Media Studies Glossary

ARTEFACT
A thing created by human hand. In the media field, this term can refer variously to a radio broadcast, an
advertisement, a page of a newspaper etc.
 
AUDIENCE
The unknown individuals and groups to who mass communications are addressed. Audience in culture is defined
as an ‘individual or a group of persons’. Audience is an umbrella designation which identifies members'
socioeconomic, class, lifestyles, motivation, disposable income, fantasies etc. and that knowledge enables
institutions and producers to "target" their audience precisely.
 
AUTEUR THEORY
One approach to film theory is to consider the film as a work of art created by and representing the viewpoint of
its director, who is then seen as its author or auteur. Auteur theory is applied to directors with a very distinctive
style e.g. Hitchcock
 
CLOSURE
This concept refers to the textual strategies by means of which a viewer or reader is encouraged to make sense
of a factual or fictional narrative in a particular way, or according to a particular ideological framework.
 
CODE
A code is a system of signs. (There are also codes of behaviour such as the rules of cricket, or dining-room
etiquette). Codes are signifying systems and are therefore ways of communicating meaning. All codes must have
a systematic and a paradigmatic dimension.
 
CONNOTATION
Connotation is the meaning of the sign interpreted subjectively by the reader and is dependent on the reader's
own values and culture.
 
CONSENSUS
The word means a generally shared agreement.
 
CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
In media studies, this idea emphasizes that there is no single 'reality', rather a range of definitions of 'reality'.
Reality as presented by the mass media is therefore not a picture or reflection of 'reality', but, rather, a
constructed interpretation of reality for just about every aspect of reality seems to be considered a social
construction.
 
CONTEXT
Used extensively in text analysis with its simple meaning - text must be read or interpreted under certain
conditions, or in a certain context.
 
CONVENTION
A textual or social practice shared by members of a culture or subculture. Conventions are usually understated
and taken for granted. They derive from the shared experiences of those who adopt them and create shared
expectations. In media studies, the term convention is applied to those typifications of a specific genre which
differentiate it from others. For example, in a Western film, convention dictates that 'baddies' wear black hats,
gamblers wear bootlace ties and women are either virginal school teacher or saloon bar whores.
 
CULTURE
The term culture can be used to characterise a society as a whole, or the particular life-style of a social group
within the social structure. In the broader sense, it is used to refer to the pattern of ideas, beliefs, values and
knowledge that the members of a social group or society have about themselves and their social and physical
environments.
 
DECONSTRUCTION
Deconstructing a text involves identifying the levels of meaning which are either implicit or repressed within its
overt structure but which nevertheless provide a key to its operation as a discourse.
 
DENOTATION
This is the inherent, obvious meaning of the sign, simply what it depicts. This meaning is objective and refers to
the sign itself.
 
FEMINISM
Feminism is often viewed simplistically as a version of female suffrage - a perpetual struggle by women to obtain
equal rights in social, political and economic spheres.
 
THE GAZE
A transformation of the notion of looking or ways of seeing, the concept of the gaze suggests that the activity of
looking is structured by conventions of representation. This implies that when we look, for example, at the
countryside, what we see is governed by the convention of landscape, itself rooted in the historical convention of
historical art and architecture which is informed by the notion of perspective.

Feminist writers, notably Laura Mulvey and Rosalind Coward, have suggested that looking involves power; that
typically, this way of looking is invested in the male gaze which refers specifically to the look of men at women;
and that in this convention, men have power over women. Men objectify women and women take on the identity
of objectification by making themselves up, by constructing themselves as an object for the male gaze. In
Mulvey's argument, this male gaze takes two main forms, voyeurism and fetishism.
 
GENRE
Literally a type - of film, novel, broadcast etc. that follows recognized conventions. For example, the Western, the
detective novel. Genres may overlap, examples being, the musical western, comedy-horror.
 
HEGEMONY or DOMINATE IDEOLOGY
Traditionally this describes the predominance of one political power over another, of one social class over
another. The effect that the beliefs and 'world-view' of the dominant class are incorporated into the ideas and
beliefs of the traditional majority therefore lead to ideology being imposed through coercion by the dominant
group.
 
ICONOGRAPHY
Iconography is concerned with the use of visual images. Although the term can be applied to many fields, it is
commonly employed to refer to sets of visual images found in films. Genre films often display certain kinds of
visual images which are recognizable and trigger the reader's expectations. These can be associated with the
mise-en-scene - the saloon fight or the stagecoach in westerns.
 
IDEOLOGY
Ideology is concerned with the influence that ideas have on social organization. It refers to patterns of ideas, both
factual and evaluative, which purport to explain and legitimise the social structure and culture of a particular
social group or society, and which serve to justify social actions which are in accordance with those patterns of
ideas. They are usually seen as centring on political or religious Issues.
 
INDEX
An index sign has a direct relationship to that which it represents. For example, a thermometer is an index of
temperature.
 
INSTITUTIONS (SOCIAL)
A social institution is an aspect of social life in which distinctive values and interests, centring upon large and
important social concerns, are associated with distinctive patterns of social interaction.
The social institutions distinguished within a society usually consist of:
the family and kinship
political institutions
economic institutions
religious institutions
educational institutions (i.e.. the process of schooling)
social control institutions (judicial, policing, military)
INTERTEXTUALITY
This is an idea that stems from, though standing in contradiction to, the notion that great works of art and
literature are discrete entities, owing their greatness to their singularity. Intertextuality suggests that within
popular culture, meanings circulate through different texts, each feeding off the other. Texts exist in a relationship
to one another in a process of circulation.
 
METALANGUAGE
Literally - beyond language, but usually means a language about language. In its wider sense it covers all forms
of textual analysis.
 
MISE-EN-SCENE
A term used in film and television which refers to the process of arrangement on the set and therefore to what
appears on the screen in a single shot, as opposed to montage which is concerned with the ordering of different
shots.
 
MYTH
Barthes suggested that myth is a form of speech, by which he means that it is a discourse and has form rather
than content. He develops this notion by suggesting that myth is a second order signifying system. That is, when
a sign becomes the signifier-part of a new sign (a second-order sign), then a myth (a second order meaning) is
constructed.
 
NARRATIVE
A narrative is a sequence of events that constructs a story. It also refers to the means or act of telling a story.
Film and television texts can be analysed as narratives in the same fashion as literary or other texts and this is a
major component of media theory.
 
NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION (NVC)
Communication between people by means other than speech. NVC derives from the following major sources :
Eye contact, mouth (e.g.. smiling or grimacing), posture, gesture, orientation (of the body to the addressee),
distance (from the addressee), smell (including perfume), skin (blushing etc.), hair and clothes.
There are many cultural determinants and variations in NVC. No simple predictions about non-verbal behaviour
can be made, since variables such as, types of relationships, impact on the individuals understanding.
 
NOSTALGIA
A yearning for the past or some past condition or state which can be sentimental or excessive, going beyond the
desire for a 'return home'.
 
PATRIARCHY
This is the structural, systematic and historical domination and exploitation of women. The concept is widely and
generally used to refer to the total social organization of gender relations, institutions and social processes which
produce and reproduce women as socially, politically and sexually subordinate to men.
 
POPULAR CULTURE
Popular culture is an inter-disciplinary subject which has a great deal in common with media studies but extends
that field to cover not only cultural artefacts, but also social institutions, leisure activities and lived experiences.
 
PROPAGANDA
The deliberate attempt by some individual or group to form, control or alter the attitudes of others by the use of
communication with the intention.
 
REPRESENTATION or Re - presentation
Rather than being a simple mirror image of a real thing, a representation, in Communication Studies, is seen as
constituting an object of enquiry in itself - with its own internal structure and rules.
 
SEMIOLOGY
This is the name for the study of signs and sign systems. Semiology suggests that all cultural artefacts can be
regarded as signs or sign systems.
 
SIGN
A sign comprises two components - a signifier
and a signified.
 
SIGNIFICATION
The signifier is the actual 'thing' that conveys the meaning, the signified is the meaning conveyed. For example, if
the signifier is a lamb in a field, the signified is springtime, youth, freshness, a new beginning.
 
STEREOTYPE
A fixed conventionalised representation of a type (usually a type of person) often to the point of caricature, and is
held in consensus by the dominate ideology.
 
SUBCULTURE
Subcultures are subdivisions within wider cultures. They correspond with the particular positions of certain social
groups.
 
SYMBOL
Used in general terms to mean an object that represents or stands for something else. It has a more specific
usage in semiotics.
 
TEXT
Traditionally referring to the printed word, the term is extended in the media sense to include any media artefact.
 
USES & GRATIFICATIONS
Developed from the Effects Tradition, it inverts effects research by asking not what the media does to people, but
what people do to the media, what uses they make of it and what gratification they expect and get from it.