Media Concentration

Conglomerates –

Globolisation

Vertical Integration – A process in business where a company buys another company that supplies it with goods or buys goods from it in order to control all the processes of production

Horizontal Integration

Gatekeepers

Regulation – Rules that is set by the governor so that companies don’t abuse their power

Deregulation – A process in which a government removes controls and rules about how newspapers, television channels etc.

Free market

Monopolies & Mergers

MURDOCH MEDIA EMPIRE

David Hesmondhalgh critically analyses the relationship between media work and the media industry. He mentions that ” the distinctive organisational form of the cultural industries has considerable implications for the conditions under which symbolic creativity is carried out”.

A critical reflection that highlights the ‘myth-making’ process surrounding the potential digital future for young creatives, setting up a counter-weight against the desire of so many young people who are perhaps too easily seduced to pursue a career in the creative industries.

Coercion – Persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats

4. The Media Informing / Coercing Policy And Decision Making

Coercion and abuse often occur in situations where someone can exploit a power differential with another person, for example in the movie “Bombshell” we can clearly see in the scene of when Kayla the character who goes into Ailes’s office to get interviewed so that she could present for Fox News. Roger then asks her to stand up and do a spin so that he can see her legs. He then asks for her to pull her skirt upwards so that he can see more of her legs and then you can clearly that she is uncomfortable and does not want to pull it up anymore and then Roger coerces her by saying “I need to see your legs so that you can have the job”.

Elision and Elipsis – leaving things out so that the audience can combine the puzzles

Fragmented identity construction – are able to build multiple different identities for example you can be a different person at work,school or with your friends

A key characteristic of postmodernism is the development of fragmented, alienated individuals living in fragmented societies

Narrative are organised around a particular theme and space

Narratives are usually LINEAR and SEQUENTIAL

This means that they normally have a beginning, middle and end.

1. Tztevan Todorov (Tripartite narrative structure):

A really good way to think about NARRATIVE STRUCTURE is to recognise that most stories can be easily broken down into a BEGINNING / MIDDLE / END. The Bulgarian structuralist theorist Tztevan Todorov presents this idea as:

• Equilibrium
• Disruption
• New equilibrium

2. Vladimir Propp (Character Types and Function)

Vladimir Propp is a good starting point for thinking about narrative structures, as his work (based around an analysis of fairy tales) suggests that stories use STOCK CHARACTERS to structure stories.

You do not need to recognise all of these characters, but it is a good way to understand the way in which CHARACTERS FUNCTION TO PROVIDE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE:

1. Hero
2. Helper
3. Princess
4. Villain
5. Victim
6. Dispatcher
7. Father
8. False Hero

3. Claude Levi-Strauss (Binary Oppositions)

Levi-Strauss examined the nature of myths and legends in ancient and primitive cultures, from this analysis he suggested that myths were used to deal with the contradictions in experience, to explain the apparently inexplicable, and to justify the inevitable

4. Seymour Chatman: Satellites & Kernels

• Kernels: key moments in the plot / narrative structure
• Satellites: embellishments, developments, aesthetics

This theory allows students to break down a narrative into 2 distinct elements. Those elements which are absolutely essential to the story / plot / narrative development, which are known as KERNELS and those moments that could be removed and the overall logic would not be disturbed, known as SATELLITES.

5. Roland Barthes: Proairetic and Hermenuetic Codes

• Proairetic code: action, movement, causation
• Hermenuetic code: reflection, dialogue, character or thematic development

Although the words proairetic and hermenuetic may seem very complex, it is easy for students to grasp in that moving image products are either based around ‘doing’ / ‘action’ or ‘talking’ / ‘reflection’. Look at this sequence from Buster Scruggs (Dir J Coen E Coen 2018), which is basically divided into ‘some talking’ (hermenuetic codes) which leads into ‘some doing’!

Postmodernism is a kind of philosophy way of life and a way of seeing the world

1. Pastiche – is a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist
2. Parody – a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony
3. Bricolage – a useful term to apply to postmodernist texts as it involves the rearrangement and juxtaposition
4. Intertextuality – it suggests signs only have meaning in reference to other signs and that the meaning is therefore complex
5. Metanarrative – how the media stories over a period of time shape and change the public opinion of the artist, or their star image.
6. Hyperreality – where everything seems more real than it is, existence of reality which isn’t reality
7. Simulacrum – not just a representation of the real, but the real itself
8. Consumerist Society – A consumerist society is one in which people devote a great deal of time, energy, resources and thought to “consuming”. The general view of life in a consumerist society is consumption is good, and more consumption is even better.
9. Fragmentary Identities – is characterized and linked to an increase of consumption and the proliferation of new forms of digital technologies.
10. Implosion – meaning is being lost with the increase of information
11. cultural appropriation –  is when someone takes or uses elements of a culture to which they do not belong and does so without the permission or consent of those who do belong to the culture.
12. Reflexivity – describes the process by which a film or television programme draws attention to itself, reminding the spectator of its textuality and status as a media construct

New expressions of identity and being are actually new iterations of previous expressions of popular culture

Shuker says “their preoccupation with visual style, and associated with this, their status as key exemplars of ‘postmodern’ texts” (2001:167)

the fragmentary, decentred nature of music videos that break up traditional understandings of time and space so that audiences are ‘no longer able to distinguish ‘fiction’ from ‘reality’

STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE (Put another way, are we more interested in the surface or the ‘inner meaning?’

Richard Hoggart (Uses of Literacy) noted the shift in modern societies particularly the impact on our ‘neighborhood lives’, which was ‘an extremely local life, in which everything is remarkably near‘ (1959:46)

With a displacement of both consumption and production that has radically altered the nature of societies and individuals living in them.

Fragmentary consumption = Fragementary identities.

In effect, another key characteristic of postmodernism is the development of fragmented, alienated individuals living (precariously) in fragmented societies.

Jean Baudrillard would describe as IMPLOSION which gives rise to what he terms simulacra

A ‘process leading to the collapse of boundaries between the real and simulation’

• COLONIALISM – acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.
• POST COLONIALISM – the academic study of the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the human consequences of the control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands.
• DIASPORA – a scattered population whose origin lies in a separate geographic locale.
• BAME – a term used in the UK to refer to black, Asian and minority ethnic people.
• DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS – a term describing the internal conflict experienced by subordinated groups in an oppressive society.
• CULTURAL ABSOLUTISM / RACIAL ESSENTIALISM – when one cultural is deamed more supreme than another and all have to belong to one cultural/the belief in a genetic or biological essence that defines all members of a racial category.
• CULTURAL SYNCRETISM – is when distinct aspects of different cultures blend together to make something new and unique. Culture is a large category, this blending can come in the form of religious practices, architecture, philosophy, recreation, and even food. It’s an important part of your culture.
• ORIENTALISM – refers to the Orient, in reference and opposition to the Occident; the East and the West, respectively. Edward Said said that Orientalism “enables the political, economic, cultural and social domination of the West, not just during colonial times, but also in the present.”
• APPROPRIATION – the act of taking something such as an idea, custom, or style from a group or culture that you are not a member of and using it yourself: Theft is the dishonest appropriation of another person’s property.
• CULTURAL HEGEMONY – cultural hegemony refers to domination or rule maintained through ideological or cultural means. It is usually achieved through social institutions, which allow those in power to strongly influence the values, norms, ideas, expectations, worldview, and behavior of the rest of society.
• THE PUBLIC SPHERE (HABERMAS) – Habermas says, “We call events and occasions ‘public’ when they are open to all, in contrast to closed or exclusive affairs”. Jürgen Habermas defines ‘the public sphere’ as a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all citizens”.
• THE ROLE OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING IN TERMS OF FAIR REPRESENTATION OF MINORITY GROUPS / INTERESTS – PSB’s role is to reflect multiple community interests and news, and different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds to be all inclusive to there audience.

How useful are ideas about narrative in analysing music videos? Refer to the Close Study Products ‘Ghost Town’ and ‘Letter to the Free’ in your answer

If we are referring to the narrative theory then there are many theorists that we can apply, for example is Todorov’s Tripartite which explores a range of ideas such as how all the narratives should follow a structure equilibrium , disruption and ends with a new equilibrium.

Both CSP’s (“Letter to the Free and “Ghost Town”) clearly follow Todorov’s Triparite, because for example this is clearly shown in Ghost Town of how the person is driving through the streets of London and how it has become a “ghost town”. Then the disequilibrium begins when the car that is being driven through the town just begins swerving out of control as if it something had suddenly impacted it. But then we can see that the new disequilibrium is found when everything goes back to normal when the band is seen at the beach peacefully playing around with rocks, which could symbolise that everything is going back to normal, because the last scene that was present was a scene where everything span out of control and then now the disequilibrium is now peacefully chilling out at a beach skimming rocks.

Anyhow now relating to “Common’s Letter to the Free” they also follow Todorov’s Tripartite narrative theory. The video begins with a rolling camera going through jail cells and then you finally get to a black box kind of shape, which could represent that black lives are infinite and are equal to every other colour or race on this planet where the message “black lives matter” could come in depending on how people interpret the music video. The disruption in the music video is when Common is seen in a prison playing music which some people can say this is a way of showing ‘freedom’. But finally the new equilibrium of the music video is the empty shots of the prison and zooming out shot of a house most likely ‘Common’s’ house, with the outdoor shot symbolising freedom and as we can clearly see from the music video he has managed to gain freedom if he is clearly at home and not in the beginning equilibrium which is in jail. But then once again towards the end you see the black box appears again to remind us of the purpose of the song which is that black lives are infinite and matter like all the races on the planet.

In conclusion Todorov’s Narrative Theory is very good to follow because not only does it follow a narrative theory to make the music video and song easier to follow, but also applying a narrative theory also helps you understand the message that is being put across in each of the music videos which have been presented to us. Like in “Ghost Town” we could clearly see that the music video and the message it was trying to deliver is all about the economy crisis that happened to London during the 80’s but one example of this was when the car lost control which insinuates that everything was going well until one day where the economy had just collapsed and lost control, also when you also relate to somewhere like London you don’t really consider it a ghost town so the theory being used here is the Levi-Strauss theory of binary opposites which clearly states that London is a place where many people live and is not a ‘ghost town’ at all. Anyways using a music video can be a visual way to really help you get your message across to people and get them to understand the little hints which is why applying a narrative to music videos is important.

The i newspaper is a British national newspapers published in London by the Daily Mail, they first published their newspaper back on the 26th of October 2010.

The media doesn’t actually reflect the real world, they use over exaggerated headings to catch your attention and try manipulate you to go with their dominant ideology.

Framing

Framing is a social phenomenon by mass media sources, which is done through the media’s choice of certain words and images to cover a story.