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 couldn’t touch; they

were then taken into a room with a Bobo doll, the

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.