What is structuralism as an approach to analysis?

Structuralism is the study of the hidden rules and underlying structures that govern a system, on the assumption that individual examples make sense only in terms of that deeper organisation.

What material did Lévi-Strauss study in developing his ideas?

He studied myths and folk tales collected from cultures across the world, treating them not as separate stories but as one system with a common underlying structure.

What is a binary opposition?

A binary opposition is a pair of opposed terms, such as culture and nature, whose conflict organises a text and generates its meaning.

Give three examples of binary oppositions identified by Lévi-Strauss.

He identified oppositions including raw and cooked, culture and nature, and male and female.

Why did Lévi-Strauss argue that meaning comes from opposition rather than from an element on its own?

He argued that a term signifies only through its difference from what it is set against, so light means nothing without dark and a hero is defined by the villain the narrative opposes to them.

What did Lévi-Strauss believe the structure of myth revealed?

He believed the recurring structure of myths revealed the fundamental workings of the human mind, and that myths function to manage the contradictions a culture cannot otherwise resolve.

OCR A-Level Media Studies H409

Contexts of Media

Topic overview The five media contexts: social, cultural, political, economic and historical Social context: attitudes, norms and social issues Cultural context, taste and the global circulation of media Political context, ideology and public service broadcasting Historical context and the reflection of past events Economic context: funding, ownership and financial constraint Technological context: production, distribution and audience devices Reflecting attitudes and constructing attitudes Media products as agents of social and political change Intertextuality as a trace of context

Media Language

Topic overview Signs, codes and conventions in media language Audio-visual media language: camera, mise-en-scène, editing and sound Print media language: layout, typography and image Audio and online media language Combination and selection: how elements work together to make meaning Developing technologies and the changing language of the media Barthes, semiotics and the making of myth Todorov, narratology and narrative structure Neale, genre theory and the intertextual relay Genre as dynamic and historically relative Hybridity and the subversion of genre conventions Lévi-Strauss, structuralism and binary opposition Intertextuality: pastiche, parody and the varieties of reference Baudrillard, postmodernism and hyperreality Media language, viewpoints and ideology How audiences interpret media language

Media Representations

Topic overview Selection, combination and the construction of reality Mediation, verisimilitude and claims about realism Stereotypes, countertypes and their uses Under-representation and misrepresentation of social groups Producers' choices and the process of representation Industry context and the economics of representation Social and cultural context in representation Historical context and changing representations Values, attitudes and beliefs, and their reinforcement Discourse, ideology and the positioning of audiences Audience response and interpretation of representations Self-representation, social identity and the curated self Hall and the constructionist approach to representation Gauntlett, identity and the pick-and-mix audience van Zoonen, the patriarchal gaze and gender as performance bell hooks, intersectionality and the oppositional gaze Butler, gender performativity and gender trouble Gilroy, the Black Atlantic and postcolonial melancholia

Media Industries

Topic overview Production, distribution and circulation in a global context The specialised and institutionalised nature of media production Conglomerate ownership and vertical integration Horizontal integration, diversification and synergy Curran and Seaton: concentration of ownership and plurality Curran and Seaton on the internet and the news oligarchy Hesmondhalgh: risk, public goods and the reliance on big hits Hesmondhalgh: repetition, copyright and digital labour Commercial funding: advertising, subscription and freemium models Public service broadcasting and not-for-profit funding Marketing and the maintenance of national and global audiences Technological change and the shift to digital distribution Ofcom and the UK regulatory framework Press, advertising and age classification in the UK Livingstone and Lunt: the citizen and the consumer Individual producers, convergence and the limits of regulation

Media Audiences

Topic overview Demographics, social grade and audience profiling Psychographics, lifestyle and taste categories Targeting, mode of address and the constructed audience Marketing, distribution and circulation as routes to the audience Mass and specialised audiences, nationally and globally Niche and fan audiences and their value to media organisations Media technologies and changing patterns of consumption Uses and gratifications, identity and cultural capital The effects tradition, the hypodermic model and moral panics Bandura, social learning and media modelling Gerbner, cultivation and mean world syndrome Hall, encoding, decoding and the three reader positions Jenkins, textual poaching and participatory culture Shirky, the end of audience and cognitive surplus Different readings and their social, cultural and historical circumstances User-generated content, citizen journalism and the audience as producer

News, Online and Participatory Media

Topic overview The Daily Mail as a mid-market tabloid The Guardian, the Scott Trust and the liberal broadsheet tradition Front page construction and the language of the printed news page News values, gatekeeping and the setting of the agenda Ideology, discourse and the positioning of the news reader Representation of social groups in news coverage Mail Online and the Guardian website as digital products Social and participatory media feeds Digital convergence and the changing newsroom Ownership, plurality and the concentration of the press Paywalls, subscriptions and online monetisation News audiences: targeting, reception and interpretation Press regulation from the PCC to IPSO and the online challenge

Advertising, Marketing and Magazines

Topic overview Codes and conventions of print advertising Dove, Real Beauty and the Beautifully Real Moms campaign Media language in the Dove advert Representations of motherhood and the maternal body in the Dove advert River Island and the Labels are for Clothes campaign Media language in the River Island advert Representations of diversity, disability and self-expression at River Island Shelter, charity advertising and the direct call to action Media language in the Shelter advert Representations of homelessness and housing insecurity in the Shelter advert Social and cultural contexts of the three advertising campaigns The Big Issue, the street paper model and its market position Media language of a Big Issue front cover Alternative representations in The Big Issue Social, cultural and political contexts of The Big Issue

Music Video

Topic overview Music video as a form: performance, narrative and concept Promotion, platforms and the star image Media language in music video: camera, mise-en-scène, editing and sound Representation in music video: stereotypes, countertypes and self-representation Artist-present and artist-absent music video Corinne Bailey Rae – Stop Where You Are Lil Nas X – SUN GOES DOWN Emeli Sandé – Heaven Sufjan Stevens – Sugar Radiohead – Burn the Witch David Guetta ft. Sia – Titanium

Film, Radio and Video Games

Topic overview Disney from Snow White to global conglomerate Vertical integration and the structure of the film industry Financing, risk and the franchise model in film Technological change in film production and exhibition Distribution, release windows and home entertainment Marketing a global blockbuster Film certification and regulation Public service broadcasting and the Radio 1 Breakfast Show Funding, ownership and competition in the radio industry Radio technology, platforms and convergent distribution Reaching and constructing the Radio 1 Breakfast Show audience Nintendo, ownership and the global games industry Producing and distributing Animal Crossing: New Horizons The Animal Crossing audience: targeting, play and participation Regulation and the social context of video games

Long Form Television Drama

Topic overview Mr Robot and the unreliable narrator Killing Eve and the gendered spy thriller Atypical and the representation of neurodiversity Stranger Things, nostalgia and the Netflix franchise Lupin, disguise and postcolonial Paris Money Heist and the second life of a national drama Trapped, Nordic noir and the Icelandic industry Deutschland 83, the Cold War and the export of German drama The streaming economy and the funding of long form drama Global distribution and the travel of non-English language drama Genre hybridity, intertextuality and multiple narrative strands Media language and representation in long form television drama Audiences, fandom and the regulation of on-demand drama

Media Language

Lévi-Strauss, structuralism and binary opposition

3 things to know
Components 01 and 02

Overview

Recall questions on structuralism and Lévi-Strauss's study of myth, binary oppositions and their ideological weight, mediating figures, applying binaries to a superhero narrative, and why the method is called reductive and ahistorical.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started

Key term

How can a media product invoke a binary and then collapse it?

Key term

What is the danger that a critic will find only the oppositions they set out to look for?

Evaluation

Why is Lévi-Strauss's approach criticised for being ahistorical?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1
What is structuralism as an approach to analysis?
Model answer
Structuralism is the study of the hidden rules and underlying structures that govern a system, on the assumption that individual examples make sense only in terms of that deeper organisation.
2
What material did Lévi-Strauss study in developing his ideas?
Model answer
He studied myths and folk tales collected from cultures across the world, treating them not as separate stories but as one system with a common underlying structure.
3
What is a binary opposition?
Model answer
A binary opposition is a pair of opposed terms, such as culture and nature, whose conflict organises a text and generates its meaning.
4
Give three examples of binary oppositions identified by Lévi-Strauss.
Model answer
He identified oppositions including raw and cooked, culture and nature, and male and female.
5
Why did Lévi-Strauss argue that meaning comes from opposition rather than from an element on its own?
Model answer
He argued that a term signifies only through its difference from what it is set against, so light means nothing without dark and a hero is defined by the villain the narrative opposes to them.
6
What did Lévi-Strauss believe the structure of myth revealed?
Model answer
He believed the recurring structure of myths revealed the fundamental workings of the human mind, and that myths function to manage the contradictions a culture cannot otherwise resolve.

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Contexts of Media

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The Video Recordings Act .

198419741994

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The Big Issue was founded in 1991.

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