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Oh Comely

October 14, 2022 Xavier Potter Leave a comment

‘Oh is a reimagination of Oh Comely magazine and is still a place to meet new people, hear their stories and hopefully leave you looking at life a little differently. And every issue will still have beautiful photography and illustration at its heart’, from the magazine’s website.

An alternative magazine, niche target audience
A part of a development in lifestyle and environmental movements

The editor is Lisa Sykes, who used to work at Hearst UK.

She says “We didn’t like the fact that print dying was becoming a self fulfilling prophecy”.

It is a feminist magazine with a niche audience. The women who feature in it are not sexualised, and so it is an unconventional print product.

The first issue was created in 2010, with the final one published in September 2021. The company (Iceberg Press) went bankrupt due to COVID-19.

Makes 6 copies a year – every 2 months

The average age of its audience is 27, and 98% of its readers are female.

Exam Prep, Mens Health, Uncategorized

Men’s Health Essay Prep 2

October 12, 2022 Xavier Potter Leave a comment

Institution

Owner – Hearst UK – 74% of the years circulation is physical print copies, whereas 26% is digital copies. A study showed that a lot of the people who buy the magazine are women – I think that this would be bought for men who would only read it if it was delivered, which shows the target audience of the product.

Alongside print copies of the magazine, Hearst have incorporated digital copies into their sales. This links to David Hesmondhalgh’s idea of the media industries as a “risky business” and this helps to mitigate that risk by appealing to a wider digital audience.

Language

Levi Strauss – Binary Oppositions – Link’s to Men’s health in that there is a clear disparity set in place between the Healthy/Unhealthy men (those who follow the guidance of the magazine and those who don’t).

Barthes – Stereotypical male representations in the magazine – men working out shows use of proairetic code to do with motion and movement. This serves to get the reader motivated for improving their own lifestyle.

Representation

Laura Mulvey talked about “The Male Gaze” which is a theory which relates to media products being produced to appeal to a heterosexual straight male’s viewpoint – PAGE 148 is an example of the male gaze as a strategy to appeal to the male audience. Shows women in the background, posed in a suggestive manner, of the dominant signifier – the man who’s wearing the Givenchy aftershave. This creates an unrealistic representation of reality for impressionable men reading the magazine.

Audience

Stuart Hall – Theory of preferred reading – accepting or rejecting the dominant reading – powerful media producers can enforce their opinions towards cultural minorities to spread their agenda. Men’s health – Some may accept the dominant reading of exaggerated physical features (as shown with the dominant signifier on page 18) and use it as motivation. However, some may reject this and see it as unrealistic expectations to compare themselves to and feel bad about. This also relates to Lazarfelt’s Two Step Flow model in that the message conveyed by Hearst through Men’s Health is subject to error or misinterpretation.

James Gerbner – Cultivation theory – the more we as an audience are shown a representation the more we associate it with reality and accept it. This suggests that the audience is passive and it will become mainstream in the media and among an audience. This links to Men’s Health in that, for example the front cover states tat men should “#Slay Winter Blues”. The use of a hashtag means that Hearst is trying to promote the spread of information around the product via social media. This viewpoint, combined with all the other comments on the front cover and inside the magazine with exaggerated physical features, has become a staple of the product and men working out to make them more confident and happy has become mainstream.

Exam Prep, Mens Health

Men’s Health Essay Prep

October 12, 2022 Xavier Potter Leave a comment

Institution

Language

Representation

Audience

Mens Health

CSP – Men’s Health

October 3, 2022 Xavier Potter Leave a comment

Dominant signifier of Vin Diesel, a well-known actor attracts a larger audience and provides impressionable men with a role model to aspire to.

The blue and black colours connote stereotypical values of patriarchy and masculinity.

Reactionary product – more fit bodies are more popular and the dominant signifier is posed in a way which shows his body off.

Vin Diesel seems to be looking down at the reader which gives impressions of superiority and power.

Language contains a lot of vocabulary related to fitness and literally says that the product is “for men”.

Hashtags are used to encourage the spread of the product through social media.

Representation

The school of life present a video detailing the cool man and the warm man. While not an academic theory, it is possible to identify these two representations in Men’s Health.

Vin Diesel on the front cover is a “cool man” based on his “sexy” physical features and stoick expression. He seems as if he will do anything for what he thinks is the right thing to do and not much will faze him when doing so. The warm man can be seen on the last page of the CSP. I think this because he seems like he is giving his all at running the marathon, and will happily admit where he could have done better and will inspire others to do similar good acts.

Facts about Men’s Health

Published by Hearst, founded in 1986 and it is produced monthly

Best selling men’s magazine on U.S newsstands.

Has 35 editions in 59 different countries.

In 2008, the magazine partnered with Google to make back issues available.

For its 20th anniversary issue in November 2008, Men’s Health included an interview and photo shoot with Barack Obama.

Between April 2019 and March 2020, Men’s Health had an average monthly outreach of 1.8 million adults aged 15+ in the UK.

Men’s Health was started as a quarterly magazine by Rodale in 1988 and subscriptions began to be sold.

In 2001 the title was consistently selling 400,000 copies at newsstands and circulation was 1.6 million.

Exam Prep

Revision

September 28, 2022 Xavier Potter Leave a comment

2023-A-level-Media-Studies-Close-Study-Products-v1.5-1-5 Download

Command Words

Describe – Give a definition of an idea but not explaining why it is so

Compare – Describe two different ideas and give similarities and differences

Evaluate – Describe the benefits and drawbacks of ideas and give an opinion on which is better and why, with evidence to support it.

Analyse – Examine an idea closely in order to get an accurate explanation or interpretation about it

Knowledge – The ability to recall something and the obtaining of information.

Understanding – Achieving a deeper way of thinking about knowledge and being able to apply and form opinions about it.

	What do I know	So what?
Noam Chomsky	5 Filters – 1. media ownership, 2. role of advertising, 3. official sources, 4. flak, 5. common enemy	CSP Daily Mail – Has a kind of pre established viewpoint towards royalty and money. Lara Croft also has this in that patriarchy is prioritised.
Curran and Seaton	Described how regulations can be weaved by big companies, and how media is only produced by a small number of powerful conglomerates who control it. Talks about how big companies are all about profit and power and will create repetitive products to ensure this.	Blinded by the light – wasn’t part of this. Daily mail contains lots of similar stories each day, often focused around celebrity news, death and sadness, and crime.
Jurgen Habermas	Came up with the transformation of the public sphere. He argued that as newspapers grew and other media forms came to fruition society moved away from a representational culture, where the audience is passive and just consumes ideas. This transitioned to a society where ideas are exchanged and shared with both parties being able to form their own thoughts and opinions.	Newspapers – They help to bridge the gap between the public and private spheres and so hold people to account.
Semiotics
Lasswell	Hypodermic Needle model – audience are passive, not active and are taking messages in without hinking about them themselves. Wrote a book about communication during World War One called ‘Propaganda Technique in The World War’.	World War One book was around all the propaganda present in the war in order to get people to enlist in the war.
Stuart Hall	Suggests that messages are encoded and decoded. He calls this the THEORY OF PREFERRED READING and puts forward the argument that audiences accept, reject or are in between when looking at the dominant reading of a text. Powerful media producers are capable and do enforce their opinions towards cultural minorities, and represent them in demeaning ways to spread their agenda through the media. This can create flawed and untrue understanding towards these groups.	When applied to Men’s Health, many readers could accept the idea the producers were going for, and embrace the dominant reading of exaggerated physical features of the models and athletes, presented as motivation to improve themselves. On the other hand, the audience could take this the wrong way (an oppositional reading) and feel bad about themselves as they are forced to compare to unrealistic expectations.
George Gerbner	Came up with cultivation theory – television shapes the way individuals within society think and relate to each other. Mainstreaming – audience is passive so they will eventually come to accept misinterpretations as reality.	Men’s Health – The reality proposed is that all men should look like they do in the magazine.
Postcolonialism
Narrative Theories	Todorov (Beginning Middle and End) Levi-Strauss (Binary Oppositions) Propp (Stock characters) Freytag’s Pyramid Chatman (Kernels, satellites, non-sequitars) Barthes (Proairetic, hermenuetic, enigma code)	Todorov – Ghost Town – Through the tunnel in chronological order Levi – Strauss – Letter to the Free – Black/White
Genre	Steve Neale – Corpus/repertoire of elements. Reactionary or innovative ideas for each genre. Sub genres.	Innovative ideas – Maybelline – Male models
Industry/Institutional Vocabulary	Mergers Conglomerate Horizontal Integration Vertical Integration Free Market Gatekeeping Commodification Regulation Production Distribution Exhibition Globalisation Hesmondhalgh – “Risky Business”	Blinded by the Light: Globalisation – US/UK Co-Production Production – Uses Bruce Springsteen music
PSB (Public Service Broadcasting)	Public Service Broadcasting refers to broadcasting given to the public for entertainment or information free of charge, and is not created to make profits. Curran and Seaton – “the media is controlled by a small number of companies that make products to create profit”.	Capital is a public service broadcasting program from the BBC that satisfies the ethos being to inform, educate and entertain.
David Gauntlett	Fluidity of Identity Negotiated Identity Constructive Identity Collective Identity	Fluidity of Identity – The idea that identity can change over time due to changes in circumstances. Constructed Identity – The process of people developing certain ideas about themselves and their identity based on their experiences. Negotiated Identity – The idea that many people can discuss and have different views about someone’s identity, and communicate this to change views. Collective Identity – The idea that people are grouped into certain stereotypes. In relation to Men’s Health we can see that there is a collective identity of men being powerful and muscular.
Paul Lazarfelt	Paul Lazarfelt developed the Two Step Flow model of communication in 1948. This suggested that messages are subject to noise, error, and feedback when being sent to others, unlike the Hypodermic needle model.	This theory suggests that the audience are ACTIVE NOT PASSIVE, in that audience consumption is based on consideration of what others think not a PASSIVE process of unthinking.
Uses and Gratifications	This theory recognises the decision making processes of the audience themselves. Individuals sought out particular pleasures from media texts, which can be categorised as: information / education empathy and identity social interaction entertainment escapism Made by Haas, Mcquail.	Men’s Health – Understanding self – By reading the magazine you might discover that you really like getting fit. Also, you could gain confidence and self esteem through getting fit and doing the things the magazines recommend, or by looking at the opinion leaders as role models.

NEA

Coursework – Double Page Body Text + Notes

July 1, 2022 Xavier Potter Leave a comment

The recent rapid increase in value of diesel and petrol has caused chaos across the world – in more ways than you’d think.

Riots escalating across many districts in St. Helier on Saturday led to half a dozen people suffering from severe injuries, with one offender, John Smith, being identified and arrested by police. Two additional offenders have been identified, and anyone with information is urged to contact the States of Jersey Police on 123456.

Many members of the public have become exponentially frustrated and are accusing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as the main culprit behind the inflation. The invasion dates back over a number of years, however it became a true crisis around February 2022, with the invasion causing Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II, resulting in more than eight million Ukrainians fleeing the country and a third of the population displaced. This has led to many economic sanctions, affecting distribution of many goods with fuel taking the spotlight. This has affected various aspects of life for not only Jersey citizens, but the globalisation of fuel as a whole. The troubles of this have caused far more strict regulation on the commodification of oil and gas, and so this has naturally mitigated supply.

We spoke to a number of Jersey citizens, including Mark Jones (16) who said the price of fuel is making it “very hard for me to get around the island on my moped”. We also spoke to Lucy Parker who touched on how her family have been forced to walk exceptionally long distances to work & school, “it’s just unsustainable. The already extremely high cost of living here in Jersey is only increasing further due to petrol, and wages aren’t increasing nearly enough for us and many others to stay afloat”. This comment refers to the massive cost of living crisis surrounding masses of islanders, with the price of basic needs like food, shelter and clothing skyrocketing in the past few years. This has resulted in massive public backlash, particularly with the election of new States of Jersey members imminent.

ROAD RAGE AT LE ROCQUIER

A serious car accident between two teenagers took place at crossroads near Le Rocquier school at around 7pm last night, with one witness describing the incident as “the result of simply foolish acts”. One of the teenagers is believed to have suffered a cracked vertebrae, however there has been no formal confirmation of his injuries. A statement from the headteacher of Le Rocquier school read “We are deeply saddened by the news of this incident and we hope the people effected make a full recovery”.

Photos:

Front page – Big fuel meter

Fuel Price Graph

Royal Square Picture

Picture of empty motorbike fuel guage

News & Media – Home Improvements Guarantee

NEA

A Level Coursework NEA – Statement of Intent

June 29, 2022 Xavier Potter Leave a comment

For my A level coursework I will be choosing brief 2, which contains a newspaper front cover and double page spread along with three flyers promoting said newspaper. I will base my newspaper on riots occurring in the Royal Square in Jersey due to the recent surge in price of fuel, as a result of the recent war in Ukraine. The broad nature of this real world issue will make it easier for a larger audience who will be affected to relate to the newspaper, and in turn this will link to the idea that the audience are actively consuming the product, as Paul Lazarfelt depicted.

My NEA will have additional theoretical underpinning, relating to the theories of semiotics. The dominant signifier in my paper (main image) will be a fuel meter which will be itself very reactionary, as it shows the recently increasing price which many of the audience will relate to. In addition, the anchorage will be written and described from a customer viewpoint with negative vocabulary towards the recent price increase, in order to try and intertwine with the dominant ideology of the target audience that the prices of fuel should not be this high. Furthermore, on the double page spread I will elaborate on the timeline of fuel prices and why they have increased as of late, which will allow me to use Todorov’s theory of a beginning, middle and end. I will also be able to use business/institutional vocabulary here.

I will be following a style model of one of our main CSPs, the Daily Mail. In this CSP the page has a main image taking up around half of the page. It will all be underneath a masthead for the paper, and it will also include other standard institutional features such as a price, barcode, and date/time. I will design my key elements in Photoshop. I will write my body copy on the blog and use InDesign to create the other elements and to put it all together.

As well as my front cover/double page spread of my newspaper, I will also be creating three promotional flyers around the issue with fuel prices. My three flyers will be around different aspects of the campaign, with one being about how people should switch to electric cars to help the environment, urging impressionable people such as teenagers to try and reduce emissions this flyer will have two original images, being an electric car charging station and a petrol pump. In addition, my second flyer will be around the idea of students at 6th forms giving lifts to others, to save petrol with the massively increasing prices at the moment. This flyer will have original images, such as stick men asking for lifts with language similar to that of an average sixth from student in order to help my target audience resonate with the product, and a picture of current fuel prices in Jersey at St. Ouen’s Motor Works which my audience will be familiar with and relate to. My final flyer will be about how you can save money by not even buying pricey petrol, and using other forms of transport instead to not only protect the environment, but also undertake physical exercise. The original images used here will be cartoon versions of a car and bike, which I will put together in illustrator and a cross and tick mark overlaid on them, made in photoshop. My flyers will have a coordinated hashtag at the bottom – #GoGreen to try and encourage interactivity and the sharing of information via social media, and I will use similar fonts, colours and layout/spacing to keep my unique flyers recognisable as a unified campaign.

NEA, Newspapers

Newspaper NEA

June 20, 2022 Xavier Potter Leave a comment

For my newspaper NEA, I am going to produce a front cover of a regional newspaper relating to Jersey, with the main front article being focused around the dramatically increased fuel prices as of late. It will be aimed at a very broad audience, as a lot of the people who will be reading the newspaper in Jersey will drive or be affected in some way by the fuel prices, taking a very big hit on their disposable income.

I will be following a style model of one of our main CSPs, the Daily Mail. In this CSP the page has a main image taking up around half of the page, with two “plugs”. It will all be underneath a strapline for the paper, and it will also include other standard institutional features such as a masthead, price, barcode, and date/time.

My main article will be around riots occurring in the royal square as a result of the dramatically increased fuel prices, partly due to the influence of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The aforementioned riots will result in a few injuries which will feature in the title of the article. We have looked at the theory of authoritarian/libertarian in class, and my article links to this in that the people partaking in the riots are more libertarian because they think they are able to injure others and not abide by Jersey Laws.

Underneath my main photograph which will be a picture of fuel prices on a meter (this makes it easy for me to personally produce an original photograph) I will have my main body article, containing around 200-250 words, set out in columns. I will have a drop cap in this article at the first word to match to my CSP.

I will design my key elements in Photoshop. I will write my body copy on the blog and use InDesign to create the other elements and to put it all together.

STYLE MODEL

Rising Fuel Prices Trigger Violent Riots, The Royal Square played host to two large scale riots involving the rise in fuel prices on Saturday.

Standard Fuel Prices in Jersey, taken at St. Ouen’s Motor Works. The price increase has recently been linked to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, cutting off suppliers and making travel costs skyrocket.

PRICES AREN’T OKAY!

John Smith (25) has been charged with 100 hours of community service and a £1000 fine for physically assaulting many members of the public in the Royal Square. The incident was described as “outlandishly cruel” by a witness and Jack Hall, a leading police officer who assisted in defusing the situation, said that the violence was “completely unprovoked” and that the entire situation, including the riots, were completely out of line and were a result of the libertarian lifestyle the Jersey public are used to.

The riots, occurring at 2pm and 6pm on Saturday night, had hundreds of people attend and were linked to the skyrocketing prices of petrol & diesel not only across the island, but on a global scale. This is as a result of not only the War in Ukraine, but the industrial consequences endured in the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Essays, Newspapers

Newspaper Essay

June 17, 2022 Xavier Potter Leave a comment

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.

In this essay I will be comparing the Daily Mail and The i to the theories depicted by James Curran and Jean Seaton, and Livingstone and Lunt. In addition, the target audiences are naturally going to construct different ideological views of the world after consuming these newspaper products, and I will explain why this is the case.

Firstly, the Daily Mail is a conservative, right-wing newspaper and has been for many many years. I know this because in the editions from Monday 6th June, there were repeated articles with patriarchal quotes such as “Joyous Jubilee” praising the royal family, suggesting that the Daily Mail frequently targets audiences by constructing an ideological view of the world. However, these articles may be biased in that the paper is owned by Viscount Lord Rothermere, and he is likely to be in strong and healthy relations with the royal family because of his position. In addition, these kinds of relations have been known to cause potential propaganda in the Daily Mail, as during the time of the Second World War the paper supported Hitler and Mussolini, likely because of the owner’s good relations with them. According to a 2021 report by the Media Reform Coalition, 90% of the UK-wide print media is owned and controlled by just three companies, Reach PLC (formerly Trinity Mirror), News UK and DMG Media. This links to Chomsky’s theory of Ownership and Curran/Seaton’s idea that the media is heavily controlled by a few powerful media corporations. It also goes against Habermas’ concept of the “Public Sphere”. They are constructed through horizontal and vertical integration and mergers – their main goal is to make money, as Hesmondhalgh describes the media industry as a “risky business”. As such, a lot of the newspaper’s articles will be geared towards it’s audiences point of view and will be reactionary to them, which suggests that “Critical journalism takes second place to the needs and interests of the corporation” as described by the 5 filters of the mass media machine a depicted by Noam Chomsky. This also relates to the ideas of Livingstone and Lunt, who say that the interests of citizens and those of consumers cannot be easily merged. However, the idea from Shannon and Weaver that messages (the hypodermic needle theory by Lasswell) can be interrupted or modified by noise or error, and as such lose clarity and consistency indicates that the potentially biased arguments constructed as a result of the Daily Mail’s political compass may not be received as they were intended. This links to libertarianism as we are allowed to think freely, and take into account the purpose behind the stories from the Daily Mail, and by doing so we go from passive consumers to active consumers and become more accustomed to not blindly following what the newspaper tells us in an Authoritarian fashion.

In addition, the Daily Mail has an online edition which is updated each day. In this, I saw an banner advert for mortgages, and these link to the idea that the paper is selling “us” as an audience to the advertisers. This takes away from the idea that we are a libertarian country in the UK, because we are being forced to consume advertisements which we may not want to, as this particular ad was on the front page and very hard to ignore. This also fits into one of Chomsky’s 5 pillars theory, being the role of advertising.

On the other hand, the I presents a much more varied viewpoint, being particularly left wing. This is important because it is still owned by the Daily Mail General Trust (DMGT) and so from this we can see that the DMGT are attempting to horizontally integrate, and cover all political bases and audiences in order to make the most money – particularly as the media industry is a “risky business”. The front cover of the I from Monday 6th June 2022 shows a viewpoint which seems to be against the conservatives, with the quote “Johnson’s future turning toxic for Tories” being made very apparent. The I could be said to be showing a much more realistic, harsh depiction of what is going on in the world, which shows that the paper’s true concerns are to highlight important issues and try to figure out how they can be solved. One example of this is ““Proof that the poorest people get hit worse by soaring inflation” which was a key subheading from the 6th of June 2022. This goes against the ideas of the Frankfurt School, who studied the manufacture (commodification) of pleasure and good experiences, as they knew that society and human beings were starting to crave these things.

The idea that the I presents a more radical outtake on the world around us may mean that there are less opportunities for money to be made. This is suggested by the fact that the weekend price of the I increased from £1 to £1.20 in September 2019. This was likely a measure with the intent of mitigating the risks involved with the media industry, as the average daily circulation (302,757 in March 2013) has been rapidly decreasing with the rise of technology (233,869 by February 2019). All of this shows that the extend to which the I targets audiences by constructing an ideological view of the world isn’t very large.

To conclude, the Daily Mail and The I present differing values and beliefs in their newspapers. These come from various different editors and journalists, and so are to be taken with a “grain of salt” due to the fact that the political compasses of these people are likely to play a heavy part in how the articles and papers are portrayed, linking with Chomsky’s idea of Flack. The Daily Mail could be said to construct an ideological view of the world in that it presents articles with the aim of satisfying it’s right-wing audience with patriarchal quotes such as “Joyous Jubilee” and indexical symbols, for example images of the royal family, painting them in a godly manner. This is all done to mitigate the risks laid out from the media industry as depicted by Hesmondhalgh. However, the I could be said to be more left-wing as it satisfies a very different audience, being more libertarian and focusing on the importance of freedom. The fact that the I is owned by the same company as the Daily Mail (DMGT) supports Curran and Seaton’s theory that big companies are able to waive regulations, and therefore retain power and dispose of companies creating newspapers not being beneficial to them. This suggests that the I does not construct a very ideological view of the world.

Exam Prep, Newspapers, Notes

Noam Chomsky

June 15, 2022 Xavier Potter Leave a comment

Chomsky and his theory of The Five Filters –

(1) Ownership; Big corporations constructed through horizontal and vertical integration and mergers control and own a lot of the media – their main goal is to make money as Hesmondhalgh describes it as a “risky business”. “Critical journalism takes second place to the needs and interests of the corporation.” – 5 filters of the mass media machine.

(2) Advertising; Financial disparity is made up by income from advertisers. The real product sold by the newspaper companies are the audience.

(3) Links with ‘The Establishment’: People in power can control who writes stories about things, and this often leads to fake recounts or propaganda, as reporters can be influenced heavily.

(4) Flack: Hard to get the full, true picture with all the opinions around nowadays.

(5) Uniting against a “common enemy”: Unified enemies are created to rally public opinion against – this helps the media to control people.

The author discusses the applicability of Herman’s and Chomsky’s propaganda model today. He demonstrates the validity of the propaganda model by concentrating on the bombing of Serbia in 1999.

AGENDA SETTING

FRAMING

MYTH MAKING

CONDITIONS OF CONSUMPTION

2023 Media Blog