Key Terms

Media Language- media language refers to written, verbal, non-verbal, aural and aesthetic communication and usually a combination of these.

For example, in television drama, a phone conversation between two characters in different locations can only be understood by the audience because of the relationship between the camera angles (close ups, head and shoulder shots or longer shots showing location context), non-verbal performance (facial expressions during the phone conversation), dialogue (what the characters say), lighting (to provide a meaningful atmosphere), editing (so that we can follow the conversation and so that the continuity is correct) and sound (atmospheric music or ‘diegetic’ sound such as a door opening or slamming shut).

When we watch television, we don’t need to think about these things, so they are unobtrusive. What we see appears to be straight forward and conventional. Over time we come to expect certain styles of filming, acting, editing and sound for certain types of programme. So we can ‘read’ the media language as easily as we can understand our friends in conversations without having to recall the meaning of every word.

Form – this term means the structure, or skeleton, of a text and the narrative framework that it is constructed in. The form of a text is instantly recognisable to the audience.

For example the form of a television soap opera dictates that it should have a continuous, never ending and multi-stranded narrative, whose episodes commonly end with either a cliff-hanger or a moment of realisation. The form of a magazine or a newspaper refers to the sections and the order of the articles. It also refers to the means by which a medium communicates, through its formal properties of written, verbal, aural and non-verbal communication, still and moving images, graphics etc. Form works together with style and genre to create meaning for an audience.

Style – this refers to the ‘look’ of a media text, its surface appearance. It can be created as appropriate to the medium, by colour, typography, graphic design and layout, vocabulary, photography or illustration, mise-en-scene, lighting, music, camera angle, movement, framing, dialogue, editing etc. Most print texts have a house-style, many film makers have an identifiable style, as do some television channels or scheduling zones, as well as that used by particular programme makers and writers. Style is very important in creating image, tone and mood as well as attracting and retaining an audience. The term is also used to describe the characteristics of music and sound.