Textual Analysis

Textual Analysis

TV Dramas:

Game of Thrones - History/Fantasy 

The Walking Dead - Thriller/Apocalyptic

The Vampire Diaries - Romance/Fantasy

Pretty Little Liars - Crime/Thriller

Skins - Romance/ Reality

Stranger Things - Thriller

Fear The Walking Dead - Horror/Reality


Teen Wolf - Fantasy

Shameless - Reality

My Mad Fat Diary - Reality

Codes and conventions (add this to the textual analysis section of the blog)

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Code: A system of signs which can be decoded to create meaning.

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•In media texts, we look at a range of different signs that can be loosely grouped into the following:

•technical codes - all to do with the way a text is technically constructed - camera angles, framing, typography etc

•verbal codes - everything to do with language -either written or spoken

•symbolic codes - codes that can be decoded on a mainly connotational level - all the things which draw upon our experience and understanding of other media texts, our cultural frame of reference.

•codes can create feelings to the audience through effects and techniques, for example rain in a film and a woman looking upset can make the audience feel bad for the woman and be emotional.

Convention:

•Is what you would expect to see in a certain genre, for example: in a fantasy genre film you would expect to see maybe unicorns, demons, hero's/villians, strange settings, basically things that are fictional and unreal in our world.

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The codes and conventions in media can be separated into 3 groups –

•Technical (e.g camera angles, movements & shots),

•Symbolic (e.g clothing, colours)

•Written and audio (music etc).

•These three distinct groups give the text meaning and determine the response of the viewer.

TV Drama Categories/Genres

–Crime

–Period

–Comedy

–Medical

–Sci-Fi

–Soap

etc

East Enders

Soap Drama. In the drama, verbal codes are used to create meaning. These verbal codes include the stereotypical cockney/London accent, especially from older characters like Phil and Peggy. This helps to set the scene of the drama, which is supposedly the east end in London. The east end is allegedly quite a rough area, and therefore characters can be depicted often getting up to no good. The conventions of this drama would be medical problems, relationship problems, real life situations that a person could relate to, and stereotypes. 

Poldarke

Period Drama. This drama uses verbal codes such as the way in which the characters speak to create the conventions of the drama - the characters appear very well-spoken and use a wide range of vocabulary, which informs the viewer that the characters are educated and perhaps of high status. There are also visual codes like the vast country landscapes and old fashioned outfits that inform the viewer that the drama is perhaps set in a historical period. Conventions would include upper/lower class clashes, old time-y clothing, lack of technology and politics. 

Textual analysis  = Establishing a methodology for analysing a media text

We can analyse "deconstruct" the media using the following categories:

•text

•audience

•production.

What is a Media Text?

The media text is any media product we wish to examine

•book,

•poster,

•Song,

•Film

• etc.

A media text is analysed through researching the media:

• categories
• language
• narrative
• representation

• audience

• institution

• technology 

Categories

•MEDIUM (eg print, television, radio, film, internet)

•PURPOSE (eg to inform, to entertain, to persuade, to educate, to gain profit)

•FORM (eg drama, light entertainment, above or below the line advertising, newspaper)

•GENRE (eg science fiction, soap opera, documentary, game show, broadsheet)

•TONE (eg serious, comic, ironic, formal, informal, objective, personal, scientific)

•STYLE (eg realist, expressionist, conventional, unconventional, traditional, modern)

•OTHER CATEGORIES (eg nationality, target audience, director, star, public sector)

Media representations

•The process by which images, words and sounds are used to indicate issues or debates

•The representation of social groups may result in both positive and negative aspects of representation

SKINS

Skins is a UK drama based in bristol centred around the lives of a group of teenagers attending Roundview College. This drama is almost a soap style show. 

The conventions of this drama include youth, young people, drug abuse, partying, relationships, and anything one would stereotypically expect to occur in the life of a teenager.  These conventions are communicated through a mixture of visual and aural codes. Aural codes include the way in which the youth speak, for example Cook in particular tends to use a lot of swear words when speaking, and also through non-verbal codes, for example the way in which the boys sit and act around each other. The mis-en-scene helps to communicate the conventions of the show due to the location of the boys, which is outside a shack drinking beer, the outfits and props, i.e. skateboards, stereotypical teenage outfits etc.

The tone of this drama is quite personal and informal. This is seen by the way in which the characters communicate with each other and the types of activities that they get up to, for example getting high or drunk before going in for their first day of college. The style of this drama is very realist and unconventional, in that the show thoroughly explores drug abuse, alcohol abuse and mental illnesses within youth culture. 

One could assume that the target audience of this show would be youth or young people, as they could relate to the main characters of the show due to being at a similar stage in their lives. However, one could argue that the portrayal of youth in skins may be slightly stereotypical, as not all teenagers would have a pint or spark a spliff before college (although a percentage of students might). 

In this particular extract, one could say that Cook portrays the stereotypical teenager - he's seemingly nihilistic in that he tells his friends that he might actually bunk off of his first day of college, just because he hasn't received a "signal" that college is where he is supposed to be. Cook is also rather self destructive, and this can be deciphered from his evident drug and alcohol abuse - drinking alcohol early in the morning and sparking up before college. He is also sexual, in that the only reason he eventually decides to go to college is because a girl that he finds attractive is going there. The show also explores the sexualisation of youth through the character of Effy herself, and the skimpy outfit that she appears to be wearing (a very short t shirt/dress paired with a pair of fishnet tights).