2. Narrative
• Narrative is the coherence/organisation given to
a series of facts. The human mind needs narrative
to make sense of things. We connect events and
make interpretations based on those
connections.
• In everything we have a beginning, a middle and
an end. We understand and construct meaning
using our experience of reality and of previous
texts. Each text becomes part of the previous and
the next through its relationship with the
audience.
4. Genre
• Genre does not rely simply on what's in a
media text but also on the way it is put
together .
• EXAMPLE - when distinguishing between a
horror movie and a thriller, which can deal
with similar subject matter, and look the same
— lots of action set at night — but belong to
separate genres.
5. Audience
• All media texts are made with an audience in
mind, ie a group of people who will receive it and
make some sort of sense out of it. And generally,
but not always, the producers make some money
out of that audience. Therefore it is important to
understand what happens when an audience
"meets" a media text. When a media text is being
planned, perhaps the most important question
the producers consider is "Does it have an
audience?" If the answer to this is 'no', then there
is no point in going any further.
6. Uses and gratifications theory
• The uses and gratifications theory is a popular approach to understanding
mass communication.
• It is said that the uses and gratifications theory has to fulfil one of the
following when we choose a form of media:
- Personal Identity – being able to recognise a product in front of you, role
models that reflect similar values to yours, aspiration to be someone else.
- Information – being able to acquire information, knowledge and
understanding.
- Entertain - what you are consuming should give you an enjoyment and
also some form of escapism enabling us to forget our worries temporarily.
- Social interaction – the ability for media products to produce a topic of
conversation between other people, sparks debates
7. Representation
• representation is all about understanding the choices that are made
when it comes to portraying something or someone in a mass
media text. It's impossible to portray every aspect of an individual
in a photograph, or even in a feature film, so certain features of
their personality and appearance get highlighted, and are often
enhanced, when it comes to constructing the representation that
the audience will see. When representing a person, media texts
often focus on their:
• Age
• Gender
• Race/Ethnicity
• Financial Status
• Job
• Culture/nationality
8. Media language
• Media conventions, formats, symbols and
narrative structures which cue the audience to
meaning. The symbolic language of electronic
media work much the same way as grammar
works in print media.
