Gramsci, 1930 - Cultural hegemony
Cultural hegemony is the philospohic and sociological concept originated by philospher Antonio Gramsci that a culturally - diverse society can be ruled or dominated by one of its social classes. It is the dominance of one social group over anotehr e.g. the ruling class over all other classes. The theory claims that the ideas of the ruling class come to be seen as the norm they are seen as universal ideologies, perceived to benefit everyone whilst only really benefitting the ruling class.
Stanley Cohen, 1987 - Moral panics
He defined the concept as worrying about the values and principles which society upholds which may be in jeopardy. He describes the characteristics as “a condition episode, person or group of persons who become defined as a threat to societal values and interests. He discusses how mass media intends on fashioning these episodes, stylising them, amplifying the nature of effects and turning them into a national issue when the matter could have been kept contained and under control.
Eldridge, 1997 - Media reproduce the definitions of the powerful.
Goffman, 1990 - There are more abstract ways of thinking about identity that we also employ everyday - the clothes we wear, the media we consume, the people we like. This is the presentation of self.
Gauntlett, 2007 - "Each of us would like to think to some extent - that we have special personal qualities whichmake us distinctive and valuable to the other people in our lives (or potential future friends).
Buckingham, 2008 - A focus on identity requires us to pay close attention to the diverse ways in which media technologies are used in everyday life and their consequences both for individuals and for social groups.
Lacan - spoke about the mirror stage - which is image is better than reality.
Cumberbatch and Howitt, 1989 - thought that the effects model was history of mass communications research is conspicously lacking in any clear evidence.
Harold Laswell, 1971 - supported the idea of the effects model by referring to the chain of communication. "Propaganda is only effective if it can tap into the meanest as well as the keenest of intelligence.
Fowler, 1989 - Whilst we have names for countless genres in many media, some theorists have argued that there are also many genres for which we have no names.
Miller, 1984 - number of genres in society depends on the complexity and diversity of society.
Neal, 2008 - Genre is a repitition with an underlying pattern of variations.
Sarris, 1968 - the term auteur is used to describe film directors who are considered to have a distinctive, recognizable style becuase they repeatedly return to same subject matter, address a particular moral theme, employ a recurring visual/style, demonstrate any combination of above.
Carol Clover, 1992 - the final girl is a horror film that specifically refers to the last women or girl alive to confront the killer oestensibly the oner left to tell the story.
Barthes - a text is a galaxy of signifiers not a structure of signifiers; it has no beginning; none of which can be authoritively declared to be the main one; absolutely plural text. He said that there is more than one way or possibility to understand the meanings of the text.
Texts are open or closed:
Open - loads of possibilities and meanings
Closed - harder to think of possibilities
Todorov - studies narrative structures - he suggested stories begin with an equilibrium or status quo where any potentially opposing forces are in balance. This is disrupted by some event settings off chain of events. Problems solved so order can be restored to world of fiction.
Propp - Vladimir Propp analysed a whale series of Russian folk tales in the 1920's and decided to that the same events kept being repeated in each of the stories, creating a consistent framework. He broke down the tales into the smallest possible units, which he called narrative functions . . which he created 31 functions.
Claude Levi - Strauss (1908 - 2009) was a French structuralist. Structuralism has been defined as "the search for the underlying patterns of thought in all forms of activity." He identified myths as a type of speech through which a language could be discovered. He observed that all narratives are organised around the conflict between such binary oppostites e.g. good vs evil.
