To understand how these might be applied to wider range of products
This is the lesson where we move into the vital work on audience. Pretty much all we do in the next few terms is focused on audience issues. we need to consider some very fundamental questions and the following will give students an idea of the areas we need to get into. For the products given [the 2 Bond posters are a good place to start] we need to ask of them:
To whom is the text addressed? What is the target audience?
What assumptions about the audience’s characteristics are implicit within the text?
What assumptions about the audience are implicit in the text’s scheduling or positioning?
In what conditions is the audience likely to receive the text? Does this impact upon the formal characteristics of the text?
What do you know or can you assume about the likely size and constituency of the audience?
Now do something similar on the Notorious poster – this will enable you to flex your muscles on this key concept
Section 2:
The second part of the lesson is for you to begin presentation of the two minute clips from the earlier lesson[s]
Consider the ideas from those earlier lessons but also now have a go at applying the audience elements we’ve just discussed.
Encourage participation via questions and observations from the class.
The objective of the lesson is to ensure that students are prepared for the next lesson in which they will present their two minute clips to the rest of the group [a reminder here that the clips ought to be uploaded to their blogs for ease of access in the lesson and to enable staff to assess their work later]
The longer term aim is to give some depth to their understanding of the key concepts
The materials for this lesson are all in the PowerPoint The Key Concepts
Objective [1] To understand media texts we need to apply a series of criteria that we call The Key Concepts
We must begin any study of the media with the key concepts – these are the basic tools of the media students knowledge and understanding as to how texts work with audiences.
If you are able to ‘DE-CONSTRUCT’ media texts you will find that your own texts will work better and will be much more effective in putting across your ideas to audiences.
We’ll begin by looking at an image from the Michael Caine gangster film ‘GET CARTER’ to see how the key concepts can be applied to understand the purpose of showing Carter in this way – the location, the costume, the construction of the shot and what this might tell us about the audience it was intended for [grades E-C]
We will also see how it contributes towards understanding the institution that created it and the audience’s own understanding of themselves. [grades A/B/C]
Remember – without understanding the theory your own work will be much less effective and your final examination performance will be poor
Remind students of the Key concepts that have to be applied to media products constructed or encountered during the course
Media Representations
Media Language
Media Audiences
Media Institutions
Media Values and Ideology
Task : In what ways [Q/A] does the image from Get Carter utilise these to create a reading and an audience?
Having prompted an overview, students then need to focus on each element in turn to develop their understanding of each element / concept
REPRESENTATION:
Use the images from Russell&Bromley, Bad Boys II and the Don McCullin news shot from Vietnam to push students to consider the many issues in discussing a media representation – the objective is that it is complex and varied.
MEDIA LANGUAGE AND FORM
The Orange texting advert is a useful text for consideration of how sound / image and narrative can combine to construct a compelling idea about a product that can attach itself to an audiences beliefs about that product, how we see that brand. Worthwhile also looking at the implicit representations – gender roles; stereotyping etc
The advert was screened in 2002 developed from a brief :
According to Sarah Gold, board director on the Orange account at Lowe:
“Texting is one of the biggest revenue earners for mobile phone
companies.However, there is still a lot more potential. Research has shown that a
sizeable amount of Orange’s core adult customers still don’t use texting
as they feel it’s ‘fiddly’, ‘flippant’ or ‘childish’.”
She adds: “Those who use the service less often tend to use it for
functional reasons, such as to communicate that they’re running late. We
want to alter the relationship customers have with their mobile phones.
The ‘Ice Night’ ad demonstrates the emotional role texting can play in
relationships. The campaign also aims to continue to build the equity of
the Orange brand because of the ad’s ‘warm human values’.”
TASK: how does the advert go about fulfilling this brief
The students have seen how media forms can be used to explore ideas within a text
Recap lesson 2 learning
This session we are going to explore a little deeper and begin to think about the ways in which media products also contain a way of seeing the world [its ideology] that it transfers to audiences. Such messages [via saturation / repeated exposure] may influence audience behaviours and thinking.
Explain that we are concerned with general matters of audience and that we are not suggesting either that [1] exposure to a violent act in a film will provoke violence in the audience watching it but [2] we believe the students to be capable of stepping outside themselves and being open to ideas about viewers and audiences in general as well as their own particular experience. this is a key idea for them to grasp at this stage. We want them to transfer their own viewing and media consumption to enable a bigger understanding of audience behaviours as a whole but also to see that behaviours they find difficult to grasp are nonetheless valid. In simple terms they need to look at their own media consumption to see how audiences use the media but at the same time they have to understand that just because they feel ‘invulnerable’ to violent video game content they have to see that others may be influenced by such ideas. We’ll keep coming back to this one during the year!
Sometimes this conveying of ideology is deliberate and premeditated [explicit products such as political propaganda or adverts];
Sometimes this is simply a by-product of a text [implicit products such as a soap opera or film] being constructed by human beings that are influenced by the context of creation and of consumption [the zeitgeist] – essentially who they are becomes part of how the text represents the world. [You may need a few examples here – white middle-class university educated males producing a social drama about knife crime will contain a view of the subject different to it being proceed by black non-graduate teenage females etc.]
Watch the campaign advert from Barnardos
What is the message of the campaign overall?
What is the intention of this particular advert?
In what ways has the product been constructed to reflect the underlying ideas of the campaign as a whole?
List the media forms / devices used to do so
How successful is the advert in conveying the campaign message?
Work through the first task as a group Q/A
Once you’re satisfied they have the idea of what you are requiring of them task them to complete the remaining questions as a pair then get feedback to group as a whole.
[B] Watch the advert ‘Meet the Superhumans’ which was the channel 4 promotional advert for its coverage of the Paralympic Games in 2012. This product was also the key text for the 2014 AQA AS Media exam so early on gives a good idea of what it is that students will have to be able to discuss if they are to be successful.
Task:
How are media forms used to represent disability?
Discuss the outline ideas with the students – tease out a couple of main points to check that they understand the intention of the task. This is not just a write down and discuss everything you can see and hear but requires focus and critical selection of the salient points. Take group feedback.
Explain that the promotional trailer was part of Channel 4 attempt to re-position itself in the TV marketplace by redefining its core values of taking risks and being seen as a channel that challenges its audience. they had invested a great deal of money into gaining the rights to cover the paralympic games which [at that time] were very much seen by the media [and thus the public] as a second-class event
Homework:Write up the task below [about 300 – 400 words]
How does the Channel 4 product use media forms to represent / brand the channel itself?
The lesson will begin with a clip from PSYCHO the famous psychological horror/thriller by Alfred Hitchcock.
[1] Watch the clip.
[2] In pairs : How does the clip construct the sense of tension/horror?
Which elements can you identify and what part do they play?
The clip is a good introduction to what we call media forms, specifically the language of film. Film language is made up of a number of elements that work together to create audience understanding of [1] what is happening [2] how we should feel about this [audience positioning] [3] create a sense of shared values/ideas about the content of the film [its story; its concerns] which forms part of what is termed the zeitgeist.
In the shower scene from PSYCHO the tension is created by a masterful interplay of sound [and silence],music, lighting, shot composition, audience point of view, editing of the shots and the actual narrative [the intercutting sequence of when/how things are revealed to us]. This is termed mise-en-scene – roughly ‘everything in the frame‘
Mise-en-scene will form a key part of how we discuss moving image products this year.
Here’s the trailer for Season 1 of SKINS
Applying the media forms ideas discussed for PSYCHO :
How does this product construct a representation of youth? What is it? Is it an accurate representation?
What expectations does it set up for audience [of predominantly youth]? What ‘pleasures’ are offered to audience?
HOMEWORK:
[1] Find a [2 minute] clip to present to the group with your media form analysis as to how a mood/idea/representation are created in the clip [DEADLINE Lesson 5]
[2] embed the clip [and your analysis] in your blog
Today we intend to help you start off on the right foot by providing a detailed introduction to [1] what media studies is [sort of] [2]why we study it [3] how we will be studying it here this year. You will need to read through the Student Handbook distributed today with special emphasis on the section Key Concepts in Media which will form the backbone of all of the lessons this year and of your coursework portfolio. The Student Handbook is also reproduced digitally on the Student section of the Great Barr School Media Blog themediastudiesteacher.blogspot.com
The PowerPoint will emphasise some of the issues that underline the importance of the concepts and how we will go about applying them to analysis of commercial media products and to our own work.
You will also be introduced to the media diary – a log of your own personal media consumption that you will be required to complete for a period of 1 week which will then form the basis of lessons 6 and 7.
HOMEWORK: Create your media studies blog [using blogger] and email the link to Media staff
By examining these elements and the way in which they interact it is possible to find out how the meaning in an image has been constructed into it. Generally, by adopting this approach, you will find that there is more meaning in the image than you first thought.
POSITION: Places the viewer in a particular position relative to the objects in the image. You need to be aware as to [1] why we are placed in the particular position and [2] the impact this has upon our understanding [‘reading’] of the image as a whole.
TECHNOLOGY: We need to consider elements of lighting, use of photoshop, cropping etc
CONTENT: The objects in the image and the relationship between them. In looking at the elements of denotation and connotation we explore how inter-linking of objects creates a complex meaning for audiences.
In the PowerPoint IMAGE ANALYSIS a number of images are offered that allow students to explore the idea of each element in turn before exploring the interplay of these in the images for the DKNY advert and the DIESEL campaign.
The DKNY product attempts to link the brand’s identity to the idea of the fast-paced lifestyle of New York. It manipulates iconic images of yellow taxis, traffic police, skyscrapers by adding motion blur and a challenging image of a young woman dressed in red squatting on the pavement. It emphasises independence and an attitude to life designed to appeal to the target audience. it offers the aspirational [looks; life; life-style; attitude] as much as it does any sense of the actual style of the dress or shoes. The male counterpart product offers a similar take on lifestyle and the brand’s identity.
We call this attempt to link product and celebrity or product and ideology or cause borrowed identity.
The Diesel product offers a take on the idea of global warming. The campaign takes a serious issue [global warming] and creates a world where the sole survivors are a fashionable attractive young couple whose survival seems to have been owed to their choice of clothing. We see them in a variety of situations apparently content with their situation.
Saussure’s lack of interest in the social context of meaning-creation meant an important area of study was neglected and to some extent Pierce’s notion of the interpretant went some way towards completing this gap. Meaning is produced as the result of interaction between the reader and the text.
Barthes believed that there was a further level of signification. The interaction of the object and the interpretant takes place in a context and that social context has a direct impact upon the meaning. BARTHES : A literary theorist whose work moved him into areas of language, meaning and then semiotics. His key idea is that the making of meaning requires not only the sign [Saussare] and the interpretant [Pierce] it also needs an awareness of the social context of the ‘reading’.
Much of Barthes writing developed theories of the impact of the culture in which a text was created as significant to its construction but also its reception by audiences which added layers beyond the influence of the writer or the creator of the media product.
His work lies beyond modern media ideas of the para-text.
The PowerPoint Evolution of Semiotics explores these theories by using a range of images and media products to explore the concept of how desire is seen in society and how it has been expressed by different cultures, expressing the contemporary view of those audiences.
Objective [1] To deepen understanding of how semiotics works
Objective [2] To apply theoretical knowledge covered to the idea of conventions
Objective [3] To consider deeper implications for how media products work on audiences – the unconventional impulse
con·ven·tion·al adj. : following accepted customs and proprieties; represented in simplified or symbolic form; in accord with or being a tradition or practice accepted from the past; “a conventional church wedding with the bride in traditional white” conforming with accepted standards; “a conventional view of the world”
Conventions are accepted ways of doing something – shaking hands when we meet someone is an accepted convention. Media producers utilize conventions in their products to enable a speedy communication of ideas and understanding. Students need to understand both why conventions are followed and why they are broken.
As ever, this is best achieved by analysing a range of media products and at this stage print adverts offer the best examples of this issue.
Advertisers value conventions as – like anchorage of polysemic images – they direct audiences to a preferred reading of the media product. The PowerPoint CONVENTIONS will take you through a variety of approaches to demonstrate the conventions and then the adverts that exploit the unconventional to make a point.
As well as following and applying conventions advertisers will also knowingly break the accepted conventions. At times the breaking of one convention can lead to a new convention being created that will be copied and applied by subsequent producers. Some adverts are unconventional as they seek to stand out, to be memorable and to create a sense of uniqueness for their product or to make their brand seem ‘edgy’ or ‘cool’.
We will be exploring this through adverts for beer and the way in which the tobacco industry have marketed their brands over the decades as they attempt to find innovative ways around legislation and changing public attitudes
The sequence in the PowerPoint alternates conventional ideas with the unconventional. Students may be invited to choose two for a detailed response and feed these back to the rest of the group.
Objective [1] To deepen understanding of how semiotics works
Objective [2] To apply theoretical knowledge covered
Objective [3] To consider deeper implications for how media products work on audiences
Review: In lesson 9 we explored the idea of the multiple layers of meaning that images can have for audiences and the consequences of this for advertisers who are really only interested in their target market having one shared and predictable reading of their products.
This is polysemics and is countered by the attempt of advertisers to construct anchorage of images
This time we’re going to explore how this operates in print adverts – but of course all of these lessons are applicable to emedia and broadcast products
Coca-Cola adverts:
How are these adverts anchored to create audience understanding of what Coca-Cola sees as it’s USP
In what ways has this changed over the years? Why might this be?
AS Media Studies 