| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Actuality | Unscripted and unedited footage that shows real events, places, people or things. |
| Analyse | To break something down into its parts and show how the parts relate to each other to make the whole. It goes beyond identifying and explaining to a detailed examination that could include wider implications, issues or ramifications. Analysis addresses the 'So what?' and 'What if?' questions. |
| Analyse perceptively | To analyse and show some personal insight or ability to draw individual conclusion based on the students' own observations or analysis, rather than simple repackaging and presentation of previously taught material. |
| Angle | In journalism, the approach or focus of a story. In film and video work, angle refers to camera position relative to the subject. A high-angle shot looks down on the subject while a low angle shot looks up. |
| Audio bites | Short, selected passages (usually vox pops or interview comments) edited out from longer recordings and used in audio production, for example, to create stings, stabs, promos for radio shows, commercials or news packages. |
| Back-cut questions | Reshot questions posed by the interviewer, during a one-camera shoot with the camera framed on the interview subject. The questions are then reshot after the interview with the camera framed on the interviewer, and inserted in editing. See also noddies, below. |
| Background visuals | Refers to what is in the shot behind the subject or interviewer. |
| Balance | Ensuring that significant differing viewpoints are presented, or the opportunity offered. |
| Brief | The set of requirements and instructions of the client or teacher for a media product, production process or assessment activity. |
| Bulletin | A package of short news summaries on broadcast radio. |
| Caption | The text used to describe a picture. |
| Clean | In an audio context, clean means without unwanted audio (wind noise or other background distractions), dead air (blank gaps in the audio), clipping (overload from input levels or gain set too high) or other distortion (proximity overload on microphones and so on). |
| Codes and Conventions | Used in conjunction and definitions sometimes overlap.
|
| Composed | Deliberately framed, positioned in the frame or shot, angled or posed. |
| Context | The events or circumstances leading up to or surrounding something: the political, economic, social, cultural, religious, textual and narrative setting in which something occurs, or which provoke it. |
| Copy | The main text of a story, article or web page. |
| Critical path | The predicted longest time that the project will take to complete, based on deadline projections of key elements of the planning and production work (for example, significant technology changes). |
| Cropping | Trimming unnecessary extra material from the borders of a photo or other still or moving image to concentrate the reader's attention on the main subject. |
| Cutaways | Shots of something different but related to the story. For example, in news, actuality of something the interview subject is talking about inserted into a sequence to provide visual variety, illustrate the story, compress time or indicate relationships. |
| Debate | To evaluate the pros and cons (arguments for and against, advantages and disadvantages, positives and negatives) of a topic. |
| Define | State or describe exactly the nature, scope, or meaning of a term or practice. Make clear. |
| Diegetic, Non-diegetic | Terms most often used in discussion of sound and sound effect elements in film. Diegetic sound is on or off-screen sound that belongs to the scene, naturally - car radio music, a stereo playing in a lounge scene, bird song, traffic, wind. Non-diegetic sound is music or other audio that is not natural to the scene and is added to add meaning or impact to a scene. |
| Discuss | To talk or write about a topic in detail, taking into account different opinions or ideas. |
| Dominant feature | One clear object, action or person that is the largest and most eye-catching element of a still or moving image. Also called dominant visual image (DVI). |
| Enhance | To improve, make more effective. |
| Explain | To account for something, to provide reasons, that is, how and why. |
| Explore | To investigate, identify and describe key aspects (including any issues if relevant) and draw some possible conclusions. |
| Expressions | The ways a group or culture is represented, such as different versions of New Zealand identity. |
| Fairness | Stories should not denigrate, make unproven assertions or unfairly represent a person or an issue. |
| Five Ws and H | The primary questions a news story answers: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? |
| Media forms | Media texts. |
| Genre | 'Type' or 'class'. Media genres appear within a medium (film, television, print, multimedia, web), such as: horror, documentary, situation comedy and so on. Genres change all the time. Some media texts blur genre boundaries by combining conventions from different genres. |
| Honorifics | Titles (Dr, Mr, Ms, Professor, Prime Minister). |
| Identify | Name, with at least one supporting example. |
| Implications | Conclusions that can be drawn from something, even though they are not explicitly stated. Wider or future effects, likely consequences or ramifications. |
| Integration | An indication of a consistent mood, tone and point of the product being supported coherently by all aspects. In film: camera operation, mise en scène, costume, script, on-screen performance, music/sfx, titling, voiceovers, editing. In print, design, layout (columns, white space, fonts, reading lines) copy, illustrations. |
| Interview grabs | Very short footage (7 to 10 seconds is the modern norm in news) that enable the audience to hear the news directly from the people involved, instead of reporters. |
| Interview subject | A person who is interviewed. |
| Intro, Outro | The open and close of a story or sequence. |
| Investigate | To identify, process and reference relevant data, and draw supported conclusions. |
| Issues | Concerns, ramifications or implications. Issues are important topics for debate or discussion. |
| Justification | A clear rationale that supports the approval of a concept or treatment for production, in terms of a supplied brief. |
| Key creatives | The people involved in the creative process of a media product, who have significant influence on the final product. |
| Media product | Any complete media item created using appropriate media technology, for example, a news story, magazine or newspaper, movie trailer, radio show. |
| Mise en scène | Means 'what's put in the scene'. In film, the term refers to the elements of a shot (set, props, actors, use of colour and light) and the way these elements are positioned, composed or choreographed. |
| Mise en shot | The process of translating mise en scène into shots, and the relationship between the two. The main parameters are camera position and movement, shot size and duration, editing pace, and depth of focus. |
| Narrative conventions | Techniques of conveying and developing narrative (story) in a media text, that is, how the story is told. |
| New Zealand identity | Any aspect of New Zealand identity. Can relate to people, the country, values. |
| News angle | The particular focus of a story. For example, the threat to public safety after a chemical spill, the grief of a murder victim's family. |
| News event | A newsworthy event, for example, a terrorist attack, disaster or major crime. |
| Newsworthiness | Summarily: Who cares and why? The main considerations are: timeliness, proximity, exceptional quality, number or scale, prominence, conflict, controversy, consequence and possible future effect, human interest or pathos, and shock value. |
| Noddies | Back-cut shots of interviewer responses (smiles, nods, frowns) to subject answers, inserted into interviews as cutaways to provide visual variety and create the impression of a seamless two-camera shoot. See also back-cut questions. |
| Non-statutory | Organisations usually created by an industry (ASA, Press Council, CAAANZ) that are not funded by government but by members, and cannot impose legal penalties. |
| Ongoing issues | Issues that have been active for a considerable time and may be still unresolved. |
| Organisation and controls | All facets of how a media industry or business is structured (roles, hierarchy, decision-making paths, ownership) and the forces that exercise control over them. |
| Plan | To decide on or arrange things in advance. |
| Planning schedules | Should include most aspects of organisation (locations, equipment bookings, crew and cast responsibilities, critical points, deadlines). |
| Practicability | Whether a plan or concept is achievable. Practicability includes safety. |
| Pressure groups | Groups within society that have a specific agenda, often to do with one sector of society, and continually try to exert pressure on the government or media to change behaviour, policy or penalties to conform to their specific view and values. |
| Profile | A feature article that gives a description of a person, especially a public or significant figure that provides sufficient personal and professional information to give a snapshot insight into who they are (their background, personality and character), what they do, what motivates them and what is special or extraordinary about them. |
| Purpose | What a story, media product or technique is trying to achieve. |
| Readability | The ease of comprehension and entertainment or enjoyment factor in a piece of writing. |
| Referencing | Acknowledging the source of all material used in responses. |
| Representation | How a group or issue is presented to an audience. It is a selective version of reality and not necessarily accurate or complete. |
| Roles | What people in specific media industry positions do, that is, what they contribute to the creative process and how they interact with other roles. |
| Script | The written text of an audio or film item. It includes both dialogue and key instructions (sound effects cues, character actions, camera movements). In multimedia and web design, it is an automated series of instructions carried out in a specific order (macro). |
| Sizing | Changing the size of an image to fit the required space, without perspective distortion. |
| Slug | A working title or brief story subject heading, written by the journalist at the head of a story to identify it, and later replaced (by a sub-editor at the layout stage) with an appropriate headline. |
| Station format (radio) | The specific on-air style, programme and content scheduling, used to meet the requirements of a target audience, and type of station (talkback, music, entertainment, sport, magazine, community). |
| Statutory bodies | Formed by Acts of Parliament, mostly funded by government and can impose legal penalties as determined by government statutes. |
| Stereotype | A widely held but fixed and over-simplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. |
| Style guide | A publication's in-house guide for journalists or employees to use. Includes details of the style of grammar, spelling, capitalisation that the publication has decided are its 'brand' and which must be adhered to in all published materials. |
| Tape recorder | Any means of recording clear audio, minidisc, dictaphone, laptop with microphone, VOIP, recording studio. |
| Target audience | The specific group in society the media product is designed for, and to which a media product should appeal. |
| Trace | To give an outline or follow the path of something in brief detail, for example, a flow diagram. |
| Two shots | Have two people in the frame, for example, both subject and interviewer or two subjects. |
| Variant reading | Any justified alternative reading that is substantially different from or contradictory to the most obvious or commonly accepted reading. |
| Visuals | In moving image, camera shots, footage and actuality. |
| Vox pops | Brief opinions from randomly selected members of the public about an issue of current interest: usually in response to one closed yes-no question, supported by a 'why?' follow up. |
Media Studies glossary
Definitions of terms used in Media Studies and related subjects