Music video revision

 

Music videos are not products, they are adverts for products. They're generally freely accessible and free in price. In America they're called promos and in Japan they're called PMV (promo music video). So the world is pretty honest about their status.

A music video is a perfect example of digital convergence.

Digital convergence - the coming together of two separate media industries thanks to digital technology

The scopitone and the birth of music videos

-A french invention 

-A kind of jukebox that combined music and video

-Popular in the 1920s

-Meant artists had to record visuals as well as music

-Performance not narrative based 

-Originally manufactured in France

-Came to America in 1963/1964

-Put in a quarter

-Big stars in France were making scopitone but in America it wasn't so A-list

-Titillation factor; girls minimally dressed, amazing colours and visuals

-uses a magnetic soundtrack rather than an optimal one

Bricolage - where a media product is constructed from a range of elements, often from completely different contexts and time periods

Hypersexualisation - literally 'beyond sexualization.' It's an extremer version of sexualization that makes it clear that it's sole purpose is to provide sexual gratification 

Star appeal - When a performer has been constructed so distinctively they generate audience adoration and their appeal goes beyond that of just being a performer

Unseen text practice

Explore how media language is used to create meaning in the Joker teaser film poster

Step one - underline key terms

Step two - knee jerk reaction

you need an opinion to present a coherent structure. For this question you need to not only evaluate but demonstrate a point of view. Never change your opinion halfway through the exam.

Hermeneutic code - encoded by producers as a way of creating meaning to draw audiences in and ensure the film is successful

Step three -plan

-the sans serif font is bold and powerful, connotes style of film and establishes genre

-the green, murky colour palette is stylistically in tune with the narrative of a antagonist being a protagonist. it's symbolic of greed and jealousy and toxicity, normally green is symbolic of life. 

-The lighting outlining the Joker's form establishes his importance as a character

-The red smear on his chin is mimicking of blood and connotes violence, a genre convention and connotes he's a villain. also functions as a hermeneutic code

-the undone collar in his costume suggests stress and discomfort, his entire costume is ragged

-the mise-en-scene of the way he leans back 

-the bullet in the graphics, is an action code for violence suggesting narrative elements

-the actor is looking up, hermeneutic code which directs the audience to look up at the title

-clown iconography is indicative of horror/thriller, anchored by the dark backgrounds. which also function as a symbolic code

-STEVE NEAL - repetition and difference of the makeup, archetype. different actor and isn't represented as intimidating 

-lack of text shows brand confidence and assumption that the audience will be aware of him. lack of elements shows how big it is as it doesnt have to be emphasised

-lack of anchorage in terms of context within the poster, hermeneutic code

-tagline - 'put on a happy face-' - ironic

-doesnt make eye contact with an ignoring gaze, suggests he is hiding something. Atypical of super-hero genre which normally have a star studded cast, in this case it's just one individual.

-Genre hybridity - drama, sci-fi, horror- atypical as it's not clear on what to expect

-mise-en-scene of his confidence pose is characterisation and contrasts with the blood on his face

-angle of his face distorts features which anchors ideas of broken identity

-because he's the only subject in the poster and is isolated audience can anchor this as the reason behind his unhappiness

-coming soon builds anticipation

-the text is faded, gritty and urban

Step four - introduction

Can be divided into 

-Definition

-Argument

-Context

context isn't as important in unseen section

Media language is formed of visual elements that are encoded by producers to communicate meaning, using media language is key to any media product in order to construct ideologies to be decoded by target audiences. The joker poster uses such language to encode its genre, which allows the producer to target specific demographics, which is overall important as a the teaser is part of a product designed to make money. This was achieved as the joker was a huge hit upon release and made plenty of profit to fuel the film industry and, more specifically, the conglomerate DC is a part of.

Step five - the paragraph structure 

Point

Evidence

Further argument

[theory]

There's a range of genre conventions in the teaser poster. The sans serif font is bold and powerful, it communicates that this is not a lighthearted film, encoding themes of violence and imperfection with the crooked style and proairetic code of a bullet - a symbol of the action genre. The tarnished additions to the text connote something that feels urban, conveying the conventional setting of a city, often associated with superhero films. The city setting, however, is set in binary opposition with the image of the joker. The city is often a place associated with life and endless amounts of people, but the one shot of the joker paired with the lowkey lighting represents him as isolated. This juxtaposition encodes themes of conflict and outcast, also establishing the hybridic nature of this films genre.

The colour palette of the poster is very murky with its use of green and black, it creates a creepy atmosphere that's commonly a staple for the horror genre. The green is also connotative of greed and jealousy, encoding toxicity that adds to the characterisation of the joker. It represents him negatively and as evil, something subversive of the superhero genre, here we can apply Steve Neal's genre theory of repetition and difference.

narratology - tzvetan todorov

 

Narratology

Todorov, like Levi-Strauss, was interested in the possibility that all stories share similar narrative features, and that if we understand and detect those features, we can better comprehend the hidden meanings that media texts present to their audiences. 

The crucial difference between Todorov and Levi-Strauss, however, lies in the former theorist's assertion that stories do not just construct opposition, but that characters and ideas are transformed by oppositional forces. More importantly, the recognition of those transformations by audiences creates moments of ideological instruction, prompting readers and viewers to transform their own real-world behaviours. 

Concept 1: the three-act ideal

the influence of Vladimir Propp

Todorov was hugely influenced by the Russian literary theorist Vladimir Propp and his highly influential 1929 book, the mythology of the folktale, in which Propp famously analysed hundreds of Russian folk stories in an attempt to uncover their underlying narrative structures. Importantly, Propp arrived at the conclusion that folk tales drew from a highly stable list of characters whose roles and narrative functions he defined as follows

The Hero

Propp identifies two significant types of hero - the seeker-hero (who relies more heavily on the donor to perform their quest) and the victim-hero (who needs to overcome weakness to complete their quest).

The Villain

fights or pursues the hero and must be defeated if the hero is to accomplish their quest

The princess and the princess' father

The princess usually represents the reward of the hero's quest, while the princess' father often sets the hero difficult tasks to prevent them from marrying the princess

The donor

provides the hero with a magical agent that allows the hero to defeat the villain

The helper 

usually accompanies the hero on their quest, saving them from the struggles encountered on their journey, helping them to overcome the difficult tasks encountered on their quest.

The dispatcher 

sends the hero on his or her quest, usually at the start of a story

the false hero

performs a largely villainous role, usurping the true hero's position in the course of the story. The false hero is usually unmarked in the last act of a narrative.

Propp suggested that stories do not necessarily have to use all the characters listed, though most are organised around the interplay of the hero, the villain and princess archetypes. Propp also discovered that the fairy stories he analysed followed a remarkably similar narrative structure, organised using a combination of just 31 closely defined plot moments that he called ' '. 

The starting point most stories (  1-7) usually introduce, he observed, the hero and other key characters. The villain, Propp tells us, usually appears at   4, prompting the hero to embark on their quest and culminating in the hero's final struggle with the villain at   26. 

Prop suggests that stories do not necessarily have to be composed of all 31   but those that are used are relayed in strict linear fashion.

Todorov's refinement of Propp's narrative theory

Todorov refined Propp's narrative theory in the 1970's, arguing that media narratives are created using moments of action, or as Todorov called them 'propositions' , and that those moments combine into narrative sequences. 

Broadly speaking, Todorov also argued that narratives tend to follow similar patterns; that the start of any story is concentrated largely, with the outlining of characters in stable worlds, while later sequences offer challenges to that stability. Like Propp, Todorov also highlighted the importance of character transformation within a story. Characters do not just experience adversity; they are transformed by those experiences. 

Todorov suggests, as a result, that an 'ideal' narrative is organised by the following story structure. 

Equilibrium: 

the story constructs a stable world at the outset of the narrative. key characters are presented as part of that stability

Disruption:

Oppositional forces - the actions of a villain, perhaps, or some kind of calamity - destabilise the story's equilibrium. Lead protagonist attempts to repair the disruption done

New  :

Disruption is repaired and stability restored. Importantly, the equilibrium achieved at the end of the story is different to that outlined at the start. The world is transformed

  three act narratives are used to structure stories across a range of media: from Hollywood film to television drama, the  /disequillibrium/transformation formula provides the narrarice backbone for a great deal of the screen based fiction we consume.

Three act narratives, too, are used in print storytelling: celebrity interviews, for instance, are structured using moments of disequilibrium and repair - alcoholism, the difficulties of producing a film and marriage break ups are used to construct moments of narrative disequilibrium. 

Three act narratives are universally present in factual programming too: the loveless subjects of Channel 4's The Undateables find true romance, criminal disruptions are repaied in 24 hours in police custody, while Netflix's Queer Eye team heal the broken lives of American singletons across the US.

In their simplest form, traditional three act narratives are typically delivered to audiences using the following features:

Stories are linear: conventionally, three act narratives move forward in time, progressing through Todorov's new equilibrium formula using successive narrative events.

Proppian character stereotypes are used: in their purest form Todorovian narratives tend to use conventional Proppian archetptes, clustering around heroes, princesses and villains.

Single character transformations are pursued: traditional Todorovian story arcs habitually place one lead hero at the centre of the story. Secondary characters, Proppian helpers, false heroes and so on are deployed to assist that dingle central hero in their narrative quest.

A more sophisticated application of Todorov 

Todorov, importantly, recognises that stories are constructed in ways that test and subvert the three act narrative structure outlined above. 

Stories, he acknowledges, can wholly omit equilibrium or disruption stages. A more sophisticated application of Todorov might also consider 

Plot and Subplot: contemporary film and tv drama is traditionally constructed using an overarching master plot accompanied by a series of subplots. Each of these narrative layers will articulate their own individual equilibrium, disequilibrium and transformation sequences.

Multiple equilibrium/disruption sequences: contemporary media products often try to produce a roller-coaster effect for the audiences by deploying several equilibrium/disequilibrim sequences before resolving in a final transformation. The alternating repose/action effect of such narratives offer audiences multiple moments of narrative calm and excitement

Flexi-narratives: long format television products deploy multiple three act structures in a similar pattern to that used by master plot subplot sequences, with some narrative resolved in a single episode and others concluded over the courses of a whole season or even longer in some instances. Theses flexible narratives offer audiences quick fix single episode resolutions, while also nurturing lomg-term viewing engagement by building season long three act arcs.

Condensed equilibrium: contemporary audiences, arguably, have a much lower boredom threshold, expecting products to deliver action or disruption quickly. Producers therefore propel narratives towards moments of immediate disruption to hook audience engagement from the outset.

Alternative story ordering devices

Audience demand for story novelty has encouraged wrieers and directors to test the three act narrative formula in ever more ingenious ways. Indeed, today's media saturated landscape means that consumers skim across products at he tap of their remote controls or the swipe of a tablet screen, compelling contemporary storytellers to create ever faster product engagement.

The accelerated, multifaceted nature of media consumption is also reflected in the construction of ever more complex narratives that are not afraid to test he linear rules of storytelling.

Stories move backwards and forwards. They skip or recap, they start at the end and end at the start.

Contemporary viewers, moreover, shift their attention, continuously: from TV screens to tablets to smartphones, watching and listening to two or more products simultaneously. And audiences do not wait for their media to appear in fixed schedule broadcasting slots. Consumption is slaked in binge watching gulps or conversely is nibbled upon in YouTube friendly 15 minute snacks. 

In short, contemporary audiences expect more of the narratives they engage with, while the complex consumption of those audiences suitably equip them to successfully decode products that bend or refashion Todorov's ideal formula.

These are some of the contemporary narrative strategies used that test or break the traditional rules of media storytelling:

Anachronic devices (flash forward/back): subvert traditional linear storytelling techniques through time bending. Flash forwards provide moments of disequilibrium before equilibrium reversing Todorov's ideal flow bt telling us the end of the story before it has begun. Flashbacks, too, are injected to disrupt the highly predictable nature of the three act structure.

In media res: contemporary stories often start mid-action, delivering immediate crisis, inverting Todorov's ideal narrative progression through the presentation of disequilibrium before equillibrium.

Multiperspective narratives: contemporary stories are often told from different character perspectives, repuposing equillibriums as disequilibrium when the story shifts from one character viewpoint to another 

Metanarratives: provide audiences with moments that draw attention to the idea that they are watching a story. Metanarration might knowingly refer to the product as a media construct or speak directly to audiences through fourth wall breaks.

Unreliable narration: deliberately deceive audiences, providing plots that deliver unexpected moments - usually be revealing that a character is not who they claim to be.

Frame stories: stories told inside of stories, testing Todorov's ideal narrative structure through the presentation of nested moments equilibrium and disequilibrium  

Concept 2: the ideological effects of story structure

Stories, Todorov suggests, invite audiences to interpret meanings - to decode the presentations of characters and narrative action as substitutes for ideas that exist beyond immediate plot presentation.

'an adventure' he writes ' is at the same time a real adventure and the symbol of another adventure'

Stories are metaphors - places where contradictory forces can do battle, where human desires can be articulated and curtailed. Stories, too, provide collisions, delineating harmony and disruption, and, in this sense, their effect upon the reader is both persuasive and ideological.

Todorov draws attention to the following ways in which narratives construct symbolic meaning

Narratives are significations: even though narratives are set within reality, the construction of that reality is symbolic - offering us a version of the world that is ordered by the ethical, moral or ideological viewpoints of a text's author.

Stories articulate desire: Todorov's 'ideal' narrative structure is often underlined by the desire of the lead characters to return to the stable world presented during the initial equilibrium stage. Moments of initial equilibrium, therefore, represent ideals for the audience watching the text

Disequilibrium and transgression: Todorov identifies the use of transgressive action as a mechanism that also enables ideological meanings to form. Characters break rules or violate social norms and to repair those transgressions they must be punished or effect a transformation. The ideological effect of these moments is to outline social ideals or modes of behaviour that audiences might also use to guide their own behaviours.

Disequilibrium and ideological villainy: narrative disequilibrium is also constructed through the presence and actions of symbolic villains. Here, the hero must battle an external foe, who Todorov argues, symbolises qualities that audiences are guided to avoid.

Structuralism - Levi-Strauss

 

Levi-Strauss painstakingly analysed the structure and narrative content of hundreds of mythic tales he collected from around the globe. From the tribal stories of the Amazonian rainforest to the ancient myths of Greece he sought to uncover the invisible rule book of storytelling in order to diagnose the essential nature of human experience; he believed that any common themes or motifs located in those myths would reveal essential truths about the way the human mind structures the world.

All stories, Levi-Strauss ultimately concluded, work through oppositional arrangements - through the construction of characters or narrative incidents that clash or jar. Moreover, stories and storytelling, in Levi Strauss's view, perform a vital societal function: oppositional presentations are resolved to outline societal taboos and socially acceptable behaviour. 

Concept 1: Binary oppositions

Levi-Strauss outlines the key academic ideas used to explore media products in his 1962 book, The Savage Mind, in which he suggests that a subliminal set of structural rules inform myth production. Individual cultures might speak different languages, he argues, but all stories told across the globe and throughout history employ a remarkably simple but stable formula. Myths, Levi Strauss infers, universally explore human experience using polarised themes: birth has to compete against death, success against failure, wisdom trades blows with innocence.

The Old Testament, for instance, suggests that the Earth was formed from a series of oppositional constructs - God separated light from darkness, the sky from the sea, the land from the water. In fairy tales, the innocence and youth of Little Red Riding Hood takes on the greed and cunning of the big bad wolf.

Levi-Strauss infers further that the universal use of these oppositional forces to organise stories is prompted by humankind's innate bias towards organising the world using binary thinking. Pre-modern man's need to distinguish poisonous from edible foodstuffs, Levi-strauss argues, embedded a cognitive blueprint that directs human beings to read the world using oppositional descriptors.

Humans do not do ambiguity, Levi-Strauss tells us. We simplify the world around us using an age-old bias towards binary thinking. Certainly, binary labels and binary thinking are evidenced aplenty in today's complex world. We continue to label ourselves as female or male, masculine or feminine, despite the multiplicity of gender choices at play in Western Society. 

Simarly, our political government is polarised as left or right wing, while human morality is packaged up in deeds that are categorised in good and evil.

Media based binary oppositions

Levi Strauss did not allude to the structure of contemporary media products directly, but if we buy into the idea that binary thinking is a universal feature of storytelling then it stands to reason that media narratives are organised using the same structural blueprints as those offered in myths.

Oppositions in media products might be inferred through the following

Character oppositions

Audiences expect villains to battle heroes. Oppositions, too, might also centre on secondary characters, with contrasts constructed in terms of youth or maturity, strength or intelligence, masculinity or femininity. Character oppositions can be found in real world products too: newspapers deploy stories in which criminals exploit victims, while documentaries depict innocent subjects who fall prey to anonymous corporations.

Narrative oppositions 

Media stories, too, are orgnasiede to construct moments of opposition. Print and television advertising, for instance, transforms failure into success through simplified binary presentations. TV narratives conventionally culminate in a grand narrative collision so that they might deliver a finale of story excitement for their audiences. 

Stylistic oppositions:

Media producers also encode products using juxtaposed stylistic presentations. Camera work might change from quiet stasis in one scene to a frenzied set of whip pans in another. Transitions of this kind can reinforce wider character-oriented oppositions or are deployed to create aesthetic interest. 

Genre driven binary oppositions

some binary oppositions are so deeply entrenched within genres that they become a convention or expectation of that genre. Sci-fi products regularly offer 'technology versus humanity' driven narratives; crime dramas routinely deploy 'law enforcer/law breaker' character stereotypes; romances resolve in romantic couplings.

The function of oppositions in media products

Media makers, moreover, deploy binary oppositions to create a range of audience-oriented effects. The potential functions of binary oppositions in contemporary storytelling are used for the following reasons:

To clearly explain ideas. binary oppositions can be used to simplify viewpoints or make complicated ideas understandable for viewers and readers. News stories, for instance, often explain complex topics by referencing interviewees with oppositional viewpoints to generate simplified overviews.

To create compelling narrative. the inclusion of binary oppositions inevitably creates conflict. Audiences are more likely to engage with a media product if they are presented with the promise of a narrative clash.

To create identifiable character types. Audiences can quickly gain a sense of the direction of a story once oppositional characters are introduced - we implicitly understand that the hero has to fight the villain or that the good guy will win over his girl. The use of clashing characters can also produce a range of other gratifications - comedy, fear and so on.

To create audience identification. Binary oppositions prompt audiences to identify with one central character or viewpoint. An advert, for instance, that contrasts humdrum reality with the sparkle of an advertised product clearly positions the audience to empathise with the brand promoted.

Concept 2: binary oppositions and ideological significance 

Myths, according to Levi-Strauss articulate a version of the world around us, generating, culturally specific cues that define acceptable or unacceptable social norms. Those cues Levi-Strauss infers are created as a result of the way that story oppositions resolve - in the way that select oppositions are disregarded in favour of their counterparts. Narratives, in this sense, provide audiences with a set of privileged behaviours or ideals that they are encouraged to copy or adopt

Levi-Strauss proposes, for instance, that a principle function of primitive myth was to describe incest taboo and the rules of marriage.

For example, Sophocles famous Oedipus myth illustrates the dangers of unnatural sexual relationships. The binary oppositions constructed in the story centre on the masculine energy of Oedipus and the femininity of Oedipus's mother. Famously, he blinds himself when he finds out he has accidentally married his own mother - his shame in transgressing natural incest taboos is so deeply felt that he can no longer bear to look upon the world. The resolution of the male/female oppositions presented convey a clear warning to the myth's readers and listeners - don't have sex with your own mother.

Likewise, cultural products - art, literature and the media - do not just present conflict in their narratives; they offer resolutions to those oppositions. In film James Bond always crushes the terrrorist plot. The Avengers inevitably destroy their seemingly undefeatable enemies, while the supernatural presence that terrorieses us in horror films is terminally exorcised in time for the end credits to roll. 

Narratives resolve oppositions, and that resolution process allows media products to play a significant role in promoting an explicit set of values and ideologies. James Bond's triumph over the forces of evil privileges a quintessential sense of Britishness. 007 not only fights bad guys, he reinstates democracy, moral decency and English tradition at the expense of totalitarianism, capitalist greed or religious fanaticism.

Oppositional resolutions in News Products

The news, too, resolves stories in a manner that privileges one set of oppositions. Newspapers teach us that criminal are caught, that corrupt politicians lose elections or that wayward celebrities have to endure rehab hell. The news does not just represent the chaos of the world, nor does it merely order the chaos into neat binaries - news stories are crafted in ways that reinforce cultural or editorial biases, and the resolutions that publications craft privilege those cultural biases to their readerships.

A news product reporting a terrorist attack, for instance, might outline the suffering and death inflicted by the incident, but those losses are often offset by coverage that emphasises the everyday acts of heroism that surround the incident. Police officers and fire crews step into the fray when bombers attack, innocent members of the public sacrifice themselves to save others and, when the terrorist dust has settled, the incdeient news cycle inevitably concludes with follow-ups that articulate the ongoing solidarity and defiance of the communities affected by the bombing.

Yes, the news articulates oppositions to create conflict and to sell more editions, yet, much like fictional media, news narratives construct resolutions to forward editorial viewpoints and to reinforce cultural norms.

Semiotics - R. Barthes

Until the 1950's academic study if culture was largely limited to an exploration of high culture. Literature, art, architecture, music, etc were deemed worthy of study because supposedly they articulated sophisticated and nuanced modes of thinking.

Popular culture, conversely, was rejected as unworthy of analysis because the stories told by advertising, cinema and the then-emerging form of TV were thought to be constructed with so little precision, and their effects so simple, that any academic attention was undeserving.

Barthes, however, realised the mass media ought to be taken seriously.

His 1957 essay collection Mythologies stands as one of the first attempts to evaluate the finesse and impact of mass media narratives. 

Indeed, Barthes Mythologies revels in popular culture, analysing anything and everything from wrestling to horoscopes, from car adverts to political news. His writing intuited that mass media forms affected a deep presence within society - an ideological presence whose scope and influence far outstripped the nuanced reach of high culture.

Concept 1: denotation and connotation 

Denotation/connotation 

Barthes tells us that media products are decoded by their readers - in the first instance at least - using what he calls a 'denotative reading'. Denotative readings, he suggests, occur when readers recognise the literal or physical content of media imagery.

Barthes tells us that readers quickly move beyond the simple recognition of image content and subsequently engage in what he calls 'connotative decoding.'

Connotative readings, he suggests, refer to the deeper understanding prompted by media imagery and to the emotional, symbolic or even ideological significance produced as a result of those readings.

Text and image

Barthes, of course, understood that photographic imagery does not construct meaning by itself. Imagery, in print-based products, works alongside text-based components. Headers and taglines give meaning to photos, while photos themselves provide an accompanying visual explanation for news copy.

The interplay between text and image, Barthes tells us, is determined by the positioning of textual components and by the relative size of each element. Barthes also details the use of text to 'anchor' image meanings in advertisements and print news.

Photo captions, headers and taglines, Barthes tells us, guide readers towards defined significations.

Without anchorage, Barthes suggests, media imagery is likely to produce polysemic connotations or multiple meanings. Anchorage, Barthes tells us, constructs, 'a vice which holds the connoted meanings from proliferating.' (Barthes 2007, 39)

Barthes five code symphony 

Barthes's denotation/connotation model provides an excellent framework for analysing print media. We can use it to diagnose the effects of costume choice or settings, or to think about the significations created through shot distance or shot composition.

Barthes's denotation model, however, is less effective when we have to consider the way in which elements combine to produce singular effects. Narratives, for instance, set up meanings at the start of stories that are connected to later narrative events - stories for example teases with mysteries that are only resolved at the end. Similarly, some connotations are used throughout a text in a way that gives them a deeper connotative meaning than if they appeared just once. e.g- repeated use of food-orientated references in Hansel and Gretel - breadcrumbs, gingerbread house, cooking of the witch - creates an enhanced symbolic effect.

To account for this, Barthes produced a more nuanced version of his denotation/connotation model in which a symphony of five explicit coding effects are used to create meanings. These connotative effects, he argues, operate like instruments or voices in a band - sometimes playing in unison, while at other moments they are muted so the single codes can deliver solo effects.

Hermeneutic codes

Enigmas

Construct moments of mystery to intrigue the reader or viewer. Enigmas also hook readers compelling further reading or viewing to locate answers to the questions. Readers are prompted to ponder. Some products, Barthes tells us, rely on hermeneutic codes more than others - crime dramas for instance, usually convey and reinforce long-standing enigmas throughout their narratives.

Proairetic codes

Actions

Narratives also offer moments in which meaning is conveyed through action or demonstration. Action provides explanation or excitement, sometimes working to resolve the enigmas that earlier narrative sequences might pose. Again, some products deploy proairetic codes more than others: science fiction, thrillers and crime drama, for instance, typically rely on moments of concentrated actions to generate viewer excitement.

Semantic codes

Connotative elements

Refers to any element within a media text that produces a single connotative effect. Semantic codes include lighting, mise-en-scene, and colour usage. They also refer to the use of compositional effects, pose or even to typographic decisions and the significations that text size or font selection convey

Symbolic codes 

semantic and symbolic codes are highly similar and often quite hard to tease apart. Perhaps one of the easiest ways to seek out the symbolic codes within a product is to search for repeated symbols that convey a deeper meaning. In television, symbolic codes often surface as repeated themes or visual motifs and are referenced throughout the story in a thread of continuous underlying meaning.

Cultural codes

Referential codes

Refers to the inclusion of material that generates meaning from outside the product. Cultural codes might include the use of proverbs, sayings or idioms. They might also include references to scientific or historical knowledge - in short, anything that relies on the audiences knowledge beyond the text. Intertextual references, too, can be considered to be a form of cultural code in that they reference meanings from outside the product.

Concept 2: the media's ideological effects

Media as myth

Traditional myths, Barthes tells us, are important because they present a collective representation of the world. Myths have an elevated status; they are important enough to be passed down from one generation to the next, while the anonymisation of their authors further suggests that mythic tales represent a collective rather than a singular view. Myths too are allegorical - they present moral outlooks and tell us how we ought to behave

When, for instance, Narcissus falls in love with his own reflection, we, too are being warned about the dangers of vanity and self-absorption.

Barthes suggests that the media has replaced or at least replicates, the functions of traditional myth-making. The press, television, advertising and radio, he argues, convey meaning with the same sort of authority as myths and, more importantly, induce similar ideological effects.

Indeed, Barthes hugely influential essay collection, Mythologies, sought to identify those mythic effects, suggesting that advertising invests cars with a godlike spirituality, that politicians manufacture imagery to convince us of their ordinariness and that soap detergent effect a 'euphoria' of cleanliness through their marketing appeals.

Barthes identifies the following ideological effects of media consumption

Naturalisation 

As a result of the media's uncanny ability to look and feel realistic, media products, Barthes tells us present ideas as natural, matter of fact or common sense. Indeed, if a range of media texts repeats the same idea enough times audiences come to believe that those ideas are not a matter of perspective but are, in fact, an immutable social norm. 

For instance, advertising that positions women as mothers or as responsible for domestic chores naturalise the idea that a woman's place ought to be in the home.

Media myths are reductive 

Barthes tells us that the media, by and large, simplifies, reduces or purifies ideas, turning complexity into easily digestible information. The use of simplicity creates audience appeal, Barthes argues and also has the effect of de-intellectualising and depoliticising ideas. Message reduction also discourages audiences from questioning or analysing media content too closely.

Media myths reinforce existing social power structures

'The oppressed is nothing, he has only one language, that of his emancipation,' Barthes writes, while 'the oppressor is everything, his language is rich, multiform, supple' (Barthes 2007, 176)

He argues that those who have power tend to control the myth-making process, either owning or indirectly channelling media content through privileged access arrangements. The powerful, in that sense, hold all the cards and are able to harness the creative allure of the media industry to maintain the illusion that the system we live in, the system that benefits the powerful the most, is naturally ordered and unchangeable.

Media revision - semiotics

 

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols. 

Every aspect of a media product is a sign, whether it is a shot type, camera angle, graphic, font, sound effect etc

So semiotic analysis is pointing out what the different parts of a media product mean.

It varies depending on the question but its safe to say most of your marks in the assessment will come from semiotic/textual analysis.

ENCODE/DECODE

You will need to go on to discuss WHY the producer encoded this meaning, HOW the audience interprets it and WHAT effects this has on the target audience as well as the group being represented.

Different students will present completely different responses and will both receive full marks, as long as their pov comes across. Unlike several other subjects A-Level media studies factors your pov to the strength of your argument. 

If you have a strong opinion on something you will get a better mark.

If in doubt, blag it! as long as you use media language and reference to higher-level concepts to back your point up.

Media language: analysing a media product

 

With all the discussion, commentary, opinion and expression swirling around, is there anything distinctive media students can add? 

The type of comment and criticism found in social media and everyday discussion of the media is genuinely no holds barred; there are no rules. The approach set out in media studies is much more systematic. It is based on a structuralist theory that sees all media products in the light of underlying structures and codes.

These theoretical approaches to structure should, we hope, give us some insight into the fascinating ways in which meanings are created by and around media products. Rather than death by analysis, media studies aim to enhance as well as understand the stimulation, pleasure and fulfilment of our media consumption. 

Context and code

As readers contribute to the creation of meanings, they always do so in a context or, more likely, in a range of contexts. For example, each of us brings to a text a whole set of characteristics based on our age, gender, family background, social class and education, amongst other factors.

There is also the physical context. Watching Television alone is a different experience from watching with friends or family members, and the these differences may well influence the ways in which we interact with the text. 

Then there is the context of culture. Does the reader share and understand the conventions of the text and it's values? If we look at an ad from the 1950's historical context is likely to make our readings very different to those of the ad's original target audience.

conventions 

established rules or shared understandings that are used in media products as 'they way we do things' more likely to be taken for granted than formally stated.

We have already suggested that the use of the terms 'text' and 'reader' make links between the study of language and the study of the mass media. This language/media analogy crop up very frequently in media theory.

The layout of magazines may be said to have a structure just as sentences do, and the editing of a television programme is often said to conform to a set of rules sometimes called the grammar of editing. Think for a moment of these very words that you are reading. Your understanding of them depends on your familiarity with the English language. 

As the author writes these words and the reader reads them we are both depending on a very deep reservoir of knowledge: all the rules and conventions and word meanings that make up English as we know it.

You don't need all the knowledge to interpret it, but you do need it all to be there. 

The Swiss linguist Ferdinand Saussure called this shared knowledge langue to distinguish it from abt individual example of language in use, whether spoken or written. The latter he called parole.

In media studies, especially in textual analysis, we use exactly the same distinction. The text is our term for parole and rather than langue we use the word code to suggest a system of making meanings. 

Looking at the still image from this television news, we can see numerous codes at work. These are the rules and conventions that have been used to communicate all sorts of meaning. There are technical codes of image composition, camera angles, shot selection, lighting and colour palette. There are nonverbal codes of dress, appearance and posture. The set itself uses colour and design elements to produce further variations and subtleties of meaning. And we are only considering a still image. 

If, instead, a short clip of moving images from television news is considered then even more codes come into play: camera movement, vision mixing, music, the selection of news items and the presenter's voice amongst them.

Into Semiotics

Semiotics is sometimes called the study of signs. Signs can be anything that expresses a meaning: a written word, an item of clothing or a tracking shot, for example. Anything that 'stands for' something else is a sign. 

You just have to look for examples of codes in the still from Channel Four News. Fairly obvious, dress and appearance form one of these codes; if the people in the image looked different and wore different clothes, the meaning of the image as a whole would be different. in the image, the presenter is wearing a dark suit and tie, a patterned tie and a white shirt buttoned at the neck. Each of these 'units of meaning' is a sign. Are they meaningful? just imagine the effect some very small changes such as a loosened tie and an unfastened top button. The presenter's persona would change completely and, by extension, the impression of Channel Four News would be subtly but noticeably altered. We can conclude that the knotted tie and buttoned shirt are signs because they stand for something other than themselves.

Sticking with the television news example, we can also see that the signs are not randomly assembled, they conform to certain rules or conventions. It's probably not in the presenter's contract that he can't wear a clown hat when presenting, but he would certainly be breaking the rules or conventions of the codes of television if he did so. 

As previously noted, codes only work if a group of people share the knowledge and understanding of rules and signs. All cultures are based on the shared understanding of codes, and all media products draw to a greater or lesser extent on this shared understanding.

As we get to grips with semiotics, we are entering a world in which meanings are no longer simply labels attached to objects or actions. Semiotics is a theory - an argument or idea about how communication works and how meanings are generated and shared. The semiotic argument is not about the success or failure of a text in delivering the producers' message; it is much more concerned with the interaction among producers, texts (or products) and readers (or audiences). 

Meanings, in this view, are not 'fixed' by the producer of a text. Instead, they can be slippery and unreliable, problematic and difficult to pin down. But how can this be so? We have just argued that signs are organised in accordance with the rules of a code and that these rules are shared by all. If this is the case, surely there is no room for misunderstanding or disagreement. The answer lies in one of our other key terms: context. 

Culture itself provides a context because any culture is made up of numerous subcultures, each with its own distinctive code. There is also the matter of social context based on factors such as age, gender, ethnicity and class. These are certain to affect the ways in which we attach meanings to signs and interpret the conventions of codes. 

Media codes are just as complex as the English (or any other) language, and which of us could say that our knowledge of English is comprehensive and complete? In other words, yes, shared knowledge and understanding are at work in every act of media communication, but it is rarely uniform and unambiguous except in the simplest and most basic of messages. As media students and analysts of texts, this makes our task more difficult but also fascinating.

So far, this introduction has implied that semiotics is all about how media texts generate meanings whilst at the same time acknowledging that these meanings may be difficult to pin down because of the influence of context. The next step adds another important dimension to our understanding of semiotics as a theoretical approach to textual analysis. 

The semiotic argument holds that a careful analysis of a text can tell us a whole lot more than just what meanings readers place on the text as they interact with it. Analysis of this sort can also show us how our own culture or any other culture interprets the world. It can reveal priceless insights into the value system of the culture; its sense of right and wrong, good and bad, worthy and worthless. 

Through our close analysis, texts can lead us to an understanding of what Alan McKee calls 'sense-making practices.' Drawing on John Hartley's work, Mckee invites us to see ourselves as forensic scientists as we analyse a text. Forensic scientists never witness the crime, but they rely on their skill and expertise to sift through clues in order to advance informed opinion about what has happened 

This is how textual analysis also works. We can never know for certain how people interpreted a particular text but we can look at the clues, gather evidence about similar sense-making.

 practices and make educated guesses

(Mckee, 2003)

Inside the sign

We have looked so far at a few examples of signs and given a basic definition of the sign as a unit of communications. In this section, we shall delve more deeply into the sign and how it works.

Saussure identified two components of the sign: The signifier and The signified. These definitions are central to any understanding of semiotic theory. The signifier or material signifier (as Saussure called it) actually exists on the page or the screen or as a sound, for example. It is the physical form of the sign. The is the part of the sign we perceive with our senses, usually hearing and sigh. Of course, we can only perceive something that has a physical presence as the signifier does, but it is important to note that this signifier has no inherent meaning. It is only when the code system is applied to a signifier that meaning is created. 

If I look at a word on the page, apply my knowledge and understanding of English Language to it and realise that it has a meaning, I have added a signifier to the signified. The signified has no physical form because it only exists within the mind of the perceiver.

To summarise, the sign, has two inseparable components 

SIGN = PHYSICAL FORM / MENTAL CONCEPT

If we apply this idea to something a little more complicated like the page of a newspaper, we can see numerous signifiers. These include images themselves, the composition, colours and shades of photographs and their layout on the page. As we perceive these signifiers, we also bring to bear our perception of the physical context: the newspaper itself, the captions, the stories and the page on which they appear. The interaction of our code knowledge, the understanding of context and the signifiers enables us to produce signifieds in our heads.

The next stage of our investigation of the sign looks at the different kinds of links between signifier and signified. In the case of spoken or written language, the sign system is almost entirely based on arbitrary connections between the physical form of the sign and what it stands for. 

Looking at figure 2.3 there is no connection whatsoever between the word 'elephant' on the board and the image of the elephant except for the fact that they stand for the same thing.

The thing that they stand for (the referent in semiotic theory) is a real elephant. The shape and appearance of the word 'elephant' don't correspond at all to the shape and appearance of the referent. As with most words, the connection is purely arbitrary and simply has to be learned.

The link between the two is a matter of convention and language learning is in large part a case or learning all of its conventions.

Some visual signs are also arbitrary. Images can be arbitrary in some of theirs meanings because these meanings are a matter of cultural convention. If you don't know that the red rose stands for the county for Lancashire, the signifier will not reveal this meaning however hard you look at it. The capacity of the red rose to signify romantic love is also a cultural convention. In the same way, the image of a dove is an arbitrary sign for no entry. You have no doubt realised, though, that the visual signs in these figures can have a non-arbitrary relation to their referent when the image of a red rose signifies no more or less than a red rose and the image of the dove signifies simply, a dove. 

arbitrary

an arbitrary sign is one that has no physical resemblance to its meaning. We know the meaning of these signs only because we have learnt them.

The arbitrary and non-arbitrary nature of signs can also be described as motivation. A highly motivated sign bears a strong resemblance to its referent, whilst an arbitrary sign (like a word or the no-entry sign) is unmotivated.

motivated sign or icon

A sign that bears a physical resemblance to the thing it stands for. Unlike arbitrary signs, we can often guess the meaning of motivated signs that belong to a culture that is not our own.

The idea of motivation or arbitrariness is useful to us in media studies because media language contains many arbitrary or unmotivated signs and codes. We are so familiar with the codes of media language that we tend sometimes to take for granted the meaning of the signs within these codes, assuming that the relationship between the signifier and the signified is obvious or natural.

An example of this is the code of editing in film and television. One aspect of this - elliptical editing - includes the sign that is a cut between the two scenes with the same character in two different locations. The meaning we invariably attach to this signifier is that time has elapsed, that the second scene takes place at a later time. We have learnt to attach this meaning to the cut because of the evidence drawn from the countless moving image texts that we have seen, but it is nevertheless a convention that has to be learnt. The apparent strangeness of early television programmes and films is largely because of the use of different conventions that makes them seem unnatural.

Levels of Signification: denotation and connotation

It is noticeable that signs, whether motivated or unmotivated, whether visual or verbal, are capable of creating different meanings. 

Roland Barthes addressed these different kinds of meanings in his notion of orders of signification. The first order of signification is denotation. At this level, the connection between the signifier and its referent (the thing it represents) is very much direct, obvious and straightforward. The denotative meaning is sometimes described as the literal or surface meaning- so for the red rose examples the denotation is a flower.

In the same way, the word 'rose' denotes that same flower. The denotations of signifiers tend to be relatively fixed and unchanging, but we should acknowledge that the literal meaning of words can change over time. An example is 'meat' which once meant all solid food but gradually became restricted to only animal flesh. 

Although the simplicity of denotation may tempt us to think that they are somehow 'natural' meanings, it is important to remember that denotations are products of culture and must be learnt as part of the process of socialisation.

socialisation

the process by which we learn the codes, values and expectations of the society into which we are born into or that we join. 

 

The second order of signification is connotation, which describes the way in which signs signify indirectly and by association. Going back to our red rose image