We have now finished our final in-depth topic - Videogames. Your have done some superb work on women in videogames, Henry Jenkins, fandom and postmodernism. You now need to complete a Videogames blog index to ensure you have completed all the work for our in-depth Videogame CSPs.
This process is clearly excellent revision for the mock exams approaching as there is a lot of theory in there that could be applied across the full range of CSPs in both exam papers.
For your index, the text should link to YOUR corresponding blogpost so you can access your work on each aspect of the case study quickly and easily. This also means you if you have missed anything you can catch up with the work and notes and won't underperform in the mock exams due to gaps in your knowledge.
The final part of our Horizon Forbidden West case study focuses on Audience and Industry. This requires us to research the companies that produced the game and also consider how the videogames audience is changing.
Audience
Target audience
Does Horizon Forbidden West really target a female audience? Or is the console gaming audience still male dominated? Research by YouGov in 2022 suggests that console gamers are still majority male:
YouGov show that the major console audience is still male dominated - 71% male for PS5 and 68% for Xbox. However, the Nintendo Switch demonstrates that the videogame market is changing and perhaps games like Horizon Forbidden West are also pushing that change.
Postmodern pleasures
Horizon Forbidden West is a good example of the blurring of 'high' and 'low' culture that Strinati identifies as a key convention of postmodernism. We can see this in the game where the character Tilda's vault contains real exhibits from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Henry Jenkins suggested videogames as the "art form for the 21st century". Is HFW the evidence of this?
This collaboration is also a good example of Baudrillard's hyperreality - the increasing difficulty in telling what is real in a media-saturated world. The works of art in HFW are real - but the game is entirely constructed. Do audiences now enjoy greater pleasures from 'real' media products?
Industries
Guerrilla Games is the result of a merger of three earlier companies (starting in 1993) which reflects gaming’s origins in small independent companies in contrast to its current status as a global, billion-dollar industry.
The structure of Guerrilla Games and its parent company (Sony) is an example of contemporary media practice in maintaining control of production, distribution and circulation. This is also a case study in vertical integration.
20 years of Guerrilla Games - Killzone and Horizon
Working at Guerrilla Games: behind the scenes
Does this behind the scenes video challenge Hesmondhalgh’s theory regarding the lack of diversity in the cultural industries? It also links to the global nature of the multibillion dollar videogames industry.
Horizon Forbidden West: Audience and Industry blog tasks
Create a blogpost called 'Horizon Forbidden West: Audience and Industry' and work through the following tasks.
2) What are the key features for the game listed on the site?
3) What information does the website offer players about the game world and characters? Give a few examples.
4) What spin-offs and additional content are available as part of the Horizon franchise?
5) Applying Henry Jenkins's work on fandom, what aspects of the website (you may need to scroll down) encourage fan activity and engagement with online Horizon communities?
2) What studios are part of Sony PlayStation Studios?
3) What notable games have they produced?
4) Now research Guerrilla Games. Look at the 'Explore' page in particular. Who owns Guerrilla Games and how does it reflect the modern videogames industry?
5) Choose one of the 'Guerrilla Spotlight' features and write three things you learn about the videogames industry and/or Guerrilla Games from the interview.
1) Which three companies merged to become Guerrilla Games?
2) What other games and franchises were created by Guerrilla Games?
3) How did Guerrilla maximise the Killzone franchise?
4) What did Sony sign with Guerrilla in 2004?
5) How is Horizon Forbidden West described in the article and what is the next stage for the franchise?
Regulation and PEGI
1) What is HFW's PEGI rating and what age rating do you feel would be appropriate? Why?
2) Why is regulating videogames difficult in the digital age?
3) Are attitudes towards media content and regulation changing as a result of the internet? Explain your answer.
A/A* extension tasks
Read this fantastic GQ feature on Horizon Forbidden West - it takes in the history of the franchise, audience pleasures and also gender appeal and videogames. This is the kind of article that will make you an expert on the CSP and help you form opinions on the big media theories and debates. GQ is also another one of our in-depth CSPs too!
Read Factsheet 258 - Exploring the consumption of computer games. Look particularly at the application of media theory on the last two pages. You can find it in our Media Factsheet archive.
The Print aspect to our coursework brief is as important as the video work have been focusing on so far. It is crucial that you research, plan and design print work that could comfortably hold its own alongside professional examples. You will also need to include a section regarding your print magazine work in your redrafted Statement of Intent. A reminder of our coursework brief is here, with the key tasks as follows: Print
You should create four pages from a music magazine – specifically:
a front cover featuring the artist/band promoted in Task One
a two-page interview with the artist/band
one page with content relevant to the magazine and the target audience.
The magazine targets a mainstream music audience.
The front cover and interview can use some images from the same photoshoot but other original images should also be used that offer some visual variety.
The interview should be used to promote the tour and the music track. It should also reinforce the brand image of the artist/band and integrate some reference to the footwear manufacturers who are sponsoring the band/artist.
What do you need to produce? 1) The front page (A4 portrait) for a new, original music magazine aimed at a mainstream audience that you have created:
Title and masthead
Selling line (slogan)
Cover price
Dateline
Main cover image and at least two further smaller images related to the content of the magazine
At least 5 cover lines
2) A double-page spread feature interview with your artist (A3 landscape - i.e. two A4 pages next to each other):
Content that is appropriate to the conventions of the genre of magazine being created
Original copy (at least 400 words)
Each page to use original images as illustrations (the main cover image must not be repeated but can come from the same photoshoot)
Internal pages should reflect the design codes and conventions of the genre of magazine being created
3) A single-page with content relevant to the magazine and the target audience(A4 portrait):
This could be a contents page or alternatively a one-page tour poster advert for your original artist or band.
Make sure you have original photography here - NOT from the same photoshoot as the other pages. The contents page would help with this.
Print brief - overall minimum requirements
A clear house style should be used in the presentation of all pages
A minimum of 7 original images should be included in the submission.
All copy should be original and a minimum of 400 words should be submitted. Absolutely no use of AI in any way at all is permitted for the written elements of the print brief.
Work should be presented on pages that are an appropriate size or in proportion to the size of paper used by magazines
We recommend that all of the above should be A4 portrait page size (with the double-page spread doubling up to A3 landscape).
Research and planning blog tasks Create a blogpost called 'Print brief research and planning' and complete the following tasks to plan and prepare your print work: 1) Find at least five music magazine front covers (either current or former magazines as many have stopped their print editions) aimed at a similar target audience to your project (mainstream music audience) and research music magazine key conventions. For each one, pick out one design idea, convention or image/text style that you could use in your own print work. A few examples to start you off:
2) Find at least five double-page spread features from music magazines on Google images. How are they designed? How are text and images displayed? What design tricks can you borrow from your examples?
3) Find at least five magazine contents pages - ideally from music magazines - from Google images. How are they designed? How are images used alongside text? How are page numbers displayed?
4) Find at least five music artist tour posters from Google images. How are they designed? How are images used alongside text? Which UK venues would suit your artist or band? Some examples:
5) Read at least three example music interview features from newspapers and magazines to learn the format, writing style and content for a music magazine interview. You may wish to use the following to help you:
Planning and sketching 1) Plan the content and cover lines for your front cover:
Title (must be NEW original mainstream music magazine you have invented):
Slogan:
Cover image:
Main cover story/main flash:
Additional cover lines:
Additional two smaller cover images:
Font style / colour scheme, additional design aspects:
2) Plan the images you will use for the front cover - use the elements of mise-en-scene (CLAMPS). One main image and two smaller images required to meet the minimum content in the brief.
3) Plan the content for your inside page feature:
Subject of feature:
Headline:
Subheading:
Main image:
Smaller images (need minimum of four across the three pages)
Font style / colour scheme, additional design aspects:
4) Write the 400 word interview feature you will use for the inside page spread. This must be 100% original and written by you. It may help to use a Q&A approach to this interview.
5) Plan and write the text for your contents page. This will need to include a range of features and interviews that are not related to your artist but that do fit your target audience and brief (mainstream music magazine).
6) Research and select the font or typography you will use for your magazine. This is a critical element of your print work - the brief requires a consistent house style running through all of your pages.
7) Produce an A4 sketch of your front cover design and scan it/upload a picture to your blog.
8) Produce A4 sketches of your inside page feature with clear layout of where headline, subheading, images and text will appear on the pages. Scan or upload a picture to your blog.
9) Produce an A4 sketch of your contents page design and scan it/upload a picture to your blog.
10) Finally, create the pages in Adobe Photoshop or InDesign so you have the documents ready to go in terms of adding your text and images. This will need to include:
A4 portrait for front cover
A4 portrait for contents page
A3 landscape for double page feature
Photoshoot 1) Who do you need to photograph for your front cover and inside page images? Remember, you need seven original images across the whole print production.
2) What camera shots do you need? Write a shot list or draw a storyboard for your photoshoots. Make sure you plan a variety of camera shots you will look to capture - medium shots, close-ups etc. 3) Plan the mise-en-scene. What costume, props or make-up will you require for your photoshoots?
4) Finally, note down the time and date for your photoshoots. This may be inside or outside school (or a combination of both). You will have Media lesson time for this after the mock exams.
Statement of Intent
1) Once you have completed your print research and planning, go back to your statement of intent and make sure you have included the print brief in your final draft. Then, submit the final draft statement of intent to your teacher. The due date for this will be confirmed by your coursework teacher.
Use your Media coursework lessons to complete these planning tasks - homework time should be exclusively to revise for mocks.
Due date for research and planning on Google Classroom.
Our second videogames CSP is Horizon Forbidden West (2022). This is another in-depth CSP so will require two detailed blog tasks over the next couple of weeks. We'll start with an introduction alongside language and representation contexts. Horizon Forbidden West: introduction
Released in February 2022 as a sequel to the highly successful Horizon Zero Dawn (2017).
Available on PS4, PS5 and Windows platforms.
Horizon Forbidden West sold over 8 million copies in its first year.
Excellent reviews including 9/10 on IGN.
Developed by studio Guerrilla Games which is based in Amsterdam and owned by Sony.
Background and media language
Genres: Action adventure / Action role playing / Sandbox / Open world
Protagonist/avatar (character player controls): Aloy
Setting: Post-apocalyptic future version of USA following extinction event caused by a robot swarm.
Gameplay: Exploring open world, completing quests using weapons against hostile machine creatures.
Official release trailer:
Official gameplay trailer:
Representation: social and cultural contexts
Horizon Forbidden West has been both praised and criticised for the representations of different groups. Driven by a strong, independent female protagonist in Aloy, the game has been held up as an example of how gender in videogames is changing.
Horizon Forbidden West also has an LGBT storyline which can be seen as further evidence of Gauntlett’s view of the liberalising influence of the mass media, particularly in recent years.
However, the game has also been criticised for its representation of indigenous populations and Asian Americans with the accusation of lazy stereotypical tropes.
Key scene analysis
Watch the key scene where Aloy’s love interest storyline develops and think about how representations of gender and sexuality are constructed:
Edward Said: Orientalism
Edward Said (1935-2003) was a Palestinian-American cultural theorist and academic best known for his 1978 book Orientalism.
In it, he argued that the west – particularly colonising Europe – constructed a meaning of the east that suggested it was exotic, dangerous and uncivilised.
East v West
Edward Said argues that the Europeans divided the world into two parts: the east and the west or the civilized and the uncivilized. This was a totally artificial boundary; and it was laid on the basis of the concept of ‘them and us’ or ‘theirs and ours’.
The Europeans defined themselves as the ‘superior race’ and they justified their colonisation by this concept. Media to this day contains particular tropes associated with these views.
“A plethora of racist tropes emerge within Forbidden West’s world. There’s a stereotypical angry Black woman named Regalla, for example, who leads a rebel army and would rather die than seek peace. There’s also constant belittling between tribes, who call each other “savage” or “uncivilized” — terms loaded with racial undertones. There’s also plenty of Orientalism.”
Horizon Forbidden West: Language and Representation blog tasks
Create a blogpost called 'Horizon Forbidden West: Language and Representation' and work through the following tasks.
Our second CSP gives us the opportunity to explore the representation and role of women in videogames.
Women in videogames: an introduction
The representation of women in videogames has long been considered sexist. Female characters are rarely playable and usually reinforce traditional gender stereotypes. Games that did feature female characters presented them as damsels in distress or sex objects.
Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider series is one of the most iconic characters in videogame history. But while she is a strong, independent playable character, her appearance and costume turned her into a digital sex object. In contrast, the character of Aloy in Horizon Forbidden West could be a sign of progress.
Tropes vs Women in Video Games
Vlogger and gaming expert Anita Sarkeesian has produced two series of YouTube videos documenting the representation of women in videogames.
Vlogging as Feminist Frequency, the series are an important example of digital feminism (and a superb resource for Media students). However, as a result, she has been a target for online abuse and threats – most notably as part of the #gamergate controversy.
Further feminist theory
We have looked at a range of feminist ideas earlier in the course including Laura Mulvey, Judith Butler, Liesbet van Zoonen, the concept of post- or fourth-wave feminism and more. We now need to explore this further with a deeper understanding of bell hooks and van Zoonen.
Notes from the lesson Watch this short extract from Orange is the New Black star Laverne Cox interviewing bell hooks at The New School in New York: bell hooks is a highly influential radical black feminist. She sees feminism as a struggle to end patriarchal oppression - it should be a serious political commitment rather than a fashionable lifestyle choice: “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression”. bell hooks also points to the importance of race and class when studying oppression.
Intersectionality
Intersectionality is defined as the common point of two forms of oppression and how they work against a particular group of people. For example, black feminism addresses both gender and race discrimination.
bell hooks suggests that race is so significant that the experiences of gender, class or sexuality-based discrimination cannot be fully understood without also considering race.
This is important when analysing power in society. For example, men generally have more power then women – but white, middle class western women generally have much more power than women from non-white backgrounds.
Liesbet van Zoonen
Liesbet van Zoonen is an influential feminist academic and linked gender roles and the media explicitly in her 1994 book Feminist Media Studies. Some of her key ideas:
Gender is constructed through media language
These constructions reflect cultural and historical contexts
The objectification of the female body is a key construct of western culture (building on Mulvey – male gaze)
If women have to be like men to be treated equally, then equality itself is repressive
Women and videogames: blog tasks Work through the following blog tasks to complete our work on women in videogames and further feminist theory. Part 1: Background reading on Gamergate Read this Guardian article on Gamergate 10 years on. Answer the following questions: 1) What was Gamergate? 2) What is the recent controversy surrounding narrative design studio Sweet Baby Inc? 3) What does the article conclude regarding diversity in videogames?
Part 2: Further Feminist Theory: Media Factsheet
Use our Media Factsheet archive on the M: drive Media Shared (M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets) or here using your Greenford Google login. Find Media Factsheet #169 Further Feminist Theory, read the whole of the Factsheet and answer the following questions:
1) What definitions are offered by the factsheet for ‘feminism ‘and ‘patriarchy’?
2) Why did bell hooks publish her 1984 book ‘Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center’?
3) What aspects of feminism and oppression are the focus for a lot of bell hooks’s work?
4) What is intersectionality and what does hooks argue regarding this?
5) What did Liesbet van Zoonen conclude regarding the relationship between gender roles and the mass media?
6) Liesbet van Zoonen sees gender as socially constructed. What does this mean and which other media theorist we have studied does this link to?
7) How do feminists view women’s lifestyle magazines in different ways? Which view do you agree with?
8) In looking at the history of the colours pink and blue, van Zoonen suggests ideas gender ideas can evolve over time. Which other media theorist we have studied argues things evolve over time and do you agree that gender roles are in a process of constant change? Can you suggest examples to support your view?
9) What are the five aspects van Zoonen suggests are significant in determining the influence of the media?
10) What other media theorist can be linked to van Zoonen’s readings of the media?
11) Van Zoonen discusses ‘transmission models of communication’. She suggests women are oppressed by the dominant culture and therefore take in representations that do not reflect their view of the world. What other theory and idea (that we have studied recently) can this be linked to?
12) Finally, van Zoonen has built on the work of bell hooks by exploring power and feminism. She suggests that power is not a binary male/female issue but reflects the “multiplicity of relations of subordination”. How does this link to bell hooks?
A/A* Extension tasks: TED talk
Finally, if you’re interested in some of these ideas, there is plenty more reading and watching you can do. For example, watch this TEDx talk by renowned Nigerian/American novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ‘We should all be feminists’:
How has the videogame landscape changed with regards to the representation of women? What is the impact of the videogames industry being male-dominated?
