Media keywords

Anchorage - how meaning is fixed, as in how a caption fixes the meaning of a picture

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.

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’: that one side of the binary pair is always seen by a particular society or culture as more valued over the other.

BBFC- British board of film classification (decide the film certificate of the film)

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.

Consumer – purchaser, listener, viewer or reader of media products.

Conventions – the widely recognised way of doing things in particular genre.

Denotation – the everyday or common sense meaning of a sign. Connotation – the secondary meaning that a sign carries in addition to it’s everyday meaning.

Diegetic Sound – Sound whose source is visible on the screen Non Diegetic sound – Sound effects, music or narration which is added afterwards

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.

Femme fatale: A seductive woman who lures men into dangerous or compromising situations

Feminism – the struggle by women to obtain equal rights in society

Genre – the type or category of a media text, according to its form, style and content.

Hybrid film- a thing made by combining two different elements; a mixture i.e. comedy/horror

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.

Image – a visual representation of something.

Institutions – The organisations which produce and control media texts such as the BBC, AOL Time Warner, News International.

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.

Low key lighting- the lighting of a scene so that there is a great deal of contrast between dark and light areas, making artistic use of deep shadows. Low-key lighting is used effectively in dramatic presentations to create variety and establish mood, particularly in mysteries or thrillers.

Media language – the means by which the media communicates to us and the forms and conventions by which it does so.

Media product – a text that has been designed to be consumed by an audience. E.G a film, radio show, newspaper etc.

Media text – see above. N.B Text usually means a piece of writing

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.

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.

Non-verbal communication – communication between people other than by speech.

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. Oppositional Reading – an interpretation of a text by a reader whose social position puts them into direct conflict with its preferred reading. Negotiated Reading – the ‘compromise’ that is reached between the preferred reading offered by a text and the reader’s own assumptions and interpretations

Reader – a member of the audience, someone who is actively responding to the text.

Representation – The way in which the media ‘re-presents’ the world around us in the form of signs and codes for audiences to read.

Shot – single image taken by a camera.

Sound Effects – additional sounds other than dialogue or music, designed to add realism or atmosphere.

Stereotype – representation of people or groups of people by a few characteristics eg hoodies, blondes

Sub-genre – a genre within a genre.

Typography- The style and appearance of printed matter i.e. the font

Tag line- A caption on a poster

                                                                       

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.