metanarrative:

• overall stories – an overall narrative that makes sense
• the loss of metanrrative – the loss of a convenient overarching metanarrative -if we don’t believe anything big that brings us together there is a sense of isolation
• alienation/difficulty from others

Jean Baudrillard

• implosion – everything fell in to eachother – a loss of everything
• a ‘simulation’ of the real based on consumerism
• simulacra – mass media produces versions of reality to help explain our place and function in the universe
• the ecstasy of communication: the process of meaning making has exponentially expanded in the postmodern era, permeating modern life in ways that lie far beyond the cultural capacities of previous historical periods
• he describes the effects of postmodernity:
• 1. the media is everywhere: every corner of public space is an advertising opportunity. our public spaces are so saturated with media that it is impossible to avoid the tidal wave of cultural messages beamed at us
• 2. our private spaces have been invaded: baudrillard states that one’s private living space is conceived as a receiving and operating area, as a monitoring screen endowed with telematic power
• 3. authenticity is impossible to find or hard to keep: cultural products in postmodernity construct throw-away messages, forgotten almost as instantly as they are consumed
• 4: repetition and duplication effects: the postmodern media repeats and repurposes successful content to attract and maintain audiences
• implosion: where there is one political viewpoint there is always an opposing source or contradictionary analysis – as a result a world is presented where two simultaneous truths exist, leaving audiences with an inability to act

postmodernism & surface level intertextuality

• purely ‘surface level’ – links to tomb raider (lara croft as a character – advertising to the male gaze, also doesn’t have much of a character)
• surface signs over substance
• links to teen vogue article – kim kardashian surface level concern for incarceration – not actually doing anything to aid just advertising her show
• much more about imagery than work
• surface and style over substance

parody and pastiche

• satire – irony and ridicule
• pastiche – imitates a style/concept
• surface-level play

postmodernism and history

• population grew in the 20th century by 4 billion
• massive rise of people
• massive rise in things
• massive rise in consumption
• the more we consume the less we are satisfied
• more isolated and individual and alienated consumption

theorists

• habermas – transformation of the public sphere

TEEN VOGUE 

Owned by Condé Nast (who is owned by Advanced Publication) who owns GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired and Architectural Digest (AD)

Targeted at female teenagers between ages of twelve to seventeen

‘Ariana Grande Fans Criticize Eminem’s Lyrics’ – more substance problems rather than important matters such as war/politics but also ‘DisruptJ20 should be remembered for Trump protests’ – more important matters such as Trump and politics.

TOMB RAIDER 

Objectifies woman as crop top and short shorts but also more traditionally masculine – guns and strong. Camera angle of behind Lara Croft.

Made by Core Design, Aspyr

Targeted at straight men – but also empowers woman

THE VOICE WEBSITE 

SIMS FREEPLAY 

A family game about creating a neighbourhood.

Targeted at children.

Made by Maxis, conglomerate of EA.

METROID: PRIME 2 ECHOES 

Main female protagonist but less objectifying as she is in a suit the whole time – seen as

 Jean Baudrillard

 IMPLOSION which gives rise to what he terms SIMULACRA. The idea that although the media has always been seen as a representation of reality – a simulation, from Baudrillard’s perspective of implosion, it is has become more than a representation or simulation and it has become SIMULACRUM not just a representation of the real, but the real itself, a grand narrative that is ‘truth‘ in its own right: an understanding of uncertain/certainty that Baudrillard terms the HYPERREAL

Game Cube

smash continued Super Smash Bros. Ultimate December 7, 2018

November 15, 2004

The front covers sole purpose is to circulate the video game and offers an interface into a new immersive experience that is a re-performance of a previous title.

Actors: Users / Influencers IGN Noire Blue

Community decision-making : forums and feedback Neoseeker forums

Art Deco Update – Live 15^th February – 25 jan 2021 Rustic Wedding update

google amazon itunes

seasonal updates London Christmas

release December 15, 2011

The Sims 4: Snowy Escape November 3, 2020

The Sims February 4, 2000

Real time creation : updates

Mcluhan

medium is more important than the message

to fully understand the message u must understand the medium

how has new media technologies adjusted individuals in society

Slavoj Žižek comodities. video games boxes designs on the front are usless. they serve information already known by the audience

 The study of Online, Social and Participatory media and Video Games is linked.

• TEEN VOGUE – Teen Vogue is an American online publication, formerly in print, launched in 2003, as a sister publication to Vogue, targeted at preteen girls. Like Vogue, it included stories about fashion and celebrities.

COVID-19 and a lost generation of unhoused students:

FEBRUARY 19, 2021

BY LAUREN YOUNG

“Homeless Students Lack Basic Needs, Support During COVID-19 Pandemic.”

She tells Teen Vogue. “I thought, Oh my gosh, all these kids… How on earth are they going to be able to access their education?”

1. Conversation – retweet and forward the link.
2. Personalize – retweet with an opinion.
3. Store – download and embed on a web-page.

Beyoncé’s BeyGOOD Charity Provided Water, Food, and Monetary Relief to Texans Impacted by the Winter Storm

21st feb 2021 by Lauren Rearick

1 re-connect – the story is focusing on raising awareness and therefore different readerships may share an interest

2 active – the story is focusing on something that is happening now

3 share – the article on the website includes links to twitter where you can re-tweet

TEEN VOGUE (which we covered in the AS course – link here)

Teen Vogue is a former US print magazine and current online publication launched in 2003 as a sister publication to Vogue, targeted at teenage girls. Like Vogue, it included stories about fashion and celebrities. The main categories are: Identity, beauty, style, lifestyle and politics. The target audience would be teens and young adults because the celebrities featured on the front are teenagers. Cross media titles: print and digital. Teen vogue is worth 5 million dollars.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/women-in-music-2019

This post by teen vogue is about woman in music and how they are reshaping the industry. The article features new upcoming female artists talking about how they entered the music business and their current life in music and performing is treating them. This article mixes the popular music industry with feminism and women empowerment. It promotes and praises a feminist ideology and the fact that the music business is typically male dominated. It is a reactionary article for teen vogue to write as it deals with common themes they talk about such as women, pop music, fashion and feminism.

Tweets every hour to appeal to a young, active target audience.

• Stuart hall’s theory applies to this article as young girls will react dominantly to the text.
• They will listen to what their idols have to say.

TOMB RAIDER (which we covered in the AS course – link here)

Lara Croft of TOMB RAIDER fame is a video game icon. She was one of the first female protagonists in a gaming industry filled with women in supporting roles. And she has come a long way.

A media franchise that originated with an action-adventure video game series created by British gaming company Core Design.

One view:

• RADICAL as there is a female protagonist
• challenges dominant ideologies in action games
• female empowerment

Another view:

• sexualised to appeal to a stereotypical audience of straight males (male gaze)
• theory of preferred reading (Stuart Hall)

THE VOICE WEBSITE (link here)

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

The newspaper is representative of black british experiences.

The editorial tone and content of The Voice has often come under criticism. At the launch of the New Nation newspaper, the paper’s editor, Richard Adeshiyan referred to The Voice as a “doom-and-gloom sheet” which prints damaging news and images of blacks as victims.

SIMS FREEPLAY (the game, Facebook page, twitter feed)

• Recieved mainly positive reviews but was banned in China, saudi arabia, United Arab States etc… for portraying homosexual couples
• Real time game simulation
• Created by EA
• Released for iphone for free and different devices

METROID: PRIME 2 ECHOES (game cover,

• Gaming magazine targeted for people aged 12+
• Released in November 2002
• Developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the GameCube.
• Cover:

“medium is the message” – form of media rather than the content

tweet from simplays twitter account – January 29th 2019

accessibility – online

“Hey simmers, alongside the Refined Romance update launch, a portion of you may notice video ads now appare after comleteing actions.”

“These video ads will only play a limited number per day.”

social media

share endless personalize active

endless consumerism

new media is different from old media

Yuval Noah Harari – 21 lessons for the 21st century, work

media work is changing, more technological

e.g. board games are being replaced with online games, putting people out of jobs

e.g. twitter voids a real life conversations but reaches more people

Zuboff – in terms of privacy, liberty, freedom

“micro behavioral targeting”

“targeted revenue-generated opportunities” (industry)

“higher levels of customer satisfaction”

“changes people’s behavior through carefully crafted messaging…without individual…awareness.”

Marshall Mcluhan- the theory that ‘the medium is the message’ states that we should state the form rather than the context. Social media platform- Feburary 21 2020 by Lauren Rearick titled ” Beyoncé’s BeyGOOD Charity Provided Water, Food, and Monetary Relief to Texans Impacted by the Winter Storm”

Due to the media form it is easier to access this increases the audience size meaning rather than using one public place to view things like a cinema people can now access websites on there phones making it more private to view things independently rather than as a group.

This allows people to encode,decode and oppose different ideas from the media, people will have different opinions on media products. For example on the teen vogue website Beyonces charitable work could be tweeted about or re-tweeted. This shows that there can be 2 way communication between many people.

Stories can also be shared on social platforms like Facebook as well as making comments on posts. This shows that the audience is now more active rather than passive.

Due to the medium of teen vogue teen readers can binge read different stories and experiences from celebrities and politicians as there are endless amounts of content.

Due to the amount of Facebook friends or Instagram followers circulation of the story will increase.

Media can now personalize websites and suggest stories for individuals rather than like old media when newspapers were the main type of medium it was a much more general.

“the medium is the message”

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

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

key words to associate:

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