Category: Audience & Institutions

06 Media Disruptors and their influence – case studies – Tik Tok and Spotify

Audience & Institutions, Exam Paper 1, Exam Paper 2, Media Ecology

LEARNING INTENTION:  To research and understand how two global giants have disrupted the media landscape and impacted on audiences worldwide.

Following on from our introduction to Media Conglomerates yesterday, let’s now look at some case studies to get some specific facts, stats and ideas about how we could use them to answer the following questions:

  • ‘HOW HAS GLOBALISASTION AFFECTED THE MEDIA YOU CONSUME?’  
  • ‘WHY IS SO MUCH OF THE MEDIA OWNED AND CONTROLLED BY FEWER AND FEWER BIG COMPANIES?’

Using the template in classroom, begin to layout some ideas, bullet points related to the two media giants of Tik Tok and Spotify.

You will need to read the articles that are linked in the sheet and use them to evidence the various assessment criteria. Remember to add in relevant theories and terms that you could use in conjunction if you were to be writing an answer to the above two questions.

 

 

 

02 The Four Key Concepts in Media Studies

Audience & Institutions, Exam Paper 1, Exam Paper 2, Media Ecology, Media Regulation, Postmodern Media, Textual Analysis

Learning Intention:

To review, define and refine your understanding of the four key concepts in media.

First off, some study / revision advice for all your subjects…
A presentation… including a task.

Independent study.

Memorise the definition of the following four key concepts, which we came up with in class. There will be a test!

Remember, these are relevant (to a greater or lesser extent) to both your exams in May. So you need this keystone understanding.

A front cover analysed – attracting ‘that’ audience

Audience, Audience & Institutions, Music Magazine 
KEY TERMS: represent, connote, infers, implies, suggests etc, technical design conventions, demographics, psychographics, audience segmentation, target audience. 

Task Instructions

The Case Studies

Make a copy and file it in your Media Studies folder in your drive.

Individually take a copy of the slideshow and keep the  magazine cover you are going to research for target audience data and how that might impact on the design features.

The analysis should include the following:

1. The mission statement of the publication:

    • Look on their website for a tagline, catchphrase that encapsulates their mission – what they hope to provide to their readers.
    • Here is the mission statement for the Kerrang brand.  I found this by Googling ‘Kerrang Mission Statement’…easy peasy.

2. A description of their likely target audience.

    • You should  refer to the attached audience segmentation document to help identify a suitable classification for the target audience.
    • Your teacher will help you with this. Typically, they might suggest looking at the ads covered by the magazine
      • This doesn’t work online, because Google’s algorithm knows who is looking at a page and puts up ads specific to them…

3.  Demographics and Psychographics of the audience:

    • One way to do this, is to think of a likely reader of the magazine, that you know and then model the ideas on them.

4.  Other information about your target audience:

    • If you have thought of a likely reader that you know, then add more detail in about their likes and dislikes, their jobs, their hobbies, their favourite food, music, media.
    • This is important audience research for a magazine creator to know so they know what to include in their magazine in terms of articles, information, entertainment and advertising, which will satisfy their audiences’ uses and gratifications…remember…?

5.  Textual analysis

Now that you have an idea of who the target audience is, try and unpick, decode, deconstruct the front cover.

  • why have they used certain fonts, colours, images, language?
  • Why would this appeal to the target audience?
  • Consider how those design elements are shaped to communicate meaning, which will reflect the brand and mission statement
    • look for the signs, symbols, colours, fonts, framing, MES, facial expression, body language, language, masthead and cover lines (language) etc that have been used to convey a narrative, to represent a genre, to sell a brand.

Advice:

Use the correct terms for the technical conventions when talking about the design elements attached to them i.:

  • ‘The masthead design represents the magazine as…’
  • ‘The plug language connotes…’
  • ‘The cover lines font infers…’

What a good one looks like:

Here is an example from a previous student that includes some very detailed observations:

This is the format we would like you to follow and use the sub-headings included.

Some of the sections can be bullet pointed or lists, but others will require some analysis to include the terms: represents, implies, suggests, signifies etc when doing a textual analysis.

I am a Media Prosumer? My Media Diet.

Audience, Audience & Institutions, Industry, Media Ecology 
KEY TERMS:

MEDIA TEXT, USES AND GRATIFICATION (ENTERTAINMENT, INFORMATION, PERSONAL IDENTITY, SOCIAL INTERACTION), PROSUMER

Question of the Week:

“What new ideas have you learnt about your role as a media prosumer in the wider media ecology.”

Here is the article for the week to help you think about this.

Get into the habit of reading up about your next  Media Lesson. It will be interesting to see how many of you actually visited our blog before this lesson.  If you are reading this, then well done you!  Always, refer to the key terms at the start of the blog post to know what key and important vocabulary you should be including in your blog post reflections.

TASK

Create a collage with a minimum of 15 – 20 pictures that illustrate your MEDIA DIET

What you read, watch and listen to.  In other words what media do you consume?

When you watch, listen and read, you are called a CONSUMER.

Also, what media do you contribute to?  What apps, blogs, social media do you add texts, status and click and likes to?

When you interact and contribute to the media, you are called a PROSUMER.

An example – WITH some ideas from media theorists,

Blumler & Katz

You will use ideas described in the Uses and Gratification theory from Blumler and Katz, to indicate which of these media you use for your:

  • ENTERTAINMENT
  • PERSONAL IDENTITY
  • SOCIAL INTERACTION 
  • EDUCATION AND INFORMATION

Annotate about 6-8 of the examples with E, SI, PI, I to show that you understand how you use media for various needs and pleasures:

You should complete the collage using a  single Google Slide, then download it as a jpeg – it will be embedded into your first blog post!

Skip to toolbar