This document discusses how meaning is constructed in media through the use of signs and symbols. It introduces concepts from semiotics such as the signifier/signified relationship and how denotation versus connotation influence audience interpretation. Various film and media theorists are mentioned who contribute to understanding how codes, conventions and organization of signs can encode particular messages. The document advises to analyze one's own media work by discussing specific examples of how micro-level elements like mise-en-scene, camerawork and editing were used to construct meaning and representation for the intended audience.

2. INTRODUCTION
Every subject has its own language and it often becomes a form of jargon
that the expects in that subject understand and helps to keep out
everyone else.
Media too has its own language, and for those of use involved in the
subject helps us talk about the work we produce or consume.
The way that this question is meant to be answered is by talking about the
way you constructed meaning.

3. MEANING
Although you might not realise it yet, what you did when you made your
video, you did to make it say something, you did things so that the
audience would have a sense of what you wanted to say, of what you
wanted to communicate.
How did you do that?
By using a series of signs and symbols, such as colour, clothing, camera
shots and angles, mise en scene

4. SEMIOTICS IN A NUTSHELL
This is the study of signs and symbols.
There is a sign, an object that is called the signifier.
The meaning that is given to that is called the signified. This is not fixed
and can change with time or the society or culture that it is veiwed in .
And here we have denotation and connation.
Denotation is what you see and connation is the meaning that you give to
what you see.

5. CODES AND CONVENTIONS
There is so much that happens at an unconscious level, or even conscious
level that you are already aware of in your work such as genre
conventions, narrative conventions, codes about camera angles, dark
lighting etc
It is not just about you going through those and saying how you used them,
what you denoted ( the signifier) to create meaning, the connotation
that you hope your audience will attribute to them.

6. THEORISTS
Fiske (1982) - “denotation is what is filmed, connation is how its filmed
Saussure ( 1983) - Audience can look at a media text from a syntactic
pointy of view, just describing what they see, or from a representational
or symbolic point of view where the attribute meaning to what they see.
Barthes ( 1967) - an audiences’ understanding of media texts comes from
their understanding and knowledge of frequently told myths or stories.
He argues that the organisation of signs encodes particular messages
and ideologies
Chandler (2005) - says that semiotics is important because it helps us not
take ‘reality’ for granted as something that can exist without human
interpretation.
Stuart Hall – argued that meaning is not fixed by the producer, and the
audience is not passive, gave us different readings, the preferred
reading is where the audience reads it the way that you wanted them to.

7. ANSWER - PLAN
So the media language you use is trying to construct a meaning that you
wish the audience to read, and if you are talking about this years work,
the the language should be consistent across all three products so
there to be a sense of branding and one campaign.
So using the four micro elements, mise en scene, camerawork, editing and
sound, pick three examples for each where this helps you create
meaning and construct the whole representation thing.
You can also talk about the micro elements, genre, narrative, representation
and use them as a source of theorists, as they are all relevant