BY EMILY AND CHARLOTTE

MEDIA LANGUAGES/ CODES AND CONVENTIONS

EXPLANATIONS…

Codes and conventions: A way of constructing meaning in media texts to communicate ideas and impressions for an audience. Technical codes include camera angles, sound and lighting (how technology is used to create meaning). Symbolic codes include the language, dress and actions of characters (mise-en-scene).

Media languages: This is how the media communicates to the audience. There are different types of media languages which include written, verbal, non-verbal, visual and aural.

Written LanguageIn print-based media, also in text such as captions for photographs. The language chosen generates meaning. Captions allow the publication to present a story in a particular way.

Verbal LanguageIn media areas such as television, radio and film. How the language is delivered and its context used are important factors in the way meaning is generated for the audience.

Non – Verbal LanguageThis is in terms of body language: gestures and actions. The meaning received by the audience is seen through how the actor uses their body.

Visual LanguageTelevision and film. What is on the screen has been chosen specifically to generate a series of effects and meanings (semiotics). Specific camera angles and movement are chosen to tell the story and meaning of that scene.

Aural LanguageDiegetic/non-diegetic sound. Sound can help create a scene and construct the environment, atmosphere and mood. The aural language of a media text can also help us to define the genre of a piece.

SemioticsThe study of signs and symbols, discusses the literal and potential meanings. There are two identified orders of signification, denotation and connotation.

DenotationThe literal or obvious meaning – description of what is physically seen or heard.

ConnotationThe potential or suggested meaning – for example a cross (Christianity/maths/crucifix).

THEORISTS

Roland Barthes: Semiotics• It’s the study of signs, or of the social production of meaning by

sign systems, of how things come to have significance by meaning.

• Barthes was a French linguist who pioneered semiotic analyses of cultural and media forms.

• First, a sign has physical form (words either in a form of marks on paper or sounds in the air; a fingerprint or photo). This is called the signifier. A sign must be understood as referring to something other than itself.

• This is called the signified and is a concept. For example the word ‘ROSE’ refers to the concept of a certain kind of flower. Barthes would call it ‘ROSENESS’ to emphasize the distinction between this concept, the signified, and the referent.

• Signs are only fully understood by reference to their relationship to, or difference from, other signs in their particular language system.

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Structuralism is a set of early 20th century ideas and positions which emphasized that meanings, whether linguistic or anthropological can only be understood within social or psychological. Claude Levi-Strauss emphasized the importance of structuring oppositions in myth systems and in and in language.

QUOTES

“Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive.” (ROLAND BARTHES)“Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing.” (CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS)

MUSIC VIDEO

The Powder Paint fightWe thought that the powder paint fight was symbolic of the two groups coming together. The lyrics didn’t match the visuals but we liked the idea that the two groups then came together after the fight as the lyrics go ‘sing along with the common people’.

Supermarket‘I took her to the supermarket’ – in this one we had matching lyrics and visuals as there was someone pushing someone in a trolley who was lip synching.