WEEK 7-8
because they all used similar techniques, worked at the
Formal Analysis- examination of the elements and principles of
design present in an artwork
 Process of deriving meaning from how those elements
and principles are used by visual artists to
communicate a concept, idea or emotions
ASPECT OF FORMAL ANALYSIS
1. Description
 Form
 Medium
 Kinds of actions in production
 Size of the artwork
 Elements of design
2. Analysis
 Relationship and arrangement of the elements or the
principles of design
3. Interpretation
 Intersection of what an object symbolizes to the artist
and what it means to the viewer.
 How the meaning of objects has been changed by time
and culture
4. Evaluation
 What you have discovered about the work during your
examination as well as what you have learned, about
the work, yourself and others in the process.
Contextual Analysis – making and viewing of the work in its
context
 It studies the atmosphere and ideas, often from a
particular time or culture, which the artwork itself
includes and reflects.
 E.g: religious, historical, and biographical analysis are
all types of contextual analysis.
 Religious Analysis – This method often includes the
identification of narratives, key symbolism, and important
figures
 Historical/Social Analysis – The artist considers historical
events, either past or present, and the way they appear in
an artwork.
 Biographical Analysis – Considers whether the artist’s
personal experiences and opinions may have affected the
making or meaning of the artwork in some way
 The artwork will be able to understand if you
understand the artist as well.
Other Types of Analysis
 Stylistic Analysis – A group of artists might share a style
Story
same time, or studied in the same place
- Artwork was made by a particular artist
- Individual, shared by group, time period or movement
 Iconographic Analysis – Identifying and interpreting the
symbolic meanings of the objects and elements in the
artworks often reveals previously unsuspected insights into
their content
 Feminist Analysis – Considers the role of women in an
artwork as its subjects, creators, patrons, and viewers
- Reflect the intentions of an artist, the perspective of a
viewers, the interpretation of a critic, or a combination
of two or three of these.
 Gender Studies Analysis – Expands the considerations raised
by feminist analysis to explore ways in which the work
reflects experience based on a person’s gender.
 Psychological Analysis – Investigates an artwork through
consideration of the state of the artist’s mind.
- Sometimes such interpretations make use of important
psychological studies, such as those of Sigmund Freud
or Carl Jung.
WEEK 9
Media – means of communication, as radio and television,
newspapers, magazines and internet, that reach or influence
people widely.
 Media and Consumerism – most people experience the
media as consumers solely through various forms of output,
the end result of media production
- Media output can be categorized as the ff
a. Physical form as an artefact
b. Commodity and its economic value
c. Meaning to individual and society
 Meaning to consumer
- Advertising across all media forms in a myriad of ways
- Billboards and posters, film, television and radio, social
media
- Making sense of media texts is habitual, a constant in
our everyday existence
- Expectations and ideas of creators or media producers
- Wider and cultural, social and historical contexts
- Regular acquaintance with its various forms
 Advertising by Medium – One major expense for advertisers
is buying space in the media.
TYPES OF MEDIA
1. NEWSPAPER
- Types of articles: News story and Feature
- Style: Inverted pyramid writing style
- Production: Printed and electronic
- Audience: Public
2. Magazines
- Types: Interest based and general based
- Style: Inverted pyramid writing style
- Production: Printed and electronic
- Audience: Public, small group or segment
(niche)
3. Television
- Genre: Sitcom, drama, contest, news
- Production: Analog and digital
- Audience: By age group
 Sitcom – Focus on a nontraditional
family, or on a group of people who
are all roughly the same age, whether
teenagers or folks in their late
twenties.
 Dramas- Feature a particular
professions that are not deskbound,
but involve people in active roles,
perhaps in multiple settings
-Dram today often have ensemble
casts, featuring a number of primary
characters, unlike older dramas, which
had a star or two with a supporting
cast.
 Contest and Reality Shows – Type of
programming is not only popular with
viewer, but with the television
industry as well.
4. Radio
- Types: AM and FM
- Format: Playlist and themes
- Production: Terrestrial, satellite and
internet
- Audience: general public
5. Social Media
- Wide range of internet-based and mobile
services allow users to participate in online
exchanges contribute user-created content
or join online communities
- Facilitate online communication networking
and/or collaboration.
WEEK 10
SOCIAL MEDIA TRIANGLE
 TEXT
-What does this interface look like?
-How much of the interface is text? Images? White space?
-What codes and conventions does this interface use? What
formula does it follow?
-How has this interface changed over time? How are those
changes significant?
-What is missing from this interface?
-What other media intersect with this interface
-How are video/audio/images used in the text
-Whose values are being promoted
 Production
-Who created this social media site?
-For what purpose was it created?
-Is the company publidy or privately held?
- How does the company collect information about its users?
- What does the company do with the information it collects?
-How does the company profit from the site?
 Audience
-Was this interface created for a specific audience
-Who uses this interface?
-For what purpose(s) would it be used?
-How is the audience entertained on this site or encouraged to
spend on the site?
-What is the cost of using this interface?
-Why do I enjoy using this interface?
-What would I change about the interface?
Rhetoric – construction and manipulation of language by the
creator of a text for affective purposes
Rhetorical analysis -approaches media texts and their meanings three dots. In conversation, missing information is
as constructed out of the use of available techniques, styles and supplied non-verbally through the way in which we
conventions in any medium inflect language and express ourselves: ‘What on
earth . . . ?’. The use of ellipses in this headline fakes
Cognition – the process through which we comprehend events coyness about the use of bad language.
and ideas in order to come to understand the word g. Cliché - use of well-worn phrases, ideas, metaphors,
allusion and so on to generate recognition, quickly
Language – is the material out of which a single instance of
deploying meaning.
communication is created. It provides the basic units – in words
2. Presentational Rhetoric – it could be a written word
when it is infected by design choices
Meaning – refers to the interpretation of messages by the reader
- It is also the spoken word, the presentation
of context
which is concerned with how people speak
- Not mainly about information, the tangible (e.g.tone, accent, volume, emphasis, pace,
content of the media but is tied to the way pauses).
that we learn about the information
- Presentation and the particularities of the Guidelines in Presentation Rhetoric
medium
o Use the language of everyday speech, not that of
Captioning and Headlines – aim was to grab the interest of the spokesmen, lawyers or bureaucrats
potential reader, presenting the front page not as an objective o Avoid, where possible, euphemisms and
perspective on events but instead to evoke and ride on the circumlocutions promoted by interest-groups
emotion and anger of the reader o Using the plural can be a helpful device (gender
sensitive)
RHETORICAL MEDIA TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES o Do not be hectoring or arrogant
1. Verbal Rhetoric Non-verbal factors that affect media meanings
- Word as written and spoken
- Label that points to the choice of words, the a. Sounds
vocabulary used in media communication b. Gestures
- E.g. Popular music, newspaper headlines c. Words
d. Colors
Common Verbal Rhetorical Devices 3. Photographic Devices
a. Composition
a. Alliteration - repetition of starting letters of words in a b. Retouching
phrase or sentence, effectively creating a kind of c. Cropping
affective rhythm. d. Juxtaposition
b. Rhyme and Allusion - an obviously poetic rhetorical e. Montage
device. It is used relatively sparingly in such media 4. Editorial Rhetoric
forms, except for humorous intent as here. The a. Scene cuts
headline makes use of a famous pop song and is also b. Significance of image presented
therefore allusive. c. Framing
c. Euphemism - is the substitution of more acceptable d. Sticking together or juxtaposing scenes
terms for those that might offend some people.
d. Metaphor- Metaphor is the substitution of one idea for Semiology – Study of meaning and the different systems that
another. This headline gives a vivid portrait in one make meaning possible
metaphorical phrase of the socio-political conditions in
one particularly troubled country. -Approach to investigating meaning is further complicated by the
technical language
e. Metonym-refers to a part of something used to
represent it as a whole(e.g. ‘I’ve bought some wheels’
for ‘I’ve bought a car’). Core Ideas in the Semiological Approach
f. Elipses- simply the omission of data, usually of what
o Media texts are seen as constructions
we take to be obvious. It is often written as a row of
o Meanings are the result of social convention
 o It is the intentions of the people who produced
the texts

Sign – The object/thing

Signifier – The physical existence (sound, word, image)

Signified – The mental concept

Semiological Tools and Techniques

a. Signs – selection and combination

b. Verbal and visual signs
c. Complex signs – testing significance and getting to
grips with analyzing meaning
d. Denotation and connotation: levels of signification
e. Sign-object relations
f. Organization of signs in text – media rhetoric and
signification
g. Codes: textual encoding and decoding
h. Polysemia and the media producer

Complex signs – testing significance and getting to grips with

analyzing meaning

- It is organized around particular rhetorical

principles: medium-distance shot, clearly lit,
the quartet organized and balanced along
triangular principles with the tallest two
inside, the shorter at either edge of the
group.

Sign-Object Relation

o Iconic relationship
o Indexical
o Symbolic

Organization of signs in texts – media rhetoric and signification

o When signs are combined, their structural

relationship is changed
o The meaning of signs is conventional, it is never
fixed and absolutely certain