A level media

Georgie Cross

Section 1B

Key points The question could be: -Audience -Genre -Narrative -Representation -Media LanguageYou must show: -Understanding of concept-Relate concepts and examples from your coursework. -Range of specific, clear relevant examples. -Use conceptual throughout. -Reference to the theorists-Evaluation of usefulness of concept/theory to your production

Worth 25 marks- spend 30 minutes on it!

MediationEvery time we encounter a media text, we are not seeing reality, but someone’s version of it. Selection: Whatever ends up on the screen is selected, much more will have been left out. Organisation: Elements will be organised carefully in ways that real life is not. Stereotype: A stereotype is a standardised and usually oversimplifies mental picture or attitude that is held in common by members of a group. It is a simplification used to make sense of a real person or group, which, in reality, is much more complicated.

Genre

Genre’s

Genre’s are categories or types of media text. Genre’s are recognisable through the repeated use of generic codes and conventions. -Iconographies-Narrative-Representations-IdeologiesHow did you use these codes?

Steve Neale- 1980

All genre’s are instances of repetition and difference. No pleasure without difference.

Films have to conform to audience expectations about narrative.

Douglas Pye

Tom Ryall

Conventions, narrative themes, characters/stereotypes and iconography. He proposes the theory that the types of conventions found in genres can be grouped in the following categories: Iconographies: Symbols associated with the genre. Narrative: StructureRepresentations: Characters/stereotypes. Ideologies: Beliefs and ideas of the ideal concept themes.

Daniel Chandler

Conventional definitions of genres tend to be based on the notion that they constitute particular conventions of context which are shared by the texted which are regarded as belonging to them.

Altman

Media institutions use genres as it allows for product differentiation. This means different genres of products are produced to appeal to different target audiences.

Media Language

Tempo of music drives the editing. Genre might be reflected in types if mise-en-scene, themes, performance, camera and editing style. Camera work impacts meaning, movement, angle and short distance all play a part in representation.

You must write about:

Denotations: The literal meaning of something. E.g. if you look for snake in the dictionary, one of its denotative meanings is ‘scaly, legless, reptiles.’Connotations: Associations that are connected to a certain word or emotional suggestions. Anchorage: attach meaning to something through either the matching of words to images or the juxtaposition between them.

You made a lot of decisions regarding: -Camera-Editing-Lighting-Sound-Mise-en-scene-Special effects. What codes and conventions have been used?Identify and describe the meanings generated.

Media language is the way in which the meaning of a text is conveyed to the audience.

Signs and symbols in media texts are polysemic which means they are open to many interpretations. For film and television, seeing the character in a moving image text allows meaning to come across as non-verbal communication.

Andrew Goodwin

Illustrate: Images used to represent the meanings to the lyrics and genre, often very literal. Disjuncture: When the meaning of the song is completely ignored.Amplify: Meanings and effects are manipulated and constantly shown throughout the video and shown to the audience.

Charles Peirce

Came up with the term semiotic which is the study of meaning making. Including the study of signs and signification.

Rudolf Arnheim

Arnheim critiques the assumption that language goes before perception and that the words are more of a stepping stone of thinking. Arnheim believes that sensory knowledge allows for the possibility of language since the only access to reality we have is through our senses. Visual perception is what allows us to have a true understanding of experience.

Bergson

Bergson commented on the need for new ways of thinking about movement and come up with the terms ‘the movement image’ and ‘the time image’. The movement image: he argues that cinema immediately give us movement image. Figures are not described in motion; rather the continuity of movement describes the figure.

Barthes

Looks at how the audience will interpret meaning from a particular media text. The denotation is an object placed within media texts. E.g. A poppy. It is then up to the audience to draw their own cultural, social and historical knowledge to interpret its connotations.

Stuart Hall- Encoding and

DecodingHall’s theory thinks about the preferred meaning of text. If something is encoded it is what is written within a media text. An image has been placed in the text by the producer and will challenge or promote dominant ideologies. Decoding is when the audience reads into his piece of media and makes their own interpretations of what the image means. Hall thinks the media circulated dominant ideas and his theory says that producers place dominant ideas in different media. There are ways in which the audience decodes texts: -The audience fully accepts the preferred meaning, showing they agree with dominant values. -The audience takes a negotiated position, meaning that they only agree with some preferred meaning. -The audience takes an oppositional position.

Narrative

Key tips!

● All media texts tell stories. The structure of these stories is called a narrative.

● A story must appear to be real in order to engage us- how does your coursework do this?

● It might seem obvious on how to apply a narrative structure to your film, but think carefully if you have created a magazine. -How is your magazine structured? -How does the font lead the reader into the magazine.

-Consider enigma codes (Barthes and Torodov).

Key Words

Conventions, iconography, codes, product differentiation, genre’s, relationship, character relationship, media texts, structure, audience, engage, enigma, narrative. How do these things relate to your coursework?

Torodov or Todorov- Narrative Theory

Torodov’s narrative theory basically states that most stories follow the same pattern. Equilibrium~Disruption~Realisation~Restored Order~ New EquilibriumYou can use this to relate to your own trailer or music video and how you have used and show your storyline to appeal to certain audiences and provoke certain emotions.

Propp- Characters

Propp believes that all movies have 8 main characters and they are always the same. These characters are: 1. The Villain 6. Her Father2.The Hero 7. The Dispatcher3. The Donor 8. The False Hero4. The Helper5. The Princess

Barthes- 5 Codes

Barthes suggested that there will be one or more of the five codes that describe the meaning of the text. Enigma Codes: mystery within the text. Action Codes: Sequential elements of action in the text.Semantic Codes: The part of the text that suggests or refers to additional meanings. Symbolic Codes: Symbolism within the text. Referential Codes: Anything in the text that refers to things such as scientific, historical and cultural knowledge.

Levi-Strauss- Binary Opposites

He believed that the way we understand certain words that depends on our understanding between the world and its opposite (binary opposites). An example of this is our understanding of the word ‘villain’ depends on the difference between that and the opposing word ‘hero’. Binary opposites are used frequently in horrors to show things such as good and evil.

Opening sequences and narrative

-To introduce characters: Propp-Establish narrative structure: Torodov-Get audience’s interest-Establish core themes: Levi-Introduce iconography-Establishes audience expectation -Leaves enigma codes: Barthes-Significance of soundtrack- establishing moods-Narrative conventions of opening sequences: Barthes -Use of titles/credits event signifiers.

Audience

Important Questions

Who was your product aimed at?How did you target this audience?What was their reaction?What type of audience are you aiming your product at? -Niche -Mainstream Every media text is made with a view of pleasing and audience in some way- how did you try to please your audience?Make sure you consider: age, gender, demographic profile, socio-economic group, welfare, lifestyle, values and attitudes.

John Hartley- The Hartley Classification

The Hartley Classification: There are 7 socially grouped categories when it comes to identifying audience:-Self (ambitions and interests of the audience)-Age -Ethnicity -Gender -Family-Class -NationThe creator must know their audiences to be able tp identify them correctly. Texts need audiences in order to realise their potential for meaning.

David Morley- Representation TheoryThe Nationwide Project:Morley is primarily known as being one of the principal researchers at TCCC’s. The Nationwide Project was a research task which looked at the BBC’s show Nationwide to study the encoding- decoding models. Morley conducted qualitative research with a wide range of participants from different backgrounds and observed their responses to the show. People in management groups produced dominant readings, students negotiated readings and trade union groups proved oppositional readings. Morley concluded that decoding cannot be traced solely to socioeconomic position as members of the same sample produced different meanings.

Richard Dyer- Stereotypes

Stereotype has come to be defined as a negative representation or over simplification of a category of the people in a group. Dyer explains that stereotypes reinforce ideas of differences between people which are natural.

Tessa Perkins

HOWEVER: Perkins argues stereotypes are not actually negative and are not always about minority groups. As well as this, she commented on the fact that stereotypes are not always fake. For example the stereotype of being a mother.

Hypodermic Syringe Theory

Implies that the media has a direct impact on the audiences and the norms, values and morals are injected into them, giving them the correct messages that they should live by.

Representation

Representation

Everything in the media is a representation, everything we see is being represented. Questions to ask when analysing representation: Who or what is being represented?How is the representation being created?Who has created the representation?Why is the representation created in that way?What is the intention?What is the effect of the representation?

Laura Mulvey- The Gaze

The male gaze occurs when the audience is put into the perspective of a hetrosexual man. A sense may focus on the curves of a woman’s body, putting the viewer in the eyes of a man. The theory suggests that the male gaze denies women's human identity and regulates them to objects admired for their appearance.

Baudrillard

Baudrillard is a postmodern theorist that argues representation no longer refers to real things. The representation has become more real tp us than reality and has actually replaced it. Simulacrum- when a copy replaces the original. For Baudrillard, images are now hyperreal- they have no relation to the real celebration. Baudrillard would question the concept of representation as a process which represents the real. Institution->mediated->Consumer