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

 

The Killing in context

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Danish series the killing (2011-2014)

A thriller that focuses on a female det and her investigation of a missing young woman

The Killing in an economic context

It initiated a new distribution strategy, whereby European counties, whose media production had tended to be aimed primarily at domestic audiences, began to produce programmes that could be distributed internationally.

This was achieved by drawing on recognisable, global conventions such as genre codes and the use of suspense as well as the universal themes around the family and institutional corruption.

This economic context, in turn, affected business models in the UK, with BBC 4, where the killing was originally broadcast, following up this ratings success with a series of European imports, initially from other Scandinavian countries (e.g- the bridge, trapped - leading to the term 'Scandi Noir' to describe the phenomenon) but then also from Italy (Inspector Montalbano) and Spain (I know what you did).

While Sprial, the female-led French police procedural, had been a cult hit for BBC 4 when it was first broadcast in 2006, it was only with the killing that the exhibition of foreign series became widespread.

The influence of these successful imports was evident in other institutional contexts. Channel 4 launched in the digital platform Walter Presents, which curates tv series from Europe, the Middle East and Latin America that are likely to appeal to a UK audience. These are sometimes broadcast on channel 4, but their main exhibition platform is as digital box sets on the Walter Presents website.

In the US the success of the Scandi Noir genre led to a series of successful remakes of The Killing and The Bridge with a US setting, cast and crew - an industry pattern familiar in the film industry where successful world cinema films would be remade by Hollywood.

The popularity of these non-English language series in the UK was unexpected, partly due to the belief that English-speaking audiences would be put off by the use of subtitles. That this wasn't the case led to a shift in the way in which domestic audiences were perceived, that there was a market for foreign media beyond the US imports, which had always popular.

This openness to other cultures' media seemed to be reinforced by the increased interest in a variety of aspects of Scandinavian culture sparked by the success of The Killing. This included food, fashion (The killing's central character Sarah Lund, became a style icon due to her jumpers) and design and developed into an interest in cultural values that seemed different from our own, symbolised by the concept of hygge, an appreciation of the simple - rather than materialistic - aspects of life. 

In studying the media in context this phenomenon raises some interesting issues. 

While the success pf these non-English-language series suggested an increased interest in foreign cultures and a willingness to engage with alternative media, it is important to remember that the audiences for these series were relatively small.

Even the most successful series, Germany's Deutschland 83 had a ratings high of nearly 2.5 million. In comparison to other dramas such as the BBC's Doctor Foster (Series 2, episode 1), which had ratings of 6.3 million in its initial broadcast, this is low.

The small audience figures suggest that this phenomenon only really affected a niche part of UK society and that in placing the killing in context it might be an overstatment to read it as indicative of the UK's attitidue to foreign cultures in a more general sense. 

It is notable that the industry strategy of exhibiting a greater number of subtitled imports has coincided with the referendum on the UK's membership of the EU and the vote to leave, which might suggest a greater anxiety about non-UK culture.

While the audience for these series is small, it is also quite an influential one.

The middle class, middle aged, professional demographic that dominates this particular audience contains many media influencers - journalists, commentators, broadcasters - which might account for the media coverage that seems out of proportion to the number of people who actually consume the series. 

The Killing in social and cultural context

The process of reading a media product through a social and cultural context suggests that the  media have a direct link to the society that produced it. However, this relationship is not always a straightforward one. 

As evident in study of representation, it is impossible for the media to ever directly reflect the world around it, and the media may act as a form of aspiration or even as an attempt to shape the values of the culture it exists in. 

It is evident that The Killing, particularly in its representation of the female detective, can tell us something about Danish society at the beginning of the 21st century and, in its appeal to a UK audience, something about our own experiences and aspirations.

The representation of the detective Sarah Lund was interpreted as a new kind of female hero: professional, intuitive, isolated, a single parent, independent, perhaps reflective of increased gender equality in European societies.

This representation is evident across the characters in the series, with women playing dominant roles in all the institutions featured: female detectives and senior staff in the police force, female MPs and ministers in government, the representation of the marriage of Theis and Pernille Birk Larsen, emphasising the equality of the partnership. Darker aspects of contemporary society are evidentin the focus on the violence, intrigue and cover-ups, although these could be understood as a central aspect of the crime genre.

Task:

Many successful contemporary crime dramas centre on violent and sexual crimes against women

- choosing one or more examples how can this type of plot be read as reflecting the social and cultural context?

These plots communicate to the audience the disgusting and villainous elements that make up such actions, to highlight the deep rooted misogyny of these hate crimes and the power dynamic between men and women constructed through use of binary opposition.

In Luther (BBC 2010-2019) an episode in the first season centres around the plot of a woman being kidnapped by a sexually abusive man - a stranger who walks into her house whilst she cares for her baby. The domestic mise-en-scene such as the baby toys, front hall and her informal relaxed 'mum' costume reflect the ease with which men can take advantage of women at any age or stage in their lives. This is summed up by the diegetic sound of the doorbell, a familiar unthreatening sound which when answered led the women to rape, abduction and murder. At this time (and still today) the privilege that comes with being a man makes it easy for women to be harmed by them, something which the show reflects with this scene.

It also represents the men who do such things in a disgusting, immoral way - leaving the audience of the time with no humanity to sympathise with. This is communicated in several ways; binary opposition between the innocent loving mother figure and the dark sexually perverted stranger, mise-en-scene of the man licking her face slowly with purpose paired with the diegetic parallel sound as the women breaths heavily in fear whilst her baby sits in the background. 

Why might these representations be controversial? 

to develop ideas research some of the arguments about the BBC series the fall (2013-2017) and the launch of the Staunch book prize, a prize given for thriller novels that don't include violence against women. 

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/apr/17/jump-shark-when-good-tv-goes-bad-the-fall

http://staunchbookprize.com/

making women's abuse and torture a genre convention dilutes it to a romanticsed plot point, used to get a 'ooooh' out of the audience rather than to encourage them to stop and think about the fact this actually happens and is a fear a lot of women have.

recent stats show 97% of women have dealt with sexual harassment in some form or another, and the sensationalist depictions of this in the media reduce them to a good twist for some adrenaline. whilst is may be speaking on a real problem, it speaks on it in a way that uses it- twisting it to their advantage for ratings and spectacle (like lesbian being a porn category for heterosexual men's pleasure), especially when you think about the lowered numbers of females working in the media and production of these things. It becomes almost disturbing to think about a room full of men discussing how to weave the rape of a women into their story so graphically. 

With this genre convention comes a representation of all women in the genre- when will a storyline be crafted that doesn't overtly sexualise and objectify a female character.

Media in context

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Media studies is an interdisciplinary subject; it blurs the boundaries between different academic subjects, particularly in the way in which it studies the media in wider contexts. 

This approach suggests that the media - that is, it's products and processes - is directly linked to the society that produced them, that the media reflect the values, interests and make-up of the society that produced them.

Analysing the media in the context is to consider what else was happening in that time and place in which the product was made, to consider how those contexts may shape the product and the way audiences interpret it.

In this way, the study of media is in part also the study of a culture, both contemporary and historical. It is also relevant to consider whether the media itself is able to affect the society that produced it. 

The Key Contexts

The key contexts consist of five areas - which may overlap:

• social
• cultural
• political
• historical
• economic

the contexts will also be related to the areas of the theoretical framework with, for example, economic contexts being particularly relevant to the study of media industries and cultural and social contexts informing feminist approaches.

The following suggests some of the initial approaches to analysing the media in context:

-what characterises the society that produced the media? gender equality? class divisions? repression? religious or secular?

-are there any major historical or political events that - war, recession, protest movements etc - that might be relevant?

-if the product was made in the past its useful to know some of the key features of that time, such as major historical events

-Is the product typical of other media products of the time? Does it use typical styles and genres of the period? or does it do something new or experimental?

-What industry produced it? is it a successful industry or faced with economic problems? perhaps it is an industry in decline or a new one emerging in response to new technologies or audience habits?

Placing Media product in Context

Whichever TV programme you're studying, certain approaches and questions will apply. These will help to focus the analysis but also to evaluate the approach of placing products in context.

One approach would be to consider the way in which tv can operate symbolically and metaphorically to discuss contemporary issues; in other words, it might seem to be a generic thriller but perhaps the crime is used to draw parallels with the state of the society in which it took place.

In making a link between a media product and its social and political contexts, you're likely to be reading it ideologically, that is disseminating messages and values about society. This might include context specific to each programme but also the reliance on the reassuring structure of crime solving as a way of representing an - ultimately - functioning society.

It is also worth questioning how strong the link is between the programme and the society that produced it; perhaps the programme has little to say about the real world. Perhaps of greater importance in the construction of the media are the demands of genre and the need for escapism: to forget about day-to-day life.

it's also worth considering that the need to reach a global audience can make references to a specific society debatable. As you will see in the in the study of audience it also very difficult to reach an agreement about the meaning of media products: multiple audience positions and interpretations complicate the relationship between media products and society.

Why do we study the media?

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The first courses in the study of the media in the UK were at universities, in the late 1960s, but the subject only really became established - and popular - in the 1980s when it was offered at A Level (and later GCSE). 

Media studies is not the first subject to be accused of not being a serious subject. Recent examples would include sociology (which is now much more accepted), and the study of English Literature was also initially a controversial one.

The concern with these areas seemed to be based on an idea that something we might do for pleasure - reading or playing video games - is not difficult enough to study, that it is something we do naturally. It could also be argued that any new area for study is likely to be resisted by some, but the criticism of media itself isn't a valid focus of analysis and criticism. 

New subjects tend not to have the perceived certainties of definitions of traditional academic areas such as maths and physics, often made up of approaches from across other disciplines that can make people suspicious of their status. In the case of media studies it is certainly true that it is a subject that borrows from a range of subjects - sociology, psychology, communications, English literature and art history - it might be classed as both social science and a humanities subject, depending on the institution offering it.

It is the case though that since its beginning media studies has amassed a body of critical work and academics associated with it that does distinguish it from other subjects. 

The Theoretical Framework

As an academic subject, media studies has developed its own approach or framework to organising the study of the media, which is referred to as the theoretical framework. 

The framework is organised into four areas: 

• media language
• media representation 
• media industries 
• media audiences

each of which covers a range of theories and arguments.

While elements of each are distinct it's usually productive to think of the different areas as overlapping, with one approach closely related to another. For example, the study of the industrial context of a product is likely to be far more productive when linked to the way the industry targets particular audiences.

Media language

The concept of language is usually associated with written or spoken language, clearly central to the study of literature and drama. In media studies, it refers to a different way of understanding how meaning is created in all forms of communication, not just written and spoken language. 

The most obvious way to think of this is to consider the way that images create meaning: symbols, photographs signs are all forms of mediating the world; they are a form of language.

This idea that all forms of media use language beyond words to communicate is explored through the use of a semiotic approach to media products, which allows an analysis of the underlying meanings of any kind of sign. 

Task: 

What meaning does this photo have?

How have you interpreted the language of the image in order to reach that conclusion?

• this photo represents the police force negatively and the protesters positively 
• The use of long shot positions the scene directly in front of the audience with no high or low angle it feels objective and represents the image as truthful with no audience manipulation
• this is reinforced by the use of natural lighting 
• The police officers wear black uniforms that denote their institution which represents them as copies with narrow singular mindsets. they lack diversity and personality as their faces are covered and the mise-en-scene of their costume makes them look identical. This encourages the audience not to sympathise with them and makes them easier to dislike- prompting a narrative in which they are the villain
• the face shields, chest plates and black protection connotes war and violence representing them as aggressive 
• the protestor wears a long flowing dress, this dress is open and the loose style connotes freedom and peace as the dress itself would be relaxing to wear, especially when compared to the police uniforms.
• her face is uncovered making the viewer recognise her more and the mise-en-scene of her glasses are iconography for intelligence representing her as smart and non-violent, further implementing the narrative shaming the police as an antagonist.
• her shoes her open and impractical, juxtaposing with the bulky war-ready uniform and connoting she had peaceful intentions whilst the police didn't.
• the composition of the photo sets up a binary opposition between the police and the protestors. the mise-en-scene of the green trees and grass in the background connotes peace and natural love, this is the side the woman is standing on. the black sea of fighting uniforms is set in binary opposition to this directly across the frame.
• the background of the photo on the left has a mise-en-scene of people standing far apart, the camera making them look small. this use of blocking and framing tells the audience they are not intimidating or to be feared, they seem the opposite. directly juxtaposing with the policemen
• the mise-en-scene of the grey stone stairs in the middle communicates to the audience there is a separation between these groups, and all the factors mentioned offer a narrative that represents the protestors as peaceful protagonists and the police on the left as violent antagonists.

The application of media language is likely to include the following areas of study:

• how the media languages associated with different media forms (broadcast, print, websites, film) communicate multiple meanings.
• codes and conventions associated with specific genres and how and why these might change over time
• how audiences respond to and interpret aspects of media language (often differently)
• the way media language incorporates viewpoints and ideologies 
• how developing technologies affect media language

Media Representation

The study of representation has a fundamental place in media studies. The key concept - or theory - of representation is central to an understanding of how media texts are constructed by producers and how they are received by a range of different audiences. 

In media studies, representation is understood to be important because of the belief that the image of the world found in media products shapes the way audiences think about specific people and places. In turn, this might have repercussions for how particular groups and places are treated.

The study of representation involves all three stages of creating, distributing and exhibiting a media text; therefore, representation is relevant across all areas of the course. 

In the preceding definition representation as a term doesn't only refer to the finished text but to the processes involved in constructing and receiving the representations.

At each stage of the process, key factors of identity - age, gender, race, class etc - are likely to have an influence. As with the other areas of the framework, processes of representation are also affected by developments in new technology which create opportunities for self-representation and perhaps alter the relationship between producer and audience.

The application of representation is likely to include the following areas of study

• the way events, issues, individuals (including self representation) and social groups are represented through processes of selection and construction
• the different factors that shape the way media producers and industries represent events, issues, individuals and social groups
• the way the media, through representation, construct versions of reality - which may be understood differently by a range of audiences
• How and why particular social groups, in a national and global context, may be under-represented and misrepresented
• How media representations convey values, attitudes and beliefs about the world
• the way in which representations make claims about realism
• the way representations may change over time and the reasons for this

Media Industries

The study of media through an analysis of media industries assumes a link between the media products produced and the industries - including individual companies and producers - that produce them. 

The study of this relationship has its roots in a Marxist approach that sees the context of production, specifically its form of ownership and need for profit, as having a direct effect on the form and content of the media it produces.

Media studies is interested in the characteristics of and comparisons between public service media organisations and the commercial sectors in the contemporary media landscape; this is particularly in relation to the power that media industries have and how they are regulated and controlled.

A contemporary feature of media industries is their status as global conglomerates owning the processes of production, distribution and exhibition across a range of media forms. 

A study of media industries is likely to include the following 

• the significance of patterns of ownership and control, including conglomerate ownership, vertical integration and diversification
• How processes of production, distribution and circulation shape media products
• the relationship of recent technological change and media production, distribution and circulation
• the impact of 'new' digital technologies on media regulation 
• the role of regulation in global production, distribution and circulation
• the effect of individual producers on media industries 

Task: 

-Research the planned takeover of Sky

-Why is the bid controversial? what concerns do UK regulators have about the proposed bid?

-Do you think the power of 21st century fox is a concern? Might it affect democratic processes?

Media Audiences

The effect of media on audiences is one of the most fiercely debated and controversial aspects of media studies and can be broadly characterised as the study of what the media do to audiences but also what audiences can do with the media, quite often formulated as ideas of the active and passive audience.

The role of the media in people's lives and behaviour is something that ahs caused anxiety and resulted in moral panics about the media's effects, particularly on the young and vulnerable, but is also a feature of the media's power to transform lives in more positive ways.

This powerful potential means the study of the relationship between the media and the people who consume it is of great importance, and media studies draws on approaches from sociology and psychology in order to try to understand this complex relationship.

The focus of this study has tended to concentrate on the media's potential to shape people's behaviour ranging from political persuasion to ways of seeing the world and even physical responses.

Anxiety about audience response tends to be provoked by new forms of mass media from tv, video games and, of course, the rise od social networks.

In audience studies, the development of digital technologies has also blurred the line between producer and audience, leading to the identification of a new role between producer and audience- the so-called prosumer.

The study of media audiences is inextricably linked to industry, where the need to identify and target particular audiences is vital and has become the focus of increasingly detailed analysis by industries as audiences have become increasingly niche and unpredictable in response to the increased number of media forms available.

The study of media audiences is likely to include the following;

• how audiences are grouped and categorised by media industries through demographics and psychographics
• the interrelationship between media technologies and patterns of consumption and response
• how audiences interpret the media, including how they may interpret the same media in different ways, reflecting social, cultural and historical context 
• how audiences interact with the media and can be actively involved in media production
• how media organisations reflect the different needs of mass and specialized audiences
• how audiences use media in different ways, reflecting demographic factors as well as aspects of identity and cultural captial

Task:

You are the audience. Think about your own media consumption:

-make a list of the different media you might consume on a typical day

youtube, television, social media (twitter), music videos, adverts, trailers

How many of these did you choose to consume? How many did you receive without choosing to?

a lot of youtube thumbnails you see without choosing, adverts on commercial tv + youtube, adverts on social media 'sponsored' 

What are some pleasure you get from your media consumption?

humour, entertainment, cultural education and perspective, direct communication via texting/talking, fan service, 

Can you think of any postive and/or negative effects of you media consumption?

-sleep patterns shift

-online conflict/hate

-social media addiction becomes time consuming 

-cultivation and encouragement of negative things

What is media studies?

 source: A level media studies essential introduction

Defining the Media

The definition within the subject of media, but also within social and political discussions, is increasingly difficult to pin down.

This is in part due to the proliferation of media forms, a consequence of the development of digital technologies and the changing relationships between producers and audiences. 

The main means of mass communication [broadcasting, publishing and the internet] regarded collectively. 

-a dictionary definition provides an objective categorisation but little sense of how the media function in relation to an audience and vice versa.

In media studies, the term 'media' is most helpfully understood as a process, something that shifts and changes as it is produced and consumed- a form of mediation.

Mediation refers to what media do, and to what we do with the media. It is a term that defines the media as actively creating a symbolic and cultural space in which meanings are created and communicated beyond the constraints of the face to face. Readers, viewers and audiences are part of this process of mediation because they continue the work of the media in the way they respond to extend and further communicate what they see and hear on the world's multitude of screens and speakers.

-Roger Silverstone (2006), an academic who was influential in the development of media studies as subject arguing mediation is central to a definition of media

In this definition, the process of mediation - the construction of meaning - is as much a part of the definition of media as the forms themselves.

The combination of a dynamic process of production and consumption, along with specific forms that we recognise as belonging to the media is a good starting point for a definition. 

In conceiving of the media we also tend to include assumptions about a type of audience (mass rather than individual) that is addressed simultaneously by a mass form of communication. 

While this definition is still often useful in considering the nature and influence of the media (e.g- millions who watch tv programmes like the X-factor or strictly at the same time on a Saturday night) the approach has altered with the changes to the media landscape.

Traditionally, there was a clear distinction between the media that was consumed by a mass audience at the same time (fixed tv broadcast before streaming, morning paper before news websites) and other forms such as novels that were consumed individually at the time a reader chose. 

Part of the concerns about the power of the media was the fact that it was the media institutions that controlled the time and pace of consumption rather than the audience. This relationship between broadcast and consumption as a definition of the media has clearly undergone a major shift with streaming sites allowing 'binging' at the time consumers choose, news websites that are constantly checked and updated and social networks that often rely on very few posters and consumers operating at a particular time. 

Media Forms

The different types of media can be referred to as 'Media Forms'

• Television
• Film
• Radio
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Advertising + Marketing
• Online, social and participatory media
• Video games
• Music video

Traditional Media

Refers to the media forms and platforms that existed before the use of the internet and digital technologies became widespread (approx. late 1990s) 

Traditional media is made up of

• Television
• Radio broadcasting
• Print Media
• Music
• Film

Media Platforms

Is where a media form is presented - broadcast, print, online etc - This is sometimes a fairly simple definition, such as the form of tv being presented on a broadcast platform such as the BBC, but new technology makes this distinction more complicated is facebook a form or a platform? Perhaps the blurring of distinctions is another difference between traditional and new media forms.

The list of media forms is a useful framework to mark out the territory of media studies, but it also suggests the problem of defining forms in the contemporary media landscape. For example, advertising and marketing exist across various forms and platforms; a radio is no longer simply a form of broadcast but has shifted online as a podcast.

Defining producers and audiences

One of the major shifts in the move from traditional to new media has been the breakdown of in the old relationship between producers and audiences. 

The media landscape is undoubtedly still dominated by powerful media institutions (News International, Disney, the BBC etc) but there is also much greater access for individuals to become producers of media content, particularly through online platforms.

Media Institutions

Any company that is responsible for the production, distribution of exhibition of a media product. An institution may be local, national or global, and it may be commercial or publicly funded. In media studies, there is a particular focus on the role of media conglomerates- media companies that usually have a global presence and own many other smaller companies producing a variety of media for across platforms.

 Examples include

• Time Warner US
• Vivendi France
• Bertelsmann Germany

analysing a product

Task: Choose an audio-visual product (music video, advert etc.) and complete a detailed textual analysis. Try to use EVERY technical code and piece of media language we have looked at today. 

You could make sub-headings of;

• Cinematography

• Mise-en-scene

• Sound 

• Editing 

In your analysis ensure when you make a point you explore how it creates meaning. 

MEDIA LANGUAGE - MEANING

Billie Eilish - Therefore I am

• the camerwork is handheld which connotes that the setting is very informal as it follows Billie around
• The mise-en-scene of the setting is very relatable, it's somewhere everyone frequents that is recognisable. the name brands of stores in the background connote a C1-C2 social class, this represents Billie as someone who has not adopted the stereotypical celebrity culture and is relatable which is part of her appeal. 
• The digetic sound in the opening of the escalators and her shoes squeaking are symbols of sounds familiar to the audience, it reflects the diy nature of the video whilst being very unconventional- it's unmelodic and unappealing to hear but it's almost comforting to the audience in the way they recognise it.
• The practical lighting connotes to the audience that the interior has not been modified for filming, whilst this is not the case it addresses the audience is an honest and transparent way, again enforced by the high key lighting which leaves nothing hidden. 
• The editing is extremely slow with minimal cuts, which feels unproduced and natural. 
• the camera following Billie positions the audience as voyeur, as the mise-en-scene of her performance looking away and seemingly unaware of the audience with the use of a tracking shot establishes this
• the male gaze theory is subverted in this video, throughout the video there are no sexual references. she wears a baggy jumper and shorts which covers the sexualised areas of the body and is hegemonically unattractive- she is represented unstereotypically as a woman which further pushes this 
• in the final parts of the song dutch canted angles are used with close ups whilst billie grabs and eats food, the dynamic cinematography feels rough and ungraceful which builds a messy aggressive atmosphere whilst billie eats- representing her in an unconventional way compared to the traditional forms of female representation in the media. She is conveyed in a hegemonically unattractive way, going against the norms and expectations created by the patriarchy. 
• the diegetic sound of her jumping over the counters symbolises the rebellious nature of her actions, it is clunky and hard sounding which connotes a punk ideology 
• throughout the video the subject directly addresses the audience with her facial expressions, lip syncing and hand gestures. it's an aggressive mode of address paired with the lyrics that positions the audience below billie metaphorically and many times literally with the low angled camerawork. 
• billie goes behind the counters of the stores which encodes that she's in power, she's helping herself whilst the camera aligns the audience as powerless stuck on the other side of the counter. 
• the mise-en-scene of the shutters  and lowkey lighting on the stores connote the place is closed, giving the audience an insight to what a place looks like when they're not supposed to be there and encoding rebellious themes.