Tuesday, February 26, 2013

12D Essay Question

You'll be doing a 45 minute timed essay (from June '09) in class on Monday 4/3 p3/4. This will count towards your interim report that you receive on parents' evening.

Please plan/prepare your answer in advance, using all your research...


Account for the similarities and differences in the codes and conventions used in the media products from your case study.

In your answer you should:

● provide a brief outline of your case study
● compare how and why media products from your case study are similar and/or different within and across media platforms
● support your answer with reference to a range of examples from three media platforms.

Try to use some of these key words/theories in your answer.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

12E Revision for Assessment on Thursday!

Revise these key words and theories for your assessment on Thursday. This will count towards your interim and will be your first opportunity to experience a Section B style question under exam conditions.


Section B: Cross Platform Case Study REVISION

KEY WORDS
Convergence
The coming together of media technologies – blending together a variety of media forms into one platform (e.g. phone or tablet).
Synergy
The process through which a series of media products derived from the same text is promoted in and through each other. E.g. Disney’s High School Musical – Cinema, DVD, CD, app, merchandise etc.
User-generated content (UGC)
Media content produced by the audience. E.g. social networking; YouTube comments etc.
Web 2.0
A term coined in 2004 to describe the second generation of web-based communities such as social networking, wikis etc. This is to do with how we use the web rather than technological changes.
Intertextuality
Within a media text, references are made to other media texts. Parody and pastiche are good examples – such as the Simpsons parodying classic films. Advertising also regularly uses intertextuality.
Polysemic
More than one meaning; open to interpretation.

KEY THEORIES: AUDIENCE
Hypodermic needle
Dating from the 1920s, it is a crude model that suggests that audiences passively receive information transmitted via media text, without any attempt to process or challenge the data.
Uses and gratifications – Blumler and Katz (1974)
Individuals choose and use a text for the following purposes: Diversion (escape); Personal Relationships (emotional interaction); Personal Identity (finding yourself reflected in texts); Surveillance (useful info for living - news, weather)
Reception theory – Stuart Hall
Encoding/decoding model of communication - text encoded by producer and decoded by reader. There may be major differences between the two readings of the same code. However, by using recognised codes and conventions, producers can create agreement on what the code means. This is known as a preferred reading. An alternative interpretation is known as an oppositional reading.

KEY THEORIES: IDEOLOGY
Ideology
A set of beliefs and values. Put simply: the ideas behind a media text; the agenda of its producers.
Dominant ideology or hegemony
The process in which a power relationship is accepted, consented to and seen as ‘common sense’. E.g. Football currently has hegemonic status in the UK – no one is forced to watch it but a look at newspapers or TV schedules shows its power.

KEY THEORIES: NARRATIVE
Barthes
Codes: signs and signifiers. Texts can be open or closed to a variety of interpretations.
Myth
Accepted connotation, or myth, is created by the culture we are part of. Our myth of the countryside, for example, refers to a chain of concepts such as: it is good; it is natural; it is beautiful. Link to ideology.
Todorov – Equilibrium
Narratives begin with a state of equilibrium, where there is harmony and balance between characters and their environment/situation. Then comes some form of disruption which sets in motion a train of events. At the end of the narrative a new equilibrium is reached.

KEY THEORIES: REPRESENTATION
Mulvey – Male gaze
Mulvey declared that in patriarchal society ‘pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female’. Men do the looking; women are there to be looked at.
Kaplan – Male AND female gaze
Kaplan argued that the gaze could be adopted by both male and female subjects: the male is not always the controlling subject nor is the female always the passive object.

Ill Manors Prezi HW

For 12D:

1. Make sure you complete ALL FIVE of the slides for the  Ill Manors Cross Media Case Study Questions

2. Create a Prezi revision guide presentation on Ill Manors for the Cross Media Case Study to be delivered in the lesson (and embedded on your blog) on Monday 25th February

Answer the following questions in your presentation, and use the research/examples you've already done as evidence: 

How are texts in the three platforms constructed?

• Are there similarities and differences in the way the area is dealt with in each platform?
• What type of media language is used and how?
• How are genre codes used?
• How do texts within the three platforms construct narrative?


How do audiences access texts across the three platforms?

• Do the texts enable different types of audience activity and/or interaction?
• Are audiences able to play a role in the construction of media texts? (UGC)
• Are there differences in the audience gratifications offered across the three platforms?

How are representations constructed and are there similarities and/or differences across the platforms?


• What values and ideologies are communicated within the representations?

What institutional issues are raised by the topic areas?


• How are institutions reacting to change in technology?
• How are institutions attempting to reach and engage their audiences?
• What economic issues are behind the construction and distribution of contemporary media texts? 

Monday, February 04, 2013

12E Front Cover 1st Draft HW


Due Monday 11/02, individually:
  • Research film/television magazine front cover images on Google images
  • Take a series of at least ten main cover images for your magazine (use a DSLR) in different poses, expressions, angles, costumes, makeup, lighting, etc.
  • Upload them all onto your blog
  • Analyse them (consider framing, composition, mise en scene: CLAMPS etc.) ranking them in order of the most effective and explaining why
  • Create a Photoshop first draft of your front cover and post onto your blog
  • Use miseenmedia (tutorials in Jan 2013), the VLE tutorials (studentshare-student IT share-photoshop), Mr Babu, Mandeep, Akshay, etc. for help
In addition to this you should also be working on your group video productions: 
  • The storyboards, shot lists, and all other documentation should have been completed and uploaded onto your blogs
  • You should have written a progress report (for last week) and action plan (for this week)
  • The shoot should be underway - make sure you keep a close record of everything that happens when you're filming (still images, etc.) and upload onto your blog
  • The filming deadline in half term - that's just two weeks away!