Research and Planning - Pitch and Feedback

 

In class, we did a Pitch presentation, giving brief ideas about what our coursework is going to involve. 

Attached I have added a photo of the written comments I received from my pitch presentation

From my feedback, I have figured that some of the things that are going well is the feature of 'everyone's clicking on', which I plan to include in the design of my website. However, some of this feedback also says that I need to work more on the specific ideas for my 2 magazine covers, and making sure that both of my ideas link to the brief of health, which I will continue to think about when planning the design of my website. Also something else I need to consider are specific examples of intertextuality, and so I will begin to incorporate this into the following planning stages of my website.

There were also a few comments about how people liked the ideas for the overall colour scheme of the website, and magazine covers. Therefore, this is something I plan to continue developing as I begin the creation of my front covers.

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.

Investigation into Taylor Swift's music video

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 references to other texts such as films, as in the beginning we see a direct intertextual reference to the film the Wolf of Wall Street. These direct intertextual references make the audience feel empowered, and clever for noticing these references. It also makes the viewing of music videos more enjoyable as a whole, because the audience enjoy looking for where the 'easter eggs' of the video are. The artist will also typically use the audience demographic to look for the appropriate references to include. Because of this, the artist is able to learn more about what their audience like, and include intertextual references based on this, to ensure the highest likelihood their audience can recognise the references.

Summary of Theorist-

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.

Andrew Goodwin's 

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.

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.