Introduction to Film and Television Studies, 3

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Introduction to Film and Television Studies, 3

• Major theoretical divisions

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Conventionalism and realism

• Conventionalism Our knowledge of the world and
  ourselves is based on certain conventional,
  historically and socially conditioned, arbitrary
  symbolic systems Culture and language determine
  the limits of understanding (codes)
• Realism Certain universal perceptual and
  cognitive abilities broadly determine our ability
  to make sense of perceptual data, come to terms
  and understand our environment as well as
  formulate symbolic systems (schemas)

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Schemas

• unconscious conceptual structures which process
  perceptual data and guide our understanding
• basis on our the perceptual and cognitive
  abilities to process information about our
  environment
• emerge and develop in our interaction with our
  natural and social environment
• classify perceived phenomena on a mainly
  unconscious level
• both enable and restrict our perception and
  understanding

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Grand division in film studies

• Screen theories (contexts, codes, channels)
• Saussures semiotics
• Althusserls neomarxism
• Freuds or Lacans psychoanalysis
• Foucaults analysis of power relationships
• Cultural studies (addressees, contexts)
• Cognitive film theory (texts, contexts, channels)
• cognitive psychology
• ecological theory of visual perception
• formalist analysis of filmic style and narration
• historical poetics