Media Studies key terms

Question 1

Define Action Codes

Answer 1

Something that happens in the narrative that tells the audience that some action will follow.

Question 2

Define Active Audience

Answer 2

Audiences who actively engage in selecting media products to consume and interpret their meanings.

Question 3

Define Anchorage

Answer 3

The words that accompany an image (still or moving) give the meaning associated with that image.

Question 4

Define Audience Consumption

Answer 4

The way in which audiences engage with media products

Question 5

Define Brand Identity

Answer 5

The association the audience make with the brand, built up over time and reinforced by the advertising campaigns and their placement.

Question 6

Define Broadsheet

Answer 6

A larger newspaper that publishes more serious news, for
example The Guardian

Question 7

Define Caption

Answer 7

Words that accompany an image that explain its meaning.

Question 8

Define Channel Identity

Answer 8

The aspects which make the channel recognisable to
audiences and different from any other channel.

Question 9

Define Circulation

Answer 9

The dissemination (Spreading of information widely) of media products

Question 10

Define Colloquial Language

Answer 10

This is conversational language where the words used are
different from and less formal than those in written speech.

Question 11

Define Commercial Channels

Answer 11

These are channels like ITV and Channel 4 that raise their
money through advertising, unlike the BBC which currently
gets its money from the licence fee.

Question 12

Define Connotations

Answer 12

The suggested meanings attached to a sign.

Question 13

Define Conventions

Answer 13

What the audience expects to see in a particular media text.

Question 14

Define Convergence

Answer 14

The coming together of previously separate media industries and/or platforms; often the result of advances in technology whereby one device or platform contains a range of different features.

Question 15

Define Cover Lines

Answer 15

These suggest the content to the reader and often contain
teasers and rhetorical questions. These relate to the genre of the magazine.

Question 16

Define Cross-Platform Marketing

Answer 16

In media terms, a text that is distributed and exhibited across a range of media formats or platforms. This may include film, television, print, radio and the Internet.

Question 17

Define Demographic Category

Answer 17

A group in which consumers are placed according to their age, sex, income, profession.

Question 18

Define Denotation

Answer 18

The description of what you can see/hear in a media text.

Question 19

Define Diegetic Sound

Answer 19

Sound that comes from the fictional world and can be heard by the characters.

Question 20

Define Diversification

Answer 20

Where media organisations who have specialised in producing media products in one form move into producing content across a range of forms.

Question 21

Define Encoding and Decoding

Answer 21

Media producers encode messages and meanings in products that are decoded, or interpreted, by audiences.

Question 22

Define Enigma Code

Answer 22

A narrative device which increases tension and audience
interest by only releasing bits of information.

Question 23

Define Equilibrium

Answer 23

In relation to narrative, a state of balance or stability (in
Todorov’s theory the equilibrium is disrupted and restored).

Question 24

Define Franchise

Answer 24

An entire series of, for example, a film including the original
film and all those that follow.

Question 25

Define Gatekeepers

Answer 25

The people responsible for deciding the most appropriate stories to appear in newspapers.

Question 26

Define Genre

Answer 26

Media texts can be grouped into genres that all share similar conventions.

Question 27

Define House Style

Answer 27

What makes the magazine recognisable to its readers every issue.

Question 28

Define Hybrid-Genre

Answer 28

Media texts that incorporate elements of more than one genre and are therefore more difficult to classify.

Question 29

Define Iconography

Answer 29

The props, costumes, objects and backgrounds associated with a particular genre.

Question 30

Define Intertextual

Answer 30

Where one media text makes reference to aspects of another text within it.

Question 31

Define Linear Narrative

Answer 31

Where the narrative unfolds in chronological order from beginning to end.

Question 32

Define Mainstream

Answer 32

These are media products that are the most popular at the time and tend to be the most conventional.

Question 33

Define Marketing

Answer 33

This is the way in which an organisation tells its audience about a product.

Question 34

Define Masculinity

Answer 34

The perceived characteristics generally considered to define what it is to be a man.

Question 35

Define Mass Audience

Answer 35

Traditional idea of the audience as one large, homogenous group.

Question 36

Define Media Conglomerate

Answer 36

A company that owns other companies across a range of media platforms. This increases their domination of the market and their ability to distribute and exhibit their product.

Question 37

Define Media Language

Answer 37

The specific elements of a media product that communicate meanings to audiences, e.g. visual codes, audio codes, technical codes, language.

Question 38

Define Media Platform

Answer 38

The range of different ways of communicating with an audience, for example newspapers, the Internet, and television.

Question 39

Define Mediation

Answer 39

The way in which a media text is constructed in order to represent the producer of the text's version of reality; constructed through selection, organisation and focus.

Question 40

Define Mise-En-Scene

Answer 40

How the combination of images in the frame creates meaning; how individual shots in a film or photograph have been composed.

Question 41

Define Narrative

Answer 41

The 'story' that is told by the media text.

Question 42

Define Non-Deiegetic Sound

Answer 42

Sound that is out of the shot so characters cannot hear it, for example a voiceover or romantic mood music.

Question 43

Define Non-Linear Narrative

Answer 43

Here the narrative manipulates time and space. It may begin in the middle and then include flashbacks and other narrative devices.

Question 44

Define Passive Audience

Answer 44

The idea (now widely regarded as outdated) that audiences do not actively engage with media products, but consume and accept the messages that producers communicate.

Question 45

Define Personal Identity

Answer 45

This means your ability to relate to something that happens in a text because it has happened to you.

Question 46

Define Privileged Spectator Position

Answer 46

Where the camera places the audience in a superior position within the narrative. The audience can then anticipate what will follow.

Question 47

Define Public Service Broadcast

Answer 47

A radio and television broadcaster that is independent of government financed by public money and is seen to offer a public service by catering for a range of tastes.

Question 48

Define Realism

Answer 48

A style of presentation that claims to portray 'real life' accurately and authentically.

Question 49

Define Red Top

Answer 49

A British newspaper that has its name in red at the top of the front page. Red-tops have a lot of readers, but are not considered to be as serious as other newspapers.

Question 50

Define Repertoire Of Elements

Answer 50

Key features that distinguish one genre from another.

Question 51

Define Representation

Answer 51

The way in which key sections of society are presented by the media.

Question 52

Define Selection And Combination

Answer 52

Media producers actively choose elements of media language and place them alongside others to create specific representations or versions of reality.

Question 53

Define Sexual Objectification

Answer 53

The practice of regarding a person as an object to be viewed only in terms of their sexual appeal and with no consideration of any other aspect of their character or personality.

Question 54

Define Sign/Code

Answer 54

Something which communicates meaning, e.g., colours, sounds.

Question 55

Define Specialised Audience

Answer 55

A non-mass, or niche, audience that may be defined by a particular social group or by a specific interest.

Question 56

Define Splash

Answer 56

The story that is given the most prominence on the front page of a newspaper.

Question 57

Define Stereotype

Answer 57

An exaggerated representation of someone or something. It is also where a certain group are associated with a certain set of characteristics, Stereotypes can be quick ways of communicating information in adverts and dramas.

Question 58

Define Stripped

Answer 58

A technique used in radio and television whereby a certain programme is broadcast at the same time every day. In radio this attracts an audience who associate a particular programme with their daily routine.

Question 59

Define Sub-Genre

Answer 59

Where a large genre is sub-divided into smaller genres, each of which has their own set of conventions.

Question 60

Define Subject-Specific Lexis

Answer 60

The specific language and vocabulary used to engage the audience. Subject-specific lexis used on the front cover of a magazine will make the reader feel part of the group who belong to the world of that magazine.

Question 61

Define Synergy

Answer 61

The combination of elements to maximise profits within a media organisation or product.

Question 62

Define Tabloid

Answer 62

Refers to the dimensions of a newspaper; a tabloid is smaller and more compact in size. However, there are further connotations attached to the term and it also tends to refer to a newspaper whose content focuses on lighter news, for example celebrity gossip, sport and television.

Question 63

Define Tagline

Answer 63

This is the short phrase or slogan that appears in trailers and on posters. It gives a clue to the genre and storyline of the film and often includes an enigma.

Question 64

Define Technical Codes

Answer 64

These are the way in which the text has been produced to communicate meanings and are part of media language

Question 65

Define Under representation

Answer 65

Certain social groups (usually minority groups) may be rarely represented or be completely absent from media products.

Question 66

Define Uses And Gratifications Theory

Answer 66

Suggests that active audiences seek out and use different media texts in order to satisfy a need and experience different pleasures.

Question 67

Define Vertical Integration

Answer 67

Vertically integrated companies own all or most of the chain of production for the product. For example a film company that also owns a chain of multiplex cinemas to exhibit the film and merchandise outlets.

Question 68

Define Viral Marketing

Answer 68

Where the awareness of the product or the advertising campaign is spread through less conventional ways including social networks and the Internet. Viral marketing is so named because many of the messages use 'hosts' to spread themselves rapidly, like a biological virus.

Question 69

Define Visual Codes

Answer 69

The visual aspects of the product that construct meaning and are part of media language, for example clothing, expression, and gesture