Hi guys,
Today can you please do the following;
- take at screenshots of at least 3 - 5 artists Instagram pages
- write down bullet points of what you observe they use in terms of marketing themselves as a brand
- screenshot your own artist social media page you have created
- write down a rationale in the same post that explains your creative choices
This is due end of tomorrow's lesson
Media Ecology - the changing nature of media ownership and distribution models
Read the following and write a few notes on how distribution models are changing
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/film-distribution-guide/
https://www.vulture.com/2014/12/6-ways-the-movie-distribution-model-is-changing.html
https://nofilmschool.com/distribution-changes-2021
Jenkins – fandom theory.
What is it?
Fans enjoy media texts so much that they create content based upon the text and form communities around it, which has been made even more possible due to the internet.
This is like the ‘prosumer’ term – a producer and consumer of content. It also links to media convergence – a coming together of lots of different media elements which can make a new product.
What is the advanced version?
Fans act as ‘textual poachers’ – taking elements from media texts to create their own culture. The development of the ‘new’ media has accelerated ‘participatory culture’, in which audiences are active and creative participants rather than passive consumers.
They create online communities, produce new creative forms, collaborate to solve problems, and shape the flow of media. This generates ‘collective intelligence’.
From this perspective, convergence is a cultural process rather than a technological one.
Jenkins prefers the term ‘spreadable media’ to terms such as ‘viral’, as the former emphasises the active, participatory element of the ‘new’ media.
Task
- Read the link below and include some points on fans of Stranger things in your essay
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/jan/19/how-stranger-things-preteen-fans-went-to-war-with-the-eu
- Read the link below and include 1 sentence on the Mandalorian fan who was hired by Lucas Films after creating his own scene from the movie.
https://www.slashgear.com/lucasfilm-hires-star-wars-fan-behind-luke-face-fix-26684157/
I want you to use The Chosen as a case study for Media Ecology.
- how audiences are creating demand for the type of content they want
- how technology is enabling Indi filmmakers/ TV show makers to create content outside of big corporations
https://www.316tees.com/blogs/316/the-chosen-highest-crowd-funded-media
https://www.facebook.com/InsideTheChosen/videos/509845126761963/
QUESTION
"The relationship between media and it's audience has changed rapidly." Discuss this
PLAN
Introduction:
- main point
- position on the point (agree / disagree)
- list of some of the points (very brief) that you will use to back up/ discuss this point
Paragraph 1: topic _________ in relation to the question
- point 1
- point 2
- point 3
- case study
- examples
- quote
- theory
- personal point of view/ experience
(repeat for paragraphs 2, 3, 4, 5 etc)
Hi guys,
Task 1
Read 'What is Media Ecology article below to get a further understanding of the topic's 'umbrella' of all the info we will be researching.
Task 2
Watch the video explaining a bit more about McLuhan's theory
Hi guys,
Looking at 'who holds the power' and thinking about big tech, I want you to do a closer examination of YOUTUBE.
Video #1 - An Origin Story
Video #2 - Youtube's story
- Who acquired Youtube and how much was spent?
- how was allowing people to monetise channels, a major shift in the industry?
- how were algorithms used to Youtube's advantage with subscribers?
- name some of the ways Youtube has changed and added aspects to their channel to increase audience / subscribers?
- why is content moderation hard for Youtube?
ARTICLE with information and stats on YouTube
Read this article
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58045787
- why is it an issue of power for Youtube to ban what it decides is 'misinformation'?
- how is it a turning of the power tables to have a news company censored by Youtube?
- write down some of the basic facts from this case to use as an example in your essay for the exam
Task 1
Watch this and make some notes to use in your essay.
- How has technology development made media regulation harder?
Task 2:
read this article;
New chief censor: the times they are a changing
I want you to answer the following questions;
1. How does the article describe what the censorship process was like in NZ 100 years ago?
2. In what ways has this changed?
3. What does the writer of the article mean when they say, "A revolving digital landscape has changed the way Kiwis viewed their entertainment, and it's also changed the way censorship defines itself."
4. Who is the NZ chief censor?
5. What 3 words describe how the chief censor sees his responsibility and role?
6. What City does the Chief censor reside in and how many people work in his team?
7. What other content passes through the hands of the censors and why is it considered a 'dark' side to the job?
8. What are they on the look out for in content that is being assessed?
9.What are some of the things that might be outright banned in NZ?
10. What medium is becoming the censor's main focus at the moment and what do they do to classify things of that medium in NZ?
11. Seeing how Shanks describes the differences between regulatory standards in NZ and Australia, how do you think culture play a part in restrictions placed on content?
12. What is a good example of a movie that was rated M in Australia but got a reviewed rating in NZ
13. Explain how the digital era proves a challenge to the censors
14. How does Shank imagine we might tackle this challenge?
15. What model did the Government say streaming services would fall under?
Classification / Regulation
Links for Research
https://www.classificationoffice.govt.nz/find-ratings/new-zealands-classification-labels/
https://www.classificationoffice.govt.nz
https://www.dia.govt.nz/Censorship-Film-and-Video-Classification
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Film_and_Literature_Classification
Questions for Discussion
1. Who classifies media content in NZ?
2. What issues do the classification board have to consider?
3. What legislation are the board bound by?
4. What is the process?
5. What classifications do we have in NZ?
6. Case Studies:
Using ’13 Reasons Why’, ‘The Passion’, ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and ‘Deadpool’ as case studies, discuss the controversies surrounding classifications in different countries and what NZ rated these in the end.
Take a look at this timeline of some important dates in relation to media regulation in NZ with more details about each, in the link, below
Make notes on the yellow highlighted ones.
Hi,
This week for homework you are going to tackle the following question;
"How effective is current media regulation?"
Hi guys,
This task is now for your essay you'll write on Media Regulation.
Case Study
Create a Blog post that is labelled - Media Regulation: Case Study, "13 Reasons Why"
Write a review on what happened with this TV series using the links below as a starting base for your case study research;
- Details about the movie (who created it/ distributed it/ directed it/ when did it come out / what platforms was it available on?)
- Where was it released? What countries?
- What was the controversy about?
- What rating did the NZ classifications board give it? Why?
- What was the rating in other countries?
- comment on the challenge of regulating online content
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/358000/serious-conversation-needed-with-netflix-chief-censor
Hi guys,
We are going for a bit of a bigger picture view of censorship today for some study notes. Some of these things will be useful in your MEDIA REGULATION section as well as for POWER IN THE MEDIA.
I want you to watch this clip and start making some notes on a blog post on the following;
1. Examples of censorship happening with Disney plus. What and why?
2. Examples of censorship in other countries (include in this, notes from our China censorship studies in last year's study notes)
3. Points for / against censorship as presented in this clip - should art be censored?
- if something is wrong but it is part of history, should it be cut out as to not offend people today? Where is that line in society? Who is making these decisions.
4. What are some issues around censorship in our modern world and how we are consuming media?
THEORIES FOR A2 MEDIA
REPRESENTATION
1 - Theories of representation - Stuart Hall
(advertising, music videos, newspapers, television, online media)
• Representations are constructed through media language, and reflect the ideological perspective of the producer
• The relationship between concepts and signs is governed by codes
• Stereotyping, as a form of representation, reduces people to a few simple characteristics or traits. However, stereotyping is useful, as it allows producers to easily construct media products, and audiences to easily decode them.
• Stereotyping tends to occur where there are inequalities of power, as subordinate or excluded groups are constructed as different or ‘other’ (e.g. through ethnocentrism).
Key work - Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (Editor)
2 - Theories of identity - David Gauntlett
(advertising, music videos, magazines, online media)
• Audiences are not passive, and media products allow the audience to construct their own identities
• Audiences can pick and mix which ideologies suit them, and completely ignore the elements of the product which they do not agree with in a process of negotiation similar to the one suggested by Stuart Hall
Key work - Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction
3 - Feminist theory - Liesbet van Zoonen
(advertising, music videos, television, magazines)
• Gender is constructed through codes and conventions of media products, and the idea of what is male and what is female changes over time
• Women’s bodies are used in media products as a spectacle for heterosexual male audiences, which reinforces patriarchal hegemony
Key work - Feminist Media Studies
4 - Feminist theory - bell hooks
(advertising, music videos, television, magazines)
• Feminism is a struggle to end patriarchal hegemony and the domination of women
• Feminism is not a lifestyle choice: it is a political commitment
• "Feminism is for everybody", and certainly not just for those that identify as women
• Race, class and gender all determine the extent to which individuals re exploited and oppressed
MEDIA INDUSTRIES
5 - Power and media industries - Curran and Seaton
(film industry, newspapers, radio, videogames, magazines)
• 'The media' is controlled by an increasingly small number of companies who are driven by profit and power
• By concentrating media production in to the hands of so few companies, there is an increasing lack of variety, creativity and quality
• We need more socially diverse and democratic patterns of ownership help to create varied and adventurous media productions.
Key work – Power Without Responsibility
6 - Regulation - Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt
(film industry, newspapers, radio, videogames, television, magazines, online media)
• 'Regulation' refers to the rules and restrictions that every media industry has to follow. For example the UK film industry must use the BBFC's age certifications, and television must adhere to OFCOM's regulations
• There is a struggle in recent UK regulation policy between the need to further the interests of citizens (by offering protection from harmful or offensive material), and the need to further the interests of consumers (by ensuring choice, value for money, and market competition)
• The increasing power of global media corporations, together with the rise of convergent media technologies and developments in the production, distribution and marketing of digital media have placed traditional approaches to media regulation at risk.
• Online media production, distribution and circulation in particular often allows producers to completely ignore media regulations
Key work - Media Regulation: Governance and the interests of citizens and consumers
AUDIENCES
7 - Media effects - Albert Bandura
(videogames)
• This old-fashioned view of how media products effect audiences is associated with the Frankfurt School in Germany
• The effects model suggests that media can implant ideas in the mind of the audience directly. It is also known as the hypodermic needle model
• Audiences acquire attitudes, emotional responses and behaviours through media products modelling ideologies
• If a media product represents behaviour such as violence or physical aggression, this can lead audience members to imitate those forms of behaviour
• This model has many issues, though it still proves popular with the general public, newspapers and politicians who should frankly read a media studies textbook or two.
Key work - Psychology Classics All Psychology Students Should Read: The Bobo Doll Experiment
8 - Cultivation theory - George Gerbner
(advertising, newspapers, magazines, online media)
• Being exposed to repeated patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way in which people perceive the world around them (i.e. cultivating particular views and opinions)
• This process of cultivation reinforces mainstream hegemonic values (dominant ideologies).
Key work - Against the Mainstream: The Selected Works of George Gerbner
9 - Reception theory - Stuart Hall
(advertising, newspapers, radio, videogames, television, magazines)
• To watch/read/play/listen to/consume a media product is a process involving encoding by producers and decoding by audiences
• There are millions of possible responses that can be affected through factors such as upbringing, cultural capital, ethnicity, age, social class, and so on
• Hall narrowed this down to three ways in which messages and meanings may be decoded:
• The preferred reading - the dominant-hegemonic position, where the audience understands and accepts the ideology of the producer
• The negotiated reading - where the ideological implications of producer’s message is agreed with in general, although the message is negotiated or picked apart by the audience, and they may disagree with certain aspects
• The oppositional reading - where the producer’s message is understood, but the audience disagrees with the ideological perspective in every respect
Key work - Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies
10 - Fandom - Henry Jenkins
(radio, videogames, television, online media)
• Fandom refers to a particularly organised and motivated audience of a certain media producer franchise
• Unlike the generic audience or the classic spectator, fans are active participants in the construction and circulation of textual meanings
• Fans appropriate texts and read them in ways that are not fully intended by the media producers (‘textual poaching’). Examples of this may manifest in conventions, fan fiction and so on
• Rather than just play a videogame or watch a TV show, fans construct their social and cultural identities through borrowing and utilising mass culture images, and may use this ‘subcultural capital’ to form social bonds. For example, through online forums like Reddit or 4chan.
Key work – Textual Poaching
11 - ‘End of audience’ theories - Clay Shirky
(newspaper, radio, videogames, online media)
• New media, as in the Internet and digital technologies, have had a significant effect on the relations between media and audiences
• Just thinking of audience members as passive consumers of mass media content is no longer possible in the age of the Internet. Now, media consumers have become producers who ‘speak back to’ the media in various ways, creating and sharing content with one another.
• This can be accomplished through comments sections, internet forums, and creating media products such as blogs or vlogs
X - However, this theory can and should be criticised. Arguably the media industries are just as exclusionary as they always ave been, and audiences are less 'producers' than 'unwitting advertisers'., promoting pre-existing products through retweets, fan accounts and derivative vlogs that could never be financially successful without aggressive monetisation!
Key work – Here Comes Everyone!
Hi guys,
Have a look at this essay question. Plan your essay out like we brainstormed on the white board. Use all your theories and case studies from your research, then write an essay that answers this question;
Power and the media
3 To what extent do the media represent people fully?
Due next Thursday :)
Hi guys,
Today you are going to answer this question using the essay guide I gave you at the start of this unit of work.
Power and the Media
"Audiences now have just as much power as media institutions.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement? " [15]
Set a timer for 30 minutes and write, flat-out. Remember to include quotes, statistics, facts from your research and all the points we have covered so far in your research.
Notes from Class brainstorm
Have a look at this link and make some notes about how YouTube has changed the power balance;
Hi guys,
Please watch these 2 videos, jam-packed with some great information and research for Black Panther as your case study. This will work for Power and the Media (in terms of representation) but also in Media Ecology as we talk about how audiences engage with media envoronments.
Questions to consider - what audience trends did Disney make use of to market and advertise as well as deliver this film to its audience?
