Year 12 Homework: Answer this question, using examples from your case study.

 

How far have improvements in technology made a difference to the quality of
audience experience?

 

•Cinemas you can get 3D or imax experienced – different type of experience.

•HD and 3D TVs  - interact with it more.  More like a cinema experience if you want it.

•Technology less expensive but better

•Social networking – communicating about a film, brings audiences together.

•Watch it anywhere at anytime.

•You can review films yourself – there’s a forum for audiences.

•Really easy to make videos now

•More platforms that you can watch things on, easier to create content for a certain audience and advertise it. 

Year 13 Homework due on Friday November 9th

 Answer onto the blog:

‘To connect, to create, to share creativity or thought, to discuss, to collaborate, to form
groups or to combine with others in mutual interests or passions. If you can’t see the
point of any of those things, you will not see the point of Facebook.’
(www.guardian.co.uk)
What opportunities and/or disadvantages do new and digital media have for audiences?(48 marks)

Hello all students!  Everyone is going to complete one of these questions in a lesson next week, so spend some time preparing them ready for a practise exam style case study question.

It is important to be as prepared as possible as early as possible, which is why we're focusing on this now.  Make sure to research your case study fully so that you're ready for the question when we do it in class. 

AS Questions:

How far have improvements in technology made a difference to the quality of
audience experience?
In your answer you should:
! provide a brief outline of your case study
! evaluate the impact of new technologies (eg red button, file-sharing, 3D) on the
audience’s ability to interact with and/or enjoy media products from your case
study
! support your answer with reference to a range of examples from three media
platforms. (32 marks)

How far have improvements in technology made a difference to the quality of
audience experience?In your answer you should:
! provide a brief outline of your case study
! evaluate the impact of new technologies (eg red button, file-sharing, 3D) on the
audience’s ability to interact with and/or enjoy media products from your case
study
! support your answer with reference to a range of examples from three media
platforms. (32 marks)
.........................................................................................................................................................

A2 Media Studies

Question 6
0 6 New and digital media offers media institutions different ways of reaching audiences.
Consider how and why media institutions are using these techniques. (48 marks)OR
Question 7
0 7 ‘To connect, to create, to share creativity or thought, to discuss, to collaborate, to form
groups or to combine with others in mutual interests or passions. If you can’t see the
point of any of those things, you will not see the point of Facebook.’
(www.guardian.co.uk)
What opportunities and/or disadvantages do new and digital media have for audiences?(48 marks)

Year 12 Cover Work Wednesday November 7th

Please complete the following activities:

1.  Find three fansites about your case study texts and post specific comments from them onto your blog.
2.  Find two examples of UGC (user generated content) on youtube and post them onto your blog.  If possible, embed the videos so we can actually watch them on your blog.
3.  Make sure that you are following everyone else's in the class and that you are also following the year 13 blog as well. 
4.  Brainstorm answers to the following question 'Do you believe that audiences have more power than the institutions that create the texts?' 

Year 12 reminder - please can you make sure to post up your case study information on the blog.  I can't see everyone's and it needs to be up there.

Year 13 - same goes for you.  You need to begin developing your research on this case study NOW. 

Do You Believe That The Media Is Responsible For Continuing To Create Stereotypical Representations Of Class

Do You Believe That The Media Is Responsible For Continuing To Create Stereotypical Representations Of Class

The Media has a huge role to play in how we perceive representations of different groups of people, and espcially in the UK, class is a hugely represented issue.  Shows such as Shameless portray the working class in a negative light, with an emphasis on taking drugs, living on the dole, and crime.  Whilst shameless has a comedic element and is not meant to be a documentary, it does make certain comments on that class of people, and in many ways could be seen to fuel a stereotype of the working class.  Additionally, shows such as Eastenders perpetuate the stereotype of the working class as brash and argumentative, and their narrative consistently uses high drama to engage the audience.  Downton Abbey represents a class from a different era, and winds a duel narrative of 'upstairs' and 'downstairs' so that audiences are offered an insight into both upper and lower classes.  one of the producers of Downton noted that they used different camera shots and colours for upstairs and downstairs in order to gain a different feel.  The shots upstairs used a wide angle lense and colours were bright and sumptuous.  When they filmed downstairs they used a more narrow camera shot and darker colours, to give them impression of enclosed space.
Newspapers and the news have a respnosibility to create representations of class and to either fuel or challenge stereotypes.  The Daily Mail is targeted at the middle classes, but represents certain groups in a specific light.  It can be quite damning of the upper class and of their way of life, and often it's sensationalist headlines target issues such as the MP scandal or tax evasion of the rich.  Likewise, The Sun continues to represent the working class as celebrity obsessed people who are not interested in political issues and debates.  Their continuation of Page 3 and of exploitation of women also ties in with an expectation that the working class men would be interested in such things.  Additionally, shows such as This Morning and Day Break could be seen to be continuing a representation of the middle classes as being attractive and white as they are always presented by similar looking people.  The class system in Britain is represented in the Media in both positive and negative ways, but more often than not Media texts tend to perpetuate steretypes that we have of all of the different classes. 

Marxism
A sociological approach to literature that viewed works of literature or art as the products of historical forces that can be analyzed by looking at the material conditions in which they were formed. In Marxist ideology, what we often classify as a world view (such as the Victorian age) is actually the articulations of the dominant class. Marxism generally focuses on the clash between the dominant and repressed classes in any given age and also may encourage art to imitate what is often termed an "objective" reality. Contemporary Marxism is much broader in its focus, and views art as simultaneously reflective and autonomous to the age in which it was produced. The Frankfurt School is also associated with Marxism (Abrams, p. 178, Childers and Hentzi, pp. 175-179). Major figures include Karl Marx, Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, Raymond Williams, Louis Althusser (ALT-whos-sair), Walter Benjamin (ben-yeh-MEEN), Antonio Gramsci (GRAWM-shee), Georg Lukacs (lou-KOTCH), and Friedrich Engels, Theordor Adorno (a-DOR-no), Edward Ahern, Gilles Deleuze (DAY-looz) and Felix Guattari (GUAT-eh-ree).
Key Terms (note: definitions below taken from Ann B. Dobie's text, Theory into Practice: An Introduction to Literary Criticism - see General Resources below):

Commodificaion - "the attitude of valuing things not for their utility but for their power to impress others or for their resale possibilities" (92).
Conspicuous consumption - "the obvious acquisition of things only for their sign value and/or exchange value" (92).
Dialectical materialism - "the theory that history develops neither in a random fashion nor in a linear one but instead as struggle between contradictions that ultimately find resolution in a synthesis of the two sides. For example, class conflicts lead to new social systems" (92).
Material circumstances - "the economic conditions underlying the society. To understand social events, one must have a grasp of the material circumstances and the historical situation in which they occur" (92).
Reflectionism - associated with Vulgar Marxism - "a theory that the superstructure of a society mirrors its economic base and, by extension, that a text reflects the society that produced it" (92).
Superstructure - "The social, political, and ideological systems and institutions--for example, the values, art, and legal processes of a society--that are generated by the base" (92).