Critical Approaches to Creative media Products

Transcription

1 CREATIVE AND MEDIA PRODUCTION LEVEL 3 EXTENDED DIPLOMA Critical Approaches to Creative media Products Unit 6 LO1; LO2; LO3; LO4 Sarah Wilson & Adam Jones Date Issued: 30 th January 2017 Final Deadline: 7 th April 2017

2 Aim and purpose This unit aims to develop your understanding of how media producers create their products for targeted audiences. It also aims to develop your critical and personal understanding of these products. Looking at media production from these perspectives will give you a more focused approach to your own production work Unit introduction The media sector is diverse and continually developing. Across the sector media producers develop distinct products, which serve a specific purpose and function. These media products have developed over time in response to changes in society, culture and technology and, more specifically, in response to changing attitudes within the industry to its audiences, and to changes in the tastes and interests of those audiences. In order to work successfully in any of the media industries it is vital that those entering the sector understand how an industry thinks about its audiences when constructing products and how the target audiences receive those products. This means being able to think critically about the products others professionals are making or have made. The unit enables you to consider the dynamic relationship between media producers and their audiences. You will explore the way producers think about and target specific audiences, looking at both how producers create products for audiences and how audiences use and respond to those products. You will then look at how meaning is carried by media products by considering how we make sense of them, bearing in mind that there are many ways to approach a media product and many ways to read it. You will have the opportunity to think about your own responses to a range of media products using appropriate analytical techniques. Guidance: Create Tabs on website Unit 6 LO1; LO2; LO3; LO4 Referencing: Please make sure all research is referenced any work being plagiarised will fail - Guidance can be found here. If you fail to reference your research you will fail this unit and face disciplinary action. Brief outline: Vibe Productions requires you to produce a variety of reports on how the media produces products for a specific target audience and the analyses how that audience receives that information. The results of your findings will be published on our website for future students and media graduates to use as referencing. All work must be your own and must come from reliable sources. All sources MUST be referenced for legal reasons.

3 LO1: Understand how media producers define audiences for their products LO1 Aim: Comprehensively explain how media producers define audiences with elucidated examples and consistently using subject terminology correctly Deadline: Monday 20 th February 2017 Vibe Productions has been commissioned to produce Media Packs for various production companies and media products across the UK. A media pack should look like: (see weebly for full version) The publications asking for Media Packs are: Heart Radio FHM Magazine Vogue Magazine The Evening standard newspaper Total Film Magazine Absolute Radio Game Informer magazine

4 Choose one of the above publications and research the following 1. Create an audience profile using Quantitative data (statistics and numerical information) from the Internet Qualitative research via the internet (reviews, interviews with cast/writer, comments from products website) and questionnaires (survey monkey) focusing on who the target audience is. You can do this by asking fellow students/peers who they think would read / watch / buy the product. You can also figure out who would consume it by the platforms it is available on. You need to look at their socio-economic status, psychographics, geo-demographics, age, gender, sexual orientation, regional identity, mainstream, alternative, niche appeal Upload ALL your research (print screens of internet pages, survey monkey answers and all statistics you can find) 2. Create a mission statement of the product detailing what they do and why (This should be done via internet research) 3. Research the media platforms it is available on (print screen and link to all platforms) 4. Research how much revenue the product creates through advertising (Internet research / quantitative research you may have to contact the company and ask for figures / their own media pack for this information) and upload your findings Once all findings have been uploaded you need to create a Media pack which reflects professional standards following the same layout as the Empire Media Pack.

5 LO2 Understand how media producers create products for specific audiences LO2: Comprehensively explain how media producers create products for audiences with elucidated examples and consistently using subject terminology Deadline: Friday 3 rd March 2017 This section looks at collecting and generating information about an audience. The task is in three parts: 1. Analyse a magazine of your choice. You will need to talk about whom the magazine is aimed at (which could be a very broad audience) and talk about the design of the magazine in terms of use of language, images, articles, offers, colours, and fonts. (This can be done as a mood board see vibe for instructions) Also look at construction of the content, e.g. how the stories are presented, the type of information, and also things like the over layout, any captions, and the relationship of images to the text. Also what is the overall mode of address of this website? 2. Create a questionnaire, which is meant to find out information about the magazine s readers. The questionnaire needs to find out things like: Age group + other demographic information you feel relevant How the audience responds to the magazine it terms of 1. How they like the style and tone 2. Is the tone / mode of address relevant to their age group 3. What do they like about the font and layout of the magazine 4. Who do they believe the target audience is and why Using scales of 1-5 for your responses will help put your data into graphs and charts. Distribute your questionnaire to at least 10 people and upload the answers as graphs

6 3. Create a report: From these two task parts, you will individually need to collate the results of your questionnaire and make a report of you findings that describes your chosen magazine, its design and how this is meant to relate to its target audience based on your analysis work and primary research (the questionnaire). The report needs to cover Explaining who the Target audience is with proof from research 1. How it Addresses its audiences looking at a selection of content Words Images Colours Fonts 2. And the construction of content relates to the audience: Narratives Layout Captions Anchorage 3. Finally look at codes and conventions and how they cater for the audience: Linguistic Visual Symbolic Modes of address You might note, for example, The Guardian markets itself to people who work in the law, the media and education and, as these are jobs which often require reading and writing reports, its readers are comfortable with formal written English. The Guardian therefore uses formal, complex language, which is a kind of elaborated code. This is well illustrated in the article on the budget. Phrases like... and... allow more than one view of the event to be formed and this suits people who tend to be well- educated (to degree level usually) and who therefore are usually in the type of job which puts them in social groups A and B or, in terms of psychographics, are achievers. These are also people who like to think about things for themselves and not have opinions pushed at them. Your report must contain illustrations of your magazine

7 Checklist: 1. Analyse construction of the magazine 2. Questionnaire on audience responses to the magazine 3. Apply answers into a graph 4. Collate & analyse the information gathered to produce a report

8 LO3 Understand how media audiences respond to media products LO3: Comprehensively explain how media audiences respond to media products with elucidated examples and consistently using subject terminology Deadline: Friday 24 th March 2017 Researching Effects of Media Products For this part of the brief you will need to research the effects of an 18 age rated computer game or film on consumers (players/viewers). You will need to research and discuss the following: What do audiences want from 18 age rated games/films The effects of exposure to explicit sexual or violent content, health concerns & censorship debates. Audience responses negotiated, preferred, oppositional, participatory, fan culture. Task 1: Write a report on Media theories discussing their origin and credibility. Find theorists discussing each theory both for and against and use these in your report. 1. Hypodermic Needle 2. Uses and gratifications theory 3. Reception study 4. Passive or active consumption

9 Task 2: Put a magazine article together on the effects of 18 age rated video games/films on the public. The article must be set up as a middle page spread for a gaming/film publication (Write your report in word first then cut and paste into the magazine layout) Research at least TWO different media products that contain violence or sexual images Find and upload reports where these games/films have been blamed for acts of violence within the community Insert theories into your article discussing how these may or may not be the cause of such violence. Find arguments for and against for your article. Research the Effects debates: eg effects of exposure to explicit sexual or violent content, health concerns and censorship What are the Responses to these games/films: negotiated; preferred; oppositional; participatory; cultural competence; fan culture Your magazine article should contain: Illustrations Correct terminology Introduction to the media panic around gaming/films Introduction to two video games/films that have been blamed for violence Discussion of the reports on these moral panics Discussion of at least 2 of the 4 theories and if they are credible or not (insert your for and against arguments in this section) You will refer in detail to work done on effects of the media and will be able to use that work to draw wellconsidered conclusions about how to deal with what are perceived as ill effects, noting for example, X observed that male college learners who watched large numbers of sexually violent movies became what he called morally desensitised, and were less likely to sympathise with victims of rape than a control group who had not watched these films. He found no evidence, however, that watching violent movies actually made these learners violent so we have to be very careful about how we interpret effects research.

10 LO4 Be able to develop responses to media products LO4: Present an analysis of a media product with supporting arguments and elucidated examples, and consistently using subject terminology correctly Deadline: Friday 7 th April To complete this brief you need to analyse a media product focusing on the following: Critical approaches Genre Narrative structures Representation Content analysis Structuralism According to production technology: Distribution methods: Generic codes and conventions: Changes over time: Film, video, audio, print, digital Television, cinema, radio, internet, CD, ipod, mobile phone, home computer, hand-held consoles Content, style, symbolic, cultural, technical In audience, ideological shifts, redefinition, obsolescence, spoof, pastiche, parody Single strand, multi-strand, closed, open, linear, non-linear; alternative narrative; enigma; climax; equilibrium Negative; positive; of social groups; of social issues; stereotyping; presence and absence Task 1: Choose a medium: Film, TV, or Gaming Task 2: Choose a Genre Task 3: Decide if you are going to focus on 1 medium and 1 genre or 1 genre over a variety of mediums E.G. Horror as your main focus covering TV, Film and Gaming OR Film as a medium and main focus with horror as your sub text. Task 4: Carry out research on your chosen medium and genre looking at the above areas. Extra guidance can be found at

11 Task 5: Upload all this research in chronological order under the headings Genre, narrative, Representation Make sure ALL research is referenced Task 6: Turn your findings into a report An essay with illustrations A video blog with visuals Your report must be CRITICAL of the genre has it changed for the better? Are people represented fairly? Find experts and critics who have spoken on the matter for a distinction grade. Checklist: 1. All research with references 2. Report either written or video blog

12 Resources: Textbooks Baylis P, Freedman A, Procter N et al BTEC Level 3 National Creative Media Production, Student Book (Pearson, 2010) ISBN Baylis P, Freedman A, Procter N et al BTEC Level 3 National Creative Media Production, Teaching Resource Pack (Pearson, 2010) ISBN Baylis P, Holmes P, Starkey G BTEC National in Media Production (Heinemann Educational, 2007) ISBN Abercrombie N, Longhurst B The Penguin Dictionary of Media Studies (Penguin, 2007) ISBN Branston G, Stafford R The Media Students Book (Routledge, 2006), ISBN Briggs A, Cobley P The Media: An Introduction (Longman, 2002) ISBN Clark V, Jones P, Malyszko B, Wharton D Complete A-Z Media and Film Studies Handbook (Hodder Arnold, 2007) ISBN Gillespie M, Toynbee J Analysing Media Texts Issues in Cultural/Media Studies (Open University Press, 2006) ISBN Websites the Advertising Standards Authority Broadcasters Audience Research Board the British Board of Film Classification the English and Media Centre a movie database a web guide for media students campaign for accountability and decency in the media the regulator of the UK s broadcasting, telecommunications and wireless communications industries official body in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK the Voice of the Listener and Viewer