introducing as media presentation
TRANSCRIPT
What is a Medium?
It’s anything that gets between the “message” being sent and the “message” being received.
So it could be a pen!
in other words...
• The media is how messages are transmitted.
• The “message” could be anything, including news, facts about the world (documentary), drama, comedy, music, opinion: anything you can access through the media.
Texts
In media studies, to save the confusion of
talking about messages and
messengers, we talk about texts.
A media text could be...
• A book
• A newspaper (or article)
• A magazine (or article, picture etc.)
• An advert
• A Film or trailer
• TV programme
• A recording
• A poster
• A web site or page
• A graphic novel
• A pop promo/video
• A documentary
• A YouTube video...
Packages
• Media texts come in individual packages (newspaper stories, TV or radio programmes, films, magazine spreads, web sites etc.)
• To create these packages, producers encode them using the conventions of that media platform
• The package is then decoded by the consumer (the audience)
• (We’ll discuss this business of encoding and decoding more later.)
Simple Example
Message(encoding)
Recipient(decoding)
Medium(+noise)
What is the medium doing to the message?
Mixed Messages
• The media are often accused of dumbing down the message.
• They’re often accused of bias
• The media can be very selective of the facts they tell us
• The media can distort the truth or simply get things wrong
Mediated experience
• Something that happens to you is a direct experience.
• But most of your knowledge about the world is indirect.
• You learn about the world through media texts: mediated experience
Key Concepts
• In Media Studies, we look at all these texts with a particular focus on key concepts.
• The key concepts are:
• Media Language
• Audience
• Institutions
• Representation
Media Language
• What we mean by “media language” are the forms and conventions used in media texts to encode and convey meanings.
• In a film, for example, the “media language” being used might include the way the camera moves, or the way music or lighting is used
• Both genre and narrative are important aspects of media language
Audience
• Who are the audience?
• Who is the spectator?
• What does the audience get out of using the media?
• How is the audience affected by the media language being used?
• How is the audience targeted?
Institutions
• Who makes media texts – and why?
• Who owns and runs the media – and why?
• Who controls and regulates the media – and why ?
• Do they do a good job?
Representation
• Does the media reflect or distort reality?
• Does it give a positive or negative view of individuals and groups?
• In other words, is it biased, racist, sexist – offensive?
• What are the effects on the audience of media portrayals of certain issues?
• What are the possible effects of being exposed to these representations for a lifetime?
• What do these representations tell us about the values and ideology of our society?