Media Glossary Anchorage: The way words anchor the meaning of an image in a particular way. Arbitrary signifier: A signifier that communicates meaning through being learned, such as words in a language. They have no resemblance to what they represent, unlike iconic signifiers. Audience: Those who use a media text, whether watching, listening or reading. Binary Opposition: The idea that media texts and narratives work through opposing elements in conflict such as Youth and Age or Culture and Nature, a theory developed by anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. CLOSE

Code: A set of conventions through which we make sense of a media text. Various codes include visual, technical, auditory and written. Connotations: The ideas and feelings associated with a text- more personal than denotation. Conventions: Expected elements of a media text because of its genre. Cut: The usual way of going from one shot to another in a film or television text. Denotation: What is actually shown in an image. Determinant: A Media Determinant is a factor that influences the shaping of a media text. These include institutional, audience and social determinants. CLOSE

Diegetic Sound: Sound that arises from what is being screened (Non-diegetic sound includes super-imposed sound sources such as music and voice-overs). Effects Theory: A theory of Media Audiences that suggests the media can have a harmful effect on people’s behaviour, especially young people and children. This is a Passive Theory of Audience. Film Noir: A genre characterised by low key lighting and lots of shady characters, it started in the 1940s and was based on popular American crime novels with hard-bitten private eyes and dangerous femmes fatale. Frame: The edges or border of an image, where the producer of the image has decided to set its limits. (Note that each single image in a film is also called a frame) CLOSE

Genre: The categories in which we put media texts, such as Western, Comedy, and Science Fiction. Graphic Match: When a transition is enhanced by matching elements of one shot with the next, such as a globe cutting or dissolving to another round object taking up the same amount of space in the frame. High Key Lighting: Film and Television lighting that eliminates shadows by the use of a Key Light. Hypodermic Needle Theory: A Passive Audience Theory that suggests audiences passively take in what the media produce- linked to Effects Theory. Iconic signifier: A signifier that communicates through visually resembling what it signifies, such as an image or an icon. Iconography: The visual conventions of a genre, such as space ships and futuristic weapons in a science fiction film. CLOSE

Ideology: A system of beliefs that frame and influence behaviour. A society’s Dominant Ideologies will often be re-enforced by the mainstream media and subverted by more radical media institutions. Image: A visual representation. Indexical signifier: A signifier that communicates through indicating what it represents, such as a smile indicating happiness. Institution: A media institution is an organisation, and we need to be aware of issues such as how an institution is funded, controlled and regulated. Intertextuality: Aspects of a media text that can only be fully understood by reference to a different text, such as when an advert deliberately refers to a film. CLOSE

Low Key Lighting: Sometimes called “Chiaroscuro” lighting (Literally Bright/Dark lighting), when the key light is deliberately not used in order to create strong shadows and dark corners, as first used in Film Noir in the 1940s. Media Text: Any one media product that can be analysed and deconstructed by media students, such as an advert, a soap opera advert, a film or a newspaper. It does not have to be written or contain writing, though often will. Mise-en-scène: How a scene is organised, lit and framed for the camera, literally “placed in scene”. CLOSE

Narrative: Almost interchangeable with story, but emphasising the construction and structure of a text that tells a story. Elements of narrative structure include Enigma (raising questions), Complication, Climax and Resolution. Todorov’s theory of narrative includes the idea of Equilibrium and Disequilibrium, so a narrative will only begin when an equilibrium is disrupted, and ends when the equilibrium is restored or changed. Propp’s theory is based on the idea that all stories are based on a limited number of characters and their functions within the narrative. News Values: The characteristics of a news story that make it newsworthy, including: Recency, Closeness to Home (or Ethnicity), Continuity, Conflict, Celebrity (or Elite People), Elite Nations, Size etc. Polysemic: A word from Semiology that describes a text that has many possible meanings or ways of being interpreted, such as an uncaptioned (or unanchored) image. CLOSE

Primary Use: This is when an audience member is giving 100% attention to a media text. There is also Secondary Use, such as doing homework in front of the television, and Tertiary Use, when you are aware of a text but not consciously using it, such as a radio on in the next room. Cinema can be called a primary medium for this reason, and radio a secondary medium. Representation: The act of communicating through the use of symbols or codes standing for things, people or events. In Media Studies we need to realise that a representation is different from the reality represented, and that representations are controlled by media institutions. Semiology: Or Semiotics, the study of signs and how they signify or represent reality. Shot: A single take of a film or television camera between transitions. CLOSE

Sign: A combination of Signifier (the symbol or code used to represent something) and Signified (or what is represented). Stereotype: Easily identifiable character often based on a history of clichéd and usually negative representations of a social group. Sub-genre: A development from and within a major genre, so that “Slasher” movies form a sub-genre of the Horror genre. Transitions: The ways in which a film or television text move from one shot to another. The most common transition is the cut, but there is also the dissolve (when one shot merges with the next), the fade (when a shot gradually goes to black and the next shot emerges from the black) and the wipe (when a shot is replaced by the next shot using a moving line or graphic). Technical Codes: Codes that result from the way in which a media text has been constructed, and would include lighting, editing, transitions, special effects etc. CLOSE

Uses and Gratification Theory: An Audience Theory based on the idea that audiences use the media to meet four basic needs: Escapism (or entertainment), Surveillance (or information), Identification (or comparing your situation with that of a media representation) and Socialising (or being able to talk with friends about a shared experience). This is an Active Audience Theory, unlike Effects Theory and The Hypodermic Needle Theory. Visual Codes: It is important to recognise the various visual codes that are at work when denoting an image, including Dress Codes, Object Codes, Background Codes, Position Codes, Expression Codes and Gesture Codes. Voice-over: Speech added to film and television images after shooting in the form of a commentary. CLOSE