Forms Flashcards
What is the definition of mass media?
All public means of communication and expression. The term mass refers to large audiences that consume media products. Modern mass media affects most people in some way. It can shape our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.
What is the basic communication model?
Sender (producer) - message (context/meaning) - medium (media) - receiver (audience).
What are technical codes?
Colours, camera angles, sounds etc.
What are symbolic/ narrative codes?
Objects, settings, body language, character etc.
What are written codes?
Headlines, typeface, captions etc.
What is the narrative?
How stories are structured by producers and understood by audiences.
What is genre?
The type or category of media text.
What are ideology and values?
The ideas/values/opinions encoded within a media text (e.g individualism is good or women are less able than men).
What is the semiotic approach to analysing media texts?
The study of signs and symbols and their role in the construction and reconstruction of meaning.
What is an open text?
An open text may have a variety of meanings dependent upon the age, sex and cultural background of the reader. It means that the text is open to interpretation.
What is a closed text?
A term used to describe a text that contains a dominant or preferred meaning. Such texts attempt to direct audiences into understanding one particular meaning. This is often done through the process of anchorage.
What is anchorage?
A process where words or captions or logos are used to direct a reader towards a particular meaning. It’s about how particular aspects of a text help to pin down/anchor its meaning.
What is direct address?
A direct address refers to a text that addresses you, the audience, directly to create a more personal connection. E.g a face looking directly at you through a camera.
What is indirect address?
It is more observational, less formal and the audience is addressed as a casual observer or voyeur.
What are the three main types of audience decoding according to Stuart Hall?
Dominant - when the reader accepts the full preferred reading offered by the text.
Negotiated - where the content of the message is adapted to fit the specific social condition of the reader to produce a new meaning.
Oppositional - where the dominant reading is contested and a reading is contested and a reading which opposes it is produced.
What is the male gaze?
Laura Mulvey argue that the dominant Hollywood perspective is male. She argues that we are forced to view everything in the media through the eyes of a heterosexual male.
What is intertextuality?
When a media text refers to another text e.g an advert that refers to a film. Intertextual texts can offer a number of meanings.
What is mise-en-scene?
Everything that is ‘in the scene’ or frame.