Media Studies Terminology

• This study guide is for Media and Information Language, focusing on media codes and conventions.

Guess the Shot Activity

• Instructions for "Guess the Shot": Pictures shown need camera shot identified, get 1 point for each correct answer.
• Serve as an initial point for the next activity, with only 15 seconds to answer.

Camera Shots Review

• Wide Shot: Shows the subject and its surroundings to establish context.
• Close Up: Focuses on a subject's face or a specific detail to convey emotion or importance.
• Cut Away Shot: Briefly shifts focus from the main subject to something else, providing additional context.
• Medium Shot: Frames the subject from the waist up, showing both the subject and some of their surroundings.
• High Angle Shot: The camera looks down on the subject, making them seem smaller or vulnerable.
• Low Angle Shot: The camera looks up at the subject, making them appear larger or more powerful.

Processing Questions for the Activity

• The activity involves the use of camera shots and how it is related to the past lesson.
• The activity explores the media language.

Objectives of the Lesson

• Issues are presented to disseminate information using media codes, language, and conventions.
• Evaluate a video clip using codes, conventions, and media language.
• Realize the meaning of a video clip by evaluating it and create a scene using codes, conventions, and language.

Importance of Shot Angles

• Shot angles can significantly affect the film or video

Media Language

• Language, in this context, is described as the medium of communication.
• Media language involves how media producers make meaning about a certain medium and how they transfer that meaning to their target audience

Aspects of Media and Information Language:

• Codes: Commonly have an established meaning like denotation or connotation to the target audience.
• Conventions: The methods in which codes are organized in a product.

Media Codes

Types of Media Codes:

• Symbolic Codes: The meaning is based on the interpretation of the audience and Technical Codes.
• Technical Codes: The knowledge and connotations of camera angles and shots make sense in films and photographs.
• Written Codes: Formal written language used in creating a media product.

Symbolic Codes:

• Settings: The time and place of the narrative or scene.
• Mise en Scene: Everything within the frame, including set design, costume, props, and staging.
• Acting: The portrayal of actors in media production.
• Color: Can be highly connotative and is often associated with cultural aspects.

Color Association

• Red signifies passion, strength, power, and danger.
• Green signifies safety, healing, and money.
• Blue signifies stability, trust, and health.
• Yellow signifies happiness and intellect.
• Orange signifies joy, enthusiasm, and encouragement.
• Brown signifies confidence and casualness.
• Gold signifies wealth, prestige, and wisdom.
• Purple signifies power, luxury, and ambition.
• Pink signifies feminism and romance.
• Black signifies power, elegance, mystery, and death.
• White signifies purity, perfection, and safety.

Technical Codes

• Cameraworks: Involve operating, positioning, and moving the camera for specific effects.
• Editing: The process of choosing, manipulating and arranging images and sounds.
• Audio: Concerns the expressive or naturalistic use of sound.
• Lighting: Manipulation of natural or artificial light to highlight scene elements selectively.

Basic Cameraworks Shots

• Extreme Wide Shot
• Wide Shot
• Medium Shot
• Medium Close Up
• Close Up
• Extreme Close Up

Media Conventions

• Conventions are ways in which types of media codes are arranged

Types of Conventions

• Forms conventions are ways in which media codes are expected to be arranged.
• Story conventions comprise the basic structures of narratives.
• Genre conventions are the common elements in narratives, such as characters, genre settings, or themes.

Other Media Elements

Types of Audience in Media Codes:

• Media Producers: People who initiate, plan, and produce media texts.
• Stakeholders: People or organizations sharing the same interests or intentions.
• Audience: The specific people for whom media and other organizations develop content and shape messages.

Audience Analysis

• Looks into demographics like age, gender, social status, and psychology to determine values, beliefs, and attitudes, also considers the reaction of the audience.

Aspects of Audience Analysis:

• Audience Engagement: Reaction of the audience to the media text.
• Audience Expectations: Anticipation of the audience about the text.
• Audience Foreknowledge: Audience brings the exact information expectations about the media output.
• Audience Identification: Connection built by the media text to the audience.
• Audience Placement: Strategies making the audience feel that produced media texts are specifically for them.
• Audience Research: Monitors the audience before, during, and after media production.

Test your knowledge of key media studies terms. This quiz covers mise en scène, narrative elements, media production roles, camerawork, audience analysis, and various media codes and conventions. Explore the language of film, television, and other media forms.