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New statement of intent

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A-level Media Studies NEA Statement of Intent

I am producing 2 media products for set brief 5. I shall be creating three Tiktoks, one podcast and two online advertisements. In the UK, according to an NHS survey, a quarter of 11 to 15-year-olds have tried vaping and nearly 1 in 10 (9%) do it frequently (NHS England). Therefore, my aim for these media products is to raise awareness about social health issues, such as vaping as it has become very popular (almost a ‘trend’) for youths over the past few years. I wanted to take up this brief because I am very interested in the use of Tiktok to help spread social or political awareness and information. I also think that campaigns have been very useful for many years and are successful at circulating knowledge. The audience I am targeting will be teenagers aged 14-20 years old, as vaping is most popular at that age. In terms of Psychographic profiling (Rubicam and Young), I will be targeting the ‘strugglers’ and ‘explorers’. In terms of uses and gratifications (Katz), I am aiming to create products that provide information about the real world for my targeted audience. As such, I will interview my target audience to investigate some of the side effects that vaping is causing. My aim is to create three Tiktoks that young people find interesting and engaging. To do that I will use vibrant colours and the use of clear iconography, which can link to the theorist Roland Barthes as I will be using a pattern of iconography as well as the orders of signification (connotations) throughout my products. My Tiktoks will also aim to engage as short, appealing videos for younger ages, with a sense of informality. I will stick to these ideas and styles. Cross-media campaigns use different media forms as a way of spreading awareness. New media platforms, such as TikTok, have over one billion users globally, mostly teenagers/young adults (seo.ai). As I often use Tiktok, I understand what the formality and themes are like: short-form videos, full of content and usually informal to gain audience’s attention. In addition, I shall create one podcast, and two online advertising materials. I have done some research to find a few professional products, which I will use as inspiration for my own products. I understand that campaigns and websites are a lot more formal than audio style media products, for example, campaigns and websites use short, declarative sentences so their audiences can become absorbed into their information. Whereas, audio style media products, like podcasts, use an organisation of themes for the episodes, as well as one main speaker, alongside a few additional speakers that use an optimistic tone of voice to portray an appealing persona. Therefore, I will ensure that the style, tone and register of my web pages will reflect these ideas. As I like listening to podcasts, and regularly listen to a podcast called ‘Saving Grace’ on Spotify, I understand that my podcast will need to include a theme, an audio logo and special guests in the same way that all podcasts do. My logo will be representing my campaign company ‘TheUglyTruth’. I want to connect both productions in terms of content and representation, so I will be using similar iconography for both the campaign and the Tiktok videos. This will include consistent iconography such as the logo that represents my campaign company, as well as connotations to vaping, like smoke or a picture of a vape, to ensure the theme of my brief is well produced and easy to understand for younger ages. To do this, I will ensure to use dominant signifiers such as text with a clear message, or an image of a vape throughout both products which will support the main message of the product, which is the awareness and danger of vaping, especially in younger ages as their brains haven’t fully developed yet.                                          
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Statement Of Intent

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I intend on producing 2 media products for my set brief, one of which is a magazine two page spread as well as a front cover and a contents page, and the other media product being three full page print adverts for a magazine for gamers like PC Gamer or Play. 

To create a strong gaming magazine front cover, contents page and three advertisements, I made sure to add a variety of media representations to portray a neat and marketed advertisement that is similar to products and marketing strategies from PC gamer. My magazines target audience is people who are interested in gaming and technological features aged around 15 to mid 30’s, the main gender my products and magazine is targeted for is male, however I also made it inclusive so that any gender would be invested in it. 

My three products will follow different colour schemes inspired by PC Gamer and the design`s will also include high contrast colour schemes like neon blues, red`s and purple`s against dark backgrounds to enhance the features of my technological products, however I also want my products to be minimalistic. To make it stand out from other adverts and products. I intend on using bold, futuristic fonts for titles, subtitles and headlines to create a contemporary modern feel. 

In my products I will include high resolution images of game characters and gaming accessories like controllers and keyboards. In my front cover I will use a high-resolution image of a game character which will dominate the cover and be taking up most of the area so that the character will be the dominant signifier. I will use action shots and dramatic poses to create an idea of movement and make the cover more intense which is appealing to the target audience. Cover lines will be used strategically to create visual balance and to make it clearer. 

I will focus on the layout of my contents page, The contents page will be organized into clear sections, I will do this by using subheadings making it easy for readers to understand and maneuver the magazine. I will make sure there is a consistent grid layout and be certain that it has a professional appearance and looks like a real media product. The magazine will have content from Esports to casual gaming to attract a wide range of different gamers. My Esports content will include information about tournaments, player interviews and highlights of Esports. However, for casual gaming it will include things such as game reviews, tips and tricks and articles about gaming culture. 

By using strong media language, different representations and targeted content. My products and magazine will not only meet the brief`s requirements but also stand out to its targeted audience and other diverse audiences. The Magazine will stand out in the media industry because it will bring visual appeal and the content which will reflect the world of gaming.

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Statement of intent

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The set brief I have chosen is Set 3, which is to create three movie posters and three TikTok videos to advertise a coming-of-age film. My target audience is mainly teenagers, aged 15 to 18, who would relate to the themes of growing up, relationships, and self-identity. I’ve chosen to use TikTok because it’s a huge platform with over one billion viewers daily and it’s one of the most popular platforms on social media at the moment, especially for my specific target audience. My film is about drama, change, and the struggles that come with being a teenager in today’s society.

I’ve looked into Laura Mulvey’s idea of the “male gaze,” which suggests that women in movies are often shown as objects for men to look at, sexualized and treated badly, i.e. women have no rights or women should stay in the kitchen and clean. However I wanted to challenge her idea in my posters and movie by making both the woman and man as equal and important to the story, as I think in the 20th century this is becoming a rising issue. Therefore, this shows I’m not reinforcing gender stereotypes and I’m showing both characters in an equal way, which challenges Mulvey’s theory.

For my first product, I have created three digital movie posters to promote my film. I have taken inspiration from the 2006 film Boy Girl Thing. I decided to use these colours for my posters as it fits the theme. It uses blue and pink colours for the title which is a stereotypical colour for ‘boy vs. girl.’ These colours highlight the relationship between the main characters. A dominant signifier is a shared object or scene that symbolizes the connection between the girl and boy, such as a park bench where they sit together, which is in my poster. This shows the boy and girl sitting on the bench to represent the relationship between two characters.

The three TikTok videos are 45-60 seconds, with clips from the film that capture what it’s about. For my first TikTok, I have created an interview with the lead actor to gather insight on what the movie’s about and learn more about the characters. For my second TikTok, I made an interview with the cast in the film and behind the scenes to see the set and what we get up to. For my trailer, I’ve included fast-paced montages, dramatic, emotional moments with dramatic music in the background. The trailer teases you with some clips from the film that give you an insight to what happens in the flim, but not too much is revealed.

Overall, my aim is to create media products that will appeal to a young audience and attract them to my film. I want my movie to stand out to it’s specific target audience. I hope my work makes people want to watch the film and connects with them on a personal level. You could link this to uses of gratification. Audiences are active seekers who seek personal (escapism, enjoyment) and social (connection) needs. I think that in my movie poster, it’s for enjoyment and escapism for the teenagers, as there are highs and lows of the characters’ journey, which could help them navigate their own complex feelings of growing up if times are tough. My film offers entertainment, the main reason for media consumption. The drama, humor, and emotional depth provide enjoyment, making it appealing for my target audience. This all relates to Katz and Blumler’s theory of uses of gratification.

Postmodernism

Postmodernism

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How we moved from traditional solid structures to the shifting, uncertain markers of the new world?

If so how do we understand it? Ideas around the concept of POSTMODERNISM may help us to navigate . . .

Over the next couple of weeks as we run up to Xmas we will look at this topic. We will look at a couple of films and we will answer a couple of exam questions and then . . . it’s over!

Definitions of Key terms

  1. Pastiche
  2. Parody
  3. Bricolage  
  4. Intertextuality
  5. Referential
  6. Surface and style over substance and content
  7. Lack of a Metanarrative
  8. Hyperreality
  9. Simulation (sometimes termed by Baudrillard as ‘Simulacrum‘) 
  10. Consumerist Society
  11. Fragmentary Identities
  12. Alienation
  13. Implosion
  14. cultural appropriation
  15. Reflexivity
  16. Individualism

The postmodern world of individual consumption, computational behavourial systems, the loss of a ‘metanarrative’ (‘truth’ . . . ‘reality’) and an overeliance on surface signs, gestures and play. A world without meaning or relevance. A world that is literally killing itself, or as Baudrillard would call it a world that is IMPLODING!

Postmodernism can be understood as a philosophy that suggests society lacks an overall metanarrative – an agreed ‘truth’ or shared ‘reality’. This is because new media technologies have allowed us to build-up and exist in our separate and individual worlds. This means that our existence and identity is ‘fragmentary’ and ‘individualistic’. While this may gives us a high degree of freedom and control it can also have the effect of making us ‘alienated’, ‘isolated’, ‘lost’ and ‘anxious’.

If we are lost and alienated it means we have less power over society, ourselves and our existence.

The rise of new media technologies seems to illustrate that we are not quite in control of our own identity (or destiny – think work, health, education, society etc). This gives rise to what Jean Baudrillard calls a simulated, hyperreal existence. A world where the virtual (digital) may be more real than the real. It is a world where are not sure what is true or what is real – which includes both individuals (ourselves) and society.

Key characteristics of the postmodern world of new media technologies are: COPY, PASTICHE, PARODY, RE-IMAGINING, BRICOLAGE. 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 and often copies other things in order to understand itself. Think of sharing, posting, sending, adjusting, editing – new media technologies allow you to copy, parody, re-imagine etc.

It is a world that prioritises style and surface over any substantial change or meaning – a world that is endlessly busy looking at itself . . . the selfie?

As such new expressions from new media technologies (particularly around identity and being) can be seen as a massively complicated and fragmentary set of inter-relationships – think how many pictures, videos, texts are produced, stored and recorded every second of every day! This is a practice of re-imagining, pastiche, bricolage and self-referentiality, which may be understood alongside another key expression / concept: intersectionality – which provides evidence for how we see ourselves and the world and how we exist as human beings in contemporary society.

Postmodernism can therefore be understood as a way of understanding and categorising the new world – dominated by new media technologies. It could be said that it is a world that is more interested in the self, in play, in the visual, the surface, the personal. And can often been seen as frivolous, trite, casual, surface, throw-away. If anything it is dominated by an economic model based on consumption (ie buying stuff). So while it may even be seen as ironic, joking, or literally, ‘just playing’ it is usually underpinned by a transactional economic exchange (ie buying more stuff!).

However, it is most often a deliberate copy (of the old). Therefore, the old has been re-worked into something new, which clearly entails a recognition (a nod and a wink) to what it was and where it came from.

It also suggests that we live in a meaningless, irrelevant and pointless stream of replication and repetition.

. . . a complex network of texts invoked in the reading process.

See this source for link to Kristeva and post-structuralism

So can we start to break some of these ideas down a little bit . . .

Parody v Pastiche 🤔

pastiche is a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist

parody is a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony

BRICOLAGE is a useful term to apply to postmodernist texts as it

‘involves the rearrangment and juxtaposition of previously unconnected signs to produce new codes of meaning’

(Barker & Jane, 2016:237)

Similarly, INTERTEXTUALITY is another useful term to use, as it suggests signs only have meaning in reference to other signs and that meaning is therefore a complex process of decoding/encoding with individuals both taking and creating meaning in the process of reading texts. In other words . . .

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