Media Studies OCR Exam Blog - Kate Ovington

SOCIAL + HISTORICAL CONTEXT: // Burn the Witch comes from Radiohead's 9th studio album, A Moon Shaped Pool.  It is the lead single on the album, i.e. it was released to coincide with the album: if you like the song, you will love the album. // It was released as a download on the 3rd of may 2016 on Radiohead's website, followed by 7-inch single released exclusively in independent record stores.  // Critics interpreted the lyrics and video as a warning against group-think and authoritarianism. // It was named one of the best songs of the year by Rolling Stone, Billboard, and the Village Voice,  and was nominated for best rock song at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards. It was one of the bestselling UK vinyl singles of 2016. // The lyrics direct the listeners to "Abandon all reason/avoid all eye contact/do not react/shoot the messengers/burn the witch". Yorke said the lyrics were inspired by the News of the World newspaper publishing the names and addresses of sex offen...

SOCIAL + CULTURAL CONTEXT: // In 2009, Sande featured on rapper Chipmunk's debut single, 'Diamond Rings' which gave them a first top 10 hit on the UK singles chart.  // In 2010, she appeared again on Wiley's 'Never be your Woman' which became another top 10 hit, and on 'Let Go', which was the closing track of Tinie Tempah's debut album. she also co-penned Alesha Dixon's single 'Radio'. // In 2010, she signed her first major record deal with Virgin Records before signing another deal with EMI in 2011. // Heaven was her first solo track - the key purpose of this video is to introduce her as her own entity, to take her out of the shadow of other artists she had collaborated with in the past. SOCIAL + HISTORICAL CONTEXT: // As the main purpose was to establish her as a solo artist, a performance-based music video was essential to build her star image.  // The video was uploaded to Sande's YouTube channel as a first platform - 21.7...

MAIN SEQUENCE OF EVENTS: // Nanna runs away from a pursuer. // Sarah Lund moves out of her office. // Pernille calls Theis to fix a dishwasher. // Politician Troels Hartmann visits the grave of his dead wife. // Lisa texts Nanna. // Theis shows Vagn his new house. // The body of Nanna is discovered in the boot of a car. GENRE IN THE KILLING: Nordic Noir, Thriller, Detective Nordic noir is a genre of crime fiction from scandinavia, usually from a police perspective. It is straightforward, transparent and literal without metaphor and hidden meanings. It shows the contrast of a bland society with the darkness happening in it. SOCIAL CONTEXT: The episode reflects socially-contested gender and racial/ethnic relations: the police management and sparring politicians are male, reinforcing patriarchal power, but the narrative follows the agency of a female protagonist, whose professionalism and efficacy is foregrounded by her male colleague's boyishness and willingness to give ...

TARGET AUDIENCE:  // 72% of readers are ABC1 // 43% are AB // Psychographics - reformers, explorers To appeal to this TA who have a large cultural capital, they use intertextual references that they will easily understand (easter eggs). These are not dissimilar to the hidden meanings in Radiohead Burn the Witch. THE BIG ISSUE AND POLITICS: Fundamentally, the big issue are continuously critical of politicians, big businesses, banks and their inability to tackle the big issues. The Big Issue holds all politicians to account with a target mission to dismantle poverty and fight for social inclusion. They offer business solutions to social problems (ethical capitalism) by: // Offering vendors a hand up to set up their own micro-business // Campaigning for social inclusion and holding the powerful to account via their coverage of issues. THE BIG ISSUE AND BIG ISSUES: It's target mission is to dismantle poverty by creating opportunity, through self-help, social trad...

MARKET REACH OF MAGAZINES: // 75% coverage of the UK 15+ population (40m People) //Reach by platform:  - 40% Print  - 51% Phone  - 18% Desktop  - 12% Tablet WHAT IS  THE BIG ISSUE? A street newspaper. WHO SET IT UP? THEIR INFLUENCES/REASONS? Baron John Bird and Gordon Roddick were influenced by Street News NY to help homeless people earn an income. WHEN WAS IT FIRST PUBLISHED? BY WHO? September 1991 by Dennis Publishing WHAT IS IT'S CIRCULATION? IN WHICH COUNTRIES? The Big Issue has a circulation of 83,073 per week. It was originally a monthly magazine but in 1993 was published weekly. It is in the UK, Australia, Ireland, South Korea, Japan, Nambia, South Africa, Malawi and Taiwan. HOW IS IT FINANCED? Magazine sales and advertising revenue. HOW IS IT DIFFERENT TO OTHER NEWSPAPERS/MAGAZINES: It is a Not For Profit social business and is sold by NFA individuals. They buy them for £1.25 and sell them for £2.50, £3 at Christmas. HOW WOULD ...

WHEN LOOKING AT LUCOZADE, REMEMBER: // Classic conventions of a sports drink advert // Unconventional/Subversive elements of this advert // Intertextual References // Who is the advert aimed at // Celebrity endorsement? Aspirational? Challenge? Sex Appeal? // Use of colour // Typography CONTEXT: // Lucozade is an embedded historical, but originally british brand (1927) // Owned by multinational conglomerate GlaxoSmithKline, sold to global Japanese manufacturer and distributor Suntory in 2013 just after the campaign... // Lucozade is famous for rebranding it's product over the years - in the 60s and 70s as a drink that would help with 'sickness', as the preferred drink in the early days of the rave scene in the 80s and as a sports drink. // 'I Believe' campaign was part of a £4mil campaign across digital and press platforms to position lucozade again as  sports drink to help performance. // Footballers Gareth Bale and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain used as po...

WHEN LOOKING AT OLD SPICE, REMEMBER: // Classic conventions of a fragrance advert. // Unconventional/converse elements of this advert // Intertextual references // Who is it aimed at? // Sex appeal/the exotic? // Typography // The advert was part of a bigger above the line advertising campaign. TA: high street brand aimed at an 18-34 mass, mainstream male/female TA (transformation re-branding from previous older 40 - 60 demographic)   CONTEXT: // Historical American brand (1937) manufactured by multi-national conglomerate Procter & Gamble - they own 100s of brands (Inc. Pringles)  // Brand range includes male grooming products // 2010 re-branding campaign sequenced by the Ad Agency Wieden and Kennedy (Clients include Nike and other blue-chip clients) // Introduced ex-NFL player/actor Isaiah Mustafa as the USP of the advert. // Advert used humour and sex working on levels of aspiration to target consumers - hegemonic cultural stereotypes of male power a...

WHAT WAS THE ATMOSPHERE LIKE IN THE 80S: 1// The cold war ended, concern shifted to China 2// Pollution Persists 3// Electronic Innovations 4// 1981 tax cut + Reagonomics 5// Tense relations with Iran 6// War on drugs 7// Developments in the space program + shuttles 8// Spread of HIV/AIDS 9// Cable TV goes mainstream - MTV, ESPN 10// Rise of Yuppie culture E.T. was the highest grossing film of the decade, made by Stephen Spielberg. The bestselling book of the 80s was Stephen King's IT. They made it into a film in 1990 and remade it in 2017, starring one of the cast of Stranger Things, Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike. GENRE IN STRANGER THINGS: Sci-Fi, Coming of Age, Thriller, Crime, Love, Buddy It is important for Stranger Things to expand it's TA because people pay for Netflix, a very genre-reliant platform. If they don't appeal to multiple genres, not many people will watch it. It is a multi-genre show, about exploring genre rather than belonging to a genr...

ECONOMIC CONTEXT: FALLING LISTENERS HITS COMMERCIAL RADIO // PSBs are free from the pressure of ratings driven by advertising revenue but need to compete for listeners to show they are still relevant. // Some commercial radio stations say BBC has an unfair advantage and this is stunting growth in the radio market. // The BBC can cross-promote across all it's media platforms. // The BBC can continue to invest in content even though listeners are falling and it doesn't depend on ratings for revenue. // BBC Radio 1's core target audience of 15-29 year olds are digital natives who are listening to less radio. // According to RAJAR audience figures, thew numbers of 16-24s reached by radio has fallen by nearly 15% in a decade. In 2017, Nick Grimshaw recorded the lowest listening figures for R1BS since records began. CULTURAL CONTEXT: // Listening to linear radio is no longer part of youth culture in the way it used to be in the peak of Radio 1. This audience has mig...

1967 BOX OFFICE STATISTICS: Budget - $4 million Gross - $141 million gross in the US (29th highest grossing film of all time in the US) and $205 million worldwide. An estimated $6.8 million came from Germany alone , making it Germany's highest grossing film of all time. 2016 BOX OFFICE STATISTICS: Budget - $175 million Gross - $364 million in the US and Canada and $602.5 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $966.6 million. The film became a huge financial success. It briefly held the record for the biggest remake of all time until the studio's own Beauty and the Beast surpassed it in the following year. WALT DISNEY: // 1901 - 1967 // Born in Chicago. // He took art classes as a child and became a comical illustrator at 18. // Moved to CA in the 1920's and set up Disney Brothers Studios with his brother Roy. // He developed the character of Mickey Mouse in 1928, a big success. // As the studio grew, Disney became more adventurous, including sy...

WHY DO WE NEED THE PRESS? (REFERENCE USES + GRATS) // Newspapers inform readers about events, providing them with facts and opinions which help them make their own judgement. However, the stories featured in different papers will reflect the opinion of the editor and, in turn, the owner of the paper. // Along with information, papers have an entertainment function such as celebrity/pop culture, sports, TV, puzzles, and readers' letters (e.g dear Deidre) //We need to be informed of opinions and views that aren't our own - news media provides a forum for this debate. If we just listened to our twitter feed for example, we would get a very one-sided perception of the world. // The press are sometimes called the fourth estate - to reflect their important role in society (after the church, the state, the nobility and the commoners). HOW MANY ADULTS DO NEWSBRANDS (UK NEWSPAPERS AND THEIR DIGITAL VERSIONS) REACH IN THE UK? // Newsbrands reach 47.5 million adults in t...

KEY INFO: // Minecraft is a sandbox game. // It was developed by the Swedish based Mojang Studios // There are two game modes - creative and survival. // It was created by MArkus 'Notch' Persson. HISTORY OF MINECRAFT: // He started creating it in May 2009 . // It was initially seen as a niche product for players with expert knowledge of computers and programming. // Without the commercial advertising of a mainstream publisher, and no money spent on advertising, the game relied on word of mouth between gamers. // By April 2011 , Persson estimated that $33 million of revenue had been made. // In November 2011 , prior to the game's official release, Minecraft had over 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases. // In 2011 , Minecraft was released across multiple platforms. Pocket Edition was released for mobile devices at roughly the same time. // By 2012 , it was available on Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. // It was created originally using Java, which ...

Stranger things is an American science-fiction web horror television series set in the 1980's (1983 in series 1) that premiered on Netflix on the 15th of July 2016. BUDGET  - $6 million per episode MARKETING POSTER - MAIN CAST - Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Gated Matarazzo, Caleb McGlaughlin, Millie Bobby Brown, Noah Schnapp, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery EPISODES  - eight 40-60 minute long episodes STAR APPEAL - Winona Ryder COUNTRY OF ORIGIN - United States SET IN - 1980's Hawkins Indiana CREATED BY  - The Duffer Brothers PRODUCTION TEAM  - The Duffer Brothers, Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen SYNERGY  - Netflix and 21 laps Entertainment Massacre CONVERGENCE  - Small clips posted to Instagram to tease the premier of the show along with digital posters using Netflix house style. Trailers on Netflix and YouTube so to be accessible to all. Stranger Things Soundtrack with classic 80's hits. AUDIENCE  - ABC1, 15-...