Language and Media Dictionary of Key Terms (April 2016) Martin Montgomery

virtual community media n. a social network of individuals who interact through specific social media, potentially crossing national and geographical boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Virtual communities rely on digitally encoded telecommunications to transcend the physical constraints of face-to-face communication. mmo

virtual reality media n. a computer-simulated environment, based on an imagined or real-world analogue, that allows the computer-user to interact with it in ways that resemble our bodily experience of the real world. The techniques of creating a virtual reality underlie the development of training simulators for a variety of specialized roles such as airline captain, oil-rig operator, or surgeon. They can also be used to create large fully-integrated immersive systems such as Second Life, perhaps better described as a virtual world. mmo

virus media n. a software program that that can spread from one computer to another by serially replicating itself, making unauthorized changes to the computers’ functions, and thereby interfering with their operation. sj

visual culture media n. the everyday expression, shaping and circulation of frameworks of belief, meaning, and value through images. Contemporary urban culture has multiplied the possibilities for the production, reproduction and dissemination of images; and the study of visual culture seeks to understand the ways in which meanings are encoded, distributed and interpreted in visual form. mmo

voice media n. **** {needs superscript differentiator}

voiceover media n. use of a voice by someone out of shot to narrate or comment on the scene. The voiceover is usually added to film or footage in post-production: in other words it is not recorded or transmitted live as the scene unfolds but added later. The words of a reporter in recorded television news reports are often conveyed in voiceover. And the device is sometimes used in documentary and fiction film for an unseen narrator. mmo