Yr 10: INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA STUDIES

In today's class we  introduce the key concept of Representation which you will need for your first coursework module, the Individual Media Portfolio. This module is about representation in advertising: you will research how professional advertisements function and then create your own campaigns.

So how do visual codes work? On my way down to class, I pass an oak tree with its acorns. If you explore the symbolism of oaks (king of the forest, strength, Britishness) and of leaves (garland of bay leaves, crown of thorns), you can see how ideas are represented through images. They belong to the culture and society of any particular period and carry social messages and values. For example, why do we have the Red Cross as well as the Red Crescent?

Clothes, possessions, medals, uniforms, buildings: all these can carry symbolic meaning. We discuss the expression 'below the salt' and link social status to the valuable commodity of salt, and trace the etymology of the word 'salary'. 

Meaning can also be made by the words attached to images. For example, the caption of a newspaper image anchors the text. You can change how we read an image by changing the caption.

Today's newspapers carried on the front page the image of a drowned Syrian toddler cradled in the arms of a policeman on a Turkish beach. This image had the power to shape the political debates about migrants coming into Europe from countries such as Syria. We look at how the representation was used. 





Since the lesson, the image has gone around the world and has acquired symbolic meaning: what do the Moroccan students in the image on the right meaning?

Newspaper Caption: "If these extraordinarily powerful images of a dead Syrian child washed up on a beach don't change Europe's attitude to refugees, what will?"

We look at two print advertisements from the media text book, one for Listerine (1920s) and one for Persil 'Washes Whiter' (1990s), noticing how the social period was significant in the representation of women: without Listerine to prevent bad breath, the young woman is 'on the shelf' by 28 and a social failure if she hasn't caught a husband. Persil frames women in terms of their success as housewives and mothers.

Moving images such as TV advertisements have their own vocabulary to describe and analyse representation: there is sound as well as images, for example, working together as editing. We look at the Skyfall / Coke Zero tie-in and analyse how the representation works.

PREP: Select a television commercial that you can present to the class and analyse.