Representation

Critical Reflection Overview

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The Brief:

Candidates must write an evaluative essay of around 1000 words. This critical reflection of their work should be guided by the following compulsory questions:

  1. How do your products represent social groups or issues?
  2. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
  3. How do your products engage with the audience?
  4. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

This critical reflection must be completed individually, even if candidates had collaborated in the creation of their products.

Task: Initial Brainstorm

You have already done a huge amount of research, planning & design as you made you multi media marketing package for the release of an album

As a whole class we complete round robin and you are going to think about how you would answer these questions using specific products:

  1. How did you try to brand your star?
  2. How did your research inform your music video and the way it uses or challenge generic conventions?
  3. How does your digipack represent the star and the issues they are concerned about?
  4. How does your social media page engage with the audience?

Media Theory & Key Concepts

From now on we are going to be explicitly teaching media theory. Previously we have been teaching this implicitly (without naming specific theory or theorists (except Blumler, Katz & Dyer)) however from now on and in all your exams there is an expectation that you will recognise that Media Studies draws on a range of theorists’ ideas and that you must name them and use some of the terms they used to explain the key concepts in Media Studies, which are:

  • Language
  • Representation
  • Industry
  • Audience

This is also true for the Critical Reflection:

Here is a table which illustrates which theorist / theory you should try and apply to each of the Critical Reflection questions:

The Media Theory Bible

Here is a detailed description of each of the key theorists ideas you need in your exam.

Here is a link to the booklet as a work in progress, but presents a little better.

Please be aware that this includes some theorists that you do no need for the Critical Reflection, but will be used in the component 4 exam (Postmodernism, Media Regulation & Media Ecology). You should also note that this is a work in progress and will develop over the next few months.

Application of Questions to Products

We are aiming for an essay of 1,000 – 1,200 words. You do not have time (300 words max) to elaborate on the details of all your products in each section and so we will be applying specific questions to specific products. See below for details:

Click to see details

Star Image – the performer

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IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STAR IMAGE!

How the star/band/performer is represented in your video and on the digipak and social media page is crucial in constructing the values, attitudes and beliefs of the artist in the mind of the target audience.

REPRESENTATION, AUDIENCE AND OWNERSHIP ARE COMPLETELY INTERTWINED CONCEPTS!

WHAT IS THE INSTITUTIONAL PURPOSE OF A MUSIC VIDEO?

Music videos are made primarily to promote the star, in order to sell their music, in order to make money…well mostly!

They are also constructed to construct a set of desires in the target audience to be like them, think like them, love what they love, be involved in their lives & buy what they suggest.

There are huge synergies between marketing and star image! We don’t just buy a product we also buy into the values of the star image and in purchasing their product emulate them. Media representations of the star image is crucial in terms of raising an audience awareness.

STARS SHOULD BE STUDIED AND ANALYSED LIKE ANY OTHER TEXT!

They are essentially walking talking brands, who use their branding to advertise, publicise and sell to fans. Stars have to remain constantly interesting to keep the fans intrigued – the star image evolves and is constantly reinvented by media companies! In fact Stars could be seen as its own special kind of ‘species’.

RICHARD DYER
Richard Dyer Handout

Richard Dyer is a theorist you need to learn about. He came up with some concepts about how ‘star image’ works in the media. The link to the concepts booklet is in the menu at the top of the blog. Find it, add it to your drive, print it, LEARN IT!

TASK

CREATE A ONLINE CONCEPT BOARD IN CANVA STAR IMAGE.

Your task is to take the ‘star’ (performer, duet, band, group…) you analysed when you did the genre analysis and create a ‘concept board’ on how they are ‘represented‘.

Find examples of news stories, incidents, events, digipak covers, music videos, articles, blogs, tweets that all contribute to their ‘star image’. The way they are represented is called their ‘metanarrative‘ (over arching story about them).

Image result for pinterest

And remember, just as you do in your TV drama analysis – you must add ADJECTIVES to how they appear through that particular event, story, picture etc. You can do this task as a group but must all equally contribute to the page.

This is a link to an excellent example. You should have at least 15 – 20 images and comments.

Star Image

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Representation and Ideology.

TASK 1 – WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE! 

  • The Star Image game.

TASK 2 – The Theory. 

  • This slideshow below tries to explain what representation means and how we can use music star image to illustrate the concept. Also this will act as research into the design of your own star, which you will be photographing in the week beginning 18th November.

TASK 3

Create a Prezi on the representation of a star.

  • Choose ONE music star who would feature in your genre of magazine.
  • Take a copy of this Prezi.
  • Find examples from a range of media texts surrounding your star (their meta-narrative).
  • For each of your media texts include a description of how they are represented through the image,the tweet, the article, the lyric…
  • How is the star image represented, portrayed, conveyed?
    • What is implied, inferred, suggested?
    • Underline or bold every adjectives and every time you use the term represent or a synonym.
    • Illustrate with photos, screen shots and examples to make it less of an essay.

TASK 4 – Design Your Star

Create a Google slide with images of what you would like your cover model to wear….include hair, make up, jewellery, accessories, costumes and any relevant props. Also, indicate how you would like them to pose – their body language, gestures and facial expression to convey their meta-narrative and fit the genre.  How do you want their star image to come across? How do you want them to be represented?

My images that uses MES to communicate meaning – designing my star

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Remember for this post on costuming and dressing a model for your allocated genre of music performer you should include the following 4 elements in this particular post:

1) MOODBOARD

Explain how you were allocated a genre to research and what you found – refer to the moodboard findings.

Embed the moodboard with images of ideas for how a performer from your allocated genre could be represented in terms of costume, facial expressions, hair, make-up, body language, gestures, props etc. Use adjectives AND describe and pick out some of the most important MES conventions for the genre.

Add in some relevant adjectives as to how that genre is generally represented – edgy, anarchic, produced, synthetic, friendly etc. Use terms Mise En Scene, Genre and Star Image (how are they represented/presented to the audience). If you can get the term ‘CONVENTIONS’ in too that would be great – those expectations, commonalities of the genre.

Made with Padlet

2) POST IT PHOTO

You then used all the research and findings to dress, encode your model as a star from that genre. Include a draft photo with the ‘post-its’ from the class in your test outfit with the comments and adjectives that the class suggested as to how your character was represented.  Reflect on how you, as a producer, used all the conventions from the genre to encode your model with the appropriate MES and the audience decoded them correctly (or not).  Did they read the star image correctly? What were their responses? List and reflect.

3) EMBED THE FOLDER OF ALL THE PHOTOS AND MAKE SURE IT IS SHARED TO THE WORLD

4) FINAL PHOTO

Final and chosen photo of your artist in costume with a commentary on how they are represented/portrayed with plenty of relevant adjectives.

Reflect on how and why that image seems to work better than the other ones from the shoot.

5) REFLECT AND FOCUS FORWARD 

Overall, reflect on the importance of using MES to convey meaning – tell a story – an image and an idea and HOW WILL THIS NOW IMPACT ON YOUR OWN PLANNING/RESEARCH FOR YOUR MAGAZINE PRODUCTION?

Tour Poster analysis

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Remember, what is it ‘saying’?  The denotations (things) all have connotations (meanings).  Use terms like these in your introduction to the post along with decoding, deconstructing, signs, symbols etc to show that you are getting to grips with how to analyse a media text.  You can use synonyms for represent too – portray, suggests, infers, implies, indicates etc.

Use Call Outs on your slide to evidence the comments…

Use this link to open the slideshow, take a copy, delete all the images you’re not going to use and then complete your analysis.

Here is an example from last year:

Take a Copy of This.  Delete the ones you don’t want to analyse and then work on your chosen poster.