Representation Exam Question

Representation

Representation Theories and Tasks

Definition of Representation:

• How the media shows us things about society - but this is through careful mediation.
• For representations to be meaningful to an audience there needs to be a shared recognition of people, situations, ideas, beliefs etc.
• All representations therefore have ideaolgies behind them. Certain paradigms are encoded into texts and others are left out in order to give a preferred representation (Levi-Strauss, 1958).
• Representation is about constructing reality, it is supposed to contain versimilitued and simplify people's understanding of life.
• It refers to construction in any medium (especially those aimed at wider audiences, the mass media).
• Can be to do with construction of any aspects of reality, such as people, places, objects, events, class, age, gender, ethnicity, cultural identities and other abstract concepts.
• The term refers to the processes involved as well as it's products.
• Some peoples identities can be differentially marked in relation to demographic factors. An example could be the issue of 'the gaze'. How men look at women, women at men, men at men, and women at women.

Richard Dyer (1983)
Four questions regarding analysing media representations in general:

• What sense of the world is it making?
• What does it imply? Is it typical of the world or deviant?
• Who is it speaking to? For whom? To whom?
• What does it represent to us and why? How do we respond to the representation?

Representations in media:

• Class - Generally higher classes are richer, more respected, snobby - Lower classes are poor, not respected

Audience Exam Question

"Media texts will never be successful unless they are carefully constructed to target pre-established audience needs or desires"
Evaluate the ways that you constructed a media text to target a specific audience.

Audience Essay

Audience Theories and Tasks

Powerpoint on Audience Theories and Tasks - http://www.scribd.com/doc/135967048/Audience
Powerpoint on Audience - http://www.scribd.com/doc/136280498/A2-Audience-Presentation


Julian McDougall (2009) (Level 3)

• Suggest that on the online age it is getting harder to conceive a media audience as a stable, identifiable group.
• However, audiences still clearly make sense and give meaning to culture products.
• Key Terms: MASS Audience, NICHE Audience, MAINSTREAM Audience, ALTERNATIVE Audience
• Difficult to define specific audience
• An audience can be described as a "temporary collective" (Originally McQuail, 1972) (Level 2)
• A Changing Niche
• Audiences aren't stable

Is your text popular for a mass audience?

• My magazine was based within the pop genre, making it full of mainstream music choices that would generally be aimed at a mass audience, as this sort of music would be 'chart' music and widely popular.

Historically (until the 19th century, at any rate) the term 'popular' was quite a negative thing, with overtones of vulgarity and triviality. Something not 'nice' or 'respectable'. In the modern world, the term means 'widespread', liked or at least encountered by many people. It has also come to mean 'mass-produced', i.e. made for the 'mass' of people. There is a downside to this, of course, in that it can also be interpreted as 'commercial' or 'trashy'.
This leads into a further consideration, which is the definition of 'popular culture' as 'low' culture, something not for the elite, but for the 'common' people. Cultural value ('high' culture) has been traditionally associated with dominant or powerful groups - those who have appreciation of classical music, art, ballet, opera and so on. 'Low' or popular culture is everything not approved of as 'high'. It is vulgar, common, or 'easy‘. It is postmodern.
Is this relevant to your coursework?

• My magazine was in the pop genre and was therefore aimed at a mass audience. Some may consiquently view the music associated with the magazine as 'commercial' as it is often specifically created and enginered to appeal to the masses through basic over-used and well-known structures, chord sequences, themes and meanings. This may also be interpreted as a product for the 'common' people as beign a product of the pop genre and 'popular culture' in general can place it within a 'low' culture category; this can also create the idea that the product, and 'pop culture' as a whole, may be associated with the elite and/or dominant or powerful groups. However, as the pop genre has a mass audience, it can deliver the most money to those involved in the pop genre end of the music business, making those at the top perhaps considered 'elite' or members of 'high' culture due to their wealth. More generically, the pop genre may be reguarded as 'vulgar', 'common' or 'easy; I don't think that 'vulgar' would be a work associated with pop music as it has a mass audience and is widely popular, however, those that don't like pop music and are opposed to 'commercial' and 'common' popular culture may call pop music 'vulgar'.

Another definition of popular is literally 'of the people', a kind of 'folk' culture and this is an interesting area, because it encompasses the idea of an 'alternative' culture which includes minority groups, perhaps with subverse values. The 'indie' music scene is an example of this. So, 'popular' culture can and sometimes does challenge the 'dominant' cultural power groups.
Can this be applied to your coursework?

• Pop music could be described as music of the people because it appeals to such a widespread audience.

Ien Ang (1991)(Level 4)

• "audiencehood is becoming an ever more multifaceted, fragmented and diversified repertoire of practices and experiments" 
• Diverse
• More niche audiences
• Audiences are harder to define, especially by class categories, more divided
• Specific - Create something specifically for your audience

Do you agree with Ang?

• Yes, I think that modern day society is becoming increasingly diverse, making it harder to define class.

John Hartley (1987)(Level 3)

• Understanding your audience

Hypodermic Theory (1930s)(Level 2/3)

• Injects ideas into the audiences heads
• Influences audience

Plurarlist (Active) Theory(Level 2/3)

• Own Interpretation

Uses and Gratifications Theory(Level 2)

• Escapism, Relationship and Surveilance

Media Language Question

"Media is Communication"

Discuss the ways that you have used media language to create meanings in one of your media products.

Media is Communication

Media Language Theories

Charles Sanders Pierce (1931) – details that ‘we only think in signs’. Signs only represent anything when society attributes meaning to them. Anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as 'signifying' something - referring to or standing for something other than itself. We interpret things as signs largely unconsciously by relating them to familiar systems of conventions. It is this meaningful use of signs which is at the heart of the concerns of semiotics.

Charles Sanders Pierce (1931) – there are three types of sign that we use every day to create

meaning; iconic, indexical and symbolic signs.

•          Icon/iconic: a mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified (recognizably looking, sounding, feeling, tasting or smelling like it) - being similar in possessing some of its qualities: e.g. a portrait, a cartoon, a scale-model, onomatopoeia, metaphors, 'realistic' sounds in 'programme music', sound effects in radio drama, a dubbed film soundtrack, imitative gestures.

•          Index/indexical: a mode in which the signifier is directly connected in some way (physically or causally) to the signified - this link can be observed or inferred: e.g. 'natural signs' (smoke, thunder, footprints, echoes, non-synthetic odours and flavours), medical symptoms (pain, a rash, pulse-rate), measuring instruments (weathercock, thermometer, clock, spirit-level).

•          Symbol/symbolic: a mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional - so that the relationship must be learnt: e.g. language in general (plus specific languages, alphabetical letters, punctuation marks, words, phrases and sentences), numbers, morse code, traffic lights, national flags.

Did your work contain any signs?

Roland Barthes (1967) – signifier/signified – to discuss connotations that can be attributed to denotations (signs).

John Fiske (1982) - “denotation is what is photographed, connotation is how it is photographed”.

Stuart Hall (1980) – texts can be encoded by producers and meaning is decoded by audiences.

Media Language Task

Signs

• The various signs within the media product have been carefully chosen by the media producer to specifically represent or signify something, so they have a specific meaning and/or purpose.
• Some signs used within the individual elements are features that reinforce the type of media product, in this case a music magazine, is infront of the audience. This can be seen in the cover with the use of a 'masthead', which is a recognisable logo and element of branding for the magazine, therefore making it a sign with a specific purpose to draw the audienced attention and create a memorable image. Also on the cover, the use of a barcode reminds the audience that this is a magazine, making it a sign that represents the type of product and means it will be sold in shops such as newagents and supermarkets. Similarly, the use of a price also indicates this. The date and issue number are also both signs that indicate a time period and, consiquently, context for the media product.
• Within the cover, signs are used again for similar reasons; for example, the use of numbers on the page all in the same typography next to text, and in some cases images, indicate page numbers for articles. These signs therefore have a specific purpose to direct the audience.
• Signs within the double page spread are very similar; for example, the use of page numbers here are, again, signs with a specific purpose to help the audience navigate the media product, and have been carefully selected and placed by the media producer. These signs also relate back to the contents and therefore have a specific purpose to link the different elements of the overall media product together.

Denotation and Connotation

Context

• The use of the date on the cover is a clear indicator of context, this allows the audience to understand that the information and opinions presented within the media product are only true and/or credible at that point in time, as media is a fast paced industry.

Anchorage

• Anchorage is the way in which several elements come together to create a definate meaning; for example the combination of an image and a caption/text.
• Within my own work this can be seen on the cover

Activity

• The idea of activity relates to the activity within photographs and images on the page and what these indicate and connotate, aside from the obvious meaning.

Words on the Page

• The words on the page have been constructed by the media producer, and therefore it has to be considered that the opinions presented within the text may be their own. We also have to identify that the writer will have taken a moral position/opinion/judgement on all issues raised or discussed within the media piece. These different moral positions can often arise through personal interpretation of the text and the connotations within it.

Photographs/Camera Work/Mise-en-scene

Semiology and The Moving Image

Semiology by amhammond

Lang-Moving Image by amhammond

Topics and Past Questions Section A

1A Topics

• Research and Planning
• Creative Decision Making
• Real Media Texts (Conventions)
• Digital Technology (Production)
• Post-Production (Editing)

1A Past Questions

• Jan 2010 - Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
• June 2010 - Decsribe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for producion developed over time.
• Jan 2011 - Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your own creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
• June 2011 - Exaplain how far your understanding of the conventions of existing media influenced the way you created your own media products. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
• Jan 2012 - Decsribe how your analysis of the conventions of real media texts informed your own creative media practice. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
• June 2012 - Describe a range of creative decisions that you made in post production and how these decisions made a difference to the final outcomes. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

1B Topics

• Media Language
• Audience
• Genre
• Narrative
• Representation

1B Past Questions

• Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.Jan10
• Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to genre.Jun10
• Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions.Jan11
• Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to the concept of audience.Jun11
• Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.Jan12
• Analyse media language in one of your coursework productions.Jun12

Postmodern Artist: Kanye West

Postmodern Music Theory: Jonathan Kramer

Jonathan Kramer

Media Theorist Jonathan Kramer says "the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude. Kramer goes on to say 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices." 
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":

1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music
11. embraces contradictions
12. distrusts binary oppositions
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers

Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist. 
Examples
2.The Lonely Island - Led Zeppelin copied many blues artists such as Bert Jansch, Willie Dixon and Spirit but were also copied and sampled themselves within many later hiphop tracks.
3.Kanye West using melody from 'Ironman' in the song 'black sabbath' on his 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' album. - Blame Game samples Aphex Twin 'Avril 14th' - ambient piano turned to rap/classical to rap.
4. Ellie Goulding 'Explosions' -Pachelbel Canon in D Major used in Coolio's 'C U When U Get There'.
5. Beyonce's 'If I Were a Boy' - Bright Eyes 'At the Bottom of Everything'.
8. The King Blues 'Save the World, Get the Girl' - Elton John 'Candle in the Wind' Princess Diana - U2 'Bloody Sunday'.