The Cloud: Music is stored in the cloud, subscribed users can listen to that music. Users can also use the cloud to store music and create and save individual playlists. People can listen to music wherever and whenever they are, from a vareity of devices, as the music is stored in remote servers.
Listening to music is now going from a device-based system, which is buying music and listening to it on your iPod, phone or mp3 player, to a more access-based approach. This is when users can access music from huge music libraries stored in the cloud.
Spotify:
This launched in 2008, it is available for free but only a limited service is available. however for a monthly subscription which costs £4.99 a month for unlimited streaming of music and no advertisements. The premium which costs £9.99 a month, allows you to use Spotify on your phone as well.
Deezer:
French based music streaming service allows users to listen to music on various devices online or offline. Currently has over 15 million licensed tracks to listen to and over 30,000 radio channels. Users can also create their own library by setting up playlists or editing them with other users. It also allows you to follow an artist or add an album or radio channel to their playlist. With Deezer you are also able to share music and see what your friends are listening to. Deezer also has the same subscription prices as Spotify.
Rara
Rara.com, which has launched in 16 countries, said its research suggested
that 60% of consumers had never used a digital music service. The organisation aims to simplify the process. For a monthly subscription,
users can select and listen to tracks via their standard web browser. Its main competitor is Spotify, which has more than two million paying users.
Guvera
New breed of online music download and streaming service, which allows people to stream and download for free and the artists get paid. Guvera was launched in 2008, music downloads are paid for by brands from a large music catalogue. It is run primarily from funding and this is the reason why users can download and stream for free. In 2010 Guvera was made available first to Australia and the United States, it is not yet available in any other countries as it is still fairly new and being tested. In March 2012 Guvera announced they will be releasing a mobile app soon, so users can access it from any device. Guvera has said it has plans to expand its content and include movies and TV shows for its occupants.
Monday, 21 May 2012
Wednesday, 25 April 2012
'Representations in media texts are often simplistic and reinforce dominant ideologies so that audiences can make sense of them.' Evaluate the ways you have used/challenged simplistic representations in one of the media products you have produced.
I am going to discuss my advanced portfolio in which I created a music video, to the acoustic rock song 'Better Together', in relation to representations of my male artist and female character.
We challenged the simplistic representation of the acoustic rock artist, in our video by having an artist who is of an Asian ethnic background. This is because most of the artists signed to Brushfire Records, are not of an ethnic background. However this new representation of our artist in that label, reaches out to a wider audience, as more of the ethnic minority may become interested in our artist, Nathan Vega. Representations which become familiar through constant re-use come to feel 'natural' and unmediated. This could be why existing audiences of this particular record label, may see our artist as unnatural becuase he is from an Asian ethnic background and is not a familiar representation.
Another way in which we challenged representation was by portraying our artist in a less dominant way than the stereotypical male. For example we can see this representation through the narrative in which the female character comes to the male artist in the relationship at the end of the video. This shows that our male artist isn't very dominant, and can be seen as less assertive than a stereotypical male. This may appeal to a feminist audience as our artist can be seen as less of a stereotypical male, therefore making him different. However using the plurality model, we can see how a male audience would view the representation of our artist. It could be argued that the male audience may discouraged of our artists character because he is less assertive.
Also the nature of the song, being about love and relationships, can be seen to reinforce that representation of a less dominant male, when seen from a male audience's view. Another way representation can be said to show our artist being less assertive is the way he is seen as not taking himself too seriously. We can see this in the video when we see various shots of the artist having fun and laughing. These are seen in the black and white shots, where we see the artist behind the scenes, of his video, having fun and another shot where he jumps up in front of the camera.
However one way we have used simplistic representations in the advanced portfolio is through the female character. In the music video we see her gaze at the photo of the male artist quite lovingly. This suggests, from a feminist perspective, that the female character depends on him for her happiness in life. A feminist audience may suggest that the girl needs to be more assertive throughout the video, and maybe show she can still be happy without him. This representation would support John Berger's quote, 'Men act and women appear' as the women in the video can be said to just appear with the artist at the end, whereas we can see the male artist performing throughout as if she will just 'appear' at the end.
Another simplistic representation we used in this media product is in the was we chose to portray our artist to the audience. We used acoustic rock conventions in terms of our artists appearance, and we stuck to the record labels representation of these type of artists. For example we focused on his guitar throughout the whole video, and considerably in the digipak and magazine advert. To portray him as a laid back individual we made sure he was dressed very casually to give this impression. The hat was also to indicate this specific genre as similar artists of this genre were seen in this type of costume. In a way we represented our artist in a stereotypical way in relation to our chosen genre. This would appeal to a specific audience or social group, as these conventions are clearly seen, which could show our genre and convey our intended message prominently.
Representations in media texts can often be simple so that audiences can make sense of them. However I feel in our music video we have engaged with the pluralistic model in relation to our audiences, as we have challenged as well as used simplistic representations.
Also the nature of the song, being about love and relationships, can be seen to reinforce that representation of a less dominant male, when seen from a male audience's view. Another way representation can be said to show our artist being less assertive is the way he is seen as not taking himself too seriously. We can see this in the video when we see various shots of the artist having fun and laughing. These are seen in the black and white shots, where we see the artist behind the scenes, of his video, having fun and another shot where he jumps up in front of the camera.
However one way we have used simplistic representations in the advanced portfolio is through the female character. In the music video we see her gaze at the photo of the male artist quite lovingly. This suggests, from a feminist perspective, that the female character depends on him for her happiness in life. A feminist audience may suggest that the girl needs to be more assertive throughout the video, and maybe show she can still be happy without him. This representation would support John Berger's quote, 'Men act and women appear' as the women in the video can be said to just appear with the artist at the end, whereas we can see the male artist performing throughout as if she will just 'appear' at the end.
Another simplistic representation we used in this media product is in the was we chose to portray our artist to the audience. We used acoustic rock conventions in terms of our artists appearance, and we stuck to the record labels representation of these type of artists. For example we focused on his guitar throughout the whole video, and considerably in the digipak and magazine advert. To portray him as a laid back individual we made sure he was dressed very casually to give this impression. The hat was also to indicate this specific genre as similar artists of this genre were seen in this type of costume. In a way we represented our artist in a stereotypical way in relation to our chosen genre. This would appeal to a specific audience or social group, as these conventions are clearly seen, which could show our genre and convey our intended message prominently.
Representations in media texts can often be simple so that audiences can make sense of them. However I feel in our music video we have engaged with the pluralistic model in relation to our audiences, as we have challenged as well as used simplistic representations.
Saturday, 21 April 2012
Online Age questions
1. According to this video, what was the music industry like in the 90s and how has it changed more recently?
In the 90s the music industry had big labels the drove the industry forward, television and radio were a very big part of that as they showed consumers what was out there. There were so many people getting signed in the 90s to all these mainstream labels, and there was such a wide range of the mainstream labels for them. This made it competitive, but it was and era that made it possible to discover an act before anyone else did. Now there is an even greater influx or talent and acts within the music industry, so this makes it harder to actually have mainstream acts. More recently many smaller and independent labels have been able to be successful because of they way they are able to compete with the bigger labels has somewhat equalised. Also the acts themselves are able to be in control of their career within music.
2. What are curators, such as Pitchfork and Hypermachine? What is their role? Why are they important?
Curators are essentially music guides for the consumers, to help them know what is good and what is not, also keep them up to date with what is going on in the music industry itself and the various musicians themselves. Pitchfork media is a online company who are dedicated to music criticism, commentry, music news and artist interviews. Hypermachine is also a website which brings together a cluster of information on the music industry from other blogs, and posts the most recent news from different sources all in one place for the consumers. Their role is too inform consumers about what is happening in the music industry and keep the up to date with the latest news, it also allows them to get involved more with the industry as these sites tell them what they can do and they best way of doing it. They are so important because there is so much music out there, so the curators are important as they essentially filter the music for us as consumers.
3. How can you link what this video says about creativity, video making in particular, to David Gauntlett's ideas and to the theory of the long tail?
The creativity in music videos is changing, therefore these new creations are what Gauntlett would say are 'niche' products. This is because there aren't a lot of these products, so people are viewing more of less in relation to the long tail, and as there is a wider variety of music videos these days, people tend to view less of more. This means that consumers are now looking for these 'niche' products more, as technology and ideas have developed further in the production of music videos, and your 'average' music video is viewed less even though there are more of them for the consumers to view.
In the 90s the music industry had big labels the drove the industry forward, television and radio were a very big part of that as they showed consumers what was out there. There were so many people getting signed in the 90s to all these mainstream labels, and there was such a wide range of the mainstream labels for them. This made it competitive, but it was and era that made it possible to discover an act before anyone else did. Now there is an even greater influx or talent and acts within the music industry, so this makes it harder to actually have mainstream acts. More recently many smaller and independent labels have been able to be successful because of they way they are able to compete with the bigger labels has somewhat equalised. Also the acts themselves are able to be in control of their career within music.
2. What are curators, such as Pitchfork and Hypermachine? What is their role? Why are they important?
Curators are essentially music guides for the consumers, to help them know what is good and what is not, also keep them up to date with what is going on in the music industry itself and the various musicians themselves. Pitchfork media is a online company who are dedicated to music criticism, commentry, music news and artist interviews. Hypermachine is also a website which brings together a cluster of information on the music industry from other blogs, and posts the most recent news from different sources all in one place for the consumers. Their role is too inform consumers about what is happening in the music industry and keep the up to date with the latest news, it also allows them to get involved more with the industry as these sites tell them what they can do and they best way of doing it. They are so important because there is so much music out there, so the curators are important as they essentially filter the music for us as consumers.
3. How can you link what this video says about creativity, video making in particular, to David Gauntlett's ideas and to the theory of the long tail?
The creativity in music videos is changing, therefore these new creations are what Gauntlett would say are 'niche' products. This is because there aren't a lot of these products, so people are viewing more of less in relation to the long tail, and as there is a wider variety of music videos these days, people tend to view less of more. This means that consumers are now looking for these 'niche' products more, as technology and ideas have developed further in the production of music videos, and your 'average' music video is viewed less even though there are more of them for the consumers to view.
Monday, 16 April 2012
1B Audience Question
For this question I am going to discuss my advanced portfolio, in which I had to create a music video, digipak and magazine advertisement for my chosen artist. My chosen artist was Jack Johnson, after researching him we found that his target audience was both genders aged between 18-28 and his genre of music is acoustic rock. The song we chose was called 'Better Together', we gathered research on Jack Johnson and the album that this song featured on, so we could establish a target audience for this genre of music.
To attract an acoustic rock audience we needed an insight into what conventions portrayed the acoustic rock genre, that would then draw our audience in. We looked at similar artists to Jack Johnson such as, James Blunt, James Morrison and John Mayer, by doing this we found the conventions that fit our genre of acoustic rock. The key conventions we found within these artists showed they performed mostly with a guitar in most of the video, this implemented the acoustic aspect of the genre. We also found that the main part of their videos were close ups of them performing, however the narrative seemed to be a small part of the video, but a narrative was still included.
Denis McQuail's uses and gratification theory, would argue that our music video tells the audience about the world around us, as it encourages people to be environmentally friendly, because the artist himself is. Our music video also allows the audience to feel they have a personal relationship with the artist, because the narrative within the video is quite simple and the audience can easily relate to it. When researching Jack Johnson we found that all his album's have something to do with nature, and during a tour of one of his albums he began selling eco-friendly clothes and was promoting environmentally friendly behaviour to his fans.
Stuart Hall's theory on encoding and decoding would be useful to apply to our music video as we have encoded many messages for our audience. Some of the messages we encoded in our video were about the environment, we encoded this through the main location of our video. Another message we encoded was the genre of the song, which we did through using the conventions of acoustic rock, performing with a guitar and a lot of close ups whilst he performed. The audience are then able to decode the video how they want, taking away messages they have made, through watching the video. If we have encoded the messages successfully then the product would attract the right target audience for this specific genre.
However the hyperdermic needle model would not fit in with our music video as the audience would not be passive to the messages incorporated in the video. These messages would only appeal to a certain target audience, therefore our audience would have to be active rather than passive. This is because our audience would decode our messages and chose whether to react in a particular way rather than instinctivly taking in the messages. Our digipak and magazine advert also incorporate generic conventions of acoustic rock, because we photographed our artist with his guitar and chose to use the same location in which we shot the video. This was because we wanted to continue the message of an eco-friendly perosn and encourage this behaviour further. By doing this we hoped that our audience would recognise what type of artist he was and that this would appeal to the right type of audience.
By using Facebook and YouTube mainly, we were able to gather audience feedback to all our ancillary task as well as our video. This proved to be helpful in some ways as we could then modify our ancillary tasks to better fit the needs of our audience.
In conclusion, I believe that our audience is an active audience rather than passive, which allows them to decode their own messages from our music video and ancillary tasks, to then chose, whether it appeals to them or not.
To attract an acoustic rock audience we needed an insight into what conventions portrayed the acoustic rock genre, that would then draw our audience in. We looked at similar artists to Jack Johnson such as, James Blunt, James Morrison and John Mayer, by doing this we found the conventions that fit our genre of acoustic rock. The key conventions we found within these artists showed they performed mostly with a guitar in most of the video, this implemented the acoustic aspect of the genre. We also found that the main part of their videos were close ups of them performing, however the narrative seemed to be a small part of the video, but a narrative was still included.
Denis McQuail's uses and gratification theory, would argue that our music video tells the audience about the world around us, as it encourages people to be environmentally friendly, because the artist himself is. Our music video also allows the audience to feel they have a personal relationship with the artist, because the narrative within the video is quite simple and the audience can easily relate to it. When researching Jack Johnson we found that all his album's have something to do with nature, and during a tour of one of his albums he began selling eco-friendly clothes and was promoting environmentally friendly behaviour to his fans.
Stuart Hall's theory on encoding and decoding would be useful to apply to our music video as we have encoded many messages for our audience. Some of the messages we encoded in our video were about the environment, we encoded this through the main location of our video. Another message we encoded was the genre of the song, which we did through using the conventions of acoustic rock, performing with a guitar and a lot of close ups whilst he performed. The audience are then able to decode the video how they want, taking away messages they have made, through watching the video. If we have encoded the messages successfully then the product would attract the right target audience for this specific genre.
However the hyperdermic needle model would not fit in with our music video as the audience would not be passive to the messages incorporated in the video. These messages would only appeal to a certain target audience, therefore our audience would have to be active rather than passive. This is because our audience would decode our messages and chose whether to react in a particular way rather than instinctivly taking in the messages. Our digipak and magazine advert also incorporate generic conventions of acoustic rock, because we photographed our artist with his guitar and chose to use the same location in which we shot the video. This was because we wanted to continue the message of an eco-friendly perosn and encourage this behaviour further. By doing this we hoped that our audience would recognise what type of artist he was and that this would appeal to the right type of audience.
By using Facebook and YouTube mainly, we were able to gather audience feedback to all our ancillary task as well as our video. This proved to be helpful in some ways as we could then modify our ancillary tasks to better fit the needs of our audience.
In conclusion, I believe that our audience is an active audience rather than passive, which allows them to decode their own messages from our music video and ancillary tasks, to then chose, whether it appeals to them or not.
Friday, 13 April 2012
Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
I will discuss how my skills in using digital technology contributed to my creative decision making from my foundation portfolio, a 2 minute thriller film opening to my advanced portfolio, in which we created a music video.
Final cut was the main programme, digital technology; we used to create both our advanced portfolio and my foundation portfolio. For our foundation portfolio we used the colour corrector to de saturate the colour of some of our shots, or enhance a specific colour within that shot. We chose to do this because we wanted to create a tense and thriller specific atmosphere to fit in with the conventions of our chosen genre, psychological thriller. In our advanced portfolio we used the colour corrector to enhance the feeling of the song in our music video; we added a sepia tone to the video as this linked with the lyrics of the song. We also brightened some specific shots because we felt this would enhance the genre and the character of our artist, which was very important to us, as appealed to our target audience.
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Photoshop was another piece of software we used in both advanced and foundation portfolio. During the making of our thriller film opening we decided to make a film poster to attract our target audience. Using a picture we had taken at one our shoots if the torture scene, which was also a shot in our film opening, we used photoshop to edit the picture and give it a sinister look to capture the genre of our opening. To do this we brightened up the main aspect of the picture, which was the victim, and darkened the background around him, and then we used bold white writing for the title and description. This allowed us to develop basic skills in photoshop which we could then advance further in our A2 production. The use of photoshop in the advanced portfolio was much greater than in the foundation portfolio as we had to use this software to create our ancillary tasks, digipak and a magazine advert. As we were already familiar with photoshop it made it easier to make our digipak in our A2 production. We started by using the basic tools we knew how to use from our AS production, we wanted our artist to be portrayed as an environmentally friendly person so we used the saturation to draw on that aspect. We increased the saturation to enhance the colour of the natural scenery around emphasis the environment around him; we also tried to use natural looking colours to reiterate the natural environment when deciding on our text colour. We made two different front and back covers for our digipak, this allowed us to develop our photoshop skills further and helped us in making our creative decisions, in which digipak portrayed our artist how we wanted him to be seen. We used the blur effect on the background of the picture of our digipak to make the legs of our artist and the guitar, stand out against the fence background, we also used the cut out tool to put an effect on the whole image. This represented the image we wanted for our artist as it showed him as an environmentally friendly person.
Web 2.0 was also very useful in our creative decision making as it allowed gaining feedback of various productions created using the photoshop and final cut software. For example once we had got a rough cut of our music video we were then able to upload it to Facebook and YouTube so others were able to see it and give us feedback which we could then use when creating our final cut of the video. We did not do this with our AS thriller opening sequence, we only uploaded it to YouTube for feedback, and had some of our peers to view it in school. Using new social networking sites made our creative decision making easier and more representative of our target audience. In our AS production we used blogger to document the whole of our production which proved to be useful as we were able to see the process of our production. We developed this skill in our A2 production because we were able to see what we should have done in terms of research and planning.
Overall, digital technology was a vital factor in allowing us to make good creative decisions in our A2 and AS productions as well as making our productions effective.
Thursday, 29 March 2012
'Media texts rely on cultural experiences in order for audiences to make sense of narratives.' Explain how you used conventional or experimental narrative approaches in one of your productions.
I am going to discuss my advanced portfolio in which I created a music video for the soft rock song, 'Better Together' By Jack Johnson, in relation to various theories of narratives.
One theory of narrative that explains how we used conventional narrative approaches in our music video is Vernallis. Her theory focuses on 4 concepts that relate to the way a music video is constructed. Narrative is one of the 4 concepts, Vernallis looks at a range of points when considering the construction of a music video and its narrative.
A theory of narrative which our music video seems to challenge is Todorov's narrative theory. Todorov separates music video's into different stages. There are 5 different stages which he believes contributes to his theory, that the narrative must undergo a transformation, therefore the characters featured must undergo this transformation by going through a disruption.
According to Vernallis theory of narrative we have shown conventional approaches in our music videos. Vernallis says that a narrative may not always be complete, it may be fragmented, partial narrative. Our music video complies with this as our narrative for our video is fragmented. Throughout the video the audience see the main male character alone, however the female character fragments the narrative as we see her from time to time, cutting into the performance of the male artist. This is fragmented because it does not happen at specific points in the video. Also the videos do not correspond to the lyrics as the girl is not with the male artist until the end, signifying 'better together'. The structure of our music video is disjointed as we have included still pictures of the video which would not fit in with a experimental music video according to Vernallis. Our video does not always use the narrative to drive it forward, for example we used different shots of the male artist performing. We also used still images to drive the video forward. this is how our music video fits in with the conventional narrative approach of Vernallis' theory of narrative.
However Todorov's theory would say our music video challenges his theory of narrative. Todorovs first stage is equilibrium, which is when everything is as it should be at the beginning. Our music video challenges this as we begin it with the male artist alone. As the song is about being better together our state of equilibrium would involve our male artist with a female throughout. But in our music video the supposed state equilibrium is fragmented, this challenges Todorovs theory. In our music video there is no form of disruption that occurs as we can see the male and female are both happy throughout the video. At the end of the music video the male and female character come together and show meaning of the song being better together. This could be seen as the stage of new equilibrium, however due to the fragmented narrative of the performance and still images we can see how it does not fit with Todorov's theory of narrative.
Our music video shows conventional narrative approaches when applied to Vernallis' theory of narrative. However it does not fit Todorov's theory narrative as you cannot see a form of transformation throughout our music video.
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Discuss how you used genre in one of your products
The product I am going to discuss in relation to genre is my foundation portfolio, in which I created a 2 minute thriller film opening.
The genre of my film opening is obviously thriller, however our sub-genre's that we chose were revenge thriller and psychological thriller. Once we chose our sub-genre we had to begin to apply the generic conventions of a psychological/revenge thriller, by doing this it would be able to be recognised by our target/existing audience. Steve Neal said that ‘genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variations' which meant certain generic features had to be included and repeated which in my case was the use of a dark settings and flash-forwards which show the antagonist preparing tools which would be used for a torture against the victim. The pattern of variation is seen where we included the abduction of our victim as well as showing the torture scene, we also let the audience see a glimpse of the antagonist, to encourage them to continue watching the movie.
For our research into our thriller sub-genres we watched many thriller openings which had the same sub-genres as our thriller opening. We felt we needed to do this as genre is what attracts the desired audience as Christine Gledhill says, 'Different genres allow different audiences to be identified and catered to..' as our genre is revenge/ psychological thriller we made sure it appealed to the right age group, 15-24 year olds. By incorporating the right conventions to highlight out genre, we hoped that it attracted our desired audience, this is why we felt it was important to research our sub-genres and why we tried to stick to the conventions of our genre. We found that genre plays a big role in relating to a specific audience, which is why we used our producers and distributors to help us. In our thriller opening we used the producer name 'Perfect Dark' the reason we chose to use this name is because we felt it reflected our genre and would help us further in attracting the right audience. Denis McQuail refers to the commercial and industrial significance of genres, and stresses that it is important as it helps target audiences or producers capitalise on the success of the product. In order for our opening to be a success in reality we needed to use the genre as one of the main elements to attract our audience and potential producers.
However we didn't stick to the conventions of a thriller exactly, as the first scenes with the victim walking are filmed in a bright setting. This would conflict with the common conventions of a thriller genre, this is because you wouldn't usually associate abductions in a thriller to occur in daylight. This particular setting and scene could make audiences question our genre and the target audience could change as it doesn't show repetition within a genre. This is the first scene in our opening, the audience also see the victim being abducted in daylight which can also been seen as a conflict in our specific thriller genre.
Our thriller opening uses genre very clearly and efficiently, as it uses repetition in my conventions and settings. My advanced portfolio shows how the use of genre attracted my target audience and how the use of specific producers can also effect how the audience would perceive the genre.
The genre of my film opening is obviously thriller, however our sub-genre's that we chose were revenge thriller and psychological thriller. Once we chose our sub-genre we had to begin to apply the generic conventions of a psychological/revenge thriller, by doing this it would be able to be recognised by our target/existing audience. Steve Neal said that ‘genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variations' which meant certain generic features had to be included and repeated which in my case was the use of a dark settings and flash-forwards which show the antagonist preparing tools which would be used for a torture against the victim. The pattern of variation is seen where we included the abduction of our victim as well as showing the torture scene, we also let the audience see a glimpse of the antagonist, to encourage them to continue watching the movie.
For our research into our thriller sub-genres we watched many thriller openings which had the same sub-genres as our thriller opening. We felt we needed to do this as genre is what attracts the desired audience as Christine Gledhill says, 'Different genres allow different audiences to be identified and catered to..' as our genre is revenge/ psychological thriller we made sure it appealed to the right age group, 15-24 year olds. By incorporating the right conventions to highlight out genre, we hoped that it attracted our desired audience, this is why we felt it was important to research our sub-genres and why we tried to stick to the conventions of our genre. We found that genre plays a big role in relating to a specific audience, which is why we used our producers and distributors to help us. In our thriller opening we used the producer name 'Perfect Dark' the reason we chose to use this name is because we felt it reflected our genre and would help us further in attracting the right audience. Denis McQuail refers to the commercial and industrial significance of genres, and stresses that it is important as it helps target audiences or producers capitalise on the success of the product. In order for our opening to be a success in reality we needed to use the genre as one of the main elements to attract our audience and potential producers.
However we didn't stick to the conventions of a thriller exactly, as the first scenes with the victim walking are filmed in a bright setting. This would conflict with the common conventions of a thriller genre, this is because you wouldn't usually associate abductions in a thriller to occur in daylight. This particular setting and scene could make audiences question our genre and the target audience could change as it doesn't show repetition within a genre. This is the first scene in our opening, the audience also see the victim being abducted in daylight which can also been seen as a conflict in our specific thriller genre.
Our thriller opening uses genre very clearly and efficiently, as it uses repetition in my conventions and settings. My advanced portfolio shows how the use of genre attracted my target audience and how the use of specific producers can also effect how the audience would perceive the genre.
Monday, 19 March 2012
Becoming Human: Case study
What is the show about?
Becoming Human is an 8 part online drama from the makers of Being Human. It follows the story of Adam, Being Human's teenage vampire, as he teams up with Christa and Matt to solve a dark and dangerous murder.
At the heart of Becoming Human are eight video episodes, (between 5 and 13 mins) where the story (a murder mystery) unfolds. But the narrative expands beyond the video episodes with daily clues posted on the Becoming Human blog. Clues took the form of fictional text and image based press cuttings, CCTV footage, mobile phone clips posted by the Becoming Human characters. This ‘multiform’ approach to story telling gave the audience a unique experience of the Being Human story world. To drive broad appeal, the experience worked on two levels – audiences could just watch the episodes or they could dive deeper and read and contribute to the mystery unfolding via the blog.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/becominghuman/
When did it begin and how long are the shows?
The show is only online, and each episode is about 6 minutes long, however the first episode launched was about 13 minutes long. This spin off began in january 2011 and finished in march of 2011.
How many viewers does it get?
Becoming Human is a cross platform, interactive drama by the creators of BBC Three’s Being Human. Told across eight episodes online and on red button, with a daily interactive whodunit for users to join in, Becoming Human is BBC Three's most successful cross-platform commission with over 1.5 million views to date. The Becoming Human blog became more popular than the main Being Human blog with several posts receiving between 2000 and 10 000 as the story unfolded. Fans enthusiastically took up the challenge to find out who killed Matt with a number of blog posts receiving between 2000 and 10 000 comments.
Becoming Human is an 8 part online drama from the makers of Being Human. It follows the story of Adam, Being Human's teenage vampire, as he teams up with Christa and Matt to solve a dark and dangerous murder.
At the heart of Becoming Human are eight video episodes, (between 5 and 13 mins) where the story (a murder mystery) unfolds. But the narrative expands beyond the video episodes with daily clues posted on the Becoming Human blog. Clues took the form of fictional text and image based press cuttings, CCTV footage, mobile phone clips posted by the Becoming Human characters. This ‘multiform’ approach to story telling gave the audience a unique experience of the Being Human story world. To drive broad appeal, the experience worked on two levels – audiences could just watch the episodes or they could dive deeper and read and contribute to the mystery unfolding via the blog.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/becominghuman/
When did it begin and how long are the shows?
The show is only online, and each episode is about 6 minutes long, however the first episode launched was about 13 minutes long. This spin off began in january 2011 and finished in march of 2011.
How many viewers does it get?
Becoming Human is a cross platform, interactive drama by the creators of BBC Three’s Being Human. Told across eight episodes online and on red button, with a daily interactive whodunit for users to join in, Becoming Human is BBC Three's most successful cross-platform commission with over 1.5 million views to date. The Becoming Human blog became more popular than the main Being Human blog with several posts receiving between 2000 and 10 000 as the story unfolded. Fans enthusiastically took up the challenge to find out who killed Matt with a number of blog posts receiving between 2000 and 10 000 comments.
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Memorable quotes
Shirky - 'A revolution doesn't happen when society adopts new tools, but when society adopts new behaviours.'
Hartley - 'From "one-to-one" to "many-to-many".'
Jillian York - 'Don't get all techno utopian, twitters great for spreading news but this revolution happened offline.' (Tunisian revolution)
Monday, 12 March 2012
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Michael Wesch
Sum up Michael Wesch's main point about the web (or YouTube in particular) in one paragraph.
Wesch see's YouTube as a new forms of expression, new forms of community and new forms of identity emerging. He says YouTube is a community where anyone can express themselves, and it enables people to easily upload videos to the web. More people are then able to join in, in various forms of expressions, e.g the numa numa guy. This allowed people from all over the world to come together and connect through videos of the same thing. He says that the web is not just about information, its about linking people, and in ways that we haven't been able to do so, before the web.
Networked individualism - Created by Berry Wellman, thanks to the Internet, individuals can get in touch with other individuals for all sorts of purposes, bypassing institutions, the state or other agencies.
The invisible audience phenomenon - People record themselves infront of a webcam, and are essentially talking to that webcam, at the time they don't know who their audience is, and it feels like they are talking to no one. However when published people do watch it, at the time they are recording themselves, it feels as if they are talking to an invisible audience.
Context collapse - The idea that you never know where or when someone will be filming you, and if or when the footage is uploaded to YouTube.
Connection without constraint - Allows people to connect without having to see the reaction of their audiences.
On the whole, do you agree or disagree with Wesch's ideas?
I do agree with Wesch's ideas, as I can see how the web, and in particular YouTube has allowed people to connect and create a community where anyone and everyone can contribute to it. They are able to express themselves without having to see the reaction of their audience, which means they can be as silly as they like. Although there are some negatives of this, as people can also use the web, or YouTube to mislead members of that community, which would also then result in a negative effect, questioning the validity of the community.
How might Wesch's ideas be applied to the music industry?
YouTube has contributed greatly to the music industry recently as it allows the discovery of new and potential upcoming artists to be found e.g Justin Bieber, and it also has become a new platform for advertising all artists in the music industry. Many artists are now able to advertise and get feedback on certain videos, it also allows them to give more to their fans easily. The web as a whole enables people of the same interests in music to connect easily and share views.
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
How might the influence of new media be said to strengthen or weaken the public sphere?
The public sphere is where people discuss and debate ideas this promotes democracy and the spread of ideas. New media has allowed more debates to emerge in the public sphere, which promotes democracy. New media has strengthened the public sphere by enabling people to access and upload footage, images and written accounts. This has been made easier by having greater access to the internet and the possession of mobile phones and small cameras.
For example, new media allowed the Syrian uprising to be viewed by the rest of the world. Syrians have shown the world what was going on through the use of amateur footage of protests and their violent aftermath. Mobile phones and small cameras were used to capture footage which was then uploaded by computers on a 3g mobile. this is important because people need to be informed to promote democracy. the public sphere is a central aspect of good governance. Without a functioning and democratic public sphere, government officials cannot be held accountable for their actions, and citizens will not be able to assert any influence over political decisions.
However new media can encourage or allow misinformation where some people can be biased, and anonimity as some people can pretend to be someone they're not. This has weakened the public sphere as these issues can cause unwanted stress to the various consumers.
For example, a Syrian 'lesbian blogger' was revealed to actually be a married American man living in Edinburugh. The blog released in the first place to explain what it was like to be a lesbian in Syria. The blog had many followers from Syria. There was a post in the name of Amina's cousin stating she had been snatched by armed men in the streets of Damascus. This news on her blog sparked internet campaigns to release her. this was until they found no evidence or key details that could be corroborated. This put some of the Syrian gay community's safety at risk and seriously harmed their cause. This was because they were openly campaigning for her release putting themselves at risk of getting 'snatched' also if they were found, which is more likely to happen whilst this campaign was happening.
This is important because anonimity can cause misinformation to occur and on a big scale, such as the Syrian lesbian, can be fatal.
New media has anonimity within it as people cannot immediatly be discovered online therefore more people are likely to make extreme and irrelevant comments on an issue. This weakens the public sphere as we would question whether everything we read is true or not, or rather not question the information and be mislead.
The public sphere has been strengthened by new media as it allows us to debate the news with a wide range of people. this has been made possible by allowing viewers/audiences/consumers to comment on various pieces of news from around the worlds freely.
For example during the Syrian uprising journalism was banned. However new media allowed protestors to upload footage from the protests and even videos taken by members of the army, often mocking and abusing dead bodies were also leaked out. This allowed viewers from across the worlds to see the protests and how the army operated. This could then be debated online worldwide, Syria would have been seen in a bad light due to the exposure of these videos and the fact that people were able to debate it so openly with others. This is important because it makes people feel more free to express their opinion on matters in various places around the world.
The public sphere is strengthened by this as it encourages people to debate the news and the public sphere is where people discuss ideas and views. Again, new media is promoting democracy within the public sphere by allowing people to debate the news with each other. I think that new media does more good than bad as it allows people with similar opinions/interests to communicate from all over the world, in a free and easy way.
On the other hand, new media has weakened the public sphere as the validity of some of the information in the public sphere can be questioned, meaning that not all the information published to the public sphere can be trusted and taken as true all the time.
For example, the case of the Syrian lesbian blogger who turned out to be a 40 year old man living in Edinburgh shows how some information cannot be valid and therefore not trustworthy for the consumers. Once there was evidence on the 40 year old man social websites such as twitter and blogger reacted in outrage to this. More information was being discovered on 'Amina's' supposed relationships with various women. Amina was who the Syrian lesbian blogger was known as. Direct emails with the Guardian and pictures, passed off as Amina, but were not available to comment. Those who were frustrated with this outcome were unable to specifically comment on the supposed relationships Amina was having.
This is important as the validity of information can hinder the spread of democracy in the public sphere. This is because less people trust what they are consuming and therefore, are reluctant in participating in what could turn out to be a pointless discussion.
From these points discussed above I feel that new media does strengthen the public sphere far more that it weakens it. Even so, there are various issues surrounding the validity of the information and who is saying what in the public sphere. These points do no necessarily hinder the progression on democracy in the public sphere they simply point out the problems. Democracy is still able to spread and continue through the public sphere, this shows that these problems may not necessarily be a great issue as of yet.
For example, a Syrian 'lesbian blogger' was revealed to actually be a married American man living in Edinburugh. The blog released in the first place to explain what it was like to be a lesbian in Syria. The blog had many followers from Syria. There was a post in the name of Amina's cousin stating she had been snatched by armed men in the streets of Damascus. This news on her blog sparked internet campaigns to release her. this was until they found no evidence or key details that could be corroborated. This put some of the Syrian gay community's safety at risk and seriously harmed their cause. This was because they were openly campaigning for her release putting themselves at risk of getting 'snatched' also if they were found, which is more likely to happen whilst this campaign was happening.
This is important because anonimity can cause misinformation to occur and on a big scale, such as the Syrian lesbian, can be fatal.
New media has anonimity within it as people cannot immediatly be discovered online therefore more people are likely to make extreme and irrelevant comments on an issue. This weakens the public sphere as we would question whether everything we read is true or not, or rather not question the information and be mislead.
The public sphere has been strengthened by new media as it allows us to debate the news with a wide range of people. this has been made possible by allowing viewers/audiences/consumers to comment on various pieces of news from around the worlds freely.
For example during the Syrian uprising journalism was banned. However new media allowed protestors to upload footage from the protests and even videos taken by members of the army, often mocking and abusing dead bodies were also leaked out. This allowed viewers from across the worlds to see the protests and how the army operated. This could then be debated online worldwide, Syria would have been seen in a bad light due to the exposure of these videos and the fact that people were able to debate it so openly with others. This is important because it makes people feel more free to express their opinion on matters in various places around the world.
The public sphere is strengthened by this as it encourages people to debate the news and the public sphere is where people discuss ideas and views. Again, new media is promoting democracy within the public sphere by allowing people to debate the news with each other. I think that new media does more good than bad as it allows people with similar opinions/interests to communicate from all over the world, in a free and easy way.
On the other hand, new media has weakened the public sphere as the validity of some of the information in the public sphere can be questioned, meaning that not all the information published to the public sphere can be trusted and taken as true all the time.
For example, the case of the Syrian lesbian blogger who turned out to be a 40 year old man living in Edinburgh shows how some information cannot be valid and therefore not trustworthy for the consumers. Once there was evidence on the 40 year old man social websites such as twitter and blogger reacted in outrage to this. More information was being discovered on 'Amina's' supposed relationships with various women. Amina was who the Syrian lesbian blogger was known as. Direct emails with the Guardian and pictures, passed off as Amina, but were not available to comment. Those who were frustrated with this outcome were unable to specifically comment on the supposed relationships Amina was having.
This is important as the validity of information can hinder the spread of democracy in the public sphere. This is because less people trust what they are consuming and therefore, are reluctant in participating in what could turn out to be a pointless discussion.
From these points discussed above I feel that new media does strengthen the public sphere far more that it weakens it. Even so, there are various issues surrounding the validity of the information and who is saying what in the public sphere. These points do no necessarily hinder the progression on democracy in the public sphere they simply point out the problems. Democracy is still able to spread and continue through the public sphere, this shows that these problems may not necessarily be a great issue as of yet.
Monday, 27 February 2012
The Long Tail and Wikinomics
- What is Chris Anderson's theory of The Long Tail?
He also points out that we expect a hundred percent availability these days as to what we buy online, and that we will buy it no matter what it costs. now mostly everything is available online to buy, not just the mainstream products so we have a wider range as to what we can buy therefore we buy exactly what we want, old or new.
- What does the long tail theory mean for the music industry and other areas of media such as online television?
Also now that nearly all types of music is available online, people buy more singles rather than going out to buy the albums, this decreases and largely effects the sales of CD's of mainstream artists.
For other media such as online television their mainstream market is effected however, they use this to their advantage by allowing viewers to consume television online easily. This encourages their viewers to engage more with television which is not comsumed online.
- What is Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams' theory of Wikinomics?
- What are the big 5 ideas of wikinomics and how might these be applied to the music industry?
Free creativity - is a natural and positive outcome of the free market so attempting to regulate and control online remix creativity is like trying to hold back the tide. Applying it to the music industry shows when various people do covers of popular songs or create their own version using different peices of music.
The media is democratised by peering, free creativity and the we media journalism produced by ordinary people.
Thinking Globally - Web 2.0 make s this inevitable as the internet is like the worlds biggest coffee house, an instant global communication sphere.
Perfect Storm - is what all these things result in, which creates such a force that resistance is impossible, so any media company trying to operate without web 2.0 will be like a small fishing boat on the sea during a freak meteorological occurrence.
Friday, 24 February 2012
Are the media becoming more democratic?
Many new types of media have been launched such as new media which includes social and digital media, these types of media have altered the way we consume, produce and distribute media nowadays. Some would argue that these types of media is what has made media more democratic now, whereas mainstream media, as we can clearly see, is not democratic.
Social media are sites such as Facebook and Twitter, these social media sites allow many people to upload their content for other users to see and comment on. This shows the media in a democratic way as the 'audience' as we would see them traditionally, are able to upload their own information, along with uploading others are able to comment, like or dislike and share that information. The introduction of these site have allowed many people to have their say and contribute to various discussions in an online forum.
However before new media, it was limited on how and what you could contribute to topical debates, in the past people would usually call in to radio chat shows and email them to get their view across. Even so not everyone would be able to do this or even be heard, now we can see new media allows anyone on the internet to continuously contribute to debates.
David Gauntlett believes that media is becoming more democratic due to the expansion into web 2.0. He explains that web 2.0 which is sites such as YouTube and Blogger, create easier access for the 'audience' and also that we are now becoming a more active audience as we ourselves can produce and distribute media to these sites. Web 2.0 has an analogy of a garden to which many people contribute to, and this allows it to grow and be used as a tool to be heard. David Gauntlett supports the theory that media is becoming more democratic.
For example many newspapers have now launched themselves online and have encouraged readers to comment on stories. The daily mail has now become the biggest online newspaper, they're website allows readers to comment and discuss stories with others and people who work in the paper also. They also have a variety of blogs which readers can follow and read whenever they want. This promotes democracy within media as the audience are now active in the news and their views can be heard.
These points discussed show that media is becoming more democratic and it also shows how much choice we have when we want to contribute to online debates. Almost anything can be discussed online and in web forums, I feel that media today is becoming more democratic.
Monday, 6 February 2012
David Gauntlett
According to Gauntlett, what was "the media" like in the past and what changes have occurred?
People had to shape their lives around media schedules which were created, which shows that the media has a dominant role over the consumers. this is because people don't have much choice about how or when they can consume media. To produce media people needed big recording devices and then o distribute it all they needed a big broadcasting company or movie studio. This made it hard to produce and distribute media because these things were expensive and not everyone could get what they needed to produce and distribute media. People relied on the 'media Gods' to produce media and distribute it, the 'media Gods' controlled how and when consumers got the media and the tone and attitude of the media products. However, now people can produce and share media using small devices such as, laptop's and mobile phones which are reasonably cheap, therefore more people are able to produce and share media. Using websites like Youtube, Myspace and wikipedia allow consumers to distribute their opinions and information to everyone, theses are also places where you can get information from. This is all helped by Web 2.0 which is where everybody contributes to internet, sharing and producing media.
How far do you agree with Gauntlett?
I agree with his ideas that new media has become more of place where people share and distribute media to others, i also agree that the new media has slowly joined traditional media, and that it has not pushed traditional media out of the way. However new media is big competition for traditional media nowadays and is constantly growing.
How might Gauntlett's ideas be applied to the music industry?
These figures show how the music industry works now, comparing it to how the music industry used to work, we can clearly see that Gauntlett's ideas can be applied to the music industry.
People had to shape their lives around media schedules which were created, which shows that the media has a dominant role over the consumers. this is because people don't have much choice about how or when they can consume media. To produce media people needed big recording devices and then o distribute it all they needed a big broadcasting company or movie studio. This made it hard to produce and distribute media because these things were expensive and not everyone could get what they needed to produce and distribute media. People relied on the 'media Gods' to produce media and distribute it, the 'media Gods' controlled how and when consumers got the media and the tone and attitude of the media products. However, now people can produce and share media using small devices such as, laptop's and mobile phones which are reasonably cheap, therefore more people are able to produce and share media. Using websites like Youtube, Myspace and wikipedia allow consumers to distribute their opinions and information to everyone, theses are also places where you can get information from. This is all helped by Web 2.0 which is where everybody contributes to internet, sharing and producing media.
How far do you agree with Gauntlett?
I agree with his ideas that new media has become more of place where people share and distribute media to others, i also agree that the new media has slowly joined traditional media, and that it has not pushed traditional media out of the way. However new media is big competition for traditional media nowadays and is constantly growing.
How might Gauntlett's ideas be applied to the music industry?These figures show how the music industry works now, comparing it to how the music industry used to work, we can clearly see that Gauntlett's ideas can be applied to the music industry.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
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