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Media Definitions

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  1. Barthes = he created the 5 narrative codes and is known as the “Father of Media Studies”
  2. Pierce = he was the discoverer of Semiotics and established that signs can be split into 3 categories: Iconic, Indexual and Symbolic.
  3. Saussure = he was a was a Swiss linguist and semiotician (person who studies semiotics)
  4. Semiotics = This is the scientific study of sign and symbols
  5. Sign =A mark, sign or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. For example, a love heart could be a sign of being in love.
  6. Signifier = This is the thing, item, or code that we ‘read’ on a source of media, this can include images, drawings, text, image captions.
  7. Signified = This is the idea or meaning being expressed by a signifier. For example, with the Mario photo as the cover image on my magazine, it is signified the edition is all about Mario.
  8. Icon =  This is an image defined by the way in which it is used; any image deemed “icon” is understood as a medium for an outlying entity. For example, gaming consoles are icons of gaming magazines.
  9. Index = It is also called the ‘efficiency indicator’. Index describes the degree to which a target audience matches to the entire population of an analysed platform.
  10. Symbol = This is a mark,a meaning or a word.
  11. Code = These are loads of signs that create a meaning of something. Media codes include the use of camera, acting, setting, mise en scene, editing, lighting, sound, special effects, typography, colour, visual composition, text and graphics to develop a TV advert.
  12. Dominant Signifier = The most important thing we see on a piece of media. It also provides anchorage (signs with a fixed meaning)
  13. Anchorage = Anchorage is when a piece of media uses another piece of media to lower the amount off connotations in the first piece of media, therefore allowing the audience to interpret it much more easily. For instance, in a newspaper, pictures are accompanied by a caption that allows us to understand what the picture is showing us
  14. Ideology = A view shared shared by a wide group of people
  15. Paradigm = a group of signs
  16. Syntagm = These are signs but if one sign is removed, nothing will make sense. Thus, for example, the letters in a word have syntagmatic relationship with one another, as do the words in a sentence or the objects in a picture.
  17. Signifcation =this is what we think something is
  18. Denotation = this is usually the first level of analysis: what the person can visually see on a source of media (ie magazines and TV adverts)
  19. Connotation = Connotation is when you expand on your denotation and is a second level of analysis because you identify what the denotation represents.
  20. Myth = these are false beliefs and stories which aren’t proved true by science. In media terms, Barthes discovered things in the news (ie articles) that aren’t true but people choose to believe is true is also a myth. In today’s terms, this can be known as “fake news”.
  21. A radical text = A text that challenges myths and the dominant ideology
  22. A reactionary text = this supports the dominant ideology

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