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Feminist Critical Thinking

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Key words:

  • Misogyny = the hatred of females (women or girls) expressed as disgust, intolerance or entrenched prejudice, serving to legitimate women’s oppression
  • Sexism = prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.
  • Patriarchy = a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property.
  • Feminist = a political position
  • Female = a matter of biology
  • Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics
  • Scopophilia = ‘taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze
  • Voyeurism = sexual pleasure gained in looking
  • Fetishism = ‘the quality of a cut-out . . . stylised and fragmented‘), the way in which parts of the female body are presented as something to be ‘looked at’ and therefore ‘objectified‘ and ‘sexualised

Sexism from an institutional perspective and at an individual level

Feminism

  • According to Michelene Wandor, ‘sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s“
  • Barry makes the point that although the women’s movement was not the start of feminism, ‘the feminist literary criticism of today is the product of the women’s movement of the 1960’s’
  • Feminist critical thought became much more prominent and pronounced during the counter cultural movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, which heralded, among other changes: the facilitating of birth control and divorce, the permitting of abortion and homosexuality, the abolition of hanging and theatre censorship, and the Obscene Publications Act (1959) which led to the Chatterly trial.
  • This period is often termed second wave feminism – after the first wave of feminism, which was galvanised by organisations such as, the British Women’s Suffrage Committee (1867), the International Council of Women (1888), the The International Alliance of Women (1904),
  • In contrast, ‘at the beginning of the 1970’s the Women’s Liberation Movement set great store by the process of consciousness raising’ (Wandor, 1981:13), ‘influencing everyday conduct and attitudes.’ (Barry, 2017:124) and ‘exposing the mechanisms of patriarchy, that is, the cultural ‘mind-set’ in men and women which perpetuated sexual inequality’ (123).

Laura Mulvey

  • ” In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed and their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact“
  • As Mulvey makes clear, ‘cinema offers a number of possible pleasures’.
  • Mulvey draws on the work of Jacques Lacan (‘this mirror moment‘), highlighting the parallel between the ‘mirror stage’ of child development and the mirroring process that occurs between audience and screen
  • ‘Man is reluctant to gaze at his exhibitionist like‘, thus, he must control the look, and thereby, the narrative. Made possible ‘by structuring the film around a main controlling figure with whom the spectator can identify‘.
  • Rules and conventions of mainstream narrative cinema, that appear to follow ‘according to the principles of the ruling ideology‘. In other words, the dominant look is always hetero, rather than homosexual.

Sut Jhally

  •  Works at the Media Education Foundation (where Jean Kilbourne also produced much or her work) draws a connection between the aesthetics of pornography and the codes and conventions of the music video.
  • ” There’s no such thing as communication that doesn’t have something behind it, that it is always constructed by someone. And I want people to be active in the construction of their own world because if you’re not active in the construction of your own world then you’re a victim of someone else’s construction.“
  • Jhally, illustrates with specific reference to a wide range of music video clips how a dreamworld is created in music videos based around a range of predictable codes and conventions, many of which are borrowed from the genre of pornography.
  • At the centre of the dreamworld is the female body and drawing on the key concepts introduced by Mulvey (objectification, voyeurism, scopophilia, fetishism) it is clear both how the dreamworld is constructed and who it appears to be constructed for. In much of the work from MEF, the theme links content analysis (what we see) to audience behaviour, for Jhally this is around violence towards women.

3rd Wave Feminism

  • Known as raunch culture
  • Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and recontextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period
  • In particular, the third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.
  • 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
  • According to Ariel Levy, in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs raunch culture is ‘a product of the unresolved feminist sex wars – the conflict between the women’s movement and the sexual revolution‘ (2006:74)
  • ‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’

4th Wave Feminism

  • Inter-sexuality
  • Initial critical ideas that looked at the plurality of feminist thought can be found in the early work around Queer Theory.
  • . In the UK the pioneering academic presence in queer studies was the Centre for Sexual Dissedence in the English department at Sussex University, founded by Alan Sinfield and Johnathon Dollimore in 1990 (Barry: 141).

Judith Butler

  • Judith Butler counterpoints earlier ideas of gender representation, for example, some of the ideas presented by Laura Mulvey seem to suggest that gender is fixed – male/female – that it is structured by institutions and those powerful individuals who are able to exert power and control – Weinstein et al. 
  • Butler suggests that gender is fluid, changeable, plural a set of categories to be played out and performed by individual subjects in individual moments in time and space.
  • Put another, it suggests that we have multiple identities that are performed to different people, in different social settings, under different social conditions. For example, look at categories such as lipstick lesbian, butch and femme, girly girl and so on, which illustrate the multiple, plural nature of identity, representation and performance with feminist critical thinking

Van Zoonen

  •  Lisbet Van Zoonen also highlights the idea that the concept of ‘woman’ is not a homogenous, collective noun. 
  •  ‘gender is not the defining quality alone for women, and intersects with race, sexuality and class.’ (Hendry & Stephenson 2018:52).
  • Van Zoonen, develops and applies ideas of cultural hegemony (GRAMSCI) and interpellation (ALTHUSSER) towards feminist studies
  • Van Zoonen, prioritises the realm of popular culture as the site of struggle, where identities are continually being reconstructed.

bell hook: Multicultural inter-sexuality

  • As Barker and Jane note, ‘black feminists have pointed ot the differences between black and white women’s experiences, cultural representations and interests’ (2016:346)
  • As a way of exploring this notion of intersectionality ie the idea that an approach such as feminism, is NOT UNIVERSAL, SINGULAR or HOMOGENEOUS as this is a REDUCTIONIST and ESSENTIALIST way of seeing the world. 
  • bell hook (always spelt in lower case – real name: Gloria Jean Watkins) advocates media literacy, the need to engage with popular culture to understand class struggle, domination, renegotiation and revolution.
genre, Language, Representation

csp 10: music video

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The Specials – Ghost Town

This is a targeted CSP and needs to be studied with reference to two elements of the Theoretical Framework (Media Language and Media Representation).

1 TASK 1: MAKE SOME GENERAL NOTES ON THIS MEDIA PRODUCTION: NAMES, DATES, NUMBERS, ETC

Ghost Town is a product which possesses cultural, social and historical significance. It will invite comparison with the other CSP music video allowing for an analysis of the contexts in which they are produced and consumed.

2 TASK 2: WHAT IS THE CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND IN WHICH THIS VIDEO WAS COMMENTING UPON?

Ghost Town by The Specials conveys a specific moment in British social and political history while retaining a contemporary relevance. The cultural critic Dorian Lynskey has described it as ‘’a remarkable pop cultural moment’’ one that “defined an era’’. The video and song are part of a tradition of protest in popular music, in this case reflecting concern about the increased social tensions in the UK at the beginning of the 1980s. The song was number 1 post-Brixton and during the Handsworth and Toxteth riots.

The aesthetic of the music video, along with the lyrics, represents an unease about the state of the nation, one which is often linked to the politics of Thatcherism but transcends a specific political ideology in its eeriness, meaning that it has remained politically and culturally resonant.

The representations in the music video are racially diverse. This reflects its musical genre of ska, a style which could be read politically in the context of a racially divided country. This representation of Britain’s emerging multiculturalism, is reinforced through the eclectic mix of stylistic influences in both the music and the video.

3 TASK 3: MAKE SOME NOTES ON THE WAY IN WHICH THIS MUSIC VIDEOS CREATES AND COMMUNICATES MEANING IE MEDIA LANGUAGE.

You should adopt a SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS (ie the use of signs) which should specifically look at:

  • Mise-en-scene – ie what can you see in each shot
  • Cinematography – ie how does the camera frame each shot & how are the shots edited together

You should also adopt a NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

  • How the story / narrative is constructed (this post should be helpful or this BBC Bitesize post)
  • How TODOROV, LEVI-STRAUS & PROPP could be applied to this music video (you may remember that we looked at these on our AS TV CSP link here or on this narrative post on my blog
  • Think about how the visuals link to the song lyrics (is it a LITERAL OR METAPHORICAL interpretation, eg the journey through a deserted landscape, or the way lyrics refer to effects of political and economic conditions)
  • How audiences are positioned and invited to respond (do they use a direct mode of address?)
  • How the Narrative structure provides appeal, interest and pleasures (think active audiences . . Uses and Gratifications theory or for those students who looked at my Easter post, apply the 2 Step Flow model (link here)
The two step flow model of communication

You should also focus on GENRE

  • Make sure you reference Neale! You may remember that we looked at Steve Neale when we looked at AS TV CSP (link here)
  • How the music video genre uses intertextuality and hybridity to establish meanings
  • How music videos meet the expectations of audiences

ASSESSMENT

You have a choice from two A level essay questions: YOU ONLY NEED TO ANSWER 1 QUESTION and either email it to me or upload it to the blog, (but remember to let me know if you have done so). They are both A2 exam questions and they are both worth 12 marks. Mark schemes and feedback sheets are below. Further reading / sources of information at the bottom of this post. Good luck 🙂

Q1: How useful are ideas about narrative in analysing music videos? Refer to both CSP’s in your answer [12 marks]

Q2: Explain how representations used in Music Videos communicate information about their cultural and political contexts.

A2-Music-Video-essay-CULTURE-POLITICS-assessment-and-feedbackDownload
A2-Music-Video-essay-NARRATIVE-assessment-and-feedbackDownload

Useful sources of information

Audience Theory, Institution, Language, Representation

CSP 9: war of the worlds

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https://archive.org/details/OrsonWellesMrBruns

This is a Targeted Close Study product for which you will need to focus on the following areas of the Theoretical Framework:
> Media Industries
> Media Audiences
You will need to listen to excerpts from the broadcast but the main focus will be the technological development of radio as an institution.

War of the Worlds is an early example of a hybrid radio form, adapting the H.G Welles story using news and documentary conventions. The broadcast and the initial response to it has historical significance as an early, documented, example of the mass media apparently having a direct effect on an audience’s behavior. The academic research carried out into the broadcast (and the ongoing dispute about the extent of the effect) provided some of the early media audience research and the findings have been extremely influential in the media, advertising and political campaigning.
A useful overview and discussion of the context can be found here (not part of the CSP for assessment): https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/war-worlds

Media Institutions

War of the Worlds provides an historical context for broadcasting, being produced at a period when radio was the only form of domestic media; the 1930s and 1940s became known as the ‘golden age’ of radio.

  • War of the Worlds was broadcast by Columbia Broadcasting Company – an institution still in existence (in a very different form) today.
  • Radio broadcasting was seen as direct competition to newspapers which had previously been the only way of receiving news.
  • The broadcast is typical of the way institutions are always looking for new styles in order to attract audiences.
  • Regulation – radio broadcasting was regulated by the Federal Communications Commission and it investigated the broadcast to see if it had broken any laws.
  • The broadcast provides an excellent example to consider the effect of individual producers on media industries (known as ‘auteur theory’) as this is the work of Orson Welles.

Media Audiences

War of the Worlds has become a real-world test case for a variety of audience theories, although the exact nature of the audience response is still disputed.

  • What techniques (ie Media Language) does the broadcast use to convince the audience that what they’re hearing is really happening?
  • Consider the way that external factors – global political context, gender, religion, education etc. – are likely to also affect audience response
  • The ways in which audiences interpret the same media product differently – at the time of broadcast and now (Reception theory including Hall)
  • Cultivation theory including Gerbner

Historical, political, social and cultural contexts

For many, the wider social, political, historical and cultural contexts are not just clearly connected to media studies but they are in some ways more important.

“I’ve always said you can’t understand the world without the media nor the media without the world” (Professor Natalie Fenton, quoted in Fake news vs Media Studies J. McDougall p.17 2019, Palgrave)

“I do spend long periods of time with my gaze turned away from the media, because I’m seeking to understand what’s going on out there, and then the role of the media in that context. I’m always putting the social, the political and the economic (contexts) first.” (ibid)

War of the Worlds can be considered in a historical context as it provides an interesting study of the power and influence of radio as a form during its early days of broadcasting. It is also useful to consider the product in a social, cultural and political context when considering audience responses to the programme. It was first broadcast on the eve of World War II and reflected fears of invasion in the US and concerns about international relations.

Some other thoughts regarding this text center around contemporary ideas of Fake News. In other words, do we / can we trust the media? Where do you get knowledge and information? It also a text that shows the power of the media, to influence vulnerable audiences. Although I wonder if the stories around audiences reacting passively as if it were a true story were exaggerated almost as a marketing exercise, that in itself is a form of made up information? Indeed, isn’t all information made up? How do we know what is truth? What is clear is that the distinction between fact and fiction is often blurred and relies upon audience members recognising and understanding specific codes and conventions that relate to each Media Language. In this instance, the Language of Radio is used creatively to structure a text that could be taken as fact, but is clearly fiction. Recognising the particular social and historical moment that this media text was produced is significant, so was this a comment on the ability of the mass media to create propaganda and manipulate a compliant and vulnerable mass audience? Is that still relevant today? Think about twitter, Trump, Brexit etc. If so, then Chomsky‘s argument that the media is used by powerful groups – ‘Manufacturing Consent‘ – is the most appropriate theory to structure an understanding of media, technology, control, manipulation and power.

Other areas to think about (but unlikely to form part of your assessment)

Media Language

  • War of the Worlds is a good case study for students to understand the way codes and conventions of radio drama (sound, dialogue, SFX, microphone technique, silence, words, accents, dialects etc) are put together to create meaning and construct a recognisable and familiar genre (Steve Neale). War of the Worlds also belongs to the genre of sci-fi and invasion – how are the conventions evident?
  • But can War of the Worlds be considered as an intertextual product? Or pastiches of other genres.
  • Consider how developing technologies affect media language: in 1938 radio was still a relatively new mass media technology, the broadcast could experiment with the form in a way not possible later on.
  • At the time of the broadcast the idea of hybrid genres was unfamiliar, with clear boundaries between fact and fiction, making this a significant development in the form.

Media Representations

While there are representations of social and cultural groups in War of the Worlds, this broadcast is particularly significant for studying how a media product constructs a representation of reality, drawing on issues in society to convince the audience of its reality.

  • How does the use of media language construct the representation of the real?
  • Is this programme an early example of fake news?
  • What signifiers of different groups and social classes are used?
  • The representation of the alien invaders in sci-fi genre.
  • As a broadcast in October 1938, can War of the Worlds be interpreted as representing particular political concerns to US – and international – society?
Audience Theory, genre, Language

Narrative

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Overview

As mentioned in previous posts, the way to approach any new subject is to think about different forms which each have a different languages. So for example, there are different forms of literature, music, painting, photography, film and so on. An earlier post looked at the LANGUAGE OF PRINT, this post looks at NARRATIVE and is linked to my post on the LANGUAGE OF MOVING IMAGE. In other words, I am primarily linking narrative as a way of thinking about moving image, but it is possible to link narrative to print products, on-line products, audio products and so on.

Narrative Theory

Structuralism has been very powerful in its influence on narrative theory. Its main virtue is that it is most interested in those things that narratives have in common, rather than in the distinctive characteristics of specific narratives.

Turner p.85 ‘Film as Social Practice’

When looking at moving image products, it is therefore possible to look for patterns, codes, conventions that share a common features. In other words, narrative theories look at recognisable and familiar structures, that help us to understand both how narratives are constructed and what they might mean.

For example, it is clear that narratives are a combination of many individual elements (sound, image, text etc) which are edited (connected) together. Narratives are organised around a particular theme and space and are based in an idea of time. So for example, many narratives (Film, TV, Radio) are usually LINEAR and SEQUENTIAL, in that they start at 00:00 and run for a set length. This means that they normally have a beginning, middle and end. However, as with all creative work, it is possible to break, alter or subvert these rules.

Narrative theory can be applied to moving image texts but in many ways, narrative theory transcends a specific media form, such as, film and television and is able to take on a much greater significance in terms of how we organise our lives, our days, our weeks, our years, how we interact with each other, how we organise our memories, our ideas, aspirations and dreams.

So once again, looking at theory allows students to think beyond a particular subject and beyond the learning framework into their own existence! For now, we will stick with looking at some theories that will help students to understand, discuss and construct narrative structures.

Vladimir Propp (Character Types and Function)

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

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: The villain. struggles against the hero. The donor. prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object. The (magical) helper. helps the hero in the quest. The princess and her father…The dispatcher…. The hero or victim/seeker hero….False hero

Tztevan Todorov (Tripartite narrative structure):

  • Equilibrium
  • Disruption
  • New equilibrium

Claude Levi-Strauss (Binary Oppositions)

This theory encourages students to understand key themes that underpin action and dialogue to develop a set of messages that the audience are able to decode and understand. It helps to create the dominant message (ideology) of a film, TV programme, advert, animation etc so in this way students could make a judgement as to whether an individual media text supports the dominant ideology of society, which would make it a reactionary text or challenges and undermines the dominant ideology of society, in which case it could be seen as a radical text.

However, as mentioned in previous posts, the way in which individual students / audience members decode specific texts, is also contingent on their own individual ideas, attitudes and beliefs (ie their own individual ideology). So de-coding a text is not necessarily the same thing as agreeing on its’ fixed meaning. These ideas are explored further on posts about audience.

For now, get students to think about individual texts as a set of binary opposites, for example, you could construct a scale chart (as below) around key themes and concepts that the media text plays upon and get students to rate the text that they are looking at. This way they can discuss ideological stances on gender, race, class, age etc etc. Use any number of polarising concepts.


CONCEPT		strongly
agree		agreeneutralagreestrongly
agree		OPPOSITE
CONCEPT
GOODBAD
EASTWEST
FEMALEMALE
STRAIGHTGAY
WHITEBLACK
URBANREGIONAL
POORRICH
EDUCATEDSTUPID
RELIGIOUSSECULAR

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. Think about the way satellites orbit something bigger like a planet. Satellites are therefore used to develop character, emotion, location, time and so on. In this way they are really useful elements but could be seen as not essential to the story.

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’ which leads into ‘some doing’!

Institution, Language, Practical, radio

Radio

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As with other MEDIA FORMS, there is a specific language associated with radio production. In other words, there are a number of codes and conventions that radio productions follow. You will need to be aware of these codes and conventions if you are going to produce your own radio productions for your course or if you have to write about radio in your exam.

What strikes everyone, broadcasters and listeners alike, as significant about radio is that it is a blind medium.

Crissell, Understanding Radio 1995 p3

A good source of information about radio can be found in Andrew Crissell’s Understanding Radio who seeks to ‘determine the distinctive characteristics of the radio medium’. For instance, there is a proximity with radio communication, in that it appears almost interpersonal, using speech as the primary mode of communication and yet it is a mass medium broadcasting from a few to many. It is of course essentially and primarily auditory, consisting of speech, music, sounds and silence. A really good account of how radio communicates to individuals is provided by Crissell in chapter 1 ‘Characteristics of Radio’, for instance, the relationship between radio and individual imaginations.

This appeal to the imagination gives radio an apparent advantage over film and television

Crissell p 7

The Semiotics of Radio

When analysing media languages in specific texts, you are usually adopting a semiotic approach, identifying and de-coding a number of signs and symbols. As such, you are looking to connect the signifier (the thing you hear) and the signified (what it means): Ferdinand de Saussure. Or, put another way, you are trying to understand signs as they operate as denotations, connotations and myths: Roland Barthes.

As a more interesting exercise try linking auditory signs to the three cateogries provided by C. S. Pierce: icon, index and symbol. In that, an ICONIC SOUND will actually sound like its’ object – a person, a mode of transport, elements of nature etc etc. An INDEXICAL SOUND, will create an association to it’s object – the sound of somebody moving, thinking, or the sound of a particular location or geography. Think for example, the use of acoustics in creating a sense of space (indoor/outdoor, big room/small room etc) which can be achieved by microphone placement, or sound processing such as, reverb. Finally, a SYMBOLIC SOUND is one that is more arbitrary, random and vague. A sign that is understood usually by agreement, often through a specific culture, time or place – think for example, of the ‘crackle’ sound of old radio productions. Or any number of sound effects – echo, reverb, distortion, phase etc.

Remember that a sign could be operating in more than one category at the same time.

A discussion around War of the Worlds: interesting insight into how meaning is created through a radio broadcast.






CATEGORIES





Crissell sets out FOUR main categories to understand the language of radio: WORDS, SOUNDS, MUSIC & SILENCE. As such, the most important factor is understanding how sound is recorded, so think about and practice with sound recording technologies, particularly microphones and the ability to maximise sound to noise ratios by appropriately recording your sounds by setting the correct input and output levels on your recording device.














SOUNDS





Unlike words, which are human intervention, sound is ‘natural’ – a form of signification which exists ‘out there’ in the real world.
Crissell p. 44





Sounds are the ‘field’ where auditory (radio) work is developed. As mentioned above, sounds can be understood as recognisable (iconic) or suggestive (indexical), sounds can also be used to create an abstract, arbritary (creative?) auditory framework. A good task is to just close your eyes and reflect on all the sounds that you are able to pick up on. Following this try listening to any radio production and identify the separate elements into different categories.





MUSIC





A clear range of recognisable sounds heard through radio productions can be categorised in terms of MUSIC. Music is often used to construct whole texts of radio production – ie a specific radio programme – where the music that is played forms a paradigm of signifiers that provide anchorage that is fixes the meaning of a particular programme or section. However, music is also used to ‘frame‘ particular elements. For example, the use of a jingle or ‘ident‘ can be used as a sound bridge that , when edited over other material, create a seamless flow between different sections of a broadcast; or even to connect different programmes together. They can also be used as adverts and trailers to flag up and announce other programmes.





Music can be broadly thought of in terms of tone, volume, rhythm, melody, harmony etc. It could also be discussed in terms of technical codes, think for example of the processess that music goes through to be recorded and mixed together, such as sound balance, relative volumes and the use of digital processing,  use of reverb, effects, frequency equalisation, compression, limiting etc. It is also possible to analyse elements that are connected to each piece of music, for example, instrumentation, performer, genre, history, culture, etc.





SILENCE





One of the most powerful and thereby rarely used signs in radio production is silence. The absence of sound can suggest a range of ideas – high drama, breakdown, comedy, pause for thought etc. 





WORDS





 words are signs which do not resemble what they represent’ as such, ‘their symbolism is the basis of radio’s imaginative appeal 
 Crissell p.43 





The key code in the language of radio is verbal and to understand the meaning of words, it is necessary to pay attention to what words are used in a radio production: vocabulary and grammar as well as the way in which specific words are used: dialect, accent, stress, intonation etc. For many students, this is a recognisable approach to understanding ‘language’ that they will have picked up in English Literature and Language classes. However, the language of radio considers more than just the spoken word and requires an understanding and critical analysis of a range of technical and cultural codes that are significant in terms of constructing meaning. For example, the way in which sound is recorded and edited is crucial in terms of both creativity and meaning. 





In both the recording and editing of words and sounds, there is a priority, foregrounding important elements over less important elements. This can be recognised as the technical construction of auditory signs – which is essentially the processes of recording and editing.














Recording & Editing





Radio, like moving image, is LINEAR and SEQUENTIAL, in that it moves in a chronological order, from (a) beginning to (an) end. In this respect, it is important to refer to NARRATIVE THEORY when trying to understand and de-code radio meaning. Radio is also reliant on sequential editing techniques (unlike print or on-line media). As such, basic grammar around the cut, the fade and the dissolve are important elements in constructing meaning. You can also apply a range of sound processing techniques in a post-production audio editing programme such as Adobe Audition. This way you can build up a number of audio files to create a mix of sounds and you can process each sound to alter equalisation, tone, timbre, dynamic. Editing can transform the raw material that you gather in the production stage into multi-track (multi-layered) final production that you would generally export as a .WAV file to either broadcast or embed in a multi-media production (eg moving image product, on-line media product etc). Your multi-track allows you to make choices (thereby create meaning) around sound levels / volumes and relative sound balance between individual sound files. The priorities that you give each file is a way of creatively constructing meaning.














Audiences





Although I talk about audiences in other sections of this blog, it is worth just ending this post by considering the distinctive character of radio audiences, as this will help to understand the language of radio and also raise some ideas on nature of radio as a distinctive media form. 





While radio is seen as a mass medium, the appeal to the imagination of each person makes it a very personal experience. The process of listening to the radio is ‘inward’ and intimate – like reading a book.
Media and Meaning p. 356





The intimacy of radio is created by the language of radio – the close proximity of the voice recording, the direct address of the presenters, the selective use of pronouns – ‘I’ ‘you’ ‘we’ – the casual conversation, the connections developed by listeners to stations, presenters or styles of music, the two way interactions – song requests, shout outs, messages, dedications – the interviews and so on. 





Radio is also a flexible medium. It provides diversity and choice and can be seen as both a broadcaster (to many) or a narrowcaster (to a few / niche). Think for example, about the way BBC radio is enshrined in the constitution as a national broadcaster, think of radio news broadcasts, the role of Radio 4 as a way of engaging with government and politics. At the other end of the spectrum community radio is part of an independent tradition of media production that spans from hospital radio to pirate radio stations.





Radio is considered an undemanding medium. In this respect think about radio consumption – listening to the radio while at work, or school, while travelling, exercising or relaxing. It can be consumed as a peripheral form of entertainment, or can be used for knowledge about the world, society and the self. In this way it is possible to apply a range of audience theories to specific radio texts, which will allow for both an individual textual analysis as well as a broader recognition of the codes and conventions that constitute the language of this particular media form.





As ever, any comments, questions, ideas or suggestions please get in touch – you can use the twitter handle next to this post. If not please feel free to adapt, adopt, use or ignore.





Further Reading:





  • Understanding Radio, Crissell, A 1995 Routledge
  • Chapter 5 Radio in Media and Meaning Stewart, C. Lavelle, M, Kowaltzke, A 2001 BFI




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			Institution, Language, Representation
		

		
CSP 8: The i

		

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In the exam, newspapers will feature in Section 3. Section 3 expects students to produce long answer questions about all four key theoretical areas of this course:





  1. Media Language
  2. Media Representation
  3. Media Audiences
  4. Media Institutions





If you haven’t seen this video (which was posted for CSP 7 TeenVogue, then watch it now, as there is a clear link between news, new media technologies, societies, politics, economics and individual lives.













Task 1: New Technology and the News





Technology is central to any Media Studies course, and is of relevance in terms of news, newsgathering, production, distribution and consumption, as well as playing a significant role in terms of democracy, knowledge, access and truth. As a starter exercise to understand this relationship in terms of news production, create a table and see how many different technologies you can put in each box, to show which what technologies are used in each stage of the production process.






Technology and Newspapers


Production
Distribution
Consumption

pen / pencil / paper
word processor / printer
telephone
camera
microphone
license
computer
trees
DTP data processors
sources of information		(large scale) printing press
lorries / vans / cars
stacks / shelves / display cases / boxes
social media platforms
company / organisation / individual to deliver product
storage
billboards
paper boys/girls
target audience
paper (the ability to read? & understand?)
a digital device (ipad/phone, computer
reading glasses / eyes / braille / audio provision (headphones)
WiFi
target audience














Media Institutions





So the link between new media technologies, corporate ownership and the media is  . . . ‘Manufacturing Consent?’














Some such as theorist, academic and intellectual Noam Chomsky, that the media is a mechanism that is deliberately used by the rich and the powerful (the elite) as a way of ‘Manufacturing Consent’ 














If you want to a good documentary film that explores the way “uniformed electorate make irrational decisions” Chomsky, watch the film Get Me Roger Stone . . .














Task 2: reading and thinking





“The link between media ownership of news organisations and news coverage is not easy to determine” which is briefly discussed and summarised in The Sociology of News Production by Michael Schudson. 





Read this hand out and extract 3-4 short pithy quotes (that you could use in your exam answer) that helps to show your understanding and knowledge ie make sense to you. For example . . . . 





  • the suggestion that the news media ‘reinforces’ a political situation (Murdock, 1982), or the idea that 
  • ‘different stances different news organisations or types of organisations take toward different audiences in the marketplace‘ (Curran et al, 1980), or 
  • the proposition that “major media conglomerates control more and more of the world’s media. Where media are not controlled by organisations, they are generally voices of the state.” 
  • the propaganda model that the media ‘serve to mobilize support for the special interests that dominate the state and private activity‘ (Chomsky, 1988)





So how does this process of ‘manipulation’ or ‘persuasion’ work? 





  • Structures of ownership
  • The role of advertising
  • Links with ‘The Establishment’
  • Diversionary tactics – ‘flack’
  • Uniting against a ‘common enemy’














In another approach, we can suggest that the media are ‘agenda setting’, look at this powerpoint to understand what this could mean in terms of The i: AGENDA SETTING





AGENDA SETTING

 FRAMING

 MYTH MAKING

 CONDITIONS OF CONSUMPTION 





In summary, we need to be able to read the signs . . . 














In other words, the media are biased!





In terms of setting an agenda and mapping a clear political bias watch the video below where anchors at Sinclair-owned local news stations parrot a script pushing Trump talking points and “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.”














So can we trust the media?














How can the Media act in the ‘Public Sphere’ in the ‘Public Interest’?





“a public space between the private domain and the state in which public opionion was formed and ‘popular’ supervision of government was established” (p. 82: 1996)























Task 3: Note taking





Look at the following extracts and note 5-10 bullet points that shows your understanding of ‘the public sphere‘ and the media as watchdog. Focus on what these terms mean and how did they emerge and develop. For example, in the extract: Mass Media and Democracy by James Curran there is a focus on Jurgen Habermas and his concept of the ‘Public Sphere‘, basically arguing that the developments in education and the mass media allowed for a greater access to information particularly with regard to government, authority and the exercise of control. Similarly, Denis McQuail aruges for a media that specifically works in the public interest and not in a purely commercial interest.





Mass-Media-and-Democracy-James-Curran-focus-on-Habermas-1-column









This links to the main proposition that we faced earlier in the academic year which was: in what ways are the culture industries different from other industries? Which was put forward in this extract from  this opening chapter Culture Communication & Political Economy by Golding and Murdock from  Mass Media and Society by James Curran and Michael Gurevitch, 





A good starting point is to read this summary of James Curran and Jean Seaton’s work found on  page 121 of the AQA Media Studies text book (Hendry & Stevenson), that highlights their 1997 book: Power without Responsibility (James Curran and Jean Seaton) .





“shows how different ways of financing and organising cultural production have traceable consequences for the range of discourses and representations in the public domain” (p.11: 1996)





Curran-Press-Freedom-2Download





Seaton-PSB-1Download













but . . . we need to be careful of astroturfing …














And our own ‘Political Bias’





Task 4: Complete the Political Compass Survey to give you an understanding of left / right . . . authoritarian / libertarian . . .





If news media (and other media forms?) exhibit bias, how can we identify and critically understand it? A good starting point may be to identify our own social-economic-political bias, so take this survey from ‘The Political Compass’ (link to test).










Post up the image of your results from the Political Compass and make some brief notes that show your understanding of left / right politics and authoritarian / libertarian forms of social control.





About the Political Compass





In the introduction, we explained the inadequacies of the traditional left-right line.





single left-right axis





If we recognise that this is essentially an economic line it’s fine, as far as it goes. We can show, for example, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot, with their commitment to a totally controlled economy, on the hard left. Socialists like Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Mugabe would occupy a less extreme leftist position. Margaret Thatcher would be well over to the right, but further right still would be someone like that ultimate free marketeer, General Pinochet.





That deals with economics, but the social dimension is also important in politics. That’s the one that the mere left-right scale doesn’t adequately address. So we’ve added one, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.





cartesian plane with horizontal left-right axis and vertical authoritarian-libertarian axis





Both an economic dimension and a social dimension are important factors for a proper political analysis. By adding the social dimension you can show that Stalin was an authoritarian leftist (ie the state is more important than the individual) and that Gandhi, believing in the supreme value of each individual, is a liberal leftist. While the former involves state-imposed arbitrary collectivism in the extreme top left, on the extreme bottom left is voluntary collectivism at regional level, with no state involved. Hundreds of such anarchist communities existed in Spain during the civil war period





You can also put Pinochet, who was prepared to sanction mass killing for the sake of the free market, on the far right as well as in a hardcore authoritarian position. On the non-socialist side you can distinguish someone like Milton Friedman, who is anti-state for fiscal rather than social reasons, from Hitler, who wanted to make the state stronger, even if he wiped out half of humanity in the process.





The chart also makes clear that, despite popular perceptions, the opposite of fascism is not communism but anarchism (ie liberal socialism), and that the opposite of communism ( ie an entirely state-planned economy) is neo-liberalism (ie extreme deregulated economy)





chart with Stalin, Gandhi, Friedman, Thathcher, Hitler





The usual understanding of anarchism as a left wing ideology does not take into account the neo-liberal “anarchism” championed by the likes of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and America’s Libertarian Party, which couples social Darwinian right-wing economics with liberal positions on most social issues. Often their libertarian impulses stop short of opposition to strong law and order positions, and are more economic in substance (ie no taxes) so they are not as extremely libertarian as they are extremely right wing. On the other hand, the classical libertarian collectivism of anarcho-syndicalism ( libertarian socialism) belongs in the bottom left hand corner.





In our home page we demolished the myth that authoritarianism is necessarily “right wing”, with the examples of Robert Mugabe, Pol Pot and Stalin. Similarly Hitler, on an economic scale, was not an extreme right-winger. His economic policies were broadly Keynesian, and to the left of some of today’s Labour parties. If you could get Hitler and Stalin to sit down together and avoid economics, the two diehard authoritarians would find plenty of common ground.





A Word about Neo-cons and Neo-libs





U.S. neo-conservatives, with their commitment to high military spending and the global assertion of national values, tend to be more authoritarian than hard right. By contrast, neo-liberals, opposed to such moral leadership and, more especially, the ensuing demands on the tax payer, belong to a further right but less authoritarian region. Paradoxically, the “free market”, in neo-con parlance, also allows for the large-scale subsidy of the military-industrial complex, a considerable degree of corporate welfare, and protectionism when deemed in the national interest. These are viewed by neo-libs as impediments to the unfettered market forces that they champion.










Task 5: Apply the theory to the CSP





Now you have a better understanding of left / right; authoritarian/libertarian forms of government and control, let’s apply the CSP / The i.





Use some of the questions from the survey that you have just taken from The Political Compass and link them to specific examples to the CSP (below). 





Set out your approach ie your questions and the examples in a table. 





Once you have produced enough data, see if you can plot the compass position of The i (based only on the 3 pages of our CSP.





As an alternative or more refined approach, take the whole test from the perspective of The i.





https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/03/07/how-left-or-right-wing-are-uks-newspapers


































Summing up this CSP





Overall, in this section students are aiming to develop enough knowledge to show understanding of most of the following:





  •  patterns of ownership and control, including conglomerate mergers, vertical / horizontal integration and diversification
  • the impact of economic factors, including commercial and not-for-profit aims and intentions
  • the processes of production, distribution and circulation 
  • the role played by key organisations, groups and individuals in a global context
  •  how media organisations maintain, varieties of audiences nationally and globally 
  • recent technological change in terms of production, distribution and circulation
  •  patterns of consumption and response in terms of new media technologies  
  • the impact of ‘new’ digital technologies on media regulation, including the role of individual producers
  •  the regulatory framework of contemporary media in the UK 














Task 6:  Define these key terms





Now that we have developed an overall understanding, it is time to define and make notes on some key terms that you will need to know for your exam.





  • News Values
  • Gatekeepers
  • Regulation / Deregulation
  • Free market vs Monopolies & Mergers
  • Media concentration / Conglomerates / Globalisation (in terms of media ownership)
  • Vertical Integration & Horizontal Integration
  • Neo-liberalism and the Alt-Right
  • Surveillance / Privacy / Security / GDPR
  • The Leveson Enquiry
  • The Cairncross Review (read these questions under consideration: Caincross_call_for_evidence_govuk)





As a final point for this CSP make sure you facts and figures are in place . . .   





Task 7: Find 10 Facts about The i





Build up evidence (ie KNOWLEDGE), for example, find some information about: 





  • History, 
  • Format, 
  • Editors, 
  • Political stance, 
  • Target Audience, 
  • Cost, 
  • Circulation, 
  • Profit 
  • etc





Note that the previous owners of The i – Johnston Press were up for sale and were bought out by JPI Media, read this article and that this ownership has recently changed through the acquisition and merger by the Daily Mail group  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50598506 and https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/29/daily-mail-owner-buys-the-i-newspaper





Or for a brief look at contemporary ownership and control read this BBC article that asks why Billionaires want to own the news?





Assessment





ASSESSMENT: Go to the Planner page/tab and choose either the 7571 Question Paper from 23rd May 2018 and answer question 8. Plan your answer, share your responses and collaborate with others to produce a complete and full answer. Look at the feedback assessment sheet below for starting points and areas that you could / should cover in your answer. 





You will also need to specifically refer to Curran and Seaton, so please look at the references to Curran and Seaton in the feedback sheet (and presented below) and look to match these ideas with your own reading of the two texts provided below. The aim is to build up your own knowledge and understanding of Curran and Seaton as this should be central to your answer.





  • ‘the United Kingdom regards press freedom as an absolute freedom.’ The government leaves it to the market forces to decide which press products survive’ (1992: 53).  
  • In the case of the press, with certain limited exceptions, no legal restriction is placed on the right to buy or launch a newspaper. (This ensures, in liberal theory, that the press is free, diverse and representative (Curran and Seaton 2003: 346-7).  
  • In this view of freedom of expression, it is the interests of the press, not of its readers nor of the subjects of its coverage, which are fundamental. (‘Free enterprise is a pre-requisite of a free press’) 
  • Based on the assumption that democracy is best served by the free exchange of ideas, for which freedom of expression is vital. (‘the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market’) 





Newpaper-assessment-and-feedback-template.Download



















	

	
	




	
	

				

			Audience Theory, feminist, Institution, Language, Representation
		

		
teenvogue

		

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  • Ownership – owned by condé nast who is owned by  Advance Publications who owns discovery channel as well
  • owned by the conglomerate Advance Publications and uses horizontal integration
  • It has other magazines allowing to reach a wider audience
  • revenue was US$2.4 billion (2016) 
  • Advertising, marketing, product placement etc – in terms of revenue and type of products featured in Vogue (INSTITUTION & AUDIENCE)
  • Primary target audience 12-17 year old girls
  • Uses and Gratifications – understanding about self and knowledge about the world
  • Messages sent (encoded/decoded) ie the values, attitudes and opinions of this CSP (or ideology / political & social bias) (= REPRESENTATION)
  • Use of new technology / relationship to old technology (= LANGUAGE)
  • Layout, language, style, design, words, images, symbols, connectivity (=LANGUAGE)





Media Language





How are the codes and conventions of a website used in the product? How are these conventions used to influence meaning? The website could be analysed in terms of:





  • The language of composition and layout: images, positioning, layout, typography, language and mode of address.
  • The genre conventions of websites will be studied and the genre approach should also include reference to the content of lifestyle websites.
  • The application of a semiotic approach will aid the analysis of the way in which the website creates an ideology about the world it is constructing – often to do with age, beauty and social and political issues.
  • Narrative in the context of online material can refer to the way that the images and the selection of stories construct a narrative about the world.





Media Representations





The choice of this online product provides a wide range of representational issues. These include the representation of the target audience of young women in the United States but also globally. The focus on representation will build on work done in the analysis of visual images and can also be used to explore target audiences and ideological readings:





  • Representation of particular groups (age, gender, race), construction of a young female identity.
  • ‘Rise, Resist. Raise your Voice’ is the slogan for the website.
  • Who is constructing the representation and to what purpose? the political opinions based on both the site and its sister publications leads me to believe that the general political opinion of Teen Vogue is more left leaning. Leftist politics focus more on people and society rather than financial loss/gain (capital)
  • The focus on politics, social issues and technology (in addition to fashion and celebrity) suggests a new representation of young women.
  • Analysis of the construction and function of stereotypes
  • Representation and news values – how do the stories selected construct a particular representation of the world and particular groups and places in it?










List of CSP articles





Kim Kardashian West talks about mass incarceration – written by de elizabeth in january 2020





This article features a famous celebrity – Kim Kardashian. This person is well known to young girls, and has a large following on instagram, earning about $750,000 per post. Kim kardashian could be classed as a social media influencer, and is idolised by young girls. 





In this article, Kim kardashian talks about mass incarceration,  which is featured in her upcoming Oxygen documentary Kim Kardashian West: The Justice Project. In the article, it is mentioned that mass incarceration disproportionately effects people of colour as well as women. This is important to mention as the targeted audience of this magazine are young girls, and therefore this issue is specifically affecting them. This means that, with Hall’s theory of preferred reading, the response is likely to be dominant due to the targeted audience being mainly young girls. However, there still may be those who do not agree with the article (other…?) as well as those with a negotiated response (e.g. may think that people of colour are more likely to be incarcerated than women or may not agree with Kim Kardashian). In the article, Kim K states that “people deserve a second chance”, which is quite a general statement for this issue.





However, something contradictory about Kim Kardashian is that while she is spreading awareness of this issue by making a documentary about it, it’s still a documentary, which is still going to get her money and prestige. Furthermore, Kim K’s worth is $350 million, and she earns roughly $750,000 per post, meaning that she has the money to go out and  physically make a difference but refuses to do so 




















Your Rights to unionise










Tomb raider





  • made in 1996
  • features protagonist Lara Croft – who shows both a mix of radical and reactionary beliefs (in a position of power – main character, strong female lead yet is sexualised to appeal to the male gaze)





Marshall Mcluhan: Medium is the message





  • cinema transforms groups and societies
  • we are more ‘isolated’ due to media
  • you don’t fully understand the medium = you don’t fully understand the message
  • in the context of teenvogue = distributed through social media, e.g. twitter. if the target audience enjoys reading teen vogue, they are more likely to check twitter often, shaping their social media habits. 





Key Words associated with New Media





shareactivecreativehost
storyre-connectpersonalisestream
experiencestorescaleimmerse
interfaceliveadaptbinge
conversationre-performcirculateendless





share – the story is shared through the teen vogue website or twitter so it’s easy to share through a link or retweet





binge – articles are compiled so its easy to binge read





circulate – content can be easily circulated through retweets, especially from larger social media accounts





NEW MEDIA
OLD MEDIA
Active involvementPassive involvement
Two-way conversationOne-way conversation
Open systemClosed system
TransparentOpaque
One-on-one marketingMass marketing
About MeAbout Them
Brand and User-generated ContentProfessional content
Authentic contentPolished content
FREE platformPaid platform
Metric: EngagementMetric: Reach/ frequency
Actors: Users / InfluencersActors/ Celebrities
Community decision-makingEconomic decision-making
Unstructured communicationControlled communication
Real time creationPre-produced/ scheduled
Bottom-up strategyTop-down strategy
Informal languageFormal language

	

	
	




	
	
		

	
	

				

			Audience Theory, genre, Institution, Language, Representation
		

		
CSP 7: Vogue

		

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What is the CSP?





The actual CSP for this unit is to be found by you on any three of the following Vogue platforms:









In other words, to explore the MEDIA FORM that we recognise as: online, social and participatory media, students should look at the sites listed above in detail (specifically including the home page of the website and the ‘Lifestyle’ section) along with other relevant examples, illustrations, sections etc TO PROVIDE EVIDENCE for your essays.





Find out as much you can about this product and post your findings on a new blog post. Start by THINKING. What aspects of NEW MEDIA interest you? What aspects of Teen Vogue help you to explore and understand NEW MEDIA. Make sure you develop your initial ideas with some EVIDENCE, post up your findings to use as revision notes. Find evidence about individual stories as well as about the organisation who produces these products. OVERALL, you are trying show KNOWLEDGE OF THIS CSP and UNDERSTANDING OF NEW MEDIA





Starting points:





    

  • Ownership (INSTITUTION)
    • 




  • Conglomeration, vertical and/or horizontal integration
    • 




  • Cross-media titles / products (= INSTITUTION)
    • 




  •  Income / Expenditure (= INSTITUTION) 
    • 




  • Advertising, marketing, product placement etc –  in terms of revenue and type of products featured in Vogue  (INSTITUTION & AUDIENCE)
    • 




  • Primary target audience (= AUDIENCE)
    • 




  • Uses and Gratifications (= AUDIENCE)
    • 




  • Messages sent (encoded/decoded) ie the values, attitudes and opinions of this CSP (or ideology / political & social bias) (= REPRESENTATION)
    • 




  • Use of new technology / relationship to old technology (= LANGUAGE)
    • 




  • Layout, language, style, design, words, images, symbols, connectivity (=LANGUAGE)
    • 






Use the 3 recommended sites for this CSP and identify SPECIFIC STORIES,to EXTRACT SPECIFIC DETAIL to use as SPECIFIC EVIDENCE.





TASK 2: Select 2-3 stories from any of the links provided above and use these to provide a close textual analysis reading of Teen Vogue. As a starting point analyse your chosen examples (stories, tweets, posts etc) in terms of 1) political, social, cultural and economic contexts; 2) Media Language; & 3) Media Representations. Some starting points can be found below:





Political, social and cultural and economic contexts





Teen Vogue is culturally significant in its marrying of the political with fashion and lifestyle to target a young female audience more traditionally seen as interested in more superficial issues. Its explicit feminist stance and reporting on the Trump presidency has made it a relatively radical voice in the context of mainstream US media. The social and economic contexts can be addressed in terms of how the product has been received and how it has succeeded when other magazines (online) are struggling to maintain audiences.





Media Language





 How are the codes and conventions of a website used in the product? How are these conventions used to influence meaning? The website could be analysed in terms of:





    

  • The language of composition and layout: images, positioning, layout, typography, language and mode of address.
    • 




  • The genre conventions of websites will be studied and the genre approach should also include reference to the content of lifestyle websites. 
    • 




  •  The application of a semiotic approach will aid the analysis of the way in which the website creates an ideology about the world it is constructing – often to do with age, beauty and social and  political issues.  
    • 




  • Narrative in the context of online material can refer to the way that the images and the selection of stories construct a narrative about the world.
    • 






Media Representations





The choice of this online product provides a wide range of representational issues. These include the representation of the target audience of young women in the United States but also globally. The focus on representation will build on work done in the analysis of visual images and can also be used to explore target audiences and ideological readings:





    

  • Representation of particular groups (age, gender, race), construction of a young female identity.
    • 




  •  ‘Rise, Resist. Raise your Voice’ is the slogan for the website.
    • 




  •  Who is constructing the representation and to what purpose? 
    • 




  •  The focus on politics, social issues and technology (in addition to fashion and celebrity) suggests a new representation of young women.
    • 




  •  Analysis of the construction and function of stereotypes
    • 




  •  Representation and news values – how do the stories selected construct a particular representation of the world and particular groups and places in it? 
    • 






Defining and conceptualising New Technology





Technology is central to any Media Studies course, and is of relevance in terms of the production, distribution and consumption of news and  news-gathering, as well as playing a significant role in terms of democracy, knowledge, access and truth. As a starter exercise to understand this relationship in terms of news production, create a table and see how many different technologies you can put in each box, to show which what technologies are used in each stage of the production process.





TASK 3: Define ‘New Media’ against ‘Old Media’. Use some of the key language highlighted in this post (see the separate sections on Language, Representation, Audience, Institution below). And/or follow this link





Key Words associated with New Media





 share activecreative host 
 story
 re-connect   personalise   stream 
 experience   store   scale  immerse 
 interface  live    adapt   binge 
 conversation  re-perform    circulate   endless





Table to contrast ‘New’ vs ‘Old’ Media: Do you agree?





 
NEW MEDIA 		 
OLD MEDIA
Active involvement
 Passive involvement  
 Two-way conversation   One-way conversation 
 Open system  Closed system  
 Transparent  Opaque  
 One-on-one marketing  Mass marketing 
 About Me About Them
 Brand and User-generated Content  Professional content 
 Authentic content  Polished content 
 FREE platform  Paid platform 
 Metric: Engagement  Metric: Reach/ frequency 
 Actors: Users / Influencers  Actors/ Celebrities 
 Community decision-making  Economic decision-making 
 Unstructured communication  Controlled communication 
 Real time creation  Pre-produced/ scheduled 
 Bottom-up strategy  Top-down strategy 
 Informal language  Formal language 





TASK 4: Take 5 pairs of key terms from the table above and illustrate what they mean in terms of New Media, with a particular and VERY SPECIFIC textual reference from one of the Teen Vogue sites set by the board.













Now write some notes that answer the following questions:





Who really benefits from a digitally networked society? Big business or individuals? Refer to ‘loop theory’ and the ‘Dunbar number’





Q: How does big business benefit? What commodity do they trade in? Answer: predictive human behaviour. Write out an answer in your own words.














Shoshana Zuboff (very recent and very important theorist to quote . . .)







interests have shifted from using automated machine processes to know about your behaviour to using machine processes to shape your behavior according to their interests

Zuboff 2019, p. 338





So who is in control? The customer or the technologies? Are the technologies responding to our behaviour? Or is your behavior determined by the technology? 










Read the extracts below, note the assertion that ‘social media users are dangerously unaware of the vulnerabilities that follow their innocent but voluminous personal disclosures’, that new technologies are now developing sophisticated tools to develop a relationship with potential customers based on ‘micro-behavioral targeting’, which looks to ‘change people’s behaviour through carefully crafted messaging’. 





The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Zuboff, 2019 p.272-273





 The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Zuboff, 2019 p.276-277 





Task 5: Make a table that sets out the positive and negative consequences of using social media for audiences 













Media Industries





Teen Vogue is a commercial media product but could also be seen as fulfilling a public service through its political reporting and social campaigns. The website also demonstrates the way that publishing institutions (in this case Conde Nast) have developed their reach through new  technology and convergence – particularly relevant to this target audience.
 • Teen Vogue’s web and social media sites show how institutions respond to changes in consumption.
 • The use of digital platforms to expand the output and reach of the products demonstrates how institutions have responded to the impact of new technology





Media Audiences





The close study product provides an example of a clearly targeted, primary audience through demographics of gender and age which should encourage the study of issues of identity. Related to this would be a discussion of the changing relationship between producers and audiences in the context of participatory media.
 • Definitions of mass and minority or specialised audiences.
 • Debates around the idea of targeting specialised audiences (by age, gender, lifestyle etc.) and how successful that targeting is.
 • Differing interpretations by different groups – those belonging to and outside the primary audience. (Stuart Hall – reception theory)
 • Opportunities for audience interactivity and creativity.





ASSESSMENT / EXAM QUESTIONS





TASK 6:  Look at Question 9 on this past paper  and then look at the guidance provided in this mark scheme . Read it through. Think about it and then write a 10 bullet point essay plan. Make sure each bullet points links to the next. Top and tail your plan with your main argument and conclusion (usually the same or similar)





ASSESSMENT: Go to the Planner page/tab and answer question 9 on the AS media Paper 1. Plan your answer, share your responses and collaborate with others to produce a complete and full answer. Look at the feedback assessment sheet below for starting points and areas that you could / should cover in your answer. Good luck!





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			Audience Theory, feminist, Language, Representation, Uncategorized
		

		
Gender representation essay

		

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Write up a 750 word formal essay (ie beginning, main body and conclusion) that compares the representation of gender in both Mens Health and Tomb raider 





In this essay I am going to argue that there are both radical and reactionary representations in Tomb Raider and Men’s Health. To do this I am going to analyse the front cover and contents page of Men’s Health and the front cover of the Tomb Raider game. I am going to apply Gauntlett’s concepts of representation and reception theory to these products.





Gender representation
is the presentation of gender roles in the media, which can be displayed in
many different ways. Usually gender representation in media follows common
stereotypes (the common representation of specific groups in media). The most
common type of stereotype that is represented in media, especially traditional
and older media is the “cool” man, which will be discussed during the analysis
of Men’s Health. This gender representation will be compared to Tomb Raider’s
Lara Croft and compared to the dominant ideology of gender. 





Men’s Health displays
both radical and reactionary views about masculinity. For example, the cover of
Men’s Health contains strong, bold fonts which reinforces that all men are
strong and powerful. Furthermore, the cover of Men’s Health also contains a
semantic field of violence, strength and power: “demolish”, “blast”, “slay”.
This is reactionary, as it reinforces the dominant ideology of the “cool” man –
that men are strong, cool and brave. This is emphasised by the image of Vin
Diesel on the front cover, who appears to be muscular with a tough and serious
expression. This presents a dominant idea of masculinity, which one could argue
is a toxic representation of masculinity – as it creates unrealistic body
standards for men. In this photo, Vin Diesel has been photoshopped to appear
more muscular than he actually is. This creates the impression that the
impossible is achievable, creating a sense of false hope for men trying to
become something that isn’t real. Furthermore, this creates a ‘standard’ for
how men are supposed to look, creating a negative impact on the body images of
men and their desire to ‘fit in’ – linking in to identity. This image of the
“cool” and “muscular” man is, however, juxtaposed by the plug “detox for
foodies” at the top of the magazine. This reflects on Gauntlett’s concept of
gender fluidity – the fact that gender isn’t fixed, and can be changed. This is
shown by the trait of specifically enjoying and critiquing food – a
particularly feminine trait, being shown on the front cover of a men’s
magazine. This also shows that the magazine is radical. Looking at the contents
page, the influence of masculinity within the textual features is still strong
– but less so. There is no semantic field of power or violence, and the gender
role of “powerful man” is reduced to seemingly almost a façade. The contents
page contains the strong text and blue colour – signifying masculinity, but
including other features such as pink backgrounds for icons and softer fonts. This
breaks the dominant ideology – in which men have to be unfalteringly masculine
all the time.





This is similar to
the front cover of Tomb Raider, as Lara Croft is both radical and reactionary,
similar to how Men’s Health is presented. Firstly, the dominant signifier of
the game, Lara Croft, is presented with highly feminine-conforming features: a
flawless face, long hair, makeup as well as sexualised clothing. This is
reactionary as it holds to the dominant ideology that all women are beautiful and
desirable. Furthermore, Lara Croft’s clothing designs present her as very
sexual, as her clothes leave a lot of skin exposed as well as the rule of
thirds being used to emphasise her butt and breasts. This connects to the idea
of the ‘male gaze’ – that straight cis white men control the media, which as a
result shows us their visions of how they view different groups. In this case,
Lara is sexualised to appeal to male gamers. This is also reactionary for how
society views women. Lara Croft’s character is also, however, also radical.
Lara Croft was created in order to have a strong female leading character,
which was rare at the time. Furthermore, her story made her independent as she
did not need a man in order to be strong. This, amongst women in society, is
reactionary. But, for the dominant ideology, it is radical. Furthermore, Lara
Croft is in the position of a man, doing things that would have been deemed ‘too
daring’ for a woman to do in the game, such as ‘fighting fearsome creatures’ as
denoted on the back and scaling walls. In conclusion, Tomb raider and men’s
health both vary – Tomb raider is mostly radical, but is also slightly
reactionary while Men’s Health is mostly reactionary, but is also radical in
some parts.





These two texts both
represent reactionary beliefs and radical beliefs. Tomb raider shows a woman in
a man’s position wielding a gun and doing amazing feats, while appearing
sexualised, and Men’s Health shows strong motifs of masculinity – strong text
and a semantic field of power, while presenting that men can have more feminine
traits such as being passionate about food. These ideas are presented to the
audience in different ways, and the entire audience is not going to immediately
accept this. If we use reception theory, it shows that there will be a divide
in the audience. The intended representation of these texts will not enforce or
change the entire audience’s beliefs. For example, the message that “men have
to be strong” in Men’s Health will be received by the audience and there will
be a divide based on opinion, such as: the dominant response – the intended
response, which will enforce the audience’s opinion that “men have to be strong”.
Then, there’s the negotiated response, where the audience may partially agree
and disagree with “men have to be strong”. Finally, there’s the oppositional
response, which would be a complete disagreement with the message. This, in
turn has an effect on the dominant ideology of gender in society. This could
have a negative effect, such as stereotyping. This could make outside parties
assume that, for example, all women are flawless like Lara Croft, which can
have a negative impact on women, as they are pressured to look flawless. Or, it
could have a positive impact. For example, for Men’s Health, men could be less
ashamed to talk about their interests or hobbies if the dominant ideology of “men
have to uphold masculine interests” is challenged. This, therefore can end up
enforcing more healthy beliefs with gender.

	

	
	




	
	

				

			Language, Representation
		

		
approaches to representation

		

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PREPARATION FOR THE EXAM





I suggest you look at this post of mine about Media Language to make sure that you understand what it means ie it is much more than spoke or written communication and is specific to each media form.





Make sure you analysis is focused on MEDIA LANGUAGE  and REPRESENTATION. Try to make some insightful points rather than stating the obvious, for example, discuss the use of semiotics, the notion of preferred reading and the concept of self-identity in Modernity (Giddens – see below).





  • The way the media through re-presentation constructs versions of reality
  • How and why stereotypes can be used positively and negatively
  • The processes which lead media producers to make choices about how to represent social groups
  • How audience responses to interpretations of media representations reflect social, cultural and historical attitudes
  • The effect of social and cultural contexts on representations
  • Theories of representation including Hall
  • Theories of identity including Gauntlett





Therefore make sure you are confident in this area and to test your knowledge can you present a comparison between this CSP and one other CSP that we have looked at so far. Again think about how you wish to organise your ideas and feedback your presentation. Or as part of your revision you could complete this mini mock?





MEDIA MINI MOCK SECTION A





If this topic comes up in the exam you can expect your question to be based around discussion of the Maybelline advert mainly on representation of gender, age, ethnicity and lifestyle with opportunities for direct comparison with other advertising CSPs.










REPRESENTATION, REFLEXIVITY AND MODERNITY





Read this extract from a book called Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, written by Anthony Giddens.










here is an edited version:





“The reflexive project of the self, which consists of the sustaining of consistent, yet continuously revised, biographical narratives, takes place in the context of multiple choice as filtered through abstract systems. In modern social life, the notion of lifestyle takes on a particular significance. The more tradition loses it hold, and the more daily life is reconstituted . . . the more individuals are forced to negotiate lifestyle choices among a diversity of options. Of course there are standardising influences . . . Yet because of the ‘openess’ of social life today, the pluralisation of contexts of action and the diversity of ‘authorities’, lifestyle choice is increasingly important in the constitution of self-identity and daily activity.”





Can you translate some of his ideas? For example, what is reflexivity? If you need more help you can read this post from my own blog: Representation, Identity & Self





Non-Binary, Intersex, CIS and . . .





Once you have thought about this, think about the concept of a ‘non binary identity’. Follow this link to find out more. What does this mean to you? How do you feel about it? What about the concept of CIS? Or Intersex? Do these concepts help you to understand the idea behind the Maybelline marketing campaign?Again discuss this with your group of friends, make notes and be prepared to feedback to the rest of the class.  





Ayesha Tan Jones is a non-binary artist and musician who goes by the stage name ‘YaYaBones’














So how is the traditional male representation adjusting to this new world from the perspective of Advertising & Marketing?