Media Language

There are five theorists associated with Media Language

o Claude Lévi-Strauss
o Roland Barthes
o Tzvetan Todorov
o Steve Neale
o Jean Baudrillard

You need to able to apply their theories when you analyse examples.
 Lévi-Strauss – Binary opposites

Young Old

Light Dark

Small Tall

Vulnerable Powerful

Alive Dead

Griffindor Slytherin

Good Evil
Curtis Tommy
 Barthes - Semiology

A sign consists of two parts, a signifier (word/image/sound) and it’s

meaning – the signified.

The denotation of a sign is its literal meaning.

The connotations of a sign the things we associate it with.
Denotation and connotations are organised into myths (the ideological meaning).
 apple

Signifier
Signified

Hard fruit which grows on trees.

Denotation (literal meaning)
Health (an apple a day…)
Connotation (what we associate it with)
Myth
 Apple

What is the signifier?

What is the signified?
What is the sign? What is the myth?
What does it denote?
What does it connote?
What is the signifier?
What is the signified?
What is the sign?
What does it denote?
What does it connote?

What is the myth?

Anchorage: The use of

language to ‘anchor’ the
meaning of an image to suit
the purposes of a producer.
 Todorov – Narrative theory

Traditionally, narrative structures follow a formula identified by theorist Tzvetan Todorov.

1. Equilibrium
2. Disruption to the equilibrium
3. Recognition
4. Quest to restore the equilibrium
5. New equilibrium
1. Equilibrium
2. Disruption to the equilibrium
3. Recognition
4. Quest to restore the equilibrium
5. New equilibrium
 Neale – Genre theory

Neale believes that films of a type (genre, like romance or

horror) should include features that are similar, so the
audience know it is a horror film or romance, but also
include features that are different, to keep an audience
interested.

This is his theory of repetition and difference.

In his words “Genres are instances of repetition and

difference.”
Nosferatu (1922).
Dracula (1958)
Dracula (1931)

Repetition
and
difference?
Hotel Transylvania (2012)
Dracula (1992)
 Baudrillard – Hyperreality and postmodernism
Hyperreality is an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a
simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced
postmodern societies.

Hyperreality is seen as a condition in which what is real and what is fiction are
seamlessly blended together so that there is no clear distinction between where
one ends and the other begins.