How to analyse a

Print Media Text

AS Media

MS1

Exam

What could come up on your exam

Magazine Front Cover or Articles

Website CD Cover

What could come up on your exam

DVD Cover Film Poster Video Game cover

What could come up on your exam

Advertisement Newspapers

Plan!

• Before you start any introduction! Before your dash into an answer.

• You must plan what you are going to say (make sure you draw a line through your planning)

Plan

• A plan can be a

• simple check list of things

• that you need to discuss.

Plan

Or a brainstorm

Just getting Your ideas out of

Your head and

Down on paper

Starting your intro (Key phrases)

• “Polysemic” – This means that media texts have a range of different meanings.

• “Purpose and Effect” – Everything used in a media text is there for a reason

Starting your print analysis

• Layout and Design

• Camera Shots and Angles

• Lighting

• Using Colour

• Graphics

Remember it this way

• Lucy = Layout

• Caught = Camera

• Louise = Lighting

• Using Colour

• Gracefully = Graphics

Layout and Design

• Colour

• Font

• Positioning of the Text

• House Style

Camera Shots and Angles

• Certain camera angles give certain meanings.

Shots:

• Establishing shots, Long Shots, Mid Shot, Mid close up, Close up, Extreme Close Up, P.O.V, Over the shoulder etc.

Angles:

• High Angle, Low Angle.

Lighting

• High Key lighting • Low Key Lighting

Colour

• What connotations do the colours convey?

• Don’t just write

“the font is purple and this could relate to royalty as purple is a regal colour”

• What purpose and impact does this have on the reader or viewer?

Graphics

• This can be anything from little logos to illustrations.

Graphics

• What does this tell us about a magazine?

• What might it say about the readers?

Graphics

• Why are these logos used?

What about post production?

• If the image looks photoshoppped or air brushed talk about it – discuss what purpose and impact that might have on the reader or viewer.

If the question asks you about Visual Codes

• Clothing

• Expression

• Gestures

• Colour

• Iconography

• Use of certain images

• Graphics

Clothing

Expression and Gestures

Iconography and Images

Language

• Hyperbole – Use of exaggeration – Try and make something look exciting

• Imperative – is an order or command and suggests urgency

• Ellipsis – Use of incomplete sentences. Sentences are finished off with….. To create a form of enigma.

• Colloquialism – Informal language

• Quotes – Used to suggest a hint of realism.

• Alliteration – Repetition of sounds in a word or phrase

• Assonance – Repeating vowel sounds

Mode of Address

• Informal language –

Used to engage the audience.

Mode Of Address

• Formal – Suggests that the

Target audience are sophisticated.

Mode of Address

• Direct mode of address –

appeals directly to the reader

Narrative Codes in print

• Enigma Codes – A tease, a question, something that makes you inquisitive to see what the text is all about.

Narrative Codes in print

• Headlines create a narrative to attract readers to the story.

Narrative conventions in print

• Cover lines and Jump lines

are used in order to attract the readers attention and will them to read on.

Narrative Codes in Print

• Images can be used to create a narrative. By the way someone or something looks in a picture determines how the audience interpret the story. An image without any type of caption is an open image and we as an audience can come to our own conclusions about what the story is about.

Narrative Codes in print

• The blurb on the back of a DVD cover can use enigma codes to give some details of what the story is about.

NEVER!

•Describe what you can see! Explain the purpose and reason it has been used or the desired effect it should have on the audience!!!!