Theoretical Framework: Media Language

Theoretical Framework: Media Language is a foundational topic in WJEC A-Level Media Studies, focusing on how media texts communicate meaning through signs, codes, and conventions. This framework draws heavily on semiotics (the study of signs), structuralism, and post-structuralism, enabling students to deconstruct everything from a film poster to a news broadcast. Understanding media language is crucial because it reveals how producers construct representations, ideologies, and narratives, and how audiences decode these messages. It also links directly to other theoretical frameworks—representation, audience, and industry—making it a core analytical tool for exams and coursework.

In the WJEC specification, media language is assessed across all platforms: print, audio-visual, and online. Students must apply theories such as Barthes’ semiotics (denotation, connotation, myth), Saussure’s signifier/signified, and Levi-Strauss’s structuralism (binary oppositions). Additionally, postmodern concepts like intertextuality and bricolage (from Baudrillard or Jameson) are increasingly relevant for analysing contemporary media. Mastering media language allows students to write sophisticated analyses of set texts and unseen materials, earning top marks in the 'Analyse' and 'Evaluate' assessment objectives.

This topic is not just about identifying technical codes (camera angles, editing, mise-en-scène) but understanding how they combine to create preferred readings and polysemic meanings. For example, a close-up in a thriller may signify fear, but in a romance it could signify intimacy. By studying media language, students learn to question why certain choices are made and how they shape audience interpretation—a skill essential for critical media literacy.