Codes and Conventions

• Language - pertains to the technical and symbolic ingredients or codes and conventions that media and information professionals may select and use in an effort to communicate ideas, information and knowledge.
• Media Languages - codes, conventions, formats, symbols and narrative structures that indicate the meaning of media messages to an audience.
• Genre - comes from the French word meaning 'type' or 'class‘. Can be recognized by its common set of distinguishing features
• Codes - systems of signs, which creating
• Technical Codes - are all the ways in which equipment is used to tell a story in a media text like camera techniques, framing, lighting, etc.
• Camerawork - How the camera is operated, positioned, and moved to achieve certain effects is also important in analyzing media.
• Extreme Wide Shot - when the view is so far from the subject that he/ she isn’t necessarily the focus anymore, but rather the surrounding area is.
• Wide Shot - used as an establishing shot in a film, as it normally sets the scene and the character’s place within it.
• Medium Shot - indicates that it was captured at a medium distance from the subject. It is often used for back and forth dialogue within a scene as it allows the viewer to have a solid view of each character within a film.
• Medium Close-up - when a filmmaker places their camera so that an actor is framed from right above their head down to about midway on their torso.
• Close-up - This shot is tightly framed and takes up most of the screen, as it is usually used to frame a character’s face in order for the audience to see what type of emotion is being conveyed.
• Extreme Close-up - when the surface area of the frame is filled by a subject’s face. In other words, the subject is tightly framed, or shown in a relatively large scale, causing their face to be cropped within the frame.
• Symbolic Codes - are social in nature. Such codes exist beyond the media product themselves but can be interpreted in similar ways in the everyday life of the viewer.
• Setting - the time and place of the narrative, the setting describes where the story or a specific scene took place
• Mise en Scene - is a French term that means 'everything within the frame'
• Acting - actors portray a variety of characters that contribute to character development, creating tension or interpreting the narrative
• Color - has cultural connotations
• Technical Codes - The kind of codes that are specific to a media form and do not live as a separate entity.
• Editing - It is the process of choosing, manipulating, and arranging images and sound
• Audio - is the expressive or naturalistic use of sound. It includes dialogue, sound effects and music.
• Lighting - manipulating light, either natural or artificial, to selectively highlight specific elements of certain scenes
• Written Codes - A type of code that is written usually includes formal written language used in the media.
• Conventions - To use media codes in some sort of a norm where it is accepted by everybody, there has to be this. These are closely connected to what the audience expects from the media.
• Form Conventions - are the distinct ways that audiences expect codes to be arranged in media.
• Story Conventions - are common narrative structures and expectations from the media.
• Genre Conventions - include the common use of tropes, characters, settings or themes in a certain media. These are closely linked with how the audience expects from the media product.
• Caduceus - signifies trade and negotiation. Mistakenly considered as medical symbol
• Peace Sign - to encourage British nuclear disarmament
• Swastika - has auspicious meanings in some other cultures
• Trinity Knots - signifies holy trinity. Represents three promises: to love, honor, and protect
• Denotative - literal meaning of the text
• Connotative - various representations that the text suggests to the audience
• Expectations - anticipation of the audience
• Engagement - reaction of the audience
• Foreknowledge - exact information (not interpretations) which the audience brings about the media output
• Identification - connection built by the media text to audience
• Placement - strategies producers use to make the audience feel that the media text is made specifically for them
• Research - monitoring of the audience before, during, and after the production.