Initial thoughts for coursework

 I was thinking about doing a magazine, focusing mainly on mental health or ways to make yourself feel better. However, my second cover will focus on physical health.

For my front cover about mental health, since the target audience are 16-25 years old, I was planning to include main cover lines covering topics such as physical activities to do with friends, and simple budget friendly ways to keep fit and stay healthy, both mentally and physically.

In my second front cover, I aim to focus more on the physical side of health, and the importance of eating a balanced diet and getting sufficient exercise to be able to stay physically healthy. I aim to present the audience with various options, for all types of people, showing them ways in which they can stay healthy in a way that suits them. 

Both front page covers will represent someone of a similar age group to my target audience, to make the message of the importance of staying healthy more relevant and relatable to them.

The colour scheme will also reflect the positive attitude to staying physically and mentally healthy, by using bright colours with high saturated images to convey a positive attitude that the audience should incorporate when trying to stay healthy. 

The photos will be taken in good weather and likely outside. However, both front page editions will also suggest variations of these activities to allow for different weather conditions, when the audience are trying to incorporate these routines into their daily lives. therefore, there will not just be activities for the summer for the audience to stay healthy, but I also plan to include ideas for the autumn/winter months, to encourage staying healthy all year round, regardless of the season or time of year.

music videos applying to Goodwin and Dyer's theories

Taylor Swift- 'The Man'

In Taylor Swift's music video The Man, she constructs herself as a powerful figure, challenging gender stereotypes of male vs female representations in many different social settings. For example, she is pictured in various workplace settings, playing a 'hero' character. This links to Richard Dyer's star theory, representing her as the main popular person everywhere she goes.

This music video also represents her as a star as commodity, because she references her various merchandise products within the music video, such as an intertextual reference to her documentary on Netflix, Miss Americana. This links to the star as commodity aspect of Richard Dyer's theory, because she is referencing advertisements which allow her to make more money and generate income, as people who watch the documentary allow her to make money. By referencing this in her music video she is encouraging fans to do this, by going to later watch the documentary, so that she can generate income and profit.

Links to Goodwin's music videos theory-

There are multiple intertextual references within this music video, such as her references to her other albums, reference to her documentary Miss Americana, and 

Summary of Theorists-

Richard Dyer's star theory- Dyer splits his theory into 3 main parts, star as a commodity, star as a construction and star as an ideology. Star as a commodity refers to the ability for the celebrity to generate profit or income from what they do, by using similar techniques to what they know has worked before, selling merchandise and promoting their products online eg. documentaries. This means that the star can make more money from what they're doing, ultimately helping them to be more successful. Star as a construction refers to their own public image (what the audience see from what they do), and how their public self is completely different to their own self, which they keep private from the media. The differences between these 2 versions of a star allow them to select what qualities their audience would desire to see in them, and perhaps shelter away what they don't want their audience to see. Star as an ideology refers to the ideas and values the star promotes through their work, and it can also refer to the ideas and values the audience can pick up from their music videos and other media products.

Music videos research

As part of our lessons starting to learn about music videos, I have created a timeline of some of the key moments in history which have shaped the way music videos are used today. These key events refer to the historical context of music videos, such as the first ever music video published, and the technological advancements which have led music videos to where they are nowadays. This was very helpful for me to understand more about how music videos have developed over time, and I will keep these points in mind as I continue to explore this topic of the A level.

Below I have linked some videos which resonate with me, as some research for my upcoming NEA.

big issue front cover

 

In class, we created our own big issue covers. In mine, I decided to include the main story of the new series of Stranger Things, as this is a key entertainment event which is happening over Christmas. I also included some other main headlines like what a budget of £20 can get you over Christmas. I chose to include this headline because it appeals to their target audience who are of a lower social class/background, and may struggle with money/lack of income over the Christmas period. Therefore, this is a way of the Big Issue helping their audience, giving them advice or support if they are struggling with money or with budgeting over Christmas. The other main headline on the front page covers the cost of social housing. This is also addressing the stereotypical target audience of the Big Issue, who may be more likely to be living in social housing areas, and so may need support with budgeting, living in a general low income area. 

Doing this activity developed my photoshop skills, in preparation for my coursework later in the new year, and was something I thoroughly enjoyed doing.

Hesmondhalgh theory supercurricular reading

 Previously I made a PowerPoint for our lesson where we went through each theory to make sure we had covered all theories and understood them. Here I have uploaded pictures of the presentation I made on Hesmondhalgh’s cultural industries theory.

After creating this presentation, I read the chapter from the Dixon theory book, about this theory to enhance my understanding. I believe that since reading this chapter of the book, I have better understood the concepts within this theory. Below I have featured some of the new things I have learnt that were included in this chapter, which helped me to better understand it.

1) the impossibility of predicting audience tastes coupled with the high costs of production and the effects of mass competition mean that the business of making commercially successful media is very difficult

2) media businesses are reliant upon changing audience consumption patterns, the media industry is reliant on marketing and publicity functions, and media products have limited consumption capacity.

3) relating his theory to internationalism- where producers are able to distribute their products on a global scale. This global distribution increases the profits that are made from any single investments, but also results in media products that sacrifice local flavour to maximise global appeal.

4) product branding decisions are increasingly channelled by audience research and focus groups

5) artificial scarcity= restricting access to products by limiting their availability to platforms that are owned by the parent company of that product

6) some formatting strategies that are used by the media industry to reduce risk is a) star formatting, b) genre based formatting, c) serialisation, d) remakes, e) independent labelling 

7) the web gives unequal user access and depends on user skill level 

8) the internet is dominated by a relatively small number of providers 

9) internet is increasingly dominated by commercialised activity 

10) 2 theorists who challenge the features of this theory are Henry Jenkins and Clay Shirky

Shelter advertisement video

 

For my supercurricular, I chose to look at and analyse the Shelter 2023 winter and Christmas advert, posted on their YouTube channel. Within this advert, it represents what life can be like for those who are living homeless, particularly what other children wish for at times like Christmas aren’t necessarily what everyone can access, because being homeless means that they are wishing for a stable home and a roof over their hand, when most children would wish for toys, dolls or books. This is a poignant message which is constantly referred to throughout the whole advert, as it pictures a young girl of primary school age wishing for a new home when she overhears that ‘if you are as good as gold you can get anything you wish for’, and so starts to carry out various kind behaviours, in the hope that she can be living in a stable home in time for Christmas. However the naivity represented by the fact that we know being good won’t necessarily get the young girl a house, makes us more willing to donate because the audience want to make her wish come true, and help those in need.

This emphasises that young and innocent children are having to face the difficulties of homelessness, and makes the audience more willing to donate, because of wanting to help the youth when they are struggling, particularly because society has constructed the idea that children are a lot more vulnerable than adults, and so deserve to be helped. By using a young girl also makes it more relatable for the audience, as everyone watching will have experienced being the same age as the girl in the advert, and so can picture what it would have been like themselves at that age, to be experiencing homelessness, and this therefore makes the message even stronger, and encourages them to donate. 

Like most of their other adverts, they use simple and bold statements at the end of the advertisement, to show the facts of what is happening in reality. For example they have said in this advert that ‘over 131,000 do’ experience homelessness. By using this as a bold statement at the end of the advert shows how it is fact that this is really happening, and that people like the family in the advert do really need the help and support given by donations. After this fact, they have pictured their logo at the very end, with ‘donate today’ below it. They use an imperative of ‘donate’ which is telling the audience to do it, making them feel obliged. However, the audience are more likely by this point in the advert to want to donate, as they will have seen previously in the advert how it can negatively impact the lives of many young children and their families. 

This advert reflects altruism as it highlights a concern for the well being of others, due to the impacts of homelessness. They reflect altruism by making the situation as relatable as possible for the audience, by picturing them in locations like a post office, school, field, and shop, which are various different areas the audience will have been in, the only difference being that they experience homelessness or poor housing conditions, and the members of the audience don’t. Therefore, by making the relatability of the advert as high as possible, makes it evident that in reality, there isn’t any difference between the audience and the people in the advert. Therefore, the audience would feel more highly encouraged to donate because they want to help people who are similar to them, and have a family to run around Christmas time. 

Media magazine article supercurricular

 Chick Flick or Guy com?

I read this news article about the typical conventions of rom com films, using the examples of Pretty woman and Knocked Up, and how this genre stereotypically or countertypically represents both males and females. I thought that it was interesting how although being released not too many years apart, pretty woman in 1990 and knocked up in 2007, the representations of gender are quite different. Pretty woman, being an older film than Knocked up, follows more stereotypical representations of gender, as a woman from a lower social class being married and ‘rescued’ by a man from a higher social class, and they fall in love, living happily ever after. The transformation of a woman is also involved in this narrative displayed in Pretty Woman, as she goes from being an ‘Ugly Duckling to a Swan’. I thought that this concept mentioned in this article was particularly interesting, because it is a feature that can be found in most films of this genre, and is quite rare for the main female character to be very head strong, and is instead often rescued by the man, and plays the damsel in distress for the rest of the film before her rescue. Also, another typical feature of chick flick /rom com films are that right before the end of the film, the man comes back to declare his love for the woman, before she was going to leave the country. This is reflected in the narrative of Pretty Woman, as Edward’s character comes back to declare his love for Vivian at the end of the film.

Films such as Hooked Up follow a slightly different narrative, and slightly more countertypical representations of both men and women. In this film, the man is represented as a more clueless ‘loser’ character who is unwilling to grow up, and is free of adult responsibilities, until he ‘gets the girl’ at the end of the film. This article shows the differences between both chick flicks and guy coms, and how each of them represent gender differently and how they use the 2 genders differently to form their narrative. 

However, Pretty Woman and Knocked Up have some things in common, even though their genres are slightly different. For example, both film genres include the comedy element into their narrative. The article uses the examples of visual and verbal gags, or comedic situations and misunderstandings, and suggests how the comedy aspect of these kinds of films is a key sub genre within the film. I think that the sub genre of comedy in chick flicks and guy coms are a key part of the film, and it’s interesting how both genres can involve comedy, but used in various ways, dependent on the specific genre, highlighting the contextual differences. 

Overall, I’m going to use the information shown in this article with my studies, as I believe it is going to help me understand the more subtle differences between genres of film, and it will therefore be useful and help me analyse film better in my A Level. The ideas presented about how both genres can feature the same thing but show it in slightly different ways will be useful for me to learn in more detail and depth about how film producers make subtle differences in ways that can entirely change the representation of a character that the audience interpret by watching the film. This article was very helpful for me to read as supercurricular, and I will use its ideas to help me discover more about film producing in the media industry.