Manifest content: Manifest messages are direct and clear to the audience.

We
generally have little trouble recognizing these messages when we are paying full
attention to media presentation.

Latent content: Latent messages are indirect and beneath the surface and
consequently escape our immediate attention. Latent messages may reinforce manifest
messages or may suggest entirely different meanings.

Media as Text: Media literacy involves an awareness of media content as a “text” that
provides insight into our contemporary culture and ourselves. Media presentations
often reveal the attitudes, values, behaviors, preoccupations, patterns of thought, and
myths that define a culture. And conversely, an understanding of a culture can furnish
perspective into media presentations produced in that culture.

Affect: (pg. 6) Media communicators can influence the attitudes and behavior of
audiences by appealing to their emotions. Visual and aural media are particularly well
suited to emotional appeals. Production elements such as color, shape, lighting and size
convey meaning by evoking emotional responses in the audience.

Embedded Values: Media content often reflects the value of the media communicator,
as well as widely held cultural values and attitudes. Values may be embedded in the
text through such production techniques as editing decision, point of view, and
connotative words and images.

Media Credibility: (pg. 8)

Elitism: (pg. 6)

Media messages: Media messages are the underlying themes or ideas contained in a
media presentation. What determines the validity of the interpretation of the media
message is the following: 1) the analysis must be systematically applied and 2) the
analysis must be supported with concrete examples from media presentations (i.e.,
films, television episodes, newspaper articles, video games, or advertisements).

How are these different?

Intrapersonal communication: Intrapersonal communication takes place
internally within yourself.
Interpersonal communication: Interpersonal communication is based upon face-
to-face interaction with another person.
Mass communication: In mass communication, messages are communicated
through a mass medium.

Communication model (Communicator, Message, Channel, Audience):

 The communicator is the person who delivers the message.
  The message is the information being communicated.
 The channel refers to the passage through which the information is being
conveyed. For example, you use your voice, eyes, and facial expressions as
channels for interpersonal communication. In mass communication, the
media – newspapers, photographs, film, radio, television, and the Internet –
serve as channels for the communication of information to large groups of
people who are separated in time and/or space from the media
communicator.
 The audience consists of the person or people who receive the message.

Feedback: Part of the communications process, feedback furnishes an opportunity for

the audience to respond to the communicator. Listeners ask questions or comment to
better understand what the communicator is trying to say. Feedback also provides vital
reassurance for the communicator.

Types of interference (noise):

Audience interference (selective exposure, etc): Audience interference occurs when

the audience obstructs the communication process. The following psychological
principles explain how individuals misinterpret information:
 Selective exposure refers to the audience’s program choices, based on
personal values and interests. People often seek out information with which
they agree, while avoiding communication that offers a different perspective.
 Selective perception is the phenomenon in which people’s interpretation of
content is colored by their predispositions and preconceptions.
 Selective retention occurs when a person selectively remembers (or forgets)
information.
 Attention span may also be a factor in audience interference, as
communication is an active process that demands concentration and energy.
 Audience members also often filter messages through their egos. That is,
they only hear those aspects of a conversation that pertain to them, ignoring
the rest of the message.

Examples of Functions of Media:

Medium characteristics (how are print media diff from TV, etc)
Latent function: Latent function refers to purposes behind the communication of
information that may not be immediately obvious to the audience.

Multiple function: A communications exchange may serve more than one function at a
time. While these functions are often compatible, at other times they may be in
conflict.

Manifest and latent audience

Narrowcasting: Narrowcasting is a concept tied to the evolution of American media.
Over time, the consumer media market has become so large that it is now profitable to
direct messages at specialized interests, tastes, and groups.

Postmodern communications model: In this rapidly evolving media landscape,

producers must take their audience into consideration at an earlier state of the
communications process:
Channel
Audience
Communicator
Message

Verisimilitude: Verisimilitude is defined as the appearance of truth. In its ability to

instantaneously preserve a moment of space, photography creates an illusion of
verisimilitude, or lifelike quality.

Hegemonic model: A school of thought with regard to the role of the audience in the
mass communication process, in which the audience assumes a passive role in the
communications process, responding in a uniform way to messages constructed by the
media communicator.

Preferred reading
Reception theory: A school of though in regard to the audience’s interpretation of
media content that recognizes the unique perspective of the individual. According to
this construct, the audience assumes an active role in interpreting the information they
receive through mass media. Different groups make sense of content in different ways.

Historical context: Media content often derives its significance from the events of the
day. As a result, understanding the historical context can provide insight into media
messages. At the same time, media presentations can furnish information into the
period in which they were produced, as well as providing perspective on cultural
changes.

Cultural preoccupation: The relative importance that a culture places on particular

issues as reflected through media content; for example, the amount of attention given
to sexually oriented content.

Cultural myths: Cultural myths are sets of beliefs that may not be true but nevertheless
tell us about how we see ourselves and our culture.

Mythic reality: Mythic reality refers to cultural myths that assume a degree of reality
over time as people buy into it. The danger presented by mythic realities is that people
sometimes make decisions on the basis of these myths.
Worldview: Popular artists construct complete worlds out of their imaginations. The
premise, plot, and characters of fictional narratives are based on certain fundamental
assumptions about how this world operates. Even when we watch nonfiction content
like the news, we receive overall impressions about worldviews. Media presentations
establish who and what are important within the worldview of the program.

Ideology (dominant ideology): The manner or the content of thinking characteristic of

an individual group or culture.

Romantic ideal: An ideal worldview that often appears in media presentations. This
ideal presumes an ordered universe that operates according to absolute values: truth,
justice, beauty, faith, and love.

Values Hierarchy: Value hierarchy refers to the value system operating within the
worldview of a media presentation.

Examples of media value systems

Cultural ideologies:
Stereotype: A stereotype is an oversimplified conception of a person, group, or event.
This term derives from the Greek work steros (hard or solid), which underscores the
inflexible, absolute nature of stereotypes Stereotypes is an associative process; ideas
about groups are based on a shared understanding about a group.

Content analysis: Content analysis is a quantitative methodology that can be employed

to look for patterns in messages, symbols, language, art forms, and potential bias in the
media.

Manifest values:
Latent values
Derivative programming:
Cross-promotion:
Gatekeeper:
Video news release (VNR):
Premise: The initial circumstances, situation, or assumption which serves as the point of
origin in the narrative. A description of premise usually answers the question, “What is
this program about?”
Illogical premise
Willing suspension of disbelief:

Plot: A series of actions planned by the artist to build on one another, with an
introduction, body, and conclusion. The foundation of plot is conflict. Characters are
initially confronted with a dilemma, which is resolved by the end of the story.
Explicit content: Explicit content consists of events and activities in the plot that are
displayed through visible action. The viewer constructs meaning by selecting the
essential pieces of explicit information in the story.

Implicit content: Implicit content refers to those elements of plot that remain under the
surface, including motivation, the relationship between events, and the consequences
of earlier action.

Genre: A genre is a standardized format that is distinctive and easily identifiable.

Examples include horror films, romances, sci-fi, situation comedies, westerns, and the
evening news. A genre is not confined to one medium. For instance, at one time or
another, westerns have appeared in print, on radio, television, and film.

Affective response: In contrast with print, visual and aural stimuli initially touch us on an
emotional, or affective, level. Media communicators can influence the attitude and
behavior of audiences by appealing to emotions and evoking an affective, or emotional
response.

Formulaic premise: A formulaic premise refers to an identifiable situation that

characterizes a genre.

Formulaic structure: A genre generally fits within an identifiable, unvarying structure, or

organizational pattern. In many genres (including the sitcom) the standard formula is
order/chaos/order.

Stock character: A stock character refers to a character who appears so frequently in

the media that he or she has become a conventional and recognizable type.

Production elements (listed at beginning of Ch. 10 & 11)

Editing
Color
Lighting
Shape
Scale
Relative Position
Movement
Point of View
Angle
Word Choice
Connotative Images
Performance
Sound Elements