Terminology

Anchorage - a way of ‘tying down meaning’, without anchorage meaning could be polysemic – open to various interpretations, EG. a caption anchors meaning to a photo, music anchors mood in a film

Audience - a key aspect of Media Studies – how audiences are identified, created and addressed and how audiences access, interpret and respond to texts

Auteur - a film director whose films show a personal vision or style

Avant gardeA- innovative, experimental work which breaks main stream conventions

Binary oppositions - the theory that you cannot understand good if you don’t understand evil, eg heroes and villains

Cliff hanger - an ending that creates suspense, often used in a ‘soap’ to make the audience watch the next episode

Climax - the point in the narrative where conflicts/enigmas are resolved

Closure - the completion of a narrative in a classic narrative, eg the happy ending in which the hero defeats the villain

Connotation - the meaning associated with a sign, eg a red rose could be associated with love

Denotation - he description of a sign, eg the dictionary definition

Convention - established ways of treating genre, codes, narrative or representations

Decoding - the processes by which media audiences interpret meaning in a media text

Dietetic sound - the sound that actually comes from the set or studio like dialogue, not added later like music to set mood

Non-Diegetic sound - sound that does not come from the set/location, usually added in editing , eg theme music, voice-over

Encoding - the process by which media producers construct meanings in a text

Enigma - a question posed in a text

Film noir - type of film made in the 1940s and 1950s which used low- key lighting, shadows etc to reflect the dark side of human nature

Genre - a set of conventions or common practices which guide the production, marketing, identification and interpretation of texts 

Ideologies - shared beliefs and values in any social group (see dominant and oppositional ideologies)

Intertextuality - links between texts, eg genre, stars, subject matter, spin- offs

Mise-en-scene - whatever happens in the frame, ie characters, set, props etc

Narrative inigma - Leaving something out to give a sense of Mystery

Preferred reading - the idea that texts contain messages which support mainstream ideology, ie how the maker wants the audience to read the text

Propaganda - texts which use emphasis and selection to try to persuade the audience of a particular view point

Resolution - the outcome of a narrative conflict

Serif font - typeface whose characters have short strokes at the ends, eg Times (used to connote tradition and to aid readability)

 Sans-serif font- typeface whose characters do not have strokes at the end, eg Arial (used to connote modernity)

Semantics - the study of the meanings of signs and codes (as is studied in Language)

Signifier - the physical form of the sign, eg BBC

Stereotype - representations of people, places or events in an instantly recognisable way, eg Scots with red hair wearing kilts

Target audience - the main group or groups of individuals at whom the product is aimed

Semiotics - What make a film, EG. music, camera shots, lighting