Genre is a French word that means type or kind. Most students will be aware of genre as a way of putting films, television programmes and other media texts into groups that have things in common, such as the story, or the ‘look’ of a film, or the characters, the settings and even the way the characters dress.

Genre, especially in film, is a key concept because it is more complex than just a way of putting similar films together in a...

The catch word for the digital world of new media is convergence. Convergence is the coming together of everything digital.

Definition

Any digital media can be transmitted by any suitable digital medium, such as a wifi broadband connection or mobile phone, so that all communications, text, audio, graphics, video, and broadcasting can be accessed instantly.

The iPhone, Blackberry or computer becomes a two-way communications module with access...

Brief Definition:

Image analysis is the way in which an audience ‘reads’ the meaning of a media text image.

One of the ways image analysis works is to look for meaning through signs and symbols suggested by the way a scene is set up and filmed.

Signs and symbols in media texts are polysemic which means they are open to many interpretations. The different possible meanings in media texts depend on two things. The first is the way the...

Narrative is the media term for story telling. Narrative is the way the different elements in a story are organised to make a meaningful story. Some of these elements can be facts as in a documentary, or characters and action as in a drama.

Narrative, or telling stories, is our way of making sense of the world about us and trying to put some meaning into that world.

Because we live in a world that is organised by time – hours of the day,...

Definition

Ideology means a set of values, beliefs and ideas that guide our lives.

Literally the word means the ‘study of ideas’. It has become accepted as the set of values and beliefs that we believe to be true, and that have become part of our daily life. These are the natural agreed values, or common sense, that keep society running. One such belief is that we all need to work to earn money to live, and we agree to pay taxes to...

AQA says that candidates for AS and A2 Media Studies should study the historical, social, political and economic dimensions of representation.
Definition

Representation is the process by which the media presents the ‘real world’ to an audience.

Media texts construct meanings about the world – a picture, a film, a television programme or a newspaper article re-presents the world to help audiences make sense of it.

A popular...

The following A Level boards: AQA, OCR, and WJEC require students to demonstrate knowledge and critical understanding of media institutions. The key requirement across the syllabuses is to understand the relationship between Institutions and their media products.

Students should have knowledge and understanding of these six topics:

1. OWNERSHIP Ways in which ownership of a media institution can affect or influence the content and distribution...

Everyone has been in an audience. We have all been part of a group of people who come together to experience music, film, theatre or other live event. In media terms the audience is any group of people who receive a media text, and not just people who are together in the same place.

They receive the text via a media carrier such as a newspaper or magazine, television, DVD, radio or the internet. It can also be a mobile phone, iPod or any...

What is it?

The concept is one which has become increasingly useful in the analysis and understanding of contemporary media culture but unfortunately is not a simple one to define.

It is at once a sociological condition which it is argued that the western world has moved in to over the last 30 years or so, a way of working (i.e. we can talk of a pomo film/book/work of art, etc.) and a set of philosophical ideas about the nature of reality; and...

Brief Definition

Media language is the way in which the meaning of a media text is conveyed to the audience.

One of the ways Media Language works is to convey meaning through signs and symbols suggested by the way a scene is set up and filmed.

Signs and symbols in media texts are polysemic which means they are open to many interpretations. The different possible meanings in media texts depend on two things. The first is the way the signs and...

Media Studies isn’t easy to describe. It’s a living concept that continues to change just as technology and our experience with technology change. The purpose of Media Studies is to provide audiences with access to information no matter how it is experienced and allow people to adopt diverse critical positions.

Media Studies is desirable because its curriculum is inclusive; it recognises that the form of delivery as well as the content to be...

Studying media is about watching, reading, discussing and evaluating media texts such as films, television and radio programmes, newspapers and magazines, and advertisements.

An important aspect of Media Studies is evaluating (this is called ‘reading’) a media text to find out what it is trying to say to the audience, and how that message is being communicated. The first AS module is usually known as ‘Reading the media’.

In the course...

WHAT IS COPYRIGHT?

Copyright is literally a way of protecting the ‘right to copy’ something that someone else has created.

Copyright is an intellectual property right. It is a way of protecting the creative work – such as music, photographs or writing – from being pirated and used by someone else.

Throughout the world copyright exists. National laws cover different countries. Always check before using copyright material.

Whenever...

Why Regulate The Media?

The media now affects nearly every aspect of our lives.  It influences the products we consume, via advertising; our understanding of the world via news and documentary; our leisure via film and broadcast fiction and games; our methods of communication via the internet.  It is widely acknowledged that this dominance gives the media huge influence.

For example:

• The Media Effects theory has achieved widespread...

In theory, the proliferation of web 2.0 user- generated content and the appropriation of creative technologies by media audiences challenges the role of the media professional. In a very real sense it would seem that YouTube, Blogs and Myspace etc, not to mention the affordability of digital editing software and other home studio facilities, embody the collapse of the distinction between the real and the...

Associated Resources

Have a look at the following resources on MediaEdu:

Web Design Tutorials

The Internet and World Wide Web

Studying The Internet

Deconstructing Web Pages

History of the Internet 1 | The Computer

The history of the internet is not a straight-forward narrative since it was not invented by one person or any group of people. The internet emerged out of the combination of three distinct inventions: computers, networks and...

In this section we will look at some of the ways the internet can be studied. The first part looks at some of the impacts the internet has had on society, the second part examines some of the metaphors that have been used to make sense of what the internet is, and the third part looks at three ways in which the internet may be analysed through institutions, audiences and textual analysis.

Associated Resources

Have a look at the following...

Television and film crime/cop drama is very popular with a wide audience. Crime dramas seek to anchor the representations of all types of police officers, criminals and victims as ‘believable’ characters, with ‘realistic’ plot lines, set in urban locations.The genre has been taken up in the US under the heading of American Quality Televsion (AQT) - see under heading AQT.

Codes and conventions

Crime dramas:

• are constructed realities
...

Associated Resources

Have a look at the following resources on MediaEdu:

Web Design Tutorials

Studying The Internet

History of The Internet

A History of Online Social Networking

Deconstructing Web Pages

Definition

The above picture may look like an exploding galaxy or a human cell magnified many thousands of times but it is actually a map of the internet. The internet (short for interconnected network) can be...

Contemporary Action Adventure Films (including hybrids)

• Your Highness (Adventure/Comedy Hybrid) 2011
• Raiders of The Lost Ark (1981)
• Pirates of the Caribbean – On Stranger Tides (2011)
• Superman Returns (2006)
• The Italian Job (1969)
• Romancing The Stone (1984)
• Stormbreaker (2006)
• Godzilla (1998)
• King Arthur (2004)
• Back to the Future (1985)
• Chicken Run (2000)
• Star Trek (2009)
• Chronicles of Narnia (2005)
• The Musketeer (2001)
• Blackbeard (2006)
• The...

Period Dramas are also known as Historical Dramas or Costume Dramas. Below are the typical codes and conventions of Period Dramas but also examples of key texts:

• Elaborate costumes and sets to catch the ambience of a particular time period (stereotypically female audiences are attracted as much by the costumes as by the narrative content)
• Multi stranded narrative based on character (each character has their own storyline)
• Often part of a...

Sub Genres

Television Drama is a broad area of study covering a range of sub genres and even genres that would be considered to be a category of their own with their own codes and conventions. Some texts cross over different sub genres e.g. 24 is Crime Drama and Action Adventure. A generic, comprehensive list includes:

• Period Drama | Emma, Downton Abbey, The Tudors, Mildred Pierce
• Crime Drama | The Wire, Luther, Life on Mars / Ashes to Ashes,...

History and Context

Distant ancestors of Punch and Judy shows, Situation Comedies originated, as with much TV Comedy in part on the radio in the 1920s and 1930s. Due however to the exclusive nature of ‘the situation’ and the concept of visual audience identification it remains fundamentally a successful audio-visual sub genre – Hancock’s Half Hour is a notable exception to this in the 1950s transferring successfully from radio to...

Trollied is a Situation Comedy set in a fictional supermarket, Valco in the north-west, specifically Warrington in Cheshire. It is broadcast on a Monday night at 9pm and more unusually it is on Sky 1 (it is rare for Sky 1 to commission programmes from the Sitcom genre). Trollied is repeated immediately after on Sky 2 at 10pm. In its classic 30 minute format it follows some genre conventions but offers post watershed representations.

The...

We had an enquiry recently about Postmodernism which led to some productive responses. Ellen Grundy’s approach involved:

(L)ooking at representation and postcolonialism (as follows):

A research task on Gurinder Chadha and her films. How do her life and the themes of her films suggest a post colonial identity? For example Bend it like Beckham as a coming together of different ethnicities / cultures.

The classic clip of going for an ‘English’...

The idea of YouTube is a successful and iconic one – commercially and culturally ranking with ‘Zuckerberg’s’ Facebook, Google, Wikipedia and the loaf of bread as a pre requisite for modern living (as far as the target audience are concerned). If you are not 12-17 as the dominant viewing age group are (but very much not the exclusive age group) or indeed wheat intolerant then maybe these bastions of culture and modern society are not...

Men’s Magazines, in their printed form developed in terms of publication and circulation in the 1980s. Many reasons were offered for this, particularly in light of the fact that Women’s Magazines have been around for hundreds of years. A manifest, obvious reason could explore changing cultural representations in reference to how masculinity was perceived and that the 1980s was just about the right time for men to finally embrace a magazine...

MEST3 Critical Perspectives

MEST4 Research and Production

2012 Section B Topics: Representation and New Digital Media (3 Media Platforms) - 30 Week Scheme of Work

Overview

• AQA A Level Media Studies Overview

Scheme

• 2012 AQA A2 Media Studies SOW.doc

Concepts

• Analysing Text, Stimulus Material - Audiences
• Regulation and Censorship
• Critical Investigation - Viral Marketing
• Skills Development - Planning and Production
• Representation of Masculinity...[ read full article ] »
  

When you are teaching students how to edit, there a few things that you need to consider. Firstly what you will want them to edit - usually, moving image and audio. You will therefore need the things which go with this. In this guide, you will be able to find out about the best editing software for your budget, top tips and more.

Hardware

You will obviously need access to computers. When students are editing, it can take more than a few...

Editsense & Filmsense

What is Editsense?

‘Editsense is a new approach to learning about film language and film-making’.

This is an interactive DVD with excellent, practical examples of film - perfect for teachers of moving image, be it English, Creative and Digital Media or Film Studies.

It has over fifty video examples and includes materials for the introduction and revision of film. 

What does it include?

It includes video examples of...

G324 Advanced Portfolio in Media

G325 Critical Perspectives in Media

Critical Perspectives = Contemporary Media Regulation ~ Media and Collective Identity (30 Week Scheme of Work)

Overview

• OCR A Level Media Studies Overview

Scheme

• OCR A2 Media Studies SOW 2012-2014.doc

Concepts

• Regulation within the Media Industry
• Researching Film Magazines and Film Posters
• Skills Development - Planning and Production
• Evaluating and Linking Coursework to...

H140

• G321 Foundation Portfolio in Media (50%) and G322 Key Media Concepts (50%)
• G322 Section A: TV Drama (52%) and Section B: Film Industry (50%) - 32 Week Scheme of Work

Overview

• OCR A Level Media Studies Overview

Scheme

• OCR AS Media Studies SOW 2011-2014.doc

Concepts

• Media Language, Forms and Conventions (Media Language, Representation, Genre, Narrative)
• Film Industry Institution
• TV Drama and Representation
• Research, Planning and...

Denotation and Connotation

These are two important words concerned with the way an audience understands the meaning of a media text. These can also be called the signs and signified meaning, or the micro and macro features.

Denotation / sign / micro feature is the basic, literal meaning of what is in the picture or scene.

Connotation / signified meaning / macro feature means different interpretations suggested by the text, often associated...

Associated Resources

• Semiotics Glossary.doc

Anchorage

The fixing of a set of meanings, often found in a photograph or advert, usually through captions or other written text

Arbitrary Sign

Where the signifier has no connection to the signified e.g. Snow and Christmas

Codes

A system of signs, languages or symbols that allow audiences to decode meaning e.g. Technical and Symbolic codes or Narrative codes

Content Analysis

A way of decoding...

Associated Resources

• Moving Image Terminology and Semiotics.doc

Semiotics/Semiology

The study of signs that help us to deconstruct Media Texts

Signifier/Denotation

The physical form of the sign, without deeper meaning

Signified/Connotation

Meaning associated with the relationship between signifier and signified. Connotation is open to interpretation

Mythical Connotation

Meaning which is subjective interpretation, yet untrue

Anchored...

Associated Resources

• Representation Theory Simplified Handout.doc

The media literally re-presents the world to us. Dominant and oppositional arguments conflict e.g. on one hand the media is showing us how things actually are, on the other hand they are telling us how things should be (dictating representations, not just reflecting society).

The main representations we study in the media are:

• Masculinity
• Femininity
• Social Class
• Sexuality
...

Associated Resources

• Narrative AS Terminology Revision Sheet.doc

Overview

• Narrative
• Narrative Enigmas
• Narrative Themes
• Narrative Structure
• Narrative Theory

Narrative

• The structure and organisation of media texts e.g. story
• Narrative chain of cause and effect – the plotlines in a story that are triggered by action and enigma codes (something happens that causes something else to happen)
• Narrative is correlated...

Associated Resources

• Genre Revision Test.doc
• Genre Test Answers.doc

1. What does the word genre literally mean?  1 mark

2. How does the concept of genre help audiences understand media texts?  2 marks

3. Give three ways audiences can identify genre.  3 marks

4. Using two examples, identify how can genre be understood in terms of narrative themes and structure.  4 marks

5. What are generic codes and conventions?  1 mark

6. Explain the...

Contemporary Examples

• The Rite Mikael Håfström, 2011
• Paranormal Activity 2 Tod Williams, 2010
• Saw (6 films in franchise) James Wan, 2002-2009
• Blair Witch Project Daniel Myrick + Eduardo Sánchez, 1999
• Dog Soldiers Neil Marshall, 2002
• Urban Legend Jamie Blanks, 1998
• I Know What You Did Last Summer Jim Gillespie, 1997
• Hostel Eli Roth, 2005

Codes and Conventions

• Split into sub genres (see below), often hybridised
• Primary target audience –...

Recommended Reading

• ‘Spectacular Bodies’ - Yvonne Tasker (Routledge) 1998
• ‘Action’ – Richard Dyer, 2000
• ‘Action Women: Muscles, Mothers and Others’ – Yvonne Tasker, 1998

Contemporary Action Films

• Your Highness (Adventure/Comedy Hybrid) David Gordon Green, 2011
• Inception (Action/Sci Fi Hybrid) Christopher Nolan, 2010
• Quantum of Solace Marc Forster, 2008
• Die Hard 4.0 Len Wiseman, 2007
• Tomb Raider Simon West, 2000
• Mission...

Examples

• Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001-2003)
• Harry Potter (Chris Columbus, 2001-11)
• Chronicles of Narnia (Andrew Adamson, 2005)
• Tron (Kenneth Branagh, 2011)
• Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006)

Codes and Conventions

• High production values
• Younger target audience although significant older appeal
• Wide/saturated distribution (normally by an American Studio e.g. Warners or Disney). Mainstreamers and Aspirers
• Dedicated, sometimes...

Associated Resources

• Advertising and Regulation Industry Key Points 2011.doc

Key Points

Advertising in the UK is regulated by the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority).

• TV Advertising
• Radio
• Newspapers
• Leaflets
• Billboards/Posters
• Internet
• Magazines

Ofcom regulate Television and Radio (Broadcast Media).

Cinema Advertising is regulated by BBFC (British Board of Film Classification).

Adverts in draft form (rough cuts, designs) are sent to...

Outnumbered is a successful British Situation Comedy (Sitcom) named so simply because the two parental central protagonists, ‘Sue’ and ‘Pete’ are outnumbered by their three children. It is set in West London and although on the surface offers pluralistic representations in the guise of their unruly children who often intellectually challenge their parents it very much follows a standard genre template established by family based...

Rupert Murdoch is probably the most remarkable media executive the world has even seen. He built his empire from his father’s newspapers in Australia to being one of the biggest in the world. His foresight, and strength of character, has led to revolutions in the production of newspapers, in Britain, and an immensely successful satellite television network. He did this through being a risk-taking entrepreneur who ruthlessly pursued his own...

When presented with the failings of their initial investigation the two top policemen in the Met didn’t resign immediately. However, it then came to light that an ex-NOTW deputy editor, Neil Wallis, had been hired by the police force as a PR-adviser whilst it was investigating the phone hacking. This embarrassing revelation (though they denied that Wallis had had anything to do with the investigation) led to their resignations.

Andy Hayman...

After the revelations that Milly Dowler’s phone had been hacked in 2002, it became public knowledge that phone hacking, at NOTW, had been going on for many years before 2006, when its royal reporter, Clive Goodman, and the private detective he’d used, Glenn Mulcaire, were arrested and sent to jail for hacking phones belonging to the royal family. Andy Coulson, the editor, had resigned in 2007, though he said that he was unaware of the...

Definition: Media Plurality

In a democracy it is important that people have access to a range of viewpoints in order to make informed decisions. This range (plurality) is a number of media organisations supplying news from different perspectives (see The Guardian’s editorial on the danger to media plurality if News Corporation had been able to own BSkyB outright:...

Definition: Convergence

Where a device can be used to access a variety of media texts. Because new media technologies (a phrase that is becoming old fashioned) are all digitally based, the medium of a text is irrelevant so, for example, an iPad can show films and television programmes; allow you to read books, magazines and newspapers; listen to podcasts and music and so on. Old media technologies would have required a film projector and a...

Fox News was launched in 1996 and is now the most-watched cable news channel in America eclipsing CNN, which pioneered the 24-hour rolling news format. In Britain broadcasters have to present the news in an unbiased fashion. In effect, this means anchors read the news in a more-or-less neutral fashion and contentious stories are presented as having at least two points of view. In America there is no such requirement.

Fox uses a different...

As a free market capitalist, Rupert Murdoch often eulogises the way competition between companies stimulates innovation and profitability (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PybFaMCn2qM). In 1989 he gave the keynote MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, where he argued for ‘freedom and choice, rather than regulation and scarcity’ (quoted in Keane 1991: 53). He insisted:

that market competition is the key...

Genre is a French word that means type or kind. Most students will be aware of genre as a way of putting films, television programmes and other media texts into groups that have things in common, such as the story, or the ‘look’ of a film, or the characters, the settings and even the way the characters dress.

Genre, especially in film, is a key concept because it is more complex than just a way of...

Media Studies isn’t easy to describe. It’s a living concept that continues to change just as technology and our experience with technology change. The purpose of Media Studies is to provide audiences with access to information no matter how it is experienced and allow people to adopt diverse critical positions.

Media Studies is desirable because its curriculum is inclusive; it recognises that the form of...

Editsense & Filmsense

What is Editsense?

‘Editsense is a new approach to learning about film language and film-making’.

This is an interactive DVD with excellent, practical examples of film - perfect for teachers of moving image, be it English, Creative and Digital Media or Film Studies.

It has over fifty video examples and includes materials for the introduction and revision of film. 

What does it...