“Texts” as a media idea is an inherently broad and ambiguous term that has lead us down a variety of paths in our research – from codes and conventions, with context and history, to persuasion and influence. Harnessing the ideas and theories in these journal readings I have created my own definition of “texts” through its core principles.
A ‘text’ in media is an intermediate device between producers and audiences used as a tool for communicating and sharing ideas. Every text:
- involves an interaction between the composers and those who receive it.
- has a motive, a reason for being created, relative to the specific time and place in which it is created.
- brings about initial, intermediate and lasting effects on immediate to wider audiences.
Texts in media when seen as a whole program has power to persuade and influence greater than the sum of its parts, overcoming audience scepticism and conservation in social and cultural codes.
This view of media “texts” as a single entity – combined from the contrasting and conflicting artefacts across medium, genre and form – programmed to influence human life will form the basis of our fourth project. We will discuss the historical and spacial relation between media texts and social interests and actions. Our foci include body image, gender roles, crime, language, fads, and self-responsibility that have been touched on in our individual readings.
During our practical lesson today we heard the ideas of groups studying other topics and were able to develop our own idea of the form and structure of our piece. We are currently designing a propaganda presentation promoting the “perfect human” as defined and created by the text engine. Our project will take the form of a powerpoint to allow multimedia content on a platform that is conventional of informational seminars. Each focus will incorporate an example of influential texts in that area, a self-produced piece of media which interacts with that idea, a summary of the media devices and technologies used and to what effect.