Media Language

Genre

Audience

Narrative

Representation

Media is communication.
Discuss the ways that you
have used media language
to create meanings in one of
your media products.
The language of the medium
you are working within; the
language of film is different
to that of a music video.

Media texts rely on

audience knowledge of
generic codes and
conventions in order for
them to create meaning.
Explain how you have used
or subverted generic
conventions in one of your
production pieces.

How are you using the

language of the medium?
How have you used the
language of music video?
Andrew Goodwin?

How useful is the concept of

genre in understanding your
work?
How can genre be used to
understand music videos
and how is this different to
genre and (thriller) films?

Media texts will never be

successful unless they are
carefully constructed to target
established audience needs or
desires. Evaluate the ways
that you constructed your
media text to target a specific
audience.
How useful is the concept of
audience in understanding
your work?

Media texts rely on

cultural experiences in
order for audiences to
easily make sense of
narratives. Explain how
you used conventional
and/or experimental
narrative approaches in
one of you production
pieces.
How useful is the concept
of narrative in
understanding your work?
How is narrative and music
videos different to
narrative and film?

Analyse media
representation in one of
your coursework
productions.
Representations in media
texts are often simplistic
and reinforce dominant
ideologies so that audiences
can make sense of them.
Evaluate the ways that you
have used/challenged
simplistic representations in
one of the media products
you have produced.

How is your work

intertextual? How does it fit
in with other music videos?
How is your production
conventional to the genre?
Why is genre useful to you
as a media
producer/audiences?
Gunther Kress / Denis
McQuail / Nicholas
Abercrombie / Christine
Gledhill / Katie Wales / John
Fiske / Jacques Derrida (A
text cannot belong to no
genre, it cannot be
without a genre. Every
text participates in one or
several genres, there is no
genreless text.)
Andrew Goodwin
Genres change and evolve
(Christian Metz and David

Who is your target audience?

How did you develop your
target audience? How does
you production appeal to the
target audience?
How useful are various
segmentation models in
describing your target
audience
(demographic/psychographic)
Stuart Hall (encoding/decoding
/
preferred/negotiated/oppositio
nal reading) / Denis McQuail
and Blumler and Katz (Uses
and Gratification theory) / Ien
Ang (Audience hood is
becoming an even more
multifaceted, fragmented and
diversified repertoire of
practices and experiences) /
Hypodermic Needle Theory

How is your narrative

structured? (convergent /
parallel / circular / linear /
non-linear / interweaving /
fragmented /
impressionist) How did you
use chapters / phases?
What pleasure(s) does your
narrative offer the
audience?
How do you use characters
in the narrative? How have
you used protagonists/
antagonists? Is Vladimir
Propp useful in
understanding the
product?
Story versus plot / Tzetvan
Todorov (equilibrium) /
Claude Levi-Strauss (binary
opposites) / Roland Barthes
(enigma code, action code,
open and closed texts) /
Pam Cook / Noam Chomsky
(narrative is fundamental
to human understanding)

How does your video

represent different social
groups / people / places /
lifestyles?
Does your production create
a hegemonic representation
/ does it represent and
reinforce the dominant
ideology?
What positive/ negative /
stereotypical connotations
and representations are you
constructing / using /
challenging?
How are the representations
in your production the
products of your own
cultural experience /
background / ideology /
values?
Laura Mulvey

Buckingham). How is your

production using/developing
the genre?

How does the narrative

structure/ ending shape
the meaning of your
production?