Theory & the Media Professional

Stephen Hill

Objectives

AIM: To explore the ways that academic media theory can help the

media professional understand the interactive potential of the audience in a digital age.

Overview Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

Five Institutional Models1. Music Video Production (Foundation Degree Popular Music)

2. Multi-media Journalism (BA Hons Journalism and Communication)

3. Advertising and Marketing (BA Hons Marketing and Communication)

4. Television Production (BA Hons Media Production)

5. Computer Animation (BA Hons Computer Animation)

Music Video

Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

Impact on professional: destabilised the relationship between producers and consumers.

Foundation Degree - Popular Music

Digital age: audience embracing cheap digital video editing software and YouTube

Traditional view: Music videos are the ultimate example of the post-modern text.

Prospects for future: reinstated some of the key conventions..

Multi-Media Journalism

Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

BA Hons Journalism and Communication

Digital age: Traditional journalism competing with blogs, message boards, Amazon reviews, forums etc.

Impact on professional: boundaries blurred between current affairs and entertainment.

Traditional view: press as the Fourth Estate

Prospects for future: multi-platform branding of old-guard. High quality journalistic = niche market

Television Production Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

Traditional view: Concept of broadcasting.

                                         

      

BA Hons Media Production

Digital age: Narrow casting. Multi-channelling. Greater audience interactivity (pressing the red button) + convergence

Impact on professional: More television being made more cheaply, less freedom about its content. Reality television placing greater emphasis on audience participation.

Prospects for future: YouTube, reality television reinforce old conventions. More sophisticated audience more receptive to hybridity.

Computer Animation

Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

Traditional view: animation discrete genre of film-making - 19th Century (flip books and zoetropes).

Barthes: Animation supposes authorial creativity on the part of the audience in the form of the willing suspension of disbelief.

Hebdige: Animation is a discrete sub-culture of the film industry with its own sub-genres.

Anderson: Proliferation of New Media technologies has opened new niche markets for software and animation based film.

BA Hons Computer Animation

Digital age: Proliferation of anime. Domestic packages like GIF Movie Gear allowing audiences to produce their own animation for broadcast on YouTube

Impact on professional: Convergence of animation with special effects in mainstream film is opening up new cinematic possibilities.

Prospects for future: Amateur productions e.g Anime pop music videos widening audiences for animation films.