Vladirmir Propp

Vladimir Propp analysed folk tales and from this he identified eight key character roles in these stories.

1. the hero (good character)
2. the villain (evil character)
3. the donor (provider)
4. the helper
5. the father figure (caring character)
6. the dispatcher
7. the princess (the female that needs to be saved)
8. the false hero

Propp argued that characters could fulfil more than one of these roles and that there can be more than one of each character type.

Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes described all texts as complex ‘bundles’ of meaning which can be unravelled to create a whole range of different meaning.

According to Barthes texts can be:

OPEN- with several ‘threads to pull’

CLOSED- with only one obvious thread to grasp

Texts that can be read in a number of ways are known as PLOYSEMIC texts (open to a number of interpretations)

-          these ‘threads’ that Barthes referred to are known as narrative codes

-          the most significant of these codes is the enigma code

-          this is constructed to attract and hold the attention of the audience normally by creating a mystery or puzzle that the audience want to see

-          the enigma code is usually introduced in the disruption phase of Todorov’s model

-          they are designed to attract audiences and hold their attention e.g. consider how they are in Reality television like the X Factor.

Narrative and Tzventa Todorov

Narrative means the way a story is organised.

Elements of a narrative:

• time
• closure
• enigma

Classical Hollywood narratives:

• linear- going in one direction
• few, if any, sub-plot where another story appears
• tendency towards closure- all lose ends tied up in the end

Tzvetan Todorov

• equilibrium
• disruption
• resolution
• new equilibrium 

Suture

Classical Hollywood narrative, editing, sound and Mise-en-scene ‘sutures’ or positions the audience in certain ways making only one preferred reading possible, however conscious the audience is of that position.

Feminist Film Theory and Audiences

Laura Mulvey is the theorist behind this theory and she wrote a book called visual pleasure and narrative cinema (1975).

Cinema reflects society

Therefore cinema reflects a patriarchal society

The Gaze:

• The ‘gaze’ of the cinema is the male gaze.
• The male gaze is active the female gaze is passive
• Within the narrative male characters direct their gaze towards female characters
• The spectator is mad to identify with the male gaze, because the camera films from the optical, as well as libidinal point of view of the male character.
• Thus there are three levels of the cinematic gaze- camera, character and spectator- that objectify the female character (the triple gaze).
• Therefore the audience is constructed a though everyone was male.
• Women are forced to look at the text as though they are a male member of the audience.
• This occurs through the process of suture.

Agency:

- In the classical Hollywood cinema the male protagonist has agency- he is active and powerful.

- He is the agent around whom the dramatic action unfolds.

- The female character is passive and powerless- she is the object of desire for the protagonist and the audience.

Erotic Desires:

Laura Mulvey argues that women have two roles in films

1.           as an object of erotic desire for the characters
2.       as an object of erotic desires for the audiences

Reception Theory

Given that the Effects model and Uses and Gratification model have their problems and limitations however the academic Stuart Hall at Birmingham University developed a different approach to audiences in 1970’s. This considered how text were encoded with meaning by producers and then decoded by audiences.

The theory suggests that:

•        when a producer constructs a text it is encoded with a meaning or message that the producer wishes to convey o the audience.
•     In some instances audiences will correctly decode the message or meaning and understand what the producer was trying to say.
•      In some instances the audiences will either reject or fail to correctly understand the message.

Stuart Hall identified three types of audience reading of the text:

1.     dominant or preferred reading

2.     negotiated reading

3.     oppositional reading

Dominant reading is where the audience decodes the message, as the producer wants them to do and broadly agrees with it; for example watching a political speech and agreeing with it.

Negotiated reading is where the audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of the text in light of previously held views; for example neither agreeing or disagreeing with the political speech or being disinterested.

Oppositional reading is where the dominant meaning is recognised but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons; for example total rejection of the political speech and active opposition.

The Uses and Gratification Model

• this model is the opposite to the Effects Model.
• the audience is active
• the audience uses the text and is not used by it
• the audience use the text for it own gratification or pleasure
• here the power lies with the audience not the producers
• this theory emphasises what audience do with media texts- how and why they use them
• far from being duped by the media, the audience is free to reject, use or play with media meanings as they see fit. 

audiences therefore use media texts to go gratify needs for:

• diversion
• escapism 
• information
• pleasure
• comparing relations and consumption with ones own
• sexual stimulation

the audience is in control and consumption of the media helps people with issues such as:

• learning
• emotional satisfaction
• relaxation
• help with issues of personal identity
• help with issues of social identity
• help with issues of aggression and violence

Controversially the theory suggests the consumption of violent images can be helpful rather than harmful.
The theory suggests that audiences act out their  violent impulses through the consumption of media violence.
The audiences inclination towards violence is therefore sublimate, and they are less likely to commit violent acts.

Continuing The Effects Model

In the experiment of the Bobo Doll:

• the children watched a video here an adult violently attacked  a clown toy called Bobo Doll.
• the children were then taken in to a room with attractive toys that they were not permitted to touch.
• the children were then led to another room with the Bobo Doll in it.
• 88% of the children imitated the violent behaviour that they had seen earlier.
• 8 months later 40% of the children reproduced the same violent behaviour.
• the conclusion reached was that will imitate violent media context.
• there are many problems with he experiment like the flaws with the methodology. the effects model is still the dominant theory used by politicians, some parts of the media and some religious organisations in attributing violence to the consumption of media text. 

key examples cited as causing or being contributory factors are:

• the film Child's Play 3 in the murder of James Bulger in 1993
• the game Manhunt in the murder of Stefan Pakeerah in 2004 by his friend Warren LeBlanc
• the film Clockwork Orange (1971) in a murder of rapes and violent attacks
• the film called Severance (2006) in the murder of Simon Everitt.

In each case there was a media and political outcry for the texts to be banned. In some cases laws were changed, films banned, and newspapers demanded the burning of films. Subsequently in each case it was found that no case could be proven to demonstrate a link between the text and the violent acts.

The Effects Model contributes to moral panics whereby:

• the media prouce inactivity, make us into students who wont pass their exams or ' couch potatoes' who make no effort to get a job. 
• the media produces violent 'copycat' behaviour or mindless shopping in response to advertisement. 

The Effects Model

The consumption of media text has an effect or influence upon the audience.

Its normally considered that this effect is negative.

Audiences are passive and powerless to prevent the influence.

The power lies with the message of the text (can be forced to agree with something).

The model can be called the Hypodermic Model:

Here the messages in media text are injected into the audience by the powerful media.

The audience is powerless to resist.

Therefore, the media works like a “drug, addicted, doped or duped”.

Key evidence for the effects model:

1. The Frankfurt School theorised in the 1920’s and 30’s that the mass media acted to resist and control audiences to the benefit of corporate capitalism and governments.
2.  The Bobo Doll experiment, was a very controversial piece of research that apparently proved that children copy violent behaviour (1961, Albert Bandura).