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RAIL summary:

Representation-
How the media portray events, issues, individuals and social groups.

Key terminology:

  • Stereotype, generalisation of a group of people based on certain features 
  • Archetype, a type of person (a perfect example)
  • Countertype, opposite of the perfect stereotype 
  • Ideology, a meaning/value presented or believed 
  • Polysemic, lots of possible meanings 
  • Semiotics, a system of meaning 
  • Simulacrum, representation of reality 
  • Hyper reality, enhanced reality/ media’s representation of reality (reality becomes distorted)
Media theorists:

Stuart Hall’s theory of representation:
Hall studied representation of race, gender, class, religion in dominant mainstream media and suggests producers attempt to encode a preferred meaning, meaning is constituted by representation.

Liesbet van Zoonan’s theory of feminism:
In a patriarchal culture, men’s bodies are represented differently to women’s, men’s to be admired and women’s to be objectified. She suggests gender is performative, meaning our ideas of femininity and masculinity are constructed in our performances of these roles.



Audience-
How media forms target, reach and address audiences. How audiences interpret and respond to them and how members of audiences become producers themselves.

Uses and gratifications:
  • Inform and educate
  • Entertainment
  • Identity
  • Social interaction and integration 
  • Escapism
Media theorists:

Albert Bandura’s media effects theory:
Effects model, suggests that mass media are powerful and oppressive. Media can influence people directly, human values, judgement and conduct can be altered by media modelling. Media representations of aggressive or violent behaviour can lead to imitation.

Stuart Hall’s reception theory:
How text is recurved by an audience.
Dominant, hegemonic- a preferred reading that accepts the messages of texts.
Negotiated- accepts texts ideological assumptions, but disagrees with aspects of the messages.
Oppositional- rejects both overt message and underlying ideological assumptions.


Industry-
A varied collection of organisations that share the productions, publication and distribution of media texts.

Media theorists:

James Curran and Jean Seaton theory of power and media industries:
A political economy approach to the media. Media industries follow the normal capitalist pattern of increasing concentration of ownership in fewer hands, narrowing the range of opinions.

Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt’s  theory of regulation:
studied four case studies of the work of Ofcom, which is serving an audience who may be seen as consumers/citizens with consequences for regulation.  Traditional regulation is being put at risk by increasingly globalised media industries, the rise of the digital media, and media convergence.

Media language-
 How the meaning of media text is conveyed to the audience.  Convey meaning through signs and symbols

Key terminology:

  • Semiotics,  The study of signs 
  •  Denotation, what something actually is, what can be seen 
  • Connotation, inference of a signifier
  •  Mise en scène, setting/props, positioning, lighting, costume/hair/make up 


Roland Barthes theory of semiology:
 Semiology is the study of signs. Signs consist of a signifier ( a word, an image, a sound ) and its meaning, the signified. Suggests connotations of a signifier(the signified) are myths.



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