Theories

• He argued that all texts communicate their meaning through a set of signs that need to decoded by the audience 
• He was interested in the way in which signs take on the ideology of a specific society 
• Their meanings become accepted and appear natural through repetition over time 
• The way in which the audience interprets the image is influenced by other forces 
• Media producers encode meanings in their products which audiences need to learn to decipher 
• Not all audiences will decode the meaning in the products the same way

• Difference is essencial to sustain a genre, to simply repeat the codes and conventions of the form would not appeal to an audience 
• Audiences like to anticipate what is familliar about a genre 
• Genre's change, develop and vary as they borrow from and overlap with one another 
• Audiences also derive pleasure from seeing how the genre has been manipulated to produce something recognisable but 'different'
• Genres with set codes and conventions are an advantage to the media institutions that produce them as they have a predetermined audience, are easy to market and success can be predicted

• Linear narrative was introduced by Todorov 

1. Equilibirum 

2. Disruption 

3. Recognition

4.Restoration

5. New Equilibrium 

• Non-linear narrative manipulates time and space, and is more challenging for an audience as the narrative moves backwards and forwards

• He is a cultural theorist who researched several media concepts, including how representations are constructed and the ways in which audiences may respond to these constructions 
• Representation is the way in which meanings are produced through the signs and codes that are a part of media language
• Sterotyping reduces people to a few simple, recognisable characteristics 
• Sterotyping tends to occur where there are inequalities of power

• The idea of the autonomy of the audience and how they use and respond to different media products 
• The media provide audiences and users with the resources to allow them to construct their own identities 
• In the past, media products tend to convey straightforward messages about the ideal types of male and female identities, contemporary media products offer audiences a more diverse range of icons and characters, allowing them to 'Pick and Mix' different ideas

• Audiences were active not passive
• Preferred reading: where the audience accepts the dominant reading and interprets the message contained within the product in the way that the producer intended
• Negociated reading: where the audience accepts some of the products messages and disagrees with others, therefore negociating over their acceptance of what is presented to them 
• Oppositional reading: where the audience does not agree with the values, attitudes and beliefs of the product or its content 

• He conducted research into media effects 
• His theory suggested that children may learn aggressive behaviour from viewing others 
• Media can implant ideas in the mind of the audience directly 
• Audiences acquire attitudes, emotional responses and new ways of behaving through modelling those they observe 
• Media representations of violent behaviour can encourage audiences to imitate that behaviour 
• This is also known as the hypodermic syringe model 

• His idea was that exposure to repeated patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way in which people percieve the world around them by cultivating particular views and opinions