Postmodern Film Example

This is a whole film right there on Youtube (totally legally).

• Who made this film?
• How was it made?
• When was it made?
• What's it about? - describe the narrative.
• Explain how it can be described as postmodern.

Media Language: Semiotic Analysis

Media Language essentially means the codes, conventions and symbols of a media text. For example women's magazines use codes such as French words for titles to indicate style - Elle, Vogue etc. They use conventions such as certain types of editorial which appear month after month (letters to the editor, fashion news, reviews etc). Symbols (things used to represent something else) are often used to create a brand identity, in magazines the masthead is the focus of the brand identity and small logo symbols are used throughout the magazine such as at the end of articles.

Semiotics is the study of signs and how we make sense of them.

I want you to produce a semiotic analysis of one of your coursework productions.

In it you should make reference to:

• Ferdinand do Saussure
• Roland Barthes
• signifier and signified
• denotation
• connotation

Audience: Reception Theory

To demonstrate understanding of the key media concept of Audience, you should discuss who you made the text for (age, gender, socio-economics, psychographic, subculture etc). .. but to take this to a deeper level of analysis you should also consider how different audiences will interpret the production differently.

Task:

Read the article on Stuart Hall paying particular attention to the section on  “Preferred/negotiated/oppositional readings”. (Blackboard - Course Materials - Theoretical Evaluation)

Chose one of your coursework productions and write a description of its target audience and the preferred reading of the production. Now consider what negotiated and oppositional readings the production might offer.

Write this as a post on your blog. Introduce your blog post with a brief outline of Stuart Hall and Reception Theory.