Summer work

Intro to context:


BIG NEWS AND CURRENT EVENTS...


BREXIT:
David Cameron announced a referendum on whether Britain should remain in the EU. The Brexit referendum (also known as the EU referendum) took place on 23rd June 2016 in the UK. Leave won by 52% to 48%. The referendum turnout was very high at 72%, with more than 30 million people voting - 17.4 million people voted for Brexit.


POLITICS:
David Cameron announced his resignation on 24th June 2016. After he stepped down, Theresa May won the election to be the next Prime Minister on 11th July 2016. During the time Brexit has been occurring, Jeremy Corbyn (the Labour leader) has grown in popularity however, this is for all the wrong reasons. Despite being hated by many, many people, Jeremy Corbyn has been visiting disabled people etc. to try and convince them to think like him (but in a subtle way). 


ROYALS:
Kate Middleton and Prince William got married on 29th April 2011 and now they have 3 children (1 girl and 2 boys). Meghan Markle and Prince Harry got married on 19th May 2018. 
The Queen turned 90 years old on 21st April 2016. She has two birthdays: her real birthday which is on 21st April, and her 'public celebration' birthday which is on the second Saturday of June. 


TERRORISM AND HATRED:
Westminster Bridge attack - In less than 20 seconds, the attacker caused absolute devastation by driving into pedestrians before crashing into railings. 6 people died, including the attacker, and at least 50 people were injured after this terror attack. 

London Bridge attack - At 21:58, a van with 3 attackers inside drove onto London Bridge from the north side of the river. The vehicle then crossed over, before returning in the opposite direction 6 minutes later. After it reached the northern end of the bridge, police said that it made a U-turn and mounted the pavement. It then crossed the bridge again, ploughing into innocent pedestrians, including 3 of those killed.

Finsbury Park attack - This attack was a vehicle-ramming attack in Finsbury Park on 19th June 2017. A van was driven into pedestrians by Darren Osbourne, causing 1 death and injuring at least 9 people. This occurred near the Muslim Welfare House, 100 yards from the Finsbury Park Mosque. 

Manchester terror attack - 22 people died in this attack, including a number of children. This was all after an explosion tore through Ariana Grande's concert at Manchester Arena on 22nd May 2017. More than 800 other people received physical or psychological injuries in the blast.

Jo Cox death - On 16th June 2016, Jo Cox died after being shot and stabbed multiple times in Birstall, where she had been due to hold a constituency surgery. Thomas Mair was found guilty of her murder.


SYRIAN WAR:
IS took over large parts of Iraq and then moved into eastern Syria, where they were able to gain land and power. On 12th June 2012, the UN for the first time officially proclaimed Syria to be in a state of civil war. The conflict began moving into the two largest cities, Damascus and Aleppo.



SPECIFIC UK ISSUES:

Theresa May's downfall - Theresa May entered Downing Street for the first time in July of 2016. She set herself two main goals. The first was to do more to help "ordinary working class families" and the second was to deliver the Brexit that the British people voted for. Due to not being able to deliver the Brexit everyone wanted, she resigned in May 2019. Boris Johnson has since taken over in her place.

Grenfell Tower - The Grenfell fire disaster highlighted huge social divisions in London. It focused attention on income and housing divisions within Kensington and Chelsea.

Windrush - The Windrush scandal is a 2018 British political scandal concerning people who were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, threatened with deportation, and, in at least 83 cases, wrongly deported from the UK by the Home Office.

NHS - There are many difficulties that the NHS is facing, including: an ageing population, the growth of digital technology, political changes, people are suffering everywhere (especially with poverty) and also a break down in communication. Furthermore, many refugees feel the need to try and come over to England so that they can benefit off of our NHS. There have been man protests and strikes from many of the staff working for the NHS to battle against governmental issues/debates. For patients waiting to start treatment at the end of October 2018, the median waiting time was 7.0 weeks. The 92nd percentile waiting time was 22.0 weeks.

Charlie Gard - The Charlie Gard case was a best interests case in 2017 involving Charles Matthew William "Charlie" Gard, and infant boy from London, born with mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. This is a rare genetic disorder that causes progressive brain damage and muscle failure. MDDS has no treatment and usually causes death in infancy. The case became controversial because the medical team and parents disagreed about whether experimental treatment was in the best interests of the child.

 Football sex abuse scandal - Evidence from 23 victims details how former chief scout Eddie Heath groomed and abused young boys aged between 10 and 17 during the 1970's. Since then, there have been many, many other cases of child grooming in football and there have been a lot of persecutions based on such crimes.

Murray wins Wimbledon - In 2013, Andy Murray won his first Wimbledon title and ended Britain's 77-year wait for a men's champion with a straight-sets victory over world number one Novak Djokovic. Andy Murray, 26, converted his fourth championship point in a dramatic final game to win 6-4 7-5 6-4 and claim his second major title.

2016 Great Britain Olympics success - Great Britain at the 2016 Summer Olympics. These games were the most successful for Great Britain since 1908, winning a total of 67 medals, which exceeded its London 2012 tally of 65 medals, therefore becoming the first nation to surpass its medal total at the Olympics immediately following one that is hosted.

Immigration - Limits on immigration from Ireland to the UK could cause problems. The UK and Irish governments have said that they want free movement between their countries to continue. Many people are concerned that freedom of movement within the EU makes it easier for terrorists to travel around the continent. Poland is the most common country of birth and country of nationality in the UK.

Youth aggression - There has been a surge in violent crime across the UK during 2018, including a 22% increase in knife crime and an 11% rise in gun crime. In London alone, there have been 123 homicides so far this year, including 70 fatal stabbings and 14 shootings (all of this has been reported in November 2018).

Trump election - The 2016 United States presidential election was held on Tuesday 8th November 2016. Trump won the election over Hilary Clinton, despite losing the popular vote. He took office as the 45th president. He won the election 304 votes to 227 votes.

#METOO campaign - The Me Too movement, with a large variety of local and international alternative names, is a movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault. The campaign also has its own website.

#BLACKLIVESMATTER campaign - Black Lives Matter is an international activist movement, originating in the African-American community, that campaigns against violence and systematic racism towards black people. The campaign also has a website in which it has lots of details about their aims and achievements etc.



CULTURAL TRENDS OF 2017-2019:

Films - Over the last couple of years, many movies have seemed repetitive, especially the Disney remakes. Many of the films under the same genre have similar plot lines that end the same way. This is because companies want their audience to enjoy the movie and so it lacks originality as they have similarly copied a movie which has already been liked/enjoyed by people.

TV Programmes - There are 5 programming trends that TV programmes typically use. These include: less dystopia, omniculturalism, even more reboots, going global and bigger names, smaller shows.

Music - When filming music videos, videos of the same genre of music are very similar to each other. For example, pop videos are a lot more colourful and unoriginal. Whereas indie music videos are more unique.

Video games - Video game culture is a worldwide new media subculture formed by video games. As computer and video games have exponentially increased in popularity over time, they have had a significant influence on popular culture.

YouTube - YouTube is (in my opinion) one of the only platforms that shows uniqueness and differentiation in terms of video ideas and originality when creating their videos. YouTube is a reflection of our culture and emerging sentiments in our society are often reflected in the creative output.

Fads - One of the most recent cultural fad is the dab as well as dances from the Fortnite video game. In addition to this, many footballers celebrations after they have scored a goal link to internet viral videos/dances.

Language and representation exam DIRT sheets

"This is America" - Childish Gambino music video

Camera:
F A M - Frame, Angle, movement.

Mise en scene:
C L A M P S - Costume, Lighting, Actors, Makeup, Props, Setting.

Contrapuntal - opposite to what you're expecting.


FAM:

• ls.
• mls - accentuates 'crazy' facial expressions.
• track in/track out.
• rotating.
• 17 seconds - bad things, representing the death of 17 students.
• guy with guitar shown at the beginning and the end of the video.
• shows how casual and easy it is to shoot someone.
• grotesque smiles/facial expressions.

CLAMPS:

• underground car park.
• shirtless - neutral colours.
• gospel singers.
• natural lighting.
• yellow shoes - only colour? (cars at end are coloured).
• cars/horses/(gospel cloaks).
• cars are stolen?
• Glover looks confident.
• Glover dances.
• shocking, violence.
• intertextuality.
• juxtaposition - dancing distracts from chaos.
• Glover represents America not paying attention.
• equality.
• Black Lives Matter.

EXTRA:

• he's acknowledging the dehumanising way black people were treated.
• guns are treated with more respect than black lives.
• choir is a reference to Charleston, South Carolina massacre.
• polysemic = multiple meanings.
• camera pans to kids with phones - white people muzzling police brutality - high angle.
• horse relates to the bible.
• dancing!

Charity essay

Analyse how social and cultural contexts can influence advertising?
Use figure 3 to support your answer.
In your answer:

• analyse how social and cultural influence advertising
• make judgements and reach a conclusion on why they are advertised in this way

Social Context

 

Social Anxieties - Inequalities (gender, race, sexuality, class) - Conflicting Social Values

Cultural Context

 

Consumerism - Celebrity Culture - Feminism - Postmodernism

These posters each emphasise what the campaign tries to achieve in helping the homeless. By advertising the Shelter campaign, it is targeting tough topics that relate to people’s everyday life. This proximity targets the emotions of people that see the campaign so that they feel inclined to do something about homelessness. Homelessness is a fairly sensitive subject as it negatively affects a lot of people in the world. There are so many people who are homeless and so by the Shelter campaign creating the type of posters shown in figure three, they are emphasising the need for help and donations to the campaign.

On each of these posters, the people behind the text have similar expressions on their faces. Their emotions seem relatable to those who are homeless (as the campaign represents homelessness and aims to tackle it). All the posters show normal, white people who are losing or have lost their home due to things like jobs etc. Even though these posters don’t show diversity between races, there is diversity shown in gender. This allows everyone to be able to relate to them and it shows togetherness/a community.  By using men and women as the face of the campaign poster, it shows how homelessness could happen to anyone.  

The camera shot is a close up so that you can clearly see their facial expressions (showing sadness/depression etc.). The contrast between the light pigmentation of their skin and a very dark shade of hair links with sadness (which is what many homeless people feel).

Furthermore, the text used (lying on top of the actor’s faces) illustrates the fact that homeless people need help. The rhetorical question “But where will we live?” is an open question that anyone can have an opinion to answer. The idea is for people to automatically think about how serious the situation is and what they can do to help. Also, the use of the word “can’t” emphasises the negativity that the situation of homelessness brings to people’s lives. Meaning that when someone is being threatened of losing their home, it is very common to become depressed or having negative thoughts.

 

In conclusion, Shelter uses many social and cultural contexts in order to promote what they aim to do - help the homeless. They do this by targeting people by showing normality in the ads to make people feel included and a community that should help each other out.

Lucozade advert analysis

Lucozade sport:

• Gareth Bale is represented as strong and powerful - facial expressions, colour scheme etc.
• Gareth Bale stats - how Lucozade has improved him.
• The drink itself stands out in the bottom right-hand corner of the advert - shows logo - swoosh - direction of flow - Lucozade = better than etc.
• In a different league - better than anything else.
• Scientifically proven.
• YES.
• Do you believe?

Information on context etc....

• Created 1927 as Glucozade - meant to give energy to the sick.
• Renamed Lucozade in 1929.
• 1983 rebranded as a sports drink rather than a health drink.
• Lots of sponsorship deals with various sports.
• Lucozade sport is its No1 drink.
• £4 million campaign.
• Agency = Grey London.
• GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare - owners of Lucozade in January 2013.
• Lucozade sold to Suntory in September 2013 for £1.35 billion.
• Ad stars: Gareth Bale and Alex Oxlade Chamberlain.
• Campaign banned in January 2014 by ASA as it failed to show that it only had benefit during prolonged exercise.

Consumerism - the total value of the soft drinks market in the UK is around £15 billion.
Celebrity culture - capitalising on star appeal/star as commodity.

Advertising

Paper 1 Section B: Media Language and Representation

4 questions on news

• Old Spice
• Lucozade
• Shelter (charity advert)

Marketing can be defined as the process of promoting a media text to potential audiences.
Marketing aims to:

• create awareness of a film's release.
• create interest in the film itself.
• generate desire to see the film and action in the purchasing of a cinema ticket.

Ultimately, the purpose of marketing is the importance of audience figures and profits and gauging the commercial success of a media product.



The 4 P's of marketing:

• Price.
• Promotion.
• Product.
• Placement.

What is the Medias USP?


Structural features of adverts:

• Copy.
• Slogan.
• Logo.
• Central image.
• Typography.
• Brand identity.

Analysing an advert...

• Aim of the print advert?
• Denotation and connotation.
• Media language - camera shot(FAM), mise en scene (CLAMPS), typography, editing.
• Representation of males/females.
• Representation of themes.
• Representation of brands.
• Psychology - which human needs is it satisfying?

Don't forget about camera - image.
(FAM - frame, angle, movement)

The Big Issue essay

Question 5 Explain how the representations in magazines reflect their contexts. Refer to The Big Issue covers you have studied to support your answer. [10]
In the majority of The Big Issue covers, they have many things in common. For example, there are normally lots of bright and bold colours to draw the reader's/audience's attention. The covers are eye-catching with usually one main person on the cover. The Big Issue likes to challenge political topics like Trump and the Tories or even topics like poverty and homelessness. The magazines are always playing around with their words, creating puns in order to make the audience be intrigued in the ambiguous story titles. Furthermore, celebrities and well-known people are always doing interviews for The Big Issue which aids in attracting younger people. One of the biggest things that The Big Issue does is intertextuality. The term intertextuality refers to the process of creating references to any kind of media text via another media text. There is a lot of intertextuality between political issues and entertainment themes in a lot of the magazines. For example, in some of The Big Issue magazines, the people on the front cover may be holding a The Big Issue magazine, further advertising the brand. This aids in influencing people to read further into the magazine.The two magazines below have similarities and differences. Each one represents certain aspects of The Big Issue and what they aim to contain in their magazines. For both magazines, there is evidently an aspect of entertainment. On the left cover, the entertainment is shown by the use of a character from a new film that came out about an icon in history. On the right cover, the entertainment is shown by the use of the judges from The Great British Bake Off which has been going on for many years. Both covers represent icons in history. The Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) cover shows an icon in music history whereas The Great British Bake Off cover shows an icon in baking history. The Freddie Mercury cover represents individuality and uniqueness. These are qualities in The Big Issue that are constantly repeated to show people that being unique and different is okay because everyone is equal no matter what. This cover is a fantastic way of showing power as Freddie has his hand up (this is a large part of the brand as they believe in a hand up, not a hand out). The Big Issue are always playing on words and creating puns however they have used words (in this cover) to symbolise the movie Bohemian Rhapsody. They have done this by creating Freddie Mercury out of lyrics from Queen songs, which is a very inventive and creative way (this is typical for The Big Issue). The Great British Bake Off cover represents a community and being proud. This is emphasised in the repetition of hints of the baking icon Mary Berry who is no longer on the show. The repetition of Mary Berry shows how she was a large part of the show and also how people miss her as she has changed people's lives all around the world. Some of the plays on words include French words (like 'bouche', meaning 'mouth' in English). This relates to French cuisine/French baking. As has already been said, intertextuality is used in this cover in the bottom left-hand corner on the mug. Even though The Big Issue normally shows people of different races, this is not evident on this cover. However, there are different genders so it does link in to how the magazines from The Big Issue try to target all different audiences (e.g. age, gender, ethnicities etc.). Both magazines use bold fonts in bright colours to attract the attention of people. The colour text on The Great British Bake Off cover stands out from the rest of the colours enough for people to know that that is the main topic. On the other hand, the colour text on the Freddie Mercury cover is the same colour as the 'clothes' that Freddie is wearing however, it still stands out because it is very large and it is also on a black background 9further making it stand out). Like the other cover, this boldness is enough for people to recognise that Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) is the main topic. This could be linked to how The Big Issue magazines stand out from normal magazines as they represent community in an equal and positive way. The light colours used for the main topics could then also be related to how The Big Issue magazines are always trying to show the positives in society.