Glossary of Media Terminology

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Audience
Viewers, listeners and readers of a media text.
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Binary Opposites
The way opposites are used to create interest in media texts, such as good/bad, coward/hero, youth/age, black/white.
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Technical Codes
All to do with the way a text is technically constructed (camera angles, framing, lighting etc).
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Visual Codes
Codes that are decoded on a mainly connotational level, things that draw our experience and understanding of other media texts. This relates to the term iconography.
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Iconography
The use of visual images and how they trigger an audiences expectations of a particular genre, such as a knife in slasher horror films.
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Context
Time, place or mindset in which we consume media products.
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Conventions
The widely recognised way of doing things in a particular genre.
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Denotation
The everyday or common sense meaning of a sign.
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Connotation
The secondary meaning that a sign carries in addition to it's every day meaning.
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Diegetic Sound
Sound whose source is visible on the screen (i.e tweeting bird).
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Non-diegetic Sound
Sound effects, music or narration which is added afterwards.
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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.
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Feminism
The struggle by women to obtain equal rights in society.
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Female Gaze
The idea of a woman being envious of another in a media text, due to the way she has been portrayed.
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Male Gaze
The idea of a male purchasing or taking an interest in a media text due to a female being portrayed sexually. Or the idea of a male that they are envious of, which therefore lurs them to the media.
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Genre
The type or category of a media text, according to its form, style and content.
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Hegemony
Describing the predominance of one social class of another.
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Ideology
A set of beliefs which are held to be acceptable by the creators of a media text, or an alternative ideology such as feminist ideology (representing something on the typical female perspective.)
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Image
A visual representation of something.
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Institutions
The organisations which produce and control media texts (i.e ITV, BBC)
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Intertexuality
The idea that within popular culture producers borrow other texts to create interest to the audience who like to share the 'in' joke. Used a lot in the Simpsons.
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Media Language
The means by which media communicates to us and the forms and conventions by which it does so.
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Media Product
A text that has been designed to be consumed by an audience, e.g a film, radio show, newspaper etc.
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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 decode what's going on. In simple terms, the propps that are displayed.
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Non-verbal Communication
Communication between characters other than speech.
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Patriachy
The structural, systematic and historical domination and exploitation of women.
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Representation
The way in which the media represents the world around us in the form of signs and codes for the audience to read and identify.
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SFX
Special effects or devices to create visual illusions.
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Shot
Single image taken by a camera.
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Signifier/Signified
The 'thing' that coveys the meaning, and the meaning conveyed. EG a read rose is a signifier and the signified is love.
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Stereotype
Representation of people or groups of people by a few characteristics eg hoodies, blonde hair.
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Sub-genre
A genre within a genre.
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Uses and Gratifications
Ideas about how people use the media and what gratification they get from it.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

The way opposites are used to create interest in media texts, such as good/bad, coward/hero, youth/age, black/white.

Back

Binary Opposites

Card 3

Front

All to do with the way a text is technically constructed (camera angles, framing, lighting etc).

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

Codes that are decoded on a mainly connotational level, things that draw our experience and understanding of other media texts. This relates to the term iconography.

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

The use of visual images and how they trigger an audiences expectations of a particular genre, such as a knife in slasher horror films.

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
View more cards

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