MIGRAIN: Representation - an introduction

Representation is a crucial key concept in A Level Media. Here we explore how the media represents different people, social groups, places and events - and discuss the impact on society and individuals.

The key notes on representation:

• Representation is the process by which the media presents the ‘real world’ to an audience.
• Media texts are artificial, constructed versions of reality
• Even factual media – such as news – goes through processes of selection, organisation and editing that shapes its content
• How are particular people and groups represented in the media? How and why are stereotypes created?
• Why are certain social groups – in both a national and global context – under-represented or misrepresented?

Mediation

Media texts are a construction of reality, and play an important role in the way we view the world. 

Reality is therefore subject to mediation which is the process that takes place when a media text’s meaning is created.

When mediation takes place, an institution, individual or even technology comes between the actual event and the audience.

Stereotypes

Media messages have to be communicated quickly which often means relying on stereotypes. Stereotypes work as a kind of shorthand where a word, image or sound will stand for a lot more.

A stereotype is a standardised, usually oversimplified mental picture or attitude towards a person, group, place or event.

Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people—usually relating to their gender, class, ethnicity or race, sexual orientation, social role or occupation.

Representation: dominant or alternative?

A representation in the media will either reinforce or challenge the stereotype.

If it reinforces the stereotype, it is a dominant representation.

If it challenges the stereotype, it is an alternative representation.

Representation: Blog task

Watch the trailer for Taken and complete the following tasks:

Create a new blogpost called 'Introduction to Representation' and embed the Taken trailer in the post.

1) List the different people/groups represented in the trailer (men/women/Americans etc.)

2) For each group you identify, decide whether the representation is a dominant or alternative portrayal. Explain why you think this.

3) What stereotypes can you identify in the trailer? 

4) Why might the Taken trailer offend or alienate certain groups?

5) Why do mainstream film and television texts such as Taken so often use stereotypes?

Complete for homework if you don't complete it in the lesson - due next lesson.

Film & TV Language: Editing video feedback and learner response

Your short editing videos should contain crucial techniques for narrative film and television.

The ability to use cutting on action, shot-reverse shot and adhering to the 180 degree rule will be vital to your success in coursework later this year. Once we've screened the videos in class, you need to complete the following tasks on your blog:

Editing video feedback/learner response

Create a new blogpost called 'Editing video feedback and learner response'. Make sure your video is on YouTube and embedded in this blogpost. 

1) Type up your feedback/comments from your teacher.

2) Type up your feedback from fellow students.

3) Now reflect on your video. Did you meet the brief and successfully include the three key editing aspects we have learned?

4) What were the strengths and weaknesses of your final film? Write a detailed analysis picking out specific shots, edits and any other aspect of film language you think is relevant.

5) Learner response: what aspect of editing did you find most difficult? What have you learned from this process that will help you when you start the actual coursework later this year?

Complete this for homework if you don't get it done in the lesson - due date specified by your coursework teacher. Don't forget the additional film analysis task for Editing too!

MIGRAIN index and January assessment revision

As we reach the end of the Autumn term, you need to update your MIGRAIN index and start revising for your January assessment.

The index, as you know, is a critical way of making sure you are keeping on top of the workload and not missing any crucial topics or concepts. Your December index should have the following work in it:

1) Introduction to Media: 10 questions
2) Media consumption audit
3) Language: Reading an image - advert analyses
4) Reception theory
5) Semiotics: icons, indexes and symbols
6) Genre: Factsheets and genre study questions
7) Narrative: Factsheet questions
8) Audience: classification - psychographics presentation notes
9) October assessment learner response
10) Audience theory 1 - Hypodermic needle/Two-step flow/U&G
11) Audience theory 2 - Bandura and Cohen - moral panic
12) Audience theory: Media Effects factsheet
13) Industries: Ownership and Control
14) Industries: Hesmondhalgh - The Cultural Industries
15) Industries: Public Service Broadcasting
16) Industries: Regulation

17) Industries: Brand Values and Lines of Appeal

Remember, your index needs to link to YOUR blogpost for each piece of work. If you've missed anything, catch up with it this weekend and make sure the index is complete for Monday.

January assessment details

This assessment will be in the first week back and will be similar in format to your October assessment. Revise everything from your two indexes - MIGRAIN Introduction to Media and Film & TV Language. In addition, look over your learner response for the assessment in October. That feedback will be important in identifying how you will improve in the upcoming assessment.

Christmas homework: revise for January assessment

Your Christmas homework is simple: revise everything you've learned so far in Media this year for your January assessment.

In addition, there are plenty of resources out there to further help you prepare for your January assessment. For example, we strongly recommend you get hold of the two A Level Media textbooks endorsed by AQA which cover all the key concepts and many of the Close-Study Products. 

You will obviously be looking over your MIGRAIN index as outlined above. However, there is plenty more out there. Anything you read in our Media Magazine archive will help to give you a wider perspective on media debates and every issue has several articles which focus on interesting examples, theories and debates that will help you in a Media exam. You'll find our Media Magazine archive here. 

Remember: these resources are all for you - the more you use them, the better you will do!

Film & TV Language: end of unit index

We have completed our first major A Level Media unit: Film & TV Language. We now need to update our index to ensure we haven't missed any vital notes or skills.  

Keeping an index of all your work is extremely good practice from a revision perspective. Not only does this keep the concepts and media terminology fresh in your mind but it will also highlight if you've missed anything through absence or trips. 

Film & TV Language index

Your final Film & TV Language index should include the following:

1) Film poster analysis
2) Mise-en-scene blog tasks
3) Star persona: video feedback and learner response
4) Lighting blog tasks
5) Sound blog tasks

6) Sound: parallel and contrapuntal video feedback and learner response

7) Cinematography blog tasks
8) Cinematography video task and learner response
9) Cinematography additional clip analysis
10) Editing video task and learner response
11) Editing blog task - 750 word analysis

For your index, it needs to link to YOUR corresponding blogpost so you can access your work on each key concept quickly and easily. This also means you if you have missed anything you can now catch up with the work/notes and won't underperform in future assessments/exams due to gaps in your knowledge.

Important: your index needs to be completed during the lesson. Any missing work MUST be caught up over the holidays.

Film & TV Language: Editing blog tasks

Editing is the last aspect of our Film & TV Language unit - but absolutely crucial to the way meanings are created and communicated to the audience. 

Editing can completely change the audience’s understanding of narrative and character. Charlie Brooker deconstructed the editing in the reality TV genre:

Editing notes

Key terminology for editing:

• Transitions
• Continuity editing
• Montage
• Pace
• Juxtaposition

Continuity editing

Most editing of narrative film is continuity editing.  This is when shots are placed logically so that one event follows on from the next.  We, as the audience, automatically try to make sense of one shot joining the next one.  For example, if we see an exterior shot of a school and the following shot is a classroom, we assume that the classroom is inside the school building we saw in the previous shot.  

Transitions

• A straight cut is the most common method and the audience are so accustomed to seeing these that we rarely notice them when they occur.
• A fade out – the screen fades to black.
• A dissolve - one image blurs into the next.
• A wipe – one part of the screen wipes across the other.
• A jump cut – an unexpected edit where the audience’s attention is forced to focus on something very suddenly.  

Pace

The speed at which the film cuts from one shot to the next makes a huge difference to the experience for the audience.

Generally, slow-paced cuts build tension while fast cuts suggest action and excitement.

Juxtaposition
The word juxtaposition literally means ‘the act of placing together side by side’.

In film, two shots may be placed together to create meaning for the audience. E.g. A shot of the hero may be followed by a shot of his love interest to link these in the audience’s mind. This may also take the form of an eyeline match where a character looks in a certain direction and the next shot cuts to whatever they are looking at.

Montage

A montage sequence involves shots being placed next to each other that do not necessarily convey a linear narrative.  Instead, the shots tend to convey a message, provide an overall impression or shorten a story that takes place over a much longer period time.  For example, a sequence that included consecutive shots of a school building, classrooms, students playing football and teachers in the staffroom may be aiming to give an overall impression of school life.    

Editing: blog task

There are some truly fantastic clips for the Editing part of the Film & TV Language unit. 

Your blog task is to find a film or television clip on YouTube that you feel has been edited in a distinctive way and write a 750 word analysis of the clip.

Use as much media language as you can - and remember to highlight it. Try and use the key words we've learned for editing and any other aspects of film language you can apply.

If you're not sure what clip to pick, you will find plenty of lists online if you search for 'great film editing sequences' or similar. One example that comes up when you do this is something like the shootout scene from Michael Mann's Heat (3mins - 6mins particularly, but it's all brilliant):

Complete this for homework - due date next Wednesday.

MIGRAIN: Industries - Brand values

One aspect of the Industries key concept you need to understand and appreciate is branding.

According to Gillian Dyer (Advertising as Communication, 1988) advertisers use, among other techniques, lines of appeal to create brand identities and attract their target audience.

Media companies use these images, references or suggestions to tap into our desires and make us ‘feel part’ of the brand. Dyer suggested lines of appeal could be classified into 13 groups:

• Happy families - everyone wants to belong 
• Rich, luxurious lifestyles - aspirational 
• Dreams and fantasy 
• Successful romance and love 
• Elite people or experts 
• Glamorous places 
• Successful careers 
• Art, culture & history
• Nature & the natural world 
• Beautiful women - men AND women like looking at beautiful women, so the thinking goes: men admire them, women admire what makes the men admire them. 
• Self-importance & pride 
• Comedy & humour 
• Childhood - can appeal to either nostalgia or to nurturing instincts 

Brand values task 100-10-1

Choose THREE brands. For EACH brand:

1) Sum up the brand values in 100 words, making reference to Dyer’s lines of appeal.

2) Distil the brand values into one sentence of no more than 10 words. 

3) Sum up the brand in ONE word.

Example: Starbucks

1) The Starbucks brand is clever because it comes across as a friendly, local-style company when it is in fact a massive global business. Its brand values would be about quality, lifestyle and a personal touch.  Starbucks could fit into several of Dyer’s lines of appeal: Happy families - everyone wants to belong, hence Starbucks asking your name when you order. It could also fit into Successful careers – Starbucks is for hard-working, successful people who want to enjoy life. Finally, Self-importance and pride links to Starbucks taking coffee seriously and its employees and customers having genuine passion for the brand. (100 words)

2) The Starbucks brand is about quality with a personal touch. (10 words)

3) Starbucks in one word: Passion.

Complete for homework. Deadline: Friday.

Extension task:

Research Innocent drinks

What brand values would you associate with Innocent? Why might their takeover by Coca Cola threaten those brand values?

Does your opinion of the brand change once you know they are owned by Coca Cola? Why?

MIGRAIN: Industries - Regulation

Like most industries, the media is regulated - overseen by government to make sure the market is fair and the content appropriate for the audience.

As A Level Media students, we need to understand how the media is regulated and form opinions on whether we think that regulation is effective and appropriate. Complete the blog task below to demonstrate you understand the basics of media regulation.

Media regulation: blog task

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet 128: Contemporary Media Regulation. Our Media Factsheet archive can be found at M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets

Read the Factsheet and complete the following questions/tasks:

1) What is regulation and why do media industries need to be regulated?

2) What is OFCOM responsible for?

3) Look at the section on the OFCOM broadcasting code. Which do you think are the three most important sections of the broadcasting code and why?

4) Do you agree with OFCOM that Channel 4 was wrong to broadcast 'Wolverine' at 6.55pm on a Sunday evening? Why?

5) List five of the sections in the old Press Complaints Commission's Code of Practice. 

6) Why was the Press Complaints Commission criticised?

7) What was the Leveson enquiry and why was it set up?

8) What was the PCC replaced with in 2014?

9) What is your opinion on press regulation? Is a free press an important part of living in a democracy or should newspapers face statutory regulation like TV and radio?

10) Why is the internet so difficult to regulate?

Complete this for homework - due next Friday.

MIGRAIN: Industries - Public service broadcasting

The British television industry is largely driven by public service broadcasting - the traditional TV channels that still account for the majority of TV viewing in this country.

These channels are regulated by Ofcom and have to deliver a certain amount of specific content in order to fulfil the terms of their license.


Public service broadcasting: notes

Public service broadcasting refers to broadcasting intended for public benefit rather than to serve commercial interests.

The media regulator Ofcom requires certain TV and radio broadcasters to fulfil certain requirements as part of their license to broadcast.

All of the BBC's television and radio stations have a public service remit.

The history of the BBC

The BBC was created in 1922 in response to new technology – the radio (or wireless as it was called then).

The BBC was set up to “inform, educate and entertain” – which is still its mission statement to this day. 

The BBC funding model: license fee

All BBC content (and some of Channel 4’s funding) comes from the License Fee, which costs £150.50 a year. 

You need a TV Licence to:

- watch or record live TV programmes on any channel

- download or watch any BBC programmes on iPlayer – live, catch up or on demand.

Some politicians want to scrap the license fee and change the BBC’s funding model.

Channel 4

Channel 4 is an important part of UK public service broadcasting. Read full details of Channel 4's remit here - there is plenty of important information regarding the channel's commitment to public service broadcasting and its unique funding model.

"Channel 4 is a publicly-owned and commercially-funded UK public service broadcaster, with a statutory remit to deliver high-quality, innovative, alternative content that challenges the status quo.

Channel 4 reinvests all profits back into programmes, at zero cost to the taxpayer. A ‘Robin Hood’ model of cross-funding means programmes that make money pay for others that are part of the PSB remit but that are loss-making e.g. News and Current Affairs." 

Opposition to public service broadcasting

Many people in Britain see public service broadcasting as a good thing – but not rival commercial broadcasters.  

James Murdoch, son of Rupert, has criticised BBC news. He says that free news on the BBC made it “incredibly difficult” for private news organisations to ask people to pay for their news.

Some politicians have argued that the BBC should not produce programmes such as Strictly Come Dancing so commercial broadcasters such as ITV or Sky can attract larger audiences in primetime.

Public service broadcasting: blog task

Create a new blogpost called 'Public service broadcasting' and complete the following tasks:

Ofcom report

Read the first few pages of this Ofcom report into Public Service Broadcasting in 2017.

1) How does the report suggest that TV viewing is changing?

2) What differences are highlighted between younger and older viewers?

3) Does the report suggest audiences are satisfied with public service broadcasting TV channels?

4) Public service broadcasting channels are a major aspect of the UK cultural industries. How much money did PSB channels spend on UK-originated content in 2016? 



Goldsmiths report

Read this report from Goldsmiths University - A future for public service television: content and platforms in a digital world.

1) What does the report state has changed in the UK television market in the last 20 years?

2) Look at page 4. What are the principles that the report suggests need to be embedded in regulation of public service broadcasting in future?

3) What does the report say about the BBC?

4) According to the report, how should the BBC be funded in future?

5) What does the report say about Channel 4?

6) How should Channel 4 operate in future?

7) Look at page 10 - new kids on the block. What does the report say about new digital content providers and their link to public service broadcasting?



Final questions - your opinion on public service broadcasting

1) Should the BBC retain its position as the UK’s public service broadcaster?

2) Is there a role for the BBC in the 21st century digital world?

3) Should the BBC funding model (license fee) change? How?

Complete for homework - due next Monday 10 December.