Levi Strauss: theory analysis

 In September 2025, I had to create a presentation on one of the set A-level theorists. I was assigned Levi Strauss and have attached screenshots of my findings on his theory of binary opposites in the media. Since then, I have done further reading on his theory using the Mark Dixon textbook and learnt the following information:

• media products may also use stylistic oppositions where the camera work may switch from stable and steady to a series of frenzied whip pans. This technique is used to maintain audience interest and reflect narrative opposition between moments of calm to distress, loss to gain, or poverty to affluence in montage sequences.
• Genre driven binary oppositions can be so deeply entrenched they become a genre convention. For example technology vs humanity in science fiction.
• Binary opposites can be used to simplify complicated themes and ideas by using blatant contrast to make them more digestible. Therefore, they can also speed up audience understanding 
• Furthermore, they can make narratives more compelling by promising an entertaining narrative clash  
• Narratives resolve themselves in a way that privileges one set of oppositions- for example newspapers may teach us that criminals are caught and justice prevails, or that corrupt politicians loose elections to suggest that justice will always win. News stories are hence crafted to reinforce cultural or editorial bias. By extension, binary opposites are used to reinforce societal norms and values.

Supercurricular: Media Magazine article analysis

 An article that caught my attention in the Media Magazine's Spring 2017 edition was a piece that analysed the film 'I, Daniel Blake. Released in 2016, the film promotes socialist ideas and has sparked much political controversy. After reading the article I learned how the producer, Ken Loach, made the decision to use guerrilla 'below the line' marketing strategies (a tactic often associated with activism) since he hoped his audience would be left with a 'sense of outrage’. This included 'clean graffiti' and light projections of the film's title on the Houses of Parliament. The audience interaction with the film relates to my studies on audiences and Stuart Hall's reception theory. While the socialist messages were accepted by most as the preferred dominant reading and a desired feeling of outrage was reached, others on the political spectrum had oppositional readings, with right wing journalists in the Daily Mail criticising it as ‘romanticis[ing] benefits’. The article could further be applied to the News Industry topic: the distributors (eOne) chose to partner with Trinity Mirror Group newspaper rather than an expected broadsheet (that'd have a cineliterate middle class demographic) since the film's socialist messages aligned the newspaper's brand image who desired the value transference that'd appeal to the paper's working class demographic (who are socially and culturally conscious and want to change things for the better.)

Supercurricular: analysis of St George’s flag controversy (applied to media theories)

 https://southendhighschoolforgirls-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/20-mbla_shsg_org/EX9En3vEynxGnc-PUYdDpuEBgvueTR0_IZvJMzGjc4BNHQ?e=RJQUa1

After learning of the media theorists in the A-level spec, I attempted to apply each that I thought was relevant to the current situation of the erection of St George’s flags in local areas, and what it means to different people.

Beauty advert

 

To progress my understanding of how advertisements work, I created two adverts featuring hair products using word and other platforms available to be at home (I was absent at the time and unfortunately could not access photoshop)

School advert

 As an introduction to photoshop in year 12, the class created flyers to advertise the school after taking our own professional pictures in small groups using the departments’ cameras. Attached is my work, from which I learnt the skill of erasing the background of a picture on photoshop and layering to impose one image on top of another in a neat and professional way.