Barthes, Roland used the term Myth in order to refer to a second order of signification with a chain of concepts widely accepted throughout a culture and used to understand an experience. Our myth of the countryside, for example, refers to a chain of concepts such as: it is good; it is natural; it is peaceful; it is beautiful; it is a place for leisure and recuperation. Then there is the traditional myth about the British policeman which includes concepts of friendliness, helpfulness and non-aggressiveness.

Campbell, Joseph (1904-1987), American writer, editor, and teacher, known for his writings on myths. Born in New York City, Campbell was educated at Columbia University. He specialised in medieval literature and, after earning a master's degree, continued his studies at the universities of Paris and Munich. While abroad he was influenced by the art of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the psychological studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, and the novels of James Joyce and Thomas Mann. These encounters led to Campbell's theory that all myths and epics are linked in that they are cultural manifestations of the universal need of the human psyche to explain social, cosmological, and spiritual realities. His first original work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), became a classic. In this study of the "myth of the hero," Campbell asserted that there is a single pattern of heroic journey and that all cultures share this essential pattern in their various heroic myths. In his book he also outlined the basic conditions, stages, and results of the archetypal hero's journey. See also Christopher Vogler.

Curran & Seaton (1991 Power Without Responsibility)

Here they consider new media technologies (such as satellite & cable TV) and argue that the major debates are between ‘neophiliacs’ who welcome change optimistically and ‘cultural pessimists’ who view new technologies with scepticism. See Studying the Media, O’Sullivan P279.

Fiske J. (1987 Television Culture)

Fiske describes television news bulletins as high-status texts because of their agenda-setting role in the political and social life of our culture. Broadcasters themselves attach high status to news bulletins as can be seen by their positioning at fixed points in the schedules. They are rarely displaced and other programmes must fit around them, sometimes actually being divided into two sections. See Studying The Media P106.

Franklin & Murphy (1991 What News? The Market, Politics and the Local Press).

Studying the concentration of ownership in the local press, they identified an increasing homogenisation of local newspapers. Small independent companies had been bought out by larger companies with a resulting loss in local identity with so-called local newspapers being printed in regional centres.

Galtung & Ruge listed the most significant news values which are the criteria used to decide which events are newsworthy. Other media analysts have since developed other lists. You could write your own. Note that each newspaper and news programme will have different lists. News values may be applied consciously or unconsciously and will vary according to a publication’s sense of identity and/or the perceived audience.

Grierson, John, was the first to coin the term ‘Documentary’. He did so in a review of Robert Flaherty’s film, Moana (1925). He indicated the ability of the medium to literally produce a visual document of a particular event. He saw in the genre the ideal way to explain to people how complex modern societies functioned. By dramatising the issues and spelling out their implications, Grierson believed the documentary film maker could enable people to play a full part in the democratic process. He was a prime mover of the British documentary movement of the 1930’s and both directed and produced documentaries whilst working first for the empire Marketing Board and then The GPO unit.

Katz, E (1959 ‘Mass Communications Research and the Study of Popular Culture Studies in Public Communication, vol. 2. See ‘Investigating Mass Media, Trowler 1996). Katz is one of the originators of the gratifications model which suggests that different people use the media in different ways in order to get different sorts of pleasure or fulfil different types of needs. They may get different gratifications from the same programme. The gratifications model stresses the importance of what people do with the media rather than what it does to them. Compare with Herbert Marcuse.

Kozloff, Sarah defined five possible matches between story time which can effectively be applied to film narratives: summary, ellipsis, scene, stretch and pause. High Noon is an example of a film which mainly uses scene - the match between discourse and story time is very close for most of the film. Most films use more than one of Kozloff’s matches.

Kuleshov, Lev (1899 - 1970) Director, Screenwriter, art director, and film theoretician.

Undeservedly overlooked by film historians, Lev Kuleshov was the first theorist of Soviet cinema whose experiments with juxtaposing the face of an actor and various other images revealed the impact of montage. Pudovkin and Eisenstein have often been credited with this discovery, although their own testimony shows they credited Kuleshov, who was their teacher. Montage is a term derived from the French word for hoisting, setting up, mounting, or assembling–hence, staging in theatre usage and editing in film terminology. In the US, the term has been used in a sense akin to that of photomontage in still photography–that is, the combining of several images on one frame by superimposition. As applied to motion pictures, this came to specifically describe a sequence made up of a quick succession of brief shots blending and dissolving into one another, created to compress action and convey the passage of time. The technique, typically featuring linked images of such items as calendar pages, newspaper headlines, place names, and train wheels, was particularly popular in Hollywood films of the '30s.

The term montage as it is generally understood today is associated with the work and theory of Sergei Eisenstein, in which it came to represent the rhetorical arrangement of shots in juxtaposition so that the clash between two adjoining images creates a third, independent entity and a whole new meaning. Eisenstein's ideas of montage were inspired by the editing techniques of D.W. Griffith and the laboratory experiments of Lev Kuleshov. Eisenstein saw montage as a means of eliciting emotional responses from the audience. He identified five types, or levels, of montage: metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtonal, and intellectual, the latter capable of expressing abstract ideas visually.

Marcuse, Herbert (‘One Dimensional Man’) argues that the hypnotic power of the mass media deprives us of the capacity for critical thought. This is part of what is known as the Effects Model in which the media audiences are injected with a hypodermic needle. Thus the mass media do things to an audience. Some effects suggested are desensitisation, imitation and catharsis. One criticism of the effects model is that it fails to take account of how active the audience is in receiving the mass media.

Marx, Karl (1818-1883), German political philosopher and revolutionist, cofounder with Friedrich Engels of scientific socialism (modern communism), and, as such, one of the most influential thinkers of all times. Communism, is a concept or system of society in which the major resources and means of production are owned by the community rather than by individuals. In theory, such societies provide for equal sharing of all work, according to ability, and all benefits, according to need. Some conceptions of communist societies assume that, ultimately, coercive government would be unnecessary and therefore that such a society would be without rulers. Until the ultimate stages are reached, however, communism involves the abolition of private property by a revolutionary movement; responsibility for meeting public needs is then vested in the state.

Lund, J.V. (1947) summarises the task of the advertiser thus: (1) attract attention (2) arouse interest (3) stimulate desire

(4) create conviction (5) get action. See ‘The Language of Advertising’, Vestergaard & Schroder Ch 3.

Maslow. The American psychologist Abraham Maslow devised a six-level hierarchy of motives that, according to his theory, determine human behaviour. Maslow ranks human needs as follows: (1) physiological; (2) security and safety; (3) love and feelings of belonging; (4) competence, prestige, and esteem; (5) self-fulfilment; and (6) curiosity and the need to understand. No single theory of motivation has been universally accepted, but a direction is evident. Formerly, many psychologists stressed the reduction of stimulation to its lowest possible level. An organism was thought to pursue that behaviour most likely to bring about this desired state of no stimulation. Many human physiological systems do in fact operate in this manner. Recent cognitive theories of motivation, however, portray humans seeking to optimise rather than minimise stimulation and are thus better able to account for exploratory behaviour, the need for variety, aesthetic reactions, and curiosity. His theories have been adapted by Media critics and theorists and they are applicable to the topics of Audience and Advertising & Marketing.

Masterman, Len, investigated journalistic practices (such as manipulation of the image) during the 1984-85 miners’ strike noting the way the TV news adopted a particular point of view. Picket line violence was highlighted, there was a concentration on the problems facing the police and events were seen from an apparently ‘natural’ perspective of support for miners who did not join the strike. Masterman has done much to shape the ideology of the NEAB A level Media Studies Examination. The emphasis is upon ‘critical autonomy’ but knowledge of critical frameworks and important theorists can help to give structure to your examination answers.

Metz, Christian, (1975) argued that genres go through a typical cycle of changes during their lifetime: (1) the classical stage; (2) self-conscious parody; (3) contesting the proposition that they belong to the genre; (4) finally, a criticism of the genre itself. Is this true of any genres you have studied? Or is this model too rigid?

Miller, William carried out research on voting patterns and, by analysis of data from the 1987 general election, seemed to show that certain tabloids, particularly The Sun, (It’s The Sun What Won It!) were able to influence their readerships to a large extent. A really big swing occurred amongst the Tory tabloids: 30 points for Star readers and 36 points for Sun readers. The Tories under Margaret Thatcher made an impressive recovery and won the election. An analysis of the 1992 general election by Martin Linton seems to support these findings suggesting that tabloids can influence the voting patterns of their readerships. Of course, there is also evidence to support the opposite view. Prior the Miller’s research it was widely believed by analysts that tabloids could not influence voting patterns.

Mulvey attacks the way that the dominant system in film presents only certain types of pleasure, arguing that the narrative fiction film creates images of women which are used for the gratification of men. The male hero in film acts as ‘the bearer of the look’ meaning that he possesses the controlling power of the male gaze and that the film sees everything in the narrative through his eyes. See Media Studies, Stuart Price, Ps.259 - 263.

See this useful summary of Mulvey's: Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

Packard, Vance, in ‘The Hidden Persuaders’, 1957, claimed to expose the way in which ordinary people were being manipulated into buying consumer goods without being conscious of the persuasive techniques in question.

Propp, Vladimir. In ‘Morphology of the Folk Tale’ Propp analysed folk tales as a basis for his 32 character types all of whom perform some kind of function in the way a narrative is organised and developed. Amongst these types are to be found the Hero, the Heroine, the Villain and the Donor, the latter, for example, providing advice, magic or a talisman to help the Hero. This type of analysis is useful when considering simple texts - especially formulaic popular cinema. More complex art is beyond Propp’s system. See also, Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler.

Todorov, Tzvetvan argued that narratives begin with a state of equilibrium, where there is harmony and balance between characters and their environment/situation. Then comes some form of disruption which sets in motion a train of events. At the end of the narrative a new equilibrium is reached. Note how this model is particularly applicable to sitcoms where, however, the equilibrium achieved at the end is usually identical to that which began the narrative.

Vogler, Christopher, a story analyst, wrote ‘The Winter’s Journey’ which includes twelve stages of the Hero’s Journey. It is really an adaptation for film of Joseph Campbell’s more complex model of mythic structure. Vogler’s is a useful model to aid the analysis of film narratives but, if taken too far by film makers, would lead inevitably to an industrial assembly-line approach to plotting.

Wernick, Andrew, coined the phrase the ‘Vortex of Publicity’ and is a useful way for describing and analysing the way promotional material feeds off and back into itself. A product may come to advertise not just itself but the company that produces it and also the qualities associated with it. The emphasis seems to be on feedback which is really a type of symbiosis. For example some ads refer to other ads thus increasing the level of publicity each receives as a result of the feedback loop. There may be a number of strands to the promotion of a single product so that the whole thing becomes integrated. Thus, the metaphor of a vortex is very apt with a whirlpool of publicity being created into which everything is drawn.

Winns, Marie Her book, ‘The Plug-in Drug’, 1977, is typical of much effects Research in its claims concerning children and television. Winns claimed children watched TV in a trance, their eyes having a ‘glazed vacuous look’. This is part of the mass manipulation model sometimes known as the Hypodermic Needle effect. Remember, that in effects models, the media are seen to do things to audiences. Compare this with Gratifications Theory. See Katz, E.

Wright, Will (1975 ‘Six Guns and Society’) writing on the evolution of the western genre examines the kind of cyclical development argued by Christian Metz. Wright argues that the western goes through a thematic and approximately chronological change from the ‘classic western’ (e.g. Shane ) to the ‘transitional western’ (High Noon) and finally to the ‘professional western’ ( The Wild Bunch). He also argues foe a variation on the classic western which he terms the ‘vengeance western’. Wright draws also owes much to Vladimir Propp. As with any model of this type such categories open up further debates.