Media terms

 Codes: are the rules or conventions by which signs are put together to give meaning; codes are socially constructed and are accepted by society as a whole. These include:

• Dress code

• Color code

• Non-verbal code

• Technical code

Conventions: are the unwritten laws, which are held acceptable at the expense of individuality or sincerity! They construct meaning and are usually genre specific.


Semiotics:–theory of signs that underlies all forms of communication or anything that is used for human communication is a sign. Examples could be; gestures, expressions, poetry, ritual, food, music, Morse code etc.


Media saturation: This term is used to describe the way in which the media today saturate all aspects of our lives and the extent to which our experience of the world is dominated by media.


Verisimilitude: Using micro elements to create a believable world.

Inter-textuality: This is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text.