Uses and Gratifications

Blumler + Katz
1. Diversion
2. Surveillance
3. Personal identity
4. Personal relationships

Representation Theorists

• Barthes - masculinity
• Mulvey- women
• Butler - gender
• Lippman - stereotyping
• Schollhammer - mr men books
• Gaintlett - representation + Lego

Representations of:

age 

gender

ethnicity

religion

sexuality

disability

nation

region

issues

events

4 Categories:

- The character - gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality, look 

- The collective cultural background and views of the producer/director/institution

- The audiences reaction to / reading of the character

- Where and when the representations take place

Richard Dyer: 'how we are seen determines how we are treated, how we treat others is based on how we see them. how we see them comes from presentations' e.g Geordie shore

Lippman:

- he believes that stereotyping is useful

- ordering process: categorisations, generalisations and typifications 

- short cut: gives the audience a shot-cut so that they can tell the story quicker

- Referece: as a

Schollhammer:

- she looks at masculinity based on the mr men stories 

- e.g little miss busy cleans the house, and my busy can do things quicker and he also built the house showing he could be more productive than she is  

- scouting for girls she's so lovely video

Laura Mulvey:

- she looked at the 'gaze'

- she said that everything you watch is from the perspective of a male

- male gaze - term to describe the empowerment experience by the male audience when they look upon a female because the female character is objectified  

- describes men as predators, men looking upon women like fresh meat

- identification: when the audience recognises an aspect of themselves within a character

-scopophilia: pleasure from watching. can be linked to pornography and horror films e.g law abiding citizen (character kills victim who can see himself being killed)

- the spectator gaze: updating the theory to incorporate a wider demographic of audience than the heterosexual males assumed by the theory to begin with.  

Barthes Codes

• Barthes method of analysis was to classify stories using codes and seeing these as the basic underlying structure of all narratives, he said that these codes drive the narrative and keep it going because we want to know the answers to these codes
• can be applied to print, narrative, music videos, magazines etc 

1. Proairetic code
2. Hermeneutic code
3. Cultural code
4. Semic code
5. Symbolic code

Proairetic Code

• Refers to an action of event that indicated something else is going to happen by witnessing this event the audience can say what that character will do.

Hermeneutic code

• refers to any element of story that is not fully explained
• full truth is often avoided in order to generate intrigue and narrative drive 
• keeps the audience guessing until final scenes where all is revealed and closure is achieved 

Cultural code

• where the text may contain references to things which exist beyond the text and could be classed as common knowledge; more commonly this is by using stereotypes to create meaning and relationships
• provokes pre-existing ideas/images in our minds based on cultural stereotypes and experience 

Semic Code

• it is to do with the process of characterisation
• meaning it can be interpreted through things like traits, actions, events texts that help to build a character and contribute to how we feel about them/how we identify their role in/relationship with the text

Symbolic code

• consists of contrast and pairings (just as binary oppositions) e.g night and day, good and evil
• structures that contain contrasting elements that are fundamental to how we perceive and organise reality
• we would study andy parallels, contrasts or patterns in the plot, structure, characters and their motives, situation or imagery, 

Stop Check - What is Semiotics?

• Semiotics was founded  by Barthes in the 1950's, he was interested in how meanings were relational.
• Semiotics is the science of signs and the meaning behind different texts. For example the main character in American History X, due to his tattoos such as the swastika symbol on his chest it suggest that his is in favour of white superiority and is of racist nature. 
• It can be linked to binary opposites for example, our connotations of males and females. 

Analysis of American History X

The clip showed a skinhead with a muscular physique, who had offensive tattoos such as the swastika symbol he is seen as a strong character who views himself with white superiority. It appeared that the black character had shot at a member of his family, which resulted in his death which featured his jaw being broken on a curb. Before he is murdered the skinhead mean calls the other character 'monkey' which shows he is obviously a racist. The music in the background was a church choir which could signifies that he has done something saint-like. the clip is in black and white which signifies that it was a flashback from his younger brother who witnesses the death. 

Structuralism

Key Ideas of Structuralism

• Its not a corse essence inside f things but rather meaning comes from the outside
• Meaning it is attributed to texts by the human mind and human experience 
• Arrived in UK and USA in 70's but was not welcomed by traditional critics who enjoyed studying texts
• Saussure was interested in how meanings were relational, e.g they aren't defined in isolation but in relation to other things e.g a mansion is bigger than a house, but not as grand as a palace 
• This works with paired opposites e.g male and female.  each designates the absence of the characteristics included in other, so that male can be seen as 'not female' and vice versa

• Difference in characteristics between males and females:
• Male: masculine , not emotional, aggressive, sexist, argumentative, football, talk less, strong
• Female: emotional, gossip, shopping, talk more, weak

Origins

• intellectual movement began in france in the 1950s
• roots in the work of de Saussure
• recognised in the work of Levi-Strauss & Roland Barthes

Structuralist Approaches

• Semiotics (Barthes)
• Binary opposites (Levi-Strauss)
• enigma codes (Barthes)

Binary Oppositions

• narratives are frequetly organised around binary opposite
• these oppositions take the form of significant contrasts used to create  a sense of difference or conflict 

Semiotics: The science of Signs

• Barthes suggested that meaning is communicated through signs, specifically the signifier and the signified.
• Denotations: what you see without applying meaning (signifier)
• Connotations: what you interpret/ meanings you apply  (signified)

Theorists: Todorov, Propp, Levi-Strauss

Todorov

• He founded his theory form Russian Folk Tales
• He proposed three stages of a Narrative: 
• Equilibrium (start)
• Disequilibrium (middle) 
• New-Equilibrium (end)

Propp

• Analysed typical character typed from fairy-tales. 
• He identified 8: The Villain, The Hero, The Princess, The Princess' Father, The Helper, The Donor, The False Hero and the Dispatcher

Levi-Strauss

• He noticed there was Binary Opposition
• E.g Good Vs Evil, Male Vs Female, Natural Vs Unnatural