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)

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