A2 Media Terms

Front 1

Social Gulf

Back 1

A large gap in society between classes.

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Moral Panic

Back 2

A theorist named Stanley Cohen believes that the media starts moral panics and makes them worse after a significant event.

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Americanisation

Back 3

The belief that everything in our culture has started to become very influenced by America.

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The Uses & Gratifications Theory

Back 4

Blumier and Katz believe that the audience needs to be: informed and educated, entertained, able to identify with the characters, able to escape and able to use the media as a point for social interaction.

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The Utopian Solutions Theory

Back 5

Richard Dyer states that people will respond to a text if it offers them solutions to inadequacies in their own lives. These include: isolation -social networking, confusion -clarity, boredom - excitement.

Front 6

Hypodermic Syringe Theory

Back 6

The theory from the Frankfurt School that a message of the media is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver.

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Propaganda

Back 7

A piece of media with the aim to make the receiver believe what the media institution wants them to.

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Utopia

Back 8

A perfect world, like the one depicted in Love Actually.

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Marginalisation

Back 9

Making people believe that they are inferior than they actually are.

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Binary Opposites

Back 10

The way opposites are used to create interest in media texts, such as good and evil.

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The Labelling Theory

Back 11

The tendency of majorities to negatively label minorities.

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Mediation

Back 12

Communication; how something is made affects its purpose; the reconciliation of two opposing forces by a mediating object.

Front 13

Deviance/Deviant

Back 13

Deviance is the failure to conform to norms by which the society are conventionally guided, a Deviant is an individual who does so.

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Ideology

Back 14

The ideas and manner of thinking of groups and individuals.

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Fragmented Society

Back 15

A Fragmented Society is one where divisions are presented in many different sections of it, such as 'Broken Britain, as the media like to define our country.

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Representation

Back 16

How someone or something is presented in the media.

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Realism

Back 17

Realism is a quality that media products can have which makes them engaging to the audience because it is realistic.

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Selectively Constructed

Back 18

A media text could be selectively created in order to stress a certain point or to affect the audience in a certain way.

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Mainstream, Dominant, Traditional, Hegemonic Representations

Back 19

Representations like these are the dominant ones in society and can get the audience to react in a certain way, they are what the audience comes to expect and their expectations can be played on.

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Alternative, Niche, Representations

Back 20

Different representations like this could catch the audience's eye because it is out of the norm that they would expect.

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Passive/Active Audiences

Back 21

A passive audience is one that merely observes an event, whereas an active one also responds to it.

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Demographic

Back 22

A demographic is a particular section of the population.

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Polarised Nation

Back 23

A polarised nation is one that contains, usually extremely, different viewpoints and opinions.

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Marxists

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Marxists believe that certain texts are made in order to dupe the audience into believing a certain thing, for example to convince the working classes that their lives are okay.

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Functionalists

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The functionalists believe that the media is an important tool in our lives and that we need it.

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Pluralists

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The pluralists believe that the media only reflect what the audiences want to see as if they didn't then they'd go out of business.

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Postmodernists

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Postmodernists believe that there is no cultural identity anymore as Britain has become so diverse.

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Neo Marxists

Back 28

Neo Marxists believe that the media tries to manipulate audience, but that the audience has a choice whether to accept this or not.

Front 29

Cultural Homogenisation

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This is the term used to describe what the Postmodernists believe, that there is no cultural diversity or national identity in Britain.

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Globalisation

Back 30

Globalisation is the belief that the media and its targeting methods have grown to a worldwide scale.

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Cage Theory

Back 31

Daniel Chandler believes that our sense of identity is made up of four parts: class, age, gender and ethnicity.

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Hyper-reality Theory

Back 32

This is the theory that some media texts are presented with a sense of hyper-realism, that it is slightly more than just realistic.

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Intergroup Discrimination Theory

Back 33

Tajfel and Turner believe that audiences enjoy seeing representations of those worse off than them in the media as it makes them feel better about themselves.

Front 34

Mirror Stage Theory

Back 34

This theory supports the belief that those who can relate to certain representations in the media are more likely to be influenced by it.

Front 35

Dehumanisation

Back 35

The act of degrading a certain group by presenting them as inferior. This goes hand in hand with the usage of propaganda, and the dehumanisation of an issue can make it easier to deal with.