TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

Textual Analysis

TV dramas:

• Game of Thrones

• House

• Casualty

•  CSI

• East Enders

• The Mentalist

• Neighbours

• Skins

• Walking Dead

• Lost

Codes and conventions 

Code: A system of signs which can be decoded to create meaning.

•In media texts, we look at a range of different signs that can be loosely grouped into the following:

•technical codes - all to do with the way a text is technically constructed - camera angles, framing, typography etc

•verbal codes - everything to do with language -either written or spoken

•symbolic codes - codes that can be decoded on a mainly connotational level - all the things which draw upon our experience and understanding of other media texts, our cultural frame of reference.

•codes can create feelings to the audience through effects and techniques, for example rain in a film and a woman looking upset can make the audience feel bad for the woman and be emotional.

Convention:

•Is what you would expect to see in a certain genre, for example: in a fantasy genre film you would expect to see maybe unicorns, demons, hero's/villians, strange settings, basically things that are fictional and unreal in our world.

The codes and conventions in media can be separated into 3 groups –

•Technical (e.g camera angles, movements & shots),

•Symbolic (e.g clothing, colours)

•Written and audio (music etc).

•These three distinct groups give the text meaning and determine the response of the viewer.

TV Drama Categories/Genres:

–Crime

–Period

–Comedy

–Medical

–Sci-Fi

–Soap

East Enders - Soap

Television codes are generally used create a feeling towards the audience using a range of techniques and effects such as the drama East Enders, the verbal codes used connotate to a stereotypical cockney accent. This influences the audience that they would have the stereotypical east end personality and lifestyle. The conventions used here are real life situations that the average person watching this television show can relate to. Furthermore, events and stereotypes are generally overexadurated to appeal to the audience.

Poldarke - Period

The television drama, Poldarke, uses visual codes such as misenscene to generate an effect to the audience such as lifestyle, timeframe and genre. Furthermore, the wooden sailing boat uses symbolic codes to indicate the timeframe to the audience. The conventions this television drama uses are the misenscene to distinguish the working class and high ranking public. The misenscene further indicates the timeframe being in the past which may influence the audience to believe that there may be different accents and sociolects in that timeframe. 

Textual analysis  = Establishing a methodology for analysing a media text:

We can analyse "deconstruct" the media using the following categories:

•text

•audience

•production

The media text is any media product we wish to examine

•book,

•poster,

•Song,

•Film

• etc.

A media text is analysed through researching the media:

• categories

• language

• narrative

• representation

• audience

• institution

• technology 

Categories

•MEDIUM (eg print, television, radio, film, internet)

•PURPOSE (eg to inform, to entertain, to persuade, to educate, to gain profit)

•FORM (eg drama, light entertainment, above or below the line advertising, newspaper)

•GENRE (eg science fiction, soap opera, documentary, game show, broadsheet)

•TONE (eg serious, comic, ironic, formal, informal, objective, personal, scientific)

•STYLE (eg realist, expressionist, conventional, unconventional, traditional, modern)

•OTHER CATEGORIES (eg nationality, target audience, director, star, public sector)

n

Texual analysis of 'Skins'

Skins

Visual codes: rebellious=clothes, skateboarding

Symbolic codes: clothing=lower class, cannabis=rebellious

Television

Entertain

Comedy

Modern style

English

Young aged target audience

Young English stereotype

Skins  is a UK television drama that is based around the lifestyle of three young aged men. I will
discuss the codes and conventions associated with the drama, describe the drama in terms of
tone, style and other categories such as the target audience. I will then discuss  the forms of
language used in this drama and how it contributes to the media text. I will finally conclude
with discussing if the television drama was portrayed fairly or biased.

The visual codes used in this television series include lower class clothing, rebellious actions
and over dramatic events. However the symbolic codes used in this particular extract are
the cannabis use, the sustained eye contact between the main characters and the
woman in the car and the skateboard sequence. These codes finally create the 
conventions of this clip being humerus sections and being generally over exadurated. This
altogether creates a comedy series with various styles.

The styles included in this series are a modernized environment, a London cockney
accent and simple yet effective humor. This altogether contributes to a young aged target 
audience due to its simplicity and rebellious events which sounds appealing to the younger
groups of today's society. 

This series finally depicts young English men with the stereotype as somewhat witty, rebellious
and passionless. This is positively presented while being biased. It is positively presented due 
since it is a comedy which includes positive humor. However presented with great bias since it 
only depicts a fraction of today's young society.

This concludes that the television drama 'Skins' uses its codes and conventions to entertain
the audience. This also in the meantime influences the audience that people of a young age 
behave in such a manor with clearly gives them a bias viewpoint of today's young society.

Stuart Hall Encoding/decoding model

Stuart Hall Encoding/decoding model

Stuart Halls 3 ways to decode a text:

1) Preferred or Dominant Reading = the way the

    producer of a text intended the text to be understood.

2) Oppositional Reading = where the preferred or

    dominant meaning is recognised but rejected for

    cultural or political reasons.

3) Negotiated Reading = where the reader agress with

    elements of the text, but not all.

The codes that are present are visual codes of a female that include clothing that appeals to the target customer, being a male audience with the age of 18 years old and above, eating a lollipop and                             the red hue that is  connotative to love and  lust. This manipulates the audience to think of sexual connotations which will achieve the aims of customers purchasing the product. Furthermore this theme of sexuality generally objectifies females, further influencing the general pubic that this female may be an included feature of this game and would therefore purchase this product.

The codes represented are visual codes of the male character include aggressive body language and clothes of the stereotypical thief. This further connotes to the main audience that there is exhilarating action through crime and destruction within a game. This therefore influences the audience to purchase this game because of these reasons.  

The visual codes featured in this image include weaponry, a female design wearing clothes that may appeal to the male audience and a background that has the design of a jungle. The weaponry would

influence the audience that such an image includes violence and action. This could lead to a contradiction to the female stereotype of todays society since the weaponry would imply this character is involved in such violence and action.

Lads Mags

The elements that would be included in a lads mag would be an enlarged image of the front cover model, colors that connate to what you would see during sexual interaction and large titles stating the models name with the type of dressing included within the photo shoot for that issue of the magazine.  This would clearly appeal to the 'lads mag' audience since it influences the viewer to relate to sexual interactions and connotations when finally results to the viewer to purchase the magazine.

According to Stuart Halls ways to decode media text, I believe that I have the viewpoint of negotiated reading since in todays society, people have a free will. This free will would allow them to publicise themselves in whatever fashion they desire. However it does still cause contradiction such as a growing influence of the audience to objectify females and not accept some women in todays society since they do not look the part as they do in such 'lads mags'.

Review of Fish Tank (2009)

Fish Tank (2009)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rAjyGtUNBQ

In the year 1999, Ann Gould identified the stereotypes of the media’s represented youth as rebellious, artificial tribes, nihilistic, sexual, violent and self-destructive. I will identify these stereotypes from the film Fish Tank (2009) which aimed to represent a stereotypical view of the broken youth of the UK. After being identified, I will judge if these represented stereotypes are fair, biased, positive or negative through my understanding and evidence of the film. Then finally conclude if this film was overall a fair portrayal of today’s youth within the UK.

Examples of being rebellious from this film are theft and trespassing. Theft being the main character stealing money from her mother’s partner (14:09) and trespassing onto a traveller’s site while also damaging their property (4:13). I believe the example of theft was negative however a fair stereotype only to a certain extent. The reason being is that there is a minority group of youths that are in negative and poorer living conditions which would influence them to become rebellious. This would then lead them to theft to sustain a feeling of satisfaction of their current living conditions. However this only goes to a certain extent since it in only a minority group of the youth, not the majority. I also believe that the trespassing was a negative and bias representation of the current average youth of the UK since the action of trespassing would immediately influence the audience with a negative viewpoint of today’s youth within the UK. Thus the viewers placing a mental stamp onto this community as trespassing and dangerous. The trespassing further reflects a bias representation of the youth community today since the majority of the youth community are aware of such consequences that would occur from trespassing. However, the film represents the youth as having no such care about these consequences which would further influence the audiences viewpoint of today’s youth as careless and disturbing.

Artificial tribes also play a role as a stereotype is this film such as the group of dancers towards the beginning of the film (2:14). This stereotype is greatly negative with a vastly bias representation. The aggressive and hostile body language and grouping of these youths alone immediately influence the audience to believe that they are a ‘gang’. The key term being ‘gang’ further stimulates the audience to make negative connotations towards the youth in this film by recalling real world crimes and situations involving such gangs. Therefore bringing about the stereotype of today’s youth groups to be aggressive and dangerous, causing a negative viewpoint. Furthermore this representation of youth is vastly biased due to the fact that only a small fraction of groupings of youths today do not intend to have an aggressive and hostile outlook towards the general public.

The nihilistic stereotype of this film is represented with the action of a drug deal between the main character and another individual (6:07) and theft being the main character stealing money from her mother’s partner. This nihilistic stereotype is represented from a negative however fair viewpoint justified by the fact that in today’s society, illegal actions such as drug dealing are rejected by the general public today. Therefore this film generally correlates with today’s public thus becoming a fair however negative representation.

The representation of the sexual stereotype of this film is fairly portrayed with elements of a positive and negative influence in this film. The sexual stereotype is more influenced onto the youth by the adults of this film such as the main characters mother having sexual interactions with her partner (19:38). I believe that the presentation of this stereotype is somewhat biased with a vastly negative influence that the audience is presented with. The reason being is that the parents presented in this film are only a part of the minority of today’s parents in the general public. Therefore this film contains the bias due to the fact that that this film has achieved to specifically present this group, influencing the audience to believe that many parents of the UK, in today’s society,  have this attitude while parenting which is not the case.

The stereotype of violence is frequently portrayed in this film such as the assault onto the main character from the group of dancers in the opening sequences of the film (2:52). This event of violence is negatively presented while also having a vast bias towards it due to the fact that the majority of youths in today’s general public do not have the hostility as presented in this film. Thus making it a biased portrayal since the audience of this film would be influenced to believe that youths of today’s modern society have this hostile, negative attitude. This therefore causes the audience to develop a negative prejudice towards youths in today’s general public.

The self-destructive attitude and stereotype of youths today is presented in this film such as the main character drinking out of depression and disturbance (21:23) after witnessing her mother making sexual interactions with her partner. I have the opinion that this is negatively presented however fair to a certain extent due to the fact that drinking out of depression is generally interpreted as a negative action from today’s general public. Furthermore, this does have a fair presentation to only a certain extent. This is because the majority of youths today in the general public would resort to such actions if they lived in such conditions to satisfy their emotional state at the present time.

This film generally has a negative interpretation and presentation of youths of the UK. Therefore this would influence the audience to believe that youths today do behave in such a manner which is not the case. However this film does contain both fair and bias interpretations of youths today since the minority of youths in the general public today are living in such conditions and would resort to illegal actions to satisfy their emotional wellbeing.