is defined by the writer as such it is not open to interpretation and has literal meaning like animal farm a direct refence to the rise and failings of communism in Russia  

Sign the denotation what it physically is

Signifier the sound or image that makes the link

Signified the connotation what the sign means

Encoding & Decoding this is how your brain decodes messages into something you can understand like speaking in a different language a shared medium is spoken or said and then decoded into something they both understand.

Dominant reading closed text the creator has a defined meaning there is a point to them like childhood stories meant to act like a lesson

Negotiated reading anything that does not have a direct association normal stories the meaning is not blatant but you can draw several personal conclusions

 Oppositional Reading the opposite conclusion to what the story says sometimes this is intentional like with noughts and crosses its not that black people are better than Wight its that they are no better as in swapped situations society would be just as bad during times of oppression.

Cheat Sheet: Star Theory

Stars aren’t like their constructed persona in many cases they put on a act to become more popular E.G Miley Cyrus she had to stay pg. to keep her Disney contract but when that ended she went in a different direction as her career took a hit when her target audience changed  

Stars wear trendy or designer clothes as it gives them both a good name so that they are popular enough for companies to pay them thousands in order for them to wear clothes making them seem rich and to be idolised

Less successful artists don get endorsed by companies so they make less money and as such don’t get idolised

Institutions make stars to make money for them to have tons of mascots endorsing their products in order to convince people that their product is good and trendy.

Talk about how stars reflect current ideologies and give examples

What is genre?

Genre is a way of classifying movies based on their context. A genre is way of classifying movies so similar movies that employ common tropes can meet the same target audience. Most genres are loose and allow for a large variation in script and storyline just as long as they are similar in theme.

Insidious, Anabelle and the conjuring exemplify horror because they use ghosts and demons alongside dark atmospheres to create a scary tone. 

How can we categorise texts? By dividing them based upon their context and what the effect is supposed to be. Texts can be divided based upon their context, target audience and by summarising the content. This means you can tell what the general mood of a text is before reading.

What are sub-genres? Genres that fit into a smaller group while still belonging to the larger one. A subgenre might have more tropes and differences to more distinctly divide up. 

What are fixed genres? Genres that don’t allow other movies to be in them because of a defining piece of context. A fixed genre needs a key event to take place this means that the story follows the same track rather than the content being a defining feature.

What are non-fixed genres? Genres that allow a range of content. And story a ranged genre is lose and allows many options so there are many movies in these genres and also allows for subgenres or hybrid genres to help categorise the films.

What are hybrid genres? A movie or movies comprised of 2 or more genres these hybrids are more inclined to a specific part of one audience or the entirety of the 2 genres What is the cycle of a genre? It has 4 different parts primitives, classic, revisionist, and parody. These parts show the different ways genre

primitive, fly on the wall genre  this is am more base type each genre this type is less advanced and more of a developing genre  

 Classic true real-life documentaries it is the peak of the genres popularity and has a larger audience

revisionist, half true scripted but the events till take place. The originality is gone but it makes way for more revised and developed works  

 parody not factual never happened the environment is completely false. Not serious a mock of the previous parts in the cycle  

What is a non-genre or anti-genre text? The movie has many genres but doesn’t fit cleanly into them as it has many tropes like the girl with all the gifts

How do movie posters convey a film’s genre? They show how the movie looks and gives a brief impression of how/what the movie will look like

German expressionism

Expressionism is a way of making art as a derivative or exaggeration of the intended image. It is a more abstract or symbolic representation.

Historically the film movement started in the 1910 and continued to be an influential form of media until the 1930s. in berlin it was at its peak during the 1920s such forms of media included sculpture dance architecture painting and film.   Germany banned foreign films during the first world war so the depression of the masses came forward in the media and expressionism.

Films often depicted real or depressing events. Such films include the cabinet of dr Caligari, nosforatu and metropolis.  German expressionism portrays the subjective or emotional rather than any true fact.

Key themes

Insanity death fatality and the supernatural. Plots often revolve around murder and the occult.

It includes stylised mise en scene used to visualised emotional reality with heavy symbolism an metaphors. The buildings are often stylised to be distorted, warped and perverse a refection of the emotions of the storyteller.

It uses chiaroscuro lighting it divides the character to portray their two faces both moral and immoral. It uses elongated shadows to make the characters more mysterious and portray their dark nature.

The makeup is more gothic and exaggerated alongside the movements this makes the audience un comfortable as the characters are unsettling and unnatural. 

Surrealism

The first surrealist film I widely considered to be the clergyman from 1928 directed by Germaine Dulac. There is also Luis Buñuel’s chen andalou in collaboration with Salvador Dali. The creation of surrealism started with the rise of communism as a political force. Sigmund Freuds ideas about the subconscious were still relatively new. And artists began to question the point of the world war.

Freuds ideas of consciousness

Conscious all feelings thoughts memories and fantasies

Pre-conscious is related to data that can be brought to conscious thought.

The unconscious  refers to the data retained but not readily available.it is mainly comprised of repressed memories.

Surrealism

The belief that reality is not orderly and logical but is in fact a collection of consciousnesses. The only real way to properly express this true reality is by allowing the unconscious mind to free.   Surrealist art is not made actively.

The artist often lets the pen move freely I cannot be achieved with planning or higher thought. They are often non-linnear and events can seem random and meaningless. The surrealism is often used as a deliberate breaking of conventions. Surrealist imagery is often shocking and engages taboo subjects. It is an attempt to touch into deeper desires.

Surrealist films often assault traditional thoughts of belief. Ridiculing the normal way  of thought and originally the bourgeoisie. 

Russian montage

After the Russian revolution as the Bolsheviks overthrew the tsar to bring communism into power. They invented propaganda to influence their people throughout the massive country. The medium of film proved much more powerful than any other. It also agitated the public to join their cause. It started with the world first film school in Moscow. The aim was to train filmmakers to make agitprop films. D.W Griffiths film “intolerance” was studied in detail. The lack of available films made a need to reedit the films.

The Kuleshov effect

Kuleshov experimented with reordering shots to find meaning in films. He cut films with different footage like a bowl of soup this made the audience think a blank face looked hungry. This then developed into a theory that the previous shot determined the effect of the proceeding shot.

Cinema was silent back then so they needed a way to communicate without speech but text was of no use as most people were illiterate. Sergei Eisenstein used montage to rally the Bolsheviks. His film “battleship Potemkin” contains a famous massacre scene witch tsarists kill innocents.

Metric montage

Cutting to a regular, specific number of frames.

Rhythmic montage

Cutting according to the content of the shots. 

Tonal montage

According to the emotional tone of shots. Keeping in tone with the mood

Over-tonal

Taking into account of the previous three kinds of cutting.

Intellectual montage

Intercutting images unrelated to continuity to suggest ideas.

Creative geography

Montage could be used to create imaginary spaces that could not exist.

the French new wave

During the time France was occupied by German foreign films were banned as well as new films being censored. Following liberation all the films that had been taken were released making a wave of new media.

It took form in 1951

Notable people were

Jean luc godart, franscois Truffaut, Eric rohmer and claude charbrol

They were all played at cinema du papa.

They took the rick out of filmmaking where support systems would allow people to get seed money that would only be payed back if they were successful.

The camera has also massively improved in recent years

They used available light and sound instead of anything expensive.

They used mobile and fluid cameras instead of cutting they were able to make inventive techniques to help this

This made an alternative to Hollywood this made a rise in untraditional cinema that din not comply to immersion constantly breaking it.

Existentialism had an effect as the filmmakers began to express themselves in the artform. The new wave brought new concepts into the media as and anti-authoritarian belief system would become adopted.