MONDAY WORK.

TUESDAY WORK.

QUESTION 1:

• The Father Christmas is fairly crudely constituted (being iconic with low
  motivation) by colour, styling, positioning to offer instant recognition,
  reassurance, benevolence, a warm welcome and a clear focus.
• Here is signification at four levels: reference (denotation), association
  (connotation), myth and ideology.
• The setting suggests an urban, business-oriented, consumerist Christmas.
  There is warmth here but nothing particularly spiritual unless the audience
  identifies a star in the east among the white spots in the sky (which may be
  stars or snow and add either way to the manufactured ‘magic’).
• The words provide anchorage through a tag-line (“when it comes to
  Christmas, there’s no place like…Manchester”).
• This stating of Christmas then sharpens up the snow-covered iconic
  buildings which add relevance and a familiar Christmas aesthetic.
• It also draws focus to the pretty lights which draw attention to what most will
  recognise as a German or continental or merely generic Christmas market.
• There is a semiotic vocabulary for those who want to use it: paradigm,
  syntagm, icon/index/symbol, denotation/connotation/myth/ideology.
  Equally it is appropriate to respond out of the language of composition and
  framing (size of shot, camera angle)

QUESTION 3:

the hybrid identity of this text

• the Protest element which has reference to the sixties but also through
  Maya Angelou (“the caged bird sings for freedom”) to Billie Holiday
  (“southern trees we hung from”)
• the associations of the song and images with Hip Hop and Rap
• there is also a documentary element in both style (cinema verité: black and
  white film, realistic location, element of historical accuracy) and lineage: the
  song and video are both connected with the award-winning documentary
  The 13th (about the 13th amendment)
• if genres are ‘cultural categories’, produced with particular discursive
  practices, then they are not found in texts but are subject to the cultural
  readings of media industries, audiences and historical contexts. The
  discourses here are political, cultural and connected to the moment (eg
  Black Lives Matter)

QUESTION 5:

Briefly explain the ‘hypodermic needle’ theory.

• impact of TV violence
• decline of moral standards
• drug misuse
• consumerism
• impact of texting on literacy.

Q1.  Three sets of signs are potentially useful (but this is only 8 marks of work):
the signs that constitute the Father Christmas, the signs that combine as
words to provide anchorage and the signs that draw significance from this
anchored context.

The Father Christmas is fairly crudely constituted (being iconic with low
motivation) by colour, styling, positioning to offer instant recognition,
reassurance, benevolence, a warm welcome and a clear focus.

Here is signification at four levels: reference (denotation), association
(connotation), myth and ideology.

The setting suggests an urban, business-oriented, consumerist Christmas.
There is warmth here but nothing particularly spiritual unless the audience
identifies a star in the east among the white spots in the sky (which may be
stars or snow and add either way to the manufactured ‘magic’).

The words provide anchorage through a tag-line (“when it comes to
Christmas, there’s no place like…Manchester”).

Q5. Demonstrate knowledge of the theoretical framework of media

Examples might include:

• impact of TV violence
• decline of moral standards
• drug misuse
• consumerism
• impact of texting on literacy.

Q7. how media organisations maintain, including through marketing, varieties of
audiences nationally and globally

processes of production, distribution and circulation by organisations,
groups and individuals in a global context

the relationship of recent technological change and media production,
distribution and circulation

the significance of economic factors, including commercial and not-for-profit
public funding, to media industries and their products

the impact of ‘new’ digital technologies on media regulation, including the
role of individual producers

how processes of production, distribution and circulation shape media
products

cultural industries as summarised by Hesmondhalgh:
o cultural industries
o commodification
o convergence
o diversity
o innovation
o conglomeration
o vertical integration
o cultural imperialism.

Media Language	Media Audience	Media Representation	Media Industries
– Barthes. – Strauss. – Todorov. – Neal. – Baudrillard.	– Gerbner. – Shirky. – Jenkins. – Bandura.	– Gauntlett. – Butler. – Hooks. – Gilroy. – Hall. – Van Zoonen.	-Hesmond-halgh. – Curran & Seaton. – Livingstone & Lunt.

Exam Reflection:

Questions	What went well?	What could be improved?	What I am going to do to make the improvements
1	Being able to find signs that communicate Christmas.	The use of theorists	Revise all theories.
2	The context of ghost town	Being able to relate the unseen	Do past questions on the unseen and relate it to my set text
3	understanding the concept of the male gaze.	adding more aspects about the male gaze rather than just the general	Revise score and relating it to the male gaze, a redo the question.
4	i knew the representation of Old Town Road	Relating the theorist in detail	revise theorists
5	I knew some vocabulary.	Knowing the vocabulary in detail	Make flashcards on vocabulary
6	Knowing the newspapers and what theorists match	Understanding what the question means	Look at past questions and answers.
7	Knew how industry in blinded by the light worked	Understanding what the question means	Look at past questions and answers.

Media Language

• Roland Barthes semiotics
• Todorov narrative theory
• Steave Neale Genre
• Levi Strauss structuralism
• Jean Buadrillard postmodernism

Media Representation

• Stuart Hall representation
• David Guantlett identity
• bell hooks, Van Zoonen feminist theory
• Judith Butler gender performativity
• Paul Gilroy postcolonialism

Media Audiences

• Power and Media Industries Theory James Curran and Jean Seaton
• Regulation Theory Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt
• Cultural Industries Theory David Hesmondhalgh

Media Industries

• Cultivation Theory George Gerbner
• Reception Theory Stuart Hall
• Fandom Henry Jenkins
• ‘End of Audience’ Theory Clay Shirky

Paper 1 Total Marks: 52 / 84

Grade Boundaries break down: Paper 1 and Paper 2 max mark 84 each-

B- 51

C- 42

How many marks to secure target grade:

Questions needed to be re-written:

Question 1)

Specific signs can construct meaning about Christmas through the bold text and the top tagline “When it comes to Christmas, there’s no place like.. Manchester”. It constructs that the word is important and crucial to remember. Other things, like the stating of Christmas and then presenting a familiar Christmas aesthetic through the tall buildings and families presented at the bottom. In terms of Santa’s feature in the adverts as a hero (Propp’s character types) it positions the advert in a positive outlook.

Question 2:

Economic and political contexts influence the way in which media products represent reality through the music video Ghost Town and Figure 1. This is because in Figure 1 the buildings are presented in a similar way in real life as well as the city scapes being The Public Sphere, iconic buildings, the central shopping area and the figures at the bottom of the advertisement, both figures showing different styles of representation through their dressing and hairstyle. This presents a sense of reality as the difference in cultures can be prominent in Manchester, more diverse.

Economic and political context influence the way in which media products represent reality in Ghost Town. This is because in the music video the production presents the town as empty, this historically links to the unemployment rate being at 3.3 million people jobless and leading to more elsewhere. The music video being published in the early 1980s and Margaret Thatcher’s Britain (riots, killings, strikes) presents that there was a large political divide and stance at the time and many were homeless, dying and a booming city as well as the south east juxtaposing with post-industrial collapse
of the economy everywhere else drew up lines of opposition across the 1980s.

These themes of eeriness etc. can be explored in the music video through the eeriness of the sound, the block and video atmosphere and when the singers are throwing rocks into the water

1)

• Three sets of signs are potentially useful (but this is only 8 marks of work): the signs that constitute the Father Christmas, the signs that combine as words to provide anchorage and the signs that draw significance from this anchored context. 

 • The Father Christmas is fairly crudely constituted (being iconic with low motivation) by colour, styling, positioning to offer instant recognition, reassurance, benevolence, a warm welcome and a clear focus.  

• Here is signification at four levels: reference (denotation), association (connotation), myth and ideology. 

 • The setting suggests an urban, business-oriented, consumerist Christmas. There is warmth here but nothing particularly spiritual unless the audience identifies a star in the east among the white spots in the sky (which may be stars or snow and add either way to the manufactured ‘magic’).  

• The words provide anchorage through a tag-line (“when it comes to Christmas, there’s no place like…Manchester”).  

• This stating of Christmas then sharpens up the snow-covered iconic buildings which add relevance and a familiar Christmas aesthetic.  

• It also draws focus to the pretty lights which draw attention to what most will recognise as a German or continental or merely generic Christmas market. 

• There is a semiotic vocabulary for those who want to use it: paradigm, syntagm, icon/index/symbol, denotation/connotation/myth/ideology. Equally it is appropriate to respond out of the language of composition and framing (size of shot, camera angle). 

2)

• media products and the representations in them can be seen as a product of the economic and political contexts in which they are created  

• issues such as censorship and stereotyping may impact on the creation of products and the way in which representations of power are created and received  

• products must reflect the cultural values of their target audiences in order to be successful but these may be diverse and can explain the differences in representation  

• products may take up particular economic and political standpoints from which to address their intended audiences and ‘the world’. 

• both products inhabit an urban setting that is both realistic and mythic 

 • these products both have political content reinforced by significant economic and political contexts 

 • they are both essentially iconic: what you see, they proclaim, is what you get but this is part of an economic and political discourse which revolves around what can be seen and what can be said about it: the advert operates as if there is nothing to say and nothing to be done: this is how it is, the video wants to be seen as an active challenge to this 

 • in both cases representation is a political act. The advertisement for Manchester: 

 • the appeal here is to a general audience and a particular understanding of the function of Manchester which is predicated on consumerism (no knowledge of Manchester is required)  

• this city scape is The Public Sphere, iconic buildings, the central shopping area, an economic centre: the commercial heart: it is dark and mysterious also ‘promising’ 

 • the representation here may be seen as dangerously bland, as if we are observing a ‘natural’ scene, a kind of Capitalist Realism. Equally it may be seen as ‘gorgeous’: glamour and spectacle 

• this is a classic Barthesian myth, a deliberate confusion of History and Nature: we are to imagine this is what cities are like rather than this is how cities have developed  

• this is a representation of the city as a ‘resort’: a location for consumerist adventure: Christmas as a spending spree with Manchester as a temporary materialist theme park  

• the political here is disguised as if its meaning came from just how things are. Ghost Town:  

• this is more overtly political, a conscious reproach to Thatcher’s Britain 

 • a booming City and South East juxtaposed with the post-industrial collapse of the economy everywhere else drew up lines of opposition across the 1980s 

 • the video provides a guided tour of deprivation anchored by a literate protest lyric 

 • there is also a political message in the multi-racial composition of the band in a Britain beset by the mobilisation of the hard right  

• punk had provided access to expression to the disenfranchised and prompted a new kind of political pop that was articulate and working class. 

6)

• the significance of economic factors, including commercial and not-for-profit public funding, to media industries and their products 

 • how media organisations maintain, including through marketing, varieties of audiences nationally and globally  

• the impact of ‘new’ digital technologies on media regulation, including the role of individual producers  

• how processes of production, distribution and circulation shape media products  

• the impact of digitally convergent media platforms on media production, distribution and circulation, including individual producers.  

 • in the context of declining print sales for all newspapers, the Daily Mail has been relatively successful  

• it has embraced the opportunities of digital technology, adjusting its style to an evolving target readership 

 • the online version has a distinctively different identity which allows the print version to maintain the more ‘serious’ agenda. Shape: 

 • the Daily Mail is a national daily tabloid newspaper that has social and cultural significance. It is a national institution with widely recognised positions on social, cultural and political issues 

 • this style, address and ideological viewpoint sets an agenda for its target audience and is influential in the wider ‘territories’ of public opinion  

• the paper’s position on Brexit, perhaps the most significant social and cultural issue of our time, is a case in point.