Media Language: (Stranger Things)
Semiology: Barthes
- Meanings and messages communicated through signs.
- Made up of signifier (thing itself) and signified (the meaning). - depends on connotations
- 'Myths' is used by Barthes to describe the connotations that now seem natural - meanings and connotations reflect dominant values and ideologies.
In relation to Stranger Things:
Introduction to Hopper - signifiers being the gun, badge, empty beer cans etc all communicate the character plus the values and ideological messages of power and masculinity.
- how objects have developed a way of communicating dominant ideologies through social meanings.
Establishing shot of the Wheeler's house - houses are inanimate objects but it still communicated the ideologies of this middle class family through signs and myths - signs now viewed as the social norm.
Semiology is useful to identify communicated meanings and relations to social values and ideologies - doesn't however reference genre conventions or narrative structures.
- can result in messages which are lacking the diversity of the audiences interpretations.
Media language consists of mise en scene, sound, camera shots and editing.
Eg: S1 E1 9.27.08 (El, Benny and scientists in diner)
Mise en scene - Appliances, props, clothing etc
Sound - (Diegetic) dialogue, crickets, gunshot, scifi motif. (Non diegetic) music.
Camera shot - close up, POV, mid, over the shoulder
Editing - gets faster as scene goes on (building tension)
Editing (cuts):
Straight cut - like a blink, quick change of perspective/focus but not time!
Fade out - slow fade to black
Dissolve - slow fade into the next shot (no break)
Wipe cut - next shot slides across the screen
Jump cut - cut to the next shot which is a different point in time (jumping time (forward or back))
Speed of editing enables different moods to be set. Fast cuts helps tension to be built which is a typical convention of horror/thrillers. Slower editing can be used to compliment dialogue, a switch of perspective for a new speaker.
Postmodernism: Baudrillard
As images and signs are now key features of our society, postmodernism challenges established order and questions fixed ideas of identity.
Hyperreality - representations are more real than reality
Hyperreal - representations are based on other representations meaning reality isn't actually represented at all.
In relation to Stranger Things:
Hyperreal - representation of small town America in the 1980's is heavily based on intertextuality and references texts of the actual 80's.
- hair, costume, music etc all create a hyperreal version of the 80's with no attempt to represent the reality of that time.
Baudrillard's theory helps analyse the use of intertextuality of ST and the predominance of signifiers but it doesn't consider pleasures of hyperreal media texts for audiences.
- Meanings and messages communicated through signs.
- Made up of signifier (thing itself) and signified (the meaning). - depends on connotations
- 'Myths' is used by Barthes to describe the connotations that now seem natural - meanings and connotations reflect dominant values and ideologies.
In relation to Stranger Things:
Introduction to Hopper - signifiers being the gun, badge, empty beer cans etc all communicate the character plus the values and ideological messages of power and masculinity.
- how objects have developed a way of communicating dominant ideologies through social meanings.
Establishing shot of the Wheeler's house - houses are inanimate objects but it still communicated the ideologies of this middle class family through signs and myths - signs now viewed as the social norm.
Semiology is useful to identify communicated meanings and relations to social values and ideologies - doesn't however reference genre conventions or narrative structures.
- can result in messages which are lacking the diversity of the audiences interpretations.
Media language consists of mise en scene, sound, camera shots and editing.
Eg: S1 E1 9.27.08 (El, Benny and scientists in diner)
Mise en scene - Appliances, props, clothing etc
Sound - (Diegetic) dialogue, crickets, gunshot, scifi motif. (Non diegetic) music.
Camera shot - close up, POV, mid, over the shoulder
Editing - gets faster as scene goes on (building tension)
Editing (cuts):
Straight cut - like a blink, quick change of perspective/focus but not time!
Fade out - slow fade to black
Dissolve - slow fade into the next shot (no break)
Wipe cut - next shot slides across the screen
Jump cut - cut to the next shot which is a different point in time (jumping time (forward or back))
Speed of editing enables different moods to be set. Fast cuts helps tension to be built which is a typical convention of horror/thrillers. Slower editing can be used to compliment dialogue, a switch of perspective for a new speaker.
Postmodernism: Baudrillard
As images and signs are now key features of our society, postmodernism challenges established order and questions fixed ideas of identity.
Hyperreality - representations are more real than reality
Hyperreal - representations are based on other representations meaning reality isn't actually represented at all.
In relation to Stranger Things:
Hyperreal - representation of small town America in the 1980's is heavily based on intertextuality and references texts of the actual 80's.
- hair, costume, music etc all create a hyperreal version of the 80's with no attempt to represent the reality of that time.
Baudrillard's theory helps analyse the use of intertextuality of ST and the predominance of signifiers but it doesn't consider pleasures of hyperreal media texts for audiences.
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