10 key words

CELEBRITIES
An individual who has become the focus of media attention and is therefore widely known and recognised by the public.
Celebrities used in Shrek 2:

Cameron Diaz as princess Fiona


Mike Myers as Shrek


Eddie Murphy as donkey


Antonio Banderas as puss in boots


Julie Andrews as the queen

CGI-computer generate imagery
The application of computer software to generate a film image

DEVIANCE
Behaviour that “divates”(turns away) from the norm or that which is generally accepted within a socieity. In shrek 2 shrek disrepects the king and queen when he goes to their castle by burping.

DOMINANT IDEOLOGY
The belief systhem that serves the intreasts of the dominant ruling elite within society, generally accepted as common sense by the majority and reproduced in mainstream media texts.
Dominant ideology establishes a hegemonic postion in society which is reinforced by media representations and is consequently diffcult to challenge.
The term arrives from a marxist theory and is addressed in detail in the work of Gramsci,Althusser and Hall.

HEGEMONIC READING
A response to a text in which the reader shares the value systhem of the text and accepts the perferred reading without question.

ELITE
A small group in a society which claims leadership privilages as a result of expertise in terms of knowledge/skill,in a particular field.
Elites exisits in broadcasting institutions where they are determine programme content and representations .
In terms of audience,elites may be viewed as sought-after niche markets
ELITISM is the practise of seperating from the masses through claims of specialists knowledge/ability.

FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS
Marxist term for the effect of dominant ideology on the awareness of workers with regard to their real economic and local capitalism.

FANTASY
A genre built around an artificially constructed reality which could never exisit in real life,often involving classical mythology/fairytales.

GENRE THEORY
An explanation of the role played by genre in a diffrentiating media texts and aligning audiences. Genre theorists consider the relationship between audiences,media texts and media producers and the ways in which genre,particulary in film,can be used by producers to target specific audience groups,with predictable expectations of audience numbers and responses.
e.g RICHARD DYER (1973) argues that genres are pleasurable because they offer escapist fantasies into fictional worlds which remove the boredom and pressures of reality. He sees these worlds as utopian,offering the audience abundance,energy,excitiment,spontaneity and community-none of which are present in their everyday lives.

GRAMSCI,ANTONIO (1871-1937)
Leader of the italian communist party, imprisoned by Benito Mussolini from 1926 until his death in 1937.
Gramsci used the term hegemony to describe the way in which the dominant elite can maintain its power over the economic,political and cultural direction of society.
The values that sustain elites in power are reproduced every day by the media and made to seem like the common sense views id the majority, so that any challenge to them is marginalised.