KS4 Media Studies

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Brand Identity: The association the audience make with the brand, for example Chanel or Nike, built up over time and reinforced by the advertising campaigns and their placement.

Connotation: The suggested meanings attached to a sign, e.g., the red car in the advert suggests speed and power.

Viral Marketing: Where the awareness of the product or the advertising campaign is spread through less conventional ways including social networks and the Internet. Viral marketing is so named because many of the messages use ‘hosts’ to spread themselves rapidly, like a biological virus.

Media Conglomerate: A company that owns other companies across a range of media platforms. This increases their domination of the market and their ability to distribute and exhibit their product.

Masthead: This is the title and design of the title of the magazine. The name and font style may give a clue to the genre.

Narrative: The ‘story’ that is told by the media text. All media texts, not just fictional texts, have a narrative. For example, magazines have a clear beginning, middle and end. Most narratives are linear and follow a specific structure (Todorov).

Red top: A British newspaper that has its name in red at the top of the front page. Red-tops have a lot of readers but are not considered to be as serious as other newspapers.

Layout and design: The way in which a page has been designed to attract the target audience. This includes the font styles used, the positioning of text and images and the use of colour.

Demographic: A group in which consumers are placed according to their age, sex, income, profession, etc. The categories range from A to E where categories A and B are the wealthiest and most influential members of society.

Marketing: This is the way in which an organisation tells its audience about a product. It will use different ways to do this, for example a film company will produce trailers and posters to promote a new film.

Realism: A style of presentation that claims to portray ‘real life’ accurately and authentically.

Uses and Gratifications Theory: Suggests that active audiences seek out and use different media texts to satisfy a need and experience different pleasures.

Visual Codes: The visual aspects of the product that construct meaning and are part of media language, for example clothing, expression, and gesture.

Representation: The way in which key sections of society are presented by the media, e.g. gender, race, age, the family, etc. One important example in the media is how women are represented in magazines.

Iconography: The props, costumes, objects and backgrounds associated with a particular genre; for example, in a police series you would expect to see, uniforms, blue flashing lights, scene of crime tape and police radios.

Audience Consumption: The way in which audiences engage with media products (e.g. viewing a TV programme, playing a video game, reading a blog or magazine). Methods of consumption have changed significantly due to the development of digital technologies.

Stripped: a technique used in radio and television whereby a certain programme is broadcast at the same time every day. In radio this attracts an audience who associate a particular programme with their daily routine, for example driving home from work.

Niche audience: A relatively small audience with specialised interests, tastes, and backgrounds.

Stereotype: An exaggerated representation of someone or something. It is also where a certain group are associated with a certain set of characteristics, for example all Scotsmen are mean, blondes are dumb, etc.

Persona: The image or personality that someone, for example a celebrity, presents to the audience.

Mise-en-scene: In analysis of moving image products, how the combination of images in the frame creates meaning; how individual shots in a film or photograph have been composed.