This document provides guidance on evaluating media language and production through a semiotic lens. It defines key concepts of media language, codes and conventions, and how meaning is constructed in media texts. Students are tasked with analyzing their own media production, such as a music video, by identifying the macro meanings constructed and the micro-level semiotic signs and techniques used to create those meanings based on relevant theoretical frameworks. Terminology from theorists such as Barthes, Hall, Eco, and Goodwin is provided to facilitate a deep analysis of the student's own media language use.

1. G235: Critical
Perspectives in Media
Theoretical Evaluation
of Production
1b) Media Language

2. Aims/Objectives
• To reinforce the basic media language
that create meaning in texts.
• To have a basic understanding of how
to evaluate your coursework against
the media language that you used.

3. What is meant by media
language?
• For moving image, the language of film
and television is defined by how
camera, editing, sound and mise-en-
scene create meaning
• Basically, how did you create meaning
in your music video (this encompasses
narrative, genre, representation and
audience)

4. Importance of media language
• Every medium has its own ‘language’ – or
combination of languages – that it uses to
communicate meaning. Television, for
example, uses verbal and written language
as well as the languages of moving images
and sound.
• We call these ‘languages’ because they use
familiar codes and conventions that are
generally understood.

5. • Media messages are
constructed using a creative
language with its own rules.
Each form of
communication-- whether
newspapers, TV game shows
or horror movies-- has its
own creative language: scary
music heightens fear,
camera close-ups convey
intimacy, big headlines
signal significance.

6. Codes and Conventions in Music
Videos
• Andrew Goodwin
– Thought Beats
– Narrative and Performance (repeatability)
– Star Image (also Dyer)
– Relation of visuals to a song (illustration,
amplification, disjuncture)
– Technical aspects (camera, editing, effects etc)

7. Codes and conventions in Music
Videos
Carol Vernallis (2001)
• Vernalis’ theory centres around 4 key
concepts that all relate to the way the music
video is constructed (how it creates
meaning). They are:
• 1. Narrative
• 2. Editing
• 3. Camera Movement and framing
• 4. Diegesis

8. Carol Vernallis
• Editing
– Jump cuts
– Juxtaposed shots
– Breaking 180 degree rule
• Narrative
– Disjointed/fragmented narrative
– May not be clear resolution
– Video may pose question it doesn’t answer
Full information on Carol Vernallis is on G325 blog

9. Carol Vernallis
– Camera movement and framing
• Camera moves in time with the music
• Close ups and master shots often used
– Diegesis (the world of the music video)
• Diegesis revealed slowly
• Character or objects move in time with the music
• Some frames more important than others
• There may be gaps in the audience’s understanding
of the diegesis – in time and space,music,
performance and narrative
Full information on Carol Vernallis is on G325 blog

10. Back to Basics - Semiotics
• According to philosopher Charles Sanders
Peirce (1931), “we think only in signs” .
• Signs take the form of words, images,
sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects,
but such things have no intrinsic meaning
and become signs only when we invest
them with meaning.

11. • Definition: using ‘media
language’.
• “Nothing is a sign unless it is
interpreted as a sign” (Peirce, 1931).
• Anything can be a sign as long as
someone interprets it as 'signifying'
something - referring to or standing for
something other than itself. It is this
meaningful use of signs which is at the
heart of the concerns of semiotics.

12. Basically this essay is a lot
like TV Drama– what is your
preferred macro meaning
(your preferred meaning –
Hall, 1980) and how did you
create it using micro
elements?

13. Link?
• Evaluating media language is an
evaluation of all the micro elements
and how they have created meaning
to inform us about genre, narrative,
representations/ ideology, targeting
of audiences (through micro
elements).
• This therefore requires us to use
semiotic terminology to explain our
encoding of elements and codes and
conventions within our texts.

14. 1. Stuart Hall – Reception
Theory (1980).
• Everything creates a meaning/ preferred
meaning .
• This means that media language of specific
mediums is encoded in texts for audiences
to decode/read/understand.

15. Task 1.
• Detail what the macro meanings were
within your text (preferred meanings
and ideologies behind representations,
or about genre, narrative).
• What micro signs do you think you
used in terms of the codes and
conventions of your medium to create
meaning? Make a list for each of the
macro meanings you can think of.

16. 2. Umberto Eco (1981)
• Texts can have open meanings
(ambiguous, not easy for the audience
to understand).
• Texts can have closed meaning (easy
for the audience to understand).
• WHICH ONE IS YOURS? AND WHO IS
IT AIMED AT?

17. Task 2.
• Identify how you created an open or
closed meaning for your audience.
• How did you use the micro elements
and to create structure and create this
for your audience?

18. 3. Medium Specific Theory
• With this question it would then be wise
to identify that you understand the
meaning of the form you have created:
• 1. Music video – postmodern text
(Goodwin, 1992 + McDougall, 2009)
• 2. Goodwin – 5 aspects to a music
video
• 3. Carol Vernallis (2001)

19. Task 3.
• Using some of the theory – how does
your product conform to the theorists
assumptions?
• What meaning is created?
• What other texts have you based this
on?

20. Terminology: Charles Sanders
Pierce (1931) – Three types of
sign...
• Icon/iconic: a mode in which the signifier is
perceived as resembling or imitating the
signified (recognizably looking, sounding,
feeling, tasting or smelling like it) - being
similar in possessing some of its qualities:
e.g. a portrait, a cartoon, a scale-model,
onomatopoeia, metaphors, 'realistic'
sounds in 'programme music', sound
effects in radio drama, a dubbed film
soundtrack, imitative gestures;

21. • Index/indexical: a mode in which the signifier
is not arbitrary but is directly connected in
some way (physically or causally) to the
signified - this link can be observed or inferred:
e.g. 'natural signs' (smoke, thunder, footprints,
echoes, non-synthetic odours and flavours),
medical symptoms (pain, a rash, pulse-rate),
measuring instruments (weathercock,
thermometer, clock, spirit-level).

22. • Symbol/symbolic: a mode in which the
signifier does not resemble the signified but
which is fundamentally arbitrary or purely
conventional - so that the relationship must
be learnt: e.g. language in general (plus
specific languages, alphabetical letters,
punctuation marks, words, phrases and
sentences), numbers, morse code, traffic
lights, national flags.

23. Using terminology - Denotation,
Connotation and Myth: Roland
Barthes (1967)
• In semiotics, denotation and connotation
are terms describing the relationship
between the signifier and its signified, and
an analytic distinction is made between
two types of signifieds: a denotative
signified and a connotative signified.
Meaning includes both denotation and
connotation. Myth are the ideologies
behind it.

24. • Barthes (1977) argued that in photography
connotation can be (analytically)
distinguished from denotation.
• As John Fiske (1982) puts it “denotation is
what is photographed, connotation is how
it is photographed”. Link to Barthes’ editing
at stage of production we discussed.

25. • Related to connotation is what Roland
Barthes (1977) refers to as myth. For Barthes
myths were the dominant ideologies of our
time. The 1st and 2nd orders of signification
called denotation and connotation combine
to produce ideology - which has been
described as a third order of signification by
Fiske and Hartley (1982).

26. NOTES: Micro Elements: Mise-
en-Scene
• Mise-en-scène constitutes the key aspect of
the pre-production phase of the film and
can be taken to include all aspects of
production design and Cinematography.
• Mise-en-Scene creates the diegetic world/
diegesis - the fictional space and time
implied by the narrative, i.e. the world in
which the story takes place.

27. Aspects of Mise-en-Scene –
music video
• Location - settings, set-design and iconography
• Character – Costume, Properties and Make Up,
Actors and Gesture
• Cinematography - Lighting and Colour

28. Micro Elements: Camerawork
• There are Four aspects to camerawork that
you need to understand:
• Shot Types
• Camera Composition
• Camera Movement
• Camera Angles

29. Summary
• How does your music video construct
meaning for the audience?
• Think about
signs/connotations/ideologies
• Also consider how you used/challenged
typical codes and conventions of music
videos to construct meaning? (did you
play with genre/narrative conventions? )
• If any
genre/narrative/audience/representation
theory is applicable then use it!

30. Essay Question
• Analyse one of your media productions in
relation to media language.
• Structure
• -Intro
• -P-D-Q format with the focus on the ‘D’
- Aim to use at least 5 theories in your answer.
- For each theory there may be 2-3 examples from your
production.
• - Conclusion