Terminology
Audience – viewers, listeners and readers of a media text. A lot of media studies is concerned with how audience use texts and the effects a text may have on them. Also identified in demographic socio-economic categories.
Code – a sign or convention through which the media communicates meaning to us because we have learned to read it. Technical codes – all to do with the way a text is technically constructed – camera angles, framing, typography, lighting etc. Visual codes – codes that are decoded on a mainly connotational level – things that draw on our experience and understanding of other media texts, this includes Iconography – which is concerned with the use of visual images and how they trigger the audiences expectations of a particular genre, such as a knife in slasher horror films.
Consumer – purchaser, listener, viewer or reader of media products.
Context – time, place or mindset in which we consume media products.
Conventions – the widely recognised way of doing things in particular genre.
Denotation – the everyday or common sense meaning of a sign. Connotation – the secondary meaning that a sign carries in addition to it’s everyday meaning.
Diegetic Sound – Sound whose source is visible on the screen Non Diegetic sound – Sound effects, music or narration which is added afterwards
Enigma – A question in a text that is not immediately answered and creates interest for the audience – a puzzle that the audience has to solve.
Feminism – the struggle by women to obtain equal rights in society
Genre – the type or category of a media text, according to its form, style and content.
Ideology – A set of ideas or beliefs which are held to be acceptable by the creators of the media text, maybe in line with those of the dominant ruling social groups in society, or alternative ideologies such as feminist ideology.
Indexical sign – a sign which has a direct relationship with something it signifies, such as smoke signifies fire.
Image – a visual representation of something.
Institutions – The organisations which produce and control media texts such as the BBC, AOL Time Warner, News International.
Media language – the means by which the media communicates to us and the forms and conventions by which it does so.
Media product – a text that has been designed to be consumed by an audience. E.G a film, radio show, newspaper etc.
Media text – see above. N.B Text usually means a piece of writing
Mise en Scene – literally ‘what’s in the shot’ everything that appears on the screen in a single frame and how this helps the audience to decode what’s going on.
Montage – putting together of visual images to form a sequence. Made famous by Russian film maker Eisenstein in his famous film Battleship Potemkin.
Multi-media – computer technology that allows text, sound, graphic and video images to be combined into one programme.
Narrative code – The way a story is put together within a text, traditionally equilibrium- disequilibrium, new equilibrium, but some text are fractured or non liner, eg Pulp Fiction.
News values – factors that influence whether a story will be picked for coverage.
Non-verbal communication – communication between people other than by speech.
Ownership – who produces and distributes the media texts – and whose interest it is.
Patriarchy – The structural, systematic and historical domination and exploitation of women.
Popular Culture – the study of cultural artefacts of the mass media such as cinema, TV, advertising.
Post Modernism – Anything that challenges the traditional way of doing things, rejecting boundaries between high and low forms of art, rejecting rigid genre distinctions, emphasizing pastiche, parody, intertextuality, irony, and playfulness. Postmodernism favours reflexivity and self-consciousness, fragmentation and discontinuity (especially in narrative structures), ambiguity, simultaneity, and an emphasis on the destructured, decentered, dehumanized subjects! This is tricky!
Propaganda – the way ruling classes use the mass media to control or alter the attitudes of others.
Reader – a member of the audience, someone who is actively responding to the text.
Regulation – bodies whose job it is to see that media texts are not seen by the wrong audience (eg British Board of Film Censors) or are fair and honest (EG Advertising Standards Association)
Representation – The way in which the media ‘re-presents’ the world around us in the form of signs and codes for audiences to read.
SFX – special effects or devices to create visual illusions.
Shot – single image taken by a camera.
Sign – a word or image that is used to represent an object or idea.
Signifier/Signified – the ‘thing’ that conveys the meaning, and the meaning conveyed. EG a red rose is a signifier, the signified is love (or the Labour Party!)
Sound Effects – additional sounds other than dialogue or music, designed to add realism or atmosphere.
Stereotype – representation of people or groups of people by a few characteristics eg hoodies, blondes
Still – static image.
Sub-genre – a genre within a genre.
Uses and Gratifications – ideas about how people use the media and what gratification they get from it. It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives.
