point of view media n. the role played by a particular angle of vision in the depiction of an object or an event. The term has a wide currency in the visual arts where it is used to emphasize ways in which any representation must adopt a particular perspective on its subject matter and in doing so constructs a position from which the spectator will view it. By extension the term is used in film theory and criticism for the kind of camera work that provides a shot of a scene as if from the position of a character within it, the so-called ‘point of view’ shot. More generally, the term plays a key role in studies of prose fiction in describing the role of different kinds of narrator in telling a story. None of these uses is far from a metaphorical application meaning broadly ‘framework of belief’. mmo