What Relevant Books are There?
As I'm preparing to write my dissertation, it's essential that I have plenty of books and quotations to back up some of my points. So, below are a list of books & quotations which I'll mention in my proposal. This won't be the full list - it will only be what I've currently research to enable me to structure my dissertation.
For now, I will need some quotation to cover the following:
- Dominant Ideologies/Hegemony
- Mediation
- Reception Theory
- Marxist Theory & Capitalism
- Semiotics
- Controversial Documentaries, and documentaries in general
- Two-step Flow Theory
- Moral Panics
Television Studies: The Key Concept (Marxist Theory)
Hegemony
- Similar to dominant ideologies. Theories which are built up of both ideologies and power - how television purposely sets up a limited amount of views and opinions for the audience (creating a passive ideology)
- Hegemony discusses how viewers were no longer revolutionised and protesting was reduced due to capitalism in the mid-20th century.
Marxist
"Marxist analysis is based on the idea that society is divided into different economic classes and that the economically dominant class is also the class that rules in views and ideas" (page 143)
- Introduction point to marxist: what it is.
"The argument would go that people get the kind of television they do because of the economic system in which television is produced." (page 143)
- Marx's idea of 'superstructure: How all views are reliant on the company of a program/channel
- How the ruling economy class (in this case the producer of a documentary) can impose their values and ideas on lower economic classes (the audience)
- Marixsts theory predicted that there would be a social revolution: working-class rising against the upper class which in this case counts as the change of the passive audience to a more active audience (following post and pre-structuralism).
"The needs and concerns of a powerful section of society have become 'universalised' as the interests of all."(page 144)
- However it can be argued that despite capitalism being established, all economic classes are involved with 'universalised' situations and news. For example, share prices shown on Breakfast shows, live political debates, etc. (disregards capitalism and almost promotes marxism as different classes aren't important)
"Gramiscan theorists argue that the established position of capitalism has been internalised so fully that it is difficult to see any other ways of comprehending things - capitalism is just there, just 'natural'" (page 144).
- The way that captialism is beneficial for economic class diversion and that it now doesn't play a controversial role (reinforcing the point above)
"Some theorists have called attention to the way that the state can and will bring in measures, in situations where capitalism is under threat". (page 145)
- How TV purposely sets up limitations to control the their dominant view and to enable the process of mediation to take place. For example, BlackFish doesn't mention any positives of the killer whales in their captivity.
Realism and 'reality' in Film and Media (Mediation)
"However, the new key word for the new reality genres is entertainment, a fact that is especially true of some of the sub forms on commercial television where entertainment is combined with certain elements of information and documentary qualities:" (page 159)How documentaries recently are purposely combining informative content with entertaining, so that it conforms to the audience's needs (bring in U+Gs)
Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis
"There is a body of research in the persuasion and attitude change literature on the differsntial effects of gain versus loss framing in influencing behaviour. A gain frame message is one that emphasises all the things you will accquire or gain if you engage in the behaviour advocated by the message." (page 85)
- This backs up the simple mediation model (the process of mediation)
Documentary: Doing Documentary Work
"The word documentary certainly suggests an interest in what is actual, what exists, rather than what one brings personally, if not irrationally, to the table of present-day actuality." (page 5)
"Documentary evidence substanties what is otherwise an assertion or a hypothesis or a claim." (page 5)
Documentary: The Margins of Reality (Controversial Documentary)
"The only thing new in this world is the history you don't know." (page 3)
"There is a strong sense in all of these films that there is a need to intervene and redress an imbalance: to tell 'the true story' so to speak" (page 4)
Media Studies: Content, Audiences and Production (Reception Theory)
"we investigate theoretically and empirically the process of interpretation (sense-making)""we can define interpretation as the results of the process of negiotation between texts and readers situated within specific social and cultural contexts" (page 244)
- Definition of reception theory
Semiotics and Documentary Film: The living sign in the cinema (Documentary Semiotics)
"It does not provide concrete answers for our own individual inquiries, but instead offers a general methodology" (page 13)
Peirce on Signs: Writings on Semiotics
How Can this be Intervened with my Essay?
- ARGUE FOR MEDIATION. Argue how marxism is becoming more progressive leading to this change in passive and active views.This is because television is becoming less capitalistic and diverted in terms of economic classes and it is almost becoming neutralised. This has almost switched from pre to post-structuralism and audiences are becoming much more active, thus hinting to why documentaries (and television in general) can be classed to be controversial. Thus, audiences now don't become mediated as they are much more independent and active (they don't become mediated)
- ARGUE AGAINST MEDIATION: Capitalism has led a further diversion in economic groups which can be made clear in 'Benefits Street' which depicts the poverty class. This is a clear example of mediation, and how it works to promote capitalism as they create a view to show the poor and low-quality life of people on the program.
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