Key Concepts
Media Language (The way in which a text is constructed to create meaning for a reader or viewer of the text).
The text acts as a connection between the institution that has made the text and the audience who will receive it.There are three basic way of looking at this.
- An active institutional view is that meaning is passed from the institution to the audience. The institution are seen as active and the audience as passive.
- A negotiated view is that meaning is constructed by the text. The institution gives a meaning to the text and the reader/viewer interprets this in relation to other factors, for example knowledge of previous texts.
- An Active Audience view means that meaning is re-created by the audience. Because of this the institution becomes passive.
A man called Jacques Derrida looked at the relationship between institution and audience in another way. He states that an audience deconstructs a media text within the context of its logos (The wider context which surrounds the texts and influences the meaning of the text). According to his theory, there is not one simple meaning to a text but rather, a range of different meanings and interpretations.
Representation (relating to the representation of reality in the media).
In the majority of situations our only knowledge of people or situations will come from the media, so these representations are very important and must be accurate.
-When reading media texts it's very difficult to to know how we receive them and to make conscious decisions about why we accept or challenge them. As a reader or viewer of these texts we must make independent decisions on whether or not they are accurate/reliable.
- Newspapers are often accused of beginning moral panics through the way they represent people or groups.
We can categorize people into social groups which consist of factors such as:
-age
-disability
-gender
-socio-economic grouping
-race
-nationality
-sexuality
-Stereotyping is another important factor to be considered when analysing a media text. Stereotypes are characters who are 'types' rather than actual, complex people who will usually not be developed in any depth. Stereotypes are usually negative representations and most have a lot of assumptions about their character. Stereotypes also mostly represent an entire social group in a single character.
Audience (The viewers/readers of the media text).
The success of a media text is directly judged in terms of audience size, so media producers have a good reason for wanting to attract large audiences.
There are two different types of audience, mass audience and niche audience.
-Mass audiences are large audiences such as the audience for Eastenders or a Premiership football match.
-Niche audiences are much smaller but the majority of the time, they are very influential. These audience are usually very dedicated and loyal and therefore are very attractive to advertisers.
One of the most common ways of identifying a target audience is the socio-economic model. Although this model has been in use for a long time, it is still very useful in identifying a target audience and thus deconstructing a text. The basis for this system is money.
Audiences can also be categorized into other ways as well as the socio-economic model:
- Age
- Gender
- Demographic (i.e. where they live)
- Profiling
Audience (The viewers/readers of the media text).
The success of a media text is directly judged in terms of audience size, so media producers have a good reason for wanting to attract large audiences.
There are two different types of audience, mass audience and niche audience.
-Mass audiences are large audiences such as the audience for Eastenders or a Premiership football match.
-Niche audiences are much smaller but the majority of the time, they are very influential. These audience are usually very dedicated and loyal and therefore are very attractive to advertisers.
One of the most common ways of identifying a target audience is the socio-economic model. Although this model has been in use for a long time, it is still very useful in identifying a target audience and thus deconstructing a text. The basis for this system is money.
Audiences can also be categorized into other ways as well as the socio-economic model:
- Age
- Gender
- Demographic (i.e. where they live)
- Profiling
- Values, attitudes and lifestyles.
Ideology (Ideology underpins the construction of any media text)
A media text will always have an ideology which is communicated explicitly or implicitly to an audience. The media can construct our views of our society and our attitudes towards society.
Any media institution will have specific ideologies which affect the construction of its texts. The may be explicit ideologies (e.g. a newspaper may have a particular political affiliation) or implicit ideologies (such as the visual representations of a heroine in a typical Hollywood film).
When analysing a media text you must take into account the text in relation to the ideologies underpinning the text.
Institution (Who made the media text, is there an institution involved in the process?)
By being aware of how institutional perspectives affect the shaping of a text in this way, you can become better aware of the text itself and the relationship to the target audience. The shape of a media institution and the texts it creates is usually formed by a compromise between four crucial influences:
- Money (or the lack of it)
- ownership (and the amount of control this involves)
- artistic or social motivations (wanting to produce certain texts)
- target audience (needing to attract a particular audience or being dependent on keeping a certain audience)
Commercial institutions have to make money to survive-newspapers have to sell advertising space and sell copies, for example. So, they cannot afford to to produce texts which will attract small, especially niche audiences, as the advertisers will want access to large and stable audiences.
The BBC is a Public Service Broadcaster which is required to provide a public service when broadcasting and not be driven by commercial influences. So, the BBC must provide a range of programmes for different social groups, including minority and niche audiences.
Independent institutions are often the hardest to categorize. However, in general, they are basically commercial since they need to sell sufficient copies for example, of a magazine.
Narrative (Basically meaning 'story', all media texts have a narrative, which can be explicit, such as in a film or implicit such as in an advert).
Hollywood screenwriters are taught that the action must happen in three 'acts' and that there should be a crisis point at the end of Act 1 and Act2 and a happy resolution at the end of the film. Many narratives do not conform to this structure but it is the 'classic' structure and has been used for many years.
Questions to ask about the narrative structure when studying a media text:
- has the institution created a text with a conventional narrative structure?
-If not, which conventions have they subverted or broken?
- why have they done this?
- What impact did this have on the audience.
Time is used in different ways in a moving image text. For example, Discourse time and story time.
Discourse time is the time that it takes to narrate the events. Story time refers to the real time of the events.
Genre (Type)
All texts operate within genre, although many texts are hybrids of more than one genre.
Associated with genre are the codes and conventions. This means the textual codes which give meaning to an audience and the conventions of the genre.
These codes and conventions are important for the genre because there is a genre framework for a text and it is more likely to attract audiences.
Ideology (Ideology underpins the construction of any media text)
A media text will always have an ideology which is communicated explicitly or implicitly to an audience. The media can construct our views of our society and our attitudes towards society.
Any media institution will have specific ideologies which affect the construction of its texts. The may be explicit ideologies (e.g. a newspaper may have a particular political affiliation) or implicit ideologies (such as the visual representations of a heroine in a typical Hollywood film).
When analysing a media text you must take into account the text in relation to the ideologies underpinning the text.
Institution (Who made the media text, is there an institution involved in the process?)
By being aware of how institutional perspectives affect the shaping of a text in this way, you can become better aware of the text itself and the relationship to the target audience. The shape of a media institution and the texts it creates is usually formed by a compromise between four crucial influences:
- Money (or the lack of it)
- ownership (and the amount of control this involves)
- artistic or social motivations (wanting to produce certain texts)
- target audience (needing to attract a particular audience or being dependent on keeping a certain audience)
Commercial institutions have to make money to survive-newspapers have to sell advertising space and sell copies, for example. So, they cannot afford to to produce texts which will attract small, especially niche audiences, as the advertisers will want access to large and stable audiences.
The BBC is a Public Service Broadcaster which is required to provide a public service when broadcasting and not be driven by commercial influences. So, the BBC must provide a range of programmes for different social groups, including minority and niche audiences.
Independent institutions are often the hardest to categorize. However, in general, they are basically commercial since they need to sell sufficient copies for example, of a magazine.
Narrative (Basically meaning 'story', all media texts have a narrative, which can be explicit, such as in a film or implicit such as in an advert).
Hollywood screenwriters are taught that the action must happen in three 'acts' and that there should be a crisis point at the end of Act 1 and Act2 and a happy resolution at the end of the film. Many narratives do not conform to this structure but it is the 'classic' structure and has been used for many years.
Questions to ask about the narrative structure when studying a media text:
- has the institution created a text with a conventional narrative structure?
-If not, which conventions have they subverted or broken?
- why have they done this?
- What impact did this have on the audience.
Time is used in different ways in a moving image text. For example, Discourse time and story time.
Discourse time is the time that it takes to narrate the events. Story time refers to the real time of the events.
Genre (Type)
All texts operate within genre, although many texts are hybrids of more than one genre.
Associated with genre are the codes and conventions. This means the textual codes which give meaning to an audience and the conventions of the genre.
These codes and conventions are important for the genre because there is a genre framework for a text and it is more likely to attract audiences.
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments are moderated.