News media

Galtung and Ruge (News values) 1965

This list has been added to and much discussed but allows a framework for discussion of what affects the news agenda.

We will look at some stories

Find out why this man is in the Tamworth Herald

Find out why this man is in The Sun


Identify the audiences for these newspapers


You will take a story from the news and apply it to each of these news values

1.Frequency short-term events like murders are preferred over long-term developments like a famine

2.Threshold  the size of an event

3.Unambiguity ability to process the story and make the audience understand it

4.Meaningfulness how it relates to a specific audience in terms of cultural proximity - in which the event agrees with the outlook of a specific culture  or relevance - where events will be reported and discussed if they seem to have an impact on the ‘home’ culture, especially a threat

5.Consonance or ‘correspondence’ where the familiar is more likely to be thought than the unfamiliar

6.Unexpectedness - or ‘surprise’ where it is the rarity of an event which  leads to its circulation in the public domain;

7.Continuity once a story achieves importance will be continued to be covered for some time

8.Composition - this is to provide a sense of balance, gloomy news with good news, foreign with domestic.

9.Reference to elite nations events are more likely to be reported if they occur in the developed world; the threshold system would apply for developing countries’ events to be reported

10.Reference to elite persons - the famous and the powerful are more newsworthy than ordinary people

11.Personalisation - events are seen as actions of people as individuals; an institution may be personalised by reference to a prominent person within that organisation

12.Negativity - bad news is good for the press and TV news; the threshold is much lower for bad news than for good news

Find a story in your group and present it using the above to analyse news values





News values change depending on the audience

Identify the different audiences for the following news media;

Al Jazeera

BBC

Vice.com

Fox News

Newsround

The Wadfather

The earthquake in Oakham last night was too late for the papers so on a slow news day the papers dig up stories they have been sitting on, which they know will strike a chord with the mood of the country and sell papers.. The Express goes for the weather again while the Sun goes back to an old favourite, the benefit cheat. Or in most cases people who seem to be doing well on benefits without working.

All media texts are made to be consumed by an audience

What does this news story tell us about the audience for this paper?

Institutions – Film Industry

Institutions – Film Industry

Warner Brothers - history

Studio system 2oth Century Fox, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Warners Brothers, Disney, Sony (MGM)

Mini-majors – dreamworks, Lionsgate, Weinstein

Golden Age of Hollywood

Genre films

Development of Horror or Development of film noir

Key landmarks / films

Distribution

Exhibition

Global market

Effect of online media on institutions

Convergence

Cross media ownership

Synergy

Digital technology - effect on film-making

Box office figures for similar films

Big studios and smaller partners

Case study

Working Title

Universal  $600m deal in 1999

Warner Brothers Leavesden Studios, Hertfordshire (Harry Potter)

Elstree

Pinewood (James Bond)

Case study :research a similar film and compare

Sin City (2014) (Weinstein) Miramax

LA Confidential (Waners Brothers 1997)

Blade Runner (Warner Brothers 1982)

Annabelle - Warner Bros (2014)

Ouija - universal

Box office

Production company

Audience

Top 10 highest-grossing films at global box office 2014

1. Transformers: Age of Extinction, $1.087bn

2. Guardians of the Galaxy, $772.3m

3. Maleficent, $757.8m

4. X-Men: Days of Future Past, $746m

5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier, $714.1m

6. The Amazing Spider-Man 2, $709m

7. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, $708.3m

8. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, $641.6m

9. Interstellar, $636.2m

10. How to Train Your Dragon 2, $618.9m

Sainsbury's Christmas advert

Discussing viral adverts we came across an advert that divided opinion and is therefore a good example of how a media text can be open to different readings by differing audiences.

Firstly, this advert by Sainsbury's in 2013 was picked and reaction in the class was almost unanimous seeing the advert as touching, heartwarming and uplifting rather than sentimental and cynical. Genuine emotion using a hand-held camera to make it feel like an authentic home movie.

Sainsbury's have tried to replicate this 'spirit of Christmas' theme to position their brand as about family and keeping the home fires burning with a more contentious 2014 Christmas advert. Once again most of the class felt that this was heart-warming and memorable.

Charlie Brooker also noticed this advert and has his own forthright opinion which he describes when discussing Christmas adverts for 2014.

"Shivering in a frosty trench – or “the frozen aisle”, in Sainsbury’s parlance – they pause to sing Silent Night, have a kickaround with their German counterparts, and bond over a chocolate bar. It’s all very poignant, if you mentally delete the bit where a supermarket logo hovers over the killing fields, which you can’t.
Boringly, the advert stops short of showing us the events of the following day, when war was resumed and they reverted to bayoneting one another in the face. Nectar points for each headshot, lads! Kill two Jerries, get one free!
Millions of young men were slaughtered during the first world war – “body-bagged for life”, in Sainsbury’s parlance – and doubtless as they lay dying in foreign fields, gazing down at what remained of their mud-caked, punctured, broken bodies, gasping their final agonised breaths, it would have been a great source of comfort for them to know their noble sacrifice would still be honoured a century later, in an advert for a shop."


Sainsbury's advert



Should the First World War be used to advertise a supermarket?

Is the supermarket commemorating the anniversary of the start of the war?

How do you respond to the advert?

Suggest there readings and identify appropriate audiences.

Negotiated
Opposite
Preferred

Media in the online age

Viral Advertising

What makes an advert work in the online age?

Carlsberg 

Adidas


Take one of the following viral adverts and analyse it. Or find your own.

Click here for the Adverts

How does the advert appeal to an audience?


Why has the advert gone viral?


Would this work as a traditional television advert?


Is the audience global or local?


Profile the target audience


Present back to the group.


Have you ever shared an advert?


What is the difference between online and televisual adverts?

In 2009 The UK has become the first major economy where advertisers spend more on internet advertising than on television advertising, with a record £1.75bn online spend in the first six months of the year.
The milestone marked a watershed for the embattled TV industry, the leading ad medium in the UK for almost half a century. It took the internet little more than a decade to become the biggest advertising sector in the UK.

Total UK advertising spend reached a new high of nearly £14bn in 2013, topping pre-financial crash levels.
Digital advertising now accounts for 50% several billion pounds this year 

This is driven by technology such as smart-phones and tablets.

However, traditional television and print advertising is still an important part of the industry and often complements the online advertising in a complete campaign.

Analyse the 'Compare the Market' campaigns as an example. This one is from 5 years ago

 And this one is a month old..

These television adverts work alongside a wider campaign.  However, it is the tv adverts that draw the audience in.

What tactics are used to appeal to an audience and sell a product?
Accents - slogans - repetition - use of technology, animation - cute animals - humour

Look online at the wider campaign to see what tactics have been used to further the campaign.

For example,
The relationship with Coronation Street, 
Appearance on This Morning

A viral offshoot of the bloopers

Examples of viral adverts selected by students

This 'Always' advert led to some interesting debate about representation of gender and the power of language

This 'Coke Zero' advert led to a discussion of online adverts as stunts or social experiments which were fun and associated the brand with certain emotions. In this one the active male is the audience as Diet Coke would be the female equivalent.  No women are featured in the challenge and Bond is seen to appeal mainly to a male audience.

Advert for 'Three' involves a series of adverts around the holiday theme.

This road safety advert was seen as particularly effective in getting the message across in a shocking way.

This advert from 2007 marks a shift from more traditional TV adverts to more abstract ways of selling a product. It has become an iconic advert. Meantime this Birmingham based company has been taken over by the American company KRAFT and even our dear old Creme Egg has been changed to a new recipe.

Superbowl adverts were explored as they are the most expensive slots in television. This one about Brotherhood suggests much about the audience which is much more traditional than those for many viral adverts. An audience of 55 million people saw this when it first aired.

We came back to the Carlsberg campaigns with this effective and engaging advert which poses the question, 'what would you do?'

 

Fox News

This is a good text and media institution to study when looking at the effect of political motivation on bias in the news media and its effect on the mediation of news and setting the news agenda.

Fox News in particular and mainstream American news media in general are right wing and often unapologetically biased in their news reporting. Often media commentators will espouse their own right wing views mediating the news through their own biased and often prejudiced viewpoint. Bill O Reilly is one example of what on radio could be termed 'shock jocks'; commentators who often rant about social issues and news events.  The queion is how influential these media commentators are and how it affects the news we recieve.  All news is mediated so how do we learn the truth when such a powerful and monopolistic media giant such as the Fox network represents events according to a right wing ideological agenda. 

Watch this clip of a report linked to the Paris attacks.  Hysterical reports about no-go zones in European cities. Caliphates in the UK include Birmingham which is apparently, 'totally Muslim where non-Muslims don't go in.  News reporting has become ripe for parody in the last week in response to the attacks in Paris and makes interesting viewing as it tries to gauge audience responses and represent news uncertain times. News media have a responsibility in times of public concern to report the facts and avoid hyperbole and instigating moral panics which could incite extreme reactions amongst the public.

What does the popularity Fox news suggest about the American public?

As consumers do we get the media we deserve?

Russell Brand does your job for you in this clip by de-constructing a piece on immigration by Bill O'Reilly  which lays bare the ideological distance between these two men. 
This clip also points out how power is possibly shifting in the age of new media technologies.  Bill O'Reilly repreents Fox News which has the monopoly on news reporting due to the wealth of its owner, Media magnate Rupert Murdoch and News International. By owning one of the most popular television networks Murdoch controls the means of conveying free to air messages across a television obsessed nation. A single vlogger in this case, Brand is using social media and the internet to counteract the messages given out by these powerful hegemonic voices. 
The way we get our news is moving toward social media and maybe this may challenge the power of monopolistic companies to twist the news agenda and mis-inform people. 

Could these examples of misrepresentation happen in the UK ?

Is the BBC a bastion against the owners of media institutions  representing the news according to their own ideloical views?
Has social media undermined the power of media magnates ?
Does he who controls the spice control the Universe? 

Using secondary sources to investigate audience reception (Inbetweeners)

Watch the trailer for 'the 'Inbetweeners' film.

Identify and profile a target audience for this film. Define an 'Inbetweener'.

Read this article about the Inbetweeners and use the Guardian and IMDB to establish  box office figures

Identify trailers for similar products to your own.
Find box office figures for these films
Use this secondary research to discuss a target audience for your production.

Discussing your audience

-->AS question Who would be the audience for your media product?                          
 How did you attract/address your audience? 

A2 question
What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Write a response on your blog then use digital technologies to present your answer. Maybe use a wideo or prezi.

Examiner's advice

Audience research is more productive if it addresses the following:

·      What do real audiences consume?

·      Who are the specific audiences for particular products?

·      How do media industries target those audiences?

Those questions require research of a different kind to the local questionnaire method; initial research online looking for data about the industry students are dealing with, such as box office figures for films. Part of research involves looking for examples of how marketing works across a range of media- for films this includes considering posters, trailers and their selling points, for example.

Later audience research should be considered in a series of stages, each involving formative qualitative feedback. So, for example:

·      Pitching the product to the rest of the group and taking feedback, noting the responses from this and deciding how to act as a result.

·      Showing early drafts of the work (such as an animatic of the storyboard or a mock up front cover) and asking some carefully framed questions about them to get a sense of the audience’s understanding of the product rather than just a measure of whether the audience liked it.

·      Taking peer feedback at later stages and then again on the finished product; asking things like “can you tell me what happened in that sequence, what the relationship between the characters is and what do you think will happen in the rest of the film?” to look for audience readings of the work. ‘

These approaches can be presented in a variety of ways- video extracts with framing commentary from the makers; audio, written. All would help move away from the pie chart of responses model which tends to be fairly unproductive. 

 My advice

Explain the approaches taken to gather audience feedback and what your learnt from each.

• Pitch
• Presenting early drafts
• Focus group
• Social Media
• Presentation

Questions to consider
 

How successful have you been at targeting an audience?

Where would you publish / host your productions and how does this target your chosen audience?

How will your target audience consume your products?

Apply Uses and Gratification theory (Blumler and Katz) to allow discussion of your production. How does your target audience use your product to gratify certain needs.

Discuss passive and active audiences. How can an audience interact with your product?

Compare your product with at least three existing similar media products. How does it fit with this genre?

Where will your product be shown or how will your product be exhibited?

How will your product be marketed?

What viewing figures would you expect to achieve?

 Explain how you have come to this conclusion using secondary sources

www.mediaguardian.co.uk 

BARB 

IMDB

AS evaluation

• 
  
  0. Candidates should be encouraged to see the evaluation as a creative task and the potential of the format chosen should be exploited through the use of images, audio, video and links to online resources. Marks should be supported by teacher comments and may be supported by other forms such as audio or video presentations. 
     
     The format chosen for your evaluation is the web-log which allows you to be creative when evaluating by using a range of technologies.  There are seven questions and you could utilise a range of different presentational tools.
     
     
     •     Prezi
     • Green screen directors commentary
     • Audio voice-over the opening sequence
     • links to online resources and images by putting together an audio visual evaluation andposting to you-tube 
     • a blog entry with links and images and a written response
  
  
  􏰀  In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
  media products? 
  
  Start by explaining how you have followed the forms and conventions of the genre you have worked in. Make links between your work and existing films and explin how they have influenced decisions.
  
  Go on to discuss how you revised or altered the production thruoghout the process.
  
  Explain how you have challenged the conventions or developed the genre in a new way 
  
  THis could be an audio commnterya in addition to a written blog post. 
  
  
• 􏰀  How does your media product represent particular social groups? 
  
  Discuss the representations in your film. For example, representation of gender in the film noir genre is often problematic. Explain how you have represented the 'femme fatale' or the 'detective'. Have you challenged the stereotypes or modernised the narrative for a new audience?
  
  This could be an interview with the director in the form of a film magazine show for television.
  
  
  • What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
  
  You will have to explain how the distribution model will work for your film.   Is it a Warner Brothers film noir like those produced in the golden age of Hollywood or is it a Sony blockbuster?  How will exhibition and distribution differ between films.  You cretaed a title for your own production company and need to explain how the relationship works between a smaller company and its huge corporate sponsor.  You will have a lesson on Working Title films and its parent company Universal to help explain this relationship.
   
  
  •  Who would be the audience for your media product? 
  
  Profile an audience for your film going beyond the more obvious socio-economic groupings to dicuss a key demographic that your film is aimed at.  Use all the information about modern techniques of audience profiling essential in the world of advertising.
  
  
  •  How did you attract/address your audience?
  
  Explain how your film attracts this audience through the narrative, the characters, the themes and topics covered. How does the genre appeal to this demographic? Discuss similar films and how yours can be seen as similar.  How might you encourage interactivity where audiences get involved with your film in some way?
  
  
  What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 
  This question could be a blog entry with images showing the technologies used to make the film.  Try and be exhaustive and make a list of all the hardware and software you have used.
   
  Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
  List all the skills that you have gained in making this film and explain how they have developed since beginning the course. Explain what you learnt in the preliminary task such as continuity editing and the 180 degree rule and then how you learnt much more when making your own film.
  To enable yo to understand the levels and marking here are some examples provided by the exam board.
  
  This evaluation gained 16/20
  
  Kamini
  
   
• THis one (Snehal) gained 15/20 and the examiner stated, '
  A  range  of  tools  is  used  for  the  evaluation,  which  has  some  degree  of  depth  and   some  good  illustrations  and  examples  to  support  points  made.  The  powerpoint   for  Q.6  is  a  bit  pointless,  as  the  material  would  probably  have  been  more  effective  directly  on  the   blog.  Q.5  tries  to  make  use  of  annotation,  which  is  quite  
  effective.  The  video  for  Q.4  is  a  bit  simplistic  and  Q.2  is  a  little  limited  as  a  prezi.  
  Q.1  has  quite  a  lot  of  detail.  Overall,  a  mixed  bag,  but  enough  again  to  justify  a  
  clear  level  3

Political posters

Today saw the launch of the 2015 election campaigns and the impact of digital technology in a post-modern world of media is inescapable. 'No orthodoxy can be accepted without irony' is one explanation of this term which is bad news for much maligned politicians who cling to these once powerful mediums hoping they can influence an increasingly sceptical and media savvy public. one almost feels sorry for them but it is always interesting to see what the advertising agencies come up with.  The difference is we can now actively participate in de-constructing or parodying the messages that were once foisted upon us.

Here are two classic posters which had an affect on the political discourse of their time.

Advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi came up with this poster in 1979 and it helped Margaret Thatcher to convince voters that the Conservatives would bring down unemployment and end the general gloom of the 1970's. The simplicity of the advert was its strength and the message was clear and worked on a more passive audience.

Saatchi and Saatchi came up with another memorable advert in 1997 directly attacking Tony Blair's character using his image without permission and running into problems with the regulator the ASA.
However, the image was effective and sowed the seeds of mistrust in a very popular leader which were exploited later during the invasion of Iraq.

It led to the Labour party releasing a poster in response using the slogan, 'same old Tories, same old lies'.

The Conservatives launched their campaign today with this poster

De-construct the poster and analyse the messages and meanings.

Image - what are the connotations?
Anchorage - how does the text anchor the meaning of the advert

Unfortunately for politicians the world of new media has made such launches more difficult and prone to gaffes that undermine their message.  If we believe the press then the advertising agency used an image from an online stock photo source rather than taking the image themselves which smacks of laziness at best and gross incompetence at worst.  The original photo is manipulated which suggest that it is all a fabricated representation or 'lie'.  We all know that these posters are made to manipulate an audience but the message is totally undermined here. When asked if this was a place in Britain Tories defended the photo only to find it was taken in Germany later in the day. The claims made abut the deficit being halved are also being questioned, as ever there are more than two sides to every story.

Perhaps it is time for honesty in politics rather than spin and manipulation, it might be a vote winner!

Labour's poster tried to employ a meme from a few years back which may be too clever for its own good or may exploit new media technologies and gain some mainstream exposure for a clever, rather niche, interactive web tool which parodies Conservative adverts.  This could have little effect or could gain traction with an electorate who would rather engage with adverts as an active audience rather than being preached at. If they can revive the meme and it goes viral on social media then it could be a powerful advertising tool and a skilful harnessing of new media technology.

The idea is taken from the mydavidcameron.com site which allows users to create their own poster parodying  a previous campaign.

For example...


The original poster

and one that has been created by an active audience using new media technologies such as photoshop and social media to challlenge and undermine the original message.

I think we may be seeing a lot more of this.



Your task is to research historical examples of political advertising and to use these to explore the topics we will cover such as 'media in the online age'