Understanding Media Language

• Media language refers to the ways media communicate to audiences: through the use of different codes, conventions or techniques.

• Codes are systems of signs that convey meaning. They can be verbal (written or spoken language), symbolic (anything that represents something else), and technical (camera angles, lighting, sound, etc.)

• Conventions are established ways in which codes are used in different genres and media forms. For example, a news report conventionally features an anchor in a studio setting.

Genres and Representation

• Genres use media language within a set of predictable codes and conventions that guide audience interpretation.

• Media texts seek to represent people, places, things, ideas and values often by using stereotypes or narrative codes.

• Stereotypes are simplified and fixed images or ideas of a particular type of person or thing that have been widely accepted by society.

Audiences and Interpretation

• Anchorage helps guide the audience's interpretation of a media text. It is provided by headings, captions, or voiceovers.

• Loaded language and connotations affect the way the audiences interpret texts.

• Polysemy refers to the variety of possible meanings or interpretations of a media text. Audiences can interpret the same text differently based on their personal experiences, belief systems, and cultural backgrounds.

Style and Aesthetics

• Media texts follow certain visual and auditory styles. This could include an art house aesthetic marked by unusual camera angles and lighting, or a more mainstream aesthetic marked by conventional shot types and clear, bright lighting.

• Mise-en-scène refers to everything that appears on screen or is heard: set design, lighting, costume, performance, sound etc., all of which communicate meaning.

Narrative and Storytelling

• Media texts often tell stories, using a variety of sequential narrative structures.

• The structure of a narrative can be linear (events are portrayed in the order they occurred) or non-linear (events are not portrayed in chronological order).

• Media texts often use conventional narrative codes: such as binary oppositions (good vs evil) and character types (hero, villain).

Consideration of all these aspects of media language will ensure a well-rounded understanding of Media Representations.