Todorov's theory of Equilibrium

Todorov suggested that conventional narratives are structured in five stages:-

1. A state of equilibrium (stability) at the start.
2. A disruption of the equilibrium by some action.
3. A recognition that there has been a disruption.
4. An attempt to repair the disruption.
5. A reinstatement of the equilibrium.

Todorov suggested that:- 

• Stories begin with an equilibrium of status quo where any potentially opposing forces are in balance.
• This is disrupted by some event, setting in chain a series of events.
• Problems are solved so that order can be restored to the world of the fiction.

A diagram illustrating the theory of equilibrium

Taylor Swift- You Belong with Me:-

Critical Perspectives- Text Book Notes

3.1- Writing about production:-

There are 10 rules for reflective writing:

1. Focus on creative decisions informed by institutional knowledge.
2. Focus on creative decisions informed by theoretical understanding.
3. Evaluate the process- don't just describe it.
4. Relate your media to 'real media' at the micro level.
5. Try to deconstruct yourself.
6. Choose clearly relevant micro examples to relate to macro reflective themes.
7. Avoid binary oppositions.
8. Try to write about your broader media culture.
9. Adopt a metadiscourse.
10. Quote, paraphrase, reference.

3.2- Themes:-

• Historical- you do not need to write a great deal here, but you must at some point in your response show that you understand how relevant aspects of the contemporary media can be compared to the past.
• Contemporary- most of your time will be spent demonstrating an up-to-date, accurate, theoretical and academic analysis of today's media.
• Future- again, this will not be the main focus, but to gain the higher marks you will need to have some ideas about where the media are going next.

Culture

Jenks describes four definitions of culture:

• As a state of mind.
• As a collective pursuit of civilisation.
• As artistic and intellectual activity.
• As a social category.

Social Groups

For example, different cultures, genders etc.

Social Values and Cultural Languages

People now share a lot of content online (Web 2.0) Is this destroying industries? e.g. is YouTube ruining the music industry?

0.16% or YouTube visitors upload content

0.2% of Flickr visitors upload photos

4.59% of users edit or expand Wikipedia.

Are we in web 1.5 instead of web 2.0?!

Habermas- Public Sphere

Habermas is a media theorist who studied conversations that arose in coffee shops in the 1900s. In the time that he was studying, print wasn't readily available, meaning that books were handwritten to get copies out to wealthy people who could afford these.

Discussions at coffee houses

As printing advanced and became more readily available, so did these works (books, newspapers) This resulted in more people having access to the news through newspapers. The men who were reading this news would meet up in coffee houses to discuss the newspaper/book that they had all read.

Jürgen Habermas

This allowed them to discuss their ideas, say whether they agreed or disagreed and mainly see what other people's opinions on the news were.

This has advanced over the years. Now days, the internet is the new coffee shop allowing everyone with an internet connection to take part in these discussions. Social network sites such as twitter and Facebook allow discussions using hashtags, comments and groups. These allow discussions to take place about absolutely anything. I will be investigating how these have affected music videos.
 

Music videos now have teaser videos counting down to the release of the video. Discussions and debates about the video can happen in the comments sections of YouTube. These are also posted on Facebook people to comment under the post. Also, they are posted to twitter with a hashtag allowing people to reply using the hashtag, replicating what would have happened in the coffee shops.

Hashtags are used by artists and labels to promote discussion before, during and after the release of the video.

These two things (Countdown and Hashtags) are both things that I will look to use when making my video to help promote it like a signed artist and label would.

David Gauntlett

David Gauntlett is a media theorist who is famous for presenting his works on we media. He put forward his theory of web 2.0 which is a second generation of web in which it is a place where everyone can share what they want to and so it is no longer dominated by big companies who post content but is run and viewed by ordinary people.

Reception Theory- Stuart Hall

This theory states that there are three ways that the audience decodes the media.

Reception Theory

1. Preferred / Dominant Reading- The audience decodes the reading in the way that the producer wants them to.
2. Opposition Reading- The audience decodes the reading in the opposite way to what the producer wants them to.
3. Negotiated Reading- The audience accepts some of it but brings their own experience into it.

The theory states that the audience is not passive. This means that we do not always just accept everything that is put in front of us as the producer wants us to, but instead we decode it in an oppositional ore negotiated way. This does not mean that we do not sometimes decode the reading in the way that the producer wants us to, but it is saying that not everyone is going to sit and accept the views of one producer's piece of work.

Preferred Reading- We want to go out
and buy the Big Mac.

Oppositional Reading- This is unhealthy
I can't eat this.

The McDonalds advert on the right is a perfect example of reception theory. An advert like this divides people's opinions. 

Social aspects also affect how the audience decodes the media:-

Negotiated- I want to go and have one,
but I need to eat healthily, maybe
another day.

• Gender- Men and women will decode different media texts differently. For example, an advert persuading the audience to buy a fashion accessary, is likely to be decoded differently if you're a man or a woman. Women will be more likely to decode it in the preferred reading, whereas men will more likely to sway towards oppositional reading. This is an extreme example and most likely in practice will not happen like this, but you get the picture!!
• Age- Different ages will interpret different media's in different ways. The same applies for class as well.

Examples in Music Videos:-

Different ages and genders will interpret this video above in different ways. Younger girls may see this  as "the best idea of a day ever'... However, older people may see this as young people being irresponsible. Boys may look at this in a different way to girls as all of the extras in this video are girls so that the focus is on the boy band.

Audience Theory

Hypodermic Needle Theory:- Audiences passively receive the ideology transmitted via a media text, without any attempt on their part to process or challenge the data.

• Problems- Not everyone accepts everything, otherwise we would live in a world where anyone could feed anything into us (propaganda)

The video above is about a breakup. Younger audiences see this as the norm that a relationship/breakup has to be dramatised. They may not see that this can be frowned upon and may be morally wrong.

Two Step Flow Theory:- The ideology is filtered by 'opinion leaders' and passed on to less active associates.

All music videos use the Two Step Flow Theory. The artist writes a song with a particular meaning. The director of the video puts forward a treatment and they put their interpretation of the song into a video what it is then passed onto the audience. The video may be completely different to the meaning of the song.

Uses and Gratifications:- Blumler and Katz:

• Diversion- escape from everyday problems and routine.
• Personal Relationships- using the media for emotional and other interaction (soaps to make you feel better...)
• Personal identity- finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviours and values from texts.
• Surveillance- Information which could be useful for living (weather, news, adverts)

The video above shows people in hopeless situations. People may relate to this and watch it to make them feel like they're not alone. The video then gives a 'hope' message which the audiences will hold onto to make them feel better.

Stuart Hall's Reading the Media

• Dominant of Preferred Reading- how the director/creator wants the audience to view the media text.
• Opposition Reading- when the audience rejects the preferred reading, and creates their own meaning of the text.
• Negotiated Reading- a compromise between the dominant and opposition readings, where the audience accepts parts of the director's views, but has their own views on parts as well.

Again, the Taylor Swift music video shows the theory of 'Reading the Media'. The video and song is about a general breakup without naming names. This was the purpose. However, the audience has speculated who the 'mystery man' is with suggestions such as Harry Styles.

Objectification:-

Martha Nussbaum:

• Instrumentality- the treatment of a person as a tool for the objectifier's purposes.
• Denial of Autonomy- the treatment of a person as lacking in autonomy and self-determination.
• Inertness- the treatment of a person as lacking in agency, and perhaps also in activity.
• Fungibility- the treatment of a person as interchangeable with other objects.
• Violability- the treatment of a person as lacking in boundary-integrity.
• Ownership- the treatment of a person as something that is owned by another (can be bought of sold).
• Denial of Subjectivity- the treatment of a person as something whose experiences and feelings (if any) need not be taken into account.

Rae Langton-

• Reduction to Body- the treatment of a person as identified with their body, or body parts.
• Reduction to Appearance- the treatment of a person primarily in terms  of how they look, or how they appear to the senses.
• Silencing- the treatment of a person as if they are silent, laking the capacity to speak.

This One Direction video shows Rae Langton's theory of "Reduction to Appearance" One of the main reasons that One Direction are such a hit is because they are very popular with their audience because of their looks. The video exploits this because a lot of the shots are of them in 'trendy' clothes and with 'trendy' haircuts to increase the fan base.