Anchorage

Anchorage is when a piece of media uses another piece of media to reduce the amount of connotations in the first, therefore allowing the audience to interpret it much more easily.

For instance, in a newspaper, pictures are accompanied by a caption that allows us to understand what the picture is showing us. In films, background music often helps us interpret the scenario. Finally, pictures can often be described with other pictures.

In the presentation , the colour red is explained in all 3 of these different ways:

1. This slide is only red - this means that it is polysemic - it has lots of meanings and the audience is given no clue as to how to interpret it.

2. This slide has a caption on it "Anger" this tells the audience that in this particular case the colour red represents anger.

3. This slide has a clip of music on it. The music is very seductive and therefore the audience can read the colour red as meaning love on this slide.

4. This slide has a stop sign on it. In this case, the audience know that the colour red means stop.

5. This slide also has a music clip on it. The piece of music in question is the 'Shock/horror sound effect' heard in many films and signifies to the audience that the red you see on this slide represents danger.

6. Finally, this slide has a caption on it as well. The caption on this slide reads "Hot". So the audience knows that in this last situation, the colour red means hot.


Anchorage is the extra information given on each of these slides - the captions, the music and the picture that narrows down the amount of meanings that the first slide could have.

Baker Street (c) Gerry Rafferty