Terms and Concepts

Encoding/Decoding: -meaning is encoded by media producers -meaning is decoded by audiences Binary Opposites: -conflicting or opposite values (for example: self and other, public and private, male and female) Consensus: -a shared set of ideas, values and beliefs Consumption: -the pattern of reading, watching, listening and buying media texts Conventions: -a widely accepted set of rules relating to particular genres and aspects of media texts Denotation/Connotation: -different levels of meaning -the first level represents the denoted meaning (what is shown) -the second level introduces connotation, which includes additional associations which the reader brings to the text Dismemberment: -the use of cropped images in order to emphasize sexualized body parts (such as a close up of a mouth) Hegemony: -the theory that those in power maintain their position through a consensus -the audience is positioned to view these preferred meanings as natural or commonsense Hypodermic Model: -a theory of audience which asserts that the media injects ideas and behaviours directly to the audience
Lajoie [Media]

Media

Iconography: -particular visual signs strongly associated with certain genres Ideology: -a set of ideas which produces a partial and selective view of reality Male Gaze: -refers to the idea that men exercise power or control over women by representing them as passive objects of sexual desire -often a film will place the audience in the position of the male gaze, regardless of gender Mediation: -knowledge, ideas, images, values derived through the media Propaganda: -media texts designed to promote or discredit a particular point of view, set of values, ideology, or party line Stereotype: -an oversimplified, sometimes humorous, representation which is used to categorize and evaluate members of a particular group

Lajoie [Media]

Teens on TV by Cynthia Scott Since the 1950s, television has had an enormous impact in the way teenagers are represented. Sometimes those representations are wish fulfillments of both the adults writing the shows and for the teens watching them. Other times they are stock representations of all the social ills to portray message or social-oriented stories for their "very special episodes," often addressing these problems in a very pat and trite fashion. Either way, teens and television have been a common mix, especially now as advertisers target younger and younger audiences for their products. When the 1990s dawned, teen dramas returned as the shows revolved around teens and their issues. Beverly Hills 90210 featured the lives of Midwesterner teens Brenda and Brandon Walsh as they adjusted to their new California home. The show, like other teen dramas, also addressed serious issues, though the series took a more soapy approach to the problems. The show also glamorized teen characters, presenting them as the popular insiders that teen audiences aspired to. A direct contrast to Beverly Hills 90210, the other Fox sitcom South Central, about a divorced mother raising her three children, presented teens as both goof-offs and deeply troubled. The show also sensitively dealt with the pressures young black girls face in divorced families, struggling to keep their heads above water while at the same time vulnerable to the problems of the inner city. The character Tasha Moseley (played spot-on by teen actress Tasha Scott) was a rarity in how she was allowed to express her anger over her mother's emotional neglect in favor of her two brothers. Unfortunately, unlike 90210, South Central barely lasted a season before it was canceled. Other teen dramas during this period, though, focused on the outsiders, the freak and geeks. Shows like My So-Called Life and Freaks and Geeks, presented teens as confused, but otherwise intelligent and thoughtful. Much more realistic in the way they represented teenagers, these shows nonetheless were not as popular as 90210, although they did inspire cult fandoms that are still as strong today as when the shows aired. Party of Five, which premiered on the Fox network, was about a family whose parents were killed in a car accident. The oldest members of the family took over the family restaurant while raising the younger teens. The show addressed the confusing issues of growing up without parents and trying to find a path toward adulthood. Dawson's Creek, unlike Party of Five, showed teens as far wittier than their real life counterparts and were often wiser than their adult counterparts. Again, this show appealed to the conceit teens have of themselves and was often more a fantasy than a realistic portrayal of what real teens were experiencing But in recent years, most teen-oriented shows have gone under the MTV-fication in their representations of teenagers. MTV's own Super Sweet 16 and The Hills show teens as spoiled and self-absorbed. These shows are extremely popular with the MySpace Generation. The O.C., yet another Fox drama, was a teen soap that, like Beverly Hills 90210, presented a more glamorous representation of teenagers. Lajoie [Media]