Textual Analysis
Textual analysis is the skill of deconstructing media texts: that is, a detailed
examination of the way in which a text has been constructed to convey. Such study
reveals both intended – and sometime unintended – meanings in films, television
programmes, advertising, newspapers and so on. We often take our ability to read
images for granted, but there is far more to it than we usually realise.
As an A level Media student this skill is important for a number of reasons. For one,
there is an AS level exam paper devoted entirely to the analysis of an unseen text. For
another, the more you understand the way texts are constructed, the more able you
will be to construct your own for the practical production module. More broadly, the
entire study of the media is built upon it: it is not so much a building block of Media
Studies as it is a foundation stone.
What am I looking for?
In analysing any text, whether it be print-based, radio, new media or moving image,
you should look to address all of the key concepts of Media Studies, and analyse how
and why meaning is created.
The following is a list of questions you should ask yourself about every text you
analyse. It is not exhaustive (you can never stop asking questions); neither should you
expect to answer every question about every text. Some will be more relevant than
others.
Media Representations
• Who is being represented?
• In what way?
• By whom? (links to institution)
• Why is the subject being represented in this way? (links to ideology)
• Is the representation fair and accurate?
• What opportunities exist for self-representation by the subject?
Media Languages and Forms
• What are the denotative and connotative levels of meaning?
• What is the significance of the text’s connotations?
• What are the non-verbal structures of meaning in the text (e.g. gesture, facial
expression, positional communication, clothing, props etc)?
• What is the significance of mise-en-scène/sets/settings?
• What work is being done by the sound track/commentary/language of the text?
• What are the dominant images and iconography, and what is their relevance to
the major themes of the text?
• What sound and visual techniques are used to convey meaning (e.g. camera
positioning, editing; how are images and sounds combined to convey
meaning)?
Narrative
• How is the narrative organised and structured?
• How is the audience positioned in relation to the narrative?
• How are characters delineated? What is their narrative function? How are
heroes and villains created?
• What techniques of identification and alienation are employed?
• What is the role of such features as sound, music, iconography, genre, miseen-
scène, editing etc. within the narrative?
• What are the major themes of the narrative? What values/ideologies does it
embody?
Genre
• To which genre does the text belong?
• What are the major generic conventions within the text?
• What are the major iconographic features of the text?
• What are the major generic themes?
• To what extent are the characters generically determined?
• To what extent are the audience’s generic expectations of the text fulfilled or
cheated by the text? Does the text conform to the characteristics of the genre,
or does it treat them playfully or ironically?
• Does the text feature a star, a director, a writer etc who is strongly associated
with the genre? What meanings and associations do they have?
Media Institutions
• What is the institutional source of the text?
• In what ways has the text been influenced or shaped by the institution which
produced it?
• Is the source a public service or commercial institution? What difference does
this make to the text?
• Who owns and controls the institution concerned and does this matter?
• How has the text been distributed?
Media Values and Ideology
• What are the major values, ideologies and assumptions underpinning the text
or naturalised within it?
• What criteria have been used for selecting the content presented?
Media Audiences
• To whom is the text addressed? What is the target audience?
• What assumptions about the audience’s characteristics are implicit within the
text?
• What assumptions about the audience are implicit in the text’s scheduling or
positioning ?
• In what conditions is the audience likely to receive the text?
• Does this impact upon the formal characteristics of the text?
• What do you know or can you assume about the likely size and constituency
of the audience?
• What are the probable and possible audience readings of the text?
• How do you, as an audience member, read and evaluate the text? To what
extent is your reading and evaluation influenced by your age, gender,
background etc?
Media Representations
Madonna, in role of spy being interrogated by hostile forces. Female James Bond. Likely shot by an
experienced director, but M is her own institution: in control of her image. The unglamorous
presentation (blood, bruises, fighting) subverts both M’s image and that of the ‘Bond girl’. Violence is a
little stylised. M dances provocatively.
Media Languages and Forms
Two contrasting looks: damp, dark cells of her external struggle versus high contrast black and white
of internal struggle. Interrogation sequences de-saturated – colourless=hopeless. Setting intertextual:
mirrors Bond’s experience in the film.
Lyrics/facial expressions/fencing: all defiant - she still controls her destiny.
Music is sparse. Fusion of dance/techno techniques and (synthesized) strings more typical of Bond subgenre.
Aggressive beats. In fencing, black versus white = dark versus light. Fencing inter-textual: M
plays fencing instructor in the film.
Iconography: Bond references to early Bond films Goldfinger, From Russia With Love, Thunderball.
Fight in a Bond museum? Also gun barrel and silhouette. M addresses audience in the cells: not
realistic, contrived. typical of music video. Mirror breaking = seven years bad luck, fractured
personality.
Narrative
Fairly clear narrative: M is interrogated. Fencing = inner struggle – black: give up the secrets, white:
stay quiet and die. Editing allows M to play both fencers.
Narrative is intercut. Tells how M resists interrogators and personal demons to escape. No set-up –
straight into action. Intercutting show inner turmoil manifested: cuts in dream lead to cuts in ‘real
world’. Narrative packed with binary opposition: Villains are either violent to M or ugly, and all men.
Enemy is Oriental/Asian, as in the movie. M is the hero. Inner battle also binary: black versus white.
Destruction of Bond iconography = M breaking the mould. Her theme is largely not in the Bond
tradition. Song tells a very simple story; video is more complex. Common feature of music videos. Two
enigma codes: how does M escape. Who is other man?
Genre
Music video, heavily intertextual with Bond feature film.
Madonna sings/mimes to the camera, dances, gyrates etc. References to Bond 20 rather than actual
scenes – unusual. Mise en scene not generic – gloomier than Bond, at odds with usual music video fun.
Bad guys are Genre stereotype ‘heavies’ Usual music video conventions of glamour, sex, largely
subverted. Madonna has long history of telling stories with her videos.
Media Institutions
Primary purpose of institution to sell a) record and b) movie. Therefore MGM likely involved. Also M =
her own institution. Selling her role in the film. Video distributed to TB stations for extensive airplay
to coincide with movie release. Synergy.
Media Values and Ideology
Woman takes place of man as subjugated hero. Stands up to oppression (of men?) Tricks captors and
escapes. She is the strong one. Usually takes man (Bond) to help girl escape. M = woman, not girl.
Media Audiences
Audience = Madonna fans, music show viewers: 12-30 year-olds A B C. Audience is challenged by
unconventional presentation. Graphic for prime-time screening – may have been cut from children’s
shows? Watched at home on TV – mass international audience. Also included on feature film DVD.
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS STEP ONE: TAKE STRUCTURED NOTES
Die Another Day: Exemplar Textual Analysis
The product carries no institutional or other
identification, but the music and appearance
of Madonna present it as a 3½ minute music
video promoting the single Die Another Day.
This text is intrinsically inter-textual: it is the
theme to the James Bond feature film of the
same name. Movie audiences will see a
completely different set of images set to the
same music at the start of the film.
Knowingly, the video presents Madonna in
the role which Bond inhabits during the film’s opening titles: that of the spy being
interrogated and tortured by an oppressive regime. The harsh single bulb in the familiar
interrogators’ angle-poise lamp parodies the more flattering spotlight Madonna would
normally expect to stand in.
As is common to many music videos, a
narrative of sorts is presented: Madonna has
been captured and is being tortured for
information. Her internal battle over whether
or not to tell them what they want to know is
represented by a fencing match between ‘two’
Madonnas – one in white, one in black on a
blood-red catwalk – and this is inter-cut with
the supposed real world of Madonna’s
incarceration. The colours suggest this is a
fight between good and evil. Wounds on both
fencers – both sides of her internal conflict – are manifested physically on Madonna’s body,
connoting a powerful battle. At one point we observe the fencers within a broken mirror in
her cell, seeming to represent the manifestation of a fractured personality. The lyrics also
allude to this, as she sings: “Sigmund Freud – analyse this.”
The narrative is more complex than the song
lyrics and is packed with binary oppositions.
The black and white fencers are polar
opposites; their (initially) graceful swordplay
contrasts with the spy’s brutal treatment. The
sole, beautiful woman is detained by a group of
ugly men; she is from the West while her
captors are from the East (as in the feature
film). Throughout the video Madonna is
defiant: as well as fighting her captors, her face and body express determination and control.
The lyrics proclaim that she will keep her secret and yet die another day. As she is strapped
into the electric chair, she laughs and spits in the face of her enemy.
The video simultaneously plays with its two genres (Bond films and music video) and
subverts them. Madonna, famous for her glamour and tight control of her image here allows
herself to be presented bruised and bloody, in a grim, dark cell. The film stock appears to
have been desaturated to be almost monochromatic, suggesting hopelessness. This narrative
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS STEP TWO: WRITE UP IN PROSE.
also abandons the typical ‘Bond Girl’ damsel-in-distress approach, and re-casts the woman
(not girl) as the hero. The mise-en-scène is atypical of both Bond films and certainly music
videos. Unusually the video references the new film’s plot without including any footage
from it.
The fencers battle in two settings: the first, a white echo of the set from the feature film in
which Bond and his nemesis do battle; the second a black-walled museum, peppered with
specific iconography (the Gold-painted girl, Odd Job’s hat) from early Bond films. The two
fencers destroy the museum in their battle. This could be said to both celebrate and knock the
early Bond films which were popular yet misogynistic. It could also be read as Madonna
breaking the Bond mould: she is no Shirley Bassey. The stabbing of a portrait of Pierce
Brosnan, the current Bond, suggests a level of ambivalence towards the project.
The song itself is sparsely arranged: a
fusion of forceful dance/techno
conventions in a minor key with the
(synthesized) strings characteristic of a
James Bond score overlaid. More
conventionally, Madonna addresses us, the
audience, through most of the video,
miming to the lyrics, breaking the fourth
wall. She also dances aggressively and
provocatively, and while this is to be
expected in a music video, it is slightly at odds with the violent setting.
Identifying the audience for this text is surprisingly challenging. Madonna’s audience has
aged and matured as she has, and her record sales suggest she is less appealing to today’s
teenagers. The video’s purpose is to promote both the single and the feature film. More
subtly, it is to promote Madonna’s role in the film: she plays the fencing instructor (another
layer of inter-textuality). However, its violence and blood may not have sat well on Saturday
morning children’s television (a prime broadcast slot for music videos) and this may have
affected its reach. The video is too unconventional to be targeted at young teenagers and
children; it is more likely pitched at an older audience, say 20-35 year-olds. Neither the song
nor the video seem calculated to appeal to traditional Bond fans: my own father (60) was
disappointed by the theme.
The ending presents the white fencer defeating
the black. Her body falls to the floor as the
executioner trips the power. The intended reading
is ambiguous: is Madonna dead? The white
fencer of her hallucination still stands. As the
smoke clears an empty chair is revealed, leaving
us with several enigma codes: how does
Madonna evade electrocution; who is the man
seen sitting, momentarily, in her place; and what
does the Arabic-style tattoo left behind on the chair mean?
850 words.
Note for new readers: the structure of your write-up need not follow the linear narrative of the text; nor should
you expect to write a paragraph per concept. As you practise, you will find you can write thematically, covering
all the (largely inter-related) concepts holistically rather than rigidly. If you’re reading this in
September/October of Year 12 DON’T PANIC! When you read this again in six months time it will mean a lot
more to you.
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