Terminology

• Homogeneous Group: A group that all have the same characteristics
• Mediation: The selection and construction of material in how it is given over to audiences via editing and point of view
• Hegemony: Traditional stereotypes that are reinforced and circulated as common sense to audiences
• Marginisalisation: How stereotyping can lead to someone or a social group being ‘placed’ on the outside of accepted cultural norms
• Ideology: An overarching set of ideas often uses as a form of social control
• Moral Panics: Issues in society that often lead to the blaming, and marginalisation of a scapegoat
• Deviancy Amplification: Associated with moral panics, this explains how the media exaggerate a negative representation to ensure a dominant shared reading
• Liberalisation: A more diverse, tolerant, equally acceptable approach
• Pluralism: Again, more liberal suggesting and range of different, challenging representations
• Web 2.0: Interactive internet media e.g. blogs and social networking
• Manifest: Obvious, on the surface meaning
• Cultural Stereotyping: The stereotyping of social groups in society by the media
• Prosumer: A producer and consumer of media
• Passive Audiences: Audiences that accept and do not challenge representations
• Iconic: Well known and respected
• Aspiration: Looking up to something or somebody
• Encoding/Decoding: Putting meaning in, taking meaning out
• Dominant, Negotiated and Oppositional Readings: The intended meaning of a text, where meaning is uncertain or where audience have decoded a completely different reading
• Anchorage: How meaning is made more definite
• Binary Oppositions: Where representations are deliberately different to construct further meaning
• Latent Meaning: Less obvious meaning
• Memes: Internet ‘stars’