1. G235: Critical
Perspectives in
Media
Theoretical
Evaluation of
Production

2. Aims/Objectives
• To reinforce the basic media language
that create meaning in texts.
• To have a basic understanding of how
to evaluate your coursework against
the media language that you used.

3. • Media Language
• • identify the elements or „signs‟ within the production that
• are going to be discussed.
• • what connotations and significations are apparent?
• • what codes and conventions have been used?
• • what semiotic techniques have been used to generate
• meaning?
• • identify and describe the meanings generated.

4. Importance of media language
• Every medium has its own ‘language’ –
or combination of languages – that it
uses to communicate meaning.
Television, for example, uses verbal and
written language as well as the
languages of moving images and sound.
• We call these ‘languages’ because
they use familiar codes and
conventions that are generally
understood.

5. • A Media Text = the sum of its many parts.
• These parts include every element within it ......
• Camera angles, sound, font choice, lighting, body
language, colours etc. etc.
• This is Media Language
• Media Language also known as Codes, or Form
can be split into ....
• Technical
• Symbolic
• Written

6. • Semiotics Semiotics is the study of the
language of signs. It deals with the
meanings we attach to signs. Signs consist
of a Signifier (the thing or sign itself) and
the Signified (the meaning we attach to
the sign) Other important terms
include.... Denotation = the literal
meaning of a thing or a sign Connotation
= the second level of meaning agreed by
the community but not an inherent
quality in the thing itself.

7. Syntagm & Paradigm

8. • Conventions
• Where signs, codes & syntagm are repeated
over time, they become Conventions -
expected patterns in texts.
• Like rain on a British summer holiday,
Conventions equal the „typical‟ form.

9. The medium is the message
• McLuhan tells us that a "message" is, "the change of scale or pace or
pattern" that the brings. It is not the content of a text , but the change
that it brings with it. For example, the message of theatrical production is
not the musical or the play being produced, but perhaps the change in
Tourism that the production may encourage. In the case of a specific
theatrical production, its message may be a change in attitude or action on
the part of the audience that results from the medium of the play itself.
Similarly, the message of a news broadcast is not the news stories
themselves, but a change in the public attitude towards crime, or the creation
of a climate of fear.
• A McLuhan message always tells us to look beyond the obvious and seek
the non-obvious changes or effects that are enabled, enhanced, accelerated
or extended by the new thing.
• Mcluhan‟s work was groundbreaking because it forces us to consider media
texts in a radical new way

10. • Media texts have to appear to be real in
order for the audience to accept them –
even a fictional dramatic 19th Century
period piece needs to suggest reality
through high production values, by not
having an actor taking a call on their
mobile during the shoot.
• Where reality issues are also important is
in News, Documentary, Confessional talk
shows and of course Reality TV.

11. Post-Modernism

12. Denotation, Connotation and
Myth
• In semiotics, denotation and
connotation are terms describing the
relationship between the signifier and
its signified.

13. • Barthes (1977) argued that in film
connotation can be (analytically)
distinguished from denotation.
• As John Fiske (1982) puts it
“denotation is what is filmed,
connotation is how it is filmed”.

14. Making connections?
• Evaluating media language is an
evaluation of all micro elements and how
they have created meaning to inform us
about genre, narrative, representations/
ideology, targeting of audiences.
• This requires us to use semiotic
terminology to explain our encoding of
elements and codes and conventions
within our texts.
• We must also remember to discuss the
preferred meaning (Hall, 1980) that we
wanted our audience to DECODE.

15. Micro Elements: Mise-en-Scene
• Mise-en-scène constitutes the key
aspect of the pre-production phase of
the film and can be taken to include all
aspects of production design and
Cinematography.
• Mise-en-Scene creates the diegetic
world - the fictional space and time
implied by the narrative, i.e. the world in
which the story takes place.

16. Aspects of Mise-en-Scene –
video and print style
1. Location - settings, set-design and
iconography
2. Character – Costume, Properties
and Make Up, Actors and Gesture
3. Cinematography - Lighting and
Colour
4. Layout and Page Design – colour,
juxtaposition of elements.

17. Micro Elements: Camerawork
• There are Four aspects to camerawork
that you need to understand:
1.Shot Types – particularly relevant for
print.
2.Camera Composition
3.Camera Movement
4.Camera Angles

18. Continuity
• Establishing/Re-establishing Shot
• Transitions.
• The 180° Line Rule.
• Action Match.
• Crosscutting.
• Cutaway.
• Insert Shots.
• Shot-Reverse Shot Structures.
• Eyeline Match.

19. Non-Continuity
1. Montage Sequence.
2. Flash Back/Forward.
3. Ellipsis.
4. Graphic Match.

20. “Media is communication”. Discuss the
ways that you have used media language
to create meanings in one of your media
products.
Think of this question as the first
part of your revision...

21. • 3. Media Language
• A Media Text = the sum of its many
parts.
• These parts include every element within it
......
• Camera angles, sound, font choice, lighting,
body language, colours etc. etc.
• This is Media Language

22. • If „language‟ is defined as how we communicate, then it can be interpreted in
many levels when it comes to the medium of film. We know that each
language consists of learnt “words, phrases, grammar, punctuation, rules and
common practices” (Wohl, Michael; The Language of Film 2008). Therefore
we could transfer this understanding to the micro elements of film, camera,
sound, mise-en-scene, editing etc, and/or go to a deeper level of analysis with
a detailed look at choices of shot sizes, match-on-action, rules of continuity,
framing and how they are pieced/edited together to create a sentence and
therefore a language of communication.
Unlike the other concepts in this part of the exam, we are not so much looking
at what we are communicating but how we are communicating it.
All of the decisions you made in your short films about which shots, angles,
costume, set design, location, lighting, character movement, etc, play a part in
this discussion.
Arguably the language of film can‟t be discussed separately from genre,
narrative, representation and audience as your knowledge of each of these
influences the decisions you made throughout production.
MEDIA LANGUAGE
Objective: Explore concepts in order to prepare for Key Concepts Exam
Useful links
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/language_of_film.html
http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/alevel.php?pageID=filmla
ng

23. • Theorist
• Theory – what to write about
• Blumler & Katz / Richard Dyer
• Uses & Gratifications theory / Utopian Solutions – explaining how your use of MEDIA LANGUAGE offers these to
an audience
• Vladimir Propp
• Propp‟s Character theory – how your MEDIA LANGUAGE helps audiences identify particular characters as heros /
villains etc
•
• Stuart Hall
• Explain that your decision to use the MEDIA LANGUAGE you chose was to create a “preferred reading” for your
text. But that audiences are used to Encoding and Decoding tests AND could take a negotiated or oppositional
reading
• Rick Altman
• – Explain how you used MEDIA LANGUAGE to include Semantic Elements (eg signs such as knives, blood, dark
colours, eerie music) or to signify Syntactic elements (eg themes like love, revenge).

25. • Media Language
• This is all about the specific medium and how the
language of the medium has been used to create
meaning for the audience. The meanings generally are a
synoptic round up of other options covered (genre,
narrative/stories, representations).
• As part of this it is important to include terminology
about how signs work in the media.
• Essentially, however, this is one where a generic
approach is more difficult and the language of the
medium needs careful revision to encourage students to
textually analyse their own essay against medium
specific theory (e.g. Goodwin and music videos).
Q1b) Breakdown of the Options?

26. Technical terms check list:
• Performance clips and band shots
• Fast-pace of editing
• Mainly straight cuts
• Bright lighting
• High angle/low angle
• Bright colours against black and white background
• Panning
• Editing to reflect pace of music
• Special lighting effects
• High lighting
• Equal division of shots upon band members
• Whole band shots
• No real sound effects
• Colour effects – often monochrome
• Dubbed sound
• Zooming out
• Shadows
• Mise-en-scène reflects atmosphere
Textual Analysis of Pop Music Video

27. Representations
• Short skirts
• Legs and low cut tops
• Voyeurism
• Glamour – lifestyle
• Seductive poses from female artists
• Urban locations
• Dancing
• Crowd shots
• Playing out „pop star‟ lifestyle within video
• Fairly straight forward narrative
• Group singing whilst chaos takes place around
• Anti-establishment activity
• Destroyed environments
• Mean and moody men
• Deserted locations
• Singing whilst acting
• Trying to portray a certain image
• Self-appreciation
Textual Analysis of Pop Music Video

28. • technical codes: e.g. MS/MLS newsreader to connote objectivity, 3/4 shots
• of interviewees to connote subjectivity, high-key lighting more objective;
• edits e.g. cut, wipe, dissolve; use of continuity editing e.g. establishing shot,
• shot/reverse shot in interview by presenter
• • cultural codes: e.g. suit, voice, RP to suggest authority; minimal body
• movement and expression to suggest objectivity; clock; computers to
• connote up-to-date, hi-tech; colour codes; sans serif font connotes up-todate;
• connotations of words, active voice
• • anchorage: use of music to create sense of drama/urgency; use of
• voiceover to explain actuality footage
• • mode of address: ‘objective’ newsreader & reporters use direct address;
• other „subjective‟ views indirectly addressed to reporter; different modes of
• address for mass audience or to more educated social class ABC1s

29. Media Language - Basic Music Video stuff
Tempo of music drives the editing.
Genre might be reflected in types of mise-en-scene, themes, performance,
camera and editing styles.
Camerawork impacts meaning. Movement, angle and shot distance all
play a part in the representation of the artist/band (close-ups dominate).
Editing is done in fast cuts, rendering many of the images impossible to
grasp on first viewing, so ensuring multiple viewing (repeatability).
Digital effects often enhance editing, which manipulates the the original
images to offer different kinds of pleasure for the audience.

30. Media Language
Slightly more advanced – Andrew Goodwin
Illustrate: Images used to represent the meanings of
the lyrics and genre (this is the most common feature
of a music video) this is very often literal.
Disjuncture: When the meaning of the song is
completely ignored
Amplify: Meanings and effects are manipulated and
constantly shown throughout the video and shown to
the audience (basically repetition).
You MUST link these elements to the basic technical
elements.

31. 1(b) Media Language
• Production Terminology - effect of
technical choices
– Print Media
– Moving Image
• Use of genre conventions
• Use of narrative structures/codes
• Encoding of meaning