Question 1B

Section A: Theoretical evaluation of production

• section a - question 1b of the A2 exam is worth 25 marks

focus on - 

1. genre
2. narrative
3. representation
4. audience
5. media language

• micro/macro elements

genre theories

• steve neale (1980) - all genres are instances of repetition and difference
• douglas pye - films have to conform to audience expectations about narrative
• tom ryall - conventions = narrative, themes, characters/stereotypes, iconography

Genre and audience

• genre offers audience a structure or framework
• audiences gain enjoyment from 'spotting the conventions' and making comparisons with other films of the same genre

narrative theories

• propp - 8 character roles
• todorov - equilibrium - disequilibrium - new equilibrium
• barthes - 5 codes (action, enigma, cultural, symbolic, semic)
• levi strauss - binary opposites

narrative

• all media texts tell stories, the structure is called the narrative
• a story must have verisimilitude (appear to be real) in order to engage us

- technical code

- verbal code

- symbolic code

- structure

- character

- narrative conflict

Representation

• who or what is being represented?
• how is the representation created?
• who has created the representation?
• why has the representation been created in that way? what is the intention?
• what is the effect of the representation?

to maintain a representation of reality, media language elements such as lighting, music, editing, camera work and mise en scene are used

sometimes representations are seen to be a deliberate attempt to create associations and ideas for the audience

Audience

every media text is made with a view to pleasing an audience in some way - how did you try to please your audience?

• consider: age, gender, demographic profile, socio-economic group, existing/new, lifestyle, values, attitude
• categories A, B, C1, C2, D, E
• is your audience mass or niche?
• what would the 3 reactions to your coursework be:

1. a preferred reading (your intended interpretation) 
2. an oppositional reading (someone who didn't like it)
3. a negotiated reading (someone who isn't the target audience but might appreciate it for whatever reason)

Media Language

• Denotations
• Connotations
• Anchorage

lots of decisions were made regarding micro aspects such as:

• camera
• editing
• lighting
• sound
• mise en scene
• costume
• special effects (visual, lighting and sound)

- chose 1 page or scene from coursework and analyse the aspects above in great detail. 

Exam

- How do contemporary media represent different collective groups in different ways?

• main focus of essay
• diverse representations including fiction (films), non fiction (newspapers, news) and self representation (youtube, facebook etc.)
• talk about at least 2 media
• talk about similarities and differences between modern and past media
• Structure - into (quote, rewrite in own words, link to issues of representation and media, state your focus.. social groups and text) // historical example // contemp examples // connect examples together // conclusion (return to start, prediction for future).
• referencing to film dates, theorists and dates
• 
  

Stereotypes

• created by society and are part of a cultures ideology
• they categorize people into groups whose members all share the same/ similar characteristics, mainly negative ones
• stereotypes are categorical & general suggester the traits apply to all members
• they are simplistic

Propaganda - a form of communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position 

British Youth

• yobs
• gangs
• violence
• junkies
• reckless
• asbos
• binge drinkers
• chavs
• hoodies

Representing Youth

IPSOS MORI Survey 2005:

• 40% of articles on violence, crime, anti-social behaviour 
• 71% are negative

Brunel Uni 2007:

• TV News: violent crime or celebrities; 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 (words used to describe)
• Only positive stories are about boys who died young

Case Study 

• What roll did new media technologies, particularly networking sites play in the london riots?
• Do media cause riots or revolutions?#

Broken Britain

• How can you link cultural hegemony to this article?

From the article it gives the impression that the middle class dominates the rest of society and makes society believe that lower class are associated with bad behaviour. 

Teen Trouble: 26 Nov 2007

Young offenders - 12% of crime

mosquito, dispersal order, asbo

1993 2 10 yr olds arrested for murder - created everyone to look at youths differently

4.2 million cctv in the uk

media demonizes whole generation when its a small minority - cultivation theory (the more you see it the more you believe it)

6 x more likely to fall down stairs than be a victim of knife crime     

youths behave hostile towards adults because adults look down on them and think they are all troublesome



        

        

Internet

Memes
'a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the internet'


An Anthropolgical Introduction to Youtube

1.       When was Youtube first released?

April 25th 2005

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

allows people to link together and connect

3.       When media changes what else changes?

human relations

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

women going to work, supermarkets as apposed to grocers, mobile phones, independance

5.       How are communities connected?

6.       Explain what he means by voyeuristic capabilities?

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

•       ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

•       ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...

•       ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

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

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

David Gauntlett

5 key themes

1. Creativity as a process - about emotions and experiences
2. Making and sharing - to feel alive, to participate in community
3. Happiness - through creativty and community
4. Creativity as social glue - a middle layer between individuals and society
5. Making your mark - and making the world your own

Critical Identity Theory - Katherine Hamley

1) Young people are surrounded by influential imagery - popular media (examples?)

• television - when people watch tv shows, mainly series people may grow to like a particular character, alot of people forget that some characters are not real and it is acting however some people idolise tv programme characters and may aspire to be like them in some way whether its dress sense, personality etc.
• magazines - many people buy magazines or even if they dont buy them they may read a family members magazine, or at a doctors.. alot of magazines are filled with fashion tips which influence readers to purchase particular items

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

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

Buckingham:

• identity is something unique to each of us, but also implies a relationship with a broader group
• identiy can change according to our circumstances
• identity becomes more important to us if we feel it is threatened #

David Gauntlett

• identity is complicated, however everybody feels they have one
• relgious and national identities are at the heart of major international conflicts
• we like to think we are unique but gauntlett questions whether this is an illusion and we are more similar than we think
• the average teenager can created numerous identities in a short space of time 

online media

facebook logo -
social network, friends, chat, identity, mediated, sharing, posting,

Negative impact -

• often monitored by the police and some things posted can feature on the news
• cyber bullying, youths represented negatively
• distracts them from school/ college work

Positive impact -

• Strengthen friendships
• Youths can advertise own businesses e.g. photography, music showing determination and dedication
• cultures coming together
• allows people to express themselves

What new forms of social interaction have media technologies enabled?

• globalisation
• development of self-identity
• sharing of info
• self - realisation
• collective intelligence
• reshaping media messages and their flow; reshape and recirculate messages
• consumer communication with business (greater influence) - mass collaboration
• user generated content

The modern identity concept

Personal identity
-sense of being a unique individual

Social Identity
-results from being a member of a group
-in former times: nationality, race, gender, occupation, sport club

Mediatization of the self
-diversity of interest groups in online social networks
-easy transition between those communities

reading

negotiated -
audience understand text but may not agree with some of it

oppositional -
people decoding the meaning of a text in the opposite way in which producers intended

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

- implicit personality theory

reading

negotiated -
audience understand text but may not agree with some of it

oppositional -
people decoding the meaning of a text in the opposite way in which producers intended

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

Encoding-decoding (stuart hall, 1980) active audience theory

• 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

Media Effects

do media representations of young people effect how they are perceived?

• hypodermic model
• cultivation theory
• copy cat theory
• moral panic

if we see youth violence on popular tv channels we are more likely to believe this is also reality

people supposedly copy scenes in films, influenced by music to be violent

the more films, tv programs that represent youths as being violent the more panic which is created by society



Contemporary British Social Realism

• social realist films attempt to portray issues facing ordinary people in their social situations
• social realist films try to show society and the capitalist system leads to the exploitation of the poor or dispossessed 
• these groups are shown as victims of the system rather than being totally responsible for their own bad behavior

Analysing representation of collective identity

• 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? (world view offered by the film)
• what range of readings are there?

Fish Tank (2009)

Director: Andrea Arnold

What ideas are used to introduce the main character?

• victim
• violence
• lower/working class
• female protagonist 

What are the similarities and differences between the opening sequences of Fish Tank and Harry Brown?

• almost all teenage characters are clearly working class
• main adult characters tend to be middle class
• representations may be said to reflect middle class anxiety at threat of working class to their hegemonic dominance

Social Class: Reinforcing cultural hegemony/ Dominant ideologies

• Working class British youths are generally represented as being violent, brutal, unapologetic, criminals, addictive personalities - Harry brown, Kidulthood, Quadrophenia, Eden Lake

Vs

• Middle Class British Youths are generally represented as being more law-abiding, conscience citizens - The inbetweeners

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

The Inbetweeners (2011)

Director: Ben Palmer

• Everybody in the inbetweeners we see are white 
• The upper class older people are very posh, seen drinking tea and wearing nice clothes, the parents of the upper class youth are worried about him going on holiday and they have posh accents
• The youths(males) are constantly talking about sex & alcohol 
• We see some other male youths in the school scene which are seen as 'bullies' as they give a boy a wedgie for no reason
• We see one teenage girl who seems to be quite powerful, she dumps her boyfriend and also demands bullies to leave the boy they are harassing alone - and they do
• One family seems to be of lower class to the rest, which is shown by the dads dress sense and how he is speaking, we also see inside the house of the lower class family and it looks to be very dirty and messy

Horror

film theorist robin wood argues that the basic formula of the horror film is 'normality is threatened by the monster. I use 'normality' here.. to mean simply 'conformity to the dominant social forms'

Exam

• 2 Hours long
• 2 questions, one question on coursework, one question from a choice of 6 topics
• Question 1a areas - digital technology, creativity, research and planning, post production, using conventions from real media
• Question 1b - Use a media concept to talk about one of your productions (trailer, poster, mag) .. genre, narrative, representation, audience, media lang

Section b

indentity guided questions -
how do the contemporary media represent british youth and youth culture in diff ways?

3 elements-
historical
contemporary
future

How are British youths represented in Quadrophenia and Harry Brown

In the film Harry Brown british youths are represented in a negative way, the youths in the film are responsible for murdering the main characters (Harry Brown) best friend, they are portrayed as being violent and destructive. The way the youth are represented in this film fits in with some of the youth media theories

Youth Sub-Culture

• A youth sub-culture is a group of individuals who are united through a common value system and tastes (clothes, music, politics etc.)
• A group who are also positioned outside of the mainstream, and who unify as a response to the mainstream 

Values of subculture

- conformity and rebellion

- tribal rivalry

- traditional or neophile people

in the 21st century the 'dominant meaning systems' (that define the mainstream) are crumbling.

1950's teddies (teds/teddy boys)

• anti establishment, some of the original juvenile delinquents
• their uniform - drainpipe trousers, drape edwardian jackets with velvet collars, string ties and ducks arse haircuts and sideburns
• music - rock n roll

1960's mods

• Mod (originally modernist to describe modern jazz musicians and fans) is a subculture that originated in London in the late 1950s and peaked in the early to mid 60's
• Many people drifted from the mod scene as rock and hippy grew bigger

1960's skinheads

• name emerged due to their haircuts
• influenced by west indian culture

Early 1970's punks

• emerged from USA, UK and Australia
• based around punk rock music
• Punk-related ideologies are mostly concerned with individual freedom and anti-establishment views. Common punk viewpoints include anti-authoritarianism, a DIY ethic

The cultural revolution

-rationing was coming to an end

-the american way of life had started to become key to the aspirations of the british public

-youth given more freedom

-worldwide economic boom

America's influence

whether you lived i london, glasgow or cardiff you were 

Theorist                    Year             Concepts                                            Your Explanation
Giroux                       1997           Youth as empty category

Acland                      1995            Ideology of protection; deviant
                                                  youth and reproduction of social order

Gramsci    1971 (1927-1935)       Cultural hegemony

Cohen                      1972            Moral panic

McRobbie                2004           Symbolic violence

Gerbner                    1986          Cultivation theory

Eden Lake (2008)

Director: James Warkins

In eden lake young people are represented to be evil for no reason, the couple are polite and ask the young people to turn the volume down, they are rude and then start to be horrible to the couple, stealing their car, wallet and harming them. The movie is set in a woods/ by a lake which is seen to be peaceful and nice which is opposed by the loud, violent teenagers

Harry Brown (2009)

Director: Daniel Barber
Themes: Drugs, Gangs, Anarchy, Weapons
Camera Choices: handi-cam


The opening sequence of Harry Brown is fast paced, the footage is filmed on a handicam which sports shakey camera work which represents the fast action packed lives of teens. The characters are wearing hoodies and are taking drugs which represents them in a negative way. Weapons were also seen in the scene which gives the impression that teens may be violent.