Theories

 

Theory	Theorist	Description (100 words)	Example (100 words)
Media ownership / regulation	Mark Kermode & Owen Jones	Media ownership and regulation states that media companies tend to influence the media that is distributed to follow certain ideals of powerful people or governing bodies through reception theory and the censorship or exclusivity of certain content.	A case on Jeff Bezos' divorce was shown greatly in Jeff's favor, as he owns large news companies such as the washington post, allowing a large audience to believe in his story rather than even being exposed to any other views, allowing Jeff Bezos to maintain a positive public image.
Synergy		Synergy is when two media texts promote each other in their own respective media texts, to gain benefits for both sides including a larger audience, more profit, retaining fandoms and more.	Valorant and ZEDD partnered in September of 2021 to create skins for different guns and a knife that included tracks made by ZEDD to promote his music when you inspect the weapon. Valorant benefited from this as most of their sales come from players buying gun skins, and ZEDD providing them with a whole new attractive and unique line of gun skins that players will definitely have their eyes on. ZEDD benefits from this as his music is distributed to a larger, untouched audience of gamers and they are constantly exposed to it as more and more people buy the skins and people want to try it, eventually making people curious as to what his other music sounds like.
Cross Media Convergence		Cross media convergence is when certain media texts are shown across different platforms as well as on other media texts.
New Media		New media is the way media is consumed in the modern era, the quantity that its consumed in, the way it has been influenced by the growing audiences, etc.
Two Step Flow
Technological Convergence		Technological convergence is the theory that states how old traditional media has slowly been digitised and uses technology to spread media texts to larger audiences.
Genre Theory		Genre theory states that pieces of media need to be similar enough to other exisitng media texts to have a certain appeal to audiences, alllowing the audience to know what to expect when consuming said media, but needs to be different enough to have a unique selling point and engage and allow audiences to enjoy the content as new concepts instead of consuming the same content over and over again.
Desensitisation		Desensitisation theory states that the more we as viewers are exposed to certain types of content, the more we expect it to happen, giving it less meaning to us the more we see it.
Reception Theory	Stuart hall	Reception theory is the theory that talks about how we as the audience take in the meaning of certain codes, whether we follow the idea that the media is trying to give, whether we do not believe in the meaning at all, or if we are somewhere in between. This is shown through the preferred reading, oppositional, and negotiated reading. Preferred reading is when the media gives a certain meaning, and the audience conforms to it, taking the meaning as the media text intends. Oppositional reading is when the audiences take the meaning in a way that was not intended by the media text. Negotiated reading would be somewhere in between the two, where the audience is on the fence between agreeing with the meaning and disagreeing.
Cultivation Theory	George Gerbner
5 Narrative Codes	Roland Barthes	The 5 Narrative codes are ways in which a media texts weaves together a narrative for us as viewers to understand the meaning behind certain codes, symbols, actions, representations, etc. It includes Proairetic Code, Hermeneutic Code, Semantic Code, Symbolic Code and Cultural Code. Proairetic codes are actions that imply further action into the story, sort of a chain of actions, also seen as plot points. Hermeneutic code is the purposely hidden meaning of things, inciting mystery and wonder on the reader through the lack of knowledge they have on certain stories, characters, etc. Semantic codes are certain things shown to the viewers that suggest connotations of further meaning. Symbolic codes would be the language that props, actions, characters and symbols in general convey to the viewers to properly understand the meaning of things. Cultural codes include historical, social, psychological and literature references that convey certain meanings such as stereotypes, expectations, etc.
Binary Opposites	Levi Strauss	Binary oppostes state the contrast between to different ideas or entities, to show a competition in the story that further engages audiences to find out which side wins, or if there even is a winner. The way these binary opposites are resolved depends on what meaning the producer wants to convey with audiences, showing which side is better.
Globalisation
Social Learning	Albert Bandura	Social Learning is the theory that states how we as viewers tend to imitate what we see portrayed on media texts. as a result of overexposure to it, with bad influences being portrayed as something acceptable.	TV shows that include lots of action, fighting and guns tend to make consumers view these things as cool and something they want to try in real life, resulting in an increase in violent tendencies, the desire to wield lethal weapons, etc.
Users & Gratification	Blumler & Katz