COLONIALISM– When a country is acquring control over another country, often occupying it with settlers.

POST COLONIALISM– studying something set in a colonized country or deals with post colnialism issues such as economic, political or cultural.

DIASPORA– the dispersion or spread of any people from their original homeland.

BAME– a UK term used to refer to the minority groups (black, asian etc)

DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS (GILROY)– the internal conflict experienced by subordinated groups in an oppressive society.

CULTURAL ABSOLUTISM / RACIAL ESSENTIALISM– a belief in a genetic or biological essence that defines all members of a racial category

CULTURAL SYNCRETISM– When aspects of different cultures merge together to make something new and unique.

ORIENTALISM (SAID)– How we view people of Arab countries.

APPROPRIATION– Appropriation is when money is aside money for a specific and particular purpose or purposes. A company or a government appropriates funds in order to delegate cash for the necessities of its business operations

CULTURAL HEGEMONY– The domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class

THE PUBLIC SPHERE (HABERMAS)– he public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action.

THE ROLE OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING IN TERMS OF FAIR REPRESENTATION OF MINORITY GROUPS / INTERESTS– Public service broadcasting (PBS) is often biased when representing ethnic minority groups which causes society to adopt stereotypes and misunderstandings of th

Syncretism, double consciousness & hybridisation: mechanisms for understanding cross-cultural identities.

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.

(TASK1) Background Information:

• A song by ‘The Specials’
• It was released on the 12th of June 1981
• When released, the song spent 3 weeks at No. 1 and 10 Weeks in total on the Uk Singles Chart’s Top 40.
• It was awarded the “Single of the Year” in 1981
• It won an NME award for being the ‘Best Single’
• The song was written just as the 3 band members (Neville Staples, Lynval Golding and Terry Hall) were leaving ‘The Specials’ to form a band called ‘Fun Boy Three’
• According to Dammers, the song was inspired by the band splitting up. He said in 2008: “‘Ghost Town’ was about the breakup of the Specials. It just appeared hopeless. But I just didn’t want to write about my state of mind so I tried to relate it to the country as a whole.”
• The band’s ‘2 Tone” record label gave its name to the genre that fused ska, reggae and new wave.
• Formed in 1977, the group had became the pioneers of a cross-cultural sound that fused the sounds of reggae music with the raw anger of punk.
• In a space of 2 years (1979-1981), the original “Specials” managed to embody the new decade’s violent emerges of violent energies, morals and conflicts.

(TASK 2) Cultural, Social and Historical Background

• The song was addressing the themes of urban decay, deindustrialisation, unemployment and violence in inner cities
• In 1981, industrial decline had left the city suffering badly and unemployment rates were at the highest level within the UK
• In 1981, unemployment was heading up to 3 million people
• The band’s ‘2 Tone’ record label inspired a crisply attired youth movement
  • However, as a consequence, ‘The Specials” gigs began to attract the hostile of presence groups, such as The National Front and the British Movement.
• Ghost Town is believed to be a prophecy that sounds like an aftermath as the Ghost Town it describes of is gutted by recession and appears to be the terrain before a riot.
• 1981 was the height of youth unemployment as the UK reacted to Margaret Thatcher’s cuts and riots were erupting all over the country
• The song consists of many different sounds, chords and unusual instruments to represent the chaos and confusion which was happening during 1981
• The origin of the song began back in 1980, after Dammers had witnessed the St Paul Riots in Bristol. For most of the 1970s, St Pauls, which was a predominantly black and white working class area, was a victim of deteriorating housing, poor education services and and increasingly strong Police presence.
• The band included both members with black and white skin, which was very rare back in the 80s, identifying the “Specials” are challenging the dominant ideology
• Drammers said to the Guardian in 2008 “For me, it was no good being anti-racist if you didn’t involve black people, so what the Specials tried to do was to create something that is more integrated”

(TASK 3) Ways in which this music video creates and communicates meaning using media language

• Some of the band members are in dark suits, whereas some are in bright clothing, which contradicts each other and could possibly signify the divide between different skin colours
• The lighting of this music video is very dark and not much is happening in the background, suggesting the idea of a Ghost Town.
• Cinematography is used through the merging of each scene of the music video, that switches from scene to scene using a sliding transition, which was common in music videos during the 80s
• At 1min 13seconds, the car is swerving out of control, possibly to signify how the unemployment situation in the UK is going out of control
• During the video, the band maintains eye contact, which could identify seriousness
• A creepy tone is used by wha sounds like an accordion, which follows Steven Neale’s Genre theory of sameness, since ‘Ghost Town” could link to the horror genre due to the word “Ghost”
• The panoramic shots of driving down the street identify that it is a ghost town and sets the tone for the song
• The binary opposition theory by Levi-Strauss can be linked to this song because there are 2 contrasting genres of music (ska and jazz)
• Todorov’s theory of narrative structure can be linked to this music video because their the video starts with equilibrium, then progress, then disruption, a resolution and then a new equilibrium is found.
• On the first verse “Too much fighting on the dance floor” it in referencing the riots that are happening on the streets
• The lines “can’t go on anymore, too many people angry” reference how the “Specials” gigs were attracting a hostile of presence groups, such as the National Front and the British Movements.
• Ghost Town EP included discordant horns, haunting chords and demonic vocal harmonies to emphasise how the Ghost Town was a scary place to be.

section c 30% overall exam andrew crissell understanding radio: ‘radio is a blind medium= you cant see it (you have images and pictures in your head).

war of the worlds may seem to be about aliens but it is not it may be about communist Europe fascist Russia.

‘hard times are a breeding ground for misinformation’ (j.mcdougall)

1. Anxious era

The broadcast tapped into the anxiety of the time. Just ahead of World War II, much of the world was nearly — or already — at war when the program aired. 

“The War of the Worlds” was the 17th episode of the CBS Radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air, which was broadcast at 8 pm ET on Sunday, October 30, 1938.

directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells’s novel The War of the Worlds (1898).

It was performed and broadcast live as a Halloween episode at 8 p.m. on Sunday, October 30, 1938, over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. The episode became famous for allegedly causing panic among its listening audience, though the scale of that panic is disputed, as the program had relatively few listeners

early exampke of hybrid radio film. (stephen neale)

suspending disbelief

(stanley cohen) folk devil& ‘moral panics ‘

 In this instance, the Language of Radio is used creatively to structure a text that could be taken as fact, but is clearly fiction. 

j.mcdougall: The conventions of news reports were adapted for dramatic realism so for the audience to suspend disbelief and engage in the plot as though it was subject to radio journalism

• Universal Music Group (UMG) is a major music conglomerate, which own the smaller subsidiaries, Viviendi, DefJam and Vevo.
• UMG has a horizontal integration, as it owns multiples music labels.
• However, “Letter to the Free” follows vertical integration as it is a song, has a music video attached to it , the song is part of the soundtrack to a film, Common talks about the song on a YouTube video and also because the song is available on Vevo.
• Companies like UMG make loads of money because they track the target audiences with what type of music they most commonly search through cookies and say for example the user really likes rap and political music, it will find more music that is related and will cater to their interest in order to get them to click onto the link to watch their video.
• As well as by getting artists to sign for their record label, UMG makes loads of money by advertising fees, because it is a relatively large conglomerate, it will cost quite a lot in order to advertise your business just before or after a music video released by UMG.
• UMG owns Vevo and in the music video for Letter to the Free, the Vevo logo is diplayed in the bottom left hand corner of the music video in order to entice the customer to visit the Vevo site and to discover more music. This is because they are being repetitively shown the Vevo logo, therefore they will want to click it because it is there and it also is a reminder about Vevo, therefore the customer will remember Vevo.
• What is unusual is that Common is a multi-millionaire, but there are many famous artists with a higher net worth and as a multi-billionaire monopoly, why can’t UMG help stop slavery?

Common

• His real name is Lonnie Corant Jaman Shuka Rashid Lynn, however, he is better known by his stage name, Common.
• Common is an American rapper, actor, writer, activist and philanthropist.
• He was born in South Side, Chicago (Illinois) on 13th March 1972
• Illinois is a place which is known for being a poverty area.
• He has completed his Doctorate Degree.
• His music is influenced by culture as he wants to spread awareness of racism.
• Common has a net worth of approximately $45 million

Letter to the Free (Music Video)

• It is from an album called “Black America Again” which is the 11th studio album that was produced by Common
• It is a song that is under the Hip Hop and Rap Genre
• It was a low budget music video
• The video is all filmed in black and white bringing a message that having a colour is less important as everyone is equal
• It is a predictable hip hop and rap music video.
• The music video is hosted by VEVO.
• There is no main story to compliment this music video.
• The black box that features in the music video is a symbol that black things can represent infinity and something that the audiences need to know about.
• It appears to be quite a radical music video because it challenges the dominant ideology
• As suggested by the title “Letter to the Free” the free are the white people and Common is trying to show that everyone should be treated equally, no matter the colour of their skin.
• The prison setting represents how the black people are “locked away” as if they are criminals, however in reality they are the same as white people.

What to mention in my essay:

• George Gurbner’s cultivation theory states that the more you release over time, the more likely their ideas, views and beliefs are to be changed.
• The video is in black and white to show the authenticity and to also mimic old fashioned videos in black and white, indicating how long slavery has been happening
• The title “Letter to the Free” and the music video setting of an old prison emphasises how the black people in the prison are sending a “letter”, which is them try to communicate with the free (white people). It is not a literal letter it is a metaphor as stereo-typically ‘prisoners’ communicate to people outside the prison (ie their family) by sending letters.
• The repetition of “Freedom” creates a sense of urgency and the repetition also helps the listener to remember the message due to how much it is repeated. According to psychology, the brain remembers things after 3 cycles, so they are repeating “freedom” over 3 times in the song to ensure that the listener will remember the message being delivered through the song – Black Lives Matter and to end slavery!
• Common has released his video with Vevo (UMG) because it can help get his message across due to the large amount of audience that UMG/Vevo attracts daily.

DEMOGRAPHIC/PSYCHOGRAPHIC CLASSIFICATION:

Demographic: A socio-economic classification developed by the NRS (National Readership Survey)

Psychographic: A Psychographic Model of consumer behaviour used in the media industry to define audience segments.

Links into Maslows theory!

Stuart haul: reception theory, theory of preferred reading, encode decode

A paradigm is a unique collection of signs.

Syntagm: a linguistic unit consisting of a set of linguistic forms (phonemes, words, or phrases) that are in a sequential relationship to one another.

C S Pierce:

Semiotics:

sign is anything that communicates a meaning that is not the sign itself to the interpreter of the sign.

code is a set of conventions or sub-codes currently in use to communicate meaning.

Convention is a cultural agreement about what a sign means, or how we should respond to it. 

Dominant Signifier  any material thing that signifies,.

The principal function of anchorage is ideological: the text directs the reader through the signifieds of the image

Ferdinand de Saussure:

Signifier: any material thing that signifies, e.g., words on a page, a facial expression, an image.

Signified: the concept that a signifier refers to.

Roland Barthes:

Signification:  the act or process of signifying by signs or other symbolic means.

Denotation: the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests.

Conotation: an idea or feeling which a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning.

Myth: a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

Ideology: a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.

Radical: a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.

Reactionary: a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy. #

public sphere jurgen habermass

“a public space between the private domain and the state in which public opinion was formed and ‘popular’ supervision of government was established”

public sphere “a neutral zone where access to relevant information affecting the public good is widely available, where discussion is free of domination and where all those participating on public debates do so in an equal basis”.

“the media is to act as a public watchdog”.

regulation state or free market?

in relation to the media…

who regulates the press? (e.g. government or state)…

or is it a free market in which it is only run by the media/press… curran says “only by anchoring the media to the free market is it possible to ensure the medias complete independence from the government”.

curran says ” once the media becomes subject to public regulation, it will loose its bite as a watchdog”.