Media Theories in our Project

Hey Blog!

As part of the class, this year, we've learned about different media theories and how they are used in film to convey a specific message or to engage with the audience in a variety of ways. There are many theorists that have worked with media, and they each have different reasonings to support the way that media is created and the way that audiences interact with it. We've studied how some of these theories are seen in popular films recently and now we have the opportunity to apply some of these theories into our own film opening for our project.

Sofia and I would love to include at least two of the theories we've discussed in class and these are Todorov's Narrative Theory of Equilibrium and Roland Barthes's Hermeneutic or Enigma Code from his Narrative Codes. The Theory of Equilibrium states that the audience is introduced to the characters in the beginning of the story and the Enigma Code is seen when a narrative withholds information in order to develop mystery or leave a plot point unexplained. We're thinking of including these theories because we wanted to focus our film opening on developing the characters that the film would be centered around and their relationship—which reflects the Theory of Equilibrium—and, to introduce the conflict that would take place throughout the film, we want to use the Enigma Code by withholding information of the reasons behind why the friend will die later in the film, as I will explain in a future blog post. We plan to do the latter by having a comment or a question go unexplained by this character to create confusion with the friend, the other main character, and with the audience in general, and we plan to do the former by focusing solely on these two friends as they begin the journey in their life that is preparing to begin college or university studies. 

Below is a photo of a list of some of the theories that we've been exploring in class as well as two other ones I have handwritten unto my paper so that I have a wider range of examples of theories often seen in media, especially in film. It is very useful to have such a list because the information that I need is all in one singular space and I don't have to keep finding what different theories exist in media or what they each mean or do or even who is behind each of these theories.