Using Conventions

from real media texts

This should be relatively easy for you to do

You need to explain how you found out about the conventions of all the media texts you have been asked to create.

• Music Magazines• British Film• Neo-Noir Trailer• Film Website• Film Magazine

You need to talk about specific things you did and why they were relevant. You need to do more than just say “I looked on YouTube”. Name the videos you watched, say what you gained from them and how they influenced your work.

PRINT CONVENTIONS

Look at your textual analyses and isolate the typical features.Which conventions have you kept, ignored, subverted, developed and why?

Front Cover/Contents

• Masthead• Pug• Puff• Coverlines• Headline• Main Image• Other images

DOUBLE PAGE

• Headline• Standfirst• Columns• Pictures• Captions• Picture credits• Pull quotes

Once you have done this you can use a similar list to explain your planning ideas. Relate it to your real planning artefacts. For example your mock pages, explain your choice of font (design, size, colour).

VIDEO CONVENTIONS

Refer to textual analyses and planning artefacts and use technical language.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Angle• Distance• Lighting• Focus• Colour• Camera Movement

MISE-EN-SCENE

• Facial expressions• Gesture/posture• Make-up• Objects• Furniture• Buildings• Colour

EDITING

• Continuity• Montage• Transitions•

SOUND

• Dialogue• Voiceover• Music• Sound FX• Natural sound

TEXT

• Style• Size• Colour• Movement

Stuart Hall – Encoding/Decoding

In the encoding/decoding model of media discourses developed by Stuart Hall, the meaning of the text is located between its producer and the reader (Hall, 1980). The producer (encoder) framed (or encoded) meaning in a certain way, while the reader (decoder) decodes it differently according to his/her personal background, the various different social situations and frames of interpretation.

According to Hall, the meaning within a text is neither fixed or polysemic.

Although there are multiple meanings you must end up taking a position.