{"id":19999,"date":"2017-06-26T23:11:34","date_gmt":"2017-06-27T03:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/?page_id=19999"},"modified":"2023-12-07T10:02:36","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T15:02:36","slug":"codes-conventions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/codes-conventions\/","title":{"rendered":"Codes & Conventions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Codes and Conventions in Media
\n<\/strong>
\n\u2022 The media construct reality.
\n\u2022 The media have their own forms, codes and conventions.
\n\u2022 The media present ideologies and value messages.
\n\u2022 The media are business that have commercial interests.
\n\u2022 Audiences negotiate meaning in media.
\nMedia mediate reality via the use of recognized codes and conventions,
\nand the credibility or realism of a media text may be judged by the degree
\nto which the audience identifies with what is being portrayed.<\/p>\n

Media students identify three categories of codes that may be used to
\nconvey meanings in media messages: technical codes, which include
\ncamera techniques, framing, depth of field, lighting and exposure and
\njuxtaposition; symbolic codes, which refer to objects, setting, body
\nlanguage, clothing and colour; and written codes in the form of
\nheadlines, captions, speech bubbles and language style.
\n\u2022 the media produces meaning by using conventions
\n\u2022 audiences produce meaning from the interaction of the conventional material in the
\ntext, and their understanding of conventions
\n\u2022 the conventions that the media uses have a history – they come from somewhere and
\nthey are responsive to historical forces
\n\u2022 conventions are not natural but are cultural – they have cultural specificities – they are
\nnow somewhat universal – here we can probably think of advertising.
\n\u2022 the systems of codes that make up the convention can be clumped together under three
\nbroad headings – technical, symbolic, verbal\/written.<\/p>\n

By the term ‘code’ we mean a communication system which contains
\nelements which have an agreed meaning and which can be combined
\naccording to agreed rules. This could be the English language, Morse Code, a
\ntraffic policeman’s hand signals, film etc.
\nIt is a fundamental premise of Communication Studies that all communication
\ntakes place via codes:<\/p>\n

A code is a rule-governed system of signs, whose rules and
\nconventions are shared amongst members of a culture, and which is
\nused to generate and circulate meanings in and for that culture.
\nFiske (1987)<\/p>\n

A code must consist of:
\n\u2022 a set of signs which carry meaning
\n\u2022 a set of agreed rules for combining those signs together<\/p>\n

Since it is the case that the codes we use are the result of conventions
\narrived at by the users of those codes, then it is reasonable to suppose that
\nthe values of the users will in some way be incorporated into those codes.
\nThey will, for example, have developed signs for those things they agree to
\nbe important, they will probably have developed a whole array of signs to
\ndraw the distinctions between those things which are of particular
\nsignificance in their culture.<\/p>\n

In other words, you might reasonably expect that the ideologies prevalent in
\nthose cultures will have been incorporated into the codes used:
\n…’reality’ is always encoded, or rather the only way we can perceive
\nand make sense of reality is by the codes of our culture. There may
\nbe an objective, empiricist reality out there, but there is no
\nuniversal, objective way of perceiving and making sense of it. What
\npasses for reality in any culture is the product of the culture’s codes,
\nso ‘reality’ is always already encoded, it is never ‘raw’.
\nFiske 1987<\/p>\n

Social Values and Representation
\n\u2022 Social values are the unwritten laws by which a culture lives. They are so transparent that
\nthey may exist without us even realising their impact.
\n\u2022 Social values may remain constant across generations and cultures or they may vary.
\n\u2022 Social values are partly based in reality and partly aspirational.
\n\u2022 Social values may or may not reflect people\u2019s bahaviour but always reflect belief.
\n\u2022 Media products are crafted to suit an audience, they must reflect the basic beliefs and
\nvalues of the target market or that market will not buy the product.
\n\u2022 Most media texts support dominant social values and as such are a cleverly crafted
\namalgam of cosy familiarity and fantasy.
\n\u2022 Texts that challenge social values are less common although they proliferate in times of
\nsocial upheaval and uncertainty.
\n\u2022 Some texts simultaneously support and challenge the values of the time and place of
\nproduction.
\nSocial Values may be one or more of the following:
\n\u2022 Dominant
\n\u2022 Traditional
\n\u2022 Emerging
\n\u2022 Subcultural
\n\u2022 Oppositional
\nFurther Reading:
\nSwinburne Home Page http:\/\/www.swinburne-senior-sc.edu.vic.gov.au\/media_studies_links.html
\nThe Media and Communications Studies Site http:\/\/www.aber.ac.uk\/media<\/p>\n

<\/a>The material posted here was originally found at:
\nhttps:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20071001000000*\/http:\/\/www.sssc.vic.edu.au\/dpd\/Code%20and%20conventions%20in%20Media%20Texts.pdf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Codes and Conventions in Media • The media construct reality….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36490,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19999\/revisions\/36490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankwbaker.com\/mlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}