Simulacra determine reality

Baudrillard: The theory of postmodernism can be referred to the concept of new production and an approach to understanding life is built from an addition of repetition of elements from past aspects and/or media formats and therefore is referential to existing concepts.

This is predominantly associated with the re-imagination of life/culture through pastiche and parody’s. Pastiches imitate past of the previous artist and parody does this with the use of irony and humour- arguably to create a more entertaining product to consume to promote specific concepts.

A more specific example is a bricolage, which is described by barker and jane as a montage of available information of previously unconnected signs and conventions to convey a newer meaning.

Hyperreality is described by Baudrillard as the inability to distinguish reality from the simulation that media has produced, the idea that reality is represented as an exaggerated version that is unrealistic and thus creating a simulation, the simulation or simulacram is distributed among media products and for the most part widely creates an unrealistic stereotype and conveys a false narrative, and then hyperreality is created from the exaggerated simulation, and therefore can have negative impacts on media and false advertisation.

Media can take advantage of hyperreality as Jameson explains in his book “postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism” that hyperreality is often created to provide entertainment or desire of the product and therefore combining Katz theory of Uses and Gratification to increase consumerism for the postmodernistic outlook being provided to the audience.

Through analysis of the hyperreality of Specific SCP’s we can observe the effects of Postmodernism among media products and how hyperreality and simulation create a false narrative and how this can link into capitalistic ideaologies.

Postmodernism:

• It’s an approach towards understanding, knowledge, life, being, art, technology, culture, sociology, philosophy, politics and history that is REFERENTIAL  (in that it often refers to / copies other things)
• RE-IMAGINING= To recreate or form a new conception of by recreation
• PASTICHE= A work of art, drama, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist.
• PARODY= A work or performance that imitates another work or performance with the use of irony and humour.
• COPY
• BRICOLAGE= construction of media with a diverse range of available things ‘involves the rearrangment and juxtaposition of previously unconnected signs to produce new codes of meaning’(Barker & Jane, 2016:237)

Narrative theory:

• Structure: beginning, middle, end- equillibrium -> disruption of equillibrium -> equilibrium restored. (freytags pyramid)
• Propp; characters and their roles, the theory that all characters are reimagined from a set of character templates ~(hero, villian, helper, princess, false hero, father)
• Turner makes clear that the roles aren’t specific to a singular character as one character can fit into more than one of these templates; and it is determined by their functions and SPHERES OF ACTION
• Chatman splits narrative and plot into two main structures; satalights and kernels, kernals being something absoluetly essential to the plot to make sense or for the audience to know. Satalights being something not essential to the plot that can be taken out- yet are important for subtle progression such as character development/ non-essential background context
• Barthes talks about the different type of codes through the narrative. Proairetic code: action, movement, causation Hermenuetic code: reflection, dialogue, character or thematic development Enigma code: the way in which intrigue and ideas are raised – which encourage an audience to want more information. We can relate chatmans Satalight ideaology to hermenuetic code as development.

Linking narrative theory to the presentation of postmodernism

• You can see that the reiteration of historical events through modern media through concepts such as through parodys or pastiche have a strong link to techniques and ideas surrounding narrative structure and theory
• For example, the main goal for both these media forms would be to present a previous event and to educate the audience while keeping it less complicated and entertaining to provide a message that can be more widely taken on and accepted.
• Freytags pyramid- in reference of a historical event being presented via postmodernism, something catastrophically with many levels of details could be simplified to conform to the needs of a wider audience- a hisorical event such as World War One has many levels of depth and things that lead up to it, but a pastiche or

Narrative:

Key Words;

1. Pastiche- A work of art, drama, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist.
2. Parody- A work or performance that imitates another work or performance with the use of irony and humour.
3. Bricolage  
4. Intertextuality
5. Referential
6. Surface and style over substance and content
7. Metanarrative
8. Hyperreality- Living in a photoshopped reality blending the lines between reality and technologically altered reality.
9. Simulation (sometimes termed by Baudrillard as ‘Simulacrum’) 
10. Consumerist Society
11. Fragmentary Identities
12. Alienation
13. Implosion
14. cultural appropriation- The process of a person wearing/using cultural objects from a culture they are not apart of, and sexualising/getting attention from it without acknowledging the prejudice the culture gets.
15. Reflexivity

New expression of identity and being- especially those represented in popular cultures and media products through technology- are new iteration of previous things. Nothing is new but just different and similar to the thing it took inspiration off of.

Parody:

-Labour party leader is not called ronald mcdonald

-postmodernism works in terms REITERATION, so in the example of The Love Box in your Living Room it is a reiteration (pastiche) of the documentary work by Adam Curtis.

THEME	NEWSBEAT	WAR OF THE WORLDS
OWNERSHIP	BBC which is a public service broadcast owned by government and BBC board of trust feeds, DG (lord Reith) Transnational Not a monopoly Concentration of ownership ie small number of firms to own tv and radio Seems as if it is under a left wing authoritarian viewpoint	CBS which is private company conglomerate, multi or cross media conglomerate. Transnational/ Transglobal ?? It is an example of concentration of ownership, ie: just a few companies own everything Integration horizontal or vertical??
HABERMAS	Transformation of the public sphere- media is constantly changing, In bbc to fulfil its ethos.	The new technology of radio was in direct competition to newspapers and as radio discovered how influence its broadcasts can be over an audience- radio became more exciting and used and signifying the public sphere ending.
CHOMSKY	Jean seaton explains how through time public service broadcasts have learnt to hate the government for regulating their freedom of media production however must rely on them for legitimacy and to stay running; Chomsky’s 5 filters of mass media can explains the flack- therefore fear of the government flacking and labelling sources as unreliable if they don’t stick to the regulators political compass,
REGULATION	Ofcom, BBC charter governed by Parliament. License fee regulates BBC ethos- educate, entertain and inform (made by Reith) New technology faces complications as bbc faces higher amount of compition	Federal communication commissions FCC, regulates for private business ie not in the public interest
AUDIENCE (ACTIVE / PASSIVE)	Lasswell hyperdermic model, how messages are encoded. People getting increasingly passive and lack of reading amounts to newsbeat using specific methods to cater towards a younger audience/lesser intelligence; ie star guests and games- no complicated words	Newspaper and Radio in direct competition for the decade, panic is suggested to have been caused by the newspapers rather than the actual radio broadcast showing the passiveness on media consumption ie; 98% were on different station while other 2% knew it wasn’t real- source from RadioLab war of the world broadcast. No accurate answer to weather panic was caused or not- diminishment of habermasses public sphere.
AUDIENCE (LAZARSFELD)	Lazarsfeld two-step flow analysis builds on Lasswell passive consumption idea, he explains that through sending the message that is wanted to be encoded through an opinion leader like a celeb, the passive audience are more likely to agree to it. In terms of the Newsbeat, they want to show support when dealing with obstacles and mental health, and therefore had prince William and Kate send the message to the audience instead, as they’re influential and very well known.	When this theory comes to War of the World, Lazarsfeld and Cantril researches the PRP (Princeton radio research project) which explains how radio affects social opinions and how changes in content, patterns of reception will alter as well. This research links the reception of war of the worlds reaction presented by it and how propaganda and politics on radio can also be presented in an affective way via radio. Research such as “4 out of 30 listeners only understood the story line, the others thought maybe rabid animal attacks” and that panic was through different codes such as the abrupt start of the program interrupting a dance break and naming government officials.
Audience theory (hall)	Dominant reading negotiated reading Opposition reading
AUDIENCE (Gerbner)		Gerbners cultivation theory more specifically in the sub section called mean world index describes the more consumption of negative media we consume the more negative we see the world- therefore through cultural setting we can use this as an argument to suggest their was panic as the negative in the world such as war and discrimination could’ve manifested and reinforced their belief of something catastrophic actually occurring during the time.
NEW TECHNOLOGY	New technology poses a threat for the bbc as through time and newer technology us as a society is becoming increasingly passive, emergence of short videos have lowered our attention span and therefore the younger emerging audience is too uninterested to listen to a longer news production or story- therefore bbc newsbeat produces cross media available at any time catering towards a younger mind to draw in viewers at any time.	New technology at the tame was the emergence of radio, newspapers and radio were in direct competition for the decade during the gloden age of radio- therefore suggesting as to why newspaper could’ve created panic to almost try and sabotage radio by creating a negative reaction. Radio transformed space as provided news and live audios from all around the world, which also started diminishing habermases public sphere theory as people started writing less and having more trust in a broadcast service- overtrusting for reliability in media products could’ve lead to the increasingly passive audience we have become today, however during the time since it was so new we can associate with Lasswell and Shannon and weaver, how noise and disruption from still a relatively active audience can create a difference encoding from the desired one.
CROSS MEDIA CONVERGENCE	Multi-media/cross-media platform	During the time it was only available on a private radio and therefore was not able to hear for everyone
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-Poorer audio quality, longer more elaborate vocabulary to explain facts, maybe hinting towards the downfall of English language and understanding in correlation to the rise of technology.

-In relation to media industries, radio at this time was directly in competition to newspapers- therefore signifying the beginning of the public sphere diminishing throughout society (Habermas). This is due to major broadcasts being regulated to all over the worlds taking over the newspapers displaying everybody’s viewpoint,

-Power of media; if society turned there back to media broadcasts and products how much knowledge would we hold about modern day situations from around the world- ultimately holding media in a high power giving the question “can we trust it?”. We can correlate this to the fact that the media we consume can manipulate stories with their power and with the rise of fake news we have to consume it to have some understanding with the realisation it may not be trustworthy.

-Representation: through the use of codes and conventions and cross media techniques (conversations and music playing) they present this sci-fi broadcast as something that can seem real, steave neals theory of genre can be used to analyse how war of the news became so successful- with the new age of technology they provide entertainment with a repertoire of unique and different codes and conventions.

Specific signifiers of social class can be linked with Wyndhem-Goldies quote “transforming time and space”, suggesting radio opens a new world of knowledge to the public, such as agriculture and language- therefore maybe considering that radio was a help for the poorer uneducated people to gain knowledge about the world.

-In referral to audiences, you can argue that radio opened up a world of education to different genders, backgrounds and classes. For example the fight of feminism would still be apparent during this time, and via stereotypical/reactionary gender roles women would stay at home and be less educated by the men who were the workers. The women who stayed at home could listen in to the radio and gain more knowledge maybe creating fear over the patriarchal society as it was a gateway for change.

-Radio being a place for education as this was in the “golden age”, one could suggest that this broadcast was the earliest ideal of fake news as lesser educated people would listen in and maybe not understand the idea of satiricalism, or sci-fi fiction.

-With the cultivation theory via gerbner, specifically focussing on the mean world index, radio would be broadcasting about the hardships that the world was heavily going through during this time, audiences therefore perceiving the world as bad. In combination with the sci fi talking about fictional wars- the potential of misinformation drastically increases as it would be predictable for more bad things to manifest throughout society.

-Owned by columbia broadcatsing company that still exists to this day

– the broadcasts progressed through the story of an alien invasion on mars, and ends with “is anyone on air” continued with no response, this elaborate story telling in addition to cultivation theory can shock specific viewers as while radio opened a whole new world, some of the uneducated could be in belief of this sci fi, no one was harmed through this broadcasts, but it is one of the earlier manifestations of fake news.

-Halls reception theory can show the different ways the broadcast can be encoded, in combination with lasswells hyperdemic model that later was adapted by shannon and weaver, we can analyse the fact there were many different ways people could encode the message, or providing error and disruption.

-There’s a suggestion of many panic and pandemonium caused upon the public from the broadcast however can we really trust this? How do we know it wasn’t a production issue to entice more people to use radio? A publicity stunt? Link back to trust topic.

-Hall reception theory

-The main topic about this scp is the idea on what media is truthful and what is not, the emergence of the public fear from the broadcasts displayed on sights today such as Wikipedia suggest the public was heavily influenced and fearful, yet the documentary produced by radiolab about war of the worlds mention that 98% of surveyed audience weren’t listening to the broadcast and the 2% that did said they understood it wasn’t a news broadcast, the fear was mainly influenced via the newspaper suggesting mass pandemonium. through the decade newspaper and radio were in direct competition with each other and there was a fear of emerging technology- the newspaper producing this negative reaction yet not backed up with evidence could be newspaper trying to emerge above radio? Was this the early development of fake news? and if it is still used in sights today explaining the fear then are we active consumers at all? We have no 100% proof of either side being completely reliable or valid which also correlates with the amount of power media has and the trust that passive consumers would have in it, think Laswell’s hypodermic model of passive consumption.

Expanding on this produces two questions; was the development of new technology good or bad? Habermas talks about the public sphere which was clearly diminished throughout the development of new technology ultimately resulting in audiences becoming increasingly passive- which supports this being bad. Yet also it transformed the world and provided education into all backgrounds, leading to movements to achieve equality today- expanding our intelligence and viewpoint, our communication through everywhere in the world- Which would suggest it was a good thing.

George Welles the producer of the broadcast performed a public apology, there are claims say people were threatening to shoot him, and burning down news stations. He seemed threatened yet is this reliable.

INDUSTRIES:

At a local level, BBC local websites have all too often piggybacked on the work of independent news providers without properly attributing their source.

The NMA believes that news media publishers should be allowed to compete in a fair marketplace which does not include taxpayer-funded state competitors.  The industry successfully campaigned for new rules preventing local authorities from publishing council newspapers more often than quarterly

REGULATION:

• Radio broadcasting is regulated by Ofcom

The availability of non-regulated broadcasts via the internet poses a challenge both for the regulator and the regulated radio broadcasters.

AUDIENCES:

• The techniques the broadcast uses to target a youth audience and create audience appeal, eg
o Presentation style:

“Presenters and reporters on Newsbeat have been told to steer clear of polysyllabic words and address listeners as if they were talking to a friend, the programme’s editor has revealed.” – catering towards a younger audience and talking to a friend suggests they can like create a sense of reliability.

“We are looking at ideas for the general election that involve telling some of the stories through a series of games, that kind of thing,”
o News values
o Content selection

bbc charter

11. To provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them

2To support learning for people of all ages

3To show the most creative, highest quality and distinctive output and services

4To reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all of the United Kingdom’s nations and regions and, in doing so, support the creative economy across the United Kingdom

5To reflect the United Kingdom, its culture and values to the world

Katz theory of uses and gratification:

-escapism.

-education: about media production and real life industries.

-good acting.

-good script.

-good plot twists and narratives.

-Character development.

-explores content such as affairs/ real life issues.

-Good hybrid genre: social realism.

Broadcasting: Presenting something to a wider larger audience, common interest.

Narrowcasting: Presenting something to a lesser audience- specific interest.

Ethos of the bbc: to inform entertain and educate

Populism : What the audience want: good- freedom, bad- not all want the same, moral code and regulation

Paternalism: What the government want.

The main thing is to have a balance of the two ideologies , with having freedom to do what you want however with a few rules and regulations to help focus or protect younger or more venerable audiences that can come across something unregulated.

BBC ethos: to educate, inform and entertain. – lord Reith

bbc charter- signed each year

TV transformed time and space, Grace Windom Godley explained that she went into tv after her newspaper manager expressed not to as new technology was seen to the public as not to be useful in her or his lifetime. More so the fear of new technology risked the success of new technology.

Contact with anything outside of their villages would have been negligible, therefore tv transformed this and she expressed you can see things from a distance, transformation of the public sphere link (Habermas)

The BBC later on became so important it was considered social cement as it connected everyone together and spread things around the world.

JEAN SEATEN:

Full independence through broadcasting has never been reached as it is two powerful to display over broadcasting, they can negotiate a political discussion without having a bias to a side.

Broadcasters have come to see the state as their enemy yet depend on the state for legitimation. They are being kept running by the state yet can not express their independence via broadcasting as they will be flacked (Chomsky link) and need to keep a “foreground bias” which has ultimately been skewed.

Air waves were a scarce resource that didn’t obey national boundaries therefore the state had a right to have some power of what was presented through them and regulate to their political viewpoint.

Owned by Iceberg Press – an independent media organisation that just has a few members of staff.

Front cover- woman dressed more conserved with a mid shot angle and short her contrasting to the stereotypical voyeurism presented when representing females in the media countering the male gaze, Laura Mulvey.

A syntagm of indexical signs throughout the words in conjunction with the picture not conveying to stereotypical portrayal of women convey a semantic field of strength and power, for example the adjectives “strong” and “wise” create a counterstereotype to the weak and vulnerable traditional representation that has been exploited throughout media.

Oh, Comely is an independent media organisation that targets affluent young women who wanted a “stylishly presented” alternative to the cheap aesthetic of mainstream magazines, the magazine explores things that conglomerates usually divert attention from, such as Gauntlets idea of identity such as some androgynous style choices on the front cover model, such as the clothing that doesn’t exploit the models body for sales and profit attracted by the male gaze.

The magazine includes a diverse range of religion, race and age: Gerbners theory on mainstreaming suggests the excessive consumption of media products the more you will conform to the medias ideologies, therefore by promoting a range of diversity throughout Oh Comely’s magazine’s they’re recreating the dominant reading (via theory of preferred reading by Stewart hall) that has been mass presented throughout media as reactionary stereotypes to create a common enemy in the media (common enemy via Habermas’s five filters of mass media). Gerbners can also be used to show representation throughout the magazine, he argues that nothing has a representation until the media represents it to try and create a fixed meaning to which the audience can argue against; for example people being perceived as trouble makers from repeated stereotypes of them represented in the media- we can see how Oh Comely tries to oppose the reactionary representations that have been displayed in the media and recreate them as strong. An example is page 15 where someone from Somalia wearing a headscarf (which is represented in western media as “terrorists”) is surrounded by a syntagm of signs such as the iconic signs of colour that have high connotations to positivity and a semantic field of strength through words such as “unstoppable force” and personal pronouns to extenuate her achievements to redesign the stereotype into a counterstereotype- a person of power and positivity. The capitalised “Sister” creates a group identity towards the target audience, a group- a sisterhood where readers come together and create.

Hearst Communications, Inc., often referred to simply as Hearst, is an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate, It owns 50% of the A&E Networks cable network group. With a mass media conglomerate owning the production of men’s health