Task 5

Dominant Reading - The Simpsons is a family program shown on channel 4, which can be attracts many audiences and is aimed to entertain. The genre is mainly comedy and real life.

Negotiated Reading - In the Simpsons women are the passive characters while men are the ones who go to work. School is shown as important but still a place for misbehaviour.

Oppositional Reading - The Simpsons is a show which contains many negative stereotypes and has humour which can offend some religions and ethics. The show contains poor role models and doesn’t really educate the audience.

The reading that is closest to me is the oppositional reading because The Simpsons is mainly used to entertain rather than educate those.

Task 4

In this scene from Scarface (1983) it shows the audience that violence is acceptable. The medium shots of Tony Montana with the machine gun show power and strength, the protagonist feels in power whilst holding the gun, it also acts as a phallic symbol to emphasise his manliness. The adult audience see the text as negatively, as it shows violence. This scene also contains bad content that children may pick up and copy, referring to the copy cat theory, which believes to inject the audience with actions and then they copy those actions.

The constant sound of gunfire may result in the audience to become desensitised to violence. Yet it can be argued that the audience could watch the film in order to be educated on the consequences of drugs and power. The audience may watch the film in order to escape from real life, as the audience's feel they need to watch a film to relax and forget their own problems. As the gangsters are wealthy and represented as powerful, audiences may aspire to these characters and do things like them.

Task 1

1. The teenagers in the video game for Bully are a negative representation. The first teenage boy we see is objectified as being a child of misbehaviour and disobedience, this shown by the way he is dressed as he has with his shirt tucked out, his tie loosely hung around his neck, his shaven head and the way he talks and openly gestures. The use of a long shot as we watch him sliding down a hand rail immediately gives the sense of insolence and disrespect; this shows his character to be off-putting which therefore creates a stereotypical view upon all teenagers to act the same. The medium shots of the “bully” harassing a teacher and school kids emphasise towards the audience teenage boys are all troublesome. While children play this game they can be injected with the same ideologies of misbehaviour and disrespect and begin to believe this behaviour is suitable. Some teenagers may copy attitudes from the “Bully” and bring them to their own lives, such as sneaking around and creating fires in the classroom. Girls are also represented negatively in this game trailer as we see a young girl who is laid back whilst talking about “dirty pictures” and connoting sex references. This gives the idea that sex is fine and accepted. Teenagers are represented as creating havoc and trouble.

Similarly, in the opening for “Skins”, teenagers are seen as disobedient and mischievous. The quick montage shots show the teenagers smoking drugs, homosexual themes and a general laid back attitude. This immediately emphasises moral panics for adults as they believe all teenagers are influenced by what they see on the television and can adopt bad behaviour, also creating a negative view on society’s issues. This can highlight the theory by Stanley Cohen who speaks of when a society sees itself threatened by the values and activities of a group, in this case teenagers. On the other hand, producers of Skins may be creating such programmes to educate kids on the dangers and real life situations children face now a days.

The representation of teenagers in both texts may cause moral panics as adults may feel that teenagers are troublesome and can be injected with ideologies that drugs, causing havoc and sex are all acceptable in today’s society.

2. Both texts can be seen to show moral panics. The representation of teenagers in the trailer for “Bully” can demonstrate moral panics. The game emphasises the stereotype of teenage boys to be troublesome. The representation of the “Bully” may result in teenage boys to be injected with ideologies that negative attitudes and bad behaviour is acceptable. The game influences violence and mayhem. It can be argued that some people may believe the game is dumbing down children and lowers their achievements and goals.

Similarly, the opening for “Skins” contains negative representations of teenagers, and can also be seen as a moral panic as the teenagers involve themselves in drug taking, sex and bad attitudes. The adult audience may feel that the programme injects teenagers to be unsociable and unreasonable. The montage of teenagers creating havoc and bad ideologies may result in adults gaining negative views about all teenagers and can corrupt society. This can highlight the theory by Stanley Cohen who speaks of when a society sees itself threatened by the values and activities of a group, in this case teenagers. This programme may also be seen to dumb down children as it doesn’t teach them the dangers of smoking, alcohol and drug taking.

However, there are some representations of teenagers such as Eastenders and The Simpsons that cannot be seen as a moral panic. These alternative representations show how some teenagers are well behaved and do not take drugs or involve themselves in sexual attitudes. In the Simpsons, Lisa Simpson is seen as a clever, intelligent, well mannered girl. Therefore this representation shows the audience that teenagers can be successful and good. In Eastenders, Tamwar Masood is constructed as a stereotypical Muslim boy who is an academic boy who listens to his parents all the time. Therefore, this alternative representation shows the audience that teenagers are positive and are willing to behave well. These alternative representations, have allowed society to see some teenagers positively.


3. The appearance of new and digital media has allowed different audiences to shape their own media representations, especially the younger audience. This is because this generation is the internet era and teenagers are most likely to use e to be more plural in the way they represent themselves.

Through social networking sites teenagers can represent themselves and changes the values and ideologies teenagers are associated with. Blog making sites such as BlogSpot have given teenagers the power to speak their minds and to form their own representations. User generated content (UGC) has allowed teenagers to put up their views and own material on the internet. In some situations teenagers have put up interesting and arguable work which has allowed adults to see this and change their views on teenagers, for example Twitter and Facebook. The younger audiences can join groups and present themselves positively.

It has been said that media representations often reflect the social and political concerns of the age in which they are created. Discuss.

Over time the television still perpetuates traditional gender stereotypes because it reflects dominant social values. Our society is still dominated by men which has resulted in men dominating most TV production and influencing these stereotypes, therefore reproducing a usual “masculine” view upon things. By the 1970s, women's roles were changing form the more traditional to a freer nature. Women’s roles were often shown on the television in roles such as housewives, mothers, secretaries and nurses. Men were portrayed in employment and tend to have a higher status and are less likely to be shown at home; this is still apparent today. In recent years there has at least been a notable increase in the number of women news presenters. It was argued that women were less likely to be taken seriously by viewers but however, their physical attractiveness can be a key factor to being shown on the television. In this recent time, homosexuals have become increasingly publicized in the media due to the awareness brought out by celebrities and the acceptance by the public. On the TV there has been a slightly increasing tendency to feature gay stereotypes, though they are rarely shown enjoying happy lives Stories about gays tend to reinforce conventional values. Even when gay men are portrayed the central focus tends to be on the reaction of others to this as a “problem”. The representation of homosexuals are slowly becoming accepted by society and are being shown more in the media.

“Digital media have in many ways changed how we consume media products”. Who do you think benefits most – consumers or producers?

Over a short period of time, the way we consume media has rapidly changed and developed to revolve around the way we live of lives. The change in consumption has enabled a larger ranged age audience to become interactive and use the media easily and more efficiently. Producers have had to keep up with the latest trends and fashion to stay in demand and to produce a profit. The traditional consumption of media has mostly declined and producers are finding it difficult to create new forms of media to keep up with the changing times.

Facebook has become a very popular website, created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. The website allows users to communicate and share pictures all over the world. The site has become so popular, with 600 million active users. Its popularity has encouraged new ways of using Facebook, such as Smartphone apps. The apps have allowed audiences to download the feature and use it effortlessly wherever they are. Facebook has become a source for obtaining the news and weather which shows the obvious declines in traditional consumption. Facebook has also been seen with negative impacts such as becoming addictive, less active and anti social. Facebook is also a new way of keeping in communication with people, resulting in old communication methods becoming extinct. The producers have benefited from Facebook by attracting many users and generating profit, $800 million in 2009.

The use of Newspapers are declining due to the new forms of media. People have now created blogs where they upload their own news for people to read, which reduces the need for newspapers. Also, Newspaper companies have now produced websites for people to read off the internet which allows audiences to recieve the interent a lot easier. The Guardian newspaper have recently released an app where people can pay £4.99 a month to recieve the newspaper on their Smartphones. The benefits the consumer gets is they have no need to buy a Newspaper from the shop which takes time and money, recieving their news on their phones is a more efficient and reliable way. On the other hand, producers are finding it difficult to cope with the Newspaper decline where they’re losing out on profit and having to cut jobs because they’re no need for extra journalists.

This generation has become more online active and revolve mainly around the computer. This has become apparant as television views have reduced due to the creation of BBCi player and 4OD. This online television viewing allows audiences to watch programmes they enjoy or have missed on the television. They can be viwed whenever and however many times. This has allowed audiences to create their own schedule which best suits them. This is also the same for Sky+ where audiences feel more in power and makes them happy.

To conclude, i believe audiences benefit mostly from the change in the way we consume media because things have been developed to revolve around our lives and to make things easier for us as consumers. Producers also benefit but only eith profit.

The mutualisation of news

The Guardian and Observer controlled the delivery of news, comment to the readers and carefully controlled letters page.

The development of the internet, with now the public creating their own media have now made journalists believe they are now equal with the public writers.

"There was a very clear wall, dividing readers and writers" - Things have now changed causing an uproar between professional writers and the public.

"What we are doing is taking down those bricks, lowering the barrier and positively encouraging the relationship between the two. This gets over the tired argument that this is an either/or battle between old media and bloggers.” - Gaining the support of the public, newspapers believe they can build relationships with bloggers to gain the perfect and truest story.

"We can use the community of our readers in ways we would not have been able to in the past."
"It cannot be true that there are only a handful of people worth listening to in the world. Comment is Free is infinitely richer and more diverse and more plural. These bloggers who write for us could have done it very happily on their own, but what we offer them is the influence and the clout and an incredibly interesting audience to commune with."

"By continuing to go down this route, we will be more diverse, and genuinely more plural than other media organizations and create a huge external resource. We need to continue breaking down the perceptions of a remote journalist who is a preacher, living distantly, and newspapers as being in bed with power and on the side of power, rather than the reader.”

Rusbridger believes Twitter make it possible for the public to publish outside the constraints of our newspaper and website and develop direct relationships with communities of readers.
But in the world of Twitter, for example, journalists are now publishing information without any monitoring and outside of the Guardian's own publishing platforms.

"The way we tend to work is that there are always early adopters of these new technologies, and it works best when individual journalists who have a passion for it, use and explore it. If at some point the technology becomes too large in scale, that is the time to build guidelines.”
Any information coming from the public as a primary source that needs to be checked like everything else.

The investigation into the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 demonstrations in London was an excellent example of linking traditional journalism with information from the public.

The impact of New & Digital Media Case Study

My case study will involve the impact of new and digital media on Facebook.

one. As technology redefines and remaps our world virtually, the consumer firms driving its development are the new mapmakers. Companies like Facebook are feverishly searching the potential of interaction on the web. Google, which has a 90%share of the UK search market, has already built a $197bn business on the back of advertising related to those text searches.

Though the social web is well established, the business model around it is not. This is the new horizon. And the volume and reach of data produced by Facebook's users – and the promise of the future of the social web – has investors so excited that they have just valued the company at $50bn.

For now, Facebook's priority is to keep growing its nascent advertising revenues ($2bn last year, by one estimate) and its user numbers, put at 633 million monthly users globally for October, according to comScore. But it is also laying the foundations for some powerful ways of extending the site. Last August it introduced Places, which allows users to share their location with friends, and in December announced that photo uploads would soon be scanned with facial recognition technology.

Already, one-third of Facebook's traffic is generated by mobile, and as these devices become ubiquitous we will become less reliant on a fixed screen. Often described as the next generation of the web, mobile's real breakthrough has been the success of apps in the past two-and-a-half-years. Not only are these devices always on and always with us, but they offer more forms of interaction than desktop computers, including movement sensitivity, camera and a web connection.

These location features provide the platform and possibility of a world that, not so long ago would have belonged in an ambitious work of science fiction. Augmented reality (AR) is a technique of overlaying information on an image of the real world, usually through our phone's camera. Despite the current clunky incarnations, augmented reality may well become the principal way that the digital world is presented to us. Freed from screens, information will float, contextually, accompanying the user and imparting – probably via a pair of augmented reality glasses – the time of the next bus, messages from a friend in a nearby pub, or a local match from your dating site. Everything you do now at your desktop will be superimposed in real time in the world around you.

two. Facebook = Computer = Now on mobiles = Apps (iPhone) = advertising = Make us see what they want us to.

Grindr = App on Blackberry = More accessible

They could all lead to isolation

Article = Social networking under fresh attack as tide of cyber - scepism sweeps us.

three. Facebook needs to be more accessible for the new era of technology. Meaning on phones and apps.

four. There is no denying how popular social networking has become, and has seemed to gain momentum from the start of this year. This was evident when Twitter doubled its amount of tweets in just over five months, which we recently mentioned.

There are three main contenders in the world of social networking, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – there are others, but they have a long hill to climb to catch up to the big three. New research by Nielsen has been looking into this phenomenon and some of the results are interesting.

If the figures are to be believed, then Americans spend around 25 percent of their time on the Internet on social networking sites, and it seems that the audience is getting older- just make certain that you do not allow your parents to become a friend on Facebook.

five.