Sound-picture scissors
The sound-image scissors , also text-image scissors , describe the gap in information between shown images and spoken text ("sound") in programs such as news programs , documentaries or educational films.
definition
The term, originally and scientifically correct “image-text-scissors”, was coined by the German media scientist Bernward Wember for the first time and as part of his analyzes of the communication of information on television in the early 1970s.
If the image information deviates too much from the text in informational films, if it even contradicts it, this will immediately lead to an “overload” of the viewer. The consequence of this is that the information that should be conveyed by the audiovisual message as a whole is significantly poorer or cannot be picked up at all.
An improved understanding of the information can be achieved by avoiding the “image-text scissors” or by means of coherently filmed recordings, graphics and / or graphs or a comment that fits the image.
The Tagesschau , in particular, often brings the “image-text scissors” back together in an unconventional way by visualizing the visual language or metaphors used in the text through the images:
| volume | image |
|---|---|
| "[...] the CSU is still treading on the spot" | someone is cold and therefore he steps on the spot in the snow |
| "[...] nevertheless the hope for the CSU successor question remains no more than a tender plant." | Leaf (fresh shoot?) In the picture with a lot of snow on it |
criticism
The concept of text-image scissors is much discussed in media linguistics. On the one hand, because it is based on the assumption that image and text, in contrast to a total divergence of image and text, could form a “semantic unit”, which is often doubted because of the semantic properties of image and text. Images are assigned a larger semantic frame of interpretation than language. In this respect it is difficult to assume a completely redundant text-image relation. Such a relationship may still work with Konkreta (you see a pig sitting on a street and the text also mentions the word pig), but is much more ambiguous with abstracts (such as love or belief), verbs or adjectives (sitting , does the pig loll around or crouch on the street, for example? What qualities are assigned to it?). Text and image, when they appear together, always constitute a communication, they form a kind of “word-image zip”. So the question is rather which audiovisual patterns they can produce within this relationship, between the extreme forms of redundancy and divergence .
On the other hand, it is also controversial that text-image scissors could cause problems for the recipient to understand. So far empirical studies have shown that such effects on the viewer are rather minor. It is at least very likely that the meaningful recipient can combine these relationships with one another through context information and world knowledge. For example, he can uncover ironic relationships where the information does not seem compatible at first glance.
literature
- Colin Berry: Broadcast News Research . A contribution to clarifying the effect of presentation and motivation In: Media Perspektiven , 3, 1988, pp. 166-175.
- Harald Burger: Media Language. An introduction to the language and forms of communication in the mass media. 3rd, completely revised edition. de Gruyter, Berlin 2005.
- Knut Hickethier: Narrative navigation through world events. Narrative structures in messages . In: Klaus Kamps, Miriam Meckel (ed.): TV news. Processes, structures, functions . Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1998.
- Werner Holly: The word-picture zip. About the performative dynamics of audiovisual transcriptivity. In: Helmuth Feilke, Angelika Linke (Ed.): Surface and Performance . Niemeyer, Tübingen 2009, pp. 389-406.
- Bernd Tischer: On the influence of text-image correspondence and the cutting position on the recall of television news . In: Medienpsychologie , 3, 1994, pp. 168-198.
Web links
- Bernward Wembers Analysis. Surf Inn
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kulturarchiv at the FH Hannover - Questions about working with documentary historical representations ( Memento from August 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ On December 11, 1975, ZDF broadcast the results of the news analysis carried out by Wember under the title How does television inform? Circumstantial evidence .
- ^ University of Duisburg-Essen - Research projects AG Stachelscheid ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Examples from a 8 p.m. news from January 2007
- ↑ Harald Burger: Media Language. 2005, p. 406 ff.
- ^ Knut Hickethier: Narrative navigation through world events. 1998, p. 199.
- ↑ Bernd Tischer: On the influence of text-image correspondence and the cutting position on the recall of television news . 1994, p. 174.
- ↑ a b Harald Burger: Media Language. 2005, p. 406.
- ↑ Werner Holly: The word-picture zip. 2009, p. 391.
- ↑ Colin Berry: Broadcast News Show . 1988