The

Construction
of
Media
 Lessons 1–3: Making
Meaning, Constructions and
Representations, and Codes
and Conventions
 Say something with
the following memes.
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
 • What meme can you make out of
this picture?

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

 • Me: Every time my teacher ask if
there is any question about the
topic.
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
 • Me: Pretending to be okay after
getting 5/50 in the test.

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

• What is a meme?
• Should memes be taken literally?
•WHATHow do memes help in spreading
DO YOU MEME?
information and meaning-
making?
 • Do you agree that the media
is everywhere?
• DOCan
WHAT you share ways on how
YOU MEME?

we experience media?
 We experience media by:
• buying magazines, comics, newspapers,
tabloids, and books;
• watching movies in the cinema or
through cable televisions or the Internet;
WHAT DO and
YOU MEME?

• listening to the radio, surfing the

Internet, reading blogs, and engaging in
social media sites by posting videos and
photos.
MEDIA TEXT
A media text is any media product we
wish to examine, whether it is a banner
article
WHAT in a broadsheet, a television
DO YOU MEME?

program, a poster, a music video, a

documentary, etc. All media texts carry
meanings, and those meanings affect
our life in various ways.
Broadsheet

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

Television Program

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

Poster

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

Music Video

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

Documentary

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

 Documentary
MINSAN SA ISANG TAON Dokumentaryo ni Kara David October 8, 2012
Sa ating pang araw-araw na pamumuhay, normal na ang kumain ng
tatlong beses sa isang araw. At para maging malusog ang ating katawan,
kumakain tayo ng sari-saring masusustansyang pagkain. Pero hindi lahat ng
pamilyang Pilipino, may kakayanang gumawa nito. Sa isang malayong
barangay sa probinsya ng Saranggani, kamote ang kinakain ng isang pamilya
para mabuhay. Mula umaga hanggang gabi, halos wala silang kinakain kundi
ito. Pero kada taon, may espesyal na araw kung saan nagiging iba ang
putaheng
WHAT DO YOU hinahain
MEME? sa kanilang hapag kainan. Ang inaabangang araw na ito
ay ang anihan at pagbebenta nila ng abaca. Bago pa man makakain ng ibang
ulam, mahigit anim na oras tinatahak ni Mang Tusan ang bundok ng
Saranggani para ibaba ang kanyang inaning abaca. 30 kilo ang bigat ng
abaca na pinapatong niya sa kanyang ulunan. Lahat ng paghihirap ay
kanyang tinitiis dahil ito lang kasi ang nag-iisang panahon at pagkakataon na
maiiba ang ulam ng kanyang pamilya.
MEDIA TEXT
•newspaper texts (e.g. news articles, feature articles,
opinion pieces, letters to the editor, editorials)
•visual texts (e.g. photographs, graphs, tables,
cartoons)
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
•speeches
•radio interview transcripts
•online texts (e.g. blogs, petitions, issue awareness
websites).
 FEATURES
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
OF MEDIA TEXTS
 Media texts have physical forms.

Good examples are broadsheets, tabloids,

comics, movies in DVDs, posters, and books.
Some
WHAT services
DO YOU MEME? also come in physical forms—a
ticket to the movie theater, a receipt from your
monthly subscription to cable television or
video streaming on the Internet and other
streaming platforms, etc.
 Broadsheets

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

 Tabloids

A newspaper about half the

WHAT DO YOU MEME?
page size of an ordinary
newspaper containing short
often sensational news stories
and many photographs.
 Movies in DVDs

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

 Poster

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

 Books

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

 Video Streaming

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

Media texts have economic value.

There are a cost and a price invested in the

product, and most of the time, it carries a
price tag. There are sellers who expect to gain
WHAT DO YOU MEME?

profit from their sales. This can be a cable

television subscription, an online subscription
to a movie portal, a comic book, etc.
 Cable television

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

 Movie portal

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

 Comic Book

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

What is your interpretation of
this ads?

WHAT DO YOU MEME?

Media texts are a site for the creation and
production of meaning.

What is the media product saying and what meaning

doesDOitYOU
WHAT have for us as individuals and social beings?
MEME?
The meaning here is what it conveys and how the
audience is affected intellectually, psychologically,
emotionally, culturally, physically, and politically. Are
we entertained? Are we educated? Are we informed?
Do we get stimulated? Do we get enraged?
 Lets Recap
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
 Good examples are broadsheets, tabloids,
comics, movies in DVDs, posters, and books.
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
 Media texts have physical forms.

Good examples are broadsheets, tabloids,

comics, movies in DVDs, posters, and books.
Some
WHAT services
DO YOU MEME? also come in physical forms—a
ticket to the movie theater, a receipt from your
monthly subscription to cable television or
video streaming on the Internet and other
streaming platforms, etc.
 This can be a cable television subscription, an
online subscription to a movie portal, a comic
book, etc.
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
Media texts have economic value.

There are a cost and a price invested in the

product, and most of the time, it carries a
price tag. There are sellers who expect to gain
WHAT DO YOU MEME?

profit from their sales. This can be a cable

television subscription, an online subscription
to a movie portal, a comic book, etc.
This any media product we wish to
examine, whether it is a banner article
in a DObroadsheet,
WHAT YOU MEME? a television program, a
poster, a music video, a documentary,
etc.
MEDIA TEXT
A media text is any media product we
wish to examine, whether it is a banner
article
WHAT in a broadsheet, a television
DO YOU MEME?

program, a poster, a music video, a

documentary, etc. All media texts carry
meanings, and those meanings affect
our life in various ways.
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
Today, the capacities of the human
mind aided by technology enable
the process
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
called the construction
of media and information
messages.
Constructions create representations.
Representations are the construction
of certain aspects of reality and the
elements
WHAT DO YOU MEME? that make up reality—people,

places, time or historical periods,

objects, ways of life, and even
identities.
 Tell me what does the
following symbols it
represent.
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
 Peace
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
 Love
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
 Teamwork
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
 Patriotism
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
 Eco-
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
friendly
 Eco-
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
friendly
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
 • Representations can be read
as “re-presentations,” with the
prefix
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
re- to mean doing it
again.
• Representation is a way of
presenting reality again.
 • Media texts present reality again as
they intentionally choose, write,
compose, frame, edit, light, crop, filter,
WHATscore through music, and engineer the
DO YOU MEME?
sound so that what we see is entirely
constructed and artificial versions of
the reality we perceive.
 To fully appreciate the constructed nature of
media and information messages, we take the
route of disassembling, otherwise known as
deconstructing. As both words suggest, we
disassemble
WHAT DO YOU MEME? what has been assembled, or we
deconstruct what has been constructed. It
means taking it apart so that its constitutive
elements can be seen and analyzed.
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
Codes and Convention
• Every medium has its own codes and
conventions. Codes are systems of signs
WHATthat make
DO YOU MEME? up meaning, while
conventions are established principles
of doing something.
• Codes and conventions are the building
blocks of all media texts.
• To fully appreciate codes and
conventions, we will turn to the theory
of semiotics and the method of
semiotic analysis.
• To
WHAT beMEME?
DO YOU introduced to the theory of
semiotics, watch a video about the
theory of semiotics and take note of
how the terms on the next slide are
defined in the video.
 Semiotics was developed by
the Swiss linguist Ferdinand
de Saussure (1857–1913) as
WHAT DO YOU MEME?

the study of life signs within

society.
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
 Saussure identified the two
components of a sign:
• the physical form (sounds, letters,
and gestures), which he termed
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
the signifier
• the image or concept to which the
signifier refers, which he termed
as signified
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
Context is the complex set of conditions that
locates a sign in a particular period in history. It
can mean the established ways by which
society favors certain signs due to historical
circumstances.
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
Example:
The desire of women to have fair skin could partly be
explained by our history as a colony of Spain and the
United States.
 Codes may be symbolic,
technical,
WHAT DO YOU MEME?
or written.
 SYMBOLIC
They are well-established ways of
interpreting a code, as their origin and
meaning exist outside of the media text.
Flowers
WHAT are generally symbolic codes of
DO YOU MEME?
goodwill—a wish for good health and
friendship and love relationships. Symbolic
codes in television programs may include
the setting, the acting, and the color.
 TECHNICAL
Technical codes live inside the media
text. Camera shots, both angles and
points of view, editing techniques, and
sound
WHAT design are parts of the technical
DO YOU MEME?

codes in a media text. Most of the time,

technical codes are generated from the
equipment used to produce a media
text.
 WRITTEN
Written codes are about the written
language used in media texts. It can be
spoken
WHAT (i.e., dialogue) or written in the text
DO YOU MEME?

itself. Advertisements use both written

and spoken language.