Media terms

Visual Codes - what you see in the scene, what makes up the mise-en-scene 

Narrative Codes - how the story is constructed

Semiotics - the theory of signs

Sign - actual object 

Signifier - physical attributes of the sign

Signified - meaning constructed from the physical attributes of the object 

Iconic Sign - what the actual object is

Indexical Sign - a sign that suggests something has happened

Symbolic Sign - iconic sign given a symbolic meaning

Syntagmatic Structure - how the narrative is constructed through signs 

Semiotics - The science of signs 

To understand more on semiotics this video helped me...

Anchorage

Anchorage

The viewer is said to be all at sea in the media world full of potential meanings. There is no such thing as fixed meaning. The best thing a media producer can do is an our the reader around preferred meanings.