Media Codes and Conventions

Media codes and conventions are like the building blocks of all the media around us. Media codes generally have an agreed meaning, or connotation, to their audience. There are three types of media codes, symbolic codes, technical codes and written codes. Conventions are expected ways in which codes are organised in a product.Symbolic codes are social in nature. What this means is that these codes live outside the media product themselves, but would be understood in similar ways in the ‘real life’ of the audience. For instance, if you saw somebody receive a red rose in a film, you would assume there is a romantic relationship between the two characters. If you gave somebody a red rose in real life, you might be hoping the same. Symbolic codes in media include setting, mise en scene, acting and colour.Setting is the time and place of the narrative. When discussing setting, you can describe the setting of the whole story or just a specific scene. A setting can be as big as the outback or space, or as small as a specific room. Setting can even be a created atmosphere or frame of mind.Mise en scene is a French term that means ‘everything within the frame’. In media terms it has become to mean the description of all the objects within a frame of the media product and how they have been arranged. An analysis of mise en scene includes:Actors portray characters in media products and contribute to character development, creating tension or advancing the narrative. The actor portrays a character through:Colour has highly cultural and strong connotations. When studying the use of colour in a media product the different aspects to be looking at are:

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