Analysing "Media News"

When we had our lesson with Mr Slater, we started to look at analysing media news. So we looked at the Metro and the reason we were looking at it was because it is the most powerful newspaper in the world and even though it has all of this powerful information is it free as well.

So we had to analyse one of four stories in the metro that day and I chose to do the Michael Jackson case where they had just released in court the voice recording of Micheal Jackson 5 days before he died and a picture of his corpse.

I analysed this and Mr Slater told us to use the SWOT theory which was Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Tensions.

This is my SWOT analysis...

Then in Miss Dawe's lesson we moved on and we started doing semiotics which is something that has different meanings depending on which culture or religion or class you come from. This theory came from C.S Pierce who was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist.

For example the pitch fork can mean different things. So to religious people this symbolises with the devil and evil, how ever that is also related to Posedion the God of the sea.

Then we looked at the term "polysemic" which means many ways. We also looked at "signified" and "signifers" and we had the example of a knife on a movie poster and so the signifier is the knife and the signified is what we would relate to the signifier. So for a knife I thought of horror, blood and weapon.

After Miss Dawe went through different type of signs. There are;

Iconic signs
Symbolic signs
Arbitary signs

Then we looked at denotation and connotation.

Denotation is saying exactly what you see.

For example, this picture shows someone holding a knife behind their back.


Then connotation is looking deeper into it so the meaning of things. For example for the same picture we associate a knife with muder, horror, blood, gore. Also because it is behind someone's back we suspect that it will be murder, death.

Linear Structure

When we were in Mr Slater's class we started overviewing about our narrative theories and adaptations we did for Miss Dawe.

Then we started to look at linear structure. "Linear structure means Linear structures are constructs which form a linear chain. Such a chain consists of elements which are linked in direct succession and the order of the elements is fixed. For instance, one type of action results in one response, which then produces another certain type of action that results in another response and so on."

So for example in film it will just follow one person around their journey through the film. You can see this in the film taken the film follows the father the whole way through him trying to find his daughter.

Also there is linear structure in some video games, such as "Call of Duty" because you make your own character and then you folow that one character round all the stages throughout the whole game.

There is linear structure in television programmes as well. There is linear structure in "Dubplate Drama" because it follows the main character in the programme and in this particular tv programme you get to decide what they do next. So it is a very tight linear strutue because they cant go and explore where they are, we pick where they go and that is it.

Cop drama

Then we got told to watch a cop drama or a soap and adapt the four narrative theories into the programme we watched.

I watched The Bill and it fitted into Vladimirs Propps narrative theory because one of the police officers conformed as usual, which is sticking to the rules. Then they got too involved in a case and they started subverting, which is going away from the rules and then they start being conventional which is not defying expections. So they dont really care what the consequences are as long as it haps the people that need to be helped and they dont expect anything in return.

Then I watched Eastenders and this fitted in with Todorovs narrative theory because Whitney had a boyfriend and she was going along her life being happy and they were thinking about getting married, so this is the equilibrium and then all of a sudden the boyfriend dies which is the disequilibrium and then she becomes all depressed and in the end becomes a prostitute and this is the new equilibrium.

I also watched Criminal minds this fits in to Claude Levi-Strauss' narrative story because it was about a serial killer and obviously we have to good detectives trying to stop him and then we have the evil serial killer. This fits in with the narrative theory because it is binary opposites soo good and evil. Also this breaks down a bit more to youth and age because in this episode the serial killer is quite an old person and we have to young detectives so there is micro and macro binary opposites.

Narrative Theories

During Miss Dawes lesson we had to go out in pairs and research one of the four main narrative theories. There were; Todorov, Claude Levi-Strauss, Vogler and vladimir Propp.
Me and Sophie looked at Claude Levi-Strauss and what we had to do was find out his narrrative theory and then adapt it into a fairytale.
So me and Sophie went and we researched Claude Levi-Strauss and we found out...
we dound out that his theory was based on binary opposition which could be things like good and evil, earth and space, youth and age, weak and strong.
Then Sophie and I adapted it to a fairytale and we adapted it in to Snow White. So the concept of good and evil are the good is the prince at the end and the evil is the old hag. Then it breaks down to good usually being youth and evil being age so you see in Snow White there is the young prince and then the old hag. So that is the binary opposititions.
Then for my own research I looked at Vladimir Propp. His narrative theory is a bit different to Claude Levi-Strauss because he has specific characters in his narrative theory. Propp has..
The Hero (that seeks something)
The Villian (opposes the hero)
The Donor Helps the hero by providing him with a magic object)
The Dispatcher (sends the hero on his way)
The False hero (falsely assuming the role of hero)
The Helper (gives support to the hero)
The Princess (the reward for the hero, but also needs protection from the villan)
Her Father

Then I went on to Tzvetan Todorov and his narrative theory start with a state of an equilibrium which in real life is normal and nothing really changes in your life. Then after that you have the disequilibrium which is a change in your life, good or bad, and it ruins your equilibrium and then finally you have your newequilibrium which is a whole new life, different to the equilibrium at the beggining. So I adapted this narrative theory into the fairytale Cinderella. So the equilibrium is her being a slave to her step-mother and step-sisters. Then the disequilibrium is when the fairy-godmother arrives and allows her to go to the ball and then the newequilibrium is when she marries the prince and lives happily ever after.

Then finally I looked at Vogler and I mainly looked at the heor's inner journey. It has 12 parts to it and then I adapted that into Aladin.

So everypart of the heros inner journey is a part of the story Aladin.

Introduction to Media studies :)

In our first lesson of media studies we were with Mr Slater and we had to explain why we chose Media Studies.
I wrote "I picked media studies because I have always had an interest in the media and how it all works and i enjoyed the Creative and Media diploma at level 2 and I would like to carry it on at level 3 and maybe university."

Then we went on to looking at our film prefernces. We started off by naming our faveourite film, I chose Rush Hour 3.
Then he showed us the different stages to get deeper into the reason why I picked that film.
So the first one was the film prefernce and then it was the emotional impact, now the emotional impact is which is the feeling and what the film does to you, such as changing your mood or making you see something in a different light or something so amazing that it makes you want to see it again. So for me the emotional impact of Rush Hour 3 is that I find it very funny and i really like the relationship between Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan and it becomes into a bromance and I think that is really special.
Then we went on to the Artistic choices. So this would be behind the scenes and the first ideas so this could be the setting, the characters, the weather and anyother parts to do with the basic design. So for Rush Hour 3 it would be the characters that make it for me because there is such a diversion and then they learn to get along, also I think the places where they are set make the film very good in my opinion such as Paris because they use the real gthing and it makes the film seem so much more realistic.
Adter Artistic choices it goes onto the technical choices. So this is to do with all the fast editing, the green screening, all of the technical side of things and this is prob the thing i am interested in the most because I love technology and the way it all works and I can see it developing in a few years. So in Rush hour 3 all the technical choices are the quick snips of all the action which build up tension, then you have all of the different type of shots like; close up, cut in, wide shot and these are a few that are used in the film. This helps with the film preference because of, in this particular film, all the tension with the action snips that are quick and fast.
Then finally it goes on to the theory. The theory is the reasoning behind all of these. It is the point of doing the film in this case in the first place, so usually it will have a moral or a reason behind it and it will come from the theory.