Task 3

Narrative Theory:

Narrative theory suggests that narrative is a fundamental of our living, our experiences in life, our time, our changes, and our process. The narrative theory explores in depth the elements, structures, uses, and effects of the nature of narrative in peoples lives. Narrative theorists look into how particular events and particular circumstances in particular peoples lives have a greater impact on later life. They also explore how people make sense of stories, and how people make sense of the world through those stories.

Vladimir Propp:

Vladimir Propp was a Soviet that explored and broke down Russian fairy tales in the 1920's. He broke down the fairy tales into different elements and noticed that the majority of the fairy tales shared the same elements of the stories, characters, and functions. He compiled the amount of reoccurring characters into a list of seven and the a list of reoccurring functions to the storyline into thirty-one. The list of both are as seen:

Characters:

1) The Villain - an evil character that would make it difficult for the hero.

2) The Dispatcher - a character that sends the hero of on an adventure. Often enough it is normally the princesses father or town leader.

3) The Helper - Typically magical, helps the hero on the adventure.

4) The Princess/Prize - the person that the hero is searching for, or wanting to marry. In which the villain is preventing this, defeating the villain would be by marrying the Princess.

5) The Donor - someone who helps the hero by equipping them with things they need to start their adventure.

6) The Hero - the character who set off on the adventure in search for the Princess, defeats the Villain and would end up with the Princess.

7) The False Hero - a character who tries to take credit for the real hero's action, possibly would try to steal the Princess away from the Hero.

Tzvetan Todorov:

Tzvetan's narrative theory was that in each story it followed a similar pattern, each story had three stages. It started with equilibrium, where the story is balanced and its all going well. Then something comes along to ruin the equilibrium, the main plot that the story is about, and finally the restoring of the equilibrium where the story is restored to its original balance. The theory can be applied to many things in the media industry, films, books, television programs etc.

Levi Strauss:

Levi Strauss is a social anthropologist who studied myths of tribal cultures, he looked into how stories show the beliefs, values, and myths of the worlds cultures. He came up with the name binary opposites which his theory applies to, other theorists have adapted the original theory to make it more understandable and apply within more media texts. His theory explored stories that had characters who where complete opposites, for example a coward would only fit into a story if there was a hero. The opposite characters allow the story to flow and continue. Strauss noticed a pattern of opposites featuring in tribal culture books and myths.

Roland Barthes:

Roland Bathes was a french literal theorist that believed there where five codes that would describe text, as well as the texts being open or closed. The five codes where Referential, Enigma, Action, Semantic, and Symbolic.

Codes:

1) Referential - When the text references something externally from another source, could be something to do with history or science.

2) Enigma - The enigma code is where the story refers to the mystery within the text, enigmas are very subtle clues for the audience. Enigmas are used in text because it attracts the readers attention and keeps them engaged.

3) Action - The action code is back to back action that would flow through the whole story.

4) Semantic - Semantic code refers to hidden meanings or additional meanings, it adds extra meaning to the text.

5) Symbolic - This code is about creating symbolism within the text, it helps to build up the story, characters, and suspense within the story.

Fairy Liquid Advert Analysis:

From the early 1960's to the late 1990's fairy liquid have created multiple adverts to promote their fairy liquid washing up soap. In this time period, the adverts shared very similar aspects, this was that a woman and a young daughter where the main focal point trying to sell the product. The adverts show a white mother and daughter in the kitchen, the daughter playing alongside the mother. The daughter would ask why fairy liquid is so good, with the mother replying that it cleans dishes better than any other product on the market. As well as it making your hands soft, which is important because it makes the woman more appealing to men. In those times, it was acceptable to be showing this to the public. However, nowadays it is very unacceptable and would be classed as sexist towards woman. It suggests that woman are predominantly the ones in the kitchen and it isn't a mans job, this would fall under legal issues. The ethical issue that apply's to all of the adverts produced in that time period is the lack of different ethnicity's. Every mother and daughter in the adverts were white, showing a lack of other ethnicity's or religions.

However, this changed in the year 2000, when fairy liquid produced an advert with a black woman and a young black boy. This covers the breach of ethical issue, including another ethnicity, this also shows that the times have changed and it is deemed more acceptable to the public. Fairy liquid also removed the continuous story of the fairy liquid soap makes the woman's hands softer. This was originally inappropriate because it they suggested that woman had to have soft hands, instead the 2000 advert the focal point was that the bottle lasted longer. In the 2015 advert for fairy liquid it changed again, they removed the focal point of the woman, and changed it to a man. Although they did include a woman making it more appropriate showing that men and woman can wash up. The advert shows both parents washing up while trying to sell the product to the audience, as well as keeping the focal point of the bottle being its ever lasting ability.

In the 2015 fairy liquid advert you can apply Tzvetan Todorov's theory of equilibrium, at the beginning of the advert the plates are dirty but everything is fine. This would be early equilibrium, however the mother notices that the plates are dirty and distorts the story. This would be the disruption, finally the mother and the father finish washing the plates and everything is restored, this is the new equilibrium. Another theory that can be applied to the same advert is Vladimir Propp's theory of the recurring characters in each story. Although not all the characters pop up, it is clear that you can link someone of the characters to the characters in the advert. The donor in the story is the father who gives the empty washing up bottle to the son who has been wanting to create a rocket out of it from the start of the advert, and the hero would have been the son who was patiently waiting for the bottle while asking questions to his father about the bottle. 

Task 2

Passive or Active Consumption:

Passive and active consumption is the way in which the viewer takes in the information and how they would react to it. A passive audience would be someone who would watch a program and do nothing with it, they could enjoy it, dislike it but wouldn't react to it in anyway. An active audience is someone who would watch a program and then react to it, they could either tell their friends, tweet about it online. Any way in which they talk about it or debate the program they would be an active audience.

An example of this theory would be two people watching a program, for instance Eastenders. The passive audience member would watch the program and not react, they may enjoy or not enjoy the program but they wouldn't react in anyway. Where as the active audience member would watch the program and then they would react to what they saw. For example, if a character in Eastenders was to kill someone, the audience member may discuss the murder on social media with other active audience members. Another example would be a character from Eastenders said something and the active audience member would disagree and give their own opinion on the matter to someone else.

Hypodermic Needle Model:

Hypodermic Needle Theory is the theory that the media has great power of the world and can form peoples opinions in quick succession. It suggests that the media has a huge impact on everybody's lives and can brainwash people in to believing anything that is being broadcasted. The theory is based off of a needle being injected into peoples bloodstreams, forming their views quickly. among the listeners.

The theory came about in 1938 when millions of people sat down to listen to the radio. When a broadcast of the famous novel "War of the Worlds" was being played and it announced that aliens had landed and was attacking New Jersey. People where quick to believe what was being said and mass panic spread among the listeners. Causing thousands of calls to the emergency services, people stocking up on supplies from local supermarkets and many people leaving their town and cities.

Uses and Gratification Theory:

Uses and Gratification Theory is the theory of what people do with media and not what media does for people. It focuses on what people do with media, how they use it, when they use it, and why they use it. Some reasons why someone might use media would be entertainment, relaxing, or socializing. The theory explores how each individual seeks out their chosen medium, it also explores more into detail the type of person they are when using social media for those specific reasons.

An example of this theory would be someone would watch a romantic film to have the feeling of love and compassion towards someone else. Where as someone who is watching the television program Breaking Bad could be because they hear lots of other people talking about it and want to feel involved with the social side.

Reception Theory:

Reception theory is an active theory of how the people watching the said media are receiving it, and how they react to the said media. The theory suggests that everyone receives media in different ways meaning they would also react in different ways. People fall under three categories in the reception theory, these are dominant, negotiated and oppositional. A dominant audience is the producers preferred audience, they are the audience type that would agree with the media. A negotiated audience would also agree with what has been said by the media, but they would stress their own views about it. Lastly, a oppositional audience would ignore the media and make their own opinion up on the matter.

An excellent example of reception theory being used is in a political speech, many people agree, disagree within politics so reception theory comes up a lot. For example, if the prime minister was to give a speech about cutting finances within the NHS, the dominant audience would agree with what has been said. The negotiated party would be in between, they would neither agree or disagree. The negotiated audience are more likely to be passive and not form an opinion and just watch. Compared to the oppositional audience who would disagree and give their opinion about what the prime minister has said.

Bowling for Columbine:

From watching the documentary Bowling for Columbine, which is a documentary exploring the american gun laws after the Columbine school shooting that led to the death of 12 students and one teacher. Michael Moore the documenter  created the documentary about the Columbine school shooting but was more targeting of the reason why it had happened and the gun laws in america. From watching the documentary it is clear the Michael Moore's preferred readership is the dominant audience. This can be proven by his condescending and sarcastic narration about the gun laws, and would expect the audience to share the same opinion as him. Bowling for Columbine claims that the media had a huge impact on the Columbine shooting and it wasn't the violet video games, violent music, and dark movies.

The dominant readership to this movie which is Michael Moore's preferred readership would be agreeing with Michael Moore's statements about how he believes that the american media had more of an impact on the Columbine Shooting than anything else. In a clip from the documentary he listed the amount of shootings in that year in other countries. "Germany had 381 deaths by guns, France had 255 deaths by guns, Canada had 165 death by guns, United Kingdom 68 death by guns, Australia 65 deaths by guns, Japan 39 deaths by guns, and last of all America 11,127 death by guns". These stats show that other countries have deaths by guns however it is America that have over 10,000 more deaths a year by guns. The dominant readership would be agreeing with Michael Moore about how the media has a greater impact on gun crime and shootings over video games etc.

Bowling for Columbine (Amount of deaths by Guns)

The Negotiated readership to this documentary would most likely agree with what Michael Moore has said about how the media had a great impact on the deaths and the Columbine shooting. However, they would most likely give other reasons why and not think that the media was the only reason. Michael Moore's documentary wasn't targeted towards the negotiated audience, however he does explore multiple options to both sides of the story. On the other hand, the oppositional audience would most likely be someone who is for the gun laws and believes that it was video games and the music that causes all these shootings and deaths. The oppositional audience would completely disagree with what Michael Moore has broadcasted in his documentary.

Michael Moore includes a theory of Mean World Syndrome throughout his documentary, Mean World Syndrome is a theory that the media portray the world in such a violent and horrible way that people believe that the world is worse than it actually is. Moore includes this theory into his argument about the media when he speaks with Marilyn Manson about how the media tried to blame the Columbine shooting on him because of his violent music. Marilyn speaks about how the media used his music and video games as a escape goat. Even though the President was sending troops out and advertising war with other countries. Marilyn proceeds to say "the media always talk about Floods, Aids, Murder etc. and then cut to a commercial and they say by the Colgate. If you have bad breath there not going to talk to you". From the interview with Marilyn he talks about the Mean World Syndrome and how the media scare the public into thinking the world is an unsafe place.

Bowling for Columbine (Interview with Marilyn Manson)