Section 1: Ownership in the fillm industry

Horizontal Integration -

• A production company expands into other areas of one industry. It is shared across.
• The company can develop in a particular area of production or they can buy out another company that deals with these areas.
• E.g. Casino Royale was mostly made by Sony. Sony owns companies such as Columbia pictures, however other companies were involved in the production such as eon productions.

Vertical Integration -

• The production company has complete ownership of the production, distribution and exhibition of the film.
• It is all passed down.
• They receive all of the profit - Brand identity
• E.g. Walt Disney studios motion pictures

The big six -

• The American film industry is dominated by 6 big film studios

1. Walt Disney pictures (Pixar)
2. universal pictures (DreamWorks Animation)
3. 20th century fox (sky)
4. Paramount (MTV)
5. Columbia pictures (Sony)
6. Warner Brothers (DC films)

The big 6 produce and exile amazing movies, they break barriers and are able to access unbelievable facilities. With exposure to almost any location and a bank balance that has no limits, the big six don't have limitation.

Owning 90% of the media in America their influence is big although not always for the greater good. With people comparing the big 6 to a puppeteer who actively inject their active audience with their thoughts and feelings through their movies and TV shows

Section 3: representation: a media studies aspect

Representation-

What is it?

• Representation is the process by which the media presents the 'real world' to an audience
• media texts construct meanings about the world - a picture, a film, a television programme or a newspaper article represents the world to help audiences make sense of it.
• A popular understanding of representation is through stereotypes.

Stereotypes -

• Stereotypes are a form of representation in which groups of people are characterised by attributing to them qualities that some individuals possess, and which later become associated with the whole group, E.g. punks are associated with safety pins in their clothes and bodies, and Mohican haircuts
• Stereotypes are widely circulated ideas or assumptions about particular groups
• Stereotypes are also essential tools for media producers. They can be used as a shorthand to condense a lot of complex information and detail into a character who is easily recognised and simple to deal with - Ugly Betty is a good example. It makes it easier for the audience to understand the character and his or her role in the text.

A further breakdown -

Branston and Stafford state there are 4 characteristics:

1. They involve both a categorising and an evaluation of the group being stereotyped.
2. They usually emphasise some easily grasped features of the group and suggest that these are the cause of the groups position.
3. The evaluation of the group is often, though not always, a negative one
4. Stereotypes often try to insist on absolute differences and boundaries where the idea of a spectrum of difference is more appropriate.

Representation -

• Representation is not just about how we see people, places and objects but also how we interpret what out senses tell us. This depends as much on who we are, as what we see, hear or read.

Accuracy -

• An important debate in any study of the media is about the accuracy of the representations it offers us.
• There are official organisations who monitor the media for accuracy and other codes of behaviours to make sure that people are protected to some degree from exposure to lies and deliberate untruths.

Film representation -

• A film representation of a character for example consists of at least four factors:

1. The character - gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality and look
2. The collective cultural background and views of the producer/director/institution
3. The audiences reaction to the character
4. Where and when the representation takes place - cinema/home/laptop/friends house

Mediation (important!) -

• Mediation is the process by which a media text represents an idea, issue or event to an audience.
• Many people think that if you point a camera at an event or person the 'reality' of that event or person will be immediately apparent. Seeing something through a lens changes not just the perspective and size of a person but also how the audience perceives that person. Therefore it has been mediated.

Selection - Whatever ends up on the screen or in the paper, much more will have been left out - any news story has been selected from hundreds of others which the producers decided for you were less interesting, any picture has been chosen from an enormous number of alternatives.

Organisation - The various elements will be organised carefully in ways that real life is not: in visual media this involves mise-en-scene and the organisation of narrative, in the recording of an album the production might involve re-mixing a track. Any medium you can think of will have an equivalent to these. This organisation of the material will result in...

Focusing - Mediation always end up with us, the audience being encouraged towards concentrating on one aspect of the text and ignoring others. If you are watching a film the camera will pan towards an important character, in a tabloid the headlines will scream for your attention

Section 3 - Narrative: A media Studies key aspect

Narrative -
Narrative theory - Theory about the ways in which stories are structured in order to create meaning for the audience.

• Narrative is the media term for story telling.
• Narrative is the way the different elements in a story are organised to make a meaningful story. Some of these elements can be facts as in a documentary, or characters and action as in a drama.

What is it?

• When we look at narrative we see that stories throughout the media share certain characteristics. This often links them to genre.
• Different media tell stories in a variety of different ways. 

Narrative  structures -

• This is the way the story or plot unfolds.
• Is the story an open or closed structure?
• A closed structure means the story ends satisfactorily as in most films - this is known as closure.
• An open ending means there is no final conclusion to the story - a television soap has no final ending, it just has minor endings.
• Some texts have an interactive structure e.g. Big brother
• A multi-strand structure means there are several narratives running at the same time. This is very common in TV, such as Holby city, and The Bill.
• Other narrative structures include point of view (pov) (documentaries often do this)
• A popular narrative device is the enigma. The plot constructs a puzzle that the audience is asked to solve while the characters act out the story.

How is it informed?

• Narrative is informed by character, action and location.
• Characters have functions such as heroes or villains, or someone who assists the hero or villain as a helper or messenger.
• The action determines how the events in the narrative occur and the influence they have.
• The location of a film or television programme is an important ingredient in how the story unfolds. Dracula must have a castle.
• Narrative is often delivered to the audience by expectation, suspense, tension and closure.
• The audience is led to expect certain things to happen which leads to tension and excitement.
• Expectation, suspense and tension are created by the use of media language.

Our job -

• Directors and producers use many techniques to get a story to an audience in an involving, interesting, exciting and entertaining way. Our job as media students is to find out what these techniques are, and see where and how they are sued and what they mean in media texts. This is known as textual analysis.

Narrative theory -

These are four main theorists to consider:

1. Tzvetan Todorov
2. Vladimir Propp
3. Roalnd Barthes
4. Levi - Strauss

Todorov -

• Tovorovs theory has 3 main parts:

1. The text begins with a sate of equilibrium - Everything appears to be normal or calm.
2. There is some kind of disruption or disequilibrium - this is often a threat to the normal situation or it could be just a setback
3. A new equilibrium is produced to end the narrative. In the best narratives there is some kind of change for the better perhaps in the main characters behaviour or outlook on life.

Todorov suggest there are five stages to how the narrative progresses:

1. The equilibrium has to be carefully shown (otherwise the disruption may not be dramatic enough to create a strong plot)
2. There is a disruption
3. There is a recognition  that a disruption has happened.
4. There is an attempt to repair the damage done by the disruption
5. A new equilibrium is achieved.

• Here narrative is not seen as linear but as circular.
• The narrative is driven by the characters' attempts to restore the equilibrium, although the end result is not quite the same as the beginning.

Propps theory -

• Propp studied folk tales and he proposed ways of grouping characters and their actions into eight broad character types or 'spheres of action'
• N.B. One character may occupy more than one sphere of action

Spheres of action -

1. The villain
2. The hero, or character who seeks something, usually motivated by a lack of something (money, love etc.) The hero doesn't have to be heroic in the way most people would understand it - heroes can be male or female, brave or cowardly.
3. The donor, who provides an object with some magic property.
4. The helper, who aids the hero.
5. The princess, reward for the hero, and object of the villains schemes. Again, this is not necessarily a beautiful damsel in distress - the princess can be male!
6. Her father, who rewards the hero.
7. The dispatcher, who sends the hero on his way.
8. The false hero, the character who also lays claim to the princess but is unsuitable and causes complications.

Levi - Strauss -

• He introduced the notion of binary oppositions as a useful way to consider the production of meaning within narratives.
• he argued that all construction of meaning was dependent, to some degree, on these oppositions.
• Examples - good vs evil
• male vs female
• Humanity vs technology
• nature vs industrialisms
• east vs west
• dark vs light
• dirt vs cleanliness

Section 3: critical and theoretical analysis of media texts 3.2

Genre theory - Is a tool that helps us study texts and audience responses to text by dividing them into categories based on common elements. Genre theory discusses why and how both audience and institutions use and recognize genres.

• A genre has characteristic features that are known to an recognised by audiences. The same formula is applied time and time again
• There are also subgenres within genres.

What makes genre attractive to audiences?

Expectations are fulfilled and they can predict what will happen next.

What do producers like to work within a genre?

Communication with the audience is instant as key components are easily recognised. Also known as  "stereo types".

There is no need to set up characters and props as audiences will immediately understand these things.

The audience will know what to expect-

For a genre to come established, certain conventions need to become identifiable in the general consciousness of the audience.

Key components of a genre -

Stock = Key characters

• stock characters
• stock plots, situations, issues and themes
• stock locations and backdrops
• stop props
• recognisable music
• generic conventions
• familiar narrative structure

Disadvantages -

• Formulaic media texts
• texts that do not fall into line have problems getting shown
• texts that are not easily categorised are difficult to sell.

Summary -

Genres function according to sets of Formulas and patterns, and over time, these formulas and patterns may begin to dominate the way we see the world about us

A brief history of the Romance genre film:

1950's - Singin' in the rain,
1955 - Lady and the tramp

1959 - sleeping beauty

1961 - Breakfast at tiffany's,

1965 - The sound of music

1970's - grease, love story,

1976 - rocky
1980 - The blue lagoon

1987 - Dirty dancing

1989  - When sally met harry

1990 -  Pretty women
1995 - Clueless
1997 - Titanic

1999 - 10 things I hate about you
2000 - love actually
2004 - the notebook
2008 - 27 dresses
2010 - letters to Juliet

Section 1 - Disney vertical and horizontal integration

Disney -

1. What subsidiaries does Disney own in production, marketing, distribution and merchandising?

• Pixar
• Hulu
• Disney store
• Marvel toys
• ABC (American broadcasting company)
• Disney cruise line
• radio Disney

2. What are the benefits of being a conglomerate company?

• more money
• synergy - promoting /marketing each others products
• easier to target mass audience

3. What would an independent company need to do to compete?

• independent company would need joint ventures to distribute/exchange products. However the internet is making this easier.

Audio media products - Section 3

What decade did radio begin?
Radio has evolved dramatically since the first the first broadcasts on 31st August 1920. As a media industry it was dominated by BBC until the 1960s when pirate radio stations became popular with young people.

Name at least 4 different forms of radio?
BBC radio : national stations that include 1,2,3,4,5 and . Also has over 50 national regional radio stations.
Commercial and independent radio: Stations include Classic FM and absolute. These are funded by advertisement.
Regional stations: these can be delivered by the BBC as well as commercial and independent radio broadcasters.
DAB (digital audio broadcasting): planet rock and magic are examples of this type of radio.

Name at least 4 different radio platforms?

DAB (digital audio broadcasting)
FM radio
LW (long wave)
MW (medium radio)
free view TV, sky TV and virgin TV
online
on mobile phones via mobile apps
on digital music players

Name the company which regulates radio
The radio industry is regulated by Ofcom, who also cover TV industry. Ofcoms duty is to examine complaints made against radio stations, to determine if the broadcasting code has been breached.


Relax FM and Gem 2016 jingles:
Similarities: Similar form and similar sound.
Differences: Relax is a lot longer and calmer whereas Gem is a lot more upbeat and exciting. Perhaps an older audience listen to Relax that play chill music. Gem may play more of a variety

Magazine analysis

Masthead -

The word ‘fashion’ is written in bold bright pink writing. The colour of the text brings a younger female audience in as it is pink. It is an eye catching masthead

Central imagine -

The central image is the most important part of the magazine cover. It is of a famous person which also brings a younger audience in as they are interested in the media and gossip.

Cover lines –

These are varied all around the front cover. They tell the readers some of the content of the magazine. This cover has 4 cover lines

Anchorage -  

The anchorage helps give the picture meaning. It helps the read to understand the point in and significance of the image

Use of colour –

The magazine colour theme is white, pink and black.  These colours will be eye catching usually towards female as pink is stereotyped towards girls. It is a bright magazine front cover which makes it stand out when being sold in a store.

Font –

The font is the all the same on this front cover. It is all big and bold.

PSB - public service broadcasting - Section 1

PSB

Public service broadcasting refers to media outlets, (e.g. TV programmes, radios), that are broadcasted for the public benefit rather than for purely commercial purposes.

Why would they be shown?

• These things usually aren't commercially viable to mass market such as documentaries and educational programmes.
• BBC was the first PSB in the UK. They are funded by consumers license fees rather than advertisements.
• Top 100 independent TV companies

ITV and Netflix - 

1. Is it a conglomerate or an independent company and how do you know?

ITV stands for independent television which means that ITV is an independent company. Netflix is also an independent company because it does not own any other companies.

2.  How does the company use synergy? 

ITV use synergy because they present themselves by having a channel on television and by having there own websites. They also have a lot of advertisement around the world. Netflix uses synergy as they have apps on mobile phones and it is used on the internet.

3. How does the company use joint venture?

BBC, itv, and channel 4 are all linked together with the creation of a commercial three-way joint venture to launch an on-demand content service. Netflix have a joint venture with CW network, who are in partnership with warner brothers. 

Magazine front covers/conventions - Section 3

Purpose of a front cover

• The front cover functions to entice readers to buy a magazine. Although the reader will spend a fraction of the time they read the magazine focusing on the front, they may not pick it up in the first place unless the front cover is well designed.
• The front cover is made up of a number of important features. These are common conventions of magazines.

Masthead - This is the name of the magazine and is almost always displayed at the top. The font style and colour will have been chose extremely carefully to help sell the magazine, as well as give some indication about the content and audience. Similarly, the name of the magazine will be carefully chosen.

Tagline - This goes near the masthead, and is sometimes attached to it. It shows what the magazine is about or who it might be aimed at.

Central image - This is one of the most important parts of the front cover as it catches the readers eye before they even look at the printed text. The central image will be relevant to the magazines purpose and audience, and will often be strongly related to the feature article. Much can be said about a central image, and so much can be denoted and connoted from an image.

The cover model - For many magazines, a cover model will be used. This may be a celebrity, or well known individual connected with the magazines genre (e.g. a rock star posing for a music magazine): or it may be a photographic model. Consider the implications of this. Think about the mise-en-scene.

Anchorage - This is a term that refers to how images are referred to. In magazines, images will be anchored by captions (directly explaining what the pictures depict), by coverless, or by articles and headlines. Anchoring an image helps give it meaning, as it helps the reader understand the significance. 

Secondary images- They may be used on the front cover to help promote other features in the magazine, usually anchored by a coverlid. They are often used in magazines where readers need to be enticed by the picture rather than the cover line text (e.g. celebrity magazines)

Cover lines - These are located at various points on the front cover, telling readers about the magazines contents - and specifically, the articles they'll find. The front cover often features 6-12 cover lines in an attempt to lure different readers to different things. Cover lines will often use language and presentational devices to be most effective.

Mode od address - Mode of address refers to the way that magazines communicate with their readers. Some magazines will use a direct mode of address, communicating with individual readers. This might be through use of the cover model (e.g pointing directly at the camera).

Puff - As in 'Puff of air', this is a device which helps to draw attention to and promote certain elements in the magazine. They are often set against colourful backgrounds and are shaped - e.g. rounded. Quite often they advertise a "freebie" or a special feature in the magazine.

Pug - Pugs are the 'ears of a magazine and are placed at the top left or right-hand corners of a front cover. They usually display a promotion.

Barcode, price, edition - They key features are always on somewhere on the front of a magazine cover.

Use of colour -  This is used to great effect. Some magazines will alter all the colour schemes from edition to edition (masthead, cover line fonts, etc), while others will alter some colours to co-oridinate with the central image.

Font - Front covers will display a variety of font choices, usually adapted to infer meaning

Textual analysis essay - Section 3

Mean Girls Burn book - 3:05

Mean Girl Textual analysis

I am going to be writing a textual analysis essay on an extract from the film 'Mean Girls'. The extract is 3:05 minutes and the extract shows the main character Regina George and her friends going to Regina's family home after a day at school. One of the main characters called Kady is the new girl at school who transferred from Africa. The editing of this extract is done so well that the audience wouldn't know the film has been edited, apart from the clips changing from clip to clip.
The extract starts off with the girls driving into the drive of the house and the shot shows the whole of Regina's huge house. This is an extreme wide shot as the camera is establishing where the scene is set. It provides the correct information needed for the audience to figure out where it is set even though it doesn't show a lot of detail. We also at first see the car driving into the drive with the song 'Milkshake' playing in the background. The music in the background is a non-diegetic sound as it has been added  to the extract after being recorded.

The first time the characters are scene is when they first get out the car. Regina gets out first followed by her 3 friends. The newest friend then states "wow your house is really nice". The three main girls Regina, Gretchen and Karen are a clique at there high school called 'The Plastics'. Kady wants to try and be a plastic to find out information for her real friend Janis.
Regina is wearing a pink cardigan, with a white vest and black leather mini skirt. All four of the girls are also wearing pink tops because it was a Wednesday and on "Wednesdays we wear pink". This is a famous line from mean girls. As the extract continues they close the doors of the car and enter Regina's home. This shot is a wide shot because we can see the characters entering a room and also can see a lot of the background. This also allows the actors to move around without the camera constantly moving and following them. In the background we see the hall way of Regina's home, it is modern and is a nicely designed home. We see plants and statues which suggests that they have money. As the girls carry on walking into the home Regina says hello to her younger sister who is dancing in front of the television wearing red trousers and a white long sleeve top. The younger sister is called kylie and she has long blonde hair just like Regina. The shot of Kylie is a point of view shot because we see what Regina is seeing. A point of view shot draws the audience into the action and makes them feel like they are getting to know the characters better.

Regina and her friends carry on walking into the big, modern kitchen where we soon meet Regina's mother who has long blonde hair and is wearing a bright pink matching tracksuit whilst holding a little dog in a red fluffy outfit. At first we see the whole of Regina's mum, this is recorded by a dolly sharp. A dolly sharp is when the tracks are laid on the set to create a smooth movement of the camera which can follow a moving person. The camera then zooms in to Regina's mother which makes the shot a medium shot, showing no more than half of the character(waist upwards). Regina's mother then introduces herself to the newest friend Kady and says "welcome to our home" going in for a hug. At this point the camera completely zooms into her mothers breasts. This is an extreme close up which provides a lot of detail and creates a humorous tone. The music in the background (the non-diegetic sound) is still playing to give the scene an informal vibe. The girls have a quick chat with Regina's mum and she offers them a "hump day treat". The four girl then leave the kitchen walking back through the living room past Regina's younger sister still dancing.

The extract then immediately shows Regina's room. The room is a big beautiful room with a big red crushed velvet bed which has 'princess' written on the wall behind. The carpet is grey and there is a blue sofa at the end of the bed with pillows all over it. There are posters on the walls of the bedroom of famous people singing. There are big wind windows at the far end of the bedroom. It is a typical dream bedroom for a teenage girl. Once the audience has seen her bedroom, Kady says "wow this is your room" and Regina replies "it was my  parents room but I made them trade me". This suggests that she is a spoilt child and gets what she wants. Since entering the bedroom a new piece of music has been added to the scene. This again is a non-diegetic sound as it has been added to the scene. We then see Regina, Gretchen and Karen looking in the mirror at themselves. This shot uses loose framing because its a long shot and it gives the people being filmed more freedom to move around. The camera then zooms into Kady's face when she says "I used to think there was just fat and skinny". This is a close up as she is filling up the majority of the shot which provides a lot of detail, especially for the emotions of her face. It then moves onto each individual character as they all start to complain and pick out things that they don't like about themselves. These are all close ups aswell because they show detail to what the characters are complaining about. The music in the background is in time sync with the actors speaking. It is a diegetic sound because when they first entered the bedroom Regina asked her friend to put music on so it is just the music playing in her bedroom.

Regina's mother then enters the bedroom with the 'hump day treat' that she was talking about earlier in the extract. She walks in with a tray of four cocktails whilst saying "hey you guys happy hour is from 4 to 6". As she walks in we see the background of Regina's bathroom which looks white and beige and very modern and her big chest of drawers with lots of items on top. All four of the girls each take a cocktail and Kady asks "is there alcohol in this". This is a shallow focus shot because the camera is focusing on the character which creates the background to become blurry. This is done to separate the character from their surroundings. The camera then goes straight back to Regina's mother with her immedietly replying "oh god, no honey what kind of mother do you think I am". The shot of the mother is a close up to show that she is being serious about their being no alcohol in the drink which is also shot in shallow focus to separate her from the surroundings.
The lighting throughout the extract mainly remains the same. It is bright to establish that it is the day time, apart from when entering Regina's bedroom it gets a little darker because the room is darker shades.