G235: Critical Perspectives in Media

Theoretical Evaluation

of Production

1b) Media Language

Aims/Objectives

• To reinforce the basic media language that create meaning in texts.

• To have a basic understanding of how to evaluate your coursework against the media language that you used.

Importance of media language • Every medium has its own ‘language’ – or

combination of languages – that it uses to communicate meaning. Television, for example, uses verbal and written language as well as the languages of moving images and sound.

• We call these ‘languages’ because they use familiar codes and conventions that are generally understood.

• Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules. Each form of communication-- whether newspapers, TV game shows or horror movies-- has its own creative language: scary music heightens fear, camera close-ups convey intimacy, big headlines signal significance.

Back to Basics - Semiotics• According to philosopher Charles Sanders

Peirce (1931), “we think only in signs” .• Signs take the form of words, images,

sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning.

• Definition: using ‘media language’.• “Nothing is a sign unless it is

interpreted as a sign” (Peirce, 1931). • Anything can be a sign as long as

someone interprets it as 'signifying' something - referring to or standing for something other than itself. It is this meaningful use of signs which is at the heart of the concerns of semiotics.

Basically this essay is a lot like TV Drama– what is your

preferred macro meaning (your preferred meaning –

Hall, 1980) and how did you create it using micro

elements?

Link?• Evaluating media language is an

evaluation of all the micro elements and how they have created meaning to inform us about genre, narrative, representations/ ideology, targeting of audiences (through micro elements).• This therefore requires us to use

semiotic terminology to explain our encoding of elements and codes and conventions within our texts.

1. Stuart Hall (1980).

• Everything creates a meaning/ preferred meaning.

• This means that media language of specific mediums is encoded in texts for audiences to decode/read/understand.

Task 1.

• Detail what the macro meanings were within your text (preferred meanings and ideologies behind representations, or about genre, narrative).

• What micro signs do you think you used in terms of the codes and conventions of your medium to create meaning? Make a list for each of the macro meanings you can think of.

2. Umberto Eco (1981)

• Texts can have open meanings (ambiguous, not easy for the audience to understand).

• Texts can have closed meaning (easy for the audience to understand).

• WHICH ONE IS YOURS? AND WHO IS IT AIMED AT?

• THIS WILL LINK WITH MODE OF ADDRESS.

Task 2.

• Identify how you created an open or closed meaning for your audience.

• How did you use the micro elements to create structure and create this for your audience?

3. Medium Specific Theory

• With this question it would then be wise to identify that you understand the meaning of the form you have created:

• 1. Music video – postmodern text (Goodwin, 1992 + McDougall, 2009)

• 2. Newspapers – sensationalist and the creation of a newsworthy stoty (Galtang and Ruge, + Harcup, 2001).

• 3. Documentary – never value neutral, persuasion texts. (Rabinger, 1998 + Edwards, 2003).

Task 3.

• Using some of the theory – how does your product conform to the theorists assumptions?

• What meaning is created?• What other texts have you based this

on?

Terminology: Charles Sanders Pierce (1931) – Three types of

sign...• Icon/iconic: a mode in which the signifier is

perceived as resembling or imitating the signified (recognizably looking, sounding, feeling, tasting or smelling like it) - being similar in possessing some of its qualities: e.g. a portrait, a cartoon, a scale-model, onomatopoeia, metaphors, 'realistic' sounds in 'programme music', sound effects in radio drama, a dubbed film soundtrack, imitative gestures;

• Index/indexical: a mode in which the signifier is not arbitrary but is directly connected in some way (physically or causally) to the signified - this link can be observed or inferred: e.g. 'natural signs' (smoke, thunder, footprints, echoes, non-synthetic odours and flavours), medical symptoms (pain, a rash, pulse-rate), measuring instruments (weathercock, thermometer, clock, spirit-level).

• Symbol/symbolic: a mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional - so that the relationship must be learnt: e.g. language in general (plus specific languages, alphabetical letters, punctuation marks, words, phrases and sentences), numbers, morse code, traffic lights, national flags.

Using terminology - Denotation, Connotation and Myth: Roland

Barthes (1967) • In semiotics, denotation and connotation

are terms describing the relationship between the signifier and its signified, and an analytic distinction is made between two types of signifieds: a denotative signified and a connotative signified. Meaning includes both denotation and connotation. Myth are the ideologies behind it.

• Barthes (1977) argued that in photography connotation can be (analytically) distinguished from denotation.

• As John Fiske (1982) puts it “denotation is what is photographed, connotation is how it is photographed”. Link to Barthes’ editing at stage of production we discussed.

• Related to connotation is what Roland Barthes (1977) refers to as myth. For Barthes myths were the dominant ideologies of our time. The 1st and 2nd orders of signification called denotation and connotation combine to produce ideology - which has been described as a third order of signification by Fiske and Hartley (1982).

If you’re doing newspaper…

• Don’t forget Jonathan Bignall (1997) – news is carefully selected and edited to create meaning – think about linguistic and graphic codes (words and photos) you have used?

• Think that Barthes (1977) also said photos in newspapers were heavily edited to create meaning.

NOTES: Micro Elements: Mise-en-Scene

• Mise-en-scène constitutes the key aspect of the pre-production phase of the film and can be taken to include all aspects of production design and Cinematography.

• Mise-en-Scene creates the diegetic world/diegesis - the fictional space and time implied by the narrative, i.e. the world in which the story takes place.

Aspects of Mise-en-Scene – video and print style

1. Location - settings, set-design and iconography

2. Character – Costume, Properties and Make Up, Actors and Gesture

3. Cinematography - Lighting and Colour

4. Layout and Page Design – colour, juxtaposition of elements.

Micro Elements: Camerawork

• There are Four aspects to camerawork that you need to understand:

1.Shot Types – particularly relevant for print.

2.Camera Composition 3.Camera Movement4.Camera Angles

Non-Continuity

1. Montage Sequence.2. Flash Back/Forward.3. Ellipsis.4. Graphic Match.

Micro Elements: Sound

• Sound is layered on tracks in order to create meaning. On Premiere you used multiple audio tracks (one for dialogue and music). You can have sound bridges and sound motifs to enhance meaning.

• There are 2 types of sound:• Diegetic • Non-diegetic sound

• Diegetic Sound, which refers to sound whose origin is to be located in the story world such as the voices of the actors, sound effects etc.

• Non-diegetic Sound, which refers to sounds not explained in terms of any perceived source within the story world, such as mood music, or ‘voice-of-God’ type commentaries.

• Music added to enhance the show’s action is the most common form of non-diegetic sound.

• Diegetic sound includes:

1. Dialogue2. Sound Effects and in some cases…3. Music

• Non- Diegetic sound includes:

1. Incidental Music2. Voice Over/Narration 3. Non-diegetic sound effects (which can

be asynchronous)