Antagonist - The main adversary of the protagonist in a media text – the conflict between the two often drives the narrative forward Archetype - A universal type or model of character that is found in many different texts, e.g. hero, villain, damsel in distress. Target Audience - The specific type of person that the producers of a media text are aiming their product at. Audience - A key Media concept. The recipients of a media text, the people who are intended to consume a variety of media texts. Connotation - Meaning created by associations – deeper levels of meaning e.g. red = danger, passion, love. Conventions - The widely recognised way of doing something - this has to do with content, style and form. Denotation - The literal or surface meaning – e.g. red is the colour of the rose. Genre – A key Media concept. A way of categorising a media text according to its form, style and content. This categorisation is useful for producers and audiences. Ideologies & Values - A key Media concept. The set of beliefs and ‘world views’ that are conveyed in a media text. Institution - A key Media concept. The organisations that create and distribute a variety of media texts. Narrative – A key Media concept. The way in which a story, or sequence of events, is put together within a text. Preferred Reading - The intended meanings or representations of an institution present in a media text Protagonist - The main character in the narrative of a media text Realism - This is when media texts strive to demonstrate a true relationship with the actual world around us. Representation - A key Media concept. The way in which the media ‘re-presents’ the world around us through codes and signs Stereotype - Representations of people that rely on preconceived ideas about the group that person are perceived as belonging to.
Broadcast Media Terminology
Close Up Shot - This shot type is often used to draw close attention to a particularsubject in a frame e.g. filling the frame with a person’s face to convey emotions.
Extreme Close Up Shot - This shot type is often used to create a claustrophobic effect or focus on a subject in extreme detail e.g. the tip of a pen, a criminal’s fingernails.
Establishing Shot - This shot type is often using to show where a scene is taking place e.g. a shot of New York City before we see inside Joey and Chandler’s apartment
Medium Shot - This shot type is often used during conversations and can be referred to as a ‘two shot’ – often shows characters from the waist up
Low Angle Shot - This shot type is used to make the subject look powerful, strong or tall – achieved by shooting from below the subject looking upwards.
High Angle Shot - This shot type is used to make the subject look weak, small or powerless – achieved by shooting from above the subject looking downwards
Tracking Shot - This shot type involves the camera moving along rails, following a subject – often used during travel or a longer view of a setting.
Panning Shot - This shot type involves the camera staying stationary but moving from side to side at (potentially) different speeds.
Zooming Shot - This shot type involves the frame moving either closer or further away from the action onscreen
Point of View Shot (POV) - This shot type allows the audience to witness events in a narrative through the eyes of a character
Voiceover - A feature of the soundtrack where an unseen speaker narrates or provides the audience with information regarding what is happening onscreen
Editing - The process by which footage for moving image media texts is put together in sequence. Skilfully done, this can achieve various effects on the audience.
Enigma - A central question or mystery used to drive a narrative forward
Diegetic Sound - This type of sound involves anything that the onscreen characters can hear. Environmental sounds like birds tweeting, kettles boiling etc.
Non-Diegetic Sound - This type of sound involves things which the characters cannot hear and have likely been added in post production. This includes things like voiceovers and musical soundtracks.
Mise-en-scene - This is the term for the overall composition of a scene and includes things such as lighting, costume, props, acting etc.
High Key Lighting – This type of lighting constructs a fairly natural, everyday form of lighting, free from dark shadows. This type of lighting is often used in sitcoms and comedies.
Low Key Lighting – This type of lighting highlights the contours on objects, creating dark shadows onscreen. This type of lighting is often seen in the horror genre or film noir.
Print Media Terminology
Anchorage - Fixing of meaning e.g. the copy text anchors (i.e. fixes to one spot) themeaning of an image
Banners – Typically found at the top or bottom of a print media text.
Broadsheet - Large format newspapers that report news in depth, often with a serious tone and higher level language. News is dominated by national and international events, politics, business, with less emphasis on celebrities and gossip. Examples: The Independent, The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph
Byline - A journalist's name at the beginning of a story.
Captions – Text below an image that describes the image or informs the audience whotook the image.
Copy - Main text of a story.
Cover-lines– Captions on a magazine front cover
Emotive Language – the use of language to generate specific emotional reactions in the target audience
Headlines – The text highlighting the main story being given priority by the producers of the print media text. Often designed to be eye-catching.
Inverted pyramid structure - Newspaper stories start with the main events. Then they give more details and eyewitness comments in short paragraphs. The paragraphs at the end of the story are less important than those at the beginning. This allows sub-editors to shorten stories by cutting paragraphs from the end.
Layout – How the print media text has been designed and formatted.
Masthead - The top section of a newspaper which gives the paper’s title, price and date
Sans Serif font – Font type which does not have lines perpendicular to the ends of letters e.g. Comic Sans – often seen as more contemporary. Think of Apple’s advertising.
Serif font – Font type which does have lines perpendicular to the ends of letters e.g. Times New Roman – generally seen as more traditional or higher class.
Splash – The front page story
Sub-headings – Smaller, typically one line headlines for other stories.
Tabloid - Smaller newspapers aimed at a large audience. News is reported in less depth and emphasises human interest stories. The language level is lower, paragraphs and stories shorter, with more use of images. Content often includes more celebrities, media news and gossip. Examples: The Sun, The Mail, The Mirror, The Express
Text to image ratio – This involves considering how weighted the print media text is with regards to text and image – you need to ask yourself why the ratio exists.
Typography – The collective term when considering elements of print media relating to the style of the text such as the font, colour, serif, sans serif etc.
Digital Media Terminology
App — Short for application, a program that runs inside another service. Many smartphones allow apps to be downloaded, leading to a burgeoning economy for modestly priced software.
Bandwidth - The amount of data that can be transferred through an internet connection.
Banner ad - Web advert, normally found at the top of a page. Typically around 468 by 60 pixels in size. Sometimes called a web banner.
Blog - An online commentary or diary often written by individuals about hobbies or areas of specialist interest. Blogs commonly allow comments below entries and are published in reverse chronological order.
Clickthrough - When a reader clicks on an advert and is redirected to a new page.
Flash - A program used to display design-heavy, animated content.
Blogger - A person who writes a blog.
Browser - A piece of software that allows users to view internet pages. Popular browsers include Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.
HTML - Hyper Text Mark-up Language. Basic programming code used for the design and display of web pages.
HTML5 - The upcoming, powerful standard of Hypertext Markup Language, which has added advanced interactive features, such as allowing video to be embedded on a web page. It is gaining in popularity.
Hyperlink - A link that redirects the user to another web page.
JPEG - Joint Photographic Expert Group. Common type of picture file used on the web.
Microblogging - Variant of traditional blogging in which users write brief text messages over the web. Popularised by web site Twitter, which limits users to 140-character updates.
Multimedia - Term used to describe a range of different delivery formats such as video, audio, text and images, often presented simultaneously on the internet.
Podcasts - MP3 audio recordings that can automatically download to a user's computer as soon as they are published online.
UI (User Interface) - The part of a software application or website that users see and interact with, which takes into account the visual design and the structure of the program.
Streaming - Watching or listening to video or audio in real time, rather than downloading files.
User-generated content (UGC) - Material created and submitted to sites by its users - such as photographs, video footage, comments, articles etc.
Widget - application available to download or embed on a desktop, homepage or social network. Allows you to share content, which will be automatically updated.
Active Audience
An Active Audience engages, interprets and responds to a media text in different ways and is capable of challenging the ideas encoded in it. Klapper suggests that these filters involve a degree of active choice of what information is watched/read and retained on behalf of the audience and what type of person each individual may be.
Selective Filter Model
Klapper (1960) suggested that for a media message to have any effect, it must pass through the following 3 models : selective exposure , selective perceptions and selective retention.
Selective exposure
The audience must choose to read or listen to the content of specific media. Their messages can have no effect if no ones sees or hears them. Whatever a audience chooses to read or hear depends on their interests, education, work and so on...For example, Hollywood make different genres of film with this is mind- most horrors are aimed towards a teenage audience. Also, the BBFC certificate system prevents the access of some audiences to specific types of media content.
Selective perception
The audience may not accept the message; some people may take some notice of some media content but decide to ignore or reject others. For example, a heavy smoke may chose to ignore the content of a TV show that stresses the link between smoking and lung cancer. Festinger (1957) argues that people will only look to watch and find out information about things that confirm their existing attitudes and view of the world.
Selective retention
The messages sent by media need to tick in the mind of whoever is viewing the content. However, research has shown that people only remember things that they broadly agree with. Berry's (1986) research into knowledgeable, well motivated grammar school 6th formers found that they only retained 60% of the news information that they were tested on minutes after viewing.
Key terms from the media spec
Active audience - The theory that media audiences do not just consume a text passively, they actively engage with it because of personal and social contexts.
Ambiguous - A sign or a media product with several possible but meanings which could be confused.
Anchorage - The text (copy) that fixes (anchors) an image and its meaning.
Antagonist - In a plot, the character whose function is to disrupt the protagonist – often, but not always, a villain.
Archetype - An original on which many copies are based. Often used in relation to characters in fictional works.
Examples include the rebel, the mother figure and the villain.
Audience - The people who consume a media product by watching, listening and reading it.
Audience positioning - The technique used to persuade the audience to interpret a media product in a particular way.
BARB - Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board – the organisation that measures and collects television viewing data in the UK.
BBFC - British Board of Film Classification – responsible for deciding the age classification and censorship of all films and video content released in the UK.
Big Close Up (BCU) - An extreme close up camera shot, usually focusing on the face or close detail of the body.
Binary opposition - The contrast between two ideas or concepts, such as good/evil, male/female. Usually the contrast causes conflict that drives the narrative.
Brand - A type of product that is manufactured and marketed under a particular name, logo and design.
By-line - The printed line of text in a newspaper/magazine that names the writer of an article.
Camera movement - The way the camera is moved during filming to add depth, interest and variation for the viewer, such as pan and track.
Censorship - The controls and regulations that exist about media content. Censorship powers can be held by governments or regulatory bodies.
CGI - Computer-generated imagery is the application of computer graphics to printed or moving image media. The term CGI commonly refers to 3D computer graphics used for special effects in film sequences.
Code - A communication system which includes signs, rules and shared understanding. Examples include the English language, non-verbal codes, print codes and editing codes.
Colour palette - The suite of colours that are used in the creation of media texts, such as websites and magazines, to reflect a brand and appeal to its audience.
Commercial broadcasting - Privately owned media broadcasting of television and radio programming.
Concentration of ownership - Refers to the number of organisations or individuals who control ownership of the media. Fewer stakeholders hold increasing shares.
Conglomerate - A media conglomerate is a large corporation that owns a large number of media companies, such as television, radio, internet, publishing – giving the conglomerate control in the market.
Connotation - The meanings of a sign or media product that are made by cultural association. These are often the deeper or underlying meanings. For example, images of a sunset in a film may connote ending or closure.
Consumption - The act of using media products by watching, listening to or reading them.
Context - We use this term in two ways in media studies.
The immediate surroundings of something, ie a news photograph on the front page of The Times.
The wider social, cultural or historical circumstances of a media product or process.
Continuity editing - The most commonly used type of video editing used in post-production – predominantly used to establish a logical and linear coherence between shots.
Conventions - Established rules or shared understandings used in the creation of media products. Conventions are more likely to be taken for granted as ‘the way we do things’ rather than formally written down.
Convergence - The coming together of technologies and institutions to create a new product or media experience.
Copy - The written material, as opposed to images, that features in a media text.
Countertype - A positive stereotype that reinforces the positive qualities of a person/type of person.
Cover price - The price printed on the cover of a printed media text.
Close up (CU) - A common camera shot that tightly focuses on a person or object.
Crane shot - A camera shot that is taken from above the ground high on a crane (also known as a jib).
Cross-head - Words used as a title or sub-heading to break up text in a newspaper or magazine.
Cross cut - An editing technique used to establish that action is occurring at the same time.
Cut - A simple editing technique. One shot ends and another begins, with no transitions or effects added.
Date line - A line that shows the date that a media publication/article was written/first published.
Demerger - Separating a large corporation into two or more smaller organisations.
Demographics - The characteristics and make-up of a sample of the population, eg age, gender, nationality.
Denotation - The literal or surface meaning of a sign or media product.
Desktop Publishing - Desk Top Publishing (DTP) software allows the user to create printed media texts with various page layouts and designs
Digital (platform) - Digital media is any media that can be created, viewed and distributed digital devices.
Distribution - The ways in which media products are made available to audiences either physically or online.
Dialogue - Words spoken by characters in a media product, such as films or television dramas.
Diegetic sound - Actual sound from the world of the film, whether on or off screen.
Diversification - Large corporations spreading their interest and shares in a wide variety of mass media forms.
Editing - A post-production technique – any arranging, revising and preparing of written, audio or video content to get the piece ready for audience consumption.
Editorial - An article in a newspaper or magazine that expresses an opinion on a topical issue.
Enigma - A question, mystery or clue that is not immediately resolved which draws the audience in.
Ethics - The principles and standards that are upheld in broadcast media, film and the internet.
Eyeline match - A film editing technique that makes the audience feel that they are seeing what the character on screen is seeing.
Fade - In video editing post-production, a fade is the transition to and from a blank image.
Flashback - A scene in a moving image that is set in an earlier time than the main story.
Font - The style and size of text characters on the printed page or screen.
Form - The various formats that media texts and products come in, such as newspapers, magazines, films. Each media form will have its own set of codes and conventions.
Framing - The way a camera shot is composed.
Franchise - A media franchise is a collection of connected media products derived from a single original source, for example, a film – with a comic and video game also produced about the film.
Freelance - A person who is hired by different companies to work on particular projects. Freelancing is common in many areas of the media.
Gatekeeping - The way in which information is filtered by the media before it is prepared for publication, broadcast or distribution.
Genre - A style or category of a media form.
Guerrilla marketing - Low-cost and unconventional marketing methods with a clear focus on grabbing the audience’s attention.
Headline - The text, usually in larger font, at the top of a page or article in a newspaper or article, indicating what the content is to the reader.
Hegemony - The dominance in the media of a particular social group. For example, in the UK, middle class people dominate the media workforce.
Home page - The first page of a website that a user will access at a web address. The home page usually contains navigation links to the other pages of the website.
Horizontal integration - Companies who acquire other companies operating in the same sector.
House style - The overall design style of a newspaper, website or magazine. This might include font, colour scheme and layout. The house style sets a product apart from its competition and makes it easily recognisable to its audience.
Hybrid - A type of media created through convergence resulting in a new form consisting of different media combined. Can also be used as a way of describing a media product that is a combination of different genres and styles.
Icon - In semiotics, an icon is a sign that physically resembles the thing it stands for (compare with symbol).
Ident - Short for identifier – can be a short visual image shown on the screen in between television programmes, signalling the channel that is being watched, or an audio ‘call sign’ to identify a particular radio station/programme.
Institutions - The organisations that create and distribute media texts, such as the BBC and News International.
Interactivity - Interactive media allows the user/consumer to take an active involvement in the media text, even by contributing to it.
Intertextuality - Often media texts make references to other texts and popular culture to interest and engage the audience.
IPSO - The Independent Press Standards Organisation is the independent regulator of the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK.
Jingle - A short and catchy piece of music or song/slogan used to promote a product, used particularly in advertising and on the radio.
Links - Clickable text or images that take users to different pages of a website.
Logo - The visual image used to identify a product, brand or company.
Masthead - A publication’s name or title in a distinctive form usually placed at the top of the front page or cover page.
Medium/mid shot (MS) - A commonly used camera shot. Typically it will frame the subject from the waist up or show some background detail in the shot.
Mediation - The process by which a media product represents an idea, issue, event or group of people to the audience. 'Mediation' suggests that this process always changes the perception of whatever is represented by the media.
Merger - A combination of two media companies into one – usually to gain more power and influence in the market.
Message - The expected reading that the audience takes from a media text.
Mise-en-scene - Literally ‘everything that is in the shot/scene’ in a single frame. This is what helps the audience to gain meaning from a scene.
Mock-up - A rough plan of how the layout of a page of printed media will look.
Mode of address - The way a media product ‘speaks’ to its audience.
Model - A model seeks to capture an idea or concept in a simplified form, often as a graphic or diagram. For example, the linear model of communication.
Moral panic - The way that the media stirs up intense feelings because of the way it covers a news event or issue.
Multi-media - Technology that enables sound, video, text and graphic images to be used in the same media production.
Narrative - The way in which a story or sequence of events is put together in a media text. All media texts have some sort of narrative running through them.
News values - Ways in which media companies will assess and categorise news stories and decide on their newsworthiness. Each media publication will have its own news agenda and set of news values.
Niche audience/market - A relatively small segment of an audience with specific tastes and interests.
Non-diegetic sound - Sound that is neither on the screen or features in the ‘world of the film’. Typically, non-diegetic sound will be sound effects or background music added to create mood and atmosphere.
OFCOM - The Office of Communications is a government-approved regulatory body that is responsible for ensuring that the communication and broadcasting industries in the UK operate fairly and competitively. It also protects the public from inappropriate or offensive material.
Opening sequence - The opening section of a film/television drama. Often this is action-packed and ends on a cliffhanger. Opening sequences are also used to introduce key characters or to establish settings.
Ownership - The companies who own the companies that produce and distribute media texts.
Panning - A basic camera movement – the camera sweeps from one side to the other.
Passive audience - A passive audience is one that merely observes and takes in a media text without interacting or responding to it.
PEGI - Pan European Game Information – the organisation that judges what the age ratings should be for games. Produces guidance for consumers (mainly aimed at parents) so that they can decide if a game is suitable.
Pitch - An outline of an idea for the creation of a particular media product.
Platform - The technologies, software or apps that allow media producers and consumers to interact, such as social media.
Point of view (POV) - A first-person camera shot that allows the audience to see from the viewpoint of an individual character.
Preferred reading - The interpretation of a media text that the producers intended the audience to have.
Pre-production - The work, planning and research that is done on a media product before the actual production begins.
Primary research - Original and new research that is carried out to answer particular questions or issues.
Prime time - The times of the day when radio and TV audiences are expected to be at their highest.
Producer - The people who plan, coordinate and create media products.
Product - Any media text can also be called a media product.
Public service broadcasting - Television and radio programmes that are broadcast to inform, entertain or educate the public, without trying to make a profit.
Qualitative research - Qualitative research is used to explore and gain an understanding of audience opinions and motivations.
Quantitative research - Quantitative research is the collection of numerical data and statistics.
Regulation - Rules or sets of standards that are expected to be adhered to. Regulatory bodies oversee that this is being done by media companies.
Representation - The way in which the media ‘represents’ people and the world around us.
Secondary research - Secondary research involves the collation and analysis of research that already exists.
Segmentation - The division of audiences into segments and categories.
Semiotics - The use and study of sign, sign systems and their meanings. Also known as semiology.
SFX - Special Effects. Graphics techniques that are applied to moving images to create specific effects.
Shot - A single image taken by a camera, or a single take of video footage.
Sign - Anything that expresses meaning is a sign. Examples include written or spoken words, an image, a sound, a gesture or an item of clothing.
Signposting - The technique of establishing what the location of a scene is from the beginning. For example, a hospital drama might be signposted by audio of medical equipment or ambulance sirens.
Slogan - A catchy, eye-catching and memorable phrase, often used in advertising.
Social media/networking - Websites, platforms and apps that enable users to communicate with other people across the world.
Storyboard - A visual representation and plan of how a moving image scene will be shot. Typically includes a sketch of each frame, camera movements, edits and timing, etc.
Strapline - A cross-column subheading, usually found in newspapers, magazines and websites, that emphasises part of an article or advert.
Subscription broadcasting - Any platform/broadcaster that offers access to its content for a subscription.
Symbol - A sign which doesn’t physically resemble the thing it stands for. Words are symbols because they don’t look like the idea or object that they stand for. The red white and blue tricolour flag is a symbol of France.
Synergy - Where two or more media products are linked for commercial purposes, eg a film and a video game based on the film.
Teaser - A form of trailer that ‘teases’ the audience about a forthcoming film. Often meant to intrigue, teasers are typically short and aimed at perking interest.
Titles - The opening credits of a television programme or film, including the title but often including information about key personnel and snippets of the product.
Trailer - A short advert for a forthcoming film. Usually adhering to a particular set of codes and conventions, trailers might include highlights from the film and information about the stars of the film.
Treatment - A short outline of an intended media production. This might include written descriptions, sketches and mock-ups.
User-generated content - User generated content (UGC) is any content created and distributed on a particular platform by a user of that platform.
Viral marketing - A method of marketing which encourages media consumers to share opinion and information about a media product on the internet and on social media.
Vlog - A video blog or video log, usually shortened to vlog, is a form of blog that uses video rather than written text.
Voiceover - A segment of narration that is added to a broadcast with the speaker not seen on screen.
Technical elements
Camera shots, angle, movement and composition:
shots: establishing shot, master shot, close-up, mid-shot, long shot, wide shot, two-shot, aerial shot, point-of- view shot, over-the-shoulder shot, and variations of these