1. What does GRANIT stand for?

[6]
2. What is a closed text, and what is their
purpose? [2]
3. What term is used to describe being
surrounded by media forms and their
messages?
[1]
4. Media producers e_____ meaning into a
media text for the audience to d_____.
[2]
5. What term is given for the process of
selection, organisation and focusing?

Whats happening in these

images?

The different parts of a media text

that help us to understand the
meaning created.

A code is a rule-governed system of signs, whose

rules and
conventions are shared amongst members of a
culture, and which is
used to generate and circulate meanings in and
for that culture.
Lesson Objectives:

Fiske (1987)

- To gain an understanding of media

codes and be able to use these to
analyse media texts.

The media use codes to communicate

non-verbal information. As we are
exposed to media texts throughout
life, we learn these codes without
being conscious of them.
In order to deconstruct media texts,
it is important to learn to
consciously recognise codes and
their effect on meaning.

Extension Task:
Can you come up with an acronym to help
remember the different media codes?

Linguistic Device
ALLITERATION
The repetition of the initial letter
e.g. Peter Piper Picked....

HYPERBOLE
A figure of speech involving
exaggeration
e.g. I nearly died laughing

ADJECTIVES
Describing words

COLLOQUIAL/INFORMAL
Informal language tone, this is the
language of how we speak

QUESTIONS
Direct or rhetorical questions to the
audience
SUPERLATIVES
Of the highest order, quality, or degree;
surpassing or superior to all others
e.g. Finest, best, fastest, brightest,

Effect
Connects words, emphasis, sound
dimension, memorable, generates
mood, rhythm.
Melodramatic, exaggeration,
sensational, extreme.

Contextualise information,
emphasis, specific, realism,
background.
Personal, chatty, subjective,
realism, authenticity, idea of
location, genuine, human.
Direct, personal, challenging,
interactive, multiple.
Designed to persuade/ impress.

Newspapers (for example) often use emotive language to get their

reader to react emotionally to a story. If you call an event a riot
rather than a disturbance you are much more likely to get your
reader excited.

1. (a) Scabs thrown out of the union

(b) Strike breakers must leave union
2. (a) School blaze
(b) Fire at school
3. (a) Skilful Owen
(b) Owen Magic
4. (a) Lennox Lewis injured
(b) Lennox Lewis agony

Man hit by robbers

pensioner hit by muggers

One hundred peasants killed by troops

One hundred peasants slaughtered by troops

1. Argument closes factory

2. Train seats cut by teenagers
3. Supporters run onto pitch
4. Shortage of money creates problems
in schools

5. Trouble on roads after snowfall

6. Player hits referee
7. House prices fall in Stevenage
8. Political meeting ends in disturbance

Tuesday, Aug 30 2011

The moment a have-a-go hero tried to stop a

knife-wielding man fleeing stab scene... as
police officers looked on
This was the dramatic moment a have-a-go hero stuck out his leg and tried to trip up a
suspected knifeman just moments after a man was stabbed in the side at London's
Notting Hill Carnival.
Despite the fact 6,500 police officers had been drafted in to patrol the carnival, the
officers seen here in high-visibility jackets, appeared to be glued to the spot as the
suspect fled the scene clutching a knife.
As these astonishing images show, it was only a quick-thinking shopper, laden with
bags, who made any attempt to stop the suspect as he fled.
Scotland Yard said a 16-year-old boy had been arrested on suspicion of assault after
the 20-year-old man was stabbed.

ACTIVI
TY:

Refer to:
Colour codes
Dress codes
(clothing, make-up...)

Non-verbal
codes
(body language,
gesture...)

Written Codes
(language devices)

See what CODES you can spot in the

following text, and as a class we will
discuss them/their effects.