Revision 1A

MEDIA LANGUAGE

-analyse and explain the combination of elements to create meaning using semiotics

-study a range of newspapers to become familiar with the generic conventions of print and online newspapers, looking at variations, change over time, hybridity, and challenging/subverting conventions

-compare a range of print and online newspapers in order to understand the relationship between media language and technology

-analyse and explain examples of intertextuality

-analyse and explain the way media language incorporates viewpoints and ideologies

-practice applying the idea of Barthes, Todorov, Levi-Strauss, Neale and Baudrillard for analysing newspapers

-analyse and explain media language in newspapers in terms of media contexts

MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS

-analyse and explain how selection and combination create representation of events, issues, individuals and social groups

-analyse and explain how news makes claims about realism and constructs versions of reality

-analyse and explain the impact of the media industry and social, cultural and historical contexts on how producers choose to represent events, issues, individuals and social groups

-analyse and explain positive and negative uses of stereotyping

-analyse and explain how social groups may be under-represented or misrepresented

-analyse and explain how representations, particularly those that systematically reinforce values, attitudes and beliefs about the world across many representations, invoke discourses and ideologies, and position audiences

-suggest how audience response and interpretation reflects social, cultural and historical circumstances

-apply the ideas of Hall, Gauntlett, Butler, Van Zoonen, hook sand Gilroy in analysing newspapers

MEDIA LANGUAGE AND REPRESENTATION GENERAL GLOSSARY

Realism	The set of conventions by which audiences accept a representation as real or realistic. There are different sets of rules for different genres and for different media forms, and there are many different forms of realism.
Stereotyping	A commonly repeated generalisation about a group, event or institution that carries judgements, either positive or negative, and assumes any example of this group, event or institution will fit the stereotype. This generalisation is inaccurate because it is an over-simplification, even if it is based in reality. It can refer to a representation that comprises a simple stereotyped characteristic rather than a complex and individualised set of characteristics.
Discourses	A system of shared knowledge embedded in social institutions, such as medicine, that exercise power over people.
Positioning audiences	How products try to put their audiences in particular positions. This might be emotional positioning (e.g. making them feel fear of sympathy), cognitive positioning (how they think about representations in the products), social positioning (e.g. as males or females) or cultural positioning (e.g. being positioned as British or American)
Semiotics	The study of signs.
Generic conventions	The shared understandings of what elements fit in which genres.
Genre hybridity	The stable mixing of different genres in one product.
Intertextuality	Media products that refer to other media products.
Ideologies	Sets of beliefs, values and assumptions shared by a social group and embedded in social, cultural, political and economic institutions. Usually thought to reflect the interests of powerful groups. Consumerism, freedom, equality and individualism are often considered dominant ideologies in free market capitalist societies as they reflect the economic basis of these societies.
Sign	Any unit of language that designates an object or phenomenon. It consists of a signifier and its meaning – the signified.
Denotation	The literal meaning of a sign.
Connotation	The associations of the denotation. Often expressed as nouns.
Shared code	The idea that genres are defined by codes and conventions that come into existence in the interrelationship between media products, their producers and their audiences.
Generic corpus	The body of media products in a genre. Each subtly adds to, and thus changes, the genre.
Patriarchy	The system and ideology of male power described by feminism. ‘Rule of the father’
Ethnocentrism	Belief that your own culture is natural and normal, and that other cultures are inferior and strange.
Consumerism	The ideology that we should judge ourselves and others on our material possessions, that our lifestyles should define our individual identities.
Individualism	The ideology that assumes people are essentially individuals. Taking exams is an example of competitive individualism.
Narrative disruption	The event(s) that disrupt an initial equilibrium and drive a narrative towards a resolution.
Binary opposition	This consists of two concepts that mean the opposite of each other.
Implosion	The collapse of traditional social distinctions in postmodern society.
Hyperrreality	A sense of reality constructed by media products that refer to other media products in a never-ending chain.
Narrative equilibrium	The state of stasis before the narrative disruption occurs.

NEWSPAPERS GLOSSARY

Mode of address	How a media product addresses its audience. This might be warm and inclusive, or formal and objective, for example, as in tabloid and broadsheet newspapers.
Serif and sans-serif fonts/typefaces	Serifs are small ornaments on fonts, sans-serif fonts do not have these so look cleaner and more modern. A typeface is a family of fonts. Arial is a common sans-serif typeface. Times New Roman is a common serif typeface.
Masthead	Often used to describe the title of a printed publication (though technically it is the title above the editorial)
Skyline	A line of text or boxes [sometimes called skyboxes] above the masthead promoting a newspaper.
Formal and informal language registers	A formal language register is used in formal situations to communicate information and may include complex sentences and an elaborate vocabulary. An informal language register is used to communicate the relationship between the participants and uses simple language including slang.
Myth	The organisation of meanings into commonly repeated forms that express ideology.
Anchorage	Use of language to ‘anchor’ the meaning of an image to suit the purposes of the producer.
Banner headlines	Large headlines that fit the width of the printed page
Copy/body copy	The written element of a newspaper or advertisement. Body copy is the main body of a newspaper article.
Middle-market tabloids	Generic hybrid newspapers that share conventions of both tabloid and broadsheet newspapers to target a middle-market audience.
Standfirst	A block of text that introduces a newspaper story under the headline, normally in a different style (often bold) to the body copy and headline.
News values	The values that govern which events are selected as news and which events are rejected.
Production, distribution and circulation	Production is the making of the product, distribution is getting the product to the retailer, and circulation is how the product is consumed.
Demographics	Measuring audiences in terms of social characteristics, such as age, gender, class, region, nation, race and ethnicity.
Cultural capital	Capital is wealth you can invest to make more money. Refers to aspects of culture such as education that help a person progress in society. Media literacy is a part of cultural capital in modern society.
Data mine	The use of audience data gathered by online media platforms in order to attract advertisers. A free service is provided to the audience in exchange for this data being offered to advertisers to micro-target audiences based on their demographics, their tastes, their likes or their searches.

MEDIA LANGUAGE

Barthe’s semiotics

-The sun’s ‘gotcha’ headline. Positions audience on the side of the attackers. Slang term connotes a heightened emotional involvement in the attack and triumphant identification with the British armed forces personnel. Activates ideologies of nationalism and militarism – patriotic pride.

-The Mail online logo. Heavy gothic font in masthead. Connotes tradition, craft, solidity, reliability, and other such virtues from its association with medieval calligraphy. The word ‘online’ uses a contrasting font. Elegant, sans-serif and stands tall. Connotes modernity, lightness and youth.

Print Conventions

Tabloid	Broadsheet
Softer news agenda	Harder news agenda
Less formal language register	More formal language register
Bold mastheads in sans-serif, often white on red	Traditional mastheads in serif fonts, often black on white
Headlines [often banner] in bold, capitalised sans-serif fonts	Headlines in serif fonts capitalised as in a sentence
Pages dominated by headlines and images	Pages dominated by copy
Addresses a more downmarket audience	Addresses a more upmarket audience
Offers news as entertainment	Offers news as information
e.g. the Sun, the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, the Daily Star, Daily Star Sunday	e.g. The Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent.

The Daily Mail and the Daily Express position themselves as mid-market. (Middle-market tabloids)

The i is an unusual hybrid as it was launched as the compact sister of the Independent, though now changed ownership. Offers a short, cheaper version of a quality newspaper.

Daily Mail: mix of hard and soft news, formal but opinionated, traditional serif masthead, capitalised banner headlines, front page dominated by headlines and images but some copy,  middle-market audience, both news and entertainment.

Online Conventions

Broadsheet	Hybrid features of broadsheet online	Tabloid	Hybrid features of tabloid online
Homepage filled with headlines	More extensive use of colour	Lifestyle, showbiz, and human interest stories at top of page	Little use of banner headlines
Hard news stories at top of page	Opinion, lifestyle and sports pieces appear on the home page	Fonts are sans-serif	Most are not capitalised except in the Sun
Four-column layout	Some sans-serif fonts	Saturated colour, especially red	Generally less photograph/image and headline dominated than print front page
Typography is serif		Photography dominates home pages	Some hard news stories are covered on the home page
Quantity of photographs roughly matches writing		Language register more informal

Intertexuality

·         To create humour

·         To parody or criticise

·         To honour the referred text

·         To create a flattering mode of address for the audience

·         To attempt to transfer the value of the referred media product to the referring one

·         To create a sense of shared experience with the audience

Viewpoints and Ideologies

Ideology	How it might influence the media language
Sexism/patriarchy	Emphasises sexual objectification, or stress on a woman’s appearance. Sexist stereotypes.
Feminism	Supports women’s rights and gender equality
Racism	Connotes racial stereotypes of Whiteness as normal and race as a problem
Multiculturalism	Promotes inclusivity and multicultural viewpoints
Ethnocentrism	Connotes distrust or hatred of foreigners
Internationalism	Connotes care for and responsibilities towards other countries and people
Consumerism	Markets consumerist views to its audience
Individualism	Emphasises the individual over the group or society
Democracy	Emphasises the important of politicians and political issues

Newspaper	Political position
The Times	Right of centre, Conservative and Tony Blair Labour
Daily Telegraph	Right Wing – conservative
Guardian	Left of centre – usually Labour, has supported Liberal Democrats
Financial Times	Pro-business -  usually supports conservative
Independent	Centrist – has endorsed Liberal Democrats
i	Centrist – not politically affiliated
Daily Mail	Right Wing – conservative
Daily Express	Right Wing – usually supports Conservative but also once supported Tony Blair Labour and more recently UKIP
Sun	Right of centre, mostly Conservative and Tony Blair Labour
Daily Mirror	Left of centre – Labour party
Daily Star	No clear political affiliation

`              

Media Language Theories	Application and Explanation
Barthes	Connotations and the ways these embed ideologies
Todorov	Any bad news story acts as a narrative disruption.
Levi-Strauss	Binary oppositions – Guardian: family vs individual, whole vs separated. Daily Mail: Brexiteers vs Remainers, people vs elites, truthful vs lying
Neale	Genre/conventions. Dynamic nature of genre as a shared code that changes over time with every addition to the generic corpus rather than being fixed, and that is often hybridised.
Baudrillard	Implosion could be applied to a news story about a person constructing an identity ignoring traditional social differences e.g. celebrities that transcend their backgrounds. Hyperreality can be applied to where audiences will know nothing of events except for media representations of them and also to events about other media events

Media Language Contexts	Application and Explanation
Consumerism	Influential particularly though the dominance of marketing in contemporary media. Audiences are now used to colour, extensive use of photography and self-promotion. Cornucopia of content in online editions and the targeting of audiences through bite sized social media feeds suggests that consumer needs are paramount in the current media age as compared to the austere authority.
Celebrity culture	Infuses the media language of many newspapers with large images of celebrities, dominating the layout of front pages, home pages and social media feeds.
Multiculturalism	Affects the use of language in newspapers, where editors aim to use inclusive language and avoid racist terms.
Feminism	Avoiding sexist terms and stereotyping – and photographic practices. The persistence of patriarchy may express itself in sexist language and sexually objectifying photographic practices.
Postmodernism	May have led to increasing intertextuality in newspapers.