Media theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Media theory - Essay Example A number of interpretations for these methodologies and styles are possible based on various lenses used to analyze the creation of different media elements. Contemporary media studies consist of various analytical elements and styles. These could depend on semiotics, ideological analysis, psychoanalytical approaches, formalist approaches, feminist approaches, modern approaches, post modern approaches, post structuralist approaches as well as post colonial approaches. However, there is a certain fluidity present between these differing approaches so no one piece of media can be termed as relying on one of these approaches alone. Instead, it is common for more than one device to be used to create media elements (Berger, 2011). This ensures that a singular piece of media will appeal to as many audiences as possible at the same time. In order to satisfy the needs of various subcultures it is necessary to construe a piece of media from as many differing perspectives as possible without s poiling its overall composure. While some pieces of media might contain this contention through the process of directed creation, other pieces of media might contain such influences involuntarily. It is highly obvious that a number of sub cultures also influences the creator of a piece of media. Hence, it is natural to expect a piece of media to be composed of various forms and methods of thinking and style. This is all the more obvious for textual pieces of media more than other kinds of media. It might be argued that other media such as movies for example are far richer in terms of content than textual pieces. However, movies are the joint collaboration of a number of people working together while textual content is often the creation of one individual alone. The depth contained within textual materials is arguably far richer than other pieces or elements of media. This paper will focus on the media analysis of a piece of text contained in the January 2011 edition of Time Magazine titled New Ways to Think of Grief by Ruth Davis Konigsberg. A number of different media analysis approaches will be used in order to decipher the creation and composure of the said piece of media. These will involve a combination of theoretical as well as practical media analysis tools and theories. These tools will be applied to the subject text sequentially to bring out the various influences as they compose the text. The article by Konigsberg tends to look at grief, one of the most basic of all human emotional expressions. Certain human experiences such as happiness, grief, surprise and the like are such basic blocks of the human being that they are seldom revisited for consideration. It is common for an average person to never look into these nooks and crannies and to forge ahead in life using conceptions gathered from society. However, the article penned by Konigsberg forces one to â€Å"revisit the basics† to see how one’s conception of grief is fashioned by the people and social values around a person. This method of looking at grief or this method of looking at anything else is purely post modernist without argument. The post modernist approach relies on â€Å"revisiting the basics† to look for continual and dynamic evolution of issues that fashion human life. The basic tenet of post modernism is the belief that human issues are continually evolving and will continue to behave as such without any stoppage. These ideas are supported by the fact that society is