AS Media Studies U1

Question 1

What is an Active Audience?

Answer 1

This describes an audience who responds to and interprets the media products in different ways and who actively engages with the messages encoded in the products.

Question 2

What is meant by Aspirational?

Answer 2

Aimed at or appealing to people who want to improve how they look, attain a higher social position or have better standard of living.

Question 3

What is an Audience surrogate?

Answer 3

A character within a text that stands in for the audience. They may think as we do, or act as we ourselves might act in the same situation.

Question 4

What Audience theory was Albert Bandura’s?

Answer 4

Media Affects:

Question 5

What Audience theory was George Gerbner’s?

Answer 5

Cultivation Theory:

Question 6

What Audience theory was Stuart Hall’s?

Answer 6

Reception Theory:

Question 7

What is Brand Identity?

Answer 7

The image that a brand projects and the associations the audience makes with the brand. This is built up over time.

Question 8

What is Colloquialism?

Answer 8

An informal expression that is often used in casual conversation rather than in writing. However, it is used in some media products to establish an informal communication with the audience.

Question 9

What is connotation?

Answer 9

Refers to the meanings we associate with the sign, for example a red rose may connote love or the hoot of an owl may connote night-time.

Question 10

What are cover lines?

Answer 10

The written text that features on the cover of the magazine providing a preview of the content that features inside.

Question 11

What is cross-platform marketing?

Answer 11

When one form is advertised on another media platform. For example, BBC 1 will broadcast promotional advertisements for its radio stations; these will also be on the BBC website.

Question 12

What are cultural competences?

Answer 12

Within a media context, this concept suggests that the cultural competence of an audience is the shared knowledge, related to their cultural understanding, of that audience, which means that they will take a particular pleasure from a media product. For example, the audience who understand and engage with the rules of Call of Duty, and have a certain computer literacy, will enjoy the control aspect of the game and the online sharing of techniques.

Question 13

What is decoding?

Answer 13

The proccess through which an audience interprets a message.

Question 14

What is Demographic profiling?

Answer 14

A way categorising audiences by dividing consumers into groups based on age, sex, income, education, occupation, household size, marital status, home ownership or other factors. This information is use to some media industries, for example it can help advertisers determine their target audience for particular products and develop adverts that focus on a specific demographic.

Question 15

What is Denotation?

Answer 15

The literal or common sense meaning of a sign rather than the associated meaning of a sign.

Question 16

What is Discourse?

Answer 16

The topics and lauangage used by a media text snd the way they are used. There are topics that would never appear in the discourse of a magazine tends to centre on image and how to look good

Question 17

What is a Dominant-Hegominic position?

Answer 17

The position that the media encoder encourages the decoder to adopt when interpreting a text. If they adopt the dominant-hegominc position they read or interpret the message in the way that the encoder intended, making a preferred reading.

Question 18

What is a Dominant-Ideology?

Answer 18

A set if values and beliefs that have broader social or cultural currency. This may be implicit or explicit as is evident in texts such as tabloid newspapers.

Question 19

What is an ellispis?

Answer 19

Where sentences are incomplete and instead are finished with a set of three dots; the words need to be filled by the reader.

Question 20

What is meant by encode?

Answer 20

Communicate ideas and messages though system of signs.

Question 21

What is an enigma code?

Answer 21

Enigma codes are the questions or mysteries that a narrative sets up in order to make the audience continue watching. Roland Barthes refers to this as the hermeneutic code.

Question 22

What is ethnocentric?

Answer 22

Roger Brown defines ethnocentric as ‘the application of the norms of ones own culture to that of others’ (Social Psychology, 1965, page 183). Stuart Hall refers to this definition in his theory of representations as he suggest that ethnocentrism is an example of the way in which stereotypes reinforce the power of certain groups over others.

Question 23

What is meant by Foreshadow?

Answer 23

To hint at something that will happen later in the narrative.

Question 24

What is meant by Formulaic Structure?

Answer 24

Where the texts has clear structure that is recognisable and rarely changes. For example, the front cover of a lifestyle magazine has key conventions and the audience has expectations of what will appear throughout the publication.

Question 25

What is a Gatekeepr?

Answer 25

A person or organisation that is involved in filtering content in some way. For example, in the newspaper industry, editors generally perform this gatekeeping function as they determine which stories make it into the paper (through the gate) and which do not.

Question 26

What are Gender Norms?

Answer 26

Cultural expectations regarding how men and women should act or behave - the patterns of behaviour that a particular society considers to be ‘normal’ for men or women.

Question 27

What are Graphics?

Answer 27

A precise type of design. For example, in media terms, the titles and credits in a film or for a television programme, or the seemingly hand-drawn but usually computer-generated images in a video game.

Question 28

What is a Hard Sell?

Answer 28

This is ‘in your face’ advertising. These adverts are usually short, loud and employ a direct mode of address. They give clear information about the product, for example the price and where you can get it.

Question 29

What is a hook?

Answer 29

The element if a media product that catches the attention of the audience and draws them in. On a film poster it may be the image, the tag line or the copy.

Question 30

Wha is meant by House- Style?

Answer 30

The distinctive ‘look’, aethetic or visual style of magazine, which helps to convey a sense of its brand identity.

Question 31

What are Hybrid Genres?

Answer 31

These are media texts that incorporate features of more than one genre, Strictly Come Dancing includes features of reality television, game shows and entertainment programmes, for example.

Question 32

What is a Hyperbole?

Answer 32

Exaggerated language used to create a dramatic effect.

Question 33

What is a Hyperlink?

Answer 33

A word, phrase or image in an electronic document or web page that the reader can click on to navigate to a different page.

Question 34

What is Hypermasculinity?

Answer 34

Where stereotypically masculine traits such as power, toughness or physical strength are presented in exaggerated form. In many cases this is conveyed symbolically through particular aspects of the iconography or mise-en-scene - cars and guns often function as symbols of masculine power, for example.

Question 35

What is a Hypodermic syringe model?

Answer 35

Also known as the hypodermic needle model. Now largely viewed as an outdated effects theory, which suggests that the audience are a mass that behave the same way in response to a media product. The media product injects ideas into the minds of the assumed passive audience who will respond as one.

Question 36

What is meant by iconography?

Answer 36

The visual elements of a media product such as the props, costumes and settings that are used.

Question 37

What is meant by ‘in house’?

Answer 37

The companies that create the product also produce the advertising campaign and do not recruit an advertising agency.

Question 38

What is an Independent Productions?

Answer 38

In the broadcasting industry these are productions that are produced by companies that are independent of the broadcasters.

Question 39

What is Intertextuality?

Answer 39

When one text is used or referenced within another. For example, the use of memorable scenes from an iconic film in an advert. A good example of intertextuality is the use of Yoda from Start Wars in the Vodafone advert.

Question 40

What is meant by an Issue?

Answer 40

An important matter or topic that is of public concern.

Question 41

What is a Jump Line?

Answer 41

Used at the end of a cover line. Usually tells the audience which page to turn to in order to read the full story.

Question 42

What is Juxtaposition?

Answer 42

Involves placing two or more items next to one another to meaningful effect.

Question 43

What are Lexis?

Answer 43

The specific type of language or vocab that is used. The football magazine Four Four Two uses the lexis of sport, for example, while the women’s lifestyle magazine Glamour uses the lexis of fashion and beauty.

Question 44

What is a lifestyle magazine?

Answer 44

An umbrella term for mens and women’s magazines that are concerned with aspects of modern living such as fashion, beauty, health and fitness, culture, the home , etc. The ideology of these magazine tend to focus on consumerism and aspirations.

Question 45

Mise-en-scene

Answer 45

Everything that appears within the frame in, for example, a television programme. This includes characters, iconography and graphics.

Question 46

Motif

Answer 46

A recurrent thematic element used by an artist and recognised by fans of that artists. It is usually established by the iconography surrounding the artist, including props, costumes and settings.