Submit you Critical Reflection Essay as a blog post:

• Cut and paste with screen shots into the blog post itself – do this from the grid or the template – whichever you have used.
• Make sure it is formatted well and that the images have text wrapped around them and placed appropriately (close to where you are discussing the example in the essay).
• Include the 4 x questions at the start –  in this order. However, do not include them in the actual essay.
  • How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions? 
  • How do your products represent social groups or issues? 
  • How do your products engage with the audience?
  • How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
• Make sure that your different sections ‘blend’ and move between each section easily – you may have to add in some ‘connecting’ sentences.
• PUBLISH.

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? – 250 words
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? – 250 words

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 completed the round robin and you are going to think about how you would answer these 2 questions using your own specific products:

1. How did your research inform your music video and the way it uses or challenge conventions?
2. How does your digipack represent the star and the issues they are concerned about?

You should describe and analyse your products with reference to specific examples and use terminology (just cite the theorist) to describe how those conventional features have been used, developed, challenged (designed) by you to construct/represent a specific set of ideas, which is: your brand or mission statement! 

You must then go on to say how your representation (ideology) of your star and issues raised in digipak were shaped by you.

Task 1

• Recap what conventions means?
• Recap what representation means?

Task 2

• Read the template, draft sheet.

Task 3

• Then begin to make your own submissions regarding conventions in the music video and regarding representation in the digipak.
• @ 250 words for Conventions and 250 words for Representation.

---

ADVICE

• The conventional design features in your video, include examples such as lighting, framing & composition, camera movement  mise-en-scene, editing styles, filters, effects along with narrative structure and themes and also technical conventions such as lip syncing, edit to the beat.
• The representation of social groups or issues in your digipak: include ideas such as star image, genre, brand – use of filters, fonts, body language, MES, imagery etc. And representation of issues – genre, the ‘vibe’ of the genre – anarchic, rebellious, contemplative, organic, upbeat?

To ensure you are addressing the question – bold or highlight or underline every time you use:

• the terms use, develop, challenge, copy, emulate, follow etc
• the terms represent, portray, convey, infer, imply etc
• every time you have an adjective in the analysis of how the groups/issues are represented.

These are the assessment objectives – so keep it in mind when you are writing your response.

 

A Recap on Marketing

Use the template to draft a response to the question.

Focus on the Social Media Page as this is where engaging the audience is tackled on so many levels and through the various products and across various platforms.

ESSENTIAL THEORY

Think about those key ideas from the Uses and Gratification Theory – Blumler and Katz.

They described the active audience and the pleasure (gratification) and utility (use) they seek in the media they consume.

• Entertainment
• Information
• Personal Identity
• Social Interaction

‘AIDA’ – The Marketing Mantra

The goals of all marketing campaigns. AIDA…

• attract
• interest
• desire
• (call to) action

You might also weave in some key terms like encode, decode, target audience, demographic, ideologies, beliefs, representation etc.

---

Your Critical Reflection Planning

• Find two examples from the Social Media Page.
• Describe their clear purpose of engaging the (interactive) audience.
• Attach the key terms to them.
• Cite the theorists.
• Answer the question!

THE BRIEF

• How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’? @ 250 words – 2 specific examples

What is Branding?

Use your mission statement which should be an overall picture/image of who your star is!

Make sure you include your 5 x descriptors you did for your brand image (should also be in your mission statement) as the guiding lines for what your aim was to create coherency across the products.

---

• Theory of the Active Audience: preferred / negotiated /oppositional reading (Hall)
• Stars Image, Ideology & the Metanarrative (Dyer)
• Semiotics & Structuralism (Barthes)
• Narrative: Structure, themes, chronology, positioning: (Propp / Todorov, Strauss)
• Genre: conventions (blueprint), predictable pleasure (contract) & marketing (label) (Altman)
• Prosumers – line between producers and audience is now blurred – Shirky.

---

Combine these questions with those below for the Branding question. Make sure you have covered all corners.

• How do the products reflect the ideology (values, attitudes and beliefs) of the artist or band?
  • Dyer – star image – metanarrative
• How are the products designed to create a particular (preferred) reading and fit with the audience’s needs and expectations?
  • Hall – theory of the active audience
• How do the designs of the digipack and the social media page fit in with the visuals &/or themes in the video?
  • Barthes – semiotics, Todorov – narrative, Strauss – binary oppositions
• What are the institutional/business purposes behind the 3 products?
  • Altman – label, predictable pleasure & similarity / difference
  • Other links and relationships. You should however try to show how there is a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship between the three products and how this is achieved.

Terms/theories:

• Genre – label, blueprint, contract, repertoire of elements, audience expectations – Altman
• Star image – representation, extraordinary, ordinary, absent, present, metanarrative – Dyer
• Audience – preferred reading, decoding, encoding, active audience, psychographics, demographics, cultural experience – Hall
• Media Language – signs, symbols, codes, semic, symbolic, cultural, narrative and action codes, active audience – Barthes
• Narrative – themes, conflicts (Strauss), narrative arc (Todorov), repeatability, narrative characters (Propp)

ESSENTIAL THEORISTS IN BRIEF

COMPLETE THEORY BOOKLET

 

READ THE EXEMPLARS ON THE PREVIOUS POST AND IN THE TEMPLATE.

REMEMBER; ANSWER THE QUESTION WITH 2 – 3 CLEAR EXAMPLES, DON’T OVER COMPLICATE THE TASK – HOW DOES IT WORK AS A PACKAGE? You can be critical just justify your statements.