Media Language
Media language usually refers to written, verbal, non-verbal, aural and aesthetic communication and usually a combination of these. Over time, we come to expect certain styles of filming, acting, editing and sound for certain types of programme. So we can 'read' the media language as easily as we can understand our friends in a conversation. Diegetic means natural sounds e.g. the wind.
Form and Style
The form of a media text is the combination of the 'micro' elements such as sound effects, dialogue and editing and the shape and structure. The text will be noticed by the audience instantly. And the style is the way the text uses this form.
Convention
Conventions are described as the ingredients of the particular form or genre. An example is period drama, a sub-genre with a range of necessary ingredients which are expected by the audience, making the convention 'contractual' in nature.
Signification
Signification is often applied within a theory called semiotics, the study of signs. Everything we see is a sign and carries a meaning.The basic meaning of the sign that most people would recognise and agree on is known as the signifier or denotation. The individual meanings that people give to signs are known as the signified or connotation e.g. if someone was given a picture of a skull and bones the signifier/denotation would be that it was a skull and bones. And the signified/connotation could be danger or pirates. It depends on the audience and the context. Polysemic means different meanings to different people.
Representation
We see media texts as mediating (goes between two) between out sense of reality and the fictional or factual representation of reality - of people, places, ideas, themes, time periods and a range of social contexts.
Audience
Section on the audience includes a detailed consideration of the audience theories and approaches. The easiest way of analysing this concept is to look for a 'target audience' for a media text or product. Many texts appeal to a range of secondary audiences and the ways that different people respond to texts often challenges expectation.
Narrative and Genre
Narrative (story) describes the process of balancing what we actually see or hear and what we assume in addition. It is fundamentally to do with order and the relationship between information and enigma (mystery). Whether genre exists more in the minds of producers or audiences we don't know but media is dominated by formats and when the format is seen to work, then we are treated to a huge plethora (lots of different things) of examples in hardly any time. Genres shift over time, producers and audiences subvert (cause trouble, twist things) and parody (make fun of something) the conventions and hybrid (join 2 things to make 1 thing e.g. Scary Movie = horror and comedy) fusions of genres develop.
Creativity
Creative skills operate on two levels: first, the ability to use digital technologies to make meaning so that the audience can respond easily to the text ans second, the ability to engage and interest the audience.
Connecting the Micro to the Macro
The micro elements of a text are the technical and symbolic features which you will need to identify, recognise and describe the function of. The macro elements can be treated separately - for example, the lighting has one range of meanings and editing has another. But when these elements combine they add up to an overall representational 'world' that makes sense and is believable. We call this 'verisimilitude' (does something look real? Does it look authentic? e..g little details in a TV drama)
Multimodal Literacy
Is about users making their own trajectory through hypermedia environments. This means we have to be careful about theorising simple producer-audience relations and creator-consumer patterns of behaviour.
