TEXT INFORMATION AND MEDIA

Definition, characteristics, format and types, sources, advantages and limitations, and value

TEXT
The media text is any media product we wish to
examine. Every description or representation of
the world, fictional or otherwise, is an attempt
to describe or define reality, and is in some way
a construct of reality, a text.

TEXT = is simply means written words

TEXT MEDIA can include:

text can include:

written or spoken words
pictures
graphics
moving images
sounds
and any or all of the above

SUBTEXT = is the interpretation of the piece of

media

Latent text
Heard or seen
Is the meaning that we create in our own minds
peoples own interpretation
Previews experiences
Knowledge
Opinions
Attitudes
Values
Varies on the person who is seeing or hearing it

The central concept of the model is the idea that all

communication, all discourse, is a construct of reality.
Every description or representation of the world,
fictional or otherwise, is an attempt to describe or
define reality.

Anyone who receives a media text, whether it is a book

read alone or a film viewed in a theatre, is a member of
an audience. It is important for children to be able to
identify the audiences of a text. Texts are frequently
designed to produce audiences, which are then sold to
advertisers.

Modern communication theory teaches that audiences

"negotiate" meaning. That is to say, each individual
reader of a text will draw from its range of possible
meanings a particular reading that reflects that
individual's gender, race or cultural background, skill in
reading, age, etc. Thus the "meaning" of a text is not
something determined by critics, teachers or even
authors, but is determined in a dynamic and changeable
relationship between the reader and the text.

Institution and Production refer to everything that goes

into the making of a media textthe technology, the
ownership and economics, the institutions involved, the
legal issues, the use of common codes and practices, the
roles in the production process
What is the relationship between story content and
commercial priorities? How are values related to
ownership and control? How does technology determine
what we will see? How does the cost of technology
determine who can make media productions? Often,
understanding in these areas is best developed through
the students involvement in their own production work.
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