Semiotics - The study of sign and symbols
There is a sign, an object that is called the signifier
The meaning that is given to that is called the signified. This is nor fixed and can change with time or the society or culture that it is shown to.
Denotation is what you see and connotation is the meaning that you give when you see it.

Codes and Conventions
There is so much that happens at a conscious level, or even unconscious level that you are already aware of in your work , such as genre conventions , narrative conventions, codes about camera angles and lighting etc.

It is not just about what you are going through those and saying how you used them, what you denoted (the signifier) to create meaning, the connotation that you hope your audience will attribute to them.

Theorists

Fiske (1982) - "denotation is filmed, connotation is how its filmed"

Saussure (1983) - "Audience can look at a media text fro a syntactic point of view, just describing what they see, or from a representational or symbolic point of view where the attribute meaning to what they see"

Barthes (1967)  - An audience's understanding of media texts comes from their understanding and knowledge of frequently told myths or stories. He argues that the organisation of signs encodes particular messages and ideologies

Chandler (2005) - Says that semiotics is important because it helps us not to take 'reality' for granted as something that can exist without human interpretation.

Stuart Hall - Argued that meaning is not fixed by the producer, and the audience is not passive, gave us different readings, the preferred reading is where the audience reads it the way you wanted them to.


Answer Plan

So the media language you use is trying to construct a meaning that you wish the audience to read, and if you are talking about this years work, the language should be consistent across all three products so there to be a sense of branding and one campaign.

So using the four micro elements, mise en scene, camerawork, editing and sound, pick three examples for each where this helps you create meaning and construct the whole representation thing.

You can also talk about the micro elements, genre, narrative, representation, and use them as a source of theorists, as they all are relevant.

Typing - used in media (often films) to allow the audience to quickly familiarise with the character.

• Archetype - familiar character who has emerged from hundreds of years of fairytales and storytelling
• Stereotype - Ways of grouping people based on limited characteristics
• Generic type - a character familiar through use in a particular genre

Effects Theory 

The Hypodermic Needle Model - Suggests that people just take in media passively (believing everything)

Two-Step Flow Theory - Being influenced by opinion leaders

Uses & Gratifications Theory - Audience are active individuals rather than passive ones. They will select what they watch, will consume in different ways and believe different things.

• Blumler and Katz                                                                                                              Diversion - Escape from everyday problems and routine                                                      Personal Relationships - Using the media for emotional and other interaction, e.g substituting soap operas for family life                                                                                                    Personal Identity - Finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviours and values from texts Surveillance - Information from which could be useful for living e.g news.

Reception Theory - Based on Stuart Halls encoding/decoding theory

the text is encoded by the producer and decoded by the reader. There may be a differences between two readings of a text based on different audiences

Narrative Theory:

Meaning : Roland Barthes - texts may be open (unravelled in a lot of different ways) or 'closed' (there is only one obvious thread to pull on). The threads that you pull on try to unravel meaning and are called narrative codes. (enigma code)

Structure: Toderov - Equilibrium, Disequilibrium, New equilibrium 

Character: Vladimir Propp - Produced a typography of characters and their actions (31 character types in total)

Conflict and Resolution: Claude Levi-Strauss - recognised the constant creation of conflict/opposition propels narrative. Narrative can only end on a resolution of conflict. (Binary Oppositions)

Representation of Youth

London Riots 2011 

Stan Cohen (1972)

• Moral Panics - Leads from deviant behaviour
• Deviance Amplification - A cycle of increasing numbers of reports on a category of undesirable behaviour, leading to a moral panic. Police/Politician involvement etc.
• Folk Devils - groups of people who can be seen as a threat to society

Gerbner - Cultivation Theory. People who watch a lot of TV over estimate the amount of crime in the real world (Mean World Syndrome). One text has little effect whilst when the media show the same thing again and again it has a large effect.

David Gauntlett - "Identities are not 'given' but constructed and negotiated."

David Buckingham - "A focus on identity requires us to pay close attention to the diverse ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life, and their consequences for both individuals and for social groups."

Gramsci - Marxist - Society (and the media) is run by an elite who just want to make sure they keep their position. (hegemony - the political predominance of the running of a state)

If young people feel they are being misrepresented and feel that they don't have a voice then they can feel disengaged in society. Social media can give them that voice. Steve Anderson (creative director of debate show 'Free Speech': "Younger people are becoming a lot more empowered because of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogging"

Quadrophenia 1979

Both the mods and rockers are represented stereotypically of youth; being portrayed as having a strong interest in females, being involved in violence, drink and drugs and there is a strong sense of them belonging to a cultural subgroup.                                                                                                                                 Males are the dominant gender and women are frequently objectified

This Is England (2006) Representation

Heavily contextualised (particularly the introduction) through the use of montage/real life events, attempting to blur the lines between reality and fiction, making the viewer feel that this is an accurate reflection of the time period.

Woody's gang mostly challenge the stereotypes of the skinhead culture. They do this by acting inclusive towards people around them and are much more accepting of society, however, they take great care of what they look like, in true skinhead fashion. In contrast, Combo's skinhead gang are much more far right-wing in their political beliefs, believing that immigrants are to blame for the problems associated with England. They are very patriotic and have the strong belief that the Falklands War was one that was fought without reason. Their political views may be considered a more naive approach, as they have less consideration for other influences. Combo clearly is mentally unstable due to his sharp change of mood during his attack on Milky.

Collective Identity Terms/Theories

Collective Identity - Collective identity refers to a person's sense of belonging to a group. The identity of the group, or the 'collective,' becomes a part of the person's individual identity. The idea here is that by participating in social activities, a person can develop a sense of belonging and an identity that goes beyond the person.

Henry Jenkins - Audiences are becoming participatorial rather than spectatorial largely due to the availability of technology and society.

Laura Mulvey - Male Gaze Theory - Audiences are positioned to view characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male, such as through the extensive use of focussing particularly on the curvature of the female body. - Leads to the objectification of women. Women viewers are made to view the product SECONDARILY, from the point of view of a male. 

•    Objectification - To view something as an object rather than a being
•    Jonathon Schroader (1998) - "To gaze implies more than just to look at. It signifies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object of gaze"

Baudrillard - The media presents a simulation of the world that is artificial and 'hyperreal'

                    - Some audiences consider this hyperreality to be reality - leading to hypersexuality etc

                    - The representation of media is mediated through the media (War reporting e.g)

Mediation - The ways that the media represent and reconstruct reality, sometimes creating an idea that is not truly representative of the real subject.

                 - Selection vs Rejection, Focussing, Organisation 
                 - Link to Post Modernism/Global Village?

Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team etc.) which people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem. Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world.

Genre

GENRE THEORY


Steve Neale

It is easy to underplay the differences within a genre. Steve Neale declares that:

• "Genres are instances of repetition and difference" (Neale 1980, 48)
• "Difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre" (Neale 1980)

Toderov

"Any instances of genre will be necessarily different" (Toderov - cited in Gledhell, 1985, 60)

Lacey

There are a repertoire of elements that work together to suggest genre, which are a useful framework to use for analysis

Setting
Character
Narrative
Iconography
Style

Gledhill

"There are no rules of inclusion and exclusion" (Gledhill, 1985)
"Genres are not discrete systems consisting of a fixed number of listable items (Gledhill, 1985)

Chandler

It is difficult to make clear cut distinctions between one genre and another: genres overlap, and there are 'mixed genres' such as comedy thrillers (Chandler 2000)

Burton

Each text in a given genre shares particular key elements to make up the generic formula:
Protagonists
Stock characters
Plots/Stock Situations
Icons
Background and Décor
Themes

Katie Wales - Genre is an intertextual concept

David Buckingham - "Genre is not simply given by the culture, rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change"

Nicholas Abercrombie - "Producers set out to exploit genre conventions. It makes sound economic sense. Sets, properties and costumes can be used over and over again. Teams of starts, writers, directors and technicians can be built up, giving economies of scale.

Gunther Kress - Genre is "a kind of text that derives its form from the structure of a (frequently repeated) social occasion, with its characteristic participants and their purposes"

Christian Metz - Stages of genres: Experimental - conventions being established etc. /Classic - genre established but experiments with different scenes and scenarios/Parody - comedic effect watering down the expectations of the film/Deconstruction - hybrids


Apply the concept of genre to your media product

The product that i will be applying the concept of genre to will be a short film opening that i created in my first year of media studies. This piece was titled 'Captive' and was based around a disorientated and confused young male protagonist, who wakes up tied down to a chair in an abandoned setting, before realising that he is being watched by a higher entity. The genre of this was horror.

In many ways, this product conformed to Steve Neale's genre theory, where he suggested that "genres are instances of repetition and difference". In my product, I ensured to adhere to many conventions that would regularly be associated with the horror genre, in order to for it to be recognised by the target audience. For example, we used the a variety of atmospheric diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, using a suspenseful and minor soundtrack throughout. In addition, we conformed to many other elements such as the use of props, where a chair, rope and blood was used in the scene. However, we also conformed to the latter part of Neale'es theory by challenging certain conventions, also adhering to another of his theories "difference is absolutely essential to the economy of a genre". Doing this allowed us to use our creativity, and therefore ensure that our product was set apart from existing products, in order to engage the audience. Ways that we done this was by opposing Toderov's theory of equilibrium, by starting with a scene of extreme disequilibrium rather than equilibrium. In addition to this, we also used a young female antagonist character. Although this is becoming more popular in the modern day, traditionally doing this would be uncommon.

DNF