This document discusses media language and how audiences interpret various technical elements used in media like television, film, photographs, and other media products. It defines key concepts like mise-en-scene, camera techniques, sound, and editing that media makers use to construct meaning. Semiotics is introduced as the study of sign systems and how signs take on societal values and ideology to shape audience understanding in subtle ways. Various theorists like Saussure, Peirce, and Barthes are discussed for their contributions to understanding how media texts use signs, codes, and myths to communicate meaning.

1. Ben Anderson A2 Media Studies
Media Language
Media language refers to what we expect to see and how the audience responds to it.
These media specific languages will often be closely connected to other media concepts such as
genre or narrative and candidates are at liberty to make such connections to a greater or lesser
extent in their answers.
Media language – Technical Elements
 Mise-en-scene
 Camera
 Sound
 Editing
In media, the word “text” is used to describe any media product such as television programmes,
photographs, adverts, film, newspapers adverts, radio programmes, web pages ect
One of the keys to understanding the meanings in text is the use of codes.
CODES – Rules or conventions by which signs are put together to create meaning
In mostcases,the textwill use a varietyof codes – Visuals,audioand written – that “fit” together in
a certain way to a create a particular meaning
Mise-en-scene
Everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement
 Setting
 Performance/Expression
 Costume/Make up
 Colour
 Props
 Lighting
 Composition/Framing/Blocking
Camera
Framing: Defines the position from which the image was created
Angle: The angle of vision refers to the camera’s angle in relation to the vertical
Type: This refers to the shot type – Long/ Medium/ Close
Movement: This refers to the movement of the camera – Pan/track
Sound
Usedto tell the audience howtoreact at differentpointsina film or television programme.

2. Ben Anderson A2 Media Studies
Distinctive sound devices are used for particular genre. It is an important device in
establishing the genre for an audience and getting them in the mood for watching
something.
Edit
Refers to the join between shots
The purpose of conventional editing is to make this join as smooth as possible – Invisible
The need for a narrative flow, to tell a story, led to the development of the continuity
system of editing.
Semiotics: The study of signs
This is an attempt to create a science of the study of sign systems and their role in the
construction and reconstruction of meaning in media texts.
Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 – 1913)
SIGNIFIER + SIGNIFIED = SIGN
The form which the sign takes The concept it represents
“Open” sign The shop is open
But in order to work there must be a shared reference or experience
Charles Peirce (1839 - 1914) created a categorisation of signs:
Symbol (triangle) – a sign that represents an object or concept solely by the agreement of
the people who use it.Therefore, symbolic signs have no obvious connection between the
sign and the object.
(The word dog has no obvious link to the animal)
Iconic (Rocks) –Alwaysresemblewhatthey signify. There is a physical similarity between a
photograph, or a good drawing, of a dog and most people’s experience of these animals.
Index (All) – Lie betweensymbolic and iconic signs. Indexical signs have some sort of direct
connectionwithwhatisbeing“signified”.For example, smoke is often used as an indexical
sign for fire and a tear running down a cheek can be a indexical sign for sorrow.
Roland Barthes (1913 – 1980) applied abstract ideas to daily life and culture.
Barthes looked at how signs take on the dominant value system of a particular society and
makes these values seem natural. The dominant value of a society is known as ideology, a
way of looking at things shared by the majority of that society.

3. Ben Anderson A2 Media Studies
BarthesshowedthatSaussure’ssigncanbecome a signifiertocreate,notonlya connotation,buta
myth.
Anotherexampleisthatof a red rose.
It ishard to understanda redrose on Valentine’sDay(denotation) asanythingotherthanmeaning
romance (connotation),itseemsthatwhatappearsto be a denotation(“aredrose on Valentine’s
day) is actuallyaconnotation.
Signscan disguise themselves,atrickthat allowsmythstostructure the meaningof the
communicationwithoutappearingtodoso.
REMEMBER TO LINKTHE MUSIC VIDEOS WITH THE 4 KEY TECHNICALELEMENTS