Media Language Theorists

Blumler and Katz- Uses and Gratifications theory

- Explaining how your use of media language offers these to an audience

Personal Identification
Information
Entertainment
Social Interaction

Information

• finding out about relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the world
• seeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choices
• satisfying curiosity and general interest
• learning; self-education
• gaining a sense of security through knowledgePersonal Identity
  
• finding reinforcement for personal values
• finding models of behaviour
• identifying with valued other (in the media) 
• gaining insight into one's self
  Integration and Social Interaction
  
• gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathy
• identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging
• finding a basis for conversation and social interaction
• having a substitute for real-life companionship
• helping to carry out social roles
• enabling one to connect with family, friends and society
  Entertainment
  
• escaping, or being diverted, from problems
• relaxing
• getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment
• filling time
• emotional release
• sexual arousal

Propp's Character theory

How your media language helps the audience identify particular characters as heroes/villains

Hero, Villain, Princess, 

Stuart Hall

Explain that your decision to use the media language you chose was to create a 'preferred' reading to your text. But that audiences are used to Encoding and Decoding tests and could take a negotiated or opposition reading.

Stuart Hall is an active audience theorist.  Hall states that audiences actively look for meaning in a text. He states that meaning is encoded into text by producers and decoded by the audience. The way the audience decode these texts and messages they get relies on their own experiences and social demographics, which are different for everyone. The theory is split into three parts, and Hall states that all texts are polysemic, which means they can have multiple meanings.  Texts can be read in different ways depending on the audiences identity, cultural knowledge and opinions. Texts can be read in three ways:

• Preferred reading
• Negotiated reading
• Oppositional reading

Preferred reading is when the audience respond to the product the way the producers expect and want them to.

Negotiated reading is when the audience partly agree with the message or product but may disagree with other parts.

Oppositional reading is when the audience is in complete disagreement with the product/message.

Rick Altman

Explain how you used media language to include semantic elements (e.g. signs such as blood, eerie music, knife, darkness) or to signify syntactic elements (such as themes like love, revenge)

Semantic Elements: Blood, Eerie music, Knife, Darkness 

Syntactic Elements: (Theme) love, revenge