Media Studies

• Anchorage


  Producers will try to direct the audience's interpretation towards a preferred reading of a media text
• Style


  Visual, technical or linguistic features that make a text look, read or sound a certain way
• Styles in filmmaking


  • Realistic
  • (Un)conventional
  • Traditional
  • Modern
  • Dark
  • Flamboyant/lavish
  • Minimalistic
  • Fly on the wall
  • Poetic Realism
• Narrative Structures


  The overarching shape and ordering of the text
• Narrative Conventions


  The traditional/standard way of formatting narratives in particular types of media text
• Stereotypes


  Media Institutions use stereotypes because the audience will instantly understand them
• Archetypes


  The 'ultimate' stereotype
• Countertype


  A representation that challenges tradition stereotypical associations
• Target Audience


  The group of people for whom the text was made
• Preferred Readings


  The meanings the text producers want the audience to accept
• Differential Decoding


  Where the audience interprets the text differently to what the producer intended
• Internal Factors


  Relate to the process of creating the text, e.g. technology, time, resources, budgets, cast and crew
• External Factors


  Relate to the context in which the text is produced, e.g. location, legal/voluntary controls, health and safety, school/college rules
• Society


  The time, place - the facts, ideas, history, events, politics, economics, technology or any other factors relevant to the society in which particular examples of media content are made, consumed or set
• Media texts are influenced by the society in which or for whom they have been made
• Many media texts set out to influence the society for which they have been made