Cohort 2021-23
Check your timetable for when and where.
1 paper – 1 hr 45 mins (this is a hybrid paper)
Question 1: Music Industry – 45 mins – 25 marks
Question 2: Media Ecology – 60 mins – 30 marks
So this unit has been tough going but well done for sticking with it – there is a lot to learn and take on, but we know you can do it.
Make sure you revisit your notes and the blog posts in order to help yourselves prepare for the exam.
Don’t forget to use the category at the top of the blog for the theories – it might be good to do your own mini ‘in a nutshell’ theory list so that you are not overwhelmed.
We will be planning Ecology essays in the first 2 lessons next week and then focusing for the final 3 lessons on revisiting the Music Industry – but a lot of what we have done in Ecology, will be really useful for the MI question.
Learning Intention: To explore how (media) language and representations are changing in the evolving media ecology as a consequence of changing ideologies and communication technology.
Signifiers in media texts which signify ideas & stimulate emotional responses.
A signifier = a unit of meaning: a man, a low brimmed hat, low-key lighting, a wide shot, eerie whistling, cut to a cat rubbing against the man’s leg. Individually separately mean very little, but combine the codes you have…meaning and representation.
The ideas and values about a person, place, event… encoded in a media text, which communicates an ideology, whether that be mainstream, counter cultural or personal.
Then… Baby Boomers and Gen X all received similar message because their choices were so narrow. You might suggest that these generations had & have much greater sense of traditional community and local identity.
Have a watch of some 70s TV on this emulator website.
In the UK we had 3 TV Channels until 1982 when Channel 4 was launched. So 4 channels.
Now… Millennials and Gen Z exist within a technologically converged and democratised media ecology, including influencers and pundits, and literally thousands up thousands of competing representations. You might argue that representation is now a contested space (culture wars) and that competing (media) language and representations are more diverse and fragmented than ever!
Baudrillard, one of our postmodern theorist, argued that:
“…we live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning”.
With the advent of fandom, tribes and converged technology representation is as broad as it is wide. A multitude of representations, interpretations and ideas.
We have created factions and fractions but also brought people together.
There is a universality to the image and the meaning encoded. Perhaps the hieroglyph / emoji / meme is the new ‘language.’
EVERYONE REGARDLESS OF AGE, SEX, RELIGION TAKE PART IN THESE RITUALS – THE DANCING CRAZES…EVEN TV ADVERTISING WE BUY ANY CAR.COM RECENT ADVERT HAS ONE OF THE TIK TOK DANCE CRAZES ON IT – it means so much more to those who are culturally competent and ‘get’ the intertextual reference.
All of them…including gender, race, age, social class, power & status, nationality, ability and disability, ethnicity… see Gauntlett & Lynx ads
A new media text, a popular and profitable format which dominates TV schedules (Hesmondhalgh) = Reality TV.
Masquerades as Reality – but it is all a RE-PRESENTATION of reality – mediated through a producer and an editor and then our own audience cultural situation & competence to decode it accordingly.
`We become what we behold. We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.’ McLuhan
Possible questions that might ask for a comparison of traditional media and new media and its impact on societies and also how technologies have always impacted on society.
‘New media will eventually replace traditional media.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement? You should refer to at least two media forms in your answer. [30]
‘We talk about print, film, TV and radio as separate media, but these are all converging and will be impossible to tell apart in the future.’ Evaluate the evidence which supports this view. [30]
To what extent have new technologies influenced the style and form of traditional media? [30]
Analyse the significance of a particular technological development in the media. [30]
To understand this, is to understand much of Media Ecology!
Explore the evolution of media and the impact (superpowers) these new media tools have offered humankind.
Using the printed copies annotate the images.
Add callouts at each stage of the evolution of humankind and describe what new powers and abilities each stage has given to society, culture and the individual.
In essence, ‘How has each stage of new media technology acted as an, ‘Extension of humanity?’ To coin a phrase from Marshall McLuhan.
Task 2
Then help your teacher to create a list on the board for as many advantages and disadvantages for society pre 1990 and post 1990 (the advent of the internet) in terms of what and how media operated. You may have to interrogate your teacher. For example, how did they organise their social life? How did they listen to music?
Some suggestions are in classroom.
We already come across AI on a daily basis:
But what is the metaverse? We have gone from Web 1.0 (a digital screen that you read but couldn’t interact with) to Web 2.0 that became participatory through a screen and Web 3.0 will take us through to the Metaverse – instead of interacting through the screen, we will be inside the screen.
Don’t think that will ever happen? Well, only a few years ago, we would never have believed we could have spoken face to face, to Aunty Beryl in New Zealand whilst on a bus in Bognor. But the magic is ongoing.
The real problems arising are: security, addiction, safety and of course – how reality will be impacted – what indeed, will be reality? Will the representation of reality, become more real than other interactions and experiences?
‛The media control how we understand and connect with the world.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement? [30]
Incidentally the same topic as the assembly we are giving on Thursday morning next week (2.2.23).
I use the adverb ‘we’ advisedly. However, Mr G certainly will be presenting.
First off. A call for volunteers.
Would you like to say something interesting, surprising, shocking, scandalous, concerning…about the current state of the media ecology and the impact on audiences – us?
TASK
‘5 things you have found interesting or significant about the media ecology.’
You should work in groups of five. Each of you must explain, in one sentence, the thing that has struck you as interesting / important so far. Each of you must choose a different idea from the others in your group and you submit…as a group.
Please clarify your ideas first to each other and then individually write your different idea.
Help each other.
You should use the copy in classroom allocated to your group – choose one slide and add in your ideas into that slide.
Please could you write an email to: egregson@web.grammar.sch.gg if you would like to present.
Looks good on a CV
…now that’s desperate!
Thanks
‛The media control how we understand and connect with the world.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement? [30]
First off.
Don’t let the question intimidate you!
Without even thinking about what we’ve studied...what do you think?
Err …you’ve got to be thinking, “Yep, it ‘controls’ a heck of a lot about what ‘we understand’ and how ‘we connect’ with the world.”
Then the answer is, “explain why you think that… and if you can use some key concepts, terms, contexts, examples & theorists we’ve taught you even better!” (Answers below…)
Then…read the last sentence again really carefully:
“To what extent do you agree with this statement?”
So…’to what extent,’ means it’s about a thoughtful balanced argument on both sides, but feel free to have a strong opinion one way or the other.
Or…
You can use you own media consumption as case studies.
And…your learning from other subjects.
We love to learn new stuff.
Learning Intention: To understand how the changing media ecology has led to division, culture wars and threatens democracy
To be part of something, to belong, to have a community is a human need that has been programmed into our basic genetics and culture. However, with the advent of digital technology and a globalisation, has brought about a new kind of ‘tribalism’.
A sort of fandom, of ideas and influencers and identities…
Aside. Who’s upset we used a Fox News clip?
See below…you are participating.
Discussion: Define, ‘The Culture Wars”
Of course this culture war has only been made possible by technology! Always refer to Skirky. He’s a super useful theorist for:
Read this article in 3 minutes and summarise in 3-5 bullet points.
Use the page layout / graphic design, headings and topic sentences to get the key ideas….and examples.
Remember in The Social Dilemma, the poor kid getting embroiled in some, ‘extreme centre’ demonstration? Cheesy perhaps, but don’t pretend it’s not a reflection of the real world!
When has online tribalism boiled over into ‘real’ life in the last few years….?
Note: That’s fandom (Jenkins) for you!
Class Discussion Topic
So, where does this week’s issue fall into all this:
A brilliant commentary on how the toxic masculinity of Andrew Tate is represented in the media and how social media has driven engagement and how the effects theories (cultivation & two-step flow) can be applied to tribal fan groups.
David Gauntlett would describe this as an example of how identity is fluid and how an audience have constructed their identity based on a regressive representation. The fans and followers of Andrew Tate could be described as part of a collective identity, a fan group driven by participation and reposting (Jenkins) based around Tate’s content.
The audience…fans…extremists…are encouraged to participate and use their cognitive surplus (Shirky) to rework and repost his content. An example of how technology, through its use of algorithms, promotes and drives audience engagement and how the ‘manosphere’ has become increasingly radicalised through the ‘nudge‘ effect of social media algorithms and the Cultivation Theory effect (Gerbner).
What would Gauntlett have to say about all this? Not so cheerful now with your cute sounding, ‘Creative communities?’
Identity politics and ‘interest driven groups’ (politics) can be weaponised to create division, or is it just part of the noise?
“The media is the message.”
Learning Intention :
To understand the ways in which technology, aka. the algorithms designed to monetise your attention, have fragmented society.
How the role (& profitability) of the traditional news media is being further eroded by the epidemic of fake news.
We are living in an echo chamber inside a filter bubble.
Be prepared to define the following terms or explain the idea…
Class Discussion Topic
So what?
A mainstream media journalist making a case for the mainstream traditional journalist.
Class Discussion Topic
What does living in a post-fact world mean for democracy?
Learning intention: To understand the implications of social media on the audience, society and the media ecology.
Possible questions for Ecology:
What have been the most significant changes to media ecology since the invention of the internet?
And you could easily say that the internet and in particular, social media has spawned the most radical changes in audience and industry behaviour.
- How has the commercialisation of data happened and should you be worried?
- ‘The media control how we understand and connect with the world.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement?
- Social media has blurred the boundaries between private and public personae.
Has the monetisation of our attention has led to manipulation of what we consume, as well as our identities, which are more fluid and negotiated and collective than ever before?
We will be spending two lessons watching The Social Dilemma – a Netflix documentary all about the addictiveness and power of social media and the impact it is having and will have on future generations.
Task 1: See the questions in classroom and make every effort to write some bullet point answers in relation to the ideas raised in the documentary.
If you have already watched it and can understand the answers to these questions…more or less to the satisfaction of your teacher.
Then work in the ref on a short presentation, whilst the rest of the class watch The Social Dilemma.
‘5 things you have found interesting or significant about the media ecology.’
You should work in groups of five. Each of you must explain, in one sentence, the thing that has struck you as interesting / important so far. Each of you must choose a different idea from the others in your group and you submit…as a group.
Please clarify your ideas first to each other and then individually write your different idea.
Help each other.
You should take a copy and populate this slideshow.
Look at this infographic with 33 elements of social media that you may or may not be familiar with – most of the impacts and effects are very negative. Can you think of some positive ones?
Learning Intention: To explore what is meant by ‘The Data or Surveillance Economy.’
This was one of the questions from JUNE 2021
‛The media control how we understand and connect with the world.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement? [30]
We need to investigate and research the following areas so that if a similar question came up – we would be ready to answer it.
So we need to consider the following areas:
How many ways do you think Google could track your browsing and what kind of information might they be gathering from us. With a partner, list as many as you can and then share them with the class.
Apparently, Google along can harvest 52000 bits of info about us from using Google search and Google apps. That is phenomenal. ….can we do something about this?
But could we actually be complicit in our acceptance of tracking, data surveillance? Is it just something we have come to accept and not challenge?
Is anyone prepared to share their browsing history with the class? No, probably not. Even your teacher would not want to divulge that. But we seem happy to be tracked by complete strangers in far off countries. Moreover, we give these people (& their algorithms) permission to analyse that data in order to learn our preferences and triggers in order to shape our media consumption.
Why is that I wonder?
To track or not to track – that is the question!
With a partner – sum up what it is saying about our lives living in the shadow of continual data surveillance on our CT.
A couple of years ago there was a story (a really important case study) that for the first time really exposed just how devious and manipulative social media data is monetised and used to shape our actions.
What do you think about our time and attention being monetised?
How do you feel about Facebook monetising that data, by selling your attention to advertisers and political groups?
That’s why we have data protection and a right to be forgotten.
Even though we are not part of the EU, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) still applies.