OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/11/2010, SPi A aberrant decoding Making sense of a *message or *text in terms of a different *code from the one used to encode it (Eco). This can be the basis for cultural misunderstandings: for example, the hand gesture made by joining the thumb and forefinger into a circle signifies ‘OK’ in the UK and the USA but in France it signifies ‘worthless’ or ‘zero’ and in Brazil it is an obscene gesture. See also encoding/ decoding model; preferred reading. above-the-fold Compare below-the-fold. 1. (print journalism) The top half of a newspaper, visible when folded in a vendor’s rack—the place occupied by the *masthead and main headline. 2. (web design) The area of a webpage visible Awithout *scrolling—where the most important content goes. Blasting the myth of the fold above-the-line 1. A business model for creating mainstream *advertising, distributing it through *mass-media *channels, and charging clients a commission. This model is predicated on the logic of mass communication where one advertisement reaches millions of consumers simultaneously. However, it is being challenged by the rise of digital broadcasting and the *internet which have led to a more fragmented media audience. See also audience fragmentation; digital transmission; compare below-the-line. 2. (film-making and television) Expenditure prior to filming, including the salaries of those on individual contracts. absent presence 1. In *poststructuralist theory, a concept most closely associated with Derrida, for whom it refers to the mythical status of the supposed hub of any system of ideas (see also deconstruction; diffe´rance; transcendent signified). This derives from the point voiced by Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus (c.370 bc) that the absence of the writer from a (circulated) text leaves it open to misinterpretation, in contrast to *presence in *face-to-face interaction (see also phonocentrism). This is in fact a feature of all *mediated communication, where the participants are spatially and/or temporally separated. 2. The *structuralist notion of (present) *signifiers referring to (absent) *signifieds, which is also a *design feature of language (see also displacement), and of all *representation. 3. The mass-mediated presence of onscreen personalities and events which can generate the illusion of almost immediate presence or even (particularly with television) *parasocial interaction. 4. Some important and relevant term, concept, factor, question, or issue that is ‘conspicuous by its absence’ in a *discourse (‘the elephant in the room’ phenomenon). The avoidance involved is often based on embarrassment or social taboo (e.g. in the case of disability). 5. The *symbolic OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/11/2010, SPi absent signifier 2 a erasure of a particular sociocultural group (e.g. females, gay people, or ethnic minorities) in a *text, *genre, or *medium, or in a particular social context. 6. The discernible influence of a particular individual on some social or textual practice even when they are not present (especially when they are no longer alive), e.g. in film, when one discerns the absent presence of Hitchcock in the style of a contemporary thriller. absent signifier 1. A particular feature which is perceived as missing from a *representation in any medium, especially where it is ‘notable by its absence’, breaching *expectations. See also commutation test; deconstruction; paradigm; markedness. 2. A *medium, tool, or *representational code which is *phenomenologically *transparent. See also imaginary signifier. Academy aperture Named after the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, this is the standard size of the 35-mm aperture plate of film projectors and printers. It produces an *aspect ratio (expressed as 1.33:1 or 4:3) which is associated with Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s and with television programmes Afrom the 1950s to the 1990s. Aspect ratios access 1. (accessibility) General availability for use: e.g. the percentage of a given population owning or having access to a communications medium/technology. This was a key issue for Cooley in 1909; policy-makers have argued that *public service broadcasting or the *internet should be universally available (see Reithianism). Both social factors and the *affordances or *biases of particular *communication technologies can have implications for access. See also circulation; diffusion; digital divide; global village; primary and secondary definers; reach. 2. (accessibility) The availability of *information. See information flow. 3. (access television) In pay-TV, a special timeslot or *channel devoted to non-commercial use. See also community broadcasting. 4. (accessibility) (*semiotics) The extent to which the *codes employed in *texts and communicative practices are available to those interpreting them. See also aberrant decoding; broadcast codes; encoding/decoding model; interpretive repertoire; narrowcast codes; symbolic capital. 5. v. To extract *data from a computer. accommodation 1. (*optics) The process where the eye changes focus to keep near or distant objects clearly in view. 2. (communication accommodation theory, CAT) In *interpersonal communication, the conscious or unconscious modification of verbal and/or nonverbal features to be more like those of others present (see also postural echo). In *linguistics, accommodation theory postulates that people adjust their speaking styles in order to fit in with others. 3. (sociology) The efforts made by immigrants to conform publicly to the *norms of a host culture (while actively resisting becoming assimilated to its *values). 4. (psychology) For Piaget, the process of modifying our existing *knowledge or *schemata in order to integrate new *information. Compare assimilation. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/11/2010, SPi 3 ADC account handler In *advertising and web design agencies, the person who acts a as the intermediary between the *agency and the client, whose job is to interpret the client’s brief and manage the process of its realization. acoustic flow In *speech perception, the stream of vocal sounds in which a listener competent in that spoken language is able to identify words. action code See proiaretic code. action theory See interaction. active audience theory The view (particularly associated with *mass-media usage) that the audiences are not merely passive receptacles for imposed *meanings (see hypodermic model) but rather individual audience members who are actively (albeit often unconsciously) involved—both cognitively and emotionally—in making sense of texts. This active involvement has several interrelated dimensions: *perception, *comprehension, *interpretation, *evaluation, and response. Proponents of active audience theory claim that scholars cannot assume that the meaning of a text is fixed in advance of its reception because meaning is the product of a negotiation between the audience and the text in a particular *context of reception. They argue that people use the media for their own *purposes (see uses and gratifications). See also beholder’s share; constructivism; encoding/ decoding model; reception model; compare cultural populism; effects tradition. active picture The television picture visible to the viewer, as distinct from the parts of the image at the top and bottom of the screen visible only to the television Aengineers. See vertical interval. Television active picture sizes actuality 1. Film of real people going about their everyday lives rather than of actors playing roles (often as segments incorporated into fictional or fictionalized narrative films in order to add *realism). 2. [French actualité] An early *film genre that featured short accounts of non-fictional subjects in the form of travelogues or newsreels. 3. (philosophy) That which is present at a particular place and time, and is accessible to the senses—as opposed to that which is falsified, fabricated, or that exists only in its potentiality. actual sound See natural sound. ad See advertisement. adaptors In *nonverbal communication, acts involving physical manipulation that serve to manage stress or tension. These include self-adaptors (see self- touch); alter-adaptors (adaptations to others), including protective arm movements and arm-folding; and object adaptors, such as tapping a pencil on a table. One of five types of nonverbal acts according to Ekman and Wallace Friesen (the others being *affect displays, *emblems, *illustrators, and *regulators). ADC See decoder. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/11/2010, SPi addition 4 a addition 1. One of the four logical ways in which *perception, *memory, or *representation can transform an experience that is ostensibly merely reproduced. Addition involves adding one or more elements which were not identifiably part of the original source material. For example, in eyewitness testimony, we might innocently recall a particular observation or *event which would normally be part of a similar situation but which did not occur on the particular occasion in question. See also deletion; levelling and sharpening; selective perception; selective recall; substitution; transformation; transposition. 2. In *rhetoric, adjectio, one of Quintilian’s four types of rhetorical *figures of speech involving deviation (mutatio): in this case, the addition of elements. additive colour A process of generating colours by combining red, green, and blue *light that is used in film, photography, stage-lighting, and graphic design. Mixing the *primary colours of red and green produces the secondary colour yellow,