chowdharyteachingandlearning.files.wordpress.com… · Web viewFOUCAULT. This theorist believed people do not have a 'real' identity . within. themselves; that's just a way of talking

A2 Critical Perspectives Paper G325

Revision Guide

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The Exam

The A2 exam is worth 25% of your final A-Level grade and is made up of 2 separate sections.

Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Your Production

2 compulsory questions worth 25 marks each = 50marks in total.

Section B: Contemporary Media Issues

1 question from the choice of 2 worth 50 marks (don’t forget we are answering Collective Identity)

There are a selection of optional topics for this section but here we study “Media and Collective Identity” so make sure you look for that on the exam paper!

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Section A – Theoretical Evaluation of Productions

Question 1A:

A question that requires you to describe and evaluate the progression/development of your skills over the course from your AS production to A2 production work.

Describe Evaluate ProgressionSpecific examples from your outcome (final media product)

Strengths and weaknesses

This improved A2 because….

However….

Although….

As a result….

The question will ask you to focus your answer on ONE OR TWO of the following issues:

Digital technology Research and Planning Post-production Conventions of real media texts.

They will often as you how this helped with CREATIVITY. This is the “making of new things and the re-arranging of the old” – e.g. the ability to have your OWN ideas and not just copy other peoples. The ability to do things that are unusual and different.

You MUST talk about both AS and A2 coursework in this section.

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Digital Technology:

Digital technologies have had a massive influence on media production over the last few years and since you started in Year 12, you have learnt a massive amount about how to use them and what the benefits are of using them. They in turn have had a massive impact on the quality of your finished products.

Wordpress Prezzi/PowerPoint Serif/Premiere Pro Digital camera Youtube

To prepare: In the table below plan out specific examples of how you used digital technology.

Pick an aspect from the set question and give an specific example of how you used it at AS

Explain what worked well (what did you like about it?) – Strengths What is the evidence for your achievement? Think about final product/marks/other people’s comments.

Explain what was not good about it- what could you have done to make it better? - Weaknesses

How did you use it at A2? (Did

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you adapt it slightly? Did you make adjustments/improvements?

Why was it better than AS? Strengths? What steps did you take? Do you change your technique between AS and A2? Did you have a better strategy? Did you use more support with your final piece that effected your overall production? Did you reflect on AS and make better choices?

What did you not like about it? Weaknesses?

How would you do it differently in the future? What can you do to build upon this success? How could you fine tune your skills further? Could you apply these skills to a new situation?

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Research and Planning:

Research and planning have played a huge role in all of your production work so far and hence your skills in R&P have developed massively. Your research and planning have made your production work develop in terms of quality.

Genre research Audience research Institution research Storyboarding Location recce Scripts Prop/costume lists

To prepare: In the table below plan out specific examples of how you used research and planning.




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How did you use it at A2? (Did you adapt it slightly? Did you make adjustments/improvements?




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Post-Production:

You have gone from knowing virtually nothing about post production to now being able to complete complex editing of video, sound and graphics. Your post-production skills have developed hugely and has enabled you to take a simple piece of footage and turn it into something complex and creative.

Cutting footagePlacing on the timelineTransitions (cuts/fades/dissolve etc)Adding effects - FiltersEditing titlesSound manipulationLayers

To prepare: In the table below plan out specific examples of how you used post-production.




How did you use it at A2? (Did

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you adapt it slightly? Did you make adjustments/improvements?




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Conventions of Real Media Text:

Conventions are the “common features” of a particular type of media or a particular genre.

Over the two year course you have learnt a lot about, not just what the conventions of particular forms and genres are, but how to use them in creative ways in your own work.

Narrative structure (Todorov/Propp etc)Representation (stereotypes challenged or conformed)Camera SoundMise-en-scene – lighting/props/etcGenre (typical semantics/syntactics)

To prepare: In the table below plan out specific examples of how you used conventions of real media text.



Explain what was not good

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about it- what could you have done to make it better? - Weaknesses


Why was it better than AS? Strengths? What steps did you take? Do you change your technique between AS and A2? Did you have a better strategy? Did you use more support with your final piece that effected your overall production? Did you reflect on AS and make better choices?What did you not like about it? Weaknesses?


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Structure for your paragraph – each one focusing on one of the bullet points within the area specified by the question.

Digital Technology

Wordpress Prezzi/

PowerPoint Serif Digital camera Youtube

Research and Planning

Genre research Audience research Institution research Storyboarding Location recce Scripts Prop/costume lists

Post-Production

Cutting footage Placing on the

timeline Transitions

(cuts/fades/dissolve etc)

Adding effects - Filters

Editing titles Sound

manipulation Layers

Conventions of real media text

Narrative structure (Todorov/Propp etc)

Representation (stereotypes challenged or conformed)

Camera Sound Mise-en-scene –

lighting/props/etc Genre (typical

semantics/syntactics)


During our AS coursework we decided to create an opening title to a horror film. In order to do this we used the typical conventions of the horror genre that we had seen through our research. For example we decided to film it at night time in an isolated location because we had found that the most effective horror movies incorporated this convention in order to create a sense of fear amongst the audience.


We thought this works well at AS because it allowed the audience to recognise straight away what genre our film was set in. We also included the non-diegetic sound of a high pitch scream which is again typical of this genre. We know it worked well because during our evaluation stage we created a focus group and the feedback we received told us that our audience found it frightening and therefore our initial desires had been met.


However, I think our footage was too predictable as we used very cliché elements of the horror genre, like the full moon and they haunted house. We were not really showcasing our creative side as we were merely re-making a typical horror film. I also think are opening titles were too dark as some of the scenes, like the girl running through the woods, were hard to see. Finally, I think the titles themselves were quite boring as we used a very generic font that didn’t really fit with the genre.


At A2 our genre knowledge was much more advanced. We were also more confident to try and challenge the typical conventions of horror. We decided to stick with the same genre because we wanted to show progression and we wanted to be more experimental with it.


After reflecting over our AS work we decided that we needed to analyse a larger range of horror movies as at AS we only actually analysed 3. By developing our research it meant we were able to see there were a lot more horror conventions than we originally thought. It also allowed us to explore hybrid films such as Crimson Peak and Psycho which are horror/thrillers and Dark Shadows which is a horror/comedy. This allowed us to be more creative when planning for our A2 trailer – instead of using the typical conventions of darkness, isolation and scary music we decided to challenge the conventions and instead set the films in daytime at a theme park. We still used some semantics to help the audience identify the film as horror, such as the use of blood and the masked villain, but we aimed to create an enigma making the audience want to see more. We were also more experimental with our shots as we noticed from our research that a lot of jump shots and point of view shots are used in horror. At AS we

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only really used long shots or medium shots. What did you not like about it? Weaknesses?

While our technical skills were built on from AS to A2 I think our footage still lacked a professional feel to it. We did not take into account some of the logistical elements into our planning, for example we wanted our villain to carry a knife around with him to emphasise who he was (like Michael from the film Halloween) but being in a public place we were not allowed to do this for health and safety (and legal) reasons. This meant that the audience may have found our trailer confusing as there was no significant element to tell them who he was or why he was there.


I believe I understand the horror genre a lot better now and I appreciate the importance of not only using key semantics to help indicate the genre to the audience, but also that types of shots needed to build suspense and fear in my audience. If I did it again, I would not try to over complicate my ideas – I can see that sometimes the most simple of footage can be the most effective because the editing and sound manipulation can be just as effective. I also need to be much more selective with my sound as I think more diegetic sound would have helped create meaning to the text.

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Question 1B

This question will require you to select EITHER your AS production OR your A2 production (whichever makes more sense for the question) and evaluate it in terms of one of the following media concepts:

Genre Narrative Representation Audience Media Language

Each of the above 5 topics are broken down here into more detail for you to consider.

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Genre:

AltmanNealeMcQuailFiskeGrantAbercrombiePrinceBuckinghamGledhill

FILM GENRE THEORIES GENERAL GENRE THEORIES

Steve Neale thinks that film genres are constantly changing and evolving and are not set in stone. He thinks there are 5 main stages in film genres. Which stage does your film fit into? Explain why.

The form finding itself (Psycho) The classic (Halloween) Stretching the boundaries of the

genre (Nightmare on Elm Street) Parody (Scary Movie) Homage (Scream)

Robert Stam – suggests genre is hard to define, doesn’t really exist and is just a concept made up by theorists and critics. Do you agree? Give examples from your work that suggests that genre either IS or ISN’T easy to define

Rick Altman says that the way we define a genre is by two main things:

Semantic Elements (eg signs such as knives, blood, dark colours, eerie music). He thinks these elements are easier for audiences to recognise and identify

Syntactic elements (includes THEMES such as fear, revenge, rage as well as plots such as PLOTS such as group go on trip, one by one they die, last girl survives and kills killer) He thinks these elements are more subtle and harder to recognise.

Identify semantic and syntactic elements in your video that might help audiences identify the genre of your film / music video

Laura Mulvey - Suggests that women in all media are objectified. She is a feminist who believes that women are often shown through the ideas of men (male gaze) and are seen in voyeuristic ways. She also thinks that women are seen in one of either two ways the “virgin” character or a “whore” character. This is the “virgin / whore dichotomy”

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Who/what is the theorist/theory. Define the concept.

Give an example of where the theory is conformed to in a real media text.

Explain how your coursework conforms/challenges the theory.

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Narrative:

Levi-Strauss Barthes Propp Carroll Todorov

Theorist Theory – what to write about

Todorov thinks there are several main stages to a complete narrative, recognisable in any story

Equilibrium Disruption Resolution Equilibrium

Explain whether you included these stages and where. Did you have them in the same order? If not, why not? What was the benefit of starting with the disruption for example?

Levi Strauss – says that Binary opposites are important in narratives such as good vs evil, women vs men, crime vs justice. Explain any binary opposites identifiable in your text and explain why you think they might be important to include

Unknown theorist According to an unknown theorist, there are two types of narrative

Unrestricted narration – where information is given out in as much detail as possible with very little restrictions so the “narrative” is clear. Audiences often know more than the characters so we know who the killer is, or where he is. If you used this technique, explain where and why is it engaging for an audience?

Restricted narration – where the narrative is kept minimal, with parts unclear eg a thriller film. Audiences are often in the dark about many parts of the narrative. If you used this technique, explain where and why this is engaging for an audience

Vladimir Propp Propp’s theory of narrative suggests that texts NEED particular characters to develop the narrative

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Hero Villain Princess Donor / Helper Dispatcher

If you included any of these characters, how did you make it clear who was the hero / villain etc? Why does it engage an audience if they either DO know who they are or DON’T know who they are?

He also thinks there are particular parts of a narrative that always happen eg hero gets a quest, someone is hurt, hero battles the villain etc. If you included any of these things, why do you think audiences enjoy seeing them?

Andrew Goodwin thinks that in music videos the narrative often links to the lyrics and the tempo of the music.. How did you do this?

Allan Cameron thinks there are several different types of more unusual narrative. If you included any of these, explain where, and then explain why you included them.

Anachronic Narrative – includes regular flashback and flashforwards, with all different narrative parts being just as important. Such as Pulp Fiction, Memento

Forking Path narrative – shows two different outcomes that are different only as a result of a small change or decision such as GroundHog day, Sliding Doors

Episodic Narratives – separate narratives that have some sort of link. Eg different characters lives, linked only by the fact that they are all involved in one incident

Split Screen Narratives – Different stories, linked by the fact that they are shown on screen at the same time.


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Representation:

MulveyHegemony (Acland)PerkinsPluralismStereotypesDominant ideologyBaudrillard

Theorist Theory – What to write about

Levi Strauss said that media texts often represent characters in terms of binary opposites such as good vs evil, weak vs strong. Did you do this? If so how and why? What effects might it have on the story, the audience etc..

Laura Mulvey Believes that women are often objectified in the media. She says they are looked at with a “male gaze” and are seen as sex objects.

She also believes that there are all too often only two roles for women in the media. Either the “virgin” character or the “whore” character. This is called the “virgin / whore dichotomy”.

Can their theories be applied to your video? Did you conform to their ideas of representation or challenge them? Why?

Vladimir Propp Propp’s theory of narrative suggests that texts often represent characters as particular types in order to make them easily identifiable to an audience and help them know how to react to them.

Hero Villain Princess Donor / Helper Dispatcher

If you included any of these characters, how did you represent someone as the “hero” or “villain”. Why does it engage an audience if they either DO know who they are or DON’T know who they are?

Angela McRobbie http://www.angelamcrobbie.com/

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Angela McRobbie says that men and women are often represented through stereotypes in the media and are often shown in traditional gender roles. For example women are often shown as weaker, victims, mothers, carers etc. Men are often shown as aggressive, strong, managers, leaders etc.

Can their theories be applied to your video? Did you conform to their ideas of representation or challenge them? Why?

Stanley Cohen Believes that particular groups in society are “demonised” and “marginalised” through negative representations which may have the effect of causing a moral panic where the majority of society fears that social group. Have you demonised a particular group eg black people? Young people? Why?




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Audience:

McQuailDyer’s Utopian TheoryHypodermic NeedleCultivation TheoryMorley’s ResearchStuart Hall

TheoristRichard Dyer – thinks that audiences want media products that offer them Utopian Solutions to their problems

Blumler & katz – Think that audiences want media products that gratify particular needs (Uses & gratifications) eg escape, entertainment etc

Frankfurt School – Hypodermic needle theory. Think audiences might be directly influenced by media products

Stuart Hall – Encoding and Decoding tests AND Preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings. Thinks audiences will react in different ways to media products.

Pluralists – think that the media operates on a supply and demand basis and so the media must give the audience what it wants in order to survive and be successful.

Tajfel & Turner – intergroup discrimination theory. Think that audiences enjoy watching texts where they can feel superior to the characters in terms of money, class, success etc..

Laura Mulvey – believes the media texts often encourage the audience to objectify women and look at them with a “male gaze”

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Media Language:

Mise-en-scene Sound Camera Editing

Theorist Theory – what to write about

Blumler & Katz / Richard Dyer

Uses & Gratifications theory / Utopian Solutions – explaining how your use of MEDIA LANGUAGE offers these to an audience

Vladimir Propp Propp’s Character theory – how your MEDIA LANGUAGE helps audiences identify particular characters as heros / villains etc

Stuart Hall Explain that your decision to use the MEDIA LANGUAGE you chose was to create a “preferred reading” for your text. But that audiences are used to Encoding and Decoding tests AND could take a negotiated or oppositional reading

Rick Altman – Explain how you used MEDIA LANGUAGE to include Semantic Elements (eg signs such as knives, blood, dark colours, eerie music) or to signify Syntactic elements (eg themes like love, revenge).




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Structure for your paragraph – each one focusing on one of the bullet points within the area specified by the question.

Genre

Altman Neale McQuail Fiske Grant Abercrombie Prince Buckingham Gledhill

Narrative

Levi-Strauss Roland Barthes Propp Carroll Todorov

Representation

Mulvey Hegemony (Acland) Perkins Pluralism Stereotypes Dominant ideology Baudrillard

Audience

McQuail Dyer’s Utopian

Theory Hypodermic Needle Cultivation Theory Morley’s Research Stuart Hall

Media Language

Mise-en-scene

Sound Camera Editing


Todorov came up with the theory of narrative structure. He believed that all stories follow the same pattern starting with a sense of equilibrium when all is calm, followed by a disruption to the equilibrium by some action. There is then recognition to the disruption by the characters leading them to attempt to restore the equilibrium. Eventually all is repaired and there is a reinstatement of the equilibrium.


An example of this in a real media text would be Finding Nemo. The film begins in a state of equilibrium as father and son go about their lives as normal, however, unbeknownst to them (but made obvious to the audience) a disruption to the peace is occurring as scuba divers invade the coral reef. The recognition of this disruption transpires when the father realises his son has been captured by the humans, which leads him to making some unlikely friendships as he tries to repair this disruption and search for his son. Through a lot of action and a long trek across the world, peace is restored and a new equilibrium is created as although back home safe, life has changed for these two characters and cannot be exactly like it was in the beginning. However, many directors have attempted to challenge this theory, one being Brad Anderson’s psychological thriller The Machinist (2004). Here we have a film which narrative structure follows that of the paranoid and delusional character, Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale), and instead of following Todorov’s structure the narrative is fragmented and placed in a non-linear timeline.


I decided to challenge Todorov’s theory in my opening titles at AS by also using a sense of delusion within my main character. I decided I wanted to create an enigma for my audience in order for them to want to continue watching as my opening 2minutes included a non-linear timeline which kept jumping back to the same scene but with different outcomes. By beginning in this way I was not starting with the typical and predictable opening with a calm equilibrium start, instead I started with a disruption that keeps taking place. When my main character Alice comes to a cross road in her life she has to make a decision – one that leads to a number of different consequences. This allowed the audience to see different scenarios being played but never really knowing which one is happening in reality and which is in her mind. I got my idea from films like Sliding Doors which alternates between two parallel universes, based on the two paths the central character's life could take depending on whether or not she catches a train and causing different outcomes in her life. Likewise, when Alice chooses to miss her best friend’s party disaster happens, but could things have been different if she had gone? Or if she arrived 5minutes late? By replaying the same event but in different ways the audience is not getting a linear storyline and therefore is not following Todorov’s narrative structure.

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SECTION B – MEDIA AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

You will have a choice of two questions on this topic and will only have to answer one.

The questions will be related to ONE of the four following topics although it could be worded in a variety of different ways:

How do the contemporary media represent nations, regions and ethnic / social / collective groups of people in different ways?

How does contemporary representation compare to previous time periods?

What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people?

To what extent is human identity increasingly mediated?

The “collective” group we choose to study here is “Youth” so all your case studies will involve young people in some way. You MUST discuss case studies from TWO different types of media. Here we study Film AND Print examples. Students who only refer to one of these cannot get higher than a D grade.

The focus is on contemporary media texts from the last 5 years, which means you must have lots of “modern” case studies to refer from although you can refer to older texts to make points about changes in identity. You must also be prepared to discuss the history and future of identity in any answer they give and will be unable to obtain higher than a B grade if you do not mention these in any answer.

The material we have learned over the last 6 months has been broken down over the following pages.

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Collective Identity:

The concept of a collective identity refers to a set of individuals' sense of belonging to the group or collective. For the individual, the identity derived from the collective shapes a part of his or her personal identity.

Collective Identity is the idea that through participating in social activities, individuals can gain a sense of belonging and in essence an "identity" that transcends the individual.

Kelman (1958) wrote about social influence and identified three areas of conformity:

• Compliance – public but not private conformity

• Identification – influenced by someone who is liked and respected

• Internalisation – completely accept the beliefs and behaviour of a group and conform publicly and privately

Identity is a vacillating idea as it does not determine a person for their whole life, but merely adapts depending on their social circumstances. We, as human beings tend to have a number of different identities – however we will adopt certain characteristics that make us recognisable to other people.

“Subcultures try to compensate for the failure of the larger culture to provide adequate status, acceptance and identity. In the youth subculture, youth find their age-related needs met.” (Tittley).

Youth are no longer children but they are also not yet adults, i.e. they are too old to sit in with Mum and Dad on a Saturday night watching Casualty, but they are not old enough to get into bars, pubs and clubs etc. They do not have a fixed identity at this point so they form these subcultures to forge their own as a collective.

Throughout history there has always been an imbalance between adults and the youth, with many adults expressing their fears towards the behaviour of young people:

‘We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self-control.’ - Inscribed on Egyptian tomb, 4000 BC

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‘I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint’ - Hesiod, 8th Century BC

‘What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?’ - Plato, 4th Century BC

Post second world war, there was a surge in dichotomous representations of the youth. With such a massive shortage in men, boys were suddenly being forced to take on the role of ‘man of the household’ – huge responsibility to take on, especially when they have not had the support and guidance from their fathers to guide them into how to become respectful members of society. Not only this, but after the dismal time of living during the war, the next generation wanted to start enjoying life and move away from the depression into a new, happier era.

Economic potential is obvious as trading begins to take form again – market of the future. This helps give the new generation a sense of liberation and freedom, but we also start to see the first negative media stereotypes.

Youth simultaneously represented “a prosperous and liberated future” and “a culture of moral decline”. With a whole generation of men killed during the war, we start to see a much larger gap between the older generation and the new generation – the fears and anxieties of the old is depicted on the youth as society begins to change. These examples can be found in ‘The Wild One’ and ‘Rebel without a cause’ in the 1950s.

Cultural theorist Henry A. Giroux argues that in media representations of young people ‘youth becomes an empty category’ (1997) which reflects the anxieties and interests of adult society.

From this perspective media representations of the collective identities of young people are constructed by adults, and serve the needs of adult society.

This approach to youth identity and the media raises several questions about the relationship between media and identity.

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Print:

Do teenage boys get a raw deal from print media? Teen boys themselves certainly seem to think so. According to the survey of 13-19 year olds commissioned by Women in Journalism, some 85% think newspapers give them a bad press. Just 6% of boys surveyed thought newspapers portrayed them fairly.

The independent research company Echo* surveyed 1,000 teenage boys across five UK regions. The findings showed that new media fared a little better than newspapers, with 31% of respondents saying the likes of BBC online or Sky News online portrayed teen boys in a good or neutral light. However, reality TV shows were seen as representing them most fairly, with 44% of boys surveyed saying programmes like X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent portrayed them in a good light

Before pictures of baby-faced 13-year-old Alfie Patten emerged, teenage fathers barely featured on the media’s radar

The research also tracked newspaper stories about teen boys across the national and regional press over the last year. They found coverage was unrelentingly negative and focused disproportionately on crime. Teenagers were referred to variously (in descending order of frequency) as yobs, thugs, sick, feral, hoodie, louts, heartless, evil, frightening, scum, monsters, inhuman and threatening. There were very few positive stories involving teens to balance the bad ones.

After news that 13-year-old Alfie Patten had apparently fathered a child, newspapers in recent weeks have been filled with tales of teenage dads. However, before pictures of baby-faced Alfie emerged, teenage fathers barely featured on the media’s radar. In the previous 12 months, stories about crime have dwarfed all other coverage of teenagers.

In the newspapers surveyed, researchers identified 8,269 stories involving teenage boys. More than half of these, 4,374, were about crime (split fairly evenly between burglary/robbery, knife crime, gun crime and murders). All other categories, such as education, sport, health or entertainment, accounted for just 3,895 stories.

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Only 24% of stories about teens and sport were positive; only 16% of stories about them and entertainment were positive

One of Women in Journalism’s most striking findings was how much teen boys are influenced by the bad press they get. It seems that the endless diet of media reports about yobs and feral youths is making them fearful of other teens. Nearly a third said they are ‘always’ or ‘often’ wary of teenage boys they don’t know; nearly three-quarters have changed their behaviour to avoid other teens. The most popular reason for their wariness, cited by 51%, was ‘media stories about teen boys’, compared with 40% who said their wariness was based on their own or friends’ bad experiences of other teens.

For all the coverage about teenagers, boys voices are rarely heard directly in the press. A 2005 study found that fewer than one in 10 articles about young people actually quoted young people, or included their perspectives in the debate.

For much of the press, there is no such thing as a good news story about teenagers. Stories about sport and entertainment, which might have balanced other negative coverage, also often took a critical line. Echo analysed a representative sample of stories on a range of topics to see whether teen boys were portrayed positively, negatively or neutrally: only 16% of stories about teens and entertainment were positive; only 24% about teens and sport were positive. For example, one story about teenagers and the Olympics worried that yobs and hoodies will tarnish Britain’s image during the 2012 Games.

A photo of perfectly ordinary lads standing around wearing hooded tops is used by the press as visual shorthand for menace, or even the breakdown of society. Clearly, the teen boys’ ‘brand’ has become toxic: if teen boys were a chemical company they’d be Union Carbide; worse, if they were a banker, they’d be Fred Goodwin.

‘The teen boys’ ‘brand’ is toxic: if teen boys were a banker, they’d be Fred Goodwin

However, Jonathan Bottomley, head of planning at ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty thinks it’s the newspapers not the teens that need a makeover. His company has a strong incentive to know what teens are really like, so BBH can

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market to them effectively. If teens really were all knife-wielding hoodies, companies like his would rapidly go out of business, he concedes.

Far from being identikit yobs, teenage boys have never had such a broad and disparate range of interests and characteristics – not least because of an increasingly fragmented media which can serve these different teen audiences.

While real teens are being demonised in the adult press, adults in their 30s and 40s have fetishised the good bits of being a teen, says Bottomley. ‘People in ad agencies like this ours, will come into work in trainers, with angular haircuts and wearing Bathing Ape clothes.’ Teenage behaviour is only acceptable if you’re over 30, it seems.

However, find some news coverage where teen boys were described in glowing terms - ‘model student’, ‘angel’, ‘altar boy’, or ‘every mother’s perfect son’. But sadly, these descriptions were reserved for teenage boys who had met a violent and untimely death during the course of 2008.

Theorists:

STRYKER – IDENTITY NEGOTIATIONS This theorist suggested we interact with others to create an identity, this is called identity negotiation . This develops a consistent set of behaviours that reinforce the identity of the person or group. These behaviours then become social expectations.

FOUCAULTThis theorist believed people do not have a 'real' identity within themselves; that's just a way of talking about the self -- a discourse. An 'identity' is communicated to others in your interactions with them, but this is not a fixed thing within a person. It is a shifting, temporary construction

GRAMSCIUsed the term hegemony to show how the dominant class can project its own ideologies so that those who are subordinated accept it as 'common sense' and 'natural'.

KELLMANThis theorist wrote about social influence and identified three areas of conformity:

• Compliance – public but not private conformity• Identification – influenced by someone who is liked and respected• Internalisation – completely accept the beliefs and behaviour of a group and conform publicly

and privately

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STANLEY COHEN – MORAL PANICSHe believed that occasionally in society there would be panics where the majority of people would be utterly convinced that certain groups in society were going to disrupt society and cause problems. For example he believes that after 9/11 there was a moral panic involving Muslims where ALL Muslims were seen as terrorists. He believes that the media often starts these moral panics and makes them worse.

DAVID GAUNTLETT Thinks the idea that the media affects the way we behave is rubbish. He studies the Frankfurt schools Media Effects theory and contradicts all of its ideas. He thinks we:

Shouldn’t blame the media for issues that already exist in societyShouldn’t assume the audiences is passive and naive Shouldn’t believe the Frankfurt School’s research as it was conducted in an artificial way and there’s no real way we could ever find out the real effect media has on societyShouldn’t assume that there will only be negative results from consuming a media text. Sometimes a media text that contains negative issues has a positive repercussion on the audienceBelieves that we use the “media as navigation points for developing our own identities”.Believes that the media “disseminates a huge number of messages about identity and acceptable forms of self-expression, gender, sexuality and lifestyle.”

JACQUES LACAN – MIRROR STAGE THEORYLacan carried out research with children and animals using mirrors and discovered that humans reach an age where they are able to recognise their own reflection and that people were able to develop a sense of their own self by examining their reflections

WILLISStudied British youths and found that they were struggling to deal with the changes sweeping post-war Britain. They therefore developed these ‘deviant’ subcultures and employed a variety of strategies including “outright aggression” to deal with these changes.

GEORGE GERBNERHe believed that the more time people spend ‘living’ in the television, the more they are to believe social reality portrayed on television. The Cultivation Theory leaves people with a misconstrued perception of what is true in our world.

GIROUXHe believed that the youth are placed into an ‘Empty Category’ as adults don’t know how to define them.

MARCUSE Suggests that the mass media carry with them prescribed attitudes and habits, certain intellectual and emotional reactions which bind the consumer and reduce them to a mindless mass. – leading to a passive audience.

ACLAND argues that media representations of delinquent youths actually reinforce hegemony. They do this by

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constructing an idea of ‘normal’ adult and youth behaviour, and contrasting it with deviant youth behaviour which is shown to be unacceptable.

GLOSSARY OF KEY WORDS

Add in any other words you have learned

TERMINOLOGYA/A* words (all of the below, PLUS these ones)

Hegemony – The dominance of the ruling class over the working classes

Marginalisation – when a group of people are made to seem less important than another

Cultural Homogenisation – the process by which culture becomes less unique and becomes more like other cultures

Verisimilitude – the “realness” of something, how truthful it is

Iconography – images that “mean” something or represent something. Eg films show British cultural iconography such as black taxis, red buses etc

Dichotomous – Divided or dividing into two parts or Classifications.

B/C words (all of the below, PLUS these ones)

Dominant Ideology – The commonly held belief within a society about something.

Mediation – an exchange of ideas between the film makers and the audiences

Selective Construction – a representation that has been chosen specifically to communicate something, deliberately choosing some aspects and leaving out others.

Propaganda – a representation that has been designed to specifically influence an audience, normally to communicate a political message to an audience

False Consciousness – A state of mind that audiences sometimes are in where they are not in touch with reality.

Binary Opposites – two very opposite things eg black / white or upper class / working class

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Social Gulf – A large gap between groups in society

Aspirational – Something that makes people “aspire” or “want” to be better or different than they are. For example, escapist films are seen as aspirational as audiences want to live like the main characters

D/E words

Identity – the elements that make up who we are

Culture – shared identities, values and beliefs between members of the same community

National Identity – shared feelings of identity between people from the same country

Representation – the way something is shown

Social Realism – a style of film marking which is designed to be “realistic” and gritty, often centred around the working classes

Mainstream – something that is considered to be popular

Mass-market – something that is considered to be popular

Niche – something that is considered to be popular only to a small number of people or a certain type of person

Commercial – something that is popular, and makes profit

Target Audience – the type of people who the programme or film is made for

Working class – people who work for a living, who earn a limited amount of money, often in manual labour jobs

Middle Class – people who may or may not work for a living, who earn what is generally considered to be enough money to be comfortable, often in more senior jobs such as doctors or teachers

Upper class – people who may not need to work for a living, who earn a high amount of money, who have senior positions in society eg MP’s, lords, ladies, kings etc

Underclass – people who are considered lower than working class, may be unemployed, students, pensioners, on benefits

Escape – to leave reality and be in a fantasy world

Entertainment – something designed to entertain, amuse and interest people

Identification – the ability for people to recognise their own lives in a text

Film Industry – everything that is part of the businesses that make films eg film companies,

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audiences, directors, cinemas etc.. The film industry revolves around making money

Film Institutions – Companies that make films

Realistic – something that is truthful or “real”

Unrealistic – something that is not truthful or “real”

Fictional – something that is made up, not based on reality

Past Questions:

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P = Make a statement about the representation of youth in the media. (Reference a theorists/theory)

E = Give a specific example of an article you have read.

A = Analysis how this is creating the representation mentioned in your statement. Does this challenge or conform to the theorist’s idea? Why would the industry portray the youth in this way?

R = What is the audience response to this? (Polysemic/Stuart Halls Reception Theory – Preferred reading/negotiated reading/oppositional reading)

L = Link to another point – on top of this/likewise/however

1. How far does the representation of a particular social group change over time?

2. Discuss the social implications of media in relation to collective identity. You may refer to one group of people or more in your answer.

3. How do media representations influence collective identity? You may refer to one group of people or more in your answer.

4. Analyse the ways in which the media represent one group of people you have studied.

5. “The media do not construct collective identity; they merely reflect it”. Discuss.

6. Discuss how one or more groups are represented through the media?

7. Explain the role play by the media in the construction of collective identity

8. What is collective identity and how is it mediated?

9. With reference to any one group of people that you have studied, discuss how their identity has been ‘mediated’

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Documents

chowdharyteachingandlearning.files.wordpress.com… · Web viewFOUCAULT. This theorist believed people do not have a 'real' identity . within. themselves; that's just a way of talking