For my A2 Media Studies coursework I made a music video in the genre of Indie rock, similar to artists such as Arcade Fire. The music video consists of a main character that it trying to fight against the government and their corrupt, capitalistic ways. He does this by attending protests and gratifying signs around London. Whilst he des this he is also trying to deal with the loss of his band member and best friend after she is caught by the police committing a criminal act.
The audience for my video/film would be fans of..... aged bout...... who are interested in.....
The Hypodermic Needle Theory can be applied to my coursework piece. This theory was first conceived in the 1920s between WW1 and WW2 by the Frankfurt School who suggested that messages in the in the media are injected into audiences by the powerful syringe-like media. This went some way to explaining how Hitler use the mass media to inoculate the public with his ideas. this theory posits that the audience is passive and is unduly influenced by messages set to them by the mass media. Applying this theory to my work suggests that viewers of my film/music videos will indulge in copycat behaviour and this can be seen in our music video
The Two Step Flow Theory can also be applied to our music video. This is when a strong opinion leader gives an opinion on a subject thereby changing the opinions of their followers. For example, in our music video if an opinion leader such as the celebrity Russell Brand endorsed our video on their Twitter this would mean fans of Russell Brand and his opinions would be more likely to view our band's video and access our website.
Another audience theory that can be applied to our music video is the cultivation theory, this suggests that audiences view the media and use it for their own purposes. I feel that in our music video the audience would use it for the propose of the role models. The behaviour of our band is the role model, so makes the viewers opinions reflect what they see in the music video. Also is they identify with the ideology of our video which is anti corporations, anti capitalism, etc, they will join in with our message.
STUART HALL oppositional reading, we may be seen as the criminals, making the society corrupt.
Friday, 26 February 2016
Thursday, 25 February 2016
What are the social implications of the media's depiction of teenagers and young people?
In attack the block the media portray young people as anti sociable, violent criminals that have no respect for thoughts who live outside of their housing estate. This is contrasted by adults being very social and caring, for example, when the nurse (Sam) is on the phone with her mother seeing if she is ok. This reinforces the idea that youth are seen as selfish and anti sociable. An example of this is when one of the teenagers are wielding a knife whilst saying, "You're getting merked init." This not only amplifies teenagers as violent but also gives them the image of being un educated due to their poor use of language. This alienates teenagers from adults because the feel different due to how they speak culturally and also what they speak/care about. Teenagers are also represented as criminals when we see them mug a car after the alien crash lands into it whilst the adult in the situation, opposes this and runs away. This effects youth negatively because they are presented as anti sociable criminals.
Teenagers are also shown to be very protective of their territory and also fight for their honour after being attck by the alien. We see this when, rather then running away, the gang of youths pursue and attack the alien.This makes teenagers seem immature but at the same time quit heroic. The group of teenagers then take the alien back to a room at the top of the block in which they smoke weed, an celebrate the gang leader (Moses) is given a job as a drug dealer. This again backs up the representations of teenagers being criminals, and here we see the aspire to be to. We also see that youth are a lot more accepting of an alien crash landing onto earth then adults, this represents teenagers as being more open to a change in their environment and what they're comfortable with whereas the adults call the alien an ugly dog, even though they no it looks nothing like a dog.
The Mods vs Rockers are another good example of when the media has represented youth negatively. Like in 'Attack the Block' youth are represented as antisocial criminals that have no respect for any out groups. In this case the Media being, almost every national newspaper with the exception of 'The Time', blew up this story Using headlines like 'Day of Terror by Scooter Groups' (Daily Telegraph), 'Youngsters /beat Up Town - 97 Leather Jacket Arrests' (Daily Express,intern creating a moral panic.
The language used is extremely emotive to describe the negative traits that the youth have in this time period, it emphasizes how dangerous the youth are to society. The use of the word invasion in this news article suggests that the youth are alienated from society. This can be further seen in the way the youth dressed in comparison to adults, as they tend to wear leather jackets and sun glasses whereas adults dressed more formal.
Teenagers are also shown to be very protective of their territory and also fight for their honour after being attck by the alien. We see this when, rather then running away, the gang of youths pursue and attack the alien.This makes teenagers seem immature but at the same time quit heroic. The group of teenagers then take the alien back to a room at the top of the block in which they smoke weed, an celebrate the gang leader (Moses) is given a job as a drug dealer. This again backs up the representations of teenagers being criminals, and here we see the aspire to be to. We also see that youth are a lot more accepting of an alien crash landing onto earth then adults, this represents teenagers as being more open to a change in their environment and what they're comfortable with whereas the adults call the alien an ugly dog, even though they no it looks nothing like a dog.
The Mods vs Rockers are another good example of when the media has represented youth negatively. Like in 'Attack the Block' youth are represented as antisocial criminals that have no respect for any out groups. In this case the Media being, almost every national newspaper with the exception of 'The Time', blew up this story Using headlines like 'Day of Terror by Scooter Groups' (Daily Telegraph), 'Youngsters /beat Up Town - 97 Leather Jacket Arrests' (Daily Express,intern creating a moral panic.
The language used is extremely emotive to describe the negative traits that the youth have in this time period, it emphasizes how dangerous the youth are to society. The use of the word invasion in this news article suggests that the youth are alienated from society. This can be further seen in the way the youth dressed in comparison to adults, as they tend to wear leather jackets and sun glasses whereas adults dressed more formal.
Friday, 5 February 2016
Effects of the construction and portrayal of teen identity by the mainstream media
These tabloids represent teenagers very negatively giving them names like 'pea-brain', 'thungs' and imply they are criminals. They use emotive language that reinforce the idea that teenagers are anti sociable people. Because these newspapers have a large audience (mainly adults) it means stereotypes are formed by the readers giving all teenagers the same image. These stereotypes then affect how adults and mainstream society perceive all teenagers which then creates a barrier between the two cultures which then alienates youths.
Tuesday, 2 February 2016
Applying genre theories to one of your casework productions.
For my AS coursework I constructed the opening of a film in a genre of Drama, using the sub-genre a coming of age drama. For example, I researched Submarine, Little Miss Sunshine, Kings of Summer and The Way Way Back.
The storyline for our film is about a teenage boy who after the death of his best friend has to find a way of re finding happiness
Rick Altman states that film can be categorised into genre in three different ways: semantic, syntactic and pragmatic. The semantic codes (atmans "building blocks') Which clearly indicate our film genre are (state a specific camera shot, editing tech, prop, setting, costume, sound) This clearlyindecates our genre as it has been used in other movies such as.....
I can apply Altmans syntactic some to my movie as our film shares many key narrative characteristics with other films in the genre of.... For example, our protagonist..... This also happens in.... when....
Finally I believe that our title best fits atmans pragmatic approach. WeWe chose to name our film..... which clearly indicates to an audience that our film shares similar codes and conventions to movies such as .....
Steve Neal's stance on genre is that it is important for filmmakers in terms of how to attract audiences. He states that at "genres are instances of repetition and difference" maintaining that films only attract audiences by pushing the boards of the genre. An example of this would be the horror genre where recent movies have parodied the original codes and conventions of horror films - e.g.. Scream. We have repeated certain genre codes of.... films by including elements such as..... However, we have also pushed the boundaries by.....
Deborah Knight argues that genres offer “emotional pleasures such as empathy and escapism” for audiences. Our film was deliberately crafted to make the audience feel….towards…. We did this by……This provides the viewer with what Knight terms “the additional pleasure of prolonged anticipation”.
Barthes also discussed a film in terms of action codes which are clearly linked to the film's genre. In our film we included.....
The storyline for our film is about a teenage boy who after the death of his best friend has to find a way of re finding happiness
Rick Altman states that film can be categorised into genre in three different ways: semantic, syntactic and pragmatic. The semantic codes (atmans "building blocks') Which clearly indicate our film genre are (state a specific camera shot, editing tech, prop, setting, costume, sound) This clearlyindecates our genre as it has been used in other movies such as.....
I can apply Altmans syntactic some to my movie as our film shares many key narrative characteristics with other films in the genre of.... For example, our protagonist..... This also happens in.... when....
Finally I believe that our title best fits atmans pragmatic approach. WeWe chose to name our film..... which clearly indicates to an audience that our film shares similar codes and conventions to movies such as .....
Steve Neal's stance on genre is that it is important for filmmakers in terms of how to attract audiences. He states that at "genres are instances of repetition and difference" maintaining that films only attract audiences by pushing the boards of the genre. An example of this would be the horror genre where recent movies have parodied the original codes and conventions of horror films - e.g.. Scream. We have repeated certain genre codes of.... films by including elements such as..... However, we have also pushed the boundaries by.....
Deborah Knight argues that genres offer “emotional pleasures such as empathy and escapism” for audiences. Our film was deliberately crafted to make the audience feel….towards…. We did this by……This provides the viewer with what Knight terms “the additional pleasure of prolonged anticipation”.
Barthes also discussed a film in terms of action codes which are clearly linked to the film's genre. In our film we included.....
We also included what Barthes
describes as Referential codes (symbols which have meanings in our culture and
society which have further connotations for the viewer) by including shots
of…….
We also included what Barthes
describes as Referential codes (symbols which have meanings in our culture and
society which have further connotations for the viewer) by including shots
of…….
Vladimir Propp is a theorist
who discusses narrative purely in terms of character and actions. Despite his research being about fairy tales,
his work is helpful in decoding our sequence.
The protagonist in our film clearly meets Propp’s definition of a hero
in that he….(mention other characters if they meet his definitions of helpers,
villains etc). Furthermore, Propp came
to the conclusion that all narratives can be boiled down to a number of
functions initiated by these characters.
Our film follows the function of….. in that our protagonist does…..
Todorov’s theories of
narrative discuss texts in terms of the arc of a storyline. His theory split stories into 5 clear steps:
equilibrium, disruption of equilibrium, the recognition of the disruption, the
repair of it and then the new equilibrium.
Our title sequence plays with these codes in the following way:
Finally Claude Levi-Strauss
defines narrative as requiring the constant creation of conflict and
opposition. He summarised this in terms
of visual opposition (such as light versus darkness) or conceptual (eg. Love
versus hate, control versus panic). We
included a number of binary oppositions in our opening sequence, such as…
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