Read this article and make some notes on the case of the Christchurch Mosque shooter. How does this impact your own view of whether social media / online content should be regulated?
Summarise some of the points raised here in regards to the argument aorund offensive vs. harmful content and also the argument that social media companies are publications and not editorials.
What laws already exist to regulate social media?
How much responsibility do you believe governments should have in regulating the public's content online?
How many people do FB and Youtube have monitoring and regulating content on their platforms?
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?
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?
Find a digipak cover from the same genre as your music video and annotate it for the design conventions. This must be uploaded to your blog. Make it detailed and use the terms from the sheets below. If you can find the back of it too, that would be great for some of the technical conventions i.e. barcode, publisher logo etc.
Here is an example analysis
You should focus on: images, graphics, illustrations, font, colour, technical conventions (barcode, parental advisory, album title on spine, tracks on the back), register of copy, mise-en-scene, composition, intertextual references, how does the cover communicate meaning, denotations and connotations, image manipulation, filters, generic conventions, how can it be ‘read/interpreted’ by an audience, star image, metanarrative, representation?
This is a textual analysis – decode it! Use connectives like connote, infer, imply, represent. This is another way MEDIA LANGUAGE is used to communicate an idea, message, image etc.
In the introduction to the blog post you need to do a bullet point list of the conventional and technical features that are common to digipaks too – include the spine, inside covers and back cover – what is commonly featured? Bar code? Parental advisory? Name of the album and performer on the spine? Song list on the back? etc
Task 2: Digipak Exercise - taking it a step further
-
You are going;
- to take a look at some examples of slideshares of past students who researched digipaks
- research 3 examples of Digipak designs and make notes about what they include in terms of BRANDING for the artist/ band
- comment on and make notes on the style and branding of the bands/ artists (also in relation to genre).
- Compare your 3 digipaks to previous digipaks from those same artists to get a feel for how they brandthemselves.
- comment on your thoughts for your own Digipak ideas. How will you incorporate expected genre conventions of style and form, into your own work. Your artist / band already has a brand. How will you convey the same branding?? Think about colour, font size/ colour, layout, imagery etc. How might a Digipak 'look' of a metal band be different to that of a Katie Perry 'pop' Digipak? Is there animated imagery or do they use photos? What type of photos or artwork is included?
- Compile your research into a blog tool (including lots of photos and imagery), explaining and presenting your findings.
An element of power = the ability to tell the stories we want told
Write some notes on ''The Sound of Freedom' as a case study in relation to how independent filmmakers have more autonomy over what types of movies are being made and what stories are being told.
Why do you personally feel it is important for their to be stories like this told through the film industry, rather than just the usual 'cookie- cutter' movies that the Big 5 seem to be churning out?
Look up some more recent stats in relation to how well this film did. What opposition did it face and how well was it recieved in the end? (You can use numbers from Facebook 'likes' on it's fan page as well as Box Office numbers)
The film was released on July 4, 2023, by Angel Studios. It was a sleeper hit, becoming one of the most successful independent films in history.[6] It has grossed $182 million against a $14.5 million budget. It received mixed reviews from critics,[7] while audience reception has been highly positive.
In the entertainment industry, sleeper hit refers to a film, television series, music release, video game, or some other entertainment product that was unpromising on release but became a success later on
The film was completed in 2018 and a distribution deal was made with the Latin American subsidiary of 20th Century Fox.[25] When the studio was purchased by the Walt Disney Company, it shelved the film. Subsequently, the filmmakers bought the distribution rights back from the studio.[26]
Verástegui approached Angel Studios with the release rights. Angel presented the film to an online group of 100,000 investors in its past projects called the Angel Guild, which gave it a "yes" vote within days.[2] In 2023, Angel Studios had acquired the worldwide distribution rights, with a planned release during the second half of 2023.[26] In May of the same year, it received a release date of July 4, 2023.[27]
Angel used equity crowdfunding to raise the funds needed to distribute and market the film. Seven thousand people invested, allowing Angel to meet its $5 million goal in two weeks.[2] They also encouraged patrons to "pay it forward" to allow people who might not otherwise see the film to watch it in theaters for free.[28]Sound of Freedom is Angel Studios' second theatrical release after His Only Son.[29]
On July 26, Angel Studios confirmed that Sound of Freedom would be released in 23 international markets throughout 2023. The film was released in UAE on August 17, in South Africa, Iceland and Lithuania on August 18 and Australia and New Zealand on August 24. The film has been released in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Belize, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Croatia[30] on August 31. In addition, the film will be released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on September 1 and Spain on October 11
Have a watch of these 2 videos and make notes. Be careful to get stats/ quotes and case study examples that you can use in essays.
You can use the concept of a global audience impacting representation / impacting Hollywood in the following essays;
- Power + The Media (in relation to how institutions have power but because they are driven by $, audiences have growing power and Hollywood bowing to Chinese censorship to gain access to foreign market. How people / ethnicities/ governments are represented is largely due to financial gain and not truth of what is currently happening)
- Media Regulation (in relation to how China censors Hollywood contrasted with the West's democratic values - issues of freedom of speech)
- Media Ecology (In relation to audiences relationship with institutions)
“Identity is complicated; everyone's got one.” Gauntlett believes that while everyone is an individual, people tend to exist within larger groups who are similar to them. He thinks the media do not create identities, but just reflect them instead
Let's look at this article and clip from David Gauntlett himself
Why is it hard for us to ask the question 'how does this media text construct identity'?
What are some key notions of identity that we should take into consideration?
Acivity
Write a paragraph for a Power in the Media essay, including both Stuart Hall (Reception theory), Blumler and Katz (Uses + Gratification theory) and Gauntlett's theory
"New media plays a huge role in creating people's identity". Do you agree or disagree with this statement and why?
Looking closer at HEGEMONY as a concept that you need to be able to refer to and talk about in both POWER AND THE MEDIA and MEDIA ECOLOGY
What is HEGEMONY?
Hegemony is basically the idea that the media continually reproduces images of a dominant group as superior or powerful. In Western society, the dominant group is middle class white males and because the media are predominantly produced by middle class white males, they tend to represent middle class white males as superior. And the rest of society – working class, BAME, LGBT, disabled, female – as less powerful or inferior.
This is a video that explains the overarching idea of hegemony in the world;
Read this article and make some notes on how hegemony is a theory that can be applied to considering the idea of power and the media.
