Institutions and Audiences - Terminologies: Production

Production

• Anchorage - Fixing of meaning
• Antagonist - The character whose function in a plot is to oppose the protagonist.
• Archetype - A universal type or model of character that is found in many different texts, e.g. ingenue, anti-hero, wise old woman, hero-as-lover, hero-as-warrior, shadow trickster, mentor, loyal friend, temptress
• Audience - The recipients of a media text, or the people who are intended to read or watch or play or listen to it. A great deal of media studies work is concerned with the effects a text may have on an audience.
•  Binary Opposition - The contrast between two mutually exclusive concepts or things that creates conflict and drives a narrative e.g. good/evil, day/night, male/female, presence/absence, old/young
• CGI - Computer Generated Imagery. Refers to the (usually) 3-D effects that enhance all kinds of still and moving images, from text effects, to digital snow or fire, to the generation of entire landscapes.
•  Code - A system of signs which can be decoded to create meaning.
• In media texts, we look at a range of different signs that can be loosely grouped into the following:
• 1.      technical codes - all to do with the way a text is technically constructed - camera angles, framing, typography etc.
• 2.      verbal codes - everything to do with language -either written or spoken
• 3.      symbolic codes - codes that can be decoded on a mainly connotational level - all the things which draw upon our experience and understanding of other media texts, our cultural frame of reference.
• Connotation - Way in which meaning is created — Connote = meaning by association, the deeper meaning (e.g. red connotes anger, passion, love, danger)
•  Convention - The widely recognized way of doing something - this has to do with content, style and form e.g. the conventions of music video:
• 1.      they are the same length as the song (somewhere around 4 minutes, say)
• 2.      they present the band, who look as though they are singing
• 3.      they have lots of fast edits
• Demographic - Factual characteristics of a population sample, e.g. age, gender, race, nationality, income, disability, education.
•  Denotation - Way in which meaning is created — Denote = literal or surface meaning e.g. red is the color of a flower.
• Editorial - In a newspaper, Editorial refers to the opinion pieces (sometimes known as 'leading articles') written by senior reporters. Editorial in a magazine refers to the feature content that reflects the ethos of the publication
• Genre - A way of categorizing a media text according to its form, style and content. This categorization is useful for producers (who can utilize a genre's conventions) and audiences (who can utilize their expectations of the genre) alike.
•  Globalization - Process by which different cultures worldwide have come to share the same media texts e.g. movies and pop music.
•  Ideology - This is a complex concept - in its basic form it is a set of ideas or beliefs which are held to be acceptable by the creators of a media text. For example, a text might be described as having a feminist ideology, meaning it promotes the idea that women are the equal of men and should not be discriminated against on the grounds of gender.
• Institution - A formal organization (with its own set of rules and behaviors) that creates and distributes media texts.
• Intertextuality - The influence that media texts have on each other. Sometimes this is the result of direct cross-references (e.g. music mash ups) or indirect (the way gossip news items regulate the way we view a star's performance)
•  Narrative - The way in which a story, or sequence of events, is put together within a text. All media texts have some sort of narrative, from a single photographic image to a sports report to a feature film. Narrative may be reduced to one simple equation which is equilibrium - disequilibrium - new equilibrium.
•  Neologism - Newly-coined word or phrase made up to describe a new trend, idea or gadget e.g. hopium, agnotology
• News Values - Ways of categorizing and assessing news stories to decide on their newsworthiness
• Ownership - An important issue in media studies - and a constantly changing one. Who produces and distributes the media texts we read?
•  POV (Point of View) - A first-person camera shot that shows a scene from an individual character's viewpoint. Used to help the audience understand what is happening in a character's head e.g. a predator stalking his/her prey
• Preferred Reading -The meaning of a text which the producers intended. The opposite of 'preferred reading' is 'aberrant reading', such as when people deliberately interpret a text (the Bible is the source of a lot of mixed messages) to further their political agenda rather than the author's original intent
• Protagonist - The character who drives the narrative forward, through the choices they make and the actions they take
• Realism - The techniques by which a media text represents ideas and images that are held to have a true relationship with the actual world around us. Realism means different things in different texts - realism in animation (eg the movement of single hairs in computer animation) means something entirely different to realism in soap opera (eg the depiction of people eating breakfast and talking with their mouths full). it is important to assess how much a text strives for realism, how much audiences are expected to think it is realistic.
•  Representation - The way in which the media "re-presents" the world around us in the form of signs and codes for audiences to read.
•  Self-Regulation - When an institution (the Press, Advertising) appoints a group of individuals whose job is to deal with complaints about that institution
•   Signs & Signification - Sign - a symbol which is understood to refer to something other than itself. This may be very simple - think of a "No Entry" road sign. it may get more complicated when reading media texts, where a sign might be the bright red coat that a character is wearing (which signals that they are dangerous). Signification - the process of reading signs (see denotation and connotation)
•  Star - A person who has become so famous, both for doing their job (actor, sport player) and appearing in many sorts of media, that their image is instantly recognizable as a sign, with a whole range of meanings or significations e. g. - David Beckham's image represents a whole raft of meanings: England, football, wealth, Posh, success, fashion victim, expertise, sexuality etc... Stars can use the fact that their image has meaning by allowing it to be used for advertising purposes.
•  Stereotype - Stereotypes are negative (usually) representations of people that rely on preconceived ideas about the group that person is perceived as belonging to. It is assumed that an individual shares personal characteristic with other members of that group e.g. blondes are all stupid, accountants are all boring. Although using stereotypes saves a lot of explanation within a text, it can be a very lazy method of characterization. Stereotypes may be considered dangerous, as they encourage audiences to think large groups of people are all the same, and often have the same negative characteristics.
•  USP - Unique Selling Point or Proposition. The attribute of a text or product that is highlighted as being new or unique in the marketing process, something that sets it apart from its competitors.
• Media Giants – Comcast, Time Warner, Disney, Sony, News Corp, National Amusements.
• Tech Giants – Twitter, Google, Youtube, Facebook.
• Multinational Corporations or Conglomerates – making, financing, and distributing film. Reviewing films in newspaper or on TV/radio stations.
• Oligopoly – Control of market for a particular product by a small group of companies, in which no one is dominant, keep others out of the market e.g. the Big Six.
• Package – Producers try to secure an investment by presenting a package which includes Post Production – Editing, dubbing engineers, special effects engineers and graphic artists.
•  Pre-Production – All stages of planning, development, and financial management before filming begins.
•  Production – The actual shooting of the film.
•  Rights – A producer will buy the rights in a book which they intend to adapt. Also refer to rights to broadcast the film on TV.
• Sequels
• Soft War
• Gate Keeper
• Horizontal Integration
• Vertical Integration
• Spinoff   
• Verisimilitude
•  Subsidiaries
• Intellectual Property
• Planning/Development – Significant period of development after a film has been green lit.
•  Schedule – Timetable for shooting a film.
•  Green light
•  Market research – see audience preference trends.