Media Studies Terminology

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  • Created by: Josie
  • Created on: 08-05-13 13:08
Anchorage
how meaning is fixed, as in how a caption fixes the meaning of a picture
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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.
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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. By Barthes and Levi-Strauss who also noticed another important feature of these ‘binary opposites'
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Catharsis
the idea that violent and and sexual content in media texts serves the function of releasing ‘pent up’ tension aggression/desire in audiences
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Censorship
Control over the content of a media text – sometimes by the government, but usually by a regulatory body like the British Board of Film censors.
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Code
a sign or convention through which the media communicates meaning to us because we have learned to read it
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Technical codes
all to do with the way a text is technically constructed – camera angles, framing, typography, lighting etc
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Visual codes
codes that are decoded on a mainly connotational level – things that draw on our experience and understanding of other media texts
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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.
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Consumer
purchaser, listener, viewer or reader of media products
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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 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 everyday meaning.
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Diegetic Sound
Sound whose source is visible on the screen
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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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Gaze
the idea that the way we look at something, and the way somebody looks at you, is structured by the way we view the world. Feminist Laura Mulvey suggests that looking involves power, specifically the look of men at women, implying men have more power
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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
Traditionally this describes the predominance of one social class over another, in media terms this is how the controllers of the media may on the one hand use the media to pursue their own political interest
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Hypodermic Needle Theory
the idea that the media can ‘inject’ ideas and messages straight into the passive audience.Used in advertising and propoganda, led to moral panics about effect of violent video and computer games
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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.
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Indexical sign
a sign which has a direct relationship with something it signifies, such as smoke signifies fire.
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Image
a visual representation of something
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Institutions
The organisations which produce and control media texts such as the BBC, AOL Time Warner, News International.
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Intertextuality
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 the media communicates to us and the forms and conventions by which it does so.
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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 to decode what’s going on.
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Mode of Address
The way a media product ‘speaks’ to it’s audience. In order to communicate, a producer of any text must make some assumptions about an intended audience; reflections of such assumptions may be discerned in the text
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Montage
putting together of visual images to form a sequence. Made famous by Russian film maker Eisenstein in his famous film Battleship Potemkin.
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Moral Panic
is the intensity of feeling stirred up by the media about an issue that appears to threaten the social order, such as against Muslims after 9/11, or against immigrants, or against ‘video nasties’ following the Jamie Bulger murder.
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Multi-media
computer technology that allows text, sound, graphic and video images to be combined into one programme
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Myth
a complex idea by Roland Barthes that myth is a second order signifying system ie when a sign becomes the signifier of a new sign
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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.
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News values
factors that influence whether a story will be picked for coverage
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Non-verbal communication
communication between people other than by speech.
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Ownership
who produces and distributes the media texts – and whose interest it is
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Patriarchy
The structural, systematic and historical domination and exploitation of women
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Popular Culture
the study of cultural artefacts of the mass media such as cinema, TV, advertising.
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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
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Preferred Reading
the interpretation of a media product that was intended by the maker or which is dictated by the ideology of the society in which it is viewed
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Oppositional Reading
an interpretation of a text by a reader whose social position puts them into direct conflict with its preferred reading
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Negotiated Reading
the ‘compromise’ that is reached between the preferred reading offered by a text and the reader’s own assumptions and interpretations
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Propaganda
the way ruling classes use the mass media to control or alter the attitudes of others.
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Reader
a member of the audience, someone who is actively responding to the text
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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
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Representation
The way in which the media ‘re-presents’ the world around us in the form of signs and codes for audiences to read.
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SFX
special effects or devices to create visual illusions
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Sign
a word or image that is used to represent an object or idea
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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!)
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Sound Effects
additional sounds other than dialogue or music, designed to add realism or atmosphere.
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Stereotype
representation of people or groups of people by a few characteristics eg hoodies, blondes
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Sub-genre
a genre within a genre
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Two Step Flow theory
the idea that ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and from them to a wider population.
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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
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

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.

Back

Audience

Card 3

Front

the way opposites are used to create interest in media texts, such as good/bad, coward/hero, youth/age, black/white. By Barthes and Levi-Strauss who also noticed another important feature of these ‘binary opposites'

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

the idea that violent and and sexual content in media texts serves the function of releasing ‘pent up’ tension aggression/desire in audiences

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

Control over the content of a media text – sometimes by the government, but usually by a regulatory body like the British Board of Film censors.

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
View more cards

Comments

Stefan Newton

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Brilliant

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