THEORY - Media Language

MEDIA LANGUAGE

For moving image, the language of film and television is defined by how camera. editing , sound and mise-en scene create meaning. Likewise an analyisis of print work would involve looking at how fonts,  layouts, combinations of text and images as well as the actual words chosen creates meaning. 

These links will help - Roland Barthes - David Bordwell

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INTRODUCING THE KEY CONCEPTS OF MEDIA STUDIES

Throughout the course, you will need to refer to the Key Concepts and use the terms you learn when analysing media texts. The mnemonic "RAILING" is used.

• Representations
• A udiences
• I nsitiutions
• L anguage 
• Ideology
• Narrative 
• Genre

WHAT IS A MEDIA TEXT? 

A media text is a used to describe any media product such as television programmes, photographs, adverts, newspapers etc. A key aspect of understanding keys is the use of codes.

CODES - RULES OR CONVENTIONS BY WHICH SIGNS ARE PUT TOGETHER TO CREATE MEANING

EXAMPLE - Explain what is happening in the picture. 

FACIAL EXPRESSION - Eyebrows are important here - fully raised eyebrows often indicate disbelief whereas lowered eyebrows communicate anger.

GAZE - The focus on a person's look. When 2 people's gaze meet , this eye contact and particularly meaningful. What does the gaze of men in the picture say about them?

GESTURES - Try to talk to somebody without moving your hands. Look at other people when they talk and see how their hands move.

BODILY POSTURE - Clearly a slovenly stance communicates something different to an upright one.

BODILY CONTACT - This is restricted in Western culture as it convey intimacy unless it's in a professional context such as doctors shaking hands.

SPATIAL BEHAVIOUR - The distance between people gives you insight to their relationship.

CLOTHES AND APPEARANCE - Clothes make a statement about us. Even a hair cut tells you something about a person. What kind of haircut will a hippy have, for example? or a fascist? 
NON-BERBAL ASPECTS OF SPEECH - examples are tone of voice or grunting a response.

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MEDIA LANGUAGE - IMAGE ANALYSIS

When analysing images, it is common to distingusih between their form (how the image was created) and their context (what is in the image). A key element in terms in framing of the image. 

FRAMING - still images 

Framing defines the position from which the image was created (border between the space we are allowed to see and what is out of our sight. All frames have a shape - A4 paper and can be varied: 

ANGLE - The angle refers to the camera's angle in relation to the vertical. The most common is the "straight on" position. Other common angles are low angle (indicates power) and high angle (suggests subservience).

HEIGHT - This is the height the shot is taken at - usually eye-level (2m)

LEVEL - Refers to the camera's horizontal angle. Usually it is "straight on" but the camera can also be titled on it's side to the left or right to change the level.

DISTANCE - There are 6 categories to this: 

1. Extreme long shot (landscape)
2. Long shot (group of people)
3. Medium shot (one or two people)
4. Medium close-up (part of a body)
5. Close-up (face)
6. Extreme close up (part of face)

DEPTH OF FIELD - Refers to the distance between the nearest and furthers area from the camera in focus. Deep focus photography will have the whole scene in focus whereas conventional photograph will focus on the main object with the background out of focus. Soft focus can be created by using special lenses and layers. 

LENS TYPE - Wide-angle lenses make the scene appear deeper than it is; extreme wide angle will give a "fish eye" effect and a telelphoto lens pulls objects closer together and when the shot is cut you can see the true distance between them. 

FILM STOCK - Refers to the speed at which the film responds to light. A fast stock will produce grainy images while a slow stock will require lots of light. Slow stock is the norm in cinema while most television companies will use video Digitbeta tapes. 

FRAMING - moving images

There are 6 types of moving images...

1. PAN - the camera moves horizontally from a static position
2. TRACKING/DOLLY - the camera moves on tracks to give a smooth movement
3. TILT - the camera moves up and down vertically from a static position
4. CRANE - the camera is moved on a device that can move up and down and laterally (ultimate shot is helicopter shot
5. HANDHELD - gives the frame a shaky view (used for point-of-view)
6. ZOOM - not really movement , but the change of focal length brings us closer or further away from the object in the frame. 

CONTENT - MISE-EN-SCENE

Mise-en-scene literally means put into the scene ad refers to anything that goes into a shot, including sets, props, actors, customes. camera movement and perfermances. It is seen as the principal vechile by which film's meaning is conveyed.  

There are 3 main components -  

1. the subject
2. the lighting
3. the setting

1 - THE SUBJECT 

There may be one or more subject in an image and we bring our cultural knowledge to bear when looking at subjects. 

2 - THE LIGHTING 

This refers to how the image is lit. Where is the light coming from? (infront, behind) 

Is the lighting of equal intensity? (unlikely)

Where is the lighting coming from?

Three-point lighting is the most common set up and is made up of Key, Fill and Backlight. 

• Key light is the main source of illumiation and is directed on the subject, usually 45 degrees above and to one side of the camera. It is hard to direct light which produces sharply defined shadows. 
• Fill light is the soft or indirect light that 'fills' in the shadows formed by key light. 
• Backlight shines from behind the subject, usually to differentiate from the background. 

3 - THE SETTING 

The setting of a media text is designed to enhance the story. For example - tropical, western, hospital etc. 

CONNOTATION 

The meaning of a sign which is arrived at through the cultural experiences a reader brings to it.  Connotations often rest on the individual 'readers' response to a media text. 

ANCHORING (ANCHORAGE) 

Fixing or limiting a particular set of meanings. One of the most common forms of anchorage is the caption underneath a photograph. 

CROPPING - The advent of digital photography means many people at home now  have experience of cropping pictures on their home computers. Choosing a focus on one particular aspect of a picture so by definition missing something out, will clearly have implications.
JUXTAPOSITION - means "being placed side by side". By placing information, written or otherwise, near an image is likely to influence your reading of that image. for example, an image of a craggy, handsome man juxtaposed with a mansion on the cover of a novel would suggest it was a romantic story. The same man, juxtaposed with a gun and the mansion would suggest murder mystery. Collage takes juxtaposition to extremes by placing numerous, usually unrelated images together in a frame.

GENRE -Provides the audience with a clear set of expectations which are used to interpret the text. For example, if we read a horror text, we'd be surprised if it didnt include elements such as big, creepy house, thunder and lightening etc. ICONOGRAPHY is the objects we recognised as belonging to a particular genre.

SEMIOTICS

One of the key theory tools to help us deconstruct media texts is semiology (semiotics). This is an attempt to create a science of the study of sign systems and their role in the construction and reconstruction of meaning in media texts. It is helpful for analysing images however can be problematic as some terminology can be difficult to understand. There are 3 significant figures who applied abstract ideas to daily life and culture... 

1. Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)
2. Charles Pierce (1839-1914)
3. Roland Barthes (1913 - 1980)

Semiotics are the study of signs. Saussure said that a sign is the sum of the signifier and signfied. 

SIGN = SIGNIFIER + SIGNIFIED

The signifier is the physical form in the real world while signified is the mental concept evoked by the signifier. The denotation of an image is what is actually is, rather than what meaning we give it. The colour red - danger? love? murder? death?

The relationship between the signifier and the signified is usually determined by chance and universally agreed upon. The fact that all the signs are arbitrary means that they can have many meanings - polysemic. 

Our understanding of signs rarely stops at the level of denotation. Once we see a sign, we have particular associations with it which colour our understanding. For example, arachnophobes would have negative feelings about the sign "spider" where as a tarantula owner would have the opposite feelings. These connotations mean that the original sign has become another signifier which evokes an associated mental concept to create another sign which consists of "sign + associations". 

LANGUE AND PAROLE

LANGUE - RULES OF SIGN SYSTEMS (grammar)

PAROLE - ARTICULATION OF THE SIGNS (writing)

Langue is the supporting structure of any communication, often implicitly understood but hidden beneath the surface. Parole is the performance of rules, referred to by Noam Chomsky as "what speaker does". To use the writing analogy above, langue is the grammar of English (rules of punctuation) and parole the piece of writing produced by a person who implicitly understands the langue. It is helpful to see langue and parole as an iceberg.

There are certain "codes" associated with Hollywood films - continuous editing, use of diegetic ad non-diegetic sounds etc. These codes act out the equivalent of the langue while the way these codes are actually used in a specific film is equivalent to parole.

SYNCHRONY AND DIACHRONY

Sassure demonstrated another way of structuring meaning; considering the vertical and horizontal dimensions of sign systems - sychrony and diachrony.