In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

1. By Dan Grayer

2.  Codes are systems of signs, which create meaning.
Codes can be divided into two categories – technical
and symbolic. Technical codes are all the ways in
which equipment is used to tell the story in a media
text, for example the camera work in a film. Symbolic
codes show what is beneath the surface of what we
see. For example, a character's actions show you how
the character is feeling. Some codes fit both
categories – music for example, is both technical and
symbolic.
 Conventions are the generally accepted ways of doing
something. There are general conventions in any
medium, such as the use of interviewee quotes in a
print article, but conventions are also genre specific.

3.  How an audience react to codes and conventions can match or
differ from what a director wants the audience to respond to.
 Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model says that an audience can
either have a preferred response, an oppositional response, a
negotiated response or an aberrant response.
 A preferred response is one which matches the creators
message.
 An oppositional response rejects the intended response and
challenges the intent response.
 A negotiated response is a mixture of appealing and unappealing
elements of the message and the audience can still challenge the
text.
 An Aberrant response is considered an ‘ambiguous or confused’
response, where the reader is way of track with the message.

4.  There are different varieties of camera shots,
used to achieve different things, much like
films.
 Editing is cut to the beat to emphasise
structure of the song and to make the video
flow better. A choice of linear or non linear
editing can be employed to follow a
continued or discontinued pattern.

5.  Goodwin’s theory says that there are 3 types of
music videos, they are performance, narrative
and abstract/concept.
 A performance narrative is where the band or
singer sing the song as if they were actually
playing it, possibly to a crowd or on there own.
 A narrative video is one which follows a story,
most likely involving the artist but not all of the
time.
 An abstract or concept video, is one where the
band or director have an idea that they want to
film and will then put it with the song.

6. Example of performance
video- Rocket Skates by
Deftones
Example of a narrative video
– Make a beast of myself by
Twin Atlantic
Example of a
abstract/concept video
– Here it goes again by
OK GO

7.  Typical conventions of a rap music video.
 Casual Clothing
 Artist looking straight into the camera rapping
 Expensive Jewellery, or anything to show how
wealthy they are
 Clear expression of emotions from the artist
 Usually the video will be a concept and a
narrative video mixed together
 Usually with a gang of other people, to show
dominance, leadership and also show how
popular they are