A condensed version of the codes and conventions on my media blog,

1. Codes and Conventions
Sam Shaw AS Media Course

2. Semiotics
• Semiotics is the concept that everything used (in a magazine for
example) has a reason for being that specific way (for example a
Female based magazine being Pink or a cookery book having a
kitchen background).
• These are used in all magazines to subliminally attract the potential
buyer of the magazine to actually purchase the mag... one way
semiotics is demonstrated is with the "Male Gaze" theory produced
by Laura Mulvey.
• The Male Gaze is the theory that women are very effective at
maintaining the concentration and focus of heterosexual men due
to the sexual desire of the men acting upon the women, thus
subliminally attracting the men to the films the women played in.
This theory is detailed on the following slide.

4. Feminism
• Over time, views of women in the media have dramatically
changed as in this day and age we see respected female
musicians get the gratitude they deserve, however going
back 50 years and women were often indirectly scrutinised
by male publishers of music magazines, whereas musicians
like Adele are commended on their vocal ability and lyrical
genius, 50 years ago in comparative to Adele, Marianne
Faithful was often compared to cute animals and not given
any graduation as a musician in her own right.
• This is just one of many examples of how feminism has
altered the view society has on women and how women
have used this to their advantage to gain their rightful
honour musically.

5. Moral Panic
• Moral Panic is an instance of public anxiety or alarm in response to a problem
regarded as threatening the moral standards of society. for example after the
events of September 11th, a fear of middle-eastern people developed known
informally as "Islamaphobia".
• This resulted in may middle-eastern people being discriminated against due to
their ethnicity and religious preference, on the basis that is was a middle-eastern
organisation (Al-Qaeda) who orchestrated, governed, and conducted the attacks.
This resulted in the moral constituency being damaged severely, some may say the
damage done will never heal.
• Another example of Moral Panic is the supposed affiliation between homosexuals
and HIV/AIDS where there is a terrible stigmatism that all gay people have
the disease and it was "A curse sent from god for being gay" and the "Gay Plague"
which of course is completely incorrect and an outrageous allegation,
including asylum seekers the list of stigmatisms towards certain groups of people
which causes a public distress grows by the day. This process can also
be referred to as "Folk Devil".

6. Moral Panic
• Stanley Cohen (Sociologist) actually observed that
the medias impact upon events through their "Folk Devil" approach
to events only ever intensified them and often the media would lie
in attempts to sell more papers, however they would indirectly
influence the events to follow, often negatively.
• For example in 1972 found that minor fights between Mods and
Rockers in beach-side resorts were very much sensationalised by
the media.
• One headline was “Wild ones invade seaside town – 97 arrests”. In
fact there were only 24 arrests.
• Cohen found that the media reporting led to increased policing
which actually intensified the problem.
• More recently moral panics and consequent amplification have
occurred about raves, football hooligans, girl gangs and terrorist
threats.

7. Ideology
• The use of ideology is almost semiotic-like in
the sense that photos are taken in a specific
way to subliminally promote certain themes
about a place.

8. For example the photo above was taken by a school
clearly trying to promote the technological side of
education and showing that their computer facilitates
are of a high standard and superior to other schools,
you can see this from the photo, it does not have to
say it what so ever, you can quite simply see the
ideological influence of the image.

9. • On the contrary, the image above was taken to
promote a more traditional approach to
education which would appeal to parents
wanting to chose a successful school for their
child(ren). But once again, you need not read
this, you get it all from the image.

10. Uses and Gratification Theory
• The theory suggests that people use certain media
forms to satisfy their needs, Blumler and Katz believed
that the audiences consume the media for different
needs and different ways, and the audience rely on the
media to provide this information. People use the
media for these reasons;
• To ESCAPE
• To be INFORMED and EDUCATED
• To IDENTIFY with the characters
• To be ENTERTAINED
• To INTERACT