You can begin to decipher the codes operating in television news by
putting them into classes as follows:

1. Visual Codes
   These include codes of composition, codes of movement; and codes of sequence.
   • Codes of Composition...include the codes which govern the way a picture is framed, coloured and lit. How many elements are on screen together, and what is their relationship? How does the way they are lit affect their signification or connotative qualities? How does the use of composition codes set news apart from other television genres?
   • Codes of movement govern movement within the frame of both the camera and the subject. One routine convention in newsfilm is the pan from an apparently insignificant object (like the flag of a ship's mast) to the 'real' subject of the report (like striking seamen gathered on the ship's deck). A similar device is the zoom from long-shot into big close-up of the newsworthy celebrity, or the hand-held camera doggedly following the star, the ball, the police...into the thick of the action.
   • Codes of sequence are those associated with editing. How quickly shots are changed, what images are juxtaposed, and how different aspects of a story are differently edited into a sequence, can radically affect the 'meaning' of an event.
2. Verbal Codes
   Many of these are not specific to television, being derived from conventional speech, narrative and journalism. But of course this is one of the reasons why news can appear to be so 'natural.' However, the verbal element of tv news - especially the voice-over commentary - is unique in being closely associated with visual images. How do the verbal codes reinforce, undercut, or modify the visual elements? Find examples of places where the verbal discourse is 'anchored' by a particular visual image, and vice-versa.
3. Absent Codes
   Why are some familiar devices of television entirely absent from TV news? For example: music, dramatic reconstructions of events, studio debate. Compare a sequence from a TV drama series with a sequence of a news film of similar length, and try to decide which codes in fiction are unlikely to appear in news.

Questions to Consider

• Hartley encourages us to think about the differences in the way that an event might be represented on the news and in a television drama. Leave aside for the moment, the fact that one is performed by actors and the other by real people. What do you see as the differences in camera work, editing, sound, etc? How can you tell when you are flipping channels whether you are watching news or drama? In some ways, this is a silly question since the differences are so great, but it can be helpful sometimes to spell out the obvious.
• Can you point to examples in the media coverage of this incident where these distinctions break down? Is there more room for badly composed shots, crudely edited sequences, technically inferior images, etc. in covering something as unanticipated as this story? Or, on the other hand, is there room for sequences which include music tracks or which show us music video style editing as the news tries to commerate the people who died in this event?
• Hartley tries simply to point us in the directions of the conventions of filming television news. Can you flesh out some of the areas he suggests? What are some other conventions of the way television presents the news?
• One of the newer conventions of television news has been the layering of information, so that we may have a window showing us images and perhaps several "tickertapes" of information running along the bottom of the screen reporting different information or encapsulating the story as a whole. How do you think people make sense of all of those layers of information? Do we see them as separate bits of information or somehow interrelated? How do they contribute to the sense of urgency in the media's coverage, to the sense of many things happening at once?
• Some writers have argued this layering of information is an attempt by television to duplicate the experience of the windows interface for the computer. Do you think doing several operations on the computer at once helps to prepare us for these new conventions in presenting the news?
• Hartley asks us to think about the relationship between spoken words and pictures on television. Which carries greater authority or importance? Can you recall examples where the images simply illustrate the words? Can you point to places where the words simply provide a caption for the pictures? Are there cases where the verbal narration stops and we simply respond to silent images?
• Most television news footage uses moving pictures as opposed to still photography. Why? Can you point to examples where the news chose to use still shots as opposed to moving images? What might have motivated this choice?

Decoding Codes educational project by Geraldine Haas, 09/16/2001

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