Key Media Concepts

We always focus on this fundamental set of ideas when viewing a movie or even making one. When conducting a study of the movie or writing an essay about it, we must show that we have a thorough understanding of these ideas. The following are these ideas: 

1) Audience: When producing a movie or any other type of media, we always have a target audience in mind. For example, if we were producing an educational documentary, young adults would be the audience we were aiming for. The intended audience for each piece of media text varies. Audiences can be broken down based on factors such as age, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and social class

2)Media form: It is the type of media we are studying. Is it a movie? Is this an advertisement? A publication? The media language we use will differ depending on the media form, for example, if we analyse a film, we will discuss camera movements, editing, mise-en-scene, sound, and so on. However, when discussing a magazine, we will discuss the colour, font style and size, and so on.

3)Genre: Different media forms can be further subdivided into genres. A film, for example, can be classified into the following genres: horror, comedy, thriller, action, and so on. A TV drama can be classified as a reality show, a documentary, a soap opera, and so on. Different genres have different code conventions, such as a horror film having spooky music as its soundtrack, a lot of jump scares, a supernatural entity, and so on. However, in science fiction, we might see spaceships, aliens, researchers, and technologies instead. These assist us in determining the film's genre.

4)Media Institutions: It is also important to remember who created the pieces we watch in the media. Different media institutions or companies create different media texts for different audiences or compete for the same audience. Media institutions can be large and own a large number of media works, such as Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney, The Times Newspaper, and so on.

5)Media Representations: Everything we see in the media is a representation of reality or stereotypes, whether positive or negative. For example, in the media, men are always shown to be more physically aggressive; this may also be true in reality. However, not everything that is depicted is accurate. For example, men are more likely to be depicted as cheaters, even though this does not depend on gender. This is a stereotype formed as a result of the media's constant misrepresentation.