In the 1960’s, Bandura conducted a behaviour experiment to explore how when children witness a certain behaviour, they will replicate this.
In today’s society, this seems pretty obvious. So we can look at this idea in terms of how actions represented through the Media can have effect on their audiences.
Bandura called the behaviour we replicate from cinema or television; Symbolic Modelling. (PASSIVE AUDIENCES)
“Human behaviour is to a large extent, socially transmitted, either deliberately or inadvertently”
— Bandura (1973)
Video Violence
The media relies on violence to quickly engage audience attention
Attention factors
The video game player can control avatars to carry out violent acts. This causes a direct correlation between a certain action having violent effects. This translates into the real world and individual behaviour.
Players are rewarded for violent actions
Video game designers create a positive response to violent actions. For example, for so many kills in a game, the player would receive a certain score. This generates a negative action, positive response loop which feeds violent behaviour in the real world.
Violence is portrayed without moral justification or explanation
Violent acts featured in video games are often unprovoked or lack justification (they are casual/normalized). Perhaps this could desensitise players to violence or the effects of violent acts in their lives.
Video games are immersive
Video games are often played alone, without the input of others.
Video games are addictive
Playing video games for increased duration means that players are exposed to negative behaviours more often, this becomes addictive.
Realistic violence
Graphic designers have ways of making video games look even more realistic (or hyper-real). This means that the violent acts are similar to real life, meaning it is increasingly difficult to find the division between simulation and true being.
The simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems.
AI systems include search engines, recommendation systems and algorithms, automated decision making systems, machines that can understand human speech
Change and Transformation
The transformation of social interaction (audiences)
The transformation of individual identity (audiences and representation)
The transformation of institutional structures (industry)
The changes in textual content and structure (language)
The transformation of audience consumption
In summary, this could be described as the changing nature of symbolic interaction
Transformation of The Media
Traditionally, media was LINEAR and followed on from one element to the other in a logical sense. It was in a physical form meaning it was less instant. In this post-modern era, the media is NON-LINEAR, confusing, complex and random. Most previous media forms now have digital versions which are more improved and advanced. The need for less complex media has been removed from our daily life.
Key Ideas: The transformation of the media
Speed
Time
Share
Feedback
Space
Access
Storage
Connectivity
Participation
Discover
Retrieval
Adaptation
Knowledge
share
active
creative
host
example or comment
Expressing your own ideas, beliefs, knowledge on a platform for others to see/utilise
Eg. Sharing a post on social media is a way of inviting connectivity with others through comments etc.
story
re-connect
personalise
stream
example or comment
A linear or non-linear
experience
store
scale
immerse
example or comment
interface
live
adapt
binge
example or comment
The idea of something being viewed as it is happening in real time. Rather than a representation of something that has previously taken place
Changing yourself/attributes dependent on circumstances and environment
Netflix allows users to watch many episodes of shows whereas traditionally, television broadcast programmes periodically meaning viewers had to wait in-between
ROLAND BARTHES – Concept 1: Denotation and Connotation
Barthes’ tells us by using a ‘denotative reading’ is how viewers decode media products. This occurs when a reader recognises the literal and physical content, e.g. an older man with his fist in the air, the style and colour of clothing. After this, readers quickly move beyond the recognition of the product and engage with what he calls ‘cognitive decoding.’ This refers to the deeper understanding prompted by advertisers to the emotional, symbolic/ideological significances, e.g. the older man’s fist may suggest defiance or aggression, the clothes may suggest a class.
WHEN LOOKING AT A MEDIA TEXT:
Image Features:
Look out for:
POSE (Subject positioning, stance or body language)
Breaking the 4th wall creates: confrontational/aggressive or invitational feel. Off screen gaze: Right side – adventure/optimism. Left side – regret/nostalgia. Body language: strong/weak/passive/active/open/closed Subject Positioning: Where the person/people stand. Proxemics: Their distance from people/things.
MISE-EN-SCENE (Props, costume and setting)
Symbolic Props: rarely accidental Pathetic fallacy: weather connotations to add meaning – character’s thoughts/tone Costume Symbolism: Stereotypes help to decipher a character’s narrative function
LIGHTING CONNOTATIONS
High-Key lighting: no shadows – positive and upbeat with a lighter feel Low-Key lighting: Serious/ sad/moody connotations. Chiaroscuro lighting: contrast lighting (light sharply cuts through darkness) – hopelessness/mystery Ambient: infers realism
COMPOSITIONAL EFFECTS (Shot distance, positioning of subjects in the frame)
Long shots: dominated their environment Close-ups: intensifies emotions/impending drama Open/closed frames: open- freedom, closed – entrapment
POSTPRODUCTION EFFECTS
Colour control: Red- anger, white – innocence High saturation: Vibrant colours – cheerful Desaturation: Dull colours – serious/sombre
Barthes’ recognised that text also gave meaning. He says it helps to ‘anchor’ image meanings in advertisements. Without anchorage, media imagery is likely to produce polysemic connotations (multiple meanings).
“a vice which holds the connotated meanings from proliferating”
Concept 2: The media’s ideological effect
Barthes’ suggests media replaces/replicates functions of myth making. The press, television, advertising, radio – convey the same sort of authority as myths and induce similar ideological effects. Anonymisation of myths shows it’s a collective view rather than singular –> media replicates this.
Naturalisation: Media products present ideas as natural/fact/common sense. When a range of media texts repeat the same idea, audience believe it is a fact rather than perspective, social norm.
Media myths are reductive: Media simplifies and reduces/purifies ideas to make it more digestible. – message reduction discourages audiences to question and analyse thoroughly.
Media myths reinforce existing social power structures: “the oppressor has everything, his language is rich, multiform, supple.” Those who have power tend to control the myth making process through the privileged access – maintain illusion that the system that benefits the powerful is naturally ordered and unchangeable.
C.S PEIRCE:
Peirce did not believe that signification was a straightforward binary relationship between a sign and an object, he viewed this innovative part of his triad as how we perceive or understand a sign and its relationship to the object it is referring to. The representamen in Peirce’s theory is the form the sign takes, which is not necessarily a material or concrete object. Peirce theorised that we interpret symbols according to a rule, a habitual connection. ‘The symbol is connected with its object because the symbol-user and a sign exists mainly due to the fact that it is used and understood. Peirce’s triad of signs concludes of:
Icon – A sign that looks like an object/person, e.g picture of a lamp.
Index – A sign that has a link to its object, e.g smoke and fire.
Symbol – A sign that has a more random link to its object, e.g colour, shape
FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE:
According to Saussure theory of signs, signifier and signified make up of signs. A sign is composed of both a material form and a mental concept. The signifier is the material form, i.e., something that can be heard, seen, smelled, touched or tasted, whereas the signified is the mental concept associated with it. C.S Peirce based his research off of Saussure.
Characters and their roles (hero, villain, helper, princess, false hero, father)
Freytag:
Freytag’s Pyramid
Beginning, Middle, End
Exposition, Climax, Denouement
Rising action, falling action
Todorov:
Equilibrium, Disruption, New Equilibrium
Frame stories (stories within stories)
Single character transformations: The idea that characters follow a journey that leads to a realisation, changed personality. Linking to Ancient Greek narrative structures:
Peripeteia = The reversal of fortune
Anagnorisis = Recognition or discovery of fate
Catharsis = Emotional response from audience
Strauss:
Binary Oppositions
Narrative is a structure of themes that relays a dominant message
Postmodernism is a theory that looks at how the world is transforming into a place that is populated by a culmination of signs which are neither truthful nor fake.
Postmodernism is an almost re-imagining of what has came before. A copy, bricolage of past creations.
‘the concept that the meaning of a text does not reside in the text, but is produced by the reader‘
Postmodernism can be seen as a sort of parody, confusing and deliberately existential concept generated to create a confusion between simulation and reality.
TERM
DEFINITION
Pastiche
Work of art, drama, literature or music that imitates a previous work.
Parody
Work that uses irony or ridicule to imitate a previous work/performance.
Bricolage
A French term that translates to ‘do-it-yourself’. The idea looks at how to create art from any materials that are available.
Intertextuality
Referencing other work in new works. Copying elements of literature, film, art etc. as influence for something else.
Referential
Surface and style over substance and context
Metanarrative
Meta = Big Narrative = How a story is structured
Hyper-reality
The idea that we live in a world that is “beyond reality”, an illusion or simulation far from the truth.
Simulation (sometimes termed by Baudrillard as ‘Simulacrum’)
Something that replaces reality with its representation
Consumerist Society
We currently live in a society that survives off of advertising, buying, selling and consuming. This level of consumption leads to the feeling of a simulation.
Fragmentary Identities
The idea that we often construct different identities dependant on where we are, who we are with etc. This is fragmented.
Alienation
The idea that we are disassociated to the world we live in.
Implosion
The idea that meaning is now meaningless. Due to a combinations of signs within society.
Cultural Appropriation
Taking properties and characteristics from other cultures and appropriating them to another.
Reflexivity
‘The Love Box in Your Living Room‘ is a parody. It is structured using the codes and conventions of a documentary: a mockumentary of the BBC and how it originated.
Actor and comedian Paul Whitehouse plays a parodied character of Lord John Reith – the first Director General of the BBC. It is clear that this is a parody due to his caricature appearance.
Owned by the BBC, the BBC is owned and payed for the by the public. Payed through TV licenses BBC Charter: Educate, Inform, Entertain
Owned by CBS, CBS is payed for by Paramount global. Privately owned, available to everyone.
Regulation
Regulated by Ofcom which receives it regulation rules through the UK gov. Also regulates off of the BBC’s Charter.
CBS is regulated by the The Federal Communications Commission (US FCC)
Habermas
Transformation of the public sphere, the BBC (when making money) re-invests it into BBC to make it better, adapt it and sticks to their charter tighter.
Sticks to making a profit rather than bettering itself. Does not transform the public sphere, the polar opposite of the BBC.
Chomsky
5 filters of mass media: 1.Structures of ownership – BBC owned by the public, regulated by their own Ethos. 2.The role of advertising – Ads for the BBC are on social media platforms displaying what they offer, for example the “Trust is earned” publication video they made. 3.Links with ‘The Establishment’ – BBC isn’t directly connected to the government however it is regulated by a set of rules the government chooses. 4.Diversionary tactics – ‘flack’ – None really applies as the BBC specialises in its truth. 5.Uniting against a ‘common enemy’
Audience
Active consumption, choosing to listen in and create opinions and thoughts based on the stories which are on the media/radio from newsbeat.
Passive consumption, taking in what war of the worlds is saying and just believing it.
Lazarfeld
Harry and Kate promoting mental Health on mental Health Day, Stormzy being put on the show. This uses opinion leaders so that its not the BBC directly telling the audience how to feel, its their favourite influencers.
It is written by Orsen Wells, who was a popular author uses the two step flow of directly injecting the idea of entertain through War Of the Worlds, at 0:20 it is announced that Orsen will be reading the show and is also announced it is a story from the Theatre on Air.
Stuart Hall
New Technology
Newsbeat is on social media, internet radio and apps.
Cross media creation
Newsbeat is on social media, internet radio and apps. Can be read and understood on different platforms for the younger audiences to access it anywhere and whenever they want.
The show was originally published as a book in the UK and US in 1897, then a radio show in 1938 and then a TV series in 1988
Curran
“profit-driven motives take precedence over creativity” CBS creating the idea of a a massive panic to create a huge amount of money over the idea of making a good entertainment.
Seaton
POWER AND MEDIA: patterns of ownership and control are the most significant factors in how the media operate. Controls how they want to target audiences that are informed and want to learn. Seaton says “Sells audiences to advertisers not products to audiences” which the BBC doesn’t do, they do this by sticking to their “educate” ethos and making stories to educate.
Provides to audiences the idea of entertainment without sticking to any sort of ethos or education. Only entertainment and selling a big story which we don’t know is true (I.E people running out of their homes in fear of the story that they are hearing.
– CBS (Columbia Broadcasting Service) – Owned by Paramount Global (“multinational mass media conglomerate”) – Funded mostly through advertising time on air – War of the Worlds episode was the 17th in ‘The Mercury Theatre on the Air’ series in 1938. – Key terms: Globalization, conglomerate, multinational, vertical integration, ‘risky business’
– BBC (British Broadcasting Corperation) -Owned publicly by the general public of the UK – Funded through TV Licenses (paid annually – £159 per year) – Paternalist approach (giving audiences what they should have/ need) – First Director General was Lord Reith (he created original ethos) – “provide impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain“
– Key Terms: Populist VS Paternalist, public service broadcasting, funded publicly
AUDIENCE (Demographic)
– Listeners of CBS Radio Network. Those in the USA.
– Young people – Listeners of BBC Radio 1, 1 Extra and Asian Network. – Ages 15-29
HABERMAS
– Commercial broadcasting goes against Habermas’ ideas. – Commercial broadcasting focuses on profit and entertainment rather than audience.
Transformation of the public sphere. – The BBC values transforming knowledge through entertainment. They provide a paternalistic approach as a way of informing their range of audience on diverse, current and important issues. (quality programming)
– Cecil Lewis said that the BBC “opens up new worlds to people”.
Discussion VS Directorial – “arena of public debate”
HESMONDHALGH
– “the creative industries are a risky business”
CURRAN
– The role of public service broadcasting is to ‘diversify voices’ – Plurality
“profit -driven motives take precedence over creativity in the world of commercial media” – Perhaps CBS used the notion of a “moral panic” across the USA as a marketing approach following the broadcast. Commercial broadcasting (especially CBS lacks a public service remit – it can slightly subvert regulation/ enforcement) – Taking a risk
– Media of the “Victorian era” were “engines for social and political change” (linking to Habermas’ ideas on the transformation of the public sphere)
– “peak-time television schedules are dominated by lighter entertainment formats” – The BBC is now being overthrown by the rise of social media/ commercial broadcasting due to profit.
SEATON
– Power of the media “commercial broadcasting is based on the sale of audiences to advertisers” – CBS were selling ‘War of the Worlds’ to listeners
“the work of broadcasting should be regarded as a public service for a social purpose” – BBC has a remit to inform, entertain and educate (a social purpose). “public service” – Something to serve the public, “social purpose” – Something to help transform our society for the better – Her ideas imply that commercial broadcasting is more of a money making product rather than important to making a change.
– “to lead public opinion”
“catering for all sections of the community, reaching all parts of the country” – Linking to their Royal Charter:
ACCOUNTABILITY
REGULATION
Federal Communications Commission regulates privately. Not for interest of the public
– The BBC is overseen by the government through the ‘Royal Charter’. This agreement is proposed in parliament and is reviewed annually. First established in 1927, the Charter provides a remit that the BBC must accustom to. – As well as their charter, The BBC is regulated externally by Ofcom. Ofcom closely monitor the BBC through their Broadcasting Code. They provide a yearly report on their findings.
– The emergence of new technologies/ generations today means that the BBC is challenged. Perhaps, the BBC is struggling to keep up with the needs of a changing society.
CHOMSKY
– Manufacturing consent.
TEXTUAL EVIDENCE
War of the Worlds: – “We know now that in the early years of the 20th century, this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man’s” – “out of character” – “the war of the worlds has no further significance”
– Inclusion of relevant news stories, similar to ones featured on BBC News but delivered in a way that is easy to follow/ is more engaging and interactive.
– Stories very much focused on ‘young people’ and how current issues are affect the youth: – ‘Young people face surge in homelessness’ – ‘The young NHS workers who voted yes to striking’
A range of articles focus on celebrities/ pop culture. A way of providing entertainment through a multi-media form that also informs.
Debbie Ramsay (Newsbeat editor) said that reporters do not “dumb down” a story. They summarise it without any “airs or graces”
Believable and relevant ‘mis-en-scene’ elements/ setting/ costume etc.
Followable storyline/ plot and something that is also unpredictable
Professional marketing
Broadcasting = Producers target a wider, mass audience.
Narrowcasting = Producers target a niche audience.
The BBC
Publicly owned (funded through TV licenses by the public and overseen by government)
The BBC was founded in 1922, it started with radio – television broadcasting came later.
Lord John Reith was the first ‘director general’ of the BBC
He set out an ethos (a belief/ mission statement) for the BBC. This ethos had 3 main principals; to inform, to educate and to entertain.
To oversee due diligence and regulation, the UK government reviews a charter: The BBC Charter, to ensure the BBC stay inline.
The BBC took up a PATERNALIST approach rather than a POPULIST approach. In other words, rather than providing ‘normal’ content to their audiences, they provide alternate ideas and what is ‘good’. Cecil Lewis said that the BBC began to open up “new worlds to people”, meaning that audiences are given access to new content.
Populism = Giving people what they want.
Paternalism = Giving the people, what some people think they need.
British culture is centered around the BBC. It is the ‘social cement’ that gives us a shared experience and exposes us to new culture/ ideas (Habermas’ ideas on the Transformation of the Public Sphere –> The uneducated have access to education with entertainment)
Grace Wyndham Goldie says that the most significant thing regarding broadcasting is the ability to change time and space. Many have fears revolving around new technologies.
