Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of production

You will choose to evaluate one of your peices of coursework in relation to a media concept

One of the following areas will be selected for you to write about:

- Genre
- Narrative
- Represenation
- Audience
- Media Language

MACRO

- Narrative
- Genre
- Audience
- Representation
- Media language

MICRO
Mise en Scene ; Costumes, props, location
Lighting
Camera Angles, movement, position
Editing
Sound

Buzz words
Stereotypical

Genre
- Iconographies, Narratives, Representation, Ideologies
- Offers audiences a structure or framework
- Audiences gain enjoyment from "spotting the conventions" and making comparisons with other films of the same group
- If a text deviates from the conventions it can confuse us, but at the same time we enjoy seeing the rules broken
-Audiences like the anticipation of waiting for the predictable features

Narrative theories
- Propp - 8 character roles
- Todorov - equilibrium - disequilibrium - new equilibrium
- Barthes - 5 codes (action, enigma, cultural, symbolic, semic)
- Levi-Strauss - binary opposites

Narrative
- A story must have verisimilitude (appear to be real) in order to engage us - how does your c/w have verisimilitude

"Create verisimilitude within the diegesis"

Representation

Questions we would ask when analysing representations:
- WHO or WHAT is being represented?
- HOW is the representation created?
- WHO has created the representation?
- WHY is the representation created in that way? WHAT is the intention?
WHAT is the effect of the representation?

Audience
- Consider; age, gender, demographic, profile, socio-economic group, exisiting/new, lifestyle, values, attitude
- Categories A,B,C1,C2,D,E
- Is your audience mass or niche?
- What would the three reactions to your c/w be:
1. A preferred reading *your intended interpretation)
2. An oppositional reading (someone who didn't like it)
3. A negotated reading (someone who isn't the target audience but might appreciate it for whatever reason)


Media Language
You will need to write about:
- Denotations
- Connotations
- Anchorage
You need to talk about:
- Camera
- Editing
- Lighting
- Sound
- Mise en Scene
- Special effects: visual, sound and lighting

Section A Question 1a

Breakdown of Section A question 1a

Question 1a:
Describe and evaluate your skills development over the course of your production work - this can inclide the preliminary tasks, your actual c/w, ancillary taks and any other pieces you have created in the past year.
In the exam 1 or more of the following areas will be selected for you to write about:
- Digital Technology
- Creativity
- Reseach and planning
- Post and planning
- Post production
- Using conventions from real media texts

What is it about?
- What did you do?
- How did you do it?
- How did your skills develop?
- All supported with sepcific examples
- In relation to the areas in question

Representation of Young People

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders; they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. The riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?" - Plato:4th Century

Shows that representations haven't changed at all.


Stereotypes are social constructs:
- They originate in and reflect the power relations in society because they are part of a cultures ideology
- They marginalise people, treating them as the "other"
- They categorise people into groups, whose member supposedly share inevitable characteristics, most typically, negative ones

Characteristics of stereotypes:
- They are inflexible or rigid. thus not easily corrected
- They are simplistic
- Can be conscious or unconscious

Hegemony in News Representation of Youth/teens
- Media industry operate within a structure that produces and reinforces the dominant ideology via a consensual 'world veiw'
- This world view is produced predominantly by white middle class, middle ages, heterosexual men.
- It is their ideas and values that infiltrate media texts and ensure that other voices do not get heard.

Properganda:
- Properganda is a form of communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position.

What words describe youth and youth culture in today's media?
- Yobs
- Scum
- Terrorifying
- Disrespectful
- Attitude
- Losers
- Chavs
- ASBO
- Dirt
- Rude
- Violent
- Hoodies
- Confrontational
- Aggressive
- Theives

Old people:
- Grumpy
- IGNORANT
- Sweet (SOME OF THEM)
- Friendly
- Talk a lot
- Uncompromising

- 45% of teens help

Press Representations

Teen Troubles (2007)
- Everyone says teenagers are out of control
- Parts of the media attack teenagers
- Result of a widening gap between teenagers and adults
- The percent of young offenders under the age of 18 is 12%
- Newspapers are in the business to refelect the most entertaining stories
- Challenging for police to deal with the reports from adults
- Police have created the dispersal order and mosqito alarms to prevent youths hanging around
- Newspapers are being too harsh
- CCTV is used to capture bad behaviour now and then is more mediated (4.2 million)
- Knife crime deaths are not as high as you would think, it is just because it is more mediated
- There is hope if adults and teenagers make the effort to communicate
- The cultivation theory : because the amount of the press coverage, the proliferation means that people are more likely to believe it is happening, which in turn creates moral panic. This shows that we believe everything that were are injected by the media, this is the hypodermic-needle theory and still exists because people are believing everything they read. Also the desensitisation theory suggests that the more we see it the more we will rebel and behave badly so respond to their bad representation.
-This generation is being called the generation ASBO

Reading the riot acts
To develop the understanding of how 'BY' were represented in the London riots

IPSOS MORI Survey 2005:
- 40% of articles focus on violence, crime, anti-social heavhiour, 71% are negative

Brunel University 2007:
- TV News; violent crime or celebritities, young people are only 1% of sources

Women in Journalism 2008:
- 72% of articles were negative; 3.4% positive
- 75% about crime, drugs, police
- Boys; yobs, thugs, sick, feral, hoodies, louts, scum
- Only positive stories are about boys who died young

What role did new media technologies, particularly social networking sites play in the London riots?

Do media cause riots or revolutions?

Questions to answer from article:

This theory links in here because the article says, "

1. How does the article suggest moral panic is being caused?

Moral panic is an issue. "It has always suited the Conservatives to play to middle-class fears and moral panics around education," Tim Horton, one of the report's authors and the research director of the Fabian Society, said." Also, "David Cameron's comment in July that he was "terrified" by the prospect of sending his children to a local state

secondary school is proof of this, said Horton." Moral panic is made to maintain cultural hegemony.

3. Can you link in Mcrobbies symbollic violence theory? How?

They are linking in with the fact that people are poor they are more likely to be driven to crime. "

4. How far do you agree with this article that governments decisions and policies are continuing to create a divide between the middle and working class? Discuss

5. Between 6 and 10 August 2011, several London boroughs and districts of cities and towns across England suffered widespread rioting, looting and arson.

The left-leaning Fabian Society says the Conservatives have "massively exaggerated the problems in state schools", linking poor families with educational failure and anti-social behaviour." They also say, "While thousands of pupils come from low-income families and attend schools in deprived neighbourhoods, just a small number behave anti-socially or commit crimes, the report argues." So it shows this is just opinions.

The left-leaning Fabian Society says the Conservatives have "massively exaggerated the problems in state schools", linking poor families with educational failure and anti-social behaviour." 

6. How can you link cultural hegemony to this article?

Media Use in Identity Construction

Media Use in Identity Construction

Katherine Hamley

Highlight ke points/quotes that you think are important and then answer these questions when reading this text:

•      Young people are surrounded by influential imagery – popular media (Examples?)

•      Young people are influenced by popular media for example like certain people in the industry that they feel they are inspired by. They can be influenced in certain media types for example; magazines, films, television, adverts, newspapers, internet and social networking sites. People are being influenced by the images the see and the way people look and they are also going to extremes to also look like that.

•      It is no longer possible for an identity to just be constructed in a small community and influenced by a family (Discuss)

•      It is getting a lot harder for parents to control what their children watch and see and consume of the media and the media is more likely to influence their behavior rather than their parents. If your parents are controlling of the internet you use you are more likely to not consume as much of this media.

•      Everything concerning our lives is ‘media saturated’ (What does this mean?)

•      The bombardment of different media getting absorbed.

In society today the construction of a personal identity can be seen to be somewhat problematic and difficult. Young people are surrounded by influential imagery, especially that of popular media. It is no longer possible for an identity to be constructed merely in a small community and only be influenced by family. Nowadays, arguably everything concerning our lives is seen to be ‘media-saturated’. Therefore, it is obvious that in constructing an identity young people would make use of imagery derived from the popular media.
However, it is fair to say that in some instances the freedom of exploring the web could be limited depending on the choice of the parents or teachers. So, if young people have such frequent access and an interest in the media, it is fair to say that their behaviour and their sense of ‘self’ will be influenced to some degree by what they see, read, hear or discover for themselves. Such an influence may include a particular way of behaving or dressing to the kind of music a person chooses to listen to. These are all aspects which go towards constructing a person’s own personal identity.
Firstly, it is important to establish what constitutes an identity, especially in young people. The dictionary definition states the following:

“State of being a specified person or thing: individuality or personality…” (Collins Gem English Dictionary. 1991).

The mass media provide a wide-ranging source of cultural opinions and standards to young people as well as differing examples of identity. Young people would be able to look at these and decide which they found most favourable and also to what they would like to aspire to be. The meanings that are gathered from the media do not have to be final but are open to reshaping and refashioning to suit an individual’s personal needs and consequently, identity. It is said that young people:

“…use media and the cultural insights provided by them to see both who they might be and how others have constructed or reconstructed themselves… individual adolescents…struggle with the dilemma of living out all the "possible selves" (Markus & Nurius, 1986), they can imagine.” (Brown et al. 1994, 814).

When considering how much time adolescents are in contact with the popular media, be it television, magazines, advertising, music or the Internet, it is clear to see that it is bound to have a marked effect on an individual’s construction of their identity. This is especially the case when the medium itself is concerned with the idea of identity and the self; self-preservation, self-understanding and self-celebration.

 “With a simple flip of the television channel or radio station, or a turn of the newspaper or magazine page, we have at our disposal an enormous array of possible identity models.” (Grodin & Lindlof 1996)

I believe the Internet is an especially interesting medium for young people to use in order to construct their identities. Not only can they make use of the imagery derived from the Internet, but also it provides a perfect backdrop for the presentation of the self, notably with personal home pages. By surfing the World Wide Web adolescents are able to gain information from the limitless sites which may interest them but they can also create sites for themselves, specifically home pages. Constructing a home page can enable someone to put all the imagery they have derived from the popular media into practice. For example:

“…constructing a personal home page can be seen as shaping not only the materials but also (in part through manipulating the various materials) one’s identity.” (Chandler 1998)

This is particularly important as not only are young people able to access such an interesting and wide ranging medium, but they are also able to utilise it to construct their own identity. In doing this, people are able to interact with others on the Internet just as they could present their identities in real life and interact with others on a day to day basis.
In conclusion it can be seen that the popular media permeates everything that we do. Consequently, the imagery in the media is bound to infiltrate into young people’s lives. This is especially the case when young people are in the process of constructing their identities. Through television, magazines, advertising, music and the Internet adolescents have a great deal of resources available to them in order for them to choose how they would like to present their ‘selves’. However, just as web pages are constantly seen to be 'under construction’, so can the identities of young people. These will change as their tastes in media change and develop. There is no such thing as one fixed identity; it is negotiable and is sometimes possible to have multiple identities. The self we present to our friends and family could be somewhat different from the self we would present on the Internet, for example. By using certain imagery portrayed in the media, be it slim fashion models, a character in a television drama or a lyric from a popular song, young people and even adults are able to construct an identity for themselves. This identity will allow them to fit in with the pressures placed on us by society, yet allow them to still be fundamentally different from the next person.

Identity is complicated everybody thinks they've got one. Religion and national identity is the cause of war. We all like to think were unique but we all much more similar than we think. The average teenager can create numerous identities in a short space of time, especially on the internet on social networking sites
1) Creativity as a process: Creativity sites are a big part of identity and our imagination
2) Making and sharing: You make and share because you want to be part of a community and accepted
3) Happiness: Through being creative and the community
4) Creativity as social glue: A middle layer between individuals and society
5) Making your mark: Making your mark in the world and making the world your own
Collective identity: The individual's sense of belonging to a group (part of personal identity)
 - David Gauntlett

Identity is unique to all of us but is accociated to a larger group. Identity can change due to our circumstances, he classifies identity as ambigious, identity is fluid and is effected by broader changes. Other cultures are being imprinted onto our Britishness - David Buckingham

An Anthropological Introduction to Youtube

1. When was Youtube first released?

  April 23rd 2005

2. According to Michael Wesch what does Web 2.0 allow people to do?

  Web 2.0 is about linking people and being connected

3. When media changes what else changes?

 Human relationships change

4. What influenced the loss of community? And what has now filled this void?

5.  How are communities connected?

6.  Explain what he means by voyeuristic capabilities?

     Allows you to watch people without staring at them and them not staring at you back

7. Write 3 points about what he refers when he discusses playing with identity

    - You can pretend to be anyone, your personality can change because your just in front of a camera

    - If you're going to act on youtube you should tell everyone

8. What does the ‘Free hugs phenomenon’ suggest about people?

They are trying to reconnect through youtube phenomena

Online Media

- Facebook : Social networking site, photos, conversations, fights, friendships, relationships, family, uploading, music, gossip, nosey, judging, lack of privacy

Positive:
- Its a way of showing your identity and who you are to others
- You can promote yourself
- Everybody is accessable to anyones profile, no matter what your class or status

Negative:
- If you do anything bad, there is no privacy, therefore you get judged (True colours)
- Bullying
- Photos can cause abuse
- Fraping
- You don't know who you're really talking to

What new forms of social interaction havemedia technologies enabled?
- Globalisation
- Sharing on information
- Development of self identity
- Self-realisation
- Collective intelligence
- Recirculate messages
- Increased voice
- Mass collaboration
- Awareness
- Communication has become and interactive dialogue
- User generated content
- Self presentation and self disclosure
- Increasing diversity within cultures
- Online media, focus on some or all of the 7 functional building blocks - identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation and groups
- "Online media are especially suitable to contruct and develop several identities of the self" (Turkle, 1998)
- "The mobile phone has become a central device in the construction of young peoples individual identity"

Representation of The Inbetweeners Movie

Director : Ben Palmer 2011


Representation of the Inbetweeners


The representation of:


- Age


- They are teenagers and therefore going through lots of different problems and issues
- The language that they use is typical for boys their age
- The type of holiday they are about to go on represents their ages
- The way that there parents talk to them is very different
- The subjects that they talk about are quite explicit
- They have just left school which represents their age


- Ethnicity


- Mainly white British














- Gender


- The way that they speak represents their gender because they refer to women as sexual objects and they talk about alcohol
- The way they speak about the other sex is very vulgar
- The subjects that they talk about represent their gender
- The way that there parents talk about the other sex embarrasses them


- Social Class & Status


- There middle class and therefore they do not live rough or in a rough place this then represents the way that they behave
- Where they live and go to school it does not represent violence and they seem more respectful towards other people
- They way that they talk and their accent shows that they are middle class
- The target audience is also of a similar class
- The fact they are even going on holiday reflects that they must have a decent amount of money
- They depend on their parents for money
- The fact that Neil has a job reflects social class
- Will even states that the places where he lives is very safe, suburban and secure






Social class ; Reinforcing Cultural Hegemony/Dominant Ideologies


- Working class British youths are generally presented as being violent, brutal, unapologetic, criminals, addictive personalities - Harry Brown. Kidulthood, Quadrophenia, Eden Lake


Vs


- Middle class British youths are generally presented as being more law abiding, conscience citizens - The Inbetweeners


- On top of this the antagonists are always the working class youths and middle class adults are positioned to be the protagonists




Director : Andrea Arnold


Representation of Fish Tank


How are the characters represented into the film?
-Social class
-Hoodies
-Rough estate
-Bad language
-Violence
-Bad parenting
-You see her more as the victim
-Similar filming technique to Harry Brown
-Shows a 'Broken Britain'
-Female protagonist
-The environment has forced her to behave like this
-Working class


Media effects


- Hypodermic model : The media injecting their ideas into our society


- Cultivation theory : The more you see the negative side to youths through the media, the more you believe it is realistic


- Copy cat theory : You are so influenced by what you see in films, you then copy that


- Moral Panic : What you see in the media then scares you because you then think that this will actually happen, youths are seen as the antagonists and the older citizens as the protagonists


Comtempory British Social Realism


- Social realist films attempt to portray issues facing ordinary people in their social situations


- Social realist films try to show that society and the capitalist system leads to the exploitation of the poor


- These groups are shown as victims, rather than being totally responsible for their own bad behaviour


Audience


 - Social realist films which address social problems in this country offer a very different vision of 'collective identity' than British films which are also aimed at an American audience


- Social realist films are aimed at a predominantly British audience


- If many more people see more commerical films, consider which vision of our collective identity is the more powerful or has the most impact.


Analysing Representation of Collective Identity
 Questions you should consider when comparing how our Britishness and our collective identity is represented in films:


- Who is being represented?


- Who is representing them?


- How are they represented?


- What seems to be the intentions of the representations?


- What is the dominant discourse?


- What range of readings are there?


- Look for alternative discourses


Collective Identity


- The media contributes to our sense of 'collective identity; but there are many different versions that change over time


- Representations can cause problems for the groups being represented because marginalised groups have little control over their representation / stereotyping


- The social context in film/TV programme is made influences the messages/values/dominant discourse of the film


Encoding - Decoding (Stuart Hall, 1980)
Active Audience Theory


- Encoding - Decoding is an active audience theory developed by Stuart Hall which examines the relationship between a text and its audience


- Encoding is the process by which a text is constructed by its producers


- Decoding is the process by which the audience reads, understands and interprets a text


- Hall states that texts are polysemic, meaning they may be read differently by different people, depending on their identity, cultural knowledge and opinions


Preferred Reading/ Dominant Hegemic


Negotiated Reading


Oppositional Reading/ 'Counter-hegemonic'
A representation is a mixture of :


1. The thing itself


2. The opinions of the people doing the representation


3. The reaction of the individual to the rerpesentation


4. The context of the society in which the representation is taking place


Stereotyping


- Why do we sterotype?


- We can put people into voxes and label them as certain characters


- The fact that we naturally see the world in this kind of shorthand way, with conenctions between different characters traits, allows the media to creat esimplistic representations which we find believable. Implicit personality theory explains this process...


- As soon as we meet someone we are making quick judgements of the person


- We categorise people into types, to simplify the task of person perception


- If we encounter someones in reality or in the media who seems to fit neatly into the prototype, we feel reassured. It confirms our stereotyped veiw - we do not need to think further


- It is almost as if we conspire with the media to misunderstand the world