Audience – viewers, listeners and readers of a media text. A lot of media studies is concerned with how audience use texts and the effects a text may have on them. Also identified in demographic socio-economic categories.
Context – time, place or mindset in which we consume media products.
Diegetic Sound – Sound whose source is visible on the screen
Non Diegetic sound – Sound effects, music or narration which is added afterwards
Hypodermic Needle Theory – the idea that the media can ‘inject’ ideas and messages straight into the passive audience. This passive audience is immediately affected by these messages. Used in advertising and propoganda, led to moral panics about effect of violent video and computer games.
Ideology – A set of ideas or beliefs which are held to be acceptable by the creators of the media text, maybe in line with those of the dominant ruling social groups in society, or alternative ideologies such as feminist ideology.
Image – a visual representation of something.
Institutions – The organisations which produce and control media texts such as the BBC, AOL Time Warner, News International.
Mise en Scene – literally ‘what’s in the shot’ everything that appears on the screen in a single frame and how this helps the audience to decode what’s going on.
mise en scene included:
- props
- body language
- facial expression
- costume
- lighting
- set
Non-verbal communication – communication between people other than by speech.
Representation – The way in which the media ‘re-presents’ the world around us in the form of signs and codes for audiences to read.
Sound Effects – additional sounds other than dialogue or music, designed to add realism or atmosphere.
