language and media

Medium

Anything that comes between one entity and another to help facilitate communication or interaction between those two entities.

Mediation

The process of facilitating the interaction between two entities.

Mass medium / Mass media

Those means of communication that have the technical capacity to deliver messages to a large group of people.

Marshall McLuhan's concept of media (1964)

Media as "extensions of man" — they extend our ability to do things in the world (e.g. electric lights extend sight, microphones extend voice, computers extend cognitive capacity).

Mode

A regularised, organised set of resources for meaning making; including image, gaze, music, speech, and sound effect (Kress and Jewitt 2003). Not the same as media.

Medium (vs mode)

A physical tool that makes communication using different modes possible (e.g. radio enables spoken language and music, but not image or written language).

Multimodality

Communicating by combining different modes (e.g. combining pictures with writing).

Pragmatics

The study of what people do with words; how language is used in context to perform actions.

Discourse analysis

Focuses on what people do with language rather than language as an abstract system; deals with authentic texts of any size, spoken or written; interested in the relationship between language, the organisation of societies, ideologies, and power (Bax 2011).

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

An approach that examines why writers/speakers choose specific ways of constructing situations; investigates how discourse reproduces social relations — particularly power relations, discrimination, dominance, and exploitation; starts from a specific social issue rather than a linguistic feature.

Convergence

The bringing together of multiple media functions within the same devices; the flow of content across multiple media platforms; the cooperation between multiple media industries. Best example: the smartphone.

Increased portability

The trend of media becoming smaller and more personal (paper → mobile telephones → mobile internet); changes how people experience and interact with their physical environments.

Remediation

The phenomenon of a new medium absorbing and refashioning older media forms (Bolter and Grusin 2000; originally McLuhan 1964). History of media is not about replacement but transformation, retaining some characteristics and improving on others.

Lean media

Media that limit the range of modes available; many cues used in face-to-face communication are not available (e.g. text-based communication, traditional telephone, printed newspapers).

Rich media

Media offering a wide range of modes; receivers have access not only to words but also to tone of voice, gestures, facial expressions, appearance, clothing (e.g. face-to-face communication, television, WhatsApp).

Conduit model of communication

Language acts as a container-like conduit, transferring thoughts from a sender's mind into words, which are then "sent" to a receiver who extracts the meaning (Shannon and Weaver 1948; based on Saussure 1916).

Dyadic communication

Communication conceived as involving two parties — a sender encoding a message and transmitting it through a channel to be decoded by a receiver.

Sender

The encoder of a message; the person who initiates communication and decides the intent of the message.

Receiver

The decoder of a message; the person who attempts to understand the message and for whom the message is directed.

Noise (communication)

Anything that might interfere with the message being sent — aspects of the environment, technical faults, or the actions of other people.

Feedback (communication)

A signal sent back to the sender confirming that the message has been successfully received.

Synchronous communication

Communication where participants can communicate and monitor one another in real time.

Asynchronous communication

Communication where there is a lag between when the message is sent and when it is read.

Context

The broad, external situation, knowledge, or background surrounding a word, including physical, cultural, and situational factors.

Co-text

The internal, surrounding text (words, sentences) that helps determine a word's meaning.

Ideology

A system of ideas, practices, and social relationships that govern what is considered right or wrong, good and bad, normal and abnormal.

Media ideology

A set of beliefs and assumptions about how media ought to be used and what they are for.

Language ideology

Sets of beliefs about how people ought to use language, including which languages or kinds of language are better or more appropriate for different kinds of situations.

Genre

A type of text; easily recognisable forms of discourse with particular purposes for particular audiences, sharing certain elements of structure and content. In mass media, genre provides a template for production decisions and facilitates rapid delivery of products.

Style

Commonly refers to a manner of doing something (Coupland 2007); as a way of speaking, it entails all aspects of language use including vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, articulation, and paralinguistic aspects (gesture, timing). In multimodal texts, design elements (font, photo tinting, pose) also signal style.

Mass media

The press, television, and radio; characterised by large-scale distribution, one-directional flow of content, asymmetrical sender-receiver relations, and an impersonal, anonymous relationship with audiences.

The mass audience

A large number of widely dispersed viewers/readers with non- or semi-interactive and generally anonymous relations to each other.

Mass media functions in society

Information, correlation, socialising, continuity, entertainment, mobilisation.

Hard news

Newsworthy events likely to have a material impact on a person's life; includes tales of accidents, disasters, crimes, politics and diplomacy (Bell 1991; Tuchmann 1997).

Soft news

Human interest events; focus on stable events in society: festivals, seasonal and religious happenings, anniversaries and sporting competitions (Caple 2010).

Broadsheet

A newspaper format associated with quality journalism (e.g. The Times, The NYT, Le Figaro, Rzeczpospolita).

Tabloid

A newspaper format typically associated with popular, sensationalist journalism (e.g. The Sun, The Daily Mail, Fakt, Super Express).

News Discourse

The language, talk, text, and images, used in the construction of news and the related social actions, interactions and representations of the world in the production and circulation of news (Bednarek and Caple 2019; Montgomery 2007; Van Dijk 1988).

News as manufactured discourse

News is a representation and retelling of discourses originating from other contexts; it is fact-based, produced for audiences, and public; characterised by its processes of circulation.

"All news is views"

The principle that objectivity in news is impossible; every piece of discourse is a symptom of the intentions of a sender. (Bell 1991)

Framing (news)

How certain interpretations or perspectives on issues are realised and promoted in the construction of news — defining problems, causal relationships, and moral evaluations.

Headline

Summarises or abstracts the story; attracts readers; provides a lens on, stance towards, or angle on the rest of the story.

Byline

The line identifying the author of a news article.

Lead/Intro

The main summary of a news story; mentions the main event and place (who, what, where); construes newsworthiness; rarely attributes information; may embed background or commentary.

Body / Lead development

The section that describes events in detail, provides background and context, includes attribution, and may include follow-up commentary.

Inverted pyramid

The structural principle of news writing: lead (most important information) → body (crucial detail) → tail (additional information).

informative function

(function) headline summarises or abstracts the story

interpersonal function

(function) headline attracts readers.

News value function

(function) headline maximises newsworthiness

Framing function

(function) headline provides lens on, stance towards, or angle for the rest of the story

headlines

Strong emotional/evaluative words; rhetorical devices (punning, intertextuality, rhyme, idioms, metaphor, proverbs, quotes, questions); omission of functional phrases; present tense; pre-modified noun phrases.

News values

The qualities that are necessary to make a story newsworthy; the criteria or rules that news workers apply to determine what is news (Bell 1991; Cotter 2010).

Timeliness

The relevance of an event in terms of time; more recent events are often more newsworthy, "the best news is something which has only just happened" (Bell 1991).

Proximity

The geographical or cultural nearness of an event; what is newsworthy usually concerns the country, region or city in which the news is published.

Prominience

The high status of the individuals, organisations, or nations involved; stories about elite individuals or celebrities are more newsworthy than stories about ordinary people.

Negativity

The negative aspects of an event; news stories frequently concern conflicts, accidents, damage, injuries, disasters, or wars.

Positivity

The positive aspects of an event; news may concern success stories.

Consonance

The stereotypical aspects of an event; aspects become newsworthy if they tie in with existing stereotypes people hold about other people, organisations, or countries.

Novelty/ Surprise

The unexpected aspects of an event; news stories are frequently about happenings that are unusual or rare.

Personalisation

The personal or human aspect of an event.

Impact

The effect or consequences of an event, especially if they involve serious repercussions or have a more global impact.

Van Dijk's framework (1988)

Analyses news texts at two levels: macro structures (global meaning, themes, topics, schematic organisation — headlines, leads) and micro structures (local level: lexical choice, style, propositions, presuppositions, metaphors, modality).

Macro structures (Van Dijk)

The global meaning of themes, topics, and sub-topics, as well as the schematic structure of news texts (headlines, lead, etc.).

Micro structures (Van Dijk)

The local level of words and sentences: lexical choice, style, propositions, presuppositions, metaphors, and modality.

Transitivity

A lexicogrammatical resource introducing different participants and linking them with different kinds of processes; determines who is the active participant (agent) and who is the passive one (patient).

Agent (transitivity)

A person or entity that performs the action expressed by the verb.

Patient (transitivity)

A person or entity at the receiving end of the action.

Modality

The way language allows people to express how certain they are about what they are saying or how obligated others should feel; expressed through modal verbs and adverbs; reflects the speaker's attitude towards the truth of a proposition.

Nominalisation

A transformation of a process into a noun or noun phrase so that the process becomes "a thing"; used to obscure agency or naturalise events.

Evaluation

Lexical and grammatical choices used to express an opinion about things, people, and events.

Attribution

The documentation of sources in news stories; a key feature of news discourse.

Direct reporting

Presenting a source's words as direct quotations.

Scare quotes

Quotation marks placed around a word or phrase to signal irony, scepticism, or distancing, implying the term is inappropriate, misleading, or non-standard.

Indirect reporting

A summary or paraphrase of a speech act rather than a direct quotation.

Reporting expressions

Verbs used to introduce reported speech: neutral (say, tell), illocutionary (demand, promise), discourse signalling (add, conclude), paralinguistic (scream, whisper).

Rhetorical figures (news)

Devices such as metaphor, metonymy, and hyperbole used to frame events (e.g. neologisms, euphemisms like "collateral damage").

Denotative meaning

The literal level of meaning; designating or describing what is literally visible in an image.

Connotative meaning

The associative level of meaning; suggestive or evocative of culturally attached meanings that accumulate around what is shown (Barthes 1977).

Framing devices (in multimodal approaches)

Subject choice, composition (angle of presentation), distance, point of view.

Ideational metafunction

A mode can be used to present aspects of the world and express how we experience that world.

Interpersonal metafunction

A mode can be used to construct social relations and create relationships between ourselves and the recipients of our messages.

Textual metafunction

A mode can be used to create internally coherent and comprehensible messages; organises messages in time and/or space so that people know how the message should be processed.

Multimodal analysis

The study of how meaning is made across multiple modes simultaneously (key scholars: Gunther Kress, Theo van Leeuwen).

Salience

How certain elements are made to stand out and attract the viewer's attention; achieved through placement (foreground/background), size, colour contrast, and sharpness.

Informational Value

How the placement of elements makes them relate to each other and to the viewer; arrangement of elements left/right, top/bottom, centre/margin.

Framing

The use of framing devices that connect, relate, group, or separate elements in an image.

Layout

A mode of spatial composition communicating information value (importance), salience (noticeability), and framing; concerns not just size but also placement of elements.

F-shaped pattern

A pattern of eye movement when reading web pages; the gaze falls primarily on the left part of the content area, moving horizontally across the top and less so further down.

Anchorage

An image-text relation where the text supports and anchors the meaning of the image.

Illustration

An image-text relation where the image supports the text.

Relay

An image-text relation where image and text are equal contributors to meaning.

Magazine cover

A complex semiotic system; the most important page in a magazine from both editorial and design perspectives; creates first impression, provides brand continuity, and serves to label both the magazine and its reader.

Magazine cover analysis

Representation of social actors (gaze, angle, denotative/connotative meaning); composition and page layout (salience, framing); meaning of colour; meaning of typography (typeface, fonts, line spacing).

TV news programme structure

Opening signature visuals → headlines (brief statements) → news items/reports (reporters on scene, witnesses) → news ticker visuals.

News ticker / Chyron / Lower third

Visual elements in TV news that run as continuous text on screen; may have one, two, or three tiers of information.

TV headlines

Typically realised as nominal groups, non-finite clauses, or full clauses/sentences.