Media

• Media refers to channels or ways to communicate with the audience
• Language pertains to the technical and symbolic ingredients that media and information professionals may select and use to communicate ideas, information, and knowledge to the audience
• Media language includes codes, conventions, formats, symbols, and narrative structure that indicate the media messages to an audience
• Media codes are technical, written, and symbolic tools used to construct or suggest meaning in media forms and products
• Media codes include the use of camera, acting, setting, mise en scene, editing, lighting, sound, special effects, typography, color, visual composition, text, and graphics
• Conventions are accepted ways of using media codes and are closely connected to the audience expectations of a media product
• Symbolic codes in media are social in nature and are understood in similar ways in the 'real life' of the audience
• Examples of symbolic codes in media are setting, mise en scene, acting, and color
• Written codes are the formal written language used in a media product
• Written codes include printed language and spoken language
• Form conventions are the certain ways we expect types of media's codes to be arranged
• Story conventions are common narrative structures and understandings that are common in storytelling media products