Vocabulary

Binary opposites/opposition: This is a theory used in media which takes a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning and shows how we as humans naturally compare the differences i.e Young and old, rich and poor.

Juxtaposition: an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especiall for comparison or contrast.

Semionics: Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or (in the Saussurean tradition) semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication. Semiotics is closely related to the field of linguistics, which, for its part, studies the structure and meaning of language more specifically.

Encode: When something is placed into an item that is either made to not be seen at first glance or to be made noticeable for a certain key point to be made or accomplished once noticed. Incoding can be a way of inserting  a message in a hidden way.

Decoding: This is in relation to encoding. This is when something is looked at in high depth to understand its true meaning and to identify what each encoding piece is used for and why it may have been included in the way that is has.

Representation:
Representation refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of ‘reality’ such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or writing as well as still or moving pictures. The term refers to the processes involved as well as to its products. For instance, in relation to the key markers of identity - Class, Age, Gender and Ethnicity (the 'cage' of identity) - representation involves not only how identities are represented (or rather constructed) within the text but also how they are constructed in the processes of production and reception by people whose identities are also differentially marked in relation to such demographic factors.

Signifier: any material thing that signifies, e.g., words on a page, a facial expression, an image.

Signified: the concept that a signifier refers to.

Indexicl signifier: signs where the signifier is caused by the signified, e.g., smoke signifies fire.

Iconic signs: signs where the signifier resembles the signified, e.g., a picture.

Metonymy: a kind of connotation where in one sign is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, as in the use of Washington for the United States government or of the sword for military power.

Polysemic: is the capacity for a sign (e.g., a word, phrase, etc.) or signs to have multiple meanings (sememes), i.e., a large semantic field. It is usually regarded as distinct from homonymy.

Modes of adress: Mode of Address is a very important media term. It simply means how the text speaks to the audience, and involves them. It also involves how a text INFLUENCES an audience to respond to a text in a certain way, and that depends on: them.

Hegmony: Hegemony more often refers to the power of a single group in a society to essentially lead and dominate other groups in the society. This might be done by controlling forms of communication, by influencing voters or by influencing government leaders. Some lobbying groups, for example, might have hegemony status over leaders in congress. Rules that would prohibit or limit political spending by special interest groups are designed to reduce their dominance and allow individual voters to have more control.

Versisimilitude:

‘appearance of reality’ is called

verisimilitude

 This is a convention as there is nothing genuinely ‘realistic’ about media images. There are

two important types of verisimilitude:

generic verisimilitude convinces us because of the genre we are

watching (in horror it seems realistic for a vampire to sink its teeth into a person’s neck);

cultural

verisimilitude seems realistic because it mimics real life.