MEDIA THEORIES

Frank challenges female characters such as Vasque, this feeds into the patriarchy, as Frank is dismissive of women's achievements. Frank has monologues, which show his individualism. This also shows how he is the main narrator and protagonist of the story, as it is all focused around him. Frank is also cold, calculated and ruthless.. This also shows his individualism, as he is in it for himself. Frank also shows Consumerism, as he keeps talking about needing to wear a tuxedo to the ball.

Claire shows more masculinity than femininity, as she holds a lot of power. This links to Van Zoonen's theory. She is the opposite of what the media portrays women to be. This is obvious, as she makes Frank cry, cuts her hair a certain way to break away from her sexuality, she also degrades Zoe for using her sexuality to forward her career. Also, Claire breaks the patriarchy, as she has more power than  Frank as she is able to control him and manipulate his emotions.

Zoe uses her sexuality to forward her career, for example, wearing low cut shirts to get men's attention.

Meanwhile, Peter is irresponsible, as he lets his personal life affect his professional life. His life is driven by sexual desires. He undermines women, seeing them as only sexual objects. At his work, he is notorious for hiring younger women as his staff in order to  sleep with him at a later date.

House of Cards, how audiences consume and interpret long form dramas

Donald Trump is percieved as being manipulative and as being oversexual. Theresa is percieved as being untrustworthy.

Long Form Tv dramas' Production values are higher than TV dramas, as they are funded by subscribers. House of Cards typically costs $100 million to produce

House of Cards, the influence of technological change

5.)Source B is a comment section on a Facebook page. Meanwhile, Source C is an article from the Daily Telegraph. This means that Source B is the opinion of the viewers. Meanwhile, Source C is the opinion of the Daily Telegraph. This could link to Shirky's theory, where there are no longer passive viewers, as they are all now active viewers, this is why they question the content that they are consuming.. This is why they have opinions.

Source C shows online feedback from readers provides. This reflects the conventions of Tabloid vs Broadsheet papers, as Source C is fact based, and has more writing, meanwhile Source B is opinion based, as it is a comment section. On Source B, one of the comments says "there is mutiny at the BBC its absolute chaos" suggests a criticism of the BBC following the release of pay figures.

In Source B, The Daily Mail is Right Wing, which links to the fact that the viewers are insensitive towards the pay gap between men and women. This implies that the viewers do not believe in equal pay and the line " I could not tell you who Emily Maitlis is, never heard of her." This challenges bell hooks theory, which states that feminism is a battle to fight against Patriarchy. The Telegraph is a right-wing paper, however it fact based analysis is more sympathetic to the call for equal pay.

Media Mock Exam Revision

  

Curran and Seaton’s theory relates to PROFIT and Power. Media theory Curran and Seaton.  Argue that media industries follow a capitalist pattern of increasing concentration of ownership in fewer and fewer hands.   

·         With the concentration of newspaper’s in fewer hands (oligarchies) enables Newspapers to increase profits through increased readership.

·         With the narrowing of choice to few Newspaper groups the owners of the Press groups the Press Barons (see below) or Elites have the opportunity to represent their political perspectives.

·         This applies to the narrow range of political opinions expressed by British Newspapers with a bias to Pro capitalism

·         The reason why Press barons own Newspapers is to achieve status and to wield political power.

Newspaper adverts:

Telegraph:
Holidays
Furniture

Daily Mail:
Tax advice
Fashion


Newspapers relied on circulation and advertising for revenue, Tabloid Newspapers had a larger circulation but their working class audiences were less attractive to advertisers so the Tabloids relied more on cover price.Broadsheet Newspapers had smaller circulations and an attractive upmarket audience and relied more on advertising. Newspapers now have a wide range of funding sources. The Daily Mail has a cover price of £ 0.65 which is relatively low in order to boost its circulation. Some Newspapers rely entirely on advertising as they are given away (to boost circulation and attract advertising) for Free such as the Metro. The Daily Telegraph retails for £1.40 and applies a Paywall £3.00 per week to generate income. The Guardian retails for £2.20 and relies on voluntary donations for online news and now has 800,000 paying supporters. Some newspapers gain revenue from advertising space where Print was traditionally more lucrative than online advertising, however with the decline in print sales online is increasingly more important especially as On-line has a global audience.

Daily Mail:
Age 65 and over- Holiday adverts, Articles on Tv
Female - Gossip stories
B, C1, C2, D, E - as political stories are also targeted

Telegraph:
Age 65 - royal family
Male - Game of Thrones advert
Female - womens clothes
C2, D, E -

S. Hall’s Reception theory
The theory suggests that: When a producer constructs a text it is encoded with a meaning or message that the producer wishes to convey to the audience
– In some instances audiences will correctly decode the message or meaning and understand what the producer was trying to say
– In some instances the audience will either reject or fail to correctly understand the message
media producers encode ‘preferred meanings’ into texts, but these texts may be ‘read’ by their audiences in a number of different ways:
• The dominant position: a ‘preferred reading’ that accepts the text’s messages and the ideological assumptions behind the messages
• The negotiated position: the reader accepts the text’s ideological assumptions, but disagrees with aspects of the messages, so negotiates the meaning to fit with their ‘lived experience’
• The oppositional reading: the reader rejects both the overt message and its underlying ideological assumptions.

Task discuss the main headline opposite.  Apply Hall’s theory to discuss the three ways that the text could be interpreted Preferred - Believe in the message, and think that 1.5 Turks are a bad thing. Oppositional - Reject the complete message, and completely disagree that 1.5 Turks coming in doesn't exist Negotiated - May agree that the message is real, but may want to manage the Turks coming in.

News and Online Media

Curran and Seaton.  - The idea that the media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the logic of profit and power. ... - The idea that more socially diverse patterns of ownership help to create the conditions for more varied and adventurous media production

Capitalism (Right Wing Politics)
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labour.   THE CONSERVATIVES ARE CAPITALISTS, the Telegraph and Mail Newspapers believe in Capitalism.

Socialism (Left Wing Politics)

Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management, as well as the political theories and movements associated with them. Social ownership can be public, collective or cooperative ownership, or citizen ownership of equity.   - - THE LABOUR PARTY ARE SOCIALIST and are considering bringing back into state ownership the Rail service.

Liberalism
Liberalism is a political and economic doctrine that emphasizes individual autonomy, equality of opportunity, and the protection of individual rights (primarily to life, liberty, and property)

- Guardian newspaper supports many labour policies and has a liberal view on e.g individual autonomy i.e. they support multi-culturalism, they advocate freedom of expression e.g. gender and sexuality.  .


The Telegraph:
Conservative, as they mostly have right wing views in their papers.
The Mirror:
Labour, as they mostly have left wing views in their papers
Guardian newspaper supports many labour policies and has a liberal view on e.g individual autonomy i.e. they support multi-culturalism, they advocate freedom of expression e.g. gender and sexuality.  .




What makes it a tabloid:
Large Images
Softer news agenda
Less formal language register
Bold mast heads in sans serif
Headlines in bold, capitalised font
Pages dominated by headlines
Address a more downmarket audience (C2, D, E)
Offers news as entertainment
Humour

House of Cards

Drama:  What is TV drama? TV drama is a broad genre. At its simplest, it is fictionalised action in narrative form.

Long form TV drama: Long Form Drama is a term coined to describe the recent shift of interest towards television series of high quality that many consider to have replaced the cinema as a locus of serious adult entertainment. Unfolding over multiple episodes, hours, and even years, these TV shows are seen to provide a content, often dark and difficult, and an innovative style that strain against the conventions of cinema as well as network television. 

Media convention:  A code is a system of signs which can be decoded to create meaning.In media texts, we look at a range of different signs that can be loosely grouped into the following:technical codes - all to do with the way a text is technically constructed - camera angles, framing, typography etc. verbal codes ...

A code is a system of signs which can be decoded to create meaning.

In media texts, we look at a range of different signs that can be loosely grouped into the following:

technical codes – all to do with the way a text is technically constructed – camera angles, framing, typography etc

verbal codes – everything to do with language -either written or spoken

symbolic codes – codes that can be decoded on a mainly connotational level

Genre: 

A genre is basically the category of any type of art or literature, for example categories of movie would be comedy, horror, thriller etc. 

Genre Hybridity

Some media texts are hybrid genres, which means they share the conventions of more than one genre. For example Dr. Who is a sci-fi action-adventure drama and Strictly Come Dancing is a talent, reality and entertainment show.

verbal codes ...

Synopsis  -   A brief summary of the major points of a written work

Open or closed? 

texts may be

 ' open ' (i.e. unravelled in a lot of different ways) or

 ' closed ' (there is only one obvious thread to pull on). 

Barthes also decided that the threads that you pull on to try and unravel meaning are called narrative codes and that they could be categorised in the following five ways:

The Hermeneutic Code refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes a mystery to the reader. The purpose of the author in this is typically to keep the audience guessing, arresting the enigma, until the final scenes when all is revealed and all loose ends are tied off and closure is achieved.

The Proairetic Code also builds tension, referring to any other action or event that indicates something else is going to happen, and which hence gets the reader guessing as to what will happen next. 

Action code - applies to any action that implies a further narrative action. For example, a gunslinger draws his gun on an adversary and we wonder what the resolution of this action will be. 

The Semantic Code refers to connotation within the story that gives additional meaning over the basic denotative meaning of the word. 

The semantic code - any element in a text that suggests a particular, often additional meaning by way of connotation

Summary:

South Carolina Congressman Frank Underwood, the Democratic Majority Whip, leaves his Washington, D.C. residence after hearing his neighbours’ dog get hit by a car. As he comforts the mortally-wounded dog, he addresses the audience before calmly strangling it, introducing his cold and vicious nature. Frank and his wife, Claire , go on to attend a New Year's Eve party in honour of the new President-elect, Garrett Walker . Frank confesses to the viewer that he does not like Walker, but ingratiated himself to him in the hopes of being nominated as Walker's Secretary of State.

Frank meets with Walker's Chief of Staff, Linda Vasquez, and is initially incensed to learn that she and Walker have decided to go back on their promise of nominating Frank so that he can aid the President-elect's education agenda in Congress. Despite his assurances to Linda that he will remain Walker's ally, Frank feels personally betrayed and, with help from Claire and Chief of Staff Doug Stamper , formulates a plot for revenge. Meanwhile, Claire is forced to downsize her non-profit organisation, the Clean Water Initiative, which had been promised a large donation upon her husband's confirmation, without which the organisation is forced to substantially curtail its budget.

On a whim, Washington Herald reporter Zoe Barnes pays a late-night visit to Frank at his home. She offers to be Frank's undercover mouthpiece in the press in exchange for the elevated profile that she would gain from breaking substantive stories. Meanwhile, Peter Russo, a young, inexperienced congressman from Philadelphia, is arrested for drunk driving with a prostitute. Doug finds out about the arrest and immediately contacts the D.C. police commissioner, offering Underwood's support for his mayoral campaign in exchange for releasing Russo. Russo is picked up from jail by his secretary and romantic partner, Christina Gallagher (Kristen Connolly), and falsely tells her that he was alone when he was arrested.

Frank meets with Donald, a progressive congressman with whom the Walker administration wants to work on an education bill. Frank dismisses his proposal as too ambitious and asks him to rewrite it, but secretly passes a copy to Zoe. He then meets with Senator Catherine Durant  and suggests that she ought to consider seeking the nomination for Secretary of State. He also privately confronts Russo about his arrest and past behaviour, and demands his loyalty in exchange for making the incident disappear. Zoe takes the draft of Donald's bill to the Herald’s political editor, and its chief editor. The episode ends the morning after Walker's inauguration, with Frank visiting his favourite restaurant, Freddy's BBQ Joint, for breakfast. On the front page of the Herald is Zoe's story about Blythe's "far left" education plan. 

What is a Thriller? ► Uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements ► Includes many sub genres: Mystery, Crime, Psychological, Political and Paranoid. ► Atmosphere of menace, violence, crime and murder. ► Society is seen as dark corrupt and dangerous ► Literary devices like plot twist, red herrings, and cliff hangers. Narrative Techniques ►Plot twists and turns ►Multiple lines of action ►Flashbacks ►Narrative retardation ►Red herrings 7 ►Mis direction ►Deadlines ►Principle of concealment ►Chases/pursuits ►Making the audience work

POLITICAL THRILLERS A political thriller is a thriller that is set against the backdrop of a political power struggle. They usually involve legal plots, designed to give political power to enemy, while protagonist has to try to stop the enemy. They can involve national or international political scenarios. The common themes are: political corruption, terrorism, and warfare. Political thrillers can be based on true facts such as the assassination of John F Kennedy. In political thrillers there is usually a strong overlap with the conspiracy thriller. For example in the 2012 film Argo, the protagonist has to rescue the American hostages from Iran

Steve Neale’s theory of Repetition and Difference. 

Steve Neale states that genres all contain instances of repetition and difference, difference is essential to the to the economy of the genre.

Neale states that the film and it’s genre is defined by two things:

How much is conforms to its genre’s individual conventions and stereotypes. A film must match the genre’s conventions to be identified as part of that genre.

How much a film subverts the genre’s conventions and stereotypes. The film must subvert convention enough to be considered unique and not just a clone of an existing film.

House of Cards Representation and Media Language

Terrestial TV

Schedule content was fixed (reliant on analogue (radio wave technology as pre the internet)

Viewing experience was communal (families watched the same/similar content) as content was transmitted via Radio waves.

Dramas developed to encourage regular viewing

Program content with high audience numbers secured revenue via advertising.

Advertising revenue or PSB income (TV license) pays for drama for e.g. a typical Eastenders episode costs £141,000

Historical cultural and economic contexts. 

HOC belongs to a genre called Long form television drama. (LFTVD)

LFTVD (Game of Thrones, HOC, etc.)  are characterised by high production values.

Series one and 2 of the HOC costs an estimated  $100 Million for the first two series (26 episodes) to produce.

By comparison Eastender’s costs  £29.9 million a year for 212 episodes. (source: https://www.ok.co.uk/celebrity-feature/1207916/eastenders-bbc-one-time-cost-per-episode-year) 

Referring to the revision notes page 146, the cost of production of this High end Drama (HOC) is linked to 

Sourcing highly skilled actors - Kevin Spacey

Cinematic styling camera work - wide shots, dark muted colours, varied camera angles

Lighting and editing -  dark muted colours, an aerial shot is used in intro 

Complex narratives (multi-stranded) (Barthes) - Frank's revenge, Russo's blackmail, 

Composed music - mission music

Long form TV is an American concept which effectively is a hybrid of a serialised drama with the high production standards of film.

Ideology:

“A set of beliefs values and assumptions shared by a social group and embedded in social, cultural, political and economic institutions.”

Usually thought to reflect the interests of powerful groups.

Consumerism, freedom, equality and individualism are often considered dominant ideologies in free market capitalists societies as they reflect the economic basis of these societies 

The prime contexts influencing medium language in television dram may be ideologies such as:

Individualism: e.g. focusing a drama on an individual protagonist - Francis Underwood

Consumerism: e.g. judging characters on their possessions or desirability of their lifestyles - the clothes they are wearing at the ball

Patriarchal: power and the challenge to this by feminism e.g. using or refusing to use women’s bodies as objects, or narratives that present a male, female or gender neutral perspective - most characters are middle class white men
Racism and ethnocentrism and the challenge to those from multiculturalism and internationalism, e.g. narratives that present a mono-cultural, multicultural or minority perspective - only black man is working class

Stereotypes of men:
Frank is intellectually strong
The middle class white men have power
Power is seen as attractive
Frank brings more money than Claire

Stereotypes of women:
Zoe and Christina are seen as being attractive
Most women are skinny
Zoe wears a low cut top, which links to sexuality
Claire subverts the stereotype of women being emotional
Claire + Frank and Christina +Frank

Todorov’s theory (Equilibrium and Dis-equilibrium)

Todorov in 1969 produced a theory which he believed to be able to be applied to any film. He believed that all films followed the same narrative pattern. They all went through stages:

the equilibrium,
disequilibrium,
acknowledgement,
solving
and again equilibrium.

The theory has its limitations when applied to LFTVD as the restoration of equilibrium may not be realised due to the serialised nature of the drama

Billie Jean Essay

Q)Analyse how the Billy Jean music video by Michael Jackson represent or subvert black stereotypes of black identity.

Q) Billie Jean was one of the very first videos on MTV to feature a black artist. The video’s immense popularity helped bring MTV into the mainstream and breakthrough racial barriers on TV networks. It helped propel the album ‘Thriller’ to the bestselling album of all time. The "Billie Jean" single reached No. 1 in 10 countries in the spring of 1983, including seven consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 - becoming the second-highest selling single in America that same year.

When MTV launched in 1981, viewers struggled to find videos featuring black artists. The network so sparingly showcased African Americans .One African American who attempted to appear on MTV,  was Rick James, who made a slick video for a song called super freak. At the time, however, MTV refused to play videos by black artists, and they rejected this clip, continuing to feed America a steady stream of rock and EuroPop.This refusal to play black music was a holdover from radio station programming, where it was assumed that you would lose your white listeners if you played black music.MTV's director of acquisitions, Carolyn Baker, explained in the book I Want My MTV: "It wasn't MTV that turned down 'Super Freak.' It was me. I tuned it down. You know why? Because there were half-naked women in it, and it was a piece of crap. As a black woman, I did not want that representing my people as the first black video on MTV." This shows how Michael Jacksons Billie Jean changed the music industry by the production of Billie Jean subverting the black identity at the time.

"Billie Jean" was inspired by letters Jackson received in 1981 from a woman claiming he was the father of one of her twins. Eventually, Jackson received a parcel containing a photograph of the fan, a gun, and a letter instructing him to kill himself at a particular time. The fan would do the same once she had killed "their" baby, so they could be together in the next life. To the mother's dismay, Jackson had the photograph of the woman framed and hung above the dining room table of their family home.

Billie Jean introduced the heads who ran MTV to the concept that white viewers would respond enthusiastically to videos featuring a black performer, something they had not previously believed. The music video was directed by Steve Barron. Barron's original idea of the mis en scene for the video was more complex and involved a group of  dancers. With budget playing a factor, they simplified the concept and went with  the idea of Jackson having a Midas Touch, with the squares he stepped  on lighting up. To save on set design, they used a technique where  painted glass was placed in front of the camera to fill in the wide  shots without building actual set pieces. You can see this on some shots  where Jackson is on a sidewalk with a city landscape behind him.

The lyrics "So take my strong advice, just remember to always think twice.(Don't think twice) Do think twice!" Suggesting the audience should take his strong advice and think clearly before you get involved with someone.This is also a case of the ‘devil versus angel’ trying to give someone advice. The “don’t think twice”echo obviously represents the devil/bad choice and the “do think twice” is the advice Jackson chooses to take from the angel. This could link to the stereotype of the token black person by Jackson giving advice and taking the moral high ground.The lyrics "Then showed a photo of a baby crying, his eyes were like mine (oh no) The “oh no” signifies MJ’s horror at the similarity between their eyes, as it lends credence to Billie Jean’s claim that he fathered her baby. This could be linked to the stereotype that black fathers have lots of children and Jackson is even starting to believe himself that the baby is his child. The editing of the music video also focuses on his eyes during this section to emphasises Michaels worry that they are similar in appearance.

Music Video Part 2 Michael Jackson

Billie Jean first impression:

MJ - Hero - Innocence/Purity

Detective - Bad - Papparazzi

Light effects + steps

Religious/spiritual

In bed - but disappears

"Billie jean is not my lover"

"The kid is not my son"

Disappears by light post

Sophisticated editing

First black person on MTV

Iconic television moment with the first 'Moonwalk Dance'

"Musical Innovator"

"Clean guy next door image"

"Hero""Innocent"

Magical Negro

Strauss theory - binary opposites

She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene
I said don't mind, but what do you mean, I am the one
Who will dance on the floor in the round
She said I am the one, who will dance on the floor in the round
She told me her name was Billie Jean, as she caused a scene
Then every head turned with eyes that dreamed of being the one
Who will dance on the floor in the round
People always told me be careful of what you do
And don't go around breaking young girls' hearts
And mother always told me be careful of who you love
And be careful of what you do 'cause the lie becomes the truth
Billie Jean is not my lover
She's just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son
For forty days and forty nights
The law was on her side
But who can stand when she's in demand
Her schemes and plans
'Cause we danced on the floor in the round
So take my strong advice, just remember to always think twice
(Don't think twice, don't think twice)
She told my baby we'd danced till three, then she looked at me
Then showed a photo my baby cried his eyes were like mine (oh, no!)
'Cause we danced on the floor in the round, baby
People always told me be careful of what you do
And don't go around breaking young girls' hearts
She came and stood right by me
Just the smell of sweet perfume
This happened much too soon
She called me to her room
Billie Jean is not my lover
She's just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
Billie Jean is not my lover
She's just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son
She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son
Billie Jean is not my lover
She's just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son
She says I am the one,
(You know what you did, (she says he is my son)breaking my heart babe)
She says I am the one
Billie Jean is not my lover
Billie Jean is not my lover
Billie Jean is not my lover
Billie Jean is not my lover (don't Billie Jean)
Billie Jean is not my lover
Billie Jean is not my lover

Synopsis - MJ was accused by a women that she had his child,  this links to "She's just a girl that claims that I am the one, the kid is not my son." She went to court and attempted to get money from him, There was a law suit, this links to the line " the law was on her side" and "the lie becomes the truth."