Media Literacy for A2 ~Revision~ (OCR Media Studies for A2 book)

"The ability to create, use, analyse and understand media products, within the context of their audiences and institutions" (Donna Cooper Cliftlands)

"A broader version of conventional literacy, which includes all visual, aural and digital forms, seeking to enable people to become more thoughtful producers and interpreters of media." (Pete Fraser)

"Media literacy can be defined as the ability to read a media text, in understanding the process of communication through the construction of an artifact and its sets of presentations. The ability to read a media text, in its visual or audio form, is itself paramount to understanding the meaning that a text may convey, which is dependent upon the individual, psychological and sociocultural context of the reader" (Jason Mazzochi)

"Media literacy is the ability to understand how any media text constructs its meaning as much through its form as its context" (James Barker)

Media literacy is being able to engage not just with the immediate content of a media text, but also to be able to apply knowledge and understanding of the institutional factors that have an impact on within the text. Media literacy also involves knowledge and understanding of the institutional factors that have an impact on shaping the text itself and on the messages and values embedded within the text. Media literacy also involves knowledge and understanding of how different audiences in different times and places may interpret the text in different ways. Crucially, the media-literate reader of the text is able to see that his/her own reading of the text may well be at odds with that applied by some or all of the target audience." (Wayne O'Brien)

Key:
Context

Understanding

Construction

Producing (self)

Meaning

REVISION - Collective Identity

Key areas:
- Media's representation of different groups
- How media representations vary from historical representations
- Effect on society
- Use of media to form collective identity
- Any argument of identity is constructed through, by, or in responce to the media.

David Buckingham:
"A focus on identity requires us to pay close attention to the diverse ways in which media and technologies are used in every day life, and their concequences both for individuals and for social groups" - 2008
Buckingham is trying to suggest that the media effects collective identity,one reason for this being the media's every dayness. I feel that the audience and media have a symbiotic relationship and although the media may influence people's collective identity it is also influenced by collective identity just as much.
David Gauntlett:
"Identity is complicated. Everyone thinks they've got one. Magazines and talk show hosts urge us to explore our 'identity'. Religiousad national identities are at the heart of major internation conflicts. Blockbuster movie superheros have emotional conflicts about their 'true' identitiy. And athe average teenager can create three online 'identities' before breakfast... Thinking about self-identity where individuals are encouraged to value their personal uniqueness. Each of us would like to think - to some extent- that we hae special, personal qualities, which make us distinctive and valuable to other people in our lives (or potential future friends). But does this mean anything? Is individuality just an illusion? maybe we are all incredibly similar, but are programmed to value miniscule bits of differentiation." - 2007
I feel here Gauntlett is questioning human nature just as much as media representation.

Identity cards
Social networks - What do they ask you to reveal about yourself?

Activities:

Interests:

Favourite Music:

Favourite TV Programmes:

Favourite Films:

Favourite Books:

Favourite Quotations:

About me:

Is this to encourage self identity, develop your identity or simply to give yourself a "digital footprint" (how much information about yourself you leave trailing all over the internet, which you cant help but do if you do use the internet, espcially if you create accounts online). These digital footprints are often used to create directed advertisement to specific audiences, e.g. myself: student, female, teenager, British, with poltical and (non)religious views. This allows advertisers to get to their target audience with little guess work. I often get contract phone and political/religious adverts. I've not received adverts for menopaus or bladder weakness. So is it realy advertising? Or a smart capitalism ploy that's grown over time to become an integral part of society?

On the internet there are many ways to construct and develop your identity, I wont go into this in detail as there is so much I could write, as I myself have explored identities on the internet with things such as Second life (this video is pretty... ignorant, but it still gives you an idea), Anonymous (where you can escape all identity alltogether, except for a group and collective kind, with strict rules and structure, yet in complete anarchy and pluralism) and even Bebo or Habbo when I was younger. There are many ways which you can explore different identities which prehaps you could not before without physically being a part of it. For example blogs: The Modblog, where you can explore body modification culture (May have some extreme things on it but not usually, just be aware) without even having any tattoo's or piercings (basically whilst being a planeskin, as they would say). As well as personal blogs like Perez Hilton.

Identity... clothes, media consumption, the people we like? People demonstrating things against a pre-presumed identity may seem odd, but it is also a right. People often complain when they are heged into a certain identity, i.e. disabled, gay, muslim, elderly and even some proffessions.
Assumptions based on appearance, accent and personal choices go onto collective identity.

Targeted advertisement is more likely to be successfull in more targeted to collective identity magazine and this means thatmore selective magazines will survive more because of more regular income from advertising (which is infact the main way in which magazine's and many other media texts gain income) Which set of behaviours are reinforced in order to appeal to these audiences? Which set of social values are simulated and parodied by those of the postmodern audience? It is easiest to select examples from gender specific magazines which are also aimed at age and class.

Book Activity - Page 52
Men's Health in relation to 4 discourses:
Quick-fix problem solving
Male narcissism (and anxiety)
New male sensitivity
Male superiority/manipulation

I will choose 2 random articles form the front page.
The first is about "Eating Right". Even as I click on the article, I am allready bombarded with narcisism. There is a popup advert about "The New Testosterone pumping diet" with a muscly man as the image. It even uses words such as "Harder", even though refering to muscles it has subtle tones of male insecurity about penis performance. This reaks of "THIS IS WHAT YOU CAN LOOK LIKE" mentality. The testosterone part also implies male superiority, suggesting that normal, non "testosterone pumping" diets are feminin, and are therefore weaker and less good. This advert even taps into the quick fix problem solving discourse, as if this diet will suddenly get rid of the years of beer belly growth that the reader has put on. Before I have even read the article, I have whitnessed targeted advertising at the collective identity in mens health and 3 of the 4 discourses that I have been asked to study being prominantly displayed.
I don't think I even need to read this article, on to the next.
Again a slight variation of the advert pops up, but this time I'll close it. This article is more to do with the new male sensitivity; awareness of a woman's feelings and attractions. Even then this discourse is not taken seriously , for the men to care about her opinion, the editor feels that she needs to be naked in a bed. Although some kind of decency is preserved, she is half under the covers it still undermines the point of the article slightly. This article is less about a man's sensitivity, but that of a woman, and how a women likes his sensitive side. With phrases like "show your soft spot", there is a small section on encouraging a man to show his own emotion, but not for his own personal discover of self, but for a woman to be attracted to him.

Sense of belonging in readers drawn out through semiotics. Winship (1987:11) 'the gaze between cover model and women readers marks the complicity between women seeing themselves in the image which the masculine culture has defined.' resonates with Marxist idea by Althusser's (1971) 'interpellation' - the social/ideological practice of misrecognising yourself. To prepare ourselves for gratification by complicity and recognition of our ideal version of self. Feminists beleive that male magazines encourage women in this way. Challenging cultural experience is difficult. Marxist: 'False consciousness' = Instead of asking for equality and rights people comment on celebrity waistlines.

Advertising packs show who the editor and publishers think that their text is aimed to, defining things about them like where they shop and what they like.

- Will Continue Some other time- (Page54)

Postmodern texts,

TV
Scrubs - Playfull, Pastiche, Intertextual, Hyper real, Ironic.
My Name Is Earl - Hyperreal, Pastiche, Playful (Self referential to American audience)

Bronze Eye - Self referential, Deconstruction, Nihilistic, Playful, Ironic (Makes fun of news, note the overly used information graphics to dramatise)

Films
Coen Brothers
Little Nicky
Run Fatboy Run (Even title in reference to Run Lola Run)

Shallow Hal

Websites
Cracked.com - Pastiche, Playfull, Hyperreal, Can see how it's made (forgot technical word)
The Onion - Pastiche, Parody, Hyperreal, Reflective of Fox News,

EverythingisAwful - Nihilistic, Intertextual, Deconstruction

PeopleofWalmart - Referential to audience, Playful, Deconstruction of Society

Other
Banksy - Hypper real, References audience, Challenging convention, Playful

Private Eye - Satirical, References audience and Nihilistic

Old Spice adverts - Playful, Self referential (promising things it obviously can't give like car adverts, but so that the audience realises it), Nihilistic, Hyperreal

Some stuff.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Use:
- Sci fi; alien, makeup, astronaught, foreign planet
- Film noir; lighting, shaddows
- Length of film based on other teaser trailers (most between 1-2 mins)
- Use of enigma
- Epic music, overdramatic
- Love, there is usually a romantic interest in sci fi (e.g. Avatar)
- Name of film left unsaid, like Cloverfields.
Challenge:
- Instead of having the alien as an enemy, the government is the enemy
- A story told from the past, usually in present time.
- Mainly taking place on earth without any kind of war
- Actor interviews on website; shows the production of the ancillary product. Actors are actors and the characters are not real.
- Little information given about the story on the poster

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Good:
- Similar colour scheme + theme of eyes
- Each refers to another (i.e. video=website=twitter=video=website=poster)
- Tried to keep it all enigmatic, eyes again.
- Same actors in reviews on website, in poster etc..
What we would change to make it better:
- More emphasis on music
- website name on poster

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
- Sound levels are very important
- If you have a shot that is too long, the audience concentrates on it (there was a shot rachel going up a ladder, they thought she was struggling)
- Older men with white hair and glasses are usually interpreted as proffessors.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research,
-Youtube to see trailers and length of trailers - TV for average advert lengths
- Film noir and Sci fi conventions - Watching Sci Fi films - Moon,
- Look at other film websites
- Find a free website server
- View posters online

Postmodern Media Precis. [Pages 136-167]

Media texts representing reality in this media saturated world are blurring the line between reality and media reality. The modern period has gone. This modern period is where artists experiemented with reality and brought forward ideas of pastiche, parody and intertextuality. It has even become reasonable to make it obvious how something was produced, as if you can see the bones and structure of its creation. It has also been claimed "post modernism" is just a new way of interpreting the media.

Basic Values:
- All media texts are of equal value and only personal preference can change this.
- Media is just reproducing itself, mixing things up in a new order rather than creating something from scratch. (such as "fasion" today, 60's style household items are back in "fasion")
- Reality is defined by images and representations - Simulacrum
- "Truth" is just the accepted discourse

Post modernist texts set out to purposefully play with reality in the PAINPIPESH way. As well as representing media-reality's representations.

Grand narratives need to be de-constructed. No reconstruction can ever be an accurate representation. It is expected that richer nations with time to dwell on cultural matters would have a naturally playful viewpoint on these grand narratives.

Hyperreality
There is no longer any origional thing. Pure reality is replaced by imagination. The boundary between imaginary and reality is blurred creating hyperreality.
To be continued.

Events such as the Gulf war and 9/11 where only exprerienced by many, through the media, and is not a real event for them even though it may seem so. They could be purely media events. "The Gulf war never happened".

Style, with Bladerunner in mind:
- Mixing textual and image references.
- Juxtaposition of times, film noir voice over, futuristic setting (re-use)

Reception:
- Post modern city
- Robot and Human distinction unclear
- Virtual equivalent more attractive
- Can humanity be manufactured?

Subject matter:
- Time/lack of
- World is constructed through a set of binary oppositions

Postmodern Auters: Michael Winterbottom, the Coens and Wong Kar-wai.
Directors and films are often labeled as postmodern.
Winterbottom can also be studied for "media and collective identity". His films often represent changing Britain. His films share an interest in blurring boundaries between reality and media reality. Or fictional events and real events. Winterbottom has characters face the camera and break the 4th wall. They also say things that mock postmodernism itself. Such as in 24 hour party people where the protagnist directly reffers to post modernism saying something loosely like "see you know I'm flirting with you, and I know you know it, and I know I'm flirting with you so I'm being postmodern". Even thought Winterbottom is mocking post-modernism he is still keeping firmly within post-modernism's playfull/mocking nature. There is also a large disregard for realist conventions. "The making of.." style of A Cock and Bull Story also brings in postmodernism since you can actually see the construction of the media reality, again blurring the boundaries.

Auter suggests we think of the films as the products of the individual creators. The Coen Brothers have created a body of work that consistently displays postmodern characteristics. "The Coens are clever directors who know too much about movies and too little about real life" (Levy 1999, in Coughlin 2003: 3)
Intertextuality is often used by the Coens. Intertextuality is often used because an audience cannot help but to refer to other texts that they have allready experienced when experiencing a new one. Reaction against classic genres. Turnning over and examination of genre stereotypes and conventions. The things that people celebrate in the Coen brothers may also be critisized.

Wong Kar-wai. His films mostly take place in Hong-Kong which some people argue is in itself a post modern space due to its status of being perpetually caught between traditional and modern. His characters are often lonlely even in this over-populated area of the world. He manipulates time and space in unusual ways around the characters so they interlink without necesarily knowing. One of the characters is associated with a song, sometimes it is diagetic and she is interacting with it and sometimes it is non-diagetic and it can often be unclear which it is.

DJ Shadow - Endtroducing.
An album made up completely of pre-recorded songs mixed together. The music genres are so mixed and diverse that the album or songs themselves do not have a specific genre so often just become "postmodern".

Postmodern TV
As TV ages the distinction between real personalities and TV personalities blurs. TV and the internet have also largely converged with catchup sights and characters using internet during programes. The Mighty Boosh is definately postmodern. Even the introduction is physically intertextual. Even one of the main characters is highly intertextual with references to punk culture with his jacket and belt and a mullet/big hair style refering to the 80s. There is a bricolage (remixing of existing formulas).
The Wire has had five series each of which explores a different theme usually based on the corruption and exploitation across organisations. The first series represents a family of drug dealers, the next about a group of sex workers who are murdered.

Potmodern soap operas.
Postmodernism is no longer an obscure theory but it has become the mainstream. Or even how postmodern the mainstream has become. Soap has been post modern for a long time. The Tabloids treat characters as if they're real, some of the public send them birthday cards and you can research extra details on the characters that aren't necesary to the plot.

The Cadbury Gorrilla shows an apparent massive departure from advertising the product itself. Whereas actually it offers a direct connection to the appeal of the product. A guilty pleasure, a secret enjoyment. A "primal instict" despite the popular culture of healthy food. It alloud people to make a subcontious connection to the gorrila and the product.

Readers can pick and mix what they excperience espescially when it comes to magazines.

A personal favorite of mine, GTA IV. Within the game there is much intertextuality as well as the graphics being as close to reality as possible. Also it takes place within New York and is therefore a virtual representation of a physical space. There is a lot of playfullness too with characters walking the streets of GTA having individual come-backs and apperances, humerous posters and (famous in the GTA series) hidden easter eggs. One easter egg being a sign that says "no easter eggs here" the ultimate post-modernist statement.

Second life, a virtual world in which you can become your ideal avatar, and talk to people from all over the world. It is not a game as such. There are no "objectives". Both GTAIV and SL offer the player the option just to be, rather than do.

How and why postmodern media plays with the verisimilitude of a text.

Postmodern media is a fairly newly named style of media in which the media plays with the audience's interpretation of reality and over-arching morals. It has an anti-foundationalist attitude which feel the need to deconstruct every myth and accepted modern standard. Every kind of media text can be explained as post modern if you are to look deeply enough into them but I feel that the Internet, some kind of Art and Film are the most experimental platforms with this style of media.

Verisimilitude is how close to reality the representation is to the real self. For example in art, a realist painting, such as Manet's Olympia would have more verisimilitude than an abstract peice of art such as Picasso's Weeping Woman because it is a closer representation of reality. Media text often try to get so close to reality that they make things over-real. This i called Hyper-reality. This is excelently demonstrated in the Hudsucker Proxxy by the Coen Brothers in which the film is set more in a film-reality than in verisimilitude. For example the imagary within The Hudsucker Proxxy is very much ideolised to be like the 1950's posters. Not like the 1950's reality. This supports Baudrillard's theory that reality can no longer be seperated from media reality.

Chandlers model suggets that the audience only sees the reality through the production. The representation of reality can be called simulacrum. The simulacrum mutually relies on the audience to understand what it is simulating. So allready reality is interpreted through a pre-existing interpretation. Post modernism is just playing whith this pre-interpreted past and media reality by replacing it with it's own, ironic and playfull reality. I feel that post modern texts ask for the audience to make their mind up on what they feel is reality themselves, interprate things in a new light, with their own eyes and mind.

little confused at the plan, not comfortable with doing esssays in this style. Not all of the essay due to this being a draft on my blog, sorry.

The way the production uses them, referring to things the audience believes in - what happens to the referent in a Postmodern text - through the understanding of the referent in the media text of the past (in which the audience is aware of) Examples, such as Directors, Platforms (not just British!) etc. Possibility to mention it as Global.


The reader must be aware of the way Hyper-reality works, such as analysis of Coenn Brothers, Michael Winterbottom, Camera Shots. Representation of the film world.


Why are Postmodern texts playful and not serious? Lack of values and morals lead to the playfulness (Nihilism). Examples! Go through PAINPIPES - No need to mention them all! Sharing the fact they are a construction. The Simpsons for example relate to self-referential.

Coen-Brother Films.

All three films are very American as well as being very much to do with the American Dream. (Not so much the Big Lebowski)

O, Brother where art thou?
A 1950's setting film about three escaped prisoners and their jorney through life and back to reality and comfort.



The Big Lebowski.
A film about "The Dude" a washed up bum, his relationships with his friends and the scenario he gets into for having the same name as a rich pensioner with a gold-digging floozy for a wife.


The Hudsucker Proxy.
A 1950's style film about the rise of an individual to the very top of a company, through luck, and his overcomming of the evil company manager, with luck.