Media studies essential word dictionary...

Patriarchy:

This is a male domination of the political, cultural and socieoeconomic system where women are ignored in society and are culturally and econmically invisible being defined solely by their relation to men.

This links to the film crash as women can be seen as weaker characters compared to men. An example of this is when a black women gets sexually abused(by white police officer) and her husband is stopped from helping her.

Audience:

The groups or indiviuals tageted by producers as the intended consumers of media texts.

This links to my study as my main question is based on the audince and how they are engaged throughout the film itself. They play a very important role as many realistic events in society are taking place which can effect the audience in many ways.

Binary opposition:

A term used by levi strauss as part of his argument that narratives are structured around oppositional elemnts of human culture.

This relates to my study as many oppositions to take place throughout the film. For example good vs evil and life and death are some of the main oppositions that take place.

Culture:

The social practices of a group of people usually involving shared language history, values, beliefs, lifestyle, appearance and entertainment.

This links to the film crash as there are many different background cultures involved in the film such as the black culture, white, asian etc...

All these different cultures together play a key role in the film crash to engage the audience as the main debate in the film is racism.

Message:

The subject matter of an act of communication.

This relates to my study in many different ways as a number of message and morals are sent out to the audience to engage them and also inform. For example in the film the message of stopping racism is sent out to the audience by making them notice the effect of what this has on characters in the film.

Propp(1895-1970):

Russian formalist who analysed the structure of narratives. His work emphasises the role of character in structuring narrative and is useful in helping to understand generic conventions of films.

The hero...

There are many characters in the film that are classed as the HERO. For example when the white police officer rescues a black women from a burning car.

The Villian...

Many of the racsist characters in the film can be the villians as they are causing tension in the film.

Therefore propps theory is very relevent to my study because if the film does contain different narrative roles this can engage the audience as tension and social conflict is being produced.

Prejudice:

The pre judging of an issue or social group usually in a negative of sterotypical way.

This specifically relates to crash as many different lower class groups are being sterotyped in a negative way in society. Many of the upper class characters in the film dipict them in a prejudice way which was what triggerd of the crash in the film at the beggining.

For example charcters in the film hold a very strong prejudice on black charcaters. This can mainly be seen by the white upper class characters in the film.

Realism:

A film and television style that attempts to represent the real world.

The whole film is based on realistic events that take place in society in the real wolrd. For example racism, sterotyping, prejudices on people etc...all take place in society. Thereofre the main message or moral of the film could be to stop this from happening as racism does not only take place in LA.

Representation:

Represenations provide models of how we see gender, socail groups, indiviuals and aspects of the world we inabit. Representation is the key to many media debates and is usually described as being positve and negative.

There are both positive and negative represenations in the film crash. This can be establised by the fact that many characters in the film are represented to be racsit to one another.

Many women in the film are also represented to be weak and emotional by the fact that men have more power over them. Many different stereotyps are represented and reinforced in the film by the fact that black people are seen to be criminals to society when in reality they do have a good side to them in the film.

Stereotypes:

The social classification of a group of people by identifying common characteristics and universally applying them in an often oversimplifiedand generaised way.

Many stereotypes are raised in the film crash.

Black people- criminals to society.

White people- rIch and selfish.

Asians- weak and emotional.