The OCR AS Media Course
Our course is split into two units:
1. Tv Drama and the Film Industry
2. A Sixth Form magazine front cover and a Music Magazine
We will also study a range of media texts from either television or radio.
Media Language
Media Language refers to written, verbal, non-verbal, aural and aesthetic communication. It can also refer to a combination of these. Over time, we come to expect certain styles for filming, acting, editing and sound for certain types of programmes. After a while we can 'read' the media language as easily as we can understand our friends in conversations.
Form and Style
The form of a media text is the combination of the 'mirco' elements such as dialogue, sound effects, editing, ambience and also its shape and structure. The form of a text becomes instantly recognisable to the audience. The style of a text is the way the text uses this form.
Convention
Conventions are normally described as the 'ingredients' of a particular form or genre. One example is a period drama, a sub-genre with a range of necessary ingredients which are expected by the audience, making conventions 'contractual' in nature.
Signification
Signification is often applied within a theory called semiotics, the study of signs. Everything we see is a sign and carries a meaning. The basic meaning of the sign that most people can recognise and agree on is known as the signifier but it can also be called the denotation. The individual meanings that people give to signs are known as the signified or connotation. For example, if we were shown The Skull and Cross Bones sign the signifier or denotation would be a skull and cross bone but the signified or connotation of this sign could be danger or pirates. This depends on the audience. When we deconstruct signs, for what they might signify, we must remember that meaning is polysemic (different meanings to different people).
Representation
We see media texts as mediating (between two things) between our sense of reality and the fictional or factual representation of reality - of people, places, ideas, themes, time periods and a range of social contexts. How the text presents 'reality' is always a 're' construction of a mediated version of the real world.
Audiences
The section on institutions and audiences includes a detailed consideration of contemporary audience theories and approaches. The simplest way of analysing this concept is to look for a 'target audience' for a media text or product. Many texts appeal to a range of secondary audiences and the ways that different people respond to texts often challenges expectation.
Narrative and Genre
The narrative or story describes the process of balancing what we actually see or hear and what we assume in addition. It is fundamentally to do with order, usually linear and the relationship between information and enigma (mystery). Genre is referred to as when a range of media texts share form and conventions and the audience for this type of text develop certain expectations. Whether genre exists more in the minds of producers or audiences is questionable. However, the media is dominated by formats and when a format is seen to work then we are treated to a huge plethora of examples in little time. Genres shift over time, producers and audiences subvert (twist it around) and parody (make fun of it) the conventions and hybrid (join two things together to make one) fusions of genres develop.
Creativity
Creative skills operate on two levels:
1. The ability to use digital technologies to make meaning, so the audience can respond easily to the text.
2. The ability to engage and interest the audience.
Media products are the result of hundreds of creative decisions. When you analyse texts you will work out what these decisions were.
Connecting the Micro to the Macro
The micro elements of a text are the technical and symbolic features. These micro elements can be treated separately, but when combined they add up to an overall representational 'world' that makes sense and is believable. This is called 'verisimilitude' which means does something look real.
Multimodal Literacy
This is about users making their own trajectory through hypermedia environments. This means that we have to be careful about theorising simple producer-audience relations and creator-consumer patterns of behaviour.
