Media language

Question 1

Semiotics - Barthes

Answer 1

• The idea that texts communicate meanings through a process of signification
• The idea that signs can function at the level of denotation, which involves the ‘literal’ or common-sense meaning of the sign, and the level of connotation, which involves the meanings associated with or suggested by the sign

Question 2

Narratology - Todorov

Answer 2

Equilibrium 
Disruption 
Recognition 
Repair 
Equilibrium

Question 3

Genre theory - Neale

Answer 3

• The idea that genre may be dominated by repetition, but are also marked by difference, variation and change
• Genre changes, develops and varies as they borrow from and overlap with one another

Question 4

Structuralism - Levi-Strauss

Answer 4

• The idea that texts can best be understood through an examination of their underlying structure
• The idea that meaning is dependent upon pairs of oppositions and these binary oppositions are resolved to have particular ideological significance

Question 5

Postmodernism - Baudrillard

Answer 5

• In postmodernism culture the boundaries between the ‘real’ world and the world of the media have collapsed and that it is no longer possible to distinguish between reality and simulation
• The idea that media images have come to seem more ‘real’ than the reality they supposedly represent (hyperreality)