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Prepare answers for the following questions

Homework Due: Friday 8th January

1a)

'Digital Technology has enhanced Media Production'

In your own experience, how has your research and

planning developed through using digital technology tocomplete your coursework productions?

1b)

'Genre is not useful given the hybrid nature of texts'

Explain how you met and/or challenged conventions inorder to appeal to audiences in one of your productionpieces

Objective: Explore concepts in order to prepare for Key Concepts Exam

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Exam: G325 (1B)

Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production

Question 1(b) requires candidates to select oneproduction and evaluate it in relation to a mediaconcept. The list of concepts to which questions will

relate is as follows:Genre

Representation

Narrative

AudienceMedia language

You may choose to write about work undertaken at ASorA2, main task and/or preliminary/ancillary tasks.


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Genre definition

A set of types/groups which any medium may be

classified.

Western Science-Fiction Comedy

Sitcom Quiz Show Soap

Reggae Drum n Base Jazz

In each case the acknowledgement of genre

depends on the acceptance of generic conventions.

GENRE


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Genre - Timeless?

No - open to historical change - they are

historical constructs.

John Fiske - Any one programme will bear the

main characteristics of its genre, but is likely to

include some from others: ascribing it to one

genre or another involves deciding which set of

characteristics are most important.

Edward Buscombe felt that iconography was

the best way to achieve generic definitions.

GENRE


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Richard Maltby and Ian Craven The success of Hollywood is reliant on the

combination of predictable elements with

variation.

GENRE


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Auteurs

Auteurs - A group of film makers that were

considered to be particularly influential and

artistic. Does work show a particularlyunique style?

GENRE


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Rick Altman

Genre theory presumes that viewers pre-

read texts.

Viewers become passive voyeurs Genres are therefore restrictive

Does not acknowledge or allow for the

hybrid - the blending of genres.

GENRE


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REPRESENTATION

QUESTION 1B REPRESENTATION Example

The piece of coursework I am choosing to write about for representation is the pop video we made forDice by Finley Quaye. Representation is the way that media products construct a sense of reality and

offer us the idea that what we are seeing on the screen is related to the real world, so it is being REpresented to us.

This is a major aspect of media literacy the more you know that the media are representing things inparticular ways and not just showing us things as they are. People who think that the media just showsus a window on the world are less media literate. People who create their own media and publish it onthe internet are often very media literate because you have to understand how the media is producedto make it yourself. Pop video is representing two things the song itself (in a promotional way to makepeople buy or download it like a form of advertising) and the ideas and messages that are in thesong. Andrew Goodwin writes that the pop video often anchors the meanings of the song whichmight be quite abstract with the imagery of the main performer as a star a kind of signifier, in

semiotics. He says that this is more of a commercial than artistic idea. Thinking about our video, I thinkthis is a weakness of what we did because our video really represents the story of the song arelationship breaking down without really creating a star image for the singer. If we had moreperformance

in the video this would have worked but to have neither performance or a star image means it looksless like real pop videos. Goodwin says the pop video is usually an extension of the aesthetics ofperformance and I dont think ours manages much in the way of aesthetics. One important thing Ihave learning on my Media course is that representation is about who is not in the frame as much aswho is, and looking at our video all of the characters are white, and the mise en scene is a suburb and

a rural area, so we havent represented anyone from an ethnic minority or anyone with a disability. Andwe chose a heterosexual couple for the romance and the affair is also heterosexual. So we arenot really doing anything challenging. But most media is like this and if you think about MTV, what yousee is mostly music being represented through very old fashioned gender roles what Kaplan callsthe male gaze in pop video. Compared to lots of videos on MTV our representation of women is quiteprogressive they are not shown as objects and they can give as good as they get. So overall ourvideo was quite mainstream in how it represented a relationship and didnt challenge conventions. Andits main weakness was that it didnt really manage to offer an aesthetic extension of performance.

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Who have you represented? Why

How have you represented? Why?

How you are talking to your audience?

What techniques have you used to

commuicate with the audience, i.e,

camera, sound, mise-en-scene, editing?

Answer these questions in

a new blog post


REPRESENTATION

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a new blog post


REPRESENTATION

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a new blog post


REPRESENTATION

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NARRATIVE


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NARRATIVE


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NARRATIVE


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NARRATIVE


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NARRATIVE


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Todorov: theory of narrative

structure: Equilibrium Disequilibrium -Equilibrium

NARRATIVE

Vladimir Propp - characters and actions (31

functions of character types)

Barthes:

decided that they could be categorised in the

following five ways:Action/proiarectic code &enigma code (ie Answers & questions)Symbols & SignsPoints of CulturalReferenceSimple description/reproduction


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Binary Oppositions

Man Woman

Active Passive

External Domestic

Public Private

Producer Consumer

Levi-Strauss

Another method of

analysing the meaning

and structure of texts.

Texts are structured bya series of binary

conflicts.

Gender

Think about film genre, which

portray very specific binary

oppositions?

NARRATIVE


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Binary Oppositions

In the mid-20th century, two major European academic thinkers, Claude LeviStrauss and Roland Barthes, had the important insight that the way weunderstand certain words depends not so much on any meaning theythemselves directly contain, but much more by our understanding of thedifference between the word and its 'opposite' or, as they called it 'binary

opposite'. They realised that words merely act as symbols for society's ideasand that the meaning of words, therefore, was a relationship rather than afixed thing: a relationship between opposing ideas.

For example, our understanding of the word 'coward' surely depends on thedifference between that word and its opposing idea, that of a 'hero' (and tocomplicate matters further, a moment's thought should alert you to the factthat interpreting words such as 'hero' and 'coward' is itself much more to do

with what our society or culture attributes to such words than any meaning thewords themselves might actually contain).

Other oppositions that should help you understand the idea are the youth/agebinary, the masculinity/femininity, the good/evil binary, and so on. Barthes andLevi-Strauss noticed another important feature of these 'binary opposites': thatone side of the binary pair is always seen by a particular society or culture asmore valued over the other.

NARRATIVE


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Andrew Goodwin:

Music Videos are simply an extension of the lyrics

Images add new layers of meaning to the words of the

song.

NARRATIVE


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NARRATIVE


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NARRATIVE


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NARRATIVE


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AUDIENCE


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The Hypodermic Syringe

theory

The media is like a syringe which injectsideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience

who, as a powerless mass, have little choicebut to be influenced.

You watch something violent, you may goand do something violent. You see a womanwashing up on T.V. and you will want to dothe same yourself if you are a woman and ifyou are a man you will expect women to dothe washing up for you.

AUDIENCE


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The Culmination Theory

One media text does not have too mucheffect, years and years of watching moreviolence will make you less sensitive to

violence, so years and years of watchingwomen being mistreated in soaps willmake you less bothered about it in reallife.

What do you think? Can you think of anycriticisms of these theories?

AUDIENCE


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Two-Step-Flow

Another argument suggests that the

masses will experience the media

individually but then they will discuss what

they have watched with others and it is the

discussion which can then influence

peoples opinions/behaviour.

Are there any ways in which you share your experiencesof the media with other people who weren't around whenyou experienced the text?

AUDIENCE


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The five ways that we

are gratified by the

media?

Information

Identification

Interaction

Entertainment

Escapism The 3 Is and the 2 Es

AUDIENCE

We make choices about what we watch and

we also have certain expectations; we

expect to be gratified by what we watch

Uses and

Gratifications theory


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Will everybody watching the same

programme react in the same way?

One major criticism of mass theories is

that they assume that the audience will allread a text in the same way. In actual fact

our individual reading of a text can be

affected by our culture, gender, class, age

etc.

AUDIENCE


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Encoding/Decoding

This theory extends the idea that we, as

audiences, view texts in different ways.

Everybody brings different experiences to a text

and this may alter how the text is decoded.

Watch the following clip and then share with the

person next to you what you thought about it.

Are your opinions the same? What do you think

has affected your opinion?

AUDIENCE


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Encoding and Decoding Theory

As consumers we have learned to read a

media language.

We decode

signs in the

same way that

we decode

language.

Media texts or

messages are

constructed for

recognition andinterpretation.

This process is

called encoding.

AUDIENCE


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Semiotic Theory

Denotation: What can I see?

Connotation: What does this signify?

The cross becomes a sign.

The actual cross is the signifier.

What is being signified?

AUDIENCE


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Ferdinand Saussure,

C.S. Pierce, Roland

BarthesBarthes: We are likely to read photographs by

interpreting the various elements withinthem rather than reading a universalmessage.

Mechanical photographic process

(images are denoted by transfer to photographicpaper)

Cultural process

(camera angle, framing, lighting etc.)

Encoder = photographer

Decoder = viewer

How we read a photograph may depend on ourcultural knowledge and experiences.

AUDIENCE


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Iconic signs: which actually look like what they

represent.

Symbolic/arbitrary signs: which have a meaning

that must be culturally learned because theydont actually look like what they represent.

Indexical signs: which have a connection to what

they represent and are suggestive rather than

directly resembling what they represent.

AUDIENCE


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Media texts are polysemic

Potentially open to many interpretations

What could affect your reading of a text?What could affect your reading of a text?

Class

Gender

Beliefs

Age

Lifestyle

Past experiences

Values

Ethnicity

AUDIENCE


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McMahon and Quinn

Identify three categories of codes that may be used toconvey meanings in media messages: technical codes,which include camera techniques, framing, depth of field,lighting and exposure and juxtaposition; symbolic codes,which refer to objects, setting, body language, clothingand colour; and written codes in the form of headlines,captions, speech bubbles and language style. Forinstance, a journalist aiming at readers' sympathy for animprisoned political activist may choose to publish aphotograph of the activist, crouched behind bars, next to a

picture of a caged animal (making use of body language,setting, and juxtaposition) and anchor the picture to acaption that reads "CAGED!"

AUDIENCE


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"Pop stars are, to some extent

symbolic vehicles with which young

women understand themselves

more fully, even, if, by doing so,they partly shape their personalities

to fit the stars" alleged preferences.


AUDIENCE

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'Audience' is a very important conceptthroughout media studies. All media texts

are made with an audience in mind, i.e. a

group of people who will receive it and

make some sort of sense out of it. Andgenerally, but not always, the producers

make some money out of that audience.

Therefore it is important to understand

what happens when an audience "meets" amedia text.


AUDIENCE

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Constructing Audience

When a media text is being planned, perhaps the most importantquestion the producers consider is "Does it have an audience?" Ifthe answer to this is 'no', then there is no point in going any further.Audience research is a major part of any media company, usingquestionnaires, focus groups, and comparisons to existing mediatexts, they will spend a great deal of time and money ascertaining if

there is anyone out there who might be interested in their idea. It's aserious business; media producers basically want to know the

income bracket/status

age

gender

race

Location of their potential audience, a method of categorising knownas demographics. Once they know this they can begin to shapetheir text to appeal to a group with known reading/viewing/listeninghabits.


AUDIENCE

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If language is defined as how we communicate, then it can be interpretedin many levels when it comes to the medium of film. We know that eachlanguage consists of learnt words, phrases, grammar, punctuation, rulesand common practices (Wohl, Michael; The Language of Film 2008).Therefore we could transfer this understanding to the micro elements offilm, camera, sound, mise-en-scene, editing etc, and/or go to a deeper level

of analysis with a detailed look at choices of shot sizes, match-on-action,rules of continuity, framing and how they are pieced/edited together tocreate a sentence and therefore a language of communication.

Unlike the other concepts in this part of the exam, we are not so muchlooking at what we are communicating but how we are communicating it.

All of the decisions you made in your short films about which shots, angles,costume, set design, location, lighting, character movement, etc, play a part

in this discussion.

Arguably the language of film cant be discussed separately from genre,narrative, representation and audience as your knowledge of each of theseinfluences the decisions you made throughout production.

MEDIA LANGUAGE


Useful links

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/language_of_film.ht

ml

http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/alevel.php?pageID=f

ilmlang

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Pick one of the following areas:

Genre

(Representation)

Narrative

Audience

Read through the slides that I have

produced on that section

And then use the sheet to answer the

questions about your Advanced Portfolio

on your blog


theory 1b 1

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