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Remember that the marking has changed from previous years and whereas once the mark for examples was worth 2/5 of the total mark, now they are only worth 1/5.
This means there is a greater expectation that you can describe the big ideas and explore the consequences of those for audiences, representations and media language.
We will tackle these one at a time and try to weave in the theories which you are expected to use in this essay and also explain how these big ideas can be used to answer the possible essay questions which have and will pop up in your assessments. These are:
Jameson describes this in his work ‘Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’. In that book he asserts that all art is either a pastiche or parody of previous art. That it uses self reflexivity to draw attention its own constructed nature. He was scathing in his assertion that this lead to a new kind of depthlessness & superficiality.
He also suggest that culture is now a sort of collective games of Chinese Whispers and that in the constant recycling of old ideas into new forms we have lost our collective understanding of historical reality.
Using this to address the questions in the assessment: This means that all representations are built on the back of an older text, that no new ideas are being developed or explored. That audiences need a cultural competence of the older texts in order to understand the depth of the allusion and comment it's trying to make, if they don't and believe the copy to be the original idea and may miss intertextual references. A bleak assessment of culture where nothing new will ever be made again!
Baudrillard picks up where Jameson leaves off and goes further. He wrote a famous book, ‘Simulation and Simulacra’. In this he suggests that the audience have become so drenched within a media saturated culture that we no longer recognise where reality ends and media representations start! We take our cues for what it means to be ‘normal‘ in relationship, careers and lifestyles… from the media we consume this leads to a us living in a simulation of reality.
Furthermore, corporate media has one primary function and that is to promote a dominant consumerist ideology. We (the audience) have become defined by the things we buy and success is defined in simplistic materialistic terms!
We are prisoners in Plato’s cave and believe the shadows on the wall are reality.
Using this to address the questions in the assessment: The representation is not the reality. The map is not the territory. Audiences take to be 'normal' the experience of the media and so shape their personal identity & social interactions in line with what is represented on screen. Happiness and contentment are only accessible through material consumption. We live in a simulation of reality whereby those who control and can pay for the message to be spread widely get to shape the narrative to suit their agenda.
‘Well it’s my opinion and that’s all that matters,’ is an argument made by many people!
That is an entirely Postmodern position to adopt, where truth is relative and personal experience has primacy.
We live in a pluralist (link to regulation) society, where our personal feeling, ‘lived experience’ and world view are held sacred. This is the consequence of Postmodernism according to Lyotard in his book ‘The Postmodern Condition’. In that report on knowledge he asserts that society (audiences) don’t collectively believe in anything! We all have our own ‘truth’, because Postmodernism has challenged and held up to ridicule all the Grand Narratives that enabled us to have a shared set of cultural and social ideas we all agree on.
Using this to address the questions in the assessment: The representations in Postmodern Media, in which the grand narratives are held up to ridicule and mockery, some argue, have caused great damage to the fabric of society. Alongside the democratization of the media we have also been given our own platforms and construct our social groups around the media we consume. This has led to a more divided society in which we are in thrall to consumerist ideals through advertising.
You can use this calculator to work out how your marks will convert into a final mark /100.
Please be aware that we cannot discuss unit grades nor overall grades!
The above boundaries cannot be used as a reliable indicator for this academic year; it is for a rough indication only.
To achieve a higher grade you need to include reference to a specific theory & associated theorist. Some of these have been listed in previous key term documents and most theories have been taught to you, but not named as such. So essentially this is a question of putting a theory / theorists name next to an idea:
Theorist(s): John Milton (1608-74) and John Locke (1632-1704)
An enlightenment idea, which holds that in order to be truly free in a liberal democracy, the powerful should be held to account via a free press (The Fourth Estate). This principle was enshrined in The First Amendment to the Bill of Rights in America (1791) and is held to be a fundamental principle of liberal democracies.
Theorist(s): John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
Was also a enlightenment liberal thinker who tried to define the limits on the freedoms of the citizen. He suggested that people should be free in all things, and ‘…that this freedom should only be restricted if their actions may cause harm to others.’ Applying this to freedom of expression, he famously said, “You cannot, without good reason, shout, ‘Fire’ in a public theatre.”
Karl Popper proposed the following idea, which seems to be a contradiction, but is useful in trying to square the circle of free speech vs protection from harm. He said…
a society cannot be tolerant without limits! If we tolerate the intolerant for too long it is the intolerant who will eventually seize power. So in order to maintain a tolerant, pluralist and multicultural society we must be intolerant of intolerance.
Moralists hold that collectively defined rules should regulate and limit media consumption available to the public, especially to protect vulnerable groups.
Pluralists believe in self regulation.
Mark Kermode & Owen Jones assert that people should be given the tools to regulate their own media consumption. The most obvious being, the power switch or block button.
If you don’t like it, don’t watch it!
Was an attempt by Professor Tanya Byron to regulate video games and the internet in the wake of moral panics about the negative impact of media on young people.
The Bryon report addressed attempted to address the issue of regulating global media. It requested that multinational media companies apply a code of conduct and make themselves open to independent scrutiny of their practices. The recommendations in the Byron report, to date, have only been partially implemented.
The Bryon Report presupposes that the media can influence people in a negative way, especially through copycatting negative behaviors. In this sense they take seriously the Hypodermic Syringe Theory of audience which says that ideas, attitude and beliefs (ideologies) can be ‘injected’ into us through the media we consume.
Suggested in their book ‘Ill Effects’ rejects the ideas proposed by The Hypodermic Syringe theory and built of the ideas of Blumler & Katz , who proposed the Uses and Gratification model of The Active Audience, which suggests that the audience actively seek information to fulfill their need for information and entertainment and their use of media in social interactions and in shaping their personal identity.
Stuart Hall also builds on these ideas with his suggestions of preferred, negotiated & oppositional readings of the media. He also suggests that the influence of media consumptions is also influenced by other factors such as:
This suggests that human beings are seeking simplified representations of the world which fit our existing knowledge and personal ideologies.
This can lead to a lack in critical thinking and make people more susceptible to conspiracy theories and cancel culture.
Here is the latest information we have on how Cambridge International will assess students work in June 2021.
We still have a lot of detail to work out and we will get back to you once we have more guidance from CiE due out this month about rules for compiling your assessment portfolio.
The problem stems from one significant difference between social media and our previous case studies. Social media companies are global organisations. So, whilst it’s relatively easy to regulate adverts and news within the borders of a country, global regulation is highly problematic.
The other essential issue which prevents social media companies from being regulated is, are they a publisher or are they a platform?
It is impossible to regulate these American companies who have the protection offered by Section 230 of the American Communications and Decency Act 1996, which states platforms cannot be prosecuted for content posted by their users.
Here is an opinion piece from Jennifer Cobbe in The Guardian, in which she explains how Facebook and other players in the, “surveillance economy” have challenged the democracy we take for granted. It suggests:
“We need to confront their surveillance business models, their increasingly central position in digital society, and the power they now hold as a result.”
“As a result, some platforms’ algorithms systematically recommend disinformation, conspiracy theories white supremacism, and neo-Nazism.”
“At a minimum, behavioural advertising should be banned; other, less damaging forms of advertising are available. The algorithms platforms use to recommend content should be heavily regulated.”
As with news regulation, this is not a cut and dried argument. After all should we be allowing our governments to decide what ‘Truth’ should be available to us online?
The video below offers a counter argument to those demanding online regulation and quotes 17th century poet John Milton:
“Truth and understand are not such wares as to be monopolized and traded by tickets or statute, better to let truth and falsehood grapple”
He is suggesting we should not muzzle what we believe to be false or fake news, but allow argument and debate to flourish and in that process truth and greater understanding will come out.
Task 9: Watch the 2 videos and make notes – Social Media and Content Regulation/Don’t Regulate Social Media: 1 hr
Task 10: Answer the questions on the Newsnight video ‘So Should the Internet be regulated?’ and submit the answers on the sheet in Classroom – SUBMIT TO CLASSSROOM: 1 hr
Task 11: Internet Regulation – THE GREAT DEBATE. See classroom for instructions – SUBMIT ON CLASSROOM ON CLASS SLIDESHARE: 2hr.
Well, to answer that we have to go back to The Enlightenment and the birth of America…
You need to remember that the early American settlers were refugees, who were fleeing from religious persecution and tyrannical monarchies. They were looking for a very different system of government, that was:
‘Government By The People, For The People and Of the People.’
So they started to codify these beliefs in a Bill of Rights, which was then amended a number of times. These amendments were designed to state, in law, the fundamental freedoms of the American people.
The very first amendment was to protect freedom of speech and freedom of expression, because after all, if you are a tyrannical church or monarch, the best way to oppress your subjects is to ban different point of view and kill those who hold them.
So the first amendment states:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
So, freedom of the press, in it’s purest form, is about protecting the freedom of the citizen, it’s about the right to hold the powerful to account and is essential in any enlightened democracy!
Should there be limits to that freedom if that freedom cause harm to the individual?
Because, whilst it’s all very well to hold politicians to account so that we can vote, with full knowledge of the facts, should my freedom of expression extend to saying what I like, about who I like? After all, we do all love celebrity gossip and the popular tabloid press makes money because it gives us what we love…
Here is a cartoon from Private Eye which draws attention to our collective hypocrisy in the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana in a high speed car crash in Paris, when she and her new boyfriend were trying to get away from the paparazzi (press photographers) chasing them on motorbikes.
Watch this video, from the BBC, which explains the story of how journalists from News of The World hacked the phone of a missing girl, Milly Dowler, and in doing so broke the law and invaded the privacy of Milly’s grieving parents.
This sort of law breaking was a new low in press ethical standards and there was an outcry for more regulation of the press and the actions of journalists, who would do anything to get a story.
So the government launched an inquiry, a debate, in front of a judge (Lord Leveson), who needed to advise the government on a new law to regulate the press.
So, where does this leave us? The assertion that freedom of the press to uncover stories should have limits? Well many editors and journalists go back to that principle at the top of this post, that a free press is essential for enlightened democracy:
They argue that if we limit journalists from uncovering genuine news stories, such as The Panama Papers or the scandal of The Catholic Church coving up the behaviour of priests who were molesting children. The film Spotlight show not only how the story was uncovered, but the degree to which some powerful people tried to kill the story and stop it being published. Well worth a watch… here’s the trailer.
The British Government at the time did introduce a new regulatory body. They ditched the regulator the Press Complaints Commission, a model whereby the papers regulated themselves. And introduced our next case study… IPSO, who introduced a new Code or Practice for editors, which is enforceable in law if they break it.
Here is the last video. Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, who refused to sign up to IPSO, explaining what this now means for freedom of the press in the UK, which he asserts has now been eroded and the dangers of that for our democracy and the ability of journalists to hold the powerful to account.
“In Britain, we have a free press; it’s not a pretty press, but it’s free!”
This week you will be researching some more of these stories where the press has overstepped the ethical line and bought harm to individuals. Think Caroline Flack. However, we should also look out for stories where journalists were heroes, and bought corruption to light and held the powerful to account. Think Prince Andrew.
Here are the resources for your timed textual analysis essay. These have also been sent to you via Google Classroom, where you should submit the essay and notes.
You will be shown an extract from Nashville a total of four times. During the first screening, you should not make notes; during the second, third and fourth screenings there will be an opportunity to make notes and there will be gaps in between for further note-taking.
Your notes should be made on a piece of paper, photographed and submitted alongside your essay or typed up into the template sent you earlier this week.
Extract: Nashville (Pilot, 2012, dir. Cutler)
Discuss the ways in which the extract constructs meaning through the following:
camera shots, angles, movement and composition
editing
sound
mise-en-scène.
This week we’re revisiting textual analysis in TV Drama.
Monday/Tuesday – 1.5 hours
Tuesday/Wednesday – 1 hour
Thursday/Friday – 2.5 hours
Dear All,
That was something of a surprise!
Distance learning starts again on Tuesday, when we will be rolling out new materials.
In the meantime, please ensure that your first essay on Postmodern Media is completed and submitted before the end of Monday.
See you soon.
Mr G & Mrs C