Media Theory for A Level

Media Theory for A Level provides a comprehensive introduction to the 19 academic

­theories required for A Level Media study. From Roland Barthes to Clay Shirky, from
structuralism to civilisationism, this revision book explains the core academic concepts
students need to master to succeed in their exams. Each chapter includes:

• Comprehensive explanations of the academic ideas and theories specified for GCE
Media study.
• Practical tasks designed to help students apply theoretical concepts to unseen texts
and close study products/set texts.
• Exemplar applications of theories to set texts and close study products for all media
specifications (AQA, Eduqas, OCR and WJEC).
• Challenge activities designed to help students secure premium grades.
• Glossaries to explain specialist academic terminology.
• Revision summaries and exam preparation activities for all named theorists.
• Essential knowledge reference tables.

Media Theory for A Level is also accompanied by the essentialmediatheory.com website

that contains a wide range of supporting resources. Accompanying online material
includes:

• Revision flashcards and worksheets.

• A comprehensive bank of exemplar applications that apply academic theory to
current set texts and close study products for all media specifications.
• Classroom ready worksheets that teachers can use alongside the book to help
­students master essential media theory.
• Help sheets that focus on the application of academic theory to unseen text com-
ponents of A Level exams.

Mark Dixon is an Eduqas A Level examiner and Head of Media and Film at Durham
Sixth Form Centre. He is also a freelance author, and has written for The Guardian, Tes,
Media Magazine and Teach Secondary as well as authoring a range of digital resources for
Eduqas Media.
Media Theory for A Level
The Essential Revision Guide

Mark Dixon
First published 2020
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For Steph, Maisie and Preston
Contents

Media language

1 Semiotics: Roland Barthes 1

Concept 1: denotation and connotation 1
Concept 2: the media’s ideological effect 11

2 Structuralism: Claude Lévi-Strauss 15

Concept 1: binary oppositions 15
Concept 2: binary oppositions and ideological
significance 20

3 Narratology: Tzvetan Todorov 27

Concept 1: the three act ideal 27
Concept 2: the ideological effects of story structure 35

4 Genre theory: Steve Neale 39

Concept 1: repetition and difference 39
Concept 2: industry effects on genre-­driven content 45

5 Postmodernism: Jean Baudrillard 50

Key concept: the real and the hyperreal 50
viii   Contents
Media representation

6 Representation: Stuart Hall 60

Concept 1: media representation processes 60
Concept 2: stereotypes and power 63

7 Postcolonial theory: Paul Gilroy 72

Concept 1: racial binaries, otherness and
civilisationism 72
Concept 2: the legacy of Empire and British identity 77

8 Feminist theory: Liesbet van Zoonen 82

Concept 1: the female body as spectacle 82
Concept 2: masculinity in the media 88

9 Intersectionality: bell hooks 92

Concept 1: interconnected oppression 92
Concept 2: hooks’ call to action 97

10 Gender as performance: Judith Butler 102

Concept 1: gendered identities are constructed through
repetition and ritual 102
Concept 2: gender subversion and gendered
hierarchies 106

11 Media and identity: David Gauntlett 113

Concept 1: traditional and post-­traditional media
consumption 113
Concept 2: reflexive identity construction 115

Media industries

12 Ownership effects: James Curran and Jean

Seaton 125
Concept 1: media concentration 126
Concept 2: effects of concentration on media
content 131
 Contents   ix
Concept 3: diverse ownership creates diverse
products 135

13 Regulation: Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt 141

Concept 1: citizen and consumer models of media
regulation 142
Concept 2: regulation in the globalised media age 148

14 The culture industry: David Hesmondhalgh 153

Concept 1: maximising profits and minimising risks 154
Concept 2: the effects of the internet revolution are
difficult to diagnose 159

Media audiences

15 Media modelling effects: Albert Bandura 165

Concept 1: violent behaviours are learned through
modelling 165
Concept 2: audiences copy media modelling 166

16 Cultivation theory: George Gerbner 176

Concept 1: fear cultivation 176
Concept 2: media consumption leads audiences to accept
mainstream ideologies 181

17 Reception theory: Stuart Hall 188

Concept 1: encoding and decoding 188
Concept 2: dominant, negotiated and oppositional
decoding 193

18 Fandom: Henry Jenkins 198

Concept 1: fan appropriation 198
Concept 2: audience–producer convergence in the
digital age 201
Concept 3: fans use participatory culture to effect wider
social change 205
x   Contents
19 The end of audience: Clay Shirky 211
Concept 1: everybody makes the media 211
Concept 2: everyday communities of practice 218

Works cited 223

Index 226
1 Semiotics
Roland Barthes

Until the 1950s academic study of culture was largely limited to an

exploration of high culture. Literature, art, architecture, music, etc.
were deemed worthy of study because, supposedly, they articulated
sophisticated and nuanced modes of thinking. Popular culture, con-
versely, was rejected as unworthy of analysis because the stories told by
advertising, cinema and the then emerging form of television were
thought to be constructed with so little precision, and their effects so
simple, that any academic attention was undeserving.
Barthes, however, realised that the mass media ought to be taken ser-
iously, and his 1957 essay collection, Mythologies, stands as one of the first
attempts to evaluate the finesse and impact of mass media narratives.
Indeed, Barthes Mythologies revels in popular culture, analysing anything
and everything from wrestling to horoscopes, from car adverts to polit-
ical news. Barthes’s writing intuited that mass media forms affected a
deep presence within society – an ideological presence whose scope and
influence far outstripped the nuanced reach of high culture.

Concept 1: denotation and connotation

Denotation/connotation
Barthes tells us that media products are decoded by their readers – in
the first instance, at least – using what he calls a ‘denotative reading’.
Denotative readings, he suggests, occur when readers recognise the
literal or physical content of media imagery. For example, a denotative
reading of the ‘I, Daniel Blake’ poster in Figure 1.1 would simply
acknowledge that the photograph depicts an older man who wears
dark clothing with his fist raised in the air.
Figure 1.1 ‘I, Daniel Blake’ film poster (2016).
© Sixteen Films.
 Semiotics: Roland Barthes   3
Barthes tells us that readers quickly move beyond the simple recog-
nition of image content and subsequently engage in what he calls ‘con-
notative decoding’. Connotation, Barthes argues, ‘makes possible a
(limited) dissemination of meanings, spread like gold dust on the
surface of the text’ (Barthes, 2007, 9). Connotative readings, he sug-
gests, refer to the deeper understandings prompted by media imagery
and to the emotional, symbolic or even ideological significances pro-
duced as a result of those readings.
The ‘I, Daniel Blake’ poster in Figure 1.1, for example, signifies
various meanings through a range of subtle cues: the raised fist suggests

Table 1.1 Connotative effects of photographic imagery

Image makers use a range of strategies to infer meaning within imagery –

look out for the following when analysing the meaning making effects of
your set texts.

Image features Look out for

Pose Fourth wall breaks: where the photographic

Subject positioning, subject meets the gaze of the audience. This can
stance or body language create a confrontational, aggressive or invitational
feel.
Off-screen gaze: upward gazes can suggest
spirituality; right-frame gazes can suggest adventure
or optimism; left-frame gazes can suggest regret or
nostalgia.
Body language control: might be open or
closed, passive or active, strong or weak.
Subject positioning: the way that group shots are
arranged is usually significant with power conferred
on those characters that occupy dominant
positions.
Proxemics: refers to the distance between subjects
– the closer the characters are the closer their
relationship.
Left-to-right/right-to-left movement:
characters who travel from screen left to screen
right create positive connotations – they are
adventurers and we might feel hopeful about their
prospects; right-to-left movements can suggest
failure or an impending confrontation.

continued
4   Semiotics: Roland Barthes

Image features Look out for

Mise en scène Symbolic props: props are rarely accidental –

Props, costume and their use and placement generally infer symbolic
setting meanings.
Pathetic fallacy: settings and scenery often serve
further symbolic functions – weather, for example,
infers the tone of characters’ thoughts.
Costume symbolism: character stereotypes are
constructed through costuming, helping us to
decipher a character’s narrative function.
Lighting connotations High-key lighting: removes shadows from a
scene, often producing a much lighter, more
upbeat feel.
Low-key lighting: emphasises shadows and
constructs a much more serious set of connotations.
Chiaroscuro lighting: high contrast lighting
usually created through the use of light beams
penetrating pitch darkness and connotes
hopelessness or mystery.
Ambient lighting: infers realism.
Compositional effects Long shots: imply that a subject is dominated by
Shot distance, positioning their environment.
of subjects within the Close ups: intensify character emotion or suggest
frame impending drama.
Left/right compositions: traditionally the left
side of the screen is reserved for characters with
whom the audience is meant to empathise and vice
versa.
Open/closed frames: open framing suggests
freedom, while enclosing a character within a
closed frame can suggest entrapment.
Tilt and eye line: tilt-ups and high eyelines
convey power, while tilt-downs and low eyelines
connote powerlessness and vulnerability.
Post-production Colour control: colours are often exaggerated for
effects specific connotative effect – red: anger; white:
innocence; blue: sadness and so on.
High saturation: colour levels are increased
creating a cheerier, upbeat feel.
Desaturation: taking colour out of an image
generates a serious or sombre tone.
 Semiotics: Roland Barthes   5
defiance, the character’s costume infers poverty or that he comes from
a working class background, while the dark clothing potentially con-
structs a sombre tone and suggests that the advertised film will deal
with serious or tragic themes. In reading the meaning of these subtle
cues, and of the multitude of clues that all media products present,
audiences use their cultural knowledge and their experience of similar
imagery to help them construct an understanding of a product’s
significance.

Text and image

Barthes, of course, understood that photographic imagery does not
construct meaning by itself. Imagery, in print-­based products, works
alongside text-­based components. Headers and taglines give meaning
to photos, while photos themselves provide an accompanying visual
explanation for news copy. The interplay between text and image,
Barthes tells us, is determined by the positioning of textual compon-
ents and by the relative size of each element. Barthes also details the
use of text to ‘anchor’ image meanings in advertisements and print
news. Photo captions, headers and taglines, Barthes tells us, guide
readers towards defined significations.
Within the ‘Tide’ advertisement depicted in Figure 1.2, for
instance, readers are encouraged to question why the woman is
holding the box of washing powder in what looks, to all intents and
purposes, to be a romantic embrace. The image presented could
connote a whole range of meanings, from the surreal to the nonsensi-
cal. Has the woman actually fallen in love with a box of washing
powder? Has she found real love as a result of the product? Perhaps,
we might conclude, the woman has a strange washing powder fetish.
It is not until we read the strapline at the bottom of the advert,
‘Tide gets clothes cleaner than any other washday product’, that the
meaning of the image is explicated. The woman loves Tide as a result
of its cleaning powers. In the sense, the text component anchors the
meaning of imagery. Without anchorage, Barthes suggests, media
imagery is likely to produce polysemic connotations or multiple mean-
ings. Anchorage, Barthes tells us, constructs, ‘a vice which holds the
connoted meanings from proliferating’ (Barthes, 2007, 39).
Figure 1.2 Tide washing powder advert (1950).
Source: image courtesy of Advertising Archive.
 Semiotics: Roland Barthes   7

Box 1.1 Apply it: diagnose the connotations constructed

by media set texts
Use the following questions to help you construct a detailed analysis of
the media language effects of relevant set texts:

Pose connotations
• Who is pictured within key imagery? And with whom? What kind
of relationship do the characters have with each other?
• What is significant about their pose? Where is the character
looking and in what ways is that significant?
• What does their body language reveal?

Mise en scène
• What is the significance or props, setting and costuming?
• Do costumes tell us who the character is or what role they play in
the overarching narrative?

Lighting
• What kind of lighting is used and with what emotional or conno-
tative effect?
• Who is placed in shadow? Who is given light?

Composition
• What sort of shot distance is used to depict the subject?
• Is the shot composed with the subject on the left or right side of
the frame? What connotations does this positioning create for the
audience?
• Is the shot constructed as an open or closed frame shot?
• Is tilt applied to the composition and with what effect?

Post-­production
• What colours are foregrounded and with what connotative effect?
• Is colour taken out of the shot?

Anchorage
• What elements, if any, anchor the meanings constructed by your
set texts?

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
8   Semiotics: Roland Barthes
Barthes five code symphony
Barthes’s denotation/connotation model provides an excellent
framework for analysing print media. We can use it to diagnose the
effects of costume choices or settings, or to think about the signifi-
cations created through shot distance or shot composition. Barthes’s
denotation/connotation model, however, is less effective when we
have to consider the way in which elements combine to produce
singular effects. Narratives, for instance, set up meanings at the start
of stories that are connected to later narrative events – stories, for
example, tease audiences with mysteries that are only resolved at the
end. Similarly, some connotations are used throughout a text in a
way that gives them a deeper connotative meaning than if they
appeared just once. For example, the repeated use of food-­oriented
references in the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale – breadcrumbs, the
gingerbread house, the cooking of the witch – creates an enhanced
symbolic effect.
To account for this, Barthes produced a more nuanced version of
his denotation/connotation model in which a symphony of five
explicit coding effects are used to create meaning. These connotative
effects, he argues, operate like voices or instruments in a band – some-
times playing in unison, while at other moments they are muted so
that single codes can deliver solo effects.
Barthes details his five code symphony as follows:

• Hermeneutic codes (enigmas): construct moments of mystery

to intrigue the reader or viewer. Enigmas also hook readers, com-
pelling further reading or viewing to locate answers to the ques-
tions posed. The header of the ‘Tide’ advert in Figure 1.2, for
instance, constructs a hermeneutic response through the header
element. Readers are prompted to ponder what it is that ‘women
want’, while the enigma is only resolved if the rest of the advert is
consumed. Some products, Barthes tells us, rely on hermeneutic
codes more than others – crime dramas, for instance, usually
convey and reinforce long standing enigmas throughout their
narratives.
• Proairetic codes (actions): narratives also offer moments in
which meaning is conveyed through action or demonstration.
Action provides explanation or excitement, sometimes working to
resolve the enigmas that earlier narrative sequences might pose.
 Semiotics: Roland Barthes   9
The depiction of the washing machine in the top right hand
corner of the ‘Tide’ advert (Figure 1.2), for example, constructs a
proairetic moment in that the imagery illustrates how the washing
powder is used. Again, some products deploy proairetic codes
more than others: science fiction, thrillers and crime dramas, for
instance, typically rely on moments of concentrated action to
generate viewer excitement.
• Semantic codes (connotative elements): refers to any
element within a media text that produces a single connotative
effect. Semantic codes include lighting, mise en scène and colour
usage. They also refer to the use of compositional effects, pose
or even to typographic decisions and the significations that text
size or font selection convey. Semantic code connotations, for
example, are created in the ‘Tide’ advert (Figure 1.2) via the
wavelike arrangement of the ‘What Women Want’ header (con-
noting an upbeat jaunty tone), while the repeated use of excla-
mation marks throughout the advert construct energy and
volume.
• Symbolic codes: semantic and symbolic codes are highly
similar and often quite hard to tease apart. Perhaps one of the
easiest ways to seek out the symbolic codes within a product is
to search for repeated symbols that convey a deeper meaning. In
television, symbolic codes often surface as repeated themes or
visual motifs and are referenced throughout the story in a thread
of continuous underlying meaning. In the ‘Tide’ advert (Figure
1.2), the repetition of the word ‘clean’ and the way that cleanli-
ness in general is presented could be considered to be symbolic
meaning making.
• Cultural codes (referential codes): refers to the inclusion of
material that generates meaning from outside the product. Cul-
tural codes might include the use of proverbs, sayings or idioms.
They might also include references to scientific or historical
knowledge – in short, anything that relies on the audience’s
knowledge beyond the text. Intertextual references, too, can be
considered to be a form of cultural code in that they reference
meanings from outside the product. Tide, for instance, offers cul-
tural coding through the intertextual reference made to the ‘We
can do it’ Second World War propaganda poster (Figure 1.3). The
reference here constructs the suggestion that Tide is a patriotic
product.
Figure 1.3 ‘We Can Do It!’ American Second World War propaganda poster
(1943).
Source: image courtesy of Advertising Archive.
 Semiotics: Roland Barthes   11

Box 1.2 Apply it: apply Barthes’s five code symphony to

set texts
Work through set texts that require an understanding of the effects of
media language. Identify how each text crafts hermeneutic, proairetic,
semantic, cultural and symbolic codes to create meaning.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

Concept 2: the media’s ideological effect

Media as myth
Traditional myths, Barthes tells us, are important because they present
a collective representation of the world. Myths have an elevated status;
they are important enough to be passed down from one generation to
the next, while the anonymisation of their authors further suggests that
mythic tales represent a collective rather than a singular view. Myths,
too, are allegorical – they present moral outlooks and tell us how we
ought to behave. When, for instance, Narcissus falls in love with his
own reflection, we, too, are being warned about the dangers of vanity
and self-­absorption.
Barthes suggests that the media has replaced, or at least replicates,
the functions of traditional myth making. The press, television, advert-
ising and radio, he argues, convey meaning with the same sort of
authority as myths and, more, importantly, induce similar ideological
effects.
Indeed, Barthes’s hugely influential essay collection, Mythologies,
sought to identify those mythic effects, suggesting that advertising
invests cars with a godlike spirituality, that politicians manufacture
imagery to convince us of their ordinariness and that soap detergents
effect a ‘euphoria’ of cleanliness through their marketing appeals
(Barthes, 2009, 32).
Barthes identifies the following ideological effects of media
consumption:

• Naturalisation: as a result of the media’s uncanny ability to look

and feel realistic, media products, Barthes tells us, present ideas as
12   Semiotics: Roland Barthes
natural, matter of fact or common sense. Indeed, if a range of
media texts repeat the same idea enough times audiences come to
believe that those ideas are not a matter of perspective but are, in
fact, an immutable social norm. For instance, advertising that posi-
tions women as mothers or as responsible for domestic chores nat-
uralise the idea that a woman’s place ought to be in the home.
• Media myths are reductive: Barthes tells us that the media, by
and large, simplifies, reduces or purifies ideas, turning complexity
into easily digestible information. The use of simplicity creates
audience appeal, Barthes argues, and also has the effect of de-­
intellectualising and depoliticising ideas. Message reduction also
discourages audiences from questioning or analysing media content
too closely.
• Media myths reinforce existing social power structures:
‘The oppressed is nothing, he has only one language, that of his
emancipation,’ Barthes writes, while ‘the oppressor is everything,
his language is rich, multiform, supple’ (Barthes, 2009, 176). He
argues that those who have power tend to control the myth-­
making process, either owning or indirectly channelling media
content through privileged access arrangements. The powerful, in
this sense, hold all the cards, and are able to harness the creative
allure of the media industry to maintain the illusion that the
system we live in, the system that benefits the powerful the most,
is naturally ordered and unchangeable.

Box 1.3 Discuss it: what effect do media products have

on society?
• Can you think of a media product that consistently turns complex-
ity into a simplified or reductive message?
• Do any of your set texts deploy message reduction? Why?
• Can you think of an idea, behaviour or norm that the media
naturalises?
• Are modern audiences more suspicious of the media than Barthes
suggests?
• Do media products reinforce existing power structures? Can you
think of any media products that challenge those who have power?
 Semiotics: Roland Barthes   13

Box 1.4 Apply it: diagnose the ideological subtexts of

your set texts
Use the following questions to help you identify the ideological sub-
texts of set text products:

• Naturalisation effects: in what ways does the set text present key
ideas, values or behaviours as common sense or the norm?
• Simplification effects: in what ways does the text create appeal
for those ideas through a simplistic presentation? How does that
simplicity discourage audience questioning?
• Reinforcement of existing power structures: who has power
within the set text? How does that power mirror real world power?

Exemplar analysis and further set text help is available for a range of products at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

Table 1.2 Speak Roland Barthes

Anchorage The process of fixing the meaning, usually the meaning

of an image, through the use of another component –
usually a text-based feature such as a header or caption.
Denotation/ Denotation refers to the literal meaning of a media
connotation element, whilst connotation refers to the emotions, ideas
or symbolic meanings produced by that element.
Hermeneutic Hermeneutic elements construct mystery or enigma,
codes encouraging the reader to engage further with a product
in order to discover the answer to the puzzle posed.
Naturalisation The process of making ideas or viewpoints feel like they
are common sense when, in reality, they are constructed
or manufactured by media producers.
Message Barthes argues that the media tends to simplify or purify
reduction complex ideas. This reductive impulse discourages
audiences from questioning the ideas presented.
Proairetic codes Refers to moments of action within a media text.
Proairetic moments create excitement or provide
explanation for audiences.
Signification The process of meaning creation. Media elements signify
or produce meanings when consumed by audiences.
14   Semiotics: Roland Barthes
Table 1.3 Barthes: ten minute revision

Concept 1: the media constructs meaning through a process of denotation and

connotation

• We read the media imagery in the same way that we read conventional
language.
• We decode media imagery in two distinctly different ways: first, producing
a denotative reading that recognises the literal content of an image, and
then producing a connotative reading that diagnoses a deeper symbolic
meaning.
• Image based connotations are created through: props, post-production
effects, pose, costuming, composition and lighting.
• Media imagery is polyvalent – likely, in other words, to produce a number
of connotative effects.
• Text-based elements can provide anchorage – tying down the meaning of
an image for the reader.
• Barthes suggests that meaning is produced by the simultaneous deployment
of hermeneutic, proairetic, semantic, cultural and symbolic features.

Concept 2: the media has an ideological effect on audiences

• The media is powerful because it has the capacity to produce a realistic

portrayal of the world.
• The media has a myth like capacity to guide and influence our behaviours
and actions.
• The media naturalises ideas through repetition.
• The media reduces or simplifies ideas, discouraging audiences from
questioning its specific presentation of the world.
• The media tends to reinforce the worldview of those who affect social
power.

Two theorists who challenge Barthes’s thinking

• Claude Lévi-Strauss: would be more interested in the way that media

products articulate oppositions than in the effect of any single ingredient or
moment. Lévi-Strauss would also argue that media products are informed
by universally shared structures; Barthes argues that media products are
constructed as a result of temporal or social influences.
• Tzvetan Todorov: would argue that media products produce meaning
through narrative features and that isolated instances of connotation are less
significant.
2 Structuralism
Claude Lévi-Strauss

Lévi-Strauss painstakingly analysed the structure and narrative content of

hundreds of mythic tales he collected from around the globe. From the
tribal stories of the Amazonian rainforest to the ancient myths of Greece,
he sought to uncover the invisible rule book of storytelling in order to
diagnose the essential nature of human experience; he believed that any
common themes or motifs located in those myths would reveal essential
truths about the way the human mind structures the world.
All stories, Lévi-Strauss ultimately concluded, work through opposi-
tional arrangements – through the construction of characters or narrative
incidents that clash or jar. Moreover, stories and storytelling, in Lévi-
Strauss’s view, perform a vital social function: oppositional presentations
are resolved to outline societal taboos and socially acceptable behaviours.

Concept 1: binary oppositions

Lévi-Strauss outlines the key academic ideas used to explore media
products in his 1962 book, The Savage Mind, in which he suggests that
a subliminal set of structural rules inform myth production. Individual
cultures might speak different languages, Lévi-Strauss argues, but all
stories told across the globe and throughout history employ a remark-
ably simple but stable formula. Myths, Lévi-Strauss infers, universally
explore human experience using polarised themes: birth has to
compete against death, success against failure, wisdom trades blows
with innocence. The Old Testament, for instance, suggests that the
Earth was formed from a series of oppositional constructs – God sepa-
rated light from darkness, the sky from the sea, the land from the
water. In fairy tales, the innocence and youth of Little Red Riding
Hood takes on the greed and cunning of the Big Bad Wolf.
16   Structuralism: Claude Lévi-Strauss
Lévi-Strauss infers further that the universal use of these opposi-
tional forces to organise stories is prompted by humankind’s innate bias
towards organising the world using binary thinking. Pre-­modern man’s
need to distinguish poisonous from edible foodstuffs, Lévi-Strauss
argues, embedded a cognitive blueprint that directs human beings to
read the world using oppositional descriptors.
Humans do not do ambiguity, Lévi-Strauss tells us. We simplify the
world around us using an age-­old bias towards binary thinking. Cer-
tainly, binary labels and binary thinking are evidenced aplenty in
today’s complex world. We continue to label ourselves as female or
male, masculine or feminine, despite the multiplicity of gender choices
at play in Western society. Similarly, our political governance is polar-
ised as left or right wing, while human morality is packaged up in
deeds that are categorised as good or evil, saintly or sinful.

Media based binary oppositions

Lévi-Strauss did not allude to the structure of contemporary media prod-
ucts directly, but if we buy into the idea that binary thinking is a universal
feature of storytelling then it stands to reason that media narratives are
organised using the same structural blueprints as those offered in myths.
Oppositions in media products might be inferred through the following:

• Character oppositions: audiences expect villains to battle heroes.

Oppositions, too, might also centre on secondary characters, with
contrasts constructed in terms of youth or maturity, strength or

Box 2.1 Think about it: do humans organise the world

using binary thinking?
Can you think of any further evidence that would reinforce the idea
that humans naturally organise the world using simplified binaries?

• What kinds of media products are particularly prone to using

binary oppositions?

• In what ways do your set texts use oppositions?

• Do any of your set texts resist the use of simple binary oppositions?
 Structuralism: Claude Lévi-Strauss   17
intelligence, masculinity or femininity. Character oppositions can be
found in real world products too: newspapers deploy stories in
which criminals exploit victims, while documentaries depict inno-
cent subjects who fall prey to anonymous corporations.
• Narrative oppositions: media stories, too, are organised to con-
struct moments of opposition. Print and television advertising, for
instance, transforms failure into success through simplified binary
presentations. Television narratives conventionally culminate in a
grand narrative collision so that they might deliver a finale of story
excitement for their audiences.
• Stylistic oppositions: media producers also encode products
using juxtaposed stylistic presentations. Camera work might
change from quiet stasis in one scene to a frenzied set of whip
pans in another. Transitions of this kind can reinforce wider
character-­oriented oppositions or are deployed to create aesthetic
interest. Table 2.1 identifies some of the common stylistic opposi-
tions used by contemporary media texts.
• Genre-­driven binary oppositions: some binary oppositions are
so deeply entrenched within genres that they become a convention
or expectation of that genre. Science fiction products, for instance,
regularly offer audiences ‘technology versus humanity’ driven nar-
ratives; crime dramas routinely deploy ‘law enforcer/law breaker’
character stereotypes; romances resolve in romantic couplings.

Box 2.2 Apply it: diagnose genre-­driven oppositions in

your set texts
Use Table 2.3 at the end of this chapter to identify the genre-­driven
oppositions present within the set texts you are studying. Think about
the following questions to help you add further detail:

• Which thematic oppositions are presented by your set texts?

• How do the characters in your set texts reflect those oppositions?
• How do stylistic/design decisions used within those set texts reflect
the character oppositions presented? Think in terms of: camera
work, mise en scène sound, editing, language or imagery usage,
typography and layout.

Exemplar analysis and further set text help is available for a range of products at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
18   Structuralism: Claude Lévi-Strauss
The function of oppositions in media products
Media makers, moreover, deploy binary oppositions to create a range
of audience-­oriented effects. The potential functions of binary opposi-
tions in contemporary storytelling are used for the following reasons:

• To clearly explain ideas. Binary oppositions can be used to

simplify viewpoints or make complicated ideas understandable for
viewers and readers. News stories, for instance, often explain
complex topics by referencing interviewees with oppositional
viewpoints to generate simplified overviews.
• To create compelling narratives. The inclusion of binary
oppositions inevitably creates conflict. Audiences are more likely
to engage with a media product if they are presented with the
promise of a narrative clash.
• To create identifiable character types. Audiences can quickly
gain a sense of the direction of a story once oppositional characters
are introduced – we implicitly understand that the hero has to
fight the villain or that the good guy will win over his girl. The
use of clashing characters can also produce a range of other gratifi-
cations – comedy, fear and so on.
• To create audience identification. Binary oppositions prompt
audiences to identify with one central character or viewpoint. An
advert, for instance, that contrasts humdrum reality with the
sparkle of an advertised product clearly positions the audience to
empathise with the brand promoted.

Box 2.3 Revise it: prepare your own stylistics analysis

paragraphs
This exercise will take lots of time to execute, but ought to help
produce detailed responses that can be adapted for a huge variety of
exam questions. Use Table 2.1 and the following prompts to help you
develop your responses:

Relating stylistic oppositions to wider themes

• In what ways do stylistic oppositions reinforce genre-­oriented
expectations?
• In what ways do stylistic oppositions narrate the wider themes of
the set text?
 Structuralism: Claude Lévi-Strauss   19
• What messages do the oppositions used convey to audiences?

Stylistic analysis prompts

• Are there moments where locations, props or costuming contrast?
Why have they been styled this way?
• Are colour contrasts offered in your set texts and to what effect?
• How do editing, camera or lighting styles change across the time-
lines of your set texts? How do these stylistic oppositions support
wider narrative themes?
• Do sound elements offer significant moments of contrast in terms
of volume, tone, key signatures or instrumentation? What effect
do these aural contrasts have on audiences?

Exemplar: Old Spice (OCR). The benefits of using Old Spice in the
set text Bahamas advert are conveyed through a series of Straussian
binary oppositions. The calm composure of the central model is juxta-
posed with the chaotic activity taking place beneath him – for instance,
fishermen struggle to land their catches, while a ship sinks comically
behind the model. A contrasting colour palette is similarly deployed
with the orange heat of the volcano setting provoking a deliberate con-
trast with the idyllic blue sky above. These stylised features combine to
construct a ‘calm’ versus ‘chaos’ binary, prompting the product’s audi-
ence to understand that Old Spice facilitates composure under stressful
conditions.

Exemplar: WaterAid (Eduqas). WaterAid underlines the contrasting

experiences of the advert’s UK audience with those experiencing water
poverty in Africa. A carefully choreographed set of stylistic oppositions
at the start of the advert reinforces this sentiment, with the opening shot
of a rain-­soaked British scene (composed as a claustrophobic closed
framed composition) providing a stark contrast to the open-­framed
depiction of Claudia’s sun-­soaked village. Aurally, too, the rainy ambi-
ence of the first scene is replaced by the arid crunch of Claudia’s foot-
steps, while the green colour palettes of Britain transform into dusty
browns of the African savannah. These stylistic clashes are used, ulti-
mately, to underline the stark disparities that exist between the viewers’
water rich existence and those less fortunate than themselves.

Further exemplar paragraphs for set texts from all exam boards are available at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
20   Structuralism: Claude Lévi-Strauss
Table 2.1 Common stylistic oppositions used within media texts

Camera Open/closed framing Sound Loud/soft volume

Left/right frame High/low pitched
composition instrumentation
Left/right tracking Minor key/major key
Up/down tilt score
Thin/thick depth of field String/brass timbre
Static/handheld Agitated/calm room tone
movement Ascending/descending
Extreme close up/long shepherd tones
shot
Editing Slow/fast editing rhythm Mise en Low/high key lighting
Stretched/elliptical edits scène Warm/cold lighting
Continuity/montage Realistic/escapist mise en
editing scène
Straight cut/dissolve Lifeless/animated body
transitions language
Long takes/jump cutting Real/ideal costuming
Saturated/desaturated edit Sunny/stormy weather

Concept 2: binary oppositions and ideological

significance
Myths, according to Lévi-Strauss, articulate a version of the world
around us, generating culturally specific cues that define acceptable or
unacceptable social norms. Those cues, Lévi-Strauss infers, are created
as a result of the way that story oppositions resolve – in the way that
select oppositions are disregarded in favour of their counterparts. Nar-
ratives, in this sense, provide audiences with a set of privileged behavi-
ours or ideals that they are encouraged to copy or adopt.
Lévi-Strauss proposes, for instance, that a principle function of
primitive myth was to describe incest taboos and the rules of mar-
riage. For example, Sophocles famous Oedipus myth, Lévi-Strauss
explains, illustrates the dangers of unnatural sexual relationships.
The binary oppositions constructed in the story, he suggests, centre
on the masculine energy of Oedipus and the femininity of Oedi-
pus’s mother. Famously, Oedipus blinds himself when he discovers
he has accidentally married his own mother – Oedipus’s shame in
transgressing natural incest taboos is so deeply felt that he can longer
bear to look upon the world. The resolution of the male/female
oppositions presented, Levi-­Strauss explains, convey a clear warning
 Structuralism: Claude Lévi-Strauss   21
to the myth’s readers and listeners – don’t have sex with your own
mother.
Likewise, cultural products – art, literature and the media – do not
just present conflict in their narratives; they offer resolutions to those
oppositions. In film, for instance, protagonists invariably win their
battles. James Bond always crushes the terrorist plot. The Avengers
inevitably destroy their seemingly undefeatable enemies, while the
supernatural presence that terrorises us in horror films is terminally
exorcised in time for the end credits to roll.
Narratives resolve oppositions, and that resolution process allows media
products to play a significant role in promoting an explicit set of values
and ideologies. James Bond’s triumph over the forces of evil, for example,
privileges a quintessential sense of Britishness. 007 not only fights bad
guys, he reinstates democracy, moral decency and English tradition at the
expense of totalitarianism, capitalist greed or religious fanaticism.

Oppositional resolutions in news products

The news, too, resolves stories in a manner that privileges one set of
oppositions. Newspapers teach us that criminals are caught, that
corrupt politicians lose elections, or that wayward celebrities have to
endure rehab hell. The news does not just represent the chaos of the
world, nor does it merely order that chaos into neat binaries – news
stories are crafted in ways that reinforce cultural or editorial biases, and
the resolutions that publications craft privilege those cultural biases to
their readerships.
A news product reporting a terrorist attack, for instance, might outline
the suffering and death inflicted by the incident, but those losses are often
offset by coverage that emphasises the everyday acts of heroism that sur-
round the incident. Police officers and fire crews step into the fray when
bombers attack, innocent members of the public sacrifice themselves to
save others and, when the terrorist dust has settled, the incident news
cycle inevitably concludes with follow-­ups that articulate the ongoing
solidarity and defiance of the communities affected by the bombing. Yes,
the news articulates oppositions to create conflict and to sell more edi-
tions, yet, much like fictional media, news narratives construct resolutions
to forward editorial viewpoints and to reinforce cultural norms. Table 2.2
further outlines the uses and purposes of binary oppositions by print news
and a range of other media forms. Use Table 2.3 to help you uncover the
narrative oppositions presented by your set texts.
22   Structuralism: Claude Lévi-Strauss

Box 2.4 Revise it: prepare your own set text resolution

analysis paragraphs
Lévi-Strauss’s ideas concerning narrative resolution can be used to deter-
mine the underlying ideological significance of a media product. Most
media products give an uneven presentation of oppositional conflicts, posi-
tioning their audiences to agree with one set of ideas at the expense of other
oppositions. Use the following questions to construct power paragraphs that
define the character, genre or stylistic oppositions constructed by set texts
and to reach conclusions as to the ideological viewpoints that are privileged.

Genre/narrative resolutions
• Use Table 2.3 to identify the genre-­based oppositions created.
Which of the oppositions triumph in the set text? Where and how?
• How do narratives end? Do the resolutions offered at the end of
stories tell us anything about the ideological subtexts of your set texts?

Character resolutions
• How does characterisation produce conflict?
• Have the product’s authors crafted oppositional characters?
• How are audiences positioned to empathise with specific
characters?
• Which characters triumph in the product and with what ideo-
logical effect?

Exemplar paragraph: Common, Letter to the Free (AQA). Common’s

music video replicates many of the genre-­driven oppositions constructed by
politically aware hip-­hop musicians. Letter to the Free’s black and white aes-
thetic, for instance, reduces the product’s visual appearance to a sombre
two-­tone colour palette that explores black oppression in white America.
The physical oppression of black America is further represented via the
prison setting. Yet the jazz musicians of the video offer resistance, flaunting
the ‘no excessive noise’ notice to articulate a ‘freedom versus restraint’
Straussian binary; and although the video consists almost entirely of claus-
trophobic closed frame compositions and is lit using a low-­key lighting
style, the final scene offers some sense of hope – inverting the black and
white aesthetic in a final open framed composition to proffer the conclu-
sion that black freedom is both possible and inevitable.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
Table 2.2 Binary oppositions in different media: uses and applications revision overview

Form Where to look for oppositions Reasons for use

News, • Opposing viewpoints of different commentators and • To explain and simplify complex issues.
magazines interviewees. • To position audiences so that they
• Within imagery that depicts oppositional characteristics. identify with the editorial stance of the
• Language might use oppositional semantic fields or contrasting paper.
lexical styles. • To construct an emotional response
• Profile pieces are likely to present conflict outlining the from the audience.
barriers and binary choices that interviewees have had to • To construct crisis-driven stories that
overcome. offer conflict and enigma.
Film marketing, • Character construction: look beyond simple antagonist and • To create compelling narratives that
gaming, protagonist oppositions. Think about age, gender and class- offer conflict.
television, based oppositions offered via secondary characters. • To outline overarching narrative
music video • Mise en scène: Costumes, locations, body language and colour themes.
palettes are likely to offer juxtapositions to support the wider • To produce oppositions that enable the
themes of narratives or to identify character conflict. product to be recognisable as genre
• Narrative events: identify story points that can be ordered as driven.
oppositional – repeated sequences or moments that use cross-
cutting are likely to offer visible oppositions.
Advertising • Narrative construction. Classic binary story structures in • To enable speedy character
adverts include: before and after product use, non-ideal/ideal identification.
lifestyle positioning, problem/solution product positioning. • To create simplified narratives that
• Mise en scène: costumes, locations, body language and colour justify product needs.
palettes are likely to be juxtaposed to support the wider themes • To enable audiences to understand the
of the product. advantages of using a product in terms
of the lifestyle advantages it could bring.
24   Structuralism: Claude Lévi-Strauss
Table 2.3 Common oppositions found with genres and forms that are popular
within the contemporary media landscape

Music video News Magazines

Desire/rejection Chaos/order Freedom/control
Loss/belonging Green issues/economics Happiness/responsibility
Love/loneliness Justice/injustice Health/illness
Masculinity/femininity Left wing/right wing Loss/belonging
Nostalgia/reality Poverty/greed Love/loss
Oppression/freedom Power/powerlessness Masculinity/femininity
Rebellion/authority Society/the individual Romance/lust
Youth/authority Victims/perpetrators Work/leisure
Science fiction Crime/politics Horror
Aliens/humans Chaos/order Chaos/order
Corporate power/ Choice/necessity Darkness/light
individualism Corruption/innocence Death/life
Exploitation/freedom Freedom/duty Good/evil
Knowledge/ignorance Guilt/innocence Known/unknown
Machine/man Law/justice Past/present
Man/nature Lawfulness/lawlessness Reality/supernatural
Reality/deception Morality/greed Reason/madness
Technology/humanity Power/weakness Religion/disbelief
Self-interest/society Repression/acceptance
Romance War Spy/thriller
Experience/youth Allies/enemies Democracy/tyranny
Family ties/romance Duty/morality Heroism/greed
Friendship/betrayal Experience/innocence Hunter/hunted
Loneliness/belonging Family/duty Intellect/action
Masculinity/femininity Home front/the front line Order/chaos
Relationships/freedom Honour/self-interest Patriotism/treachery
Romance/money Sacrifice/self interest State/individual
Survival/patriotism Surveillance/subterfuge
 Structuralism: Claude Lévi-Strauss   25
Table 2.4 Speak Claude Lévi-Strauss

Binary oppositions The use of paired elements within a narrative

that provide contrast.
Character oppositions The construction of characters that are
juxtaposed – oppositions might be based on
age, ability, moral outlook or social position.
Genre-based oppositions Paired elements that are commonly found in
specific genres – these might be character,
narrative or theme-based oppositions.
Opposition resolution Refers to the way that binary opposites
resolve within a narrative – the dominant
partner in an oppositional arrangement will
often dictate the ideological position of a
media product.
Structuralism An analytical model that suggests that human
behaviour is directed by a universally
applicable set of rules. Lévi-Strauss’s
suggestion that humans naturally explain the
world in terms of oppositions is a structuralist
argument.
Stylistic oppositions The use of contrasting design elements.
Stylistic oppositions often reinforce the
narrative themes of a text or help encode
character oppositions.
26   Structuralism: Claude Lévi-Strauss
Table 2.5 Lévi-Strauss: ten minute revision

Concept 1: media narratives use binary oppositions

• Lévi-Strauss offers a structuralist approach to media analysis, suggesting that
humans encode and decode the world using universally shared principles.
• The media uses binary oppositions to explain and categorise the
complexities of the world around us.
• Oppositions can be found in the media in the presentation of characters or
narrative themes.
• Media makers also apply stylistic oppositions to mise en scène, camera work,
editing styles and image construction.
• Thematic oppositions in media products can be genre driven.
Concept 2: the way binary oppositions are resolved creates ideological significance
• Media products construct ideologies by positioning their audiences to
favour one side of an opposition.
• Narrative resolutions – the endings of media products – often help us to
diagnose which oppositions a product favours.
Three theorists who challenge Lévi-Strauss’s thinking
• Stuart Hall: would also argue that media products can be encoded using
binary oppositions, but he would add that audiences do not necessarily
decode the products in the way that media makers intend.
• Paul Gilroy: argues that Western binary thinking has traditionally
classified ethnicity in terms of simplified white/non-white and civilised/
uncivilised categories. He calls for the media to move beyond these
simplistic and hugely damaging binary classifications.
• Judith Butler: similarly argues that conventional Western gender binaries
mask the complex nature of sexuality. She also argues that individuals have
resisted gender binary using ‘gender trouble’.
3 Narratology
Tzvetan Todorov

Todorov, like Lévi-Strauss, was interested in the possibility that all

stories share similar narrative features, and that, if we can understand
and detect those features, we can better comprehend the hidden mean-
ings that media texts present to their audiences. The crucial difference
between Todorov and Lévi-Strauss, however, lies in the former theo-
rist’s assertion that stories do not just construct oppositions, but that
characters and ideas are transformed by oppositional forces. More
importantly, the recognition of those transformations by audiences
creates moments of ideological instruction, prompting readers and
viewers to transform their own real world behaviours.

Concept 1: the three act ideal

The influence of Vladimir Propp

Todorov was hugely influenced by the Russian literary theorist
Vladimir Propp and his highly influential 1929 book, Morphology of the
Folktale, in which Propp famously analysed hundreds of Russian folk
stories in an attempt to uncover their underlying narrative structures.
Importantly, Propp arrived at the conclusion that folk tales drew from
a highly stable list of characters whose roles and narrative functions he
defined as follows (Propp, 2009):

• The hero: Propp identifies two significant types of hero – the

seeker-­hero (who relies more heavily on the donor to perform
their quest) and the victim-­hero (who needs to overcome a weak-
ness to complete their quest).
28   Narratology: Tzvetan Todorov
• The villain: fights or pursues the hero and must be defeated if
the hero is to accomplish their quest.
• The princess and the princess’s father: the princess usually
represents the reward of the hero’s quest, while the princess’s
father often sets the hero difficult tasks to prevent them from mar-
rying the princess.
• The donor: provides the hero with a magical agent that allows
the hero to defeat the villain.
• The helper: usually accompanies the hero on their quest, saving
them from the struggles encountered on their journey, helping
them to overcome the difficult tasks encountered on their quest.
• The dispatcher: sends the hero on his or her quest, usually at the
start of the story.
• The false hero: performs a largely villainous role, usurping the
true hero’s position in the course of the story. The false hero is
usually unmasked in the last act of a narrative.

Propp suggested that stories do not necessarily have to use all

the characters listed, though most are organised around the interplay of
the hero, villain and princess archetypes. Propp also discovered that the
fairy stories he analysed followed a remarkably similar narrative struc-
ture, organised using a combination of just 31 closely defined plot
moments that he called ‘narratemes’. The starting points of most stories
(narratemes 1–7) usually introduce, he observed, the hero and other
key characters. The villain, Propp tells us, usually appears at narrateme
4, prompting the hero to embark on their quest and culminating in the
hero’s final struggle with the villain at narrateme 26. Propp suggests
that stories do not necessarily have to be composed of all 31 narrate-
mes, but those that are used are relayed in strict linear fashion. See
Table 3.1 for a further outline of the narrative progression Propp iden-
tified in Morphology of the Folktale.

Todorov’s refinement of Propp’s narrative theory

Todorov refined Propp’s narrative theory in the 1970s, arguing that
media narratives are created using moments of action, or as Todorov
called them ‘propositions’, and that those moments combine into nar-
rative sequences. Broadly speaking, Todorov also argued that narratives
tend to follow similar patterns; that the start of any story is concerned,
largely, with the outlining of characters in stable worlds, while later
Table 3.1 Key narrative moments – as described in Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale

Movement Narrative stage Potential plot points

First The initial situation • The hero’s home life is described.

movement
The preparatory section • The false hero is introduced.
• The hero faces a significant barrier that disrupts their home life.
• The hero is deceived by the villain.
• The hero uncovers the deception.
The complication • The villain’s influence increases and/or the princess is captured.
• The hero’s quest is defined and they are dispatched on a journey to complete
that quest.
The donor • Appearance of the donor character who provides a magic agent so that the
hero can complete their quest.
The helper • The hero faces struggles that they overcome with the assistance of the helper.
• The hero does battle with the villain for the first time.
• The false hero wins favour with the father of the princess.
• The hero pursues the villain.
Second Repetition • The hero continues to battle the villain using both the donor and helper’s
movement assistance
• The hero continues to face barriers that prevent the completion of their quest.
The difficult task • The hero engages in a final struggle with the villain.
• The false hero is unmasked.
• The hero is recognised as the true hero.
• The world is transfigured.
• The false hero is punished.
• The hero marries the princess.
30   Narratology: Tzvetan Todorov

Box 3.1 Think about it: the use of Proppian character/

narrative archetypes in contemporary media
products
Many would argue that Propp’s analysis is equally applicable to con-
temporary media products. Think about the following questions:

• Can you think of any media products that use Propp’s character
archetypes?
• Can you think of any media products that use a similar structure to
that defined in Table 3.1?
• Do you enjoy watching media products that follow this structure?
Why or why not?

sequences offer challenges to that stability. Like Propp, Todorov also

highlighted the importance of character transformation within a story.
Characters do not just experience adversity; they are transformed by
those experiences.
Todorov suggests, as a result, that an ‘ideal’ narrative is organised
using the following story structure (Todorov, 1977, 111):

• Equilibrium: the story constructs a stable world at the outset of

the narrative. Key characters are presented as part of that stability.
• Disruption: Oppositional forces – the actions of a villain,
perhaps, or some kind of calamity – destabilise the story’s equilib-
rium. Lead protagonists attempt to repair the disruption caused.
• New equilibrium: disruption is repaired and stability restored.
Importantly, the equilibrium achieved at the end of the story is
different to that outlined at the start. The world is transformed.

Todorovian three act narratives are used to structure stories across a

range of media: from Hollywood film to television drama, the equilib-
rium/disequilibrium/transformation formula provides the narrative
backbone for a great deal of the screen-­based fiction we consume (see
Table 3.2 for further examples). Three act narratives, too, are used in
print storytelling: celebrity interviews, for instance, are structured using
moments of disequilibrium and repair – alcoholism, the difficulties of
producing a film and marriage break-­ups are used to construct
moments of narrative disequilibrium. Three act narratives are universally
Table 3.2 Examples of Todorov’s ideal narrative formula in popular TV drama genres

Genre Equilibrium Disruption New Equilibrium

Science fiction The world is at peace. A Aliens land. The family have to The aliens are defeated. The family
dysfunctional family recovers from survive and are drawn into a battle is healed – the separated parents are
a messy divorce. to save the planet. reunited.
Horror An ordinary family home – A supernatural force takes over the The supernatural entity is banished.
teenagers fight with their parents. home. The teenagers and parents learn to
respect one another.
Romance Single girl yearns for romance. The The girl falls in love with a bad The bad guy is ditched and the girl
girl is also stuck in a dead-end job guy who leads her astray. finds her true love. She also sets up
that she hates. a successful business.
32   Narratology: Tzvetan Todorov
present in factual programming too: the loveless subjects of Channel
4’s The Undateables find true romance, criminal disruptions are repaired
in 24 Hours in Police Custody, while Netflix’s Queer Eye team heal the
broken lives of Amer­ican singletons across the United States.
In their simplest form, traditional three act narratives are typically
delivered to audiences using the following features:

• Stories are linear: conventionally, three act narratives move

forward in time, progressing through Todorov’s equilibrium, dise-
quilibrium and new equilibrium formula using successive narrative
events.
• Proppian character stereotypes are used: in their purest form,
Todorovian narratives tend to use conventional Proppian arche-
types, clustering around heroes, princesses and villains.
• Single character transformations are pursued: traditional
Todorovian story arcs habitually place one lead hero at the centre
of the story. Secondary characters, Proppian helpers, false heroes
and so on are deployed to assist that single central hero in their
narrative quest.

A more sophisticated application of Todorov

Todorov, importantly, recognises that stories are constructed in ways
that test and subvert the three act narrative structure outlined above.
Stories, he acknowledges, can wholly omit equilibrium or disruption
stages. A more sophisticated application of Todorov might also consider:

• Plot and subplot(s): contemporary film and television drama is

traditionally constructed using an overarching master plot
accompanied by a series of subplots. Each of these narrative layers
will articulate their own individual equilibrium, disequilibrium
and transformation sequences.
• Multiple equilibrium/disruption sequences: contemporary
media products often try to produce a roller-­coaster effect for their
audiences by deploying several equilibrium/disequilibrium
sequences before resolving in a final transformation. The alternat-
ing repose/action effect of such narratives offers audiences mul-
tiple moments of narrative calm and excitement.
• Flexi-­narratives: long format television products deploy multiple
three act structures in a similar pattern to that used by master plot/
 Narratology: Tzvetan Todorov   33
subplot sequences, with some narratives resolved in a single
episode and others concluded over the course of a whole season
or even longer in some instances. These flexible narratives offer
audiences quick fix single episode resolutions, while also nurturing
long-­term viewing engagement by building season long three
act arcs.
• Condensed equilibriums: contemporary audiences, arguably,
have a much lower boredom threshold, expecting products to
deliver action or disruption quickly. Producers therefore propel
narratives towards moments of immediate disruption to hook
audience engagement from the outset.

Alternative story ordering devices

Audience demand for story novelty has encouraged writers and dir-
ectors to test the three act narrative formula in ever more ingenious
ways. Indeed, today’s media saturated landscape means that consumers
skim across products at the tap of their remote controls or the swipe of
a tablet screen, compelling contemporary storytellers to create ever
faster product engagement. The accelerated, multifaceted nature of
media consumption is also reflected in the construction of ever more
complex narratives that are not afraid to test the linear rules of
storytelling.
Stories move backwards and forwards. They skip or recap, they start
at the end, and end at the start.
Contemporary viewers, moreover, shift their attention continu-
ously: from TV screens to tablets, from tablets to smartphones, watch-
ing and listening to two or more products simultaneously. And
audiences do not wait for their media to appear in fixed schedule
broadcasting slots. Consumption is slaked in binge watching gulps or,
conversely, is nibbled upon in YouTube friendly 15 minute snacks. In
short, contemporary audiences expect more of the narratives they
engage with, while the complex consumption habits of those audiences
suitably equip them to successfully decode products that bend or
refashion Todorov’s ideal formula. These are some of the con-
temporary narrative strategies used that test or break the traditional
rules of media storytelling:

• Anachronic devices (flash forward/flashback): subvert tradi-

tional linear storytelling techniques through time bending. Flash
34   Narratology: Tzvetan Todorov
forwards provide moments of disequilibrium before equilibrium –
reversing Todorov’s ideal flow by telling us the end of the story
before it has begun. Flashbacks, too, are injected to disrupt the
highly predictable nature of the three act structure.

Box 3.2 Apply it: in what ways can the Todorov

formula be applied to your set texts?
Use the following questions to help you explore the use of equilibrium/
disequilibrium sequences in your set texts.

• Do the set texts use Proppian character types?

• Do products use Todorov’s equilibrium, disequilibrium and trans-
formation formula?
• Do products revolve around one lead character?
• Do the set text products provide plot/subplot sequences? Flexi-­
narratives?
• Do the set texts condense or shorten equilibriums?
• Do stories resolve narrative strands at different points across the text?
• In what ways are lead characters transformed in new equilibrium
stages?
• In what ways are Propp and Todorov’s ideas tested by your set texts?

Exemplar: No Offence (AQA). No Offence simultaneously applies and

adapts Todorov’s ideal narrative formula. The opening sequence of
season two offers us a compressed sense of equilibrium – reintroducing
the audience to the main characters of the narrative and their character
quirks. The lead hero, Viv, is identified immediately with secondary
team members (Dinah and Joy) positioned as her Proppian helpers. The
opening scene presents a brief moment of compressed equilibrium –
outlining the dysfunctional nature of the team via Joy’s indiscretion in
the surveillance van, while Viv’s exposed fashion label reinforces the
hero’s lack of traditional femininity. Equilibrium, however, quickly
gives way to ‘in media res’ – the terrorist explosion producing a quick
narrative hook for the audience while also engaging viewers in a nar-
rative arc that unfolds across the whole of season two. No Offence, in
this sense, is best defined as a contemporary flexi-­narrative, as opposed
to offering its audience a traditional Todorovian three act structure.

Further set text help is available for a range of products at www.essentialmedia

theory.com
 Narratology: Tzvetan Todorov   35
• In media res: contemporary stories often start mid-­action, deliv-
ering immediate crisis, inverting Todorov’s ideal narrative pro-
gression through the presentation of disequilibrium before
equilibrium.
• Multiperspective narratives: contemporary stories are often
told from different character perspectives, repurposing equilibri-
ums as disequilibrium when the story shifts from one character
viewpoint to another.
• Metanarratives: provide audiences with moments that draw
attention to the idea that they are watching a story. Metanarration
might knowingly refer to the product as a media construct or
speak directly to audiences through fourth wall breaks.
• Unreliable narration: deliberately deceive audiences, providing
plots that deliver unexpected moments – usually by revealing that
a character is not who they claim to be.
• Frame stories: stories told inside of stories, testing Todorov’s
ideal narrative structure through the presentation of nested
moments of equilibrium and disequilibrium.

Concept 2: the ideological effects of story

structure
Stories, Todorov suggests, invite audiences to interpret meanings – to
decode the presentation of characters and narrative action as substitutes
for ideas that exist beyond immediate plot presentations. ‘An adven-
ture,’ he writes, ‘is at the same time a real adventure and the symbol of
another adventure’ (Todorov, 1977, 127). Stories, Todorov tells us,
are metaphors – places where contradictory forces can do battle, where
human desires can be articulated and curtailed. Stories, too, provide
collisions, delineating harmony and disruption, and, in this sense, their
effect upon the reader is both persuasive and ideological.
Todorov draws attention to the following ways in which narratives
construct symbolic meaning:

• Narratives are significations. Even though narratives are set

within reality, the construction of that reality is symbolic – offer-
ing us a version of the world that is ordered by the ethical, moral
or ideological viewpoints of a text’s author.
• Stories articulate desire. Todorov’s ‘ideal’ narrative structure is
often underlined by the desire of lead characters to return to the
36   Narratology: Tzvetan Todorov
stable world presented during the initial equilibrium stage.
Moments of initial equilibrium, therefore, represent ideals for the
audience watching the text.
• Stories invoke desire: story quests, the journeys taken by lead
characters, are also motivated by the desire to change – to
move beyond the initial circumstances in which a character is
placed. That journey, Todorov suggests, prompts the reader to
change too.
• Disequilibrium and transgression: Todorov identifies the use
of transgressive action as a mechanism that also enables ideological
meanings to form. Characters break rules or violate social norms
and to repair those transgressions they must be punished or effect
a transformation. The ideological effect of these moments is to
outline social ideals or modes of behaviour that audiences might
also use to guide their own behaviours.
• Disequilibrium and ideological villainy: narrative disequilib-
rium is also constructed through the presence and actions of sym-
bolic villains. Here, the hero must battle an external foe, who,
Todorov argues, symbolises qualities that audiences are guided to
avoid.

Box 3.3 Think about it: the power of narrative

transformation
Todorov argues that narrative transformation is a defining feature of
fiction, differentiating stories from other modes of discourse such as
factual or historical narration. Todorov suggests that stories can con-
struct the following types of transformation:

1 Transformation in attitude: media products construct charac-

ters who have to develop new outlooks in order to overcome the
challenges posed during disruption.
2 Transformations of belief: narratives outline both the ideas and
ideals that we have to believe in if we are to succeed, while also
outlining destructive beliefs.
3 Transformations of knowledge: character quests provoke
heroes to uncover new forms of knowledge and to dispense with
knowledge that is no longer useful.

• Can you think of any media products that construct the different
types of transformation outlined above?
 Narratology: Tzvetan Todorov   37
• What life lessons do the products identified above pass on to their
audiences?
• What are the ideological effects of these products – what attitudes,
beliefs and knowledge do they suggest the readers of these texts
ought to foster?

Box 3.4 Apply it: diagnose the ideological effects of

narrative transformation in your set texts
Questions to ask about equilibrium stages
• In what ways does any initial narrative stability provide ideal states?
• In what ways does the narrative attempt to restore that initial
harmony?

Disequilibrium effects
• Do characters produce disequilibrium by breaking social norms or
rules?
• How are characters punished for those transgressions?
• What negative traits or behaviours are embodied by narrative
villains?

New equilibrium effects

• Do characters affect attitude, behaviour or knowledge-­based
transformations?
• What do these transformations suggest?

Exemplar analysis that explore narrative transformation effects in set texts for all
exam boards are available at www.essentialmediatheory.com
38   Narratology: Tzvetan Todorov
Table 3.3 Speak Tzvetan Todorov

Ideological effect An ideology is a set of ideas or beliefs. Media

products have an ideological effect in that they
channel their audiences to believe those ideas or
beliefs. Villains, for instance, might represent beliefs
that are undesirable. Hero quests might also identify
ideals in terms of beliefs, knowledge or behaviours.
Narrative Todorov suggests that one of the major effects of
transformation narrative lies in the way that characters or the worlds
that characters inhabit are transformed at the end of a
story.
Quest narrative A narrative in which the central hero goes on a
journey – usually in an attempt to repair the narrative
equilibrium constructed at the start of the story.
Ideal narrative arc Todorov suggests that the ‘ideal’ narrative structure
follows an equilibrium, disequilibrium and new
equilibrium formula. This formula is used extensively
across a number of media products and forms.

Table 3.4 Todorov: ten minute revision

Concept 1: narrative patterns – equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium

• Todorov suggests that meaning in media products is constructed through
narrative sequences and transitions rather than through any individual effect
or single moment within a product.
• Todorov suggests that an ideal narrative structure follows a pattern of
equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium.
• The new equilibrium stage transforms characters and the world they inhabit.
Concept 2: the ideological effects of story structure
• The power of stories lies in their deeper symbolic meanings.
• Narratives construct ideals for the audience through the use of equilibrium.
• Disequilibrium sequences represent ideas, values or behaviours that are
deemed problematic – often these negatives ideologies are embodied
through the villain character.
• Narrative transformation produces further ideals or positive models of
behaviour for a media audience.
Two theorists who might challenge Todorov’s thinking
• Steve Neale: would argue that story structures are continuously adapting
and changing. The idea that there exists an ‘ideal’ story structure, as such, is
problematic for Neale.
• Lévi-Strauss: is concerned with the way that narratives present oppositions
rather than the way those oppositions are transformed or synthesised.
4 Genre theory
Steve Neale

Traditionally, genre-­based labelling classifies products into categories or

families that share common ingredients. In cinema, for instance, we
usually determine whether films are best classified as westerns, horrors,
melodramas, comedies, etc. but, as Steve Neale argues, genre-­based cat-
egories are not fixed commodities. Genres change and subdivide, they
fuse and die. Moreover, the kinds of tests we need to use to determine
genre are hard to pinpoint. Is narrative structure or characterisation the
principal determinant of a genre? Is a product’s genre best identified by
its length or by the audience-­based pleasures generated?
Neale concludes that there are no fixed lists of ingredients that deter-
mine genre. Genre-­driven products, he argues, create audience appeal
through the repetition of some ingredients, some of the time. Indeed,
products, by necessity, have to adapt genre-­based formulas to maintain
their commercial viability and to maximise audience engagement.

Concept 1: repetition and difference

The number of genre-­based categories used to label contemporary
media products have mushroomed exponentially. The growth of sub-
genres and the recognition of defined genre hybrids has made the
process of genre classification much more complicated than it has ever
been. Indeed, what aspects of a media product might we use to even
begin diagnosing the genre of a product? Neale draws our attention to
the following important factors:

• Levels of verisimilitude. The degree to which a media product

references the real world can be an incredibly useful indicator of
genre. Genres that offer high levels of verisimilitude – that reference
40   Genre theory: Steve Neale
the real world with a high degree of accuracy – include news-­based
products, documentaries, biopics and historical drama. Conversely,
genres that offer limited verisimilitude (science fiction and fantasy)
transport their audiences to worlds that are escapist or fantastical.
• Narrative similarities. Genre-­based classification can also be
enabled through the identification of defined story structures or
formulaic narrative devices. Murder mysteries, for instance, offer
audiences the twin pleasures of suspense and surprise within their
narratives. Products might also employ specific presentation tech-
niques – news articles, for instance, start with introductory para-
graphs that summarise the who, when and where of news events,
while montage and flashback sequences are regularly deployed in
biopics to reveal crucial backstory. The style and pace of narrative
delivery might also be genre specific: voiceover narration, for
example, is a staple feature of the gangster genre, while the pace
and length of magazine features tends to be much slower than
newsprint. Genres, too, deal in specific narrative themes or subject
matter: science fiction plots often invoke ‘man versus machine’
plotlines; crime dramas have justice-­oriented narrative themes.
• Character-­driven motifs. Audiences expect some genres to
deliver explicit character-­driven motifs. Lead characters might
have defined attributes or follow genre-­driven narrative arcs.
Crime dramas, for instance, often use anti-­heroes as leads, propel-
ling those characters on tragic narrative journeys that involve loss
or redemption. Secondary character inclusion, too, might be
heavily defined by genres – romances invariably contain best
friend confidents; science fiction products regularly contain mad
scientist character archetypes.
• Iconography. Iconography refers to mise en scène expectations
(setting, costume, make-­up expectations) as well as camera and
editing styles. In print products, genre-­driven iconography is
deployed through layouts, header styles or page construction
motifs. Tabloid front pages, for example, deliver high image to
text ratio layouts whilst mastheads use red as their predominant
colour. In film, westerns will be readily identifiable through fixed
mise en scène expectations: guns, desert settings, horses, saloon bars,
etc. will dominate the visual encodings presented to audiences.
• Audience targeting. Neale also highlights the way that genres
are crafted to create appeal for specific audience segments.
Romantic comedies are traditionally constructed to appeal to a
 Genre theory: Steve Neale   41

Box 4.1 Apply it: what conventions define the genres to

which your moving image set texts belong?
Use the following questions to help you locate and determine the con-
ventions of the genres that your moving image set texts belong to.

Verisimilitude
• Does the genre attempt to replicate or explain the real world?
• Does the genre present audiences with fantastical or otherworldly
settings?

Narrative considerations
• Structure: What kinds of narrative structures are readily found in
the genre?
• Themes: What binary oppositions does the genre usually deploy?
• Narrative devices: Does the genre use montage, flashbacks or
smashed time frames? Are the narratives linear, multistrand, tragic
or resolved?

Character conventions
• What stock genre-­based character types occupy lead roles?
• What secondary characters do audiences expect in the genre?

Iconography
• What genre based conventions do audiences expect to see in terms
of: mise en scène decisions (costume, setting, make-­up), cinema-
tography, editing styles and sound usage?

Audience appeal and representation

• For which audience is the genre traditionally constructed?
• What sorts of gender-­based stereotypes does the genre deploy?

Visit www.essentialmediatheory.com to download revision flash cards that define

the genre conventions for all set texts across the different exam boards.
42   Genre theory: Steve Neale
female audience through the application of relationship-­based nar-
ratives. Science fiction has traditionally created appeal for male
audiences through action-­based male leads.
• Representational effects. Neale also suggests that genres might be
recognisable through their application of gender specific representa-
tions. Horror films, for instance, construct women as victims while
crime dramas are conventionally led by emotionless male detectives.

Repetition and audience pleasure

The use of repeated motifs, themes or stylistic devices allows audiences to
recognise and access media products that create the kinds of appeal they
are engaged by. Genre-­driven products also provide familiar narrative
structures and character types that create audience engagement quickly.
Genres, of course, also create their own specific sets of pleasures or gratifi-
cations. The appeal of science fiction lies in the construction of off-­world
settings. News-­based products enable political engagement. Musicals
provide audiences with performative pleasures through the inclusion of
song and dance routines, while crime dramas traditionally provide nar-
rative satisfaction through enigmas and surprise. In this sense, the labelling
of products by media makers using genre-­based categories allows audi-
ences to identify products that generate specific pleasures or benefits.

Genre subversion
Neale resists the suggestion that genres deliver stable products for any
length of time. All genres, he argues, are subject to a continuous
process of evolution and/or subversion. He identifies the following
drivers of that process:
• Audience needs. Audiences, of course, gain enjoyment from
recognising the use of genre-­driven tropes, but they also gain
pleasure in identifying moments that depart from those expecta-
tions. These differences, Neale argues, provide moments of audi-
ence pleasure or deliver products that have unique selling points.
• Contextual influences. Media makers adapt genre-­driven
content as a result of historical, political or social influences. Social
norms regarding gender-­based roles, for instance, have guided a
number of genres to abandon lead male character conventions.
• Economic influences. Falling sales or poor audience engagement
can create commercial imperatives to change or adapt genre-­driven
 Genre theory: Steve Neale   43
content. Similarly, budgetary constraints, or indeed budgetary
freedoms, curtail or free up media makers in ways that subvert
genre-­based expectations. The box office success of Marvel, for
instance, has led to a rapid expansion of the super-­hero genre.

Box 4.2 Apply it: identify set text genre subversion

Think about the following questions to help you identify the presence
of genre subversion in your set texts:

• Cultural effects: in what ways does the set text react to its cul-
tural context? What cultural trends affect the style and content of
the product?
• Social context: how are characters shaped to create representa-
tions that are relevant to the historical context of the product?
• Historical effects: what big historical events have shaped the
product or are reflected within the narratives offered? To what
extent is the product reacting to the political landscape in which it
is situated?
• Economic context: how have economic factors shaped the
product? How has the budget of the product shaped its ability to
deliver genre-­based expectation? How have commercial impera-
tives shaped the product?
• Audience saturation effects: in what ways have audience needs
shaped the product? Where do moments of genre subversion
create novelty or surprise?

Exemplar: Tide advert (Eduqas). Tide’s 1950 advert (see Figure

1.2) conforms, in many senses, to the advertising expectations of the
period, using ‘Z’ line layouts and illustrated imagery to deliver familiar-
ity. Yet the product also tests many of those expectations – using an
intertextual reference to wartime propaganda to acknowledge audience
nostalgia. This poster’s female lead, however, firmly repositions female
readers within the domestic sphere – further acknowledging the social
changes wrought through wartime demobilisation. Neale would suggest
that the poster, in this sense, offers genre-­driven familiarity, yet simul-
taneously tests those expectations as a result of the product’s unique
social and historical context.

More exemplar analysis and set text help is available for a range of products at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
44   Genre theory: Steve Neale
Genre hybridity: contemporary media products
Neale suggests that contemporary media products are also marked by
their use of genre hybridity – the deliberate inclusion or intertwining
of conventions from across a number of genres. Contemporary dramas
like Stranger Things, for instance, pastiche a number of genre-­driven
tropes. The otherworldliness of Eleven’s experimentation is culled
from science fiction, while Stranger Thing’s creature-­based antagonist is
a horror borrowing. The potential appeal of genre hybridity to con-
temporary media makers can be described as follows:

• Hybridity enables quick tonal shifts: products can quickly

invoke the various emotional intensities of a number of genres
through hybridity. Switching from a science fiction setting to the
isolation of a conventional horror house, for example, can move
an audience from awe to fear within the time frame of two scenes.
• Genre piggybacking: products can cash in on the relative popu-
larity of a genre-­driven product by incorporating elements or
motifs of that genre. The enormous popularity of The Walking
Dead, for instance, prompted a rush of shows that used zombie-­
driven motifs.
• Creates individual product character: hybridisation allows
products to construct originality by mixing ingredients from pre-­
existing media products.
• High and low culture remixing: hybrid products allow pro-
ducers to shape products that have serious subtexts while also
deploying narrative content that is accessible and popular.
• Expands audience appeal: combing romance with comedy, for
example, expands the target audience of a product to include
males and females.
• Nostalgia: hybrid products often revive genres, applying nostalgia
to satisfy audience sentimentality.
• Knowing audiences: contemporary audiences are far more
knowledgeable than those of audiences in the past. Hybrid prod-
ucts acknowledge and reward that media knowledge through the
use of intertextuality and allusion.
• Mirrors contemporary audience consumption experiences:
hybridity replicates the multi-­channel, media-­meshing consump-
tion experiences of contemporary audiences through the simulta-
neous presentation of disparate genres.
 Genre theory: Steve Neale   45

Box 4.3 Think about it: genre hybridity in the

contemporary media landscape
• Do contemporary audiences expect their media to be hybridised?
• Which of your set text products provide examples of genre
­hybridity and for what reasons are those products hybridised?

Concept 2: industry effects on genre-­driven

content

Auteur-­based effects
In creative terms, the writers, stars and directors of products often
deflect and subvert genre-­driven themes to accommodate the stories
they want to tell. The Star Wars reboot serves as a classic example of
this process: it is, first and foremost, a science fiction product, yet the
directorship of J.J. Abrams significantly shaped the story to accom-
modate his own auteur-­driven concerns. Abrams’ obsession, for
instance, with lens flares and moments of poetic stillness are clearly laid
on top of the film’s sci-­fi driven aesthetic.

Genre planning and institutional mediation

The broader effect of media institutions on genre output is enormous –
both in terms of scheduling effects and the impact that a parent media
company’s values have in shaping genre-­driven output. Media schedules,
Neale says, are dominated by a number of genre-­specific openings. In
film marketing, horror films are scheduled for Halloween releases, while
family oriented blockbusters are premiered during school holidays. In
television, big budget dramas are premiered in autumn to take advantage
of the boost to viewership that dark evenings bring. Historical dramas
are constructed for Sunday evening broadcasts, while diet shows are
commissioned annually to cash in on audiences’ New Year health reso-
lutions. In short, media organisations, Neale tells us, effect calendared
production routines using genre-­driven content as a key planning tool.
Genre-­driven content, Neale tells us, is also shaped as a result of
producer-­oriented practices. The approaches taken by individual tele-
vision production companies or by the editorial teams of single news
titles will invariably subvert genre-­based conventions using their own
46   Genre theory: Steve Neale
house styles and templates. The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph,
for instance, are all broadsheet newspapers which, broadly speaking,
publish the same sorts of content – politics, sports, hard news and so
on. Yet the teams of journalists who construct each title are wholly
different to one another in terms of their writing styles and political
leanings. In this sense the styling and application of genre-­driven ingre-
dients work alongside the wider institutional needs and skill bases of
the individuals working within those institutions.
The same process is evident in the television industry, the output of
which is dominated by a fixed number of genres and subgenres. Crime
drama, for example, is a staple ingredient in most UK broadcasters’
schedules, with most products deploying victim/perpetrator-­driven
characters within a police procedural narrative. But again the values of
the commissioning broadcaster provide a fundamental steer to the final
product. BBC crime dramas will be guided by their public service
broadcasting ethos – perhaps foregrounding diversity and new talent as
a key ingredient. Conversely, commercial broadcasters might try to
garner mass audience appeal through the use of star power and a more
mainstream take on genre codes.

Box 4.4 Apply it: diagnose the auteur and institutional

effects on genre-­driven set texts
Auteur effects
• Who are the key personnel who shaped the set text? Identify
writers, directors and performers.
• In what ways have auteurs placed their own personal stamp on the
product? What is that stamp?

Institutional effects
• What kind of media organisation commissioned and made the
set text?
• How has the organisation type (public service broadcaster, com-
mercial, conglomerate, etc.) shaped the narrative or styling of the
product?
• How have budgetary factors influenced the product?
• How has scheduling and distribution shaped the product?
 Genre theory: Steve Neale   47
The marketing functions of genre
Neale also alerts us to the use of genre as a marketing tool, outlining
the importance of genre within the ‘intertextual-­relay’ (Neale, 2001,
39) of a product (trailers, posters, reviews, etc.). Genre labelling, Neale
tells us, is an important feature of marketing – used predominantly to
give an indication to audiences of the specific satisfactions that a
product will generate. This material, Neale says, inadvertently plays a
crucial role in defining the genre of a product for the following two
reasons:

• Intertextual-­relay builds a product’s narrative image. Mar-

keting materials determine what Neale calls the ‘narrative image’
(Neale, 2001, 39) of a product. The genre-­based labels used by
publicity material and those applied by reviewers and critics fix
the genre of a text before it is released. These genre-­based stamps
can be very hard to shift afterwards.
• Intertextual-­relay guides audience readings. Publicity builds
audience expectation, which, Neale argues, play a huge role in
framing audience readings. Audiences, he suggests, adapt their
viewing conclusions as a direct result of these labels.

Box 4.5 Apply it: diagnose the use and effect of

intertextual-­relay on set texts
Locate genre labelling in promotional material
• How is genre foregrounded within publicity material?
• How does imagery, mise en scène, costume, colour, setting, etc.
construct genre-­driven expectations for the target audience?
• In what ways is genre foregrounded within language components
of intertextual-­relay?
• Is genre labelling visible within reviews, credits, headers or
taglines?
• In what ways is genre inferred through star power?

Explain why genre labelling is used

• What narrative pleasures does genre labelling suggest to the
audience?
48   Genre theory: Steve Neale
• In what ways does genre labelling help create a recognisable iden-
tity for the product?
• Does genre labelling take advantage of cultural trends through pig-
gybacking effects?

Exemplar: The Jungle Book (OCR). Both the 1967 and 2016 trailers
use genre labelling to develop a clear narrative image for both versions
of The Jungle Book. The 1967 film is advertised as a ‘musical high-­flying
singing adventure’, signalling action-­based narrative expectations, while
also suggesting that the product will afford pleasure through spectacle.
The 2016 remake is less overt in its application of genre labelling, yet
the foregrounding of adventure-­based expectations is constructed by the
‘makers of Pirates of the Caribbean’ intertitle. Similarly, the trailer’s
otherworldly setting and minor key soundtrack suggest genre hybridity
through the presence of fantasy-­based motifs. The application of hybrid-
ised intertextual-­relay, in this instance, expands the target audience of
the product by piggybacking on the success of other genres and the crit-
ical acclaim of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

Table 4.1 Speak Steve Neale

Auteur effects Relates to the input that individual producers

have on genre-driven products.
High/low culture A common form of genre hybridisation in
remixing which products mix pop culture genre forms
with motifs from more serious genres.
Hybridisation Using the styles, narratives or other motifs from
multiple genres in one product.
Iconography The visual components of a media product.
Iconography might refer to mise en scène
elements (settings, costume and acting style) or
to other stylistic devices (camera work, editing
treatments, layout or typography).
Institutional mediation The effect of institutions in shaping genre-
driven products. Institutions might take a
specialised approach to genre production or
might shape genre output as a result of their
company type/ethos.
 Genre theory: Steve Neale   49

Intertextual-relay Refers to the range of production and

marketing materials that are used by products
(trailers, posters, reviews, press packs, interviews
and so forth). Intertextual-relay fixes the
narrative image of a product through genre
labelling.
Narrative image Refers to the set of expectations and persona
built for a media product through marketing
and the reception of the product by its
audience.

Table 4.2 Neale: ten minute revision

Concept 1: the pleasures afforded through repetition and difference

• The genre of a product is determined by a variety of factors.
• Genres offer specific pleasures to their audience.
• Audiences enjoy genre subversion as well as repetition.
• Genres are not fixed but are subject to constant change as a result of real
world effects and the needs of audiences.
• Genre hybridisation is a common feature within the contemporary media
landscape.
Concept 2: industry effects on genre-driven media
• Genre-driven output is shaped by auteurs and is also subject to the effects
of institutional mediation.
• Genre labelling is widely practised by media producers to create a narrative
image for a media product.
• Promotion and marketing materials (intertextual-relay) can fix the genre of
a product.
Two theorists who might challenge Steve Neale’s thinking
• Stuart Hall: would agree that products construct pleasure for audiences,
but would also emphasise the potential dangers that certain genres have in
effecting audience ideologies through genre specific character
representations and stereotypes.
• James Curran and Jean Seaton: might challenge the notion that genre
hybridisation is not a significant feature of the contemporary landscape.
Curran and Seaton suggest that media concentration has in fact led to
fewer experimental forms and that media companies are instead overly
reliant on tried and tested narrative formulas that are designed to garner
mass audience appeal.
5 Postmodernism
Jean Baudrillard

Baudrillard refused to adopt the stiff academic tone used by many of

his predecessors and contemporaries in his writing, producing instead
an almost prophetic and strident set of texts that feel out of place
within wider academia. Yet, the impact of Baudrillard’s writing has
been enormous, introducing a whole new glossary of media terminol-
ogy – hyperreality, media implosion and simulacra – to suggest that
contemporary mass media messages are inescapable and all-­consuming
yet, conversely, empty of meaning. As the academic William Merrin
tells us, Baudrillard’s books are, ‘standard reference points for any
understanding of our cultural processes’ (Merrin, 2005, 5).

Key concept: the real and the hyperreal

Baudrillard’s key argument stems from his observation that society has
experienced three distinct stages of cultural evolution that he labels ‘the
precession of simulacra’ (see Box 5.1). In many ways, Baudrillard’s pre-
cession relates the story of twentieth-­century secularisation and the
replacement of religion as society’s primary meaning maker by the
mass media. The three phases of Baudrillard’s precession can loosely be
described as follows:

• Phase 1 – Early modernity. This covers the period from the

Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution. In this stage, cultural
products (literature, music and art) map closely to what Baudril-
lard calls ‘a profound reality’ (Baudrillard, 2018, 6). Culture, in
this sense, creates an authentic experience when consumed. Mass
culture, moreover, is dominated by the lone voice of religion and
connects the masses to a singular ideology – to one version of the
 Postmodernism: Jean Baudrillard   51
world. Culture, too, Baudrillard tells us, is ‘sacramental’ in that it
communicates profound spiritual experiences. As a result, early
modernity produces authenticity and a collectively agreed set of
truths about the world in which we live.
• Phase 2 – Modernity. The second phase, modernity, covers the
period from the Industrial Revolution to the Second World War.
In this stage, religion and religious certainties begin to fragment,
eventually giving way to early mass media forms like cinema, radio
and photography. During modernity, Baudrillard argues, the
authenticity and collective truths of early modernity begin to ‘dis-
simulate’ (Baudrillard, 2018, 6), breaking down into competing
versions of reality.
• Phase 3 – Postmodernity. The final phase, the phase in which
we now live, is labelled ‘postmodernity’. In postmodernity,
Baudrillard argues, mass media forms dominate culture, replacing
the single voice of religion with the multi-­channel, multi-­media
whirlwind of contemporary mass media. This, Baudrillard tells us
is the age of ‘hyperreality’ in which cultural products no longer
reference the deeper unified significations that religion once pro-
vided. In the postmodern era, culture is fragmented, its meanings
and instructions are temporary, its messages commercialised and
inauthentic.

Box 5.1 Know it: why does Baudrillard describe culture

as a ‘simulacra’?
Baudrillard uses the word ‘simulacra’ to suggest that culture (mass
media, religion, art, etc.) produce versions of reality to help explain our
place and function in the universe. Christian religion, for instance, con-
structs a version of reality in which, crudely speaking, God is said to
have created the universe in seven days. Of course, God did not create
the world in seven days. This assertion is an early religious story that
attempted to explain the complexities of the universe before science
could give us a more accurate picture. Culture, of course, authors
numerous other stories that attempt to explain the world we live in.
Importantly, Baudrillard argues, these cultural products, or versions of
reality, are in fact ‘simulations’. The ‘precession of the simulacra’ refers
to the way in which those ‘simulations’ have changed since the
Renaissance.
52   Postmodernism: Jean Baudrillard
The ecstasy of communication
Significantly for Baudrillard, the technologies of the mass media have
helped construct what he calls an ‘ecstasy of communication’ (Baudril-
lard, 1987, 11), arguing that the process of meaning making has expo-
nentially expanded in the postmodern era, permeating modern life in
ways that lie far beyond the cultural capacities of previous historical
periods. Baudrillard identifies the following effects of postmodernity:

• The media is everywhere. In today’s hyperreal world, every

bus hoarding, street corner and shop window is an advertising
opportunity – indeed, our public spaces are so saturated with
media that it is almost impossible to avoid the tidal wave of cul-
tural messages beamed at us.
• Our private spaces have been invaded. Baudrillard tells us,
too, that today’s hyperreal media even penetrates the once safe
havens of our family homes. There is no escape, Baudrillard says,
from the incessant chatter of hyperreality: ‘One’s private living
space,’ Baudrillard writes, ‘is conceived of as a receiving and oper-
ating area, as a monitoring screen endowed with telematic power’
(Baudrillard, 1987, 17).
• Authenticity is impossible to find or keep. Because the
hyperreal world of modern media is so all-­encompassing and so
incessant, Baudrillard tells us, the deluge of messages offered have
limited significance. Cultural products in postmodernity construct
throw-­away messages, forgotten almost as instantly as they are
consumed.
• Repetition and duplication effects. The postmodern media,
Baudrillard further argues, repeats and repurposes content in a
never-­ending chain of replication. Commercially successful prod-
ucts are repurposed, remade, serialised or copied to attract and
maintain audiences, while genre-­oriented storytelling replicates
narrative formulas in endless echoes of products that are them-
selves copies of something that was made a long time ago. In this
sense, Baudrillard tells us, we know the end of any news event
before it has happened. We know how our box-­sets will resolve
or how our gaming cut scenes will play out, because ‘everything is
already dead and resurrected in advance’ (Baudrillard, 2018, 6).
 Postmodernism: Jean Baudrillard   53

Box 5.2 Think about it: what effect does postmodern

hyperreality have on audiences?
• To what extent is it true that we live in world in which it is
impossible to escape the reach of media? Is it possible to com-
pletely escape the reach of the media?
• In what ways have smartphone ownership and the digital revolu-
tion expanded the reach of hyperreality?
• How many media products have you seen today? How many
advertisements have you seen? How much time have you spent on
social media?
• How many media messages have a deeper meaning or connect us
to authentic or satisfying experiences?
• Is it true that the contemporary media duplicates and replicates the
same stories over and over? Can you provide any examples of this?
• Has media proliferation meant that we have lost touch with the
natural world?

Meaning implosion
The proliferation of media comes at a further cost in that the variety of
arguments and opinions presented via television, news and online
media makes it difficult for audiences to reach an objective conclusion
about the real world. News outlets, for instance, produce a version of
the world that we implicitly understand to be biased towards one polit-
ical viewpoint, and in today’s media landscape it does not take too
long to locate an opposing source or contradictory analysis.
Indeed, products internally neutralise content through the use of
opposing opinion editorials or balanced reportage. The resulting effect
is to present a world in which simultaneous truths exist – a presenta-
tion, moreover, that lacks both objectivity or certainty and that leaves
media audiences to effect what Baudrillard calls hyperreal ‘inertia’
(Baudrillard, 2018, 68), a kind of mesmerised inability to act.

The age of advertising

‘Promotion,’ Baudrillard writes, ‘is the most thick-­skinned parasite
in our culture. It would undoubtedly survive a nuclear conflict … it
allows us to turn the world and the violence of the world into a
­consumable substance’ (Baudrillard, 2018, 31). Whereas the age of
54   Postmodernism: Jean Baudrillard

Box 5.3 Apply it: locating ‘meaning implosion’ in

newspaper set texts
• Do your newspaper set texts offer oppositional points of view?
• How might those presentations affect audience readings of those
news stories?
• In what ways are audiences immune to the ever-­present nature of
news media?
• Are audience reactions to news events minimised as a result of the
ever-­changing cycle of news stories?

Exemplar: The Daily Mirror (Eduqas). The multiple perspectives

offered across different newspapers and also within single products – as
evidenced in The Daily Mirror set text through the diverse opinion edit-
orials of Corbyn, Blanchard and Jones – leads to what Baudrillard calls
‘meaning implosion’. The ideas and meanings of news products are
neutralised, leading audiences to respond with what Baudrillard
describes as ‘hyperreal inertia’ – a mesmerised yet transient engagement
that prevents readers and viewers from gaining an objective sense of the
real world at large.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

modernity was dominated by cinema and photography, advertising,

Baudrillard tells us, presides over the postmodern age. That ascend-
ancy, Baudrillard further explains, has important repercussions in that
the narrative strategies laid down by television and print-­based advert-
ising form a story blueprint that influences other media products, while
also configuring audiences to respond to those narratives with hyper-
real ‘inertia’.
Advertising, Baudrillard suggests, holds us in a hypnotic state of
‘superficial saturation and fascination’ (Baudrillard, 2018, 91), teaching
us from an early age that the mesmerising ideals of commercial advert-
ising are rarely realised in real life. The ensuing mistrust of commercial
media imagery, Baudrillard further argues, is readily applied to other
media forms. We are compelled to watch, he says, but we do not quite
believe what we see.
Baudrillard suggests, too, that the language and narrative structures
of advertising have infected other media products. News bulletins, for
 Postmodernism: Jean Baudrillard   55

Box 5.4 Apply it: how might advertising lead audiences

to respond with hyperreal inertia?
Advertising set text applications
• Do your set text advertising products nurture mistrust? Are they
too ideal to be believed?
• In what ways do the exaggerated worlds of the advertising set texts
feel fake or too ideal?

Exemplar: Maybelline – That Boss Life (AQA). That Boss Life

constructs a conventional transformation narrative, aiming to position
its audience to think that the use of its Big Shot product will ultimately
lead to an idealised metropolitan New York lifestyle. The use of slow
motion sequences, of flawless presenters, and of the golden ambience of
the product’s penthouse setting presents a dream-­like tone that is both
seductive and mesmerising. Yet, Baudrillard would also argue, audi-
ences intuit that the world depicted lies beyond their reach and that its
hyperreal gloss is both inauthentic and fake. Audiences might be
seduced, Baudrillard argues, but they are also inert, and, more danger-
ously, that inertia carries into the readings made of the wider media
those audiences consume.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

example, are reduced to easily digestible packages, their stories built

upon the same strategies of suspense and revelation that we find in
short-­form advertising. Politicians, too, Baudrillard argues, have sacri-
ficed debate and argument for news friendly sound bites designed to
effect political branding and voter seduction. Drama, too, pulses in
shorter and shorter scenes, while YouTube vloggers have swallowed,
wholesale, advertising’s commercial mantra by commodifying them-
selves – branding themselves in the same way that a shampoo advert
might affect audience appeal via choreographed representations of
impossible ideals.

Fictionalised reality/realised fiction

The blending of media forms is a further symptom of our hyperreal
age. Baudrillard tells us that products borrow and steal at will in order
56   Postmodernism: Jean Baudrillard
to attract our attention in today’s media saturated landscape. As a result,
contemporary media forms have blurred fact and fiction to the extent
that, Baudrillard argues, audiences can no longer tell them apart.
Documentaries cast their participants as if they were actors, deliber-
ately orchestrating moments of narrative crisis to produce entertain-
ment. Geordie Shore, TOWIE and Love Island might cast participants
from the real world, but no one is fooled. Contestants knowingly
engineer their onscreen selves to maximise the opportunities such
shows present, guided, of course, by the careful hand of TV producers
so that their cast might satisfy audience expectation. There is little that
is ‘real’ in today’s reality TV.
Baudrillard suggests that the news similarly effects an ever-­present
discourse of fictionalised crisis, generating daily doses of real life enter-
tainment that are populated by cameos of TV savvy politicians and
business leaders who are media trained so that they might deliver news
friendly sound bites. News narratives, too, replicate the language and
imagery of disaster movies. The news is a never-­ending soap opera,
packaged into easily digestible parcels, into three act narratives that are
instantly forgotten once delivered. Any meanings and emotions pro-
duced are temporary, Baudrillard argues, replaced by the next news
cycle in an ‘accelerated circulation of meaning’ (Baudrillard, 2018, 80).
The shallowness of contemporary media hyperreality, Baudrillard
further argues, produces a deep yearning by media audiences for prod-
ucts that provide authenticity. The endless churn of contemporary
culture, he tells us, produces a requisite desire for stability and validity
that the media tries to satisfy through nostalgic appeals and an attempt
to embed reality in programming.
The real world has thus become a staple ingredient in postmodern
fiction. Biopics and historical drama readily reinterpret history without
due regard for historical accuracy – repackaging the world of yesterday
using stock characters and audience-­friendly narrative formulas. Horror
films also call upon their audiences to believe that their narratives are
genuine through the ubiquitous ‘based on real events’ tagline. The
word ‘based’, of course, gives due licence to magnify, distort or change
any element of the writer’s choosing. And, of course, soap operas,
crime dramas, family dramas and work-­based dramas purport to offer
us a view of the world using the tropes of realism to convince us of
their actuality, yet do so in ways that reflect nothing of reality at all.
 Postmodernism: Jean Baudrillard   57

Box 5.5 Think about it: does the media produce a

fictionalised version of reality?
• To what extent are audiences aware that reality TV is manufactured?
• What TV products do you watch that claim to deal with real life yet
depict reality using the strategies of fictional products? Think here
about documentaries, historical dramas, biopics and even the news.
• What fiction-­based narrative strategies do non-­fiction forms use to
present real world events? Think about characterisation, story
structure, editing techniques and language devices.
• Can fictionalised realities have an impact on the real world?

Box 5.6 Apply it: diagnose the use and effect of ‘realised

fiction’ in your set texts
• Do any of your set texts use historical settings as their story
premise?
• Do shows make appeals to audience nostalgia?
• Do shows blend archive footage with drama to convince us of
their real world settings?

Exemplar: Deutschland 83 (OCR). Baudrillard suggests that the

surface values of postmodern hyperreality produce a deep yearning for
that which is authentic or real. Arguably, the use of historical verisimili-
tude as a narrative ingredient within fictionalised television drama
creates products that anchor that need through the use of nostalgia.
Deutschland 83 clearly evidences this approach. The use of authentic
footage of 1980s icon Ronald Reagan provides an instant point of nos-
talgic reference for the product’s audience, further reinforced within the
title sequence through its archive-­driven montage. Deutschland 83,
however, also references an imagined or fictionalised East Germany –
the East Germany of television spy movies. It’s canted cinematography,
it’s spy-­based characters (the rebel, the double agent, the master spy) are
stereotypical expectations of the genre. The resulting blend of fact and
fiction leads us to conclude that Deutschland 83 is most assuredly a post-
modern text – a text that Baudrillard might suggest distances us from
authentic experience rather than bringing us closer to it.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
58   Postmodernism: Jean Baudrillard
Table 5.1 Know it: Baudrillard’s three phases of the simulacra

Phase Historical time period Key features

Early Renaissance to the early • Limited cultural production.
modernity Industrial Revolution • Cultural production is
dominated by a few authors
(the church and the state).
• The masses are held firmly in
their positions by cultural
messages.
Modernity The Industrial • Cultural representations
Revolution to the begin to break down –
Second World War producing multiple versions
of reality.
• Cultural production is
dominated by the
bourgeoisie and legitimises
the capitalist system.
• Mass media forms dominate.
Postmodernity Post Second World War • The media produces
onwards hyperreality – an explosion
of meaning.
• The media makes everyone a
consumer – audiences have a
limited relationship with
authentic meanings.
• Advertising and television
ascend as the dominant
cultural forces.
• Contemporary digital
technologies accelerate the
effects of postmodernity.
 Postmodernism: Jean Baudrillard   59
Table 5.2 Speak Jean Baudrillard

Hyperreality Baudrillard suggests that we are unable to separate

the real world from that which is manufactured by
the media. In this sense we live in a world that is
beyond reality or is hyperreal.
Inertia The constant stream of media that we are subjected
to paralyses us or makes us unable to feel or act in a
way that creates deep meaning.
Meaning implosion The sheer volume of media and the multiplicity of
voices within the contemporary media landscape
produces a cocktail of opinion and counter opinion
that audiences cannot disentangle.
Media blending Media forms in the postmodern age blur – the
narrative strategies of news, for example, become
absorbed into fiction and vice versa.

Table 5.3 Baudrillard: ten minute revision

Key concept: from the real to the hyperreal

• Baudrillard suggests that there have been three distinct cultural phases: pre-
modernity, modernity and postmodernity.
• We now live in the postmodern age which is marked by a massive
proliferation in media content and media messages.
• Media proliferation has resulted in an implosion of meaning through the
simultaneous presentation of oppositional truths.
• Media proliferation is enabled through the endless copying of pre-existing
media. Media forms ‘blend’ and hybridise during this copying process.
• The postmodern age is marked by the dominance of advertising as a media
form. Advertising has also impacted on other media forms creating
hyperreal inertia.
• Baudrillard suggests that media blending has resulted in the construction of
fictionalised reality.
• Audiences yearn for authenticity in postmodernity; the media industry tries
to satisfy this yearning through realised fiction.
Two theorists who might challenge Baudrillard’s thinking
• Roland Barthes: would argue that media products have a clear
relationship with reality. Media texts represent and naturalise the world
views of those who hold power in society.
• Henry Jenkins: would contest the idea that postmodernity results in
hyperreal inertia. Contemporary digital media, he would argue, can make
a positive difference in the real world through the use of participatory
culture.
6 Representation
Stuart Hall

When we talk about representation effects we are prompting discus-

sion about the way the media makes us think about the world at large:
the way, for instance, that the news reconstructs real world events or
the processes that television and film adopt to tell us about the world
beyond our screens.
Hall’s contribution to our understanding of the representational
processes used by the media cannot be underestimated. His academic
work helped to construct an understanding of how the media industry
and the routine production practices employed by the media shape our
understanding of the world in subtle and not so subtle ways. Hall, too,
shone a critical light on media’s ability to manufacture and reinforce
social inequalities through stereotyping practices and, more impor-
tantly, he articulated an understanding of how those representations
might be subverted and resisted.

Concept 1: media representation processes

The ‘reflective’ school of thought

One view of the media is that television, print and online products
reproduce the real world without distortion. According to this view,
the media acts like a mirror – capturing and relaying a faithful version
of the real world to audiences everywhere. The joy of consuming
media, in this sense, is that it can take us to places we have never been
to. The media provides a window to the world, a faithful and accurate
means of reproducing information that we might ordinarily be unable
to access. Accordingly, the job of media professionals – news journal-
ists, documentary film-­makers and so on – is to observe and record
 Representation: Stuart Hall   61
these inaccessible wonders so that audiences at home can similarly bear
witness.

Representations are built via codes

Stuart Hall acknowledges the imitative capacity of the media. The
camera, he tells us, reflects the real world around us. If we record or
photograph a countryside scene, a version of that scene is created in
which the trees, grass and land are accurately depicted. But, Hall
reminds us, professional media representations offer us more than just
imitation. Media products, he tells us, are composed through the selec-
tion and ordering of visual, aural and linguistic elements. Media prod-
ucts, in this sense, do not offer us accurate or objective reflections of
the world at large, but rather produce versions of reality that are shaped
by the subjective viewpoints of their creators.
A news story, for example, might tell us about a real world event,
but the way that story is relayed – through the use of linguistic
effects or supporting imagery – produces an edited version of the
event reported. News stories are encoded using stylised features –
through the deployment of emotive headlines or edited imagery that
audiences have learned to decode as a result of their previous expo-
sure to similar imagery. In this sense, the media not only contributes
to our understanding of the world, but also uses a shared symbolic
language that audiences have internalised through their media
experiences.
A portrait image that is photographically composed, for instance,
tells us a great deal about the individual depicted – whether that
subject is powerful or powerless or, indeed, whether we are meant to
like that person at all. A fourth wall break can connote authority. A
subject who directs their gaze to the left of the frame might infer
regret or nostalgia, while a high angle composition might suggest
vulnerability or helplessness. Importantly, Hall tells us, our ability to
decode such imagery is not innate – we are not born with an innate
knowledge of photographic composition. Our ability to decode the
meanings of media imagery, Hall argues, is produced as a result of
our continued exposure to media products. The media, therefore,
both uses and shapes our shared understanding of the real world
around us.
62   Representation: Stuart Hall

Box 6.1 Apply it: identify representational codes used in

your newspaper set texts
News stories create representations of real world events through the careful
selection of language, layout and design. These representations can:

• Lead audiences to a predetermined opinion – so, perhaps, they

form the same conclusions as those people who make the media.
• Reflect the editorial viewpoint of the paper – offering a politically
biased view of real world events.
• Be sensationalised to create reader engagement.

Use the following questions to help you decode the representational

effects constructed by the front pages of your set text newspapers:

Language analysis
• Do headlines or copy use emotive language? What connotations
do specific words convey?
• Are stories constructed using emotive semantic fields? (A semantic
field is a collection of words that are themed – for example, war,
gun, enemy, destruction.)
• Does the article use sibilance (repeated ‘s’ sounds), cacophony
(harsh or discordant sounds) or euphony (gentle sounding words –
usually the letters ‘f ’ or ‘l’)? What connotations are constructed as a
result of these sounds?
• Is the story reported from a specific point of view?
• Who is the reader guided to empathise with in the story?
• Who is the reader guided to blame?
• Are statistics or facts used to create impact?
• What kinds of sources are used to evidence the story and with
what impact?

Image use
• Why has the image used been chosen? What story does it tell?
• How does the composition of the image assist in creating a specific
effect? Think in terms of eyelines, tilt and camera distance.
• What connotations are suggested through body language, setting,
costuming and colour use?
• How is the meaning of the image anchored by accompanying
captions or headers? How does this secondary information guide
the reader towards a predetermined conclusion?
 Representation: Stuart Hall   63
Layout
• Are keywords emboldened or underlined?
• What colours dominate within the layout and with what connota-
tive effect?
• How does layout suggest the importance of the news event
reported?

Concept 2: stereotypes and power

Hall tells us that media products do not just reflect reality; their mean-
ings are shaped by media producers, and, in turn, those versions of
reality have a profound influence on audience thinking. In this sense,
Hall argues, we can say that media products have a discursive effect –
that, in other words, they produce ideological inferences for their
readers and viewers.
Hall was particularly interested in the media’s portrayal of black
masculinity, initially investigating newspaper reportage in the 1970s in
which black mugging stories were a staple feature. He concluded that
media stereotyping during the period firmly linked black masculinity
with criminality and, moreover, that the media’s reliance upon such
stereotypes had a profound and complex effect on wider social
attitudes.
Stereotypes, Hall tells us, are important for the following reasons:

• Media stereotypes reflect social attitudes. Hall argues that

media stereotypes reflect the wider views of society – by studying
the media we can gain a sense of what wider society thinks about
those groups that are routinely stereotyped. Hall’s work looking at
black youth culture identified, for instance, that the stereotypes
associating black males with criminality reflected a deep-­seated
anxiety about real black crime. Journalists who reported black
criminality were therefore reacting to the genuine fears of their
audiences when writing and publishing these stories.
• The media contributes to the construction of stereotypes.
Media stereotyping, Hall further argues, significantly shapes social
attitudes regarding specific groups. For example, he concluded
that black youths internalised the criminal stereotypes constructed
by the media in the 1970s and, as a result, engaged in real criminal
64   Representation: Stuart Hall
activities. The demonisation of black youths by newspapers also
meant that white audiences were reluctant to trust young black
males, significantly hampering their employment prospects and
further channelling young black men to engage in criminal activ-
ities to survive.
• Stereotypes can be reshaped or repurposed. Hall also identi-
fies that media stereotypes can be guided towards positive repre-
sentations of key groups. Indeed, the changing nature of black
representation within the news since the 1970s is testament to the
idea that media stereotyping processes are highly fluid.

The essentialising, reductionist and naturalising effect of

stereotypes
Hall suggests that stereotypes are incredibly powerful and that their
widespread use guides audiences to associate specific groups with neg-
ative traits. Stereotypes, moreover, infer a symbolic social power,
helping to position some groups as social outcasts or, as Hall suggests,

Box 6.2 Know it: why are stereotypes used by the

media?
Stereotypes are universally deployed by the media for the following
reasons:

• To help audiences to understand characters. Using stereo-

types provides a visual shortcut that enables audiences to instantly
decode a character through their use of body language,
costume, etc.
• To help audiences build character relatability. Stereotypes
build audience empathy, sympathy or antipathy very quickly.
• To signpost audiences. Stereotypes help audiences gain a sense
of the potential direction of a story – we understand that certain
events will happen to certain characters: princesses will fall in love,
the dumb blonde dies first in a horror movie, the action hero will
probably triumph in spite of the adversity faced.
• To reinforce genre expectations. All genres contain stock
characters – indeed an audience’s enjoyment of a given genre
might be driven by those characters.
 Representation: Stuart Hall   65
as social ‘others’ (Hall et al., 2013, 215). Stereotyping is thus a form of
symbolic violence for Hall – an efficient means to hold socially
undesirable groups at bay without using actual physical action. Stereo-
types, Hall argues, are an unusually effective means of social control
because:

1 They increase the visibility of key groups: stereotypes usually

depict groups by referencing a few key negative features – behavi-
ours, physical appearance, etc. This highlights the undesirability or
‘otherness’ (Hall et al., 2013, 215) of those groups and enables that
sense of ‘otherness’ to be efficiently communicated to the rest of
society.
2 They infer that negative traits are natural: the few key ingre-
dients used to construct stereotypes are repeated so often by the
media that those ingredients are interpreted by audiences to be
fixed or natural qualities. So stereotypes infer that black males are
naturally lawless or that dumb blondes will always lack intelligence.

Hall argued that stereotypes accordingly construct ‘closure and exclu-

sion’ (Hall et al., 2013, 248) – fixing the boundaries of what or who is
socially acceptable, while excluding all other groups from that elite list.
Criminalising stereotypes, for instance, exclude black males from the
normal workings of society. And because social exclusion produces
limited access to economic or cultural power, stereotyped groups find
that they cannot fight the representations that are constructed on their
behalf. This self-­reinforcing process leads Hall to conclude that media
stereotyping creates power ‘circularity’ (Hall et al., 2013, 251): those
groups with economic or cultural power get to create stereotypes, while
the impact of those stereotypes makes it impossible for powerless groups
to escape from their lowly social positions.
66   Representation: Stuart Hall

Box 6.3 Research it: identify common negative

stereotypes used by the media
Work with your classmates to research how the following groups are
represented by the media – use your own knowledge to supplement the
list of areas suggested for study.

Ability-­based stereotypes
Possible areas to investigate: groups with physical disabilities, represen-
tations based on mental health.

Age-­based stereotypes
Possible areas to investigate: teen girls, teen boys, teen subcultures, rep-
resentations of the elderly.

Class/region-­based stereotypes
Possible areas to investigate: chavs, single mothers, northerners, south-
erners, working class representations.

Ethnic stereotype
Possible areas to investigate: black males, black women, Asian men,
Asian women, Muslim groups.

Gender-­based stereotypes
Possible areas to investigate: dumb blondes, the bitch boss, the nerd,
fathers, mothers.

LGBTQ stereotypes
Possible areas to investigate: gay men, butch gays, lesbian stereotypes,
transgender representations.

For each of the six clusters above:

• Identify the visual cues, costume codes and behaviours that are
used by the media to construct the stereotypes within each group.
• Identify media products that contain examples of the stereotypes
listed above.
• Create a collage for each of the groups above to help you identify
the visual cues used to construct stereotypes.
• What ideas do stereotypes naturalise about the groups they
represent?
• Which social groups are immune to media stereotyping?
 Representation: Stuart Hall   67
Challenge question
• In what ways do the stereotypes uncovered help to maintain the
economic powerlessness of the groups they represent?

Visit essentialmediatheory.com to explore the stereotypes listed above in more

detail.

Box 6.4 Apply it: what are the effects of the stereotypes

used in your set texts?
Identify stereotypes constructed of marginalised groups
• What stereotypes do your set texts create?
• What behaviours or physical traits are used to identify those
stereotypes?
• What ideas about these groups are naturalised as a result of the use
of stereotypes?
• How do the stereotypes used reinforce existing power structures or
help to exclude key groups from mainstream society?

Diagnose the ‘internalising’ effect of stereotypes

• How might set texts lead marginalised groups/individuals to inter-
nalise attitudes or beliefs that are problematic?
• What particular moments in the set texts might lead to
internalisation?

Challenge question
• In what ways might we apply Hall’s idea of ‘power circularity’ to
give further weight to arguments regarding the potentially negative
impacts of media stereotyping?

Exemplar: Humans (Eduqas). Despite Channel 4’s public service

broadcasting oriented commitment to promote media diversity, we can
clearly see that Humans uses stereotyped characters that Stuart Hall
would highlight as problematic. Non-­white characters are excluded
from power in the show – for example, the robot prostitutes working
alongside Niska are mostly black, while the Turkish gangster responsible
for selling black market synth technology is depicted using an ethnically-
­oriented criminal stereotype. Of course, these characters are invoked to
create instant visual cues for the audience and, while these moments
might reflect wider social inequalities, they also exclude these groups
68   Representation: Stuart Hall
from hegemonic power. Hall points, too, to the potential for stereo-
typed behaviours (in this case, black prostitution and Turkish
criminality) to be internalised by audiences in a way that reinforces
those behaviours as ethnically appropriate social norms. Exclusion of
those groups as ‘others’ by a white audience might also lead, Hall tells
us, to their economic exclusion in the real world.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

Transcoding and stereotypes

Despite the difficulties faced by socially excluded groups in combat-
ing negative stereotypes, Hall tells us that cultural representations
are not fixed. The process of representation, he infers, can be
thought of as a battleground with each articulation of a stereotype
reaffirming or reseeding the suggestions of that stereotype. Repre-
sentations can and do change as a result, their meanings slide or
transform. Stereotypes, moreover, can be contested and their mean-
ings subverted.
Hall also argues that media producers who want to challenge pre-­
existing negative stereotypes generally have to graft new meanings
onto those existing presentations. He calls this process ‘transcoding’
and outlines three important strategies that makers can deploy to shift
negative stereotypes:

1 Appropriated representations: by commandeering negative

stereotypes, their meaning, Hall argues, can be devalued or sub-
verted from within. Grime musicians, for instance, have purpose-
fully appropriated the hyper-­masculine stereotypes associated with
black masculinity – repurposing this negative stereotype as iconic
or powerful for black male audiences.
2 Counter typical representations: this process combats neg-
ative connotations by producing representations that reverse
stereotypes. Butch gay representations, for instance, invert tradi-
tional gay representations of male homosexuality as weak or
passive.
3 Deconstructed representations: stereotype contestation can be
achieved by narratives that explain or lay bare the effects of stereo-
typing. Deconstructed stereotypes add contextual information that
 Representation: Stuart Hall   69

Box 6.5 Apply it: locate moments of transcoding in

your set texts
Use the following questions to help you locate moments of transcoding
in your set texts and to diagnose their effect on audiences:

• Do any of your set texts appropriate stereotypes? Where is

appropriation most visible and what effect might its use have on
the product’s audience?
• Which products deploy countertypes? What stereotypical attributes
are reversed by the countertype? What assumptions are challenged
through the use of countertypes?
• Which products explore stereotypes through deconstructions?
Which moments in the text could you use to provide the exam-
iner with relevant analysis?

Exemplar: Adbusters, Christian Louboutin Spoof advert

(Eduqas). Adbusters contests mainstream ideologies through the use of
deconstructed transcoding (Stuart Hall). The Louboutin parody, in
many senses, conforms to conventional mainstream representations in its
depiction of black Africa as poverty stricken. Yet the juxtaposition of
that stereotype against symbols of first world privilege moves the reader
beyond a simple analysis of black Africa as ‘other’ to white Europe –
indeed, the superiority of those Western values is implicated as the cause
of African poverty and immediately undercuts the standardised mean-
ings of the stereotype used.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

helps audiences to forge a deeper understanding of the experiences

of the group being stereotyped. In I, Daniel Blake, for instance,
class-­based stereotypes are relayed in the form of the single
mothers, Geordies and chav-­based representations. The film,
however, humanises those characters through emotive backstory.
Table 6.1 Speak Stuart Hall

Closure and Media products exclude groups from power through representation – often positioning marginalised
exclusion groups as unworthy of social inclusion.
Internalisation Internalisation occurs when marginalised groups or individuals assimilate the behaviours of negative media
representations.
Naturalisation The repeated messages of stereotypes can suggest that groups have a natural disposition towards certain
types of behaviour.
Other Hall suggest that those groups who are excluded from social power or mainstream culture are ‘others’.
Power circularity Stereotypes both reflect social attitudes and simultaneously reinforce them through processes such as
internalisation.
Symbolic violence Stereotypes that demonise groups offer us moments of symbolic violence in that they lead to the exclusion
of those groups from social power.
Transcoding Refers to representation strategies that contest stereotypical assumptions.
Table 6.2 Stuart Hall: ten minute revision

Concept 1: media representation processes

• The media does not mirror real world events but produces an edited version of the events depicted.
• Media representations are constructed through codes – through the use of language, imagery, layout, sound and editing.
• The media plays a vital role in shaping our views of the wider world.
Concept 2: stereotypes and power
• Stereotypes are used by media producers to create instant characterisation.
• Stereotypes reduce social groups to a few key traits or visual cues and suggest that those groups are naturally inclined towards a
specific set of negative behaviours.
• Stereotypes are mostly found where there are huge social inequalities. They exclude and demonise groups in a manner that both
reflects and reinforces social hierarchies.
• Social groups can internalise the behaviours inferred by stereotypes.
• Stereotypes can be contested through transcoding strategies.
Two theorists who might challenge Hall’s thinking
• Stuart Hall: Strangely, Hall himself provides a substantial challenge to his own ideas. His reception theory model suggests that
audiences can resist the effects of the media through the production of oppositional or negotiated readings.
• Paul Gilroy: In many senses, Gilroy’s work picks up on many of the themes of Hall’s arguments – his analysis, however,
suggests that racial stereotypes are framed by the wider cultural/historical forces of Empire. This makes it much harder for the
media to contest black stereotypes because they are so deeply entrenched within the British cultural psyche.
7 Postcolonial theory
Paul Gilroy

Like Hall, Gilroy explores the construction of racial ‘otherness’ as an

underlying presence within print media reportage during the 1970s
and 1980s, arguing that criminalised representations of black males
regularly stigmatised the black community.
By the 1990s, however, Gilroy shifts his attention to consider the
mass media constructions of British identity in postindustrial Britain.
He subsequently diagnoses the existence of a media induced ‘post-
colonial melancholia’ as a representational response to the UK’s declin-
ing global position in the late 1990s. That decline, Gilroy tells us, is
realised as a result of the loss of the post-­war Empire – a loss that the
media cushions with stories that are infused with Union Jack waving
nostalgia. For Gilroy, problematically, those stories are also under-
scored by racial misrepresentations and the amplification of multicul-
tural disharmony in the UK.

Concept 1: racial binaries, otherness and

civilisationism

Racial otherness
Gilroy’s hugely important study of black representation, There Ain’t No
Black in the Union Jack, traces the story of UK race relations from the
Second World War onwards, in which the post-­war wave of immigra-
tion from the West Indies produced a series of anxieties regarding
immigrant behaviour. He draws attention to, ‘Lurid newspaper reports
of black pimps living off the immoral earnings of white women’
(Gilroy, 2008, 95) and suggests that the public’s association of these
post-­war immigrants with substandard living conditions produced
 Postcolonial theory: Paul Gilroy   73
racial representations that were ‘fixed in a matrix between the imagery
of squalor and that of sordid sexuality’ (Gilroy, 2008, 97). Such repre-
sentations, Gilroy argues, marginalised the immigrant black community
from the outset – constructing them as a racial ‘other’ in the predomi-
nantly white world of 1950s Britain.
In the two decades following the Second World War, media stories
regarding the black community, Gilroy suggests, intensified fears that
immigrant communities might swamp white Britain. Those fears were
further concentrated in the late 1970s and the 1980s through news
coverage that routinely associated the black community with assaults,
muggings and other forms of violent crime. ‘It is not then a matter of
how many blacks there are,’ Gilroy writes of the period, ‘but [of] the
type of danger they represent to the nation’ (Gilroy, 2008, 105). Black-
ness and criminality, Gilroy argues, thus became a ‘common sense’
feature of the media.
During the 1970s and 1980s, newspapers also related stories con-
cerning the many community riots of the period, often depicting these
multi-­ethnic disturbances as black only events, and further suggesting
the black community was naturally prone to lawlessness and incompat-
ible with white British values. The Notting Hill Carnival riot of 1976
serves as a particularly poignant example, with the rioters described by
various newspapers as ‘an angry army of black youths’ and ‘as coloured
men in screaming groups’ (Gilroy, 2008, 122). The anxieties, Gilroy
argues, surrounding individual acts of black criminality – muggings,
assaults and so on – tilted towards more generalised descriptions of
black criminality, while the political concerns of the black community
regarding heavy-­handed policing tactics were largely ignored.
Gilroy, too, points to a number articles that inferred black culture’s
corrosive effects on white youth during this period. For instance, in
1982 The Daily Mail reported the detention of several Eton pupils on
drugs charges, suggesting that the boys’ descent into criminality was
prompted by Rastafarian influences. For Gilroy, the story is emblematic
of the kinds of racial binaries that the media constructed during the
period in which the traditions of white civility – in this case Eton – were
increasingly subject to the corrupting influence of a black ‘other’.

Civilisationism
For Gilroy, the 9/11 World Trade Centre terrorist attack in 2001, and its
aftermath, radically altered both the tone and nature of media-­oriented
74   Postcolonial theory: Paul Gilroy

Box 7.1 Think about it: representations of ‘otherness’ in

the contemporary media
We can sum up Gilroy’s main points as follows:

• Second World War immigrants were seen as an alien ‘other’ to an

imagined white Britishness.
• Black immigrants were perceived to be ‘swamping’ white
communities.
• Black communities were demonised through representations that
associated them with individual acts of criminality – knife crime and
muggings were particular media concerns. These representations
construct a ‘common sense’ notion of the criminal black male.
• Later representations constructed the black community in general,
and black youths in particular, to be naturally lawless and
incompatible with British white values.
• Later representations suggested that black otherness had a corrosive
effect on white youth culture too.

Are the representational anxieties outlined above constructed by the

British media today?

• Do contemporary media products continue to produce stories that

revolve around ‘swamping’ themes?
• Are some communities constructed as ‘other’ by the media? Who
and how?
• Are some communities associated with criminal behaviours?
• Are some communities constructed as having a corrupting
influence?
• What evidence could we use to suggest that the media has moved
on from the kinds of representations of the black community that
were created during the 1970s and 1980s?

representations regarding race and racial difference. The Anglo-­Amer­ican

response to the attack is perhaps best summed up by then US President
George W. Bush’s 2002 State of the Union Address in which he declared
that North Korea, Iran and Iraq constituted, ‘an axis of evil, arming to
threaten the peace of the world’ (Bush, 2002). For Gilroy, Bush’s speech
consolidates a deeply troubling and imperialist view of global politics that
justified foreign intervention on the grounds that Western democracies
were morally superior to all other nations. Gilroy’s further disquiet
 Postcolonial theory: Paul Gilroy   75

Box 7.2 Apply it: do your set texts construct a

civilisationist subtext?
Media depictions that construct stark contrasts between Western readers
and Islamic fundamentalism can be located in news and TV drama. Use
the following questions to assess the effect of set texts that deploy repre-
sentations of this nature:

• How do the representations nurture audience fear?

• How do representations dehumanise extremist subjects?
• What effect do these representations have in constructing racial
hierarchies?
• Do any of your set texts deconstruct civilisationist assumptions?

Exemplar: The Daily Mail and The Sun front pages, Monday 18
February 2019 (all exam boards). ‘Civilisationist’ representations,
Paul Gilroy argues, are notable for their stark worldview, often present-
ing a simplistic binary opposition in which Muslim fundamentalism
battles Western democratic ideals. The front covers of both The Daily
Mail and The Sun often confirm this civilisationist perspective – the
reportage surrounding the pregnant ‘Jihadi Bride’ Shamima Begum, for
instance, and her application to return to the UK after joining Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorists is, Gilroy would suggest, deeply
problematic. Within that reportage, The Daily Mail constructs a sense of
Muslim incompatibility, foregrounding the girl’s lack of repentance and
unwillingness to reintegrate into UK culture while also outlining the
existence of ‘dozens’ of other girls in similar situations. The Daily Mail
further exaggerates the ‘swarming’ potential of the story by telling us
that the UK might be ‘forced’ to repatriate the girls. The Sun (see Figure
7.1) also infers an overriding lack of public sympathy, while the
accompanying photo of black clad hijab-­wearing women nursing
Shamima’s baby constructs a deliberately unsettling depiction of Muslim
motherhood. Both papers create an exaggerated sense of fear, using the
Muslim ‘other’ to source that danger.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
Figure 7.1 The Sun front page (Monday 18 February 2019).
© Sun/News Licensing.
 Postcolonial theory: Paul Gilroy   77
s­urrounding 9/11 is that the media readily accepted and repeated Bush’s
‘axis of evil’ worldview. Gilroy collectively labels these post 9/11 repre-
sentations as ‘civilisationism’. Civilisationism, he argues:

• Constructs a binary worldview: President George W. Bush

famously declared ‘Either you are with us, or you are with the
terrorists’. Civilisationist depictions construct similarly stark world-
views, positioning media audiences to internalise a simplistic
binary that divides the globe into the opposing forces of funda-
mentalist terrorists and a morally superior West.
• Has a racist subtext: For Gilroy, the ‘war on terror’ rhetoric of
the post 9/11 era perpetuates a long-­standing racial hierarchy in
which Muslim subjects are positioned as inferior.
• Nurtures cultural incompatibility: Because the media is so
focused on global conflicts and terrorist action, an inference is
made that European and Muslim groups are incompatible com-
munities. Yet, Gilroy reminds us, that generalised inference of
racial incompatibility is a media fabrication. Real world racial inte-
gration, or ‘cosmopolitan conviviality’ (Gilroy, 2004, 9) as he calls
it, is wholly different. Indeed, racially diverse communities live
with few, if any, day-­to-day effects of racial difference.
• Nurtures fear: For Gilroy, the political repercussions of civilisa-
tionism have enabled the construction of a ‘securitocracy’ (Williams,
2013, 44) – the use of repressive measures by Western democracies
that are designed to keep nation states terrorist free. In this way, the
inhuman treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, for example,
or the torture of terrorist subjects are justified as necessary measures.

Concept 2: the legacy of Empire and British

identity
In his 2004 book, After Empire, Gilroy suggests that we live in ‘morbid
culture of a once-­imperial nation that has not been able to accept its
inevitable loss of prestige’ (Gilroy, 2004, 117). The British, he argues,
are undergoing a crisis of national identity: the loss of the British
Empire, further compounded by the devolution of Northern Ireland,
Scotland and Wales, has forced a collective question regarding British
identification. ‘Is Britain’s culture now Morris dancing or line
dancing?,’ Gilroy asks, ‘Are we Gosford Park, Finsbury Park or the
park and ride?’ (Gilroy, 2004, 130).
78   Postcolonial theory: Paul Gilroy
The loss of British colonial prestige and the resulting contraction of
the UK’s global influence have largely been airbrushed from public
discourse, Gilroy argues, yet that contraction in national importance
has simultaneously affected a deep-­rooted cultural anxiety accompanied
by a sense of national rootlessness and guilt. For Gilroy, moreover, the
immigrant population has become an outward symbol that perpetually
reminds the UK nation of its loss of global power. Empire immigrants
and their descendants, he argues, are a visible representation of British
power as it once was. Post-­war racism, he further suggests, also acts as
a covert attempt to recover and purify the social order – to restore the
English nation to its pre-­war state.
The immigrant, Gilroy argues, is also a symbol of British exploita-
tion and of the racial violence perpetuated in the name of Empire,
reminding us that colonial expansion and the British imperial project
gave birth to the British slave trade and to the brutal repression of indi-
genous populations across the colonies. The Empire, as such, repres-
ents more than the loss of sovereign power. It is also a stain on the
collective British identity, the ramifications and extent of which have
never been fully explored or acknowledged by the nation as a whole.

World War victories and Albionic Englishness

Gilroy tells us that the twin pull of Empire guilt and the loss of British
global power have resulted in a national postcolonial melancholia – a
sort of collective depression that both absorbs and blinkers the British
outlook. The media, Gilroy suggests, compensates for this collective
depression by routinely invoking the mythic victories of the Second
World War to distract the national populous from its loss. Indeed,
Gilroy reminds us that numerous other British military campaigns and
over 70 years of history have elapsed since 1945, yet the Second World
War remains a potent media symbol that is routinely invoked by the
British media.
The Second World War, Gilroy argues, acts as a powerful set of
signifiers that enables us to turn the loss of the British Empire into a
moment of significant historical and ideological victory. As such, the
media routinely conjures up the spirit of the blitz and the bulldog
mentality of Winston Churchill to remind us of our once important
historical significance. The media’s mythologising of the Second
World War, Gilroy further argues, revels in the isolation of Britain and
the preservation of an imagined English purity. Wartime allusions, as a
 Postcolonial theory: Paul Gilroy   79
result, are routinely invoked in sports and news reportage, with a nos-
talgic English nationalism adopted as the standard response to World
Cup fixtures, Olympic coverage and European politics.
Gilroy, too, draws attention to the media’s preoccupation with
British tradition as a further response to postcolonial melancholia. The
news’ obsession with the Royal family and television’s routine depic-
tions of the quintessential English rural landscape invoke, Gilroy sug-
gests, an inward looking Albionic Englishness. The media manufactures
a long-­lost imagined England untouched by the demise of Empire – an
England, more importantly, in which racial diversity and multicultural
conviviality are strangely absent. Albionic England is the film world of
Bridget Jones; it is the English summers that abound in advertising,
The Proms and Royal weddings. It is also the English rurality of
historical drama – of ITV’s Victoria and of Netflix’s Crown. Albion, too,
is traceable in Emmerdale, Midsomer Murders and George Gently. But,
Gilroy warns, Albion England is nothing more than a distracting
fantasy that disguises the reality of what Britain is really like – crippled
by regional poverty and an ever-­widening economic social divide.

Box 7.3 Discuss it: to what extent are we infected by

postcolonial melancholia?
• Is the British media obsessed with the past? Are we a backward-­
looking nation that cannot come to terms with our diminishing
global role? What evidence from the media could you present to
support or contradict this idea?
• Why are British newspapers so obsessed with the Royal Family?
Do they represent order in a chaotic modern world? Do they
represent British tradition?
• Does the media construct an Albionic representation of Britain – a
largely white, rural version of England that is celebratory? What
products have you seen that construct this imagined version of
England?
• Why do you think the media constructs these idealised
­representations of Albion?
80   Postcolonial theory: Paul Gilroy

Box 7.4 Apply it: diagnosing postcolonial melancholia in

your set texts
Search for moments that affirm Gilroy’s view that the UK has been
paralysed by postcolonial melancholy. Use the following to help you
construct relevant analyses:

• Do any of your set texts create an Albionic representation of the

UK? Do they foreground an idealistic or traditional view of
England?
• Do the set texts use traditional English institutions to assert an
Albionic view? Are they overly concerned with the Royal Family?
Do they invoke a traditionally Christian representation of England?
Do the set texts defer to English tradition in an idealised way?
• Do the set texts invoke nostalgia or, more specifically, war-­
oriented nostalgia?
• Are the set texts used to explore/search for an English identity? Do
the texts foreground identity anxiety?
• Do the set texts use immigrants as a means of prompting Empire
guilt?
• Do the set texts explore hostile attitudes towards immigration?

Exemplar: The Guardian online, 19 February 2019 (OCR). The

Guardian exemplifies much of Gilroy’s assertion that the UK media
exudes postcolonial melancholia. Its online home page is rich with
stories that exemplify English anxiety – the paper’s lifestyle section, for
example, routinely offers identity advice for an audience struggling, in
Gilroy’s view at least, to navigate the postcolonial landscape. Articles
variously ask burnt-­out readers whether they ‘Should embrace the
power of no?’ or ask ‘Google: would my life be happier without it?’.
The Guardian also exemplifies Gilroy’s identification of postcolonial
Empire guilt. The newspaper’s commission of the Black Sheep docu-
mentary, for instance, charts the experiences of contemporary Nigerian
second-­generation immigrants against the distinctly non-­Albionic back-
drop of underclass Essex. White racism is accordingly portrayed as an
endemic feature of British society by the short film, the reader is posi-
tioned, in Gilroy’s view, to witness the melancholic spectacle of a disin-
tegrating Britain.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
 Postcolonial theory: Paul Gilroy   81
Table 7.1 Speak Paul Gilroy

Albionic nostalgia A representation of Englishness that is marked by

nostalgia and generally produces a whitewashed
version of an idealised/imagined rural England.
Civilisationism A stark representation of the world in which
Western democracy is pitted against extremist
others.
Cosmopolitan A term that describes real world multiculturalism
conviviality and the high levels of racial harmony that mark
most people’s day-to-day existence. Conversely, the
media portrays racial disharmony as the norm.
Postcolonial A term used by Gilroy to describe the deep-rooted
melancholia shame felt as a result of the loss of the British
Empire. That loss is deflected through media
nostalgia and a widespread anxiety surrounding
British identity.

Table 7.2 Gilroy: ten minute revision

Concept 1: racial binaries, otherness and civilisationism

• Black communities are constructed as an ‘other’ to white culture and are
associated with criminal activity and lawlessness.
• The media reflect civilisationist attitudes through simplistic reportage and
the demonisation of Muslims – media products nurture fear and the idea
that Muslims and Europeans are incompatible.
Concept 2: the enduring legacy of the British Empire on English identity
• A deep-seated postcolonial melancholia infects the media as a result of
Britain’s diminishing global importance.
• Postcolonial melancholia prompts a nostalgic construction of Englishness.
• Postcolonial melancholy produces a sense of English rootlessness and an
anxiety surrounding British identity.
Two theorists who might challenge Gilroy’s thinking
• David Gauntlett: would present a far more optimistic picture of the
media’s capacity to effect change or to enable positive identity
construction. He would suggest that the variety of media representations
available to contemporary audiences is far greater than that outlined by
Gilroy.
• Henry Jenkins: would present a far more optimistic view regarding the
current media landscape than Gilroy’s postcolonial assessment – suggesting
that new technologies enable audiences to engage in participatory culture
and to form online communities.
8 Feminist theory
Liesbet van Zoonen

Central to van Zoonen’s feminist concerns is the idea that culture –

art, film, literature, the media, etc. – plays a crucial role in informing
audiences, both past and present, of the gender-­based roles that they
ought to assume. Her concern in investigating contemporary culture is
to isolate the processes that have allowed patriarchal ideals to become
the dominant ideological force that shapes gender expectations today –
a force, van Zoonen argues, that has resulted in the widespread subju-
gation of women across society.

Concept 1: the female body as spectacle

‘A core element of western patriarchal culture,’ van Zoonen writes,
‘is the display of woman as spectacle to be looked at, [and] subjected
to the gaze of the (male) audience’ (van Zoonen, 1994, 87). Using
Laura Mulvey’s psychoanalytic feminist readings of Hollywood, van
Zoonen argues that the dominant representation of femininity in
Western media is one that objectifies womanhood. From TV game
shows to consumerist advertising, from fashion photography to tele-
vision drama, the sexualised portrayal of women has had, van
Zoonen tells us, a powerful and profound effect on male and female
understandings of our gendered identities. The widespread practice
of objectifying women, she argues, degrades and dehumanises
females, while giving male viewers, for whom women are sexual-
ised, an unspoken exploitative power that spills into real world
relations.
Objectified representations are formed as a result of a range of
highly specific creative practices, including:
 Feminist theory: Liesbet van Zoonen   83
• Male gaze invites. Female sex appeal is traditionally inferred
through direct appeals to viewers using fourth wall breaks. Often
those appeals are softened by head tilts or other submissive ­gestures
to create a female passivity. Use of the male gaze also extends to
products that have a predominantly female audience (female life-
style magazines, female-­oriented advertising, etc.) – thus suggest-
ing the extent to which female subordination might be internalised
by female consumers.
• Restricting females to secondary roles. Women are consist-
ently led or controlled by a stronger male presence in media texts.
On television they play romantic interest characters or assume
supporting roles, while in magazines women are consistently posi-
tioned to pursue male-­based dependence through advice and
relationship-­oriented content.
• Constructing women as passive participants. Onscreen,
females are saved, they do not do the saving. Sports coverage in
magazines and news, too, predominantly focuses on male per-
formance, while advertising narratives traditionally position males
in more active domestic roles such as DIY or gardening.
• Framing women differently. The powerlessness of women in
the media is constructed through cinematic tilt downs, low eyeline
compositions or soft-­focus framing, while costume and make-­up
conventions further sexualise female media inclusion.
• Reinforcing narrow beauty ideals. Western beauty ideals
further restrict female participation in the media to a limited
number of roles. Women tend to be excluded beyond a certain
age or conform to tightly controlled conventions governing
­physical beauty.

The female spectator

van Zoonen acknowledges the potential power of female objectifica-
tion, but also questions the idea that women simply adopt a masculine
view of femininity as a result of media consumption and argues that a
variety of audience effects might result:

• Female identification. van Zoonen suggests that female spec-

tators might internalise traditional gender stereotypes that are acted
out on screen and that women might come to regard media
84   Feminist theory: Liesbet van Zoonen
beauty myths – the narrow definitions of ideal womanhood pre-
sented to us by the media – as something to aspire to.
• Reading against the grain. van Zoonen also suggests that the
objectification of women by the media does not necessarily lead
all women to internalise the male gaze. Audiences, she tells us,
‘are no longer … subjected to the vicious intentions of patriarchal
power and ideology, but are considered to be active producers of
meaning’(van Zoonen, 1994, 149).
• Female genres. van Zoonen, too, acknowledges the huge diver-
sity of texts, some of which produce narratives, character types or
representations that fall outside of the usual patriarchal mould. She

Box 8.3 Apply it: detecting female objectification in

your set texts
Use the following questions to help you construct exam ready analysis that
examines the scope and impact of female objectification in your set texts.

• Do the texts limit the roles that women play?

• Are women active or passive in the set texts?
• Do the texts objectify women through composition, costuming or
acting decisions?

Exemplar: Homeland (OCR). van Zoonen suggests that media-­based

female representations are problematic in the way they objectify
women. Despite its female lead, Homeland certainly delivers a range of
questionable moments in the set text episode – mostly via the presenta-
tion of Brody’s wife, Jessica. Her introduction to the audience via an
explicit sex scene exists, arguably, to provide erotic pleasure for a male
audience. Moreover, the choice of actresses playing lead female roles
quietly reinforces the narrow beauty myths of Western culture. The
text suggests that female worth is defined through the provision of
erotic pleasures, and that those pleasures can only be achieved if women
conform to a narrowly defined set of attributes based on age or phy-
sique. The impact of these moments, van Zoonen might argue, is that
audiences, both male and female, internalise these representational sub-
texts and, in so doing, perpetuate real world female oppression.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
 Feminist theory: Liesbet van Zoonen   85
draws particular attention to the theoretical work of research that
has sought to examine female media forms such as soap operas and
romances – acknowledging that these texts might provoke altern-
ative readership patterns that challenge patriarchy.

Economic context
van Zoonen also argues that a clear gender imbalance exists in terms of
media-­oriented production opportunities, with women often sidelined
to administrative rather than technical or creative roles. Some pockets
of the media are staffed more prominently by women but, van Zoonen
argues, even these are symptomatic of wider social gender inequalities.
Radio production, for instance, provides an interesting exception to
the male dominated nature of the industry, but only as a result of its
perceived secondary status within the sector.
Similarly, media forms that deal with issues that are connected to
traditionally female roles – motherhood or domesticity – tend to be
made by women. As a result, children’s television, educational
­programming and consumer journalism tend to be made by female
practitioners, while more serious media output – news, political
journalism and drama – are dominated by male media makers.
Certainly, if we look at the television-­orientated set texts identified
by the exam boards in 2018, we can clearly see that women were

Box 8.4 Research it: who made your set texts?

Research the people who made your set texts and answer the following
questions to help you identify the impact of those production teams on
the representations created.
Television, music video and radio: who managed the production?
Identify writers, directors and producers.
News and magazines: what genders are the journalists who wrote the
stories in your set texts? Who are the more senior managers of the set
text? Identify editors-­in-chief, news editors, section editors and so on, if
you can.

• Is there a noticeable gender imbalance in terms of who made your

set text products?
• What are the potential effects of that imbalance on story content?
86   Feminist theory: Liesbet van Zoonen
almost totally absent from the senior creative teams that constructed
the episodes identified for study. Only one lead writer, Anna Winger,
was represented, while only 2 of the 18 texts were directed by female
personnel.

Political context: second and third wave feminism

van Zoonen’s writing can also be considered to be emblematic of a
wider range of feminist activities that took place during the 1970s and
1980s – a disparate movement of thinkers, academics and social com-
mentators that have been collectively labelled the feminist ‘second
wave’. While the feminist ‘first wave’ fought for the female vote in the
early 1900s, second wave feminism paved the way for equal employ-
ment legislation, educational opportunities and cultural empowerment.
In highlighting the patriarchal undertones of media objectification and
production practice, van Zoonen was similarly hopeful that the media
would open up more opportunities for female subversion and female
cultural empowerment.
However, the political fervour of the feminist second wave
gave way to a generation of female commentators in the late 1990s
who viewed the radicalism of their predecessors as too prescriptive.
The resulting ‘third wave’ of feminism advocated a softer feminist
agenda, arguing that women themselves were best placed to choose
whether they wanted to pursue traditionally female roles or seek
career-­orientated goals. Third wave feminism, sometimes dubbed
‘girlie’ feminism, suggested, too, that women could be both
mothers and managers, and that the decision to objectify oneself, to
use one’s body for the purpose of the male gaze, was an individual
choice.
Third wave feminism gathered momentum in the 1990s – the
Spice Girls gave us ‘girl power’ whilst Destiny’s Child told their
female fans that they could both be ‘Independent Women’ and beauti-
ful. Third wave female representations have subsequently become a
staple feature of the media, compelling the media landscape to
include more powerful female representations, while also tempering
those representations with values, ideals and outlooks that are tradi-
tionally feminine.
 Feminist theory: Liesbet van Zoonen   87
The feminist fourth wave
There is considerable evidence to suggest that the more radical agenda
of second wave feminism is making a comeback, with audiences using
social media, primarily, to voice their criticisms regarding media objec-
tification and to agitate for wider social change. The #MeToo move-
ment, for example, responded to the Harvey Weinstein sex abuse

Box 8.5 Apply it: third wave feminism or radical

feminism?
It is, perhaps, too simplistic to suggest that contemporary media is
wholly saturated with objectified versions of femininity. Use the fol-
lowing questions to help you diagnose which of your set texts challenge
traditional gender representations:

• Which of your set texts construct third or fourth wave oriented

representations of women? In what ways do these representations
construct more positive versions of womanhood?
• How do cinematography, mise en scène, lighting or other media
language features sustain these positive representations?
• Are representations fostered by female media talent? Who are these
influential female creatives?

Exemplar: The Killing (AQA and OCR). van Zoonen would

suggest that traditional crime drama invokes female powerlessness. The
lone wolf male detective, female-­oriented victims and objectified
support characters are staple features of the genre that reinforce, in van
Zoonen’s terms, traditional active/passive male/female binaries. Third
wave depictions of women, however, have tilted the media landscape
towards the creation of more complex female characters, and perhaps
provide a more satisfactory description of the representational effects
produced by The Killing. Sarah Lund is a complex female character,
who maintains a traditionally-­leaning female role through her family-­
oriented depiction, while also negotiating a career-­oriented role. Her
jumper clad, middle-­aged characterisation, moreover, provides a further
contrast to the conventional objectification strategies of the crime genre
and, in doing so, produces a much needed example of gender diversity
within television fiction.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
88   Feminist theory: Liesbet van Zoonen
allegations – with women from across the globe using Twitter to share
real world experiences of male abuse. Similarly, the online Everyday
Sexism Project invites women around the globe to catalogue their
experiences of sexism and to call out inappropriate behaviour.
In the media, too, there is some evidence to suggest that fourth
wave feminism is radicalising female representation. Mainstream music
stars like Beyoncé are articulating increasingly politicised pop personas,
while TV dramas and sitcoms are giving space to a whole new genera-
tion of female writers such as Phoebe Waller Bridge (Fleabag and
Killing Eve) and Lisa McGee (Derry Girls, Indian Summer and Being
Human) – both of whom have been universally applauded for their
uncompromising female characters.

Concept 2: masculinity in the media

van Zoonen tells us that the patriarchal ideologies of Christianity ban-
ished the male form to the margins of culture. ‘From the Renaissance
onwards,’ van Zoonen writes, ‘the representation of the male nude
body became exceptional, always causing uproar and prohibitions’ (van
Zoonen, 1994, 98). Within patriarchal societies, masculinity is con-
structed to be the socially dominant gender and, as a result, is more
likely to be constructed as an active participant within media texts.
Moreover, to allow the male form to be subject to a female gaze is
censored or controlled because, van Zoonen suggests, the act of
looking castrates power. In short, to look or to gaze, she argues, is to
assume a position of power. To be looked at suggests, conversely, pas-
sivity and weakness.
The dominance of men within society thus leads the media to
produce radically different presentations of males than it does of
females. Of course, van Zoonen acknowledges the presence of sexual-
ised male imagery in the media, and that some of those images objec-
tify the male body, but she also argues that the male form in
contemporary Western culture is, by and large, depicted in ways that
allow the male subject to retain authority over the spectator. van
Zoonen highlights the following features and processes associated with
male representation within the media:

• The male body is predominantly celebrated through sports

imagery. Sports photography produces representations of mascu-
linity that are designed to connote strength and power, emphasising
 Feminist theory: Liesbet van Zoonen   89
movement and skill to reinforce a sense of male dominance over
the reader. Perfume adverts, male fashion and so on thus draw
upon sports personalities to model products – thus allowing male
spectatorship to proceed without erotic objectification.
• Male eroticisation is romanticised. Male objectification for
female audiences exists, van Zoonen tells us, but is rarely expressed
in mainstream forms. When such imagery is produced, moreover,
the subversive threat of male eroticisation is often limited by con-
textualising the imagery within a romantic as opposed to a sexual
setting. In women’s lifestyle magazines, for instance, men are
described in terms of their potential as relationship partners rather
than as objects of sexual consumption.
• The active gaze. van Zoonen argues that male subjects rarely
construct invitational poses. The male gaze, if directed at the
viewer at all, is framed by harder body language, offering confron-
tation or strength rather than passivity. Masculine depictions, too,
avoid objectification by directing the subject’s gaze to the edge of
the frame, or directing it upwards in a show of spiritual strength.
• Strength not weakness. van Zoonen also draws attention to the
ways in which masculine ideals in media imagery are associated
with bodily strength. ‘The male pin-­up’s lack of passivity is one of
his important features,’ she writes, while ‘various signs of activity’
(van Zoonen, 1994, 101) are encoded into male imagery to
further neutralise any potential for eroticisation.

Box 8.6 Apply it: are masculine ideals constructed by

your set texts?
Use the following questions to construct exam ready analysis that con-
siders the impact of masculine representations created by set texts.

• How are the male characters within your television, video game
and music based set texts constructed? Do they conform to van
Zoonen’s assertion that males are normally encoded as active?
• In what ways do mise en scène, composition and lighting sustain the
representational effects of set texts?
• How significant is sports-­related imagery of males in newspaper/
magazine set texts?
• Do any of your set texts construct a subversive version of
masculinity? How?
90   Feminist theory: Liesbet van Zoonen
Exemplar: Life on Mars (Eduqas). Both Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt
reinforce van Zoonen’s conclusions regarding the active presentation of
masculinity by the media. Sam’s high-­octane car chase during the intro-
duction to episode one clearly positions him as a conventional action
hero from the very start. Similarly, Hunt’s no-­nonsense hard man
persona provides male audiences with an outmoded representation of
masculinity in which unrestrained action, male authority and violent
power can be subtly celebrated. van Zoonen would suggest these por-
trayals help to encode real world male power and further reinforce
patriarchal ideals as the dominant ideological force within Western
culture.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

Table 8.1 Speak Liesbet van Zoonen

Active/passive Media products, van Zoonen would suggest,

representations encode women to be passive and males to be active
within media imagery. Depictions that construct
gender in this way reinforce male social dominance.
Male gaze A stylised depiction of women that invites viewers
to take erotic pleasure while viewing the female
form. The female gaze is constructed through
invitational poses and passive body language.
Objectification An image that demeans or degrades its subject.
Patriarchy A society constructed according to a male point of
view which, as a result, allows males to become the
dominant gender.
Subversive A media representation that challenges or
representation undermines an idea or set of ideas that are widely
held within society.
 Feminist theory: Liesbet van Zoonen   91
Table 8.2 van Zoonen: ten minute revision

Concept 1: the female body as spectacle

• The roles that females are expected to play within society vary enormously
across different cultures and historical periods.
• The dominant representational mode in Western culture positions women
as an erotic spectacle.
• Second wave feminists have challenged the dominance of men in society.
• Third wave feminists have reasserted the right of women to occupy
traditional female roles.
• Fourth wave feminists continue to challenge male privilege using both
mass media and social media forms.
Concept 2: masculinity in the media
• Masculine depictions are not subject to the same objectification processes
as females.
• Male social dominance is reinforced using active representations of
masculinity.
Two theorists who challenge van Zoonen’s thinking
• David Gauntlett: would argue that contemporary media products, both
online and mass media oriented, offer audiences a much wider diversity of
gender-based identities than is suggested by van Zoonen. This enables
audiences to shape their own identities and to resist the ideological pull of
patriarchy.
• Judith Butler: would agree with much of van Zoonen’s thinking, but
would suggest further that the use of gender-based labels like ‘male’ and
‘female’ mask the complex nature of sexuality. She would also argue that
individuals have resisted those conventional labels by engaging in ‘gender
trouble’.
9 Intersectionality
bell hooks

hooks draws attention to the universal silence of commentators and

academics alike regarding the black female experience. She contextual-
ises that silence against the wider backdrop of cultural change in
America, prompting some awkward questions as to how and why
black femininity has been so readily sidelined.
The black civil rights movement of the 1960s paved the way for male
black equality, but, for hooks, neglected to explore the experience of
ordinary black women. Similarly, the feminist movement of the 1960s
gave women – white women – the power to strive for gender equality in
the workplace and across society, but again the black female experience
was left undiscussed. hooks, in response, places black femininity centre
stage, seeking in the first instance to explain why black women were so
readily silenced during these two crucial emancipatory moments, while
also offering up an emancipatory call to action to communities of all
colours and genders across the globe: a political plea to women and men
of all ethnicities and nationalities to realise that oppression, in all its forms,
is driven by a set of historically entrenched social and cultural conditions.

Concept 1: interconnected oppression

The legacy of slavery

hooks’ passionate and highly emotive analysis of the airbrushing of the
black female experience is rooted in a historical evaluation of black
femininity within the Amer­ican slave system. Moreover, contemporary
black female representations – the oversexed black female stereotype
and the black ‘mammy’ – are the indirect result of the horrific abuse
enacted on black women by their white slave masters.
 Intersectionality: bell hooks   93
Rape and sexual abuse were a routine feature of female slave life on
the plantations in America, with girls as young as 13 years old subject to
endemic sexual violence. Sadistic floggings were delivered for any
number of minor misdemeanours: for not working hard enough, for
burning breakfast or, more disturbingly, if those black slave women and
girls tried to resist the sexual advances of their white overseers. Black slave
women, hooks tells us, were regarded as little more than a physical com-
modity used, she further explains, to breed slave children and expand the
unpaid workforces who maintained the Amer­ican plantations.
Significantly, hooks argues, the mistreatment of black women was
also sanctioned or encouraged by the wives of plantation owners. The
sexual violence perpetrated on black slaves was ignored because it often
deflected unwanted attention away from plantation wives themselves.
The religious ideals of the white plantation wives, too, fostered sexual
purity as a beauty ideal, and meant that the black women who toiled
bare breasted in their cotton fields were easily disregarded as unchris-
tian and heathen. Black females were, accordingly, considered to be
fallen versions of womanhood, naturally over-­sexed, and, as such, con-
sidered complicit or culpable when plantation husbands raped them.

The contemporary black female experience

And so begins a cultural process that associates black femininity with
overly sexualised stereotypes. Black women, when they do appear in
cultural products, often feature as prostitutes or repulsive characters who
prey upon weak white masculinity. ‘One has only to look at Amer­ican
television,’ hooks writes, ‘… to learn the way in which black women are
perceived in Amer­ican society – the predominant image is that of the
“fallen” woman, the whore, the slut, the prostitute’ (hooks, 1982, 52).
Perversely, the nineteenth-­century white abolitionists who cam-
paigned to end slavery echoed the same sentiment. The abused position
of black women was well known, but their experiences were quietly
sidelined as a result of the middle class abolitionists’ reluctance to discuss
sexual abuse in public. Moreover, hooks suggests, the hierarchical posi-
tion of black women within the slave system and their subservience to all
others (including the white wives of plantation owners) made them a less
worthy cause. Much of that plantation-­based social structure persists
today, hooks argues, with white males ascending to economic, social and
political positions of power, while beneath them, white females, then
black males and finally black women fight for the scraps.
94   Intersectionality: bell hooks
White feminism as covertly/overtly racist
Black women, hooks tells us, sought to escape their lowly social positions
and the widespread stigma of oversexualisation by constructing outlooks
that mirrored the feminised conservative ideals of their white counter-
parts. In the 1950s, Black women, accordingly, embraced motherhood
and domesticity and were subsequently reluctant, hooks tells us, to join
the white-­dominated feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s because
they had so embraced these conservative female ideals.
hooks further argues that white feminism itself was equally com-
plicit in omitting black women from women’s liberation politics. The
suffrage movements of the 1920s, for example, reflected white
supremacist ideologies by openly refusing to admit black women as
suffrage members; feminist writers in the 1960s and 1970s similarly
sidelined the female black experience, jettisoning racial concerns
because they were considered too controversial and might derail any
emancipatory progress that could be negotiated with white male power
brokers. Thus, while white feminism might have suggested that it was
advancing the cause of all women, in reality those writers who
preached equality knew nothing, nor did they attempt to discover any-
thing, about the experiences of black Amer­ican women.

Absent representations
hooks suggests that the legacy of black female cultural subordination
has resulted in their wholesale absence from mainstream media. Maga-
zine beauty ideals, in the main, are constructed to be white, while in
television, advertising and drama, she argues, the few tokenistic black
representations that are allowed to break through are dominated by
male actors. As a result, black masculinity, she suggests, has come to
represent the black community as a whole.
That domination is reflected even today, with the 2018 Univer-
sity of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) diversity report providing
concrete evidence of the continued marginalisation of black female
roles in Amer­ican television. Only 85 black male actors, UCLA
claim, assumed lead roles in US scripted shows broadcast during
2016/2017. Conversely, 469 lead roles were played by white males
and 319 by white women. The number of black female leads was
just 56 (UCLA, 2018).
 Intersectionality: bell hooks   95

Box 9.1 Apply it: absent black femininity in your

set texts
Set texts that lack female black representation can be linked to bell
hooks’ ideas very quickly. Use these questions to help you diagnose the
effects of those absences:

• Which of your set texts contain no representations of black

femininity?
• Does that absence suggest that black women are excluded or margin-
alised? Does that absence reinforce the ‘otherness’ of black femininity?
• Are black females excluded at the expense of black male
counterparts?
• Does the exclusion of black women symbolise their lack of power?

Exemplar: ‘Kiss of the Vampire’ (Eduqas). This poster articulates

the dominance of white masculinity over white femininity via layout
and proxemics. Both white females are figuratively subordinated by the
lead male, submitting themselves to his active male pose. The total
absence, moreover, of any black representations in the poster is interest-
ing in that it mirrors the marginalisation of black women within post
Second World War society. bell hooks argues that this invisibility allows
white femininity to represent ideal beauty, constructed in this instance
by the virginal purity of the two porcelain-­skinned models.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

Negative black female stereotypes

The historical mistreatment of black women has also informed a range
of media stereotypes of black femininity. hooks outlines the following
representations that persist in contemporary cultural products:

• Jezebels. Over-­sexualised representations of black femininity have

significantly shaped perceptions of black women since slavery.
They remain common in hip-­hop music in which black women
are consistently served up as a sexualised side-­dressing for black
male artists. The widescale presence of the Jezebel in black music,
moreover, leads hooks to argue that this stereotype has been
­internalised by black women themselves.
96   Intersectionality: bell hooks
• Aunt Jemimas. Black women have always been associated with
domestic service – their role as house slaves on the plantations and
their subsequent restriction to domestic roles in America during
the 1950s has helped build the black mammy stereotype. Aunt
Jemimas are overweight and asexual representations of black femi-
ninity, often depicted as maids or servants who loyally serve their
white employers without complaint.
• Sapphires. The sapphire stereotype is a comedic depiction of
black women and is a common staple of talk shows and reality
TV. Sapphires usually appear as angry mothers who cannot control
their emotions and vilify black women who have power or who
do not conform to the passivity of the mammy stereotype.

Box 9.2 Apply it: analyse set texts in terms of their

potential use of black female stereotypes
Some set texts might inadvertently offer the stereotypes highlighted
above. Use the following questions to help you locate examples and
analysis that you can use in your exam.

• What effect does the stereotype have on black or white audiences?

• Is the stereotype constructed as a result of an internalised black
identity?
• Is the stereotype typical of the genre in which it appears?
• How does the stereotype contrast with other representations con-
structed by texts made by the same or similar producers?

Exemplar: Formation, Beyoncé (Eduqas). Beyoncé’s career is

founded, many would argue, on her willingness to use the black
female Jezebel stereotype. The performances offered within much of
her work is, in bell hooks’ view, highly symptomatic of the disem-
powering over-­sexualised female roles that have been constructed for
black women throughout our recent cultural history. Formation repeats
much of the Jezebel formula, in which corseted troupes of women
parade their bodies in sexually explicit dance sequences, inviting
­audiences to view black women as sexually available and highly
promiscuous.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
 Intersectionality: bell hooks   97
Concept 2: hooks’ call to action

Intersectionality as a political and cultural tool

‘To me,’ hooks writes,

feminism is not simply a struggle to end male chauvinism … it is a

commitment to eradicating the ideology of domination that per-
meates Western culture on various levels – sex, race, and class, to
name a few – and a commitment to reorganising U.S. society so
that the self-­development of people can take precedence over
imperialism, economic expansion and material desires.
(hooks, 1982, 194)

hooks’ concerns are historically and analytically informed, but to

pigeonhole her as an ivory tower academic solely concerned with the
history of black female representation misses much of the political
thrust of her writing. Indeed, hooks’ analysis views all forms of oppres-
sion – sexism, racism and class-­based subjugation – as symptomatic of
the middle-­class, white male dominated world we live in. The subju-
gation of these oppressed groups, she tells us, is interconnected. Indeed,
the intersectionalist thinkers who have followed hooks’ lead have sim-
ilarly argued that homophobia, transphobia and disability-­based oppres-
sions are also brought about as a result white male oppression.
It is also important to understand that hooks’ intersectionalist think-
ing is not just a tool for analysing or describing the world in which we
live. Yes, intersectionality points accusingly to problematic media rep-
resentations, but it is also a political tool – a cultural instrument that

Box 9.3 Discuss it: has intersectional thinking gone

mainstream?
• In what ways has racism become a mainstream issue? In what ways
have contemporary media producers focused more attention on
the black female experience in recent years?
• What other movements or media products can you name that have
tried to shed light on the abuse of power by white males?
• What evidence is there to suggest that white hegemony is still the
dominant force in society?
98   Intersectionality: bell hooks
seeks to nurture products that actively challenge the many forms of
oppression that white male patriarchy produces. In this sense, we can
describe some products as ‘intersectional media’ in that they are know-
ingly designed to draw attention to the effects of white male power.
Intersectional media is constructed to:

• Explore the interlocking nature of oppression. Intersectional

products explore the connections that exist between different
forms of oppression, expressing, for instance, how racism and
sexism share the same cause or have similar effects.
• Highlight white male privilege. Intersectionality seeks to cri-
tique the mechanisms that reinforce white male hegemony.
• Outline economic oppression. An increasing number of inter-
sectional media products draw attention to the huge wealth gap
that exists between privileged white groups and the rest of society;
moreover, they draw attention to the privileges that economic
power generates for those groups.

Box 9.4 Know it: #BlackLivesMatter – intersectionality

in action
The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement formed in response to the
acquittal of George Zimmerman after he fatally shot Trayvon Martin,
an unarmed black 17-year-­old youth; Zimmerman wrongly thought
Martin was about to commit a criminal offence. The verdict com-
pounded accusations that the American justice system was institutionally
racist. The twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter subsequently served as a
rallying call for state-­wide protests following Zimmerman’s trial, helping
BLM to become a global movement.
Importantly, BLM is deliberately shaped by intersectionalist values in
that it exists to provides a space for black women and black trans
women to express their political voice. Yet the aims of the BLM move-
ment are not simply limited to agitating on behalf of the black female/
queer community. ‘We work vigorously for freedom and justice for
Black people,’ BLM writes, ‘and, by extension, all people’ (Black Lives
Matter, 2019). The BLM movement and intersectionalist thinking has
undoubtedly shaped the cultural output of the media industry over the
last five years, having found support from a host of global megastars
including Beyoncé and Jay Z.
 Intersectionality: bell hooks   99
• Give a voice to invisible social groups. Intersectional media
fills in the gaps that absent representations create – telling the
stories and giving weight to the experiences of groups who are
‘other’ to white male patriarchy.
• Celebrate otherness. Intersectional media seeks to construct
positive as well as critical effects.

Box 9.5 Apply it: diagnose set texts that deliberately

provide intersectionalist commentary
Set texts across the exam boards incorporate intersectionalist viewpoints.
Locating those texts and finding moments that articulate those views
can help you gain premium marks in representation, institution or
audience-­based questions. Use the following to help you produce rel-
evant analysis:

• In what ways do set texts provide a space to celebrate marginalised

identities?
• In what ways do set texts draw attention to social or economic
inequalities experienced by marginalised groups?
• In what ways do set texts suggest that those inequalities are shared
across different social groups?
• In what ways do set texts call out white male privilege?

Exemplar 1: Massive Attack, Unfinished Sympathy (OCR). Massive

Attack’s one take docu realist music video provides a bell hooks infused
intersectionalist critique of American race and class wealth inequalities.
The background cast articulates a diversity of participants: whites with
disabilities, Latino women, black fathers, mixed ethnic partnerships – all
fronted by the accusatory fourth wall break of an unusual black female
lead. The effect is to produce a unifying portrait of American wealth
inequality, while a conspicuous lack of white male privilege in the
video points to a controlling ‘other’ in this text. Despite the video’s
underlying critique, the text also provides a celebration of the various
groups featured – the golden lighting provides optimism, while
moments of tenderness are juxtaposed with the poverty of the streets in
a bid to convince the reader of the worthiness of collective action in the
face of the economic and social oppression outlined.

Exemplar 2: Beyoncé, Formation (Eduqas). Beyoncé might provide

us with a number of moments that reflect a white power affirming
100   Intersectionality: bell hooks
jezebel stereotype, yet the context of further imagery suggests that those
representations are deliberately ironic. Formation knowingly references
the #BlackLivesMatter movement through the ‘stop shooting us’ graf-
fiti reference towards the end of the product. The text not only draws
attention to the economic disparities and institutionalised racism of
America but provides a stream of high key, tilt up images of a diverse
range of black female, black queer and black male identities. The text
provokes an intersectionalist ideology – simultaneously critiquing the
legacy of black slavery while also celebrating those identities that main-
stream American culture marginalises, and, in doing so, asks an active
audience to question the overly sexualised imagery at the start of the
video. In this sense the video affirms bell hooks’ intersectional political
intentions by calling out the effects of white male privilege.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

Table 9.1 Speak bell hooks

Intersectional media Media products that deliberately include or allude

to an intersectional viewpoint.
Intersectionality The exploration of oppression (sexism, racism,
homophobia) as having an interconnected or
underlying set of causes.
Otherness hooks suggests that those who are not white or
male are ‘others’ and, as such, are subject to the
various oppressive practices of white masculinity.
 Intersectionality: bell hooks   101
Table 9.2 hooks: ten minute revision

Concept 1: interconnected oppression

• Representations of black women (and men) have been shaped by historical
forces.
• Feminist movements of the twentieth century have largely been dominated
by a white viewpoint.
• A social hierarchy exists that places white men at the top followed by
white women, male ethnic minorities and, last, female ethnic minorities.
• Oppression of minority groups (racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia) are
constructs of a white male dominated social hierarchy.
• The lack of black female power results in absent representations and a
range of negative stereotypes that some black women have internalised.
Concept 2: from evaluation to action, bell hooks’ call to action
• hooks’ intersectional work does not just provide us with an analytical tool,
but also prompts media producers to fashion their products in ways that
draw attention to social inequality.
• Intersectional media foregrounds the interconnected nature of inequality.
• Intersectional media celebrates social diversity and gives voice to social
groups that have been marginalised by white male power.
Two theorists who might challenge hooks’ thinking
• Paul Gilroy: would not necessarily challenge hooks, but his work
provides a more UK specific framework for evaluating the representation
of black people. His analysis highlights the legacy effects of Empire on our
notions of ethnicity and national identity.
• Henry Jenkins: again, he would not challenge hooks directly, but would
suggest that contemporary media products, through participatory culture,
can circumvent established media power. Indeed, the online activism of
#BlackLivesMatter provides a brilliant example of the power of
participatory culture.
10 Gender as performance
Judith Butler

Butler’s theoretical work is concerned with unearthing the processes,

both cultural and psychological, that shape our identities. She is guided,
in many senses, by a quest to test orthodox explanations of gender,
principally those of the theoretical heavyweights – Claude Lévi-Strauss,
Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. Butler’s critique of these thinkers is
concerned, to a large degree, with the various explanations they give
to describe the development of gendered identities that do not fit into
orthodox heterosexual categories.
Butler concludes that masculinity and femininity are not naturally
given states, but instead are maintained by individuals through
everyday acts. Our gendered identities, she argues, are not established
at birth, nor are they formed in childhood or adolescence, but are
instead realised through a continuous performance of gendered
behaviour. The media, more importantly, plays a vital role in provid-
ing us with a set of gender-­based templates that we use to inform those
performances. Moreover, the dominance of heterosexual-­oriented rep-
resentations across media forms, Butler further argues, helps to main-
tain traditional male and female identities as a social norm.

Concept 1: gendered identities are constructed

through repetition and ritual
Butler draws attention to Lévi-Strauss’s anthropological work regarding
the cultural myths that deal with incest and sex-­based taboos. She high-
lights his conclusions that myths are powerful makers of meaning, both
reflecting and defining the way we relate to others in the wider world.
Lévi-Strauss suggests that myths tend to reinforce male power as the
norm because males are the more naturally dominant gender. Similarly,
 Gender as performance: Judith Butler   103
the absence of homosexuality within mythic stories provides evidence
that our natural sexual inclinations are heterosexually oriented.
Butler is also interested in the work of the influential psychologist,
Jacques Lacan, who, she tells us, similarly defines male and female
genders using a binary straightjacket. The word ‘binary’ infers that
there are only two possible gender states – male or female – and that
normal male/female relations are heterosexually inclined. Lacan argues,
furthermore, that our gendered identities are fixed when we emerge
from infancy and identify our independence from the world around us.
The discovery of the phallus by boys during this transition, Lacan sug-
gests, prompts a symbolic awakening – a moment when males realise
they effect sexual power. That awakening, he further argues, translates
into masculine social power. Female infants, conversely, are defined
through the symbolic discovery that they are phallus free, and the real-
isation that they are castrated and socially powerless.
To Lacan, and perhaps comically to us, the realisation of having, or
not having, a penis naturally creates the patriarchal social structures in
which we live. Importantly, for Butler at least, Lacan further defines
homosexuality as an aberration of those symbolic awakenings or as
becoming established as a result of heterosexual disappointment during
formative sexual encounters.
Butler also examines the work of Sigmund Freud, who similarly
explains same-­sex affection as a form of melancholia, formed by boys
through an unnatural rejection of the mother during the Oedipal
phase, or, for girls, as an over-­identification with the mother figure
during the Electra stage (see Box 10.1 for further explanation). Freud
suggests that these key moments in infancy inform lifelong behaviours
and, moreover, that homosexuality produces a mental aberration as a
result: a kind of depressive melancholia that forms as a result of the
realisation by gay individuals that conventional heterosexual satisfac-
tions will not ever be realised.

Butler’s gender revolution

Butler offers a complex and devastating critique of these three corner-
stones of twentieth-­century thinking. Her principle objections run as
follows:

• Male and female identities are not naturally configured.

Butler’s critique of Lévi-Strauss points to the array of gender-­based
104   Gender as performance: Judith Butler
identities that exist in addition to heterosexuality. Butler tells us
that these non-­heterosexual identities, and the relationships that
non-­binary individuals form, are built on desires that are just as
valid as those experienced by heterosexuals. Their exclusion from
myths and other cultural products reflects, Butler infers, the wider
marginalisation of these groups in society.
• Gender does not exist inside the body. Butler critiques the
notion that gender – whatever it is – is stored within the body as
if it were something akin to a soul. Freud’s assertion that our
sexual identities are internalised during the Oedipal phase is illu-
sory – our gendered identities, Butler argues, are realised through
our desires, sexual contacts and physical expressions of love. Our
gendered identities are not a fixed object; they are constituted as a
result of our behaviours.
• Gender is not solely determined by primary experiences
during childhood. For Butler, the Lacanian of Freudian idea
that our gendered identities are fixed during infancy is a myth that
serves to reinforce a heterosexual ideal: a socially imposed ideal.
Our genders, Butler argues, are far less stable than Freud or Lacan
suggest in that we continuously form and reform our sexual iden-
tities throughout our lives.

Box 10.1 Help box: what is the Oedipus/Electra

complex?
Freud argued that children become very aware of their genitalia at the
age of three – this stage leads to the development of intense emotional
attraction to the parent of the opposite sex and to feelings of jealousy
towards the parent of their own sex. Boys (through the Oedipus
complex) fall in love with their mothers and hate their fathers, while
girls (the Electra complex) become attached to their fathers and develop
intense jealousy of their mothers.
   For boys, the intense rivalry for their mother’s affection leads to an
internalised fear that their fathers will castrate them as punishment.
Boys, Freud suggests, have to reposition their fathers as role models to
avoid being emasculated, and in copying their father’s masculine
behaviour they assume a male identity. Girls, conversely, will eventually
realign their love for their mothers (thus creating their female identity)
but will also retain their love for father figures.
 Gender as performance: Judith Butler   105

Box 10.2 Discuss it: what are the problems with the

arguments used by Lévi-Strauss, Lacan and
Freud to explain how we construct our
gendered identities?
Claude Lévi-Strauss
• What criticisms could be made of the idea that our genders are
fixed by nature? What other factors might contribute to the cre-
ation of our sexualities or gender-­based notions?
• If our genders are not naturally fixed, why do so many cultural
stories construct heterosexuality as the norm? Can you identify any
myths or fairy tales in which homosexuality even features?

Jacques Lacan
• Does the discovery of a penis really invest men with a sense of
internal power?
• Lacan argues that homosexual desires form as a result of hetero-
sexual disappointment – does this theory describe a natural process?
Is this idea formed, perhaps, as a result of his own heterosexual
vantage point?

Sigmund Freud
• Can we really explain adult same-­sex sexual attraction as the result
of rejecting or over-­identifying with our parents at a very
early age?
• In what ways is Freud’s description of homosexuality as
­‘melancholic’ problematic?

Butler’s alternative gender model

Butler puts forward an alternative view of our gendered identities that
can be summed up as follows:

• Our genders are culturally rather than naturally formed.

Butler tells us that our biological anatomies do not determine our
genders. The normalisation of heterosexuality is established, she
further argues, as a result of long-­standing social rituals that orien-
tate us towards traditional male and female roles.
106   Gender as performance: Judith Butler
• Our genders are not stable but are constructed through
repeated actions. Rituals and performative actions constantly
reinforce our identities: the act of wearing make-­up, for instance,
or dressing in female or male clothing fosters an illusion that we
have a seamless and permanent male or female identity. Similarly,
our mannerisms and behaviours work as learned micro-­
performances that continuously signal our identity to ourselves
and to others. Importantly, those gender-­based cues can be learned
or imitated from media products.

Concept 2: gender subversion and gendered

hierarchies
Butler might argue that our identities are an open story, but she also
acknowledges that heterosexuality is the dominant identity mode in
our culture. To maintain an identity that falls outside of the hetero-
sexual norm in our society is, she suggests, a subversive act that takes a
great deal of effort to maintain. Subversion is difficult Butler argues,
painful even, because heteronormative ideals are so deeply entrenched
within the fabric of language and other cultural practices.

Box 10.3 Challenge it: challenging heteronormativity is

painful
Butler argues that it is incredibly difficult or painful to assume a non-­
heteronormative identity. Media narratives mirror this assertion, often
constructing gay characters who have to seek acceptance from friends
and family or who have to confront homophobic intolerance.

• Can you name any media products that use storylines that reinforce
the idea that gender subversion is difficult?
• To what extent are those storylines outmoded?
• Can you think of any media products that offer us more positive
representations of non-­heteronormativity?
• In what ways do the target audiences of products affect non-­
heteronormative representations?
 Gender as performance: Judith Butler   107
Gender subjugation
Butler argues that non-­heterosexual identities – male homosexuality, les-
bianism, transgender identifications – are socially suppressed in favour of
heteronormativity. Heteronormativity privileges traditional male and
female identities while also promoting heterosexuality as a default rela-
tionship model. The subjugation of identities that fall outside of conven-
tional heteronormativity, Butler tells us, can be effected through physical
coercion: gay men, for instance, can be compelled to attend conversion
therapy by concerned family members or punitive physical deterrents
can be deployed to prohibit same-­sex relationships (Somalia and Sudan,
for example, apply the death penalty as a deterrent for homosexuality).
More importantly, heteronormativity and male patriarchy are
reinforced through cultural practices that position non-­heterosexuality
and female empowerment as a social taboo. Butler draws our attention
to the following media processes that commonly marginalise female
power and non-­heteronormativity:

• Absent representation. The sheer lack of alternative representa-

tions in the media helps reinforce heteronormativity/male power
as the norm. Analysis by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation (GLAAD) found that, in 2018, only 8.8 per cent of
Amer­ican prime time television shows regularly broadcast non-­
heterosexual characters – a figure that represents a significant
increase on the previous year, but still establishes heterosexuality
as the ideal social model. Absent representation allows straight
relationships to take centre stage as a behavioural norm, while rel-
egating other media representations to the margins of broadcast-
ing. GLAAD, interestingly, identified Netflix as industry leaders in
terms of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ)
representations in 2018, with 88 non-­heteronormative characters
used across its programming (GLAAD, 2019).
• Abjected representations. Butler acknowledges the theoretical
work of Julia Kristeva (see Box 10.4) in suggesting that heterosex-
uality and male power are reinforced through the suggestion that
alternatives to those identities are disturbing, repellent or unnatu-
ral. Narratives, for instance, that focus on sex change operations
create physical abjection of trans people through the presentation
of graphic surgical procedures. Depictions that focus on castration
and so on have a deeply unsettling effect.
108   Gender as performance: Judith Butler
• Parodic representations. Media presentations of homosexuality
often use exaggerated masculine or feminine behaviours in a
comedic way, through, for instance, overly camp presentations of
gay men. Parodic characterisations of this nature produce ques-
tionable humour while also reinforcing the idea that homo-
sexuality is an aberration. Yet, for Butler, parodic representations
also create what she calls ‘gender trouble’ and draw audience
attention to the performative nature of gender per se. The drag
queen, for example, who represents anatomical masculinity yet
performs a traditionally feminine role reveals to the audience a
sense that all our identities might similarly be constructed or, in
Butler’s words, that ‘the inner truth of gender is a fabrication’
(Butler, 2007, 186).

Box 10.4 Help box: Julia Kristeva and female abjection

in film
Film theorist Julia Kristeva famously argued that horror films rely on a
range of well-­worn strategies that repulse audiences through the use of
female-­oriented depictions that are intended to be disturbing or unset-
tling. Films like Carrie or Teeth, for example, create their horror effects
by referencing and distorting female bodily functions (menstruation,
birth or female sexuality). For Kristeva, the cultural effect of such depic-
tions is to reinforce the idea that the female body is somehow taboo or
needs to be hidden from public view, which, as a result, consolidates
patriarchal power.

Box 10.5 Discuss it: how does the media present gender

subversion?
Absent representations analysis
• How many of your set texts contain prominent LGBTQ
representations?
• Why do you think that LGBTQ representations are missing from
media products?
• Why do you think Netflix leads the field in terms of including
characters that are gender diverse? Could this be related to the
target audience of Netflix?
 Gender as performance: Judith Butler   109
Hierarchical subjugations
• Can you think of any mainstream products, including your set
texts, that have constructed problematic LGBTQ representations?
In what ways are these portrayals negative?
• Can you think of any products that deliver abjectified LGBTQ
representations?
• Can you think of any products that construct comedic or parodic
characters who are non-­heteronormative?

Box 10.6 Apply it: using Judith Butler to explore

representation effects in set texts
Use the following questions to help you find moments in your set texts
that can be explained or interpreted using Butler’s ideas:

Concept 1: gender as performance

• Are there moments in the text in which characters openly perform
a gender-­based identity?
• Do the set texts give advice to their audience on how they might
perform their genders?
• How do magazine set texts help their readers/viewers adopt tradi-
tional male or female roles?
• Do the set texts provide alternative models of gender or sexuality?

Concept 2: reinforcing hierarchical binarisms

• Are the set texts dominated by heteronormative representations?
Are lead characters presented within conventional family units? Do
lead characters follow heteronormative love interests?
• Does the set text give space to marginalised or non-­binary identi-
ties? How much space is given to these moments? What is the
effect of any absent representations?
• Do the set texts present marginalised identities in a way that creates
abjection?
• Do the set texts offer moments that subvert traditional heteronor-
mative expectations? Are these moments constructed as painful or
difficult? In what way do those representations reinforce hierarchi-
cal binarisms?
110   Gender as performance: Judith Butler
Exemplar 1: Zoella (Eduqas). Zoella’s YouTube output centres
around the production of make-­up tutorials and haul-­based videos. In a
Butlerian sense, Zoella is providing her 12 million subscribers with a
pattern of ritualised gender performance via this content – evidencing,
in a very literal sense, the means through which she, and they, can
assume an orthodox female identity. The controlled application of
make-­up and the careful selection of fashion wear provide a gender per-
formance template that audiences can use to reinforce their own fem-
inine identities. It is interesting to note that in one particular upload,
‘Zoella Does My Make Up’, Alfie Deyes becomes the gender-­troubled
subject of that feminine transition. The result, Butler would argue,
simultaneously offers male and female viewers a drag version of Alfie
that is both comic (and hence abjecting), while also constructing the
liberating/unsettling possibility that masculinity per se is a performance-­
oriented construct that can be easily manipulated.

Exemplar 2: Teen Vogue (AQA). Teen Vogue presents itself as ‘the

young person’s guide to conquering…the world’. It certainly contains
articles that are designed to raise political awareness, but much of its
online content is dedicated to giving fashion and beauty advice to its
young female readership, and, Judith Butler might argue, this advice
provides young women with the rituals and performative templates
needed to assume a socially acceptable female identity. ‘Do try these at
home’, the webzine suggests, enabling Teen Vogue’s audience to perform
a version of socially sanctioned femininity through the hair and make-
­up routines presented. The male/female couplings presented within the
site’s imagery are predominantly heteronormative in nature, and further
reinforce the long-­standing gender binaries of contemporary society.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
 Gender as performance: Judith Butler   111
Table 10.1 Speak Judith Butler

Abjection The process of constructing an object or person as

repulsive. Abjection is used, Butler infers, to
suggest that non-heteronormative identities are
unnatural.
Compulsory A phrase used by Butler to describe the deeply
heterosexuality entrenched social expectation that we assume
male/female identities and that we engage in
heterosexual relationships.
Gender/sex Butler differentiates between gender and sex.
Gender, she argues, is the socially constructed
identity that we assume, while sex refers to the
body we are born with.
Gender trouble A representation or identity that falls outside of
heteronormativity. Gender trouble might be
inferred through: asexuality, bisexuality,
homosexuality, lesbianism, pansexuality,
transgenderism or transvestitism. Butler suggests
that the performance of gender trouble is a
difficult and sometimes painful process.
Gender performance The repeating of acts or rituals that continuously
define our gender. Butler argues that our gender
is not innate but constructed through the
continuous repetition of micro-rituals.
Gender subversion A representational process that undermines
heteronormativity.
Heteronormativity The dominance of heterosexuality as a normal or
preferred identity – usually accompanied by a
view that gender is binary (either male or female).
Parodic representation An imitative gender representation usually
constructed using exaggeration or dissonance.
Drag queens are parodic in that they offer us a
highly exaggerated version of femininity. Parodic
representations can be used to subjugate
marginalised identities, but they also
simultaneously sketch the performative nature of
gender for all of us and are therefore subtly
subversive.
112   Gender as performance: Judith Butler
Table 10.2 Butler: ten minute revision

Concept 1: Our gendered identities are not naturally given but constructed through
repetition and ritual.
• Our bodies or sex do not define our gendered identities.
• Genders are not fixed by childhood experiences.
• Gender is constructed through the continuous repetition of micro-rituals.
Concept 2: Contemporary culture reinforces a traditional gender binary – identities
that fall outside of that binary are constructed as subversive.
• Heteronormativity is entrenched within society.
• Non-heteronormative identities are marginalised or subjugated.
• The media assists in the marginalisation of subversive identities through
absent representations, abjection and parody.
• The performance of gender trouble is a difficult, sometimes painful,
process given the entrenched nature of heteronormativity.
Two theorists who might challenge Butler’s thinking
• David Gauntlett: acknowledges much of the work of Butler, but would
suggest that contemporary media practices mean that heteronormativity
does not completely dominate and that the media allows for diverse or
fluid identity construction. He suggests that society has adopted a much
more positive view of gender subversion than is presented by Butler.
• Liesbet van Zoonen: would agree with Butler’s assessment that gender is
a social construct but would suggest that the media reinforces male power
as a result of women internalising male power and assuming the same
passivity that on-screen depictions of femininity construct.
11 Media and identity
David Gauntlett

David Gauntlett has been included in the list of prescribed A Level

theorists primarily for his work regarding identity theory. Heavily
influenced by the thinking of the sociologist Anthony Giddens,
Gauntlett constructed a timely critique of mass media consumption
models and their effects on audience thinking.
Gauntlett was particularly interested in the impact of the media pro-
liferation boom of the 1980s and 1990s that gave audiences access to
more media products and broadcast channels than ever before. The
resulting diversity of choice, in Gauntlett’s view, fundamentally
changed the way that audiences use media products, turning viewers
into active rather than passive consumers, and, as a result, giving audi-
ences more control over the way they use the media to craft their
identities.

Concept 1: traditional and post-­traditional

media consumption

Anthony Giddens: traditional and post-­traditional

culture change
To explain Gauntlett’s ideas it is necessary to take a preliminary detour
and to explore Anthony Giddens’ analysis of the far reaching social
changes currently affecting Western societies. We are transitioning,
Giddens argues, from a society in which our identities were con-
structed via rigid traditions to a distinctly different phase that he calls
‘late modernity’.
In social structures in which tradition dominates, the notion of who
we are is heavily determined by long-­standing social forces. The roles
114   Media and identity: David Gauntlett
that men and women are expected to fulfil, for example, are tightly
regulated and heavily moderated by social customs, family expectations
and rigid social codes. Thus, cultures based on ‘tradition’ produce fixed
identities that are hard to escape from. Men are expected to assume
stereotypically masculine identities, to adopt the role of the primary
earner, while women are expected to look after children, to cook for
their families and to keep the family home clean. These rigid roles,
importantly, are reinforced by the ideological stances taken by wider
social institutions such as education, religion and, importantly, the
media.
The period that Giddens calls ‘late modernity’ begins to take shape
in the years following the Second World War and is characterised by a
relaxation of the rigid social roles expected in a traditionally ordered
society. Individuals in ‘late modernity’ realise, in short, that they can
shape their own outlooks and beliefs. This transition is partially
enabled, Giddens argues, via the liberating effects of globalisation and
by exposing individuals to values and identities that are different to
those they experience at the local level.
Globalisation, in brief, allows individuals to transcend the rigid
expectations of their immediate communities. By watching, for
example, an Amer­ican soap opera that contains powerful female char-
acters, women in traditionally ordered communities might perceive
that an alternative identity exists other than the one that their society
has prescribed for them.

Giddens and the reflexive project of the self

As a result, Giddens suggests that individuals who live within ‘late
modernity’ are able to engage in what he calls the ‘reflexive project of
the self ’ (Giddens, 1991, 164). The ‘self ’ in ‘late modernity’ is not
fixed, but fluid. In short, we have far more control over who we are in
‘late modernity’. We can revise or deconstruct our identities. We can
escape the narrow gender or class-­based roles prescribed by traditional
social structures.
Importantly, David Gauntlett openly acknowledges Giddens’ argu-
ments, using them to explore the effects of the contemporary media
landscape and arriving at the conclusion that the variety of media prod-
ucts available for us to consume allows us to ‘create, maintain and
revise a set of biographical narratives – the story of we are, and how
we came to be where we are now’ (Gauntlett, 2008, 107).
 Media and identity: David Gauntlett   115

Box 11.1 Discuss it: can you find evidence of social

change in your own family?
Giddens suggests that the transition to ‘late modernity’ accelerated
towards the end of the twentieth century. Think about the gender-­
based roles that your parents and grandparents assume in your own
family:

• Who is responsible for cooking, cleaning or childcare in your

immediate family? Who goes out to work?
• Do your parents assume traditional or post-­traditional gender roles
in your immediate family?
• Do your grandparents have a more fixed notion of their gender
roles?
• What expectations do you have of yourself and the role you expect
to play in your own future family?
• How do your families and your classmates’ families compare? Is
there evidence to suggest, as Giddens argues, that we are moving
from traditionally ordered identities to a less traditional set of
expectations?

Concept 2: reflexive identity construction

David Gauntlett: self-­help books and consumer led identities

Gauntlett connects Giddens’ notion of the ‘reflexive project of the self ’
to the proliferation of media content in the 1980s and 1990s. He
argues that the sheer diversity of new products and channels, both
niche and mainstream, facilitates the process of identity editing by
audiences.
Gauntlett cites the growth of self-­help manuals during the 1990s as
evidence of our desire to manipulate the way we engage with the
world at large. These self-­help guides, he tells us, ‘describe aspirational
but reasonably realistic (as opposed to utopian) models of how we
might expect women and men to present themselves in today’s society’
(Gauntlett, 2008, 233). Self-­help books tell us that we do not have to
endure the personality flaws that hold us back from the jobs we want
or the relationships we desire. A whole new you, whatever that ‘you’
is, can be realised at the flick of a self-­help page found in your local
bookshop.
116   Media and identity: David Gauntlett
Lifestyle magazines and transformation narratives
Gauntlett suggests that a similar dynamic can be identified in contemporary
lifestyle magazines where advice columns and inspiration articles prompt
audiences to realise their true callings. The front covers of magazines such
as Vogue and Men’s Health are shop windows to a sexier, more successful
future-­self for their readerships. Inside, lifestyle-­oriented contents pages
invite their readers to assimilate aspirational ingredients from the diversity
of articles and glossy (but not too perfect) imagery that adorns their pages.

Multi-­protagonist television and music

In television, too, it could be argued that the arrival of new programme
formats in the 1990s facilitated further identity play. Reality television
shows of the period drew contestants from a wide social spectrum, asking
audiences to reject or embrace candidates based on nothing more than
mediated backstories or the narrative journeys those contestants crafted
during show transmission. The birth, too, of multi-­protagonist TV drama
further enhanced the notion that identity was fluid. Where traditional
drama formats focused audiences on the identities of a single hero prot-
agonist, multi-­protagonist hits such as Friends and Sex and The City asked
audiences to pick their favourite character – to identify with the on-­
screen presence they felt most akin to. In today’s on-­demand oriented
television landscape, the multi-­protagonist drama format rules. From No
Offence to The Returned, most of the television set texts required for exam
study contain a rainbow of protagonists that facilitate the same effect.
We might argue that solo music artists have also provided audiences
with a set of useful narrative templates as to how identity might be
repurposed. Music thrives on identity experimentation, on blurring
gender and ethnically-­based stereotypes and, in doing so, the music
industry has connected impressionable young audiences to a roll call of
global stars who have successfully affected identity change. From Michael
Jackson’s plastic surgery driven resculpting to Beyoncé’s regeneration as
a radical feminist, the identity U-­turns of music artists provide audiences
with a streaming narrative of fluidity that they can copy.

Advertising and the alternative you

Likewise, Gauntlett suggests that marketing and advertising agencies
construct multiple possibilities of who we might be through product
 Media and identity: David Gauntlett   117
branding, providing us with 30 second glimpses of who we might
become – of the ideal versions of ourselves and our loved ones.
Of course, we have the power to reject those images, yet, equally,
we can also be seduced or inspired by them. These lifestyle narratives,
the life-­hack impulse of our age, Gauntlett suggests, have gathered
further momentum in the digital era – repackaged and repurposed by
everyday users in self-­penned webzines and DIY YouTube tutorials
(Gauntlett, 2008). In the globalised multi-­channel media landscape of
the late twentieth century, audiences are now in charge of the remote
control. Audiences gatekeep the identities they are exposed to and if
they do not like what they see they have the power to change chan-
nels or, more interestingly, use contemporary digital media platforms
to create their own channel.

Box 11.2 Interview with David Gauntlett (January 2019)

MD: Your book Media, Gender and Identity (2002, second edition 2008)
was hugely optimistic about the capacity of audiences to use media in shaping
their identities. Do you still feel that the contemporary media landscape
affords the same opportunities?
DG: Back then, it was still exciting to talk about people using popular
culture within the process of constructing their sense of self-­identity.
But that was people making use of material that was generated by
others – a professional elite, essentially.
Nowadays, that sounds awful. The positive thing we have now is
the online culture made by everybody, which – while far from perfect
– is definitely much richer and more diverse and exciting than what
you got from traditional media.
Of course, traditional media still exists and provides us with big,
visible slabs of popular culture, which remains a battleground for repre-
sentations – the questions about who gets represented, and how. But in
2017 I criticised the then new UK A Level syllabus for ‘making young
people study their grandparents’ media preferences’, which some teach-
ers seemed to think was harsh, but it’s true. The ‘mass media’ per-
spective – the shared culture where everyone watches the same stuff – is
very twentieth century. It made sense then, but not now. You really
want to be talking about the present diverse, digital world.

MD: You are a passionate advocate of digital technologies and their capacity to
stimulate a DIY culture. What potential does this culture have to positively
transform society?
118   Media and identity: David Gauntlett
DG: The basic point I made in Making is Connecting (2011, second
edition 2018) is that it’s always better for people to be making
media, and participating in culture, rather than just being a con-
sumer of it. And the arrival of technologies which enable people to
do that quite easily, and engage in highly networked conversations
around it, makes a fundamental difference to media studies and,
more importantly, to our social and cultural life. For too long our
cultural conversations were led by the fortunate elite. Now, it’s
much more open to everyone, which is obviously better. But
recently we’ve seen more of a toxic spiral of social media nastiness –
and the mass-­surveillance, advertising-­driven business model per-
fected by Facebook – which is awful. We can still get back to a
positive, open, DIY culture, I believe, but it’ll take a lot of work.

Box 11.3 Apply it: diagnose the ways that set texts

encourage identity fluidity
What evidence is in your set texts to reinforce Gauntlett’s idea that the
media facilitates identity play? Think about the following:

• Do your set texts construct a single ideal identity or do they offer a

number of lead characters, presenting the product’s audience with
a diversity of identities to choose from?
• What versions of gender, ethnicity or class are constructed through
the various role models presented in your set texts? Do they
reinforce, deconstruct or subvert traditional identities?
• Do your set texts encourage audience identity play? How?

Magazines and online media

• In what ways do the magazines you have studied offer life-­
changing advice? Which articles promote identity play? What fea-
tures of readers’ lives do the magazines aspire to improve?
• What kinds of aspirational imagery do products present? What
effect might ideal imagery have on readers’ notions of identity?
• In what ways do the same magazines also construct realism? What
is the combined effect of presenting aspiration and realism side-­by-
side?
• In what ways do the online set texts you have studied offer life
advice or deliver role models that their audiences are encouraged
to copy?
 Media and identity: David Gauntlett   119
• How does characterisation, mise en scène or language usage reinforce
the aspirational nature of the various role models?
• How does the digital presence of contemporary magazines help
facilitate identity play? In what ways do magazines encourage audi-
ence engagement?
• How does that engagement help audiences to reshape their
identity?

Radio
• In what ways do the radio presenters of your radio set texts offer
their audiences aspirational role models?
• How does programme content help audiences to reshape or change
their real-world lives?

Television and film marketing

• Do set texts offer multiple protagonists? Do these varied protagonists
offer a range of identities that audiences can use to inform their
own identity construction?
• Do set texts provide aspirational role models?
• Do set texts offer a variety of gender-­based representations?
• Do set texts actively deconstruct or question traditional notions of
identity?

Gauntlett: the power of media narratives

Gauntlett also draws our attention to the way in which most story
structures are concerned with the transformation of a central hero, sug-
gesting that we can ‘borrow from these stories when shaping our nar-
ratives of the self ’ (Gauntlett, 2008, 120). In this sense, the characters
we watch on television shows or follow in online games offer us
examples of how we can transfigure ourselves, of how we can become
something better.
Most products provide their fictional leads with character weaknesses
or with quests that need to be completed if they are to gain happiness.
The journeys those characters take – the challenges they face – might
potentially mirror our own weaknesses, or provide us with a template to
guide our own goals or desires. At the very least, the transformations
offered suggest that our identities are not fixed, but can be altered for the
best if we are motivated enough to change who we are.
120   Media and identity: David Gauntlett

Box 11.4 Analyse it: identify the impact of narrative

transformation in your set texts
Use the following questions to provide three sentence analyses for your
set texts to diagnose the effect of character transformation on audience
identity:

Fiction-­based narratives (TV drama):

• What barriers do central characters face in the wider narratives of
the product?
• Do these challenges connect to wider issues of gender, ethnicity,
class or ability?
• In what ways does the set text character triumph?
• In what ways do characters transform themselves?
• What are the potential effects of those triumphs on the product’s
audience?

Non-­fiction narratives (magazines, news, radio):

• In what ways do your set texts encourage identity transformation?
• What positive benefits are wrought by transformations?
• What are the potential effects of those narratives on the product’s
audience?

Use the exemplars below to help structure your responses:

Exemplar 1: Deutschland 83 (AQA and OCR). Moritz’s mission in
Deutschland 83, to assume the identity of a West German first lieuten-
ant, provides an interesting example of what Gauntlett would call a
transformation narrative. Narratives arcs such as these provide audiences
with an identity transformation blueprint. The transformation of Moritz
in Deutschland 83, for instance, is one of liberation, allowing him to
transcend the narrow confines of East German society. The text, more-
over, reinforces a sense for the audience that their identities are a reflex-
ive project and that they too can revise who they are and escape their
own local conditions.
Exemplar 2: Huck magazine (Eduqas): Gauntlett suggests that a
range of contemporary media products provide readers with transforma-
tion blueprints they can use to legitimise identity play. Huck’s ‘Beyond
Binary’ feature clearly provides such a template, with Jacob Tobias’s
self-­penned account of his transgender transition offering a clear chal-
lenge to fixed notions of traditional gender roles, while also demonstrat-
ing the psychological benefits of that transition. Tobias’s call to ‘work
 Media and identity: David Gauntlett   121
with me’ at the end of the article, moreover, is an open invitation to
Huck’s readers to accept gender fluidity as the natural condition of our
postmodern age and to similarly affect their own identity-­oriented
experimentations.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

Using Gauntlett, van Zoonen and Butler to develop arguments

in long format essays
Gauntlett, importantly, is cautious not to overly exaggerate the poten-
tial role that the media plays in enabling identity fluidity. He might
assert that audiences play an active role in using media to construct
non-­traditional identities, but he also realises that the weight and scope
of traditional representations constructed through media broadcasting
do not necessarily enable limitless or very liberated versions of ethni-
city or gender.
Gauntlett clearly acknowledges that the media manufactures ‘narrow
interpretations of certain roles or lifestyles’ (Gauntlett, 2008, 113). Yet
his conclusions regarding the overriding effect of the contemporary
media landscape is a great deal more optimistic than that suggested by
van Zoonen or Judith Butler. For Gauntlett, the diversity of represen-
tations available to consume via contemporary media contrasts sharply
with van Zoonen’s assessment that we are controlled by the dominant
pull of patriarchy. He also provides a more upbeat assessment than
Judith Butler, whose identification of ‘gender trouble’ as a subversive
act conflicts with Gauntlett’s optimism. For Gauntlett, ‘gender trouble’
is not merely a sideshow or a subversive niche. Indeed, contemporary
mass media has helped to mainstream non-­heteronormativity. (See
Table 11.1 for a further comparison of Gauntlett’s, van Zoonen’s and
Butler’s representation theories.)
122   Media and identity: David Gauntlett
Table 11.1 Quick reference: gender representation theory comparison table

Theorist Key arguments Audience effects

van Zoonen • The media is maintained • Audiences are largely

through patriarchy. passive.
• Images of female • Audiences, both male and
objectification dominate female, internalise female
female representation. objectification.
• Media makers can • Audiences reinforce
challenge dominant patriarchal ideologies by
representations but those subconsciously aligning
challenges are viewed as themselves with the values
subversive. of a male-dominated
• Calls on media makers to society.
offer subversive
representations.
Judith Butler • Gender is socially • Audiences internalise
constructed. socially constructed gender
• Society constructs a binary norms.
view of gender (strict roles • Audiences can seek out
for males and females). representations that offer
• Society also presents male/ ‘gender trouble’.
female relationships as the • Audiences learn how to
norm (heteronormativity). perform gender via the
• The media reinforces media.
heteronormativity through • Audiences can learn
heteronormative alternative models of
representations. gender performance – but
• Alternatives to the gender they are rare and often
binary exist, but are painfully wrought.
presented as subversive.
David • Gender is socially • Audiences are active.
Gauntlett constructed. They control the
• We now live in a post- representations they want
traditional society. to engage with and can
• Audiences realise they can actively reject those that
change their identities. do not appeal.
• The media provides a • Audiences are free to
range of products in which experiment with a variety
a huge diversity of of identities.
identities is portrayed. • Audiences use global
• Alternative lifestyles are media to offer alternatives
becoming mainstream. to the identities that
society constructs for
them.
 Media and identity: David Gauntlett   123
Table 11.2 Speak David Gauntlett

Active audience Active audiences are in control of the way they

engagement watch or interact with the media. Gauntlett would
argue that active audiences use – or make – media
products to craft their own identities.
Aspirational A product that offers a means to self-improvement
narrative or offers audiences an ideal lifestyle choice.
Fixed identity Fixed identities do not give individuals a great deal
of choice about who they want to be. Identities
might be fixed by religious beliefs, social norms or
rigid family roles.
Fluid Identity Our identities can be described as fluid identities
when we realise that they can be changed or that
we do not necessarily have to conform to the rigid
categories laid down by traditional social structures.
Globalisation Globalisation, in this chapter, refers to the way that
media products began to be produced and shared
across the globe as a result of ownership changes in
the 1980s. Globalisation brought audiences into
contact with a much wider range of identity
influences.
Media proliferation Media proliferation refers to the explosion of media
products and channels that started to occur in the
early 1980s. Media proliferation meant products
were increasingly produced for niche or specialised
audiences.
Post-traditional A society that does not require individuals to adopt
society rigid roles or identities.
Reflexive project of A term coined by Anthony Giddens to describe the
the self way that identities are constructed in a post-
traditional society. Giddens argues that individuals
are able to craft and revise their own identities –
that our identities are a constantly evolving and
adapting project.
Window to the A product that gives its audience a glimpse into
future self who they could become. Commonly used to
describe magazine front covers.
124   Media and identity: David Gauntlett
Table 11.3 Gauntlett: ten minute revision

Concept 1: traditional and post-traditional media consumption

• Gauntlett’s ideas build upon Anthony Giddens’ assertion that society has
progressed to a stage that Giddens calls ‘late modernity’.
• The conditions of late modernity enable audiences to escape the
prescriptive identities that are constructed for them through localised social
norms and traditional viewpoints.
• Gauntlett argues that contemporary media has brought audiences into
contact with a wider range of representations – and, importantly, that
audiences can consciously shape their own sense of self.
Concept 2: reflexive identity construction
• The media provides a variety of role models and lifestyle templates that
audiences use to guide their own outlooks.
• Audiences are engaged in a continuous revision of their identities.
• Media narratives mirror the process of identity transformation.
• Audiences are in control of the media – adapting and assimilating ideas
about themselves through the various representations that the media
presents.
Three theorists who challenge Gauntlett’s thinking
• Stuart Hall: would argue that the media landscape is not diverse, but
saturated with stereotypical portrayals that reflect wider social inequalities.
This leads to a deeply problematic portrayal of minority groups of all
persuasions.
• bell hooks: hooks would argue that portrayals of black women are largely
absent from the media and, when they are present, they are prone to
produce overly sexualised portrayals.
• Paul Gilroy: would argue that British media narratives do not offer
diversity but are stuck within a colonial mindset that positions non-whites
as threatening, primitive or uncivilised.
12 Ownership effects
James Curran and Jean Seaton

Curran and Seaton’s widely read history of the media in the UK, Power
without Responsibility, is concerned, to a large degree, with narrating the
story of how the media landscape has fallen under the control of a
handful of global media conglomerates.
Of course, the media landscape has changed considerably since the
book’s first publication in 1981, and the seventh edition of Power
without Responsibility (2010) very much reflects contemporary concerns
regarding digital media. But at the heart of Curran and Seaton’s book
remains a core concern – a guiding notion of what the media ought to
be doing, and it stems, in part, from James Curran’s detailed reading of
the development of the radical press in the early 1800s.
The numerous radical press pamphlets and small-­scale newspapers
of the Victorian era, Curran argues, were engines for social and polit-
ical change. Made by the working class and designed to be read by a
working class readership, they highlighted the plight of the poor, and
fostered, Curran tells us, ‘an alternate value system that symbolically
turned the world upside down’ (Curran and Seaton, 2010, 15).
The lifespan of this early media form, however, was short lived. A
combination of rising production costs and increased competition from
high quality, professionally produced titles eventually drove the radical
free press out of business. Newspapers of the mid Victorian period,
Curran argues, could only be mass produced by those who could
afford the extensive start-­up costs needed to manufacture products on
an industrial scale. Curran, too, points to the corrosive effect of com-
mercial advertising which was sold to offset production costs; the
radical press, with its agenda to effect political change, did not partner
well with the commercial activities of advertisers who represented the
system they wanted to undermine. Without advertising income, the
126   Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton
free press could not compete with their commercial rivals, and the
process of media concentration – the control of the media by ever
larger organisations – began in earnest.
Curran and Seaton suggest that a second and equally turbulent wave
of ownership consolidation took place in the latter half of the twen-
tieth century when economic globalisation and the widespread deregu-
lation of the media industry reduced the number of national press titles
in the UK to just 11 publications. This lack of diversity, in Curran and
Seaton’s view, concentrates too much power in the hands of a small
number of newspaper proprietors – an entirely different scenario to the
news industry’s radicalising origins.

Concept 1: media concentration

Creativity versus commerciality

The media industry is driven, Curran and Seaton tell us, by the twin
forces of creativity and business. Media creatives – writers, directors,
actors and photographers – are tasked to give us exciting, innovative
and aesthetically pleasing products, while those we call the media’s
business managers are responsible for ensuring the profitability and
commercial viability of products.
Curran and Seaton suggest that profit-­driven motives take preced-
ence over creativity in the world of commercial media – that the
agendas of the industry’s business managers control creative output.
Money wins, while both audience size and audience share determine
content. As Jean Seaton explains, ‘Commercial broadcasting is based
not on the sale of programmes to audiences, but on the sale of audi-
ences to advertisers’ (Curran and Seaton, 2010, 90). Because commer-
cial broadcasters need to secure long-­term advertising revenue to
survive programming, she argues, content is designed to attract eco-
nomically affluent audiences who are able to buy the products that are
promoted during advertising slots.
As a result, peak time television schedules (where commercial space is
most sought after and costly) are dominated by lighter entertainment
formats, while less popular minority interest products are sidelined to
secondary channels or late night slots. Advertising, too, prompts media
broadcasters to make content that focuses on capturing an ABC1 demo-
graphic – those audiences that can afford to buy the products that
­advertisers want to sell. ‘The reason why,’ Curran tells us, ‘approximately
 Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton   127

Box 12.1 Think about it: the effects of commercial

imperatives on set texts
Activity 1: think about advertising effects
Identify which of your set text products are funded through commercial
advertising and answer these questions:

• How does advertising affect the content of those products? Are stories
sanitised? Are characters stereotyped? Is political content softened?
• In what ways are media products and advertising linked? How does
the editorial content in your magazine set texts, for instance, cov-
ertly promote the products that are advertised in the magazine?
• Do your commercial set texts serve affluent ABC1 demographics
as a result of advertiser needs? In what ways does this need channel
content or editorial decisions?

Activity 2: think about audience size effects

• Group your set texts by institution, with commercial products in one
group and non-­commercial products in another. What do the prod-
ucts in each group have in common? What separates the two groups?
• Are Curran and Seaton right in suggesting that mass audience
products tend to be sanitised or lightweight?

Activity 3: think about scheduling

Identify the time of the day that set texts were originally broadcast.

• How do broadcast times affect content?

• What do products broadcast at peak time, 7–10 p.m., have in common?

Activity 4: think about time shifting and on-­demand effects

Identify which of your radio/television set texts are distributed as pod-
casts or through on-­demand services.

• What effect does podcasting (time shifting) or on-­demand distribu-

tion have on the content of set texts? Are products allowed to take
more creative risks? Are products more political? More experimental?
• Has on-­demand distribution allowed producers to make more
niche products?
• What effect does the absence of advertising have on texts produced
by Netflix? Do subscription services like these give media creatives
more control?
128   Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton
25 per cent of the market sustains half the number of daily [newspaper]
titles … is because this is the most affluent part of the market, and gener-
ates a large advertising bounty’ (Curran and Seaton, 2010, 90).

Conglomerate advantages
Curran and Seaton also argue that the prohibitive costs and risks asso-
ciated with the production of media products has resulted in the
organisation of media companies into vertically and horizontally
aligned conglomerates. Indeed, the success of horizontal and vertical
integration means that most commercial print, film and television-­
based media in America and the UK is now controlled by just six
global players: CBS, Comcast, Disney, News Corporation, Time
Warner and Viacom.

Horizontal integration
Horizontal integration (HI) occurs when a conglomerate acquires
media companies of the same media type. News Corporation is a
classic example of a horizontally-­aligned organisation in that it owns
The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun news titles in the UK. The
benefits of HI can be defined as follows:

• Production costs can be minimised. Products can be bought

in bulk while production facilities can be brought together to
rationalise costs. Owning more than one newspaper title, for
example, reduces printing costs through the common ownership
of a printing facility or through the bulk buying of paper.
• Sharing resources. Horizontally-­aligned companies have the
power and financial means to develop resources that independent
producers are simply unable to develop. The Times and The Sun,
for instance, have developed a social media analysis service called
Storyful that investigates and verifies content reported on social
media – a resource that helps both titles to detect fake news and to
identify trending issues on social media.
• Controlling the market. By owning both The Times and The
Sun, News Corporation uses its considerable news gathering
resources to control a substantial slice of the broadsheet and tabloid
markets in the UK. News Corporation products are also strategi-
cally positioned so they do not compete with one other, while
 Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton   129
their use of shared resources helps nurture a competitive advantage
over rival titles.

Vertical integration
Vertical integration (VI) enables conglomerates to control the pro-
duction and distribution of media products. Disney is a good
example of a vertically integrated company in that it owns subsidiary
organisations that fulfil the following aspects of the production
process:

• Production divisions. Disney owns film production studios

(Walt Disney Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox) and television
production divisions (Endemol Shine group, ABC).
• Distribution services. In owning Sky Plc and Fox Network,
Disney are able to globally distribute their filmic and television
content without the need to employ external partners. This allows
Disney to retain all profits from product distribution and, more
importantly, allows full control of where and when content is
broadcast.
• Subsidiary support. Film and media products need to be
financed, promoted and planned – owning specialist support sub-
sidiaries allows Disney to manage projects effectively. For example,
Disney uses a variety of specialist subsidiaries including promo-
tional services (Disney Marketing), merchandising (Marvel Toys)
and financial/support services (Marvel Film Finance) to help the
conglomerate maximise profits.

The advantages of VI include:

• Capturing upstream and downstream profits. Producing and

distributing products internally creates substantial cost savings.
Production subsidiaries do not need to pay distributors to stream
their products (thus capturing downstream profits). Likewise, dis-
tributor subdivisions do not have to pay external providers for
media content (thus capturing upstream profits).
• Control over all aspects of the production chain. Owning a
satellite network means Disney can release products in ways that
maximise profits. Sky subscribers, for instance, are given access to
premium movie content during the lucrative Christmas holiday
130   Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton
period. VI also allows companies to release or schedule products
so that they do not compete with one another.
• Restricting access to competitors. By controlling key distri-
bution outlets, Disney can prevent rivals from dominating broad-
cast schedules and can even charge rivals who wish to distribute
their products through Disney owned networks.
• Cross-­media ownership synergies. Owning a variety of media
company types enables the conglomerate to distribute product
benefits across a range of media forms. For instance, Marvel Tele-
vision uses the advanced production processes developed for
Marvel Films. Characters and storylines developed for the Star
Wars film franchise can also be recycled into gaming products.

Box 12.2 Think about it: the effect of horizontal and

vertical integration on set texts
Use the following questions to identify the effects of horizontal and ver-
tical integration on set texts:

Activity 1: diagnosing vertical integration effects

• How do ownership patterns help in terms of product distribution?
What distribution services does the conglomerate own? How do
these distribution channels give the product access to mass
audiences?
• How do distribution subsidiaries help the set text reach a global
audience? How does this increase the profitability of the product?
• What effect does the set text’s distribution have on budget con-
straints? Because the set text is distributed to a mass audience does
it have a bigger budget than it would if made by an independent?
• Do cross-­media ownership patterns give the set text an oppor-
tunity to be translated into other media formats?

Activity 2: diagnosing horizontal integration effects

• Does the product serve a clearly defined target audience as a result
of HI ownership patterns? What audiences do sister companies
target? Are audiences differentiated to maximise profits?
• How does the set text use the shared expertise/joint resources of a
sister company to make or distribute the product?
 Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton   131
Concept 2: effects of concentration on media
content

Proprietor control of print news

Media concentration has resulted in the elevation of proprietor power.
Media owners, Curran argues, control the content and flow of news
either directly or indirectly:

• Direct control. Proprietor owners, Curran suggests, censor news

content that conflicts with their political views and wider business
interests. Generally speaking, large-­scale conglomerates that own
news titles also have vested interests in a range of other business
activities all over the globe – banking, engineering, oil and trans-
port – that their media divisions are directed to ignore if conflicts
of interest arise.
• Indirect control of news content might also be affected through
the hiring and firing process, through the installation of editors
who are sympathetic to a specific worldview that a proprietor
wants to broadcast.

Elitist media/political relationships

Curran also draws our attention to the relationships that have
developed between news groups, big business and government, sug-
gesting that the power of concentrated media ownership has forced
political parties to form cosy relationships with media moguls in order
to get favourable press coverage.
The former Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, for example, was
famously invited to address News Corporation executives in 1995
before he was elected, while Murdoch’s relationship with Margaret
Thatcher during the 1980s was close enough, reportedly, that he could
affect some influence over crucial policy decisions regarding media
regulation. Curran suggests, rather powerfully, that these cosy relation-
ships result in the formation of a news landscape that lacks the critical
bite of a fully functioning press establishment.
132   Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton
Mass market news, news depoliticisation and hysterical news
values
Media concentration has significantly reduced the diversity of available
news titles, while at the same increasing the readerships of those titles
that remain. Catering for the needs of those huge readerships, Curran
argues, has resulted in a watering down of news content. Mass reader-
ship newspapers are depoliticised as a result – often replacing hard news
with entertainment-­driven content, while the quality and tone of news
coverage is sensationalised in a bid to retain audience share.

Curran and Seaton: a Neo-­Marxian approach?

Curran and Seaton suggest that contemporary media ownership places
the media in the hands of the few and not the many. In this sense, they
take an approach that follows in the footsteps of the Victorian eco-
nomist and philosopher Karl Marx. Marx argued that culture – the arts
and so forth – is deployed to make the working poor believe that there
is not really much alternative to the drudgery of their appalling
working conditions. Marx argued that:

• Culture is controlled by social elites. Curran and Seaton like-

wise suggest the media is controlled by a minority of wealthy
institutions and that those institutions often work for the benefit
of themselves.
• Culture acts as a distraction. Culture, according to Marx, pro-
vides a temporary escape from the drudgery of our working lives
and, in doing so, it distracts us from true nature of our exploita-
tion. Curran and Seaton would similarly argue that the media
offers us depoliticised narratives through entertainment-­oriented
media that is highly formulaic.

Regulated media pluralism

Yet, to label Curran and Seaton as nothing more than neo-­Marxists
would miss much of the thrust of their work. They might call out press
proprietor abuses, but they also present a strong case for what might
loosely be termed ‘media pluralism’, arguing that the media landscape
ought to be populated by a range of company types, both commercial
and public service oriented.
 Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton   133

Box 12.3 Apply it: media concentration and news-­based

set texts
This activity is particularly useful for exam-­based questions that ask you
identify the effects of ownership on set text news products. Analyse rel-
evant set texts using the following prompts:
• Curran suggests that contemporary newspapers have to compete
for readers’ interests, often using hysterical news values – making
them angry or frightened – to attract and sustain mass readerships.
In what ways do your news set texts support this argument?
• Is political coverage minimised or sensationalised in contemporary
news?
• Does the editorial mix of contemporary print news feature an unu-
sually large element of softer news features, sports coverage or
entertainment-­based coverage?
• Do the editorial biases of your set text newspapers reflect the polit-
ical views of their proprietors?
• In what ways do set text newspapers rely on official sources for stories?
Do they readily challenge those sources or accept them as accurate?
• Are journalists and columnists given the freedom to express ideas
that conflict with proprietor views?
• Do newspapers incorporate reader commentary and opinion to
broaden the perspectives offered?
Exemplar: The Daily Mail (OCR). The Daily Mail exemplifies much of
the thrust of Curran and Seaton’s arguments regarding the effect of media
concentration on news reportage. Media globalisation, they argue, has
resulted in the domination of the industry by a handful of politically motiv-
ated proprietor owned titles that are dependent on advertising and mass
audience readership to remain commercially viable. A mass marketisation of
news has resulted, Curran tells us, using hysterical news values and softer
news content to maintain mass appeal in the face of cut-­throat competition.
The Daily Mail front cover of 17 February 2018 provides ample evidence of
both trends. The now discredited and sensationalist headline ‘Corbyn the
Collaborator’ invokes hysteria and fear, and, in so doing, sacrifices objective
journalism in favour of the overt political bias of the newspaper’s propri-
etor. Moreover, the competition strapline positioned above the leader
exchanges prime front page space for advertising as a result of The Daily
Mail’s need to target a commercially lucrative ABC1 demographic. The
lifestyle-­oriented advertorial also evidences the paper’s softer editorial mix –
a clear effect of the need to provide content that has mass-­market appeal.
Further exemplars for set texts from all exam boards are available online at:
www.essentialmediatheory.com
134   Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton
Certainly, Curran and Seaton highlight the need to protect UK
public service broadcasting to counterbalance the forces of the free
market. In this sense, they are media pluralists, suggesting that media
audiences are served best when a range of different institutions con-
tribute to the media landscape.

The internet and ownership concentration

Certainly, there was much to celebrate at the outset of the internet’s
invention in terms of its potential to challenge the top-­down nature of
traditional media. Yet, Curran and Seaton suggest, the web landscape
of today is increasingly commercialised, with large-­scale traditional
media companies having invested huge amounts of time and money to
develop equally huge web presences. These companies, Curran tells us,
‘had enormous assets: back catalogues of content, large reserves of cash

Box 12.4 Think about it: the creeping commercialisation

of the web
Do your online set texts provide evidence that the radical potential of
the internet has been curtailed by commercial pressures?

Questions to test the level of commercialisation of online set texts

• Which parent companies make your online set texts – are they part
of an established media conglomerate? Have producers partnered
up with commercial organisations to make their product?
• Is the online set text financed, either wholly or in part, by com-
mercial advertising? What is the potential effect of advertising on
the content of the product?
• Does the set text openly, or even covertly, market products to its
audience?

Questions to diagnose public service benefits of online set texts

• Do your online set texts invite commentary from its users? Is com-
mentary designed to prompt debate?
• Do set texts give marginalised groups a voice?
• Do products foreground information over product sales?
• Are products designed to nurture an online community?
 Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton   135
and expertise, close links with the advertising industry, brand visibility
and cross promotional resources’ (Curran and Seaton, 2010, 265). As a
result, the natural advantages of media conglomerates meant that they
were able to affect a sizeable web presence very quickly.
In 1996, the internet was a relatively advert free interface; fast
forward 20 years and we barely register the presence of all those web
cookies logging our browsing activity. Facebook mines our personal
data so that we might be sold to advertisers. YouTube monetises user
uploads, turning cat videos and vlogs into spaces that can be prefaced
by adverts for soft drinks, cars and hair products. The web has become
a place of commerce rather than a space to share and discuss. But,
Curran argues, the web is still a contested space. Enough cyber maver-
icks exist, he suggests, to ensure that the world’s digital networks have
not been completely overtaken by major corporations just yet.

Concept 3: diverse ownership creates diverse

products

The free market effect

UK government policy, Seaton and Curran argue, is responsible, in
part, for the widespread domination of the media landscape by huge
conglomerates. Jean Seaton points to the prevailing neo-­liberal view-
point of politicians who were in charge of media policy from the 1980s
onwards, with both Labour and Conservative ministers championing a
‘free market’ media landscape. Free market neo-­liberalism is intended
to produce, in Jean Seaton’s words, ‘conditions of the greatest possible
competition’ (Curran and Seaton, 2010, 371), in which media audi-
ences determine content, not politicians, and where companies that
provide the most popular content are allowed to flourish without gov-
ernment sponsored restrictions.
Commercial media provision has exploded as a result of neo-­liberal
policy making. In 1980, just 300 weekly hours of television program-
ming were broadcast, yet, by the year 2000, that number had grown to
over 40,000 hours (Curran and Seaton, 2010, 246). The problem,
Curran and Seaton highlight, is that without suitable controls, com-
mercial media companies readily abandon commitments to public
service broadcasting and content diversity. We might have more tele-
vision content, they argue, but the pursuit of mass audience appeal has
produced a landscape that is dominated by format-­driven products.
136   Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton
Media formats that are successful are replicated to deliver mass audi-
ences. The Great British Bake Off, for instance, morphed into The Great
British Sewing Bee, while the dominance of prime time talent shows
such as The Voice and Britain’s Got Talent have spawned a stream of
shows that share remarkably similar formats. Channel 4, too, mines
formats relentlessly – 24 Hours in Police Custody, 24 Hours in A&E,
Countdown, 8 out 10 Cats Does Countdown, etc. The need to produce
mass audiences means that the television industry replicates rather than
originates.
One might argue that the explosion of streaming giants such as
Netflix has helped break the formulaic approach taken by terrestrial
television broadcasters; yet, even here, the use of audience data drives
Netflix commissioning processes. New content is routinely devised on
the basis that storylines replicate the popularity of pre-­existing narrat-
ives. Far from increasing consumer choice, media proliferation, in this
sense, has given us products that lack invention.

Public service broadcasting as a counter influence to

commercial media
Commercial media has not been allowed to dominate UK television
and radio markets completely. The BBC, as a public service broad-
caster funded through the television licence fee, operates without the

Box 12.5 Think about it: is the media dominated by

format-­driven products?
Curran and Seaton suggest that commercial media broadcasters copy
rival products that are successful or rely on trusted television formats to
deliver safe programming. Think about the following questions to test
the truth of Curran and Seaton’s arguments today:

• In what ways do the schedules of major broadcasters offer similar

products during peak viewing slots?
• Can you think of some examples of television programmes/formats
that have been successful and have produced copycat products as a
result of that success?
• How far do you agree with the argument that streaming services
like Netflix rely on a formulaic approach?
 Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton   137
need to attract advertising revenue to fund programming. This guaran-
teed funding structure has garnered the criticism of many free market
advocates, some of whom have championed a root and branch scaling
back of the BBC to stimulate further commercial media expansion.
Yet, the BBC remains ever popular – its reach and diversity securing
enough public support to ward off any far-­reaching or life-­threatening
reforms.
Curran and Seaton (2010) put forward the following four benefits
that derive from the BBC’s unique funding status:

• Programming standards are raised. Because the BBC is not

part of a larger cross-­industry conglomerate it approaches news
with impartiality. The BBC’s impartial approach also sets high
standards that other broadcasters emulate.
• High-­quality minority interest programming is provided.
Without the need to make a profit, the BBC can serve minority
audience interests through programming and scheduling. The
BBC’s commitment to the arts, for instance, is evidenced via BBC
4, while minority ethnic and regional audiences are engaged
through the BBC Asian Network as well as BBC Wales with its
heavy commitment to regional news and radio. (See Box 12.6 for
more discussion on how BBC Radio creates appeal for niche
audiences.)
• It is a unifying organisation. The BBC’s focus is not trained
on the advertising bonanzas achieved by targeting an ABC1
demographic. The BBC, as a public service broadcaster, is inclu-
sive rather than exclusive.

Box 12.6 Revise it: BBC Radio and public service

broadcasting
BBC Radio output provides an excellent illustration of the organisa-
tion’s non-­commercial remit to inform, educate and entertain. With
10 national radio stations and over 40 local stations, the BBC pro-
vides a range of niche and majority interest radio programming.
Freed from profit-­driven motives, the BBC can also deliver a diver-
sity of content that would not ordinarily survive if it were funded
through advertising.
138   Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton
Exemplar: Radio 4 and Late Night Woman’s Hour (Eduqas).
Radio 4 is one of only a few UK-­based radio stations that are domi-
nated by spoken word broadcasting. Woman’s Hour is dedicated to a
female listenership, while the show’s evening spin-­off, Late Night
Woman’s Hour (LNWH), targets a tighter third wave feminist niche
audience with its politically charged debate format.
Issues that you could relate to Curran and Seaton in an exam might
include:

• The programme’s format: listeners are offered a broadcast that

focuses on a single topic, facilitating detailed and informative
discussion.
• Guest diversity: Panellists are invited from a range of cultural,
professional and academic backgrounds to promote a detailed con-
sideration of a wide range of third wave feminist viewpoints.
• Minority issue debate: The show focuses on minority issues not
normally covered in commercial media.
• Choice of presenter: Lauren Laverne reflects the educated,
career-­oriented thirtysomething niche audience of LNWH. This
niche audience, importantly, could not be served by a mainstream
media organisation reliant on advertising.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
 Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton   139
Table 12.1 Speak Curran and Seaton

Commercial media An organisation that makes or distributes

products for economic gain. Commercial media
usually make products for entertainment
purposes.
Horizontal integration Ownership of subsidiaries that produce similar
types of products.
Hysterical news values Sensationalist news content used to drive mass
market sales.
Mass market news News designed to appeal to huge readerships,
often critiqued for its lack of analysis or
entertainment-driven values. Also known as
news depoliticisation.
Media concentration/ A term used to describe the reduction in the
media convergence number of media organisations that produce
products.
Media pluralism A media landscape with a healthy balance of
products made by different media company
types. Typically these company types include
public service broadcasters, commercial media
and citizen-generated media.
Public service A media producer who is not reliant on
broadcasting advertising to fund production or does not make
products for commercial gain. Public service
broadcasting products usually seek to inform and
educate their audiences as well entertain.
Vertical integration Ownership of subsidiaries that enable a media
producer to produce, promote and distribute
products.
140   Ownership effects: Curran and Seaton
Table 12.2 Curran and Seaton: ten minute revision

Concept 1: the media is controlled by a small number of companies that make

products to create profit
• Globalisation has concentrated media ownership into the hands of a few
companies.
• Media conglomerates are horizontally and vertically integrated to maximise
profit.
• Large-scale media producers rely on advertising to generate income.
• Advertising drives media companies to produce products that have mass
audience appeal.
Concept 2: media concentration adversely affects media content
• The business function of the media industry takes precedence over its
creative/public service capacities.
• Profit-driven media is softened to create mass audience appeal.
• Minority interest content is pushed to the margins of broadcast schedules.
• Free market competition produces format-driven products.
Concept 3: diverse ownership creates diverse products
• Curran and Seaton highlight the damage that free market ideologies have
had on the media landscape.
• Public service broadcasting provides impartial news, serves minority
audiences and champions national unity by offering inclusive rather than
exclusive content.
Three theorists who might challenge Curran and Seaton’s thinking
• Clay Shirky: argues that the media industry is increasingly driven by
audience feedback systems rather than the top-down control of proprietors.
• Henry Jenkins: would acknowledge that Web 2.0 enables big business to
exploit the web for commercial reasons, but would also argue that the
internet retains the capacity to work as a social good and that online
communities created via ‘participatory culture’ have the power to change
the world for the better.
• Steve Neale: would critique the idea that media proliferation has resulted
in a narrowing of product type or the dominance of formula-driven media.
He would argue that audiences prompt producers to continuously adapt
and finesse genre-driven material.
13 Regulation
Sonia Livingstone and
Peter Lunt

Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt’s academic work constructs a critical

analysis of the changing regulatory landscape in the UK over the last
30 years. Central to that analysis is an exploration of how the UK’s
approach to media governance has served the needs of audiences as
both consumers and citizens.
Consumer-­based regulation, Livingstone and Lunt tell us, is real-
ised, first, through the creation of a media landscape in which audi-
ences can choose the sorts of media content they can or want to watch
and, second, by giving media producers the freedom to create products
that those audiences choose to consume. A consumer-­based regulatory
framework, in short, seeks to guarantee audience choice and promote
product diversity.
Conversely, a citizen-­based view argues that the media ought to
play a significant role in shaping society and its citizens – that tele-
vision, newspapers, radio, etc. ought to educate and inform their audi-
ences, while also performing a pivotal function in maintaining the
democratic health of the nation that producers operate within. Gov-
ernments and government policy, importantly, play a critical role in
defining the kinds of content that the media ought to broadcast or
publish in a citizen-­oriented regulatory framework.
Crucially, in Livingstone and Lunt’s view the media policies affected
by successive governments over the last 20 years have worked in ways
that have protected, by and large, the commercial interests of media
producers.
142   Regulation: Livingstone and Lunt
Concept 1: citizen and consumer models of
media regulation

The consumer-­oriented approach

A consumer-­based regulatory approach offers the following advantages
and features:

• Regulation champions consumer choice. Consumer-­orientated

regulation is designed, principally, to encourage media plurality and
to ensure that a diversity of broadcasters operate within the media
landscape. A consumer-­led market allows audiences to be able to
access a broad range of content, opinions and ideas.
• Relies on consumer-­led policing of programme content.
Content monitoring, Livingstone and Lunt argue, plays a secondary
role within a consumer-­based regulatory model, with audiences
having to ‘rely much more on their own judgements of quality,
truthfulness and enjoyment’ (Livingstone and Lunt, 2012, 16).
• The state plays a minor role in determining media regula-
tion. A consumer-­based regulatory model minimises the role that
government plays in pushing media providers to make content
that has specific benefits – news, factual programming, educational
content for children, etc. The media’s central role is to make
content that is consumer led and not determined by government-­
led quotas or overbearing content codes.

The citizen-­based approach

In contrast, the citizen-­oriented approach provides the following fea-
tures and advantages:

• Constructs a media model based on civic republicanism.

Livingstone and Lunt argue that citizen-­based regulation provides
a content focused framework that directs media makers to ‘con-
tribute to the enrichment of cultural and social life and the poten-
tial for self-­development of individuals, groups and communities’
(Livingstone and Lunt, 2012, 39). Civic-­minded media providers
serve audiences not just with entertainment-­based content, but
also with education and information. Moreover, the civic republi-
canism model directs media producers to serve a diversity of audi-
ence types, both mainstream and minority, niche and broad.
 Regulation: Livingstone and Lunt   143

Box 13.1 Discuss it: do you favour a consumer-­based or

citizen-­based approach?
• Should media producers be compelled to provide educational
content?
• Should we censor media content so that audiences are protected from
seeing material that is offensive? To what degree should the govern-
ment play a role in deciding what we should or should not watch?
• Should the media play a significant role in reinforcing democracy?
What might happen if the media did not inform us through polit-
ical coverage?

• Citizen-­based regulation foregrounds content issues. Main-

taining acceptable standards of content is a primary focus for
citizen-­based regulation. Content makers are tasked to ensure that
accuracy is maintained and that programmes deal with issues in a
fair and objective manner.
• Encourages a media landscape that can critique govern-
mental power. Livingstone and Lunt argue that a central func-
tion of the media sector, if it is working properly, lies in its ability
to hold the government and other sources of authority to account.

Communications Act 2003

The Communications Act 2003 was designed by the then Labour gov-
ernment to modernise the UK’s regulatory systems and help the UK tele-
vision industry become competitive in the globalised media landscape of
the late twentieth century. The 2003 Act, among other things, promoted
independent television production by requiring the BBC and Channel 4
to commission more content from smaller production companies.
Crucially, for Livingstone and Lunt, the replacement of the Broadcast
Standards Commission (BSC) and the Independent Television Commis-
sion (ITC) with the new super regulator Ofcom through the Commu-
nications Act 2003 significantly diluted the public service requirements
of television broadcasting. As a result, independent television production
companies were freed up to produce content that was more commer-
cially viable, but this also resulted, some critics suggest, in the production
of programming that lacks the civic-­minded republicanism that had been
fostered within previous regulatory frameworks. Livingstone and Lunt
144   Regulation: Livingstone and Lunt
argue that Ofcom ‘established institutional structures and roles relating to
consumer policy … Strikingly, little equivalent activity or accountability
was forthcoming regarding actions to further citizen interests’ (Living-
stone and Lunt, 2012, 50).
More general criticism is levelled at the UK’s current regulatory
infrastructure regarding the way that the various bodies that are
responsible for media oversight are managed. The organisations tasked
to regulate the media are overseen, by and large, by staff who are
drawn from the very industries they seek to police, prompting accusa-
tions of industry bias, while the codes of practice enforced are further
criticised as light touch – existing, to a large extent, to protect the
interests of vulnerable audiences and children.

Self-­regulation
In the absence of state guidance, media producers are left, to a large
degree, to independently decide upon their own moral or ethical codes
of production. As a result, most media organisations construct their
own editorial codes to guide the creative personnel working under
their remit. Of course, these editorial codes vary enormously from one
institution to the next. The Daily Star, for instance, adopts a much
looser approach to sexually explicit content than The Guardian, while
the BBC’s commitment to producing citizen-­oriented content is far
more extensive than its commercial rivals. Broadcasters and publishers
will invariably use the following factors to help them define the edit-
orial standards that their output should maintain:

• Independent regulator codes of conduct: most producers will

apply the editorial codes of their sector-­based regulator (see Table
13.1).
• Audience-­based factors: producers and editors are sensitive to
the needs and tastes of their target audiences.
• Advertiser needs: commercial producers are also mindful of the
impact that editorial content will have on advertising revenues.
Advertisers invariably place adverts in products that match their
own brand values and will readily pull advertising if content does
not match their own ethical steer.
• Institution-­oriented factors: some organisations – the BBC and
Channel 4 in particular – are obliged to provide citizen-­oriented
content as a result of their broadcasting licence agreements.
 Regulation: Livingstone and Lunt   145
Table 13.1 Quick reference: key regulators operating in the UK

Regulator Responsible for Primary responsibilities

Ofcom • Commercial radio and • Tries to ensure that the

television. media landscape is not
• Video on demand dominated by a single
(NOW TV, Amazon organisation.
Prime but not Netflix • Oversees complaints
or YouTube). from members of the
• Jointly responsible for public.
regulating the BBC • Protect those under 18
alongside the BBC’s years old from exposure
board of governors. to harmful content.
Advertising • Print advertising • Oversees complaints
Standards (newspapers, made by members of the
Authority (ASA) magazines). public regarding adverts.
• Ambient advertising • Applies a standards code
(billboards, bus – mostly concerned with
hoardings). protecting vulnerable
• Radio advertising. groups and to ensure
• Television advertising. accuracy in advert claims.
• Internet advertising • Pre-clears screen-based
(including YouTube). advertising.
• Social media content in • Encourages self-
which online regulation.
advertisers promote
products.
Independent Press • Regulates a voluntary • The semi-official press
Standards membership of over regulator for the UK –
Organisation 1,500 print (newspaper oversees reader
(IPSO) and magazines) and complaints that infringe
1,000 online news its editorial code of
titles. conduct.
• Some newspapers have • Has the power to levy
refused to sign up to fines of up to £1 million,
the voluntary code, but, in practice, has
including The Guardian, never issued any financial
The Observer and The penalties.
Financial Times. • Complaints are overseen
by an adjudicating panel
made up of industry
based experts.
continued
146   Regulation: Livingstone and Lunt
Table 13.1 Continued

Regulator Responsible for Primary responsibilities

British Board of • UK film and video • Operates a co-regulatory

Film Classification distribution. code that classifies films
(BBFC) • Adult internet content. according to age
appropriate criteria.
• The key focus of the
BBFC is to protect
children from harmful
content and to help
parents make informed
viewing choices for their
children.
Pan European • Console and PC games • Operates a content code
Game Information including console- that enables age related
(PEGI) related online gaming classification of games.
content. • Like the BBFC, PEGI’s
• Games developers self- primary aim is to provide
certify their own reliable information to
content using the PEGI guide parents when
classification system. purchasing console games.

Box 13.2 Apply it: using Livingstone and Lunt to answer

regulation-­oriented questions
Livingstone and Lunt suggest that the UK is dominated by a consumer-­
based approach to regulation. Regulation impacts on products in the
following ways:

1 A consumer-­oriented regulatory approach has created product

diversity in which audiences play a vital role in regulating their
own media consumption.
2 Media producers are trusted to police their own content (guided
by the ‘light-­touch’ editorial codes of independent regulators).
3 Some media producers choose to include citizen-­oriented content
– social diversity, educational elements, etc. – as a result of follow-
ing a public service broadcasting ethos.
4 Consumer-­oriented regulatory codes exist, primarily, to protect
vulnerable audiences.
5 Media producers face light-­touch sanctions when editorial codes
are infringed.
 Regulation: Livingstone and Lunt   147
Use the following questions to help guide your analysis of the consumer
impact:

Consumer choice
• Does the product contain material that is controversial?
• In what ways does set text content meet the demands of the target
audience?

Self-­regulatory effects and citizen-­oriented content

• In what ways does the set text police its own content? What
prompts this self-­policing?
• How do target audience/advertiser needs affect self-­regulatory
decisions?
• Does the product deliberately contain material that exemplifies a
civic-­minded approach? Why?

Protection of vulnerable audiences

• How do the set texts protect vulnerable users from content?
• Does the set text broadcast content that contains material that is
problematic for vulnerable users? How?
• In what ways does the set text comply with regulatory codes to
protect vulnerable audiences?

Infringement issues
• Has the set text ever infringed regulatory guidelines? What were
the repercussions of those infringements?

Exemplar: Broadsheet news titles (all exam boards). Livingstone

and Lunt’s argument that the media landscape is dominated by a consumer-
­based regulatory system can certainly be applied to the newspaper sector.
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) oversees news and
magazine standards in the UK but, many would argue, exercises a light-­
touch regime that is weighted in favour of producers (rather than their
audiences) as a result of press domination of IPSO’s governing body – with
members often drawn from the newspaper industry rather than the wider
public. IPSO’s editorial code, however, does outline clear standards for the
press – these are mostly concerned with editorial accuracy and the need to
protect vulnerable members of the public, while infringements of the code
can incur a £1 million fine. IPSO, however, has never levied any financial
penalty, while a number of newspapers have refused to sign up to IPSO’s
editorial code (including The Guardian).
148   Regulation: Livingstone and Lunt
In the absence of an effective citizen-­based regulatory framework,
The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Independent have all individually
developed their own exacting codes of conduct. These codes, of course,
reinforce brand integrity, reassuring consumers and advertisers that they
can maintain trust in the news gathering activities of broadsheets. But
they also outline, in Livingstone and Lunt’s words, an ethical commit-
ment to ‘civic republicanism’ and to use their products in ways that seek
to enrich our lives. We might have a light-­touch regulatory system, but
the institutional perspectives of the broadsheet sector have enabled news
gathering in the UK to maintain a citizen-­oriented bias.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

Concept 2: regulation in the globalised media age

Livingstone and Lunt tell us that the global nature of contemporary
media production and distribution has weakened the UK’s ability to
effect meaningful control of media content. Indeed, producers that
broadcast their products from outside of UK are largely exempt from
the reach of domestic regulatory bodies that oversee content standards.
Netflix stands as a useful exemplar here in that its America-­based dis-
tribution system means that it is exempt from Ofcom control.
A similar regulatory challenge is produced by online media content.
The failure of the Communications Act 2003 to address online material
and the reluctance of UK governments to tackle the issue since then
has prompted widespread dissatisfaction. The difficulties of internet
regulation stem from the following:

• The relatively recent expansion of online services. Today’s

tech giants have expanded their reach at an extraordinary rate.
Anticipating and reacting to the regulatory issues thrown up by
that expansion has been hugely difficult.
• Tech giants do not author their own content. Because Face-
book, YouTube and Twitter publish user generated content it
makes it almost impossible for them to pre-­vet problematic
material. YouTube, for instance, claims to have over one billion
users with some estimates suggesting that over 300 hours of
footage are uploaded every minute. Companies have had some
 Regulation: Livingstone and Lunt   149

Box 13.3 Discuss it: should the internet be regulated?

• What evidence can you present to support the argument that the
internet should be regulated?
• Have you ever seen any problematic online content?
• Does the internet pose a particular problem for vulnerable users?
In what ways?

success in deploying content-­vetting algorithms to automate their

gatekeeping processes, but they currently lack the sophistication to
solve meaningful regulatory issues in a satisfactory way.
• Online media providers lie beyond the reach of UK regu-
lation. Much like Netflix, regulation of the internet’s major
content producers is made more difficult because their operations
are based outside of UK.
• The internet is decentralised. Attempts to regulate social media
giants may succeed, but regulation of the wider content of the net
is a hugely difficult task given the extent of material available and
the number of authors manufacturing content.
• Online anonymity. The anonymous authoring of content also
makes it hard to identify individuals and to take meaningful action
if content contravenes expectations.

Table 13.2 Apply it: diagnosing the impact of institutional context on regulation

Medium Key themes

Television and • Self-regulation and the BBC. BBC products

radio exemplify a civic-minded approach to production,
readily applying a citizen-based ethos to their
products.
• Self-regulation and Channel 4. Channel 4 was
initially constructed as a public service broadcaster,
and still retains much of that civic-minded ethos, yet a
combination of budgetary constraints and a reliance
on advertising has pushed the broadcaster towards
what many would regard as a consumer-based
production agenda, As a result, Channel 4 increasingly
commissions content that promotes entertainment
values over public service.
continued
150   Regulation: Livingstone and Lunt
Table 13.2 Continued

Medium Key themes

• Increased competition for terrestrial

broadcasters from global media. Some would
argue that the relatively weak regulatory approach by
the UK government in terms of protecting UK
content has allowed global media producers to
dominate UK television viewing. The European
Union, in contrast, is setting a 30 per cent quota to
ensure that streaming providers make European
content.
• Netflix. Netflix is exempt from UK regulatory
control. Netflix productions, moreover, is driven by
audience data, with successful programmes and genres
providing the creative steer for new shows. In this
sense, Netflix operates a model of content production
that is consumer driven. Netflix, too, has been
criticised for its loose editorial approach, with shows
like 13 Reasons Why attracting considerable censure
for its on-screen treatment of teenage suicide.

Newspapers and • Weak press regulation. The failure of the

magazines Communications Act 2003 to include the print news
sector within the remit of Ofcom is seen to be
particularly problematic. The creation of IPSO in the
wake of the Leveson Inquiry, moreover, has
prompted a great deal of criticism regarding the new
regulator’s failure to encourage citizen-based news
values across the print sector.
• Broadsheet self-regulation. Broadsheet newspapers,
however, have tried to maintain their reputations by
constructing their own citizen-oriented editorial
codes.

Online • Limited regulation of online content. The failure

of the Communications Act 2003 to address internet-
based content has resulted in a regulatory approach to
online media that is relatively weak. Social media, in
particular, lacks effective regulation.
• Online extremism. The failure of social media to
control fake news and extremist content is the result
of a regulatory model that does not adequately take
account of audiences as citizens.
 Regulation: Livingstone and Lunt   151

Medium Key themes

• Protecting vulnerable users. The capacity for social

media to influence youth audiences is particularly
concerning. Instagram’s inability, in 2018, to remove
content that encouraged teenage suicides prompted
significant censure.
• Regulating online influencers. The ASA, however,
does regulate online advertising and has taken action to
make sure that online influencers who endorse products
through YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter declare any
payments received to their followers.
• The difficulties of policing global online media.
Online media provides a further difficulty in that most
content is delivered by tech giants who fall beyond the
reach of the UK’s regulatory system. The power and
size of online media giants makes it incredibly difficult
for the UK government to create applicable legislation.
Film and gaming • The creation of advisory bodies designed to
protect vulnerable audiences. Both the BBFC and
PEGI play an advisory role in terms of informing
parents about the content of products. In the case of
gaming, the application of PEGI codes has had a
limited effect on controlling the sale of problematic
content to children.

Table 13.3 Speak Livingstone and Lunt

Citizen-based Citizen-based regulatory systems outline a civic role

regulation for the media and encourage media makers to
produce content that contributes to the social and
cultural health of the societies in which they operate.
Consumer-based A regulatory system in which choices regarding
regulation content are largely devolved to audiences and
where media makers are given as much freedom as
possible to make the media that audiences want to
consume.
Digital literacy Sonia Livingstone advocates that audiences should
be adequately informed about online content in a
way that allows them to effectively evaluate the
material they are presented with online.
Self-regulation Self-regulation devolves regulatory decisions to
industry practitioners.
152   Regulation: Livingstone and Lunt
Table 13.4 Livingstone and Lunt: ten minute revision

Concept 1: citizen and consumer based models of media regulation

• Citizen-oriented regulation is concerned with content-based issues.
• Citizen-based regulation is a positive form of regulation that directs media
content so that it can improve the lives of citizens and contribute to the
well-being of wider society.
• Citizen-based regulation promotes forms of media that are able to hold
powerful groups to account.
• Consumer-based regulation seeks to ensure that the media landscape
contains a variety of different producers so that audiences have choice.
• Consumer-based regulation seeks to ensure that the technological
infrastructure that provides media to the public is fit for purpose.
• Consumer-based regulation creates an environment in which audiences
themselves make judgements about the kinds of media that are appropriate
for their consumption.
• A consumer-oriented approach has dominated the media landscape as a
result of the Communications Act 2003 and the creation of Ofcom.
Concept 2: the challenge of regulation in the age of globalised media
• Globalisation has reduced the power of national governments to control
the media – global companies operate beyond the scope and boundaries of
any one country.
Two theorists who might challenge Livingstone and Lunt
• Henry Jenkins: would emphasise the benefits that the global digital media
landscape offers. He would argue that digital media allows audiences to
freely construct their own products and to make connections with like-
minded individuals across the world. This process has also enabled some
groups to affect deep-seated social change.
• David Gauntlett: again, would emphasise the benefits of globalisation.
Globalisation, he might argue, has brought audiences into contact with a
wide range of identities that they did not previously have access to. This
has helped audiences to perceive their identities as fluid and not fixed.
14 The culture industry
David Hesmondhalgh

Hesmondhalgh’s ‘cultural industries’ approach explores the media from

the perspective of commercial production practices and makes two
enormously important observations regarding the necessities of product
development:

1 Products exist as a result of their economic context. Hes-

mondhalgh, first and foremost, tells us that media products are
made within a commercial context. Much like any other business
product, media content is manufactured to create profit, or, in the
case of public service broadcasting, to maintain audience engage-
ment. To gain a full understanding of the media industry and its
impacts, Hesmondhalgh argues, we must appreciate the extent to
which media-­making decisions are guided by the needs of com-
merce as opposed to creativity.
2 The media industry is a high risk business. ‘All business is
risky,’ Hesmondhalgh writes, ‘but the cultural industries consti-
tute a particularly risky business’ (Hesmondhalgh, 2015, 27). The
impossibility of predicting audience tastes coupled with the high
costs of production and the effects of mass competition mean
that the business of making commercially successful media is
very difficult. The reduction of those risks, Hesmondhalgh
argues, has compelled the media industry to be structured in
highly specific ways with risk minimisation, moreover, playing a
crucial role in directing the design and marketing of media
content.
154   The culture industry: David Hesmondhalgh
Concept 1: maximising profits and
minimising risks
The high stakes nature of the media industry is exemplified, perhaps,
by the enormous problems that film production companies face when
trying to distribute a new release. Forbes magazine estimates that of the
700 plus films released in cinemas during 2018, over 80 per cent lost
money. Similarly, the British Film Institute’s analysis of the 760 films
released in the UK in 2017 identifies that the top 50 grossing releases
took 81 per cent of box office takings, while the bottom 660 films
shared just 7 per cent of audience receipts (BFI, 2018).
Such figures underline the ‘winner takes all’ nature of commercial
media, in which a relatively small number of big hits capture a dispro-
portionate share of the available profits. Predicting the success of those
big hits, Hesmondhalgh tells us, is hugely difficult if not impossible.
Hesmondhalgh (2015) outlines these difficulties as follows:

• Media businesses are reliant upon changing audience con-

sumption patterns. Audience tastes continuously adapt making
it incredibly difficult to produce material that guarantees
satisfaction.
• The media industry is reliant on marketing and publicity
functions. Products need the oxygen of publicity if they are to
thrive, but controlling the messages delivered by reviewers or
publicity partners of other companies is very difficult – even if
such organisations are owned by the same parent company as the
producer.
• Media products have limited consumption capacity. Unlike
other businesses, films, television and music-­based products tend
to be consumed as ‘one off ’ purchases. The ‘one off ’ nature of
production means that the huge sums of cash invested to create
media products results in a one-­time reward.

Hesmondhalgh argues that the risks associated with media creation

leads the culture industry to employ a highly tuned range of produc-
tion and organisational practices. Moreover, because the media indus-
try is sustained, by and large, using the enormous profits achieved from
the industry’s winners – top grossing films, hit TV dramas and so on –
it has to employ an economic model that deliberately overproduces
media content.
 The culture industry: David Hesmondhalgh   155
In short, media companies create as many products as they can in
the hope that one or two projects will be hits. By definition, only
large-­scale companies can successfully engage in this overproduction
model given the enormous sums required to finance multiple projects
simultaneously and the requisite need to absorb the huge losses of
failed products while companies search for big hits.

The ways in which media organisations expand

Hesmondhalgh argues that overproduction has compelled media pro-
duction companies to expand through mergers or the acquisition of
smaller companies. Growth in the media sector has traditionally
centred on the following three strategies:

1 Horizontal integration: acquiring media companies that operate

in similar sectors enables large-­scale institutions to achieve scale-­
based cost savings, while also allowing them to maximise profits
by positioning brands so they do not compete with one another.
(The benefits of horizontal integration are covered in more detail
in Chapter 12.)
2 Vertical integration: by acquiring production, distribution and
marketing specialist subsidiaries, media conglomerates can control all
aspects of their supply chain while also achieving significant cost-­
saving efficiencies. (Again, a more detailed discussion of the benefits
wrought through vertical integration are covered in Chapter 12.)
3 Multi-­sector integration: buying companies across the culture
industry allows for further cross-­promotion opportunities and the
deployment of brands across media platforms. Most films, for
instance, create cross-­brand profits through the sale of soundtracks
and, in the case of Disney, through their theme park experiences.

Expansion strategies and brand acquisitions

Hesmondhalgh, like Curran and Seaton, is careful to distinguish
between those personnel in the media industry who are responsible for
producing creative content – the ‘symbol creators’ as Hesmondhalgh
calls them – and those who oversee the wider business-­oriented func-
tions of media distribution.
Traditionally, Hesmondhalgh tells us, ‘symbol creators are granted
considerable autonomy within the process of production – far more, in
156   The culture industry: David Hesmondhalgh

Box 14.1 Discuss it: what impact does

internationalisation have on media?
Hesmondhalgh suggests that media expansion is often pursued so that
producers can develop the ability to distribute their products on a global
scale (internationalisation). Global distribution, of course, generates the
capacity to exponentially increase the profits made from any single
investment, but can also result in media products that sacrifice local
flavour in order to maximise global appeal.

• In what ways are today’s mainstream media products crafted so that

they can appeal to international audiences?
• Does today’s globalised media landscape mean that we consume a
disproportionate number of products that originated in the US? Is
this problematic?
• Do audiences suffer when their media stops being local?

fact, than most workers in other forms of industry’ (Hesmondhalgh,

2015, 32). Writers and directors, journalists and designers, he tells us,
are given enough artistic freedom to create products that excite audi-
ence engagement. Yet, Hesmondhalgh argues, these loose controls are
giving way to tighter business models in which creativity increasingly
plays a secondary role to marketing needs and brand development.
This process is evidenced, in part, by the kinds of acquisitions that
have dominated media expansion in the past decade. Yes, conglomer-
ates continue to expand both vertically and horizontally, but they are
growing in ways that also enable them to acquire lucrative brand-­
driven content. Disney’s $71 billion takeover of Fox in March 2019,
for instance, was pursued, in part, to give Disney exclusive access to
the hugely successful film and television brands cultivated by 21st
Century Fox. And, as a consequence of that acquisition, the task of
Disney’s creative team in the coming years is not to produce new
content, but to maximise the storytelling opportunities that are pre-
sented through Disney’s ownership of the X-­Men franchise, The
Simpsons, Deadpool and Kingsman.
‘The increasing presence and status of marketing,’ Hesmondhalgh
argues, ‘represents a shift in the relations between creativity and com-
merce’ (Hesmondhalgh, 2015, 243). Product-­branding decisions, for
instance, are increasingly channelled by audience research and focus
 The culture industry: David Hesmondhalgh   157
groups. Product content, too, is pushed in directions that audience data
suggests will generate the most sales, while consumption of products
using digital platforms has enabled media makers to mine audience data
in new and extraordinary ways. Netflix, for example, understands in
microscopic detail the consumption patterns of its subscribers, gather-
ing data about what audiences are watching, for how long and for how
many episodes. This advanced data harvesting informs Netflix’s deci-
sions about what it will commission or indeed who it will commission
to make future programming.

Product formatting and risk reduction

Media makers, Hesmondhalgh also tells us, control commercial risks
through the careful supervision of distribution and promotion prac-
tices, effecting what he calls ‘artificial scarcity’ – restricting access to
products by limiting their availability to platforms that are owned by
the parent company of the product (Hesmondhalgh, 2015, 31). Disney,
for example, restricts access to its film back catalogue to its vertically
integrated distribution services (principally its cable broadcasting infra-
structure and Disney+ streaming service). This allows Disney to pre-
serve the mystique of its classic films while also preventing competing
broadcasters from using Disney content as a means to grow their own
audiences.
Hesmondhalgh, too, draws our attention to the following format-
ting strategies used by the media industry:

• Star formatting. It takes, Hesmondhalgh suggests, ‘considerable

marketing efforts, in order to break a writer or performer as a new
star’ (Hesmondhalgh, 2015, 31). Yet star power, once enabled,
can deliver ready-­made audiences for products.
• Genre-­based formatting. Labelling media content using genre-­
based categories allows audiences to identify the potential rewards
of consuming a particular media product in advance of consump-
tion. In this sense, genres, Hesmondhalgh argues, operate in the
same way that brands pre-­promise consumer satisfaction.
• Serialisation. The use of sequels and prequels are well-­established
techniques that are deployed to maximise audience engagement
and to allow producers to maximise their investments in serialised
material (spin-offs, sequels, etc.). Serialised media needs less invest-
ment in marketing activities to create audience visibility. Prequels,
158   The culture industry: David Hesmondhalgh

Box 14.2 Apply it: how do film marketing products use

established formatting techniques to
reduce risk?
Hesmondhalgh’s approach can be applied to questions that ask you to
consider how products are styled or formatted in order to create audi-
ence interest. Use the following questions to help you construct
Hesmondhalgh-­oriented analysis:

• Star power: In what ways does the product use star power? For
what is the star best known and for what sorts of audience will the
star create appeal? Remember that stars can include writers, dir-
ectors and journalists as well as performance-­oriented stars.
• Genre-­based formatting: What genre does the product invoke
through marketing decisions? How is the product stylised to make
its genre explicitly visible? What narrative satisfactions does genre
formatting convey to the product’s target audience?
• Remakes and serialisation: Does the product piggyback on pre-
viously successful products? How does it invoke product nostalgia
to recapture existing audience interest? In what ways is the product
reshaped for a new audience?
• Independent stylising: Does the product deliberately invoke a
non-­mainstream aesthetic? For whom does this create appeal?

Exemplar: Black Panther (Eduqas). Hesmondhalgh’s assertion that

media creativity is subservient to the business and marketing function of
the industry is readily visible in Black Panther. The movie’s use of a pre-
dominantly black cast initially looked like a high risk strategy in terms
of delivering a mainstream audience, yet the use of the Kendrick Lamar
soundtrack and the selection of Michael B. Jordan (Creed) as a frontline
presence helped secure recognisable star power. The further choice of
Martin Freeman (The Hobbit and The Office) as Everett K. Ross also
helped deliver wider European and UK audience appeal. Interestingly,
Freeman is the first character we see in the UK general release trailer.
Hesmondhalgh would similarly draw attention to the heavy presence of
Marvel Studio branding within the trailer and the repetition of the
hugely successful and in vogue Superhero formula as a means of redu-
cing the commercial risk through product serialisation.

Further exemplars for set texts from all exam boards are available online at www.
essentialmediatheory.com
 The culture industry: David Hesmondhalgh   159
too, piggyback on pre-­existing audience successes, while also
enabling institutions to nurture star power through the introduc-
tion of new talent within an established, and relatively risk free,
formula.
• Remakes. The media industry further reduces risk by recycling
archived material that has enjoyed prior success. Retellings often
seek to recapture audience engagement through nostalgia-­based
appeals, while also rebranding content so that it fits the needs of a
contemporary audience.
• Independent labelling. Hesmondhalgh points, too, to the use of
‘independents’ to produce and market media goods. Independents,
he argues, provide a useful means of engaging audiences that are
reluctant to consume mainstream media. Conglomerates also dele-
gate production to independents to shield themselves from the
impact of content failure on their brand identity. Companies that
are truly independent, of course, use their non-­mainstream status
as a marketing tool, deliberately stylising and formatting their
products in ways that make them look and feel alternative.

Concept 2: the effects of the internet revolution

are difficult to diagnose
A great deal of academic writing that has tried to diagnose the impact
of technological innovation has, Hesmondhalgh argues, done so using
overly simplistic formulas. The reality of the digital revolution, he sug-
gests – if it can be described as a revolution at all – is highly complex.
More importantly, Hesmondhalgh tells us, the various practices that
are seen to constitute ‘Web 2.0’ represent, in reality, a continuation of
the activities of traditional mass media provision.

The faux benefits of cyberspace

Hesmondhalgh suggests that the often cited positive effects of the
digital revolution stem from an overly romanticised view of techno-
logy as an anti-­authoritarian counterweight to traditional power
sources. In contrast, he argues that the internet’s ‘many minor forms of
subversion, insubordination and skepticism don’t cancel out the
enormous concentrations of power in the cultural industries’ and
further diagnoses those subversive effects as ‘representing a disturbance’
(Hesmondhalgh, 2015, 361). Hesmondhalgh’s relegation of the digital
160   The culture industry: David Hesmondhalgh
revolution to the status of a mere ‘disturbance’ centres on a critique of
the following two claims regarding technological innovation:

1 That the digital revolution gives power to audiences by enabling

cultural participation and that audience control is enabled through
feedback mechanisms.
2 That the digital revolution has weakened the power of the mass
media.

In many ways, the benefits outlined above are very similar to the
‘participatory culture’ and ‘end of audience’ arguments presented,
respectively, by Henry Jenkins (Chapter 18) and Clay Shirky (Chapter
19). Hesmondhalgh offers the following three criticisms:

1 The web gives unequal user access and depends on user

skill levels. When we refer to the internet, we are really
describing its capacity to provide a host of benefits, including
email functionality, social networking, data storage, entertain-
ment provision, etc. Hesmondhalgh argues that users mostly
access internet services in a relatively simplistic manner and
usually for information retrieval purposes only – reading online
news, browsing the weather and so on. Only a relatively small
number of advanced users deploy, or have the skills to deploy,
the ‘participatory culture’ skills that Shirky and Jenkins
celebrate.
2 The internet is dominated by a relatively small number of
providers. Hesmondhalgh points to the dominance of search
engines and their ability to point users to a small number of
sources. In this sense, the near monopoly of Google as the world’s
search engine flatly contradicts the notion that the internet has
eroded media concentration.
3 The internet is increasingly dominated by commercialised
activity. Hesmondhalgh argues that the democratising impact of
the internet has been further damaged by the adoption of an inter-
net model that relies on advertising revenue. ‘Much web content,’
Hesmondhalgh argues, ‘is permeated by advertising to the extent
that it is sometimes difficult to tell where the advertisements end
and the content begins’ (Hesmondhalgh, 2015, 331). Thus, the
neutrality of the information provided by the internet is com-
promised by commercial imperatives.
 The culture industry: David Hesmondhalgh   161
Hesmondhalgh, too, suggests that the various forms of technological
advances of the digital era are often packaged together in ways that
suggest the digital revolution is a singular force. In reality, he argues,
technological advances have had varied effects on media forms. Hes-
mondhalgh identities the following sector specific trends:

• Digital games. Despite technological advances, the games sector

is still dominated by an oligarch of hardware companies (Sony,
Nintendo and Microsoft). Smaller independent production has
grown, but those companies are largely responsible for software
development (with the exception of Electronic Arts). As a result,
Hesmondhalgh suggests, the digital revolution has not really had
an effect on the games sector – larger companies are still able to
forge cross-­media synergies with the film and music sectors, while
formatted franchises (Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, etc.) are used
to maximise audiences and reduce risk.
• Newspaper industry. Hesmondhalgh suggests that technological
developments have had a significantly adverse impact in this
sector. Online media has eroded readerships and forced news-
papers to adopt free-­to-view online models. Some titles have tried
to mitigate the effects of plummeting advertising revenues by
implementing pay-­per-view firewalls (The Times), while other
publications such as The Guardian have turned to supplementary
activities – using their brand recognition to sell dating services,
books, holidays, music and other add-­ons.
• Television. Hesmondhalgh points to the hybridisation of tele-
vision and the internet to produce on-­demand services and to
enable time-­shifted consumption patterns; however, he also argues
that television viewing figures have not reduced greatly. The
winners of the analogue to digital broadcast migration, he argues,
are more likely to be the small number of global organisations that
own the archives of content needed to fill on-­demand services.
Disney’s new global streaming service, Disney+, is a case in point
here. Hesmondhalgh, too, points to the continued use of celebrity
power to attract audiences to streamed television products, with
remakes and serialised content dominating the schedules of on-­
demand television services.
162   The culture industry: David Hesmondhalgh

Box 14.3 Discuss it: what is the real impact of the so-­

called ‘digital revolution’?
• Do you think that modern audiences fluently engage in participatory
culture?
• Is participatory culture more likely to be used by a limited number
of social groups? Think here in terms of age, gender and class.
• Which groups are likely to be excluded from the benefits of par-
ticipatory culture?
• Are audiences still passive consumers?

Box 14.4 Apply it: assessing the revolutionary impact of

digital innovation on your set texts
Hesmondhalgh’s diagnosis of the digital revolution as a ‘disturbance’ can
be integrated in exam responses that ask you to consider the way that
digital consumption has impacted on audiences. Discussion that centres
around the following three criticisms could be applied to these questions:

1 Digital products continue to engage passive viewing responses.

2 Digital products tend to be made by a relatively small number of
providers.
3 The commercialisation of the web weakens the suggestion that the
web is a democratising medium.

Exemplar: Minecraft (OCR). Jenkins (see Chapter 18) would revel in the
way that Minecraft audiences have harnessed digital communications tech-
nology to effect digital fan power and moreover, in the capacity of those
fan groups to engage in ‘transmedia learning’. Yet, Hesmondhalgh reminds
us, we have to be careful not to over-­endorse the impact of digital technol-
ogies. The Minecraft experience might produce some connected fan activity,
yet for every skilled player who is uploading content to the Minecraft Realm
there are a far greater number of less skilled users who effect traditionally
passive engagements. Moreover, the acquisition of Minecraft by Microsoft
points to the continued presence and power of mass media conglomerates
in the gaming industry. Minecraft might appear to evidence the democrat-
ising effects of the media, but it also provides ample evidence of the way
that digital technologies have been co-­opted by traditional media practices.

Further exemplars for set texts from all exam boards are available online at www.
essentialmediatheory.com
 The culture industry: David Hesmondhalgh   163
Table 14.1 Speak David Hesmondhalgh

Creative business managers Those workers who look after the

marketing, distribution and financing of
media products.
Creative symbol makers Hesmondhalgh suggests that those
workers who create media products
(scriptwriters, directors, etc.) are the
media’s creative symbol makers.
Traditionally, creatives were given lots
of freedom in the media industry, but,
Hesmondhalgh argues, creative decision
making is increasingly sidelined in
favour of a business-oriented approach.
Genre formatting Promoting products using genre
formatting helps audiences to
understand the narrative satisfactions
that a product can offer prior to
consumption.
Internationalisation Internationalisation refers to strategies
adopted by media makers to maximise
their profits and audience reach using
global distribution.
Serialisation Serialisation enables producers to reduce
risk by constructing products that have
an established audience.
Star formatting The foregrounding of star power
(writers, actors, directors and journalists)
in products and promotional material to
generate audience interest.
164   The culture industry: David Hesmondhalgh
Table 14.2 Hesmondhalgh: ten minute revision

Concept 1: maximising profits and minimising risks

• The media industry is prone to risk as a result of shifting audience tastes.
• The media industry tries to reduce risk through overproduction.
• Overproduction strategies, generally speaking, can only be engaged by
large media conglomerates.
• Media conglomerates have expanded to enable them to cope with risk.
• Media products are carefully formatted using a number of industry specific
strategies to reduce risk.
Concept 2: the effects of the internet revolution are difficult to diagnose
• The democratising effects of the digital revolution have been over-
exaggerated by some academics.
• Digital media is used by audiences in radically different ways, while only a
few users have the necessary skills to engage in participatory culture.
• The internet is dominated by a handful of very powerful companies.
• The commercialisation of the web has further reduced its democratising
capacity.
Two theorists who might challenge Hesmondhalgh’s thinking
• Henry Jenkins: emphasises the positive effects of the digital revolution –
suggesting that digital media cultivates online communities and allows
audiences to express themselves in positive and creative ways through fan
engagement.
• Clay Shirky: might argue that large-scale media providers will be replaced
by products that are created by everyday users, or that mass media content
will be significantly controlled by audience feedback mechanisms.
15 Media modelling effects
Albert Bandura

The exploration of aggression had been a point of interest for psychol-

ogists and philosophers long before Bandura introduced the world to
his Bobo doll experiments. Sigmund Freud, for example, explained the
origins of aggression as an innate and instinctive emotional response.
Excessive masculine aggression, he reasoned, was present as a result of
the male sex drive, suggesting that male aggression is driven by a latent
fear of castration by our fathers.
Post-­war psychologists, too, looked inwards to explain the presence
of aggression – some connecting outwardly violent behaviour to the
genetic disposition of individuals or to hormonal imbalances. Even as
late as 1965, the psychologist P.A. Jacobs argued that a disproportion-
ate number of institutionalised men, those committed to prison or
mental institutions, were born with an extra chromosome that pro-
duced hyper-­masculine behaviours. Aggression, Jacobs reasoned, was
genetic or the product of innate dispositions that were beyond the
control of the individual.
Bandura’s experiments, however, led him to a remarkably different
set of conclusions and gave birth to a psychological school of thought
that was later labelled ‘social learning theory’. Bandura’s research, in
short, suggested that our behaviours are not governed by innate traits
or genetic impulses but that our environments – the human environ-
ment in particular – shapes the way we behave.

Concept 1: violent behaviours are learned

through modelling
Bandura’s psychological experiments led him to conclude that behavi-
ours are acquired as a result of the following two processes:
166   Media modelling effects: Albert Bandura
1 Direct experience. Individuals, Bandura argued, learn or repli-
cate aggressive acts as a result of their experiences of aggression.
Children might learn to be aggressive from the models of negative
behaviour that parents provide, or, conversely, they might reject
violent behaviours as a result of parent-­induced punishments and
sanctions.
2 Modelled learning. Bandura intuited that direct experience
alone could not account for all of our human traits. Individuals, he
hypothesised, could not possibly have witnessed enough directly
modelled behaviour to account for the complexity of their own
behaviour. Behaviours, Bandura conjectured, must therefore be
learned by watching the actions of others – through what he called
‘vicarious learning’. For example, a child who witnesses the
violent behaviour of a classmate might later imitate the actions he
or she sees. Conversely, if a child witnesses the same behaviour
being punished, they might be more likely to be inhibited from
copying those actions. ‘It is evident,’ Bandura writes, ‘that human
behaviour is to a large extent socially transmitted, either deliber-
ately or inadvertently’ (Bandura, 1973, 68).

Concept 2: audiences copy media modelling

Bobo dolls and symbolic modelling

Bandura’s initial research, in the 1960s, was conducted using nursery
aged children who were made to watch a variety of adult role models
execute a series of aggressive acts on an inflatable Bobo doll. The
experiments were designed to investigate whether the children would

Box 15.1 Think about it: from where have you learned

your own behaviours?
• What influence have your parents had on your behaviours? In
what ways have their expectations affected your outlook?
• Have your friends ever affected your behaviour in a negative or
positive way?
• In what ways did the rules and expectations of your primary and
secondary schools shape your behaviour?
 Media modelling effects: Albert Bandura   167
copy the adults’ actions when left alone, and, overwhelmingly, the
observations that Bandura’s team noted from the experiment were that
the children did replicate the aggressive behaviours they had witnessed.
Aggressive behaviours, Bandura concluded, were most certainly
learned through direct modelling.
But what shocked the Bobo doll research team the most was the
response of the children when they replaced the adult role models with
filmed sequences that depicted the same aggressive behaviour. To their
surprise, the children responded in a similarly violent manner, leading
Bandura to conclude that behaviours can be transmitted through the
representational effects of television.
Bandura’s conclusions regarding media viewing, moreover, sug-
gested that media-­based representations of violence might indeed have
a more concentrated effect than direct modelling. He drew attention
to the following three factors that amplify the effects of television con-
sumption on behavioural modelling:

• Attentional processes. The effectiveness of a modelled

behaviour is dependent on the degree to which the observer’s
attention is focused on the behaviour being modelled. In the real
world, he argued, our attention is less focused on modelled action
than when we watch television. ‘Indeed, models presented in tele-
vised form are so effective in holding attention,’ Bandura writes,
‘that viewers learn the depicted behavior regardless of whether or
not they are given extra incentives to do so’ (Bandura, 1973, 70).
• Role models and social learning. The effectiveness of model-
ling is also swayed by the people we are watching. If behaviour is

Box 15.2 Discuss it: how did the media affect you?

• In what ways did watching television affect your behaviour as a
young child? Did you or your brothers and sisters copy the neg-
ative behaviours you saw on television?
• Did you have any media role models that you wanted to be like
when you were younger? What effect did those role models have
on your behaviour?
• Is television hypnotic? Does it capture our attention in a way that
no other media form can?
168   Media modelling effects: Albert Bandura
modelled by aspirational role models, Bandura argued, we are
more likely to want to copy their behaviour. The level of power
and prestige of television-­oriented role models therefore makes it
more likely that they will have a greater impact on audience
behaviours.
• Retention processes. Representations of behaviours that are visu-
ally vivid or symbolically constructed will be retained for longer
periods. Given that television and film are encoded in a visually rich
manner – through costuming, set or acting styles – the resulting
effect, Bandura argued, is much richer than real-­life modelling.

Television fiction and the commercialisation of violence

Bandura argued that, problematically, television and film products are rich
with violent content, and, as a result, adverse television modelling effects
are widespread. Violence is endemic within the media, Bandura argued,
because producers, script writers and directors are themselves too desensi-
tised to the effects of screen violence to raise objections to problematic
content. Moreover, the media relies on conflict to quickly and effectively
engage audience attention, using depictions of violence to produce cheap
thrills in stories. Bandura, too, pointed to the incremental concentration
of violent content that results from broadcaster competition, arguing that
television producers continuously intensify violent content within their
products as a means of poaching their competitors’ audiences.

Video violence effects

Even though Bandura’s work did not directly comment on the capacity
of gaming to produce violent behaviours, it is routinely invoked to

Box 15.3 Apply it (OCR and AQA): violence in

television set texts
Both OCR and AQA suggest that students should be able to apply
Bandura to their television set texts. These applications might be
prompted by the following question types:

• OCR style question. Evaluate the relevance of Bandura’s media

effects theory in long form television drama. (10 marks)
 Media modelling effects: Albert Bandura   169
• AQA style question. According to Bandura’s media effects
theory, television products model behaviours that audiences can
copy or emulate and the behaviours they model are often negative.
How valid are Bandura’s claims concerning audience responses?
You should refer to your television set texts to support your
answer. (25 marks)

Answers could make reference to the following:

• Analysis of specific moments within the set texts that offer

modelled violence. What negative behaviours might audiences
learn from these moments?
• Analysis that explores the narrative context of modelled
behaviour. Is the violent behaviour of characters rewarded or
punished across story arcs? How might these factors concentrate or
inhibit audience responses?
• Role model effects. In what ways does star power or the ideal-
ised presentation of violent content help concentrate the product’s
modelling impact?
• Attentional effects. Does the way the product is consumed alter
any modelling effect it might have? Might on-­demand binge
watching, for instance, result in an intensified modelling
experience?
• Vivid visual encoding effects. Is modelled negative behaviour
likely to have an effect on the product’s audience as a result of a
heightened aesthetic presentation?
• Positive modelling effects. Does the product have the potential
to produce positive learning for the audience? How and where?

Arguments and theories you could also use that suggest audiences do
not necessarily engage with products in the way that Bandura suggests:

• Henry Jenkins: use Jenkins’ ideas concerning fan communities to

develop discussion concerning any potential positive effects of set
texts. In what ways are fans using set texts to explore positive
rather negative aspects of their identity?
• Stuart Hall: use Hall’s encoding and decoding model to critique
Bandura’s ideas. Not all audiences respond to products in the same
way – we decode texts using our contextual knowledge and
experience.

Exemplar responses for set texts from all exam boards are available at www.
essentialmediatheory.com
170   Media modelling effects: Albert Bandura

Box 15.4 Apply it (OCR): using Bandura in synoptic set

text questions
Opportunities to apply Bandura’s theoretical perspective are also available
within the synoptic question of the component two exam. You could
connect Bandura’s arguments to question types in the following ways:

Questions that have a representation focus

• Representation of violence might be minimised because producers
are mindful of modelling effects that products could have on their
target audience.
• Representations of violent content might be deliberately minim-
ised as a result of regulatory codes that explicitly restrict the impact
of modelled behaviour on audiences.

Questions that have a language focus

• Genre-­based productions might contain violent content as a core
convention or audience expectation.
• Narratives are conventionally driven by conflict. Conflict inevit-
ably raises issues regarding the effects of violence on audiences in
terms of modelling behaviours.

Questions that have an institution focus

• Commercial organisations, arguably, are more likely to include
violence as a means of attracting audiences.
• Netflix content is not directly subject to UK regulatory codes.
Does this make it more likely to produce material that produces
modelled violence?
• On-­demand broadcasting cannot reduce the effects of modelled
violence through the use of scheduling restrictions or watersheds.

Exemplar responses for set texts from all exam boards are available at www.
essentialmediatheory.com

suggest that a link exists between real-­life aggression and game playing.
Amer­ican mass shootings by teenagers, for instance, are regularly
explained as occurring as a direct result of violent game content. Com-
mentators often draw attention to the following factors in suggesting that
a causal link exists between game playing and real-­world violence:
 Media modelling effects: Albert Bandura   171
• Attention factors. Players control and direct gaming avatars to
exercise violence meaning that a direct connection exists between
player actions and the resulting violent behaviours that are
depicted on-­screen. This intimate connection is seen to promote
violent behaviours in the real world.
• Players are rewarded for violent actions. Gaming engines
generate scores and rewards for kills, while narrative progression
in games is often only revealed once violent episodes are resolved
by players. Reward systems of these kinds are seen to promote
violent behaviour as a result of positive modelling experiences.
• Violence is portrayed without moral justification or expla-
nation. Games often require players to kill innocent bystanders or
to inflict violence on defenceless characters. The casual nature of
these violent acts, some would suggest, desensitises players to the
effects of real-­world violence.
• Video games are immersive. Players are thought to consume
video games in isolation – without the mediating effects of others
to help them question their actions.
• Realistic violence. Gaming graphics engines are increasingly
capable of producing more realistic portrayals, and, in doing so,
limit a gamer’s ability to distinguish real-­world actions from those
experienced in gaming narratives.
• Video games are addictive. Long periods of gameplay produce
sustained negative modelling experiences.

Regulatory frameworks as protection

The Pan European Gaming Information (PEGI) rating system has
responded to the concerns surrounding gaming content through the
creation of its advisory ratings code. The code principally protects vul-
nerable players through an age classification system and works to alert
parents to the following types of gaming content:

• Violent content. Games with lower age ratings must contain

minimal violence, and while PEGI 12-rated games are allowed to
include violent content it must be presented in a non-­realistic
manner. Violence perpetrated on innocent characters is only
allowed in PEGI 18-rated games.
• Drugs, alcohol and tobacco use. Depictions of this nature are
limited to PEGI 16-certified games and above, while glamorised
172   Media modelling effects: Albert Bandura
depictions of drug taking are only allowed in PEGI 18-certified
games.
• Discrimination. Games that contain problematic ethnic, reli-
gious, nationalistic or other negative stereotypes are again
restricted to a PEGI 18 certificate.

Box 15.5 Discuss it: video game regulation and imitable

behaviour
• How effective do you think the PEGI ratings system is in protecting
young people from the harmful effects of gaming? How might
young people circumvent that system?
• What evidence would you present to critique the view that video
games induce violent behaviour?

Box 15.6 Apply it (Eduqas and AQA): using Bandura in

video game set text questions
Eduqas and AQA questions that ask you to apply Bandura’s ideas to
games and online set texts might be styled as follows:

• Eduqas. Consider the relationship that exists between video game

technologies and the patterns of response they produce in audiences.
Answer with reference to your video game set text. (12 marks)
• AQA. How convincing are the arguments that video game prod-
ucts produce violent behaviours? In your answer you should refer
to your Close Study Products. (20 marks)

Answers to the above could focus on the following key areas:

• Attention and immersion factors. Gaming technologies produce

narratives that are longer and far more complex than other media
forms – potentially leading to a more concentrated modelling effect.
• Graphic content. Provide knowledge and analysis of moments in
set text gameplay and/or marketing materials where graphic viol-
ence is depicted. What potential modelling effects might those
moments have on audiences? In what ways do these moments
glamorise screen violence?
• Gameplay that provides rewards for violent actions. Analyse
how your gaming set texts reward audiences for violent play.
 Media modelling effects: Albert Bandura   173
Identify the use of violence to: unlock side missions, advance nar-
ratives, provide new weapons or to advance online multiplayer
rankings. What impact do these reward systems have in promoting
violent behaviours?
• Portrayals of violence that have moral justification or
explanation. Discuss moments in set texts where protagonist viol-
ence is disproportionate to antagonist actions. These moments
might also be found in marketing materials. Does this sort of game
violence desensitise players?
• Video games are targeted at impressionable teenage audi-
ences. Video games are regulated, but is PEGI effective in prohib-
iting under-­age game consumption? Discuss the effects of online
distribution on teenage consumption and the ease with which
young audiences can circumvent age checks.

Exemplar responses for set texts from all exam boards are available at www.essential
mediatheory.com

The arguments against negative video game modelling

In 2008, Henry Jenkins famously rallied to the defence of the video
games industry, arguing that the panic surrounding gaming violence
was founded on some questionable assumptions (Jenkins 2019). He
highlights the following factors in defence of video game playing:

• Studies that link game playing time and criminal behaviours

are flawed. Advocates of the argument that video games produce
violent behaviour often point to studies that identify video game use
by violent youth offenders as disproportionately widespread. Yet,
Jenkins points out, video gaming is so universally practised among
teenagers that any concrete cause and effect link is highly tenuous.
• Game play is not solitary. Jenkins points to research that suggests
most gameplay takes place within a social context, either physically
or across a digital network. Researchers point to the potential bene-
fits of communal play, suggesting that players hone communication
skills by working together to solve gaming problems.
• Audiences are able to separate gameplay from real life.
Games might indeed illicit violent responses on-­screen, but
research suggests that players are able to distinguish screen viol-
ence from their real-­world activities.
174   Media modelling effects: Albert Bandura

Box 15.7 Apply it: diagnose the positive effects of video

game set texts on their audiences
Video games and moral panics
Critics suggest that video game violence concerns are magnified by the
media, and that the moral panic concerning the effects of gameplay are
symptomatic of society’s wider anxieties about the use of new technolo-
gies by young people. Think about the following questions to help you
diagnose the positive effects of your video game set texts:

• In what ways do your set texts have a positive effect on audiences

behaviours?
• Do any of your gaming set texts teach their audiences new skills?
How do they do this?

Exemplar responses for set texts from all exam boards are available at www.
essentialmediatheory.com

Table 15.1 Speak Albert Bandura

Attentional effects Bandura argues that media products are more

likely to produce modelled behaviour because of
the focused attention they command while
engaging with them.
Desensitisation Desensitisation normalises violent behaviours as a
result of repeated exposure.
Modelled learning Bandura suggests that we learn new behaviours by
watching other people (direct modelling).
Behaviours can be inhibited if we see others being
punished; conversely, we copy behaviours when
they are rewarded.
Representational The process of watching behaviours on-screen.
modelling Bandura concludes that representational modelling
can be equally, if not more, powerful than direct
modelling.
Role model effects Bandura argues that watching others we hold in
high regard (on-screen stars/heroes) can amplify
the impact of any modelled behaviours.
 Media modelling effects: Albert Bandura   175
Table 15.2 Bandura: ten minute revision

Concept 1: violent behaviours are learned through modelling

• Humans learn much of their behaviour through social interaction.
• Social learning can occur as a result of first-hand experience.
• Social learning can also occur by watching others’ experiences.
Concept 2: audiences can copy media representations of negative behaviour
• Representational modelling can have a powerful effect on the behaviours
of media audiences.
• Modelled behaviours by role models and the vivid visual encoding systems
of media products further concentrate the effects of representational
modelling.
• Violence is an endemic feature of media content.
Three theorists who might challenge Bandura’s thinking
• Stuart Hall: would argue that media products do not produce a cause and
effect learning response – audiences decode the media they engage with
using contextual knowledge.
• Henry Jenkins: emphasises the positive effects of media consumption –
suggesting that the media forges communities and allows audiences to
express themselves in positive and creative ways through fan engagement.
• George Gerbner: would argue that the media should not be measured
just in terms of its impact on individual learning behaviours but also on the
cumulative effects of mass media consumption on wider social attitudes.
16 Cultivation theory
George Gerbner

Born in 1919, Gerbner experienced first-­hand the growth of mass

media, from its early infancy in the 1920s to the television boom of
the 1960s and 1970s. It is difficult for contemporary audiences to
fully comprehend a world without mass media or to appreciate the
impact widespread television ownership produced. For Gerbner,
however, that transition was a lived experience, and must have
prompted his interest in the effects of mass media consumption on
wider society.
Gerbner’s research, much like that of his academic contemporary,
Bandura, focused on screen depictions of violence and the attitudinal
changes that could be induced as a result of watching television con-
flict. The conclusions that Gerbner formed in response to that research
were profound in their suggestion that television viewing could radic-
ally change the way we perceive the real world.

Concept 1: fear cultivation

Gerbner argues that media communications, principally television-­
based media, replaced a set of pre-­existing symbol systems that had
dominated the cultural and social lives of individuals up until the early
twentieth century. Society, Gerbner suggests, uses religious or cultural
products to guide the attitudes and behaviours of its constituent
members. Those systems, prior to television, were embedded via the
church or educational practices. Mass media, Gerbner argues, replaced
these ‘common symbolic environments’ (Gerbner and Morgan, 2016,
193) to become the dominant socialising force of our age.
‘Television,’ Gerbner tells us, ‘is the first centralized cultural
influence to permeate both the initial and final years of life – as well
 Cultivation theory: George Gerbner   177
as the years in between’ (Gerbner and Morgan, 2016, 230). The
sheer number of people who were watching television in the 1960s
led Gerbner to hypothesise that the mass media produced a broad
enculturation effect, transmitting ideas and attitudes on a scale that
had not been witnessed before. The power of television, Gerbner
claims, is not narrowly defined as something that can impact on the
behaviours of a few solitary individuals in society (as Bandura sug-
gests): television, he argues, influences all sections of society and is
capable of inducing attitudinal change across our entire social
network.
Gerbner isolates the following factors that invest television with a
capacity to effect widescale social change:

• Television is easily decodable. You do not need to read or be

literate to understand television. The meaning of programme
content is readily consumed by everyone, from pre-­school infants
to the elderly.
• Television access is largely cost free. Unlike other cultural
products – the theatre, cinema and books – television consump-
tion is relatively inexpensive and, as a result, is readily consumed
across all sections of society, by both rich and poor alike.
• Television consumption is intensified. Time spent watching
television far outweighs comparable cultural activities such as
church going or reading, amplifying further the effect of televisual
messages.
• Television is a centralised and homogenous producer of
cultural symbols. The centralised nature of television produc-
tion means that cultural messages are controlled by a handful of
media makers.
• Television products are encoded using realism. Television
drama, Gerbner suggests, is so reflective of the real world that it is
difficult for us to understand that fictional products are not con-
structed versions of reality. ‘How many of us have ever been in an
operating room, a criminal courtroom, a police station or jail, or
corporate boardroom, or a movie studio?,’ Gerbner asks, ‘how
much of our real world has been learned from fictional worlds?’
(Gerbner and Morgan, 2016, 232).
178   Cultivation theory: George Gerbner

Box 16.1 Discuss it: how does television impact our

view of the world?
• How much time do you spend watching television? How much
time do your parents or guardians spend watching TV?
• How much of your understanding of the real world is constructed
through television?
• What effects does watching television have on society?
• Do you think Gerbner’s arguments regarding the impact of
­television on social attitudes is just as valid in today’s digital world?
Why or why not?

The Violence Index

Gerbner’s realisation that television could be having a profound effect
on the collective consciousness of society led him to set up the Cul-
tural Indicators project in 1969 to measure the levels of violence across
programming. Gerbner was interested in confirming exactly how
much television content was driven by sequences that depicted sym-
bolic aggression. Violence, Gerbner hypothesised, was a cheap mech-
anism that producers used to capture audience interest or to elicit easy
emotional responses. Violence, he argued, had thus become an
endemic feature of both drama and factual television, and was, he
further hypothesised, subtly affecting the attitudes of mass audiences.
The project’s findings, dubbed the ‘Violence Index’ by Gerbner,
revealed that depictions of on-­screen conflict within mainstream US
television were widespread. Key findings recorded at end of the
project’s 9-year tracking period in 1975 included:

• 8 of every 10 programmes across all networks contained some

element of violence.
• More alarmingly, 9 out of 10 children’s programmes at weekends
contained violent content.
• The average number of violent episodes across programming per
hour was 8 – rising to 16 per hour for children’s programming.

Gerbner also indexed the following trends regarding character

involvement in violence:
 Cultivation theory: George Gerbner   179
• Females were consistently depicted as more vulnerable than men,
with 1.32 female victims recorded for each episode of violence as
opposed to an average rate of 1.19 male victims per episode.
• Elderly women, single and non-­white females were especially
prone to victimisation with white males found to be the least
likely victims of violent acts.
• The victimisation of powerless female characters was a staple
starter in a significant number of drama shows.

The issue of violent content was not just confined to television

drama. Gerbner suggested that news-­based media was equally prob-
lematic; this, in part, is because of the high volume of time it occupies
in broadcasters’ schedules, while the selective processes of news pre-
sentation pushes the most violent events to the fore. ‘If it bleeds, it
leads’, is the old media adage.
The effect of factual programming offers further significance in that
viewers inherently understand drama-­based violence to be fictitious at
some level. Representations of real-­world violence, however, have the
capacity to convey a more profound attitudinal audience-­based response.
If we watch lots of media content that paints the real world as violent or
aggressive, then, perhaps, we are more likely to believe that it actually is.

Box 16.2 Apply it: how violent are your set texts?

• Which of your set texts contain moments of violence? Look
­especially at TV and video game set texts.
• Which set texts contain the most numerous or significant moments
of violence?
• Who are the victims and perpetrators of violence in your set texts?
Are there any problematic trends? Are more women, non-­white
ethnicities or older people constructed as victims?
• What evidence could you present to suggest that news-­oriented set
texts are just as problematic as drama-­based media forms in terms
of the amount of violent content they report?
• Gerbner’s Violence Index researchers included comic violence,
accidents and natural disasters in their tallies. Is this problematic?

Examples of analysis that applies Gerbner’s ideas to set texts from a range of exam
boards are available at www.essentialmediatheory.com
180   Cultivation theory: George Gerbner
Cultivating fear and danger
The Cultural Indicators project was designed to place pressure on
Amer­ican television networks to reduce violent content; it succeeded,
for a while at least, with a number of US networks pulling graphic
depictions from many prime time shows. But Gerbner was also inter-
ested in measuring the way endemic television violence shifted the
attitudes and outlooks of Amer­ican audiences and devised a series of
follow-­up studies that compared the real-­world perspectives of ‘heavy
viewers’ with those who were less exposed to violent television
content.
Gerbner’s research conclusively established what he called a ‘cultiva-
tion differential’ – those audiences that were exposed to more tele-
vision content had a heightened perception of real-­world violence.
Heavy viewing not only made people less trustful of others, but also
significantly increased their fear of becoming a real-­world crime
victim. Gerbner identified the following viewing effects:

• Resonance: He found that people who lived in high crime areas

and who were heavy television viewers were subject to a double-­
dose effect. He concluded that for those who had experience of
crime, television viewing significantly amplified their fear of real-­
world crime.
• Mainstreaming: He also concluded that heavy viewers who
were significantly less informed about real-­life crime – perhaps
as a result of living in a safe neighbourhood – also reported
significantly increased perceptions of violence in the real world.
He thus concluded that watching television could lead to attitu-
dinal change irrespective of whether viewers had any objective
evidence to corroborate what they were seeing on-­screen in the
real world.

Both mainstreaming and resonance suggest that heavy mass media

consumption – no matter the extent of real-­world experiences – made
viewers susceptible to the messages of media products. Long-­term
exposure to media violence, Gerbner suggested, resulted in viewers
adopting ‘mean world syndrome’. Television, he concluded, convinces
its audiences that society is far more dangerous and violent than it
actually is.
 Cultivation theory: George Gerbner   181

Box 16.3 Discuss it: how violent do you think the real

world is?
• What effects does news reportage have on the public’s perception
of crime? Can you evidence media content that has potentially
cultivated public fear?
• Do any of your friends or family members have an over-­
exaggerated fear of crime as a result of media consumption?
• Is the fear of a particular crime exaggerated by news reporting? For
example, knife crime or burglary?
• In what ways does the public’s perception of crime affect the way
we treat criminals?

Concept 2: media consumption leads audiences

to accept mainstream ideologies

Violence on television represents symbolic power

Television news and drama does not merely present viewers with por-
trayals of violence; it parades before them a steady stream of victims
and victimisers. Television creates winners and losers. It organises social
groups hierarchically by telling us who is most likely to die or be shot.
Media violence, moreover, suggests who we ought to control and who
we should trust to do the controlling. Gerbner draws our attention to
the following symbolic effects that are created as a result of on-­screen
violence:

• Media violence defines powerless characters. The over-­

representation of key groups in victim counts – women, non-­
whites, the elderly – is a symbolic demonstration, Gerbner argues,
of their ideologically inferior status in the real world.
• Media violence defines powerful characters. The dominance
of white males as heroic law-­makers or law enforcers simultan-
eously suggests their superior social position.
• Narrative conventions reinforce authority. The lack of tragic
narratives and the dominance of happy endings in television drama
construct a clear-­cut ideological message. There may be bad
people in the world, but the law and authority will always win
through. The good guys never die, of course.
182   Cultivation theory: George Gerbner
• News reportage stigmatises key groups. Media narratives
help to justify the use of violence against key groups – terrorists,
protestors, criminals – and play a symbolic role in reinforcing
existing sources of authority.
• Audience protest is subjugated. Because viewers interpret the
world as mean, Gerbner suggests, they come to overly rely on
established authority sources for protection. Thus, audiences are
passive when confronted with real-­world authorities or, likewise,
their view of authority as all powerful (as represented by the
media) makes them too afraid to take a stand against any perceived
injustice.

Constructing content for the mainstream

Gerbner also takes aim at the financial imperatives that drive commer-
cial television. Much like Curran and Seaton, he critiques the media’s
reliance on advertising revenue, arguing that commercial media forms
need to develop mass audiences to sustain advertising income and, as a
result, the media frames political debates and current affairs in ways
that neutralise controversy.
‘Competition for the largest possible audience,’ Gerbner argues,
‘means striving for the broadest and most conventional appeals, blur-
ring sharp conflicts, blending and balancing competing perspectives’
(Gerbner and Morgan, 2016, 308). Thus, mainstream media broadcast-
ers sanitise alternative viewpoints by purposefully adopting a bland
middle-­of-the road perspective. This position means that they avoid
offending or alienating mainstream audiences and the respective
advertising clientele they attract, and on whom broadcasters are finan-
cially dependent.

Cultivation theory: magazines and the internet

Gerbner’s interest in television violence was prompted by the radical
expansion of television ownership during the post-­war years. And
although his research focused on the widespread effects of violence, he
hypothesised that television could also be responsible for the encultura-
tion of a range of other attitudinal changes and acknowledged that
other mass media forms were capable of similar widespread effects.
The academic Jonathan Bignell took up Gerbner’s cue, applying a
cultivation theory perspective to analyse the effects of magazines on
 Cultivation theory: George Gerbner   183

Box 16.4 Discuss it: does contemporary commercial

media reinforce mainstream beliefs?
Mainstreaming effects in newspapers
• In what ways do the newspapers you have studied present ideas in
a middle-­of-the-­road manner?
• What evidence could you present to suggest that the mainstream
media deliberately avoids radical discussion so that both main-
stream audiences and advertising revenues are maintained?

Mainstreaming effects of the internet

• In what ways has the introduction of advertising effected YouTube
content? Has advertising sanitised vlogging?

Mainstreaming effects of television

• Do streaming providers (Netflix/Amazon) take more risks than
commercial broadcasters? What are those risks? Where are they
evidenced?
• In what ways could we challenge Gerbner’s idea that television
constructs middle-­of-the-­road programming? Are modern audi-
ences more tolerant of radical content?

readers, concluding, as a result, that lifestyle-­oriented publications con-

struct a fictional version of gender that readers apply to their real-­world
selves. ‘By constructing a mythic community for men or women,’
Bignell writes, ‘magazines delineate the social meaning of gender’
(Bignell, 2002, 77). Magazines, he concludes, enculture far-­reaching
beauty ideals that profoundly shape the way that men and women
think about themselves and each other.
Likewise, much commentary has been expended on the real-­world
effects of social media and the capacity for our increasingly divisive
digital conversations to translate into real-­world aggression. The
Observer journalist Mark Townsend, for example, draws attention to
the growth of right-­wing extremism on online social media and the
potential that such content has to radicalise audiences. ‘An indicator of
the evolving challenge,’ he writes, ‘is the recent move by MI5 to wrest
control from the police of investigations into far-­right plots’
184   Cultivation theory: George Gerbner
Townsend confirms, more worryingly, that, ‘Four extreme rightwing
terror plots were foiled in the year to June 2018, fuelling disquiet over
online forums and their ability to disseminate extremist ideology’
(Townsend, 2019). Gerbner might have formed his conclusions some
50 years ago, but his ideas are readily applicable to the mass media of
today.

Figure 16.1 The Daily Mirror front page (12 December 2018).
© Mirrorpix.
 Cultivation theory: George Gerbner   185

Box 16.5 Apply it: use cultivation theory to create exam

responses for audience-­based questions
Gerbner’s cultivation theory can provide a useful starting point for exam
questions that ask you to consider how audiences might respond to set
texts or unseen products. Think about these questions to help construct
exam relevant analysis:

• What kinds of fears does the media product produce?

• In what ways could the text amplify an audience’s existing fears?
• How might the text produce new attitudes through mainstreaming
effects?
• In what ways does the product convey symbolic power?
• Does the product present middle-­of-the-­road reportage to preserve
its commercial integrity?

Exemplar – The Daily Mirror: ‘Children of 11 Selling Zombie

Drugs’ (Eduqas). The Daily Mirror front page (see Figure 16.1) pro-
vides an excellent example of a media product that contributes, in
Gerbner’s view, to ‘mean world syndrome’. The article constructs a
heightened awareness of criminal activity through the use of a horror-­
oriented semantic field (‘zombie’, ‘evil’) and also through hyperbole
(‘epidemic’). Gerbner would argue that audiences that have experience
of real-­world crime would respond to the article via a ‘resonance’-­
oriented effect – the front page amplifying their pre-­existing perceptions
and fears of drug-­related crime – while audiences whose real-­world
experiences are largely crime free would similarly respond (albeit to a
lesser degree) through a mainstreaming effect. The article, Gerbner
might also argue, produces a stigmatisation of illegal activity, positioning
the audience to develop a broad submissive acceptance of authority as a
result of their exaggerated perceptions of law enforcement activities in
the UK. This kind of media, Gerbner contentiously suggests, does not
perform a social benefit; rather, it constrains its readership, paralysing
them with fear and unwittingly inducing social obedience.

Further exemplars for set texts from all exam boards are available online at www.
essentialmediatheory.com
186   Cultivation theory: George Gerbner

Box 16.6 Compare it: using Stuart Hall’s reception

theory as a contrast to Gerbner
Stuart Hall’s reception theory model can be used to provide a contrast-
ing perspective to Gerbner’s cultivation theory. While Gerbner’s ana-
lysis suggests that audiences have no choice in submitting to media
effects, Hall, in contrast, argues that we can construct oppositional
decodings of texts as a result of our contextual positions (see
Chapter 17).

Table 16.1 Speak George Gerbner

Enculturation The process of learning social norms or behaviours

through watching others or by engaging with culture. The
media contributes to the enculturation of individuals by
making them adopt specific attitudes or outlooks.
Homogenised Television has a homogeneous cultural effect in that its
cultural effects reach and lack of content diversity makes us think the
same things or adopt the same attitudes.
Mainstreaming Gerbner suggests that some groups are less likely to be
affected by television (more educated audiences or those
who have not experienced violence in real life, for
instance). Although the attitudes of these groups are affected
to a lesser extent by the media, they are still prone to some
attitudinal shift as a result of consumption. Television can,
therefore, cultivate problematic attitudes and beliefs within
mainstream society where they had not existed before.
Mean world An outlook that considers the world to be far more
syndrome violent or selfish than it really is.
Middle-of-the- The use of balanced reporting to foster large-scale
road reportage audiences and boost advertising revenue. Middle-of-the-
road reportage positions new or radical ideas as dangerous,
subtly enforcing existing power structures.
Resonance The process of amplifying an idea, attitude or belief
already held by audiences through media consumption.
Stigmatisation The process of demonising groups, individuals or ideas
through media representations.
Symbolic power Those who have power in media narratives (in terms of
gender, class, ethnicity) are legitimised as real-world
power sources.
 Cultivation theory: George Gerbner   187
Table 16.2 Gerbner: ten minute revision

Concept 1: media products shape attitudes and perceptions of the world at large
• Storytelling performs an enculturation role helping to shape our attitudes
and social values.
• Mass media has replaced other institutions, most notably religion and
education, as the principle constructor of symbolic storytelling.
• Television has had a homogenising effect on society – we all watch or
engage in the same symbolic stories as a result of mass media.
• Television schedules are saturated with violent content that cultivates a
widespread fear in society – ‘mean world syndrome’.
• The media can produce resonance or mainstreaming effects on audiences.
Concept 2: media consumption leads audiences to accept established power structures
and mainstream ideologies
• Mass media narratives create symbolic representations of power that affect
our real-world view.
• Mass media products over-exaggerate the power and scope of real-world
authorities.
• Mass media products marginalise alternative viewpoints as a result of
middle-of-the-road reportage.
Three theorists who challenge Gerbner’s thinking
• Stuart Hall: would argue that media products do not produce a cause and
effect response – audiences decode the media using contextual knowledge.
• Henry Jenkins: emphasises the positive effects of media consumption –
suggesting that the media forges communities and allows audiences to
express themselves in positive and creative ways through fan engagement.
• Albert Bandura: would argue that the media directly impacts an
individual’s behaviour and induces consumers to be violent. Gerbner, in
contrast, suggests that media consumption prompts an attitudinal rather
than a behavioural response.
17 Reception theory
Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall’s 1973 essay, ‘Encoding/Decoding’, was groundbreaking.

Prior to Hall’s work, communications models defined the process of
media consumption in a relatively straightforward manner, suggesting
that the media constructed messages that audiences readily consumed
without question. The media was thought to inject ideas into audi-
ences, who offered, in return, little resistance to what they saw, read or
heard. Hall suggested otherwise, asserting that media consumers were
alert and critical readers, listeners and viewers.
Stuart Hall’s writing perhaps captures the spirit of the era and the
numerous possibilities that were unfolding for audiences during the
1970s – to explore alternative viewpoints and to challenge the main-
stream ideologies of the post-­war years. Certainly, Hall, as a Jamaican
immigrant, understood what it meant to stand outside of the main-
stream, and he was critically aware of the way culture could be used to
establish and maintain social inequalities. The revolutionary impact of
his media writing, however, cannot be understated. Hall reframed the
‘cause and effect’ consumption models of the 1950s and 1960s,
acknowledging for the first time the theoretical possibility that audi-
ences do not engage with media products as passive recipients but as
critically engaged readers of media texts.

Concept 1: encoding and decoding

Encoding produces a mediated view of the world

In Hall’s reception theory formula, media products are encoded using
established production processes. A newspaper does not simply record
events as they happen. Stories are harvested by experienced reporters.
 Reception theory: Stuart Hall   189
Events are framed using established story structures. Editorial biases
shape stories to construct versions of the truth that are entertaining,
marketable or persuasive.
Encoding processes, therefore, will always construct a mediated
world view. Journalists do not just report the raw facts; they present a
carefully orchestrated version of those events. They carefully select
interviewees who are chosen to convey a specific outlook. Footage is
sequenced, with key imagery chosen to underline, question or justify
those viewpoints.
Hall further suggests that media encoding processes are framed using
a variety of formal codes, both visual and aural. These codes might not
necessarily be connected to the stories reported, but they enhance
the messages that are relayed. The visual look and colour coding of the
television news studio, for example, gives weight and authority to the
broadcaster’s messages. The formal attire of newsreaders similarly
conveys their professionalism, while the drum-­laden intros of news
bulletins are designed to imply gravity and impending seriousness. It is
no accident that the BBC allows us to look beyond the presenter and
see the vast newsroom with its army of journalists working in the
background. The formal codes of news are thus weighted to convince
us that news narratives have been carefully researched by a team of dil-
igent and experienced professionals.

Encoding and the production process

Hall draws our attention to the following production factors that
channel media encoding:

• Routines of production: the way that products are made and

the routines followed channel encoding effects. The 24-hour news
cycle prompts newspapers to favour breaking news at the expense
of older stories, while the use of courtroom reportage as a routine
journalistic activity inevitably means that criminal cases feature
heavily in news coverage. Processes govern meaning, and an
understanding of how the media is made helps us detect the
hidden biases that media products relay to their audiences.
• Genre-­driven mediation: genre-­driven rules often frame the
visual or narrative structures of media products. In news reportage,
for example, stories are often constructed in a highly formulaic way,
recycling familiar themes, events and characters in genre-­driven
190   Reception theory: Stuart Hall
rituals. Hall was particularly interested, for instance, in the way that
newspapers demonised black masculinity in the 1970s and 1980s, and
the almost endemic use of the black male mugger stereotype within
reportage. We might argue that those same stereotypes have resur-
faced in the contemporary media’s coverage of the UK knife crime
epidemic. In fictional products, too, the narrative structure and char-
acter expectations of genres routinely encode specific representations
within products. In crime drama, writers continue to manufacture
female victims and lone wolf masculine villains – genre-­encoding
rules presiding over any wider gender-­based concerns.
• Institutional context: the media, Hall reminds us, is constructed
by fixed networks of people who collectively create a select per-
spective. The views of those networks might lead to political bias
– indeed, media producers might deliberately choose to employ
people who share the same political bias.
• Predictions regarding audience taste: media producers encode
products in ways they think will appeal to their audience. Assump-
tions regarding audience tastes are used to make sure that products
are commercially viable, yet the extent to which products predict
or, indeed, infer audience thinking is highly debatable. Media pro-
ducers may, in fact, be constructing rather than reflecting audience
attitudes as a result of these practices.

Decoding
Hall suggests that media encoding provides us with an entry point to
understanding the effects that products have on their audiences. An
understanding that just explores encoding, however, does not fully detail
the process through which the media creates meaning. Products may
encode meanings, Hall argues, but that does not necessarily suggest that
audiences understand or decode those ideas in the same way.
Media decoding, Hall argues, is not straightforward. Media products,
he suggests, produce a variety of audience-­based readings because the
media is predominantly constructed using visual signs. These signs, he
further suggests, create an iconic/connotative effect rather than an
explicit/denotative exposition. When we see an image of a cow, for
example, we can all recognise and name the animal appropriately, but we
do not arrive at the same conclusions regarding the image’s connotative
meaning. Some readers might associate cows with nature or regard them
as a symbol that represents the English countryside. Conversely, vegans or
 Reception theory: Stuart Hall   191

Box 17.1 Think about it: what is more important –

encoding or decoding?
• Do you think that media encoding or decoding is more important
in terms of the overriding effect of a media product?
• Are media products polysemic? What arguments might you present
to suggest that they create stable messages?

vegetarians might construct a reading that considers how cows are

exploited through farming, while dairy farmers or vets might produce an
analytical assessment of the animal’s physique or monetary worth.
In short, connotative readings are manufactured through our indi-
vidual experiences and knowledge. This leads Hall to conclude that
the individual signs that encode media products are multi-­accentual
and that media texts, as a whole, are polysemic (poly = many/semic =
signs). In plain English, Hall is simply arguing that audiences read
products in different ways, and that those differences are the result of
their individual experiences. Some audience members might might
form readings that are in line with the original intentions of product
makers, while others will read against the grain of those intentions.

Media misreadings
Hall is careful to highlight the difference between misreading a media
product and producing a reading that is knowingly oppositional. Mis-
reading occurs, he suggests, when audiences do not have the capacity
to fully understand a product’s intended message. Misreadings can be
formed as a result of the following:

• Overly complex narratives. Misunderstandings can be

prompted when stories use overly complicated structures or where
narratives are too experimental. Surrealist narratives or postmodern
expositions might, if too difficult to follow, prevent an audience
from decoding a product successfully.
• Ideas are too alien. Hall also suggests that misreadings can occur
if the nature of content falls beyond the audience’s everyday
experience. For instance, a news story that narrates the attempted
migration of refugees from a war-­torn country might be so far
192   Reception theory: Stuart Hall
removed from the everyday experiences of readers that they are
unable to fully comprehend the intended encoding effects the
story is trying to convey.
• Language elements cannot be decoded. Products can be unde-
cipherable if they have been encoded using a foreign language or if
they deploy vocabulary that is too complex for the intended reader.

Box 17.2 Apply it: do any of the set texts you have

studied invite misreadings?
• Do any of your set texts construct narratives that are overly
complex? What elements or moments of the narrative are particu-
larly problematic?
• Because of their lack of dialogue and short length, music videos are
particularly problematic in terms of generating misreadings. Are
your set text music videos likely to produce misreadings? If not,
how do they compensate for their lack of diegetic sound?
• Do any of the set texts you have studied use language that is too
complicated for their intended target audience? What elements or
moments of the narrative are particularly problematic?
• Do any of the products you have studied produce deliberately
ambiguous messages? Does this make them impossible to decode?

Exemplar: Riptide (Eduqas). Vance Joy’s Riptide music video delivers

a non-­traditional narrative, replacing linear storytelling with a post-
modern exposition that is open to what Hall would call audience mis-
reading. Intertextual references are made to the 1970s cult film The
Wicker Man to construct an ironic female victim stereotype, while later
scenes allude to the voyeuristic eroticisation of femininity we see in
Bond movies. Vance Joy’s video deconstructs gender whilst also offer-
ing a critique of pop culture’s portrayal of femininity. Yet that post-
modern complexity creates, in Hall’s terms, the potential for audiences
to misread the video. Moreover, the lack of dialogue within music
videos generally makes them much harder to decode than those media
forms that use diegesis and scripted speech to help anchor meaning.
Riptide’s deliberate attempt to disconnect the song’s lyrics from
accompanying imagery presents a further frustration, and ultimately
renders the video unintelligible for most casual viewers.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com
 Reception theory: Stuart Hall   193
Concept 2: dominant, negotiated and
oppositional decoding

Cultural hegemonies
Hall applies Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to suggest that
an invisible set of rules governs and directs our behaviours and beliefs.
Hegemonies, Hall argues, define what we think is ‘ “natural”, “inevit-
able”, “taken for granted” about the social order’ (Hall, 1999, 516).
More importantly, the mainstream media, he suggests, plays a crucial
role in maintaining and reinforcing those dominant ideologies.
It could be argued, for instance, that newspapers endorse and
reinforce the legitimacy of our parliamentary system through report-
age. Political stories often feature as front page leads, helping to
reinforce the authority of our political leaders. Deferential interviews
might convince us that politicians work to affect our best interests.
News media might also persuade us that a private school education or
a professional background makes for the best political leaders and, as
such, that it is natural that the upper middle classes dominate our polit-
ical system.
These ideas, of course, are not ‘natural’ or ‘common sense’. They
are, in Hall’s terms, social constructs, shared and distributed in a way
that helps to maintain the power of those who dominate and control
our social structures. Hall, moreover, argues that those who wield

Box 17.3 Think about it: what evidence is there to

suggest that your set texts reinforce dominant
ideologies?
• What messages do the set texts encode regarding social power?
Who do they suggest ought to be in control? Who are our ‘natural’
leaders?
• What messages do the set texts encode regarding gender and
power? What roles do those products suggest are natural for males
and females?
• What messages do your set texts encode regarding race and power?
• Can we really conclude that the contemporary media industry
solely reflects dominant ideologies? In what ways do your set texts
encode subversive messages?
194   Reception theory: Stuart Hall
social power maintain authority because they control the media or are
able, at the very least, to forge close relationships with media makers so
that their vision of the world is communicated as ‘natural’ or
‘inevitable’.
Of course, hegemonies and dominant ideologies are not static. The
hegemonic ideas that come to dominate have to be applied and reap-
plied via the continuous stream of material that is authored by the
media. The authors of that media, moreover, change continuously:
audiences seek out new voices, while marginalised social groups find
ways to make themselves heard within mainstream discourse. And,
much like high street fashion or the ephemeral nature of a music trend,
we find that hegemonic ideas become outworn and are discarded while
a continuous stream of new ideas bubble to the surface as
replacements.

Cultural resistance and hegemonic agreement

Media producers might encode messages that reinforce dominant ideo-
logies, but it is not necessarily true that all audience members will
submit to those ideas in a passive or submissive manner. On the con-
trary, Hall suggests that audiences engage in a continuous assessment of
the media they consume and, as a result, they can resist any hegemonic
encodings they might construct.
Audiences, Hall tells us, create readings using ‘situated logics’ (Hall,
1999, 516) – filtering the world according to their individual know-
ledge and experience. A benefits claimant, for example, who has
experienced poverty and hardship as a result of a benefits sanction will
be less likely to accept a media message that promotes austerity politics.
A life-­long Labour Party supporter might similarly decode the right-­
leaning The Daily Mail with a degree of scepticism while, conversely,
the same ‘situated logics’ might lead Conservative Party voters to
dismiss a The Guardian editorial as equally misleading.
Hall argues that the following groups of media decoding are pos-
sible if we take into account the potential effects of contextual factors
and ‘situated logics’:

• Dominant readings: audiences decode media products and

accept the dominant cultural messages produced by a product.
Here, audiences knowingly agree with the hegemonic messages
constructed by professional media.
 Reception theory: Stuart Hall   195
• Negotiated readings: audiences might produce a negotiated
reading if the encoder’s message is acknowledged in general terms,
but individual experiences lead an audience member to question
or resist some aspects of the message. Thus, audiences knowingly
agree with some of the hegemonic statements produced by profes-
sional media while questioning other aspects.
• Oppositional readings: audiences understand the message but
refuse to believe it or use their personal experience/ideological
viewpoint to challenge the message produced. In this way, audi-
ences knowingly produce a contrary reading of the hegemonic
statements produced by the media.

Box 17.4 Apply it: what multiple readings of your set

texts can audiences produce?
Use these questions to help you identify how dominant, oppositional or
negotiated readings of your set texts might be constructed by different
audience groups:

• How might the political beliefs of the audience lead them to con-
struct negotiated or oppositional decodings? What might these
oppositional decodings be?
• How might the social class of readers lead them to produce an
alternative reading of your set texts?
• How might males and females react differently to the set texts you
are studying?
• In what ways might a contemporary audience react differently to
the historical set texts you have studied? In what ways does their
contemporary experience enable them to construct oppositional
readings?

Exemplar: The Daily Mail front page, Thursday 14 December

2017 (OCR and AQA). Under the editorial stewardship of Paul
Dacre, The Daily Mail clearly took an editorial stance that was designed
to appeal to a right-­wing readership. The Daily Mail championed the
merits of a hard Brexit – the ‘Proud of Yourselves’ front page accused
MPs who voted against the advancement of the EU exit of being trai-
tors of democracy. The newspaper encodes the hegemonic champion-
ing of British democratic values, positioning the reader to view Brexit
as a democratic necessity. A right-­wing readership will, most likely,
196   Reception theory: Stuart Hall
create a dominant reading – agreeing that the parliamentarians in ques-
tion are ‘malcontents’. Yet, a left-­wing readership would inevitably
decode the The Daily Mail’s messages differently – using their contex-
tual knowledge of the newspaper’s bias and their own beliefs to con-
struct a contrary view of the MPs.

Further exemplar paragraphs for set texts from all exam boards are available at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

Table 17.1 Speak Stuart Hall

Decoding Media audiences read the messages that producers

construct.
Dominant readings Dominant readings occur when audiences
knowingly decode texts in the way they were
intended by media makers. Audiences agree with
any hegemonic encodings.
Encoding Media institutions encode media products – using
honed processes and strategies to produce media
products that communicate messages to their
audiences.
Hegemony The set of ideas that dominate within society –
these ideas are usually formed by those groups
who have power. Hegemonies often legitimise
the power of elite social groups. The media plays
a key role in distributing hegemonic messages to
all sections of society.
Misreading An audience reading that fails to correctly decode
the intended meaning of a media product as a
result of its complexity or illegibility.
Negotiated readings Negotiated readings occur when audiences both
resist and accept the messages constructed by a
media product.
Oppositional readings Oppositional readings occur when audiences use
their individual knowledge, beliefs or experiences
to construct a contrary reading of a media text.
Situated logics Refers to kinds of experience, knowledge and
beliefs that an individual audience member has
when decoding a product. This might also refer
to the physical environment in which decoding
occurs.
 Reception theory: Stuart Hall   197
Table 17.2 Hall: ten minute revision

Concept 1: Encoding and decoding

• Professional media encodes messages using visual and aural cues.
• Media encoding is affected by institutional context, media production
processes and genre-driven routines.
• Media products are polysemic as a result of their use of visual signs.
• Audiences do not necessarily decode the meanings that media producers
effect in a straightforward way.
• Audiences can misread products if they are too complex or are
untranslatable.
Concept 2: Dominant, negotiated and oppositional readings
• Media products reinforce dominant ideologies and cultural hegemonies.
• Dominant ideologies are subject to change – again, the media plays a
crucial role in effecting those changes.
• Audiences use ‘situated logics’ to decode media messages.
• Audiences can produce readings of products that accept the dominant
ideologies they construct.
• Audiences can use their contextual knowledge to read against the grain of
a media product and to thus produce negotiated or oppositional decodings.
Three theorists who might challenge Hall’s thinking
• George Gerbner: would suggest that audiences find it difficult to resist
the effects of media products. Gerbner’s mainstreaming theory would
suggest that even the least susceptible audience members experience
attitudinal change as a result of media exposure.
• Albert Bandura: his Bobo doll experiments would suggest that the media
has a causal effect on audience behaviours and prompts audiences to copy
behaviours they have seen in the media.
• David Gauntlett: would argue that media products do not necessarily
reinforce cultural hegemonies. Contemporary media products offer a wide
range of identities and subversions that often work in opposition to
dominant ideologies.
18 Fandom
Henry Jenkins

Jenkins’ research represents, in many senses, an extension of Stuart

Hall’s audience reception model in that fan readings of professional
media, according to Jenkins, often produce oppositional responses to
the meanings intended by their creators. Indeed, fandoms, for Jenkins,
are visible markers of an audience’s capacity to produce aberrant read-
ings of professional media and provide, moreover, substantial evidence
that audiences are active media consumers.
Jenkins’ later academic research is similarly interested in the way
that audiences consume the media, examining the impact that digital
technologies have had on audience–producer relationships. Jenkins
traces two major effects of the digital revolution: first, that media pro-
ducers and their audiences have converged as a result of digital net-
working effects – that, in other words, viewers and creators have
forged a closer relationship as a result of digital networking; and,
second, that audiences are increasingly engaging in what he calls par-
ticipatory culture. Participatory culture, in Jenkins’ view, covers a wide
range of DIY media practices, but it is principally affected when audi-
ences use technologies to form online communities. For Jenkins, the
exponential growth of participatory culture is a media game changer in
that it empowers audiences to effect wider social change.

Concept 1: fan appropriation

In his groundbreaking 1992 book, Textual Poachers, Jenkins engages in
what he calls an ‘ethnographic’ study of fandoms – an insider’s account
of how fans build communities. Jenkins was particularly interested in
the print-­based fanzines of the pre-­internet era whose lo-­fi products
were distributed by old-­fashioned mail and authored by amateur
 Fandom: Henry Jenkins   199
writers who were keen to share the stories they had written in response
to shows such as Blake 7, Doctor Who and Star Trek.
Jenkins’ analysis suggested that those early fan communities were far
more complex than they first appeared or were given credit for. ‘Fan
culture,’ he tells us, ‘reflects both the audience’s fascination with pro-
grams and [the] fans’ frustration over the refusal/inability of producers
to tell the kinds of stories viewers want to see’ (Jenkins, 2013, 162).
Jenkins argues that fanfiction plugs the gap that exists between the
needs of audiences and the commercially safe output of the shows they
watch. Jenkins groups fanfiction output using the following categories:

• Recontextualisations are fan-­produced stories that fill in missing

scenes or provide backstory to explain character actions from a
particular moment in a product narrative.
• Expanded series timelines provide imagined sequels for a par-
ticular show. The short-­lived 1980s cult hit Blake 7, for example,
was a particular frustration for fans who wanted the BBC to
recommission it. Fans invented their own sequels when it became
clear that the BBC was not going to commission any new
episodes.
• Refocalisations construct stories that reposition minor or sec-
ondary characters as central protagonists.
• Moral realignments supply antagonists and villains with back-
stories that explain their dark motives and morally dubious charac-
ter traits.
• Crossovers are stories in which characters from one show might
be placed within the context/timeline of another product. Doctor
Who’s TARDIS, for instance, might appear in the middle of a Star
Wars sequence.
• Personalisations are stories that place the amateur author at the
centre of a professional narrative. The writer might play a heroic
role or develop a romantic engagement with a product’s
protagonist.
• Eroticisation: Jenkins suggests that ‘fan writers, freed of the
restraints of network censors, often want to explore the erotic
dimensions of characters’ lives’ (Jenkins, 2013, 175). In the liber-
ated world of fanfiction, eroticisation gives free reign to audiences
who want to move beyond the secret nods and winks that are
made within TV shows to create reworked (and subversive) adult
reimaginings of character interaction.
200   Fandom: Henry Jenkins
Reconstructing hypermasculinity/realigning heteronormativity
Erotic fanfiction, perhaps, contributes most to the lay perception of fan
activity as a marginal, slightly seedy exercise carried out by obsessive
nerds; but it is this category of fan activity that attracted the most signi-
ficant analysis by Jenkins. His early research focused on a sub-­genre of
slash fanfiction in which heterosexual lead characters are repositioned
within gay storylines. Slash fiction might engineer, for instance, a
sexual liaison between two lead males or create stories that resolve in a
romantic union between a product’s masculine hero and their erst-
while male nemesis.
Jenkins’ asserts, importantly, that slash fiction is often written by
heterosexual female audiences who are writing to express their frustration
at the dominance of hypermasculine tropes within mainstream television.
Female audiences, Jenkins suggests, yearn for male characters who are less
aggressive, and, in their absence, they use fanfiction to reconstruct their
on-­screen heroes to represent a sensitive or more feminised ideal.
Jenkins, too, alerts us to the marginalisation of gay characters within
mainstream television, suggesting that the widescale absence of lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) representations is negotiated by
fans through imaginative reworkings in their fanfiction. Jenkins also
suggests that source texts often provide the starting points for these
appropriations – a male character might nod in a suggestive manner to
a secondary male; dialogue might offer a hint of forbidden love. The
writers of slash fiction merely pursue the subtle cues laid down by a
show’s professional writers, who, Jenkins tells us, are restrained from
producing overt gay storylines by the commercial imperative to keep
stories ‘straight’.

Box 18.1 Think about it: fanfiction and textual poaching

• Is today’s media landscape dominated by a narrow range of character
representations? Think about the stock characters used in TV
drama in terms of gender, class, age or ethnicity.
• Examine the fanfiction that surrounds your TV set texts. In what
ways does fan activity evidence the idea that audiences are active
consumers?
• Does fan activity fill in any representation gaps present in the
set text?
 Fandom: Henry Jenkins   201
Concept 2: audience–producer convergence in
the digital age

Fan communities
By sharing fanfiction with like-­minded others, individual audience
members can forge connections with a wider community. Importantly,
Jenkins tells us, the development of the internet has facilitated an expo-
nential explosion of textual poaching practices while also prompting a
convergence of audience–producer relations. While fans were once
reliant on the physical distribution of their fan output through print-­
based products, digital media, with its peer-­to-peer networking cap-
abilities, has sped up the process of fan communication and enabled a
wider scope of fan networks.
The digital revolution has impacted on fandom in the
following ways:

• Digital technologies have given fans a new range of tools

to express their voice. While traditional fandoms relied heavily
on fanzines, contemporary fan culture works within a wider scope
of formats, including video remixes, YouTube parodies and recre-
ations, mashups and fan-­based artwork.
• Digital networking has enabled an ever-­widening diversity
of professional media to have fan followings. While fan
communities were once restricted to products that had a cult
status, fandoms are now attached to nearly all film and TV media.
From Songs of Praise to Star Wars, from My Little Pony to Lego,
most media products have a social media community connected
to them.
• Fan engagement can be realised in real time. Through con-
temporary digital networks, fans share, interact and communicate
with one another both during and immediately after broadcast
transmissions.

Audience power, digital media and instant feedback

Fandom has also enabled what Jenkins calls ‘consumer activism’
(Jenkins, 2013, 175), whereby the instantaneous reactions of audience
members adhere to form an informal focus group that speaks back to
media producers. In this sense, fan engagement acts as a real-­time
202   Fandom: Henry Jenkins
assessment of a product’s appeal. Media producers, moreover, are ever
alert to the collective voice of these fan groups – soliciting and chan-
nelling fan interaction via Twitter hashtags to help shape the direction
and content of their products.
Fans, however, can deliberately channel their collective voice into
campaigns that are designed to change or boycott products. Online
petitions and hashtag memes can be quickly orchestrated on social
media to vent fan anger when a character is killed off or, potentially, to
‘call out’ more serious concerns regarding representation issues.

Nourishing fan bases to exploit the digital labour of audiences

Jenkins, too, outlines the extent to which contemporary media pro-
ducers court and nourish fan bases to construct brand awareness and to
maintain product loyalty. Audiences, he suggests, play an integral role
in distributing and circulating modern media products through social
media platforms. By inducing audiences to share or ‘like’ content
online, media makers are able to market or advertise media for
minimal cost.
In the traditional media landscape, fans and producers occupied dis-
tinctly separate territories. Fans consumed, while producers laboured in
isolation to make the products that so occupied their audiences’ inter-
ests. Both sides of this traditional consumption equation rarely
interacted.
The digital media landscape, however, creates a much closer con-
sumption relationship. Audiences and producers have converged, with
audiences now playing an integral part in content development, while
producers are ever more reliant on the digital labour of their audiences
to market and distribute their products within the fragmented broad-
cast networks that make up the modern media landscape.

Social media tactics used to drive audience engagement

The following audience–producer convergence strategies are deployed
by contemporary media products:

• Transmedia storytelling. Products are ‘transmedia’ if they are

relayed across multiple platforms. Web-­based content might
outline character backstories. Twitter accounts might be used to
give fictional characters a real-­life presence. Transmedia storytelling
 Fandom: Henry Jenkins   203

Box 18.2 Research it: diagnose the level of audience–

producer convergence in your set texts
Use the following questions to help structure your research into the
effects and scope of audience–producer convergence regarding your set
texts.

Diagnosing audience effects on products

• In what ways do the media set texts you are studying construct
audience feedback mechanisms? What Twitter hashtags do
they use?
• What do the fans tell their producers on social media platforms?
• Have the set texts been subject to an online campaign to change
any aspects?
• Has audience power shaped the set texts you are producing?

Diagnosing producer use of fan labour

• How do products take advantage of the digital labour of their fans
to help market and distribute their products?
• Have trailers or other promotional material been released on
YouTube? How many hits, reposts or ‘likes’ has this material
gained?
• Do set text products deliberately nourish fan groups or fan activity?
Do they make fan kits available for download? Have they con-
structed a fan wiki or an official fan website?

Further audience–producer convergence help sheets are available for set texts
from all exam boards at www.essentialmediatheory.com.

rewards loyal fans with additional content while expanding the

storytelling possibilities of the brand. Transmedia story formats,
more importantly, give producers the ability to market their prod-
ucts through smartphone ownership and audience sharing.
• Promotional preview material release. Producers exploit fan
power by releasing promotional material through fan networks.
Using fan labour to market and advertise products is highly cost
effective.
• Twitter hashtags. Fan debate can be successfully channelled
using hashtags – this also allows producers to track fan opinion.
204   Fandom: Henry Jenkins
• Product maker interactions. Interviews, post-­show web chats
and ‘behind the scenes’ footage are incredibly easy ways to bring
fans and producers together. These moments promote a personal
engagement with products.
• Fan repostings. Audience engagement is further facilitated by
reposting content or comments made by fans. In this way, media
producers can construct a sense that they are engaging with fans at
a personal level.
• Textual poaching invites. Products deliberately include material
that is designed to prompt a fan response. For instance, when
James Bond hints at his bisexual past in Skyfall, fans were invited
to manufacture material that recontextualised 007’s heterosexuality
– directing Bond audiences to engage in textual poaching practices
for the purpose of brand cultivation.
• Competitions, giveaways and other loyalty rewards. Prod-
ucts maintain the visibility of their brands by providing a steady
stream of digital rewards. Giving away downloadable extras, fan
kits, wallpapers and regular updates are all designed to keep prod-
ucts alive and their audiences primed for sequels or further
releases.
• Crossover events. Products often team up with other brands to
take part in joint events. Crossovers enable brands to gain expo-
sure to other product’s fan bases.

Box 18.3 Revise it: diagnose the use of social media to

promote/distribute set texts
This activity is particularly useful for exam questions that ask you identify
digital marketing strategies used by media producers. It can also be useful
when discussing how set texts engage with their audiences through digital
technology. Analyse relevant set texts using the following prompts:

• How has YouTube been used to market or advertise the product?

Diagnose ‘likes’ or ‘share’ stats to help build a picture of the effec-
tiveness of this strategy.
• In what ways do set texts used transmedia storytelling to enhance
brand visibility?
• Research the social media tactics deployed by set text marketers.
What notable strategies did they employ? How effective were
they? What is innovative about their use of social media?
 Fandom: Henry Jenkins   205
Exemplar 1: Stranger Things (OCR) – use of fan power to market
season two. Most shows construct official fan pages and YouTube chan-
nels to distribute preview material and promos. The official Facebook fan
page of the hit series Stranger Things has garnered over six million followers,
while the release of the Stranger Things season two trailer received 330,000
‘likes’ on YouTube and prompted over 21,000 comments. It was no acci-
dent that the trailer was deliberately enigmatic, thus promoting a plethora
of discussion and fan theorising before the first episode of the new season
was aired. This marketing strategy deliberately took advantage of what
Jenkins would call audience–producer convergence – exploiting fan labour
to create an effective and cost free marketing plan for the product.

Exemplar 2: Humans (Eduqas) – using transmedia storytelling

to build brand engagement online. The set text Humans was uni-
versally applauded for its transmedia storytelling marketing campaign.
Before the series was initially aired on Channel 4, audiences were
encouraged to visit a fake website that supposedly sold robots from the
Synthetica Persona factory. Fans could arrange for the collection of
defunct models, while an online discussion feature on the site allowed
audiences to converse with imaginary customer service personnel.
Another layer of authenticity was constructed with the creation of
character-­based Twitter accounts that fed live tweets regarding the
show’s narrative direction. Transmedia storytelling was thus designed to
encourage fan power and create a cost-­effective marketing campaign to
engage audiences in advance of the episode one broadcast.

Further set text help is available for a range of products for all exam boards at
www.essentialmediatheory.com

Concept 3: fans use participatory culture to effect

wider social change

Cyber utopianism and Nicholas Negroponte

In many senses, Jenkins is a torch bearer for a largely optimistic view
of the internet’s potential. Nicholas Negroponte was one of the first
commentators to recognise the earth-­shattering potential of the web
during its infancy in the 1990s. ‘The information superhighway,’
Negroponte wrote in 1995, ‘may be mostly hype today, but it is an
understatement about tomorrow. It will exist beyond people’s wildest
predictions’ (Negroponte, 1995, 231). Negroponte, like Jenkins,
embraced the digital revolution with open arms. Digital technology,
206   Fandom: Henry Jenkins
he argued, will be ‘a natural force drawing people into greater world
harmony’ (Negroponte, 1995, 230). ‘We will socialise in digital neigh-
bourhoods in which physical space will be irrelevant,’ he prophesied,
‘The digital planet will look and feel like the head of a pin’ (Negro-
ponte, 1995, 6).
Negroponte’s optimism regarding digital technology can be grouped
into the following arguments – these are equally applicable to Jenkins’
view of contemporary digital media:

• Personalisation: the internet will enable us to consume media/

information that is tailored to our needs and desires.
• Democratisation: because no one is in charge of the internet, it
is immune from the abuses of large-­scale organisations, govern-
ments or powerful multinational companies. The internet is a
space in which every voice can be heard.
• Miniaturisation: the internet will make the world a smaller
place. Ideas are globally shared, resulting in the collapse of cultural
differences and the erosion of social divisions.

Jenkins – the cyber utopian

Jenkins’ thinking mirrors much of Negroponte’s early cyber optimism.
‘Audiences,’ Jenkins argues, ‘empowered by these new technologies…
are demanding the right to participate’ (Jenkins, 2006a, 24). New tech-
nologies, he suggests, both democratise and miniaturise the world in that
they provide ordinary audiences with the means to participate in wider
social discussions. Participatory culture gives us all a voice, Jenkins
argues, with communities forming around these digital discussions in
ways that clearly mimic Negroponte’s ‘digital neighbourhoods’.
Jenkins is careful, however, to distinguish the practices that consti-
tute participatory culture from the wider term ‘Web 2.0’. For Jenkins,
Web 2.0 defines a wide range of commercial activities that major media
corporations use across the web – product distribution, sales/marketing
functions and so forth. Stripped to its essential core, Web 2.0 is a busi-
ness model driven by profit.
Participatory culture, Jenkins argues, is distinctly different in that its
motives are community and knowledge oriented. Participatory culture
exists not to make money, but to allow its members to exchange
information, and to express themselves creatively while also providing
a space in which fan creations can be shared with others.
 Fandom: Henry Jenkins   207
From cultures to online participation
The roots of participatory culture, Jenkins claims, can be found in the
folk traditions that preceded the mass media era – in the songs and
music that working-­class musicians shared with one another before
mass radio broadcasting. Participatory culture today can be located in
the amateur arts groups and drama clubs – places where ordinary
people can create, share and experiment. And, Jenkins suggests, these
communities have, in part, migrated to become digital networks –
existing alongside, yet distinctly different to, the commercial activities
of Web 2.0.
What excites Jenkins most about participatory culture is its value
as an identity enabler. The online fanfictions written in response to
traditional media products give voice to an audience’s desires and
needs. Peer-­to-peer videos fill the gaps that professionally produced
media products cannot or will not occupy. And, in making and
sharing DIY media, fans are engaging in community-­based
discussion.
Jenkins, moreover, perceives that the internet has the capacity to
translate that discussion into political engagement. We can see that
process in action when we look at the #MeToo campaign that formed
in response to the Harvey Weinstein allegations. What started out as a
Hollywood scandal concerning the alleged abuse of women by media
mogul Harvey Weinstein quickly mushroomed into an online global
campaign, to protest against misogyny and male abuse more generally.
Jenkins, too, draws our attention to the Harry Potter Alliance – an
organisation that has channelled fan power into global political activ-
ism through its campaigns to promote worldwide gender equality,
among other things.

Box 18.4 Discuss it: in what ways is the internet a force

for social good?
• Is the internet a force for social good? What concrete evidence can
you present to support arguments that it exerts a positive influence
on society?
• Can you think of any online campaigns that have tried to create
social change? Have they been effective?
• In what ways does the internet create purposeful communities?
208   Fandom: Henry Jenkins
The cult of the amateur
Jenkins, however, can be criticised for the one-­sided nature of his dis-
cussion – for presenting, perhaps, an over-­inflated optimism regarding
the potential benefits of our digital networks. In his 2008 book, The
Cult of the Amateur, Andrew Keen draws attention to the effect that
user-­generated content has had in terms of shifting the quality of our
media experiences. Keen mourns the loss of traditional media produc-
tion, arguing that professionally-­produced content is made by highly
trained media specialists who work, for the most part, with ethical
integrity. For Keen, traditional media production is important because
it fulfils a gatekeeping function. Traditional media filters our news so
that only the most reliable information becomes public, and it further
filters cultural production so that the best music, the best film and the
best TV are visible.
Conversely, participatory culture allows amateur journalists to
unwittingly mislead us or to radicalise our viewpoints with one-­sided
debate. Participatory culture might have democratised the media, but
it has also allowed fake news to garner as much attention as authentic
journalism. Participatory culture might have given us a remix culture,
but even the most cursory look at YouTube will reveal an endless
stream of second rate products – cat videos and vlogs made by product-
­sponsored influencers.
Jenkins neatly divides professional and amateur production in two,
suggesting that audiences are able to disentangle these distinct strands.
But, for Keen, the divide between those two worlds has blurred – and
that is problematic. YouTube vlogging gives us authentic content, he

Box 18.5 Discuss it: in what ways is the internet

problematic?
• How has social media affected political debate in the UK?
• Look carefully at the user comments on the online versions of your
newspaper set texts – how would you describe the tone of the
debate? Is the commentary problematic?
• Do people really use YouTube to create peer-­to-peer connections
or has it been hijacked for more commercial purposes?
• In
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what ways is the internet controlled by a handful of global com-
panies? In what ways is their dominance problematic?
 Fandom: Henry Jenkins   209
suggests, yet others work as nothing more than extended advertorials
that are designed to subtly and unknowingly coerce us into buying
sponsored content.
Keen, too, critiques the indexing system that controls our access to
the internet, arguing that Google and YouTube search engine rankings
are governed, for the most part, by popularity rather than any notion
of accuracy. The sites that are visited the most are ranked the highest,
whether or not the information they communicate is useful, skilfully
researched or relevant. Thus, we have to temper Jenkins’ notion that
digitally-­driven participatory culture is a force for good with the idea
that the net is equally capable of misleading us.

Table 18.1 Speak Henry Jenkins

Audience–producer The coming together of media producers and

convergence audiences, principally through digital
communications.
Cyber dystopianism The belief that digital technologies have an
adverse effect on society.
Cyber utopianism The belief that digital media can and is creating
positive social change.
Media democratisation Placing media power in the hands of ordinary
audience members.
Fan labour The work, often free of charge, executed by fans
and audiences to distribute or construct media for
larger companies.
Participatory culture The use of DIY media by audiences – usually to
effect change or to share information.
Participatory culture is not devised for
commercial purposes.
Textual poaching Appropriating media products for purposes that
were not originally intended.
Transmedia Using multiple media platforms to tell stories.
storytelling
Web 2.0 The commercial activities of the web.
210   Fandom: Henry Jenkins
Table 18.2 Jenkins: ten minute revision

Concept 1: fans appropriate media texts, producing readings that are not fully
authorised by media producers
• Jenkins suggests that audiences are able to use professional texts as ‘creative
scaffolding’ on which they craft their own readings of products.
• Textual poaching can be used by marginalised fans to explore alternative
readings to mainstream culture.
• Textual poaching in the digital age can take many forms, including
fanfiction, remix culture, fan art or video parodies.
Concept 2: fans and media makers have converged as a result of digital technology
• Digital technologies have brought audiences and producers together.
• The digital revolution has expanded the scope of fandoms.
• Producers use their fans’ digital labour to promote and market media.
• Contemporary media producers deliberately construct material to engage
fan interest.
Concept 3: fans use participatory culture to effect wider social change
• Participatory culture is distinctly different from the commercial activities of
Web 2.0.
• Participatory culture allows individuals to share and develop ideas with a
like-minded community.
• Participatory culture can create social change.
Three theorists who might challenge Jenkins’ thinking
• James Curran and Jean Seaton: argue that the internet is dominated by
an oligopoly of commercial companies thus minimising the potential
effects of participatory culture.
• David Hesmondhalgh: might agree that the internet has resulted in
audience–producer convergence, but would argue that the media industry
is still heavily reliant upon traditional marketing activities to reduce
product risk. Media makers might engage in fan-based listening activities
to construct or adapt products, but formulaic product design (using stars/
genre codes) remains a consistent focus of product content.
• Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt: suggest that the global nature of the
net and the volume of material uploaded make effective regulation very
difficult. New technology might open up the media to democratising
forces and the development of new communities, but it is also open to
potential abuse.
19 The end of audience
Clay Shirky

‘We are living,’ Shirky tells us, ‘in the middle of the largest increase in
expressive capability in the history of the human race’ (Shirky, 2008,
106). The economic and social impact presented by the digital revolu-
tion, he suggests, can be compared to that of Gutenberg’s printing
press in the fifteenth century. Gutenberg’s invention, perhaps, makes
him the great-­grandfather of mass communication, and by placing
English translations of the Bible in the hands of ordinary citizens he
assisted in the overthrow of religious and state power as it stood in the
late medieval period. Shirky argues that the internet roll-­out has had
an equally revolutionary impact, placing mass communication tools in
the hands of audiences, democratising media production so that
ordinary people can organise and communicate widescale social
change.

Concept 1: everybody makes the media

Communications and broadcast media technologies

The emergence of new communications technologies in the late nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries – the telephone, fax machines,
pagers and so forth – allowed mass one-­to-one communications to
take place over distances that had previously presented senders and
receivers with enormous obstacles. The twentieth century also bore
witness to the parallel development of a range of broadcast media tech-
nologies that kindled a one-­to-many communications revolution.
Shirky argues, too, that the broadcast media of the twentieth
century – cinema, radio and television – are a historical anomaly in
that the dominance of these forms within our leisure time has created
212   The end of audience: Clay Shirky
and nurtured audience passivity. Broadcast media consumption, Shirky
claims, means that ‘at work we’re office drones, at home we’re couch
potatoes’ (Shirky, 2010, 11). At no other point in history, he infers,
were audiences as subdued as they were in the latter half of the twen-
tieth century.
Shirky also points to the respective public and private characters
of those newly emergent twentieth-­century communications tech-
nologies. Telephone-­based conversations, Shirky explains, take place
between just two participants, while the contents of those one-­to-
one communications are typically private in nature. Conversely,
broadcast media is designed for public consumption and the scale and
expense of the equipment needed to make broadcast-­quality content
limits the production of television, film or radio products to a small
number of well-­placed organisations that have the necessary financial
clout to make them. Television communication might create content
that is publicly distributed, but the limited number of creators
engaged in manufacturing content effects a one-­to-many communi-
cations dynamic. And that, in Shirky’s view, means that twentieth-­
century media power lay in the hands of the few rather than
the many.

The digital revolution: the convergence of personal and

broadcast media forms
Shirky argues that the advances made to computer-­processing power
during the early 1990s enabled communications and broadcast media
technologies to converge. The miniaturisation of that technology
enabled, in short, the invention of devices that could be used for both
private and public communication. Email, for example, can be directed
to a single recipient (one-­to-one communication) or can be broadcast
as a marketing mailshot (one-­to-many communications). A similar
blurring of broadcast and personal communication technologies is
enabled through social media in that users can direct messages to single
followers within their networks, or post updates to larger groups.
Digital innovation, Shirky further argues, substantially reduced
the production barriers that prevented audiences from making their
own broadcast media. YouTube users, for example, can make their
own content and distribute it to mass audiences without the need to own
prohibitively expensive production studios or editing suites. Likewise,
Instagram and Twitter users can garner followings that rival the
 The end of audience: Clay Shirky   213
a­ udience reach of established lifestyle magazines or traditional media
broadcasters using nothing more than smartphone technology.
The simultaneous merging of public/private technologies, coupled
with the reduction of broadcast entry barriers, leads Shirky to conclude
that contemporary digital media exists as a spectrum of personal and
broadcast media effects. At the communications end of that spectrum
we find small-­scale, close-­knit groups who share content within the
confines of a secure messaging group. Think here of an extended
family unit using WhatsApp to share personal photographs or of a
group of classmates using a messaging network to collaborate on a
homework project. Social media of this kind shares the same hallmarks
as the communications-­based technologies of old: conversations are
constructed for a private audience and are two-­way in nature.

Digital media and mass amateurisation

Shirky also highlights the potential for contemporary audiences to use
peer-­to-peer digital networking to cultivate mass broadcast followings.
Indeed, the power of the digital revolution is such that everyday users
can procure the same kind of celebrity status that was once the sole
preserve of cinema, television and radio. Shirky tells us that mass ama-
teurisation in the contemporary age is effective because:

• Amateur products can be distributed both quickly and on a

global scale. While traditional mass broadcasting relies on tele-
vision and radio transmitters or on chains of cinemas, digital media
can be globally distributed without any substantial financial outlay.
Similarly, the production processes of traditional television broad-
casters are incredibly slow when compared with the ability of
YouTubers to make and distribute content at the touch of a button.
• Digital distribution enables audience feedback. The one-­
way communications dynamic of traditional mass broadcasting
means that audiences are not able to provide feedback to produc-
ers. Digital media, conversely, reacts quickly to audience feedback,
using ‘likes’, ‘shares’ and user-­generated commentary to diagnose
impact – often using that data to refine further content.

As a result, peer-­to-peer digital networks now compete with, and

in some instances have usurped, the reach of traditional mass broad-
casting providers. But, Shirky suggests, any expansion of these amateur
214   The end of audience: Clay Shirky

Box 19.1 Think about it: the convergence of

communications and broadcast media
• In what ways do your online set texts engage a ‘communications’-
oriented relationship with their audience?
• Do any of your online set texts exemplify mass amateurisation
media?
• In what ways do these online mass amateurisation set texts
­exemplify Shirky’s idea that online media quickly adopts a broad-
cast relationship when mass audiences are achieved?

networks comes at a cost. The larger one’s audience, he argues, the

more difficult it is to engage in meaningful conversations with any
single recipient. What might begin as a one-­to-one communication­-
oriented conversation turns into the impersonal one-­way dynamic of a
broadcast media relationship once a mass viewership is engaged.
The unusually short lifespans of some celebrity vloggers can perhaps
be explained as a consequence of this dynamic, in that YouTubers often
construct initial audience appeal through a personalised engagement with
a small fan base. That initial intimacy, and potentially the authenticity of
the vlog, becomes much harder to sustain as those fan bases expand.

Filter first, publish later

To ensure that the huge sums of money needed to make and distribute
products are well spent, traditional media broadcasting, Shirky tells us,
effects a robust filtering process. Quality controlling the content of tra-
ditional broadcast media, he explains, helps producers cultivate the
mass audiences needed to justify or sustain production. The pre-­vetting
of content by traditional broadcasters is a necessity, Shirky argues, and
ensures the valuable financial reserves of broadcasters are only spent on
products that have the most potential to be popular and profitable. As
a result, established editorial processes dominate traditional production.
Quality control processes, Shirky further argues, can be readily applied
to mass media because of the relatively small number of products that
are made.
In the digital world, however, Shirky suggests that a ‘publish first,
filter later’ mentality dominates. The ease with which digital media can
be assimilated and published significantly reduces publication barriers,
 The end of audience: Clay Shirky   215
while the lack of traditional commercial overheads – salary expenses,
taxation or more general running costs – means that amateur producers
can publish higher risk content because the potential impact of failure
is financially low. Indeed, Shirky claims that failure is an endemic
feature of the internet and that the web is a space that invites constant
experimentation: ‘by reducing the cost of failure,’ he writes, the web,
‘enable[s] … participants to fail like crazy’ (Shirky, 2008, 246).

The impossibility of pre-­filtering

The ‘publish first, filter later’ model of the internet might invite exper-
imentation, but the lack of editorial control enacted by digital content
makers also presents some significant problems. Traditional broadcast-
ers might be inclined to play it safe, but the editorial processes they use
to control production perform a vital gatekeeping role. Those controls
protect audiences from fake news or politically extreme content. They
shield vulnerable audiences from excessively graphic material or
explicit narratives. ‘Mass amateurization,’ Shirky thus argues, ‘has
created a filtering problem vastly larger than we had with traditional
media, so much larger, in fact, that many of the old solutions are
simply broken’ (Shirky, 2008, 246). Indeed, the sheer volume of media
uploaded to the internet today makes it almost impossible to check or
corroborate content before it is published.

The future is digital

Traditional mass media might construct quality products with reliable
and accurate content, but, Shirky concludes, their long-­term chances
of survival in today’s digital world are slim. Digital networks and mass
amateurisation, he argues, will inevitably come to dominate the media
landscape. Shirky cites the following fatal flaws in the structure and
scope of traditional mass media activity:

• The high overhead costs of traditional media (salaries, costs

of premises, taxation) make them uncompetitive. In comparison,
mass amateurisation oriented content can be made with much
smaller budgets.
• The slow decision-­making processes used to manage tradi-
tional media institutions make it harder for them to adapt to
changing market conditions.
216   The end of audience: Clay Shirky
• Traditional media companies are risk averse as a result of the
editorial processes used to ensure that programming achieves
quality. Mass amateurisation oriented media operate a ‘publish
first, filter later’ model that does not readily identify risk as a signi-
ficant barrier.

Box 19.2 Discuss it: is Shirky right to suggest that

traditional media is outmoded?
• Is Shirky right to suggest that the web has brought about a mass
amateurisation revolution? Why do you agree or disagree?
• How has the loss of professional media gatekeeping disadvantaged
audiences?

Consumers speak back to media makers

Digital innovation and mass amateurisation have placed significant
pressures on traditional media makers, forcing them to radically rethink
their production and distribution models or face extinction. And, in
the same way that their audiences have used digital technology to
mimic broadcasting, traditional broadcasters have reciprocated by
integrating one-­to-one communication within their production
practices.
Newspapers now invite readers to comment on stories using online
feedback tools. Video games connect and encourage player communi-
cation via online multiplayer features, while television makers encour-
age viewer conversations by deploying social media hashtags. Indeed,
Shirky argues, those traditional media makers who resolutely fail to
realise the importance of effecting a two-­way conversation with their
audiences will not survive the digital revolution. Contemporary con-
sumers, he tells us, have come to expect that they can make contribu-
tions to the public conversations engaged by the broadcast media, and
if mass broadcasters do not facilitate that need they will find that their
services are no longer relevant. (See Table 19.1 for further details
regarding the specific effects of the digital revolution in key areas of
the media industry.)
 The end of audience: Clay Shirky   217
Table 19.1 Effects of the digital revolution in key industries

Newspapers • The explosion in blogs, online celebrity gossip, news sites

and social media has contributed to declining readerships
for newspapers.
• The ‘filter first, publish later’ model adopted by newspapers
means that their products often look and feel very safe
when compared to their online competitors. Some
newspapers have tried to combat this perceived safeness by
recruiting provocative contributors (dubbed ‘contrarians’).
The Daily Telegraph’s use of Boris Johnson as a column
writer serves as an interesting example of this process.
• Online newspapers have embraced the use of reader
commentary to promote audience engagement.
• Newspapers now operate a ‘digital first’ policy – breaking
stories online as soon as they appear.
Television • Television broadcasters have fought back, using YouTube
as a marketing tool and also as a means to cultivate fan
engagement through additional footage (behind the scenes
clips, artist interviews, alternative edits).
• Television and cable networks now sign successful
YouTubers to make mass media content – capturing online
experimental content that has found success.
• Producers engage in web chats and other forums to effect
personal connections with their audiences.
• Television makers use Twitter hashtags to facilitate audience
feedback or to promote audience conversations during
broadcasts. Producers refer to this as ‘second screening’.
• Mainstream television’s embrace of high-quality, multi-
season, long-form storytelling offers products that YouTube
cannot copy. This has helped traditional broadcasters
maintain audience share.
Film • Services such as YouTube have helped level the playing
marketing field for independent film-makers giving them access to
lucrative marketing and distribution channels.
• Major production companies use YouTube analytics to
help them predict the potential viability of a film release.
Film companies determine where they ought to book
cinemas and for how long using data gathered from
marketing released on social media.
• Much like television, producers use YouTube to garner
publicity and interest through the release of additional material.
• Persona marketing on social media platforms is used to
mimic one-to-one connectivity between film-makers and
their audiences. Fictional characters are often given a web
presence to cultivate fan power.
218   The end of audience: Clay Shirky

Box 19.3 Apply it: diagnose the effects of the digital

revolution on your set texts
• In what ways do your set texts deliver the benefits of digital
technology?
• In what ways do your online set texts evidence a more experi-
mental approach to content than their traditional media rivals?
• In what ways do your online set texts effect a more traditional
one-­to-many audience/producer broadcast relationship?
• In what ways have your broadcast media set texts been adversely
affected by the digital revolution? Think here in terms of increased
competition, diminishing advertising revenues or the potential
reduction in quality that has occurred as a result of a general weak-
ening of gatekeeping across all media sectors.
• In what ways have broadcast media set texts adapted to the digital
revolution? How do they engage two-­way conversations with
their audiences?

Exemplar paragraphs that apply Shirky’s ideas to set texts from all exam boards
are available at www.essentialmediatheory.com

Concept 2: everyday communities of practice

Shirky argues that groups with shared interests, values or identities
have always wanted to make contact with one another. In the pre-­
digital world, however, both physical and financial barriers prevented
those groups from forming. In contrast, Shirky tells us, the internet
roll-­out has enabled the widespread construction of what he calls
‘communities of practice’. The internet, he argues, enables groups of
individuals to overcome the physical barriers of the pre-­digital world,
and ‘the groups, once assembled, can be quite robust in the face of
indifference or even direct opposition from larger society’ (Shirky,
2008, 210).
Communities of practice are notable, Shirky suggests, for the fol-
lowing reasons:

• They are capable of creating social change. The flash mobs

that propelled the Arab Spring, for instance, were enabled by
social media activism that helped topple a series of repressive
regimes.
 The end of audience: Clay Shirky   219

Box 19.4 Think about it: communities of practice –

good or bad?
• What examples of online activism have you encountered that have
prompted positive social change or allowed marginalised groups to
have a more powerful voice?
• What recent examples of negative online behaviour can you
identify that have had adverse real world consequences?

• They are incredibly resilient when threatened – online communities

can disband and regroup very easily when threatened or censored.
• They are self-­policing and driven by non-­profit motives.
• They can also coalesce around socially undesirable subjects. Shirky
highlights, for example, the challenge that pro-­anorexia groups
have presented in promoting dangerous lifestyle choices to vulner-
able young women. Online political or religious extremism, too,
fans real-­world violence.

The ‘bargain’ of audience engagement

Shirky also suggests that audiences and producers are engaged in a
transactional exchange when media products are consumed and that
audience–producer relationships are defined through an unofficial
‘bargain’ that is brokered between both parties. In traditional media
consumption, that transactional bargain is relatively straightforward in
that hard cash is usually exchanged to view a product. Money is traded
for a cinema ticket or a cable television subscription: media purchases,
in other words, produce the promise of a viewing pleasure.
The bargains made online, however, are complicated by the fact
that we expect to receive content, for the most part, without spending
any real money. This does not mean that online consumption is trans-
action free. On the contrary, vlogging viewers can only consume the
uploads posted if they watch the commercial advertising that precedes
them. The bargain made by audiences when reading online news is
that you allow internet cookies to be installed so that personalised
advertising can be displayed alongside story content.
Shirky’s ‘bargain’, interestingly, also governs the kinds of conduct
that audiences unofficially agree among themselves as acceptable for
220   The end of audience: Clay Shirky
the online communities in which they participate. The rules governing
online comment etiquette are not necessarily written down – they
exist as an unofficial agreement that has been negotiated by users about
the way they ought to behave when conversing with one another
online. In online fandoms, for instance, it is universally accepted that
stories are not shared for commercial gain or that you do not steal a
fellow author’s work.
The most interesting feature of the bargain, for Shirky at least, is
that digital audiences can exercise a form of collective power that can
shape or even determine the rules that govern their media engage-
ment. If, collectively, we all decide that YouTube advertising is so
obtrusive that we stop watching it, then the service would have no
choice but to revise its commercial strategy. In short, audiences have
the power to shape online media content and, furthermore, have the
communication tools to effect collective action against services if the
need arises.
Shirky argues, too, that while the rules that govern small-­scale com-
munities of practice are easily and clearly defined, those same bargains

Box 19.5 Apply it: big services do not always produce

beautiful effects
• Identify the ‘bargain’ that allows audiences to use your online set
texts for free. What do users unofficially agree to in order to access
free content?
• In what ways do producers create benefits for themselves as a result
of making online content free?
• In what ways does internet advertising compromise the experience
of online browsing?
• In what ways does online advertising compromise the integrity of
set text content?

Challenge question
• In what ways do the large-­scale audiences of your set texts inevit-
ably lead to audience conflict? How, for instance, do reader com-
ments on online news sites demonstrate a clash of expectations?

Exemplar paragraphs that apply Shirky’s ideas to set texts from all exam boards
are available at www.essentialmediatheory.com
 The end of audience: Clay Shirky   221
tend to break down when products achieve mass audiences. An online
fan group with less than 100 members will communicate within a clear
set of expectations that are shared by all members. Posts that infringe
those rules will be speedily censored or removed. Those rules break-
down, however, when online communities become larger and produce
competing subgroups that will inevitably shape their own rules of
engagement.
Thus, the large-­scale nature of digital giants like Facebook or
Twitter will inevitably lead, in Shirky’s view, to a conflict of user
interests. Such platforms promise interconnectivity and provide the
necessary tools to enable those promises, but the scope and scale of the
subgroups that operate within their networks will inevitably employ
the site for purposes that are contradictory.

Table 19.2 Speak Clay Shirky

Broadcast media Broadcast media (television, radio,

newspapers) act like a megaphone enabling
one-to-many communications. Information,
in a broadcast relationship, will usually flow
in one direction, from the sender to the
receiver.
Communications media Communications media (telephones and faxes)
effect a two-way relationship in which senders
and receivers are engaged in private
conversations.
Digital communications Digital technologies have merged broadcast
convergence and communications media effects. Emails, for
instance, can be both private and public – they
can also have single or multiple recipients.
Gatekeeping Limiting access to information – usually
affected by traditional media broadcasters to
maintain the quality of their products.
Mass amateurisation The use of digital media by everyday audiences
to produce broadcast media.
Second screening Viewing traditional media while also engaging
with accompanying content on another
device. For example, using a mobile phone to
join in a Twitter conversation while watching
a television show.
222   The end of audience: Clay Shirky
Table 19.3 Shirky: ten minute revision

Concept 1: everybody makes the media

• Shirky highlights the revolutionary impact of digital technology in
speeding up media production processes.
• Media consumption patterns have changed from a broadcast model that
involves one sender and many recipients to a many-to-many model.
• Traditional media, Shirky argues, uses a ‘filter then publish’ model to
provide quality content.
• Shirky suggests that the internet has resulted in a ‘publish now, filter later’
model due to lower production costs and reduced entry barriers to media
production.
Concept 2: everyday communities of practice
• Audiences actively shape their own rules of engagement with professional
media products.
• Digital technologies have resulted in an explosion of what Shirky calls
‘communities of practice’.
Two theorists who might challenge Shirky’s thinking
• James Curran and Jean Seaton: argue that the internet continues to be
dominated by an oligopoly of commercial companies.
• David Hesmondhalgh: might agree that the internet has resulted in
audience–producer convergence, but would argue that the media industry
is still heavily reliant upon traditional marketing activities to reduce
product risk.
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Index

Page numbers in bold denote tables.

2003 Communications Act 143–4, Baudrillard, J. 50–9; and advertising

148, 150, 152 53–5; and the ecstasy of
communication 52; and meaning
abjection 107–8, 111 implosion 53–4, 59; the procession
absent representations 94, 99, 107, of the simulacra 50–1, 58
108–9 The BBC 136–8, 143, 144, 189, 199;
Adbusters 69 difference from commercial media
advertising 11–12, 23, 52–5, 82–3, 136–7; radio 137–8; regulation of
182; effects on newspaper content 145, 149
126–33, 161; effects on the Beyoncé, Formation 88, 96, 98–100,
internet 134–5, 160, 218, 219–20; 116
effects on television content 149; Bignell, J. 182–3
and identify 116–7; regulation of binary oppositions 15–26, 75
145; and self-regulation 144 black female stereotypes 95–6
Advertising Standards Authority Black Lives Matter 98
(ASA)145, 151 Black Panther 158
albionic representations 78–81 black representation 63–4, 72–3,
artificial scarcity 157 94–6
Assassin’s Creed Liberation 161 brand acquisition 155–7
audience-producer convergence branding 55, 117, 156, 158, 159
201–3, 205, 209–10 British Board of Film Classification
auteur effects 45, 46, 48–9 (BBFC) 146
Butler, J. 26, 91, 102–12, 121–2; and
Bandura, A. 165–75, 176–7, 187, gendered hierarchies 106; and
197; and media modelling 167–8; gender subversion 106
and video games 168–74
Barthes, R. 1–14, 59; anchorage 5, 7, Channel 4, 32, 67, 136, 143, 149,
13; and connotation 1–5, 7, 8–9, 205
13; and denotation 1, 8, 13–14, character archetypes 27–30
190; five code symphony 8–11; citizen focussed regulation 141,
and myths 11–12 142–3, 146–52
 Index   227
Common, Letter to the Free 22 formatting strategies of 157–9,
communities of practise 218–20, 222 163; hybridisation of 44–5, 48–9;
conglomerate ownership 125, marketing function of 47;
128–31, 134–5, 137, 155–6, 159, subversion of 42; and
162, 164 verisimilitude 39–40
consumer based regulation 142, 152 Gerbner, G. 175, 176–87;
countertypes 168–9 mainstreaming and resonance
cultural codes 9 effects on audiences 180–3, 185–7,
cultural homogenisation 177, 186–7 197; middle-of-the-road reportage
Cultural Indicators Project 178, 180 182–3, 185–7
Curran J. and Seaton J. 49, 125–40, Giddens, A. 113–15, 123–4
155, 182, 210, 222; and the BBC Gilroy, P. 26, 71, 72–81;
136–7; diverse ownership patterns civilisationism and 72–7;
135–7; and the internet 134–5; postcolonial melancholia 78–9,
media ownership 127; proprietor 80–3
ownership effects 131; television globalisation 114, 123, 126, 133,
formats 136 140, 152; impact on regulation of
148–9
The Daily Mail 73, 75, 133, 194–6 The Guardian 46, 80, 144, 145,
Deutschland 83, 57, 120 147–8, 161, 194
Disney 128–30, 155–7, 161
Hall, S. 26, 49, 60–71, 188–97, 124,
editorial codes of conduct 144 169, 175, 187, 198; audience
encoding 188–90, 191, 196–7 misreadings 191–2; compared to
enculturation effects 177, 182, 186–7 Gerbner, G. 186; cultural
hegemonies and 193–5; encoding/
Facebook 118, 135, 148, 205, 221 decoding 188–91; otherness 65;
fan labour 203, 205, 209 reception theory 193–5;
fan power 162, 203, 205, 207, 217 representation, theories of 60–71;
fandoms 198–205, 210, 220 stereotypes 63–9
fanfiction 198–201, 207, 210 Harry Potter Alliance 207
female spectatorship 83–4 Hesmondhalgh, D. 153–65;
feminism 86–8, 94, 97 expansion strategies used by the
free market government policy 135–7 media 155–7; internet
free radical press 125 commercialisation 159–61;
Freud, S. 102–5, 165 managing media risk 153–5, 157–9
heteronormativity 106–7, 111–12,
Gauntlett, D. 81, 91, 112, 113–24, 122, 200
917; and advertising 116; and DIY Homeland 84
media 117; comparison to Butler, hooks, bell 92–101, 124;
J. and Zoonen, L. Van 121–2; and contemporary representations of
self-help books 115; and black feminity 92–6; the legacy of
transformational narratives 119 slavery 92–3; and intersectionality
gender: as performance 106, 111, 97–9
122; hierarchies of 106 ; and horizontal integration 128–9, 130,
representation 87, 122; and 139, 140, 155–6
subversion of 106–8 Humans (television series) 67, 205
genre: audience pleasure and 42; hyperreal inertia 54
228   Index
hysterical news values 132, 133, 139 mainstreaming effect 180–3, 185–7,
197
I, Daniel Blake 1–3, 69 male gaze 83–4, 86, 89, 90
incest taboos 20, 102 Marxism 132
Independent Press Standards mass amateurisation 213–16, 221
Organisation (IPSO) 145, 147, Massive Attack, Unfinished
150 Symphony 99
The Independent 148 Maybelline, This Boss Life advert 55
Instagram 151, 212 mean world syndrome 180, 185, 186,
internationalisation 156 187
internet: effects on audience; meaning implosion 53–4, 59
commercialisation of 134–5; and media: expansion strategies of 156;
cultivation theory 182–4; cyber gatekeeping of 149, 208, 215–16,
utopianism and 159–60, 205–6; 218, 221; objectification in 83–4,
cyber dystopianism and 208–9; DIY 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 122; pluralism
culture and 207; gatekeeping and 132–4, 139, 142; proliferation of
215; and fandoms 201–4; regulation 53, 59, 113, 115, 123, 136, 140;
of 145, 148–9, 160; revolutionary selection processes in 9, 61, 62;
impact of 211, 215; two way violence 180, 181–2
communications enabled by 216–18 message reduction 12, 13
intersectionality 97–9, 100–1 Minecraft 162
intertextual-relay 47, 48–9 The Mirror 54, 184, 185
Mulvey, L. 82
James Bond 21, 192, 204 myths: binary oppositions in 15–16;
Jenkins, H. 59, 81, 101, 140, 152, social function of 11–12
160, 164, 169, 175, 187, 198–210;
audience-producer convergence narrative: ideological effects of 11–12,
201–5; participatory culture 205–7; 35–6; non-traditional forms of
textual poaching 198–200; and 33–5; oppositions 17; and the three
video games 173 act structure 30–2; transformative
The Jungle Book 48 effects of 36–7
narrative image 47–8, 49
Keen, A. 208–9 naturalisation 11–12, 13
The Killing 87 Neale, S. 38, 39–49, 140; audience
Kristeva, J. 107, 108 pleasure and genre 39–42; auteur
effects 45; genre hybridity 44; genre
Lacan, J. 102–5 subversion 42–3; marketing
Levi-Strauss, C. 14, 15–26, 27, 38, function of genre 47
102–3, 105; binary oppositions as Negroponte, N. 205–6
ideology 20–1; function of binary Netflix 32, 79, 107, 108, 127, 136,
oppositions 18–9; types of 157; mainstreaming effects of 183;
oppositions in the media 16–17 regulation of 145, 148–9, 150
Life on Mars 90 News Corporation 128, 131
Livingstone, S. and Lunt, P. 141–52, newspapers: binary oppositions in 17,
210; citizen based regulation 141, 21; cultivation theory and 185; and
142–3, 146–52; consumer based cultural hegemonies 193; impact of
regulation 142, 152; and digital revolution on 161, 216–7;
globalisation institutional mediation and 46;
 Index   229
language use in 62; meaning self-regulation 144, 149–50, 151
implosion and 54; ownership semantic codes 9, 14
effects of 125, 133; political bias in serialisation 157, 158, 163
131–2; production process effects Shirky, C. 140, 160, 164, 211–22;
189–90; proprietor control of 131; audiences use of digital media 216;
regulation of 145, 147–8, 150; the bargain 219–21; broadcast and
representation issues in 64, 73 personal media differences 211–2;
No Offense 34 communities of practice 218–9;
Oedipus Complex 20, 104 mass amatuerisation effects 213–4;
OFCOM 143–4, 145, 148, 150 publish first/filter later 214–15
Old Spice advert 19 social media 53, 87, 118, 128, 149;
online influencers 151 convergence effects of 212–3;
otherness 65, 72–4, 81, 95, 99, 100 cultivation theory and 183–4;
digital labour and 201–5; and
Pan European Gaming Information political activism 218; regulation of
(PEGI) 146, 151, 171–2, 173 150–1; relationship with traditional
participatory culture 59, 81, 101, media forms 216–17
140, 160, 162, 198, 205–9, 210 star power 46, 157–9, 163, 169
power circularity 67, 70 stereotypes 63–9, 95–6, 101; and
pre-filtering 215 power 63–4; transcoding of 68–9
proairetic codes 8–9, 11, 13, 14 Stranger Things 44, 205
Propp, V.: character archetypes 27–8, stylistic oppositions 17
29; narrative structure 28–30 symbolic codes 9
public service broadcasting 46, 67, symbolic violence 65, 70
132–4, 135–7, 139, 140, 146, 149,
153 Teen Vogue 110
The Telegraph 148, 217
quest narratives 38 television: and advertising 53–4;
black female representation in
Radio 4, 138 93–4; and cultivation theory
realism 56, 177 176–7; and fan fiction 200; and
regulation see Livingstone, S. and Lunt, heteronormativity 107–8;
P. homogenising effects of 186;
reception theory 193–5 impact of digital revolution on
reflection theory 60–1 116, 217; male dominance of
representation: absent representations programme making in 85–6; and
94, 99, 107, 108–9; and exclusion mass amatuerisation 213–6;
65, 67–8, 70, 90, 104; and modelling effects of 166–8; and
femininity 82–6, 87–8, 92–3; and multi-protagonist formats 116;
ethnicity 63–4, 72–3, 94–6; and narrative structure of 30, 32–5,
sexuality 106–7, 109, 111, 112, 119–21; one-to-many effects of
121 211–2; proliferation of 135–6; and
representational modelling effects public service broadcasting 136–7;
174–5 as realised fiction 55–7; regulation
resonance effects 180, 185, 186–7 of 143, 145; representations of
role models 118–19, 167–9 Englishness in 78–9; and
scheduling 45–6, 126; and
scheduling 45–6, 127, 137, 170 selection processes 188–90; and
230   Index
television continued Vance Joy, Riptide 192
self-regulation 149; and vertical verisimilitude 39–40, 41
integration 129–30; and violence vertical Integration 128–30, 155
168, 178–82 video games 89, 161, 216:
textual poaching 198–9, 200, 201, regulation of 146; and violence
204, 209, 210 168–73
Tide advert 5–9, 43
The Times 46, 128, 145, 161 WaterAid 19
Todorov, T. 14, 27–38; Propp’s web 2.0, 140, 159, 206–7, 209
influence on 27–30; and the white feminism 94, 95
ideological effects of narrative 35–6;
and narrative structure 28–33; three Zoella 110
act narrative ideal 30; subversion of Zoonen, L. van 82–91; comparisons
the three act formula 33–5 with the theoretical ideas of
transcoding 68–9 Gauntlett, D. and Butler, J. 121,
transformation narratives 30, 36–7, 122; effects of male domination of
38, 55, 116, 119, 120 the media 85–6; female
Twentieth Century Fox Film and objectification by the media 82–3;
Television 129 female spectatorship 83–5;
Twitter 88, 98, 148, 151, 202–3, representations of masculinity
205, 212, 217, 221 88–9