Media Studies OCR Exam Blog - Kate Ovington

EXPLAIN HOW MEANINGS ARE ESTABLISHED THROUGH INTERTEXTUALITY. REFER TO SOURCE A IN YOUR ANSWER [10]   Intertextuality establishes meaning through  its  connection to the real world and cultural significance.  It ’ s  used  throughout  all forms of  media;   however,  the Big Issue magazine  often imbeds  it into their house style , creating a  recognizably   unrecognizable   aesthetic  unique to them.   Though much representation through intertextuality within the Big Issue often goes back to pop culture iconography such as album covers  like Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and TV Shows like Grange Hill,  this particular cover from May 2020 is very much in tune with the world and social issues of the day.  The idea of using the  Government's  official statement surrounding the pandemic in order to address  it’s  audience not only targets its readers  or fans ...

'THE DIFFERENCES IN THE CODES AND CONVENTIONS OF LONG FORM TELEVISION DRAMAS REFLECT THE DIFFERENT VALUES, ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS OF THE AUDIENCES THAT CONSUME THEM.' HOW FAR DO YOU AGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT? The contrasting nature of codes and conventions within the LFTVD genre very much stems from the need to reflect the different values, attitudes and beliefs of the consumer in order to engage and target individuals personally, regardless of whether the show is for a global mass audience or niche national one.  Netflix, a large international media company, has to extend the codes and conventions in order to reflect audiences on a global scale, making sure consumers can connect with the product regardless of geography. Whereas, smaller PSBs like DR only need to appeal to it's niche nordic audience so codes and conventions will differ. Where Netflix has a need to appeal to a global audience range in order to increase it's market share, DR is projecting to a niche audien...

KEY IDEAS: // Gender is created in how we perform our gender roles - there is no essential gender identity behind these roles, it is created in the performance. // Performativity is not a singular act but a repetition and a ritual that becomes naturalised within the body. // Any feminism concerned only with masculinity and femininity excludes other forms of gender and sexuality. // This creates 'gender trouble' for those who don't fit heterosexual norms. // Butler is an important postmodern writer and has influenced queer theory - theory which deconstructs and aims to destabilise apparently fixed identities based on gender and sexualities.

KEY IDEAS: // Feminist critiques of the media focus on challenging patriarchal and sexist representations. // Intersectionality considers the way in which multiple identities and systems of oppression overlap, e.g. in relation to multiple identities that create an individual identity (gender, race, social class, sexuality etc.). // Intersectional approaches to feminism draw attention to the importance of considering how the interactions of identities results in oppression. // Hooks argues media representations often reflect these oppressive ideologies.

KEY IDEAS: // Hall suggests that when analysing representation the focus should not be on the relationship between representation and 'reality' but on the potential meanings constructed. // A key focus for representation analysis should be on who or what is represented, who or what is not represented, and suggestions of difference. // Representations may intend to fix meanings in a 'preferred reading' but audiences can contest meanings.

KEY IDEAS: //Media representations portray a wide range of different and contradictory messages about identity, which can be used by audiences to think through their own identities. // Identities including gender and sexuality are now seen as less fixed than they were in the past. // Online media allows people to express and explore their identities.

ANALYSE THE REPRESENTATIONS IN SOURCES A AND B. USE ANY RELEVANT GENDER THEORIST. WHAT COULD YOU BE ASKED ABOUT: 1// Elements of media language 2// The ways media language choices imbed viewpoints and ideologies 3// The codes and conventions of newspaper genres and subgenres. 4// Theories relevant to language 5// The impact of contexts (ownership) on the choices newspapers make on how to represent events, issues, individuals, and social groups. 6// The way representations of events, issues, individuals and social groups are constructed through the choices newspapers make. 7// Positive and negative use of stereotypes and the debate this raises. 8// How representations show values. 9// How audiences are positioned - expected to respond. 10// How representations are made to seem real. REPRESENTATIONS IN SOURCE A: //Harry and Meghan - Upper class, white male, mixed-race female, young //Queen - Upper class, white female, old but powerful, mad at H+M REPR...

ANALYSE THE REPRESENTATIONS IN SOURCES A AND B, USE GILROY'S IDEAS IN YOUR ANSWER.  SOURCE A: //Genre - Mid-market Tabloid //Ideologies - Anti-migrant, anti- sustainability //Audience - C2DE, M/F, 40-50, British, right-wing //Image - Celebrity appeal for gossip-hungry audience that aren't too bothered about the current affairs main story. Stereotypical representation of young white woman. //Gilroy - Supports his theory as they are 'invading' Britain, othering their race as a whole as alien and unwanted, we are hanging onto this WW1 Britain and not accepting that multiculturalism is a big part of our society as a whole. SOURCE B: //Genre - Broadsheet //Ideologies - Pro-migrant, sympathetic //Audience - ABC1, M/F, 20-40, British, Accomplished, Woke, left-wing //Image - Unconventional negative representation of the suffering being inflicted on man due to council decisions, not stereotypical to show a man crying or a vulnerable black man. //Gilr...

EQUILIBRIUM THEORY APPLICATION: The video tells the story of an inspector visiting a village, appearing a pastoral idyll, only to reveal the darkness that lies under the surface. The status quo, or what Todorov would term 'equilibrium', is established through a colourful mise-en-scene with close-ups of flowers, multi-coloured houses, trees and people. This is almost a visual of the Inspector's expectations of what he is coming to visit. The disruption, or initiating incident is revealed through  parallel  imagery, unfolding only once the Inspector actually arrives. The man once painting a postbox (British symbolism) is now painting a red X on a 'traitor's' door. The flowers on the pole are revealed to actually be on a noose. these, once close-up shots are now long/mid-shots, revealing darkness through the inspector's perspective. As the narrative builds towards the climax, more sinister elements are revealed through the use of changing time. The morning ...

THE JOB THAT MUSIC VIDEOS DO - THEIR PURPOSE: //Describe the star image or brand constructed for the artist. Include relevant info about the artist and their genre. //How does this video engage and entertain it's audience? //Does it explore big ideas and comment on society? //Who is it's core audience and how does it target them? //What elements of this video would encourage an audience to share and like it? THE METHODS - THE WAY THEY USE CODES + CONVENTIONS: //What is distinctive about the performance?   -1- Describe the camera angles, shots + movement used   -2- Describe the editing - changes in pace, cuts, transitions   -3- describe the MES - setting, costume, lighting etc. //How are close ups and other elements used to build the star image throughout the video? //How is MES used throughout the video to create style, branding and representation of people, places and ideas? //How do the music and lyrics work with the visuals - how does the...

MESSAGES + VALUES: // Editorial content is often critical of big businesses and banking. // Champions the political cause, and the role of the individual in society. // Often focuses on personal and social issues in their representations of celebrities. // Front covers tend to convey more left wing beliefs in their representations of ideologies. // It could be argued that the Big Issue privileges a white male perspective owing to an under-representation of people of colour and women on covers where an individual is the focus. // However, ethnic minorities and women are represented positively when featured - countertypes often used. // The Big Issue challenges stereotypes in it's representation of excluded groups in society, e.g. featuring homeless people and vendors in a positive and often celebratory way. "We've focused on stories and voices that really tell an outsider story, important voices that are rarely properly heard in the media. Hitting 25th anniversary ...

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...

KEY IDEAS: // Genres are not fixed but CONSTANTLY EVOLVING . // Genres INFLUENCE EACH OTHER sometimes to form HYBRID genres. // Products which link to the genre share the genre conventions creating an INTERTEXTUAL RELAY .

KEY IDEAS: // We live in  a patriarchal society. // Women's bodies are presented ad objects, male bodies are represented as a spectacle. // Often, women's bodies are presented as their most powerful and only tool. // Gender is performative  - our ideas of femininity and masculinity are constructed in our performances of these roles. // Gender is contextual - it's meaning changes with cultural and historical contexts. // Van-Zoonen disagrees with arguments that the internet, being based on collaboration , is a technology that is true and close to women and femininity. // These views are too simple and based on the idea of an essential femininity, whereas there is a rich diversity of ways that gender is articulated on the internet.

KEY IDEAS: // If your reality is permeated by HYPER-REAL images, your reality becomes distorted. // You them will live in a HYPER-REALITY  where the unreal is more real than reality.  

KEY IDEAS: // Media representations define a 'NORM'  which they encourage the audience to identify with and portray those outside this norm as 'OTHER' , lesser and alien. // It builds an US VS THEM  ideology and emphasizes difference. // These are known as BINARY OPPOSITES . (SEE LEVI STRAUSS)

KEY IDEAS: //REPRESENTATION  is not about whether media reflects or distorts reality, as this implies that there can be one ' TRUE ' meaning, but there are MANY MEANINGS  a representation can generate.  // Meaning is constituted by representation, by what is PRESENT , what is ABSENT , and what is DIFFERENT . Thus, meaning can be contested. // A representation implicates the audience in creating it's meaning. Power - through ideology or by stereotyping - tries to fix the meaning of representation in a' PREFERRED MEANING '. // To create deliberate ANTI-STEREOTYPES is still to attempt to fix the meaning. // A more effective strategy is to go inside the stereotype and open it up within, to DECONSTRUCT  the work of representation.

KEY IDEAS: // People can take different readings over a text as an active audience. they are no longer passive. // If you want to understand society, avoid the news. producers embed ideologies into texts for audiences to consume. We need to deconstruct this in order to understand society. // The media shape our perceptions and Ideologies about groups. DIFFERENT READINGS: //Dominant - You fully accept the dominant ideology in the text. //Negotiated - You don't fully agree with, but can justify the dominant ideology in the text. //Oppositional - You completely reject the dominant ideology in the text. //Abhorrent - You do not understand the ideologies in the text. //Preferred -   You accept the reading the producer intended.