2. KEY MEDIA CONCEPTS
MEDIA LANGUAGE
(Media Literacy, Media Form)
IDEOLOGY
GENRE
REPRESENTATION
AUDIENCE
INSTITUTION
NARRATIVE
3. MEDIA LANGUAGE
MEDIA LITERACY & MEDIA FORM
MEDIA LANGUAGE is the way in which the meaningof a media text is conveyed to the
audience. One of the ways MEDIA LANGUAGE works is to conveymeanings through signs &
symbols suggested by the way a scene is set & filmed
4. IDEOLOGY
DOMINANT IDEOLOGY
IDEOLOGY is a difficult - but important - concept to grasp. Simply put, it is the
ideas behind a media text, the secret (or sometimes not-so secret) agenda of its
producers.
It is important to be able to identify the different ideological discourses that may be
present in even an apparently simple photograph.
In sociological terms, IDEOLOGY is a body of ideas or set of beliefs that underpins a
process or institution and leads to social relations. These sets of beliefs are those
held by groups within society, and the prevalent ones are those held by the
ruling/dominant groups.
5. GENRE
IDENTIFY THE GENRE
GENRE is a way of categorising a text through style and form.
GENRE is important for both the readers and creators of texts
For you it is vital to be able to categorise texts in this way - both for production and
analysis.
A text is classified in a genre through the identification of key elements which
occur in that text and in others of the same GENRE. These elements may be
referred to as paradigms, or conventions and range from costume to music to plot
points to font.
6. REPRESENTATION
Gender Representation
All media texts are RE-PRESENTATIONS of reality.
Intentionally composed, lit, written, framed, cropped, captioned, branded,
targeted and censored by their producers, and that they are entirely artificial
versions of the reality we perceive around us.
“A REPRESENTATION of someone's concept of existence, codified into a series of
signs and symbols which can be read by an audience”
REPRESENTATION is a fluid, two-way process: producers position a text somewhere
in relation to reality and audiences assess a text on its relationship to reality.
7. AUDIENCE
REMEMBER: HYPODERMIC NEEDLE THEORY
Whether you are constructing a text or analysing one, you will need to consider
the destination of that text (i.e. its target audience) and how that AUDIENCE (or
any other) will respond to that text.
Remember that a media text in itself has no meaning until it is read or decoded
by an AUDIENCE.
8. INSTITUTION
BRIEF INTRODUCTION
"Those enduring regulatory and organising structures of any society, which constrain and
control individuals and individuality... the term more precisely refers to the underlying
principles and values according to which many social and cultural practices are organised
and co-ordinated."
INSTITUTION is about understanding:
•who produces media texts
•what their set of codes and values is
•and their relationship to us as individuals
9. NARRATIVE
NARRATIVE is the
coherence/organisation given to
a series of facts.
In everything we seek a
beginning, a middle and an end.
We understand and construct
meaning using our experience of
reality and of previous texts.
BRIEF INTRODUCTION
