Magazine Introduction and Media Concepts

Flashcards based on the lecture 'Magazine Introduction' covering magazine history, media language theories, representation, and semiotics.

The Gentleman's Magazine

Founded by Edward Cave in $1731$ in England, it is often cited as the first modern magazine and featured essays, poems, and political commentary.

Rotary Press

An advancement in printing technology that, along with advertising revenue, helped magazines flourish and reach a broader audience during the $19^{th}$ and $20^{th}$ centuries.

Audience Positioning

How media texts are constructed through language, images, and layout to encourage audiences to adopt a particular perspective, attitude, or emotional response.

Media Language

How the media through their forms, codes, conventions, and techniques communicate meanings.

Semiotics (Semiology)

The study of signs and meaning, famously associated with Barthes.

Signifier

A component of a sign consisting of a word, an image, a sound, a gesture, or a facial expression.

Signified

The meaning associated with a signifier.

Denotation

The literal, explicit, and straightforward dictionary definition of a word, image, or symbol.

Connotation

The additional cultural, emotional, or subjective meanings and associations that a word, image, or symbol evokes.

Media Representations

How the media portray events, issues, individuals, and social groups through processes of selection and combination.

Narratology

A theory of media language associated with Todorov.

Genre Theory

A theory of media language associated with Neale regarding the dynamic and historically relative nature of genre.

Structuralism

A theory of media language associated with Lévi-Strauss.

Postmodernism

A theory of media language associated with Baudrillard.

Reality

A lived experience at the actual moment it occurred.

Realism

A version or account of reality created at a different time but produced to look or feel like reality.

Constructed Realism

The way media producers carefully craft a sense of reality within texts like films or news reports rather than naturally reflecting actual events.

Identity Theory

A theory of media representation associated with Gauntlett.

Feminist Theories

Theories of media representation associated with Bell Hooks and Van Zoonen.

Gender Performativity

A theory of media representation associated with Butler.

Postcolonial Theory

A theory around ethnicity and representation associated with Gilroy.

Polysemic

The quality of media products having multiple possible meanings or connotations, often occurring in the absence of anchorage.

Anchorage

The process where text and image work together, such as coverlines and mastheads, to fix or provide a specific meaning to a photo.

The Big Squeeze

A phrase used in media to connote financial struggle, job losses, and hardship during a decline in the economy.