ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with the textual analysis of still and moving images, using semiotics and looks at the ways in which meaning is conveyed through creative choices made with regard to camera, editing, sound and mise en scene. Textual analysis refers to the study of specific elements of media texts that can be deconstructed only through the act of ‘close reading’. Media language describes the combination of written, verbal, non-verbal, aural and aesthetic communication and its instantaneous connection to meaning. There are two people in this image, suggesting a relationship between them. The basic signified meaning is that the woman in the striped dress wants to lead the producer of the image to this lighthouse. Film Studies and Media Studies are separate academic fields. Genre is perhaps the most ‘classic’ of Media Studies’ key concepts. A genre is a category of media text that comes to be recognisable through its conventions.
