Ideology and values
- 1. Further studying into the ideology, values and media language { Emily Capon
- 2. All media products communicate ideas and values to the audience. Simply these are the attitudes and beliefs embodied within a media product. Some of these values ma be explicit and easy to identify. For Example the headline ‘EU Plot to axe British Number plates’ in the Daily Express leaves no doubt as to the ideological values regarding Europe held by the newspaper. The choice of the word ‘plot’ has associations of certain behaviours and ‘axe’ comes across more violent. The combination of these language choices creates a representation of the EU as sneaky and dangerous organisation reinforcing the papers explicit ideological position that the UK should leave the European union. Text’s ideological values can be discussed by analysing the media language choices and considering the type of representation being created. Ideology and Values Information source – Media Magazine, September 2014
- 3. Until recently the genre of a text was an important factor in its meaning. Media products were grouped according to categories – the Western movie, the film noir, the nom- com, for example and could be identified by their use of recurrent and familiar codes and conventions. Genres helped audiences select (or reject) media products, and institutions found them useful in a number of ways, not least in the marketing of a product. In the contemporary era, genres are increasingly less concrete and predictable; across all platforms, old generic conventions are giving way to blurring of genre differences, therefore subverting audience expectation. Nevertheless, genre can still be useful starting point for analysis. Genre Information source – Media Magazine, September 2014
- 4. Narrative is the term used to describe the way media product structures and tell its story. The events of a story are plot; and the narrative is the structure of the story and the techniques used to tell it. Link other media concepts, narrative is an outcome of media language choices, and representations are used to create characters that have specific roles within the telling of the story. All narratives rely on conflict in some way, and so narratives take ideological positions in their use of certain roles and in their resolution .However, there are many ways conventional narrative can be subverted and character creates particular experiences for audiences Narrative Information source – Media Magazine, September 2014
- 5. Media language refers to the choices made by a media producer when constructing a media product. The ‘language’ will depend on the type of media product. The producers will have deliberately chosen the media language they use, however these producers do not always have a totally free choice; they maybe influenced by the target audience they are trying to appeal to, or by the institution or organisational interest behind the construction. Some genres depend on the familiarity or repetition of specific media language choices, the ability to analyse the reason that a choice has been made, its potential impact on audiences. This is basis of good analysis Media language