Definitions

Definitions:

Media:  is  a way  to communicate information from person to person.

Constructed Media-  The process by which a media text is shaped and given meaning through a process that is subject to a variety of decisions and is designed to keep the audience interested in the text.

Anchorage - Anchorage is when a piece of media uses another piece of media to reduce the amount of connotations in the first, therefore allowing the audience to interpret it much more easily. For instance, in a newspaper, pictures are accompanied by a caption that allows us to understand what the picture is showing us.

Caricature - A picture, description, or imitation of a person in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect.

Stereotype - A stereotype is an over-generalized belief about a particular category of people. Stereotypes are generalized because one assumes that the stereotype is true for each individual person in the category. While such generalizations may be useful when making quick decisions, they may be erroneous when applied to particular individuals. Stereotypes encourage prejudice and may arise for a number of reasons.

Hegemony - Is the dominance or leadership of one social group or nation over others. Just like the USA dominates over other nations.Hegemony is a way to describe people or ideas that become—and seek to remain—dominant in society. The development of the term “hegemony” in media studies follows the work of Antonio Gramsci and Stuart Hall

Mise en scene - The arrangement of the scenery, props, etc. on the stage of a theatrical production or on the set of a film. The setting or surroundings of an event. It is an expression used to describe the design aspect of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction.

Camera work - The technical work that a photographer does to take pictures. An example of camerawork is choosing a special lens to capture an image in a particular light.

Sound - “Sound” refers to everything we hear — words, sound effects, and music. Sound is used in film to heighten a mood, provide us with information about the location of a scene, advance the plot, and tell us about the characters in the story. There are two categories of sound in media: Diegetic and Non-Diegetic.

Editing - The process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete work.

Halls Theory of encoding and decoding

The theory states that media texts are encoded by the producer meaning that whoever produces the text fills the product with values and messages. The text is then decoded by the audience.

Different spectators will decode the text in different ways, not always in the way the producer intended. A text can be received in one of three ways;

Dominant or Preferred Reading

This is when the text is read in the way the producer intended the text to be read.

The audience agree with the messages and ideology that the producer has placed behind the text.

Negotiated Reading

This is a compromise between the dominant reading and the oppositional reading of the text.

The audience accepts the views of the producer but also has their own input and understanding of the text.

Oppositional Reading

The audience rejects the producers preferred reading and creates their own reading of the text, usually this is the opposite of what the producer intended.

The reader rejects the meaning completely as they do not agree with the message that is being presented to the audience.

Representation

Representation is how media texts deal with and present gender, age, ethnicity, national and regional identity, social issues and events to an audience.

 Stereotypes,

These are a simplified representation of a person, groups of people or a place, through basic or obvious characteristics - which are often exaggerated.

Counter stereotypes

•Are  positive stereotypes. They Focus on positive elements of a group traditionally represented as bad.

Identity.

 is a socially and historically constructed concept. ... Social and cultural identity is inextricably linked to issues of power, value systems, and ideology . The media uses representations—images, words, and characters or personae—to convey specific ideas and values related to culture and identity in society.

Mediation.

Every time we encounter a media text, we are not seeing reality, but someone’s version of it.

IdeoIlogy

These are ideas and beliefs, held by media producers, which are often represented in their media texts.

Social power

In social science and politics, power is the ability to influence or outright control the behaviour of people. The term "authority" is often used for power perceived as legitimate by the social structure.

Regional Identity refers to the part of the United Kingdom someone is from. It could refer to a general area such a “North” or “South”, a country such as “English” or “Scottish” or specific towns such as “London” or “Manchester.” Regional identity is identifying a persons identity which is rooted not only in the setting of the film but also in speech, costumes etc and in the region they live in.

Social class

Working class  Those individuals engaged in manual work, often having low levels of educational achievement. The classic, traditional working class jobs include heavy labouring and factory based work. 

Middle class  Those individuals engaged in non-manual work, often having higher levels of educational achievement. Classic middle class jobs include everything from doctors and lawyers to clerical workers. 

Upper class  The elite class that controls the majority of wealth and power in British society. 

Denotation-The primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feeling that the word suggests.

Connotation-An idea or feeling which a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning.

Semiotics- the study of meaning-making, the study of sign process and meaningful communication. The study of signs and symbols, and the use of their interpretation.

•Anchorage - Fixing of meaning e.g. the copy text anchors (i.e. fixes to one spot) the meaning of an image.
•Banners – Typically found at the top or bottom of a print media text.
•Broadsheet - Large format newspapers that report news in depth, often with a serious tone and higher level language. News is dominated by national and international events, politics, business, with less emphasis on celebrities and gossip. Examples: The Independent, The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph.
•Byline - A journalist's name at the beginning of a story.
Captions – Text below an image that describes the image or informs the audience who took the image.
Copy - Main text of a story.
•Coverlines – Captions on a magazine front cover.
•Emotive Language – the use of language to generate specific emotional reactions in the target audience
•Headlines – The text highlighting the main story being given priority by the producers of the print media text. Often designed to be eye-catching.
•Inverted pyramid structure - Newspaper stories start with the main events. Then they give more details and eyewitness comments in short paragraphs. The paragraphs at the end of the story are less important than those at the beginning. This allows sub-editors to shorten stories by cutting paragraphs from the end.
•Layout – How the print media text has been designed and formatted.
•Masthead - The top section of a newspaper which gives the paper’s title, price and date
•Sans Serif font – Font type which does not have lines perpendicular to the ends of letters e.g. Comic Sans – often seen as more contemporary. Think of Apple’s advertising.
•Serif font – Font type which does have lines perpendicular to the ends of letters e.g. Times New Roman – generally seen as more traditional or higher class.
•Splash – The front page story.
•Sub-headings – Smaller, typically one line headlines for other stories.
•Tabloid - Smaller newspapers aimed at a large audience. News is reported in less depth and emphasises human interest stories. The language level is lower, paragraphs and stories shorter, with more use of images. Content often includes more celebrities, media news and gossip. Examples: The Sun, The Mail, The Mirror, The Express
•Text to image ratio – This involves considering how weighted the print media text is with regards to text and image – you need to ask yourself why the ratio exists.
•Typography – The collective term when considering elements of print media relating to the style of the text such as the font, colour, serif, sans serif etc.

DECODING = understanding a media text.  

 CODES can be visual (you can see them) or aural (you can hear them). Codes have symbolic value. For example in our society wearing a pair of glasses (glasses are the code) symbolises, or connotates, that you are clever. TV drama, magazines and videogames use these symbolic codes to generate character types and character archetypes.

All media products are 'texts'.


Semantic code- code refers to parts within the text that suggests or refers to additional meanings. Elements of the same code are called 'Semes'. The Seme has a connotative function in the text. It has an extra layer of meaning.

Media text - the media product. e.g., film, web, book
Media language - Media Language means the way in which a text is constructed to create meaning for a reader or viewer of the text. All media texts are constructed; someone has made decisions about how they should be constructed so that the form matches the content and with a particular audience in mind.