Theory Table

Theory Summary

Levi-Strauss- Structuralism is the study of the hidden rules that govern a structure. 

Levi-Strauss thought that the human mind could be investigated by studying the fundamental structure underlying myths and fables from around the world (which he saw as one unitary system). He developed the idea of the ‘binary opposition’ – that the system of myths and fables was ruled by a structure of opposing terms, e.g. hot-cold, male-female, culture-nature, raw-cooked. 

Many writers have analysed media products using the idea of the binary opposition, but seeing the overall system as ‘ideology’ rather than ‘human consciousness’.

Homeland Application

Homeland: Insiders v Outsiders; Al Qaeda v US; Cruelty v Bureaucracy

Opening shots of the prison in Bagdad vs the smart office setting in the US.

The streets in Bagdad that are busy, uncontrolled and dangerous vs the calm, clean and organised streets in the US.

Methods of torture in the flashback scenes with Brody in comparison to the clean professional method that he is being interviewed in the US.

The Killing Application

-Selfishness vs duty; violence vs nurturing; racism vs inclusivity

-Violence vs love- In the first scene between Meyer and Sarah, an opposition is shown of the close up over the shoulder shot of Sarah's photo of her son vs the poster Meyer replaces it with of guns.

-Professionalism vs rationalism

Theory Summary

Neale- Genre theory is about what genres are, and about how and why they are created, change endure or decline.

Neale says genre is constructed through generic codes and conventions and shared through repetition of sharing of media products.

This shows us that genres are not a fixed thing but evolve and change with every addition to the generic corps that can often become hybrids along with other genres.

Generic codes and conventions are not just established in media products but in products that refer to these products such as critical writings or advertising and marketing material, what Neale referred to as 'the intertextual relay'.

Homeland Application

In Homeland, there is a female protagonist in a spy thriller with mental health issues.

-Thriller/espionage/drama- hybrid of genres, uses codes and conventions from all genres.

-As a genre becomes more popular over recent years, as a result of 9/11 the spies genre has re-emerged in popularity.

The Killing Application

-Hybridity- The Killing is a crime drama, thriller with elements of social realism.

-Audience expectations are that of twisting and enigmatic narratives that have been developed- this is evidenced in The Killing with the 3 narrative strands.

-Many LFTVD's have high production values, star system rather than genre to market themselves but The Killing does not.

-Genres aren't fixed, but evolve. The Killing interweaves 3 generically different narrative strands and then combines into fourth: 'Whodunnit'.

Theory Summary

Todorov- Narratology

Narrative=Story

Equilibrium- The introduction to the characters, Carrie working in the CIA with no threat of security, the East is in power seeing as they do not suspect anything in terms of terrorist attacks. We see that Carrie is an unstable character already and presented as not very reliable and also with much less power than the men hold.

Disruption- Brody being discovered initiates the suspicion of Carrie.

Recognition of disruption- Confides in Saul showing that his position is higher than the power of a woman.

Attempt to resolve- Carrie illegally sets up cameras in Brody's house which positions her as a sneaky, unstable, crazy, not trusted and not reliable character.

New equilibrium- No, as it is a TV series.

Homeland Application

-In Homeland, Abu Nazir's plot and Brody's release disrupt the equilibrium, which is implied. The narrative drive is for Carrie to oppose the plot.

-In Homeland we are left with an enigma rather than resolution within Brody's plan.

The Killing Application

Equilibrium- Introducing the characters and learning about their lives, Sarah's about to move, committed to a relationship, respected at work.

Disruption- Nana being missing, turning into realisation of a murder.

Recognition of disruption- When Sarah is visiting the Birk Larsens and asks about the daughter, when they realise it wasn't a prostitute but it was a teenager. Family discover that Nana is dead as the body is found.

Attempt to solve- Sarah and Meyer trying to discover who the killer is and they start a large search which Sarah is in control of. She changes her plans to leave for her relationship.

New equilibrium- None in the first episode.

Specific example for only episode 1 of what can be applied-Troells 

-Equilibrium- politician running a campaign, widower.

-Disruption- mole in the party.

-Recognition- Mayor's actions, reporting on him.

-Resolution/new equilibrium- not reached.

Theory Summary

Barthes- Barthes identifies two interrelated theoretical perspectives: Semiotics and Structuralism.

1. Semiotics​- the study of individual signs.

2. Structuralism​- the study of the relationships between those signs He argues that the organisation of these relationships ​encodes particular ideologies.

Homeland Application

-Men wearing traditional, cultural dresses and hats

-Old cars

-Steady camera moving around everywhere showing chaos either in the situation or location

-Run down prison, looking really brutal with an area where people can be hung, barbed wire, military guards with guns

-Middle East=violent, brutal and barbaric, completely different culture

-Guard is smoking outside and talking to a random man on the street when he isn't supposed to be

The Killing Application

-In The Killing, the non-diegetic sound professionally highlights the thought process and focus on professionalism.

Theory Summary

Gilroy- White superiority

Gilroy describes a 'myth of black criminality' and attributed statistical differences in recorded criminality between ethnic groups as being due to police stereotyping and racist labelling .

Homeland Application

-West vs. East and the representation of the East and the methods they employ

-The Middle East will accept bribery because they are less fortunate than the Americans

-The white American's have nice clothes while the Middle East people have old, dirty looking clothes

The Killing Application

Vagn-Vagn makes a racist comment to a man from Pakistan, treating him as inferior.

Police Department- The Danish police department jokingly refer to Sweden as below them, they joke about their inferiority and how much of a downgrade it is going to be for Sarah to move there during her leaving party scene. They make fun of the Swedish culture such as with the skis and the helmets. They say to her: 'If decomposed herring and light beer are your thing, then you're welcome to it.' As they use the two  insults, it shows their discrimination.

Theory Summary

Van Zoonen- Gender stereotypes

Van Zoonen says that our ideas of femininity and masculinity are constructed in our performance of these roles. Gender is what we do rather than who we are and changes meaning depending on cultural and historical contexts.

Homeland Application

Even though Carrie is strong and has a masculine role within the series of leadership, she has several flaws that make her unstable as a leader and strong woman, thus showing the power of patriarchy reinforcing subtly the inferiority of women to men in positions of power.

-The concept of patriarchy may be applied to the ownership and control of television, the recruitment and ethos of television professionals and the representation of gender.

The Killing Application

-The only scene where Sarah is objectified is in the first scene where the long shot in her underwear is shown. She was the one who answered the phone which suggests that she is a mother but she is taking on her work while her partner is making her a coffee showing the equality in the relationship.

-Sarah is respected which reflects the cultural context about gender.

-Forebrydelsen questions many traditional female characteristics with its lead Sarah Lund. Society had changed and there is no longer the demand or desire for depictions of domesticated women.

-There is more desire for career driven women who struggle with the traditional demands expected of them. Characters, like Lund, become more layered and complex and they resist any attempts to shoe-box their roles.

-Forebrydelsen challenges traditional gender roles by depicting the parenting skills of a woman driven by her professional codes. Sarah Lund is motivated by a juxtaposition of male and female traits.

Victim- female, young, vulnerable, victim of sexual abuse, kidnapping and murder- Nana

-Politicians- Serious, manipulative and corrupt, middle aged, game-playing, male dominated- Troells

-Police- More male police officers, stereotype of males being dominant in the police force, Sarah is the only female. Meyer- immature. Positive- they are focused and dedicated and successful in their search for Nana.

-Swedish nationality- Rivalry through joking around, stereotypes of Sweden- skiing and vikings etc.

-Family unit- Birk Larsens- stereotypical family, man going out and woman staying at home, man fixing things, Anti-stereotype- Sarah's family relationship contrasts, lack of emotion

-Racism- Vagn racist towards man from Pakistan, represented as normality, Theis is not shocked by vagn's behaviour, showing racism is expected. Racism is shown as unintelligent since Theis practically calls Vagn stupid.

Theory Summary

Bell Hooks- Intersecting structures of power

Intersectionality refers to the coming together of gender, race, class and sexuality to create a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy which dominates media representations. Women should develop an oppositional gaze that refuses to identify with characters that reinforce patriarchal ideology and politicises the case.

Homeland Application

Carrie embodies the oppositional gaze that refuses to conform to the expectations of women and provides a character to identify with what challenges the patriarchal ideologies.

The Killing Application

Sarah is always wearing practical clothes, not showing skin like when they are out in the fields investigating and she is wearing thick layers and has all the correct equipment.

Theory Summary

Gauntlett- Theories of identity

The media have a complex relationship with identities. There are many diverse and contradictory messages that individuals can use to think through their identity and how to express themselves.

Homeland Application

-Homeland shows diverse and contradictory representations that the audience can use to think through their identity as they have the time and resources to develop implied representations through Carrie and Brody.

-The show offers local representations that resonate with international audiences like the Middle East and US. This increases the diversity to reach an international audience, and Homeland was successful in several international locations as a series.

-In scene 46 to 51 minutes Carrie realises the truth, showing her as a contradictory character that can be respected for her Insight. A pots of her mental health illness helped her to identify the 'tell'.

-Her ability to be an anti stereotype in terms of a woman, drinking, avoiding relationships, focused sex on rather than conversations.

The Killing Application

-Sarah is career focused, she picks and choosing between her career and her family life. She is presented to us as a maternal figure. When she realised that the Birk Larsen's daughter was the girl who was missing. Camerawork focuses on her eyes close up, showing her realisation and empathy. The non-diegetic sound shows how she is feeling at the realisation, how she has pieced it together and the fear and dread she feels for this family and their potential loss. This contradicts her relationship with her own son as she is shown to know very little about him as they are driving in the car.

Theory Summary

Hall- Theories of representation

Through stereotyping and ideology, those in power try to fix the meaning of a representation to a preferred reading that suggest there is only one true meaning.

Meaning is created by a representation but it is what is present and also absent and different that create the representation.

Stereotypes and how they are constructed should be pulled apart and deconstructed to identify what they tell us about ideology.

Homeland Application

-Homeland attempts to create dominant meaning through the use of ideology of West vs East to support the preferred reading of those in power (which is the US).

-Carrie's representation is created through a lack of elements in her characterisation, closeness, compassion and success outside of her job.

The Killing Application

Sarah doesn't dress herself up or flirt or wear lots of makeup for the men in her company. She doesn't care how she is physically presented as long as she is professional and work oriented. she works for her position rather than using her sexuality. She has created the representation of herself as powerful, independent and determined.

Theory Summary

Baudrillard- Postmodernism

Postmodernism is the idea that Society has moved beyond modernism- either modernism in art and culture (early 20th century) or modernism in the sense of a belief in progress, which dates back much further.

Baudrillard argued that as modern societies were organised around production of goods, postmodernism society is organised around simulation- the play of images and signs.

Previously important social distinctions suffer 'implosion' as differences of gender, class, politics and culture dissolve in a world of simulation in which individuals construct their identities.

The new world of 'hyperreality'- media simulations, for example, Disneyland and amusement parks, moles and consumer fantasy lands- is more real than the real, and controls how we think and behave.

Homeland Application

-Baudrillard can be applied to any cultural product including long form TV dramas. Homeland has minimal intertextuality. It establishes real world ground narrative in real world events like 9/11, local politics, mental health etc.

-In scene 31 to 35 minutes Brody interviews hyperreality of CIA interviews and torture/ war on terror.

The Killing Application

-The Killing has verisimilitude but isn't postmodernism. 

-Reality of Denmark's corrupt government has been presented through Troells and his story.

-Baudrillard applies to The Killing through hyperreality. Stereotypes are heightened by representations of Danish society, it isn't realistic that in only 24 hours, they would have discovered so much. There is a combination of reality with shots on location and shots in a studio which add to the sense of hyperrealism.

Theory Summary

Hall- Audience Theory

Encoding/decoding model 

Media produces in code with a preferred meaning. Each audience can decode in one of three ways: 

1) Dominant reading- accepts the preferred meaning and ideological meaning.

2) Negotiated reading- some of the decoded messages accepted but the audience disagrees with parts of it and so changes it to fit their experience and values.

3) Oppositional reading- both the preferred meaning and any ideological assumptions encoded in the product are rejected.

Homeland Application

-Draws attention to the possible audience readings of Homeland and the messages it portrays. Shows the power of the audience in questioning Carrie and her representation of mental illness, also highlights which perspective those in power perceived representations of mental illness, race and gender.

- It also acknowledges the power of the media and creating any dominant messages within television messages and values. The conflict in East vs West, gender inequalities and links to weakness through Carrie and her mental health issues.

The Killing Application

-Stereotypes are used by those in power to try to fix representations to one preferred reading. We need to pull apart stereotypes and find out what the different meanings are and what they tell us about ideology. Sarah is seen by the audience as a strong female character, respected by even her boss.

Theory Summary

Bandura- Media and effects

Bandura believes that the media can have a direct influence on the values and behaviour of audience members. The media can also have an indirect influence through social networks. 

He argues that audiences may imitate behaviours they see represented in the media.

He says LFTD's draw attention to the need to investigate the direct effects on individuals. They support the arguments of those who think television should be regulated to avoid public harm.

However, the complex representations common to LFTVD's are less likely to cause a direct effect on audiences. Prioritising the effects of the media on the audience may mean that the effects of the audience on the media are underestimated.

Homeland Application

-In 4.23 minutes to 8.20 minutes of Homeland, the representations of patriarchal society that are reproduced through the male characters in the CIA can reinforce patriarchal ideals in the mind of the audience.

-The behaviour that is imitated in the Patriarchal Society is that the man who is in charge humiliates Carrie when she is late and he responds dismissively and doesn't praise her for remembering other people who were in Brody's situation.

-Saul doesn't believe Carrie or support her and she is left pleading.

The Killing Application

Sarah asserts her position to continue the search in another direction. Context- Gender should be equal which are the views within Denmark. Her boss and colleagues are throwing her a party. She is one person, and a woman too, so the fact that they joke around with her and treat her like an equal, shows that things are better within their society. They even say how much of an asset she was when working for the company. Context- Danish society accepts people despite their gender, if they are good at what they do and successful in their work, then they deserve the same treatment and even her boss respects Sarah which is shown in this scene.

Bandura applies to stereotypes in The Killing by presenting Nana as a vulnerable woman, which is expected within the media, such as when women are walking alone, they are at more risk, this stereotype is shown. This was true since Nana was out and then suddenly she was missing, presented as too weak to take care of herself.

Theory Summary

Curran and Seaton- Power and media industries

Media ownership is the most important influence on the media, with a small number of major conglomerates (a company that owns numerous companies involved in mass media enterprises) continuing to dominate the media industry despite the emergence of the internet.

1) Patterns in ownership and control are important in how the media functions.

2) Media industries are capitalist and aim to increase concentration of ownership; leads to narrowing of opinions represented, affecting plurality.

3) Owners pursue profit at the expense of quality or creativity.

Homeland Application

-The issue of ownership and control, the working practices of creator and the risk and profitability vs critical appeal in TV drama depending who is funding the production.

-There is an international dominance of American Streaming services like Netflix, in distributing many LFTVD's. This can limit the representations that are created through the ownership and control of the productions. Homeland is a Showtime production, sold to Channel 4 and then Netflix.

The Killing Application

The Killing is a great example of European LFTVD produced under and grown out of a strong public service remit. It shares the conventions  of the commercial form like Homeland but is also concerned with the wider social, political and moral issues.

Theory Summary

Hesmondhalgh- Cultural Industries

Cultural industries follow a capitalist pattern of increasing concentration and integration so production is owned and controlled by a few conglomerates.

Risk is seen in terms of loss of money. Risk is high because the production costs are high. Industries therefore rely on stars, genres, franchises, repeatable narratives and so on to sell formats to audiences.

Homeland Application

-Draws attention to the ownership and control purposes, such as American commercial- Homeland, compared to the European Public service ethos.

-In Homeland, the risk and profitability is seen in the high budgets that then minimise the risk via formatting and the star system and co-production deals for the smaller European broadcasters.

-In Homeland, we see famous actors alongside genre of crime/conspiracy that is successful in America. We do not see this in The Killing as there is not a high budget. However, in prioritising the effects of ownership and control on the content of television this theory may not aid in understanding how ideologies, audience choice or media language conventions may determine media content.

The Killing Application

-Racism from Vagn, a white working class man seeming immature and uneducated, whilst Theis seems well educated and not a racist. Vagn is a dodgy character and has questionable morals. This shows us that racism is an issue in Denmark. 

-Stereotypical mini-market

Theory Summary

Livingstone and Lunt- Regulation

Consumers are individuals who seek private benefits from the media and require regulation to protect them. Citizens are social, seek public or social benefits from the media and require regulation to promote public interest.

Media regulation serves a variety of purposes and must balance a range of consumer needs. Regulation is needed to make sure the media promotes public interests. Traditional forms of media regulation are being challenged by the online and globalised media culture resulting from technological developments such as the internet.

Homeland Application

-LFTVD's produced by European public service broadcasters may be regulated in the interest of citizens like The Killing but not Homeland.

-LFTVD;s produced by American cable and streaming services are lightly regulated to avoid harm as they treat their audiences as consumers. Homeland focused on making money and the audience to consume the ideologies presented in their representations.

-Shows the challenges of globalised TV industries on traditional regulation. In the UK, you can put in a formal complaint to OFCOM who will pursue, however this only applies to a national market or British TV drama, not international streaming services like Homeland.

The Killing Application

-LFTVD's produced by European public service broadcasters may be regulated in the interest of citizens like The Killing but not Homeland.

Theory Summary

Butler-Gender Performativity

Butler says that gender is created in how we perform our gender roles. There is no essential gender identity behind these roles, it is created in the performance. Performativity is not a singular act but a repetition and a ritual that becomes naturalised within the body.

Any feminism concerned only with masculinity and femininity excludes other forms of gender and sexuality. This creates 'gender trouble' for those that do not fit the heterosexual norms.

Homeland Application

Female is capable of brilliance. She was always capable and intelligent but never listened to. Carrie was always capable but rejected because she is a female so seems less reliable than men.

The Killing Application

Sarah Lund has created her own life and her naturalised ritual is her loyalty to her work, with how dedicated and involved in the cases she is. She is not the stereotypical woman presented within the media.