Review Page Analysis

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.