Media Language Practice Answer

I am going to discuss media language in relation to my music magazine, 'Sound' which I constructed during my Foundation portfolio. The magazine was constructed for a mostly female-based audience of 16 - 24 year olds, with a music genre of indie/festival music as the main genre. 'Media Language' is the term which defines the ways in which the media text communicates meaning to the audience. The meaning can be constructed for an audience through a variety of methods. These methods might include; semiotics, genre, narrative, mise-en-scene, sound, editing etc. Semiotics might be considered as the 'parent' method, as this is the study of signs, which is broken down into the signifier and the signified. The signifier is the form in which the sign takes, whilst the signified is the concept the sign represents. These semiotics can then take the form of everything used for construction in my magazine, such as the camerawork, mise-en-scene etc. Barthes then discussed that all cultural forms are made up of a system if signs that could be deconstructed to reveal how cultural meanings are constructed - in a sense, the meanings of signs are not fixed and depends on the readers' interpretation of the signifier.

For example, for the front cover of my music magazine, I used a gradient as a background behind my main image. The gradient of pink and yellow, was the signifier - that's all it was, just a blend of two different colours. However, my intentional signified meaning was that it would represent the idea of summer and would so reflect upon my summery-festival theme of my content. This was because it looked very similar to the colour of sunset during the summer months, and would connote a warm feeling.

Genre Practice Answer:

The product I am going to talk about in relation to genre is my music video. For my music video I used the song 'Autumn Leaves' by Ed Sheeran, which was an indie-acoustic song. The video itself was a hybrid-type containing elements of performance and narrative. Genre is not fixed, especially as hybrid media products are becoming more popular by combining elements from more than one genre, such as Rom-Com films (Romantic/Comedy). The indie genre in terms of music is traditionally seen as more like rock music, but typically identifies artists who do not have a set, particular 'style' of music. Nowadays, indie music is often combined with other genres such as indie-rock, indie-pop or indie-metal, to create hybrid music genres. It was important to understand genre because it made writing and constructing my product easier, as there is already a set 'structure' for generic music videos. For example, Andrew Goodwin stated that, "narrative music videos will have actions which match the lyrics and pace of the song, whilst performance videos typically show the artist playing the song to an audience from start to finish".

In helping to identify a particular genre, Lacey suggested a 'Repertoire of Elements' to help analysis of media texts; Setting, Character, Narrative, Style and Iconography, and like Steve Neale, "didn't see genre as fixed, but as dynamic and changing over time."During my research and planning stage, I analysed existing music videos, especially those who combined narrative and performance to attempt to break down the structure into these said elements. I was however, limited, as there were fewer examples to analysis which also came under the indie-acoustic genre, which in a sense, did allow me to challenge and develop genre conventions more as I had little knowledge to go by. Important examples for me were music videos from the likes of Mumford and Sons, Ben Howard, The Script and Ed Sheeran as they all often conformed to the indie genre, even if the hybrid genres were slightly different (e.g. Mumford and Sons are more folky) and all applied various levels of performance as this has become a norm to do so with this genre. 

In terms of setting, the majority of videos all took place outside, in locations such as the beach, the forest, by the river etc. This is because it becomes symbolic of the Earth and peace, two themes which are more commonly being used for inspiration for indie music; Ben Howard - 'Old Pine', 'The Wolves'; Ed Sheeran - 'Little Bird', 'Sunburn'; The Script - 'Science and Faith', 'Hurricanes'. If there were any characters featured at all, aside from the performers/artist, they would typically be two individuals, whether it be a love relationship or a close friendship, and they would bond over a narrative of emotional life experiences, as opposed to the heavy fun, party scenes conventional of pop genre music videos. In terms of style and iconography, there would often be a festival, hipster/hippie vibe to the video, which would be reflected in the costume and props. In reference to Lacey, I applied all of these elements to suggest the indie-acoustic genre in my music video. The 'outdoors' featured heavily, focussing particularly on the forest location and props of flowers. Whilst my characters weren't always present in the shots themselves, the actions and props suggested an emotional bond; I used a constant reference to old photographs and the releasing of balloons at the end were used to symbolise the passing and remembrance of someone's life. Whilst I think these elements were effective in showing my genre, I feel like I could have looked to style and iconography more to suggest this. I perhaps should have given my two characters more screen-time to emphasise on costume; band merchandise, denim shorts, floral headbands were all genre conventions for the music videos I analysed, and would have been very simple to replicate and show in my work, so in that sense, I am disappointed. 

BBC & The London Riots

Riots fuelled by the death of Mark Duggan after he was shot by police after being dragged from a mini cab he was travelling.  There is no definitive answer as to whether he was lawfully killed or not. The police say that they shot him to defend themselves as he was holding a gun, whilst his family insist he would not have shot the police. Different media formats have portrayed the two sides, with a certain biased opinion which labels the rioting youths as thugs.

• BBC News - mainly linear footage of the fires, the attacks on the properties etc. They also include some interviews with those who have been closely affected by the riots to emphasise on the negative emotions which have resulted from the riots, which adds a sense of realism. No opposing opinions however are aired as the news mediates the idea that it is all the fault of youthful thugs.
• Interview with Darcus Howe - televised interview with the BBC - he was chosen as he was a writer and broadcaster living in the affected areas, so he had authority. He was a black man, and once he began to give the opinion that he believed it was only a matter of time that the riots happened, the news then took control and began to belittle him, trying to put the idea across that he himself was a rioter. Overall, the news has complete control over people, even during a live interview, as they can speak over and turn the opinion against them. The however, if it hadn't have been lie, would not have been televised and certain sections would have been cut to manipulate the idea that Darcus was against the riots and the ideologies behind it.
• Sky News also reported the news of the riots with the opinions of four teenagers - as young as 16 - who had been involved in the riots. Unlike the BBC, this particular interview included footage of the teens defending themselves, giving a reason as to why they felt it was acceptable for them to act in the riots. They blamed the government for increasing university fees and not giving enough support to single parents, whilst they only cared for the higher end of society - the rich and the famous. Despite the fact that the teens knew this would make them more identifiable by the police, they still wanted to give the interview as they felt it was there only chance to voice their opinions. Before the interview was broadcast, the feature described that many of the stolen loot would be on the black market by now, and the majority of offenders were existing gang members - there is no evidence to suggest these comments are true, as quite frankly, there is no way for them to have found this out, thus showing again a negative opinion which the media are trying to feed into us.
• Majority of people featured within all of the news videos are young males, with only one amateur  video reflecting on the female rioters, whose only comments were on how they stole alchol and continued to drink it through the early hours of the morning. The news do not report on the females involved as they see them as the minority, and it would be even more shameful for women to be involved as opposed to men. 
• America's reports on the riots were much more focussed, with one CNN video showing a young, black British male questioning Boris Johnson over why the government is not doing enough to help the youths of London, showing Boris to be speechless - this was clearly a home-video that CNN have asked to use, whereas the official news reporters in the background would probably not have let this go to broadcast without it being edited to be less diminishing.

Self-representation:

• Following the riots, many of the people involved went on to publish there on videos to YouTube depicting their thoughts and opinions, as such ideas wouldn't have been broadcast on television.

Q1B - Representation

Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions

I am going to discuss my music magazine from my Foundation Portfolio in terms of representation of young, females from the indie subculture. Representation is the way in which the media interprets a part of reality through the viewpoint of a director and his/her own ideologies. As it currently stands, the general stereotype of young women through the eyes of the media present them as naive, innocent, vulnerable and as the inferior sex as opposed to men, where they are often portrayed as sexual objects. On the other hand,  young women can also commonly be portrayed as over-sexualised, but depending on location, may also be 'labelled' as 'sluts', 'chavs' etc.

I really wanted to challenge this conventional representation of women in my music magazine, as I, being a young female, wanted to see this as a chance to portray this particular group of people as role models, as opposed to the sexual objects they are often portrayed to be on the front of magazine covers. This is popularly argued by Laura Mulvey, who states that attractive female figures are used because they look desirable, and this is what attracts the attention of male audiences, as editing often focuses on the skinny, yet curvy figure of a woman, as well as how she is styled and clothed to make them look more revealing. However, looking at music magazines in general - no matter what the genre - it is much more common to see male figures take the lead on the front cover as they become inspirational figures for the audience along with appealing to the female demographic, 'the female gaze'. Thus, this is what initially sparked my interest in having a female model for my front cover as it was so different to anything else already on the market. However, instead of picking a female who had the 'typical' 'model-look' to them, as previously described, I wanted someone who was of a similar demographic as my target audience - someone who they could identify and find self-reflection within. I made my female model wear minimal make-up as I didn't want the images to entirely focus on someone who could be depicted as 'perfect' whilst I wanted to represent to my target audience that it is ok to have imperfections. Additionally, I chose very simple clothing which would not suggest any particular brand to my target audience as I did not want to associate the idea that young women should aspire for a dream of unconditional wealth and materialistic goods. Unlike in popular examples such as 'Top Of The Pops' or 'Billboard' magazines, I also didn't want to sexualise my model, which has quite frequently been seen with the likes of Katy Perry, Madonna or Rihanna in such magazines, where they are styled to wear tight-fitting, skin-revealing clothes and pose in enticing manners, as an attempt, again, to attract the male majority. My model was fully-clothed with only the lower-half of the arms exposed, with a pose which suggested strength and power to female readers, with my model smiling and holding her guitar close to her.

Other examples I analysed such as 'NME' and 'Q' also often focused the image purely on the face of the cover-star, focusing particularly on hair and makeup. I felt by doing so I would have something to hide, whilst by showing the full body of my model, I would know that my readers are able to fully identify the person, whilst examples of close-up shots of the face would suggest the magazine is trying to beautify the star without giving audiences a chance to make a judgement based on the star as a whole - personality included. 

Q1A - Conventions of Real Media Texts (Unfinished)

1 (a) Describe how your analysis of the conventions of real media texts informed your own creative media practice. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

For my Foundation Portfolio I created a new music magazine called 'Sound' for the indie/festival genre aimed at a target audience of females aged 17 - 24. Then, for my Advanced Portfolio I created a hybrid narrative/performance music video for the song Autumn Leaves by Ed Sheeran, - an indie/acoustic song - with ancillary tasks of a Digipak for the album from which the song was released from, '+' and a promotional website. Conventions are important in a media product as they help to give what the audience is expecting in terms of the genre, whilst analysing them helped me to understand how each product was constructed.

At the very start of my Foundation portfolio, I had very little knowledge on the importance of conventions, or what conventions existed within the world of media, but as I began to construct my music magazine, specific genre and product conventions began to come up and I learnt why they existed. The more I looked at analysing existing music magazines such as 'Kerrang!' and 'NME' I developed an understanding for magazine conventions, such as how they used inserts to persuade the consumer to purchase the product with terminology such as 'exclusive', 'win' or 'free' and how the Masthead was placed in the top third of the page in a size or colour which stood out to the consumers' eye and often reflected the genre of the magazine, such as Kerrang!'s use of a 'grundgy' typography.

I also analysed 'Clash' and 'Q' magazine to look at genre conventions more specifically, as these were the only two magazines that I could identify which reflected upon my chosen genre of indie/festival music. Whilst Clash was listed as an indie magazine, Q was more of an all-round music magazine, so I specifically looked at indie/festival-specifc articles within it. Through continuous analysis, I began to notice that there was a distinct mise-en-scene convention for my the genre, and this was so that it reflected upon the stereotypical style of the music genre's fans - the people who loved the outdoors, the 'hippies', the 'boho' style etc. A strong colour palette of summery hues were conventional, whilst the models within the photography featured the said 'boho' fashion of loose layers, soft materials, pale colours and floral patterns. I wanted to create a magazine which conformed to the conventions of all music magazines, whilst I tailor-made it to suit the niche genre and consumer base I had targeted, therefore I created my front cover with a circular insert to draw in the attention of the consumers, with my Masthead stretched across the top section of the page so that it could be read from a far distance. Additionally, I used a soft white colour for the font so that it complimented my use of a pink and orange gradient background and the cream coloured clothing my model wore along with her hippie 'flower crown', as I knew this was something that would appeal to my target audience, as it is an identifiable element for my chosen genre.

When it came to conducting my Advanced Portfolio, I felt like I had really developed my understanding into the importance of media conventions, because I also developed an understanding of the importance of audience, as the consumers are the people who allow the media cycle to continue. A consumer buys a media product, the production company make a profit, then the profit goes into constructing a new product to be consumed, and so it continues. By not conforming to media conventions, it increases the likeliness that a consumer won't be able to acknowledge the identity of a product, and are then less likely to consume the product, bringing an end to the media product cycle.

Whilst I had completely followed conventions in my Foundation Portfolio, I wanted to develop or challenge some conventions for my Advanced Portfolio in order to have more fun and creativity with my work. Whilst I felt my understanding of the importance of conventions definitely developed whilst i created my ancillary tasks as the visual format of a Digipak or website is not too different from a magazine, I really did feel limited with my music video as the concept was completely new to me, therefore I had to conduct further convention research in order to understand that platform more. Andrew Goodwin was one of the biggest research elements I had to look into, as he developed his own theory into the conventions that make up a music video, such as how the pace of the music fits in with the actions in the shots, which will also typically narrate a story which reflects upon the lyrics of the song. I looked at existing indie music videos, such as Ed Sheeran's video for 'Drunk' and The Script's 'Millionaires', to identify any recurring conventions here also. As Goodwin stated, these two videos had edited shots which cut to the pace of the music, with imagery which reflected upon the corresponding lyrics. Particularly with these two videos, they had specific shots which matched some of the lyrics, but there wasn't a necessary set storyline throughout, with conceptual, confusing elements which creates enigma codes for the audience. On the other hand, other Ed Sheeran music videos such as 'The A Team', another indie/acoustic song, do follow a strict narrative theory, with the plot basic and clear to the audience, which evidently was a strong convention for my chosen genre.I decided to develop these particular conventions by giving my music video imagery elements to reflect on the lyrics, such as shots of flowers, the sympathy cards etc. but I mixed these with rather ambiguous shots of people's feet, the public transport etc. along with including minimal actors within the shots to add a slight sense of confusion, only to simply persuade audiences to watch the video again and again.

The Inbetweeners vs. STD Documentary

The main difference between The Inbetweeners Film and the BBC3 STD Documentary was that they both represented the idea of sex-obsessed teenagers in two completely different lights,

Whilst The Inbetweeners was constructed to represent youths as silly, social, comedic people with the idea that sex and alcohol is fun and a key point in their lives, the Documentary showcased the more serious side to having countless unprotected sex and showed a more realistic representation.

SIMILARITIES:
The youths are portrayed as feeling quite superior to others - the boys in The Inbetweeners were quite rude and disrespectful to women, whilst Joe in particular in the documentary came across as quite 'cocky' and full of himself.

*SEE WRITTEN NOTES FOR MORE DETAIL LAUREN!*

G325 Q2 Collective Identity Sample answer

G325 example Response: Media and Collective Identity from M Taylor