Media Language

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What is the study of signs called?
Semiotics
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What does Semiotics examine?
How signs construct meaning
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What is an icon?
Signs that resemble the object to which they refer, e.g raindrop=rain
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What is a symbol?
Signs that do not resemble the thing to which they refer. The meaning they have is through associations built up over generations of habitual use e.g. dove=peace
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What is index?
Signs that indicate a further or additional meaning to the one immediately and obviously signified e.g. smoke and fire
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The sign=
Signifier + signified
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What does Bathes argue?
That the organisation of signs encodes particular messages and ideologies and that these ideologies can be revealed as a constructed through textual analysis
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What did he describe the constructed messages and ideologies as?
'hidden' in texts as myths. in texts they are made to seem 'natural' and 'common sense'. Myths while appearing as universal truths embedded in common sense, are serving particular interests
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What does Bathes argue in modern society?
That myths primarily serve the interests of capitalism and bourgeoisie ideology, promoting the ideology as obvious, taken for granted and inevitable
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What is an ideology?
A word, a view, a system of values and beliefs which an individual, group or society holds to be true or important. These are shared by a culture or society about how that society should function
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What are Morely's modesl of how we read media text?
Dominant reading, Negotiated reading, Oppositional reading and Polysemy
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What is dominant reading?
Code seems natural and transparent
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What is negotiated reading?
Partially believes the code
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What is oppositional reading
Reject the code/reading
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What is polysemy?
The capacity for a text to have multiple meanings
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What is Hall's key idea?
The reception theory
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What does Hall believe?
That the audience does not simply passively accept a text- whether a book or a film- and that an element of activity becomes involved
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What does a person do?
Negotiates the meaning of the text
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What does the meaning depend on?
the meaning depends on the cultural background of the person
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What can the background of a person explain?
their background can explain how some readers accept a given reading of a text while others reject it
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What does the meaning of a text lie between?
The producer and the reader
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What is the margin of understanding?
Even though the producer encodes the text in a particular way, the reader will decode it in a slightly different manner
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What is a stereotype?
A widely held, but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing
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What does Perkins say about stereotypes?
That stereotyping is not an easy process and contains a number of assumptions that can be challenged
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What are Perkins 5 assumptions?
Stereotypes aren't always negative, they are not always about minority groups or the less powerful, they can be held about one's own group, they are not rigid or unchanging, they are not always false
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What did Perkins say?
That as society changes its hard for stereotypes to change as they stick in society and/or with certain groups of people
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What is an enigma code (hermeneutic code)?
Set up as puzzles to be solved; these enigmas maintain the audience's interest and anticipation. the audience want to see the problems resolved
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What is an action code (proairetic code)?
Codes of behaviour or actions that lead to us to expect consequences. the audience is excited by the urgent need to resolve a conflict and know outcomes of actions
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What is the symbolic code?
The process of representing an object, idea or feeling by something else ( a visual metaphor). audiences enjoy interpreting texts
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What is semantic code?
Connotations of media language give audiences insight into characters, objects or settings that we learn to read through our understanding of narratives
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What is cultural code?
Concerns the culturally specific knowledge from outside the text which is used to make meaning in a text. the audience derives meaning in a text from shared cultural knowledge
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What is hegemony?
Leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over others
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What does Gramsci believe we have been conditioned to think?
To think in ways that serve the dominant ideology
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What concept did Gramsci develop?
Cultural hegemony
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What is cultural hegemony?
The idea that one social class (usually middle class) is able dominate a society by making their way of life and values appear normal , natural and common sense. as result of this, other social classes accept these values as a normal way of life
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What does Althusser argue?
One of the ways in which the state maintains control is through an 'ideological state apparatus', which includes the media, education, religion and family
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The ideological state apparatus is a range of what?
Different groups who transmit dominant ideology to the people, again maintaining hegemony
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What do institutions like religion, education, family and the media uphold?
Beliefs
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Through these beliefs, what does society endorse?
The ethical beliefs and manners, which "the powers that be" agree are true, or right, or logical or moral.
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How hegemony created and maintained?
The institutions and beliefs that the dominant culture support are so powerful , and get hold of people when they are so young, that alternative ways of envisioning reality are very hard to imagine
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What is the postcolonial theory 1?
The idea that colonial discourses continue to inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity in the postcolonial era
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What is the postcolonial theory 2?
The idea that civilisation constructs racial hierarchies and sets up binary opposites based on notions of otherness
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What is the postcolonial theory 3?
The argument that white British still conceptualiises race in colonial terms
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What is the postcolonial theory 4?
Fixed notions of nationality such as Britishness may not be intentionally racist but they have racist consequences
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When did British Colonisation happen?
between the late 16th century and the early 18th century
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What is colonialism?
the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers and exploiting it economically
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When did the British Empire start to fall apart?
After World War 2, and there was a process of decolonisation between 1945 and 1997
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What is post colonisation?
the political or cultural condition of a former colony, a theoretical approach in various disciplines that is concerned with the lasting impact of colonisation of former colonies
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Who owns The Daily Mirror?
Trinity Media
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Who is the largest British newspaper magazine and digital publisher?
Trinity Mirror plc
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When was Trinity Media founded?
1903
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Trinity Media is the fifth what?
Most circulated daily newspaper in the UK
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Who is its sister paper?
The Sunday Mirror
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It was originally pitched to the middle-class, however what happened
It was transformed into a working-class newspaper after 1934 in order to reach a large, lowbrow audience
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Who is the editor of The Daily Mirror?
Peter Willis
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What is the circulation? (Daily Mirror)
724888
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How many regional newspapers does it publish? (Daily Mirror)
240
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What party does it aim its newspaper at? (Daily Mirror)
Left Labour
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Its audience are what? (Daily Mirror)
Tabloid readers
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How many of The Daily Mirror's readers are Conservatives?
19%
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How many of The Daily Mirror's readers are Labour?
68%
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How many of The Daily Mirrors readers are other?
13%
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How many females read The Daily Mirror?
47%
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How many males read The Daily Mirror?
53%
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Who owns The Times?
Rupert Murdock via News UK, a division of News Corp
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What part do The Times aim their newspaper at?
Right Conservatives
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What style of newspaper is it? (The Times)
Broadsheet newspaper
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What newspaper is it? (The Times)
British Daily National Newspaper
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When did it begin (The Times)
1785
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Who is its sister newspaper? (The Times)
The Sunday Times
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Who is its editor (The Times)
John Witherow
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What is its circulation?
379861
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How many of the readers are conservative?
58%
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How many of the readers are labour?
24%
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how many of the readers are democrats?
14%
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How many of their readers are other?
4%
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The Times was a broadsheet newspaper for 219 years, why did it switch to compact in 2004?
To appeal to younger readers and so people could read whilst using public transport
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How many males read The Times?
58%
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How many females read The Times?
42%
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Who studied the language codes?
Bernstein
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What is the elaborated code?
Language that selects from a wide variety of sources, and is more formal. uses a wide vocabulary. the type of language found in broadsheet newspapers. reading age 14+
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What is the restricted code?
More colloquial and less formal language. uses a restricted vocabulary. the type of language found in tabloid newspapers. reading age of 8
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What is the average reading age for the UK population?
9 years- as long as they have reached the expected reading age of a 9 year old
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What do Curran and Seaton believe?
The media is covered by a small number of companies- driven by the logic of profit and power, media concentration generally limits or inhibits variety, creativity and quality, more socially diverse patterns of ownership help to create the conditions
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What do Curran and Seaton believe 2?
for more varied and adventurous media productions, Rupert Murdoch has considerable control over the UK's newspapers and TV
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What does Hesmondhalgh say?
Largest companies or conglomerates now operate across a number of cultural industries, news UK is a subsidiary of News Corp- which is a subsidiary of News International, News International is the sister company of 21st Century Fox
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What does Gauntlett say?
Newspapers help us to construct our political ideas and shape our political views
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What is a broadsheet newspaper?
A large piece of paper printed with information on one side only. A newspaper with a large format, regarded as more serious and less sensationalist than tabloids
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What is a tabloid newspaper?
A newspaper having pages half the size of the average broadsheet, typically popular in style and dominated by sensational stories
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What does Semiotics examine?

Back

How signs construct meaning

Card 3

Front

What is an icon?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What is a symbol?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What is index?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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