Media revision

https://lr-media.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-level-revision-sessions-2024.html
 Contents
Theorists
Media Language Media Industry
​ Roland Barthes: Semiotics ​ Curran and Seaton: Power and media
​ Tzvetan Todorov: Narratology ​ Sonia & Peter: Regulation
​ Steve Neale: Genre Theory ​ David Hesmondhalgh: Cultural industries
​ Claude Lévi-Strauss: Structuralism Audiences
​ Jean Baudrillard: Postmodernism ​ Albert Bandura: Media effects
Representation ​ George Gerbner: Cultivation theory
​ Stuart Hall: Theories of representation ​ Stuart Hall: Reception theory
​ David Gauntlett: Theories of identity ​ Henry Jenkins: Fandom
​ Lisbet Van Zoonen: Feminist theory ​ Clay Shirky: End of audience
​ bell hooks: Feminist theory
​ Judith Butler: Gender performativity
​ Paul Gilroy: Postcolonial theory

Component 1 Component 2
Advertisements ​ Television
​ Tide ​ Black Mirror
​ Super. Human ​ Les Revenants
​ Kiss of the Vampire Magazines
The Film Industry ​ Woman
​ Black Panther ​ Adbusters
​ I Daniel Blake Online media
Newspapers ​ Zoella
​ The Daily Mirror (Boris) ​ Attitude
​ The Times (Boris)
​ The Daily Mirror (Pele edition)
​ The Times (Pele edition)
Music Videos
​ Formation
​ Riptide
Video games
​ Assassin's Creed
Radio
​ Have You Heard George's
Podcast
In component 1 section A, there will be two questions, one on representation and one on media
language. The representation will always be 30 marks and you will have an hour (and 25 mins if
you have extra time) this will always be a comparison.

The media language question will always be unseen, and will always be 15 marks and take half
an hour (45 mins with extra time).

Component 1 section B, will be a bunch of quick fire questions and it can sometimes ask you to
draw knowledge from the whole course, meaning you need to talk about theorists. This is one
minute per mark.

In component 2, all the industries for it will come up so memorise these. There are two 30 mark
questions and two 15 mark questions. These could be any of the industries. It is synoptic, which
means it covers everything from the course, so you need to have all of the theorists memorised
(but this is a given).
One media, representation, industry and audience question.
One of the 4 questions will be evaluating a theory.
 Theorists
Media language

Roland Barthes’ semiotic theory.

This is the idea that media products are made out of different codes. These are Hermiuetic,
Proetic and Referential. He, Barthes, was also interested in myths and the idea that stories
have a meaning or message that should be taken from it. For Barthes, a myth is a widely held
belief which is reinforced and emphasised through media language. This concept is closely
related to hegemony and stereotypes.

Tzvetan Todorov’s theory of narratology.

There is an equilibrium at the start of the narrative and this is established at the start, this is
quickly disrupted which leads to a period of disequilibrium. This is usually the climax of the story.
Then, when this problem is solved, a new equilibrium is found.

Steve Neale’s genre theory.

There are features of a film that comes up again and again. Overtime, this changes and new
features are created or borrowed. This is a genre and over time subgenres are created. These
help producers target specific audiences.

Clauide Levi-Strauss: Structuralism.

This is the idea that meaning is created through binary oppositions.

Jean Bau drill ard’s postmodernism theory.

This is the idea that nothing means anything and the difference between the real world has
changed. Its hard to tell what is real from fake news to movies feeling nostalgic and more real
than the thing that it is representing. This brings us to the idea of hyperreality.
Representation

Stuart Hall’s theories of representation

Representations are constructed through media language and reflect the ideological perspective
of the producer. This is governed by codes. Stereotyping is a form of representation that makes
it easy for audiences to decode. However, stereotypes occur through inequalities of power and
other groups are “othered” and this means that stereotypes are never good.

David Gauntlett's theories of identity

Audiences engage with media products with a process of negotiation, pick and mix theory to be
exact. Audiences can base their identity and ideology with this. This mimics Hall’s idea of
encoding and decoding.

Liesbet van Zoonen feminist theory

Gender is constructed through codes and conventions, and the idea of what is male and female
changes over time. Woman's bodes are used in the media as a spectacle for the male gaze.

bell hooks feminist theory

Feminism is a struggle to end patriarchal hegemony and the domination of women, it is not a
lifestyle choice but a political commitment. It is for everyone and applies to all that have been
oppressed.

Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity

This is the idea that identity is a performance that doesn't just happen, but it is cultivated
through a series of rituals. There is a different between sex and gender, therefore sex doesn’t
equal gender and gender can change. Performance is the rituals that are performed e.g:
wearing make-up and performativity is the way that this performance effects the world e.g:
people judging you based off the make-up worn.

Paul Gilroy’s postcolonial theory

The UK is still impacted from the loss of former colonies. The ideas and attitudes continue to
shape ideas around race and ethnicity in the postcolonial era. These attitude have constructed
racial hierarchies in our society. The other idea is the fact that othering is strongly used in media
for anyone that isn’t white.
Media Industries
Curran and Seaton’s theory of power and media industries

Media is controlled an increasingly small number of companies who are driven by power and
profit. Due to the small number of companies, there is a lack of variety, creativity and quality. We
need to have more socially diverse backgrounds to help create varied media products. This is
about power and profit.

Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt’s theory of regulation

Regulation is dead due to digitally convergent technologies. This means that producers have
started to just ignore regulations and produce potentially harmful or pornographic content
anyway.

David Hesmondhalgh and cultural industries

Culture and industries are two terms that are often against each other. Producers try and
minimise risk to and maximise audiences through vertical and horizontal integration. They
standardise and format their cultural products, and the largest companies now operate across a
number of different cultural industries.
Audiences

Albert Bandura’s media effects

This is an old-fashioned view of how media products affect audiences. This suggests that media
can affect how people interact with different things. For example, if you play violent video
games, it will make you violent.

George Gerbner’s cultivation theory

This is the idea that if you are exposed to some ideology over and over again, it slowly becomes
your ideology. This reinforces mainstream hegemonic values.

Stuart Hall’s reception theory

When consuming a media product, there is a process happening with the audiences. There are
different readings that come about with it. Preferred readings, negotiated readings and
oppositional readings. Most of these interpretations that will happen will be negotiated readings
and social and economic backgrounds all take place to affect how the audience reads the media
product.

Henry Jekins’ theory of fandom

When a fan is interested in a media product such as talking about it, they become a fan of the
media product. They construct their social and cultural identities through using mass culture
things.

Clay Shirky’s end of audience theories

New media and digital convergence has meant that consumers have become producers and
send back to the media in different ways, both simultaneously making new media.
Adverts
Tide (this has never come up so it has a higher chance to come
up)
Tide is an advert made in the 1950s. This was a time of lots of innovation and invention. A
perfect example of this is Tide and washing machines, domestic labour is easier than ever.
Initially, Tide manufactured their cleaning soap for heavy-duty machine cleaning. Tide quickly
became the brand leader.

During this time there are different conventions as now and in those times they used more copy
than we use today and consumer culture was in its early development so new brands and
products entered markets.

Conventions of print based advertisement ware still recognisable. For example, the Z-line and a
rough rule of thirds can be seen in its composition.

Bright primary colours connote positive associations with the product and also constructs a
patriotic mode of address through the mimicking of the USA flag colours. Additionally the red
acts as a symbolic code for love in addition to being an aspirational easy to understand target
the be picked and mixed by the audience

Headings, subheading and slogans are written in sans-serif comic sans font, connoting an
informal mode of address. This is further reinforced through the use of the comic strip located in
the bottom right third which depicts the MES of two women hanging up the washing, selling the
idea that this product will fulfil the natural desire of socialisation. Additionally, the use of the lexis
“Tides a sudsing wizz even in hardest water” forms a hyper realistic reality where the “simple”
life is being sold to you where if there is a problem with your washing, there is a simple solution
through the use of this simple product which you have to buy. This also doubles as a sell line
and something that the audience can identify with due to the colloquial language that has been
employed.
Suspense is created through the enigma of the lexis “What women want!” and emphasised
through the use of multiple exclamation marks. Additionally this forms a hermeneutic code, what
do women want? Is it Tide? Is it the lifestyle?

The dress codes of the advert’s main image depicts a female character who includes a
stereotypical 1950s hairstyle which conforms to Judith Butler's theory of gender performance as
during this time had hegemonically opted for a more practical hairstyle due to the movement of
domestic work to factory and farm work during WW2. Additionally it conforms to the idea that
what it means to be female or male changes with social, economic and historical context. One
perspective or reading of the advert is that not only is the advert trying to sell the Tide soap, but
also the lifestyle of pre-WW2, which was a lot worse for women. The MES of the headband
connotes how the users of Tide soap are hard-working, this forms a binary opposition through
the iconography of make-up which suggests an excess of time, which is being further anchored
through the use of the MES of the washing machine. But to be fair, to put it simply, the preferred
reading is that tide is better than “any other washday product!”

A strong use of stereotypes are used throughout this advert, however through the use of
relatable modes of address such as having to do the washing, it creates an aspirational mode of
address. After all who wouldn’t like to enjoy doing the cleaning. However, the stereotype comes
in strongly through the use of a single hegemonic, stereotypical, contemporary white person.
The lack of MES for anyone who isn't white forms a symbolic annihilation showing that in the
times of 1950s was far more racist and still suffering far more from the end of colonial British
even though it's an American advert. The MES of her tanned skin suggests that she is
hard-working and aspirational and also further reinforces contemporary hegemonic ideologies
around beauty. The proetic code of her pursed lips of the main image constructs a hypersexual
and amusing mode of address that she wants to make love to the box!

This advert is very clearly targeted to middle-aged, white affluent lower-middle class women.
The reason for this strong advertisement for women is to create a motivational mode of address
where tide is better than another competition. I think this is notably seen through the use of the
lack of MES of any other soap products or any other products at all, helping draw attention to
the MES of the soapy bubbles and the machinery.

The preferred reading (Stuart Hall) of the advert’s reassuring lexical fields (“trust”, “truly safe”,
“miracle”, “nothing like”) is that, despite being a “new” product, Tide provides solutions to the
audience’s domestic chores needs.

The direct mode of address of the images in the top right and bottom left-hand corner link to the
imperative “Remember!” and the use of personal pronouns (“your wash,” “you can buy”).

The Tide advert aims to cultivate the ideas that: this is the brand leader; nothing else washes to
the same standard as Tide; it’s a desirable product for its female audience; and its “miracle
suds” are an innovation for the domestic washing market. Gerbner’s theory would argue that the
repetition of these key messages causes audiences to increasingly align their own ideologies
with them (in this case positively, creating a product that “goes into more American homes than
any other washday product”).
Super. Human
Super. Human is a sequel to previous advertisements for the Paralympics. This is where
physically, and now mentally, disabled athletes compete. This is made fair by having different
testing in order to make it, so the disabilities are roughly comparable.

This advert is made for the Tokyo Olympics 2020 games. It's produced by All 4 who won the
publishing and streaming rights for it. They are a non-profit organisation who are based off of
advertising revenue. All 4’s mission is “to inspire change in the way we lead our lives”, “we do
this by representing unheard voices”. This is the reason for them wanting to stream the
Paralympics.

Super. Human is a more complex thing to analyse as it has so much information and
representation, but I will take screenshots of the different scenes which I believe will be
applicable to answer all different questions. But this will come in a bit.

I will start by analysing the use of non-diegetic background

music. It is called “So you want to be a boxer” by Bugsy
Malone. “Well you might as well quit if you haven't got it” is
a very repeated phrase, and it mimics what people not
only with disabilities are told, but it creates a relatable
mode of address that everyone can relate to. However,
this has polysemic meanings, and in this, the opposed
reading is that this is an idea that people with disabilities
haven't “got it” so they should give up. This is an extremely
gloomy mode of address, but this is completely binary
opposed by the upbeat music. This, accompanied by the
MES of a person without legs carrying a heavy weight with
the MES of a determined face, creates the proetic code
that he will lift the weights and prove this statement wrong.

This has made it, so I’m not talking about this so linearly. But now I will analyse the MES of the
image below. This image contains the MES of low-key lighting with large amounts of mist and
fog. This could be a reference to being dissociated and having brain fog, which is associated
with many mental illnesses, such as PTSD. This is further anchored through the bright
spotlights, which suddenly put a lot of pressure on the silhouette of this seemingly abled-bodied
character. However, this is done to create a hermeneutic code which draws the audience in and
makes them wonder who they are, and we find that out. However, this theme of PTSD is carried
through and further anchored through the use of a dizzying audio montage talking about the
Tokyo Olympics anchoring the fact that she is scared of competing, and then she is woken up
by the audio cue of a gunshot which is also a symbolic code and convention of running in a
race. Much like veterans dedicate their life to fighting, these athletes dedicate their life to sport
and competing. They are like any other able-bodied person. This is a common theme in this
advert.
Archive footage is commonly used as filler footage and as match cut editing. There are strong
links to the military in it through the use of marching feet. This example is a match cut shot
accompanied as a replacement of a person diving into the water. The cartoonish audio of a
plane falling is then accompanied by a ball pathetically falling on the floor, deceiving
expectations of a crashing sound.

Commitment to sport actually gets too much, this cyclist had to give
up on going to key events for his daughter. This is stereotypical as
the father is too busy to look after the child and this is leaving the
mother to take on the patriotic role of being a stay at home mother
(we assume).

The match cut with the cyclist cycling and the hamster wheel is creating a relatable mode of
address of burnout and stress. This is further anchored through the comedic yet relatable mode
of address created through the MES of the “puke bucket” which is then featured in a montage of
people gagging. This is also forming an uncomfortable mode of address which everyone can
relate to. It is breaking the othering that has been created through hegemonic views of disabled
people.
The low-key lighting and the gold medal suggests how hard of a task it has been for them to get
the medal and how everyone can do it, if you put the time into it.
The key of the music also goes minor suggesting hard times and lows, the whole song is
consistent of ups and downs.
This is then binary opposed through the music speeding up and the lighting going brighter.
Everyone is the same inside we are all made of the same stuff.
Example question

Compare how this music video extract and the advertisement for Super.Human represent
social groups. [30] - 1 hr and 25 mins with extra time.

In your answer you must:

• consider the similarities and differences in how social groups are represented

• consider how stereotypes can be used positively and negatively

• make judgements and draw conclusions about how far the representations reflect social

and cultural contexts. ← This will be in the final exam.

Essay plan:
— Introduction —
Intro, define stereotypes and representations.

Argue that the representation of different social groups is far more diverse than before and this
strongly reflects social and cultural contexts. It reflects people with disabilities in an
unconventional normalised and positive light. This inspires everyone not just one social group.

The context is that its advertising the Paralympic 2020 Tokeyo games streamed by Channel4,
whos aim is to represent underrepresented groups. This Paralymipcs actually occurred in 2021
due to covid-19.

— Paragraphs —

The whole thing is based of off match cuts where there are similar movements matched up with a scene that reflects the movement that just happened. This creates a strong and freeflowing montage.
Archive footage with bric collage: this suggests that disabilities have been around forever
It is also beat matched
Extreeme closeups
Codes and conventions: the genre is sport narrative
Use of Lexis
Low-key lighting
Rapid fire editing
Semiotic codes such as enigma codes are very important.
Stereotypes
Binary oppositions
Role models
Lack of male gaze spectacle
Performance of gender changing and this is seen through the use of stereotypically masculine clothing and spots such as basketball.
Hyper reality & post modernism from sleep to awake; archive footage to present.
Diegetic (alarm clock and grunts of athletes) and nondiegetic sounds (“Wanna be a boxer” by bugsy malone).
Othering
Hegemony

One way in which disabled people are represented in the SH advert is through the MES of
disabled bodies.

The use of montage editing in order to form binary oppositions.

The use of lexis

The use of extreme close-ups

One way in which disabled people are represented in the SH advert is through the use of
extreme close-ups throughout the advert, which are used to create a grotesque and abject
representation of training for elite sports. In one shocking shot, we literally enter through the
mouth of an athlete and fly down their throat, being forced to conform the MES of veiny fleshy
tonsils and a discord tongue. Here the view takes the role of the doctor inserting an endoscopy
which positions the audience in an empathetic and uncomfortable mode of address, this is
further emphasised through the ECU of a brilliant purple bruise that constructs a deep hermetic
code and presents an almost abstract and abject set of images for the target audience. Finally,
the CU of “Mr Puke Bucket”, a revolting blue bucket of sick, is anchored through the use of
low-key lighting and the sick blue colour scheme. The combination construct a representation of
people with disabilities as relatable, hard-working, vulnerable and even mentally unstable.

The use of archive footage and slo-mo dreams shots are symbolic of PTSD

The binary opposition of the abject imagery of a bloody tooth hanging out of its socket in a
smiling mouth constructs a polysemic address of both resilience and mental instability

The use of othering constructs a confusing and even upsetting mode of address for the target
audience, which may instead reinforce stereotypes about people with disabilities

Lexis - “if you want to be a Paralympian, there must be something wrong with you” constructs a
sense of othering which may potentially provoke oppositional readings in the target audience

The smashed glass over the word ‘super’ constructs a complex representation of disabled
identities, where to be disabled is both a problem, and something to be celebrated

Through the combination of dull and low-key lighting and colour choices.

The boring relatable settings

Kiss of the vampire (1963 theatrical poster)

So a bit of context behind kiss of the Vampire. Kiss of the Vampire is a horror film whivh was
realized in 1963 and this was the time of the woman's sexual liberation movement with things
such as free love and hippies. There was lots of progression and change and this is very
evident in this poster.

This film is a sequel to previous films with Dracula. It is a hyper real representation of
Pensilvania.

The poster is hand drawn and painted in acrylic paint which is very contemporary and
conventional for a movie poster of the time.

If this question comes up I will talk about these specific sections of media language:

MES and type face of the title

The MES of the title “Kiss of the Vampire” creates iconography through the use of the blood rec
and white colour scheme forming a referential to the Vampire genre and the large K-9s they
have Additionally the dripping blood from the V creates a metaphorical reference to a tooth and
creates a referential code to the Vampire genre.

Additionally the use of the harsh serif font forms a proetic code towards the rough, harsh and
violent theme of the film.

The representation of male vampire vs representation of female vampire

This especially important, the representation of the female vampire is especially progressive
presenting her as an equal to the male vampire. The MES of her hand holding the male victim
shoulder created a progressive mode of address especially for the time. She is dominant
showing how the woman's liberation movement of the time is progressive and is able to present
women as equals to men.

However, this is obviously the preferred reading and the dress code of the female vampire could
create a hyper sexualized mode of address where she is wearing a night dress and high
heels?? This cultivates to form an oppositional reading where as the preferred reading would be
that she is dressed like that as she is able to and she want to as she is free to do what she
wants.

Representation women as a wholes is a significant point of interest to talk about. There are
strong oppositions between the women seen in this poster, and in the end this create an equal
playing field between men and women creating, for the time a progressive mode of address. On
the left of the poster is the MES of a man with the dress code of a leather jacket and dark
trausers all with red lighting forming a egnicmatic mode of address where we wander why is he
wearing such formal clothing. Of course the answer is: he is a vampire and due to genre
conventions vampires dress in formal, and hypersexulised outfits.
The proetic code of the male vampire holding his hand back suggests that he is in fear of the
female vampire and they create two diametrically opposing ideologies where the women are
fighting against the conservative values of the men at the time. Perhaps this could be seen to be
women fighting against the hypersexulisation and exploitation of women.

In this poster both the victims (men and women) are repreneted in a similar light. The dress
code of the woman on the left creates a sexualized representation of women and justest that
they are women, this is further reinforced through the use of the skin coloured night gown
anchored through the use of the the dress code of the impractical high heels suggesting that
beauty must be achieved through impractical and even impossible ways. Therefore reinforcing
hegemonic patriotic ways.

This actually reinforced the sexualization of the Vampire genre and this is further anchored
through the additional sexualization of the man on the left. He is wearing a loosely unbuttoned
shirt with his hyper-sexuslisd neck being shown. This is shaping and confirming to the Vampire
genre in where it is an explicitly sexual genre.

The colour scheme with the dark moody colours and the MES of the dark background and
cathedral. This backs up the intertextual reference to the genre of vampires and Dracula. This
additionally created a hyper-real representation of Pensilvania and is perhaps an unfair
representation. Dark and dingy representation of Pensilvania is only further reinforced by the
MES of the large bats attacking the female vampire and flying from the cathedral.

Audience:

Explain how social and cultural circumstances affect audience interpretations of

newspaper content. Refer to Kiss of the Vampire to support your points. [10]

Social and cultural circumstances is the time in which it was made. This means we need to talk
about the womans liberation movement. This film came out in 1964. Audience interpretations
means that we need to talk about negotiated readings.

Audiences would negotiated this in different ways. For example one negotiated reading would.
Talk about knowledge and understanding about audiences rather than MES of the media
product in audience questions.
Media Language Question for adverts
In this type of question we will be analysing an UNSEEN media product. It will be a 15 marker.

Example: Explore how codes and conventions create meaning in this advert.
Beanz Meanz Heinz - Too Good to Leave Behind Full 60 Second Ad

Codes and conventions refers to the elements that media products use in oder to create
meaning for the audience, to minimise risk and maximise profit. In this essay I will argue that
This advert uses codes and conventions in an unconventional way to create a bizarre yet
relatable mode of address. You don’t need to talk about context in an unseen question.

One way this advert creates meaning is through the use of MES. This advert represents a
hyper-realistic holliday retreat for couples with things such as massages, clubbing and sitting by
the beach. Yet the distinctive lack of MES of other people with him constructs a lonely mode of
address and forms a hermeneutic mode of address where the audience questions what he is
missing. Stereotypically, we would assume that he is missing his wife this constructs the
meaning and feeling of loss and a break up.

The airport setting constructs a relatable mode of address for the working class target audience.
However, it is also presented as a luxurious product that constructs the entire life of the
protagonist. This example of commodity fetishism is anchored in a humorous and almost pitiful
manner, that deliberately pokes fun at the Heinz brand and deliberately constructs an
unconvention mode of address through the use of code and conventions.

The product is constructed as an essential necessity, which is highly convention of advert. In

this sense, we see this modern and unconventional advert using highly conventional advertising
techniques, similar to those used in the 50’s tide advert, that will doubtlessly appeal to a wide
range of audiences.

The use of binary oppositions constructs a confusing yet ultimately satisfying mode of address
for the target audience. The shot of the middle aged man weeping in a night club constructs an
opposition between joyous dancing and crying. Furthermore the MES of an older man
attempting to dance in a nightclub constructs a humorous binary opposition, this symbolises a
midlife crisis. This complex set of The use of binary oppositions constructs a confusing yet
ultimately satisfying mode of address for the target audience. The shot of the middle aged man
weeping in a nightclub constructs an opposition between joyous dancing and crying.

The Binary opposition between summer and sandness is reflected through the MES of the
sunny setting, constructed through both photographic techniques and post colour grading to
anchor the target audience to understand the preferred reading.
Polysemic meanings are constructed through the unconventional narrative, which relies on a
series of hermeneutic codes.
An unconventional representation of masculinity is used through the MES of the crying missile
aged man. However, this conventional representation is used to provoke a humorous response.
In doing so, it reinforces hegemonic patriarchal norms, that men should not cry, and seeing a
man cry is funny and uncomfortable.

The montage of CUs of the protagonist's face reinforces his status as a hegemonically attractive
man. This allows him to construct a relatable mode of address for the older working class target
audience.

The binary opposition between the diegetic and nondiegetic sound of the background music and
the crying forms a concerning mode of address suggesting that we are let into this person's life
and this forms into the stereotype of someone with mental health conditions and cant stop
hearing things. Additionally this weird love for this inanimate product further anchors this.

The holiday setting is desirable for a stereotypical working class audience. The advert uses a
misleading mode of address, utilising intertextual relay, and making explicit reference to the
generic conventions of the package holidays.

THe repetitive crying creates a pitying yet comedic effect. The MES of the dancing creates a
very outcast effect and shows how he has no one. The flashback brings him back to the good
times with his partner “Beanz Meanz”. He is on a romantic holiday like a honeymoon but all
alone. By subverting our expectations the advert uses satire to appeal to a stereotypical British
audience

He is a stereotype of a person with mental health issues. The MES of the yellow shirt creates a
binary opposition with his depressive state.

It starts in a disequilibrium, and it never gets solved, however the audience can solve it by
buying heinz.

The binary opposition from the stereotype of being a middle ages man and him crying.

Hermentic code: why is he crying,

Proetic code: airport setting
Beans and ketchup colours
Bald head symbolises like a bean
Dyagetic crying.
Fast paced editing
Constructing an unconvention construction of genre.
 Film Industry

Black Panther
Black Panther is a perfect example of a high budget blockbuster film. There was a huge budget
of $200 million and got $1.349 billion in the box office, making it currently the 17th highest
grossing films. This is shows the convention of a blockbuster as there is a high risk, but a high
reward if done correctly. To minimise the risk, a lot of steps are taken. It had a marketing budget
of around $150 million.

Black Panther is a Marvel film (which was bought by Disney, which is a conglomerate and is an
example of vertical integration thought the release of Disney+[it is also very monopolistic]). It
has an average running time of 134 minutes and contains end credit scenes, which is a
convention that marvel started. It has a massive presold fanbase, meaning that any marvel film
is almost guaranteed to do well.

Furthermore, it was actually almost made in the mid-1990s with Wesley Snipes. (It was now
directed by Ryan Coogler). However, at this time there were lots of films that had contained a
primarily black cast and had done extremely well, much like Black Panther. However, this was
highly exploitative as they were targeting black people as there was not enough representation
and if they represented the unrepresented it would do well. So in short, it could have given
Marvel a bad reputation. I guess the same thing could be said about this black panther. This
would be perfect to talk about social and economic circumstances effecting production.

However, I would disagree as it they gave a more than liberal budget and was very
representative. Additionally, many charities and actors would pay for black children to watch it
due to the fact that it was so representative, and they could align their identity along with the
black panther.

There was lots of product placement which is also conventional for a blockbuster, including one
with Toyota, seen with a car chase which involved 600 people and 150 cars.

It got a 12a certificate which is the most profitable as everyone can watch it and if a child under
12 wants to watch, they have to bring an adult with them, meaning that they are basically forced
to buy two. Remember, the BBFC regulates film and video release in the UK. However, councils
can overrule this if they so please.

Talk about representation of black people and culture. Talk about Curran and Seaton, media and
power theory. Also talk about post-colonial theory and black cinema.
I, Daniel Blake

I, Daniel Blake

Directed by Ken Loach

Written by Paul Laverty

Produced by Rebecca O'Brien

Starring ​ Dave Johns

​ Hayley Squires

Cineatography Robbie Ryan

Edited by Jonathan Morris

Music by George Fenton

Production ​ BBC Films

​ Wild Bunch
companies
​ Sixteen Films
​ Why Not Productions

Distributed by ​ British Film Institute

[1]
​ Entertainment One
(United Kingdom)
​ Le Pacte (France)

Release dates ​ 13 May 2016

Running time [1]

100 minutes

Box office [2]

$15.8 million
I, Daniel Blake (IDB) is a social realist film directed by Ken Loach, It stars Dave John and
Hayley Squires. Don't recognise these names? Well I wouldn't expect you would, it had a
budget of only $3.5 million meaning that they couldn't hire any stars, and they had to base it on
location which took place in Newcastle. They got their funding from many sources, including the
BBC, which meant that they had lots of obligations to fill. One of these is that they had to
represent a less commonly represented group, and in this case it is the north of England.

This film was highly profitable and got a total of $15.8 million, which is a lot in comparison to
their budget. Around $4 mill in the UK and around $6 mill in France, this is because of them
winning the award: Palme d'Or.

It had an interesting distribution, including a pay what you can system in non-traditional
locations like village halls and community centres.

They had very little marketing budget, so they went to an unconventional route of
advertisement: guerilla marketing. They used projectors and projected I, Daniel Blake in political
places and just around the palace in London, which is a gray area in the law.

The biggest name for this film was Ken Loach and his name was plastered all over the
advertisement and posters as this would attract an audience. They also invited Jeremy Corbyn
to the premiere, and he put it on his Facebook page, with the hashtag #idanielblake which got
blown up oh social media as a social commentary on what was going on.

Political response

The Conservative Party's then-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith,
said the film was unfair and criticised its portrayal of Jobcentre staff: "This idea that everybody is
out to crunch you, I think it has really hurt Jobcentre staff who don't see themselves as that."[24]
The producer, Rebecca O'Brien, responded that Duncan Smith "is living in
cloud-cuckoo-land".[25]

On the 27 October 2016 episode of the BBC topical debate programme Question Time, which
had Loach as a panellist, the Conservative Party's then-Business Secretary Greg Clark
described the film as "fictional" and said, "It's a difficult job administering a benefits system.
Department of Work and Pensions staff have to make incredibly difficult decisions and I think
they should have our support in making those decisions."

Loach responded by criticising the pressure that DWP staff are placed under: "We talked to
hundreds of people who work at the DWP under your guidance and instructions, and they are
told to sanction people. If they don't sanction them, they're in trouble." He later said, "When
you're sanctioned your life is forced into chaos, and people are going to food banks. How can
we live in a society where hunger is used as a weapon?"[26]

The Labour Party's then-Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, appeared at the film's London premiere and
praised the film on his Facebook page.[27] During Prime Minister's Questions on 2 November
2016, Corbyn criticised the unfairness of the welfare system and advised then-Prime Minister,
Theresa May, to watch the film.[28]"
BBFC: british board of film classification, they regulate the films, tv shows and videogames in
the uk distributed online and in cinemas. Gives them age certificates. It is non-governmentally.
For example black panther is rated 12A which means it is the most profitable one.
Target audience: the group of people intended to see a media product. For example IDB clearly
targets working class people in the north of the uk.
Distribution: How the media product is put out there
Unique selling point: as niche part of the media product which appeals to the target audience
Synergy: this is the benefits of two different industries working together, e.g: music videos.
Additionally black panther has strong synagitic relationship with marvel and hasbros.
Advertising is how the media product is told about and sells the product to the audience.
Conglomerate: a type of multi-industry company that has different subsidiaries.
Subsidiary: the child company of a larger company (conglomerate), such as marvel studio is
owned by disney.
Right wing: a school of politics that has traditional values.
Marketic: the process of actively selling a media product: For example it was actively target to
black-amircan audiences using iconography from the black lives matter movement.
(a) What is meant by independent cinema? [2]
Independent cinema is cinema produced with out the aid of a major distribution company.
Independent films are often funded in a range of different ways, for example I, Daniel Blake was
funded by the BBC and BFI.
(c) Explain the effect of digital technologies on the distribution of movie programmes.

Refer to I, Daniel Blake to support your points. [9]

Streaming on things like prime video. Digital download with the dvds. You can watch it on
disney+ . This is a digitally convergent distribution level. However there are ethical issues with
having social realism being streamed on disney plus as it is for education. However, Disney is
known for favouring profit over ethics.

In Question 3(d), you will be rewarded for drawing together knowledge and understanding from
across your full course of study, including different areas of the theoretical framework and media
contexts.

(d) Explain how films are shaped by the organisations that produce them. Refer to I, Daniel
Blake to support your points. [12]
 Newspapers
If newspapers come up for representation the party gate editions are used. This is the only
question where you talk about the set text. This is compared to another media product, but
unseen. For newspapers it has always been compared with another newspaper.

Media language is based on an unseen newspaper.

Industry: the newspaper in general including the website.

Audience: the newspaper in general (Pele edition and website)

https://www.tomorrowspapers.co.uk/
The Daily Mirror (Boris Johnson)
This newspaper edition was released on the 1st of February 2022. At this point in time there
was lots of controversy because during the covid lockdowns there were very harsh regulations
put in place, one of these was that people couldn't meet up. However it was found that in
number 10 that Boris had hosted and attended multiple parties. This exposed a large amount of
corruption within the Tory government. Through all of this Johnson refused to resign, all
newspapers, regardless of politics had to write badly about Johnson, however the ways in which
they did so is very obvious through the codes and conventions chosen. In this I will be looking at
the media language, and representation of The Daily Mirror edition which is a left wing tabloid
newspaper which targets a working class audience with a lower reading age.

For this set edition there are two different sections that we need to have a look at and if you
don’t your missing out a lot. These are located above. In your essay, do focus on the front page,
but it is also important to include other articles and the double page spread in order to display
your knowledge and understanding.

The masthead is significant due to the connotations of the lexis “mirror” the fact that it is called
the mirror suggests that they will reflect perfectly the days events back to the readers as it is.
The choice of the red and white colour schemes makes it clearly identifiable as a red top tabloid
newspaper and will make it eye catching to all audiences, perhaps even helping target a
younger audience with the plain primary colour, further hinting at the target audience’s reading
age. The tagline: “heart of Britain” shows how vital it is to the readers and how it is a patriotic
and important magazine.

This patriotism is strongly anchored through the puff to the right plugging the Platinum Jubilee of
the Queen. The lexis of “tears for the king” suggests that what it means to be a man and a
woman has changed over time, before it would have been far more repressed to cry, and this is
further anchored and emphasised through the MES of the queen on the left looking powerful.
Even though this is the preferred reading, the negotiated reading could be that it isnt quite so
progressive as they have chosen an image of the queen when she was younger, signifying the
hegemonic beauty ideals and the stereotypical idea that to be hegemonically beautiful you need
to be young. Perhaps the queen is being placed as a spectacle for the male gaze, or maybe as
a role model for female readers of the tabloid.

The skyline of the newspaper is strongly separated from the rest of the article with the MES of
white, and this is significant due to the fact that it is putting a physical barrier between the “dirty”
Johnson and the Daily Mirror and the royal family. This is further emphasised by the white,
which is a symbolic code for purity.

The front cover has the main image of Johnson taking over more than two thirds of the page.
This is significant as it is something that will immediately catch the audiences’ eyes and the
MES of Boris is showing how the newspaper is up to date and relevant. The image choice of
Johnson with the MES of his ruffled hair and deep-set eyebags suggests that he has had a
difficult time. He has gone so far in what he has done and he cant get back to the previous state
of the UK. This is further anchored by the LEXIS of the page. The choice of yellow font
interviewed with white font is in lowercase font and the yellow depicts polysemic meanings. One
is a count down “12, 3, 1, 300, ZERO”. This countdown could be interpreted to mean that his
time is running out and that he has been caught. It could have reference to a catastrophic event
happening, which is further anchored through the lexis “grey report fallout” and more specifically
the lexis of “fallout” having connotations to a catastrophic thing such as a nuclear war almost
comparing this event to being a nuclear fallout.

The significance of the fact that the lexis of the headline “ZERO SHAME” is so large is to anchor
Johnson as a failure and as someone who doesnt feel bad for all of the bad things he has done.
This headline quite literally takes over more space than the whole skyline which contains the
masthead and a puff. This acts as a quick to read caption for the main image, but also is
anchored by the article written by Keir Starmer which contains a large paragraph as pull quote
and a stand first.

I have written quite a lot about the front page, and yes, I mainly wrote about media language,
but as you should know by now, representations are constructed through media language so
don't worry, you just need to apply it. For example, the representation of royalty utilises the
stereotype of beauty through the lack of wrinkles and being portrayed as young and additionally
of a hierarchy by being physically higher up on the page and this binary opposes Johnson as he
is lower down and dishevelled which is seen through the MES of the dark eyebags

Ok so now I need to talk about the double page spread a bit I wont go too deep into analysis
here as you can do that in the exam, just remember these:

Even Putin cant stand to talk to Johnson, the informal lexis of “Boris” in this
comic creates humour and portrays Johnson as a joke. The use of Putin
creates a strong emphasis on how judgemental the UK is over Russia when we had Johnson
trying to run the country.

A binary opposition is formed between the NHS workers working very hard to save someone
who is in “critical care” with “Rule-breaker Boris Johnson”. This forms the blame directly to
Johnson as he is so casually drinking champagne and the MES of his eyes making direct
address with the readers creates a disgusted mode of address where the audience feels that he
has done this to the person.
​
The lexis of “Shame” is repeated throughout the whole thing from front
cover to this double page spread and this is done to show who they blame
and how he has “zero shame” and this would perhaps cultivate in the minds
of the audience in order to help reinforce the left wing ideology that the
newspaper adopts. The blame is on the Tory party as a whole and the
corruption that is with-in it, rather than just Johnson.

The opinion section on the right of the newspaper has great significance,
as it conforms strongly with the end of audience theory. If people didn't
interact with the newspaper on the topic, so strongly this publication would
have never came about and rather it would cover something else. Quotes
from the public with a stand first with angry word is featured: “He needs to
go”, “it’s an insult”. In fact the positioning of this to the right has it so it looks
like Johnson is looking away from everyone as included on this opinion
piece is a thumbnail picture of the people to make them feel more human.
Boris is presented as looking considered and about to “drink his problems
away”.

Compare the ideologies conveyed through the representations in this

newspaper and the set edition of the Daily Mirror you have studied.
In your answer, you must:
consider how representations convey ideologies
consider the similarities and differences in the ideologies conveyed
make judgements and draw conclusions about how far social and cultural contexts affect the
representations. [30]

The mirror uses straight forward representations to construct a straightforward ideology. To

appeal and cultivate the ideological perspective of the working class audience. This is done to
maximise power and maximise profit.

Mast head, red, labour, stereotypes, male gaze theory, gender performativity of the queen,
representation of the queen being young and the binary opposition with the king having wise
“wrinkles”. Binary oppositions, Baggy eyes, shaggy hair, high-key lighting, lexis, countdown.
Post colonial theory. The hierarchy of the page. Puff. Police tape colour scheme. “The heart of
britain”. Bold font. Left wing. Labour vs Tories. MES. Anchorage, caption. Skyline. Headlines.
Candid image. Symbolic annihilation. Ruling class.

DAC: Representation is the way in which a producer re-presents a social group with the use of
media language in order to encode their ideological perspective which will then be negotiated by
different audiences. A strong representation which simplifies a group of people to make them
easier to understand and represent is a stereotype. These are always harmful and this is
strongly used in order to convey the producers ideology. In this essay I will argue that the Mirror
uses straight forward representations to construct a straightforward ideology. To appeal and
cultivate the ideological perspective of the working class audience. This is done to maximise
power and maximise profit. The mirror is a subsidiary of Reach PLC and has a circulation of
over 700k. It has a website making it free and accessible to all audiences, but their main target
audience being working class people. The cost of this newspaper is low and is a conventional
red-top newspaper. This is also a left wing newspaper.

Binary opposition is constructed in the double page page sp[read between the frantic MES of
the ICU and Jpohnson’s smug look at the camera while clutching a glass of champagne in open
defiance of his own rules. While the image was taken at an official event, the anchorage of the
article confirms the left wing ideology of the newspaper and further reinforces the tabloid mode
of address of the newspaper. The caption is highly leading and further anchors the ideolgoy of
the newspaper, blatantly constructing a version of reality where the composition of the page
seems to show johnson staring smugly at the allegations against him.

Additionally, through the intertextual references to action films, most notably confirmed through
the countdown lexis, as well as the villainess MES of Johnson clutching the glass, a narrative is
constructed where Johnson is the antagonist of the lives of the working class target. This
broadly marxist ideology is typical of a working class newspaper, and helps the working class
audience to construct their own identity.
Both images also produce a voyeuristic mode of address, positioning the audience in an
investigative and active mode of address. By piecing together the numerous headlines, copy
and pull quotes, along with the highly leading images, the audience isd encouraged to feel like
they are making their own mind up. However, the tabloid newspaper utilises a highly biased and
even manipulative mode of address to encourage the working class, left wing audience, to both
oppose the tories, and ultimately to vote labour. Perhaps making a link to the phone hacking
scandal.

The ‘personal letter’, actually an editorial guest column from leader of the opposition Kier
starmer, provides a personal mode of address, and forms a diametric opposition between
friendly Starmer, and the cold, distant, calculating Johnson. This informal lexis and address is
typical of tabloid newspapers and infers the audience are to be treated through a patronising
address.
The Times (Boris Johnson)
This newspaper is way simpler to analyse due to the fact that we don't have a double page
spread to look at. we've only got this from page but forgetting this let's start with our analysis.

The Times is a subsidiary of news Corp. which is a massive conglomerates with other
subsidiaries such as 20th century Fox. The times is regulated by ipso. The company news Corp
is known to be part of various hacking scandal such as the telephone one which took down the
news of the world it was once one of the UK's biggest newspapers. News Corp is owned by
Rupert Murdoch who is very right wing and very rich. But enough of this introduction I needed
now talk about the newspaper itself. The Times is centre-right not right wing!

The times is a right wing broadsheet newspaper targeting a middle class audience who have a
higher reading age of around 13 years old. Due to the conventions of a broadsheet newspaper,
The Times is significantly text heavy, in this case dedicating less than a third of the newspaper
to an image of Johnson.

But lets start at the top of the front cover specifically at the masthead. The masthead is covered
which suggests that the newspaper is well known and you don't need to see the whole
masthead to know what it is. This is highly conventional for longstanding newspapers. The MES
of the emblem suggests some sort of prestige and will appeal to an upper-middle class
audience with the Latin writing on it. The prestige is further emphasized through the price of the
newspaper through the use of more expensive prices for non-subscribers which means that to
save money, you ironically have to have money, meaning that there is a barrier to entry and this
emulates the feeling of high quality work with lots of fact checking, and it is well written.

Underneath the skyline there is a brightly coloured section with different plugs or puffs. for
example, on the left side, there's the MES of a middle aged weights woman who is depicted to
once it is weight. this is connoted through the proetic code of her yawning suggesting that she is
going to go to sleep or not. do any more work. this is further angered through the use of the
headline. “how to be fit do the bare minimum” the use of the complementary colour yellow with
the blue background creates a strong binary opposition between the idea of getting fits and the
idea of not wanting to do any work and suggest that if you read this magazine you will become
fit.

In fact, this brings me onto an important part of the magazine which is the colour scheme a
primarily includes black and white but also includes the colours blue and yellow in order to
create a strong contrast between the writing and the more promotional imagery. that can be
many connotations that can be seen from this. for example, this gives off a more formal and
upper middle class tones in the magazine which would appeal to the target audience. To the
right of this there is a teaser to an article about a pandemic puppy biting someone. This is very
topical for the time and adds a sense of comedy and community to the newspaper.
The layout of the newspaper is highly conventional due to using templates and there's also add
a sense of uniformity to the product. this is notable due to the fact that a audience is looking for
quality and if they find that one layout works better than they should stick with it. however, this
does mean that the newspapers tend to look for passive and perhaps a bit boring, thus pushing
away a younger audience.

Alexis in this newspaper is very notable due to the facts that it is very formal and uses the last
name of political figures which is more conventional. where is more informal newspaper such as
the daily mirror is more known to use their last name and more colloquial language. this is done
so appeal to the upper Middle class Target audience of this newspaper. this is further anchored
through the use of expensive price tags in subscription costs.

Now I will focus on what is possibly the most important part of the newspaper: the
representation of Johnson. Johnson in this is represented very similarly in this newspaper to in
the daily mirror. The MES of Johnson in this, he still has deep set sunken eyes, but in this it
could be interpreted to be that he has worked very long to try to rectify what he has done. This
guilt is further anchored through the MES of his lips being manipulated in a way that he looks
guilty. This is additionally anchored thriought the direction that his eyes are looking in; towards
the pull quote from Sue Gray lead investigative journalist. This alternative representation of
Johnson puts the blame onto Johnson rather than the Tory party as a whole, after all, it is a
centre right newspaper. Under this image is a headline which is large and serifed font. It is
putting emphasis on the “four lockdown parties” and this empesises the amount of trouble he is
in. This is further anchored through other statistics such as “dectctives examining hundreds of
photos”. “300 photos linking to the event”.

I have screen shotted further articles including at the bottom which acts as several different
teasers all appealing to different nicher audiences. For example “Vat cut is too risky”, “Migrant
crossings up…” all of these headlines are cultivating the right wing ideologies that news corp the
parent company of The Times.
The Daily Mirror (Pele edition)
Formerly Trinity Mirror and now owned by Reach PLC (horizontally integrated organisation), The
Mirror is a major company producing newspapers like the Mirror, the Express, and the Daily
Star.

Regulated by IPSO (just to stay on the same side of the law), The Mirror is horizontally
integrated. This involves acquiring companies like the Daily Express, maintaining a leading
position, reducing risks, and increasing profits. It also enables resource sharing, making it
cost-effective.

It is a red top tabloid newspaper with a circulation of around, 240000 which is massively
declined from what it was before. This is why the website is free, and instead is funded through
adverts. The print edition now costs £1.40, which makes it very expensive, and more expensive
than its competitors such as the Sun which is one of its competitors. However, it is only 88p to
subscribers should the new typical way in which media is distributed now showing how to stay
relevant they are having to change their ways. Additionally, this is a far more profitable model
because even if they don't buy the newspapers, they will still be making a passive profit.

It was originally launched as a newspaper for women in 1903.

They had scandals with Piers Morgan who made dodgy Nazi references and the phone hacking
scandal.

The newspaper is patriotic, incorporating British pop culture with references to a page about the
death of a stylist. This patriotism is reinforced by the slogan "The Heart of Britain," signifying its
significance in British society.

It is the only major left-wing tabloid newspaper in the UK.

Let's talk about the front cover, it is highly conventional of a red-top newspaper the conventional
newspaper tagine has changed from “the heart of Britain” to “Newspaper of the year”. This is
significant as they are plugging themselves in a way with no back up and this could be a
complete lie. In fact what this does is ensure to the audience that it is the best newspaper that
they could have bought no mater who they are suggesting to perhaps new readers that they
should change their newspaper loyalty to them. Towards the right is a plug and reference to one
of the pages (page 4) where Vivian Westwood's death is covered. This would cater to a fandom
who is into pop culture and punks.

The primary target audience is seen through the coverage of Peles death through the lexis of
“The best” and “divine” the headlines of which anchor the main image of Pele who takes up the
whole page. You can tell that the main target audience for this is men, and this is due to the
hierarchy seen with in the newspaper. The women get a far smaller amount of screen coverage.
However, it is still trying to portray and cater a more diverse audience through the use of
referencing football but also by representing a successful black person.

Humour is a prevalent element in The Mirror, covering amusing topics like "Blue year
resolutions," where they humorously report that over-50s plan to have more intercourse, based
on a small poll. This humour adds to the newspaper's informality, appealing further to a
working-class, lower reading age audience. I find this a vital point of reference if answering this
question, as it is memorable and funny.

The light news in the tabloid far overreaches the hard news which is only seen on one double
page spread through the use of coverage about people “ignoring the danger” fear of Chinese
commuters bringing the virus over. The simple and bold typeface creates a very simple read
which targets the audience perfectly through the use of simple and informal language.

The appeal doesn't just end at the amusing stories and the mix with serious stories doesn't stop
there, but there are games included and premium lines which you can call for various things
such as lottery numbers.
The Times (Pele edition)
Owned by News Corp, a conglomerate with subsidiaries like 20th Century Fox, The Times is
regulated by IPSO. Despite IPSO's inefficiencies, The Times, part of a powerful conglomerate,
has faced scandals like the telephone hacking scandal.

Owned by Rupert Murdoch, a republican donor with right-wing leanings, The Times claims a
centrist political view. It employs various journalists, often staying on the edge of the law to stay
interesting, generating controversy that attracts readers.

The Times targets a middle-class audience with a higher reading age, leaning towards the right
wing. As a broadsheet newspaper, it has fewer images. Their website, with games like Wordle,
is behind a paywall, offering a premium service to attract a more engaged audience.
The shift to online news allows for more audience interaction, with comments and discussions.
However, regulation is challenging, often relying on algorithms that struggle with context,
leading to controversies and offensive comments. Print news circulation is declining, with a
move towards online platforms.

Explain how media producers attract an audience. Refer to a print edition of the Times to
support your answers [12]

Headline story “strike costs will force unions to climbdown” takes an anti-union perspective
which reinforces the right wing ideology and perspective of the newspaper which reflects their
ideology to the target audience. Audiences are able to pick and mix their identity and by allying
them selves against them.

The formal lexis of the times is seen through out this edition. For example “ministers resist covid
curbs” uses broadly technical language to discuss a complicated international news story.

The intrusive selection of an image of a pro cannabis protenter cultivates the ideological value
that recreational use of cannabis is bad. This belief will resonate with conservative audiences,
and clearly reflects Murdoch’s conservative and anti-drug agenda.

A broadsheet works through taking a far more sophisticated mode of address, using
sophisticated lexis and resisting colloquialisms and small photos. The font of the masthead is an
excellent example, with its subtly serif bold typography, anchored throug the use of its formal
and even conservative crest which reflects the long established values of the newspaper .
The brand idenritrty of the time is its most important selling point and audiences will buy it every
day as ut consistatncy meets their expectations and cultivates their ideologies and worldview.

There is a subscription offer, which is cheaper for those with it. It is only £2 pounds for
subscribers rather than £2.50. This encourages audiences to save money which appeals to
conservative values. It also encourages to financially support the times, and therefore

apparently takes ownership of it.

 Music Videos

Formation: Beyoncé (2016)

Introduction to Formation

This music video has the perfect utilisation of binary oppositions, allowing everyone to
interoperate the media product in different ways. These binary oppositions create multiple
meanings. Scenes are directly pulled from the documentary That BEAT.

Antebellum dresses

The MES of Young black children running around points to the fact that it is now better for young
black people and creates a nonlinear narrative where these issues are still prevalent but not
quite as bad as they used to be.

The newspaper reference to Martin Luther King Jr draws attention to racial discrimination and
highlights the past and the present. Creates a binary opposition from the past and the future.

“Jackson 5 nose”

Messy Maya at the start who was shot dead, still not resolved.

“Oh yes I like that” - Big Freedia, she is not trans and is male but uses she/her pronouns,
repressive of queer communities and all minority groups. Also she is very famous so it's like
name dropping and also allows audiences to engage with the music video bringing some
exclusive gratification to different audiences.

The wig shop

“Stop shooting us” Racial discrimination and BLM

But before I dive into how this is done through a combination of media language, I want to give
some context. A music video is a perfect example of digital convergence (the coming together of
two previously separate industries with the use of digital technologies). Music combined with
videos was first popularised with MTV and through technologies such as the internet, music
videos have only become more prevalent and is more or less a standard to help sell music.

The producer chooses to represent a large variety of social groups, helping the media product
to appeal to as large of an audience as possible, therefore maximising profit, and minimising
risk. However, stereotypes are used, and also opposed in order to create a complex mode of
address, where audience are free to negotiate their own meaning.

Examples that you need to refer to while answering the question.

This is only a very small thing, but I think it is worth a mention. Parental advisory became very
popular in the early 2000s when there was lots of fear that music, especially music with vulgar
language was making children violent and was encoring things such as satanic worship.
However, almost all the mainstream popular songs, got given this label and warning, therefore
making it synonymous with good music. The time in which this started coming about is anchored
thought the MES of a CRT monitor.
The MES of Beyonce perching on the top of a police car as it starts sinking is connotative of her
asserting her dominance over the police and it is a statement that through disasters and times
before civilisation there were no police and perhaps the world was better off for it additionally it
creates a hyper realistic world where a black woman is the person in power. The MES of the
flood is a reference to the New Orleans floods which displaced many people and it could be a
symbol to how the police are drowning them self in bad people. This is further reinforced by the
colour-scheme of the blue water matching with the blue of the police. It suggests that it kills
people and is prevent, and has caused lasting damage.

I want to talk about the sampling that has occurred at the start of the music video. It is a famous
YouTuber called Messi Maya who says “what happened in the New Orlines” and was shot dead
at a party. Sampling his voice is an intertextual reference, and also links to her themes to
violence against black people. However, she was sued for sampling this, so could show lack of
respect as she didn't get permission from their family. This perhaps acts as a reference to the
genre of music Bounce which is very popular in New Orleans as it is part of lots of parties.
This nicely leads me onto the next screenshot, which is directly lifted from a documentary about
Bounce music and was taken without permission. This was part of a great controversy and
seemed very insensitive. But it could also be seen as free promotion for the documentary. The
representation of a young black man in the MES of a rundown shack is pretty stereotypical as
far as representations of black people go. However, it opposes this negative stereotype through
the beat matched editing and the dancing. Additionally, the fact that he doesn't have his shirt on
creates a personal and even voyeuristic mode of address where it feels like we are intruding on
this person's private moments where they are dancing to them self. Perhaps this is also done in
order to make the music more relatable to one of the primary target audiences, as they are also
going to enjoy this music alone and perhaps even dance by them self.
Riptide
Vance Joy - 'Riptide' Official Video

Riptide is a song by Vance Joy, and it quickly gained mass market appeal due to several
reasons such as accessibility on several platforms such as YouTube. By May 2015, it was the
second longest charting single. This popularity only got accelerated through social media
platforms such as music.ly.

The accompanying music video was released in the same year on YouTube and currently has
565 million views. This has an estimated revenue alone of $1 million showing just how profitable
this song was.

The song was accepted by many audiences and was even covered by artists such as Taylor
Swift.

The music video is a good example of digital convergence, as it is the coming together of film
and music. In the end the music video is an advertisement to sell the music video, so the budget
for the music video won’t be the highest and this is reflected through the fact that there are a
lack of famous actors and I, for one, couldn't tell you who anyone is. Not even Vance Joy is in it.

The producers of the music video have chosen a rather simplistic approach in the content of the
recording, where it quite literally depicts what is in the lyrics. However, they have opted to keep
his interest by using strong intertextual references to pop culture such as James Bond and Wes
Anderson. It is entering a stream of consciousness, which doesn't make sense, however, the
music in addition to the video creates synergy where all his freinds are only looking for
materialistic things, and he is chasing the love of someone who is trying to be famous, however,
this fame will bring her to darkness. The reason for the smudged face is the fear of her loosing
love for him. She is dying from him being accidently controlling.

Ok so I mentioned intertextual references, but you might be

asking where this James Bond one is first seen where there is
first the lexis of “I was scared of pretty girls” and this is quite
literally accompanied by the MES of a lady in undressing from
her swimming costume. This is a clear reference to the “victim”
that is commonly seen in James Bond movies. Additionally, this
acts a spectacle for the male gaze theory, as this is depicting a
hegemonically attractive woman and other women who have
the same characteristics (blond hair and white).
​
Another intertextual reference that I mention is Wes Anderson.
This is seen through the employment of subtitles where they are
used to miss translated words, “she's got a lump in her through cuz she's singing the words
wrong”. However, the use of this, though it adds more to the video, decreases the accessibility
for the music video as they had to disable the use of closed captions in favour of having this
small niche. This was accompanied through the MES of a woman continuously singing the
words more and more wrong. Accompanied by this is the MES of her makeup getting
continuously more and more smudged. This acts as a reference to the mistreatment of women
in Hollywood and the entertainment industry.

OK! So now I have explained the intertextual references… What now? Well, I will be taking
random scenes from the music video and MEMORISING them!! I know it's scary. I will be
focusing on different parts of it such as the MES, the references, the lyrics of the song at that
time. Most importantly, I will be trying to talk about every relevant theorist in each section. So
that would be media language and representation, theorists.

1. Compare how the representations of gender in this poster and the Riptide music video
convey values and attitudes. [30]

In your answer you must:

• consider the similarities in how representations of gender convey values and attitudes

• consider the differences in how representations of gender convey values and attitudes
• make judgements and draw conclusions about how far the representations of gender relate to
social contexts.

Both media products produce a representation where

women are vulnerable victims and men as the assumed
violent protagonist. Not only is this a typical convention of
the horror films, but it also reinforces patriarchal
hegemonic conventions.

Male gaze theory

Blue high key lighting
Spotlight
The use of high key lighting connotes pressure on women
in society, and their visibility under the male gaze.
Additionally, through the anchorage of The Joker
clutching Lady Gaga, an ideology is also constructed
where women are reliant on the protection of a man
However, in both texts, a complex relationship between
both men and women and mental health is constructed,
where violent representations of men are confirmed
through representations of mental health crisis
Madness
Super Villain
Women represented as a performer through a combination of outfit codes, microphones,
spotlifths.
Victims
spotlight
Creepy
unconventional
Gender Performativity
Harley Quin could be a role model to other women
Symbolic annihilation of people of colour

Riptide
Digitally convergent media
Over 500 million views on youtube meaning that it is mainstream
Women represented as a performer through a combination of outfit codes, microphones,
spotlifths.
Lisbet vanzoonen argues that women are used as a spectacle for heterosexual males:
hegemonically attractive women, hegemonically attractive who are played and presented
interchangeably representing all women as the same, creating a stereotype.

Could represent the universal experience of women in a patriarchal hegemonic society,

therefore presenting a sense of unity for all women and therefore a feminist ideology.
While the female characters in Riptide are underdeveloped and interchangeable we can still
make sense of their background and personalities through intertextual relay. This is where you
expect something from a media product due to the other things that you have seen. This allows
producers to make significant shortcuts when producing media products , as they can
completely avoid any anchorage and will only rely on the assumptions of the audience. However
in doing so this ends up crudely reinforcing stereotypes and perhaps inadvertently reinforcing
patriarchal hegemony.

An excessive amount of hermeneutic codes constantly asking questions of the audience, forcing
them to come up with their own conclusion, however, this is actually just done for power and
profit.

Additionally the use of hermeneutic codes within the video encourages re-watching therefore for
the audience to engage with the video over and over, and therefore ensure financial profit.
Cultivating the ideologies of the music video, therefore maybe cultivating the wrong ideologies,
defeating the point of its cynical and polysemic meanings.

Heavy iconography of horror films : forest setting Knife stabbing into the hand, running, crashing
dramatic “riptites” Crying, being tied to a tree, clear torture, Being pulled away, high contrast with
dark shaddows chairscuro. Exploration and being nervous. CU of women being dental tortured,
CU of scared woman with smudged lipstick with strange hand clutching her. Ouiji board.
Positioning as a starker. Voyeuristic and vulnerable representation of changing women.
Graveyard setting.

Hyper Realistic representation of women in a variety of different time periods encodes the
ideology that the miss-treatment has been going on for a long time.
​
Reference to non-existent films (velocity) constructs a terrifying alternate reality and a hyper-real
simulacrum.
​
The entire video constructs a highly postmodern address where nothing means anything and
the world is extremely confusing. This could be mixed with the idea that gender changes over
time and that we could never understand gender and why people choose to do these bad
things. In this video the representation of woman is sttraighfroward, even if the plot is confusing.
Ultimately the video conveys that the world is meaningless, nothing makes sense and theres no
such thing as reality. Causing the audience to stand with the phisilosphical standpoint, there fore
enchorages engagement and ultimately for money.
 Video games
Assassin's Creed
Assassin’s Creed is made by a French company called Ubisoft, established in 1986. It is a
vertically and horizontally integrated conglomerate. Toxicity comes around when there is such a
big company that has been around for such a long time. A number of sexual assault allegations
have been made against Ubisoft employees, and they are known to be part of the crunch
industry where workers are expected to work very long hours in order to meet deadlines, many
times without overtime being paid. They have made around 27 different Assassin's Creed
games. This is all with-in a less than 20-year span. This clearly means that they have no
creativity and people haven't even played the games all the way through till the new game is
released, so no one buys it. In short, people are getting bored with Assassin’s Creed games.

Ubisoft makes about 6 AAA games a year, this is a LOT and very expensive, which means that
Ubisoft need to change if they want to last as a company.

What is an AAA game. It is the equivalent to a blockbuster but for video games. Video games is
a very specialised industry and contains uniques production. Key steps in AAA game
development include concept creation [e.g. concept art, concept music, event planning, casting,
game design], pre-production, asset creation, level design, programming, testing, polishing, and
release.

Assassin's Creed Mirage, the latest Assassin's Creed, does things a bit different because of this
decline. For example, it creates strong intertextual hybridity to successful games and franchises
such as Aladdin and Price of Persia. It combines different generic genres such as stealth
elements and exploration.
​
This game seems to have a stronger focus on gameplay rather than story. This takes in a lot of
people's feedback and follows the tried of declining attention spans and being about to sell more
games for less money. This strongly aligns to the older games, therefore not only does it appeal
to an older fanbase, but also appeals to a larger audience due to a reduced commitment
needed to complete the games. This shows how it minimises risk, and maximises profit.

This game could be seen as massively harmful to many audiences, including scenes of murder,
toxic gasses, sex, strong language, and detailed weapons. The board who rate games are a lot
more vague than the BBFC, they still regulate games due to them having cutscenes. However,
they are regulated through the use of the PEGI (Pan European Game Information) system. It is
pretty useless as parents can just buy them for their kids and also there are online stores who
don't check your age.
Another Assassin’s Creed to talk about is Assassin’s Creed redemption. It initially came out on
the PS Vita, a hand held console, and then later it came out on all different consoles which
appeals to a larger audience. Along with this is better graphics and also DLC’s to help appeal to
other audiences.

Video game’s and any media with violence in it has always created controversy. For example,
DOOM 1993 came out, and it sent out a big moral panic. Alongside this came out the effects
model, which is the idea that audiences are passive, and they are directly influenced by media,
for example if a game involves violence, you will be violent. But this is all pretty silly because the
test was with children and a punching bag, who wouldn’t punch it? That's what it's for…

Reception theory is the best theory for video games, even better than theory of cultivation,
as it suggests that audience negotiate the ideology that is said by someone else.
Socioeconomic circumstances can influence the decoding of the media product.

I will now focus on Henry Jenkins' and Clay Shirky's theories and how they apply to the
Assassin's Creed franchise.

Jenkin's theory revolves around fandom – a situation where audiences become so dedicated to
a particular show or media product that they engage in various activities related to it. Fans often
base parts of their personalities on the media products they consume, and they express their
devotion by participating in online discussions, creating fan art, writing fan fiction, and much
more.

Shirky's theory centres on digital convergence technology, enabling individuals to function as

both consumers and producers. With tools such as comment sections, blogs, vlogs, and meme
generators at our fingertips, everyone can contribute to the ongoing conversation surrounding
popular culture. Of course, sceptics argue that audiences have been "producing" unofficial
promotional material since time immemorial; however, the scope and scale offered by modern
technology cannot be ignored.

Now, let me provide some examples of active audience engagement within the context of
Assassin's Creed:

Assassins Kittens:

●​ How does this fan-made product enable fans to delve deeper into their beloved
franchise? The video offers a unique take on Assassin's Creed by incorporating comedy
and cuteness while retaining elements of the original audio. As a result, viewers
experience the familiar universe differently, potentially sparking new interests and ideas.
●​ How does Ubisoft profit from fans creating this type of content? Content creators
essentially advertise Assassin's Creed to potential gamers, suggesting that playing the
 game might yield similar thrills. Additionally, the entertaining content generates buzz,
attracting attention to the overall brand.
●​ Why would someone invest time and effort into making such a piece if they already
appreciate the franchise? There could be multiple reasons—growing one’s YouTube
channel, fostering creativity, connecting with others over shared passions, etc.
●​ What interaction opportunities arise among fans thanks to this creation? Viewer
comments and reactions lead to conversations centred on the content itself, allowing
users to bond over mutual appreciation. Moreover, inspired fans might generate
derivative works, expanding upon existing themes or introducing fresh angles.
●​ How does this product cater to its target audience's desires? By offering engaging
visuals and sound bites, it meets spectators' expectations for dynamic entertainment
without requiring them to purchase and complete lengthy gaming sessions. Conversely,
this might reduce incentives for prospective customers to buy the actual game.

The Legacy of Assassins:

●​ This fan-made trailer adapts the Assassin's Creed narrative for a non-playable format,
permitting viewers to immerse themselves vicariously. The condensed runtime appeals
to broader demographics, including those unwilling or unable to commit hours to the
full-length game.
●​ Similar to Assassins Kittens, Ubisoft enjoys complimentary advertising via increased
visibility and word-of-mouth promotion generated by enthusiastic supporters. Expanded
viewership leads to higher sales, ultimately benefiting the company financially.
●​ Creators might seek recognition or career advancements in fields related to videography,
storyboarding, acting, directing, et cetera. Collaborative projects offer valuable
experiences for aspiring professionals eager to establish connections and expand skill
sets.
●​ Enthusiasts can share opinions, interpretations, and critiques regarding the adaptation,
thus strengthening community ties. Furthermore, spinoffs or alternate continuity stories
emerge organically from passionate communities, enriching the source material and
encouraging user investment.
●​ As mentioned earlier, abbreviated formats grant wider accessibility, inviting newcomers
unfamiliar with the series to sample curated highlights before diving head first into
complex narratives and mechanics.

Literal Pony's Creed: Sisterhoof:

●​ This amusing parody combines two seemingly disparate universes, generating laughter
and intrigue among followers of either property. Cross-pollination introduces each
respective fandom to novel perspectives, thereby widening horizons and stimulating
curiosity.
●​ Just as with previous entries, Literal Pony's Creed serves as guerrilla marketing for both
brands. Exposure to millions of viewers increases awareness, leading to incremental
 revenue streams derived from merchandising deals, licensing agreements, sponsorship
contracts, et alia.
●​ Creators indulge in satire and witty banter, appealing to fellow aficionados while
simultaneously lampooning tropes associated with each domain. Such endeavours
require dedication and expertise, culminating in highly sharable productions capable of
captivating diverse audiences.
●​ Users tap into pre-existing creative networks established across platforms like
DeviantArt, Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook Groups, Discord Servers, and
countless others. These hubs facilitate collaborations, brainstorming sessions, beta
testing phases, feedback loops, and constructive criticism essential for nurturing talent
and honing craftsmanship.
●​ Satirical pieces resonate deeply with viewers seeking escapes from reality, providing
temporary relief during challenging times. Emotional connection drives demand for
additional instalments, fuelling cycles of continuous consumption sustained by
grassroots support.
 Radio

Have You Heard George's Podcast (HYHGP)

HYHGP is a podcast that is funded and aired by and on BBC radio. The consistency of the
upload schedule is very rare and plays on different radios when there is time. A podcast is a
prerecorded audio recoding. HYHGP is produced by George The Poet. His episodes utilized a
various mix of storytelling, poetry, music and fiction. It is funded through the public through a TV
licence, and this means that it has no advertisement.

Political background can greatly affect how audiences can interpret the show. The show
demonstrates a left wing ideological perspective, as demonstrated through criticism of the Tory
government and progressive views on how to change society.

There are around 50 different episodes to this date and each are different and unique but all
clearly target an educated young audience, around the age of 16 – 18. This is shown through its
acclaim for its engaging mix of drama, music poetry and intelligent discussion of social issues. It
won the Peabody award and was the first outside the USA to do so.

The BBC’s ethos is to have something for everyone. This is a clear example of this as it is niche
and yet has a large audience. George The Poet is known to mix London slang with more
“highbrow” and educated language in one which targets an audience to who may have the
same type of aspect and additionally adds a sense of humanity to George fulfilling both the
social and educational aspect of the uses and gratification theory.

Curran and Seaton argue that the purpose of a media industry is purely for power and profit.
This model of a TV licence for funding completely contradicts this theory through the fact that
they fund shows that literally only a couple of people watch. However, this does reduce the
amount of budget that each show or product receives. However, making reference to Clay
Shriky’s end of audience theory, due to digital convergence and phones everyone can be a
producer. This is backed up through this show through the clear production choice of recording
the podcast on the go.

Grenfell Episode
The Grenfell Tower was a 24-story-high rise building that burnt down in 2017 following an
electrical fault. 72 people died in the tragedy, making it the single worst residential building fire in
the UK since WWII. This is strongly due to the lack of safety and the deliberate ignorance of the
government and shone a stronger light n the poor living standards of living of working class
people in the inner city areas, who are often disproportionately represented by ethnic minority
groups.
The Grenfell Tower fire is a tragedy, a political issue, a social issue, a cultural issue, and draws
sharp attention to postcolonial attitudes towards people of colour.
Believe it or not this is very controversial, and we can view this episode in a multitude of ways
and this is due to reception theory and different audience negotiations. Audience negotiations
are affected through a variety of different things, such as social and economic circumstances.

This episode is interesting, emotive, depressing sand and distressing. It is provocative and
proactive standing up for what George believes in and is in a very serious tone. However, it is
not true. It is based off of true events, and that is just the fact that the event actually happened.
This could be read to create a very voyeuristic mode of address, where it's positioning the
audience in an intruding mode of address. It’s intruding on the people whose lives were effected
by it. This would create an oppositional reading, and it could be strongly argued that it takes
away from the event through this hyperrealistic story. This could cause some audiences to start
numbing towards these tragedies and disconnect them from reality. In fact, this is a very real
problem where people get easily desensitised through the fictional mode of address. This is
further anchored through use of the lexis: “I want you to imagine you’re in a cinema’, engaging
the audience purely through language, and using familiar imagery. A deeply postmodern mode
of address that creates immersion. Links all the podcasts together, and constructs his own
series of conventions and heightens the emotional impact for the target audiences but also
heightens the intrusiveness and miss information that could come about with it. It could feel like
he is clout chasing and is just using it to gain more listeners.

However, this isn’t necessarily be true, and the oppositional reading would be more-likely
interpreted through the people who have been through a traumatic event of have been effected
by an event like this. But a reading that would strongly align with this episode would people who
haven’t experienced something like this. A fictional representation of someone who suffered
from the catastrophe forces this audience to face issues that they may be ignorant to. By telling
a human story, the audience is positioned in as one of these people who have lost someone.

The message, moral or ideology is not imaginably clear and this is due to the explicit anchorage
forces the audiences to come up with their own interpretations. Due to this it takes a very
unpolitical standpoint and seems to just be laying out the “facts” (even though this story is
fiction).

Drama in Ghana and Francophone episodes:

He has started to split it into more digestible chunks. He analyses song lyrics. Historical. He
talks about how Ghana was the first place to have independence after all the colonies. 1957. He
says how it must have felt like heaven.

George talks about it almost like he is talking to his children, but still as equals. I don't think
there is much controversy in this, as it is very many just facts about what happened. However, it
is still quite hard hitting. This targets a quite niche audience as it doesn’t perform much
escapism, rather just makes people face the truth and what actually happened and it.

However, he helps appeal this podcast to a wider audience through the constant use of music
introducing new genres and cultural music to everyone and this is especially good as mentioned
in Francophone episode he talks about music and how it's only really English-speaking
musicians do well and this speaks directly to the post-colonial theory, Francophone means a
place that speaks French. This is because of the colonies. Acorn sounds American, he has an
American accent which make sit appealing for English-speaking places. George is talking baout
issues.

It is a very complex exploration of African identity.

Audience positioning

One excellent example of an opportunity for audience interaction can be found on the Common
Ground website, a non BBC affiliated website website that is less to promote the podcast than
provide fans ways of interacting with it. Powered by Chat GTP, the website uses digitally
convergent media to directly address the audience as George in ways not previously possible.
Through answering a series of questions, the audience are able to interact with and discover
facts about George, which allows the audience to form a parasocial relationship with George
that would not be possible with old media. From a stereotypical perspective, younger audiences
are more likely to engage with digitally convergent media, and George provides the young,
potentially black target audience with a range of further resources to explore. Henry Jenkins
argues that audiences are increasingly actively engaging with media products, and this is a
fantastic example of fandom. However beyond this, Common Ground serves another purpose.
Younger demographics are far less likely to listen to radio, and therefore websites like Common
Ground allow for a larger and more diverse audiences to reached, by using digital tech to
provide active audience responses
Component 1 questions and answers
Representation

Question 1 is based on both of the following:

• the audio-visual resource: an extract from the music video, Viktoria Modesta - Prototype

• the set advertisement you have studied: Super. Human

Compare how this music video extract and the advertisement for Supper. Human represent
social groups. [30]

In your answer, you must:

• consider the similarities and differences in how social groups are represented

• consider how stereotypes can be used positively and negatively

• make judgements and draw conclusions about how far the representations reflect social and
cultural contexts.

Both media products aim to subvert and create new, unconventional representations of people
with disabilities. In both of the texts they choose to empower people with disabilities, however,
with one strong difference, Super. Human does so through the use of normalising and
humanising the people with disabilities, whereas prototype decides to go with the popular genre
of Anti-Hero fiction.

Plan
Unconventional
Stereotypes
Empowering
Normalisation
Forget what you know about disabilities
Intertextual references to hunger games
Symbolic references
Totalitarianism
Hyper sexualisation
Demonisation of disabilities
Polysemic representation of women in Prototype
Realistic representation in Super. Human
Role model
Male gaze theory
Super. Human represents disabled people as people, whereas Prototype represents people with
disabilities as different, but aspirationally different.
Binary oppositions
Representation of doctors
Thrown like imagery
Symbolic intertextual links to katy pary and different popsongs
Beat matched editing

Representation is the way in which a producer re-constructs a social group through the use of
encoding their ideology, which is then decoded by the audience and interpreted, influenced
through social and cultural contexts. In this essay, I will argue that both media products aim to
subvert and create new, unconventional representations of people with disabilities. However,
with one strong difference, Super. Human does so through the use of normalising and
humanising the people with disabilities, whereas prototype decides to go with the popular genre
of Anti-Hero fiction. Both these texts were made by Channel 4 whose aim is to represent and
give a voice to the unrepresented. Super. Human is an advert for the Tokyo Olympic 2020
games, which actually happened in 2021 due to covid, which means that there are hints to covid
throughout the advert.

P1 Opening scene and the representation of doctors

P2 Lisbet Van Zoonen feminist theory of the male gaze and how Super. Human doesnt conform
wher eas Protoype does to conform and disrupt

P3 MES of training sequence montage.

P4 The use of archive footage and beat matching vs the references to old cartoon
propeguander and art

P5 The use of role models in a potentially harming effect

P6 the representation of men vs women

Conclusion They both subvert expectations of people with disabilties in order to re-represent
them in a newlgiht and empower people with disabilities.
 Television
Black Mirror
First we will look at San Junipero. San Junipero sounds a lot like San Pedro which is a
psychedelic cacti taken by native Americans, perhaps forming a referential code towards the
fact that this is a strong simulacra which is almost spiritual in life after death. In our response we
want to explore how it actively encourages the audience negotiation, and this is strongly due to
its strongly polysemic meanings. This negotiation allows a truly niche audience to engage with
the complex media product.

EPISODIC ANTHOLOGY!!

When the switch occurs to real life the roles switch, Kelly is the protagonist or who we are
positioned with, and Yorkie is being chased. However Yorkie is more or less like a catfish due to
the fact she she is in a coma. Perhaps forming a binary opposition and outlining the difference
between the steroetypical man and steroetypical woman as women are displayed to be more
compassionate than men.

There are five scenes here which we have studied which can be explored to answer this
question: The opening scene, the dress-up scene, the sex scene, the argument scene and the
closing montage.

The opening scene.

We are instantly bombarded with colour. The MES of the calm water reflecting the lights in the
water, creates a star like sky which forms a binary opposition with the actual sky, which has a
lack of them. This sets us up with the strong binary opposition between everyone and Yorkie,
but most notably, Kelly and Yorkie.
Then a fade transition brings us the MES of the grey, Tucker’s bar which instantly creates the
atmosphere that it is boring. The only sense of life is the blue, from the contemporary neon
lighting which was popular in the 1980s when the simulation is set. The reason for this is to
match the bar with Yorkie, as she is presented as boring, and nerdy, in comparison with Kelly,
who is representative of the Quagmires which is also completely out of Yorkie’s comfort zone.
During this transition there is a poster for The Lost Boys, creating inter-textual relay towards the
film and also creating subtle symbolic references to the fact that they are the living dead as TLB
is a film about vampires and death. Additionally it could also be seen as more of an introduction
for Yorkie, as the film is also about “weirdos” and as she is out of place in SJ it connects. But
this is very subtle, meaning that only a niche audience will notice this poster, and even know
what it is about. The MES of a person wearing a pink and white stripy shirt is what Yorkie quickly
adopts, as she is trying to fit in more and seem more fashionable. This also creates a binary
opposition with the MES of Yorkie’s blue and white jumper.

There is a tracking shot which follows Yorkie’s experiencing this simulated world for the first
time.

Preferred Reading

Audience's, especially those who have travelled abroad and have experienced culture shock will
identity with Yorkie's Alienation, and through being positioned with her, we are able to emphasis
with her situation. Not only will people who have travelled before be able to relate to this, but so
will the queer community, and any minority group, as this all follows feelings of alienation of
being in a stereotypically, American, predominately white, heterosexual environment.

Negotiated Reading

However, some people may be put off by her seemingly hostile mannerisms, for example she is
very stereotypically nerdy in the opening scene and she refuses to interact with a “fellow nerd”
as she is too busy with trying to talk to Kelly. Some people may see the romance of her following
her into the club just for her a bit creepy, however it is also very cliché and conventional for the
romance genre. Some people in older generations, who actually lived during the 1980s, who
know what it was like to live then, the poverty and the political situation. However they may also
like the way in which the hyper-real representations of the club is constructed to make it
nostalgic.

Oppositional Reading

Some people may just find it annoying and disagree with the cliché theme of being alienated
and left out because of how you look, even through you are also alienating others. For example
she completely ignores the other “nerd” and refuses to talk to him. They also may say that the
setting of a club in America is not a suitable setting for this to be taking place as it is highly over
used.
The dress-up scene – Written in a more of a mix-match of paragraphs rather than
different headings.

This scene is a montage of dress up sequences with inter-textual references which introduces
inter-textual relay to audiences who are well versed with countfrom the 80s such as the break
fast club (reference in the second sequence, with the pink outfit and facial expression of biting
lips, this is a reference to the transformation of the nerdy character to make her hegemonic-ally
attractive). This is coupled with the song choice “Don’t you forget about me” as she doesn’t want
Kelly to for get about her. This is of course also the preferred reading, they producer wants the
audience to relate to her with trying to impress someone in order to keep them around. However
a negotiated reading of this could be that it is also trying to say that she doesn’t want her family
to forget about her when she dies, she clearly doesn’t have any friends, so she will just be
forgotten, that may be why she is clinging so hardly onto the relations ship, so perhaps it could
be seen as both. But an oppositional reading would be that she does want to be forgotten by her
family as she doesn’t want to be remembered by her family any more as this would mean that
she would be free, therefore meaning that being forgotten is what she wants.

Preferred reading is that people are attractive show they feel comfortable to look, it is important
to explore areas of your self that you may not find comfortable, but ultimately if it isn’t who you
actually are, then don’t force it. A negotiated reading is that being unseen is what she wants,
and is actually seen by a few people, how ever, she is still in fashionable clothing, and she is
hegemonic-ally attractive, the message is there, but it doesn’t apply to her as she suits what
ever she wears. The oppositional reading is that she is just pretty, and that it isn’t true, people
are bullied in what they wear and how they identify, the cliché of just being your self is boring
and unoriginal.

Sex scene
The MES of the picture of Kellys mother creates a nurturing mode of address, one with
compassion and unconditional love. The love that Yorkie craves and is willing to give to kelly.
The slight compassion coming from “miss your mom” from Yorkie positions Kelly in a vulnerable
state one in which she is not ready to discus with her yet. After all, she is still clearly not wanting
a relationship. This also forms a binary opposition with the proetic code of Kelly widening her
eyes and not blinking while looking at Yorkie. This portrays women in an unconventional light,
and perhaps portrays Kelly in a stereotypical “Butch” or “masculine” approach where she is
refusing to show her emotion so is finding ways to cope with her pain. This is also a hint to her
commitment issues; she is escaping her pain through means such as sex and she doesnt want
to stay with someone. It is suggested that Kelly is just going to use Yorkie like she did the other
people that she has slept with with the proetic and symbolic code of holding their face. She does
this with both Yorkie and the previous partner that we saw. This only further emphasizes the
“masculine” role in which Kelly takes in their relationship.

The non-diegetic emphasises in the background create an aerie yet nostalgic feeling. The mix of
minor keys mixed with major keys positions the audience in a relatable mode of address of
feeling anxious yet excited. She has never had this opportunity and it is a hyper-realistic
representation of how it would happen. The MES of the surroundings only further emphesize
this through the use of low-key cold lighting creates a binary opposition of the warm homely
lighting of just a couple of moments before when their first proper kiss occurs. Perhaps the blue
lighting is a symbolic and refrerential code to the fact that they are more or less dead and that
they are coming back to life through means of this computer simulation. The coldness of the
lights show how realistic that it may feel, however, the whole situation is controlled by the main
players, Yorkie and the audience.

Infact there are many inpracticalities with what they are doing, Yorkie still has her glasses on
and the whispering creates a stereotypical and conventional mode of address for a sex scene
where everthing flows nicely. This is further anchored through the use of the MES of the water
waves crashing symbolising an orgasm, another strong and recognisable symbole that all
audiences will be able to understand. Further more the fact taht Kelly has more experience and
is ontop, showing Yorkie how to do everything, further reinforces this still patriarchal heirarchie
that is in place, who ever is more masculine is in power. This perfectly encapsulates the idea
that gender changes overtime and men and women are represented differently in media.
However this time, it isnt using biological gender, or even gender at all it is showing how it is a
scale and is very unconventional.

Argument scene

This scene shows how deep and highly complex the representation of women is in black mirror.
It plays with concepts such as gender performance and it strongly utilises the theory that what it
is to be female or male changes over time. In fact I strongly believe that in this episode of Black
Mirror that what it is to be a woman goes through an arc very similar to the equilibrium theory. At
the start we are introduced to what it means to be a women, then this is quickly disturbed
through Yokie meeting Kelly, then the the new equilibrium is them being together and having
had sex. Of course this is only one of the many equilibrium, and dis-equilibriums in the show.
One of the most notable dis-equilibriums being this argument scene which is then resolved
through the next scene where Kelly chooses to pass over.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves, and let's start with a bit of context to this scene. This scene
takes place a decent amount time after the sex scene which has formed a strong connection
between Yorkie and Kelly, at least the audience, who are positioned with Yorkie feel that way
(this one-sidedness is anchored through the facts why Kelly avoids Yorkie). In this scene Yorkie
wants Kelly to “Pass over” with her and essentially kill herself to live forever in this simulacra.
However, this brings up some trauma in Kelly as she wants to rest with her husband who
refused to pass over due to their dead daughter not having the choice. This poses a very strong
moral question to the audience, is it fair to go into a simulation like this? What if you just avoid
an after life in this way? However this question brings on a slap from Kelly, suggesting she is
taking in the stereotypically male representation which shows signs of repression further
anchored through the lexis of “49 years … the boredom, the yearning, the love… the sacrifice”
The pain which has been carried by her through the death of her husband is just contradicted
through Yorkie accusing her husband for being selfish.

The dress code of the white dresses reminds the audience that they just got married for the
practical reason for her to be euthanized, and this poses another tricky question that everyone
would just be waiting and looking forward to dying. The dress code also constructs the idea of
avatars and the idea that they get to choose exactly how they look and literally shows their
gender performance.

The scene where Kelly crashes suggests her recklessness and also suggests the emotions in
which she feels are as strong as Yorkies when she tries to kill herself. This construction is a
symbolic relay to the fact it's all a game, it doesn't really make sense. Is real life just a game?

This anchored with the previous lexis “it's not so kind to leave” of Yorkie to Kelly shows how both
of them have toxic tendencies, however, Kelly's ploy of running away doesn't work as they are in
a simulation and she can't really escape Yorkie forcing her to confront her commitment issues
and work over trauma. This is both a confusing and poly-semic mode of address with many
different references and codes which are vital in the audiences positioning themselves and
looking up to whichever character they want. In the end it constructs an unconventional,
complex and real representation of women.

Summery

**San Junipero** from *Black Mirror* offers a rich, polysemic narrative that encourages audience
engagement through its layered meanings and complex storytelling. The episode draws on
references like the name "San Junipero," which hints at spiritual and psychedelic experiences
akin to the effects of the San Pedro cactus. This highlights the episode's theme of life after
death in a simulated reality.

**Episodic Anthology Structure:**

The narrative switches between the simulated world and real life, positioning Kelly as the
protagonist in the real world and Yorkie as the catfish-like character in a coma, emphasizing
binary oppositions and gender stereotypes.

**Scenes Analysis:**

1. **Opening Scene:**

- The vibrant MES (mise-en-scène) with calm water reflecting lights contrasts with the actual
sky, setting up a binary opposition between Yorkie and others, especially Kelly.

- Tucker’s bar, with its grey, boring atmosphere, juxtaposes Yorkie’s nerdiness against Kelly’s
confident personality.

- A poster of *The Lost Boys* subtly connects to themes of being out of place and living dead,
appealing to niche audiences.

**Audience Readings:**

- Preferred: Viewers relate to Yorkie’s alienation, especially those with similar experiences of
culture shock or minority status.

- Negotiated: Some may find Yorkie's mannerisms off-putting or see her actions as clichéd
romance tropes.

- Oppositional: Others may be annoyed by the overused themes of alienation or the club
setting.

2. **Dress-Up Scene:**
 - The montage includes intertextual references to 80s films like *The Breakfast Club*,
underscoring Yorkie’s desire to fit in and impress Kelly.

- The song "Don’t You Forget About Me" reflects Yorkie's fear of being forgotten.

**Audience Readings:**

- Preferred: Encourages exploring different facets of oneself while emphasizing authenticity.

- Negotiated: Balances between wanting to be seen and feeling comfortable in fashionable

clothing.

- Oppositional: Rejects the cliché message of self-discovery, viewing it as unoriginal.

3. **Sex Scene:**

- MES elements like the picture of Kelly’s mother add layers of compassion and vulnerability,
while the scene’s lighting and symbolic water waves highlight the surreal yet familiar experience.

- Kelly's masculine role in the relationship is emphasized through her actions and the power
dynamics in their interaction.

4. **Argument Scene:**

- This complex scene addresses themes of gender performance and moral dilemmas around
the simulated afterlife.

- Kelly’s slap and subsequent crash reflect deep emotional turmoil and unresolved trauma,
questioning the nature of their simulated existence and their toxic tendencies.

- The white dresses and simulated world underscore the characters' avatars and the
performative aspects of their identities.

Through these scenes, *San Junipero* explores profound questions about identity, love, and the
nature of reality, creating a rich tapestry for viewers to interpret and engage with from multiple
perspectives.
Les Revenants

Camille ​ ​ ​ Viktor​ ​ Lena​ ​ ​ Simon

Claire​ ​ ​ ​ Julie​ ​ ​ Adele​ ​ Pierre

I would argue that all of the different characters portray a complex and unique representation of
depression all depending on audience positioning. This is portrayed not necessarily on the face
of the character or what they say but through the combination of media language.

This is a French TV series released on Canal+ and produced by them too. It is a French show
and targets a very niche audience through very polysemic meanings. It is a very good example
of a show which has a cult following, as you either love it or hate it. Furthermore, it has an
average of 1million viewers per episode and is an unconventional multi-genre show with genres
including: horror, family and romance. All of this depending on who the audience is positioned
as or with.
For season 1 they had a budget of $14million. It has strong and complex representations and
mainly focus’ on middle class representations.

Scene 1: Camille comes home

Camille’s character is established through a montage of the French Alps being anchored
through the symbolic link of the bus crash seen at the beginning of the episode. This creates a
hermeneutic code: why/how is she ok, was it a different bus that crashed.

The mid shot of Camille clumsily climbing over a barrier situates her in an unexpected and
highly liminal setting. Far from a stereotypical location we would expect to find a teenage girl,
her isolation constructs a hyperreal representation of a motorway at night, an experience that
few of the audience will ever experience, that positions the audience in a deeply confusing and
interrogative mode of address. Camille is positioned as and with the audience. She is passive,
confused, and has no knowledge of the narrative. Arguable her resurrection is a highly post
modern narrative occurrence, as it draws attention to the fact that nothing is real and nothing
matters, instead we are left to be confused and to simply go along with the narrative.

There is a further hint to the zombie horror through the long shots of her walking creating a
symbollic refrential code to Mr Costa’s death. We are positioned with Cammile or even as an
onlooker, a ghost, a distant relative wanting to help her get back safely, but we have no way to
help as we keep getting positioned in an ever more isolated mode of address only further
anchored through the use of

The genre conventions seen through this montage is conventional of a horror film through he
usage of low-key natural lighting mixed with the artificial lighting of the flashing street lamps
showing, thus creating another hermeneutic code through the fact that she seems to be
connected with the street lights, perhaps she is sucking the electricity out of the light. This forms
another genre convention with supervillain and zombie genre through the fact it is very
supernatural. This is further emphasized through the use of the non-diagetic low drone sound in
the background.

Camille is clearly a stereotypical teenager from a middle class neighbourhood. She is a young
girl walking through the streets at night, this is perfectly horror coded through the long stretches
of walking and we, as the audience are positioned in a state to be weary, to check the corner,
however this is binary opposed through her just walking home completely happily.

This then cuts to a kitchen/living room new establishing shot showing us how middle class this
family is. We are then positioned with Camille’s mum who is positioned in a horror show. The
tracking shots follows her mum nto a low-key lit hallway and she sees hands gripping into a
fridge, a common convention of a horror show. However she is just eating, this creates two
simultaneous genres, the reaction and soundtrack are horror, where as Camille eating is
family/teen drama and the sound forms a binary opposition with the MES perhaps suggesting
the trauma that has been felt by her mum when Camille died and perhaps she can actually hear
the sound but in her head. This is further reinfgorced through the fact that the soundtrack
speeds up like a heart beat.

This scene reinforces hegemonic, middle class norms and the whole cast is white.

A range of CU shots presented in standard shot reverse shot conveys to the audience and
establishes that Camille and her mother are talking at cross purposes. This further establishes a
binary opposition between the mother and daughter, creating conflicted responses for the
confused audience.

OSS from Camille to the mother demonstrates Camille lit in high key lighting and her mother in
low key lighting, further demonstrating the disconnect between the two previously close family
members. Non of this is however made explicit to the audience, forcing them instead to form
their own detailed and negotiated response
Post production colour grading favours muted colours, which symbolically encodes the
depressing and panic inducing nature of the scene for Camille's mother. Key theme is mortality
and the inevitability of death. Existentialist philosophy, almost stereotypically french. The mother
is horrified by her daughter's reappearance.

Key scene two: Opening scene

Use of music - reaches a crescendo at the point here the butterfly emerges from the display,
demonstrating to the audience a key symbolic code, helping them to understand the
complicated narrative

Low key lighting and desaturated colour grading in the scene where Camille returns home
emphasises to the audience a potential hermeneutic code, and forces the audience to negotiate
their own perspective on the narrative. This enforces a polysemic reading of the text.

Camille has more screen time on the bus, and is consistently framed in a montage of close up
shots which positions the audience with the young Camille. Camille's age allows teenage
audiences to invest in the complicated narrative.

The sudden and mysterious dip to black following the long shot of the traumatic bus accident is
symbolic of not only the audience's own confusion and the show's primary theme of death and
finality

Establishing shot and the subsequent long shots of the bus establish an isolated and exotic
setting for the secondary British and international audience. This emphasises the importance of
Les Revenants adopting a polysemic narrative. It must mean different things to audiences of
different nationalities.

Generically highly unconventional of the supernatural/horror genre. Lacks generic paradigms

such as corpses, blood, monsters etc. It is not until much later in the narrative Camille is
established to be a very unconventional 'zombie'.

Long shot static shot of bus flying off highway is accompanied by diegetic screaming, yet no
other camera movement demonstrates to the audience that the show will take an
unconventional perspective on death and other grand themes.

Key scene three: Julie getting stalked by Victor

Les Revenants addresses a number of niche audiences through it’s highly atypical mode of
address. An excellent example of this appealing to niche audiences can be seen in the
character Julie. Even the casting of the actor who plays her is fascinating and atypical: Julie is
hegemonically average looking, which is surprising to see in a mainstream, mid budget TV
show, and the MES of her heavy set eyes and sickly demeanour allows the producer to
construct a relatable mode of address. This is further anchored and emphasised through the
striking scene where Julie returns home. In the establishing shot of this troubling montage, the
audience is positioned in a distantly and even ghostly manner, as a we follow Julie to her
workplace. The use of the extreme longshot positions the audience in a voyeuristic mode of
address and hermetically asks the nice target audience to relate with Jules experience of
helplessness. Perhaps we are even positioned as the mother of the child, who is perhaps dead,
we are waiting for the child to be helped, or for the child to speak out to her, but we cant do
anything about it. The child could be seen as scary, or creepy. However, Julie's slouched
posture, connotes that she is comfortable and not bothered. She is reacting unconventionally,
she being a binary opposition to the situation, which is being isolated and alone at night. We cut
to an interior mid-shot of Julie on the bus, far from seeming relieved, Julie once more is distant,
bored and exhausted. this is anchored through the MES of her messy hair and her prominent
eyebags, which symbolically demonstrate the difficulty of her job. The camera angle, however,
positions the audience uncomfortably close to Julie, and through it’s proximity, the out of focus
Voctor in the background. This shallow depth of field emphasises Julie, even through she averts
her gaze from the camera. Julie's thrown together look subverts Van Zoonens argument that
women function as a spectacle for a heterosexual audience, which allows the show to target a
niche audience of feminists who will take delight in seeing the representation of a woman who
subverts stereotypical assumptions.

Julie rejects stereotypical representation of women as automatic caregivers, which is highly

relatable to certain niche audiences. Through her contradictions and flaws, she has a rich
personality and character which can be negotiated by the target audeince. Stuart hall argued
that the audeince can negotiate the preffered realing and ideolgogy through their socio and
ecemonic backgrounds.

Key scene four: Simon and Lena walking (also Simon and Adele)
The representation of women is very clearly shown through this scene as being complex and
being clearly progressive and subversive of the genre of a horror. There is additionally a very
complex representation of family and the dynamics that work with that. When we are first
positioned with Lena, we are positioned as one of her friends drinking; observing what is
happening, that thing is the referential code of her dad leaving a room with a hegemonacolly .
This i a refreintail code to prostiutution and different ways of coping with greif, is multi-layered
and stranded narrative with this section of the family reflects how a family can fall apart through
the process. This could be relatable to people trying to find ways of escaping their lives.

This attitude of the father is reflected in Lena, showing how she was influenced by her father
and how they both cope with this pain: sex. However, in unconventional terms Lena is not
punished for it, rather her father is. This poses poly semic meanings to the audience, perhaps
one biblical reading would be that he is taking the fault for all of this, perhaps he is being
punished for what happened to Camille and now he is being punished not only for her death but
also sleeping with prostutites. The MES of his ashamed face while looking at Lena shows how
he is ashamed of what he is doing and how it is ruining his life. We soon find out that he has
separated from his wife.

I will now skip tot he scene where Lena and Simon meet. The MES of the pub contains red
colour codes creating symbolic references to a brothel of the red light district and has strong
connotations of love and sex. This further reinforces the way in which Lena and her Father have
chosen to escape reality. This is anchored through the fact that she is clearly throwing away
relationships, a guy comes up to her saying that she has had enough to drink but she says he
doesnt think so, and he tries to take her away. However this has very strong poly semic
meanings through the fact that one of the preferred readings would be that she is independent
and she isn’t committed to a man, further reinforcing the complex and detailed representaetion
of women in LR. However the other meaning could be that she has commitment issues and is
just trying to run away from her emotions.

Lena takes a liking to Simon shown through the mid shot of the close proxitity of their bodies
and faces, where-as Simon only wants one thing shown through the MES of him looking around
as if he just came back from the dead and is looking for only one thing, and that is his fiancé.
Lena knows how to find her, so Simon uses this.This could be seen as stereotypical of a man as
he his quite litrally only using Lena to get something out her. However, this is far more complex
than that. Lena is expecting something more that just a beer in return for showing him where
Adele lives: sex. She takes on the stereotypical role of a male in the narrative where she is
trying to sleep with him in a relatively pushy way.

Lena is then seen to be leading Simon to where Adelle lives and she is trying to flirt with him,
asking him questions and teasing him. She leads him down a passage way which we later find
out that there was a murder who stabs Julie there in a sexual way and this could be a symbolic
refrence to the way Lena is acting; in a predatory way.
Furthermore, the MES of Simon and Lena walking far away from eachother creates a further
plays with the idea that Lena is being some sort of predator against Simon. The lengths she
would go to be able to sleep with Simon is pretty high as she is willing to walk him through
dangerous areas. Howeverm this could all be seen as not true and she is just helping him out as
she, at the end says “your welcome asshole” as he didnt even say thank you. However, even
this is poly semic as

This is now where I look at the scene with Simon and Adele. We are introduced with a tracking
shot of Simon walking towards a glass door, and this is where his reflection distorts and fades,
much like memories and ghost, creating a symbolic refrence to the fact that he is a zombie. This
accompanied with the low-key lighting shows the genre of horror and zombie. The choice of the
MES of Simon looking through the window at Adele wearing a dressing gown pushes the creepy
mode of address onto him and produces a voyeristic mode of address where we are positioned
with him wandering who it is.
The MES of her stunned and shell-shocked face cultivates the idea to the audience that she has
lost someone, that she is still grieving. We shift to a super-natrual genre with the mogwei music
in the background becoming ever more suspenseful and Simon disappearing, the MES of the
dimly lit house creating the perfect representation of an upper middle class french women with
very subtle makeup and her shoulders exposed. The audio code of the bell ringing, positions the
audience with her, in a horror show where things will go wrong if she answers the door.

She clearly has traumer from Simon dying and she thinks she is going crazy though the MES of
the door handle frantically being pushed downwards begging her to let him in. The MES of her
teary eyes forms a stereotype of women being emotional and unable to control their emotions.

The dress code of both of these characters is significant due to the fact that they are coded to
be wearing wedding outfits. However, it still forms a binary opposition, showing how it was
destined to not work. Binary opposition through the white and the black creates the meaning of
Simon being dead. The way in which the characters express them selfs are very stereotypical of
their genders. Simon is getting angry and wants to be let in where as Adelle just breaks down
crying. She thinks she has gone psychotic and starts shouting and screaming for him to go
away.

Key scene six: The sex scene

This takes place in the form of a flashback scene, before the crash, where we are binary
opposed with the low-key, horror-like lighting, against this now, high-key lighting showing off the
beautiful nature of the country side, yet again reminding us of the fact that this is sponsored by a
travel agency in the french alps. This creates a cyclical structure. The MES of the bus is
repeated again and this positions the audience in a harrowing mode of address as we know
their fates. We know the fact of Lenas relationship, we know the fate, that Cammile will die. This
positions the audeince in a hopless mode of address, yet also in a voyeristic one.

Supernatural themes and genre conventions come in play through the use of the MES and
diagetic audio of both Lena and Cammile breathing deeply and rapidly. This has highly
polysemic meanings due to the fact that that there is a specific lack of anchorage.
​
Preferred reading: That they are somehow linked as they are identical twins. This reading is
anchored through the MES of the same casting and additionally through the lexis of “maybe I’m
Cammile”. This forms a suspensfull, yet weird and voyeristic mode of address.

Opositioal reading: that its just a coincidence, it is quite horrible if anyone thought that way,
Cammile is just having a panic attack, perhaps due to being handed more homework, or
perhaps due the the MES of the young creepy boy (Viktor) standing in the middle of the road
which in the end causes the bus to crash.
Negotiated reading: It’s meant to be a bit in cohreant to end the show on a cliff hanger.
Additionally if you read into genre conventions, it could be seen that Lena is being punished for
saying that she was ill, and then having pre-marrital sex reflecting the middle class audeince in
which it is targeting.

The sense of awkwardness with-in this scene creates a relatable, yet voyersitic mode of
address.

Summery

**Analysis of *Les Revenants***

The French TV series *Les Revenants* on Canal+ offers complex and unique representations of
depression through its characters, depending on audience positioning. This is conveyed through
subtle media language rather than explicit dialogue or facial expressions.

The show targets a niche audience with polysemic meanings, gaining a cult following for its
blend of horror, family drama, and romance. With an average of 1 million viewers per episode
and a $14 million budget for the first season, it focuses on middle-class representations.

**Scene 1: Camille Comes Home**

- **Establishing Setting:** Camille's return is framed with a montage of the French Alps and a
symbolic bus crash, creating a hermeneutic code of mystery.
- **Unexpected Setting:** Camille is shown clumsily climbing over a barrier on a motorway at
night, using low-key and artificial lighting to create a hyperreal, confusing atmosphere.
- **Audience Positioning:** The audience shares Camille's confusion and passivity, reflecting a
postmodern narrative.
- **Horror Conventions:** Long shots of Camille walking evoke zombie horror, symbolically
linked to Mr. Costa’s death. The scene employs low-key lighting and flashing street lamps,
suggesting a supernatural connection.
- **Middle-Class Representation:** Camille is a stereotypical middle-class teenager. Her
homecoming contrasts horror codes with normalcy, highlighting the trauma felt by her mother
through mise-en-scène and soundtrack.

**Key Scene Two: Opening Scene**

- **Music and Lighting:** The crescendo in music and desaturated color grading create symbolic
codes and hermeneutic questions, emphasizing polysemic narrative interpretation.
- **Audience Connection:** Camille's screen time and close-up shots on the bus engage
teenage audiences. The sudden blackout following the bus accident symbolizes confusion and
themes of death.

**Key Scene Three: Julie Getting Stalked by Victor**

- **Relatable Character:** Julie, cast as an average-looking woman, subverts typical beauty
standards and stereotypes, appealing to feminist audiences. Her heavy-set eyes and sickly
demeanor construct a relatable mode of address.
- **Voyeuristic Positioning:** Julie's interactions, particularly on the bus, position the audience as
close observers, highlighting her exhaustion and the challenges of her job.
- **Subverting Stereotypes:** Julie’s representation challenges traditional female roles, allowing
audiences to negotiate meanings through their socio-economic backgrounds.

**Key Scene Four: Simon and Lena Walking (also Simon and Adele)**
- **Complex Family Dynamics:** Lena’s relationship with her father and her behavior reflects
coping mechanisms for grief. Her actions are multi-layered, suggesting independence or
commitment issues.
- **Gender Stereotypes:** Simon and Adele’s interactions highlight traditional gender roles, with
Simon being aggressive and Adele emotional, reinforcing and challenging stereotypes
simultaneously.

**Key Scene Six: The Sex Scene**

- **Supernatural Themes:** The flashback scene uses high-key lighting to contrast with the
dark, horror-like bus scenes, creating a cyclical structure.
- **Polysemic Meanings:** The scene offers multiple readings, from symbolic connections
between Lena and Camille as twins to interpretations of middle-class values and pre-marital
sex. The cliffhanger ending enhances the show's enigmatic and voyeuristic appeal.

Overall, *Les Revenants* uses intricate media language and genre conventions to engage its
audience, allowing for diverse interpretations and deepening the complexity of its characters
and themes.
Exam questions

Henry Jenkins argues that audiences are ‘textual poachers’, and actively
manipulate media products in ways which best suit them. Evaluate this
theory of fandom. Make reference to the Black Mirror episode San Junipero
and Les Revenants to support your answer. [30]
Fans can manipulate media products to the way in which they like. This is done through textual
poaching which is where the audience constructs their social and cultural identities. A fan is an
active audience, and they will actively interact with the media product. In the essay I will argue
that this theory is highly useful in the way in which the audience understands the media product.

San Junipero - t shirts (unofficial)including the San Junipero logo, presumably made by the fan.
Audiences can poach images from the TV show, use photoshop to re-contextualise it and then
construct a fictitious brand identity that audiences can then use to reflect and to reinforce their
own identity. This highly complex and active form of fan mediation is actively encouraged
through the structure of the TV. The mainstream protection of Black Mirror, which has grown
from its initial niche audience to something which is now distributed on Netflix demonstrates its
potential . Furthermore the mode of the episode is reliable and hopeful, with a positive
representation of a queer relationship that is both surprising and unconventional.

There are comparatively few active audience examples for Les Revenants, There are
comparatively few active audience examples for Les Revs, partly because it is so niche and
partly because ideologies of the show are so resolutely ambiguous. There is a lack of
iconography to make it easily recognisable as LR merch. Furthermore it's much harder to relate
and route for anyone within the show making it harder to categorise them and think about them
in real life. A perfect example of this is the limited availability of Les Revs fan fiction, which
focuses on expanding the narrative, as opposed to ‘shipping’ characters for sexual gratification.

These are unofficial products from etsy which is a good example of fans engaging with the
product through fan art and also profiting from it the audience poach certain images and tropes
from the tv show and then construct a logo which forms their own brand identity. There are also
countless subforums for the discussion of the show. There are new fan-fiction for LR which
creates a continuation and expands the narrative of the show, which adds more detail to the
show.
The end scene is very crucial to audience participation and fandom due to the fact that there is
so much, there are controversial topics, religion and 80s fashion, all of which are strongly
negotiated by the audience, there is no clear preferred reading, forcing audiences to converse
with each other, watch and make analysis’.

The final sequence of Jan Juniperio is masterful not only in it’s technical and narratological
perfection, but also in its unprecidented ability to encourage active fan responses. Like many
works associated with Charloe Brooker, the episode interweaves the end credits with te final
narrative flourish, a technique that he has been using since the broadcast of Nathan Barley and
Dead Set on Channel 4

The motion match cut between the MES Yorkie driving on the winding has very polysemic
meaning, one reading could be that she is driving away from death, the ultimate escapism,
backed up by the videogame like MES of the scenery of the licence plate saying Yorkie, creating
an intertextual, symbolic link to racing games and also creates a reference to the start of the
show where there is a video game, additionally it creates a link to how she died and she has
recovered from her traumer. The polysemic readings of this small section of the montage shows
how an audience will and can negotiate with eachother.

The MES of the scenary constructs an explicit intertertextual reference to 80’s arcade games,
most notably Sega’s 198 racing game Outrun. While the vast majority of audiences will not
explicitly get this references, fans of arcade games and retro games will do, and will enjoy this
exclusive and highly gratifying mode of address. Brooker is vocal in his love of videogames, and
his public persona as a nerd and fan himself is essential for many fans enjoyment.
The politics of the final sequence are both provovcativbe and highly likely to encourage debate.
The clear rerwesentation of euthansia as a positive and affirmative act directly positions the
audience in a highly uncomfortable mode of address. Anchored by the exceptional use of
editing, te audience sees the montage of a car driving down the highway and of liquid flowing
down a tube, together combining to create a powerful ideological message about death being a
release. This beautiful mode of address further emphasises the discomfort, and constructs a
particularly emotional and overwhelming set of meanings for the dedicated science fiction fan.
Additionally, the audience can also interpret the scene as a straightforward escapist fantasy of
cheating death and overcoming trauma.

The ending is open, which means in the minds of the fan, there is no clear conclusion and lots
of opportunities for both shipping these characters and imagining their relationship develop
beyond the end of the narrative. This is a classic example of fan theory, where simply watching
until the end of the product is just the beginning. This fulfils the social aspect of the uses and
gratification theory, by encouraging audiences to debate the ending. For example, Yorkie
manipulating Kelly in to killing herself to spend her (after)life with her is the very definition of a
toxic relationship, and is cult-like in its unpleasantness. This deliberately ambiguous ending is
designed to polarise audience

The final song, Heaven is a Place On Earth by Belinda Carisle is not only a poppy and anthemic
80’s song, the lyrics also help to construct and anchor the circular narrative. It reinforces the fact
that they aren't actually in heaven, but they are in a place on earth which also forms a binary
opposition. It helps to explain to the adience the cruel and complicated narrature of the
conclusion, by using the throwaway binary of ‘heaven is a place on earth’, constructs a
hyper-real reality where a meaningless lyric suddenly has a deep and complex meaning,
showing how Charlie Brooker is infact a fan of this song.
Finally, we are entered in to a dialogue with the ultimate fan, Charlie Booker himself who shares
this through intertextuality through media products such as the breakfast club, music videos and
Max Headroom.

Explore how representations can position audiences

One way representations can positions audiences

One excellent way in which a producer uses a highly stereotypical representation to position
audiences

A further way in which a representation can position the audience

The complex representations used throughout these TV shows are highly effective in positioning
audiences, in order to maximise audience engagement

Audience positioning refers to the many ways in which audiencesare placed within a media
product vy the producer to further anchor and align the audience, and to help them relate to
complex themes. Representation refers to the re-presentation of a particular group, issue or
event, by the producer, in order to reflect their ideological position. In this essay, I shall argue
that the producers of TV shows often use complex and even challenging representations in
order to engage and position audiences who expect more from television in the 21st century. In
order to explore this idea, I shall refer to San Junipero, an episode of the British sci-fi anthology
show Black Mirror, originally created by Charlie Brooker and subsequently internationalised and
distributed by Netflix. I shall also refer to Les Revenants, a French horror/drama hybrid,
produced and distributed by French conglomerate Canal +, primarily targeting an alternative and
niche audience.

Point is based on a specific example, for example the opening montage in LR.

Opening scene of LR being creepy and a complex representation of a middle class teenage girl
who doesn’t know her identity and is contrasting the horor mode of address

Openingt scene of SJ where the representation of a nerdy, masculine, hegemonically attractive

person with intertextual references to living in a new world

The argument scene - where yorkie tells her to kill herself because she will come back to life
Mr Costas suicide scene - wher ehe kills him self, poly semic meanings but he is seeing if he
can come back to life

An excellent example of how representations can position audiences in les revs can be found int
he highly postmodern representation of the town itself. In the open credit sequence, a
hypperreal representation of a French rural town is constructed through the alarming MES of the
dead animals floating in the water, forming a refreintial code towards the fact that a lot of
innocent children died in the lake. The MES of the Alps with snow, this hyper-real representation
is a clear indication from the funding from a notable French tourist bourd and it through the use
of montage it creates a bizarre yet part of the new conventions of advertisement.
 Magazines

Woman magazine (1964)

Woman is a set text magazine that could come up in component 2. It came out in 1964. At one
point it was the UK’s leading newspaper with a circulation of 3 million per week and it was only
7d about 80p in todays money. The accessibility of this magazine clearly means that it was very
successful and was a large talking point for lots of people in the 1960’s meaning that it covers a
large range of the uses and gratification theory, such as the social aspect, entertainment and
information. It is owned by IPC and is horizontally integrated.

This magazine has a big interview with Hitchcock who is known to have been sexually abusive
towards his female actors and cast and the reason that they didnt talk up about him is becuase
he would have destroyed their careers. Another thing that he would do is be properly abusive to
his actors, for example in his movie bird the main lead had a phobia of birds, thats why her fear
was so accurate.
The layout of the magazine is highly conventional and starts in a Z shape and conforms to
Hesomanhals theory that to be successful a media company should use a template. Your eyes
start at the masthead of “Woman,” which uses a contemporary typeface with bubbly writing,
connotative of a curvy body and femininity. The white bold font has connotations of purity. This
idea of purity is further emphasised through the colour scheme of the whole magazine page:
purple, white, and gold. All three of which are colours connoted with royalty and richness. It is
commonly found on chocolate bar brands such as Milka and Cadbury. In fact, I find this quite
important as instead of the reward of buying this product being chocolate, it is teaching the
readership to be as appealing as chocolate, showing off the hegemonically accepted rule of the
woman being the keeper of the house and the man choosing the woman.

This is all very sexist and objectifying (van zoon. This is further anchored through the MES of
the main image. This contains a hegemonically attractive white woman. She is tanned and is
portrayed to be wearing a floral dress, further reinforcing the objectifying mode of address that
the producer creates. This positions the audience in a mode of address where they are “world’s
greatest weekly for women.” The colloquial lexis of weekly is simply referring to the magazine
and is connotative of the large audience, appealing to both a middle and working class target
audience.

There is a lot more to decode through the producer's choice of the image and model from her
more than awkward and fake smiles connoting that she is scared to be there. To the heavily
doctored skin which has been done to create an unrealistic expectation in order to keep the
unattainable yet expected beauty standard there and alive to sell more magazines.

Hitchcock’s cover line “British women have a special magic” brings in a household name as a
leader and he is praising the British target audience and could encourage women to buy the
magazine.

At the bottom there are sales lines and headlines. “Seven star improvements for your kitchen,”
this suggests the role that women should take an interest in and that they should take pride in
domestic work and that they should know what they can do in order to compete against the
other woman to get the man, further proving the sexist nature of the magazine. This sexist mode
of address is only further emphasised through the headline “lingerie goes lively,” and this
conforms to the male gaze theory where a woman's role in media is to be a spectacle for men.
Perhaps this also acts as a voyeuristic mode of address encouraging the audience to imagine
the main model in lingerie. The final headline is located at the bottom right of all of the
information and will be the last thing that people see. It is quite literally asking the audience if
they would pass the “beauty” test through the lexis of “A-Level,” having polysemic meanings to
how much they know.
This double-page spread probably is the component of the magazine which actually teaches
women how to achieve this “A-Level Beauty” look. The headline of which is centred at the top of
the page and a blue font is used, unconventional yet eye-catching. This is much like what the
makeup is advertised to make you look like. This is one of the only pages in full colour which
suggests that it is a page of much importance and everyone has to read this page if not any
other. The information is divided into a grid structure making it very easy to read and categorise.
One for makeup, one for inspiration. Different sections for specific parts of the face such as the
eyes, cheek, and lips. This also suggests that women are not educated enough to read and
understand complex articles which is due to the strong difference in education for men and
women in the 1960’s.

Women can also score points based on which techniques and products they use in their
makeup routines. It creates an interactive element to the article, also encourages women to
follow specific techniques, which limits individuality, gives a sense of fulfilment and competition,
and entertainment.

Women who conform to western beauty standards are praised and those who don’t are
encouraged to do so.
The use of images next to the article is like a tutorial and shows women how to conform to
Westernised beauty ideals.

Direct mode of address in the rhetorical question, “are you an a-level beauty?” Also, almost all
the women in the model photos are looking into the camera, creating an inclusive experience
when reading the article.

Why is an interview with a man the cover story of this edition of Woman magazine?
Perhaps it's because Hitchcock is discussing women. In this article, Hitchcock rambles on about
what makes British women particularly beautiful. He discusses different women, yet he doesn't
discuss his films or his film making in any detail.

"I've come to this conclusion after years of selecting, grooming and directing some of the most
beautiful actresses in the world."
The word ‘grooming’ here refers to how Hitchcock ‘shapes’ women, and clearly it has highly
problematic overtones. He is openly stating that he manipulates actresses in order to fulfil his
desires.

“The most unobtrusively seductive creatures in the world” [in reference to British women]
By referring to women as creatures, Hitchcock essentially dehumanises and objectifies women.
He is being explicit in his ideological perspective that the function of women in his films is to be
looked at. This is a perfect example of Van Zoonen’s concept of the Male gaze. He infers that
British women have an underlying nature about them that Hitchcock can expertly see.

"But that potent kind of sex appeal certainly isn't that private property of the stars"
Arguably, Hitchcock here is inferring that sex appeal and sexualisation should be shared with
everyone. This is also a shout-out/address to the audience, reminding them that they are British,
and therefore beautiful.
The "compliment" reminds the audience that they have "something special" and should share
their gift... with Alfred Hitchcock.

“The sort of woman you’d go to for an animated discussion about horses, the weather and the
outrageous price of brussels sprouts”.
Hitchcock reinforces his stereotypical and patriarchal ideological perspectives, and reinforces
the stereotype that all women talk about is cooking, cleaning and animals.

“English girl’s sudden revelation of seductive depths”

The lexis of the word ‘girl’ implies youth, naivety and innocence. It is a belittling word.

"They're like snow capped volcanoes"

Hitchcock is specifically referring to British women here. The use of the word "they" is a subtle
example of other, and suggesting that women, in this case British women, are different. The
simile "snow capped volcanoes". This infers that while on the outside British women are
uninterested in sex, deep down they are sexually available. This highly problematic language
suggests that British women are sexually available to Hitchcock through his "grooming"

Hitchcock's language is poetic but hardly subtle. He conically makes reference to the "deep
down" sexual desires of women. This reinforces patriarchal hegemony, as it infers that in order
to be successful, women but be attractive, young, British, and sexually available.

Not made for men to see but aspira­tional for women since the model is naked,
only covered in the soap, sexual­ising her - suggests that women are still
constr­ucted as spectacle for men despite a male audience not being targeted,
derogatory view on women
Slogan = “all over feminine… all day fresh…” - suggests that women need to use
this specific soap as it epitomises femini­nity, revealing how women were expected
to conform to femininity
“Because your a woman”, “you want”, “you need” - male producer of the advert
telling women what they want and need encourages the confin­ement of women
into stereo­typical roles, suggests that women are incapable of making thier own informed
decisions - patria­rchal dominance, patron­ising.

Summary
- "Woman" magazine, published in 1964, was highly accessible and successful with a circulation
of 3 million per week, indicating its societal impact and relevance.
- Features a significant interview with Alfred Hitchcock, despite his history of sexual abuse
towards actresses, suggesting the magazine prioritized celebrity content over ethical concerns.
- Front cover layout follows a conventional Z shape, featuring a bubbly masthead and a
hegemonically attractive white woman, reinforcing sexist and objectifying ideologies.
- Color scheme of purple, white, and gold connotes royalty and richness, reinforcing traditional
gender roles.
- Hitchcock's cover line praises British women, potentially encouraging readership among the
target audience.
- Headlines on the cover reinforce sexist stereotypes, promoting domestic roles and lingerie,
catering to the male gaze.
- Double-page spread teaches women how to achieve "A-Level Beauty," promoting conformity
to Western beauty standards and limiting individuality.
- Hitchcock's interview reinforces patriarchal ideologies, objectifying and dehumanizing women,
while subtly promoting British women's sexual availability.
- Advertisements within the magazine further reinforce traditional gender roles, promoting
products as essential for femininity and implying women's incapability of making informed
decisions.
- Overall, "Woman" magazine perpetuates sexist ideologies and stereotypes, prioritizing male
gaze and reinforcing patriarchal dominance.
Adbusters
To put it shortly, Adbusters is confusing. It has a complete lack of anchorage and plays
completely with your conception of what a media product is supposed to do. It is filled with half
fulfilled hermetic codes created through the use of polysemic ideologies.
So you want to know what Adbusters is? Well it is a highly unconventional, niche, anti-capitalist
magazine which is far left wing. It was founded in 1989, and started in Canada. Many people
who are actually far left and anti-capitalist argue that it is capitalistic and a bit ridiculous. It is a
pretty expensive magazine at around 14 pounds. Surely if you want an anti-capitalist thing it
should be free and done through a collection of people, much like open source projects. It only
comes out bi-monthly. The masthead changes with each edition of the magazine.

The producers of the magazine don't really care about making money and they have been
known to hide the barcode meaning that a lot of the time they end up pricing it at any price or
just giving it away for free. This not caring attitude is only anchored through the use of the lexis
“SAVE THE PLANET KILL YOURSELF”. This is deliberately provocative and wants the
audience to question anything and everything.

Okay so let me start with my analysis of the pages…

Front page
The front page is the most significant part of the
magazine as it is the first thing that will pull the
audience into the magazine… However, you should
argue it does the opposite of this and rather pushes
the audience away from it, in true anti-capitalism
fashion.

This is further anchored through the lexis of

“Post-west” produces a strong and polysemic mode of
address. What is it talking about? Is it talking about the
fall of western culture (anchored through the MES of
this middle eastern man) or is it the idea of western
capitalism collapsing and this reflects, anchors and
reinforces the anti-capitalist ideology of the magazine.

The masthead reflects the main image of the magazine

through the use of the distant dotty imagery reflecting
sand and also radioactivity through the MES of the increased grain in the image. This reflects
the constant fear everyone lives in with the threat of nuclear war and perhaps even is a
symbolic code of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The “mud” on the mast head
additionally obscures it and shows how it doesn't care about profit or brand identity, anchoring
the anti-capitalist ideology of the producers.
Perhaps the printed on image creates an impression that western culture is fading away and
perhaps due to digitally convergent technology all the different cultures are mixing and turning
into a new “Post-west” culture.

Feet and Legs double page spread

The MES of the black person’s feet on the
left are positioned in hand made shoes…
From plastic milk bottles, which suggests
how black people have been treated,
exploited and abused across the world.
This is further anchored through the use of
the sandy and dry ground underneath
these shoes. This strong imagery suggests
the dryness of the area and the struggle
that comes along with this. This positions
the audience in an investigatory mode of
address where they should not just take these products at face value, and you should consider
the way in which they have been made. This is a perfect example of the reflection of the
ideology in which Adbusters are trying to display and this is further anchored through the
Loubouton logo creating a binary opposition through this luxury shoe bran and the self
fashioned shoes. This anchorage of the image forces the audience to jump to a conclusion, and
the first one that comes to mind is that it is talking about child labour and modern slavery. There
is also a dark joke within this page and this is through the lexis: red soles are always in season,
this is a reference to how the soles in these brands are always red. The joke comes from the
fact that the person's feet are probably bleeding from walking so much and being exploited. The
layout of this page is formatted as if it is an advert (logo at the top, picture in the middle and the
text anchoring the image below the image) but instead of using an insisting and targeted photo
they use the opposite of what would sell a product and instead of letting people live in denial
they have to see what the people who make their shoes go through.

This is both anchored and diametrically opposed on the next page. At the top, there is the MES
of a black and white image of black people being confined behind barbed wire. This has
connotations to concentration and labour camps, where many minority groups were killed and
worked to death. The MES of his hand reaching out forms a pleading mode of address,
prompting the audience to make a difference and help them. Due to this anchorage on the left
page we are reminded that this is due to capitalism and consumerism, so in the end… It’s
because of you. However, this image is formed into a binary opposition through the use of the
white models legs creating the legs of the person that needs help. It is very “practically” collaged
on, suggesting that they are not meant to be there. This binary opposition leads us to believe
that this is a Loubouton model, and she is physically walking away from the slave labour which
made the clothing. Perhaps it is also talking about the abuse which is also in the modelling
industry, and how contrary it is as they don't have to walk on literally milk bottles even if their
feet do bleed from having to walk in impractical shoes. It is shining a light on the contrary nature
of the west.

Tap page
A binary opposition is constructed between
the clean, sharp outline of the Zuvhetti tap
advert and the messy, ugly outline of the
bath image. This visually reflects on the
disparity of wealth between rich and poor,
through a lack of anchorages makes
specifics less clear. This is further anchored
through the deliberate lack of pricing.
Perhaps because it is so expensive. Perhaps
the left page is symbolic of suicide and is a
statement on how life is worth far more than
this tap and the money should have gone to them to help them.

The Zucchetto advert depicts the MES of a golden tap, which has connotations of wealth, while
the bath image focusses more on grey, which once more emphasises a binary opposition
The use of white and gold is symbolic of a sterile environment, with a complete lack of any
contamination, which may infer the use of chemicals. The quality of the bath image suggests
some form of experimental development, with the sides of the image distorted, perhaps
suggesting the relationship between the two images. A highly complex mode of address
The high angle shot of the woman in the bath suggests vulnerability. She is huddled in the fetal
position, which suggests that she is scared. However, the atypical framing of the close up image
completely omits the model’s face, forcing the audience to assume the model’s emotions
The MES of the model’s hands are wrinkled, suggesting that she has been submerged in water.
She has been in the water so long her hands are wrinkled, which could suggest scarcity.
However, the wrinkled hands could also symbolise privilege and abundance. Once more, this
image is highly polysemic.

The Zuchetti advert depicts the MES of a golden tap, which has connotations of wealth, while
the bath image focuses more on grey, which once more emphasises a binary opposition
The use of white and gold is symbolic of a sterile environment, with a complete lack of any
contamination, which may infer the use of chemicals. The quality of the bath image suggests
some form of experimental development, with the sides of the image distorted, perhaps
suggesting the relationship between the two images. A highly complex mode of address
The high angle shot of the woman in the bath suggests vulnerability. She is huddled in the foetal
position, which suggests that she is scared. However, the atypical framing of the close up image
completely omits the model’s face, forcing the audience to assume the model’s emotions
The MES of the model’s hands are wrinkled, suggesting that she has been submerged in water.
She has been in the water so long her hands are wrinkled, which could suggest scarcity.
However, the wrinkled hands could also symbolise privilege and abundance. Once more, this
image

Commodity fetishism - the process of ascribing magic "phantom like" qualities to an object,
whereby the human labour required to make that object is lost once the object is associated with
a monetary value for exchange.

By publishing an advert without permission, adjusters works in a legal area. It is being

republished here to construct an ironic mode of address that criticises not only the division
between social classes, but also the capitalism that allows things like luxury taps to exists
Adbusters can argue the image, as an advert, is in the public domain, and they can also argue
that it falls under ‘fair use policy’.

However, a knowledge of luxury brands is essential to understand this image. It creates a

division between different audience members, some of which who cannot understand it, and it
also increases awareness of this product. The high cover price of the magazine also suggests a
wealthy target audience. This constructs a hypocritical mode of address

Beyond the anti-capitalist ideology, a genuinely radical representation is constructed. An image

of a naked woman in the bath is presented without any sexualisation whatsoever. The model is
not addressing the camera, and the MES of her body is limited to a passive view of her legs and
hands instead. This subtly represented image actively opposes hegemonic ideologies about the
function of women in media products. This genuinely subversive representation contrasts
enormously with the Breeze soap advert in Woman, and suggests that attitudes towards women
have shifted significantly in some ways
Website
Their logo is the MES of a stick figure looking round a tunnel which is significant as they are
encouraging their target audience to look into a different way of life. They recently released a
new campaign that is satire and at the end it shows the lexis and logo of “the thrid force” which
is the idea that that life isnt binary theres many ways at looking at something.

Exam questions

Roland Barthes argued that meaning is constructed through a symphony of

codes. Evaluate this semiotic theory. Make reference to the magazines you
have studied to support your answers [30]
The semiotic theory is very useful in understanding the complex meanings constructed by
magazines, providing an avenue to decode the often subtle ideologies of the producer.

Binary oppositions
Hermeneutic codes
Symbolic codes
Proairetic codes
Referential codes
Low productions values
MES
Anchorage
Main image
Unconventional adbusters
Conventional Woman
CU
ECU
Coverline
Masthead
Polysemic
Detournement
Postmodernism
Dress code
Symbolic annihilation
Stuart Hall is the baseline for all other theorists
Commitiy Fetisisation
Lexis
Audience positioning
Colour scheme
Forced situation
Manipulation
Headline title

Roland Barthes argued that a symphony of codes construct meaning in every media product.
Barthe’s theory is extremely useful at understanding the complex meanings constructed by
magazines, providing the audience a range of opportunities to decode the often subtle
ideologies of the producer. In order to explore the wildly different ways in which codes can
construct meanings, I shall be exploring the examples of Woman magazine, the edition here
published in 1964 and appealing to mass, female, heterosexual, white conservative UK
audiences. I shall contrast the meanings constructed in Woman with a 2016 edition of
Adbusters, a Canadian anticapitalist magazine that p-resents a rather more complex and even
inscrutable set of ideological perspectives to a diverse, yet predominately radical worldwide
audience.

The front covers are very clear examples of the encoding of the producers ideologies in a
simple page. The combination of the use of the codes such as hermeneutic codes are almost
always left un-anchored within these magazine front pages. For the masthead the curvy serif
font of the Women's masthead connotes femininity and curvy bodies. This also creates a
symbolic reference to the chocolate brand milk which is a very well known chocolate brand and
this is further emphasised through the colour scheme of the purple background, the gold band
and the dark brown hair of the main image model.
Adbusters
Extensive use of hermeneutic codes, especially the screaming man that occupies the main
image, constructs a distressing, violent and confusing mode of address. This highly
unconventional utilisation of codes gere constructs an address to a certain niche and radical
target audience, while at the same time rejecting and deterring a mainstream and mass
audience. This use of unconventional codification is fairly typical of non-mainstream and
anti-capitalist magazines.

The front cover has deliberately low quality production values encoded through the printer errors
covering over the masthead and fading the main image model. This highly unconventional mode
of address rejects mainstream production standards and does not typically appeal to a
mainstream mass audience. However, this highly unconventional mode of address can attract a
certain radical niche audience who reject both the ideologies of capitalism and of commodity
fetishsm. By rejecting hegemonic conservative values, Adbusters displays a rejection of
standard codes and conventions.

Woman
The symbolic code of the makeup of the model constructs an ideologicaol perspective that from
a hegemonic perspective, the function of women is to look good for a perceived heterosexcuial
audience. This highly conservative and sexist ideology is further anchored through the
additional symbolism of the purple background, which connotes a feminine and highly
stereotypical mode of address. While Adbusters wants us to destroy the world, Woman
magazine wants the audience to conform and reinforce the heterosexual male spectacle. By
conforming to conventional patriarchal ideological perspective of the time it was made, this
impossible yet aspirational image encourages through the lowly educated target audience to
subscribe to buying the magazine week to week.

To what extent are the choices made by the producer reflected in the
representations in the magazines you have studied? [30]
Representation is the way in which the producer re-constructs social groups, events and issues
through a process of encoding their ideology which is then decoded and negotiated by the
audience. Representation is a reconstruction of reality which creates a hyperreal reality in which
the audience can believe the producers ideology. Due to the simplification of this representation
it causes stereotypes to be formed, these are caused by imbalances of power and are always
harmful to the stereotyped group. In this essay I will argue that in both Adbusters and Woman
magazine the producer’s ideologies of both magazine’s are strongly reflected in the
representations created through a combination media language.
Woman media language
MES of the woman standing on the guys head domination
Objectification of the man]the formality of the suit shows how men should look like
“Dig him” “Mr average”
“Getting to know them”
“Extra special on MEN” In industrial san-serif font
Hand drawn images and cartoons create a comical mode of address
Black and white colour scheem shows how the focus is not on men​
Differntiation between men and women
Radical feminism
MES
Lots of lexis
Gutters
Columns
Conventional/unconventional
Hyperrealism
Stereotype
Fetishism (sexual/commodity)
Role model
bell hookes
anchorage
Stereotypes
Headlines
Copy

Adbuster media language

Polysemic
350 ppm
Reflected image psychedelic
Binary opposition between teddy bear jumper and disheveld heir and old age
“Greatest fear is a collapse of food production”... “mass starvation”.
Binary opposition with eh homeless person and the street
Androgyny
Intertextual reference to maralyn monroe being ontop of the hot fan
Hyperrealism
Gender performativity
Lack of anchorage

A strongly fluid representation of gender is constructed through the MERS of the highly
androgynous representation of an alternative and striking fashion model. This striking
representation is both anchored and further constructed through the MES of the hand being
placed over the mouth of the model, constructing a powerful symbolic code and suggesting a
masculine mode of address. Challenging conventional representations of femininity, this
representation constructs a highly performative, hyper-real representation of what it means to
be a man or a woman. This constructs the ideology that genre is not a fixed identity and reflects
the idea that we live in a complex world.

The striking and androgynous model constructs a binary opposition with the hegemonically
attractive homeless woman on the other side of the spread. Her representation is constructed
through the combination of childlike clothing and the MES of the individual sitting on a grate in
the middle of a busy street. Directly addressing the audience, and clutching an empty cup of
coffee, this atypical representation of women reflects the unconventional ideologies of the
magazine, and exists to elicit sympathy, and draw attention.

The lexis of the article directly situated to the right of the model suggests the fear of starvation.
However, the article explicitly refers to climate change, and not explicitly the issue of
homelessness in large americans. The combination of these seemingly unrelated collaged
together elements, a complicated narrative and set of representations address the educated
targeted audiences, who are extent to absorb and decode these complex representations. The
producers of Adbusters therefore argue that the representations of genre, social issues and
inequality are all related, and to understand oin of them requires understanding all of them. This
highly complicated mode of address clearly targets a more educated target audience.

However, certain audiences will doubtless decode this double page spread in a simple and
straightforward way, that homelessness, climate change and inequality are all bad things. In this
sense even audiences who do not engage with these complex representations will ultimately
still align with the preferred reading.

Woman magazine formas a binary opposition between the challenging representation of women
in the article, and the hegemonic norms and expectations of women living in the 1960s. Thi8s
potentially feminist perspective may be to help the magazine stand out from its immediate
competitors (for example Woman’s Own magazine), and may also hope to influence the
ideology of the target audience in subtle yet progressive ways. However, this representation of
feminism is simple, straightforward, and unlikely to cause a revolution.
The main image features the surprising MES of a woman standing on top of a man. However,
even this image is encoded in such a way so as not to incite revolution. The dress code of the
man is formal, and presents him in a position of power, even though he is being trodden
underfoot. His facial expression connotes annoyance, and his pose, with his feet outstretched
connotes femininity, which presents a humorous mode of address to the target audience.
Additionally, the woman treading gently in the man’s head is both happy, and hegemonically
attractive, creating an intertextual reference to the conventions of the contemporary. While the
image can be negotiated as being revolutionary, it is far more likely that the preferred reading is
that the situation is ridiculous and humorous.

Additionally, the main image takes on a fetishistic quality, and presents an exciting and alluring
mode of address to the working class middle aged target female audience.

The persuasive lexis of “keep it under your hat” creates a mocking and conspiratorial mode of
address, that suggests that in order to have power over men,

Explore how Adbusters uses digitally convergent media to appeal to and to

address niche and non-mainstream audiences [15]
Digital convergence refers to the coming together of previously separate media industries
thanks to digital technologies. While sales of print magazines have long declined, particularly
among certain, younger demographics, innovative campaigns using synergetic and digitally
convergent technology have led to magazines remaining relevant in a digitally convergent world.
Adbusters makes heavy and innovative use of digitally convergent media in order to both appeal
to and to address their niche, anti-capitalist and radical target audience. This anti-capitalist
magazine uses the logic and aesthetic of detournement to position its audience in a radical
mode of address.

The lack of anchorage in the magazine actively encourages active audience digitally convergent
technology in order to research the deeper themes and contexts of a magazine. Audiences
aren’t expected to know everything, empowering the audience in oder to find their own meaning.
It is treating the audience as someone already deeply involved in global activism, additionally it
positions the audience in a deeply respectful mode of address, where it does not insult the
target audience's intelligence.

The home page of the website instantly links to the Tiktok account of Adbusters, using the
snappy title ‘meme warfare’ . This highly active politicised language actively engages and
includes the activist target audience. Moreover the selection of Tiktok as the primary media
account also targets a younger audience which it then gets targeted to them over and over
again, helping cultivate the ideology of Adbusters into the audience. This is anchored through
the selection of images of young and hegemonically attractive radical activists in the process of
being arrested. By promoting this act of dissent, it cultivates the ideological perspective that
Adbuster wishes to promote to its constructed younger target audience. Younger people tend to
skew more heavily to progressive, left wing ideologies, and are also potentially more easily
manipulated. Using the language of social media, in particular repeated images and ideologies,
Adbusters presents a simple, straightforward and attractive representation of global activism
where the target audience can feel they are making a difference.

The aesthetic of the website is messy, rugged, and takes a mixed media approach combining
scribbles, photographs and scans. The website specifically resembles the magazine, especially
the landing page, which cultivates an explicit and easily identifiable brand identity. This ugly and
rugged address particularly appeals to younger and socially active audiences who wish to
challenge the dominant hegemonic ideologies of capitalism.

The website also includes commonly repeated symbols, squiggles and calls for political activism
and campaigns. These include the famous “buy nothing day”, “digital detox week” and most
famously “Occupy Wall Street”. These high profile campaigns attract a younger, politically
motivated audience who wish to push for change, and also position the target audience as
political activists who are changing the world. All of this would not have been able to be done
through the use of digitally convergent technology.

Reception theory: the dominant perspective is encoded through the codes and conventions of
the magazine and the website, constructing a coherent brand identity. However, a commonly
held oppositional reading on how Adbusters targets its audience is that it uses the language of
capitalism in order to cultivate a certain ideology. Audiences are encouraged to “cancel” the
Adbusters brand on incendiary articles about the Israel Palestine conflict. However, even this
link links to the online shop, only providing the audience with the straightforward response of
subscribing to the magazine. This is a perfect example of utilising digitally convergent
technology to distribute the physical, old media edition of the magazine to a predominantly
middle class audience who normally would not engage in such a product.
How have economic factors shaped the production of Woman magazine?
[15]

33% percent of a magazine's revenue comes from advertisement.

The purpose of a media product is for power and profit. Women magazine is simple,
straightforward and sexist. It came out in 1964 and was most likely written and produced by
men. This is clearly represented in the sexist mode of address in which the media product is
contextualised. The price of the magazine is 7d which is about 80p, which is affordable for
everyone, and it is understandable how easy it is to buy, in the hyperrealistic sold world where a
woman needs to do the weekly shopping. This is why it had a circulation of 12 million copies a
week. The way in which Woman magazine puts the advertisement is through the use of
hyper-realistic, hyper-sexual, aspirational imagery.
 Online Media - This almost always gets audience
questions, media language has never come up, so…
revise language.

Zoella / Zoe Sugg

Ofcom regulates online media.
Zoe Sugg started Vlogging (Video Weblog) in 2009 on Youtube with the handle Zoella. She has
been successful with marketing herself and marketing other products with 10.7 million followers
on YouTube on her original, Zoella account and 4.9 million on her new “rebranded”, “authentic”
Zoe Sugg account. She averages around 700k views per post showing how successful she is
with in the digital convergent landscape.

She has branded her self in such a way in which it engages pluralistic audeince. For example
the use of pastel colours on her banner on her youtube home page engaegs perhaps a
millennial target audience who she would be able to her self identify with. She is herself a
millennial and she is technically her own target audience demographic. This simultaneously
allows the audience to enter into a dialog (Shirky) with her and through the use of comments on
her video and statistics from the youtube creator platform she is more able to engage and target
her audience.

If we are going to consider a millennial target audience we should consider Van Zoonens theory
where what it means to be male and female changes over time and this is strongly prevenat
through the use of targeting a millennial audience of presold fans. This can be seen through her
perhaps outdated desperate attempts to stay “hip”, through using coloquialism and the MES of
new make up brands. However, I would argue that she doesnt have the ability to any more pull
in a younger audience due to the fact, what it is to be a woman has drastically changed sinse
2009 due to the fast paced landscape of the digitally convergent platforms which she is till in.
For example the MES of her hair of being a side part positions the audience in a time where this
was very much in fashion and the idea of being an “emo” comes to mind. However, this has
changed to being a middle part showing her willingness to change, and showing how she
changes her gender performance with the times then affecting and influencing her audience to
follow suit (Bulter). However, her bleached highlights in her hair and the thick eyebrows is
beginning to become quite outdated, perhaps cultivating (Gerbner) a relatable mode of address
for audiences the same age as her.
​
She has become very good at marketing her self and is known to do lots of brand deals and
product placement. There are strong rules and regulations defining how creators online need to
do their advertisements, for example defining an advert with #spon or #sponsored. However,
she has gotten into trouble before due to not disclosing this. She also does sponsorships
through the use of affileit links where she receives a small portion of the sale profit. THis would
be the main stream of revenue for Sugg, however, to diversify she has explored and exhausted
different profitable avenues. For example, she had a book ghost written a book which helped
end the stigma around anxiety and panic attacks. She is also the first digital ambassador of
mind (a mental helth charity), it is also a perfect example of digital convergence due to the
coming together of charity and technology. She also had her own makeup brand (zoella beauty),
jewlery, and merch. All of which are more or less discontinued, due to her company going
bankrupt in 2020. However, she is still pulling in more that 300k a year.

The importance of her rebrand!

Sugg presents a straightforward and even bland set of fashion

choices. This ‘corporate blandness,’ typified by neutral creams and
her high ponytail, suggests neutrality and an unwillingness to
portray unconventional lifestyles, allowing her to appeal to her vast
audience.

The mise-en-scène (MES) of her gold jewelry is further anchored

through the symbolic connotations of her cream-colored jumper,
which has significant connotations of purity and innocence.

Her costume is somewhat conservative, and its baggy coverage

somewhat subverts Van Zoonen’s ideological perspective that
women’s bodies are a site of exploitation by male audiences.

Her makeup is prominent yet applied in a somewhat neutral manner, taking on positive
proairetic connotations: her makeup symbolically connotes confidence and self-affirmation.

Sugg is notable for starting her "Get Ready with Me" videos by wearing no makeup, drawing
attention to her acne and skin conditions. Therefore, her makeup here symbolically represents
confidence and has a therapeutic quality.

Sugg’s smile is practiced and emphasizes the soft quality of her face. The lines of her smile are
connotative of playfulness and silliness. However, we can argue that this smile has a cynical
quality, emphasizing a certain practiced playfulness. This promotional image constructs a clearly
hyperreal representation of Zoe Sugg. In fact, she has published a blog post about how to take
the perfect selfie, with hints and tips on how lighting can construct the perfect ideological
connotations.

Hyperreality is when a media product seems more real than the thing it is representing.
Postmodernism is the idea that we live in a world of fractured meaning that is only surface-level.
The MES of her highly defined eyebrows, which have clearly been enhanced by makeup, and
the lack of spots on her face reinforce the beauty ideals that she backs up and reinforces. She
wears gold jewelry, which symbolizes purity, and this is anchored by the MES of her white
jumper. Her neck looks uncharacteristically small.

Lisbet Van Zoonen and bell hooks: Gender is constructed through media language, with the
primary function of any media product being to represent female bodies as sexual objects. We
should actively resist the sexist representation of women as a political act.

This both conforms to and opposes these theories. Sugg self-represents through the MES
(mise-en-scène) of her costume and makeup. While her shoulders are bare, here they do not
symbolize sexuality or sexual availability. Instead, her hegemonically attractive body functions
as a stereotypical site of aspiration for her primary target audience of middle-class white
women.

Sugg is clearly pregnant with her second child. The ideological implications of her motherhood
status are related to her carefully self-constructed identity, where being pregnant symbolizes the
ability to create new life as well as her maturity and living up to her hegemonic societal
expectations. By becoming pregnant and sharing this information with the world, Sugg is
accepting hegemony and therefore reinforcing a Judeo-Christian ideological perspective. This
stereotypical representation of gendered identity appeals to her female target audience, and the
preferred reading is to look up to her and follow in her footsteps.

Sugg does not advocate any alternative lifestyles. While she is not currently married to Alfie
Deyes, her monogamous relationship by default excludes other lifestyles such as polyamory
and child-free lifestyles.

Her dress has connotations of sophistication and purity, an almost angelic mode of address.
This is reinforced through her smooth delivery and gentle hand gestures. However, this is a
binary opposition with the fact that she is unmarried and pregnant. This, in the end, models an
alternative lifestyle while never explicitly stating so. This clear contradiction is glossed over in a
hyperreal mode of address that will appeal to her fans.

The graphic description of her bleeding and cracked nipples "splitting open like an egg," creating
"craters through the nips," presents abject and upsetting mental images that provide a
counterpoint to the idealized representation of motherhood that many mothers adopt.

Sugg presents a relatable and complex representation of both motherhood and femininity.

Metonymy: this is where one concept stands in for another. For example, "Number 10 has cut
funding for everything." Zoe is not defined as a woman in this video, but through her
metonymical status of being a mother. However, Judith Butler would dispute this. Performance
is the repetition of rituals and constructs identity. There is no gender identity behind these
expressions of gender. Just because you do one thing doesn’t mean that you're a certain
gender. Our identity only comes as a result of this performative act; gender performativity is how
our actions (performance) have an effect on the world.

We can see the performativity through the promotion of different products to her audiences,
which could promote audiences to conform to her performance of her gender. In turn, she is
taking the performance of other people whom she finds aspirational.

Youtube landing page

The landing page creates meaning through different codes and conventions. For example the
landing page has a logo at the top with different sections for the different genre of vlog she has.
"lifestyle - parenting - beauty - style". The abstract shapes creates a comfortable feeling and the
lowercase font creates a personal mode of address. Creating the meaning that she is calm,
friendly and well rounded.

The bland colour pallet favours gentle colours such as white, red and green. This connotes
comfortable easy to digest content with minimalistic and satisfying lifestyle being presented.

There is a large range of fonts that are used, however, all of these contains a straight forward,
subtly serif off white font which enforces the feeling of class. MES of the off white is subtly
feminine and not offensive. It stands out just enough to catch the eye of the audience and it is
much like the representation that she has created.
Her profile picture is in black and white suggesting that she is timeless and that she will always
be relevant. the preotic code of her pearsed lips and love heart glasses connote to the fact that
she is loved by many and she spreads love and positivity.

The MES of her overly excited face reinforces an idealised state of existence where she is
playing with her kid and doing very "boring" things. Her face is most prevalent through out the
thumbnails suggests that she is not only the protagonist of the narrative but also her brand
identity.

Hue summer primark Haul | Zoella

The video takes the form of a haul video. Objects are removed one by one and held up in front
of the camera in a series of extreme close-ups (ECUs). This reinforces a clearly capitalist and
consumerist ideological perspective. By emphasizing the MES (mise-en-scène) of these
consumer products in a carousel of consumerism and commodity fetishism, which is the
obsessive idealization of products, Sugg promotes consumer culture. This is further reinforced
by the straightforward and meaningless appraisal of each item. Sugg simply comments on the
price, "It's only £1.50, you can't go wrong," and that she will wear it.

Primark is marketed as an affordable shop. However, Sugg has purchased (or had purchased
for her) a vast amount of products, seemingly breaking the very values of Primark.

This address is potentially harmful in several ways. The environmental impacts of fast fashion
are considerable, and fast fashion is predicated on the exploitation of workers. “Whoever made
these socks: I love you!” Sugg’s blatant and almost fetishistic love of consumerism comes
through explicitly in this video.

Sugg here presents a clearly contradictory mode of address, with the ‘relatable’ address
conflicting with her clear status as an established super vlogger. The disingenuous mode of
address may alienate audiences. In her later videos, she has changed and started showing
more luxurious brands, which may further alienate audiences.

This is a haul video, which means that she got a lot of things. This video has a lot in common
with the surprise egg videos. "It's a bloody spring-summer haul and it’s started to rain." She is
plugging Primark, which even has a Costa in it. She is so rich, yet she is still shopping at
Primark. She is not very descriptive and is just going off the fact that her fans trust her. She
emphasizes fast fashion and how if it’s cheap, then you should get it. It is constantly a mid-shot
with Zoella, but sometimes she features in the background. Rather than bringing the camera
towards the product, she brings the product towards the camera, allowing herself to stay in the
background.

Mark Felt The Baby Kicking & Things We Don't Share Online

Comment
@sarahx6770
2 years ago
I’ve been following you since the days you used to sit on your mums living room carpet chatting
about your favourite Mac lipsticks! So lovely to feel like we’ve grown up together without even
knowing one another. Sending you lots of well wishes for the rest of your pregnancy, Zoe xxx

Media language
The close-up and static shots, seemingly mounted by Sugg herself, provide a personal mode of
address to the target audience, allowing them to feel as if they are there. Furthermore, it
symbolically feels like you are her friend.

Initially, the video features handheld cinematography, symbolizing a natural and candid point of
view shot that aligns viewers with Sugg directly, thereby providing them with the gratification of
voyeuristic pleasure.

Her slightly untidy garden has connotations of a relaxed and chilled-out ideology, helping the
target audience to identify with the multi-millionaire.

At one stage, Sugg shouts at Mark, "shout into my vagina," a comedic mode of address that will
appeal to a female audience.

A binary opposition is constructed between both genders and sexualities. The stereotypically
camp Mark confirms Sugg’s heterosexuality by providing her emotional support and touching
her belly in an emotional mode of address. Mark is presented as the stereotypical "gay best
friend" and plays to the comedic stereotypes. Mark exclaims, “she’s going to be an acrobat!”
This grammatically incorrect statement symbolically encodes Mark's status as a non-threatening
and humorous best friend.

The phrase "shout into my vagina" is very conversational and informal, reinforcing the feeling of
friendship. Mark's statement, “I reckon she will be an acrobat,” is delivered in a mid-shot. Sugg
is lying down, wearing a pink and white t-shirt with lots of sunlight and very large windows in the
background, which feels very artificial. This setup plays into the "gay best friend" stereotype.

Catch Ups with Mark, Getting Braces & Post-Partum Identity Chat
Mark is Sugg’s stereotypical gay best freind which was a trope which was strongly sold
especially to millennials. In this episode they are positioned with the MES of extremely happy
laughing faces suggesting to the audience that their uses and gratification for social interaction
will be fulfilled. Additionally the MES of their perfectly white and straight teeth form a hyper
reality in which everyone just upkeeps their teeth perfectly and easily. Further more it pushes
hegemonic beauty idols, perhaps also symbolising and representing Mark as being a
metrosexual male. The MES of gold jewellery is synonymous with wealth and glamour
suggesting the lifestyles in which theft are living is perfect.

The use of handheld shots with Sugg positions the audience in an intematre mode of address
with her suggesting taht she is close with her au8deince and is confident with her face being
shown so close up. The repeated MES of her smiling face constructs her to be a very happy
person who has made it and is successful. The preferred reading is that the audience feels
engaged and as if they are part of her life.

The use of strong cuts creates a “home movie” look which is also referenced with in the video,
which also references the moving trend towards the home camera system referencing y2dk.
The use of white lighting helps keeping the lighting in check, which also suggests that her whole
life is designed towards youtube.

She mentions being sorry for not posting vlogs enough. She additionally is creating a relatable
mode of address to older audience s to havent toktok, perhaps creating a recfrence to the fact
that she ius a dying brand. She has humour wiht in her vold thrughy the use of driving a mini
vresper, addiotiopnallyt showing off her wealth and the spoilt nature that her kids are in.

The video confronts perhaps taboo topics suich as post-partum idedntrity and how much having
a child changes your life which stays with the target audines age additionally showing how
females are represented differently through out time (Van Zoonen).

Her gender performance is also seen through her putting on her makeup while talking to the
camera. Perhaps then effecting the audience into also conforming to hegemonic patriarchal
ideas where women have to wear makeup. However, it could be argued that hse isnt to it to
conform, but to do it for her self.

She also talks about getting braces. She is talking about dental problems due to a relatable
thing about not getting retainers which is now a standard. These are just cosmetic braces that
she will get and she talks about “fixing that” referring to small things, perhaps suggesting that
getting cosmetic surgery is normal and being so insecure that you pay a lot of money for
something is normal. “Im excited to have the teeth that I had when I was thirteen”, this lexis
perhaps shows the sexulisation of women and how steeretypicall hegmonically attractive
women have to have no blemishes much like a child.

She has affiliate links which are subtly marked by a * and this gives her a percent of revenue
which she says in her description.
Attitude
Key terms
Camp - Deliberate affectation or exaggeration of style, especially of popular or outdated style,
for ironic or humorous effect.

Heteronormativity - the assumption that everyone is straight

Out/coming out - being out is being openly gay, either to a select group of people, or to the world
at large. Coming out is the process of announcing this

Homoerotic - that which connotes eroticism and appeals to gay people. Homoerotic content may
be explicit (two men kissing), or more subtle (a sexually charged gaze shared between men in a
film)

Queer coding - the construction of an individual as ‘gay’ through a series of symbolic codes

Advertorial - a combination of an advert and an article. In the UK, it is legally essential for
producers to declare if an article is actually an advert, in order to allow the audience to make an
informed decision, and so as to mislead anyone

Queer - A catch-all and potentially inclusive term to refer to gay, lesbian, transgender etc
people.

Ally - a straight person who supports the LGBTQ+ community

LGBTQA+ - Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, asexual and so on

about

Attitude is the best performing and most successful gay lifestyle magazine, the first publication
of which was released in 1994. Due to digital convergence, Attitude had to conform to the
change in trend towards the removal or slower release of print editions to website/digital
editions. Attitude is one of a few of gay lifestyle magazine which was to survive the transition
successfully.

It’s website is the main attractor for readers and has them in over 120 countries. TGhety have a
reputation for major exclusives, for example George Michael gave his first invertweview as an
out, gay man. Prince William also covered as a cover star in 2016.

The website its self attracts 1.7 million users a month, which allows them to charge more per
advertisement and additionally they have 1.2 million followers across social media showing how
important digital convergence and digital diversification is for magazine brands to thrive.
It is also designed to be an obvious and clear advertisement for the magazine, and primarily
functions to recycle material from the magazine, while targeting a rather more down-0market
and working class audience. This is an example of push/pull marketing.

Originally attitude was started by a straight couple, but that was soon changed to be a majority
queer crew.

Representation of straight celebrities

Straight celebrates have a very important role with in attitude and both
the magazine and the celebrity are using it as a way to attract new
audiences based on their respective pre-sold fan base. For example
the MES of Daniel Radcliffe in a suite with well keep beard and hair
positions the audience with him promotes the idea of a metro sexual.
Not only this, but it positions Radcliffe in a state where he is an ally to
the queer community, perhaps even queer bating some men into
thinking that he is queer so they have more support over him.

Other celebrities and well known figures that have featured to help
their PR and personal looks are: Tony Blair, David Cameron, Prince
William.
​
The MES of the mast head “attitude” lacks capital letters in order to indicate that it is not a brand
but a characteristic or trait. This marketing technique reinforces certain stereotypes of gay men
being positive, flamboyant and eccentric.
Attitude hold awards, the attitude Awards, which celebrate gay people and allies who have
furthered queer rights and been influential in the gay community. Attitude was purchased by
Stream Publishing, Stream are a horizontally integrated UK magazine publisher who specialise
solely in publishing magazines. Additionally, their website is a template design created by
Pugpig who have specialised in the creation of websites for many media brands including
Reach, The Independent and The Spectator.

The digital edition of the magazine has a circulation of a mire 11k therefore targets a very niche
audience and only outlines the importance of their website. To further help target a mass
audience they have separate editions helping target different countries, most notably Belgium,
Vietnam and Thailand.

Audience
The gender that is targeted is a gay male audeince. This is seen through the face that a lot of
the content is factual. This may be the reason why they are able to attract a male audience, as
steretypicaly men arent very emotional and care more about hard facts. Even when thereare
interviews, its about he history or opinions of that person, and not any thing emotional.
There is many clickbait article headlines to highlight any riskayy ;) content designed to
specifically for audiences to click further into the website conforming to the cost per click
advertisements. Another stereotype conformed to is that men read less than women and this is
even through the simple lexis with small chunks of text, large images and lots of white space.

The queer community are targeted through gay celebrities such as Elton John and Dan Howell;
the lack of stories about families of kids implies the lifestyle choice to note have children. The
entertainment opts to be about holidays promoting the DINK life style (double income no kids).

Additionally, the easiest way to tell that it is targeting a male target audience is through the huge
number of stories about men and male issues. It essentially symbolically annihilates women.

The age range targeted is 25-50, the images convey this age group through recognisable
figure. Additionally, there is a big focus on retro 90s costume codes, music, film and pop-culture.
They play with the feeling of nostalgia and conform peoples want to feel as if they are back in
the time of when they were young.

Additionally the use of politics per haps targets this age range as it is stereotypically assumed
that very young audiences may not be interested in political content.

They promote the print magazine on the website a lot, lots of pictures and refere­nces, links to
subscribe- another indication that the target audience is older, who still consume print products,
whereas young audience might've left print magazines behind them.

Furthermore there is very little “interactive” content on the website which may reflect this older
target audience. This is also reinforced through the choice of Facebook/Twitter rather than
Snapchat/Tiktok.

A middle-class audience is targeted through the adverts for high-end brands like Hucci, an
indentation that the target audience must have the amount of money for it.

Some may feel that the magazine doesn't represent them at all. Whilst it markets itself as a gay
magazine, some audiences may feel that the focus is on gay men and that neglects the focus
on other members of the LGBTQ community, such as Lesbians being featured rarely on the
website.

Representation
Attitude is clearly aimed at a male target audience so the representations reflect this, for
example the representation of men are fairly typical and are cultivated in a way where men are
presented as powerful, successful and wealth, e.g: in the form of a celebrity or political way.
The MES of strong men with their tops of show the hyperbolic and idolized shape of men that
we are often shown in the media and conforms to Van Zoonens theory where men’s bodies are
displayed as something ideologised and earned.

A lot of the articles talk about factual things rather than hold any emotional values which is fairly
typical of content aimed at a male target audience- repres­enting men as emotio­nless and
assuming men don't have feelings which is something we see a lot in the media.
However, some articles like Gok Wan or Ranj Singh's actually do explore the emotional impacts
of coming out and how it can affect relati­onships in your life. These articles may also
represented men in a victimised light and this challenges dominant ideologies of genre and
would be identify to any gay man who has been subject to any form of homophobic abuse.

Attitude tries to represent men in a more effeminate way, for example men who use make up,
talk in a softer way, and men in drag. Attitude represents men in more ways than just in a
masculine way.

Men are highly sexualised with in the website and this is done through the MES of their scantily
clad clothing, additionally they used to have a section on their website which was called “boys”.
The choice of the lexis boys shows the hegemonic perception of homosexuality being perverted
and paedophilic. This shows the change of attitude’s attitude to conform to the public in order to
to get “cancelled”. However, this sexualisation of men is still pushed though headlines such as
“10 not completely sfw images” suggesting sexually provocative images.

There is a distinct lack of anyone other than gay men.

The repres­ent­ation of gay men in a regular, positive, powerful and normalised way, fills a niche
gap in the market, where gay men are often under or misrep­res­ented in other media products.

The website includes a range of ethnic­ities, perhaps reflecting the cosmop­olitan nature of
modern Britain. However, many of the stories about other cultures and countries are quite
negative, repres­enting them as homoph­obic, discri­min­atory, and places to be avoided. This is
specif­ically centred around African countries. We're encouraged to see these countries as
"­bac­kwa­rds­", reflecting the fact that the target audience is primarily British and also reflects the
cultural and political contexts of gay rights in some of the countries.

Website
Exam questions