MEST3: Critical Perspectives exam - Revision! MOCK ON 10TH DECEMBER

Hello hard-working year 13! 

I know you are all currently working extremely hard on your essays, planning linked production work AND revising for your mock so here is something to help your revision over the next week.  

What do you need to know?

Your mock exam is scheduled for Tuesday 10th December period 5. You will be answering Section A of the exam only; we have not covered everything for Section B yet so this will have to wait. This means you will be spending 45 minutes answering the questions and about 15-20 minutes viewing the text. 

Section A has three questions. You must answer all of them.

There will be information on the products which you should read, highlight and understand in order to answer the questions properly.

You will be shown the two media products three times. In between these viewings you should make notes in response to the questions. These notes will not be marked.

You should spend approximately 45 minutes answering the questions in Section A.
This section tests you on your ability to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of media concepts, contexts and critical debates


Here's what you should revise:

• Media concepts - MIGRAIN
• Semiotics
• Audience theories
• Understanding of a wide range of critical debates/issues/theories (your yellow folder!)
• Examples of a range of media products that might fit with debates/issues/theories
• Media terminology

How you could revise:

• Read through your yellow folder and re-write out notes, make posters, spider diagrams or record what you have learnt in a way that you will remember.
• Collect newspaper articles that are relevant and discuss current debates
• Find a range of examples to fit with each issue or debate we have discussed
• Analyse a few moving image texts - this could be adverts, trailers, extracts from news programmes or anything which involves you analysing how and why it has been constructed.
• Read through all of the past posts on the blog and use twitter to ask us questions
• Use the internet to search anything you may have forgotten or want to develop a proper understanding of

What type of thing will you be presented with?

Some information (which you are expected to highlight and use to inform your answer):

Media Product One – Adidas House Party Advert

Adidas launched the House Party campaign in January 2009. The advert was part of the Adidas Originals brand campaign which used television, cinema, print and online platforms. The Adidas website described the campaign as ‘set against the backdrop of a house party hosting an electric mix of people from the worlds of music, fashion and sport’. The advert includes David Beckham, The Ting Tings, Estelle, Missy Elliot, Katy Perry, Method Man and Run DMC. The song in the advert is the Pilooski re-mix of Frankie Valli’s original version of ‘Beggin’. Adidas also created a version of the advert which enabled users to click at various points of the film to view extra footage. Xbox Live also hosted a dedicated Adidas Originals section on its portal where gamers could browse and download content.

Media Product Two – NHS & Home Office Advert

The £4m campaign targeted 18 to 24 year-olds with the slogan, ‘You wouldn’t start a night like this, so why end it that way?’ There were two TV adverts in the campaign, one focusing on a young man and one on a young woman getting ready to go out. The campaign used TV, radio, press and digital platforms. The TV adverts appeared on youth programming, sport and music channels; the radio adverts on national and regional stations; and the print adverts in youth-oriented titles including Nuts, NME, Glamour and Reveal. In The Guardian, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary at the time, said: ‘This new campaign will challenge people to think twice about the serious consequences of losing control. Binge drinking is not only damaging to health but it makes individuals vulnerable to harm.’

Three questions (which you must check you understand!):

Question 1

Evaluate how each media product represents young people. (8 marks)

Question 2

Why are shock tactics, such as those in media product two, so often used?

 You may also refer to other media products to support your answer. (12 marks)

Question 3

Consider the value of using online marketing to target a youth audience.

You should refer to other media products to support your answer. (12 marks)

Two products (which you must make notes on):

(Sorry for poor quality but I pinched it from Youtube!)

View this blog post as the perfect revision! It is a past paper from 2011. Watch the videos three times and make notes in between on representations, the key concepts, debates in the media and other things you feel are relevant. 

If you are working hard then I expect to see a few answers on this blog post to show me what you can do! 

The best answers will:

• Make detailed references to both products - this means referring to camera shots, music, setting etc
• Show a sophisticated understanding of media concepts - not just listing the concepts but truly engaging with them and exploring what the question asks of you
• A wide range of media issues, theories and debates (Question 2 and 3 requires a range of examples from other media you have seen)
• Critical autonomy - this means making independent points and not just repeating things I have told you without making it relevant to what you have seen. You must be specific to the product you are looking at and how that relates to wider issues within the media. Avoid making general points if you can't explain or support them. You should show an interest in the media and knowledge of many different things. Only the truly engaged and hard-working will be able to do this. Is it you?

Good luck with revision! Keep an eye on the blog and Twitter!

Section B Representations homework!

In today's lesson we discussed what your case studies are currently like (uh oh!) and what they need to be like in time for the exam. We looked at the mark scheme and how to plan a successful answer to a Section B question. We also went through how to write an introduction and focus closely on the question. You should have all written an introduction now. Your homework is to complete your answer on the question (below) - you have 50 minutes left. Please hand it in to either me or Miss Campbell by Friday.

 

There are a wide range of representations in the media and audiences are free to choose how they interpret them. Do you agree? (48 marks)


Here is the introduction example that we came up with:

For my case study I focused on PUT YOUR GROUP HERE. It is my belief that there is/is not a wide range of representations available in the media for PUT YOUR GROUP HERE.

And then you must decide what you think! Here are two sentences according to whether you believe there are limited or wide ranging representations.

Limited:
Due to limited representations, the audience will find it difficult to interpret this group the way they want to. This is because...

Wide ranging:
Wide ranging representations allow the audience to consume a variety of different ideas about this group and therefore interpret them in their own way.

After your have said this you need to give some examples. So if you have said that there are limited representations or a particularly dominant representation then you must explain what that is and why this representation is so prevalent in the media.

If you have said there are wide ranging representations then you need to say why there are. Has it always been like that? Why does this particular group have a wide range but others don't? Does this mean that the audience truly can interpret the text the way they want? Remember that the aim is to be critical - just because there are lots of representations doesn't necessarily mean you can interpret them the way you want to. The key to Section B is having an opinion and then backing this up with examples and critical debates/issues.

Your Media Studies brain should be yelling STUART HALL at you! If you can't remember him then look back at your Reception Theory and Kidulthood notes. I also posted this on the blog for you a while back.

Good luck!

MEST 3 Representation Case Study - Kidulthood

In class we have looked at various theorists and how we might apply their thoughts to a media text. We also watched about twelve minutes of Kidulthood in order to establish whether the representations of teens that we see are realistic. Remember that representations are a construct and these can vary according to who it is made by, what their intentions are and who views the final product. 

Stuart Hall believed that no amount of analysis can find a text’s one true ‘meaning’, because different people who encounter the text will make different interpretations. On the surface, this certainly seems to make sense. After all, we don’t all like the same characters in our favourite TV shows or films, or dislike the same. But we are all seeing the same representations. The technical and symbolic codes that construct the representations we perceive are the same – that is, the denotation is the same. But from there, what the producers want us to think and what we actually think might be two very different things. This reading, according to Hall, depends on our social positioning – for example the level of our education and experience, and what our occupations are.

 

Dick Hebdige's Subculture Theory is that teens can be split into two groups - 'trouble' and 'fun'.

Here's trouble:

Jonny and Rachel - If you need to catch up on this then it is available on Youtube but do be aware that there are some shocking scenes in it.

Putting it into practice: Kidulthood
Hall’s theories are useful to illustrate how different audiences might make meaning from the 2006 Menhaj Huda film, Kidulthood.

The film is set in West London and recounts a ‘day in the life’ of a group of school kids the day and the day after a classmate commits suicide due to bullying. In the DVD’s special features, the writer of the film, Noel Clarke, responds to the question:

What’s your response [to the claim] that Kidulthood makes bullying and ‘happy slapping’ cool?
‘I don’t really care to be honest, because I know that the film’s not promoting or justifying anything it’s merely ‘there’…it’s just a film that’s out there. And it is highlighting what happens in society.’

This is an intentional approach to understanding how representation works. Clarke appears to think that the representations made in the film mean whatever they were intended to mean. He also suggests that representations are a ‘window on the world’ that just reflect society. But, as Media students – and in light of what we have learnt from Hall – we know otherwise. What has been encoded may be decoded differently by different audiences.

A quick read of the interactive users’ comments on the International Movie Database (www.imdb.com) shows that different audiences viewed the film, especially the extent of its realism, in very different ways.

I loved this film. I found it very truthful about young urban people getting into fights and arguments and it spiralling out of control.
It’s kinda cool to show the rest of the world how scary it can be in England. I’ve grown up on an estate in Chatham and I can honestly say that what you see in this film is really what it’s like...apart from they are so much younger.
I found this film a waste of 2 hours and the END may as well be the BEGINNING as it fails to get my interest or take me anywhere.
I come from E15 (East London) and the stuff in Kidulthood happens all the time in my area.
All northerners and elsewhere don’t really realise that London is one of the roughest, crime-ridden places in the world! Damn you Richard Curtis!

The main factors that appear to influence the way meaning is made from the film are the ages and locations of the audience members. Those who live near to where the film is set appear to feel the film is realistic, in terms of its representation of youth and their behaviour. This therefore supports Hall’s view that the meaning made is influenced by social positioning. The final respondent above goes further to hint at his/her understanding of representation – ‘damn you Richard Curtis’ suggests that the audience member feels that director Richard Curtis’s representations of London in romcom films such as Love Actually (2003) have given those without first-hand knowledge an inaccurate view of London.

The opening of Kidulthood merges different modes of representation, using realist codes in production and MTV-style visual trickery, such as split and sliding screens and cinemascope, in post-production. Kidulthood opens with a close-up of feet playing football, covered in mud and evoking a stereotype of a schoolboy. The diagetic soundtrack; voices in a playground, reinforce this. The film stock is grainy, characteristic of British realist films, and the location shooting and handheld, restless camera jumping from character to character at eye level and in shallow focus also adds to the sense of realism. Kids chat to each other, on phones, are smoking in the playground, giving out invites to a party and play football, in a realist representation of ‘every day life’. The dialogue is very specific to both region and generation, language including ‘blud’, ‘bruv’, ‘hug him up’, ‘allow it man’, ‘innit’ and ‘oh my days’ may not be understood by people outside London’s youth culture.

But this scene is cross-cut with scenes that are more conventional of the gangster genre. The camera is steady and close up, and the focus remains shallow, but the subject; Trife drilling (what we later realise is) a gun, is in contrast to the harmless goings on in the playground. The drill is shot with key lighting to the left, creating dramatic areas of light and dark. This juxtaposition of genres continues, as Trife talks to his uncle in a car. Here we see further iconography of the gangster genre – replica guns, drugs, and a menacing male figure who dresses in heavy jewellery and a long black leather coat.

In the 12th-minute of the film, a female character Katie switches on her stereo, and diagetic music begins, The Streets’ ‘Stay Positive’. The music bridges to the next scene becoming non-diegetic, and different characters are shown in split screen rolling from right to left, resembling a music video. The technique indicates parallel action, as the female characters are shown taking a pregnancy test and writing a suicide note, whilst the male characters are shown going for a walk, getting a hair cut, and playing computer games. The music becomes diagetic again as Katie’s parents begin calling her to turn it down, and the montage ends with their discovery of her body, after she has hung herself.

Kidulthood therefore uses codes of realism to construct a representation of youth in west London. It is important to be aware that this representation is as constructed as any other, as choosing to represent youth in London in this way encodes a particular ideological perspective.

The codes of realism used include:

• On location shooting
• Point of View shots
• Low resolution film stock
• Naturalistic lighting
• Handheld camera
• Eye level camera angles

Although some decisions may have been made for economic reasons (low resolution film stock is far cheaper than the alternative options often favoured by Hollywood, location shooting means not having to pay for and prepare a studio), the overall effect is that the representation looks more like ‘real life’, and as a result, the preferred reading is that these young people are representative of ‘the youth of today’ growing up in west London. The representations of young people are somewhat stereotypical; themes of sex, drugs and violence are prevalent, juxtaposed to scenes of poor parenting or youths not being understood by adults.

The target audience for the film, young people growing up in urban environments, are likely to find these themes familiar, even if a little exaggerated for narrative purposes. They may therefore identify with some of the characters in the film, most likely Trife, who stands out as the protagonist in the opening scenes when he is the only one to stand up to the bully. However, if somebody from outside the target audience were to watch the film, they would do so from the perspective of their own social position.

What if the people watching the film were your parents, or even grandparents? Would they think the same as you? What if the people watching the film were conservatives living in rural environments a long way from a city? Would they find these characters and events believable? These are the people who might make negotiated, or in some cases, oppositional readings. Whilst the preferred reading is that this is a realistic film, some may think the representations of youth are exaggerated or sensationalised, or made up altogether. Whilst bullying happens with unfortunate regularity and underage smoking and sex occurs also, it is rare for a young person to drill guns for their gangster uncle or for a pupil to commit suicide. The codes of social-realism and gangster are merged to such an extent that for some, the film loses its realist edge. Whilst the writer of the film, Noel Clarke, refutes the claims of sensationalism in the DVD’s special features, I think he fails to give enough credit to his own imagination:

"Some people have said that this [film] will influence society and influence young people. Whereas my thing is that it’s the opposite way round. Society influenced the film. This film couldn’t exist if these things weren’t happening already."