The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. A “Public” is “of or concerning the people as a whole.” Public Sphere is a place common to all, where ideas and information can be exchanged. Such a discussion is called public debate and is defined as the expression of views on matters that are of concern to the public—often, but not always, with opposing or diverging views being expressed by participants in the discussion.

The idea of mass media production such as newspapers shows the death and reduction of the public sphere as less and less opinions of the people are being shared and received less.

Q7 Media Paper 1: Ideology can be defined as a collection of values and beliefs. To what extent do media products target audiences by constructing an ideological view of the world?
You should refer to your newspaper Close Study Products, The i and The Daily Mail.

DAILY MAIL:

Format

-Views (Right or left//lib or authoritarian) through options on the table, backed by a quotation of the newspaper, furthermore backed by institutional evidence.

X5:

Examples:

-The daily mails political compass focusses on more a right wing conservative view point, we can enforce this idea through their attitudes towards views of a conservative party, p18 is the ‘Comment’ i.e. the editorial or voice of the paper ‘Only Stammer gains from this clueless plot’ – i.e. Labour will gain from Conservative divisions over Boris Johnson, and through analysis of the daily mail facts we can infer that The Daily Mail’s ownership supports the UK conservative  party, and the paper prominently supports Brexit. For example, according to a Reuters Article, the Daily Mail blatantly labelled judges ruling against the Brexit decision as “enemies of the people.”

THE I:

Format

-Views (Right or left//lib or authoritarian) through options on the table, backed by a quotation of the newspaper, furthermore backed by institutional evidence.

X5:

THE I:

Nick Clegg, former UK Deputy Prime Minister and former leader of the Liberal Democrats, a centrist party, is a fortnightly columnist for the i. His column usually features in the “My View” comment section of the paper.^[31]

During an interview for the i in December 2017, then Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn declared himself to be a dedicated reader of the i, saying that its compact size and concise articles suited his busy lifestyle as Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition.^[32]

A permissive society, also referred to as permissive culture, is a society in which some social norms become increasingly liberal

Banned! The Mary Whitehouse Story:

A British teacher and conservative activist.

She campaigned against social liberalism and the mainstream British media, both of which she accused of encouraging a more permissive society.

Show regulated and still on display on today by media watch UK

Audience:

Hypodermic model (passive consumption):  in which the SENDER is transferring a MESSAGE, through a MEDIUM (eg Print, radio, TV, etc) that has a direct effect on the RECEIVER. OR WHO, SAYS WHAT, THROUGH WHAT CHANNEL, TO WHOM, TO WHAT EFFECT.

Can be traced back to Harold Lasswell 1927 who wrote “propaganda technique in the world war.”  ‘subtle poison, which industrious men injected into the veins of a staggering people until the smashing powers . . . knocked them into submission’

This approach was later adapted by Shannon and Weaver in 1949, as the Transmission model of Communication, which included other elements, such as NOISE, ERROR, ENCODING and FEEDBACK.

Industries

David Hesmondhalgh describes the media industry as a risky business.

PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION, CONSUMPTION. – write about those.

Mergers, Globalisation, Regulation.

Language

Genre, semiotics, narrative, structure, codes and conventions,

Representation

Post colonialism

The difference between the culture industries and other industries is the fact they run off/ adapt towards the majority/dominant culture to appeal to them more. They also have a creative impact on the culture- organisations that are making cultural creativity. Cultural creative industries have a symbolic significance to which they can protest or carry meaning towards the audience while any other industry can’t.

capitalist media , public service media, civil society media.

Public service broadcast:

-the’re non profit.

-independent however they rely on the government for the money.

-organisation for everyone.

-inform, entertain, educate — the ethos of bbc

The missing:

-ETHOS:

Education

The series was co-produced by New Pictures, Company Pictures, Two Brothers Pictures and Playground Entertainment (Merging) (International)
Although the first story is set in France and the United Kingdom, most of the scenes were filmed in Huy, Halle, Charleroi and Brussels, Belgium,[9] taking advantage of the Belgian Tax Shelter for film funding.[7] Only a few scenes were shot in Paris and London.
(International)
By shooting in multiple different countries they’re able to make the show international
Production, exhibition and distribution, exhibition: 8.5/10 out of 28 ratings on rotten tomato

WITNESS

Marie Dompnier won a Golden FIPA award for the best actress in a television series at 2015’s Biarritz International Festival of Audiovisual Programming for her role as Sandra Winckler.^[3] In March 2016

Media Language
The series is visually interesting, constructing a stylised representation of ‘real’ places which
transmit meanings about characters, places and issues. A detailed analysis of different aspects of
mise-en-scene will provide students with a strong foundation to build on in terms of analysing
representations, ideological meanings and audience positioning.

Analysis should include:
• Mise-en-scene analysis
• Semiotics: how images signify cultural meanings
• Postmodernism: Use of pastiche and bricolage
Narrative
• How does the use of the narrative conventions of the crime drama – use of enigmas, binary
oppositions, restricted and omniscient narration etc -– position the audience?
• A narrative approach to crime drama could include analysing the appeals of the structure as
reassuring and predictable – even when dealing with difficult subject matter.
• The narrative of Witnesses can be defined as postmodern in its self-reflexive style –
particularly in its narrative about the family.
• Narratology including Todorov
Genre
• Conventions of the TV series and the way in which this form is used to appeal to audiences;
how it is distinct from, but related to series and serials.
• Definition of the series as belonging to the drama and crime genres
• Analysing the current popularity of the crime genre – how might it work as metaphor for society
• Genre theory including Neale
Media Representations
Witnesses provides a range of representational areas to explore from the national and regional to
family structures and gender roles. All of the areas tend to overlap with representations of nation
signified through aspects of ethnicity, religion and class, while the reinforcement and subversion of
gender stereotypes allow students to consider how representations reflect social, cultural and
historical circumstances:
• Representation of national and regional identity (Northern France)
• Representation of gender: The woman as detective, the male boss, gender stereotypes etc.
• Feminist debates – Violence and the representation of gender. This could include the
controversy around using violent crime against women as popular entertainment
• Analysis of how the representations convey values, attitudes and beliefs about the world

Ferdinand De Saussure promoted the idea of ‘semiology’ in Course in General Linguistics (1915): he saw language as a cultural creation, rather than something innate; a social system
governed by a set of identifiable rules/codes.

Saussure coined the term ‘semiology’: ‘a science which studies the life of signs at the heart of social life’.

Dr Sassuer would say this poster is a sign, as it made of the two layers/key components; the signifier (the printed poster itself/physical existence) and something signified (the idea that this is a scarier more thrilling film compared to others, elaborated on with the use of comparisons.)

Some arbitrary/symbolic signs used in this poster are the run down walls and chickened floor- to which we could associate to run down clown scenery, further amplified in the fact the clown would usually be a symbolic sound of happiness and children however looking deeper into it and analysing the poster we can infer that it is an indexical sign to death (blood on gloves) and horror. Lots of red/dark tones to represent blood and shadows- associated with darkness and fear.

Some symbolic signs are the rosary and the nun both representing the religion of Christianity, however indexical signs are more apparent in this poster; light at the end of the corridor has strong connotations to either freedom, or death (light at the end of the tunnel.) The rosary and nun can also be an indexical sign to combat or opposing forces as it seems like the rosary is being used as a protection against the nun/spirit. Once again the majority of this poster is deep and dark tones with some blue- connoting the sadness and darkness showing the audience how deep the story will dive.

This poster takes advantage of indexical signs quite a lot and thrives off of us trying to analyse it instead of it being given to us in the forms of symbolic signs, for example a beehive represents bees, worker bees, but looking deeper into it- beehives are all function around the leader- the queen bee, we can now make the observation that a beehive connotes to/is an indexical sign to a cult which works in a similar way (the title of series 7). The lady also could be seen as brainless- natural way of life replaced by a bee/cult like lifestyle. Her skin is washed down and pale and the only form of colour on her face is red, red is an indexical sign to danger, love, anger, or death (blood) we can suggests that a lot of these categories will be included in this season while the white skin also doubles as a way to show how brainwashed the character is. The syntagm of signs working together to produce a cult idea is finalised by the anchorage title “cult”

Another poster for the series above which cleverly acts in the same way that the season 7 poster did- relying on indexical symbols to incise viewers and make them engage the curiosity into watching the series. The indexical symbol or connotation of white shows purity which also links in with the symbolic sign of a nun which represents purity or religion, this is harshly juxtaposed against the leaking black ink coming from the eyes, eyes have a connotation or indexical sign as to being the windows of the soul, therefore this harsh dark liquid compared to the purity of the nun could represent the purity of the nun becoming corrupted from the soul, corruption of the soul could also infer to possession or demonic ideas- which also links in with the nun theme and the plot of the season which involves possession.