The Voice newspaper was first published in 1982, “committed to celebrating black experience” and aiming to deliver “positive change” by “informing the black community on important issues”.

The impact of new technologies forced the production, distribution and circulation of The Voice to change drastically. Audiences started to consume media through online products and downloads instead of through physical copies of media products. This change in audience consumption forced The Voice to focus more on its digital output rather than physical output.

Val Mcalla, founder of The Voice, received £62,000 from Barclays Bank through the Loan Guarantee Scheme, which was part of a series of initiatives set up by Thatcher’s government to help unemployed people start their own businesses. This loan offered Mcalla an opportunity to raise the funds to start The Voice. Barclays was heavily criticised for it’s investments in South Africa where racial segregation was institutionalized in a system known as apartheid – a system of institutionalised racial segregation in South (West) Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. This loan was a success for Mcalla and was paid off within 5 years.

The circulation of The Voice peaked in the early 1990s at 55,000 with young women being a substantial majority of its weekly buyers.

In 2004, The Gleaner Company (a Jamaican newspaper and media enterprise), took ownership of The Voice – paying over £3m. GV Media Group, a subsidiary of The Gleaner Company, still publishes the paper today.

The Sims Freeplay is a freemium (Free to play but can purchase in game items, this is how the developers make money from the game) mobile game that released for IOS on Dec 15 2011, and later released for android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10. The game is a mobile spinoff of The Sims series which first released in 2000 and was published by Electronic Arts. The Sims Freeplay was recieved generally well, scoring an 80/100 on Metacritic.

The global mobile games market size is expected to reach $172.10 Billion in 2023. The year after Sims Freeplay was released, 2012, Angry Birds made developer Rovio $200 Million.

Suggested Essay Structure

Remember to focus on key issues around new media – privacy, knowledge, understanding, education, friendship, behaviour, thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, politics, economics, employment, war, conflict, food, the environment, space, science (essentially social change)

1. Overview: New media always creates change (printing press, telegram 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
• Behaviour Management
• Propaganda / Persuasion
• Regulation

74,814 mins ( just under 1250 hours) listened to spotify in 2022 – Me

recommend only 2 hours of recreational screen time per day – 24 hour movement guidelines 2018
Largest social media demographic = ages 20 – 29 – data reportal

Jersey #1 out of 224 countries in internet speeds at 229MB/s on average – 2021

CSPS

The Close Study Products (CSPs) will address the requirement that students engage with products
which:
• possess cultural, social and historical significance
• reflect and illuminate the theoretical framework underlying the study of media together with
the theoretical perspectives associated with them
• illustrate a full range of media products in terms of perceived quality, form and structure
• provide rich and challenging opportunities for interpretation and in-depth critical analysis,
enabling students to develop a detailed understanding of how the media communicate
meanings and how audiences respond
• cover different historical periods and different global settings
• be intended for different audiences
• demonstrate emerging, future developments of the media
• cover examples of media students would not normally engage with
• at least one media product produced before 1970
• at least one media product produced for a non-English speaking audience
• at least one media product produced outside the commercial mainstream
• at least one media product targeting, or produced by, a minority group.

Structure – Define Postmodernism -> Define key concepts & theorists -> Link the CSP to postmodernism and it’s concepts

Simulacrum & Hyperreality – Baudrillard

POSTMODERNISM
There is no “whole” “real” “you”, just collections of fragments. “You” as a concept is unstable and “schizophrenic” (disrupted). This is a source of exhilaration as it allows you to be free to construct yourself, however it can be a source of anxiety as well as you do not know who you are on a fundamental level.

NARRATIVE THEORY
Peripeteia – an unexpected reversal of circumstances (the tables have turned)
Anagnorisis – a revelation of the protagonists identity or actions
Catharsis

1. Linear – Happens in a set order
2. Chronological – The story happens in the order that it occurs
3. Sequential
4. Circular structure – The story ends where it begins, a loop where the characters have transformed somehow.
5. Time based
6. Narrative arc
7. Freytag’s Pyramid – The stages of a story, shaped like a pyramid (hence the name). Exposition -> inciting incident -> rising action -> climax – > falling action/denouement -> resolution
8. exposition – telling the story
9. inciting incident – The incident that begins the story
10. rising action – The slow rise of action towards the climax
11. climax – The emotional/action high point of the film
12. falling action – The slow fall of action towards the resolution
13. resolution – The problem is solved and the end of the story
14. denouement – same as falling action & resolution
15. Beginning / middle / end –
16. Equilibrium – Everything is balanced
17. Disruption – An event that disrupts the balance of the equilibrium
18. Transgression – often disequilibrium is caused by societal / moral / ethical transgression (ie challenging Aristotelian virtues)
19. New equilibrium – The return of the equilibrium after the resolution of the story
20. The 3 Unities: Action, Time, Place
21. flashback / flash forward – A time skip that shows the audience information
22. Foreshadowing – Hinting at an event that is going to happen
23. Ellipsis
24. Pathos
25. Empathy
26. diegetic / non-diegetic
27. slow motion
28. In Media Res – starting in mid-action
29. Metanarratives – drawing attention to the process of storytelling – A narrative that references it’s creator/that it is just a narrative.
30. Quest narratives

1. Pastiche – Imitating a previous work
2. Parody – Imitating a previous work with irony and/or ridicule
3. Bricolage  
4. Intertextuality
5. Referential – Containing references to something or (self-referential) to itself
6. Surface and style over substance and content
7. Metanarrative
8. Hyperreality – The inability to distinguish reality from it’s signifiers. Not knowing if something is real.
9. Simulation (sometimes termed by Baudrillard as ‘Simulacrum’) – Simulacra are copies that depict things that either have never had an original or no longer have an original.
10. Consumerist Society
11. Fragmentary Identities
12. Alienation
13. Implosion
14. cultural appropriation
15. Reflexivity

Postmodernism is the idea that we all copy previous work to express ourselves, and that new ideas are just a new iteration of previous works.

Parody – “Every woman in this era was called Vera, or Lynn”
Parody – “By calling them on the telephone after breakfast”
Parody – “Despite being Scottish, had an optimistic view of life”

Postmodernism can be understood as deliberate and self-conscious. It works in terms of reiteration, so in the example of The Love Box in your Living Room – it can be seen as a reiteration of the documentary work of Adam Curtis.

For our radio production, we will be going through the BBC’s history and identifying how it has both positively and negatively affected people in Britain. We will also be discussing some of the key broadcasts the BBC makes, such as Doctor Who and the World Cup in Qatar. We will be referring to Todorov’s theory of a beginning middle and end with the systematic structure of our program. We will do this by separating our key topics with music closely intertwined with the BBC e.g Gorillaz, Dizzie Rascal and Arctic Monkeys (British bands) to ensure we have breaks to figure out how to talk next. There will also be references to Levi-Strauss’ theory of binary oppositions, with Jayden often being the voice of reason and attempting to gather balanced opinions from the rest of our group, and Rohan and Ben often giving strong informed responses

In evaluation, our program was not as focused on the BBC as we would have liked. Overall, this simply came down to not enough preparation being made for the show and running out of ideas to talk about. In addition, Kai and Xavier did not talk as much as the others, and if I were to do this again I would ensure we had a full plan ready and make sure everyone was involved as much as possible.