Key Terms Flashcards
Target Audience
The group of consumers the media text was made for.
Cropping
Cutting down images.
Masthead
The title of the magazine on the cover
Plugs
Promotions/adverts
Font
The style of text
Denotation
What an image actually shows and what is immediately apparent.
Connotation
What it suggests.
Slogan
A memorable motto or phrase
Cover lines
One line description on the cover of a magazine, of articles inside.
Shot types
The type of camera angle used for a picture.
Image
Picture
Saturated market
A situation where practically every market already has the product, so it is a replacement market with little chance of new sales.
Socio-economic groups
The groups of people made by Market Research Agencies.
Mode of address
How particular text speaks to its audience.
Uses and Gratifications
Why someone consumes a piece of media.
- Information
- Entertainment
Brand Identity
The way the product is identified quickly e.g. Nike’s tick logo
Intertextuality
How media texts refer to other media texts that producers assume audiences will recognise.
Audience foreknowledge
The knowledge an audience already has and brings to their reading of a text.
Unique selling point (USP)
Something unique to a media product that will help to promote and sell it.
Distribution
The process of dispensing media products.
Enigma code
A question that is not immediately answered, drawing the audience into the text.
Golden Triangle
An imaginary triangle on a media product where key information is shown, as it is where they eye is drawn first.
Marketing
The process of promoting and selling a product.
Representation
The process by which is a constructed media text stands for, symbolises, describes or represents people, places, events or ideas that have an existence outside of the text.
Sans serif
Non swirly writing.
Serif
Swirly writing.
Subjective
Based on or influenced by personal feelings or opinions.
Stereotype
Opinionated and predictable opinions on a object or group of people.
Gesture Codes
Reading meaning from gesture, posture, facial expression etc
Dress Codes
What do the clothes tell you?
Technical Codes
The way a text is technically constructed (camera angles, framing, typography etc)
Verbal codes
Everything to do with language (either written or spoken)
Symbolic Codes
Codes that can be decoded on a mainly connotational level i.e all the things which draw upon our experience and understanding of other media texts, our cultural frame of reference.
