Across
- 3. time, place or mindset in which we consume media products.
- 6. Computer Generated Imagary, Refers to the (usually) 3-D effects that enhance all kinds of still and moving images, from text effects, to digital snow or fire, to the generation of entire landscapes
- 7. a word or image that is used to represent an object or idea.
- 8. a genre within a genre.
- 9. viewers, listeners and readers of a media text. A lot of media studies is concerned with how audience use texts and the effects a text may have on them. Also identified in demographic socio-economic categories.
- 10. static image.
- 14. the means by which the media communicates to us and the forms and conventions by which it does so.
- 15. additional sounds other than dialogue or music, designed to add realism or atmosphere.
- 17. The way a story is put together within a text, traditionally equilibrium- disequilibrium, new equilibrium, but some text are fractured or non liner, eg Pulp Fiction.
- 18. who produces and distributes the media texts – and whose interest it is.
- 21. the way ruling classes use the mass media to control or alter the attitudes of others.
- 22. ideas about how people use the media and what gratification they get from it. It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives.
- 23. The structural, systematic and historical domination and exploitation of women.
- 25. A universal type or model of character that is found in many different texts, e.g. ingenue, anti-hero, wise old woman, hero-as-lover, hero-as-warrior, shadow trickster, mentor, loyal friend, temptress
- 27. The way in which technologies and institutions come together in order to create something new. Cinema is the result of the convergence of photography, moving pictures (the kinetoscope, zoetrope etc), and sound. The iPad represents the convergence of books, TV, maps, the internet and the mobile phone.
- 30. the idea that ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and from them to a wider population.
- 32. the idea that the media can ‘inject’ ideas and messages straight into the passive audience. This passive audience is immediately affected by these messages. Used in advertising and propoganda, led to moral panics about effect of violent video and computer games.
- 34. a visual representation of something.
- 35. the interpretation of a media product that was intended by the maker or which is dictated by the ideology of the society in which it is viewed. Oppositional Reading – an interpretation of a text by a reader whose social position puts them into direct conflict with its preferred reading. Negotiated Reading – the ‘compromise’ that is reached between the preferred reading offered by a text and the reader’s own assumptions and interpretations
- 36. see above. N.B Text usually means a piece of writing
- 37. the struggle by women to obtain equal rights in society
- 39. computer technology that allows text, sound, graphic and video images to be combined into one programme.
- 45. the way opposites are used to create interest in media texts, such as good/bad, coward/hero, youth/age, black/white. By Barthes and Levi-Strauss who also noticed another important feature of these ‘binary opposites’: that one side of the binary pair is always seen by a particular society or culture as more valued over the other.
- 47. a sign or convention through which the media communicates meaning to us because we have learned to read it. Technical codes – all to do with the way a text is technically constructed – camera angles, framing, typography, lighting etc. Visual codes – codes that are decoded on a mainly connotational level – things that draw on our experience and understanding of other media texts, this includes Iconography – which is concerned with the use of visual images and how they trigger the audiences expectations of a particular genre, such as a knife in slasher horror films.
- 48. The way in which the media ‘re-presents’ the world around us in the form of signs and codes for audiences to read.
- 51. how meaning is fixed, as in how a caption fixes the meaning of a picture
- 52. Control over the content of a media text – sometimes by the government, but usually by a regulatory body like the British Board of Film censors.
- 53. single image taken by a camera.
- 54. literally ‘what’s in the shot’ everything that appears on the screen in a single frame and how this helps the audience to decode what’s going on.
- 55. the idea that violent and and sexual content in media texts serves the function of releasing ‘pent up’ tension aggression/desire in audiences.
Down
- 1. A question in a text that is not immediately answered and creates interest for the audience – a puzzle that the audience has to solve.
- 2. the everyday or common sense meaning of a sign. Connotation – the secondary meaning that a sign carries in addition to it’s everyday meaning.
- 4. putting together of visual images to form a sequence. Made famous by Russian film maker Eisenstein in his famous film Battleship Potemkin.
- 5. a sign which has a direct relationship with something it signifies, such as smoke signifies fire.
- 6. the widely recognised way of doing things in particular genre.
- 7. the ‘thing’ that conveys the meaning, and the meaning conveyed. EG a red rose is a signifier, the signified is love (or the Labour Party!)
- 11. The organisations which produce and control media texts such as the BBC, AOL Time Warner, News International.
- 12. Factual characteristics of a population sample, e.g. age, gender, race, nationality, income, disability, education
- 13. Traditionally this describes the predominance of one social class over another, in media terms this is how the controllers of the media may on the one hand use the media to pursue their own political interest, but on the other hand the media is a place where people who are critical of the establishment can air their views.
- 16. purchaser, listener, viewer or reader of media products.
- 19. communication between people other than by speech.
- 20. bodies whose job it is to see that media texts are not seen by the wrong audience (eg British Board of Film Censors) or are fair and honest (EG Advertising Standards Association)
- 24. the idea that within popular culture producers borrow other texts to create interest to the audience who like to share the ‘in’ joke. Used a lot in the Simpsons.
- 26. the study of cultural artefacts of the mass media such as cinema, TV, advertising.
- 28. a text that has been designed to be consumed by an audience. E.G a film, radio show, newspaper etc.
- 29. is the intensity of feeling stirred up by the media about an issue that appears to threaten the social order, such as against Muslims after 9/11, or against immigrants, or against ‘video nasties’ following the Jamie Bulger murder.
- 31. the type or category of a media text, according to its form, style and content.
- 33. A set of ideas or beliefs which are held to be acceptable by the creators of the media text, maybe in line with those of the dominant ruling social groups in society, or alternative ideologies such as feminist ideology.
- 38. nothing to do with trains, this refers to the different ways that media content is delivered, mainly via TV, laptop, tablet, smartphone, cinema, video/computer game, printed page etc. for instance the BBC delivers content via TV, laptop and mobile device, and also through printed publications. Most media organisations deliver their content via a multitude of platforms.
- 40. factors that influence whether a story will be picked for coverage.
- 41. Sound whose source is visible on the screen Non Diegetic sound – Sound effects, music or narration which is added afterwards
- 42. representation of people or groups of people by a few characteristics eg hoodies, blondes
- 43. The way a media product ‘speaks’ to it’s audience. In order to communicate, a producer of any text must make some assumptions about an intended audience; reflections of such assumptions may be discerned in the text (advertisements offer particularly clear examples of this).
- 44. a complex idea by Roland Barthes that myth is a second order signifying system ie when a sign becomes the signifier of a new sign - Y13 really but bet you can work it out ;-)
- 46. Anything that challenges the traditional way of doing things, rejecting boundaries between high and low forms of art, rejecting rigid genre distinctions, emphasizing pastiche, parody, intertextuality, irony, and playfulness. Postmodernism favours reflexivity and self-consciousness, fragmentation and discontinuity (especially in narrative structures), ambiguity, simultaneity, and an emphasis on the destructured, decentered, dehumanized subjects! This is tricky!
- 49. the idea that the way we look at something, and the way somebody looks at you, is structured by the way we view the world. Feminist Laura Mulvey suggests that looking involves power, specifically the look of men at women, implying that men have power over women.
- 50. a member of the audience, someone who is actively responding to the text.
- 53. special effects or devices to create visual illusions.