David Hesmondhalgh believed companies involved in cultural industries were motivated by profit rather than a duty to public service broadcasting. No one was going to invest in a newspaper which targeted a niche audience unless it was going to make money. However, the social and political context of the early 1980s offered the founder of The Voice, Val McCalla, an opportunity to raise the funds needed for such a risky venture.

McCalla secured £62,000 from Barclays with the backing of the Loan Guarantee Scheme which was part of a series of initiatives set up by Margaret Thatcher’s government to help unemployed people start their own business. The Voice enterprise was a success and the bank loan was paid off within five years.

The relationship between producers and audiences has also shifted. The publishers promote their content on various social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Most posts will direct you to the main website, but The Voice will also retweet and share posts from other institutions to increase the level of engagement with their primary audience.

Although this connection and level of interactivity is expected by digital natives, an older audience might still prefer the feel of print between their fingers.

Has historical and cultural significance in its origins as the UK’s first newspaper aimed specifically at a black British audience, dealing with relevant political and social issues. The website continues this function but is perhaps considered more mainstream and less political than in the past. The economic context can be explored through a consideration of the nature of the production and distribution and move to online content to reach a wider audience and attract advertisers.

Representation

Before the introduction of The Voice, the black press in Britain targeted first-generation immigrants. Newspapers, such as The Caribbean Times and West Africa, kept the diaspora up to date about news about the old countries. The Voice was different. It wanted to publish stories which were relevant to the second generation who were born and raised in Britain.

They were eager to create a countertype to the negative portrayals of black people often represented in the mainstream media. This was particularly important after the civil unrest across England in 1981.

Specific post

The social share buttons are provided by the AddThis – a company which aims to help businesses “develop a more personal and effective relationships with their current and future customers”. Looking like a natural part of the webpage experience because of the inline design and use of brand colour (#d41224), the share buttons are a subtle way to encourage readers to share the articles on their own social channels and become ambassadors for The Voice.

Language

Value black people and like to make them feel superior and strong and independent. They bring racist issues and discrimination problems to the light to relate to their specific audience= they use images of mainly black people to get their views and values across and to attract their target audience. They also have quite a colourful website to show support for ‘coloured’ people and present it in a much more positive term. The images used are often not photoshopped and are natural, giving a real view of people which could better relate to their audience.

Semiotics- the voice presents content of mainly black people- world is becoming more diverse and is not based on only white people in the media. The title ‘The Voice’ signifies the voice they give to black people.

Industries

Founded in 1982, based in London and is published every Thursday. First issue of The Voice was printed to coincide with the Notting Hill Carnival in August 1982. Its cover price was 54 pence, and was only sold in London. In 1981, the Brixton race riots shone a spotlight on race relations in Britain. 

^The Voice emerged in 1982 partly as a result of these riots – both due to the need to offer a voice and representation to black Britons and also due to a business loan from Barclays Bank. The bank was keen at the time to improve their reputation with the black community due to investments in Apartheid South Africa.

Is a commercial media product but could also be seen as fulfilling a public service through its targeting of an ethnic minority audience. The website also demonstrates the way that news institutions have had to respond to new technology through The Voice’s bi-media presence and use of convergence.

Audiences

The Voice’s target audience is black people, more specifically, black Britons.

They successfully target them by producing content that they can relate to.

They follow the cultural stereotypes yet go against all negative stereotypes that the media may have placed on black people, in relation to Stuart Hall

The Voice produces quite unique and specific content which is very relatable to the audience and also gives them a voice. Gives a sense of audience pleasures, relating to the uses and gratifications theory.

SPECIFIC: ‘Cast for ‘Black Superhero’ revealed’ entertainment article relates to target audience by talking about the Jeffery Dahmer series, in which the majority of his victims were black individuals. The quote ‘many of us brown boys who like men have, for the most part, been culturally starved of since we entered this world’ relating to the black target audience as many black individuals feel that they are negatively stereotyped meaning that they can relate to the article. This links to the uses and gratifications theory by Katz, Gurevitch and Haas, as it suggests that the audience will be receiving a sense of social audience pleasures such as knowledge about the world and strengthening of connections with their community.

1. Overview: New media always creates change (printing press, telgram etc)
2. Q: so how has recent technology changed (society, individuals, organisations, ideas, beliefs etc etc)
3. CSP 1 – show knowledge of CSP
4. characteristics of new media (in reference to CSP 1)
5. theoretical / conceptual analysis of new media (loop theory, network theory, Dunbar number, McLuhan, Krotoski)
6. Critically thinking about new media (Baudrillard, McLuhan, Krotoski, B. F. Skinner, Zuboff, Lanier – are all essentially critical of new media technologies. But Gauntlett, Shirky, Jenkins are all very positive about new media technologies)
7. CSP 2 – show knowledge
8. Draw parallels and conclusions
9. Suggest future pathways / developments

Some themes and discussion points from Great Hack:

• The Exchange of Data
• Search for Truth- uncovers the dark world of data exploitation with astounding access to the personal journeys of key players on different sides of the explosive Cambridge Analytica/Facebook data scandal.
• Behaviour Management- shows how data is being used to hijack our elections and our democracy and how the internet is being used not only for information, but as a weapon.
• Propaganda / Persuasion
• Regulation

So what changes can be put in place to solve these current issues?

Data has surpassed oil as the world’s most valuable asset. It’s being weaponized to wage cultural and political warfare. People everywhere are in a battle for control of our most intimate personal details

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

AI (artificial intelligence)- demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans

Types of AI-  reactive machines, limited memory, theory of mind, and self-aware AI.

1. the transformation of social interaction (audiences);
2. the transformation of individual identity (audiences and representation);
3. the transformation of institutional structures (industry); and the changes in textual content and structure (language).
4. The transformation of audience consumption

In summary, this could be described as the changing nature of symbolic interaction and a lot of the work on this blog is essentially discussing this concept.

• Speed
• Knowledge
• Time
• Communication
• Understanding
• Access
• Privacy
• Choice
• Interactivity

Marshall McLuhan- The Medium is the Message

 A way of understanding ‘technological determinism‘ the idea that it is the tool that shapes us, rather than us who shape the tool. “Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication”. Digital Prophecies.

 Are computers super-human beings or just processors?

Krotoski also looks at the network effect, ‘the constant loop of digital information’

1. Pastiche =  a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist.
2. Parody =  an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.
3. Bricolage = (in art or literature) construction or creation from a diverse range of available things
4. Intertextuality = can be a reference or parallel to another literary work, an extended discussion of a work, or the adoption of a style.
5. Referential
6. Surface and style over substance and content
7. Metanarrative
8. Hyperreality= the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality
9. Simulation (sometimes termed by Baudrillard as ‘Simulacrum’) 
10. Consumerist Society= a society in which people often buy new goods, especially goods that they do not need, and in which a high value is placed on owning many things.
11. Fragmentary Identities= multidisciplinary collaboration, involving visual communication, performative arts and fashion
12. Alienation= a withdrawing or separation of a person or a person’s affections from an object or position of former attachment
13. Implosion=  a situation in which something fails suddenly and completely, or the fact of this happening
14. cultural appropriation
15. Reflexivity= the fact of someone being able to examine their own feelings, reactions, and motives
16. Deconstructive postmodernism = expresses the consequences of an idealism that has taken the linguistic turn and then has seen through the language

Postmodernism: The rework and copy of other works that may or may not be adapted to differ slightly. An emphasis on ideologies as a motive to maintain political power.

An intellectual stance or mode of discourse which challenges worldviews associated with Enlightenment rationality dating back to the 17th century. Postmodernism is associated with relativism and a focus on ideology in the maintenance of economic and political power.

 “in this era every women were called vera or lyn”

cellotape on mouths 18:44

lord reith big eyebrows making fun

Where there is marks may we bring spencers

Margaret Thatcher played as a man

Postmodernism notes

Postmodernism can therefore be understood (more than other creative movements) as deliberate, intended, self-conscious play (about play?), signs about signs, notes to notes? Often, this may be frivolous, trite, casual, surface, throw-away. It may even be ironic, joking, or literally, ‘just playing’. However, it is always a deliberate copy (of the old). Therefore, the old has been re-worked into something new, which clearly entails a recognition (a nod and a wink) to what it was and where it came from.

 argument that postmodern culture is a consumer culture, where the emphasis on style eclipses the emphasis on utility or need. So that ultimately there is no real value to postmodern culture other than the need for consumption

Putting it very simply, the transition from substance to style is linked to a transition from production to consumption.

 INSTITUTION

Performed live in 1938, the radio drama depicted a Martian invasion of earth, but the broadcast allegedly provoked widespread panic because many listeners thought the attack was real

 “The War of the Worlds” was aired by Columbia Broadcasting Systems (an institution still in existence (in a very different form) today.)- CBS frequently interrupted scheduled programmes to inform their listeners of the latest updates from Europe. In the weeks prior to “The War of the Worlds” episode, the network reported on Hitler’s continued occupation Czechoslovakia and the inevitability of another global conflict.

Authors were Orson Welles and Howard Koch

Performed and broadcast live at 8 pm ET on October 30, 1938 over the CBS Radio Network

Gerbner’s Cultivation Theory, the two-step flow model and Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory

 Radio broadcasting was regulated by the Federal Communications Commission and it investigated the broadcast to see if it had broken any laws.

AUDIENCE

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 hypodermic needle theory suggests a media text can have a powerful and immediate effect on the passive audience. It would seem “The War of the Worlds” production supports this argument because so many terrified listeners, for example, “rushed out of their houses” to escape the “gas raid”

FACTS

• The War of the Worlds- an episode of the radio series “The Mercury Theatre on the Air”- was a radio series of live dramas which were created and hosted by Orson Welles in the United States. Originally released on July 11th to December 4th 1938.
• “The War of the Worlds”- Halloween radio episode which was performed and broadcasted live at 8pm until 9pm on October 30th 1938 and ran for 60 minutes (1 hour).

Context- On Oct. 30, 1938 millions of Americans tuned their radios to the weekly dramatic program “Mercury Theater of the Air” to listen to War of the Worlds a science fiction novel by H.G. Wells about an invasion from Mars. When Orson Welles adapted the story for radio he made it sound like a news broadcast, with actors playing reporters. Many people in the audience thought the “invasion” was real, and the broadcast caused a panic. Some people hid in their cellars, while others loaded guns or wrapped their heads in wet towels to protect themselves from Martian poison gas.

Quotes-  “The world is not coming to an end. Trust me.”

CE hooper rating survey- 98% weren’t actually listening to War of the Worlds- Radio lab broadcast of War of the Worlds from 2018

• Newsbeat- radio service from the BBC
• The main focus is news towards teenagers and “twentysomethings”.
• Funded by the tax from the government, hypothecated tax, money from a specific tax goes towards the BBC for education.
• Launched on the 10th September 1973
• The name was taken from another radio program, “Radio Coraline”, this is because one of Radio Coralines workers “Roger Gale” worked on Newsbeat with the BBC
• Broadcasted on Radio 1, 1Xtra and Asian Network.
• 15-19, 84% listeners 12-15

Audience

1.Targets youth- talks about important and difficult matters that might make them feel understood (mental health which will draw in the young audience.)

2.An example of a transitional media product which reflects changes in the contemporary media landscape.

 3. Good values- talk about negative issues going on making it important

4. ‘Newsbeat promises its younger listeners all the news they need to know from the UK and around the world‘

5. To bring in the younger audience, Newsbeat changed the language and style they present in, bringing in teens by using street slang and making stories on popular, younger generation topics, like Tik Tok, Celebrities and Young topics.

6. Linking to Stuart Hall’s ideas on ‘preferred reading’: Dominant, Oppositional and Negotiated readings

7. Producers appeal to listeners- framing the content through an informal tone, quick overviews, upbeat links, and audience participation.

8. ‘it’s a myth that young people are not interested in news; the challenge is how to reach them’

9. Radio broadcasting is regulated by Ofcom

10. Newsbeat can be seen as part of the BBC’s remit to address diverse audiences – by age, location, ethnicity etc

11. Stuart Halls theory of encoding and decoding

Possible Questions

1. To what extent do historical contexts influence how audiences respond to media industries. You should refer to the close study Newsbeat to support your answer.
2. Did Newsbeat only develop because of the changes in new technologies?
3. To what extent is the BBC regulated.
4. How does Newsbeat support the ethos of the BBC? (entertain, inform, educate)
5. How does Newsbeat appeal to a young / younger audience?
6. ‘The relationship between producers and audiences has changed over time.’ How far do you agree with this statement? You should refer to the Close Study Newsbeat

10 facts

1. John Reith was the BBC’s first general manager when it was set up as the British Broadcasting Company in 1922 and he was its first Director-General when it became a public corporation in 1927.
2. Newsbeat was launched on the 10th September 1973
3.  BBBC is the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, with over 22,000 staff in total-approximately 19,000 are in public-sector broadcasting.
4. 15-19, 84% listeners 12-15
5. The ethos of the BBC was to ‘inform, educate and entertain’
6. Newsbeat is notable for the distinctive musical imaging it has used for most of its history. At first, this was a just jingle at the beginning of the bulletin, but in the late 1990s this expanded to music throughout.
7. The BBC was officially created on 18 October 1922.
8. Louisa Compton, editor of BBC, says ‘it’s a myth that young people are not interested in news; the challenge is how to reach them.’
9. This started in 1923, costing 10 shillings, then split 50/50 between the BBC and the Government.
10. Radio coverage was patchy in the UK, securing 94% reach across the UK.
11. ‘Resources have been switched from the Newsbeat radio programme to online and social media, with less polished, “super-produced” content and more immersive videos to reflect what its audience watches on YouTube’ – The Guardian article- Radio 1’s newsbeat rips up the rulebook to lure young listeners

What I Understand

1. Newsbeat is widely available online on places such as the BBC website or on radio 1 at times of 12.45 and 5.45 and after broadcast for streaming, meaning it is accessible to youth as they can access it at any time

MEDIA LANGUAGE

1. Dominant signifier (Vin Diesel), we know this because he is the main focus within the front cover, being the biggest and most outward object on the page.
2. The title “Men’s Health” – indexical to men’s health and the gender performance of the male gender.
3. The page is reactionary, as it can be argued to support the typical view of strong, independent men.
4. The syntagm of men’s gender performance and what men should be like. Suggests that men should be fit and strong with muscular developments. “Lose 8kg fast”, “127 ways to build a stronger core” “103 shortcuts to t-shirt arms”
5. The way he’s standing (stance) is a way as such to ‘flex’ / show off his biceps and triceps.
6. The font is in bold which can come across as stronger and more masculine.
7. Suggests to the target audience that if they read the magazine they can look like Vin Diesel

Contents page

1. Dominant signifier of Vin Diesel, however is significantly smaller than the front cover
2. Semantic pattern of physical power and strength
3. Repertoire of elements (men)
5. Shows a reactionary representation of exercise and fitness through links to articles. Shown through signifiers such as pictures of trainers and weights. This could be suggested to be creating an unrealistic view that to be considered a ‘real’ man you must be physically at top performance.
6. Radical representation through the use of men of different ages and races

MEDIA REPRESENATIONS

The school of life present a video called ‘How to be a Man’, in it they present the ‘cool man’ and the ‘warm man’, while not an academic theory, it is possible to identify these two representations in Men’s Health.

Cool man– Vin Diesel (big, muscular, confident)

Warm man– Phillip Howells (compassionate, ‘your only limit is your self-belief’)

1.The emphasis on male beauty and grooming challenges some conventions of traditional stereotypes of masculinity

Changes in lighting on Vin Diesel’s biceps/triceps in front cover to enhance the definition suggesting that his male beauty has been emphasized as it is to fit the stereotypical view of a male (muscular, confident, strong, big)

2. How gender is represented through processes of selection and combination

3. Men as object of a homosexual and heterosexual gaze

Vin Diesel could be subject to male gaze from a homosexual or heterosexual view.

4. The reasons for the choices made in the representation of gender

MEDIA INDUSTRIES