CSP’s	Theoretical Perspective	Theorists and academics that could be useful
1. Music Video: Ghost Town 2. Music Video: Letter to the Free 3. On-line Marketing: Maybeline campaign 4. Film: Chicken 5. Radio: War of the Worlds 6. Radio: Life Hacks 7. Newspaper: Daily Mail 8. Newspaper: The i 9, Advertising (print): Score + there will be 1 x unseen product (= 10 CSP’s)	> Semiotics > Genre > Narrative > Postcolonialism > Representation > Feminist Critical thinking > Liberal Free Press > Transformation of Public Sphere > PSB > Ideology > Audience theories > passive / active > reception theory / theory of preferred reading > Cultivation theory > Culture, politics, history > (Fandom / Moral Panic)	~ Barthes ~ Pierce ~ Saussure ~ Neale ~ Todorov ~ Propp ~ Levi-Strauss ~ Chatman ~ Freytag ~ Gilroy ~ Said ~ Fanon ~ Butler ~ Mulvey ~ Van Zoonen ~ Hooks ~ Habermas ~ Curran ~ Seaton ~ Livingston & Lunt ~ Hesmondhalgh ~ Gerbner ~ Hall ~ Lasswell ~ Lasarzfeld ~ Shirky ~ Jenkins ~ Giddens ~ Gauntlett ~ McDougall / Fenton

MUSIC VIDEOS

Ghost Town

Historical, political and cultural context

In 1981 Britain was in a ‘state of crisis’, the government was unpopular, unemployment was on a rise and riots were breaking out across the country. the song is described as ‘the soundtrack to an explosion of civil unrest’. the specials announced a gig promoting racial unity on the day of ‘Ghost Town’s’ release due to the riots that were caused by indiscriminate use of police stop and search powers on the black community and the murder of of a local teenager in a racist attack.

Facts

• released in June 1981
• the specials are a British band
• ghost town spent 3 weeks at number 1 in the uk top 40
• the last song recorded by the original 7 members of the specials
• label – 2 tone
• genre – reggae/two-tone
• music video filmed in London
• directed by Barney Bubbles
• won awards for song of the year and best single

Letter to the free

Facts

• released in 2016
• nominated for NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Song – Contemporary
• the song/video is centered around the mass incarceration of African-Americans as a form of modern-day slavery, and is named after the 13th Amendment, which made slavery illegal except as “punishment of crime.”
• the video is in black and white which indicates it is about race and equality
• letter to the free was directed by Bradford Young
• the song was written for and used in the netflix documentary ‘The 13th’

Historical, political and cultural context

links to post colonialism and the history of the black community being oppressed and unfairly treated and prosecuted for crimes due to their race. focus on the idea of systematic racism and the US justice system – in 2018 Black males accounted for 34% of the total male prison population. it shows an ongoing problem in the USA with racial injustice and has highlighted different aspects of systematic racism and the outdated views that many people in the US still carry. Racial injustice is still a big problem in the USA and has been for many decades e.g. recent black lives matter protests have been help around the world in solidarity with members of the black community after a black many was killed by a police officer.

How they relate

both are from different time periods but focus on the same matter of racial injustice against black people, letter to the free in the US and Ghost town in the UK.

QUESTION: HOW VALID ARE BAUDRILLARD’S IDEAS OF SIMULATION AND HYPER-REALITY TO UNDERSTANDING THE MEDIA? you should refer to two of the close study products ( sims freeplay, the voice, tomb raider,teen vogue,metroid)

Postmodernism can be understood as a philosophy that is characterised by concepts such as RE-IMAGINING, PASTICHE, PARODY, COPY, BRICOLAGE. It’s an approach towards understanding, knowledge, life, being, art, technology, culture, sociology, philosophy, politics and history that is REFERENTIAL – in that it often refers to and often copies other things in order to understand itself.

post-modernism is essentially the idea of things copying or re-imagining already existing things, although you may only understand postmodern things if you understand their references, for example you wont know that something is a parody of something else unless you know what they are making a parody of/what their reference is.

postmodernisms emphasis is on the surface, in postmodernism surface and style are the most important defining features.

postmodern culture is a consumer culture.

pastiche is a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist

parody is a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony

Jean Baudrillard

He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as his formulation of concepts such as simulation and hyperreality.

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.

SIMULACRUM: The simulacrum is often defined as a copy with no original, or as Gilles Deleuze (1990) describes it, “the simulacrum is an image without resemblance^“ Baudrillard argues that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right. He created four steps of reproduction: (1) basic reflection of reality, (2) perversion of reality; (3) pretense of reality (where there is no model); and (4) simulacrum, which “bears no relation to any reality whatsoever”.

HYPERREAL: in semiotics and postmodernism, is an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies. Hyperreality is seen as a condition in which what is real and what is fiction are seamlessly blended together so that there is no clear distinction between where one ends and the other begins. It allows the co-mingling of physical reality with virtual reality (VR) and human intelligence with artificial intelligence (AI).

Possible essay structure

• Establish your knowledge of Postmodernism / Baudrillard
• Establish your knowledge of ‘simulation’ and ‘hypperreality’
• Apply these concepts to 2 of your case studies
• Make some assertions about the impact of new media in terms of society and the individual
• Conclude

other theorists

• Jürgen Habermas 

•  Jean-Francois Lyotard – 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

• Fredric Jameson – 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.

“the medium is the message”

the idea that you cannot fully understand the message without understanding the medium of it e.g. the form. linking to teen vogue, teen vogue are an online publication and also have social media accounts on platforms such as twitter and Instagram. a recently ‘trending’ hashtag and topic on twitter and Instagram was #freebritney relating to Britney spears, teen vogue published a story on the 13th of February 2021 by Kara Nesvig titled “Jamie Lynn Spears Showed Support for Britney After “Framing Britney Spears” Documentary” that focuses on the story that has come out of the hashtag free Britney, this shows that the message has taken information from different mediums that it is made up of to communicate a story to its audience that is consumer based/what their audience is already talking about at the moment. to understand the message of the story you would have to understand the medium of twitter and the idea of a trending hashtag.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/jamie-lynn-spears-support-framing-britney-spears-documentary#intcid=recommendations_teen-vogue-verso-hp-trending_ed018eb8-59c0-4b60-8b86-02af56cc3d48_popular4-1

key words to associate:

• active – active engagement with audience interest
• share – can share on social media platforms such as twitter
• story – publish a story on their online publication
• conversation – joins the already ongoing conversation about the situation Britney spears is in

teen vogue

• publisher – CONDE NAST
• issue – JANUARY 2003 – DECEMBER 2017 (went online)

• PSB – political and social stories and technology (wide audience)
• physical – online

• 14-17 y/o girls (primary)

tomb raider

• RADICAL – female protagonist
• challenges dominant ideologies
• main image – NVC because she is in a strong pose which makes her look confident. There are also images on the back of her abseiling and shooting monsters
• female empowerment

• sexualised to appeal to stereotypical audience (straight males) but not the wider audience (REACTIONARY)
• makes audience insecure
• theory of preferred reading HALL

the voice website

newspaper

The Voice, founded in 1982, is the only British national Afro-Caribbean weekly newspaper operating in the United Kingdom. The paper is based in London and is published every Thursday.

sims freeplay

Links to postmodernism – superficial – parody VS pastiche

Strategic life simulation

Developed by EA

Released for different devices

Received ‘generally favourable reviews’ from critics.

The game was banned in China, saudi arabia, United Arab States etc… for portraying homosexual couples

metroid: prime 2 echos

Gaming magazine for people aged 12+

Action Adventure game.

Developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the GameCube.

Released in November 2002

Artists for the game were Todd Keller and James H. Dargie

An enhanced version was released in 2009 for the Wii as a standalone game in Japan.

focus on media industries and audience

war of the worlds

• Written by H G Wells
• Published in 1898
• Radio broadcasted in 1938
• Broadcasted in the United States on October 30th
• Adapted as a film in 2005
• Science-fiction genre
• the novel influenced the work of scientists such as Robert H Goddard who invented the liquid fuelled rocket and multistage rocket which were inspired by the novel.
• Was broadcasted by CBS radio (Columbia broadcasting company), this company still exists today

historical, political and cultural context

• Broadcasted the year before world war 2
• One of the earliest novels about a conflict between humankind and an extraterrestrial race
• Radio was one of the largest forms of media used at the time
• Nazi Germany escalated and began its persecution of the jews
• Almost 80% of American households owned a radio
• the Great Depression and the Wall Street crash both happened in the 1930’s
• Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were all in power in the 1930’s
• The 1930’s to the 1940’s was known as the ‘golden age’ of radio

industry

CBS Radio – founded by  Michael A. Wiener in 1928, CBS radio is owned by the CBS corporation

CBS – founded September 18, 1927 in Chicago, founder is William s Paley

life hacks

Media Industries

• Life Hacks is a Radio 1 product and therefore has a public service status as part of the BBC.
• Identification of funding for Radio 1 through the license fee, concept of a hypothecated tax.
• Issues around the role of a public service broadcaster – how does Life Hacks reflect the need to represent the nation. Arguments over the need for addressing a youth audience
already catered for commercially.
• Consider the programme as distinctive in its public service remit.
• The influence of new technology on media industries – Life Hacks as multi – platform media product.

Media Audiences

Life Hacks is reflective of the way the industry targets niche audiences and provides an opportunity to consider industry regulation and the availability of new technology shapes audience targeting and response.
• What techniques does the broadcast use to target a youth audience?
• Consider the way that external factors – such as demographics and psychographics – are likely to also affect audience response and produce differing interpretations
• Consider the opportunities for audience interaction and self-representation
• cultivation theory including Gerbner
• reception theory including Hall

• listed on the bbc radio website under the genre of facts and health & wellbeing

essay planning

argument – media is becoming more participatory, argue whether its good or bad, compare difference from program in 1938 compared to program in 2021, different way they target audience, bring in audience theories, participatory media – Gauntlett/Jenkins/Shirky, different ways the industries that own the radio are controlled/how they do things – talk about curran and seaton & hesmondhalgh and the idea of media being a risky business. Clay Shirky -End of Audience – Radio as a declining medium in the age of active audience communication and interaction. Stuart hall – reception theory – war of the worlds – people thinking aliens are coming.

propps theory

villain	Polly/the mum
hero	Anabelle
victim	Richard
donor	chicken
false hero	Polly

initial release: 27th june 2015

director: Joe A stephenson

written by chris new

Chicken had a micro-budget of £110,000 compared to big hollywood blockbusters such as Spectre that had a budget of $245–250 million

b good picture company

• ‘Chicken’ was B Good Picture Company’s debut feature film.
• The film went on to be selected by the curators of MUBI, and acquired by Film4.
• Its journey continued in September 2017 with its Blu-ray & DVD release in the UK courtesy of Network Releasing.
• B GOOD PICTURE COMPANY LTD is the London based Film and Television production company founded by Joe Stephenson. B Good has positioned itself in the UK industry as a young bold LGBTQ+ led company, working with A-list talent to create film and television appealing to a wide audience whilst retaining artistic integrity.
•  founded by Joe Stephenson
• has a social media presence on Instagram, Facebook and twitter, three of the biggest social media platforms

Funding

In order to make Chicken, director Joe Stephenson raised £110,000.

• Raised entirely through investment by individuals (e.g. rich friends/contacts)
• No funding body (e.g. BFI Film Fund) was willing to fund Chicken
• Raises questions about whether film industry is accessible to lower-income filmmakers

what is bfi?

the bfi film fund uses the money paid for lottery tickets to provide financial aid and support to young filmmakers. it contributes the tthe british film industry by giving young filmmakers the platform to be able to produce films that would otherwise not be created or recognised. the films that are created often have cultural and/or artistic value and are typically aimed at niche audiences.

the bfi did not give funding to chicken as it did not believe that the film would make a substantial profit or be successful.

Production

Key points for making Chicken:

• Adapted from a play by Freddie Machin that originally ran at Southwark Playhouse.
• Filmed in 19 days, almost all external locations so victim to rain, issues with lighting etc.

Distribution

• No distribution deal secured in 2014
• Two-year festival circuit won awards and generated interest and critical acclaim for film
• UK cinema release followed in May 2016. Selected for film subscription service MUBI and acquired by Film4 for TV premiere in April 2017.
• UK DVD release distributed by Network Releasing. Digital distribution in USA/Canada – January 2018.

Promotion

Alongside film festivals, new technology was vital to promoting Chicken to a wider audience: 

• Some traditional marketing: trailer, film poster with review quotes etc.
• Social media very important to market film – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
• Film available on-demand now; Stephenson hoping for deal with Netflix or Amazon Prime to bring in revenue and find wider audience.

essay structure

1. Start your essay with a short introductory paragraph that outlines your intention for this essay. So think – what is it you want to argue / discuss / present in this essay?
2. Show knowledge of the film industry, specifically the key stages of: production, distribution, consumption
3. position contemporary film production within a couple of key theoretical positions for example, any of the following:
   1. Hesmondhalgh‘s ideas that mitigate the ‘risky business’ of cultural production.
   2. Curran and Seaton‘s arguments for a more diverse media landscape.
   3. Henry Jenkins and David Gauntlett argue that the internet remains the capacity to work as a social good and that online communities created via ‘participatory culture’ have the power to change the world for the better. Web 2.0 refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability for end users.
   4. Similarly, Clay Shirky argues that the media industry is increasingly driven by audience feedback systems rather than top-down control of proprieters.
   5. Livingstone and Lunt’s suggestion that cultural production exists in a loosely regulated framework, biased towards a consumers rather than citizen model.
   6. The impact of new media technologies for cultural production.
4. Present details of the CSP (Chicken) but make sure you focus on production, distribution and consumption and NOT on a textual analysis of the film – remember the examiner / assessor is assuming that you may not have seen the film.
5. Feel free to add in some audience theory.
6. Conclude your essay with a summative paragraph.

theorists to consider:

Curran and Seaton: the film was broadcasted on film 4 which is a part of channel 4, a public service broadcaster, this gives it a potentially wider audience as people can access the film easily.

Hesmondhalgh: the idea of media being a risky business, the idea of a small budget and joe Stephenson having to source the £110,000 to create the film and the risk off losses and profit

both the missing and witnesses target similar audiences with similar strategies for example when looking at Young and Rubicam’s psychographic descriptors both TV episodes are targeting the struggler personality that is motivated by escapism needs as they both provide the audience with an escape from their own life.

the missing

in terms of the theory of preferred reading the missing is much more successful in targeting a wider global audience due to the mix of languages used and foreign settings however in an oppositional reading this can be found as off-putting for English audiences as having to read subtitles gives the audience extra work to do when they are attempting to relax ad gain a sense of escapism.

witnesses

in terms of the theory of preferred reading for witnesses the dominant reading is that it can reach a global audience due to the use of subtitles and translated titles however similarly to the missing the language barrier and use of subtitles can be offputting to the audience.