NDM News: Globalisation

One of the topics that we need to cover in A2 Media is Globalisation - which has huge relevance to digital media, news and beyond.

You should have read the notes on Globalisation in class - the handout is here if you need an electronic copy.

Globalisation and news: blog task

Having discussed these issues in class in relation to our news case study, you now need to answer the following questions on your blog:

1) Is our news influenced by American cultural imperialism? Give some examples arguing for or against this perspective.

2) Has the increased globalisation of news improved the audience experience? How? Why?

3) Has globalisation benefited or damaged major news institutions? How? Why?

Complete for homework if you don't get it finished in the lesson - due next week.

Critical Investigation Task #5

Write the introduction to your Critical Investigation essay.

This should clearly introduce your primary text, the media issue or debate you are addressing and what angle your essay will use to approach the question. It needs to engage the reader, pose some questions and give a clear indication of what direction the essay will take. The word count will vary but you want to aim for around 200-250 words.

You may find this brief Powerpoint guide to academic writing useful in approaching this task and can certainly refer to it for the rest of your first draft over Christmas.

This is a strong example of an opening paragraph from a previous year:

Do recent Hollywood films such as the Wolf of Wall Street suggest that audiences are still being influenced by negative gender stereotypes?

Despite the gains made by feminism over the last 30 years, Hollywood films still offer too many negative gender stereotypes. This is particularly clear in Martin Scorsese’s highly successful biopic of Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street (2012). In Scorsese’s film, women are presented as sex objects, prostitutes or housewives and there for the pleasure of the male characters (and arguably male audience). It is evident that negative gender stereotypes are still present in modern Hollywood films and it is hard to argue that audiences are not influenced by these representations. We can also see this in historical, successful Hollywood films such as Scarface, the original Wall Street and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Despite the fact that the gender gap between males and females has started to close – more so recently with respected activists such as Emma Watson speaking out publicly on behalf of the UN gender campaign – negative gender stereotypes in film show that the gap is still an issue in society. Hollywood films that are based around the idea of 'power' often portray negative stereotypes of women. The idea of power and riches appeals to a mass audience as Richard Havis explores in an interview with Scorsese about The Wolf Of Wall Street: "Look at young people and what the American Dream means to them. It's all about accumulating more, and doing what is best for you, in spite of how it affects anyone else.”  This essay will explore the negative gender stereotypes in Hollywood productions and the influence such films have on the audience.

Your introductory paragraph needs to be approved by your teacher along with your essay plan before you write your first draft. Due: Friday 9 December.

Critical Investigation Task #4

Essay plan

Produce a detailed essay plan for your critical investigation, covering everything that you hope to include in your first draft over Christmas. 

Break your ideas and research down into sections and paragraphs with headings, summaries and a list of quotes/references that you hope to include at each step. You may also want to plan a rough word count for each section, remembering you are aiming for around 2,000 words (not including quotes - probably around 2,500 with quotes). You can see some excellent examples from previous years by clicking on Navneet's or, going back further, Sonam or Jaleesa.

Make sure that you label each point you hope to include by linking it to Key Concepts (MIGRAIN) and Wider Contexts (SHEP). (You could just include the initial letter in brackets). This way you can see whether you have covered everything that you need to in an even way. Also, ensure that you think about where you will include theories/theorists, issues/debates and media keywords. (Keep the 'Essential Word Dictionary' handy). You may find that the tasks we have completed recently such as textual analysis and your historical text research help you to plan certain sections too.

This will make writing your essay MUCH easier. However, it is a big task as it requires you to read through all your research very carefully and plan what you should include and what isn't relevant. This is the key academic skill that universities teach - expect it to be difficult and take time! 

You may want to produce this plan as a straightforward series of bullet points or as a more complex mindmap. If it's the latter you may have to do it by hand and then scan it in before posting it up on your blog. Or you may want to try out an online mind-mapping tool like bubbl.

Deadline: Friday 2 December

Note: You must get your essay plan approved by your teacher before Christmas so you are able to write the draft over the holidays.

Marxism & Pluralism - homework essay

A reminder of the question we've been looking at in lesson:

The development of new/digital media means the audience is more powerful in terms of consumption and production. Discuss the arguments for and against this view.

We need to make sure we can write well developed paragraphs answering the question we are given. Remember what we said made for a good paragraph:

• Focus on the question
• Application of theories, issues/debates, wider contexts
• Detailed evidence; range of examples
• Well structured; clearly expressed

For the Marxist perspective, we looked at the following exemplar paragraph:

A Marxist perspective would argue that the so-called “information revolution” has done little to benefit audiences or to subvert the established power structures in society. Far from being a “great leveller” (Krotoski, 2012) as many have claimed, it has merely helped to reinforce the status quo by promoting dominant ideologies. The most popular news website in the UK by a considerable margin is the ‘Mail Online’, which receives more than 8 million hits every month and is continuing to expand rapidly – with forecasts that it will make £100 million or more in digital revenues in the next three years. Similar to its tabloid print edition, the website takes a Conservative, right-wing perspective on key issues around gender, sexuality and race and audiences appear to passively accept what the Marxist theorist, Gramsci, called a hegemonic view. When one of their chief columnists, Jan Moir, wrote a homophobic article about the death of Stephen Gately in 2009 there were Twitter and Facebook protests but, ultimately, they did not change the editorial direction of the gatekeepers controlling the newspaper.

This includes plenty of excellent points, quotes, examples and uses of media language that help raise this to Level 4:

• Marxist perspective 
• “information revolution” 
• “great leveller” (Krotoski, 2012) 
• promoting dominant ideologies
• ‘Mail Online’, 8 million hits/month 
• £100 million in the next three years
• Conservative, right-wing 
• Gramsci, hegemonic view
• Jan Moir, homophobic - death of Stephen Gately, 2009
• gatekeepers

You now need to write a similar paragraph using the Pluralist perspective. 

The key aspects of Pluralism we discussed in lesson included:

• Pluralist perspective
• audiences: “conform, accommodate or reject” (Gurevitch)
• uses and gratifications theory
• Castells “culture of freedom” 
• “The Great Leveller”; “Paradigm shift” (Krotoski)
• Ferguson protests (tweets/hashtag); Tomlinson case (G20)
• Arab Spring, protests
• UGC, citizen journalism, blogs
• democratization
• “mutualisation of news” (Rushbridger, The Guardian)

Homework

If you don't finish the paragraph on Pluralism, ensure this is on your blog by Friday.

Your main homework is to answer the question we have been working on in lesson on your blog:

The development of new/digital media means the audience is more powerful in terms of consumption and production. Discuss the arguments for and against this view.

This must be a complete response including everything we have learned in the unit so far: the decline of newspapers, how news consumption has changed (Ofcom report), paywalls and the future of journalism, citizen journalism, hyperreality and UGC, news values and finally Marxism, Pluralism and Hegemony. 

Use the quotes you have been given wherever possible and a wide range of examples from across the news industry and beyond (this is where your regular NDM stories should be useful).

Due: confirmed by your exam teacher 

Critical investigation research: additional source

Between The Media is an online Media journal that may be worth checking out for your critical investigation research.

I stumbled across this during a tutorial with one of my students and while there doesn't seem to be a huge amount on there at the moment it's worth keeping an eye on. The fact that they describe the site as bridging the gap between media and academia tells us it's the kind of resource we should be looking at.

Check out Between The Media here!

Gone Too Far Trip

We hope you enjoyed the brilliant 'Gone Too Far' film at the BFI, Southbank, and the other post-film events: The very interesting Q&A with Bola Agbaje; and the highly engaging debate about ethnicity and film-making.

Now you have a few tasks to help you reflect on it all...

1. Read this short Guardian review about the film.

2. Read this Time Out review of the film.

3. Read the Into Film Festival guide to 'Gone Too Far' that contains some general info and a few questions ('Discussion points') for you to think about and answer on your blog.

4. Read the Into Film Festival review writing competition details, especially the Top Tips PDF.

5. Carry out some additional research if necessary - the IMDB website about the film is a good place to start - and then write your own original 300 word review of the film. Post up the review on your blog, then copy it out by hand onto the competition entry form which you'll receive in your lesson. 

6. Write your own 500 word argument on your blog either for or against the debate proposition: "This house believes that films featuring ethnic minorities should only be produced by those who have the ethnic identity being represented."

Deadline for completion and submission of all tasks: Tuesday 29/11/16 or Wednesday 30/11/16

NDM News case study: index

We are over half-way through our new/digital case study into the news industry and need to create an index to ensure we are keeping up with the workload. 

Over Christmas, you will be revising for a MEST3 Section B assessment in January as well as working on your first draft of the critical investigation. It's therefore vital that you ensure that you are up-to-date with all your exam work NOW before the workload increases further. 

NDM News index

In today's lesson you need to create an index of all of your work so far for New/Digital Media and News. 

This process is an excellent start to your revision for the next assessment in January and will also highlight if you've missed anything through absence or trips. Your index should include the following:

1) Institution: the impact of Google on the newspaper industry
2) Ofcom report: how news consumption has changed
3) The future of newspapers: Build The Wall analysis
4) The decline of newspapers: the effect of online technology
5) The future of journalism: John Oliver and Clay Shirky
6) The decline of newspapers: Media Magazine case studies
7) Citizen journalism and hyper-reality: Media Magazine article and questions
8) News Values: theory and updating them for digital media landcape
9) Marxism & Pluralism: Media Magazine article and questions
10) Alain de Botton on the News: lecture and questions

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 assessment due to gaps in your knowledge.



NDM story index

You also need to update your separate index of ALL of your NDM stories so far. This homework was originally set on Friday 9 September which means you should have a minimum of 20 stories in your index this week. 

Your index should have the story number (starting with your first story back in September as #1), the headline and a link to your blog post for that story - guidance for the original index we created last month (with top-level examples from previous years) is here.

Having already done this once, you can simply copy the HTML over from your previous index and just update it for the last 10 stories. Remember, every story you post needs to be on a separate blogpost and the link in the index should go to YOUR blog post on that story, not the original article itself.

Index due date: anything you don't complete in the lesson needs to be posted by your double exam lesson next week.

Marxism & Pluralism: Alain de Botton on the news

We are currently doing some excellent work on the News and Marxism, Pluralism and Hegemony.

As part of this work, we've watched a couple of fascinating videos featuring philosopher and Media theorist Alain de Botton and his views on the news as a form of social control. In order to further explore this so we can refer to it in an essay, we have some additional homework on Alain de Botton's and the news.

Here are the two videos we watched in class this week - you may want to watch them again (particularly the first one).




Now watch this lecture by Alain de Botton presenting his views on the News:



Answer the following questions on your blog:

1) To what extent do you agree with Alain de Botton's views on the News?

2) How can you link Marxism and Hegemony to de Botton's criticisms of the News?

3) How could you use Pluralism and new technology to challenge de Botton's views on the News?

4) Choose two news stories from the last six months - one that supports de Botton's views and one that challenges his belief that the News is used for social control. 

Due: for your single exam lesson next week

Critical Investigation Task #3

Historical text analysis and research

Research a historical text that you can use to compare with your contemporary, primary text. 

By 'historical' we mean anything pre-2000 but the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s or even 80s might be more fruitful because they pre-date many of the important changes that have occurred more recently (such as the gains for women as a result of feminism; or greater equality for ethnic minorities now that we are - arguably - a more inclusive and multi-cultural society; or the ground-breaking developments in new media/digital technology). 

The purpose here is to be able to demonstrate...

• how society and the issue you are investigating has changed over the years and how these changes are reflected in different media texts, or - to put it another way...
• how popular culture reflects the 'spirit of the age' or zeitgeist

Ideally, you will watch at least one film/TV programme/video game/music video from the past, make notes on it and research it in Media/Film Studies textbooks and on the internet. The best option is to watch/play the whole text on DVD/online or otherwise you might be able to see extracts on YouTube. Answer the following questions:

• How is it similar/different to your main text?
• How does this show how the genre/society/issue has changed?

Through this you will become aware of developments in the genre you are researching. This task is designed to make sure you have a range of texts to refer to in your critical investigation essay (you'll need at least five including your main text and the historical text you analyse in this task). Remember: you should be able to link them to the wider contexts that were/are present at the time. It's also worth noting that you will be rewarded for considering your topic across different platforms.

If you can't get hold of an original copy of the text it's not the end of the world - you will be stuck doing secondary research. Just make sure you do plenty of it and find out information from a few different sources.

As ever, add your historical text(s) research, textual analysis and links/bibliography to your Notes and Quotes document. Also, remember that Task #2 and the latest Notes & Quotes word count is due on Friday!

Task #3 deadline: Monday 28 November

NDM: Marxism, Pluralism and Hegemony

Marxism, Pluralism and Hegemony are some of the most challenging theories we'll learn - but also extremely relevant to the case study we're working on.

These theories go to the heart of whether the media elite or the audience have the power in a 21st century digital world. There are compelling arguments to both sides and recent world events only add fuel to this debate. Complete the tasks below to reinforce the work you've done in the lesson.

Bonus reading: Hegemony and the Hunger Games

I've got some slightly off-topic reading to get you started. There is a reference to hegemony in a Guardian article about the last Hunger Games film that could also be linked to feminism (therefore relevant to many of your critical investigations). Read the article on the Hunger Games and at least 15 comments below the line. How does this link to what we've learned about hegemony?

Main task

Read the Media Magazine article ‘Web 2.0: Participation or Hegemony?'. Go to our archive of Media Magazine issues and click on MM39 - the article you need is on page 58. Answer the following questions:

1) Research the Ian Tomlinson case. What would the traditional, hegemonic view of the police be in a case like this? How did new and digital media create a different story? What does the police officer's subsequent acquittal suggest about the power of new and digital media?

2) What does the author argue regarding whether hegemony is being challenged by Web 2.0? 

3) In your opinion, does new and digital media reinforce dominant hegemonic views or give the audience a platform to challenge them?

4) Do recent world events such as Brexit or Donald Trump's election in the US suggest dominant hegemonic ideologies are being challenged or reinforced? There are arguments for both sides here - explain your opinion and why.

Complete for homework - due Friday.

Friday 11 November: Year 13 Media lessons cancelled

A reminder that all Year 13 Media lessons are cancelled on Friday 11 November due to the Year 12 trip to the Into Film Festival screening.

Usually, we'd have cover to run lessons as normal but due to unavoidable circumstances there will be no staff in Media on Friday.

MEST3 exam cover
Complete this week's work on News Values - due in your double lesson next week.

Remember you also need your two new/digital stories on your blog as normal this week - new index update coming soon.


MEST4 Critical Investigation cover
You need to continue Task #2 - Academic research and bibliography. You've got a new deadline of 4,500 words in your Notes and Quotes document by the end of next week so plenty to be getting on with. 


Good luck and keep up the good work!

Critical Investigation Task #2

Academic research and bibliography

As you know, a detailed bibliography is crucial to reach the top grades in your coursework. Most of you have already started researching using books or journal article PDFs so this is simply an opportunity to pull it all together.

New Notes and Quotes minimum word count: 4,500 words by Friday 18 November.

We've now got a superb selection of academic texts in DF07 - many only added this year. These include the following:

• Media, Gender and Identity by David Gauntlett
• Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks
• Feminist Media Studies by Liesbet van Zoonen
• Gender Trouble by Judith Butler 
• After Empire by Paul Gilroy 
• There Ain't No Black In The Union Jack Paul Gilroy
• Media Regulation by Lunt and Livingstone
• Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
• Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age by Clay Shirky
• Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices Edited by Stuart Hall 
• Power without Responsibility: Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain by James Curran
• The Contradictions of Media Power by Des Freedman
• The Cultural Industries by David Hesmondhalgh
• Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins
• Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World by Jonathan Gray
• The Internet is Not the Answer by Andrew Keen
• Misunderstanding the Internet by James Curran, Natalie Fenton, Des Freedman

You can also refer to our historical Essential Reading List which contains titles of 45 of the most important books for the Critical Investigation, most of which are either in the school library or media suite. If you haven't used any of these yet, make sure you take advantage of these excellent resources this week.


In the essential reading list, those underlined are the twenty most important or useful in previous years but, obviously, not all of the texts on this list will be directly relevant for you. Whichever book you choose, you'll need to spend a fair amount of time searching through it (especially the contents page and, particularly, the index) to find the key words, quotes and ideas that will impress the examiners.

Finally, you should definitely look at our archive of PDF journal articles available on the Media Shared drive. These are considered at the same level as academic books and there is likely to be something that relates to your topic. If not, you can use Google Scholar to look for PDF journal articles that do cover your text or media debate. You'll find our PDF archive at: M: > Resources > A Level > Critical Investigation

For absolutely everything you quote or refer to you in your essay, you must include references (i.e direct quotes, specific references to theories/statistics/reports etc.) to quite a few of these books and journal articles if you want an A or B grade. These will be footnoted in your essay (this is called a citation). The more academic sources you have, the stronger your essay will be - so borrow them from the library, look at them in lesson or make a note of them for the trip to the BFI Library. If the book belongs to the Media department, you will have to do your research in class or in DF06 during a free period - the books can't leave school unfortunately.

Task #2 is to pull this information together in an updated Notes and Quotes blog posting of all your notes and quotes so far INCLUDING a complete bibliography of your research so far. 

Make sure you include the following:

• Author-Year-Title-Place-Publisher info;
• Quotes (+ Page References) from the book that can be linked to your study;
• A short explanation of each one explaining how it is relevant to you/your topic, any notes, ideas or reflections that occur to you when reading. Does it reinforce your argument? Does it challenge your hypothesis? Is it what you were expecting?
• Finally, post up on your blog a Complete Bibliography (so far) to include ALL the books you currently have quotes from. It MUST contain at least TEN different academic books or journals as well as all your online and Media Magazine sources.
• Note: your FINAL bibliography will be much more extensive than this - we are simply looking for a minimum of 10 academic sources from your research so far.

Most people find formatting a bibliography very difficult the first time - there are quite specific rules that you need to follow and universities are very fussy about how it is presented. Use this 'Guide to writing bibliographies' to help or try this really useful bibliography formatting and creation tool: 'BibMe'. Personally, I recommend using the Microsoft Word referencing feature to make managing your bibliography as simple as possible.

Deadline: Friday 18 November

NDM: News Values

Galtung and Ruge (1981) defined a set of news values to explain how journalists and editors decided that certain stories and photographs were accepted as newsworthy, while others were not. 

The following list is adapted from their work:

Immediacy: has it happened recently?
Familiarity: is it culturally close to us in Britain?
Amplitude: is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?
Frequency: does the event happen fairly regularly?
Unambiguity: is it clear and definite?
Predictability: did we expect it to happen?
Surprise: is it a rare or unexpected event?
Continuity: has this story already been defined as news?
Elite nations and people: which country has the event happened in? Does the story concern well-known people?
Negativity: is it bad news?
Balance: the story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death.

Classwork/Homework

1) Read Media Factsheet 76: News Values and complete the following questions/tasks.

Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets

2) Come up with a news story from the last 12 months for each of the categories suggested by Harriss, Leiter and Johnson:

• Conflict
• Progress
• Disaster
• Consequence
• Prominence 
• Novelty

3) What example news story does the Factsheet use to illustrate Galtung and Ruge's News Values? Why is it an appropriate example of a news story likely to gain prominent coverage?

4) What is gatekeeping?

5) What are the six ways bias can be created in news?

6) How have online sources such as Twitter, bloggers or Wikileaks changed the way news is selected and published?

7) Give an example of a news story from the last 12 months that was reported as a result of online technology - Twitter, Wikileaks or similar.

8) Complete the task on the last page of the Factsheet regarding Sky News and Twitter:

• What does this reveal about how Sky views Twitter as a news source?
• What does it say about how news is being produced?
• What role does the audience have in this process?
• Why might this be a problem for journalistic standards?

Final tasks

9) In your opinion, how has new and digital media technology changed Galtung and Ruge’s news values? 

10) How would you update them for 2016? Choose SIX of Galtung and Ruge's news values and say how each one has been affected by the growth of new and digital technology.

E.g. Immediacy is more important than ever due to news breaking on Twitter or elsewhere online. However, this in turn changes the approach of other news sources such as newspapers as the news will probably already be broken so different angles might be required. Newspapers now contain more comment or opinion rather than the breaking story.

Complete for homework: due date confirmed by your MEST3 Exam teacher.