Lesson 5 - Theorists
Theorists
Bathes - Can be applied to any sign, including language and image, to examine connotations and ideology. Draws attention to the naturalizing effect of ideology in any text - this applies particularly to newspapers and magazines, as headlines typically assume a shared view of the world with the readers in order to be easily understood.
Neale - Can be applied to any media product that has genre and links together media language, audiences and industries. The concept of genre as a shared code explains how genre can change (e.g. the 'quality' press becoming more like a tabloid) and hybridise (e.g. the middle-market tabloids, such as the mail, that follow both 'tabloid' and 'broadsheet' conventions. 
Baudrillard - everything in media is a construction of something. 
Hall - Can be applied to any media product. Applies particularly to the way in which headlines try to fix the meaning of a representation, both the copy and the photographs. Draws attention to the role of the power in representations - both the general distribution of power in society and the power of the print media as an institution - but also the power of the audience to decode representations in different ways.
Gauntlett - Applies to the sense of identity that a newspaper or magazine can offer its readers - e.g. the identity of liberal progressive guardian reader or a patriotic, hard-headed mail reader, a royalist hellow magazine reader or left learning Big issue or private - eye reader. Applies to the way different sections of print media offer diverse and sometimes contradictory media messages to audiences, thus offering a range of points of identifications
Van Voonen - Can be applied to any media product, especially representations of gender. The concept of patriarchy may be applied to the ownership and control of the print media companies, the recruitment and ethos of their professionals, news values, and the representation of gender, especially the representation of women's bodies