Do Now Definitions

Code

A communication system which includes signs, rules and shared understanding. Examples include the English language, non-verbal codes, print codes and editing codes.

Conventions

Established rules or shared understandings used in the creation of media products. Conventions are more likely to be taken for granted as ‘the way we do things’ rather than formally written down.

Denotation

The literal or surface meaning of a sign or media product.

Connotation

The meanings of a sign or media product that are made by cultural association. These are often the deeper or underlying meanings. For example, images of a sunset in a film may connote ending or closure.

Anchorage

The text (copy) that fixes (anchors) an image and its meaning.

Audience positioning

The technique used to persuade the audience to interpret a media product in a particular way.

Skyline

A line of text, with or without a coloured strip background, that runs across the top edge of a magazine page, poster or other printed product. It contains important information to appeal to the audience.

Masthead

A publication’s name or title in a distinctive form usually placed at the top of the front page or cover page.

House style

The overall design style of a newspaper, website or magazine. This might include font, colour scheme and layout. The house style sets a product apart from its competition and makes it easily recognisable to its audience.

Encoding/Decoding

This model of communication claims that media products contain various messages that are made (encoded) using various codes and conventions. 

The ways in which audiences make sense of (decode) these messages depend on the social context of the audience member. The decoded message may not be the same as the encoded message.

Comparing Reveal and Tatler

You need to ensure you understand how each of these front covers use

MEDIA LANGUAGE

and create REPRESENTATIONS

MEDIA LANGUAGE

Do Now task

Write your own definitions for these key media terms:

1. Denotation           
2. Connotation
3. Anchoring           
4. Audience positioning 
5. Masthead               
6. Skyline
7. Codes                  
8. Conventions        
9. Encoding/ Decoding      
10. House Style

Preferred Readings

Each media text is created by a producer, the producer encodes messages into the text through visual language (media language). When these messages are read in the way the producer wanted them to be read it is called the preferred reading of the text.

The media theorist Stuart Hall created the Reception Theory- can you find out what this theory refers to?

1. Explain what the preferred readings of both magazine covers are.

2. What would be a negotiated reading of each cover?

3. What would an oppositional reading of each cover be?

The famous media theorist Roland Barthes wrote about the ‘rules’ of media language, he referred to the process by which signs are selected, deselected and assembled to conform to codes and conventions, and more importantly to convey meaning to the audience.

1. What are the conventions of magazine front covers?

2. What codes do producers use to appeal to and engage audiences in magazine front covers?

3. Explain which signs have been selected for the front covers of both magazines and what meanings they convey to the target audience of both publications.

Comparing Reveal and Tatler

Do Now: Define these key terms

• Preferred Reading
• Symbolic Codes
• Cultural Imperialism
• Ideology
• Stereotypes
• Archetypes

Representation lies at the heart of many media debates. As students of Media Studies we are interested in whether these representations are positive or negative, truthful or false and what impact these might have on audiences and societies

Re-Presenting the World

A useful way to think about representation is to think of it as the way in which a media text re-presents the world back to the audience. They create the diegetic world of the text to reflect a world that is recognisable to the audience. This process often involves using stereotypes within the text as they are easy to identify and communicate information to the audience in a short space of time.

Media theorist RICHARD DYER writes about how there are both positive and negative representations within the media and how stereotypes are an oversimplification (homogeny) of people and social groups constructed through the use of a few immediately recognisable and defining traits

1. What stereotypes are present in the two front covers?

2. Why have these stereotypes been used?

3. What values do these stereotypes communicate around gender roles within our society?

Media theorist Stuart Hall argues that whilst the media appears to reflect reality it actually constructs reality. This is a challenging concept, simplified this refers to the power the media has to shape peoples’ views and beliefs on different groups or ideas within in a society, through the way they are portrayed within media texts such as magazines.

Q. How is the world presented in the cover of the two magazines?

Q. How might the covers above shape people's views and beliefs within a society?

Stuart Hall also explored how important the role of the producer is in constructing representations within media texts. It is important to understand the purpose of a text when exploring this issue.

Q. How do magazines make money?

Q. What is the purpose of both magazines? Do they differ?

Q. How do the representations on the cover of the magazines help the magazines create profit?

Assessed Essay (20 marks)

Compare and contrast the representations on offer between Reveal and Tatler (CSP products).

You should discuss the following:

•    how they both use media language to engage their specific target audience
•    how they represent groups, issues and ideas
•    the different values and beliefs offered by the two products

NEA Administration

This is your final NEA task! It is super important that you complete it properly and accurately.

You need to download a copy of the exam board's NEA document from here.
Complete the boxes at the top with:
Centre Name = Lutterworth College 
Centre Number = 25274
Your Candidate Number (if you know this)
Your Name
Brief Chosen: Magazines

You need to cut and paste your Statement of Intent onto the page and then email it to t.eccles@lutterworthcollege.com cc to l.downie@lutterworthcollege.com
You should already have a copy of this form in the front of your folder - check this is the case. Print a copy if not and put it in your folder.

You also need to attach a copy of your Front Page and Double Page Spread final product to the same email. Send them as a JPEG file.

4a Scheduling Through the Keyhole

Question 4a Required Content

In the first question of your TV Comedy exam, you need to demonstrate a very good understanding of why the two TV Comedy programmes you are focusing on are on at a particular time, on a particular channel and on a particular day.

Consider the following:

·       Scheduling strategies used to get the target audience to watch the programme.

·       Why is the programme broadcast on a certain day?

·       Has the programme got a mass or a niche audience? How does this influence the time the programme is on?

·       How long after the watershed is the programme on?

·       How do the programmes reflect the ethos of the channel they’re on?

·       Do the specific target audiences of the programmes dictate when they’re broadcast?

Using the Television listings from when the programmes were originally broadcast, and your knowledge of audience and institutions, you must work through the bullet points listed above for both TV Comedy programmes you have studied.

Tv Schedule for Car Share

TV Schedule for Car Share by Mrs Downie on Scribd