Question 1a

Question 1a advice from Media Studies

Matrix film / Postmodern

Baudrilliard

Hyperreality
‘a condition in which "reality" has been replaced by simulacra’

Simulacra...
When a sign loses its relation to reality, it then begins to simulate a simulation
Simulation:
The process in which a representation of something comes to replace the thing which is actually being represented.
The representation then becomes more important than ‘the real thing’
Hyperreality:
Division between "real" and simulation has collapsed,
therefore an illusion of an object is no longer possible because the real object is no longer there.

Understanding Hyperreality
Celebrity culture:
Celebrities who reach a point at which every aspect of their lives is taken care of by someone else are said to live in a hyperreal world.
They lose the ability to interact with people on a normal level and are cocooned in Hyperreality.
Normal people often try to copy this, for example one man who is obsessed with Britney Spears and every aspect of his life relates to her, he genuinely believes that he lives in the same world as her.
This is a common case in which someone has become more engaged in the hyperreal world than the actual real world.

Understanding Hyperreality...
Video Games
Play station games which have a lot of violence in them often have a lot of bad press, the media believe that people will copy the actions which they see in the video game.
This actually happens very rarely, only a small percentage of the people who play the violent video games actually copy the actions which they see on them.
For example one prime example is of a man who believed he was in a game and would therefore gain points by carrying out illegal tasks, the worst crime which he committed was killing his best friend. His argument was that he had been told to do it, meaning that he genuinely thought he was taking part in the game when in fact it was real life.
Showing that he could no longer distinguish the difference between game play and real life.

Genre paragraph

Genre is a means of categorising different texts and being able to place them in a particular group based on codes and conventions as well as producer/audience relationships. My A2 production of a music video is generally associated with pop music. The sterotypical convetions with pop music are videos such as Beyonce, this is due to the style of videos which she creates - by this it is followed by the way which she displays herself through editing camera, mise en scene and sound.

 

Essentially, music video is a platform or genre in itself yet what I may classify as a subgenre could be considered as a super genre by others. Therefore genre has no boundaries and by breaking conventions, this can be seen as either raising the threshold of what’s considered generally acceptable or creating a new genre entirely.

Narrative paragraph - power of love

I am going to explore the narrative in the music video ‘the power of love’, the lyric of ‘dreams are like angels ‘shows suggestion that angles keep the bad away from the good, form of a metaphor as this evidently doesn’t happen. ‘I’m so in love with you’, the artist of Birdy is demonstrating her emotion, being in love with someone is a very deep and honourable feeling which moves on to her saying making ‘love your goal’ the idea of the word ‘goal’ is the idea of winning something, scoring and being extremely happy. The artist suggests that you should make love your goal discussing you should make love something worth winning, scoring. ‘Purging your soul’ could explain that the word ‘purge’ is associated with getting rid of someone, of an unwanted feeling and emotion, memory or condition. The song repeats the sentence about making love your goal in the chorus this suggests that she wants the idea of making love your dream to be the main storyline.

Genre

Lyric Analysis

Modern vs postmodern

http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/pomo.html

What was Modernism?

As we know, each discourse concerned with history constructs its own historical objects. Postmodern theory constructs an image of modernism. Was there ever a pre-postmodern consensus about history, identity, core cultural values?

Differentiations:

the idea of the postmodern or post modernity as anhistorical condition or position (political/ economic/ social), an era we're still supposedly in regardless of anyone's state of awareness.

Uses of the term "postmodern"

after modernismsubsumes, assumes, extends the modern or tendencies already present in modernism, not necessarily in strict chronological succession, or working out questions and problems implicit in modernism without a break from core assumptions

contra modernismsubverting, resisting, opposing, or countering features of modernism

equivalent to "late capitalism"culture dominated by post-industrial, consumerist, multi- and trans-national capitalism, beginnings of globalization

the historical era following the modernan historical time-period marker, recognizing cultural, ideological, and economic shifts without a new trajectory (triumphalism) or privileging of values

artistic and stylistic eclecticism (aesthetic postmodernism)hybridization of forms and genres, combining "high" and "low" cultural forms and sources, mixing styles of different cultures or time periods, dehistoricizing and re-contextualizing styles in architecture, visual arts, literature, film, photography

"global village" phenomena: globalization of cultures, races, images, capital, products"information age" redefinition of nation-state identities, which were the foundation of the modern era; dissemination of images and information across national boundaries, a sense of erosion or breakdown of national, linguistic, ethnic, and cultural identities; a sense of a global mixing of cultures on a scale unknown to pre-information era societies.

Some features of postmodern styles:

Nostalgia and retro styles, recycling earlier genres and styles in new contexts (film/TV genres, images, typography, colors, clothing and hair styles, advertising images)

"History" represented through nostalgic images of pop culture, fantasies of the past. History has become one of the styles; historical representations blend with nostalgia.

"the disappearance of a sense of history, the way in which our entire contemporary social system has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past, has begun to live in a perpetual present and in a perpetual change that obliterates traditions of the kind which all earlier social formations have had in one way or another to preserve... The information function of the media would thus be to help us to forget, to serve as the very agents and mechanisms of our historical amnesia" (Jameson). 

Audience - Miley Cyrus

Representation of ‘audience’ through a music video

How does this music video represent ‘audience?’

Miley Cyrus – Wrecking Ball

All media texts are made with an audience in mind, ie a group of people who will receive it and make some sort of sense out of it. And generally, but not always, the producers make some money out of that audience. Therefore it is important to understand what happens when an audience "meets" a media text. This music video in which I have chosen represents who the director has aimed the audience at through the different use of camera angles, mise en scene, editing and the general feel which the music video suggests.

The start of the video you are introduced to an extreme close up of the star Miley, this automatically sets out who the audience is aimed at due to the emotion which is placed, it highlights the music video is telling the audience a story about upset and emotion – this stereotypically highlights the audience being teenage girls as this is generally the sort of storylines in which teenage girls listen too. The artist herself is female but due to the mise en scene of red lipstick which connotate’s love and anger and feminism it is leading you to understanding the audience of girls.

The clip then leads to Miley getting repeatedly distressed throughout the video, mid shot of her grabbing her hair and crying forms emotion and highlights the dramatic storyline. This expresses the personal relationship in which it’s trying to create. Audiences listen to music to express feelings, to share feelings and to feel involved with an artist and this is why this music video is evidently aiming their audience at being girls who are going through a tough stage in their life and want to express their emotions like Miley does.

Genre theory's - Question 1b

Genre theory from HeworthMedia

Definitions

Genre -

Media products can be classified into categories or genre. The word 'genre' comes from the French word meaning 'type' or 'class'. Media genres appear within a medium (film, television) such as the "horror" film or the television "situation comedy". A genre can be recognised by its common set of distinguishing features (see discussion on codes and conventions). These features associated with a genre's style and content may be, for example, a particular setting, character types, technical codes (lighting or music). You may also find that some media texts blur genre boundaries.

Narrative-

The way those events are put together to be presented to an audience. Therefore, when analysing a narrative we analyse the construction of the story ie the way it has been put together, not the story itself. You also need to consider what the story is about in its most basic terms, ie the theme (eg Love, war, winning)

 

Representation-

Understanding representation is all about understanding the choices that are made when it comes to portraying something or someone in a mass media text. It's impossible to portray every aspect of an individual in a photograph, or even in a feature film, so certain features of their personality and appearance get highlighted, and are often enhanced, when it comes to constructing the representation that the audience will see. When representing a person, media texts often focus on their:

• Age
• Gender
• Race/Ethnicity
• Financial Status
• Job
• Culture/nationality

Audience-

'Audience' is a very important concept throughout media studies. All media texts are made with an audience in mind, ie a group of people who will receive it and make some sort of sense out of it. And generally, but not always, the producers make some money out of that audience. Therefore it is important to understand what happens when an audience "meets" a media text. Who will this attract?

 

Media language-

Media conventions, formats, symbols and narrative structures which cue the audience to meaning. The symbolic language of electronic media work much the same way as grammar works in print media.

Post morderism

Postmodernism from anniapple

Postmordernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certanity of scentific, or objective, efforts to explian reality.

Digital technology G325

Digital technology from jphibbert1979

Final AS Evaluation

Final coursework for AS