• The Daily Mail is owned by Daily Mail and General Trust which is owned by Jonathan Harmsworth , 4th Viscount Rothemere.
• Launched in 1896 by Harold and Alfred Harmsworth, Jonathan’s great grandfather
• Daily, mid-market newspaper published in tabloid format
• Lord Rothemere was a friend of Adolf Hitler and Benito Moussilini and stanced his newspapers towards them in the 1930
• Launched in 2003, MailOnline was made into a separately managed site in 2006.Edited by Martin Clarke and general managed by James Bromley. It’s now the most visited English-language newspaper website in the world, having over 11.34m visitors daily in August 2014
• sued by Elton John in 2004 for 100,000$
• sued by J.K Rowling in 2014
• Sued by Melania Trump, first lady of the United States in 2017 for 150,000,000$

Antonio Gramsci 

Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher who developed the theory of hegemony, in which he states that highly political figures and people with vast amount of control over media are able to dictate and set values and morals within society. The theory includes the society and the people in power attempting to set new standards through a hegemonic struggle. A cultural example of hegemony can be the United States of America, in which a group of ruling class people have authority and great influence over all of its citizens. These citizens will then shape their ideologies and opinions of the world based off the information this ruling class will feed them. 

Jurgen Habermas and the concept of the Public Sphere – arguments: that the media should work in the public’s interest and not purely in a commercial interest, that mass media has reduced the effectiveness of the public sphere though the concentration of ownership, and that in order to have democracy we must have an informed and aware society. “A public sphere between the private domain and the state in which a public opinion was formed and ‘popular’ supervision of government was established”

James Curran & Jean Seaton – the theory of the liberal free press – the idea that media should have the right to be exercised freely. The public wants a free market when it comes to the news, however laws have to be implemented to prevent media platforms from publishing highly offensive and untrue information, but if the government put too many laws in place then the news becomes controlled by the state.”The media ceased to be an agency of empowerment and rationality, and became a further means by which the public was sidelined”.

Noam Chomsky – the 5 filters that manufacture consent – presents his views on how mass media works against democracy, he thinks that media selectively chooses what to publish not based on what is best for the viewer, but for their personal agenda. Propaganda model – explains how populations are manipulated and how consent is manufactured for social, economic and political policies, includes structures of ownership, the role of advertising, links with the establishment, diversionary tactics and uniting against a common enemy

Key words:

• Media concentration / Conglomerates / Globalisation (in terms of media ownership) – Massive media companies (conglomerates) which own a vast field of the media horizontally and vertically that have a global impact with their products.
• Vertical Integration & Horizontal Integration – vertical integration of a company is owning branches within the same media (film -distribution-exhibition)
• Gatekeepers – people who regulate what is show and advertised in the industry (letting people/info) in or keeping them out)
• Regulation / Deregulation – government intervention in order to regulate and prevent monopolies.
• Free market vs Monopolies & Mergers – monopolies are made when a certain company own all the horizontal forms of one media company (eg all radio stations)
• Neo-liberalism and the Alt-Right
• Surveillance / Privacy / Security / GDPR

David Hesmondhalgh

Two of Hesmondhalgh’s key ideas are:

• the idea that the largest companies or conglomerates now operate across a number of different cultural industries
• the idea that the radical potential of the internet has been contained to some extent by its partial incorporation into a large, profit-orientated set of cultural industries

Hesmondhalgh argues that major cultural organisations create products for different industries in order to maximise chances of commercial success. In relation to online products, he argues that major IT companies now compete with the more traditional media conglomerates within the cultural sector: ‘Microsoft, Google, Apple and Amazon are now as significant as News Corporation, Time Warner and Sony for understanding cultural production and consumption.’

Hasmondhalgh’s theory: This suggests that cultural industry companies. Minimise risk + Maximise Audiences = Maximise Profit

Murdoch Media Empire

• After his father’s death in 1952, Murdoch took over the running of The News, a small Adelaide newspaper owned by his father. In the 1950s and 1960s, Murdoch acquired a number of newspapers in Australia and New Zealand before expanding into the United Kingdom in 1969, taking over the News of the World, followed closely by The Sun. In 1974, Murdoch moved to New York City, to expand into the U.S. market; however, he retained interests in Australia and Britain. In 1981, Murdoch bought The Times, his first British broadsheet, and, in 1985, became a naturalized U.S. citizen, giving up his Australian citizenship, to satisfy the legal requirement for U.S. television network ownership

The Media informing/ coercing policy and decision making

The Media coerces control and decides highly political elections and debates such as Brexit. Chomsky’s theory of manufactured consent helps us understand the media coercing policies as big media conglomerate owners such as Rupert Murdoch can manufacture consent through his widespread ownership in media, he did this in the 2016 Brexit voting in order to gain more power in the uk.

• Philosophical and social theory which tries to explain the current times of the world and what and who people are.

• a complicated and fragmentary set of inter- relationships (link to memento)
• people in the post modern world revolve around thrill and fun
• it is difficult to see a clear divide between fact and fiction

• fragmentary identity construction – people trying to figure out who they are (present and future), -> link to Memento as Leonard doesn’t remember anything about his present self – ”you don’t even know who you are”
• people no longer have spiritual beliefs so they are focused on what they do in this world -> fun orientated as they believe once they die there is nothing
• Not trusting media as there is false/fake news -> link to memento as he cannot trust Natalie or Lenny, and Leonard saying no one trusts him due to his condition

•  LINEAR and SEQUENTIAL
• normally have a beginning, middle and end
•  narrative is the overall structure involved in communication, which can be broken down into: ‘story’ and ‘plot’.
• Tztevan Todorov = equilibrium-> disruption -> new equilibrium
• Vladimir Propp –
• 1. Hero
• 2.Helper
• 3.Princess
• 4.Villain
• 5.Victim
• 6.Dispatcher
• 7.Father
• 8.False Hero
• Binary oppositions

• Film Media does NOT have to be in real time (most of the time isn’t)

FILM NOTES

• starts off with a murder, audience curious of what happened
• characters mental illness shows almost through his perspective
• explores
• hero – leonard
• villain – John G
• Victim – Leonards wife
• Helper – Natalie
• new equilibrium (flashback) ->disruption ->new equilibrium

Levi – Strauss

CONCEPT	strongly agree	agree	neutral	agree	strongly agree	OPPOSITE CONCEPT
GOOD						BAD
EAST						WEST
FEMALE						MALE
STRAIGHT						GAY
WHITE						BLACK
URBAN						REGIONAL
POOR						RICH
EDUCATED						STUPID
RELIGIOUS						SECULAR

• truth vs lies
• long term vs short term
• helper vs enemy
• past vs present

Barthes

• Proairetic code: action, movement, causation
• Hermenuetic code: reflection, dialogue, character or thematic development
• proairetic – killing (shows hate),driving , looking at notes/pictures (trying to remember)
• hermeneutic – talking about past, inner feelings

Seymour Chatman – Kernels and satelites

Kernels – key factors that need to exist in a narrative

satellites – extra factors in a narrative that can be changed/taken out without changing it drastically

Post modernism is about consumption overtaking production, in which people are more socially separated and are not grouped within local groups

DEFINITIONS

1. Pastiche – piece of work which piggybacks ideas from other works (imitates)
2. Parody – a recreation of a genre or a piece of work with a comical twist to it
3. Bricolage – media or a piece of art that is made up of a mix of ideas and themes
4. Intertextuality – When one text heavily references another
5. Metanarrative – an overarching account or interpretation of events and circumstances that provides a pattern or structure for people’s beliefs and gives meaning to their experie
6. Hyperreality –  an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies.
7. Simulacrum – A simulacrum is a representation or imitation of a person or thing. The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god
8. Conumerist 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 – idea of a many personalities (digital or analog )
10. Implosion – idea of society collapsing due to offshoring and other corrupt practices within our world
11. cultural appropriation – the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society.
12. Reflexivity – How a person is shaped by societies standards, a person with low reflexivity will be greatly shaped by society.

Intertextuality: surface signs, gestures & play

A good place to look for illustrations of postmodern culture, in terms of media studies, is the music video. As Shuker notes, two points are frequently made about music videos: ‘their preoccupation with visual style, and associated with this, their status as key exemplars of ‘postmodern’ texts.’ (2001:167). Shuker refers Fredric Jameson’s (1984) notion of the ‘metanarrative’ (discussed in more detail below) that ’embody the postmodern condition’ (168). For example, 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’, part of the postmodern condition’ (ibid). Alongside their similarity to adverts (essentially the music video is a commercial tool to sell music products) ‘making them part of a blatantly consumerist culture‘ (ibid). And of course, the ‘considerable evidence of pastiche, intertextuality and eclecticism‘ (ibid) which is the focus of this next section.

A brief economic, historical and societal backdrop to Postmodernism.

In 1959, 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). As John Urry comments, this was ‘life centred upon groups of known streets’ where there was ‘relatively little separation of production and consumption‘ (2014:76). Urry goes on to note that ‘because the global population grew during the twentieth century from 2 to 6 billion. Cities, towns, villages and houses all became high-consuming energy centres’ (97). Thus, a characteristic of modern (postmodern?) societies, is the creation, development and concentration of centres of high consumption, with a displacement of both consumption and production that has radically altered the nature of societies and individuals living in them.

The loss of a metanarrative

A good starting point would be to return to the concepts of PASTICHE and PARODY, as Fredric Jameson claimed that Postmodernism is characterized by pastiche rather than parody which represents a crisis in historicity. Jameson argued that parody implies a moral judgment or a comparison with previous societal norms. Whereas pastiche, such as collage and other forms of juxtaposition, occur without a normative grounding and as such, do not make comment on a specific historical moment. As such, Jameson argues that the postmodern era is characterised by pastiche (not parody) and as such, suffers from a crisis in historicity.

This links to Jean-Francois Lyotard’s proposition that postmodernism holds an ‘incredulity towards meta-narratives‘ (1979:7) those overarching ideas, attitudes, values and beliefs that have held us together in a shared belief, For example, the belief in religion, science, capitalism, communism, revolution, war, peace and so on. Lyotard points out that no one seemed to agree on what, if anything, was real and everyone had their own perspective and story. We have become alert to difference, diversity, the incompatibility of our aspirations, beliefs and desires, and for that reason postmodernity is characterised by an abundance of micronarratives.^[28] It can be also characterised as an existence without meaning, as Žižek suggests it is an existence without ‘The Big Other’ , an existentialistt crisis of existence when we realise we are alone (Lacan).

Strinati points out that ‘the distinction between culture and society is being eroded’ (231) and suggests that our sense of reality (the overarching metanarrative) appears to come from the culture (eg the media), rather than from society which is then reproduced, represented and relayed through media communication. In terms of media studies, this marks a juncture from previous conceptions of mass media communication, for example, as a ‘relay system’ – a process which just relays information and events in real time to a mass society, or the conception of the media as a ‘window on the world’ (Strinati:233). From a societal perspective the ‘real’ seems to be imploding in on itself, a ‘process leading to the collapse of boundaries between the real and simulations’ (Barker & Emma, 2015:242). A process which the French intellectual Jean Baudrillard would describe as IMPLOSION which gives rise to what he terms SIMULACRA. The idea that although the media has always been seen as a representation of reality – a simulation, from Baudrillard’s perspective of implosion, it is has become more than a representation or simulation and it has become SIMULACRUM not just a representation of the real, but the real itself, a grand narrative that is ‘truth‘ in its own right: an understanding of uncertain/certainty that Baudrillard terms the HYPERREAL.

• Orientalism – the link between culture, imperial power & colonialism. Seeing anything that isn’t European as inferior and below us, with a not ‘normal’ society and culture

• ‘In this view, the outlying regions of the world have no life, history or culture to speak of, no independence or integrity worth representing without the West.‘ (Said, 1993: xxi)

• Similarly, ‘the East becomes the repository or projection of those aspects of themselves which Westerners do not choose to acknowledge (cruelty, sensuality, decadence, laziness and so on). At the same time, and paradoxically, the East is seen as a fascinating realm of the exotic, the mystical and the seductive.’ (Barry, 2017:195)

• Overall, POSTCOLONIALISM operates a series of signs maintaining the European-Atlantic power over the Orient by creating ‘an accepted grid for filtering through the Orient into Western consciousness‘. (Said, 1978:238). Or as Paul Gilroy puts it, ‘a civilising mission that had to conceal its own systematic brutality in order to be effective and attractive’ (2004:8)

• the recognition of the ‘Other’ is mainly attributed the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. A good way to develop an understanding of this term is in his exploration of the mirror stage of child development, whereby, as we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not. Lacan proposed that in infancy this first recognition occurs when we see ourselves in a mirror. Applying that theory to culture, communications and media studies, it is possible to see why we are so obsessed with reading magazines, listening to music, watching films, videos and television because, essentially, we are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.

the recognition of the ‘Other’ is mainly attributed the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. A good way to develop an understanding of this term is in his exploration of the mirror stage of child development, whereby, as we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not. Lacan proposed that in infancy this first recognition occurs when we see ourselves in a mirror. Applying that theory to culture, communications and media studies, it is possible to see why we are so obsessed with reading magazines, listening to music, watching films, videos and television because, essentially, we are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.

Louis Althusser –

‘all ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects, through the functioning of the category of the subject’ (1971:190)

Ideological state apparatus (ISA), is a theoretical concept developed by (Algerian born) French philosopher Louis Althusser which is used to describe the way in which structures of civic society – education, culture, the arts, the family, religion, bureaucracy, administration etc serve to structure the ideological perspectives of society, which in turn form our individual subject identity. According to Althusser, ‘the category of the subject . . . is the category constitutive of all ideology’ (214:188). In other words, we are socially constructed and what socially constructs us is ‘despite its diversity and contradictions . . . the ruling ideology, which is the ideology of ‘the ruling class’,’ (2014:245)

Frantz Fanon –

In terms of postcolonialism, we can look at The Wretched of the Earth (1961), by Frantz Fanon, which for many (Barry, 2017, McLeod 2000 etc) is a key text in the development and ancestry of postcolonial criticism. Fanon was born in the French colony of Martinique and appears to recognise the ‘mechanics of colonialism and its effects of those it ensnared‘ (McLeod 2000:20) when he remembers how he felt when, in France, white strangers pointed out his blackness, his difference, with derogatory phrases such as ‘dirty Nigger!’ or ‘look, a Negro!’ (ibid).

In other words, what we have in this section of The Wretched of the Earth is a black man living in France, articulating the way he was constructed as ‘other’ specifically through the way he was hailed, called, perceived and understood i.e. interpellated by other ‘subjects’ of France, who clearly saw him through the lens of Empire – racial stereotyping, derogatory abuse – as acceptable social interaction

As an early critical thinker of postcolonialism, Frantz Fanon took an active role, proposing the first step required for ‘colonialised’ people to reclaim their own past by finding a voice and an identity. The second, is to begin to erode the colonialist ideology by which that past had been devalued. (Barry, 2017:195). In the chapter ‘On National Culture’ (pp;168-178) Fanon presents three phases of action ‘which traces the work of native writers’:

1. Assimilation of colonial culture corresponding to the ‘mother country’ Chinua Achebe talks of the colonial writer as a ‘somewhat unfinished European who with patience guidance will grow up one day and write like every other European.’ (1988:46)
2. Immersion into an ‘authentic’ culture ‘brought up out of the depths of his memory; old legends will be reinterpreted’
3. Fighting, revolutionary, national literature, ‘the mouthpiece of a new reality in action’.

Antonio Gramsci –

 Gramsci suggests that power relations can be understood as a hegemonic struggle through culture. In other words, Gramsci raises the concept of Hegemony to illustrate how certain cultural forms predominate over others, which means that certain ideas are more influential than others, usually in line with the dominant ideas, the dominant groups and their corresponding dominant interests. In terms of postcolonialism Said, notes how ‘consent is gained and continuously consolidated for the distant rule of native people and territories’ (1993:59).

However, this form of cultural leadership is a process of (cultural) negotiation where consent is gained through persuasion, inculcation and acceptance. Where dominant ideas, attitudes and beliefs (= ideology) are slowly, subtly woven into our very being, so that they become ‘common sense’, a ‘normal’, ‘sensible’, obvious’ way of comprehending and acting in the world.

Paul Gilroy –

Paul Gilroy is insistent that ‘we must become interested in how the literary and cultural as well as governmental dynamics of the country have responded to that process of change and what it can tell us about the place of racism in contemporary political culture.’ (2004:13) His theme of Double Consciousness, derived from W. E. B. Dubois, involves ‘Black Atlantic’ striving to be both European and Black through their relationship to the land of their birth and their ethnic political constituency follow this wiki link for more on this point.

As with much postcolonial criticism the aim to understand and reconcile individual and national identity. Gilroy highlights Enoch Powell’s notorious 1968 ‘rivers of blood speech’ full of the ‘terrifying prospect of a wholesale reversal of the proper ordering of colonial power . . . intensified by feelings of resentment, rejection, and fear at the prospect of open interaction with others.’ (2004:111) Put presciently, ‘it has subsequently provided the justification for many a preemptive strike’ (bid)

As Barry notes the stress on ‘cross-cultural’ interactions is indeed a characteristic of postcolonial criticism. Often found by foregrounding questions of cultural difference and diversity, as well as by celebrating ‘hybridity’, ‘ambiguity’ and ‘cultural polyvalency’. A unique position where ‘individuals may simultaneously belong to more than one culture – the coloniser and the colonised’. (2016:198) Even Fanon suggests an emphasis on identity as ‘doubled, or ‘hybrid’, or ‘unstable’.

• Systemic Societal Sexism – how sexism is built into societies system of functioning
• MISOGONY – a fear and hatred of women (sexism)
• PATRIARCHY – a mechanism used by males as a way of exerting power and control in society
• Scopophilia – pleasure in looking
• Objectifying and Sexualising
• Jacques Lacan – Mirror stage, a moment in which a person realizes who they are
• feminist – a political position
• female – a biological construct
• feminine a set of culturally defined characteristics
• intersectionality –

Raunch Culture

According to Barker and Jane (2016), third wave feminism, which is regarded as having begun in the mid-90’s is the ‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’ (344) and put forward the following recognisable characteristics:

• an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
• individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
• fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
• cyberactivism
• the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
• sex positivity

fourth wave feminism – revolves around the idea that you can be who you want

The scene is first introduced by a long shot from a drone of a beach zooming in,followed by a birds eye view of the shoreline panning along. Shortly after the main character is introduced by showing him swim up to the shore, his clothing and dynamics imply that he is stranded. A mid shot is projected on the screen soon after showing the man lift his face up from the sand after falling into it face first, he is clearly fatigued. The scene dissolves and shows the man walking up to some palm trees (after seemingly gaining some energy back) and throwing objects at them in order to get some fruit. Some close up shots and mid shots follow showing him sitting on a fallen tree staring at the water, implying that he has internal conflicts or some sort of problem. A flash back is shown of him in a car with another female in what seems to be a rather run down and poor village.More flashbacks are shown on screen showing him visiting landmarks and taking photos with his partner. Followed by a mid shot of the man again sitting and staring at the water. The next shot shows the man walking through a highly tree concentrated area, in which his female partner momentarily is shown walking along side him, then disappearing (implying that his mental state is changing and that he is experiencing hallucinations). More flashbacks are shown with some sort of conflict being introduced between him and the female with a series of mid shots in a tropical bedroom. As the male is walking through the palm trees he sees more flashbacks of him at a bar, where his female partner is shown to be picking up interests in other men.The music video goes back to showing the man sitting at a campfire resting, and seeing more hallucinations of his partner through the other side of the fire (implying that he misses her). Another flashback is shown where the male and female are evidently arguing, resulting in the female walking away from him. The shot changes to a mid shot of the man sitting at a Jacuzzi with a bottle of alcohol. the shots keep changing and showing him drink more and more, until he submerges himself underwater. The shot changes to him washing up on the beach again, creating an enigma.

The scene is introduced in a dark lighted setting with multiple people standing by a fire in the background with a man squatting with his head resting in his hands listening to music. The scene is followed by a shot of the moon being veiled by some dark clouds (zooming ). The male is shown to be acting rather antisocially with other people near the fire as he is still seated a distance further away from them, still listening to music. He is then shown standing up and moving into the crowd, laughing and smiling at what the others are doing, while still walking through the big group of people. None of them seem to be noticing him. The shots alternate from mid shots of him walking through the crowd and him still sitting far away from the people. The song begins to fade away as he is still crouching and looking at his phone (moving his head to the music he is still listening to). The last shot is a close up of him looking at the people dancing and laughing by the fire as the scene fades to black.

The video begins with a mid shot of a man walking with a suitcase , implying that he is moving to a new place. The scene fades and shows a small white van filled with black men, where the man with the suitcase is staring out the window singing (mid shot). Another black man is shown walking around a rural area with an old fashioned TV, trying to point the antennas to find signal for it. The two black men have multiple scenes in which the travel to try and find signal for the TV. The men are shown to have flown to multiple locations with the TV’s still at their side. Trying to hitchhike to other locations (implying they are trying to find a new home). The men are shown to be frustrated by not being able to catch any signal, running through forests and car parks to try and get signal (shows they are resilient). The men unite on a dried up piece of land where their TVs start working when standing next to each other ( implying that they feel at home when they’re near each other).