Media Issues and Debates

2007-05-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

Five scores Neighbours coup

Jason Deans and Chris Tryhorn
Friday May 18, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk

Neighbours: will help Five combat falling ratings. Photograph: Freemantle Media/BBC

Channel Five has snatched the rights to Neighbours from the BBC in a deal believed to be worth £300m over 10 years.
Five made its move for the Australian soap after the BBC pulled out of the bidding earlier today, bringing to an end the corporation's 22-year association with the programme.
Landing the Australian soap is a coup for Five, which has been struggling with falling ratings for the past couple of years.

Five is likely to pair Neighbours in a daytime Australian soap double bill with Home and Away, which it stole away from ITV seven years ago.
It is believed to have beaten off competition for Neighbours from ITV, whose executive chairman, Michael Grade, first brought the soap to British TV when he was controller of BBC1 in 1986.
Neighbours' producer Fremantle Media and Five are both owned by pan-European broadcaster RTL Group.
Five said Neighbours would be shown on its main channel and digital service Five Life from 2008.
"I'm delighted Five has secured such a popular and sought-after series," said the Five managing editor of content, Lisa Opie.
"Neighbours is a fantastic asset for us to add to Five's family of channels, particularly as it is a household brand which delivers strong audiences daily," added the Five chief executive, Jane Lighting.
Earlier today the BBC hit out at Fremantle's "unrealistic price demand".
"We do not believe that we could have justified to BBC viewers a price tag of what would have amounted to some £300m across the term of the contract," the corporation said in a statement. "Paying that sum would also have compromised our ability to invest in new original programmes."
Fremantle said it had a "strong ongoing relationship" with the BBC, but said Five had made a better offer.
"Five has been very keen to buy the show for some time and presented the most compelling offer to Fremantle Media," the production company said in a statement.
"Five will be a great home for Neighbours and Fremantle Media is confident that the show will continue to go from strength to strength."

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2083138,00.html

2007-03-28T13:12:00.000-07:00

Module 6 essay comparing "Fawlty Towers" and "The Bash Street Kids" continued...

‘Text 2’ is a cartoon strip and follows the conventions of bold close-up and medium shots concentrating on the character’s gestures and facial expressions. Particularly, the medium shot of the main female character saying “something’s not right here!” shows her to not have the quality of to-be-looked-ness due to her short dark hair, blunt features and simple boyish dress sense. However, the new girl fully conforms to Mulvey’s male gaze theory but although she is popular with the boys, her running away in shame of wearing glasses shows that in society women are wrong to use their good looks to be noticed and men are just as wrong for falling for her. Instead, it is the hegemonic values in society which force ideologies that women should use their looks to gain attention or even a slight status.

Similarly, the female characters act either very passive in ‘Fawlty Towers’ or are told to “shut up”. This shows that to the males such as Basil Fawlty the issue of the war is not as serious thus portraying women to be unable to understand or take part in the sarcasm he creates about the Germans in World War Two. This, like ‘text 2’ agrees with Mulvey’s theory of women being passive but their body parts are not fetishised so they are not objectified. The audience would be well educated about the history of the war, as Basil uses a pun to state that the Germans “stated it” because they “invaded Poland”, to find humour in the text.

The intentions behind the humour of the two texts are very similar. Basil Fawlty in “Fawlty Towers” laughs at the Germans but this backfires as the English man is called “a naughty moose”. In “The Bask Street Kids” the audience presume the girl is jealous but in fact she is correct in thinking that something is not right and then the audience laugh at the new girl’s stupidity as she would rather not see properly than wear her glasses. It is also humorous that the boys at the end have to hold hands; creating a sense of homophobia in the children pointing and laughing. This does not represent society today as the BBC reported in the same year that 'text 2' was published (2005) that it legally recognized gay relationships for the first time. It can be considered that the ruling elite want to impose more conservative values onto society by producing this text.

2007-03-22T05:16:00.000-07:00

Virgin Media to back Big Brother

Mark Sweney
Wednesday March 21, 2007
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2039130,00.html

Virgin Media has been confirmed as the sponsor of Big Brother 8 with the company's mobile arm to be the main service promoted.

It is only for the main big brother series but no the celebrity Big Brother. They had worries after the race row regarding the treatment of Shilpa Shetty in the house but Virgin Media is locked in a fractious battle with BSkyB after Sky removed its basic channels from Virgin in a row over carriage payments. This would generate greater c ompetition for virgin media as sponsorship of a major show like bir brother equals greater demand and greater competition.

"The sponsorship will be split between our mobile and media services," added Mr Kydd. "What Big Brother does is give a fantastic opportunity to bring to life quadplay in action and the core 16-34 demographic BB reaches is a bullseye for mobile. Virgin Mobile will be the lead sponsor but we will absolutely push Virgin Media messaging."

My Comments: Virgin Media deciding to back Big Brother is quite conterversial and really, i can see that the only reason they have decided to do this is to get back at BskyB because it removed its basic channels from virgin. However, this would generate a lot of profits for Virgin Media and after Carphone Warehouse's drop out Big Brother needed sponsorship.

2007-03-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

Grade: no future for kids' programmes on ITV1

Chris TryhornTuesday March 13, 2007

MediaGuardian.co.uk

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2033021,00.html

This story is about the main ITV channel- (ITV1) not showing any children's TV programmes as the broadcaster's executive Michael Grade said: "In terms of the valuable air time on a main network like ITV1, maintaining a loss-leading service for children seems to be unlikely to be sustained in the medium to long term." At the same time, the CITV, and BBC's childrens channels as well as others like Nick Junior and Junior Discovery are growing rapidly.

My Comments: I think this is a bad move for ITV because not only will they suffer through children watching the channel before and after school and giving in to the rivals BBC but it also means there would be less advertising revenue. If the children's programmes go, then so will the advertisements selling toys etc to children. It would have been thought that this would be one of the greatest times to advertise apart from peak time. However, "Ofcom launched a review of children's programming last month amid growing concern that the production of homegrown shows providing an alternative to the BBC was drying up" so they were kind of forced to do it.

2007-03-07T14:53:00.000-08:00

Using the comparison of these two texts as your starting point, explore the media issues and debates which they raise.
In your question you will need to address:
- Key concepts
- Contextual facotrs
- Media theory

Text 1: Gil Scott-Heron's "The revolution will not be televised"(1972)
Text 2: Dj Vadim (ft Sarah Jones') "Your revolution"(1998)

Gil Scott- heron's "Your revolution will not be televised" is a song desired to protest about the under representation of black people compared to white in the mainstream media. He talks of the main idea that if black people revolted, even a big event like this would not be shown on television purely because it is black people who are demanding rapid change. Sarah Jones' "Your revolution" is a pastiche and protest song. Jones is protesting about female representations in the media instead of black.

Different periods of the 20th century shows that by 1998 although black people were represented more on TV, the women especially were stereotyped to be sex objects belonging to males. In her song, Jones parodies other texts such as the Fugees' "Killing me softly", Foxy Brown and L.L... whilst Heron parodies the phrases and slogans seen in advertising. The ideas behind these are very different. Heron writes "The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal" suggesting that through advertising, audiences are in a state where they have to conform to what they are being told/persuaded to do (buy the product) under a hegemonic society because of the "sex appeal" it will genrate. Here, by mocking and parodying advertising slogans, he almost makes the fact that the revolution will not be televised a good thing as he suggests that the reveloution would be too good to be shown on TV and it will not need to be forced on black people by the elite through the media.

Jones parodies songs from the past which are about women being passive and sexual. She writes "My Jamaican brother, your revolution will not make you feel bombastic and really fantastic, and have you groping in the dark for that rubber wrapped in plastic". This portrays black males to be self-obsessed and egoistic whilst the portrayal of women is conforming to Lauras Mulvey's theory of the male gaze and them being objectified because of their sexality and to-be-looked-at-ness. This signifies that the song is a post-modern text showing the mysogonistic values of black males.

Heron also uses the stereotypes of black people in his song. He writes "there will be no pictures of you and Willie May...trying to slide that color TV into a stolen ambulance" representing them as savage criminals because they are steeling. This is similar to Michael's Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" as he tries to understand why black people are treated as criminals on the news especially. Heron also goes on to say that "there will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news...the theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key", suggesting that the revolution will not at all be affiliated with white people creating segregation between white and black people in 1972. By this time black people had civil rights in America but this was not portrayed correctly by the media.

When Jones wrote her song, black people were being represented in the media but the women still had to fight for thier rights. Heron uses "brother" showing that the audience for his text is black males and Jones writes "brother" as well, talking back to the men who thought the black revolution was going to happen and even Heron himself. This shows that black people were, in Jones' eyes, over ambitious with their revolution as "your revolution will not be you flexing your little sex status to express what you feel". This suggests that black males are very active and Jones wants to revolt against them. Black males empower the females to achieve a high sex status and Jones wants the reversal; for women to empower men.

Lastly, the idea of power is also seen in "Your revolution will not be televised" as Heron writes "There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay". This conforms to the theory of the Frankfurt School as "pigs" are the police and "brothers" are black males where the media has oppressed minorities but showing little and bad representations of them, such as the criminal and victim. This shows that the media directly effects the ways in which white people think for the stereotype to be present, tying in with the effects theory. Therefore, this song goes against the uses and gratifications theory beause in 1972 there was less media so it was more likely to be owned by rich, white, ruling elite who imposed forceful ideologies into the borgeoisie through the media.

In conclusion, both songs are a representation of the society they were living in at the time. Gil Scott Heron wants greater and realisitc black representation in the media and Sarah Jones wants the same with females. They use key issues such as stereotypes, conforming to the theory of Laura Mulvey, and a hegemonic society. Gil Scott-Heron wants to achieve a marxist sociey after the revolution where white people would be the borgiouse and black people the ruling elite. Sarah Jones plays on black male's egoistic, materialistic and mysoginistic values, damning and cussing them because the media's representations of women needs to be revolted against.

2007-02-28T10:40:00.000-08:00

News Values

Checkpoint 1- How would you prioritise these news values?
I would prioritise Galtung and Ruge's news values by ordering the ones with the most impact and affect on the way the audience recieve the news and make menaing from it. For example, Composition would be one of the first because the balance of the news.

Checkpoint 2- What is gatekeeping?
Gatekeeping is when a certain stance is made as the editors (gatekeepers) select and order the news broadcasts or the planning of the newspaper layout. It is the socially determined sonctructions of reality, therefore reality is not actually being represented due to gatekeeping. Instead, reality is mediated.

Checkpoint 3- What do we mean by bias?
By bias, we mean the one sided view of news texts as they are influenced by the attitudes and background of its interviewers, writers, photographers and editors. There are many ways in which news texts are biased inlcuding bias through selection and moission and through the use of names and titles. This shows that even through the news, the information is biased.

Cult of the Celebrity
Action Point- How much celebrity-driven media do you consume? Do you consume these texts in spite of the celebrity focus or because of it?
The only celebrity driven media i consume are films and particular shows which might have my favourite music bands performing or being interviewed. Most of the time, i do consume these texts because of the celebrity focus like the main star in a film.

Galtung and Ruge's news values in Wednesday 28th Feb's The Guardian

- Freqency: The time span of an event and the extent to which it fits the frequency of the newspaper's or news braodcaster's schedule.

- Threshold: How big is an event? Is it big enough to make it into the news?

Husband of special constable arrested over her murder. Nisha Patel- Nasri's husband Fadi Nasri was arrested in connection with his wife's murder. He even did a heart-felt appeal following his wife's stabbing saying "Obviously someone has got a guilt consience- they shall be worrying about what they've done or be shocked- or maybe it was an accident or mistake, or whatever".

- Unambiguity: How clear is the meaning of an event?

- Meaningfulness: How meaningful will the event appear to the recievers of the news?

- Consonance: Does the event match the audience's expectations?

- Unexpectedness: If an event is highly unpredictable, then it is like to make it into the news.

Prince Charles hating McDonalds food is quite unpredictable news to be put in a broadsheet newspaper like the guardian. During a tour of a diabetes centre in the United Arab Emirates the prince asked a nutritionist: " Have you got anywhere with Mcdonalds, have you tried getting it banned? Thats the key".

Continuity: Once an events has been covered, it is convenient to continue to cover it- the running story

- Composition: This is a matter of the balance of the news.

- Reference to elite nations: This relates again to 'cultural proximity'. Those nations which are culturally closest to our own will recieve most of the coverage.

- Reference to elite persons: The media pay attention to important people. Anyone the media pay attention to must be important.

The front page headline is "Brown camp fear Miliband after challenge on policy". This article is basically about the future of the Labour government after Tony Blair's exit this year. Two of Gordon Brown's oldest political enemies Alan Milburn and Charles Clarke said that more of a challenge should be held for Gordon Brown's leadership. David Miliband is the man to do this, although he himsef is not willing to, not yet anyway. Therefore, for a broadsheet newspaper, as there are no celebrity stories, the elite persons are top politicians like Gordon Brown.

- Personalitisation: This connects with unambiguity and meaningfulness. Events are seen as the actions of individuals.

- Nagativity: Bad news is good news in terms of what is reported.

Most hospitals unsafe for children, report finds. The healthcare commission said nearly one in five NHS trusts did not provide efective life support for children brought in for emerigency treatment at night last year. More than half of hospitals did not give staff adequate training in child protection, ignoring procedures put in place after the death of the child abuse vistim Victoria Climbe in 2000.

2007-02-15T00:36:00.000-08:00

Nearly half of young downloaders don't pay
Jemima Kiss
Wednesday February 14, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk

This article is about new research which has found that only half of the 85% of young people in the UK who own mp3 players actually pay for their downloads.

It also found that the majority of people (81%) would rather listen to the music from their mobiles and some have downloaded straight to it. Social networking websites also encourage people to share music files, and the free content downloads was popular amongst teenagers as they rely on their parents' income.

Dr Liz Nelson said that the music companies aren't doing enough to understand teenagers ad this is the way to combat the free downloading.

There will be a launch of a new music download service called MusicStation which only charges £1.99 a week for unlimited mobile music downloads.

Comments: Illegal or free music downloading has been happening for a very long time and they have conducted research only now and found the huge numbers of people who download free music. Although it is effecting the revenue of the music companies and therefore the individual artists whom people are downloading songs from, i don't think they would ever be able to cut down on the number of file sharing websites and free downloading because people especially young people just don't want to pay for the songs. The MusicStation idea is good and it might work but i don't think it would be very effective in the long term.

2007-01-31T11:15:00.000-08:00

Self Evaluation

Attainment- 2- I think there's some room for improvement.

Effort- 2- I put a lot of effort into media and complete the work that is set- homework and class work but i should put more effort into the homework.

Punctuality-1- I very rarely come late to lessons.

Submission and quality of homework- 3- I very rarely don't give in homework on time but sometimes the quality can be improved.

Ability to work independently- 2- I feel i work well by my self.

Quality of writing- 2- The quality of my writing might not be the best but it's good.

Organisation of Media folder- 1- i have seperate folders for each teacher and they are kept very neat.

Oral contributions in class-2- I regularly contribute to class discussions.

2007-01-07T09:26:00.000-08:00

Module 1- Exam Practise

Seventeen- Magazine Front Cover

The Purpose of a teenage girl magazine front cover such as 'Seventeen' is to give the target audience an insight into what the magazine contains and to persuade them to purchase it. 'Seventeen' is an American magazine published by Hearst corporation which Rupert Murdoch originally owned (then called Triangle Publications).

The main image is a medium shot of well-known actress/singer Beyonce with a big smile on her face and wind coming towards her making her hair blow away. The use of this celebrity endorcement by the magazine not only help to persuade the audience to purchase the product but also creates a non-stereotypical definition of a desired female shape. The caption next to the image of her says: "Beyonce: 'I was like enough of this- I'm eating'", which signifies the idea of a curvey woman being independant and with a high self-esteem as she would simply rather eat than diet. This subverts the media's portrayal of a perfect woman and therefore subverts Mulvey's theory of women being passive and controlled by males giving the ideologies to the audience of being happy with their body size.

On the other hand, the use of Beyonce and the represenatations that follow are contradicted with the "Make-over tips" covering Beyonce's chest at the bottom of the page as it shows a long shot of a woman who is fat and then thin in another image with the title "Get the body you want" as well as "look hot like a model" and "shiny hair secrets". This representes women to be very self-concious and gives out the idea of omwan having to look perfect not only with the "model" body size and shape achieved by dieting but also with "shiny" hair thus getting rid of the represenations associated with Beyonce. This contradiction is very harmful because not only would the target audience, consisting of female teenagers with C2-D socio-economic grading already want to aspire to be like celebrities including beyonce but they may already be self-concious about their weight and this magazine's mediated represenations forces it upon them even more.

The use of the neutral colours including orange, cream, yellow and green challenge the idea of a female audience as well as them being subjected to the female gaze. On the other hand, it creates a new look on the feminine atributes. Also, this issue was in Januay therefore it can also be associated with a new beginning.

The slogan of the magazine, which is written at the top of the page is "9 ways to become his girlfriend!" and so makes the audience want to feel belonged to a man. The style of the diction used in this portrays the female gender not be independant and want to be "his girlfriend" instead of him being "her boyfriend". This contradicts with the independant ideologies associaed with Beyonce.

2007-01-06T10:14:00.000-08:00

Module 1- Practice Exam

Casino Royale (2006) Film poster

The purpose of a film poster is to, prior its cinema release, promote the film by giving insights into main characters, themes, slogans and titles in order to maximise profits. Casino Royale is one of many 'Bond' sequels by MGM/Columbia Pictures, a major film distributor.

There are four images: one major and three minor. The one major image is situated on the left of the poster and consists of a long shot of James Bond, already signifying his major role and importance in the film to the audience. The use of the long shot also allows the audience to see his dress code. He is wearing a black suit with a white shirt suggesting his authorititive figure yet he adds a casual look by his bow doing not being done suggesting a change in the Bond as actor wise he has changed. His smart dress code as well as his shirt button being un-done promote the idea of the male-gaze with the idea of post-modernism and the reversal of Mulvey's female gaze theory. This is abandoned because there is a lack of female representation, suggesting the idea of a patricarchal society and his personality becomes an enigma to the audience, thus the film poster successfully persuads them to watch the film and find out.

The image of Bond also consists of him holding a gun and could be interpreted as a phallic symbol as well as allowing the audience to acknowledge that fact the gun is an icon of an action genre film. The female gaze is present again as Bond's blue eyes contrast with his suit and the grey background allowing them to stand out and are enhanced.

The first of the three minor images on the right hand side of the poster is an extreme long shot of a boat, an aeroplane and a helicopter; Bond and his 'girl' being in the back boat avoiding the chaos of an aeroplane crashing as they were probably trying to escape from it. Thistherefore gives an insight to the narrative of the film and shows a picturesque image (a boat travelling in the river with a man and woman inside it) distructed by the areoplane- a theme present throughout the 'Bond' movies. The second image is a medium shot of Bond and his 'girl' in water un-dressed again emphasising the idea of patricarchy as he only uses the girl for sex. The thrid image is a long shot of the fron of Bond's black care with an explosion behind it yet the car does not seem effected. All of these: the suit, boat, woman and car represent a capitalist society whereby the audience would aspire to acquire money and material wealth and see this as the norm just like Bond as all of them.

The long shot of James Bond is especially striking because of the lighting. There is light from the back-right of him causing some of his face to be in shadow. This adds to the enigma of the character by creating him to be a mysterious figure, yet a witty one. Therefore, Bond is presented as a white, witty, smartly dresses, sexy and rich man creating the audience of boys to want to aspire to be exactly like him. The audience would therefore be teenagers to young adults of C1-D socio-economic grading.

Behind the long shot of James Bond is the infamous oo7 logo which is cut off and then used to seperate the three minor images. This is in grey and creates the idea of continutity of the other Bond films, making the audience aware of this as well. Also, with the absence of other ethnic groups (other than whites) sense of nationalism can be portrayed as well, espeically due to the fact that Bond has this appearance of being part of the bourgeios because of his materialsitic posessions.

This "Casino Royale" film poster is overall, trying to communicate to its audience the contiunity of the great success of the Bond films, through the iconography of an expensive car, a girl, a boat, a gun and a suit, as well as a new characteristic: a new Bond. Therefre its fills its purpose and does it successfully. The ideas it is expressing through its mediated representation are firstly a sense of the audience aspiring to be like Bond through a capital society as well as a patriarchal one.

2007-01-06T04:10:00.000-08:00

Module 1- Practise Exams

'The Shawshank Redemption' DVD cover (1994)

'The Shawshank Redemption' is a prison break themed film, which was produced by Carlton and released on DVD in 1996. Carlton is not a popular film institution but it's success was and still is great. The purpose of a DVD cover is to attract, engage and inform the audience as much as possible,persuading them to purchase the DVD.

The title of the DVD is written at the top of the page, centered to engage the audience and gain as much acknowledgement due to the them always starting to read from the top of any page. The font is not bold but the colour contrasts with the background; the title being white and the background being black. The colours black and white are associated with the extreme past (or a long period of time), which emphasises to the audience the fact that this film is a remake of a true story.

There is a long shot of the two main characters Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins centered on the DVD cover, which makes the audiece acknowledge that they are the two main characters in the film as well as revealing their dress code. There is a difference in type of clothing between Freeman and Robbins as the former's being ragged and old compared to the latter's representing a class division between the ethnicities: black and white; the white being socially and economically superior to black people. However, both Freeman and Robbins are preferably in the prison therefore class is not an important factor because they have now become dis-associated with the norm (or the outside world) where it would indeed matter. Freeman's clothes therefore, may infact be older than Robbin's simply because he may have spent a longer amount of time in the prison compared to Robbins. Another siginifier of this being the fact that Freeman is a lot more older than Robbins.

Adittionally, Freemans's facial gesture is a very big smile at Robbins suggesting intergration in the 20th century. on the other hand, Robbins is looking infront of himself, away from Freeman and he is not smiling back, showing hostility towards Freeman and again, this may be because of the difference in ethnicities or race. Another welcoming gesture of Freeman is the posession he has of a base ball glove and ball connoting enjoyment in the prison. This would juxtapose with the audience's idea of life in prison and so the image challenges their perception of prison life.

Through the hostility of Robbins, as he may not want to play Baseball, there is an idea of a serious and un-welcoming representation of white people specifically men as there is a lack of represenations of women.

Not only is it obvious that the images are of the men in Shawshank prison by the number of Freeman's shirt but also by the image behind them. This is also a long shot but this time of men working in a field; this being prison work. This is put togther by computer and the fact that it is behind Morgan and Freeman could show how they want to escape the prison work and the prison life.

The image is a brown colour connoting the past and a long period of time, similar to the colours of the title and background. Therefore, it could be an image taken when the real prisoner escaped Shawshank Prison, highlighting the Uses and gratifications theory- paticularly Blulmer and Katz's extention by which the audience consume a media text in order to relax as well as be eduacted. This DVD cover does both.

Violence is portrayed as well through the warden holding a gun in the image behind Robbins and Freeman suggesting the genre not only to be prison-break but ones such as thriller and adventure. This siginifies that the audience of the film would be of A/B socio-economic grading, who are middle aged and university educated for the reason that it is a true story and an independant audience would want to watch the film to be eduacted, with full knowledge that it is based on a true story.

The gun could, on the other hand, represent a phallic symbol but the themes presented on the DVD cover could disregard this idea. However, it is for this reason and the macho look of the film that the secondary audience would be teenagers to young adults of both male and female who would want to watch this film for entertainment- not particularly aspiring or knowing the fact that it is a true story.

The iconography of Freeman holding a baseball glove and the warden holding a gun juxtapose each other as baseball is associated with youth, enjoyment and innocense whereas a gun connotes danger, death and rebelliousness. This represents a difference of prioities as well as roles between the classes- the prisoner and the warden, perhaps suggesting a corrupt prison.

This DVD cover "The Shawshank Redemption" is trying to communicate a brief insight into the two main characters including their relationship towards each other as well as subtly portraying this idea of mixed of emotions in the prison. Through its mediated representations, it expresses the ideas of ethnicity, social intergration, prison life and prison expectations. It fully potrays to the audience the key idea of the film- being a prison break- as well as creating enigmas for the audience as to why Robbins has a hostile facial gesture.

2006-12-13T14:39:00.000-08:00

Audience Profiling

Demographic profiling: The way of grouping an audience define them in terms of age, class, gender, geographical area, class, economic status and religion.

In terms of demographic profiling, i am a 17 year old female of middle class (in terms of my mum's job but individually im at C1 social grade). I'm from West London, of Indian background but am brought up to be British Asian and belong to Hinduism.

Psychographic profiling: Market researchers started to categorize audiences in terms of needs and motivation.

in terms of psychographic profiling, i think i'm partly a succeeder and partly individual because i feel secure and am in control generally. I don't think i'm an aspirer because i don't seek to improve my self by buying high street brand names. I don't own or consume any so i'm not absorbing the ideologies of the products. I can be mainstream because i consume some maintsream texts in terms of TV programmes like Eastenders but i listen to alternative music so buy alternative music magazines and listen to alternative music radio stations. Therefore, I am quite individual as well. I do attend gigs as well and have more of an indie dress sense (converses etc). Also, the only people i would maybe identify with is people (specifically women) in bands but they're not really celebrities...hmm now im a bit of everything. But the only things i'm definitely not is reformer and aspirer.

2006-12-13T14:10:00.000-08:00

Jobs axed with American FHM

Wednesday December 13, 2006MediaGuardian.co.uk

Around 40 Emap staff will lose their jobs as a result of the closure of the US edition of FHM.
Paul Keenan, the chief executive of Emap Consumer Media, blamed deteriorating US trading conditions for making the title unprofitable, and said there was no prospect of an upturn in its fortunes.
A total of 47 staff will be affected, but a small number will remain to manage the US FHM website, which will continue to operate.
"Trading conditions in the US market have deteriorated over the past 12 months and we do not expect an improvement in the near term. In these circumstances, we do not anticipate that the title would be able to trade on a profitable basis going forward," Mr Keenan said.
"This decision does not affect FHM UK or any of the 30 other editions currently published around the world.
"FHM US was launched in 1999 and, despite the best efforts of a very resourceful and determined team led by executive publisher Dana Fields, editor-in-chief Scott Gramling and general manager Andrew Ormson, the magazine has battled to establish a profitable presence in a hugely challenging and competitive market.
"With conditions in the US worsening, we have decided to suspend publication to focus resources elsewhere on faster-growth platforms."
FHM was Emap's last US magazine following the sale of its ill-fated Petersen division in America.
The US title sells around 1.25m copies a month. However, the US mainstream men's market - including Maxim and Stuff - has suffered a steep decline in ad volumes over recent months.
In the 12 months to October 2006, the three men's titles lost 11% of ad volume, the equivalent of 300 pages a month.
The March edition of the US FHM will be its last when it goes on sale in the new year.
FHM's US edition is also the biggest-selling of any of the 30 versions of the title around the world.
The UK version of the magazine remains the market leader in this country, but its circulation of 420,688 in the first half of 2006 was 24.9% down on the second half of last year.

SUMMARY: The US FHM has been axed because of its decrease in sales, which is expected to carry on if they do not take it off the shelves. As a result, 47 workers are made redundant. Overall, the US has seen a sharp fall in all men's magazines whereas FHM is still the largest selling on in the UK. Adittionally, the men's magazines have lost advertsiers to cover the costs of making the magazine, which will ultimately create very little profit for the organisation.

MY COMMENT: I think its sad how this has happened in the US. FHM was at first very successful and although its fetishises women's bodies, creates fallic objects (cars) and voyerism its always been assoiciated in society. But on the other hand, if the organisation is not making any profit out of it and other men's magazines are seeing the same thing in the market it shows a change in values of society and the best thing to do would be to take it off the shelves.

2006-11-28T10:42:00.000-08:00

Uses and Gratifications Theory

Blulmer & Katz
- Diversion: escape from everyday problems and routine
I don't think this applies to me much because watching a soap would be part of my routine anyway and you can't escape everyday problems just by watching Eastenders or Neighbours because they have problems as well. So either way, the problems and routine do not escape me by watching soaps.

- Personal relationships: using the media for emotional and other interaction, e.g. substituting soap operas for family life
Sometimes, the family issues that arise in soaps aren't very common on my family. For example, soaps often raise issues of things like illness, pregnancy, debt and family break ups. These kind of things don't really happen in my family so i don't substitute soap operas for family life.

- Personal Identity- Constructing their own identity from characters in media texts, and learning behaviour and values
Sometimes in films i indentify with a character in it but i wouldn't construct my own identity to be just like theirs because their identity is acted, so it's not real. For example, I seem to indetify with a character in chick flicks but i don't necessarily want to the b like them as i know that the real world doesn't exist of people in chick flicks- because their representation is very stereotypical.

- Surveillance: information gathering, e.g. educational programmes, weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains
I watch weather reports and financial news sometimes so keep up-to-date with what's happening in the world and nationally. An exampleof this is to keep up to date with the War in Iraq, football highlights and recently the whole case of the Russian spy. Therefore, Surveillance is probably the only reason of why i might consume a media text from Blulmer and Katz' list.

Denis McQuail
Information:
- Finding out about relevant events and conditions- I probably use the internet more to find out about relevant events and conditions rather than the TV. Through TV, i am aware of some events but they are not really that relevant to me. I use the radio to find out about relevant events as well.
- seeking advice- I don't personally use the TV for seeking advice but it build up my general knowledge.
- satisfying curiosity and general interest.- Through watching the News, my curioisties about certain news piece would be satisfied. This is what motivates me to watch the News. For example, i was especially interested in the Fairpack scandal.

Learning
- self- education- TV does educate me but i would watch something to be enteratined rather than to learn. Even though soaps and hospital series like Holby City, I self-learn everyday and specific things.
- confidence through gaining knowledge- I'm not motivated to watch a certain programme to gain confidence through gaining knowledge. I un-knowingly gain knowledge so it doesn't really make me more confident, just have more general knowledge. Quiz shows do this quite obviously but soaps and drama can teach you everyday things.

Personal Identity.
- finding reinforcement for personal values- I don't think this applies to my media consumption because i don't think i need reinforcement for personal values- i would have my family/friends for that.
- finding models of behvaiour- This doesn't apply to my media consumption either because it doesn't really make sense to find a model of behaviour on TV- u would ened a more realistic and approachable model to seek advice etc.
- identifying with 'celebrities'- I don' identify with celebrities but maybe the members of some of the females from indie bands just because of their "indie" look or "glamorous punk".
- gaining insight into oneself.- i dont consume media for this reason because the Tv can't exactly give you an insight into who you are, only the person themselves can.

Integration and social interaction
- gaining insight into circumstances of others- Through issues that media texts raise such as illnesses, i do gain an insight into circumstances of others who i know of that may have the same illness, for example.
- identifying with others- a sense of belonging- I dont think this applies ot my media consumption because the Tv is not a real world thing, even though soap and films sometime smale them out to be. Even in reality shows not everything that happens is put on camera so i can't feel a sense of belonging through comsuming media texts.
- finding a basis for conversation and social interaction- This applies to my media consumption because i often use programmes such as Eastenders or Big Brother as a basis of a conversation.
- having a substitute for real-life companionship- I don't think you can substitute real-life companionship for media texts. This is because you can't see someone on TV and call them your friend...because you may think you know them but they don't know you.
- having to carry out social roles- I dont think this applies to me.
- enabling one to connect with family, friends and society- this doesn't apply to my media consumption because i think it's impossible to connect with family, friends and society through consuming media texts. On the other hand, i guess yu connect with family, friends and society by watching the same programmes/films and having the same opinion.

Entertainment
- escaping, or being diverted, from problems- I don't use media texts to escape, or to be diverted, from problems. Songs are more of a likely thing to use instead.
- relaxing- I watch Tv to relax because all i usually do is watch the TV and sit on the sofa so by relaxing on the sofa, i am consuming the media.
- getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment- Some programmes like "life isn't all ha ha hee hee" i watched because of my intrinsic culture and the trailers attracted me mainly for that reason.
- filling time- I mostly watch TV to fill time. If i'm bored or waiting for someone/thing i'd watch TV or put on the radio.
- emotional release- Only some films caused me to have emotional release but i didn't watch the film especially to get emotional release, it was an unintended reaction.
- sexual arousal.

2006-11-20T14:39:00.000-08:00

Effects Theory

The Frankfurt School
- Argued that the rise of the 'culture industry' resulted in society conforming to the standard within society.
- Under capitalism, culture is processed through the mass media as something which is bought and sold.
- The passive mass audience are manipulated by society.
- We watch Tv programmes, not because we want to but because we have been conditioned to watch them because someone has commodified it as something which is good to watch.

The hypodermic needle model
- based on the idea of mass media having the power to inject the passive audiences with ideologies.
For e.g. Triumph of the Will- Where a repressive regime controlled the media (through the likes of Goebbels) because of the belief that the strict regulation of the media will help in controlling their populations and in Hitler's case, become and stay a dictator.
- The audience accept the version of events given in the media.

Violence in the Media
- Suggests that the audience is passive again and the amount of explicitly sexual, too violent or in other ways offensive Tv ouput should be cencored as the audience may act in the same way.
- However, today's audience's are media literate and can de-code media texts without being injected in this way.

Cultivation Theory
- suggests that a repeated exposure of a single text will make the audience less sensitive- they become 'desensitised'.
- Over time, soical attitudes change a lot causing audiences to think that films created in the past do not have much of an scary etc effect as they would have had when the film was first released.

Two- step flow
- Assumes a more active audience who discuss the text with a respected person then we will be passive enough to accept their reviews of the text.

Whether i agree or disagree with the Effects Theory:
I agree with the Cultivation theory because with films which have been banned like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre being for some yearsbut when i watched a few years ago, i didn't find it that scary. Also, this is the same with adverts. Audiences used to be injected with ideologies but that doesn't happen a lot anymore. The Frankfurt School, Violence in the media and two step flow all depend on the individual and whether they are easily manipulated or are media-literate.

2006-11-13T13:50:00.000-08:00

Representation of women in the L'oreal Advert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Lju1F3DY8&mode=related&search

(embedding was disabled by request)

This advert uses the celebrity endorcement of Popular Asian actress Aishwarya Rai. She is represented as a middle-class, respectable and smart woman. When she puts on the mascara and walks out of the lift men and women are in awe of how amazing she looks. She is under the male gaze, which is expected anyway, but she is not dressed provocatively. Women are also in awe which may result in them being jealous or wanting to look like her because she has this quality of to-be-looked-at-ness. Also, she is enjoying the attention as she confidently looks at the people in the room.

2006-11-13T13:28:00.000-08:00

The representation of women in the 1988 Irn Bru advert

This advert takes "irn bru" very literally. A woman, who is "sweaty" uses the Irn Bru to tease the man and then she literally blows him away. This suggests that women take advantage of their good looks but know when to stop and so are in control. The man may be after the woman or the Irn Bru she is holding. There is then a woman walking past objectified for her looks and is shown very obviously by the men looing at her as she goes past. Another woman is ealier shown next to a car with water(?) spraying on her so her hair is wet and then she poses..this is quite provocative and so conforms to Mulvey's theory to create a fetishistic mode, which presents responses to male castration. Although the advert seems to be targeting both males and females, the women are objectified causing males to be persuaded to buy the drinks. The female audience may want to buy the drink to look and feel like the women in the advert- to be provocative but have the power to push men away.

Although this was shown 18 years ago it is still quite similar to the McDonalds advert in the way that it conforms to the Male gaze but women to have control and are not passive.

2006-11-13T13:11:00.000-08:00

Representation of women in the Mc Donalds advert 2006

This advert compared how easy it is to win a prize in the new McDonald's promotional scheme by comparing it to how hard it would be for the man dancing to get the blonde woman. She says "shove of will ya" showing how shes in control and although its used to make fun out of the man dancing wierdly on the dancefloor, it shows how in todays society, women may be fetishised but they still have control. The woman here is very active and so opposes Mulvey's theory of the male gaze. Also, she is not dressed premiscuously so she is not a object of scopophillia.

2006-11-12T13:30:00.000-08:00

Google chief vows to protect users' privacy

Bobbie Johnson,
Wednesday November 8, 2006
http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1942173,00.html

This article is about google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt going against the decision made by the Bush Administration to obtain all the user's searches etc. He that he went to court for it and under The Partiots Act, he does not need to share the privacy of the users who have used Google as a search engine.

This opinion of Scmidt has only come aboout when President Bush faced very bad results at the mid-term elections making it very hard for him to make any laws etc.

Schmidt still believes that Google will come under pressure in the future to share the users' private information of searches.

My opinion:

I think that Schmidt is right for holding the private information back and only in extreme circumstances should it be used. However, the fact that Schmidt has only aired his views when the Bush Administration is under threat shows how he might only have done it because there is little that they can do now. Also, some people have never known that Google records everything you search and other people may use more than 1 computer so its information s not strictly accurate.

2006-11-12T12:33:00.000-08:00

Have you got news for us?

http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,,1940127,00.html

This article is based on how channel Five and The Sun are going to allow the public to send stories to them through their website and then, if they use them on the news they would get paid £100. The stories could be anything from video clips and pictures taken on a mobile phone to important stories that you've heard about. This will all start next week.

The main idea of this was taken from Myspace but especially YouTube, however, the Channel Five senior pgrammer has pointed out that it will help to make a relationship and commitment between the audience and Channel 5. The authenticity of the flim clips is benefical for the news team and some sent in to the BBC are even better than their film crew's.

The Sun's big innovation is MySun which is an addition to the website and glorifies the news which users can comment on, which leads on to my opinion...

My Opinion:
I think this is a good idea in some ways because Channel 5 news would probably get most of their footage from the BBC so it will help them to improve. Also, its good that they have the audience's view in mind and sometimes, people in the right place at the right time so why not send in a video clip for £100. On the other hand, i think that this is maybe more because they want to up their standards in the competition of channels and news rather than "creat a ense of loyalty". Because this is a commercial channel, i can't help thinking that the only reason they are doing this is to increase their ratings.

Also, the Sun have implied that they are putting the stories in their newspaper and website purely because it is what they think the public will enjoy, not because they want to inform them of nuetral news. Therefore, this proves that The sun is a very biased newspaper and is purely for profit gains.

Another aspect which may go wrong is the public will be sending anything to the website that is not particularly useful just because they went the money. Money shouldn;t be an incentive to send a story, the person's devotion and interest to the story should be.

2006-11-10T16:46:00.000-08:00

Pluralism

Summary:

A basic definition of pluralism:
- opposite belief to marxism
- society is a system of competing groups and interests
- The elite, who control the media, allows a lot of flexibility in the production of choices.
- The audience can manipulate the media- they are able to "conform, accommodate or reject"

The role of the audience:
- audience= vital to media producers- who must spend a lot of R+D to make sure their products will appeal to the audience.
- Audience is active

The Media as a fourth estate:
- 1st three estates (government, legal system and the Church) each have power in our society.
- Each of these systems hold the other in place as democracy is maintained.
- Role of media is the 4th estate- to keep the public informed of what is happening in the other 3.

Limitations of pluralism:
- It assumes the audience is active and an economic basis for production..these can sometime be in conflict.

Why I am/am not a Pluralist:
I believe the way that pluralists think about how the economy is treated and the governing of the country. Democracy is a more forward way of thinking and the audience demanding products that they can manipulate in their own way is sometimes accurate. I think it depends on the knowledge on the audience as to whether or not they are able to make their own judgement of what they read/hear/see or whether the representations are hegemonic to them. However, there is clearly some class divide in society today and the media does not always fulfill the role of the fourth estate. Sometimes the media are one-sided (such as in tabloids) and do not have enough information to remain neutral like the BBC. By being more focused on entertainment and profits, the media fails to inform the public of the 3 estates neutrally. Therefore, I believe that in some ways i am a pluralist but in others i am more marxist.

2006-11-10T15:48:00.000-08:00

Marxism

Summary:

Marxist Ideologies:
He argued against capitalism; that profits are generated by exploiting workers. He believed that Capitalist society is divided into 2 social classes:
1) The working cass/proletariat
2) The bourgeousie/establishment/ruling elite - who employ the proleteriat

Marxism and the Media:
- All media texts maintains the social divides.
- The media promote the ideologies of marxism through entertaining the workers

Althusser:
- ideoglogical state apparatuses that maintain the bourgeois ideologies and interpellate an audience:
1) Religion
2) education
3) family
4) Legal and political system
5) Political system
6) Cultural and communications systems

Gramsci:
- hegemony: through the media, the ruling classes promote their ideologies and values on the working class therefore forcing them to think it is common sense.

Eisenstein (1920's Soviet film maker) and montage:
- Used Marxism as a justification for his film making- Hollywood and conventional narrative structure and media language imposes the capitalist ideolgies on the audience.
- His solution: to show through montages that there is not a protagnist thus no one that the audience can emotionally engage with.

Williams: - contemporary marxist
- Believed in "low culture" instead of "mass culture"
- Popular culture seen as second class today whereas high culture events (ie theatre) are given a much higher status.

Why I am/not a Marxist:
I think some aspects of Marxism are true such as the fact that the ruling elite do empose these ideologies on the working class through the media. A key example of this is Rupert Murdoch who, through the Sun, Sky etc, force these right wing ideologies on the audiences and then believe that this is common sense. Even though this means that the working class are thought to be manipulated easily by the proletariat, hegemony does occur in todays society and the audience are not aware of it. However, there are other aspects of Marxism i don't agree with such as the fact that capitalism is only aiming to making profits by exploiting workers. The economy needs a little bit of capitalism to grow therefore, supply and demand in an economy should always exist. In a comminist state (which Marxim believes in) there is no supply and demand and people heavely on the government to be distributed wealth equally. Therefore, i believe in Marxism in some ways but don't think it is accurate in others.

2006-10-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

Carphone Warehouse buys AOL UK

The Carphone Warehouse has bought AOL UK for £370m which will make the mobile phone retailer's TalkTalk internet servies provider the thrid largest in the world. The company had hoped for a £600m selling price and Orange and Sky were also interested in buying it. 600,000 of AOL UK's customers out of the 1.5m are still using the dial-up connection. In 2006, AOL informed customers that it would be increasing the price of its dial-up access. The increase was part of an effort to migrate the service's remaining dial-up users to broadband, as the increased price was the same price they had been charging for monthly DSL access.

Since its merger with Time Warner, the value of AOL has dropped from its $200 billion high and it has seen similar losses among its subscription rate. It has since attempted to reposition itself as a content provider similar to companies such as Yahoo! as opposed to an Internet service provider which delivered content only to subscribers in what was termed a "walled garden". In 2005, AOL broadcast the Live 8 concert live over the Internet, and thousands of users downloaded clips of the concert over the following months. This was done in order to make up the lost profits and attract more customers. This shows how AOL were trying very hard to regain profits. It even gave away freebies in August 2006 such as xdrive.

I think that Carphone Warehouse buying AOL UK would benefit the customers as it clearly shows the company were not very good at doing this themselves. Although Carphone were bought AOL to help recover their own Broadband losses, maybe this will help to regenerate the Internet service provider.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/city/story/0,,1892842,00.html

2006-10-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

Links to Media Institutions: MIRAMAX

The first institution most linked to mine is The Walt Disney Company (which Furzana studied) because they bought Miramax from the Weinsein Brothers on March 30th 2005.

http://media-issues-debates.blogspot.com/2006/09/w-l-t-d-i-s-n-e-y-since-its-founding.html

Another Institution which links to Miramax is Warner Bros. because Miramax used to be on of the top ten film motion picture distribution along with Warner Bros. until oweners Harvey and Bob resigned.

http://balindermed6.blogspot.com/2006/09/warner-bros.html

Paramount Pictures is also linked to Miramax because it is another of the top ten film motion picture distribution.

http://ramneet-ramneet.blogspot.com/2006/09/background-and-history.html

2006-10-04T12:55:00.000-07:00

Globalisation
Globalisation is when economic, political, social, technological and cultural changes seen as increasing intergration and interaction between people and companies worldwide.

Globalisation fits in with Media Studies as each of the changes effects the media in terms of growth, dominance, influence and reflection among the social and cltural world we live in. An example of this is 'cultural imperialism' where the current US media domination is the same as the British Empire forcing its values and ideologies on the large proportion of the developing world. The two are the same because the US media forces US culture on us through our media consumption.