Researching codes and conventions of a music video, i came across a webside that did a case study on codes and conventions.

Codes and Conventions in Media



• The media construct reality.

• The media have their own forms, codes and conventions.

• The media present ideologies and value messages.

• The media are business that have commercial interests.

• Audiences negotiate meaning in media.

Media mediate reality via the use of recognized codes and conventions,
and the credibility or realism of a media text may be judged by the degree
to which the audience identifies with what is being portrayed.
Media students identify three categories of codes that may be used to
convey meanings in media messages: technical codes, which include
camera techniques, framing, depth of field, lighting and exposure and
juxtaposition; symbolic codes, which refer to objects, setting, body
language, clothing and colour; and written codes in the form of
headlines, captions, speech bubbles and language style.


• the media produces meaning by using conventions

• audiences produce meaning from the interaction of the conventional material in the
text, and their understanding of conventions

• the conventions that the media uses have a history - they come from somewhere and
they are responsive to historical forces

• conventions are not natural but are cultural - they have cultural specificities - they are
now somewhat universal - here we can probably think of advertising.

• the systems of codes that make up the convention can be clumped together under three
broad headings - technical, symbolic, verbal/written.
 
 
A code must consist of:


• a set of signs which carry meaning

• a set of agreed rules for combining those signs together
 
 
Social Values and Representation


• Social values are the unwritten laws by which a culture lives. They are so transparent that
they may exist without us even realising their impact.

• Social values may remain constant across generations and cultures or they may vary.

• Social values are partly based in reality and partly aspirational.

• Social values may or may not reflect people’s bahaviour but always reflect belief.

• Media products are crafted to suit an audience, they must reflect the basic beliefs and
values of the target market or that market will not buy the product.

• Most media texts support dominant social values and as such are a cleverly crafted
amalgam of cosy familiarity and fantasy.

• Texts that challenge social values are less common although they proliferate in times of
social upheaval and uncertainty.

• Some texts simultaneously