Representation

The social group of our AS production was left open to interpretation from the audience, as the lone survivor could have been from any social background and his past is left in ambiguity. The effect this gave was that we were allowed to lead the character in any direction we wanted to, the character himself was not presented in a negative light, instead he was represented as enigmatic. He could be seen as a positive character in terms of his fighting off the zombies and knowledge of survival methods. 

Across other media products in the same genre, they utilise a large cast to show an interaction between survivors (The Walking Dead) and convey messages over morality, but in the case of our film our character was a lone survivor so the impressions the audience recieved were purely based upon his mise-en-scene. The category this film fits into is the zombie genre.

Finally the signs we used were the knife and the dead owl. The knife is a symbol for the violence and harm that now rules the digesis of this world, and combined with the dead owl we are given a different signified meaning of survival and that in order to survive death must occur. We can also see the ground to be wildly littered with leaves and unattended, this shows that the world has become abandoned and feral. Furthermore the close up shot signifies the intensity and haste in which the man must act because danger lurks everywhere.

Two Step Flow Theory

Katz and Lazarsfeld assumes a slightly more active audience. It suggests messages from the media move in two distinct ways. First, individuals who are opinion leaders, receive messages from the media and pass on their own interpretations in addition to the actual media content.The information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience, but is filtered through the opinion leaders who then pass it on to a more passive audience. The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow.This theory appeared to reduce the power of the media, and some researchers concluded that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpret texts. This led to the idea of active audiences.

Cultivation Theory

This theory also treats the audience as passive. It suggests that repeated exposure to the same message – such as an advertisement – will have an effect on the audience’s attitudes and values. A similar idea is known as densensitisation which suggests that long term exposure to violent media makes the audience less likely to be shocked by violence. Being less shocked by violence the audience may then be more likely to behave violently.

The criticism of this theory is that screen violence is not the same as real violence. Many people have been exposed to screen murder and violence, but there is no evidence at all that this has lead audiences to be less shocked by real killings and violence. Also this theory treats the audience as passive which is an outdated concept.

Postmodernism 

Postmodernism embodies scepticism towards the ideas and ideals of the modern era, especially the ideas of progress, objectivity, reason, certainty, personal identity and grand narrative

Postmodernism is best viewed as a gradual and progressive reaction to the modernist movement; thus there are qualities that can be shared by each. Postmodernism, after all, embraces playful imitation so modernism can be evident as an intentional ironic reference. The mere definition of each movement can be a subjective playground for analytical minds but they can be best illustrated as two spheres interlocking where similarities meet.

So, even though a postmodern text can be constructed from already tried-and-tested genres, techniques and stock characters, it can still be as forward thinking as a modernist text (Pulp Fiction being a prime example).

Postmodernism acts against reason, orthodoxy and logic to bring us a text that is rich with surrealism and unpredictability.  You learn to accept the fact that there is no justification or reasoning behind actions or characters. They exist because they can exist; it is a celebration of the medium of television that allows The Boosh to pick and choose from a long history of tried and tested formulas. 

Antonio Gramsci 

The theory of hegemony was invented by Gramsci. Gramsci was concerned to eradicate economic determinism from Marxism and to develop its explanatory power with respect to superstructural institutions. So, he held that:

• Class struggle must always involve ideas and ideologies, ideas that would make the revolution and also that would prevent it.



• He stressed the role performed by human agency in historical change: economic crises by themselves would not subvert capitalism.



• Gramsci was more "dialectic" than "deterministic": he tried to build a theory which recognised the autonomy, independence and importance of culture and ideology.

Hegemony

Hegemony is not a forced political movement, hegemony is where an organisation see trends in society and utilise this knowledge to create products that fit in with the cultural values and ideas of that time. For our AS Media product the hegemony behind it was down to the current craze of zombie film's and television series such as the 'The Walking Dead'. In these past couple of years there has been a large increase in the number of zombie products being produced across wide forms of media and we therefore applied our ideas of hegemony to our own media production. We decided to combine the desolute environment of 'The Walking Dead' with the fast paced action of 'World War Z'. In doing this we were able to make a product that worked well in the current market.

Ideology

Ideology is the way in which companies that mediate different products and utilise different aspects of media in order to reflect the same ideas and values that the companies hold. For example, when Americans produce films the Americans within it are almost always portrayed as superior to the rest of the world; in addition they also show the lower classes and the homeless in a negative connotation. Valentin Volosinov argued that a theory of ideology which grants the purely abstract concept of consciousness an existence prior to the material forms in which it is organized could only be metaphysical. Ideological forms are not the product of consciousness but rather produce it. 

In our AS Media production, the ideologies behind it were that we wanted to create a digesis where all are now equal in a desolute environment. It was made to show that the main protagonist could have been from any social background be it rich or poor but is now reduced to the bare essentials left to him. So the ideology for the product was to get an audience to feel the sense of isolation and ruthlessness to survive, it doesn't matter who a person is, they are all on the same level when it comes to living.

Barthes Theory on semiotics

Roland Barthes semiotic theory focuses on the social signs, specifically photographs. Barthes theory emphasizes how signs constitute a culture and ideologies in particular ways. According to Barthes, these messages are created in two ways: through denotation, the literal meaning and reference of a sign and/or connotation, the meanings that are suggested or implied by the sign. Barthes uses mythical as a way of describing the characteristics that are associated with common sense, or in other words, the characteristics of a photograph that have the opportunity to represent and convey ideological norms of a culture .Although the photo itself often holds many connotative messages, the text around the photo also contributes to its connotation. Barthes describes the text as “parasitic” on the image. In other words, the text borrows the objectivity of the image, while at the same time loading the image with hidden connotations.

Semiotic Theory -Peirce 

 Peirce's basic claim is that signs consist of three inter-related parts: a sign, an object, and an interpretant. For the sake of simplicity, we can think of the sign as the signifier, for example, a written word, an utterance, smoke as a sign for fire etc. The object, on the other hand, is best thought of as whatever is signified, for example, the object to which the written or uttered word attaches, or the fire signified by the smoke. The interpretant, the most innovative and distinctive feature of Peirce's account, is best thought of as the understanding that we have of the sign/object relation. The importance of the interpretant for Peirce is that signification is not a simple dyadic relationship between sign and object: a sign signifies only in being interpreted. This makes the interpretant central to the content of the sign, in that, the meaning of a sign is manifest in the interpretation that it generates in sign users. Things are, however, slightly more complex than this and we shall look at these three elements in more detail.

Peirce's idea that a sign does not signify in all respects and has some particular signifying element is perhaps best made clear with an example. For example, a molehill in my lawn taken as a sign of moles. Not every characteristic of the molehill plays a part in signifying the presence of moles. The colour of the molehill plays a secondary role since it will vary according to the soil from which it is composed. Similarly, the sizes of molehills vary according to the size of the mole that makes them; so again, this feature is not primary in the molehill's ability to signify. What is central here is the causal connection that exists between the type of mound in my lawn and moles: since moles make molehills, molehills signify moles. Consequently, primary to the molehill's ability to signify the mole is the brute physical connection between it and a mole. This is the sign-vehicle of the sign. For Peirce, then, it is only some element of a sign that enables it to signify its object, and when speaking of the signifying element of the sign, or rather, the sign-vehicle, it is this qualified sign that he means.

Just as with the sign, not every characteristic of the object is relevant to signification: only certain features of an object enable a sign to signify it. For Peirce, the relationship between the object of a sign and the sign that represents it is one of determination: the object determines the sign. The idea is that the object imposes certain parameters that a sign must fall within if it is to represent that object. However, only certain characteristics of an object are relevant to this process of determination.

 The interpretant provides a translation of the sign, allowing us a more complex understanding of the sign's object. Second, just as with the sign/object relation, Peirce believes the sign/interpretant relation to be one of determination: the sign determines an interpretant.

Semiotics of AS Media Production

The semiotics of this scene is varied; for example one of the signifiers in this scene is the surrounding environment of desolate woodland. The woodland has signified the notion of alienation, as the character is on his own in a desolate place, it raises the questions in people’s heads of ‘what has happened?’ and also gives a sense of desperation as the man is scavenging for food. In addition the angle of the camera (Dutch tilt) is another signifier, signifying the disorientation and confusion of the situation the man has been placed in. Another signifier in this scene in the use of colour saturation, it is a representation of the cold dark world that the man has been left in, also it shows the life that is seeping from the zombie that is slowly falling to the ground.

                   

The signifier in this scene is the knife and the dead owl. The knife is a symbol for the violence and harm that now rules the digesis of this world, and combined with the dead owl we are given a different signified meaning of survival and that in order to survive death must occur. We can also see the ground to be wildly littered with leaves and unattended, this shows that the world has become abandoned and feral. Furthermore the close up shot signifies the intensity and haste in which the man must act because danger lurks everywhere.