1. MEDIA STUDIES
Theoretical Concepts
Structuralism
Claude lévi-strauss

2. STRUCTURALISM WJEC: SPEC
The idea that texts can best be understood through an examination of their underlying structure.
The idea that meaning is dependent upon (and produced through) pairs of oppositions.
The idea that the way in which these binary oppositions are resolved can have particular ideological significance.
THEORIST
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist who developed the ‘Structuralism’ theory - ‘the search for the underlying patterns of thought in forms of human activity’.

3. STRUCTURALISM 1.Binary Opposition: 2.Social Validation:
In the mid-20th century, Claude Lévi-Strauss had the insight that how we understand certain words depends on our understanding of the difference between the word and its ‘opposite’.
1.Binary Opposition:
Lévi-Strauss referred to this process as a ‘binary opposite’ (the process being called ‘Binary Opposition’). For example, our understanding of the word ‘coward’ surely depends on the difference between that word and its opposing idea, that of a ‘hero’.
2.Social Validation:
Levi-Strauss also noted an important feature of ‘binary opposites’ was that one side of the binary pair is always seen by a particular society or culture as more valued over the other.
3.Examples (Binary Opposites):
Good vs Evil. Black vs White. Peace vs War. Democracy vs Dictatorship. Young vs Old. Protagonist vs Antagonist. Man vs Woman. Strong vs Weak. Ignorance vs Wisdom.