Language

The language in a media text is quite different to the language we use in day to day life. Media texts often use signs and semiotics to portray what they want the audience to gain and understand from the text. For example in Beyonce's music video, she wearing skimpy clothing to give a message to the audience. In the context it is used, we can see that is is meant to be seen as sexual because she is dancing in a dimly lit club. If she were wearing the same clothes at a bus stop for example, the effect would be different because that would be a sign that the text was intended to be funny.

Roland Barthes wrote abouts signs and semiotics within a text. He recognised that signs and semiotics only mean something when there's someone there to consume it. A sign, in this context, refers to something that conveys meaning, for example a written or spoken word, a symbol or a myth.

Charles Pierce analysed the use of signs to reveal underlying meanings. He said, "A sign or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign." What Pierce meant by this was that a sign means something to people and people are able to create meaning from signs.

Fiske and Hartley wrote a book entitled 'Reading Television', so-called because they understood that it was possible to 'read' television and other similar texts by understanding media language and inferring your own meaning of a text as an audience member.