MATSEC SEC Media Literacy Education flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Denotation

The literal, descriptive meaning of a sign: what is visibly or audibly present in the text before any cultural association is added.

Anchorage

Text such as a caption or voiceover that fixes the meaning of an ambiguous image, reducing the range of possible interpretations.

Genre convention

A repeated element audiences expect from a genre, such as lighting, narrative structure or sound, which producers confirm, mix or subvert.

Public service broadcasting

Broadcasting funded collectively and required to serve universal audiences with diverse, impartial content rather than maximising profit.

Vertical integration

Ownership of different stages of the same supply chain, for example a production studio also owning the distribution or exhibition outlet.

Media pluralism

The presence of diverse independent owners, viewpoints and content in a media market, distinct from the mere number of channels available.

Uses and gratifications

An audience-centred model holding that people actively select media to meet needs for information, identity, social interaction and entertainment.

Encoding/decoding

Hall's model in which producers encode a preferred meaning and audiences decode it from a dominant, negotiated or oppositional position.

Cultivation theory

The claim that repeated long-term television exposure gradually shapes audiences' perceptions of social reality, especially fear of crime.

Stereotype

A fixed, simplified generalisation applied to all members of a group, usually reducing complex individuals to a few repeated traits.

Symbolic annihilation

The absence, trivialisation or condemnation of a social group in media content, communicating that the group matters less.

Hegemony

The maintenance of dominant values through consent and everyday institutions such as media, rather than through direct coercion.

Disinformation

False or manipulated content created and spread deliberately with the intention to deceive, often for political or financial gain.

Lateral reading

A verification strategy of leaving a page to check what independent sources say about the site or claim, instead of judging its design.

Miscontextualisation

Using genuine content, such as a real photo or video, with false information about where, when or why it was created.

Filter bubble

A narrowing of exposure caused by personalisation systems that infer preferences and show mainly content matching past behaviour.

Dark pattern

Interface design that manipulates users into choices they would not otherwise make, such as pre-ticked consent or hidden unsubscribe routes.

Recommender system

An algorithm that predicts which content a user will engage with, using similar users' behaviour or similarity to items already consumed.

Native advertising

Paid commercial content designed to match the form and style of editorial content, lawful only when clearly identified as advertising.

Unique selling proposition

The single differentiating benefit a brand claims over competitors, stated so that it is specific, credible and hard to copy.

Three-point lighting

A standard setup using a key light, a fill light to soften shadows and a back light to separate subject from background.

180-degree rule

A continuity convention keeping camera positions on one side of an imaginary axis so screen direction and spatial relations stay consistent.

Defamation

A published false statement identifying a person and lowering their reputation, actionable unless a defence such as truth applies.

Informed consent

Agreement to participate or be recorded that is specific, voluntary, based on full information and revocable at any time.

Binary opposition

A structuralist concept describing meaning produced through paired opposites, such as good and evil, which reveal a text's values.

Mode of address

The way a text speaks to its audience, for example direct or indirect, formal or informal, positioning the reader in a relationship.

Agenda-setting

The theory that media influence which issues audiences consider important, rather than directly telling them what to think.

News values

Criteria such as proximity, negativity, prominence and novelty that make an event more likely to be selected and framed as news.

Malinformation

Genuine information shared deliberately to cause harm, for example leaking private details or reusing true facts to harass.

Prebunking

Teaching audiences in advance about manipulation techniques so they can recognise and resist attempts before exposure to a specific false claim.

Content moderation

Platform decisions about user content, ranging from removal and downranking to labelling, age-gating, demonetisation and account suspension.

Algorithmic bias

Systematic unfairness in automated outputs arising from biased training data, labelling, proxy variables or optimisation targets.