1. Media Theories

2. The Male Gaze Theory proposed by Laura Mulvey in 1975
”Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”

3. ”Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
Narrative perspective = heterosexual male
Women become sexually objectified
Men = active; women = passive
Women learn to take male perspective
Women learn to see selves thru male eyes

4. ”Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
Effects
Men: women become less of a threat when sexualized/objectified
Women: learn to accept patriarchy
Both: accept patriarchy as ”normal” or ”natural”

5. Male gaze

6. Male gaze

7. Male gaze

8. Male gaze

9. Male gaze

10. Male gaze

11. Using the theory Identify genre (satire or not?)
Identify the character who serves as the focalizer (male, female?)
Identify where the male gaze can be found (or not)
Discuss effect on the audience / uses to which this put

12. Hypodermic needle theory
Linked to Frankfurt School in 1930s
Claims that the media can ”inject” an idea into the public, which will accept it
Examples:
Nazi propaganda
War of the Worlds broadcast (1938)

13. Hypodermic needle theory
Assumes a one-way relationship between media and audience
Too one-sided?
Consider:
Internet
Differing reactions to same TV show
Political views
Audience Reception Theory

14. Audience Reception Theory proposed by Stuart Hall (UK) in 1973
”Encoding/decoding”
Developed as part of Culture Studies movement
Attempt to analyze effect of media rather than look at statistics

15. Audience Reception Film/TV are first ”encoded” by media
Audience ”decodes” meaning
Different audiences may decode in different ways
Decoding depends on context and social background

16. Audience Reception Dominant reading: Negotiated reading:
Audience accepts ”preferred” interpretation
Negotiated reading:
Message is partly accepted, partly rejected
Oppositional reading:
Audience rejects intended meaning

17. Audience Reception
Dominant reading = accepting hegemonic interpretation

18. Example - Iraq War

19. Example - Tabloid
Encoded message?
What influences a dominant reading?

20. Example – Breaking Bad Dominant reading? Oppositional reading?
White male hero
Jesse’s drug habit → not so bad
Oppositional reading?
Rejects values of American Dream
Breaks bad

21. Breaking Bad Negotiated reading: Walter is OK Skyler is not
Drug dealer but...
Skyler is not
Has affair

22. Using the theory
How is the work encoded? (what work is it meant to do?)
How does (might?) the audience decode it?
What are the possible readings of it? (dominant, negotiated, and/or oppositional)

23. Race, Class, Gender
A concern for literary and cultural critics since 1970s/80s
Arose separately (ethnic studies, Marxism, feminist studies)
Common assumption: all 3 are socially constructed, not natural categories.

24. Race, Class, Gender
Assumes: cultural codes underlie all cultural products
Attempts to identify codes and link them to cultural hegemony
Attempts to identify codes and how they intersect

25. Race Examples: Light-skinned characters ”better” than dark-skinned
Black women objectified in hip- hop, part of colonial attitude

26. Race

27. Race Slave figure allows acceptable portrayal of whites/slavery
Black enjoys/accepts slavery

28. Race
White child / black adult
Infantilizes black

29. Race
Black-faced actors

30. Race

31. Class Often considers the American Dream
Dream itself presupposes no social class barriers in US
How is class portrayed?

32. Theories Male Gaze Hypodermic Needle Theory Audience Reception Theory
Race, Class, Gender