a2 media: how to integrate theory

A2 Media: FAQ This

Q. How do I include media theories in my work?A. Like this….

The aim is to integrate them as fluently as possible to make clear that theory is something that naturally informs your understanding of media texts and issues. Ideally, they will never just come across as something bolted-on to your answer, they should form an integral part of it.

What this might look like in practise, will be determined by the question that you are answering and the texts you are analysing, but what follows are a few examples of how theory might be absorbed into your answers.

Uses & gratifications

This should inform your approach to audience, and will play a particular role in questions that ask you to explore how texts appeal to audiences. For example:

One of the key ways in which the GHD ‘Twisted Fairytales’ campaign appeals to the audience is by constructing the audience as empowered young women with the strength to reject the stereotypes that have traditionally imprisoned women. In doing so they help shape the audience’s sense of personal identity, by presenting role-models that the audience are encouraged to aspire to.



The Carling ‘Know Who Your Mates Are’ campaign appeals to its audience by using a comic mode of address and by making intertextual use of cinematic genres that have stereotypical appeal to a male audience. In doing so the text not only endows the brand with a specific set of values (an understanding of the loyalty and humour that underpins male relationships) but does so in a way that also provides entertainment.



Louis Vuitton’s ‘Journeys’ campaign appeals to its audience by constructing a lifestyle of spiritual fulfilment and material comfort. By featuring iconic, A-List celebrities such as Bono and his wife, the adverts place the audience in the position of privileged spectators, witnesses to moments of intimacy in which the stars embody the values of the brand (caring, successful, at ease anywhere on the planet). In doing so they appeal to our sense of personal identity.

Reception Theory

In other words, the one about dominant, negotiated and oppositional readings. This should inform audience questions about how they audience are targeted/positioned, and questions that invite you to explore audience responses. Like this…

The GHD campaign positions the audience as savvy, sharp-witted young women executing their revenge on men, as in the case of Cinderella, or proving their independence rather than their passive reliance on men, as in the Rapunzel moving-image advert. These dominant reading are constructed through the use of visual and technical codes such as the close-up of ‘Rapunzel’ coming up with the idea of how she can escape from the tower.

Reception Theory


Although the Carling campaign explicitly targets an audience of 18-34 year old males, it could also appeal to other demographics. For example the comic mode of address is likely to have cross-gender appeal, meaning that the dominant reading of the text could be accepted by a range of different audiences.

Reception Theory


A more oppositional response to the Louis Vuitton campaign could be that the references to ethical commerce, for example in the Bono advert, and to environmental issues represent little more than window-dressing to present the company in a more positive light when ultimately they are promoting products that, by virtue of their extreme cost, promote exclusivity and division.

Narrative Theory

Quite obviously these will inform your analysis of the TV texts. Again, the key is not to force them on the analysis, and, most importantly, don’t see them as the be-all and end-all of narrative analysis.

Luther (Series 3, episode 1), features a narrative with multiple-strands, that, following the convention of crime-dramas involve a number of enigma codes. The most significant of these relate to the two strands of the narrative that are concerned with solving and preventing crime. In the case of the fetish killer – a dark, often gruesome narrative that incorporates camera angles and sound-codes from the horror genre – the enigma is, can Luther and his team catch the killer before he strikes again?

Narrative Theory

Quite obviously these will inform your analysis of the TV texts. Again, the key is not to force them on the analysis, and, most importantly, don’t see them as the be-all and end-all of narrative analysis.

Channel 4’s four-part gangster/social realist hybrid ‘Top Boy’ follows many of the narrative conventions of the gangster genre, in particular, through the way in which the robberies at the beginning and end of the first episode, introduce disequilibriums that Dushane must repair if he is to rise to the position of ‘Top Boy’.

Narrative TheoryQuite obviously these will inform your analysis of the TV texts. Again, the key is not to force them on the analysis, and, most importantly, don’t see them as the be-all and end-all of narrative analysis.

BBC1’s flagship current-affairs show Panorama, uses a range of narrative devices in order to engage the audience emotionally as well as intellectually with the issue under investigation in May 2013’s ‘Jobs for the Boys’ episode. For example, the show creates binary oppositions between some of those featured. Abdi, for example, is constructed through the use of visual codes and mode of address as the antithesis of the unnamed protagonist, who, through sound codes such as rap music and the technical codes such as hand-held camera, as a negative stereotype of young black males.

a2 media: how to integrate theory

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