F. A. I. R.

Some straightforward tasks to help get your speed up. Complete ALL four.

Revising the Key Concepts

The key concepts of Media Studies are like your tool box for analysis.

They are easy to recall – Just remember to be FAIR.

F.A.I.R

Forms

Audiences

Institutions

Representations

FORMS

Over the centuries, humans have developed different ways of communicating with one another, and have especially sought ways of communicating a single message to large groups, via a mass medium. Various scientific and technological developments have led to the creation of mass media forms.

Print (which includes books, newspapers and magazines), originated in the fifteenth century.

Around 1440, the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg started work on printing press prototypes, experimenting with mechanical movable type. His invention is considered the most important event in modern history. Without the printing press,there wouldn't have been any education for the masses (and, therefore, no democracy) and we wouldn't have today's knowledge-based economy. 

Printing press

Images and Sound

The next technological innovations that led to new media forms occurred in the nineteenth century. Parisians Joseph Niepce and Louis Daguerre presented the earliest examples of a photograph (images captured on plates of metal) to the world in 1839. Thomas Edison created the phonograph in 1878, that allowed the recording of sound for later playback. Then, various people lay claim to the technologies that came together to create movies. In 1895 the Lumière Brothers presented the first cinematograph show.

Thomas Edison

Broadcast 

The twentieth century brought inventions that made it possible to communicate a single message to a large audience simultaneously: broadcast. The first radio transmission was sent by the Italian, Marconi, in 1895, and he also sent the first transatlantic radio signal in 1901.

Once mass radio broadcasts became a staple of communication, the race was on to bring pictures to the airwaves. Again, a lot of inventors had ideas for the broadcast of pictures along with sound, and it's impossible to say exactly who invented television as we know it and when. Both John Logie Baird (from Scotland) and Philo Farnsworth (from the USA) lay claim to that distinction for their work on broadcast systems in the 1920s.

An early television

Internet

Universities and major research facilities started networking their computer systems in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the protocols for a global network (what we now know as the internet) weren't put in place until 1982, and it wasn't expanded for popular (e.g. non-research or military) use until the 1990s. As with the printing press, five hundred years previously, the technology spread like wildfire, and soon a personal computer became as much of a fixture in the home as the TV set.

• Media Forms.

This simply means the type of media text or media platform that we are studying. 
For example, a magazine is a different media form to a TV programme or a website.

The media language we use to analyse a media text will change with different media forms. 
For example if we were analysing a film, we would talk about camera movement, editing, sound, location, props and mise-en-scene, where as if we were analysing a newspaper, we would talk about headlines, mastheads, captions, bylines and cropping.

Different media forms are then split into genres. 
Film for example might be split into horror, comedy, action, western or thriller. 
TV might be split into soap opera, documentary, game show or drama.

Different genres have different ‘codes and conventions’. 
For example, we know a science fiction film when we see one because there are space ships and aliens, themes of discovery and technology, the future, time travel androbots.

The dominant colours are metallic silver and neon blue or green. 

These codes and conventions are very different to a western where we would expect to see cowboys and saloons, horses, spurs, guns and maybe a cactus. 

The Narrative or story is also different; different themes and different types of characters too. 
The codes and conventions show us the type of narrative and genre and this helps us recognise and analyse the form of the text we are studying.

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TASK 1:

Have a look at the two posters below. The form is the same – they are both films. 
The genres are clearly different. 

Identify clues that show the narrative themes to be expected from that genre? 
Consider iconography, visual and technical codes and conventions, settings, props and graphics associated with that genre.

200 words. Word doc. Homework. e-mail to Mr Ealey by Tuesday 25/11/14

AUDIENCES

If the media is about MASS COMMUNICATION, then it’s very important to look at who a media text is communicating with. 
Different media companies have different audiences. 
For example, Kerrang! Radio has a different ‘target Audience’ to Classic FM or Choice. 
Different media texts can also have a different target audience. 
For example BBC1 make Newsround and News at Ten but the target audiences are clearly different. 

Media audiences can be broken down into different groups, this is called audience segmentation. 
You can segment audiences by age, race, gender,social class, how much education they have, where they live, what sort of interests they have or the subculture they identify with.

When different presentational devices are used to appeal to different target audiences, this is called mode of address.

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Task 2:

Both of these texts are produced by the BBC. 

Identify how the different modes of address have been constructed to enable these programmes to appeal to their target audiences.

200 words. Word doc. Homework. e-mail to Mr Ealey by Tuesday 25/11/14

The Football League Show is broadcast late on Saturday night following Match of the Day.

Newsround (originally called John Craven's Newsround, before his departure in 1989) is a BBC children's news programme, which has run continuously since 4 April 1972, and was one of the world's first television news magazines aimed specifically at children.

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INSTITUTIONS

It is also important to consider the company or organisation who produce or broadcast the media texts that we receive. 
Different media institutions have different aims and visions and they often have different audiences or compete with each other for the same audience. 
Some media institutions are huge and they own lots of different media forms; 
Rupert Murdoch owns a company called ‘News Corp International’ which owns Sky TV, The Sun newspaper, The Times newspaper, FOX TV, 20th Century Fox films and lots more. 

Some people see this as worrying because increased concentration of ownership means that all our media content is getting more and more similar and its only real purpose is making money.

The study of institutions also includes looking at how a company makes its money. 
For example, a commercial institution like The Sun newspaper makes its money from advertising which means they need a very big audience to interest their advertisers. 
News articles are often cut or shortened to make more space for advertising to make more money for the institution. 
This worries some analysts, because it means that The Sun is not really concerned with news so much as advertising revenue and audience figures.

Other important part of institution is ownership and control. 
If an owner is able to control their institution and its content or audience then should there be a limit on how much one media conglomerate should be allowed to own?

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Task 3:

With reference to Two Step Flow theory, discuss the ownership and control of the media texts you are investigating for MS3.

200 words. Word doc. Homework. e-mail to Mr Ealey by Tuesday 25/11/14

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REPRESENTATION

This can seem complicated but it’s very simple once you get it and possibly the most important of all the key concepts. 

What we see and hear in the media is never real. 

It is a RE-presentation of reality. 

How a person or organisation is re-presented is really important. 

For example, a film about the police force could be made and represent them in a positive way as a heroic crime fighting organisation, on the other hand, a film could represent the force in a negative way as corrupt and unfair. 

Costume, the language used and the location are all part of how meaning is created. 

Another example might be with race; in the past there have been a lot of police shows that tended to depict thieves or drug dealers or terrorists as ethnic minorities. 

Lots has been written about the unfair representation of black men and more recently middle eastern or Muslim men. 

As Media analysts, we need to look at the representation of characters and organisations critically. 

Take young people as another example, lots has been written recently about ‘hoodies’ and gangs and knife and gun crime. Shows like ITV’s The Bill represent young people as rude and threatening and the news gives a massive amount of attention to street crime. There may be some truth in these representations but, there is an unfair dominance of negative stereotypes. 

Most young people are respectful and honest and yet we are rarely shown this version of reality because it is less sensational and it sells less media texts. 

Therefore we see instead an unhelpful quantity of negative representation which possibly makes the problem worse rather than improving it.

Task 4:

Watch this clip of Skins and summarise the representation of young people. 
Is it good or bad, fair or unfair, does it reinforce negative stereotypes or give a more balanced perspective?

GANGsters?