significant in its marrying of the political with fashion – this article is talking about political issues but around the topic of fashion. The article talks about the issues that are happening in the world to do with climate change and an approach that the fashion world is taking to tackle climate change. “In a world where resources are diminishing and landfills are overflowing with discarded garments, it’s our duty to look for renewable resources, in addition to biodegradable and compostable materials,” 

explicit feminist stance – the article makes it clear that it is a woman who has created this brand of bio-degradable denim, which relates to their feminist stance because they are talking about the fact that she created the idea, and is launching the brand. This can be seen as empowering for the woman.

relatively radical voice in the context of mainstream US media. – in the article, the producer writes about how the rest of the fashion industry needs to be more open to the idea of creating sustainable fashion. to share our innovation and beliefs with the wider fashion industry.”

• Founded in 2003 as a sister company to Vogue
• Stopped being printed in 2015 after a steep decline in sales and the popularity of their online magazine. They dropped 50% in the first 6 months.
• In November 2017, it was announced Teen Vogue would cease its print edition and continue as an online-only publication as part of a new round of cost cuts.
• Focuses on celebrities and fashion
• The politics section has surpassed the entertainment section as the site’s most-read section
• Former Vogue beauty director Amy Astley under the guidance of Anna Wintour with Gina Sanders as founding publisher.

Conde Nast is a well renowned mass media company that is part of a media conglomerate as the company owns multiple media establishments. … Due to the company being a media conglomerate, and having many other world popular magazines being produced, it helps Vogue become as well renowned and popular as it is

Advance Media is the parent company of Conde Nast, the owners of Vogue.

Advanced Publication = Parent company (earnt 2.4 billion a year)

Conde Nast

Vogue

Teen Vogue

^^ = Vertical Integration ^^

Horizontal Integration = Vogue and Teen Vogue are sister companies

• In May 2016, Elaine Welteroth was appointed as editor, replacing Astley when she departed to become editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest
• Primary Audience = Teenagers between the ages of 17 – 24
• Images featuring popular teenager actors and singers (Lili Reinhart, Ariana Grande, Beyonce) on the front page of the website.

From this brief, I have decided that I will make a magazine aimed at 8-10 year olds. From my research I have found that there are not many gaming magazines for young people in this age range, as most gaming magazines seem to be aimed at older people like teenagers and young adults, therefore I think it would be interesting to make a magazine for younger gamers.

Lots of gaming magazines like ‘PC Gamer’ and ‘tabletop gaming’ focus lots of their imagery on violence and battle, whereas I have decided to go against the normal ideology of gaming magazines, and focus on characters and their appearance, rather than their actions instead, because of the young target audience. Normally the dominant signifier of a gaming magazine is an image of some sort of monster or character holding some sort of weapon or making an intimidating facial expression. On my cover I am going to make the dominant signifier a character but will not include any forms of violence. In the contents page I will use similar images of the character on the front cover and relate to them as the dominant signifier. I have been inspired by the contents page of Gamer TM, as I like the way that it has been laid out and looks professional and smart. I still want to make sure I keep to my age range, so will add things like stars and colours to keep to that target audience.

For the double page spread, I have decided to focus on a review of the game features on the front cover. Gaming magazines often include articles like this, no matter what the target audience, to give readers an insight into some of the new games on the market. I will include larger pieces of text (quotes from the article) around the page, as I have seen that this is commonly used in the media. The theme of the colour orange will run throughout the whole magazine as this is bright and youthful colour. 

• Common is an american rapper, actor, writer, philanthropist and activist
• Singing about rights and wanting to be free
• He is the founder of The Common Ground foundation a non-profit charity that seeks to empower underprivileged youth to be strong citizens and citizens of the world.
• He has won a Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a duo or group in 2003.
• He is worth 45 million
• Signed to labels like Warner Bros, Universal.

Letter to the Free

• Its lyrics reflect with the film’s theme discussing the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.
• Written by = Robert Glasper, Karriem Riggins and Common
• Release date = October 14 2016
• Common won an Emmy for the song
•  After clinching his award for outstanding original music and lyrics (from Ava DuVernay’s 13th documentary), Common became the first rapper to ever win an Emmy, Grammy, and Oscar. 
• The video has 880,000 views online

A conglomerate is a combination of lots of different companies owned by one big company. Some people are against this because they believe that then people are actually just being fed the same media because it has all been made by the same people and could then be seen as untrustworthy. Hidden Figures was made by Fox 2000.

The film Hidden Figures spent more money on promotion than they did on production, simply because the film is not based off of a well known story or book, therefore they had to spend more money on promotion to make sure they got people into the cinemas.

Success – Hidden Figures managed to earn $22.8 million in its first opening weekend, showing that there was a large market for this sort of story, involving the issues surrounding racism and sexism in the 1960’s.

The film was put up for 3 Oscars (Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress) but did not win any of these. It did, however, win awards such as the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and many more.

Domestically, Hidden Figures was the highest-grossing Best Picture nominee at the 89th Academy Awards

 ‘it’s hard to dislike.‘ – Simran Hans
The Guardian

‘Essentially Parabolas & Prejudice, it isn’t the most nuanced piece of work out this month. But nuance be damned — an uplifting plea for equality, this is a story calibrated for maximum effect.‘ – Nick de Semlyen
Empire

‘feel-good biographical drama that teaches audiences about a little-known aspect of NASA’s history.‘ – Sandie Angulo Chen
Common Sense Media

Budget- the budget for this film was 25 million US dollars.

Director – Theodore Melfi

I think that this film would have appealed to Fox because the film is touching on real life issues. Other films based on similar topics had been a success in the past. Low budget films are seen to sometimes have high success therefore, Fox would be likely to be interested.

Audiences enjoy real-life issues like this so they knew it would be a hit. Famous actors such as Jim Parsons and Octavia Spencer star in the film. Producers would have known that these actors would attract audiences for their performances in other hits. For example, Jim Parsons in ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and Octavia Spencer in ‘The Help’.

Distribution techniques = focusing on traditional distribution of media looking at target audiences.

Key words:

• Media concentration / Conglomerates = concentration in the mass media is when lots of small productions are owned by a few big corporations. The increasing concentration is due to buyouts.
• Globalisation (in terms of media ownership) = Globalisation refers to the way in which, in contemporary society, distant countries are inter-related and connected together by trade communication and cultural experiences
• Vertical Integration = This is when the production company has the ownership of the means of production, distribution and exhibition of the film by the same company, because of this they receive all of the profit
• Horizontal Integration = This is where a production company expands into other areas of one industry.
• Gatekeepers = they craft and construct what is published
• Regulation = rules enforced by the jurisdiction of law. This regulation, via law, rules or procedures, can have various goals, for example intervention to protect a stated “public interest”.
• Deregulation = a process in which a government removes controls and rules about how newspapers, television channels, etc. are owned and controlled: Critics of media deregulation say it can give too much power to individuals who own many forms of mass media.
• Monopoly = when one company owns lots of smaller companies.

Fox 2000:

Fox 2000 Pictures is an American production company owned by The Walt Disney Studios. It is a sister studio of the larger 20th Century Fox, specializing in producing independent films in mid-range releases that largely targeted underserved groups. They release films such as Hidden Figures that are independent and a little bit more risky. They have a lot of money, therefore, a small budget like 25 million dollars is not much and if the film was to not be a success, it wouldn’t matter too much.

Marley & Me is the largest Fox 2000 commercial success with a record for the largest Christmas Day box office ever with $14.75 million in ticket sales.^[5] The division’s highest-grossing film was Life of Pi (2012) with $609 million.

The division is currently set to shut down on May 15, 2020 due to The Woman in the Window getting delayed to that year.

Stephen Neale = UK based film theorist who came up with the theory that views genre as a process rather than a collection of groups that always consist of the same elements to make them fit in the same genre.

Repertoire of elements = this is when a film contains similar attributes to all other films of its type. It is full of generic things that the audience would expect from that genre of film.

Corpus = genres evolve continually as new texts are added to the body of similar texts.

Hybridisation = fusing together two different genres to make a new genre. e.g Rom-com.

Historic Specificity = media which is associated with specific time periods.

Repetition and Sameness = when successful methods or formulas are repeated with only slight adjustments.

Variation and Change = varying the product sufficiently to make sure it is still fresh for the audience, but is also still allowing familiarity.

Narrative Image = this is using the power of image to tell a narrative and grab attention.

Expectations and Hypotheses = audiences find it interesting to have a similar and predictable story.

Suspend Belief = allow the audience to become immersed into the story and feel a connection with the characters.

Generic Regime of Verisimilitude = sticking to generally very similar formulas in order to keep the audience engaged and allow a bit of predictability.

Conventions and Rules = generally accepted

Media Techniques

The creators have used modern day techniques of a video to present their product

They have used an element of fear in the viewers to make them envious and long for a life like the characters in the advert

Audience reaction

Advert reflects current trends that anyone can wear makeup

Primary purpose = to inform people about a makeup product

Secondary Purpose = to inspire young people to be themselves and be confident in themselves

Key Message is to allow people to be confident and to show people that the modern day view on makeup and gender equality is changing.

This essay will compare the differences and similarities between the Tomb Raider game cover and the Men’s Health magazine cover in relation to gender representation. I believe that Men’s Health is an example of a reactionary text because it conforms to the dominant idea that men should look and be a certain way. On the other hand, Tomb Raider is an example of both a reactionary and a radical text. This is because the way that Lara croft has been presented both supports and challenges the dominant ideology of the image of a woman. Her ‘manly’ personality and style of being an explorer challenges the view that women are not normally this way, however, this is majorly contradicted in the way that Lara Croft has been depicted.

In both Tomb Raider and Men’s Health Magazine the creators have used selective representation in their covers and pages of their product. They have both done this because they want to put a specific idea into their audience’s heads. This is a popular technique that lots of people in positions of power use, in order to appeal to their target audience and influence them in a certain way. For example, the iconic sign on the front of the men’s health magazine of Vin Diesel, has been presented in a way that could make a man believe that he should look that way. Lots of the text on the cover is referring to health and the importance of losing weight and looking good. Although it has not been explicitly said, the intention is to make a man believe that if he follows these regimes and aims to physically look like this, then he will become more attractive to women and will be happier. The producers have done this so that the receivers buy the magazine with the intentions of eventually looking like him. I would argue that this is a reactionary text because it is supporting the dominant ideology and conforming to the common idea of the way a man should be.

In comparison, I would argue that Tomb Raider is both a radical and reactionary text because of the way Lara Croft has been presented. The image of Lara Croft is an iconic sign, as the aim was for her to resemble a real human. She has been presented through constructed reality as she has been presented as what looks like a female human, but the way in which she has been animated to have over the top and unrealistic sized features, makes her less like a real representation of a human, and more like a misrepresentation. Players of the game will begin to think that this is how all women look, and therefore will be conforming to the dominant ideology.

On the cover of Men’s Health magazine, the colour blue has been chosen for the font on the front cover and is a main theme colour throughout the magazine. This is a colour that is typically associated with male products and generally anything male. This supports the idea that the Men’s Health magazine is a radical text as they are supporting the old-fashioned views of male stereotypes when it comes to appearance and colour palettes. If the magazine had used pink on the front of their cover, in general, the male market that the producers are trying to attract would not be interested. This is something that has been instilled into our minds from young ages, due to selective representation that people in power have used through the media and advertising.

The dominant signifier in both texts is the characters shown on both and their influence on the receivers and so, to conclude, even though both texts are very different, they are similar in many ways as they both have aspects of being a radical text, however, Tomb Raider has more examples of being a radical text.