Glossary

TV Drama - a story that is presented in a dramatic way and explores a range of genres, from soap opera to science-fiction to costume drama. Also, it's a piece of film that engages with the issues of the day in an accessible fashion, i.e.  through believable characters, through fantastic locations or plots.

Representation  -  to represent something is to describe, or depict it, to call it up in the mind by description or portrayal  To represent also means to symbolise, stand for, be a substitute for e.g. the cross symbolises suffering and the crucifixion of Christ.

Mediation/Mediated - a negotiation to resolve differences that is conducted by some impartial party.

Stereotype - A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

Hegemonic norm - The processes by which dominant culture maintains its dominant position: for example, the use of institutions to formalize power; the employment of a bureaucracy to make power seem abstract (and, therefore, not attached to any one individual); the inculcation of the populace in the ideals of the hegomonic group through education, advertising, publication, etc.; the mobilization of a police force as well as military personnel to subdue opposition.

Ideology - The ideas and manner of thinking of a group, social class, or individual: "a critique of bourgeois ideology".

Semiotics - The study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.

Connotation - An idea or feeling that a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning.

Signifies - 1. Be an indication of.
                  2. Be a symbol of; have as meaning.

Signifier - A sign's physical form (such as a sound, printed word, or image) as distinct from its meaning.

Types Of Signifier:
Iconic - a mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified (recognizably looking, sounding, feeling, tasting or smelling like it) - being similar in possessing some of its qualities: e.g. a portrait, a cartoon, a scale-model, onomatopoeia, metaphors, 'realistic' sounds in 'programme music', sound effects in radio drama, a dubbed film soundtrack, imitative gestures.

Indexical - a mode in which the signifier is not arbitrary but is directly connected in some way (physically or causally) to the signified - this link can be observed or inferred: e.g. 'natural signs' (smoke, thunder, footprints, echoes, non-synthetic odours and flavours), medical symptoms (pain, a rash, pulse-rate), measuring instruments (weathercock, thermometer, clock, spirit-level), 'signals' (a knock on a door, a phone ringing), pointers (a pointing 'index' finger, a directional signpost), recordings (a photograph, a film, video or television shot, an audio-recorded voice), personal 'trademarks' (handwriting, catchphrase) and indexical words ('that', 'this', 'here', 'there').

Symbolic - signs where the relation between signifier and signified is purely conventional and culturally specific, e.g., most words.

Binary Opposites - where texts are organised around sets of opposite values such as good and evil, light and dark.
Mode Of Address - in narrative studies, the way in which media texts talks to an audience.

Anchoring - fixing of a meaning e.g. the copy text anchors (ie fixes to one spot) the meaning of an image (for instance, a single rose, that could be used for an ad for anything from a dating agency to a funeral home) in a print advertisement.

Conventions - the generally accepted ways of doing something. There are general conventions in any medium, such as the use of interview quotes in a print article, but conventions are also genre specific.