g325: section a: theoretical perspectives in media

8/14/2019 G325: Section a: Theoretical Perspectives in Media

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Using Conventionsfrom Real MediaTexts

What skills did we develop in theunderstanding of the relationshipbetween text and audience i.e.The creation of meaning in texts.

G325: Section A: Theoretical Perspectives inMedia

Question 1a)


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Mediation Encoding andDecoding, Open/Closed Texts

You will need to investigate, acrossAS and A2, how you encodedmeaning in texts to give apreferred meaning (Hall, 1980)

or closed reading (Eco, 1981) forthe audience based on yourknowledge of the conventions ofreal media texts.

This is going to involve anassessment of the micro and themacro in relation to audience

readings.


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Macro Analysis

Pre-production: Ideology andDiscourse (discussion or debate):Mediation of Ideas, Representation andDebates/Agenda

whatthe meanings/messages were.

Production and Post Production:

Form and Style: Postmodernism Bricolage and Intertextuality, Medium andGenre, Narrative how the meanings/messages were

communicated.


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Micro Elements

What choices did you make interms of the following in orderto communicate your meaning

to audience (mode of addressand persuasion)?

Media Language:Mise-en-Scene,Camerawork,Editing,


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Macro: Ideology and Discourse,and Audience

Reception

Stuart Hall (1980) Dominant/Hegemonicreading. Preferred Meanings. Stuart Hall

detailed that texts do have preferredmeanings, but the decoder will not alwaysnecessarily read them as intended by theproducer as everyone has a different social/cultural background. Texts that are meant tocommunicate hegemony will be encoded sothat they are easily interpreted and

understood by a mass audience.


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Umberto Eco (1981) Open and ClosedMeaning. Texts aimed at large audiences

(mass) will be encoded so that themajority of the audience can only decodea very preferred meaning. This is knownas a closed text.

An open text is one that has manymeanings, or is deliberately ambiguous,and can be understood in different waysby a number of different audiencemembers.


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Roland Barthes (1979) Anchorage andMyth

Images can be polysemic and Barthes arguedthat the meaning of images can be pinneddown to give a preferred meaning throughthe process of anchorage (text/music).Barthes also argued that all texts areencoded in such a way to reinforce dominant,cultural ideologies or values. The way that a

text is encoded makes the representationseem natural or common sense. This is theconcept ofmyth.


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Macro: Meanings and Messages acrossAS and A2 coursework

TASK 1: What was the purpose of your text?

TASK 2: What were you trying to

communicate to the audience? What was thetheme? What was the discourse (point ofview/agenda debated) in your texts?

TASK 3: Who was your target audience andwhat was the main mode of address?


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Macro: Postmodernism, Genre, Narrative

Postmodern Style: Irony, Parody, Pastiche,

Bricolage, Intertextuality.

Bricolage is the process of deliberately borrowing oradapting signs or features from different styles orgenres to create a new mixture of meanings

(OSullivan et. al, 1998).

Pastiche: Bog standard copying of conventions or canbe done for bricolage effect. Whichever, this

ultimately reinforces their importance in culture andsociety. Parodyis a kind on pastiche which makesfun of the subject.

Intertextualityis the way in which media texts gaintheir meanings by referring to other media texts that


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Genre:Was it a hybrid? Did it have a sub-genre?What were the stereotypical elements of real mediatexts that you encoded into your video?

Narrative:Is it an open / closed narrative? Did it have a

beginning, middle and end or not (i.e. follow a classicnarrative structure)? Linear or non-linear? Anti-narrative (deliberately doesnt make any sense surrealism)?

NOW THINK BACK:There are additions to the Creativity ppt now youhave studied postmodernism for obvious reasons this

is centred around postmodernism.


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TASK 1: How did you pastiche orparody any other media texts? (thisincludes bricolage andintertextuality).

TASK 2: In relation to the above,can you be more specific in terms ofgeneric conventions of your

medium?

TASK 3: In relation to the above,can you be more specific in terms ofnarrative theor of our medium?


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Micro Elements advanced editing theory

Editing is its most literal sense is to removeunwanted elements.

In terms of production : AS and A2 for your

photographs: a photograph Barthes claimed,involved a mechanical process where the image that which is denoted is recorded, but there isalso an expressive, human and cultural processthat involves the selection and interpretation ofsuch elements as camera angles, framing, lightingand focus (OSullivan, 1998:33).

In terms of post-production: You didnt just decide

what elements to put in your images it was what


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Editing and Sergei Eisenstein (1920s)

Sergei Eisenstein was a Marxist film maker and

teacher fo film theory.

Intellectual/Dialectical Montage process ofputting images together so that a new meaning iscreated through the juxtaposition. It identifies a

struggle between opposites. It is like putting animage of bankers quaffing wine next to an image ofpigs in swill it creates a meaning: bankers are likepigs (metaphorical).

Vertical Montage - Create meaning through thejuxtaposition of an image with some other element(text (anchorage) or music).


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Look at the handout on generic conventionsof short film, music video and documentary.

Apply this to your own product : Whatconventions across AS and A2 did youadhere to? Use the editing theory as part of

your answers.


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It is impossible to create a media product that isentirely original. From your own experience discussthe extent to which you used conventions of realmedia texts to produce your media products and/orto the extent they allowed you to be creative.

Creativity is always constrained by genericconventions. To what extent did you adhere to or

subvert generic conventions in the creation of yourmedia products.

g325: section a: theoretical perspectives in media

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