Chapter 2

How Media is Made

 Objectives
 At the end of the chapter, the learners are expected to:

o Understand that all media is constructed

o Elaborate on the concept of representation and how representations construct truths, distortions,
and positions.

o Understand that all media are governed by established codes and conventions

o Discuss the concepts of genre and formats. As typical ways of typologizing media and
information texts.
Key Terms:
Representations – the way in which media represents reality. More appropriately, it is how the process of
media creation and production re-presents reality through the decisions and perspectives of its creators.
Media and information literacy is concerned with how certain groups, ideas, faith systems, and topics are
presented from a particular perspective or value system.

Codes – system of signs and symbolic meanings embedded in a media and information text.

Conventions – the established and socially accepted ways of doing things. In media, these are
styles and approaches that have been standardized into the content.

Genre – a system of classification works of arts, based on established conventions.

Format – manner of presentation and style that provides a structure for media and
information texts.
Agenda Style
1 Lesson 1
Constructedness: When Do We Say Something Is Constructed?

2 Lesson 2
Codes and Conventions

3 Lesson 3
Genre

4 Lesson 4
Formats
Lesson 1
Constructedness
Earliest days of interpersonal communication
• Messages passed from one place to the next or from one generation to the
other by WORD OF MOUTH
Some of these are:
• Epics
• Folk narratives

The words in these literary texts construct the

reality of uncharted lands, heroic pursuits, and
the virtuosity of the race.
 Construction The capacities of the human mind aided by technology.

• The media employ more than words to construct a more complex reality of society.
Example To capture the world of story, Film and broadcast communication use:
• The language of the camera
• The tools and techniques of editing
• The power of words – as dialog and narration

Film and broadcast communication also:

• Deliberately make choices on what and what not to include

• What to highlight
• What should serve as backdrop
Materials
• Much like the tools of the trade that the carpenter summon to build a house
• Are used and marshaled to CONSTRUCT THAT REALITY

Construct that reality, reality that we see in:

• A film
• A soap opera series
• Print advertisement
• World that we see in a video games
 Process of construction Representations
 Requires the exercise of delibera  The constructions in any media
te choice to make the work more of certain aspects of reality
appealing to its audiences.  The constitutive elements that
make up REALITY
Choices may include:
Examples of those realities are:
 What to include
 What not to include  People
 What structure to create  Places
 How to harness creativity and design  Time or historical period
 Objects
 Ways of life
 Constructions create representations.
 Identities
 It would be better appreciated if we read REPRESENTATIONS as RE-
PRESENTATIONS

 Prefix ‘re-’ Means doing it again.

 RE-PRESENTATIONS - -is a way of representing reality again.

Media texts present reality again as it intentionally chooses, writes, composes, frames, edits,
lights, crops, filters, scores through music, and engineers the sound, so that what we see are
entirely constructed and artificial version of the reality we perceive.

Keep this in mind:

Every media message, every media form, or media text, whether it is a printed advertisement
prominently lining the streets we pass through the television show we watch everyday- these
are representations of how reality is perceived by its creator or producer, rendered into
codes and conventions readable to the audience who in turn read or consume that version of
reality.
First principle of media literacy
 Asserts that all media messages are constructed.
 The first step to fully appreciating the constructedness of media and information
messages is to take the route of disassembling.

Deconstructing
 Means taking it apart so that its constitutive elements can be exposed to you.