Media Language

What is Media Language?

‘How the media communicate meanings through the use of forms, codes, conventions and techniques.’ (Definition from Cambridge International Specification.)

A language is a common set of words, expressions and grammatical rules, which enables groups of people to communicate ideas. In the same way, we can consider media texts to use a language that communicates ideas and messages to an audience.

There are many different media forms (television dramas, magazines, music videos, digipaks, social media pages…). Each media form has its own language. There are overlaps in the media language used by the various media forms, such as images, but each form also has its own distinct language.

A code is an individual decision made by a media producer which is designed to communicate meaning. Codes work in combination (see below).

Media Codes Include:

  • Elements of the mise-en-scene used in an image
  • Framing and composition of an image
  • Written or spoken words (including delivery)
  • Typefaces
  • Page layouts
  • Music and sound effects
  • Colour palettes
  • Editing including filters and colour correction
  • The sequencing of shots in a film or TV drama
  • Memes and hashtags
  • Hyperlinks
  • Likes and shares
  • And so on…

Some Important Ideas about “Media Language.”

The power of combination

A high angle does not always mean, ‘Powerlessness!’ Black clothes do not always signify, ‘Evil.’ A city does not always imply, ‘Excitement and opportunity!’

Consider how the combination of media codes combine to suggest meaning. The sum of the parts is greater than the individual code!

This is an important idea for Textual Analysis and Postmodern Media…see below.

Conventions and genre

There are magazines, adverts, films, TV dramas, video games, radio programmes and music that can be categorised or grouped into genres.

Genres, categories or families of media texts, share certain features. They repeat particular elements, such as a setting, types of character, a beat or rhythm, a narrative structure or a studio format. These shared features, which are repeated across texts within the same genre, are called conventions.

  • Generic conventions are useful as they give a producer a blueprint for production.
  • Genre can also used to advertise the nature of a media text.
  • Producers want to make money by selling a genre they are confident will be popular.
  • Students use genre to compare and contrast similarities and differences between texts.

This is an important idea for Coursework Units (Research, Planning & Critical Reflection), Textual Analysis and Postmodern Media…see below.

Challenging and subverting conventions

Media texts need to be simultaneously familiar and new. They need to be, “The same but different!” Rick Altman

The audience is fickle and liable to easily change their minds. They want to consume a media text they know they will enjoy and so used genre to invest their time or money to consume. However, they also want something new and different. Otherwise they would be simply consuming the exact same text again and again and again.

Media language is therefore used to set up familiar situations or characters or events, but may then challenge the audience expectations and give a new twist, a different take, an unexpected outcome…something surprising.

Media language can also be used to challenge stereotypes. They may establish a characters, a group of people, an event or a place the audience think is familiar, known and well understood and then flip the stereotype on its head to challenge the audiences biases, assumptions or prejudices.

This is an important idea for Coursework Units (Research, Planning & Critical Reflection), Textual Analysis and Postmodern Media…see below.

Ideologies and representations

All media producers are people. With the exception of AI…

Nevertheless, all people (and AI) have an ideology, a set of values, attitudes and beliefs. Ideologies get embedded or encoded in the media texts which are produced.

Producers seek to tell a particular story or communicate a particular set of ideas about individuals, groups, places and events using media language and so will use the media language at their disposal in a way which communicates their chosen (ideological) message.

Biases and assumptions, including unconscious ones, are evident in all media texts.

This is an important idea for Coursework Units (Research, Planning & Critical Reflection), Textual Analysis and Regulation & Postmodern Media…see below.

The active audience

This is a set of ideas which underpins the study and analysis of media texts.

The active audience assumes that people have learnt a media language through the repeated consumption of media texts. The audience use their previously learnt knowledge of media language and conventions to interpret and decode a media text.

However, individuals will read and respond to media texts differently based on their previous media consumption or ‘cultural competence,’ (Hall) and through the filter of their values, attitudes and beliefs (ideology). This means that every individual audience member may have a different response to a media text. A preferred , a negotiated or an oppositional reading.

This is an important idea for Coursework Units (Research, Planning & Critical Reflection), Textual Analysis and Postmodern Media…see below.

New technology = new media forms = new media languages

In traditional media forms such as films, TV, newspapers, magazines, billboards…the producers were the privileged few with access to the means of production and distribution of those media texts.

Then the internet and smartphones arrived and new media forms were born, such as social media, selfies, memes, likes and shares, (TikTok) videos, comments, hashtags, blogs & podcasts.

The interesting thing about these forms is that the development of the media language and what has become conventional has not been developed by the privileged few (gatekeepers) but by millions of participatory audience members operating within a democratised media environment!

The debate about whether this is a positive or negative thing is still raging. What do you think?

This is an important idea for Media Regulation and Media Ecology…see below.

(Media) language changes over time.

Media language is in  constant state or repetition, revision and reinvention. This may be for a number of reasons:

  • The dominant ideology of a society changes, leading to new representations.
  • Influence from producers with alternative cultural influences & perspectives.
  • New production technology.
  • New distribution technology.
  • Social, political or economic events.
  • New ideas? Postmodernism suggests we don’t have any! That begs a few questions!

This is an important idea for Media Regulation and Media Ecology…see below.

Exam questions that focus on Media Language?

COMPONENT 2 (Paper 1):

TV DRAMA

  1. Analyse how the extract from <the unseen sequence> constructs meaning , including specific representations of individuals/groups/events/places through the following technical elements: camera, sound, editing and mise-en-scene.

MUSIC INDUSTRY:

  1. Assess the importance of synergy for marketing in the media area you have studied.
  2. To what extent has social media altered how media products are consumed?
  3. Analyse the ways in which technology is changing the way we consume media

COMPONENT 4 (Paper 2):

POSTMODERN MEDIA:

  1. To what extent do postmodern media blur the boundaries between reality and representation?
  2. How far do postmodern media challenge the traditional ways of reading texts?
  3. Analyse the relationship between postmodern media and realism.

MEDIA REGULATION:

  1. Analyse the ways in which contemporary media regulation reflects its period.
  2. Analyse the challenges of regulating the media in the digital age.
  3. ‛New media require new forms of regulation.̕ To what extent do you agree with this statement?

MEDIA ECOLOGY:

  1. To what extent have new technologies influenced the style and form of traditional media?
  2. ‛The media control how we understand and connect with the world.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement?
  3. ‘New media will eventually replace traditional media.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement?