What is Media?Introduction to AS Media Studies (MEST 1)

What is a Medium?

It’s anything that gets between the “message” being sent and the “message” being received.

So it could be a pen!

in other words...

• The media is how messages are transmitted.

• The “message” could be anything, including news, facts about the world (documentary), drama, comedy, music, opinion: anything you can access through the media.

Texts

In media studies, to save the confusion of

talking about messages and

messengers, we talk about texts.

A media text could be...

• A book

• A newspaper (or article)

• A magazine (or article, picture etc.)

• An advert

• A Film or trailer

• TV programme

• A recording

• A poster

• A web site or page

• A graphic novel

• A pop promo/video

• A documentary

• A YouTube video...

But...

What does the medium do to the message?

(In other words, what happens in between?)

Packages

• Media texts come in individual packages (newspaper stories, TV or radio programmes, films, magazine spreads, web sites etc.)

• To create these packages, producers encode them using the conventions of that media platform

• The package is then decoded by the consumer (the audience)

• (We’ll discuss this business of encoding and decoding more later.)

Simple Example

Message(encoding)

Recipient(decoding)

Medium(+noise)

What is the medium doing to the message?

Mixed Messages

• The media are often accused of dumbing down the message.

• They’re often accused of bias

• The media can be very selective of the facts they tell us

• The media can distort the truth or simply get things wrong

Mediated experience

• Something that happens to you is a direct experience.

• But most of your knowledge about the world is indirect.

• You learn about the world through media texts: mediated experience

Key Concepts

• In Media Studies, we look at all these texts with a particular focus on key concepts.

• The key concepts are:

• Media Language

• Audience

• Institutions

• Representation

Media Language

• What we mean by “media language” are the forms and conventions used in media texts to encode and convey meanings.

• In a film, for example, the “media language” being used might include the way the camera moves, or the way music or lighting is used

• Both genre and narrative are important aspects of media language

Audience

• Who are the audience?

• Who is the spectator?

• What does the audience get out of using the media?

• How is the audience affected by the media language being used?

• How is the audience targeted?

Institutions

• Who makes media texts – and why?

• Who owns and runs the media – and why?

• Who controls and regulates the media – and why ?

• Do they do a good job?

Representation

• Does the media reflect or distort reality?

• Does it give a positive or negative view of individuals and groups?

• In other words, is it biased, racist, sexist – offensive?

• What are the effects on the audience of media portrayals of certain issues?

• What are the possible effects of being exposed to these representations for a lifetime?

• What do these representations tell us about the values and ideology of our society?

Review

• List some of the media texts you have accessed in the last 24 hours.

• How did you access these texts – and why?