Media Industry

Making a media product takes more than one person. The people involved are grouped into creative, technical and senior roles, based on the kind of contribution they make.

The groups show what a role mainly does, not everything it does. Many media jobs mix creative and technical work: a photographer decides the composition and lighting, which is a creative judgement, but also sets up and operates the camera, which is technical. Senior roles usually go further by adding responsibility for other people, so a production manager may have strong ideas but is judged on whether the project is delivered on time and within budget.

Where a role sits also depends on the production phases. Technical work is mostly needed during production and post-production, because there is nothing to capture, build or edit until work is under way. Senior roles usually run right through a production, from planning to the final version, because someone has to keep making decisions and coordinating people at every stage.

Take a trailer for a museum's dinosaur exhibition. The script writer drafts the narration, the illustrator draws the dinosaur artwork, the camera operator films the fossils, the sound editor edits the recorded narration and music, and the video editor assembles the clips. The creative director settles the overall style, and the production manager makes sure everything is finished before opening day. Each role adds a different piece, and the trailer is only complete once all three kinds of work have happened.

A media project is usually organised into three stages: pre-production, production and post-production. The stages run in order, and each one describes when a piece of work happens rather than how important it is.

The three stages

Roles and stages

Some roles belong mainly to one stage. A camera operator captures footage during production, so their contribution is tied to that stage. A video editor usually works in post-production, once material exists to edit.

Each stage depends on the one before it. There is nothing to edit until footage has been recorded, so post-production work can only begin after production has taken place.

Other roles span two or more stages. A director may help shape the idea in pre-production, guide filming in production and review the finished edit in post-production. The stages help you explain when a role contributes, rather than assuming every role is involved from start to finish.

Worked example: A school makes a short welcome video for new pupils. In pre-production, the team decides the message and plans which classrooms to record in. In production, they record teachers giving short welcomes. In post-production, the recordings are assembled and polished into the final video. The camera operator contributes only to production; the person leading the project may be involved across all three stages.

The size and scale of a media project describe how big and complex it is, including its budget, timescale and number of outputs. This affects how many people are employed and how many roles each person performs.

Small projects

On a small project or one with a low budget, there may only be enough money to employ one or two people. One person therefore often carries out several roles. For example, someone making a short safety film for a skate park might plan the shots, operate the camera, record the voiceover and edit the footage. The roles still need doing, but they are shared rather than given to separate specialists.

Large projects

A large project usually employs many specialists, each with a narrower responsibility. The work is bigger and more complex, and several tasks happen at once, so specialists can focus on their own part. For example, a weekly esports highlights show could employ camera operators to film the players, a video editor to assemble the best moments, a sound editor to balance the game audio and a production manager to organise the schedule. This helps the team maintain quality and meet deadlines.

Why roles combine

The size and scale explain why individuals may perform more than one role: smaller teams and tighter budgets make it impractical to hire a separate person for every task. Technical roles can be highly specialised on a large production — one person might operate the camera throughout the shoot while another only records the audio — or combined on a low-budget one, where the same person sets up the audio equipment and films the shots as well.

A script writer, also called a screenwriter, creates the screenplay for a screen production. The screenplay is the written plan for what appears on screen. It sets out characters, dialogue, locations and emotions, and may include some camera directions. For example, a short drama about a school robotics club could list the characters, give their lines, describe a busy workshop and a nervous mood before a competition, and ask for a close-up on a robot's wheel.

Script writing happens mainly in pre-production, often at the start, because the screenplay gives others something to plan from. The script writer may revise it with producers and directors until it is ready. They are generally not needed during production or post-production, but may act as an adviser if a scene or line needs changing.

A copy writer produces written text called copy. Copy is written to engage, inform, entertain or persuade an audience. It is different from a screenplay: copy is used for promotional or informational content rather than for a screen production. Both roles write, but a copy writer's output is the wording of a message, not a plan for characters and scenes.

A copy writer researches the target audience first, so the wording suits the people it is aimed at. They plan the message, write the text and proofread it for mistakes. They must also avoid plagiarism and copyright problems. Plagiarism means presenting someone else's work as your own, and copyright is the legal right of a creator to control how their work is used. For example, a copy writer making a local recycling centre leaflet might check what families need to know, plan a clear friendly message, draft and proofread the text, and rewrite any borrowed sentence in their own words. They get permission before reusing someone else's text or images so the copy is lawful and properly credited.

An animator creates animated content: moving images built up frame by frame or generated on a computer. They choose a technique that suits the product, such as two-dimensional (2D) computer animation, three-dimensional (3D) computer animation, hand-drawn animation or stop-motion, where real objects are moved slightly and photographed one frame at a time.

Animators produce work for film, television, games, websites and advertising. For example, one animator might make a short looping animation for a bicycle-hire website, while another creates a character's movement for a mobile game. The technique and level of detail depend on where the animation will appear and how it needs to fit around other content.

Working with others

An animator usually works in a team under a director, who sets the overall creative direction. The animator turns that direction into movement, expressions and timing. They also work with other creative and technical staff so the animation matches the rest of the product, such as keeping a character's look consistent with artwork supplied by a graphic designer or making sure file sizes and formats suit the platform.

Across the production phases

Unlike roles tied to a single phase, an animator can be involved across all production phases. In pre-production they may sketch characters and test short sequences to explore how movement will look. During production they create the main animation. In post-production they fine-tune the timing of movement, re-render scenes after any changes and combine the animation with background art and sound so it is ready to publish.

A content creator makes a range of digital media assets — video, audio and images — for sharing online. That might be a three-minute explainer video, a set of step-by-step photos showing how to build a model kit, an audio walkthrough of a museum gallery or a looping animated diagram. The aim is content that can be published fast and then watched, read or listened to by an audience.

One person, many tasks

A content creator often carries out all the roles themselves. They plan an idea, capture the material, edit it and publish it without a crew. This makes the role flexible: the same person might film one week, design a title card the next and record a voice clip after that.

Low budget, less refined

Content creators work to a low budget. Rather than hiring a camera crew and a studio, a creator might use a phone camera, free editing software and a homemade paper backdrop. Because one person does every task and spends little, the result may be less refined than work from specialist roles: sound can be uneven, lighting simple and graphics basic. Less refined does not mean careless — the finish is simpler because speed and regular uploads matter more than polish.

For example, a creator who posts a weekly chess puzzle video might record the screen, add narration through a phone microphone, drop in a plain title card and upload it alone. The audio may sound uneven, but the video is finished and shared on schedule.

Suited to online platforms

The role suits online platforms, which need regular, varied content to keep an audience coming back. A creator can switch between a kit-building tutorial, a time-lapse of a school art project and a short audio interview, so there is always something new. They can also keep to a frequent schedule, because they are not waiting on a large team — even if the finish is less polished than a specialist production.

A graphic designer plans the overall layout and visual appearance of a media product. They decide where text and images sit, which colours and typefaces are used, and how the finished item looks. For a mobile puzzle game, for example, the designer decides where the score sits on the screen, how big the pause button is and which colours make the different tiles easy to tell apart.

Designers may create original artwork themselves, but they also bring together assets made by other people, such as photographs from a photographer or drawings from an illustrator, and make sure they all match. Their responsibilities include developing design concepts, keeping everything consistent with the client's brand, researching current trends and checking the quality of the final work before it is released.

Illustrator or graphic artist

An illustrator, sometimes called a graphic artist, produces original artwork and graphics, usually as assets for a larger product rather than the whole product itself. An illustrator might draw the friendly mascot for a library reading challenge, which the designer then places on posters, bookmarks and the library's website.

Illustrators also produce technical or explanatory illustrations, such as a labelled plan of the stage for a school musical, showing where each piece of scenery is flown in from. The artwork has to be accurate as well as attractive, because its job is to explain something clearly.

How the roles overlap

The two roles are similar and may be carried out by the same person, especially on smaller projects where one person plans the layout and draws the artwork too. An illustrator may work in pre-production, preparing drawings before the layout is built, and/or in production, producing artwork as the product comes together.

A photographer takes the still photographs that a media product needs. Their images might be the main content, such as band portraits for an album cover, or one part of a larger design, such as pictures of classrooms in a school prospectus.

Planning and taking the shots

Before the shoot the photographer plans it: which shots are required, where they will be taken, who or what will appear, and how long the session needs. On the day they select the equipment – the camera and lens that suit the job – and decide the composition, meaning where the subject sits in the frame and from what angle, and the lighting, whether that is a studio lamp, a reflector or daylight through a window. These choices are made in advance because each image has to fit the space planned for it. A portrait framed too loosely, for instance, cannot fill the cover it was taken for, so the shot must be set up again and the whole session runs late.

Where the role sits

The photography itself is carried out in production, and any editing comes afterwards in post-production.

Getting permission

The photographer must obtain permission before photographing people or private property, such as a family home or the inside of a shop. Without that agreement the image cannot safely be published, and the product could have to be withdrawn or the publisher could face a legal complaint. For a photo of a junior player on a sports club poster, this means getting a parent’s written agreement first.

A web designer is responsible for the design, look and feel of a website. They decide how each page should be arranged, which colours and fonts suit the audience, and how visitors will move from one page to another. For example, a designer planning a youth theatre group’s ticket site might place the next performance at the top, use bold show photographs and make the booking button easy to find. The designer does not write the website code; that is the developer’s job.

The designer works with a web developer so the design can be built. The developer writes the code that makes the website work: links open the right pages, forms accept details and content appears correctly. A designer may also work with other specialists to make the site easy to use. This can include testing page layouts with visitors and checking that key tasks, such as booking a ticket, are simple to complete.

Developer specialisms

Some web developers specialise in browser-side code, which runs on the visitor’s device and handles what they see and do. On the theatre site, this could show or hide the seat map when a ticket type is chosen. Others specialise in server-side code, which processes user requests on the server. Here it could save a booking and send a confirmation email.

Working together

Both roles contribute before a website is published. The designer produces and refines the design as pages are built, while the developer builds and tests the code. They check each other’s work so the finished site matches the intended look and still works properly for visitors.

A camera operator is the person who sets up and operates camera equipment to capture footage during production. They turn the director's plan into recorded shots that can be used in the final media product.

The role belongs to the production phase, when filming or recording takes place. Camera operators work on set or on location while filming happens, rather than planning ideas and scripts in pre-production or editing footage in post-production. Their work starts when the cameras are ready on set or on location.

Following the director

Camera operators take instructions from the director. The director explains the shot that is needed, and the camera operator sets up the camera position, framing, focus and movement to capture it. They may need to repeat a shot if the director is not happy or if something goes wrong.

For example, imagine a short film about a rescue dog training centre. The director asks for a close shot of a trainer encouraging the dog to walk through a tunnel. The camera operator positions the camera, checks the focus and records several takes until the director is satisfied.

Capture, not edit

Camera operators capture footage; they do not edit it. Choosing the best takes, putting shots in order and adding effects happens later in post-production, usually done by a video editor. A camera operator's job is finished once the required footage has been recorded and handed over.

An audio technician records sound while a media product is being made, and a sound editor works on the recorded audio afterwards. Both are technical roles, but their work happens at different stages.

Audio technician: recording during production

An audio technician sets up and operates audio equipment to record sound during production. This includes microphones, cables, audio recorders and a mixing desk. They monitor sound levels and quality, record the sound the production needs and work with the production team so the right material is captured.

They may record dialogue, voice recordings, music and sound effects, and may add sound effects or music to a recording. They might also mix tracks and remove unwanted noise while working, so the recording is clean enough to use. For example, on a short adventure film shot in a country park, an audio technician could place microphones near the actors, watch the levels as the wind changes, and record the creak of a rope bridge and the splash of a stream as separate sound effects.

Sound editor: finishing the audio in post-production

A sound editor edits and processes recorded audio during post-production. They may remove unwanted noise, mix audio tracks, check sound quality and synchronise sound with the images. In the same adventure film, a sound editor could take the recorded dialogue, reduce a low aeroplane rumble, balance the music against the voices, and match the stream splash to the moment a character crosses it on screen. Unlike the audio technician, the sound editor does not normally record sound on set.

A video editor turns recorded footage into the finished video. They watch what has been filmed, select the best material and assemble the clips into the correct order so the finished piece tells the story clearly.

Selecting the best footage

Filming usually produces far more material than the final video needs. The video editor reviews it and keeps the strongest takes, leaving out weaker performances, mistakes and anything that slows the piece down. For example, if a camera operator recorded five takes of a runner crossing the finish line, the editor picks the one with the clearest reaction from the crowd.

The chosen clips are then placed in order. Order matters because it controls how the audience follows the story: a clip shown early can set up a question that a later clip answers.

Working with the director

The editor builds an edit and shows it to the director, who has the overall creative vision. The director might ask for two scenes to be swapped or for a shot to stay on screen longer. The editor makes these changes and the pair keep working together until they agree on the final edited version.

A post-production role

The video editor works in post-production, the phase after filming. They do not film anything themselves — the camera operator captures the footage during production. The editor's work starts once that footage exists, which is why the role belongs to post-production alone.

A games programmer (also called a games developer) writes the code that makes a video game work. Their code controls what objects on screen do and how the player interacts with the game. For example, in a kart-racing game they might write the code that makes a kart speed up when you hold the accelerator and slow down when you release it.

What the role involves

This is a technical role. The focus is on making the game function rather than deciding how it should look. A programmer turns plans from designers and artwork from artists into working features, such as a character moving, a score increasing or a menu opening.

Specialisms

Programmers often specialise in particular game systems. One might work on a crafting system, another on saving progress, and another on online matches. Specialising lets each person build deep knowledge of one part while the team covers the whole game.

Roles in games production

Games production also uses roles similar to screen production. Actors provide voices and performances, animators create movement for characters, and modellers build the 3D objects and environments. These roles work alongside programmers so the finished game has believable characters, animation and settings.

A director is a senior role responsible for the creative direction of a production. They set its look and feel, so every scene, performance and sound choice fits one clear vision.

Leading the vision

The director's vision guides the work of other roles and crew. Because the director is a senior role, they provide leadership across the whole production. Actors, camera operators and the video editor all follow the director's plan, which keeps the finished product consistent rather than a collection of unrelated ideas.

Working across all three phases

In pre-production, the director may revise the script with the script writer, decide which scenes and shots are needed, and audition and select actors. During production, they guide performances and work with the audio technician so dialogue and effects are captured as intended. In post-production, they work with the video editor, choosing which takes to use and how scenes are put together. A director who only turned up on filming days would lose control of the final result.

An example

Imagine you are directing a five-minute science-fiction short about a robot lost in a school. You might ask the script writer to make the ending quieter, choose high, wide shots to make the robot seem small, cast a nervous actor for the lead, and tell the video editor to hold the final shot for three seconds. Each decision supports the same lonely, curious mood.

A production manager, also called a producer in some productions, is a senior role that coordinates the departments involved in making a media product. They do not usually create the content themselves; they make sure the people, equipment, time and money are in place so that everyone else can work effectively.

Scheduling and budgets

The production manager creates and maintains the schedule, deciding when each stage must be finished and in what order. This matters because one department running late can hold up several others. They also manage the budget, estimating costs, approving spending and checking invoices. By tracking spending as work happens, they can spot overspending early and change plans before the whole production is affected.

People, resources and progress

They hire staff and suppliers, such as freelance crew, studio hire companies and equipment providers. They coordinate resources and logistics: booking locations, arranging transport and making sure equipment arrives when it is needed. Throughout the work they monitor progress against the schedule and budget, chasing delays, rearranging bookings and reporting problems to senior colleagues.

The role is not limited to early planning. A production manager works across all phases, checking that decisions made at the start still make sense during shooting or recording and during editing, and solving problems wherever they appear.

For example, a team making a ten-minute animated film for a science museum has eight weeks and a £9,000 budget. The production manager books studio time for the narrator, hires two extra animators for the busiest weeks, and moves a review meeting when one scene overruns. The film still reaches the museum on the agreed date without going over budget.

Editor in publishing is a senior role in the media industry. They decide what content is published in a print or digital publication, so they have the final say over what the audience actually reads or sees. The publication might be a printed programme for a community arts festival or a digital guide to a town's skate parks, and the editor makes sure everything in it is accurate, suitable and ready to release.

Shaping the copy

Copy is the written text in a publication. An editor may rewrite copy so its tone and structure suit the publication and its readers. Suppose a copy writer sends in a jokey, chatty draft about a summer fun run. If that article is going into an official club newsletter that sponsors will read, the editor rewrites it in a calmer, more professional tone, breaks up the long paragraphs and moves the date and entry fee to the top where readers will spot them straight away.

Choosing images, titles and layout

The editor also chooses images, writes or approves titles and headlines, and decides the layout — where each item sits on the page or screen. Working on a digital guide to local skate parks, an editor might pick three of the twelve photos sent in, shorten a headline to a few punchy words and move the opening times above the long description. They then give feedback to the writers, photographers and designers so that everyone is working to the same plan and the finished publication feels consistent.

Not a video editor or sound editor

An editor in publishing works right across the publication process, from planning what goes in to approving the final version before release. A video editor or a sound editor shares part of the job title, but those roles work in screen or audio post-production rather than on publications.

A creative director is a senior member of a media production team. They run the creative team and set the overall direction and visual style of a media project, making sure every part of the product feels like it belongs to the same idea.

Their main job is to give a project a distinctive feel. They develop the design concepts that the rest of the team then builds on, and they oversee branding so that colours, typefaces and imagery stay consistent across everything the audience sees. For example, for a new range of study planners sold online, the creative director might decide the whole campaign should feel calm and organised, using soft colours and clean lettering on the product photos, the website banner and the social posts.

What they do day to day

• Lead the team: briefing designers, animators and other creatives, then reviewing their work and giving feedback so it matches the concept.
• Work with clients: finding out what the client wants, explaining creative choices and pitching ideas to win their approval.
• Manage budget and time: checking the creative work can still be made well with the money and deadline the project has.
• Monitor progress: checking the project keeps its intended feel as it moves from planning to finished product.
• Keep up with trends: knowing what styles and techniques audiences currently respond to, so the product feels current.

A senior role across the project

The creative director is a senior role, so it can span the whole project rather than one stage. They help shape ideas at the start, guide the team while material is being made, and check the final result still matches the vision. A film director is a different role: a creative director focuses on the overall design, branding and creative strategy, while a film director directs the making of a screen production, such as working with performers and shots.

A campaign manager plans and manages a marketing campaign for a media product. They decide how the product will be promoted and coordinate the work so the campaign runs to time and reaches the right audience.

Organising advertising and promotion

The campaign manager organises advertising and promotion across different media. Launching a digital comic called Sky Pirates for 9 to 12 year olds, they could place free sample pages in a school reading app, book animated adverts before craft videos on a video-sharing site, hand out character bookmarks at a weekend comic market, and run a design-a-pirate competition on the comic's website. Each medium reaches the same audience: children who already read comics online, plus the adults who buy for them. Reusing the same logo, tagline and release date everywhere means the comic is recognised whatever the audience is looking at.

Arranging promotional interviews

The campaign manager may arrange promotional interviews to raise awareness. For Sky Pirates they could book the illustrator for a live Q&A on a book-review video channel and record a chat with the writer for a comic shop's online reading club. They agree the key messages with the interviewee beforehand and check the interview goes out when the audience is likely to be online. This helps because viewers already trust the channel or club, so the comic feels worth trying.

A senior role across the phases

This is a senior role: the campaign manager leads the campaign, makes the big decisions and coordinates other people's work, such as briefing a graphic designer on the advert artwork. Their work spans the phases — planning in pre-production, checking adverts and interviews appear during production, and reviewing which promotion worked best in post-production. If one advert gets little response, they shift effort to another medium so the whole campaign stays joined up.

Different media products need different combinations of roles. A product only uses the roles its content and production process require, so identify the product first, then choose the people.

Similar names, different responsibilities

Some titles are easy to mix up, so describe the actual job. A web designer shapes how a site's pages look and how visitors move around them; a web developer builds the working code behind the site, including forms and other interactive features. A script writer writes dialogue and action for a screen production; a copy writer writes promotional or informational text. An editor in publishing selects and improves content for a publication; a video editor chooses and arranges footage after filming.

Product and scale decide the team

A printed programme for a school concert might need a photographer, copy writer, graphic designer and editor in publishing, but no camera operator or sound editor. A short animated film for a leisure centre could need a script writer, animator, director and sound editor, but no web developer.

The size of the production matters too. On a small project, one person may carry out more than one role, such as writing the script and operating the camera for a short charity film, but each responsibility is still distinct. A larger production can employ separate specialists for each job.

The media industry is the group of businesses that create and share media products. It is divided into two groups of sectors: traditional media and new media.

Traditional does not mean old-fashioned, and it does not mean the work is done without computers. A magazine may be designed on a computer, yet print publishing stays traditional because the finished copies are printed on paper. Digital tools are just equipment; they do not change when the sector began.

Computer games, interactive media, the internet and digital publishing are still classed as new media even though they are now everyday parts of life, because none of them could exist without computers.

A media product is something a media organisation creates and shares, such as a film, a game or an eBook. It does not have to be a physical object: a downloaded game or a streamed film is still a media product.

One product across several sectors

An organisation can use more than one sector to reach the same goal. A publisher might release a printed mystery story for 9 to 12 year olds, sell an eBook version through digital publishing, and launch a computer game based on the same characters. The story is adapted for each sector, but it is still the same media product underneath. Combining traditional and new media in this way helps the organisation reach more people and earn more from a single idea.

Interactive media is media that the user takes part in by interacting with it. The user does something — taps, clicks, swipes, types or moves a controller — and the media responds. It is one of the new media sectors, because it depends on computers to respond to what the user does.

Interactive media usually combines several types of content: audio, video, graphics, animation and text. You find it in apps, websites, games and social media. For example, a museum touchscreen may let you tap a dinosaur to hear its roar and see a fact file; a revision app may ask you a question and show whether your answer is right; a racing game lets you steer a car around a track. In each case the media changes because of what the user does.

Not all media is interactive. A recorded message that tells you the school is closed when you ring in is passive: it plays audio but does not respond to the caller. A printed poster is also passive. Interactive media requires user action, so a screen that only plays content without responding is not interactive media.

To describe an interactive media product fully, say what it is or does and how the user controls it. 'It is a drum kit app where you tap the pads to play different sounds' explains what the product is and what the user does; 'it is a drum kit app with realistic sounds' does not.

Film is a traditional media sector usually associated with cinema. It covers the making and showing of films, from short dramas to full-length features.

Film includes small independent productions and large commercial productions. An independent production is often made by a small team outside the biggest studios, such as a three-person crew filming a documentary about a local market. A commercial production is made by a larger company with more money and staff, aiming to sell tickets to a wide audience, such as a big animated adventure.

How film has evolved

Early films were captured on long strips of light-sensitive plastic. The reels were cut and joined by hand, then physically taken to cinemas before audiences saw them. A modern film-maker can edit footage on a laptop and then send the finished film to a cinema as a computer file or deliver it online. Production and delivery have become digital, but the sector still makes films for audiences.

Why film is still traditional

Film is a traditional media sector because it began before computers and the internet. It now depends on digital technology, but editing footage on a laptop or adding computer-generated effects does not make it new media. The sector existed long before those tools, so it stays traditional.

Television and radio are traditional media sectors. They began before computers and the internet, but they now use digital technology too, so traditional does not mean old-fashioned or free of computers.

Both sectors make programmes and broadcast them to a schedule. A schedule is a planned list of programmes with set times, so you know when to tune in. For example, a local station might schedule a breakfast show, a lunchtime request show and an evening music programme.

Television and radio also produce more than entertainment. They make adverts and news bulletins. A channel might show an advert break during a quiz programme, then a news bulletin with the latest headlines. A radio station might play an advert for a nearby swimming pool between songs. These adverts and bulletins are part of what the sectors produce, not separate industries.

How television and radio have evolved

Recording and broadcasting have changed. Television and radio used to record on tape and broadcast analogue signals carried by radio waves. Now they record digitally and broadcast digital signals. The programmes, schedules, adverts and news bulletins are still made, but the technology used to record and send them has changed.

Digital television and radio signals are received by an aerial or a satellite dish. An aerial picks up signals from a transmitter, while a satellite dish receives signals from a satellite. The receiving equipment turns the signal into the sound, and into pictures for television, that you experience.

Print publishing is a traditional media sector. It produces physical published products printed on paper for uses including advertising, entertainment and education. A printed poster for a bakery advertises its new opening hours, a crossword magazine entertains readers, and a science workbook helps students learn.

Print publishing now uses computers for writing, editing and design. You might type an article, crop a photograph and arrange the page in design software before sending it to a printer. The computer is a tool in the process, but the final item that reaches the reader is still printed on paper rather than shown only on a screen.

Printing methods

Long print runs use lithographic printing, while short or customised runs use digital printing. A long run means many identical copies are needed. A short run might be a few dozen copies, and a customised run could have different details on each copy.

Comics and graphic novels

Print publishing also produces comics and graphic novels. Comics are similar to magazines, graphic novels are like illustrated books, and comic strips can appear in newspapers. Graphic novels vary in length, artwork and audience. One might use bright, simple panels to retell a folk tale for younger readers, while another could be aimed at older readers and use detailed artwork to explore a historical event, sometimes including adult themes. Even when the pages are created on a computer, the finished product is printed on paper.

Computer games are a new media sector. They are interactive digital products designed to entertain, and you play them on a device that runs a computer program. They are new media because the sector could not exist before computers: without a processor, memory and software there would be no game to play.

Where games are played

Handheld computers and mobile devices do the same job as a console but in a smaller package, which is why the same game is often released on several platforms.

Ways to play

• Single-player games are played by one person on their own, following a story or beating their own best score.
• Multiplayer games let more than one person take part. Players may share one screen in the same room or each use their own console in the same house.
• Online games are played over the internet, so the players can be anywhere in the world and may never meet in person. A connection is needed, and without one the online mode cannot be used.

Many games offer all three, so you could play a level alone, race a friend sitting next to you, then join strangers online. The players change, but the game itself is still a computer game: a single-player game with no internet connection belongs to this new media sector just as much as an online one.

The internet is a large network of connected devices and the infrastructure that hosts online services. The infrastructure includes the servers, data centres, cables, routers and mobile masts that carry data between devices.

Online services such as streaming, social media and websites run on this network. When you stream a programme, scroll through posts or open a web page, your device sends data across the internet to a server. The server sends the media back. The internet makes that delivery possible, but it is not the programme, post or page itself.

Internet or media product?

A media product is the finished item people use, such as a video, a music track, a website or a game. The internet is the network and infrastructure behind many of those products. For example, a youth club might upload a highlights video to a video-sharing service. The video is the media product; the internet is the connection and hosting system that lets people watch it. The internet is not itself a media product, even though it is often the way media products reach you.

The internet is grouped with new media when media sectors are listed, but that does not make the network itself a media product. Describe it as a network and infrastructure that hosts online services, such as streaming, social media and websites. It is not a single product like one video, one post or one website.

Digital publishing is a new media sector, and it means reading on computers and devices instead of on paper. It includes news websites, online magazines and newspapers, academic journals and eBooks, all of which you read on a screen.

Print publishing and digital publishing both rely on digital systems while a product is being made: text is typed in word processors, pages are laid out in design software and photographs are edited on computers. The difference comes at the end. Digital publishing publishes and distributes the finished material digitally, so it reaches you as a file or a web page rather than as paper. That keeps it in the new media sector, even when it carries exactly the same stories as a printed product.

eBooks and e-readers

An eBook is an electronic book that you read on a device, so it is a product of digital publishing. You download it from an eBook store and read it in an app on a phone or tablet, or on a dedicated e-reader — a device built mainly for reading.

A dedicated e-reader usually has an e-ink screen. This kind of display reflects light rather than shining it into your eyes, much like paper, so it stays clear in bright sunlight. Most e-ink panels show only greyscale, and full-colour e-ink is still uncommon.

Because e-ink updates slowly, fast-moving content looks poor on these screens. eBooks therefore suit text-heavy books, such as a dictionary, a play script or a book of poems, but not a magazine, a picture-led book, or anything that plays video or runs a game.

Video, also called motion picture, is a media product made of moving images, usually with sound. It is used in television, film, streaming and websites. Audio is the sound in a media product. It includes soundtracks (the sound that runs with video), sound effects and audiobooks. Music includes recorded music by bands and solo artists, and instrumental music. Video, audio and music are common media products that can be used across different sectors and combined with other products.

One product, different sectors

The same product can be used by more than one sector. A cookery demonstration video could appear on a recipe website and inside a supermarket's app. A thunderclap sound effect could be used in a computer game and in an audiobook. A band's song could be used in a television drama and in a mobile game. The product itself stays the same, wherever it is used.

Combined into finished products

Video, audio and music are often combined with other media products to make one finished product. A short advert might use video footage, a voiceover (audio), background music and on-screen graphics. The finished advert is one product, but it relies on several media types. This is why a video clip, sound effect or piece of music can be reused in different products instead of being made for only one.

Animation creates the appearance of movement by showing drawings or graphics in quick succession. Each image changes slightly, and your eye blends them into smooth movement.

Animation techniques

• Hand-drawn (cel) animation: an artist draws every frame, often on clear sheets called cels over a painted background. A short cartoon about a mountain rescue can need thousands of drawings.
• Computer-generated animation: software builds and moves the frames, so a character is set once and adjusted for each frame quicker than redrawing it by hand.
• Stop-motion animation: a physical model is photographed, moved a little, then photographed again. A cardboard rocket whose nose cone rises one millimetre per photo seems to launch when played back quickly.

SFX and VFX

Film and television use special effects often, and they are split into two types. SFX (special effects) are real-world effects made during filming, on set or in a studio. They include props such as a wooden sword, stunts such as a controlled fall, live-action weather made with a snow machine, animatronics that use robotics to move a fairground dragon, prosthetics applied in make-up to add pointed ears, and pyrotechnics that create controlled sparks or fire.

VFX (visual effects) are computer-created and added after filming. They can add a new background, put a dragon on a castle roof, remove a TV aerial from a Victorian street, or turn a cloudy sky into a sunset. Good VFX often go unnoticed because they look like part of the real scene.

CGI (computer-generated imagery) is usually added during post-production, the editing stage after filming, so the actors' filmed footage is combined with computer-made elements later.

Digital imaging and graphics means making and working with pictures — photographs, illustrations and graphics — using digital technology. These images are media products in their own right, and they also appear inside almost every other product, from adverts to apps.

Where the images come from

A digital camera captures a scene on a light sensor and saves it straight away as a digital file, so a photo of a school sports day is ready to use with no film to develop. A scanner does the opposite: it shines a light across a printed photo or a hand-drawn sketch and turns it into a digital image you can edit.

Not every image starts in the real world. Computer-generated images are built from scratch on a computer, such as a logo drawn from shapes, a cartoon character, or the texture wrapped around a 3D object in a game.

Software for working with images

• Image editing software changes an existing photo: cropping it, brightening a dull sky or removing a scratch.
• Illustration software draws new images from shapes and lines, which suits logos and icons because they stay sharp at any size.
• Desktop publishing software arranges images and text together on a page, such as a poster or leaflet layout.

Used right across the media industry

Because an image file is easy to copy and adapt, the same graphic turns up in several sectors at once. Print publishing uses graphics on posters and adverts, websites use them for banners and product shots, social media platforms are built almost entirely from photos and graphics, and digital games use them for character art and icons.

For example, a youth theatre group runs a competition to design a logo. A member sketches an idea, scans the sketch, redraws it neatly in illustration software, then puts the logo and a brightened photo of last year's show into a desktop publishing layout for a printed poster. The same logo file then becomes the banner on the group's website and the picture on its social media profile: one image used in three sectors.

A website is a set of linked pages stored on a web server and delivered over the internet to a browser. A typical web page can include hypertext links to other pages, text or copy, images such as photos and illustrations, graphics for buttons and layout, and icons. Each asset does a different job: copy gives the written information, images show what something looks like, and buttons, icons and layout graphics help you move around the page and find things quickly.

Multimedia products bring together the same kinds of asset — text, images, graphics, sound and video — but they are installed and run as programs or apps on a device rather than opened in a browser. A multimedia encyclopaedia on a museum's gallery computers might combine narration, a short video of a fossil dig, an animation of a skeleton rebuilding itself and clickable diagrams, all held inside one program, so it still works when the connection drops.

Assets shared by websites and multimedia products include photographs, video, sound and audio, music, podcasts and radio clips, plus graphics for buttons, menus and layout.

Social media platforms

A social media platform lets users post their own user-generated content — photos, text and videos — and message other users directly. Users pay nothing, so the platform is usually funded by advertising. This shapes what you see: platforms often rely heavily on photos and graphics because a strong image can catch your attention as you scroll.

Apps

Apps are programs you install on a smartphone, tablet or smart TV. They cover many jobs, including games, shopping, navigation, work or office, email and social media apps. An app holds the same mix of text, images, graphics, sound and video as a website, but once installed it runs straight from the device with no browser needed.

Augmented reality (AR) lays digitally created graphics, information or 3D models over live video of the real world. Virtual reality (VR) creates a completely computer-generated world for you to explore.

In AR, the device's camera films what is in front of you. As the camera moves, the software uses what it can see to work out where the virtual object should sit, how big it should look and which way it should face. This is why a 3D model of a heart can seem to hover above a textbook page and stay in place as you move your phone around it.

AR in use

• Museum: an app could show the name and diet of each dinosaur skeleton as you point your phone at it.
• Car repair: a mechanic's app could highlight the dipstick and draw an arrow to show which way to pull it.
• Music practice: a guitar app could place coloured dots on the fretboard to show where your fingers go for a chord.

AR is also used for navigation, retail try-on (seeing how a product looks before you buy it), sport broadcasts and entertainment. AR adds to the real world, so you can still see everything around you.

VR and how it differs from AR

VR usually needs a special headset. The headset shows a world made entirely by a computer and blocks out the room around you, so the real world is replaced rather than added to. A geography lesson, for example, could let you look around a computer-generated rainforest.

The key difference is that AR adds digital content to the real world, while VR replaces the real world with a computer-generated one.