A2 Media Terminology

Mainstream productions:

• Wide range appeal to many different sectors of society.
• Texts are often closed, with clear preferred meanings encoded, encouraging a more unified response
• Well known stars/celebrities and directors/producers
• High sponsorship/advertising.

Niche or specialist productions:

• Narrower audience
• Texts can be closed with preferred meanings drawn from a pre-determined set of responses to accepted and specific issues
• Use of jargon that audience understands, helps audience feel sense of belonging (identification appeal)

Alternative Productions:

• Usually a narrow audience drawn to the originality and possibly experimentation of the open texts.
• Enjoyment gained from the subversion of rules.
• Audience are sophisticated and expierienced at reading complex, multi layered texts.

Dyer proposes that:

A star is an image not a real person, that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (eg advertising, magazines, etc as well as films and music)

The relationship between agency and client - an account may cover one campaign or many years of advertising, and may include all the products marketed by a client or just one campaign.

A paid for advertisment which includes editorial content: normally identified in a print magazine with the word "Advertisement" printed as a head across the top of the page to distinguish it from true (in theory unbiased) editorial content.

The 'pinning down of a meaning' that a caption provides when coupled with an ambiguous image - or vica versa.

Calculated in percentages, the proportion of a target audience who has the opportunity to see an ad once.

Describing an audience by age, gender, ethnicity, location - ie the facts about them.

The practice of paying for a branded product to be used by a character in a movie or tv show.

Advertisers have built up huge maps of the population based on their social class, age, sex, education, religion, family size and so on. As society evolves and changes so do these maps. Advertisers buy programming breaks and are very specific about who they wish to target. This is known as strategic positioning. Eg: Perfume ad's in Sex and the City breaks.

Advertising psychology has one basic belief: each group in society has deep-seated needs, fears and weaknesses. It is the advertising agencys purpose to manipulate these in order to create a demand for the products they are promoting.

Need for Sex Need to Nurture

Need to Agress Need for Prominence

Need for Attention Need to Escape

Need to Satisfy Curiosity Need for Affiliation

Need for Guidance Need to Achieve

Need to Dominate Need for Autonomy

Need to Feel Safe Need for Aesthetic Sensations

• Dramatisation
• Testimonial
• Demonstration
• Spokesperson/Salepitch
• Documentary
• Song and Dance
• Analogy Advertisements

1. Personal Identity:

Compare self with others, reinforce own values, models ones appearance based on others, aspire to be/behave like.

2. Information or Surveillance:

seeking out information about the world.

3. Entertainment/Escapism:

relaxation, emotional or diversion.

4. Social Interaction/Integration:

keep us company, sense of belonging, stimulate discussion, common grounds.

Direct mode of address, includes audience.

An ongoing debate in media studies that is focused on whether the media causes a violent society, or whether it is a violent society that demands a violent media.

See also: hypodermic needle, Bobo doll, cultural effects theory, inoculation theory, active, semi active and passive audiences.

Todorov believed that all narratives have four stages.

The equilibrium is a calm stage where any opposing forces are in balance. This is followed by a disruption to this harmony. (In science fiction this might be an alien invasion, in a romantic comedy it might be the girl's first contact with the boy.) What follow is a quest to 'mend or fix' the disruption in order to return to a stage of balance and harmony once more - resolution.

Where media texts and organisations operate in a way which benefits for both parties. The fast food chain McDonalds may have a children's happy meal that is designed around the latest Disney film. (There might be a special ingredient used for the meal, with a free toy included and a special edition wrapping and cups.) On the one hand, this is providing promotion for the film, however, McDonalds are also benefitting by linking their product to a succesful blockbuster.

A form of film/television that attempts to represent 'real life'. Often coined, 'warts and all' or 'kitchen sink drama'. Social realism films do not have the gloss and glamour of Hollywood, but instead attempts to portray working/under class struggles.