This document defines key terms related to television drama, representation, and semiotics. It provides examples and explanations for terms like TV drama, representation, mediation, stereotype, hegemonic norm, ideology, semiotics, connotation, signifier, signification, binary opposites, mode of address, anchoring, conventions. Examples of signifiers given are iconic (portrait), indexical (footprint), and symbolic (arbitrary relationship). Conventions of television drama listed include boy meets girl narratives and heroes overcoming challenges.

1. Definitions of words.

2. TV Drama
• A series of episodes (ranging from 30min to
90mins normally) that link together to create
a set constant storyline that was designed for
television.
• Examples of this include: Being human,
Breaking bad, Game of thrones and the
walking dead

3. representation
• The way in which something is depicted in a
certain fashion.
• This could be something like a gender in a
television program, or a sexuality.

4. Mediation
• The media’s way of altering reality for the
benefit of public interest, whether this is good
interest or bad.
• This could be changing a celebrity photo for a
magazine or only showing one side of a war as
positives.

5. stereotype
• In regular terms, to stereotype is to represent
a certain group of people with one blanket
image, and sometimes this is used in media to
help further character development.
• An example of this would be teenage thugs all
wearing hoodies and ganging up on people in
the streets.

6. Hegemonic norm
• The idea that to a certain group of people, this
is the normal attitude or religious ideal.
• In media, this could be creating a scenario
that people can relate to and not being to
extreme.
• A good example of this is heterosexuals in
society

7. Ideology
• The conscious or unconscious reasons why a
character will do the things that they do.
• In a TV drama this will affect the storyline
massively as characters cannot do something
that would not be in their ideology.

8. semiotics
• Semiotics is the study of sign processes (semiosis),
signs and
• symbols, or signification and communication. It is
usually
• divided into the three following branches:
• • Semantics: Relation between signs and the things to
• which they refer
• • Syntactics: Relations among signs in formal structures
• • Pragmatics: Relation between signs and their effects
on
• the people who use them

9. Connotation
• When we connote something, we are giving
meaning to a word further than what it might
actually mean
• An example of this could be someone wearing
black- connoting death, hiding and darkness.

10. Signifies
• Meaning to indicate something, for instance
viewing a person in a dark setting constantly
signifies that they themselves are dark.

11. Signifier
• Something that will signify something else in a
TV drama, for instance it could be a persons
house or clothes that signify who they are.

12. Types of signifier – iconic, indexical,
symbolic (find an example of each and
explain)
• Iconic signifier: A mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the
signified (recognizably looking, sounding, feeling, tasting or smelling like it) - being similar in
possessing some of its qualities (e.g. a portrait, a diagram, a scale-model, onomatopoeia,
metaphors, 'realistic' sounds in music, sound effects in radio drama, a dubbed film
soundtrack, imitative gestures) (Peirce).
• A mode in which the signifier is not purely arbitrary but is directly connected in some way
(physically or causally) to the signified - this link can be observed or inferred (e.g. smoke,
weathercock, thermometer, clock, spirit-level, footprint, fingerprint, knock on door, pulse
rate, rashes, pain)
• A mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is arbitrary or purely
conventional - so that the relationship must be learnt

13. Binary opposites
• Two related things that are complete
opposites. This could be two roommates who
are different, or characters in a team who are
opposites.

14. Mode of address
• It basically means how the text speaks to the
audience. Or the way you title something.
This exampled in TV Drama could be a
characters title on screen.

15. Anchoring
• The first piece of information given to the
audience that they will then take everything
from.
• For instance this could be a plot unfolding
where we see a man in a hood over a body,
anchoring the idea that it was a man.

16. Conventions
• The normal mode in which something occurs,
in which an example would be: boy meets girl,
girl breaks it off. Girl realises she was wrong
and later takes him back.

17. List the conventions of television
Drama
• Boy meets girl and they get together in the
end with complications.
• The villain nearly kills the good guy, who then
wins in the end.
• Guy faces challenge which he can only
overcome through changing.