Media Language

Media Language: The aims

• A mood
• A reaction
• Persuade
• Meaningful
• Feeling
• Information
• Intention
• Sell

Media Language means the way that meaning is made, using the conventions of the particular medium (Film or Music Video), and type of media product (Horror film, or Pop music video). It is about considering how media texts communicate

Every medium has its own "Language" - or combination of "Languages"

The language of film is different to the language of music videos

Goodwin Theory

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals
3. There is a relationship between music and visuals
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (A visual style)
5. There are frequent references to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body
6. There are often intertextual references

Carol Vernallis (2001) - Codes and conventions in Music Videos

• Vernallis' theory centres around 4 key concepts that all relate to the way the Music Video is constructed (How it creates meaning). These are: Narrative, Editing, Camera Movement and Framing, Diegesis

Roland Barthes (1977) Argued that film connotation can be analytically distinguished from denotation

As John Fiske (1982) States "Denotation is what is filmed, connotations is how it is filmed"

What to discuss

Editing - Post-production technique: Establishing and re-estbalishing shots, Transitions, 180° Line Rule, Action match, Cross-cutting, Cut-away, Insert shots, Shot-Reverse shot structures, Eye-line match, Montage, Flash back/forward, Ellipsis, Graphic match

Mise en Scene: Location (Setting, set-design, iconography), Character (Costume, properties, make-up, actors and gesture), Cinematography (Lighting, colour), Layout and Page Design (Colour, juxtaposition of elements)

Camerawork: Shot types, Camera composition, Camera movement, Camera Angles

Sound: Diegetic/Non-Diegetic Sound

Back to Basics - Semiotics

According to philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1931), "We think only in signs"

Signs take the forms of words, images, sounds, odours and flavours, acts and objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning

• "Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign" (Peirce) 

Anything can be a sign as long as someone inter pets is as "Signifying" something

1st and 2nd Order of Significations Whereas the first order of signification operates at the level of description, the second order of signification is much more sensitive to other meanings (Interpretations)  which culture might associate with a particular sign

For example:

Bonus-Umberto Eco (1981)

• Texts can have Open Meanings (Ambiguous, open to interpretation)
• Texts can have Closed Meaning (Easy for the audience to understand)